Spellbook of the Lost and Found

by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

  My eyes narrow. “You should know better than to listen to Chloe’s vapid rumors.”

  “I’m trying to apologize here, God.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Go on.”

  “That was it,” Emily says, still sounding slightly annoyed. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to Chloe, but in fairness she was just saying that stuff because Rose was, like, leading her brother on at the party or something.”

  “Rose leading him on? Hardly likely.”

  “I know, okay?” says Emily. “I said that to her. Chloe knows it’s not true.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Thanks.” I stop at my bedroom door. “And I haven’t seen your socks,” I add. “But I have the exact same pair. You can have them, if you want.”

  “Really?” Emily seems surprised at my suggestion. “Thank you.”

  I find Emily outside her room once I’ve retrieved the socks. “Here you go, Dobby,” I tell her. “You’re free.”

  Emily puts them on right there on the landing.

  “I thought your exams started tomorrow?” I ask.

  “I need all the help I can get.”

  I can still make out my dad’s voice booming from our parents’ room. He is reciting another poem in the same way that normal dads sing in the shower. Emily shakes her head when she hears him. “Have you noticed that he really likes old men?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “Like, when was the last time we were woken up with Sylvia Plath or Emily Dickinson? Or, like, Adrienne Rich or Margaret Atwood,” she says.

  “You know Adrienne Rich?”

  Emily gives me another one of those chin-tilted looks of defiance.

  “Sorry,” I say quickly. “You’re right. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but his choices do tend toward the masculine.” Our dad is overly fond of Shakespeare’s sonnets, anything of Blake’s with animals in it, and Keats. I can’t remember the last time he woke us with a female poet.

  I also can’t remember the last time I spoke to my sister about anything like this. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised she reads the same poetry as I do. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised she has a critical mind. I spend so much time with Rose that I usually bypass Emily completely. But with Rose pulling away for some reason at the moment, I’m beginning to understand that I might have been underestimating my little sister all this time.

  Emily shrugs and stomps down the stairs in my socks. “Oh, have you seen Mom’s reading glasses?” she calls up to me as an afterthought. “She was looking for them earlier.”

  I shake my head.

  When I come downstairs—dressed and made-up and ready for school—the back door is open and a warm breeze rustles the herbs hanging over the stove. Mom is still waging war with her letters and bills.

  “Did you by any chance find—” Mom says.

  “Your glasses? No, sorry. Emily said they were missing.”

  “A lot of things are going missing,” says Mom.

  “Am I still grounded?” I ask her as I put on my shoes.

  “Hmm?” She looks up from the papers and her eyes are a little unfocused.

  It’s quite unlike my mother to be distracted, but it may well work in my favor. “Can I go to Rose’s tonight?”

  My mom rubs a wrist wrapped with leather bracelets over her forehead. “It’s Thursday. You have an exam tomorrow,” she says to me. “And we said you were grounded for a week. You can go to Rose’s on Saturday.” Dammit. I was sure that would work. “Keep an eye out for my glasses, would you?” Mom asks. “Hopefully, I put them down somewhere in the house.”

  “Loads of things are going missing,” Emily says as we ride to school. “Like Mom’s glasses? And Chloe lost her bag the other day. It’s kind of weird.”

  I think of the spellbook Hazel found. The spell for calling up lost things. Ivy talking about sacrifice and findings. I shake my head. It’s all nonsense, I tell myself. It’s all just coincidence.

  “I guess things go missing all the time,” I tell Emily. “But you only really notice when you’re keeping an eye out for them. Like when you learn a new word you’d never heard before and suddenly it’s everywhere.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Anyway, Chloe’s brother probably nicked her bag just to screw with her.”

  “Ugh.” I shudder. “I can’t imagine having Cathal Murdock as a brother.” We hop off our bikes and chain them next to each other on the rack.

  “She hates him,” Emily says matter-of-factly. “He calls her ugly all the time. One time he called their mom a fat bitch.”

  I whistle low. “Charming.”

