Love Charms and Other Catastrophes

by Kimberly Karalius

  Sebastian hit the record button. Ken stilled next to her.

  When the vibrations ended, the carillonist raised his hands to begin the next line of music. In the few precious seconds between, there was silence. No screaming children. No chatter. No cameras flashing.

  Hijiri dared not move. She stared at the red light on Sebastian’s tape recorder. Time slowed.

  The bells sang again.

  Hijiri was out of the room in seconds, murmuring apologies if she stepped on someone’s feet or elbowed them too hard. They didn’t have time to stay listening. Sebastian and Ken weren’t far behind. By the time they reached the bottom of the belfry again, the air was deliciously sweet and Hijiri happily pocketed the cassette tape. Her ears throbbed from the vibrations of the carillon room.

  Sebastian shook his head like a dog trying to dispel water. “Should have brought earplugs,” he said. “Ouch.”

  If Ken’s ears hurt, he didn’t mention it. “What’s the other item you need?”

  “This one’s going to be harder,” Hijiri said. She didn’t know if they could pull it off quickly. “I need a bird’s nest.”

  Sebastian didn’t question the request. He thought hard.

  Ken, however, ruffled his hair and asked, “Why a nest?”

  “It’s symbolic of the home a couple builds together,” Hijiri said. “My charm needs a foundation of comfort and trust. It’s the only way the truth can come out comfortably.”

  “I like that,” Ken said, his eyes gentle. “Building a home.”

  “You would.”

  “What does our home look like?” he asked.

  “It’s made of charms. Not very sturdy.”

  “Ah, so we are building one together,” Ken said, his eyes crinkling. “And here I thought I was the only one working at this relationship.”

  Hijiri sputtered. “The only relationship we have is puzzle and solver.”

  “Stop flirting, you two,” Sebastian said. “Let’s go find some nests.”

  * * *

  Sebastian had taken them to a private garden only minutes away from the belfry. The garden, functioning as a backyard to three large houses, was almost completely shaded by bowing oaks. A careless gardener had left the gate open so they slipped inside and searched the trees for a nest. They found one that looked empty, but they couldn’t reach it without low-enough branches to climb.

  “This is where you come in,” Sebastian said, nodding at Ken.

  Ken grabbed a pebble from the soil and notched it in his slingshot.

  “Careful,” Hijiri warned. “Don’t want to break it.”

  “I’ll hit the corner. You’ll have to catch it before it hits the ground,” he said, closing one eye and aiming.

  True to his word, he knocked the corner of the nest, sending it tumbling into Hijiri’s hands.

  By the time they returned to Verbeke Square, the other love charm-makers were back onstage, crafting. Hijiri ran through the cheering crowd and up the stage’s stairs to her table. Fallon, Nico, and Martin were waiting for her up there with her materials.

  “Is everything here?” Fallon asked.

  Hijiri scanned the table. She dropped the cassette tape and nest with her other ingredients and double-checked that nothing was missing. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “You can do this,” Nico said.

  Hijiri wanted to tell him that if everything worked with the charm, she’d love for him to use it too. That was, of course, stepping on the no-love-charms decision he and Martin had made together, but she could still hope.

  She had crafted a few communication-based love charms in her time, but this was the first that centered on repairing a lovers’ quarrel with honesty. Hijiri placed the bird’s nest in the center of the table and shifted her supplies around. She felt the townspeople watching her. The sensation was like hundreds of ants crawling on her skin. She pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze to the table. As long as I don’t look up, I can do this. It’s just me and my charm.

  Slowly, Verbeke Square and its distractions began to dull. She started crafting.

  Chapter 13

  KISSABLE

  The beauty of charm-making was that the process always varied. Each charm-maker, no matter the discipline they studied, had a different way of creating charms. Hijiri discovered that her way had everything to do with symbolism.

  Materials she collected for love charms had some kind of meaning to them—whether she gave them meaning or they came with the connotations already. If she combined certain items in certain ways, she made a functioning love charm. Most of the time.

