“Oh, yes. Because you failed once when you thought you were ready, you fear you will fail again. That you will never be ready.”
I nodded as he twirled me, then said, “Each day is another one that the sea goblin has Jimmy. I can’t stand it.”
I felt a soft knock on my shoulder and turned to see Moira dancing by with the same man as before. She raised her eyebrows at me in a clear question. I shrugged as best as I could, and watched her sashay away.
When the song ended, Pax said, “Would you like me to come by in the morning? I could help you study.”
Yes, please, I thought. And then: No. Bad idea. I was growing a bit too fond of Pax—beyond that he was a good companion. I couldn’t let emotions get in the way of saving Jimmy.
But Pax was useful there. He knew things. And I could use someone to practice with. Diana didn’t think Pax was suitable, but I didn’t see the harm. Every spell could be undone.
“Could we make it the day after?” I said. “Tomorrow is already spoken for.”
Pax dipped his head and smiled. By the time I returned to the table and looked back, he was gone.
In the car driving home, Moira said, “Come on. Spill. Do you know him?”
“We met on the beach,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “He’s teaching at USC and staying at a hotel near me. We run into each other from time to time.”
“God,” Moira said. “He’s dreamy. A professor, you say? Almost makes me wish I’d gone to college instead of taking the job in my father’s office.”
I’d wanted to go to college once, but the school of magic had superseded that dream. I turned my head and stared out the window, thinking how comfortable and right it had felt in Paxton’s arms.
*
Early the next morning, my phone rang.
“Mother,” I said as I picked up.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked.
“Easy enough to guess.” I didn’t have to say why—it was Jimmy’s fifth birthday.
“Are you engaged today?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Completely free.” Because I’d told Diana I had something I had to do today—in case Mother needed company.
A deep sigh came across the line.
“I can’t bear to be in the house today,” Mother said. “The house where he was born.”
“I know,” I said.
Her voice brightened. “How about a hike in Griffith Park?”
“I’d like that,” I said. “I’ll be there in an hour or so.”
The park was as wild as Colonel Griffith himself had been, going from man-about-town to San Quentin prisoner after he shot his wife. Father had done business with Griffith, some sort of real estate exchange. I’d met him once when he came to the house, but hadn’t liked him. He was too puffed up with himself for my taste.
I did like his park, though, the untamed nature of it. That love of the untamed was probably the main reason I preferred to live by the ocean. Mother had packed a lunch, and after we walked enough to feel hungry we settled at one of the park’s picnic areas and had our meal. We seemed to have an unspoken agreement not to mention Jimmy’s name or what day this was, but I was sure he was in her thoughts, every bit or more as he was in mine.
We went back to the big house and I had dinner with Mother, and then went home—to the beach.
*
In the morning I found myself humming while I dressed, and stopped the moment I realized it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt happy enough to hum. Probably only a day here and there since Father went away to war, and that had been years ago. I’d worried every day while he was gone. Then he came home and caught influenza, likely from one of his patients, which brought the gremhahn to us. I supposed I was happy during the years between Father’s cure and Jimmy’s disappearance. I was happy today because I felt close to breaking the curses and saving my brother. And, I had to admit, a little because Pax was coming.
I finished dressing and put on the kettle. The steam was just starting to cause a whistle when Scout jumped up and trotted toward the front door. A moment later, there was a knock.
Pax had dressed casually in white cotton gabardine trousers, a light blue shirt, and a dark blue suit jacket pinstriped with white. I wore trousers as well, wanting to be comfortable during any spell-casting we might do today.
Scout wriggled out of the front door and jumped up, her paws pressed to his legs, her tail wagging.
“Looks like she’s ready for a walk,” he said. “The ocean is fine today.”
Scout did need a walk. I had all day to work on the spells, so why leave the poor dog antsy and full of energy? I grabbed her leash and the three of us made our way through the families with children, couples, groups of friends, an older man and woman collecting shells, down to the water line, far out now at low tide. The ocean was living up to the name Pacific, as calm as a lake with only the smallest of waves rolling in. I breathed in the fresh scents of salt and sand.
“You said last night that you felt sure and unsure about the spells,” Pax said. “Do you want to try one out now?”
I blinked, taken aback. “There are an awful lot of people around. Don’t you think it would be better to wait until we’re more alone?”
Even though the day was cool to chilly, Hermosa’s year-round population was growing and the tourist numbers exploding. It was getting harder and harder to have the beach to myself.
“You don’t have a spell to hide what you’re doing from others?” he asked.
Of course I did. It was one of the first spells I’d asked for and learned, yet I’d never tried it in public. I knew it worked, though. I’d hidden myself from Scout when moments earlier I’d stood right in front of her, and had watched her dash madly around the house looking for me.
“I have a cloaking spell. Essentially, it will make us invisible to anyone looking our way. Their eyes will fill in background where we are, so in effect they don’t see us.”
Pax glanced around at the people near us. “Try it.”
I steeled myself and recited the words low and made the hand motions that went with them. The words did have to be said out loud—you couldn’t just “think” a spell and have it work—but you didn’t have to be noisy about it.
