The Book Charmer

by Karen Hawkins

  The dog, a spotted mongrel with one ragged ear, didn’t seem surprised to have been singled out. In fact, Grace thought he looked almost embarrassed. Ears down, tail hesitantly wagging, he went to the end of the porch and lay down in a spot of sun as if resigned to his fate.

  Inside, a bell dinged. “Ah. The biscuits are ready.”

  As soon as Mama Giano mentioned “biscuits,” the air was filled anew with the rich scent, as if it had been waiting inside for its cue. “I’d better get them before they burn. Come on in.” The screen door slammed behind her as she disappeared into the cool darkness of her home.

  Theo, his green eyes locked on Grace’s face, wound back and forth around her legs as she stared at the door, her heart aching in a new, unfamiliar way. She wanted so badly to believe everything she’d seen so far. That this place might really be different. That she and Hannah had finally found a place to stay that would last longer than a few months.

  Life had taught Grace that that was unlikely, even impossible, but her bones ached with how so, so much she wanted it to be true.

  Miss Wanda puffed out a heavy sigh of relief. “That went better than I’d hoped, although—” Her gaze flickered to Hannah, and she seemed on the verge of blurting out something. But after a moment’s struggle, she shook her head and forced a bright smile. “I’ll get Hannah’s bag. Grace, you can carry yours.”

  Grace left the cat and got her duffel bag, half dragging it beside her, the pot clanging against the cups. She moved slowly, lingering so that she was well behind Miss Wanda and Hannah.

  As soon as the screen door closed behind them, Grace dropped the bag and looked around. The cushioned chairs beckoned while the fluttering breeze played with the nodding flowers. The scent of bacon and biscuits made her stomach ache with something other than sadness.

  The cat sauntered around the now-dozing dog and came to sit beside Grace. He leaned against her, warm and fluffy, his orange silk fur soft against her leg. The slow twitch of his tail and the deep purr rumbling from his chest made the moment sweet.

  Grace closed her eyes and lifted her face to the spill of sunlight that slanted under the porch roof. “We are going to be okay,” she whispered.

  For once, she wasn’t saying it to make herself or Hannah feel better.

  This time, she meant it.

  Calm settled over Grace, unfamiliar and rare, yet as warm and comforting as a towel fresh from the dryer. It wrapped around her, easing her heart and softening her anger.

  It would be years before she figured out what the delicious feeling was, but every day after, she would remember it as clearly as if it were still there. For it had been in that moment there, on the porch of Mama G’s small, weathered clapboard house as it baked in the morning summer sun, a fat cat leaning against her leg, that Grace discovered what it felt like to come home.

  CHAPTER 1

  Grace

  DOVE POND, NC

  MAY 16, 2019

  “Are we there yet?” Daisy asked.

  “No,” Grace said for the eighth time, her eyes locked on the moving truck that slowly rumbled along in front of her Honda. Every side of the ancient truck bore the words MCLAREN’S YOU NEED TO MOVE WE CAN DO IT, LLC.

  Mama G, in the front beside Grace, looked over the seat at Daisy. “We just passed the ‘Welcome to Dove Pond’ sign, so it won’t be long now.”

  “We’ve been driving  forever.” Daisy slumped, twirling her ponytail with restless fingers, a habit she’d picked up during the past few difficult months.

  Daisy was a precocious child, this daughter of Hannah’s and an unknown boy from her high school. Even at the tender age of eight, Daisy was an odd, old-souled sort of kid, all elbows and knees, blurting what she thought no matter how bold or ill-advised. She was smart too, perhaps even brilliant, according to her test scores, and she could read well above her level, devouring books the way most kids her age devoured cartoons. Despite that, the child made only mediocre grades, as she was easily distracted, she and her restless mind. Just like her mother.

  Grace looked at Daisy in the rearview mirror, noting the blond hair and crystal-blue eyes. Oh, Hannah, you would be so proud of her. Grace’s throat tightened and she forced herself to focus on the truck they followed.

  Mama G looked up from her knitting to admire the large maples and elms that dotted the streets. “I love these trees.” She sighed happily, then returned her attention to the mittens she was making.