  Hijiri lit the orange candles that Fallon, Nico, and Martin brought back for her. The relaxing scent of zested orange wafted, evoking exactly the kind of lively date-night feeling she had wanted when she first searched for them (and subsequently broke her old table). When the wax melted, she tipped the candles over and drizzled the nest with wax. Orange candles for approachability and loosening the tongue, she thought. Pressing her symbols into the action.

  Fallon hadn’t had trouble finding the twin stainless steel forks Hijiri had bought at a thrift store ages ago; they were small and had three prongs, used for dainty desserts rather than meals. She wiped both forks on her shirt before securing them on opposite sides of the nest, prongs facing out. “This is about eating truths,” she muttered, “and digesting them with courage.”

  The nest began to hum underneath her fingers.

  After sprinkling the nest with sugar—to dull the sting of truth—she picked up Sebastian’s cassette tape. She opened the cassette gingerly, gently pulling out the tape so it spilled like a ribbon on the table. She closed her eyes and felt for the short recording. The pads of her fingers thrummed with the bells’ ghostly vibrations when she found it. After snipping the excess tape ribbon, she wove the tape through the nest, over and under the dried orange wax and forks. “Even if the world is watching, even if you argue again and again, you will stop and listen. The space is there, waiting within the noise,” she whispered.

  “Five minutes left,” Bram said, checking his watch rather than the dwindling hourglass.

  Hijiri checked her love charm, touching each area to make sure every piece interlaced with the others. One piece unconnected, and the charm didn’t stand a chance of working. She looked over at the other love charm-makers.

  Sanders had somehow made his table into a makeshift kitchen, with a hot plate (extension cord disappearing into the crowd) and eggs carefully wrapped in cloth. An omelet filled the edges of his saucepan. Periodically, he scooped castor sugar out of a paper bag and dripped a jewel-like liquid—rum, she read, squinting at the bottle—onto the delicious-looking creation. But what kind of charm would that dessert carry?

  Ryker and Gage tinkered with what looked like a broken vacuum cleaner. Gage stuffed its insides with magazine pages of sharply dressed men and beautiful women. Clea and Mandy surrounded themselves with a palette of powders and liquids. They kept staring at her, sizing Hijiri up, as they picked their lineup of charms. Hijiri turned away, her stomach clenching.

  Bram dramatically counted down the seconds. The top of the hourglass emptied. “Time’s up,” he said. “Stand back from your tables.”

  Hijiri wiped her hands on her jeans.

  “This is the exciting part,” he said. “What have our love charm-makers created for each other?”

  Detective Archambault stepped onto the stage and took the microphone. “One moment,” she said sternly. “I must examine the love charms first.”

  Hijiri reminded herself to look the detective in the eye when she came to her table. She was nervous, unsure of what the detective was expecting to find.

  Detective Archambault lifted the nest, sniffed it, and closed one eye while turning it this way and that. “Clear,” she said, moving on to Sanders’s edible love charm.

  The audience waited respectfully, though some of the younger children were restless and tugged on their parents’ hands. When the detective finished her exam
ination, Bram asked the paired love charm-makers to stand on opposite sides of the stage with their charms.

  Sanders handed his sugared omelet to Ryker and Gage, while Hijiri stepped right into giving her charm to the Metamorphosis owners.

  “This is a love charm that improves communication,” she said, loud enough for the audience to hear. They’d find out soon enough what it would do. Sanders hadn’t bothered with an explanation; he just handed out forks and knives and told the Heartwrench owners to eat.

  “Cup your hands around the nest,” she said, helping position Mandy’s and Clea’s hands so that they stood facing each other, the nest held between them. Then she stood back, waiting.

  The air around Clea and Mandy smoothed, becoming silky and warm like sunrise on a cold morning. The audience’s curious murmurs dulled. Hijiri knew they would have felt the change too. Clea and Mandy seemed to forget about the audience. Where they were. They stared into each other’s eyes. Then the truth came.

  “Clea,” Mandy said, leaning closer, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

  “I’m listening,” Clea said easily.

