by Laura Sibson
“I know,” GG says; then, in a softer tone, “I have something for you.”
My eyes snap up to hers. “Is it keys to the cabin?” I know I’m being pushy, but I say it anyway.
GG gives a curt shake of her head and I know not to push further. From her lap, she lifts an object wrapped in cloth and tied with twine, and she holds it out to me. Despite my frustration with her, I step forward to accept this offering. I unwrap the cloth to reveal a small book with a red leather cover. The Celtic trinity knot is embossed on the cover.
“A journal?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I frown. “You want me to write my feelings?”
Journaling was suggested to me by several well-meaning people over the last ten months. GG, thankfully was not one of them. I never saw the point of writing feelings on paper. For me, running is the best way through the bad moments.
“Wait.” I turn the journal over in my hands. “This looks familiar.”
“Open it,” GG says.
When I open it, I see the pages are already filled, and I recognize the handwriting in deep purple ink right away. Any bravado I had disappears, like the fake confetti that Mom conjured for my birthday one year.
I look at GG. “Mom’s?”
GG nods.
“Why are you giving it to me now?”
“It is apparent that you need it now,” GG says.
What I need is for GG to let me go home, away from anything to do with magic. What I need is a real mother who is here with me, not a ghost floating in and out of my days.
As if she’s heard my thoughts, GG says, “It’s hard to know, at times, what will help.” She rises from the chair. “Sleep well.”
Temperance follows GG to her room.
“Night,” I say as I turn toward my room, the journal clutched in my hand.
Chapter Three
EDIE
“Hey, Car Trouble,” Tess calls when I enter Ye Olde Ice Cream Shoppe through the back entrance. It’s more of a stand than a shop, with two windows that slide open for us to serve customers. The ice cream is homemade, and I’ve learned that people will wait in pretty long lines for the good stuff around here.
I liked it better when she called me Summer Girl, which was my second nickname after Runner Girl. She’s been calling me this new one since I asked her to come save my ass on Sunday night. Now it’s Wednesday afternoon. I guess I’m stuck with this one until I do something that inspires a new nickname.
Today Tess’s short hair is pinned back with multicolored plastic butterfly barrettes, and she wears a shirt plastered with a dog sporting pink sunglasses and surrounded by puppies. Over the image are the words boss bitch. Can’t make this stuff up.
“Did you run this morning?” she asks.
I nod. “Speed workout, but you and I are on for tomorrow, right?”
“You got it.”
“Any prep?” I ask as I double-tie my apron.
“Nah,” she says. “We had a lull after lunch, so I did it.”
Tess’s aunt owns the ice cream shop, so Tess works more hours than I do. She’s even already made sure that we have an extra container of Chesapeake Mud up front, a big seller every night. And the milkshake machines are clean and ready to go.
“There’s a party tonight. Want to come with?” Tess asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. Parties—at least the ones at home featuring people getting drunk and acting stupid—were not my thing, and I can’t imagine it would be any different here. To avoid the subject, I busy myself with prep work that Tess already took care of. I check that napkin dispensers are full. They are. I wipe down the counter even though it appears clean.
“You’ve been here for weeks and you haven’t come out at all. You can’t just work and run the whole time that you’re here.”
“You really want to go to a party with your awkward co-worker who doesn’t know anyone?”
“You are so much more than my awkward co-worker,” Tess says. “You are my fellow Frozen Confection Dispenser.”
“You make me sound like an ice cream vending machine.”
Tess laughs. “Come on,” she cajoles me. “I want you to meet people.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. “But right now it looks like we have a customer.”
Okay, maybe I did want to get the focus off my nonexistent social life, but it’s not like I manifested the customer. I don’t have that kind of magic. Tess and I head to the front, and the next four hours are full of ice cream cones, sundaes, and sprinkles.
