by Laura Sibson
After I’ve done eight repeats and I’m sure that my quads are going to curse me forever, I stop at the top to catch my breath. The oak is even more massive up close.
Tess crests the hill, breathing heavily.
“I’ve never seen an oak this big.” I crane my neck to look at the top of the tree.
“Biggest one around,” she says. She gulps from her water bottle and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “And I’ve always loved that cairn.” Tess gestures to the rocks stacked in decreasing size from bottom to top. The cairn sits at the base of a very overgrown driveway that has a chain across the entrance.
“Doesn’t look like the people who own it come here anymore,” I say.
“Wait.” Tess holds up her hand. “You don’t know where we are?”
I look around. “On Shaw Road? Upriver from the marina?”
Tess looks at me with disbelief. She points to the driveway. “That’s the Mitchell property.”
“What Mitchell property?” I frown in the direction of the driveway.
“Edie. Oh my gods. That’s your family’s property.”
I start to walk toward the entrance.
Tess joins me. “I can’t believe you didn’t know.”
“And how come you know?” Peering down the path, I wonder what waits at the end.
“Because my family has lived here forever. We know stuff,” Tess says. “People say the cabin is haunted.”
“People say a lot of things about us.” I step over the chain.
Tess’s eyes go big with alarm. “What are you doing?”
“You tell me that my family owns property that I’ve never heard of and you think I’m not going to check it out?”
“Um, I did use the word haunted, didn’t I?”
I’ve shared a little with Tess about me and my family, but she definitely does not know that I see ghosts. Not exactly something you tell people—unless you’re trying to alienate them. I don’t love seeing ghosts, but the fact of their presence makes haunted houses, well, just houses. With ghosts in them. But I hear the worry in Tess’s voice.
“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” I say, looking over my shoulder down the dirt track with its plants grasping from all sides. I can barely stand to know that our family owns a cabin just down that overgrown driveway and I can’t see it.
“You really want to check it out?”
I place my hands together like I’m begging. “I really, really do.”
“Fine.” Tess sighs and walks toward me.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I bounce up and down on my toes. My curiosity grows by the minute. Why did I never know that our family has property here? Why would Mom and GG keep this from me?
“But if I’m eaten by a ghost, I’ll kill you,” Tess says.
“After you’re dead?” I say, as Tess steps over the chain.
“Yes, after I become a flesh-eating ghost.”
I laugh. “That’s a price I’m willing to pay.” I grab two big sticks off the ground, and I hand one to Tess.
“Is this to fend off the ghosts?” She looks at the stick with doubt.
“It’s to beat back the overgrowth,” I say. “And spiderwebs.”
“Great,” Tess says. “More things that might eat me.”
“Cedar Branch has human-eating spiders? That should have been on the news, or at least in the brochure.”
I swipe the branch back and forth, giving us space to walk and pushing back the raspberry bushes, sumac, and sassafras.
“I wasn’t aware Cedar Branch had a brochure,” Tess says.
“If it does, it should definitely alert visitors of human-eating spiders.” I smack at a mosquito buzzing by my ear.
Tess stops to smell the honeysuckle bordering our path. “And haunted cabins,” she adds. She plucks a bloom and brings it to me, pulling out the stem to reveal a clear drop of nectar.
“Yes, and haunted cabins,” I agree.
“Here.” Tess holds up the bloom for me to lick the nectar. I pause and then lean in to catch the nectar before it falls. “Tastes like summer, doesn’t it?”
I guess it tastes like Tess’s summer, and my mom’s too, probably. She spent all her summers here up until she was my age. But it doesn’t taste like summer to me. Honeysuckle only reminds me of death now.
We walk tentatively forward, through trees that form an arch over the driveway, filtering the sunlight into a thousand shades of green. Cicadas drone around us and unseen birds call to one another in their singsong way. Eventually, the narrow drive ends at a plot of land that must have once been cleared.
“Whoa.” I breathe the word out as I take in the sight before us.
“Whoa is right,” Tess says in a quiet voice.
Goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace, black-eyed Susan, and more plants I can’t identify have overtaken the plot of land, all growing up to our waists. But the plants are not what makes us gasp. There’s a cabin, or what looks like a cabin, though it’s barely identifiable as a man-made structure. It’s completely engulfed by creeping vines that are growing up the exterior walls, covering windows and snaking through gutters and drainpipes. The roof sprouts grass and moss. The steps bloom with mushrooms.
I swim through the wildflowers and weeds until I land at the base of the three steps to the door. My shoes squish through fungi as I place my foot on the first and then the second step. I tug at the vines to expose the screen door. After unlatching it, I pull it open, ripping more vines away as I do. The old hinges whine loudly. The knob of the main door won’t give, though, and I can’t get inside. I cup my hands around my eyes and peer through the windowpanes on the door, but it’s too dusty to see much more than shadows.
Walking around the cabin, I’m greeted by a direct view of Eagles Cove. Battered wooden steps lead down to a dock that’s half-submerged. Cattails border the edge of the water. The level of neglect doesn’t match what I know of my grandmother or my mother. It must have been beautiful at one time, but that time is long past.