  “He’s really sexist, too,” Emily goes on. “Not, like, quoting-men-poets-all-the-time sexist. But, like, rating girls’ bodies out of ten and stuff.”

  “Ugh,” I say again, because it’s the most appropriate sound for the likes of Cathal Murdock. “He’s an absolute waste of space. You stay away from him.”

  Two thoughts come in two flashes of lightning, almost instantaneous.

  One: I sound like my mother. Stay away from him.

  Two: Emily said Chloe saw Rose with Cathal.

  Something must show on my face because Emily says, “What?”

  Rose and Cathal? It doesn’t even begin to make sense. Probably what Chloe saw was Rose blazing drunken fury at him for having whistled at a younger girl, or attempted to grope her while she danced. Little blue sparks of worry flit around in my peripheral vision, but I don’t quite know what to make of them yet. I want to ask Rose about it, but don’t think I could fit those sparks of worry into one telegram-speak text message, so I let them buzz about by themselves and go to my first class, planning to talk to Rose about it in person.

  Rose doesn’t show and my worry builds. I message her halfway through economics.

  WOULD APPRECIATE NOT BEING ABANDONED IN EVERY CLASS STOP GET YOUR LAZY ASS OUT OF BED STOP OLIVE

  My phone lights up on my lap under the desk.

  WILL BE IN FOR GERMAN EXAM TOMORROW STOP. DID YOU KNOW THE GERMAN FOR NIPPLE TRANSLATES AS BREAST WARTS STOP ROSE

  DARE YOU TO USE IT IN THE EXAM STOP OLIVE

  I slip my phone back into the pocket of my skirt and take out the diary pages I found in my bike basket. I unfold them quietly in my lap.

  Sunday, May 7th, it says. The day after the bonfire party.

  We went to the party because our diaries went missing, it starts.

  These pages are from a diary, but it reads like a story. A story about three girls called Laurel, Ash, and Holly. Three girls who seem to be as close as Rose and me. Three girls who lose their diaries, who are bullied by the classmates who find them, who vow to get them back. I read like my gaze is glued to the page.

  And then there is a line that I have to read back twice.

  Then we found the spellbook—the day before the bonfire party.

  The spellbook Hazel found days later in the field.

  I stop reading and look around. The classroom is full of bowed heads and scratching pens. I don’t know anyone called Laurel, Ash, or Holly, but there’s only one school in this town. They must go here.

  I keep reading. The girls find the spellbook in an oak tree. They bring it to the party. They sneak away from the bonfire and cast the spell.

  Ivy was right. I can hardly believe it, but Ivy was right.

  The girls pass out—most likely from the poteen—and when they wake up their diaries have been found.

  Their spell worked.

  And, if Ivy is to be believed, because of these girls, everybody else at the party lost something. My bracelet. My shoe. My memories of the night.

  Rose.

  Laurel, Ash, and Holly. I wonder who they are, where they are now, if they know what they’ve done. Laurel mentions knowing Mags Maguire. Maybe Mags can tell me.

  I chide myself momentarily for allowing myself t
o believe in this nonsense. And yet. Questions and secrets and girls with tree names and Rose talking with Cathal Murdock at the party. It all comes back to Saturday night.

  It all comes back to that spellbook.

  Hazel

  Thursday, May 11th

  Lost: A heart (again)

  The spellbook is missing. I found it, I need it, and now it’s lost. It was on the table when Olive went home yesterday. We looked through it again, me and Rowan and Ivy. We read all the lists of offerings, the prayers to Saint Anthony and Saint Jude, we touched all the trinkets stuck to the pages. Then we got up to make dinner and it’s like it disappeared. Ivy and Rowan say they didn’t take it, but one of them must have. It couldn’t have just vanished by itself.

  It’s all I can think about and I nearly smash, like, five glasses at work. Mags snaps at me and sends me on my break early. I grab my cigarettes and help myself to a bottle of beer on the way out. No one’ll ever know.