Little kids take their ice cream choices super seriously, and the heartbreaker is when the top-heavy scoop plops to the ground, leaving the kid holding a useless, empty cone. You’d be surprised how often it happens. I hear a child crying and I know it’s happened again.
“I’ve got it,” I call to Tess, who is busy making sundaes for another family. I scoop a fresh cone for the little guy and call him over.
“Here you go, buddy,” I say. “A new one just for you. And this one won’t fall over. I promise.” A glow brightens within me. I guess I like helping people. The ice cream cone seems to glow a little as well, but that must be the lighting in here. It’s not magic. It can’t be.
The boy gives me a wavery smile, tears still falling down his chubby cheeks, and his mom gives us a big tip.
“You have the touch,” Tess says when he stops crying as soon as he licks his new cone.
I shrug. “I think it’s the ice cream.”
As the night wears on, elementary school kids trickle in—they come up with the strangest concoctions. Gummi Bears and butterscotch, really? The tweens with no parents are mostly hoping to see or be seen by others their age. We don’t get many high school kids, and when we do, they’re usually locals begging for free ice cream from Tess.
The night is over quicker than I expected, and Tess says it’s time to go. I’m washing the scoopers. “Go where?” I say to buy time. I really like Tess, and she doesn’t need to know how hopeless I am in social situations.
“Edie, for someone smart, you sure act clueless sometimes. Dry off those scoopers. We’re going out.”
I sense that there’s no use arguing, so I do as she says. It can’t be that bad. It probably won’t be that bad. After all, Tess is nothing like those kids at home.
Inside Tess’s Jeep, I fasten my seat belt and turn to her, mustering some confidence. “Where are we headed?”
“The barn,” Tess says as she reverses out of the parking lot.
“The barn?”
“Yeah, it’s this place where we party.”
“Are you hoping a certain waiter from the diner will be at this barn?”
Tess grins. “Jorge? He’ll be there.”
“You sound pretty confident.”
“I am, because there aren’t many other places he could be. You probably had tons of places to party in Baltimore?”
“You mean Smaltimore. And anyway, I never partied much.”
“You miss it? Baltimore?”
“Yeah, I do,” I say. “Especially my house.”
“Must be a weird change, living on a houseboat. Maybe your grandma will move back to your old house with you at the end of the summer.”
“I definitely want to be back there for the start of school,” I say. The end of the summer seems forever away right now. Especially when I think about the recent tension with GG. That cabin keeps grabbing at my mind, though.
After a couple miles, Tess turns off the paved road. The Jeep’s tires crunch gravel as we park in front of the barn. It’s already packed with cars and pickup trucks. Honeyed light spills from the open barn doors and music wafts to us on the humid night air. She flips the visor down, checks her makeup, and adds another dab of lip gloss.
“Ready to party?” Tess says. Then, when she sees my expression
, she adds, “I promise you will not be the most awkward person there.”
As soon as we get inside, Tess pulls me to the dance floor, which is in actuality the middle of the barn floor. As expected, I’m not sure what to do with my arms, and my feet are like two concrete blocks, but Tess’s goofy dance moves make me laugh and I loosen up enough to bop to the music a little bit. After a few songs, though, the summer heat has gotten to her. Tess half yells, half mimes to ask me if I want to find something to drink. I nod and follow her off the dance floor. I’m sort of relieved to leave until I realize that all of the people not dancing seem to be drinking. And that’s not something I do very well at all. I’d rather be dancing, which says a lot. At the first cooler, we find beer and hard lemonade. Tess asks if I want one, but I shake my head. I brace myself for her to give me a hard time, but she doesn’t.
We root through a few more coolers before we find water. “Man, they’re hiding the non-alky drinks, aren’t they?” Tess says.
I feel immediately relieved that Tess isn’t going to be one of the stupid drunk people. Then again, she is a designated driver, I guess. The edges of her blonde hair are darkened with sweat. She rummages in the cooler and comes up with one water and one soda, both of which she rolls all over her face and neck.
