A Clatter of Jars

by Lisa Graff

  “When are you going to put the bracelet on?”

  Renny startled at his brother’s voice.

  “None of your business,” he told Miles, his hands beginning to fidget again.

  “If you put it on now,” Miles said, “then you could use it at dress rehearsal tomorrow.”

  Renny searched his brother’s face. “Are you mad at me?” he asked.

  “You have to put the bracelet on,” Miles said, his voice as flat as if he were reciting Talent history. “You earned it.”

  No matter how hard Renny pressed his hands into his sides, they still kept fidgeting. “It was only water,” he whispered to Miles, when the lodge lights had dimmed and the movie had started. “You can’t be mad at me, because it was only water.”

  Spinach.

  The memory hit Renny hard, and it tasted rancid, like spinach that had sat too long in the refrigerator.

  He’d been young, Renny remembered, scratching the turned-spinach memory. A toddler. He’d wandered through a gate, toward a sparkling swimming pool.

  Sputtering-and-gagging-and-coughing-and-screaming. Renny pressed his hands hard against his sides as he tasted the rest of the memory. Willed his heart to slow in his chest.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me you almost drowned?” he asked his brother. It was Miles’s memory he’d gotten, Renny was sure of it. “Why didn’t you tell me that’s why you’re afraid of water?”

  Miles didn’t answer. In the darkness, Renny watched his brother’s sleeping bag rise and fall with breath, and he rolled the turned-spinach memory over and over. Scratch scratch. He pressed his hands into his sides to stop them from fidgeting.

  It wasn’t until he was on the edge of sleep that it occurred to Renny to wonder how Miles had given him his memory, after his Recollecting Talent had been Coaxed to someone else.

  • • •

  Deep in the night, Renny awoke. The lodge was still except for the gentle breathing of sleeping campers. The jar in Renny’s pocket poked his hip. All was exactly as it had been when Renny had drifted off to sleep. All but Miles.

  Miles was gone.

  Chuck

  CHUCK PULLED A PILLOW OVER HER HEAD, SHIFTING TO face the wall. She was finding it difficult to sleep, with the harmonica on the bedside table gleaming in the moonlight.

  Ellie had said that everyone was mad at her for Coaxing their Talents. But Ellie was mad at Chuck for not Coaxing hers. And then there was Lily, who’d practically begged to have her Talent trapped away forever.

  Chuck smushed the pillow harder against her head. As soon as the sun rose, she decided, she was going for a good, long swim. A dip in the lake ought to make her feel better.

  Renny’s Orange Cream Smoothie

  a drink reminiscent of quiet nights on empty piers

  FOR THE SMOOTHIE:

  1 cup fresh-squeezed or store-bought orange juice

  1 tsp freshly grated orange zest—less than 1 orange (optional)

  1 large banana, frozen (see Note)

  1/2 cup plain yogurt

  1 tsp vanilla

  Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor, and blend until smooth. Serve immediately.

  [Serves 1]

  NOTE: To freeze bananas, peel them, then store them inside a plastic ziplock bag in the freezer for several hours or overnight. This is a great use for overripe or mushy bananas.

  Renny

  RENNY STOOD ON THE PIER ABOVE LAKE ATROPOS, PRESSING his hands into his sides to stop the fidgeting. It hadn’t been difficult to slip out the back kitchen door of the lodge. Judging from the Caramel Crème wrappers littering the kitchen floor, it was precisely how Miles had escaped, too.

  Renny reached into his pocket and pulled out the jar from Jo’s office. Darlington Peanut Butter, that’s what was embossed on the bottom in curving letters. The yellow Talent bracelet shifted this way and that as Renny brought the jar to his nose, still unable to decipher the inky smear of letters on the label.

  Renny stared down into the black water, lit only by the white globe of the moon. Fifty yards away on the pebbly shore, Renny heard a clattering noise, but he couldn’t make out the source.

  Miles had told him to put on the Talent bracelet. To claim the prize he’d earned. Renny should do it. He knew he should.

  But he didn’t.

