by Laura Sibson
“Oh, wow,” Tess says. After a beat she asks, “So when are you going back?”
We both laugh. “Anything happen with Jorge last night?”
“We hung out after the party.”
“You like him?”
“You know what? I think I do!” Tess says between breaths.
We go a bit farther before I get the courage to ask about Rhia. I picture her carefree curls and the warm smile she gave me before she asked about my mother. “Are you and Rhia good friends?”
Tess’s breathing becomes labored. She answers in short bursts.
“Totally. Since elementary school.”
“She must think I’m bananas.”
“Nah. Rhia doesn’t judge,” Tess says. “Anyway, you’ll see her again.”
We reach our turnaround point and head back.
“Because Cedar Branch is a small town?”
“Because being friends with me means being friends with Rhia.”
I’m surprised to realize that my gut response is not to run away and hide. In fact, my gut—and other parts of me—might like to see Rhia again.
* * *
* * *
Back at the boat, I take off my watch, ready to strip down for my shower. The rock I found at the cabin still sits in the dish where I keep my watch. I pick it up, turning it over in my hand. I hold it in my palm and close my fingers around it in the way Mom taught me to hold crystals, to allow their good energy to move into you.
But this rock doesn’t feel like good energy. It floods me with cold and nausea. I open my fingers to drop the rock back into the dish and I notice tiny black lines on my palm. The same sort of lines that run through granite or marble. I feel a little dizzy and I grab ahold of my dresser to steady myself. I may choose not to be a part of the family magic, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten all that I’d been taught. This rock is giving off very bad energy, and I want to get it off the boat as soon as possible. I use a sock to pick up the stone. I put that in a plastic bag and then run directly to Shaw Road.
At the giant oak and the precarious cairn, I turn down the same overgrown driveway. When I reach the empty space by the cabin, I look for the spot where I found the rock. On my knees, I dig a hole with my bare hands and dump the rock in there. I cover the hole up and sit back on my heels, wondering if there are some words I should say. But the only two spells I remember are the one for the perpetual woods and the new one for unlocking doors. Neither of those make sense for this.
Hoping I’ve contained that bad energy by burying the thing where it came from, I stand up and dust off my hands. I turn to take in the cabin. I try to imagine it the way Mom described it in her journal, absent of the unruly growth and sad neglect. I walk closer, drawn to this place where my mother spent her summers. I can get in. I know the spell. I turn back to look at the spot where I buried the rock. For what, I’m not sure. All I see is freshly turned earth patted down by my hands. Seems fine, so I figure I might as well check out the cabin. I crack my metaphorical magic knuckles and get in the headspace to do this spell.
I breathe in and let it out. I do that three more times until I admit that I’m procrastinating. I clench my hands and then uncurl my fingers. I can do this. It’s just a simple spell. Like the chant I said to get into the perpetual woods. Not like the magic I tried to do before.
I close my eyes to call up the words. I kneel and blow into the rusted keyhole three times. Then I press my left thumb against it. What were the words? “With my breath and the words I’m speaking, sticky lock open.”
I open my eyes and try the knob, but it still won’t turn.
I close my eyes again, picturing how the spell looked on the page, how it had appeared in my mind. There was a rhyme. And a rhythm, too. I flutter my eyes open and blow on the lock three times again.
“With my breath and the words I’ve spoken, sticky lock, I bid you open.”
The brightening that comes with magic flashes and then dims. There’s a click of a bolt shifting. I turn the knob and the door gives. A thrill rushes through me, but I tamp it down. Bigger energy leads to bigger magic, and I do not want that.
I push the door open and a waft of air, cool and musty, slides by me. The front room is dark, all the shades drawn. I step into the center of the living area, my footsteps quieted by disintegrating rugs. I go to the large picture window and raise the yellowed shade. In shocking contrast to the shadowed room, the view is lush and full of color, overlooking the quiet cove and framed by tall trees, leafy and bright green. From here, I can see the dock that’s slowly sinking into the river. Who gives up waterfront property? Makes zero sense.
Seeing something out of the corner of my eye, I turn. But nothing is there.
Despite the heat outside, I feel a chill. I run my hands over my upper arms. Maybe it’s cold because the shades have been drawn.
Down a short hallway are three doors, all of them closed. The first door I open leads to a bathroom. Vines grow out of the toilet, overflowing the edge. They sprout from the sink and the shower drain, creeping across the floor, all of them tangling together. I tell myself it’s a good thing I don’t need to pee, and also they are only vines and vines can’t hurt you, but I feel better after securely shutting the door, confining the vines.
I try the next door, opening it a sliver to reveal a slice of bedroom. Not overrun by vines. I push the door open farther. A shadow catches my eye at the edge of the room. But when I walk in, there’s nothing. I feel chilled again, so I throw the shades open in this room, too. The sunlight that tries to break through is tinted green by the leaves covering the windows.
The room is not large. A queen-size bed sits against one wall and a chair perches in the corner where I thought I saw the shadow. I feel uneasy. But it’s just an old, empty house. Nothing more. On the opposite side of the room is a tall dresser with three frames, facedown. I set them upright. In one frame is a photo of Mom on the dock, squinting into the sun. She’s in her bathing suit and she’s maybe ten years old. The backs of the other two frames are missing. The photos have been removed. I wonder why this photo of Mom was left behind. I slide it from the frame and stick it in my back pocket.