“Check this out,” Tess calls.
I walk back to Tess. There’s a large space beside the driveway where the plants aren’t growing in the same willful way as they are all around the cabin. It’s just empty.
“Strange,” I say.
At the edge where the tall plants give way to scrubby grass and dirt, something sparkles in the sunlight. I bend down and find a rock, half-buried. I pry it out and rub the dirt from its surface, revealing a smooth, oval-shaped stone about the size of a golf ball. It appears black until the sun hits it, revealing its rich molasses-colored depths. I slide it into the pocket of my running shorts. “Ready to head back?”
“I am, are you, though?” Tess asks.
“Yeah, I mean, I want to see more, but I need a key to get in there.” I give one last look at the foliage-encased cabin and we walk back down the dirt driveway toward Shaw Road. When we step over the chain, an intense shiver runs through me.
“Are you okay?” Tess asks. “You look pale all of a sudden.”
“I don’t know. Just got a weird chill.” I shake out my arms and legs. “Probably just dehydrated,” I say.
As we start an easy trot back into town, my mind is occupied with the cabin and wondering why I’ve never heard about it from Mom or GG. But mostly I’m wondering where I might find the key.
Chapter Two
EDIE
Flooded with curiosity about the mysterious property, after I leave Tess, I do exactly what I told GG I was not likely to do. I go to the perpetual woods to find her.
It takes me a while. Not only do I need to find the exact right hawthorn tree by memory, but I also need to remember the exact right words that GG and Mom used to chant. I search my mind. The chant had four lines and there was something about the woods and a secret and being a daughter. I try a few t
imes and feel like I’m close, but nothing happens.
I would give up, but this is too important. I want to know why I’ve never heard about that cabin. So I keep trying. I count the syllables on my fingers to get the rhythm right. Finally, I’ve got it.
“With secrets deep, woods wise and tall,
Keep our garden hidden from all.
Know me as a Daughter in this place;
Reveal to me now our sacred space.”
A gentle rippling sensation flows around me. A glow brightens the area and then recedes, revealing the clearing—just as I’d remembered it. GG and Mom had taken me to this place every year until I was fourteen and had decided that magic was not for me.
At the opening is a wood bower entwined with wisteria, a shade of purple that Mom loved best. As I walk through it, I realize that I’ve never been here without her. When I was little, before my magic showed itself, we’d hold hands to walk through here. The heavy blanket of grief settles on me. She should be here with me. I breathe slowly until it lifts.
The periphery of the clearing is a circle of towering trees that GG uses for her recipes. Oak for courage; birch for protection; elm for intuition; cedar for healing and cleansing. I walk by an old cedar to the inner ring of smaller trees in flower, always in bloom no matter what time of year. Cherry trees with their thick, lush blossoms. Apple trees with their delicate pale pink buds that spring open into white petals. Viburnum fills the space with her heady scent wafting from tiny white flowers.
In the middle of it all stands the ancient hawthorn that perpetually lives in all of its seasons at once. Part of the tree is barren, for winter. Another section is blooming with small white flowers for spring. A third portion is thick with green leaves for early summer, and the final area of the tree sprouts bright red berries for late summer and fall. As the naked branches of the winter side begin to sprout buds, the red berries of the autumn branches drop to the ground; the flowers disappear, allowing leaves to grow; and so it goes. In never-ending seasonal motion.
Behind the hawthorn, in a clearing that gets strong sunlight, is GG’s herb maze with calendula, chamomile (which I thought were daisies when I was little), echinacea (which I thought of as Mom’s daisies on account of them being purple), peppermint (which GG let me pick and chew whenever I wanted), elder (whose berries gave me a very sick stomach once), yarrow, and others whose leaves I don’t remember or never learned.
All around, petals from the flowering trees float in the air, falling softly toward the ground, where they form a thick carpet beneath my feet. The bees buzz purposefully around their hives that sit beyond the herb maze. This is where GG harvests honey and the beeswax for her salves and candles. There is a huge stone slab beside the herb garden, where GG works when she’s here. But at the moment, GG isn’t working. She sits cross-legged before a low altar. Her eyes are closed, and her lips move in a whispered chant.
GG must sense my presence because her eyes fly open. “Edie!” She rises from her cross-legged position. “I see that your mind was changed. What caused it?”
I don’t see any reason to beat around the bush. “I saw the cabin today.”
GG says nothing for a moment; then, “I see.”
I’m relieved that GG doesn’t play dumb. Then again, I’m not sure she’d know how.
“Why didn’t you tell me that we have property here?” I ask. “Why didn’t Mom?”
Her hands drop to her sides. “That place is no concern of yours.”
“You and Mom and Grandfather spent summers there. It must have meant something to our family.”
GG opens her mouth. Closes it. She shakes her head.
“Do you still have the key?”
GG sets her lips in a thin line. Then she says, “You must stay away from that cabin.”
