The Zodiac Collector

by Laura Diamond

  Mary’s face is red. Vertical, wet tracks divide her cheeks.

  “You okay?” I ask, handing Pollux’s lead to her.

  She rubs her eyes and accepts the leash. “I hate it when they fight. I wish things were different. I wish Mom wasn’t such a…”

  “Beast?” I scuff my heels as we walk, staring at the pebbles littering the sidewalk and avoiding the cracks. I don’t believe that stepping on them really invites trouble, but why take the chance? Things are crappy enough.

  “What’s so awful about riding a horse?” Mary corrects Pollux for tugging too much on his leash, but it’s halfhearted and he goes right back to yanking her along. He knows the route to Gamma’s and I can’t blame him for wanting to get there ASAP.

  “There isn’t anything awful about it. It’s just Mom.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to live there.”

  I almost trip over my own feet. We’ve talked about getting out of the house as soon as we graduate, but she’s never brought up the idea of leaving now. “Maybe Gamma will let us stay for a while? She’s got a couple spare bedrooms.”

  “Yeah.” A small smile tugs at her lips.

  “We should ask her.”

  Gamma’s on her porch when we arrive, rocking in a rocking chair, sipping iced tea. Her big red glasses look like goggles. “Hi girls! Thought you’d be at the faire helping your father set up shop.”

  “Mom and Dad are fighting.” I flop on the floor by her feet and pat my thighs. Castor hops onto my lap and tries to French kiss me. I turn my face to the side and scratch behind his ears until he settles down.

  Gamma puckers her mouth, but says nothing.

  Mary settles down next to me. “I love my camera, Grandmother. It does so much more than my old one. Thank you.” Her eyes are a little red, but at least she’s trying to act cheerful.

  “You’re welcome, honey.” Gamma tosses her gardening magazine on the small table to her left. “What kind of pictures have you been taking?”

  “I’ve got some early shots of the faire and some of Castor and Pollux.”

  A sudden breeze comes at us from behind. My hair blows into my face and I have to use both hands to keep it back. I twist to look up at the sky. Dark clouds stream in from the south, eclipsing the pale blue.

  “Where’d that storm come from?” Gamma uses her hands to shove off the armrests and stands. She shuffles a few steps, then slowly straightens up and gains momentum. By the time she reaches the front door, she’s upright and perky. “Let’s get inside before the sky starts falling.”

  The dogs are more than happy to follow Gamma to the pantry, aka The Land of Tasty Treats. Although the kitchen is usually bright from the huge bay window over the sink, it’s so dark from the heavy clouds rolling in that Gamma turns the light on. A flash of lightning blitzes across the sky and thunder rumbles a moment later.

  Mary and I dump our book bags next to the table and slump into the chairs. Gamma joins us after doting on the pups.

  “Why the long faces? Your parents will make up. They always do.” Gamma smoothes the red gingham tablecloth with her palms.

  “I hate living there,” I blurt.

  Gamma tut-tuts. “Now come on, Anne. Your parents give you a good home and good food. They work hard and they do it for you.”

  I can’t stop myself from pouting. Gamma usually understands when I talk with her.

  Mary leans forward on her elbows. “It’s getting worse. Mom yells all the time. I’m getting sick of it too.” She hides her face in her hands. Soon, her body shakes with sobs, and small whimpers leak out of her mouth. The sky releases its stores of rain, as if crying in sympathy with Mary.

  Tears burn at my eyes reflexively. I want to reach out, wrap my arms around her, and hug the sadness away. But I don’t. A hug won’t change things. Instead, I clench my jaw and fists and sit there, mute.

  Gamma’s mouth puckers like a dying fish. Guess she can’t decide what to do or say either. Finally, she clears her throat. “Mary…”

  Mary shoots to her feet, sending her chair skittering across the floor. She drops her hands to her sides and dashes out of the room. I blink at the empty space where she just was.

  I lean forward to stand.

  Gamma points a finger at me. “Let her go.”

