“Well, I don’t know,” Rose surprises me by saying. “You’re a big guy. And he’s a minor. You provoked him—we saw it.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Pocahontas?” says Cian, and I have to hold Rose back so she won’t swing at him herself.
“What did you call me?” Her eyes are all fury.
The security guard looks uncomfortable. “Ah, here now,” he says.
Aunt Gillian gives Cian a disapproving look. “Is this boy a friend of yours?” she asks us, gesturing to Rowan. By way of answer, I wriggle myself between Rowan and the security guard.
“We were just leaving actually,” I say. “Is that okay?”
Aunt Gillian looks like she’d love nothing better than to get back to her shopping cart.
“Fine,” she says, then she points at Rowan. “Turn out your pockets first.”
Rowan reddens again. “I didn’t steal—” he says heatedly.
“Unless you want me to arrest you both for assault, I suggest you turn out your pockets,” Aunt Gillian says. I can see Cian puff up at the you both, but he doesn’t say anything and Rowan takes a stick of gum out of the breast pocket of his T-shirt. He holds it out: exhibit A. He unwraps it and puts it in his mouth before taking exhibit B: his phone and his wallet out of the back pockets of his jeans, and exhibit C: a set of keys and his silver lighter out of his front pockets. If judged by the contents of his pockets, Rowan seems like an exemplary citizen.
“See?” he says, arms spread, hands full of his possessions, chin tilted in defiance and mouth chewing his gum loudly. “You want to pat me down now, too?”
If judged by his attitude, he’s trouble.
“Right!” I say quickly, and I take Rowan by the crook of his arm and turn him to face the road. “We’re just going to go now! See you tomorrow, Aunt Gill!”
I propel Rowan toward the road, Rose following behind with both our bikes. When we’re out of sight, she starts to cackle.
“I like you,” she tells Rowan. “And as always I’m glad that you”—she bumps my hip with hers—“have police connections.”
I turn to Rowan. “So what was all that about?” I ask conversationally. We wait on our bikes while he unchains his from a lamppost down the road.
“Nothing,” he says, tossing his hair out of his eyes. “He’s an asshole. He’s been looking for a reason to start a fight since we got here.”
“So you thought you’d give him one by punching him first?”
Rowan grins. “Something like that.”
We ride single file up the main road, skirting the town thronged with Saturday traffic and picking up the pace when the road widens again. When we turn off onto the smaller bumpy roads, we let ourselves slow down, breathing hard in the heavy heat. Rowan glides back to ride beside us.
“Thanks for helping me out back there,” he says. “I appreciate it.”
“No problem, Rowan,” says Rose. “We figured you probably didn’t want Gillian poking around, asking for your address or where your parents are.”
Rowan grins again, not looking in the slightest taken aback. “You must be Rose. Or do you prefer to go by Pocahontas?”
Rose growls. “I’d have preferred to get a punch in myself,” she says.
“Funny story,” Rowan says. “I was actually coming to find you when I got into my latest brush with the police.”
Latest? “Oh, yeah?” I ask. “Wait, how were you going to find us? You don’t know where we live.”
Rowan shrugs. “It’s a small town, figured I’d bump into you eventually. I only realized after you’d left that I’d forgotten to ask for your number.”
I blush. Rose notices and gives me a look.
“Why were you trying to find us?” she asks Rowan.
“Hazel wanted—I mean, we wanted to ask you to help us cast the spell.”
Rose’s mouth opens slightly. She looks at me, then says to Rowan, “That’s why we were coming to see you.”
“Well,” Rowan says with a look that’s more resignation than surprise. “Then it looks like it was meant to be.”
We swing onto the small and bumpy road that leads to the forest. Rabbits skitter across fields and we surprise four fallow deer just up ahead, who bound away over a fence and into the trees, the white undersides of their tails bobbing in the shadows.