  A crease formed between Mandy’s eyebrows. “It’s just … I miss your face. Your real face.”

  “This is my real face,” Clea said, laughing uncomfortably. “Just enhanced by our products.”

  “But you shimmer all the time, and your cheeks are always smooth and warm and I know it’s because you’re so good at applying our products. What happened to the girl I fell for years ago? Why haven’t I seen her in such a long time?”

  Clea dug her nails into the nest. “Where is this coming from? I thought you liked my face like this.”

  “I like all your faces,” Mandy said simply. “But I think it’s getting extreme now that you even wear your makeup to bed. Can’t be good for your skin, anyway, no matter how well-charmed the products are.”

  “So what are you asking me to do?”

  “Watch your temper,” Mandy said with some annoyance. “I’m just speaking my mind.”

  Hijiri winced while listening, but she expected as much. No one ever said that speaking the truth would be painless. Words drenched in feelings could tangle, cut, and sting. But my charm is supposed to soothe those feelings somewhat, allowing room for couples to solve their problems.

  Supposed to. Hijiri could tell that Clea was fighting the charm. She shouldn’t have been able to, but maybe … maybe the charm had a weak point that didn’t account for Clea’s personality. She had, after all, made her charm with Nico and Martin in mind. Their problem has to do with the need for a little honesty. But Clea and Mandy’s problem is much more complicated.

  Hijiri’s heart sank. I should have chosen something larger than a nest. And maybe a mirror, to reflect all of Clea’s faces back at her.

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Clea insisted.

  “Now,” Mandy said.

  Clea gritted her teeth and let go of the nest. Mandy still hung on, but the charm lost its hold on the couple. “Very clever,” Clea said gamely. “But not a pleasant charm, is it?”

  “Wasn’t supposed to be,” Hijiri said, standing taller. She took her love charm from Mandy and adjusted one of the forks.

  Mandy rubbed her temples, squeezing her eyes shut.

  Hijiri looked over her shoulder at the crowd, determined to gauge their reactions. She wished for more than the crowd’s confusion and disappointment, but the love charm didn’t exactly show how well it worked with Clea’s stubbornness bleeding through.

  Sanders’s sweet rum omelet had Gage and Ryker scrambling for writing tools—chalk, pens, markers. Both uncle and nephew drew hearts wherever they could—anatomically correct hearts, since both men were scientific-minded, but nonetheless. Their hands moved of their own accord, drawing hearts in the air when they ran out of paper. After getting a few laughs, Sanders made Ryker and Gage drink lemon water to stop the love charm.

  “Rein it in, rein it in,” Bram said, patting Ryker and Gage on their backs. “We’ve got two more love charms to see!”

  “Just wait until I get my hands on you,” Clea said, lifting Hijiri’s chin. “We’re going to make you beautiful.”

  Hijiri tugged her chin away. Her knees trembled.

  * * *

  Hijiri sat on her hands to keep from squirming in her chair while Mandy and Clea buzzed around her with their powders and brushes. She lost count of the layers of product they put on her face. The first layers were probably meant to feel cool and cleansing, making her skin tingle, but Hijiri only sensed the love charms at work. I don’t feel different, she thought, constantly assessing herself as the minutes ticked by. No sudden burgeoning of confidence. Nothing tearing at her sense of dignity.

  The audience sighed and murmured like forlorn lovers.

  Not good.

  Clea rubbed the apples of her cheeks with liquid blush. Used three different colors to highlight the dips and shadows of Hijiri’s eyelids. Not that she could see—her eyes were closed for most of it, and Clea had asked Bram to keep the mirror faced away. Mandy held her still to line her eyes and plump her eyelashes with mascara. Clea put three different charmed products on Hijiri’s lips as the finishing touch.

  “Faces are unfinished paintings,” Clea said, addressing the crowd. “Metamorphosis’s love charms are masterstrokes, bringing out the best in everyone who uses them. Answering their desires. Bringing the beauty of the inside to the outside and allowing love to flourish. Hijiri Kitamura is no different.”