  “What are we supposed to do when Mom is like this?” I angle my chair to keep an eye on the doorway, in case Mary reappears. She doesn’t. The screen door hasn’t whined open or slammed shut, so I assume she’s in the house somewhere.

  “She’ll get back on her meds and things will settle down.”

  I roll my eyes. “Why does she stop them in the first place?”

  “She feels better off them.” Gamma stands and scuffles to the cupboard. She pulls out three mugs, then fills a teakettle and sets it on a burner to heat.

  I wander next to her. “Can we stay with you for a while?”

  She leans back to stare up at me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You can visit every day if you like, but you know your mom needs your help. It’s great advertising when Mary and you wear her dresses.”

  “What if we don’t want to help her?”

  “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to. Wearing the dresses will help keep the peace, don’t you think?”

  She has a point. I chew on my cheek, eating the regret of asking to stay with her. It had seemed like a solution—a way out—minutes ago. But there’s no escape from Mom. She’d come after us if we ran here. It wouldn’t be fair to Gamma.

  “Not only do we have to pick our battles, we have to choose when to have them. This is not the time to provoke your mother.”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  Gamma sighs.

  The teakettle whistles. She twists the burner knob to shut it off. I grab some mugs and tea bags—Earl Grey, so traditional—while she carries the kettle to the table and sets it on a potholder.

  “When we graduate, we’re moving away and never coming back.” I add three heaping spoonfuls of sugar to mine and stir, watching the swirls of steeping tea infect the clear water. I breathe in the bitter scent of bergamot. Reminds me of stuffy sitting rooms, pipes and cigars, and stale, hot summer days.

  Gamma squirts some fake lemon juice in her cup. “So you’d leave your Gamma?”

  My stomach clenches. “I don’t want to leave you, but I can’t stay here. Not with her.”

  “Your mother loves you. Her illness makes it difficult for her to show it.”

  I want to bite back that it’s a lame excuse. She has the chance to stay well by taking her meds and she chooses not to. She chooses mania over us.

  “It’s not her fault she has bipolar disorder, Anne. She didn’t ask for it.”

  “But it is her fault that she isn’t taking the lithium.”

  Her lips pucker again. After a long moment, she says, “Have you been studying the Zodiac spellbook?”

  I blow on the tea. The surface ripples. “Yep. I want to practice, but Mary’s not interested.”

  “Have you been dabbling in the chants already?” She dips her tea bag in and out of the water, then discards it on her spoon.

  I slurp a scalding mouthful and choke. “What? No.”

  She squints. “I’m no fool, Anne Devans. This is an unnatural storm. Came out of nowhere. You’ve woken the Gemini twins, haven’t you?”

  “No.” At least, I don’t think I have.

  “The storm came up when you said their name. Mary’s upset. Emotions can be a trigger.” Gamma lists off her proof.

  Weird. I’ve said their names before without anything happening…except. I cringe. Last night’s spell was different. The stardust. My throat goes dry. But Mary said their names not me.

  “How’d you do it?” Gamma keeps pushing.

  “I didn’t!”

  She leans over the table, her googly eyes bigger than those of most anime characters. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “Gamma…” My stomach claws its way up my chest. If I don’t keep my
mouth clamped shut it might shoot out and skid across the floor.

  “How?”

  I suck on my lips. I have to come clean and tell her what I know. “Mary and I chanted and all hell broke loose in our room. I thought I’d messed up. Then I tried to chant by myself using some stardust a lady at the faire gave me. It was totally weird. The candle just disappeared!” I flail my arms. Like it even remotely demonstrates what happened.

  Gamma’s eyes widen. “What do you mean, ‘disappeared?’”

  “I don’t know how, but it went poof. It was gone, like it never existed.”

  She slides her glasses to the tip of her nose and stares at me over the rim. “You said someone gave you stardust?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t real. It was some silly faire stuff. You know, fake.” I nod as if I’ll convince myself, despite what I saw.

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “Like I said, some old lady.”

  “Did she tell you her name?” She eases into her seat, but the intensity of her doesn’t lessen, not one drop. It’s like she believes the dust is real.