“Is Jorge here?” I ask as I grab a water for myself. I’ve only glimpsed him once through the window of the diner and I don’t think I’d recognize him again.
As I take my first blessed sip, across the barn I notice a Black girl talking to a tall guy with brown skin. The girl’s hair is a cloud of curls around her face just barely kissing her shoulders. She’s wearing loose overalls over a tube top. Layers of necklaces drape down her chest. She gestures with her hands and rings sparkle from most of her fingers. But it isn’t so much how she looks that grabs me; it’s how animated she is, how open. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that free, except when I’m running. I feel an unexpected quiver in my belly—maybe there is someone other than Tess worth talking to here.
“He’s over there,” Tess says, “with Rhia. Let’s go.”
“Who’s Rhia?” I ask, following Tess and feigning a coolness I definitely don’t feel. We make our way to the other side, where we stop in front of the dark-haired guy and the very girl I just noticed. I may be a Mitchell, but I wasn’t aware that my thoughts were projecting.
The guy, who must be Jorge, smiles big at Tess. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Tess says, and I think she might be blushing.
“Nice dancing out there,” he says.
“I’ve got moves, right?”
“You’ve got something. Not sure they qualify as moves though,” the girl says, smiling at Tess. She’s also just drinking water and is somehow not sweating profusely like Tess and me. Standing beside her in my damp Ye Olde Ice Cream Shoppe shirt and running shorts, I look like a schlub. I set my shoulders back and smile, hoping to at least look like a confident schlub.
“Oh, hell no,” Jorge says, looking in the direction of the barn entrance. “My little brother just showed up. Be right back.”
“Kay,” Tess says. She watches him walk off and turns to us, waving her face with one hand. “Would it kill them to have AC in this place?”
“Tess, it’s a barn,” the girl says. “Besides, you’re just hot for Jorge.” She turns to me. “I mean, have you ever heard of AC in a barn?”
“This is the first barn I’ve been in, so I’m probably not the person to ask.”
The girl leans back to look me up and down. “First barn you’ve ever been in? Who are you?”
I open my mouth to speak, but the girl’s large brown eyes have tied my tongue.
“And now you’ve met Rhia.” Tess motions with a magician’s sweep.
“Rhia”—Tess then gestures to me— “this is Edie, who I told you about. A lot.”
“I knew that. Just messing with you.”
And now I’m on the receiving end of Rhia’s dazzling smile.
My voice finally decides to show up to the party. “Yeah, apparently I’m Tess’s fellow Frozen Confection Dispenser.”
“So you’re a vending machine? For ice cream?” Rhia says.
I break into a smile. “That’s what I said!” I give Tess an I-told-you-so look. “We need a better job title.”
“How about Frozen Wonder Delivery Agent?” Tess says.
Rhia makes a face. “Are you a delivery person or a secret agent? And what even is Frozen Wonder? Is it bread? Is it snow? Just, no.” She taps her lip with one long ringed finger. Then her eyebrows fly up. “How about Ice Cream Alchemist?”
I nod. “That could work.”
The supposed hot song of summer comes on and Tess looks to the dance floor. Rhia fiddles with her necklaces. I fish around for something more to say, something that won’t embarrass Tess and make her regret that she brought me.
“Edie lives on the purple houseboat,” Tess says.
I’m not sure that’s where I would have gone, but at least we aren’t standing around in awkward silence.
“You’re a Mitchell?” Rhia asks me.
I suppress a sigh. “You know my grandmother.”
Rhia’s laugh is big and open, the sort of laugh that invites others to laugh along with her. It reminds me of Mom’s. “ ’Course I know Miss Geraldine. This is a small town.”
I’m getting ready to ask Rhia how her summer’s going because I’d like to move the conversation away from my family, but apparently the only conversation starters I’ve got fall into the category of Most Boring Questions Adults Ask Teens. I open my mouth, but she saves me by speaking first.