  Clea and Mandy took her by the arms and lifted her out of the chair. Delighted gasps erupted all around her, but she wouldn’t dare open her eyes. Her heart rattled in her chest and tried to find an escape route. She wasn’t ready for this.

  She heard the wheels of the mirror grow louder. Then it stopped.

  “Open your eyes,” Mandy and Clea said at once.

  Hijiri forced herself to get it over with. When she saw her reflection, she felt sick.

  The girl in the mirror was beautiful. Her skin was unnaturally even and shimmered when the light caressed it. Mandy must have glued fake eyelashes on because the thick, dark lashes made her eyes look more intense and dramatic. Her lips were the worst; Clea hadn’t forgotten what she had promised to do to Hijiri’s lips when they had first met.

  My lips are three times bigger, she thought with growing horror. Like a swarm of bees all stung me at the same time and left my lips looking purple and bruised. They looked like they’ve kissed and been kissed. These are kissable lips to the extreme.

  Her face was a lie. A giant, beautiful lie. Hijiri Kitamura was somewhere underneath it, but her face had been tampered with to attract people and make them love her for what they saw with their eyes.

  She hated charms like this. Hijiri wanted to cover her face and run for the nearest sink.

  The townspeople sighed with longing when they saw her face. Men and women alike reacted to the charmed makeup. The crowd pressed against the stage. Binoculars were whipped out of bags. When some men tried climbing the stage, intent on stealing a kiss or two, Detective Archambault ordered the police to step in and restrain the crowd.

  Hijiri shot a pleading glance at Bram. “Just announce the winner, please,” she whispered. So that I can get this gunk off my face. So that the entire town won’t hunt me down for kisses.

  “Ryker! Gage! Your love charm was no competition for Metamorphosis,” he said, jogging to the other side of the stage where Heartwrench’s love charm for Sanders had gone largely unnoticed. The broken vacuum had been repaired and charmed into acting like a doting mother, pinching and prodding Sanders into “first date” material. The vacuum had pulled off his stained baking apron, steamed his wrinkled shirt collar, and taken a comb to his scraggly hair.

  But when it came to makeovers, Hijiri’s combination of charmed makeup had the town in a frenzy.

  Bram shielded Hijiri with his body when some of the men broke through the police’s grip. “I think you’d better leave the stage,” he s
aid.

  Hijiri nodded and ran for the back of the stage. The platform was tall enough to hide her when she slid to the ground, covering her face and breathing through her nose.

  The audience slowly began to settle down again on the other side. She heard footsteps and her name being softly called by Ken. “Found you,” he said, breathless.

  She gingerly took her hands away from her face. “Don’t look,” she said.

  Ken’s eyes darkened with desire; he struggled to tear his gaze away from her lips. “I can’t pretend I’m immune to Metamorphosis’s charms,” he said thickly. “I want to kiss you so bad right now, but I know that’s the last thing you want.” He dug through his pockets. “What you want,” he said, “are these.” Damp makeup remover pads.

  “Where did you get those?”

  “Fallon.”

  Hijiri shook her head. “Always prepared.”

  “Hold still,” he said, leaning in close. Ken cupped her face with his left hand, then rubbed the first makeup remover pad against her lips.

  Hijiri held her breath while he worked, trying not to think about the firm pressure of the remover pad and how it made her feel too warm for a chilly October morning.

  “How many layers did she put on?” Ken muttered, rubbing harder. When the purple gloss stained every inch of the remover pad, he returned to her lips with a fresh one. Gradually, the smoldering behind his eyes faded. “There’s Hijiri,” he said with a sweet smile. “Hi.”

  Her heart wanted to say hi back, bumping against her rib cage to meet him, but she held it back. Hijiri took the remaining remover pads and wiped off the rest of the makeup until she was sure her whole face was red and shiny clean.

  Just in time to hear the audience decide that Metamorphosis earned its win for the second challenge.

  “Well-deserved,” Bram said thinly, “if not a terrifying experience for all of us. I thought I was going to get trampled.”

  Hijiri curled her hands into fists and sighed.