“We found the people who owned the spellbook before us,” says Rowan. “Three girls. Well, we didn’t find the girls themselves— we found some pages from one of their diaries. We were hoping you’d tell us who they are, seeing as you know more people in town than we do. And where the spellbook is, too, I guess—we haven’t been able to find it since you came over.”
“I found it in my bag, the day after. I thought it must have fallen in there by accident,” I tell him, before what he’s just said about the spellbook girls sinks in. “Wait, you found pages from Laurel’s diary, too?”
“Too?” he repeats.
I exchange a glance with Rose.
“Rose and I found pages too. Mine were in my bike basket, and Rose found hers on the way to school,” I explain.
“That’s a weird coincidence,” Rose says.
“So do you know the girls?” he asks. Rose and I both shake our heads.
“Isn’t there, like, just one school in Balmallen?” Rowan says.
“Yeah,” I admit. “But we don’t know their real names, do we? So they could be in our class, but we wouldn’t know them as Laurel, Ash, and Holly. Or they could go to a school in the next town maybe. They mention a Mr. Murphy, but there’s probably a Mr. Murphy in every school in the country.”
“There was one in mine.” Rowan nods.
“And they mention a girl called Trina McEown, but we haven’t been able to find anything about her either. We don’t even know how old they are—they could be our age, but they could be eighteen, or sixteen or fifteen, even. It’s basically an unsolved mystery.”
When we get to the development, Rose and I drop our bikes behind the wall closest to the road, where we usually leave them, but Rowan wheels his into the house.
“Can’t risk anyone recognizing it,” he says.
“Nobody comes here,” Rose argues. “Like, ever. It’s like Neverland or something.”
“You guys did, though.”
“That’s different,” Rose starts to say, but I speak over her.
“Who exactly,” I ask, “are you hiding from?”
Rowan only blanks for half a second, but I notice it. His smile then is so easy, it’s like he doesn’t have a care in the world, and if I didn’t know better I’d think I’d just imagined his moment of hesitation.
“Captain Hook,” he says easily, opening the door of the boarded-up house. He looks back at Rose and says cheekily, “Maybe Cian should’ve called you Tiger Lily instead.”
Rose rolls her eyes. “Don’t make me change my mind about liking you,” she says.
Hazel appears in the doorway to the kitchen, once again not looking in the least surprised to see us. “You like Rowan?” she says to Rose in mock horror. “Nobody likes Rowan.”
Rowan gives his sister the finger and we all crowd in through the kitchen door. It’s light in here today; with the wooden boards off, the French doors have been thrown open. It’s refreshingly cool inside; the sun slants in on the tiles, but, because the rest of the house is dark and empty, the heat hasn’t had time to settle.
Ivy, sitting on the back step, looks up in surprise and says, “I like Rowan,” as if Hazel was being serious.
There is a small awkward moment that I don’t quite know how to interpret. Does Ivy like Rowan? Are they together? Rowan’s reddening cheeks, Hazel’s averted gaze, Ivy biting her lip like maybe she shouldn’t have said that. Beside me, Rose watches each of their faces. Her eyes narrow and I’m sure she’s wondering, like me, if Rowan and Ha
zel are both in love with Ivy.
It’s something about the way they move around her, like they’re aware of her at every moment. When I think back to the last time I was here, it fits in, too. Rowan’s blush fades slowly and my heart sinks a little. I turn away and catch sight of Rose’s expression as she watches Hazel: She looks a little like I feel. I remember her describing Hazel to me. Confident, gorgeous. Infatuation is a terrible thing.
“Yeah, well,” Hazel says boisterously to Ivy, as if to smooth things over. “You’ve always had shit taste in friends.” She turns to her brother and says, “Speaking of which, what happened to your face?”
Rowan rubs at his jaw thoughtfully. The red is slowly turning purple and it’s still swollen. “I got punched a bit,” he admits.
“Just a bit?” Ivy asks. She sounds slightly confused.
“Did you deserve it?” Hazel asks. She sounds like she knows exactly what’s going on.
“Probably,” Rowan says at the same time as I say, “Definitely.”