When I’d finished, Pax said, “Look. There are seals in the surf.”
I was sure no seals had been in the water only moments before. When had they swum in?
The people near us did seem to be looking through and past us, their focus also on the seals. I was a bit thrilled with myself that it worked on humans as well as dogs.
“Call a seal to you,” he said.
I’d practiced the summoning spell so many times I didn’t have to think twice to recite it. I picked out a seal in the—herd? pack? whatever they were—a light tan pup with big brown eyes, and cast the spell. The seal waded out of the water and made its way up the sand. Beachgoers pointed at the pup and a few moved toward it.
That was no good. The pup was under my spell. It would come to me as directly as if I pulled it on a string. People would follow it and soon enough bump into something they couldn’t see, or leave Pax, Scout, and me madly dodging the curious throng. I quickly cast the cloaking spell over the seal, and then a quick spell of forgetfulness for the people who’d seen the pup come out of the water.
I blew out a hard breath. Diana had more than once said, “Think through the possible consequences before you cast the spell.” I could see why.
Pax seemed to notice only that I’d bespelled the seal to come out of the water. He laughed and ran down to meet the animal. Scout and I followed behind.
Pax squatted over his ankles and chucked the seal under the chin, the same way he had Scout—winning her dog heart forever. Scout, for her part, didn’t seem too sure about the seal at all. She kept a wary distance, taking one step toward the strange animal, then two steps back, or dancing sideways.
A thought struck me. “Is it you the seal is reacting to,” I said to
Pax, “or is it an effect of the spell? Does magic also make the enchanted more cooperative?”
He looked up. “The pup is reacting to me, I think. I have a way with dogs and seals. They seem to know I mean them no harm. Come say hello.”
I knelt in the sand and tentatively reached toward the seal. It didn’t shy away. Its fur was wet and salty but soft. It made little grunting noises when I rubbed its cheeks.
The seals in the water were getting noisy, barking and swimming in what looked to me like an agitated manner—worried about the little pup, I thought.
“I think it should go back now,” I said.
Pax nodded and pulled to his feet. I said the release spell and the now again visible pup waddled back into the ocean. When the pup reached the seal group, they dove almost as one and disappeared.
“You did well,” Pax said.
“Not as well as I should have.”
I told him about the mistakes I’d made in not cloaking the seal the moment it left the water. How I’d had to cast two more spells in a hurry to fix my error. How I’d worried about someone falling over an invisible seal or dog.
“That’s what dry runs are for,” he said. “To work out the kinks. You saw there were problems and quickly fixed them. Kudos to you.”
I smiled without humor. “I suppose so.”
“Now, why don’t you try the binding spell on me,” he said as we walked down the tideline. “And then the release spell.”
A jolt of nerves shot through me. I’d practiced the binding spell until I was blue in the face, and yet still didn’t feel confident casting it again on a human. Not after Mother.
Pax gently touched my shoulder. “It’ll be all right. Trust yourself.”
I nodded but still worried about having him as my test subject.
He waited. I cast the spell.
If I did it right, the binding spell would compel the bound to tell only the truth. The surest way to know if I’d done it right was to make him say something he wouldn’t want known. I swallowed hard and said, “Tell me your deepest secret, the one thing you don’t want me to know.” My stomach felt queasy. It was a horrible thing to ask of anyone, but I had to know if the spell worked.
Pax tilted his head as if running through his secrets, deciding which one he most didn’t want to reveal.
“The sea is my home,” he said.
I didn’t know why that was such a deep secret. Probably, he was a sailor. You live at the beach long enough, you know plenty of people who consider the sea their home. I muttered the release spell.
Pax blinked. “You look disappointed.”
“It didn’t work,” I said. “I’m not ready.”
Pax laughed lightly. “Oh, it worked all right. I can tell you that.”
“How?”
He considered. “A feeling came over me, a desperate need to do whatever you requested, answer any question you asked, do whatever you commanded, be whatever you wanted. It was a very odd feeling. I didn’t care for it.”
“But you’re sure the spell worked?”
“Absolutely. And obviously the release spell works, too. If you’ve mastered all your enchantments as well as those two, I’d say you’re ready.”
I might be ready, but the first spell that needed to be cast after I’d summoned the sea goblin needed three, and Mother clearly wasn’t up to it.
Fifteen
Hermosa Beach, California
July 1924
The darkness of deep night was no different whether my eyes were closed or open. I lay awake in my bed, my thoughts chasing around and around.
Was I ready to take on the sea goblin?
I knew every spell I needed backwards and forwards.
Except, every time I’d thought this before, I’d been wrong.
But I’d learned from each misstep. I was ready now.
Only, Diana had said I needed to find my ally before I attempted to get Jimmy back. Had I found the one?
I was pretty sure I had. And why couldn’t my ally be the third voice needed to break the curses on Mother and me? Diana never said Mother had to be the third voice.
I got out of bed. Scout woke and padded beside me down the stairs and to the kitchen. I pressed the button for the electric lights Father had had installed a few years back and found the paper with the number I wanted. It was late. Too late to be phoning, but I did anyway.