Next to the dresser is a closet, I learn. An old sweatshirt and a raincoat are the only items dangling from hangers inside. Except on the floor. A shadow curls on the floor in the farthest corner of the closet. No, that can’t be right. Shadows don’t curl. I pull the door open more fully and realize my mind is once again playing tricks on me. There’s nothing there.
I quickly leave the room, making sure to shut that door behind me as well. I shake my hands out like I do before a big race. This is just a house. That’s all. The last door opens into another bedroom, smaller than the first. I stand still with my hand on the doorknob as it hits me that this was my mother’s room. I am hollowed by the realization. Two twin beds sit parallel to one another. Opening the shade on the window opposite the beds, I imagine my mother’s hand touching this shade. My view through vines is of that barren land in back of the house and the driveway. In the haze of the hot morning sun, the light wavers above the dead grass near where I buried the rock. I blink and it’s gone.
The dresser is dusty, like everything else. Closing my eyes, I place my palm on the space where Mom kept the red cedar box of my grandfather’s ashes. If I’m hoping for some feeling conveyed across time through this wood dresser, I am disappointed. I feel nothing.
I sit on one of the beds. My mother slept here. I run my hand over the quilt and lie back on the bed. Is this the one she slept in? Did she have friends sleep over? Did they talk deep into the night and share private jokes? I reach my hand across the space between the beds as though I could reach my mother. As though she were in the bed next to this one.
The bedside table has one drawer, which I slide open. There’s a tube of dried-out lip balm (cherry), two pens (one with purple ink, the other b
lack), and some black satin cording. I pick up the purple pen and wonder if this is the same pen that Mom wrote with in her journal. I press it to my lips. I don’t know why. When I set the pen back into the drawer, I see a yellowed envelope. I reach in the drawer. Suddenly, I am enshrouded in a deep chill. Way more intense than earlier. I snap straight up, looking around for the source of the cold air. Nothing. My breath plumes as though it’s winter.
I’m not an idiot. I know that a sudden chill means that there is some sort of presence here. I turn back to the drawer. That envelope is my mother’s. Something she wrote. I reach out. The drawer slams shut. I yank my hand back just in time. Good sense tells me I need to get out of here. That’s when I see them. The room is filled with shadows—and they’re moving. They yearn toward me, tendrils grasping for my limbs.
“Move,” I tell my body, but I am frozen in fear.
Darkness closes in. The temperature in the room drops; my body shudders.
I fall to my hands and knees. I try to stand, but the shadows push me down, pressing the air from my lungs. My breath comes in short gasps. I crawl toward the door.
“That’s it,” I tell myself, the same way I talk myself through tough workouts. “Keep going.”
The shadows suck at my foot. I shake my leg, but the shadows cling.
I try to move forward, but I’m pulled back.
“Come on, Edie.” But I can’t. I’m not making any progress toward the door and escape from here.
I don’t understand what’s happening in this place. First the strange rock. Then the drawer and the shadows. Mom would make sense of it. But she’s not here. The unfairness strikes quick and hot. My hands burn. I slam them on the floor. “Move yourself!”
There is a burst of light and a buzzing in my head, like adrenaline before a race.
And then I am standing. The shadows slink back. On the wood floor are two blackened handprints. I don’t think about what that means. I bolt to the front door. By the time I fling it open and slam it shut behind me, I’m quivery and unstable, like I’ve run a brutal 5K at race speed.
Chapter Seven
EDIE
“Edie!” GG says, when I collapse on the deck of our boat. Temperance leaps from her lap and pads over to me. She kneads my belly with her paws and curls up there, as if she knows that I need warmth.
I can’t speak. I can’t get warm enough. I lie on the deck, allowing the sun and Temperance’s body to heat my skin.
“What happened to you?”
I squint my eyes open and make out the shape of GG over me, a pot of steaming tea already in one hand and a mug in the other. Mom, Mildred, Grandfather, and other ghosts crowd around as well.
“I want Mom,” I say.
“She’s right here,” GG says.
I look away from the ghosts. “My real mom. My living mom.”
GG sets the pot of tea and mug on the table next to her rocking chair. Then she kneels beside me and rubs my shoulder. “It’s awful, I know.”
I close my eyes. “I miss her so much, Geege.”
“I know. I do, too. But, Edie, do not allow your grief too much power.”
“I don’t know what that even means, GG. I just want to go home.” I imagine curling up in Mom’s comfy chair in our sunroom, covered by her soft woolly blanket. I wonder if it still holds her smell.
GG helps me into the chair on the back deck of the boat. Then she presses a mug of hot tea into my hands.
“We are not like other people, Edie. Whether you like it or not, we have a lot of power. You have a lot of power. When emotions are muddled with magic, people can get hurt. Add an inexperienced witch into the mix and things could get very bad indeed.”