  Shortly after Grace and Hannah had come to live with Mama G, she’d taken up knitting, saying it “calmed the nerves.” Grace thought that was strange, because no one had a more peaceful spirit than Mama G. Over the years, she’d made hundreds of scarves and mittens, most of which had ended up in Grace’s room, as Hannah had never liked them.

  Grace glanced over at Mama G now. Her once-graceful hands were liver spotted and gnarled, but they never stopped moving. Normally, Mama G’s rhythmic knitting sent a flood of calm through Grace, but today it did nothing.

  Right now, everything felt useless, empty. Broken.

  Grace swallowed the lump in her throat and applied the brakes as the moving truck slowed in front of her. “We should be turning onto Elm Street soon.”

  As if in answer to her prayers, the truck’s signal flashed and the vehicle slowly turned.

  “Almost there.” Grace admired the rows of elms that shaded the road. “Our new house is at the end of this street.” New meaning “recently rented.” She silently ticked through her Things That Must Be Done list: unpack, register Daisy for school, find a caretaker for Mama G—the list seemed endless, and she winced to think about the shrinking amount left in her bank accounts. The events of the past few months had murdered her savings. But by Grace’s careful calculations, if they lived frugally over the next year, they would have enough for a down payment on a small house in Charlotte.

  The thought of returning to Charlotte calmed Grace. For the past five years, she’d worked at a large financial company in one of the city’s trendier areas. She’d been happy there and, until the craziness of the past few months, she’d never thought she’d leave.

  But she’d go back, and this time she’d take Mama G and Daisy. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would happen. She would make sure of it.

  Behind her, Daisy leaned against her window and stared at the houses rolling past. The street was long and wide, the sidewalks shaded by the towering trees. The quality of the houses perched along the way gave Grace hope. Huge and ornate, the grand old lady houses flaunted a variety of pastel colors. Windows glinting in the afternoon sunshine, they gazed at one another with sleepy, lace-fluttered windows and wide, white-trimmed porches.

  It looks like a safe neighborhood, and these houses—wow! Perhaps this will all work out. Hope blossomed, so Grace—ever cautious—tried to tamp it down, hugging her worries like a shield.

  “I like these houses,” Daisy said. “I bet they have ghosts. They look like the right kind.”

  Grace looked at Daisy in the rearview mirror and saw her niece’s nose pressed against the window glass. “There is no such thing as ghosts.”

  Her mouth instantly tight with anger, Daisy said in a sullen tone, “How would you know?”

  Grace had to clamp her mouth over a sharp reply. Just a week ago, Mama G had warned Grace to pick her battles with Daisy, and this wasn’t a hill worth dying on.

  It still hurt, though. And Grace was never sure if she was giving up some sort of authority by not reprimanding Daisy about things like tone of voice and eye rolls. I don’t know a darn thing about raising kids. Not one. Yet now, here I am.

  Until two months ago, Grace’s position in Daisy’s life had been “Favorite Aunt” and nothing else. Grace had loved being the FA, who breezed into town like Mary Poppins, beloved by everyone as she bestowed presents and took Mama G and Daisy on all sorts of fun adventures. Those were the days, she thought wistfully. But things were different now. Everything has changed.

  Daisy muttered to herself, “I li
ke ghosts.”

  Grace tightened her grip on the steering wheel. It was silly to argue about something as ridiculous as ghosts, but she didn’t want Daisy afraid to sleep at night because of every old-house thump and creak. For all of Daisy’s bravado, she was a sensitive child and suffered from her own overactive imagination.

  “Ghosts can be very nice,” Mama G said in a thoughtful tone. “The ones I’ve met were, anyway.”

  Daisy leaned toward the front seat as far as her seat belt would let her. “You’ve met ghosts? Were they—”

  “She’s joking, of course,” Grace interrupted. She wished Mama G wouldn’t encourage Daisy’s flights of fancy.

  “Mama G, tell Aunt Grace you aren’t joking,” Daisy said in a belligerent tone. “Tell her that you’ve seen ghosts.”