  Gripping the jar tight in his fidgeting hands, Renny pushed a thought to the very front of his mind. Miles may have lost his Talent for Recollecting at the campfire, but Renny knew someone had gotten it. And perhaps that someone would be able to pluck the memory out and pass it along to his brother, wherever he was.

  You were never a disappointment to me, Renny thought. The memory was cool and thick and sweet, like orange juice. Remember THIS.

  Renny flung the jar into the lake.

  • • •

  As Fate would have it, the small glass jar with the yellow bracelet that Renwick Fennelbridge hurled into Lake Atropos did not sink to the bottom entirely undisturbed. On its way down, the jar struck a large black stone.

  The stone dislodged the jar’s lid, and the bracelet settled itself among a patch of weeds, the treasure it had been holding in its woven threads seeping into the surrounding water.

  Anyone who happened upon the scene—although of course no one would ever happen upon such a scene, not at the bottom of a lake—might have realized that the composition of the lake was shifting. It transformed quickly, before the sun edged its way back into the sky the next morning. Anyone who happened upon the scene might have said that it would be much too dangerous to swim in such compromised waters.

  And anyone who happened upon the scene—well, anyone with a Talent for discerning smudged text—might just have been able to decipher the inky smear of letters written on the jar’s lid.

  COAX.

  But, of course, no one saw.

  Lily

  LILY AWOKE WITH A START.

  By the time she’d made her way to the lodge for the slumber party, Max and Hannah had already picked sleeping spots, and the only place left for Lily was half wedged between the refreshment table and a stack of chairs. Every time she’d tried to talk to her brother, he’d said he was exhausted—even though he was gulping down punch like a person with plenty of energy. So Lily hadn’t gotten a chance to tell him about Coaxing her Talent into the harmonica.

  Orange juice, Lily thought, rolling over the memory that had jerked her awake. Cool and thick and sweet. But just as she thought she’d snagged the memory, it fluttered away again, clearly not meant to stick to her.

  Lily blinked once, then twice, then fell back to sleep.

  Renny

  MILES WASN’T IN THE EQUIPMENT SHED. HE WASN’T behind the archery targets. He wasn’t at the camp store. (Although he’d been there, Renny could tell, because every last case of Caramel Crèmes was empty, and five bills poked out from underneath the register.)

  Renny searched and searched, deep into the night, but his brother was nowhere to be found.

  When Renny couldn’t think of a single new place to look, he headed to Cabin Eight and curled up on Miles’s empty mattress on the bottom bunk. Pressing his palms hard into his sides to stop the fidgeting, he fell asleep, his eyes wet with tears.

  He’d never felt more like a disappointment.

  Jo

  JO WOKE WITH A CRICK IN HER NECK, WRENCHING HER head from her desk. She’d fallen asleep practicing her new Talent—tugging memories from campers as they watched their movie on the lodge floor. She’d wound the recollections around her fingertips like cobwebs, sampling their varied flavors before flicking them away.

  As the first hints of morning shone their way through the office window, Jo switched on her radio, hoping to clear the fog from her mind. The station was just gearing up for a weekend marathon of El Picaflor’s most popular hits, in antici
pation of his newly extended tour dates.

  Jo let the melancholy lullaby sweep her away. One short day, she told herself, allowing her chest to fill with hope. In one short day, Jenny would forget everything, and they’d once more be a family.

  Los golpes en la vida

  preparan nuestros corazones

  como el fuego forja al acero.

  “Come in!” Jo replied to the knock on the door. It was Del, carrying a large wicker basket. Behind him on the lodge floor, the campers still dozed in their sleeping bags. “Out with it,” she said, noticing his sheepish grimace.

  “I went to get the jars you asked for,” Del said. He lifted the basket, seeming to mistake Jo’s groggy blinking for confusion. “From the lake? Last night you said I had to get them first thing?”

  Jo peered inside the basket, which contained fewer than ten jars. “Where are the rest of them?”

  “Yeah. I sort of”—Del winced, as though anticipating a strike—“tripped? And most of the jars sort of . . . smashed?” He drew the basket before him like a shield. “These were the only ones that didn’t break.”