  But it couldn’t be. So what if a candle disappeared? It was dark and I lost my bearings during the weird blackout… Maybe the candle rolled off the porch. I never went looking for it after all.

  “Spit it out, girl.” Gamma waves her hand, urging me to spill the details.

  “Mary and I were in the woods at the faire and this old lady came up to us. She brought us to her shoppe and gave us a bottle of stardust.” I draw the bottle out of my pocket and show Gamma. “Said her name was Zeena.”

  “She new to the faire?”

  “I think so. Never seen her before.”

  She grabs the bottle from my hand and holds it up to the light. Bits of hard wax cling to the neck and cork. Gamma shakes it, jostling the glitter inside. “Hmmph.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me everything you know about this woman.”

  I review all the details I can remember. The way she embodied her role as sorceress. The way she coveted her astrological trinkets. The way she sniffed around Mary and I about our Zodiac signs.

  “She was really interested in the Zodiac, eh?” Gamma slams the bottle down in front of me. “What possessed you to use this?”

  I stiffen. “I didn’t think it’d actually do anything.”

  “What was your chant?” An uncharacteristic hardness flows into her eyes, similar to Mom’s when she’s about ready to blow. Have I woken another dragon?

  No, not Gamma. She’s sweet and kind and gentle and always understands.

  “Anne. Spill it.” There’s nothing sugar and spice about her tone.

  I dip my head and pick at a hangnail. “It isn’t the kind of thing you want to tell your grandmother about.”

  “Anne.”

  I suck in a breath and confess. “William and I, well, we’ve been best friends forever and things are changing. I really like him and I chanted for Cast—”

  Gamma snaps her fingers to stop me. “Don’t say their names.”

  “I chanted for a way for William and me to be…more than friends.”

  Gamma closes her eyes and sighs. “Oh, honey, you don’t have to do that. William is such a nice boy. And you’re a wonderful girl. You don’t need magick to bring you closer. That’ll happen all on its own.”

  The waves of embarrassment beating me finally decide to recede. A smile teases my mouth.

  She pats the table in front of the chair Mary was sitting in, motioning for me to move there. “You should’ve waited to chant until I taught you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I trace a finger around the rim of my mug. “I’ve really blown it, huh?”

  “Hopefully not. Anything you chant for will be shortlived. Seems you’ve invoked the twins, but if you leave it alone for a while, they should fade away.” Her words are strong and confident, but the way she tugs at the hem of her shirt makes me wonder.

  “Are you sure?”

  She drops her shirt and pats my hand. “Of course I’m sure. Your Gamma knows magick and she knows the book. Don’t you worry.”

  Who else do I have to trust but Gamma? She’s the one who brought magick into my life. As far as I’m concerned, she’s an expert. Relief tries to shine down on me like the sun on a winter day, but it doesn’t warm me. We still haven’t made sense of Zeena. “So you think that dust has some magickal properties?”

  Gamma’s cheek twitches. She stares at the bottle for a full minute. “Probably not. Best not to use it again though, just in case.”

  “I thought Zodiac magick was rare. What are the odds of this lady practicing it?”

  “Hard to say. You said she had pendants of the Zodiac signs?”

  “Most of them. Some were missing.”

  “Which ones?”

  I close my eyes, constructing a snapshot of that day. “She didn’t have Gemini or Libra. Another one was missing too.” I open my eyes and tap my chin. “Aries, that’s the one.”

  “She’s collecting them.”

  “It’s not that hard to find pins. You’d think she’d have tons of them, considering she’s a vendor.”

  Gamma pours some water into the third mug and adds a tea bag. “Let’s see how Mary’s doing. Carry this for me.”

  I follow her down the hallway, careful not to drop any tea. “What about the spellbook? When will you teach me?”

  Gamma shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to teach you about magick yet. Hopefully, the twins’ power will fade quickly and this’ll all be over.”

  “But Gamma…”

  “I told you not to mess around with it and what do you do? You chant without any instruction whatsoever, then you use stardust…”

  “You said it probably wasn’t real.”

