Spellbinding

by Maya Gold

  “I was the wildest. I got sent to the principal’s office every two days. My mom called me Rembo.”

  “My mom died when I was eleven.” Wow. I didn’t think I would tell him that. The water is up to my navel, and I can’t help shivering.

  “I’m so sorry,” says Rem. “Do you want to stop for a minute?”

  I shake my head. No, I think. I want to tell you everything. And out it spills. Stuff about growing up. About Dad and Matt and my Portuguese cousins, and feeling like some kind of freak at family gatherings. How much I miss Mom. Things I haven’t told anyone, not even Valerie or Rachel.

  He tells me about being half-Abenaki, how his French-Canadian relatives call him an Indian and his Native American relatives call him “white boy with a feather.” That he bought the tugboat at a salvage auction with money he’d saved up for college. That his temperamental dad kicked him out of the house. They’ve made up, and Rem goes home to visit, but he wants to prove he can live on his own, on his tugboat. That he loves to paint, but worries he’ll never be good enough.

  I don’t remember us moving, but somehow we’ve edged into much deeper water. There’s a trace of a smile on Rem’s lips, just enough for his dimples to indent his cheeks.

  “Look where you are,” he says.

  I turn and glance over my shoulder. The flat rock where we left our clothes seems so far away. I’m surrounded by water, and I’m not freaked out. This is huge.

  “How are you doing?” Rem asks me.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him, and it’s true.

  “You ready to try floating?” Rem asks. “If I hold you?”

  I look at his green-and-blue eyes reflecting the colors of water. If Rem asked me right now if I’d like to try jumping out of a plane, I’d say yes if he offered to hold me.

  “Sure thing,” I tell him.

  “Put your arms around my neck,” he says. “Keep your eyes on mine.”

  Oh, that is so not a problem.

  There’s a hum of excitement gathering under my skin as our eyes lock and hold. Drawing in a breath, I wrap my wet arms around his neck, feeling as if my whole life is about to change.

  “I’m going to pick you up now, okay?” he says. “Feet off the ground.”

  I nod, and in one fluid twist, Rem dips one arm under my knees, lifting me up in the classic over-the-threshold position. Except that he’s up to his chest in the ocean. And so am I.

  “You’re up,” he says. “How does it feel?”

  Dreamy. Amazing. “I’m fine,” I say. “But I’m not floating.”

  Rem grins. “Not yet. But if you’re in a hurry …”

  “I’m not,” I say quickly. “I’m fine just like this.” In fact, I could do it all day.

  “I think you’re ready,” he says. “So what you’re going to do is stretch out flat on your back, lying across my arms. Think magician’s assistant.”

  I hesitate. Flat on my back? No more arms around his neck, no more eye contact? Please, I think, don’t make me do this.

  You can, says the look in Rem’s eyes. Reluctantly I let go of his neck and try to lie flat with my hands at my sides. I can feel myself tensing up. Then I hear Rem’s voice in my head: It’s all right. I’ve got you.

  He does, in all ways. His arms are outstretched underneath me, holding me up, and I feel my anxiety starting to melt away. Until he starts to lower his arms.

  The second I feel him let go, I seize up in a panic, thrashing and sputtering. Rem’s arms come right back underneath me.

  “You’re okay, Abby,” he says. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

  “I’m sorry,” I gasp, clinging onto his neck.

  “No, I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean to … I’ll take you back in, okay?”

  I nod, feeling like an idiot. Couldn’t I just have been chill for two seconds? Why do I have to be so crazy?

  Rem carries me back toward the shore. “I should have told you I was about to let go. I thought if you weren’t anticipating it, you’d be less tense.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” I tell him. “I can’t float.”

  “The thing is, you did float. You just didn’t know you were floating.”

  It’s shallow enough now for me to start walking. As soon as the evening air hits my wet skin, I start to shiver uncontrollably. Rem sees and splashes ahead, coming back with a beach towel, which he wraps around me. Then he takes me in his arms, towel and all.