When he laughs, his eyes crease at the corners. “Okay,” he says. “Definitely.”
“Your brother’s got quite the temper on him,” Rose declares. “Hence why I decided I like him.”
“They have that in common,” I explain to Hazel.
Hazel smiles right into Rose’s eyes. “I’ll bet,” she says.
“A temper is a thing you can lose,” Ivy says softly from the back door, to nobody in particular.
“Besides,” I say, “that Cian guy isn’t exactly the friendliest.”
“Or the least racist,” Rose adds.
Hazel isn’t smiling anymore.
“Cian punched you?” she says to Rowan.
“It’s fine,” he says. He takes a cheap bottle of beer from the tiny fridge and opens it on the side of the counter.
“Cian, who we work with almost every day, punched you?” Hazel says, her voice rising.
Rowan shrugs and hands around the rest of the bottles of the six-pack sitting in the fridge. “I said it’s fine, Hazel—just drop it.”
Hazel sits down at the table and shakes her head. “I knew it was a bad idea for us to work there,” she says angrily.
“It’s fine,” Rowan says again. He looks at me and Rose like this is a conversation we’re not supposed to be present for. “It’s not a problem.”
“It is if Cian decides to go sniffing around,” Hazel argues.
“Sniffing into what?” I start to ask, but Ivy jumps up from the back step and cries out, “Look!”
I run to the open door with the others despite myself. The light little wind that’s been rustling the trees must have shaken up a trash can somewhere, because a small swirl of candy wrappers and receipts, of potato chip bags and pieces of paper blows in across the weeds.
Ivy darts outside and grabs at the paper. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly. But she comes back in holding another page of Laurel’s diary.
It’s torn across the bottom. It doesn’t say much. They find random items in the forest. It looks like Laurel’s beginning to believe in the spell. When I mention this, Hazel shows me the diary pages she found this yesterday. Skinny-dipping and found things. A missing boy.
Rose, reading over my shoulder, says, “I haven’t heard anything about that. Have you?”
I shake my head. “No. Which is weird, ’cause my nana’s the biggest gossip in town.”
Rowan reads out Ash’s description of the boy. “You’d know him if you saw him. He’s scruffy and blond and he’s got his eyebrow pierced.”
“Nope.” Rose shakes her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
But he does ring a bell for me. Loud and clear, a great gong. Can I’ve another kiss before you go?
My thoughts must show in my expression, because Hazel asks, “Do you know him?”
“Not exactly,” I answer. “But I think I saw him. At the bonfire party. I think we were dancing with him at some point. I dunno, I was pretty drunk. He was blond and I guess kinda scruffy. He had an eyebrow piercing. I don’t know. It might not even be the same guy.”
Rose gives me a funny look.
Laurel isn’t the only one who’s beginning to believe in the spell.
Hazel
Saturday, May 13th
Lost: A couple of beer bottles (discount brand); a good few taste buds
We have everyone we need to cast the spell. I sent Rowan to find Olive and Rose, but they were already on their way here themselves. That has to mean something.
I open the spellbook and look down the list of ingredients. Olive had it all along, she explains. Like it just slipped itself into her bag.
“What do we have?” Rose asks. “And what do we need?”
We lock eyes. My belly fills with nervous bees. We’re in this together. We need this—both of us. I almost wish I could tell her why.
I take the roses on the table out of their vase. “Rose thorns,” I say. Rose smiles. Ivy, over at the cupboard, grabs a bottle of olive oil. Then she reaches in under the sink to grab the lemonade bottle full of poteen, stolen from Mags.
Rowan opens the bottle, smells the stuff inside, and coughs. “Jesus,” he mutters. “Smells like paint thinner.”
“What else?” says Rose.
Red ink, silver string. I run upstairs and root through my art supplies until I find some red markers. Downstairs, Ivy’s got a roll of silver string. The kind you wrap around birthday presents.
“We need a hazel branch,” I say. “Rowan berries, a vine of ivy. We need moss from under an oak tree. And we need a talisman.”