  Grace swallowed a sigh. Parenting was damned hard. If you weren’t being scoffed at, you were being challenged. But then again, maybe it was only difficult because she sucked at it. Part of the problem was that while she wasn’t really Daisy’s mother, Grace’d also lost her standing as the Favorite Aunt. Right now, neither she nor Daisy was quite sure what Grace was, except inexperienced.

  Loneliness swamped Grace, seeping into her soul like icy water. Growing up, no matter how badly life had treated her and Hannah, they’d had each other. Even when, at seventeen years of age, rebellious Hannah had run away, leaving four-month-old Daisy with Mama G, she’d kept in touch with Grace. Grace had been in college, neck-deep in tests and papers and fighting for her place on the dean’s list, but she’d been ridiculously grateful for Hannah’s scarce text messages and rare phone calls, even though 90 percent of them had been requests for money. Still, those tiny contacts had made Grace feel that she and Hannah were still a family. But more than that, they’d allowed Grace to pretend that things were okay. That Hannah was okay, even though she wasn’t.

  Two months and eleven days ago, Hannah had died, her life burned to a crisp by her own wild spirits. And Grace, still pretending things were “okay,” hadn’t been ready. There was a hole in her life now, one she didn’t know how to fill. Somehow, in losing her sister, she’d also lost all the hopes she’d been clinging to that, with time and love, Hannah would stop wandering the world like a lost soul, chasing dangerous men and even more dangerous thrills. That one day, she’d come home, realize how much she missed Grace and Mama G, and how special Daisy was, and she’d welcome them all back into her life. That they’d finally become the family Grace had always so desperately wanted them to be.

  Hannah’s death had left Grace aching, angry, and empty. But it was even harder for Daisy. The little girl had loved her beautiful but distant mother with an obstinate, uncritical passion. For weeks after the funeral, she’d refused to go to school, staying in bed unless forced to get up, arguing about everything with everybody. It had taken all of Mama G’s considerable influence to convince Daisy to return to her classroom. But once there, the child had been sullen and silent, ignoring her friends and teachers alike. She did no homework and when the time came to take a test, instead of answering the problems, she filled the paper with drawings of furious dragons spewing fire. Had her previous grades not been so high and her teachers so understanding, she might have failed.

  The school counselor had warned Grace that the next few months, and perhaps longer, would be difficult and that it would be normal for Daisy to continue to “act out,” at least for a while. Despite the warning, Daisy’s sudden flares of anger and her stubborn refusal to accept Grace as a parent had made a difficult situation even worse.

  But more than anyone else, Grace understood anger. What was difficult was seeing the sheer pain that lurked behind every sharp word that tumbled from Daisy’s mouth and being unable to do anything to help.

  Grace gripped the steering wheel harder, torn between a growing anger at Hannah for being so careless with herself, even though it had cost others, and also desperate to tell her how much she’d been loved. Everyone loved you, Hannah. Everyone except you.

  “Ghosts aren’t always bad, you know,” Mama G mused aloud as she pulled a length of yarn from her knitting basket.

  “Mama G, please. Don’t.”

  Mama G nodded. “I know what you’re thinking, but ghosts are nothing like the silliness people put in horror movies. Ghosts aren’t scary at all. They’re just wisps of lives gone by. Shadows, really.”

  “What do they look like?” Daisy asked before Grace could change the subject.

  Mama G stopped knitting and pursed her lips. “Sometimes they’re a faint shape. And sometimes they’re just a memory that flickers out of the corner of your eye.”

  “I’m going to meet one,” Daisy announced. “I’m going to find out how she died so I can help her find her murderer.”

  “Most ghosts weren’t murdered,” Mama G said calmly, pulling more yarn from her basket. “Most died in their sleep.”

  Grace knew what would happen now. Daisy, always too excitable, wouldn’t be able to sleep and it would be Grace, and not Mama G, who’d have to handle it. “Ghosts don’t exist,” Grace repeated firmly. “At all.” She wished the moving truck would find the house. It was barely creeping along, and she had no wish to continue this conversation.

  Mama G didn’t look up from her knitting, but said under her breath, “Well, well. Someone is in for a surprise.”