  “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs, holding me close.

  “It isn’t your fault. I have awful nightmares sometimes, about drowning,” I tell him. “They’re set in the past, but they feel absolutely real, as if they’re not dreams but memories. I can see every detail, feel my mouth and lungs filling with water.”

  “It’s no wonder you don’t want to swim,” Rem says.

  I look into his eyes. The wedge of blue inside the green seems especially bright, like a sliver of seawater.

  “Sometimes you’re in them,” I blurt. “Or … or someone whose eyes look exactly like yours.”

  Why did I say that?

  I want to splash back into the water and lower myself under. Anything to stop this embarrassment warming my face.

  But Rem nods, as if he’s not surprised in the least. And then I open my mouth and I just keep spilling, about all the weird things that have been happening to me. I tell him how I read about Sarah and Dorcas Good, and the traffic cone, and all the spooky coincidences. I tell him about the spell book, and the candles. The only thing I don’t reveal is the love potion and Travis.

  “I know this sounds insane,” I finish, “but I think I might really have … magical powers.”

  It’s the first time I’ve said the words out loud, and they feel all too real.

  Rem shakes his head, his mood darkening suddenly, as if a storm just rolled in off the ocean. “It doesn’t sound crazy” is all he says.

  I don’t know what makes me so bold, but I’ve said too much to stop now.

  “Do you have them, too?” I ask. “I mean, sometimes you just seem to know things, and sometimes I think I can hear you —”

  Stop, Abby.

  “Like that,” I say. “I just heard your voice inside my head. Does that mean —”

  Not now. Rem’s eyes fix on mine, urgent and fearful. Not here and not now.

  “But —”

  Rem shakes his head. “I think you’re imagining things,” he says brusquely. He splashes to shore and grabs up his things. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  All the way home I keep kicking myself. How could I have told Rem that I heard his voice inside my head, or saw his eyes in my dreams? He must think I’m a four-alarm nut case. What on earth was I thinking? I even told him I had magical powers. I’ve had enough sense not to blurt that to Rachel, so why would I open my mouth up to someone I barely know but am falling for, harder and harder?

  The sun’s gone below the horizon, and my headlights sweep over the road as I follow the turns to my neighborhood. Back to the dull and predictable life that I don’t seem to fit into at all anymore.

  The second I park in our driveway, I know I’m in trouble. Dad flips on the exterior lights and stands framed in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. With an instantaneous wince, I remember that he had a date with Danielle tonight, and I was supposed to come straight home from work to watch Matt. The I-messed-up calculus clicks through my brain: Can I make up a plausible story, or should I just own up to my mistake? Will it make things better or worse if I tell him the truth: I forgot?

  “Where have you been?” he demands when I reach him.

  “I am so sorry,” I say. “I lost track of time.”

  “We’ve been planning this dinner all week. I reminded you yesterday. And why didn’t you have your phone on? I called you five times and kept getting your voice mail.”

  That’s because I was trying to swim in the ocean. With somebody I’d like to go on a dinner date with. But Dad isn’t finished.

&
nbsp; “I reserved us a table at Le Canard and we had to cancel. Do you know how hard it is for Danielle to get Saturday nights off?”

  How in the world would I know that, and why would I care? But however I might feel about her, it was my mistake.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad,” I say. “I totally blew it. I owe you one.”

  “Yes, you do,” Dad says. “How about right now?”

  I didn’t expect that, but I can hardly refuse. Especially when Danielle appears from inside the house and comes up beside him, slipping her arm through his.

  “That is so sweet of you, Joe,” she says, smiling at him. “Thanks so much, Abby.”

  What can I possibly say? Get your arm off my father, stop dyeing your hair, don’t pretend that you like me? I opt for silence instead.

  You should have told me that she was still here, I think, fuming inside as Dad pats her charm-braceleted hand.

  I can’t help it. I don’t like this woman, I don’t want her dating my dad, and I’m not going to stand here and fake it. If she sees the resentment that burns in my eyes, so be it.