With the terrifying ordeal at the cabin fresh in my mind, I have a hint about what very bad feels like. But I can’t tell GG what happened—she was clear that I was not to go back to the cabin under any circumstances. And I’m starting to see why. But I needed to return that rock. A small voice whispers to me that I didn’t need to explore the cabin.
“Is this about learning the craft? Because I told you that life is not for me. I’m not going to use magic, so you do not need to worry.”
GG looks out over the back of our boat to the river flowing by us. Finally, she speaks. “You know how to drive, right?”
“You know I do,” I grumble, leaning over the mug to breathe in the steam from the peppermint tea.
“Why did you learn to drive?” Her sharp gray eyes are focused on me now.
I sip the hot tea and frown, unsure where this line of questioning will lead. “Because that’s what you do when you turn sixteen.”
GG grips the arms of her chair and leans toward me. “Is that a good enough reason to learn how to operate a piece of heavy machinery? Try again.”
I set the mug down with more force than I intend and hot tea sloshes over onto my hand. “To get places.” I blot the spilled tea with my shirt.
“Why?”
I let out an exasperated burst of air. “For freedom. And safety, I guess? So that I can get somewhere if I need to.”
“Exactly right.” GG points at me like I’m a student who has given a perfect answer, which—if I’m honest—feels good. “Freedom, yes. But especially safety. That’s why it’s so important to accept who you are and learn the magic. It’s how we Mitchells protect ourselves and our loved ones.”
I perk up at what I think GG might be offering. “So if I learn the magic and you feel like I’m protected, you’ll let me go home?”
GG shakes her head in confusion. “What’s there for you, Edie? Why do you want to go back so badly?”
How can I explain to my grandmother that what I want is to be away from here, from reminders of our magical heritage? That I want to be back in my life as it was. “I just do.”
GG sighs out her frustration with me. “If I believe that you can protect yourself, we can have a conversation.”
In my room, I take out the photo of Mom and tuck it in the drawer of my bedside table. We have so few family photos and I wonder why. After a long shower, I settle in for a study session. I need to focus on unambiguous problems that offer clear solutions. Not on trying to master magic and definitely not on haunted cabins occupied by homicidal shadows. I shudder again with the memory of the shadows pressing the air from my lungs. I open my study guide to the algebra section, a refresher for the ACT. I took algebra freshman year as an honors course, so it’s been a couple years. Working through math problems calms my mind. If magic worked like algebra, with clear, expected results, then maybe magic and I could be friends.
I’m only three problems in when I hear an insistent whisper, though it’s so low, I almost miss it. GG is back on the roof, so it can’t be her. I must have left a podcast playing on my phone. But when I check, the podcast app isn’t even open. Maybe the noise is coming from the kitchen. But I don’t hear the sound when I go there, only picking it up again when I’m back in my room.
I walk the tight confines of my room to figure out where the sound is coming from. It’s loudest near my dresser. I open the top two drawers. Nothing. I look at the bottom drawer. The whispering grows louder, and I can tell now it’s a woman’s voice. I kneel in front of the dresser and place my hands on the knobs of the bottom drawer. I yank it open and immediately the whispering ceases. I frown and shut the drawer, standing to return to my algebra. I’m settled in with my study guide when I hear it again. I go back to the bottom drawer of my dresser. I open it quickly, rummage around until my hand lands on the journal.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
“Who are you talking to?” GG has appeared in my doorway.
I hold up the notebook. “Mom’s journal is trying to talk to me.”
“Then I suppose you ought to listen.”
“I have studying to do.”
“Very well,” GG says. “But in my
experience, if magic wants to be heard, it will make itself loud.”
GG walks away and I put the journal back in the drawer. Loud or not, I’m not in the mood for magical journals right now.
* * *
* * *
On Saturday morning, I find Tess outside the diner, our meeting spot. In the afternoons, the diner is packed with people coming off the river or the bike trails, ready to inhale giant cheeseburgers and crab cakes. But in the morning, it’s mostly old people. And us.
“Today’s workout is a pyramid where we’ll incrementally build up speed and then go back down. Make sense?”
“Good morning to you, too, Speedy Edie.” Today Tess wears a T-shirt that says i’m like 104% tired.
“You know that’s mathematically impossible,” I say, pointing to the shirt.
“That’s why I wore it. To bug you.” She smiles sweetly.
I pull my hair back into a ponytail. “Is Jorge working today?” I gesture with my chin toward the diner.
Tess shakes her head. “But we’re doing something next week.”
“Go, Tess!”
Tess laughs. “We’ll see. If he tries to pull my hair like he did in third grade, he’d better watch it.”
“Yeah, you’ll have to tell everyone that he has cooties.”
“That is always my go-to insult,” Tess says. “How did you know?”
We run our intervals and I’m glad Tess doesn’t seem to notice that I’m dragging today. The terrifying experience at the cabin two days ago drained my energy. We get through the workout and run an easy pace back to Main Street.
“Hey, I have a question,” I say. “You said your family has lived here forever?”
“Oh, yeah. You should hear my grandpa go on about it. He can tell you the history of most of these places.”
Tess gestures down Main Street at the coffee shop with its window boxes overflowing with gardenias and impatiens, Al’s Seafood with its rockfish on ice, and all the rest of the shops along this street.