  “It’s not going to be me,” Grace said baldly. “Mama G, the likelihood of— Ah! Here we are!” Thank God. She slapped a smile on her face and was about to say something ridiculous like Welcome home! when the house came into view.

  Grace’s hopes were instantly and viciously smashed.

  Although as beautiful and gracious in design as its neighbors, the house at the end of the driveway was a faded shadow of the others. The pale lavender color was now more gray than purple, the wide porch was crooked, and much of the delightful trim she’d seen on the other houses was missing, the paint chipped and peeling. Grace was reminded of a jaded old woman wearing a faded housecoat, her worn smile marred by missing teeth.

  “I bet this house has ghosts,” Daisy said.

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s more than one,” Mama G agreed as she stored her knitting in her basket.

  Dear God, please keep me from screaming. Grace drove past the moving truck, which had pulled close to the walk, and parked her car beside a large, rusty RV that sat at the rear of the driveway near a garage with a deeply dented door. She put the car in park and stared up at the house, noting the thick moss that clung to the roof.

  Mama G patted Grace’s hand where it rested on the steering wheel. “The car’s still running.”

  “I know.” She wondered what would happen if they just stayed where they were, locked safely away. The car wasn’t large, but it was big enough to sleep in if they lowered the seats and had pillows and blankets and—

  “Look!” Daisy opened her door. “There’s a tire swing in the tree in the front yard.”

  Mama G nodded. “I saw that. You’ll have to give it a try and see how high you can swing.”

  “Daisy, wait.” Grace leaned forward and tried to see the swing. “Don’t get on it yet. I want to be sure it’s safe before you—”

  It was too late. Daisy had already jumped out and was headed for the swing.

  “I’ll get her.” Mama G climbed out of the car and started to follow Daisy but then stopped. She leaned down to look at Grace, where she sat glued in the driver’s seat. “Come inside. It may need a little work, but it’s a lovely house.”

  “It’s a wreck,” Grace said flatly.

  Mama G smiled, although it was a tired, worn effort. “Grace, I know this is difficult for you—”

  “For all of us.”

  Mama G’s gaze softened. “Right now, life isn’t fair for any of us. We’re all three mad at life, at all of this change—maybe even at Hannah.”

  Grace’s throat tightened.

  Mama G sat back in the passenger seat and placed her hand over Grace’s. “You have to let it go
. All of it—your anger, your worries, your fears. Daisy is counting on you. And, as much as I hate to add to your problems, so am I.”

  Grace grasped Mama G’s hand and squeezed it. “I owe you a thousand years of being counted on.”

  Mama G smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, I think you’re about to pay them all back at once. But we have to move forward, sweetheart. And we can’t do that if we hold on to what was.”

  “I’m not holding on to anything.”

  “Not on purpose, perhaps. But you are in other ways. And so am I, and so is Daisy. It’s tough letting go of something you only thought you had, and that’s what Hannah was—she was a maybe. A possibly. A perhaps. She knew how to make people hope that she was more than she was ever willing to be.”

  Grace didn’t think she’d ever heard a better description of Hannah. Still, it was who Hannah was, who she’d always been. Tears burned Grace’s eyes. “She never came to visit and rarely called, but I miss her. It’s so weird. It’s—” She swiped the tears from her eyes.

  “I know.” Mama G patted Grace’s hand. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  “I wish I believed that.”

  Mama G chuckled. “Always the skeptic, aren’t you? Even when you were a child. But look. We came to Dove Pond for a new start. If we decide to, we’ll find happiness here. I know we will. This town is . . . well, it’s different. And this is where we’re supposed to be. I’m sure of it.”

  Her throat too tight to answer, Grace managed a short nod, although she wished she felt sure about something—anything, really.

  Mama G sighed and pulled her hand from Grace’s. “Come in when you’re ready.” She slid back out of the car and started to straighten, but then hesitated.

  Grace’s heart sank anew at the flicker of uncertainty in Mama G’s usually serene face. It took all her strength not to let her voice break as she said softly, “You were going to see to Daisy. She went to the swing.”