  The first thing I see are the torches, dripping with tar, held high aloft by a noisy mob. They’ve tied me to a pole with my hands bound behind me, so tight I can’t move. My hair’s been shorn close to the scalp with a knife that’s left nicks on raw skin. I feel splintery wood underneath my bare feet. Fear courses through me, an animal thing. I can smell my own sweat.

  I see them come closer, their faces twisted and cruel in the flickering torchlight. Someone holds a torch to a pile of dry tinder, and flames start dancing around my feet, sending up cinders and ash. All at once there’s a whoosh as the fire is engaged. Hot smoke fills my lungs as the wood pile I’m standing on bursts into flame. I can smell my own skin, singed and crackling. The pain is so sharp that I think I’ll split open. A wild cry escapes from my lungs, like the howl of a wolf, like a siren …

  A siren.

  I slam out of sleep, drenched in panic and sweat, and the first thing I see is red flames on my ceiling. It takes me a second to register that the flashes of red come from the emergency lights of a fire truck speeding past my window, and that the siren I thought I was dreaming is real.

  My heart is still racing. The passing siren wails into the distance, its pitch getting lower as it races toward some other neighborhood. I must have heard the loud sound in my sleep and worked it right into that hideous nightmare.

  I sit up in bed, trying to shake off the spell that the dream cast.

  My skin isn’t burning. I’m not breathing smoke. Nothing is wrong, except for the images inside my head. And those won’t go away. Not now, and not ever.

  I haul myself into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, passing the door to Matt’s bedroom, where he lies fast asleep in the glow of his night-light, dreaming the dreams of the normal. You don’t know how lucky you are, I think bitterly.

  I go back to bed and somehow manage to fall back asleep. I finally sleep soundly, but I come downstairs in the morning feeling like something is … off.

  I’m astonished to find Dad and Danielle huddling in our kitchen. They’re both drinking black coffee, and she’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans with no makeup or jewelry. She looks tense and worn out. If it weren’t for her red hair, I’d think she was somebody else.

  Then I notice the suitcase and Hefty bags full of clothes on the floor, along with some cartons of photographs, papers, and kitchen things.

  “Dad?” I ask, bewildered. “What happened?”

  He looks at me, grim-faced. “Danielle had a fire in her kitchen last night.”

  What?

  “A fire?” I stammer. Now that he says it, I realize there’s a distinct smell of smoke in the room. It must be from her clothes.

  I’m sure I look white as a ghost, because Dad does his best to be reassuring. “Danielle’s fine. The smoke detectors went off, and she got out in plenty of time. But her house is a mess, and she has to deal with insurance, and water damage, and —”

  “All my stuff,” Danielle says. She looks shell-shocked. “The firemen broke all my windows.”

  “She’s going to be staying with us for a while,” Dad says, taking her hand. Danielle starts to sob.

  “Thank god you’re here, Joe,” she says to him. “I can’t believe this.”

  Neither can I.

  IT WASN’T MY FAULT. THAT’S WHAT I KEEP trying to tell myself as I shower and dress that morning. The fire began when some paper bags Danielle had stored next to the fridge were ignited by an electrical spark from its plug. That’s what the fire chief told her and Dad, but it doesn’t help. What caused the electrical spark?

  You can call it coincidence, but the first time I met Danielle, the sleeve of her blouse caught on fire. Did last night’s fire siren set off the dream in my head, or was it the other way around?

  What if the dreams in my head set the fire in Danielle’s house?

  If this is what being a witch is like, I don’t want any part of it. I could have hurt her. Or Dad, when he went back to get her. That thought is a punch to the gut.

  Can you turn your back on your magical powers? I have no idea, but I’m going to try. I’ve done nothing but make other people unhappy. I’ve turned Rachel against me, made Rem think I’m crazy, and possibly burned down my dad’s girlfriend’s house. Yes, I’ve got Travis’s attention, but now I’m not even sure I want it. And I certainly don’t want the cruel attention of his scorned girlfriend.