  “Put them over there,” she told Del, gesturing to the completely empty shelves behind her. That Fennelbridge boy had clearly taken all of her Talents last night, instead of the one she’d offered, but at the moment, Jo’s happiness left little room for fury.

  Del set the basket on the floor. “What are they for, if you don’t mind my asking? Some kind of arts-and-crafts project, or . . . ?” He plucked up a jar, inspecting it. “And why were they in the lake?”

  One short day. The smile that twitched itself onto Jo’s face felt unfamiliar. She clanked three jars out of the basket. “You realize your shoes are untied,” she said, by way of changing the subject.

  “I still can’t seem to do it,” Del replied. “It’s like the memory got lifted right out of my brain.”

  “I bet I can help with that,” Jo said. She was feeling generous this morning. Nestling the last jar beside its brothers on the shelf, Jo began flicking her fingers—flick-flick-flick-flick-flick!—feeling around for a shoe-tying memory from one of the campers sleeping in the lodge. It should have been an easy enough thing to retrieve.

  She found nothing.

  “I am pretty exhausted,” Jo said, mostly to herself.

  Del nodded. “It’s only six-oh-two and thirty-one seconds.” He tapped the side of his head. “I got Molly’s Talent for time-telling.”

  “Ah,” Jo responded, only half listening.

  “You’re going to get Chuck to swap everything back first thing this morning, right? Because we have dress rehearsal today, and, well, in the mornings I like to freeze my coffee so the cream is a little slushy, and all Daria’s doing with my Talent is making punch snowballs, so—”

  Jo was still searching the lodge for a shoe-tying memory. Still coming up short. “Sorry?” she said.

  “Is it too early to grab Chuck from the infirmary?” Del asked. “So she can swap our Talents back?”

  “Sure,” Jo said, attempting to blink herself awake. “Sure, go get Chuck.”

  No sooner had Del left the office than the phone on Jo’s desk jerked to life. Jo snatched the receiver from its base.

  “The Talents are wearing off,” Caleb informed her, without so much as a hello.

  “Caleb, I don’t have time for this.” Out of habit, Jo patted her sweater pocket and, horrified, discovered that Grandma Esther’s harmonica wasn’t there. “You can save your tricks.” She tugged open the top drawer of her desk. Not there. “I’m not lowering my prices.”

  “This isn’t a trick, Jo,” Caleb replied. “I’m telling you this as your friend.”

  Jo yanked open the middle drawer. Nothing.

  “It’s been less than three weeks since I got that lock-picking Talent,” Caleb went on. “And I can hardly unlock a door with a key.”

  The next drawer down. Nothing.

  “I told myself I must be coming down with something, because Danny put on his bracelet for the first time this past Thursday, and I swear, he could’ve spotted a lump of coal in a chimney at midnight—the Talent was that good. This morning? Jo, I’d be surprised if any new Talents stuck around longer than a few hours.”

  Jo slammed the last drawer closed. “No,” she told Caleb. “I can’t have lost it. I need it.” But suddenly it wasn’t the harmonica she was worried about.

  “My clients are angry, Jo. They’re practically sharpening their pitchforks. I’ll do what I can so they don’t come demanding their money back, but I can’t buy any more Talents from you. I’m sorry.”

  Another knock on the door.

  “I have to go.” Jo hung up the phone. “What?” she sneered when she whipped the door open.

  It was Del again, out of breath and clutching Grandma Esther’s harmonica.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Jo exclaimed, snatching the instrument from him. She flipped it end over end, savoring the familiar coolness of the steel, its sharp corners. “I think you were right, Del,” she said. “We should have Chuck swap back the Talents as soon as possible.” Someone in that lodge had gotten Miles Fennelbridge’s Recollecting Talent. And perhaps Jo’s copy of it had worn off—but why Mimic something when you could have the thing itself Coaxed right into you? “Have her come straight to my office as soon as she’s up.”

  For the first time, Jo noticed that the grimace had returned to Del’s face.

  “Chuck wasn’t in the infirmary,” he told her. “Nurse Bonnie said she must’ve slipped out this morning.”