A flare of anger flashes in me. “You won’t let me go home. And now you won’t let me go to the cabin either? If Mom spent time there, I want to, too.” My hands begin to tingle.
“Restrain yourself. We cannot have your uncontrolled element in these woods.”
I clench my fists, but my frustration grows. And so does the tingling in my fingers. The flower petals falling all around us, which seemed so beautiful a moment ago, smother me now.
“Do not disrespect me, Edie.” She lifts one hand and the leaves on the trees shiver in response. The falling flower petals swirl into a funnel cloud. GG has never used her magic against me, and I don’t think she will now, but her point is clear. If there is a test of wills, I will lose. I don’t even know how to use my own magic.
“Go home. We’ll talk about this later.”
My unanswered questions leave a bitter taste in my mouth. But GG has made it clear that this conversation is over.
“That houseboat is not my home,” I say, and I leave her standing among her trees and herbs as a flurry of flower petals falls all around her.
* * *
* * *
When I get back to the boat, I strip out of my sweaty running clothes, and the rock I’d found falls out of my pocket, bouncing on the floor. It feels cold when I pick it up, despite the heat of the day. I set it in a dish on my dresser along with my running watch.
Throughout my shift at the ice cream shop, my frustration at GG grows and grows. By the time I return to the marina, the night is lit by the nearly full moon. The other docked boats dip and nod on the water. Jim’s office is dark. I pace before GG’s boat. I can’t imagine sitting in there, and I don’t want to face GG when she returns. I told her that this boat wasn’t home, and I meant it. I step inside and lift the car keys from the hook by the door. Home—real home—is a bit of a drive, but I don’t care.
GG’s car doesn’t want to start at first. I close my eyes. “Please,” I say. “I need this.”
I smell honeysuckle. Opening my eyes, I see Mom in the passenger seat. I close my eyes again, hoping she’ll disappear. Her presence reminds me that she’d want peace between GG and me. I try to start the car once more and the engine turns over. I sigh my relief, and when I open my eyes, Mom’s gone.
After checking my mirrors, I pull onto the lane and point the car toward the highway that will take me back to Baltimore and the home I lived in with my mother my whole life. I bring the old Subaru up to speed. No taillights appear on the dark country road unspooling before me and no headlights behind, either.
Something catches my eye in the rearview. A dark patch like a shadow. But when I look again, there’s nothing there. Just me alone on the road. A sudden chill raises goose bumps on my skin. For once I wish my mother’s ghost would come back. I fiddle with the temperature knobs and then roll the windows down to let in the humid June air. Moments later, the car starts coughing and wheezing. I didn’t even know cars still coughed and wheezed. I’m at the sign for the town line when the car lets out one last strangled gasp and stops.
“No! No, no, no, no, no.”
I try switching it off and on again, but the car will not revive.
“Please, please, let me go,” I say.
But this time, the car refuses to give in. White smoke and an odd smell billow from under the hood, sort of like when you burn green branches. I feel around for the lever that opens the hood, and finally I find it. Waving the smoke away as I look under the hood, the problem is clear immediately, even though I know nothing about cars.
“What the fu—”
I lean in because what I’m seeing makes no sense. Vines weave their way around the engine block and through every part of the mechanics of the car. I sigh and lean against the bumper. I’m not entirely sure how to get myself out of this mess.
Night has fallen fast, but the moon is bright. Mom is back, floating by my side. I sense a flickering in my peripheral vision, but when I turn, I see nothing. My nerves jangle and I tell myself to calm down. The song Mom used to sing to me whenever I was scared pops into my head. I start singing
quietly.
“Darkness, darkness, not welcome here,
Return from where you came.
Sunlight, starlight, please be near;
I call you in my name.”
A warm glow deep inside my chest brings instant comfort. But it’s followed quickly by the burn of loss. I wish that I’d worn running shoes instead of these flip-flops, but I didn’t exactly give any thought to this plan. I text Tess, and after a bit she replies that she wishes she could help, but she’s at a party and she didn’t drive.
“Got myself into this mess. Gotta get myself out,” I say out loud.
When I pop the trunk, I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but it’s definitely not an iron box containing a couple knives, a large container of salt, and a small jar of oil. I’m intrigued before I remember that I’m angry at GG, and at her useless tools. Then I realize the knives might not be useless after all. I select the largest one and return to the front of the car, where I hack away the vines. I only stop when it starts resembling an engine and not a jungle.
When I get behind the wheel, the car starts right up, but I’m not trusting it now. Admitting defeat, I turn the car around. I’m not going to try to drive all the way home in a car that might break down any minute. Mom sits next to me as we return to the marina.
When I arrive back at the boat, GG is waiting for me. The night is still dark, though dawn is only a few hours away now. GG doesn’t yell or accuse or threaten. Instead, she says in an even tone, “I see you’ve learned about my anti-theft charm.”
I can’t decide if I want to give GG props for the most original anti-theft device ever or if I want to defend myself. I decide to defend myself. “I wasn’t stealing the car.”
“You took my car without asking.”
She has a point. I run my hand over my head. “I wanted to go home.”