The night manager snorted when I asked for him to please wake his guest and ask him to come to the phone, but the manager did it.
“Cassie?” Pax said, his voice both sleepy and worried.
“I know it’s late. I apologize for waking you. Would you come to my house tomorrow? I have a large favor to ask and would like to do it face to face.”
Silence answered my question, but then Pax said, “Of course. I can come now, if you like.”
*
Pax looked remarkably awake and fresh for a man dragged from his warm, comfortable bed in the middle of the night so I could ask him to be the third curse-breaker. Now, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea after all. What if it had to be all women? What if it had to be both Mother and me—the cursed ones? I should have thought this through and spoken with Diana first.
Pax followed me into the parlor and sat on the sofa. Scout immediately settled herself across his feet and closed her eyes contentedly.
“Can I get you anything?” I said. “Water? Tea?”
“No,” he said. “Thank you.”
I sat in the chair opposite the sofa and clasped my hands in my lap.
Pax watched me, curiosity clear in his eyes. “Just ask, Cassie.”
A nervous tingle skittered through my stomach. Just ask. Easier said than done. I screwed up my courage and said, “I wondered if you’d be willing to help me break the curses the gremhahn laid on Mother and myself.”
Pax regarded me evenly. “What sort of curses?”
I told him the tale, how Mother and I had caught the sea goblin, how Mother had beaten him with the steel bar, how he’d thrown the shell into the sea, the details of the curse on Mother and the one on me, and how it took three to break the curses.
“That’s quite a story,” he said when I’d finished.
My heart sank. He’d seen magic firsthand—felt the effect of the binding spell—and he thought this was a fiction?
“You don’t believe me,” I said, and crossed to sit next to him on the sofa. “I can prove it’s true.” I turned the back of my head toward him and pulled out the pins that held my hair in a bun, letting it fall free. “Look closely. There are tiny stars in my hair. Eleven of them. One for every month since the gremhahn laid his curse on me.”
It was probably a good thing I couldn’t see his face. Stars in my hair. He likely thought I’d lost my mind. But I felt his fingers moving gently over the back of my head and through my hair. Shivers ran across my shoulders at his touch. I pulled away and turned to face him.
“Their light is faint,” he said, “but I see them. I believe you, Cassie—about everything. And I sorely wish I could help.”
My heart sank further. “But you won’t.”
“Not won’t,” he said. “Can’t, for reasons that need to stay private.”
I bit my bottom lip, considering his words. Everyone had secrets. I’d not ask Pax to give up any more of his.
“It’s a lovely night,” he said, obviously changing the subject. “Shall we walk by the water?”
“It’s two in the morning,” I said.
“We’ll have the beach all to ourselves.” He rose carefully to his feet so as not to startle Scout. She pulled herself up and stretched, then looked from me to Pax and wagged her tail. Walk was a word she knew well.
“Let me get her leash,” I said.
A thick cloud layer covered the sky. The moon and stars were hazy, like seeing them through waxed paper. The air smelled strongly of sulfur from the earlier Independence Day fireworks, which I’d watched from my porch. Confetti streamers and dead sparklers litte
red the sand. The tide was out and the waves rolled gently onto the shore, their sound a lullaby. I unhooked Scout’s leash, but this late at night there was little to chase and she mostly snuffled the sand near us.
A seagull cried and I looked up, surprised. I hadn’t thought gulls flew at night. It circled us once, then dropped something it held in its beak—a small white shell.
Pax bent to retrieve it. Not a Murex ramosus, but an ordinary clam shell, a kind that littered the shore.
“From the gremhahn,” I said, half-question, half-statement of fact.
“I’d say so,” Pax said.
“Why?”
Pax thought about it. “To let you know he’s watching.”
Fear shot through me. If the goblin was keeping an eye on me, he could know about the magic I was learning, that it was all to break the curses and get my brother back. It gave him time to prepare a defense—or a counter-offense.
“Then he knows everything,” I said.
“Maybe not,” Pax said. “If he’s dependent on what he or his servants actually saw or heard, he may know much less than everything. He may know only what happens near the water.”
“But I can’t be sure.”
“No,” he said, “you can’t. You may want to do all your practices indoors from now on.”
I thought about the spells I’d cast in Diana’s backyard and in my own. Seagulls flew over often enough that it wasn’t something I’d ordinarily notice. Now I wondered if any of those birds were the goblin’s spies or the gremhahn himself. How much did he know of our plans?
Pax gently squeezed my shoulder, offering sympathy, I thought.
Lightning seemed to zing through me at his touch. I wanted to sink into him.
I shrugged my shoulder free of his hand and moved a step away. Love and marriage weren’t for me. The sea goblin had seen to that. No man would be pleased to see his lover turn to dust in his bed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I need to think.”
“My hand on your shoulder stops your brain?” Pax said softly.
I could still feel the warmth of his touch. “You’re distracting.”
Pax smiled. “That’s good.”
The Girl with Stars in her Hair Page 14