  “That’s beside the point. Chanting is real and you disobeyed me, after giving your word that you wouldn’t.” Her gaze pierces me with disappointment.

  “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

  “That’s right, you won’t. I want you to bring the book back to me tomorrow. No more magick.” She takes off again.

  The bottle of stardust sits on the table. I should leave it, forget about it, fake or not. But I can’t. Especially since I have to return the book and give up practicing magick on my own.

  Birthday gift: Revoked. Disappointment level: Achieved.

  I need a consolation prize. With a shaky hand, I reach out, pluck the bottle off the table, and stuff it into my pocket before heading off to find Mary and Gamma.

  Mary’s sitting on the couch in the living room, her legs drawn up to her chest. She’s not crying, but she looks how I feel—gutted.

  Chapter Ten

  I promise to bring the spellbook to Gamma after class tomorrow, so naturally I prepare to pull an all-nighter studying it.

  After Mary falls asleep, I sneak downstairs, brew a ridiculous amount of coffee, grab a bag of chips and chocolate candies, and pack my book bag. The spellbook is already tucked inside, along with candles, matches, and the stardust. I’m not going to use any of it, but the items are a sort of security blanket, considering I’ll have to give up my most bestest birthday gift ever in less than twenty-four hours.

  The door to Mom’s study is closed and it’s quiet. Maybe she’s sleeping. Could last a couple hours, could last fifteen minutes. I need to make my getaway ASAP or risk incurring the dragon’s wrath.

  With my stuffed book bag on my back and my arms full with a blanket, Thermos, and flashlight, I creep outside and make my way to the faire grounds. I can’t think of a better way to study the book than on the hallowed land of my childhood adventures and dreams. The air is different there, as if permeated with the souls of 18th-century merchants, knights, princes and princesses, and fairies.

  The night is cool and the moon is bright. I almost don’t need my flashlight, but use it anyway to cross the street. Headlights appear at the bend in the road. The whoosh of speeding tires and a purring engine passing interrupts the squeaky
chirp of crickets and burping croaks of frogs.

  I slip under the chain that blocks the entrance and cut between two tents that’ll be used for face painting and henna tattooing. At the jousting arena, I lay out the blanket and unpack. A candle goes in each corner and I sit in the center with the book and a notebook on my lap. I prop the flashlight on top of my bag, angling it to illuminate the book, and settle in to read.

  First, I jot down notes on each Zodiac symbol, then I focus in on air sign chants and Gemini chants. After that, I search for Libra spells, which mostly call for balance and peace. Would be nice to try them on Mom. Might keep arguments to a minimum. Since Gemini and Libra are both air signs, maybe William and I can practice chanting together, since Mary doesn’t want anything to do with it.

  It’s three o’clock before I stop to stretch and finish off the last of my coffee. The chocolate is gone and half the chips are left. My back pops and I groan, rubbing stiffness out of my neck. Time to call it a night.

  A layer of dew molds itself to the grass and my shoes squeak as I walk. I hop over to the path and focus on the crunch of stones under my soles.

  Snap! Something cracks in the woods. It’s followed by a quick rustle of leaves.

  I halt and peer into the trees. Two golden orbs blink at me and I yelp, swinging the flashlight. A web of tree branches is all I see. No eyes.

  I swallow the lump in my throat and scurry on, telling myself it’s only an animal.

  The rustle matches me.

  I halt.

  It stops.

  I walk a few steps.

  The noise picks up again.

  I whip the flashlight back and forth.

  “Anne.” It’s a whisper, nothing more. So soft, I have to wonder if it’s my imagination.

  “Who’s there?” I call. My voice is shaky and weak.

  “Annnnne.”

  My heart drums a frenzied beat, launching adrenaline throughout my system. “W-what do you want?”

  A malicious hiss responds.

  Sparks of fear jolt my nerves, leaving an electric fire in their wake. It fuels my body. I thrust forward at full speed, digging my heels in the ground with each strike. The stretch of muscle over bone and burn of air rushing in and out of my lungs drags me down. I’m breathless by the time I reach the road, but I don’t let that stop me. I take a hit from my puffer and keep on running.