  The fury inside Jo boiled quickly. “Well then, what are you doing here?” she shouted. “Go find her! I want you back by noon on the dot with that girl!” Del went scurrying beneath the moose head and down the lodge steps. “On the dot, you hear me?” she called after him. “You think you can manage that, time-teller?”

  With the last ounce of her rage, Jo whipped the radio from the wall, robbing Juan’s song of its grand finale, and hurled it toward the window. But she missed her target. As the shelves collapsed on one another, the glass jars smashed to the floor, their useless Talents escaping in a whirl of dust.

  One short day. Jenny would arrive in one short day.

  Jo clutched her harmonica, taking stock of the scene on the lodge floor. Rows and rows of campers and counselors, snoring in their sleeping bags. Somewhere among them was a Talent for Recollecting. And fortunately, Jo possessed the exact tool to find it.

  Jo pulled the harmonica to her lips and began to play, sweeping the notes across the room. Searching, searching . . .

  Los golpes en la vida

  preparan nuestros cora—

  She saw no colors. Instead, Jo lifted hundreds of sleeping bags—with hundreds of snoring bodies inside—two feet into the air.

  As Jo halted her song, the campers and counselors of Camp Atropos all smashed to the ground. The room was filled with the startled “oh!”s and “ouch!”s of children lurching into consciousness.

  Jo examined the harmonica. It was Grandma Esther’s, all right. Well used and well loved, silver, scuffed, and slightly dented at one end.

  But it had been altered somehow.

  “Campers!” Jo greeted the group, clapping her hands around the instrument. She foisted a smile onto her face. “How about we stretch our new Talent muscles, hmm?”

  Jolene Mallory had been running a summer camp, in one form or another, for a long time. And if there was one thing she’d learned, it was that when things didn’t turn out as expected, you needed to improvise.

  Somewhere in the midst of that lodge was the very Talent Jo needed. (It wasn't, but Jo didn't know that yet.) So if she couldn’t find it—Jo raised the harmonica to her lips once more—then she’d simply have the campers hunt for it themselves. Aiming her gaze at the moose head keeping guard above the double doors, Jo played her song once more. The animal plu
mmeted down, sending a thunderous shiver across the lodge floor, blocking the room’s main entrance and—more important—its exit.

  “It’s time for a little rehearsal,” Jo announced.

  • • •

  In her haste, Jo forgot to ask Del about his mail run the previous evening.

  In his, he failed to mention the letter currently stuffed in his back pocket.

  Chuck

  AS THE FIRST RAYS OF SUNLIGHT NUDGED THEIR WAY between the trees’ needles, Chuck strolled down the dirt path toward the sparkling waters of Lake Atropos. She kicked off her Kelly-green high-tops as soon as she reached the pier. Still in her infirmary pajamas, Chuck leapt for the water, dunking herself toes to hair. The water was both bone-chilling and delightful at once.

  It didn’t feel a bit, she would note later, as though the lake were Coaxing away every last stitch of her Talent.

  Lily

  “SO YOU’RE NOT EVEN TALKING TO ME NOW?” LILY GRUMBLED at her brother. They were sitting on two of the folding chairs that had been set up in the lodge. On the stage before them, Jo was calling up campers and counselors one by one. “Try on your new Talent for size!” she’d tell them. “Show off what you can do!” Then, with help from the audience, the person would attempt to deduce whose Talent he’d been given, and Jo would make a notation on her clipboard and declare, “Lovely! Lovely! Next!”

  This was clearly not a typical dress rehearsal. Jo was looking for something.

  “I just can’t believe you put your Talent in an Artifact,” Max said, his arms across his chest. “Why would you do that? You know you can’t ever get it back.”

  “I did it for you!” The words practically exploded out of her. “So you’d . . .”

  So you’d like me again. That’s what Lily had been about to say. So you’d like me better than her. But as soon as they met her lips, the words seemed silly, and she couldn’t bring herself to push them out. “Jo’s calling someone new,” she said instead. And then she noticed who the someone was.