  When I get outside, there’s somebody crying at the corner of the parking lot, their back to the fence where I chain my bike. At first I keep my distance. Crying makes me kinda uncomfortable. Especially crying girls. And it is a girl—I can see that as I come closer. She’s hunched over and doing that crying-into-the-knees thing. Her hair’s long, wild, and black. The ends of it trail on the concrete. She’s wearing a blue school uniform with the skirt stapled at least three inches shorter than would’ve been allowed in my old school, but that makes sense because of the weird stuffy heat and the fact that she has great legs. Her shirtsleeves are rolled up and as she moves to rub her eyes I see that there’s something written in marker on her arm.

  That’s what makes me stop and talk to her. I stand awkwardly in front of the girl and say, “Are you okay?” Then I change it to, “Obviously, you’re not, because otherwise you wouldn’t be crying, but it’s just not socially acceptable to go up to a complete stranger and say, Hey, tell me why you’re crying, you know?”

  To my relief, the girl laughs at that, head still in her arms on her knees. Then she looks up, and I realize like a kick in the teeth that she’s really, really beautiful.

  “Fuck what’s socially acceptable,” she says, and that’s it—I’m in love.

  Uninvited, I sit on the curb beside her and take out my cigarettes. I offer her one, but she waves it away, so I put the packet back in my pocket.

  “So, hey,” I say. “Tell me why you’re crying.”

  She takes a breath and swipes the tears away with the palm of her hand. Watery black streaks her cheeks. “Waterproof eyeliner,” she says. “My kingdom for waterproof eyeliner.”

  “You’re crying because you don’t have waterproof eyeliner?” I say, just to hear her laugh again. “Seems like a bit of a contradiction.”

  Her laugh is addictive. Like I’ll straight-up die if I don’t hear it again.

  “Well, if I don’t cry every eyeliner off, how will I know which one’s waterproof?”

  “Good point,” I say. “So this is all just a makeup test?”

  “Basically, yes. I’m pretty passionate about my beauty products.”

  “Well, I admire your dedication.”

  She reaches into her skirt pocket for a plastic bottle. She unscrews the lid, lifts out a little wand, and blows a bunch of bubbles over the parking lot. When she exhales, her shoulders drop slightly, like she’s relieved.

  “I quit smoking,” she explains when she notices me looking. “This helps my craving.”

  “Right.”

  “You go ahead, though, if you’re having one. I like the smell.”

  I light a cigarette while she blows her nose. She takes out a little mirror and rubs at the makeup under her eyes. When I cry, I look like shit. My skin looks like it’s been scrubbed with a stone and I get red blotches around my nostrils. This girl manages to look the way crying girls do in films: red eyes and puffed lips and no blotches.

  “What’s your name?”

  The question comes out more intimate than I meant it to.

  “Rose.” She closes her mirror and glances at the tattoos on my arms. “You’re Hazel.”

  “I am,” I say, and I try not to sound taken aback.

  Rose smiles mischievously. She says, “Your brother’s called Rowan, you ran away from home, you’re living in a boarded-up house in an abandoned development with a blue-haired girl.”

  “How do you—”

  “It’s like something out of a film. Tattooed teenage runaways squatting in a ghost town. Olive told me. She’s my best friend.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

  “We won’t tell,” Rose says. “I mean, Olive told me, but we won’t tell anyone else.”

  “Thanks.” I tap ash onto the concrete. Rose blows bubbles into the air.

  “So why did you run away from home?” Rose asks.

  “I’m testing out the waterproof-ness of abandoned housing developments,” I tell her.

  Rose nods. “Okay, I guess I deserve that.” Then she looks at me, right in the eyes. It’s something people don’t do a whole lot, and it feels weird, and good, and weird. I clear my throat. Her eyes are a soft dark brown, lined with smudged makeup like a photo shoot in a hotel bed. Her eyelashes go on for miles.

  “Okay,” Rose says again, seeming to steel herself. “I lost my virginity at the town bonfire party, so that’s why I’m crying. Mostly.”

  I’m not sure what to say to that. “Mostly?”