I pass around some beers and Ivy grabs a little jar and Rose empties out her bag for us to put the spell ingredients in. Rowan shakes his head. “I’m telling you,” he says for like the hundredth time, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
We tramp through the forest, looking for the plants we need. Phone reception’s too low for us to look up which trees are which, but Ivy has a little book of Irish native plants and trees she brought with her from home for some reason. Laurel said in her diary that this was like kids making mud pies, but I’m deadly serious. Rose tries to joke around with Olive and Rowan, but I know she’s serious about this, too.
We end up on the pockmarked rocks by the lake, Rose’s bag bulging. We’ve got almost everything we need. We sit for a minute and catch our breath and drink our beers. We talk about Laurel, Ash, and Holly and their lost things.
“It’s probably just stuff blowing off the wishing tree,” Olive says. She puts her empty beer bottle down on the rock beside her with a clink and Rowan offers her another. “Or trash washing over from the trailer park on the other side of the lake.”
“Speaking of which,” Rose says, and she points to the water. Not far from us, by a half-submerged rock, is a bottle, bobbing.
Olive takes off her shoes. “We should get that,” she says. “Trash in the lake kills the fish, you know, to say nothing of the poor ducks and swans.” Then she stops, a funny look on her face. “My mom said not to jump in the lake,” she says slowly. “Maybe I misheard her—or it was a slip of the tongue and she meant not to come home too late, but . . .” She trails off, eyes on the water.
“Well then,” Rowan says. He downs the rest of his beer and leaves the empty bottle by the full ones on the ground. “Disobeying parents has always been our forte, right, Hazel?” He kicks off his shoes and takes off his jeans and jumps into the water in his T-shirt and boxers. Olive tries not to stare.
Rowan brings the bottle back to the shore, shivering. “Fuck, it’s cold,” he says. “Here.” He hands it to Olive. “Looks like there’s something inside it.”
“Really?” I lean closer.
There is something inside it. Something that looks like a note. A message in a bottle.
“That’s kinda cool,” Rose says.
Olive tries to get
the paper out, but only Ivy’s littlest finger is small enough to grab it.
The page is torn twice: across the top and across the bottom. It’s a snippet, a snapshot, an afterthought.
It’s Laurel’s.
We read a couple of sentences each, our voices lowering as we go.
“I should tear this page out. I’m going to. Crumple it, bury it, make sure it stays lost.”
Laurel and Jude up against a tree. Diary pages and Scrabble tiles. A line of dogs all walking toward the forest.
“I knew this was what we’d done. We hadn’t made a sacrifice. We hadn’t traded something we didn’t want to lose for something we wanted found. We got our diaries back because of other people’s sacrifices. Things they didn’t want lost. Things they didn’t realize would go missing. Trinkets, treasures, memories, beliefs. We stole them without knowing and now they were showing up all around us.”
Rowan’s frowning, like this is exactly what he’s been afraid of. Olive’s cheeks are red. Ivy stares quizzically at the beer bottle. Then she picks it up again and turns it upside down. A few drops of beer mixed with lake water spill into her hand, then something else falls out of the bottle with a small clink. Ivy picks it up with her thumb and forefinger.
It’s a Saint Anthony medal.
“Hazel, it’s your medal,” Olive says to me.
“My medal?” I look at it more closely. There’s a rusty red stain on the corner that looks like dried blood. It is the same medal.
Olive frowns. “I found it in the pocket of your denim jacket,” she explains. “After the party.”
“It fell off the cash register in Maguire’s last week when I was cleaning,” I tell her, and feel a bit of a shiver. “It just keeps showing up.”
Rose’s mouth is wide open. “I lost that,” she tells Olive. “I had it in my pocket on Monday after you showed it to me. It must have fallen out on the way back to school. . . .”
“Finders keepers,” Rowan says like he’s joking, but his eyebrows are drawn and he looks kinda creeped out.
Spellbook of the Lost and Found Page 14