  The whole thing is a train wreck.

  I’m already way late for work, but I’ve got to make one extra stop, at the Salem Library. I pull up in front of it just as the desk clerk comes outside to unlock the overnight book drop box. Perfect.

  “I’d like to return this,” I tell her, pulling the velvet-wrapped book from my purse. “I think it might be overdue.”

  She takes the book, turning it over to look at the spine. “This didn’t come from our collection.”

  “It must have. I got it here just a few weeks ago, when I was doing research.”

  She shakes her head. “There’s no card catalog number. And we don’t stock handwritten books. Though I’m sure our historian would love to see this one. It looks very old.”

  “Can you give it to him?” There’s a desperate edge in my voice.

  “She doesn’t come in on Sundays,” the desk clerk says, handing the book back to me. “Come back next week. Ask for Mrs. Brinnier.”

  “But I don’t want to … Never mind. Thanks.” I walk back to my car, shoving the spell book back into my purse.

  If it’s not from the library, how did it get on the shelf? Or wind up in my bag after I put it back? I don’t understand any of this.

  I need to clear my head, and what I want most of all is to see Rem. I decide I’ll get my morning mocha, and talk to him. Then, maybe things might begin to make sense again. I just hope he still wants to talk to me after all the craziness I revealed at our last swimming lesson.

  Somehow (I refuse to think the word magically), I find a parking place right in front of the alley. It’s the exact same spot where Rachel and I parked the first time I met Rem. As I get out of my car, my attention is drawn to two figures partway up the alley, leaning against the back door of the Double Double Café. It’s a boy and a girl, and they’re kissing.

  The first thing I notice is the black rose tattoo on Kara’s shoulder. Then she moves her arm and I see who she’s kissing. My heart stops.

  It’s Rem.

  I stand stock-still as the image sears into my brain. I feel as if three knives are stabbing me right through the heart. How could I have been so blind? It’s been right under my nose this whole time, and I totally missed it. No wonder Rem has been acting so hot and cold with me!

  They’re so lost in each other they don’t even notice I’m there. I stomp past the alley and slam the door into the store, where Dyami looks up, startled. You don’t have to be a psychic to see something’s wrong; it’s written all over my face. But she’s
wise and respectful enough just to note it and not ask me questions. For that I am grateful.

  Dyami sends me back to the stockroom to move stacks of cartons, and I throw myself into the boring, repetitive task while my mind races furiously.

  I have been such a fool. Whatever made me think Rem would be interested in me? Kara is gorgeous. She lives right in Salem; they work at the same place. They’ve probably been dating since high school. So why in the world was he flirting with me?

  And he totally was. Carrying me to his tugboat, teaching me how to swim, giving me one of his paintings? What was that about?

  What a jerk. Just another cute guy who enjoys the ego boost of girls having crushes on him. I’m probably one of a long, long string. No wonder Kara gave me that smile the other day, when she made me that double caramel mocha. Rem is a player.

  I slam another box onto the shelf, my sides heaving. I’m so mad I could throttle him. If I have the power to make bad things happen to people, Rem Anders is top of the list. Bring it on. He is toast.

  The dark cloud of my mood doesn’t lighten all day. When I drive back over the bridge to Beverly, heading into the sunset with Salem no more than a speck in my rearview mirror, all I can think is good riddance. I’m tempted to roll down the window and hurl the spell book right over the railing. Drown the sucker for good. If there wasn’t a cop car right behind me, I’d do it.

  Or maybe I wouldn’t. You never know when you might want revenge on somebody.

  Like Rem.

  There’s a red car next to Dad’s in our driveway. It must be Danielle’s. Not even the reminder of yesterday’s fire at her house puts a lid on my anger. She has moved in overnight. The guest room is filled with her things, and she’s colonizing the rest of the house, draping a fringed silk scarf over the sofa in place of my grandmother’s afghan, and mixing her pots and pans in with ours in the kitchen. The whole house smells like garlic and beef.