  “Well.” She taps the wand like an ashy cigarette. “I don’t actually remember it. Mostly.” She dips the wand back into the bottle, takes it out, and shakes it viciously. “And I didn’t realize that’s what’d happened at first. But the guy who . . . was there, too . . . remembers it.” Her wrist makes a snapping motion, fast and violent. A bunch of bubbles appear and pop-pop-pop-pop like a spray of bullets all around us. “And he keeps.” Flick. “Sending me.” Flick. “Fucking.” Flick. “Messages.”

  I reach out carefully and take the wand from her hand. It keeps shaking.

  “Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.” I put the wand on the ground. “Do you know the guy?” I ask.

  “He’s in, like, half my classes.” It sounds as if she’s trying to speak through a whole apple stuck in her throat.

  “What kind of messages?”

  She doesn’t answer, but she hands me her phone. I scroll quickly through her messages, but she doesn’t watch me. She picks the wand up from beside her foot and blows a bunch of bubbles across the parking lot instead.

  The first few messages are from Sunday—the day after the party.

  Hi Rose did u get my friend request. Had fun last nite. Do u want 2 go out sumtime?

  “Who writes like that anymore?” I mutter, and Rose gives a weak smile.

  Ur beautiful. Do u want 2 get 2getr again?

  I snort. Rose makes a face and waits for me to read on. It’s a long string of messages sent over the last week. Most of them were sent on Sunday and on Monday morning, pretty much every half hour.

  This is rose rite????

  Hope u had fun haha lets do it again

  Hi rose how r u

  Hows it goin

  Sent u friend request dont no if u got it

  U want 2 go out nxt wknd?

  Rose never answers, but the guy doesn’t get the hint. Then, on Monday afternoon, the messages suddenly switch gears.

  Ur an ugly bitch

  Ugly lesbo dike

  Bet u loved ur pity fuck id never go out with a hoor like u

  How much 4 u to blow my mates? ill give u ten quid

  U love 2 do it 4 free dirty slut

  And it goes on. Some of the messages have pictures. I give Rose back her phone, holding it like there’s something rotten in there. “Why don’t you just block him?”

  “I did. He sends texts from his friends’ phones now.”
>
  “Jesus.”

  “I told him I wasn’t interested,” Rose says. “That I didn’t remember it and I didn’t mean to—” She breaks off and shakes her head. “He didn’t take it well.”

  “Let me guess, this was sometime on Monday?” I point at the first of the awful messages.

  Rose manages another weak smile. “Bingo.” She nudges the bottle of bubbles with her foot and it tips over, spills on the ground. The stain spreads over the concrete. I reach out and drag my shoe through the soapy water. I draw a flower. Rose stretches her leg out and writes Fuck this.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask her. She shakes her head.

  “Drink too much,” she says. “Not go back to school until September, when it’ll all have blown over. Keep telling my parents it’s PMS.”

  “Sounds familiar,” I say in an undertone. Rose gives me kind of a knowing look.

  “My dad was never really around when I was little,” I say quickly. “But when he was, my mom was different. He was always . . . kind of like that.” I gesture at her phone. “Hot and cold, but always blaming her for it. I’d tell you to go to the police except I know firsthand they can’t do shit. Even if they’re nice about it, they’ll just say there’s no proof.”

  I kind of expect Rose to get upset, but instead she nods like that’s something she already knows. “Is that why you ran away?”

  I sigh. “No. She did. My mom. Ran away, I mean.” Rose raises her eyebrows in question. “She left us with our grandparents and went off to be with our dad. Crazy, right—that she still wanted to be with him, despite the way he treated her? My grandparents raised us until my granny died a few months ago. Granda’s in a hospice now, ’cause he’s not doing so good. So. My parents came to get us. It didn’t work out. Me and Rowan are kinda better off alone.”

  Rose nods again. “I’m sorry,” she says. “About your grandparents.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’m sorry about . . .” I gesture at her phone again, at her smudged, nonwaterproof eye makeup. “All this.”