“I’m so sorry,” Rhia says, her forehead crinkles with concern.
“Sorry for what?” I ask.
“About your mom. That was last summer, wasn’t it?”
The whooshing in my ears blocks out all sound before the tsunami of sorrow crashes over me. My breath hitches in my throat. I’m brought back to that August morning last year.
And then she appears. My beautiful mother is floats behind Tess and Rhia. It’s not unusual that she’s appeared. After all, it is the way of our family. But the timing isn’t helping.
“I—I’ve got to go,” I blurt.
Maybe I hear Tess calling my name over the pounding music. But I don’t turn around. I push through the sweaty bodies and Mom bobs along beside me as I go. By the time I get outside, where it’s not any cooler but at least not as crowded, Mom has disappeared again. I start to run down the gravel driveway and toward the main road. I have my running shoes on tonight— unlike the other night—and I don’t care how many miles it is back to the marina. I need to run.
Chapter Four
EDIE
Panting when I reach the boat, I climb up to the roof and sit cross-legged, staring at a clear sky strewn with stars and a fat, nearly full moon while GG’s plants nod to sleep all around me. Most of the other boats in the marina are quiet at this time of night. Just a few people are on the decks of their boats; the sound of conversation and strains of music drift to me. The warm air fills with the scent of honeysuckle, and Mom reappears nearby.
She made me the center of attention tonight. I don’t tell her that though. GG thinks I’ll feel better if I talk to Mom’s ghost, like she talks to all of her ghosts. But I can’t bring myself to do that. I don’t see the point. So I watch her float nearby, a constant reminder of what I’ve lost.
My mind casts back to that hot August morning last year. I was studying at the kitchen table. Mom joked that I was the only teen in a mile radius who got up early in August to study. She kissed my forehead and told me that she’d just now finished a piece of jewelry for me. I begged to see it, but she said that she planned to ride her bike to the market to pick up a few things. When she returned, we’d have as throughout Tea and a Talk because there was something that she needed to tell me, and she’d show me th
e piece she’d made then. Tea and a Talk was what we did when we had something important to share with each other.
There was Tea and a Talk when I told Mom that I no longer wanted to be homeschooled. There was Tea and a Talk when Mom told me about the birds and the bees, as well as when she told me about sex. The former was related to how our family is connected to the earth and nature. The latter was what everyone else means by “the birds and the bees,” a topic of zero interest to me, but the tea was nice. I always felt better after our talks. Mom had a way of doing that.
Except for just the one time it didn’t help. I’d asked for Tea and a Talk to tell Mom that I was no longer buying her fairy tale about me not having a father. We lived in the real world and I wanted to know his identity. That time the tea was sharp and black, and no amount of milk would reduce the bitterness. It didn’t come with any answers, either.
On the day of the bike ride, I remember her telling me about the jewelry and the Tea and a Talk and I remember her smile and I remember I told her to wear a helmet. I think I remember that part about the helmet, but maybe I only wish I had told her. I keep going back in my mind, trying to remember the conversation, as if remembering the conversation would change the outcome.
She’d been standing before me, smiling her big smile. A canvas bag over one shoulder in case she found something that tickled her fancy while she was out and about (her words).
Then there were police officers, two of them, a man and a woman, at the front door. I’d started to get hungry for lunch and wondered if I should wait for Mom or go ahead and eat. You never knew where her adventures would take her or for how long. There was the knock at the door. I held the door open, halfway in the house, halfway on the porch. I remember thinking how hot the police officers must be in their uniforms in the humid August morning air. Thinking that someone must have been robbed on our street. They wanted to let us know. Ask us if we’d seen anything.
But instead they asked for Geraldine Mitchell. A breeze picked up and the scent of the honeysuckle bushes wafted toward me. All of the hair on my arms stood on end. I opened my mouth to say that my grandmother wasn’t here, that she lived on the Chesapeake, but then I heard her voice behind me.