“Did it break?” Katrine remembered the snakes. She’d only seen them once, when she was ten, in 1985. She shivered at the memory of their rasping, reeking takeover of the town. Most people stayed inside, if they could. How could Katrine have forgotten about that unique Faith Falls weirdness? She vaguely remembered being told the snakes came every twenty-five years, or maybe she’d dreamed that.
“What?”
“The painting.” Katrine pointed at it. “Is the glass okay?”
“It’s fine.” Heather hung it back on the wall, adjusting the edges. “So, you want the job or not?”
Katrine hesitated. For four weeks, almost to the day, she’d been fighting the gray sloth that wanted to keep her in one spot and force her to remember. She’d stayed in motion out of habit, but she had no illusions about what activity would get her. She’d still be here. Adam would still be gone.
“Kat? You want the job or not?”
Katrine leaned closer to the weak pilot light still flickering inside her. A strong gust, and it’d be gone. She cupped her hands to shelter it. “I’ll get you the article.”
The Catalain Book of Secrets: Alteration
Change for good and change for bad feel the same, at first. They both hurt, and the harder you hang on, the longer the pain draws out. A basic trinity spell is the best remedy for the discomfort of flux.
First, select three stones. They should fit in your palm, and when held, they should ignite a sensation in the part of you that hurts—throat (indicates you aren’t being understood or aren’t understanding), heart (indicates you’ve been misused), or belly (means someone tried to steal your strength). Don’t worry if the rocks aren’t pleasing to your eye. Feel them.
After you’ve chosen your stones, gather a small pouch, a candle, and some sage, if available. (Plain dried grass and cinnamon powder will suffice if not.)
Find a quiet spot outdoors. Burn sage or your cinnamon-dusted grass. Inhale deeply as it burns.
Then, turn three circles, like a dog ready to nap, until you figure out which direction you want to face.
After you’ve decided, sit down, cross-legged. Put one stone on each side of you and one behind you, all within arm’s reach.
Place the candle in front. Light it.
Close your eyes and think about how holding those stones made you feel, and tell yourself you’re grateful for the change in your life, whatever it is (Even if you don’t mean it. Especially if you don’t mean it.)
Reach past your throat, your heart, and your gut, right to your glorious spirit, and ask for some balance and clarity. Sit with that for as long as you’re comfortable, then place all three rocks in your pouch, tie it and seal it with the wax from the candle before wrapping the pouch in a bit of cloth that makes you smile.
Sleep on that package for three nights.
When you awake on the fourth morning, you’ll feel the itch of healing begin. Unwrap then unseal the bag.
Display the rocks where you can see them, and when you look at them, remember that itch of healing. It’ll grow stronger every day.*
*Because here’s the splendid truth: it doesn’t matter if you make a wrong choice or a right choice, as long as you take action, because all change is good. (Of course, knowing that is one thing. Believing is a whole other matter.)
Chapter 13
Jasmine
Two days after she’d fed store-bought cherry pie to her sister, Jasmine found herself on the other side of the bricked-over tunnel entrance in the basement of her home. Growing up, the root cellar shelves of the Queen Anne had been stacked with vegetables, salsas, and jellies canned by Jasmine’s own hand. The single bare bulb would glitter off the jeweled purple of the grape jam, or the quart jars of tomatoes so red you’d smell spicy summer just looking at them. She remembered all the food stores making her feel safe, and proud.
Here, in her box house, the basement was a family room with faux wood-paneled walls and a rough carpet that smelled faintly of wet. She’d wanted the wood paneling to cover the brick of the tunnel, too, but Dean had broken three drill bits trying. She settled for having him install a book case in front of it and filling the shelves with porcelain knick knacks.
She normally came to this wall to dust, but today, a sound had brought her here. It was faint, but loud enough for her to hear it from the living room where she’d been ironing. She’d padded downstairs, first thinking it was the hum of the air conditioner she was hearing. She’d reached the bottom step before she’d remembered that Dean had disconnected the wheezing air conditioner last fall and never gotten around to hooking it back up before he’d left her.
She cocked her head, trying to figure out where else the noise could be coming from. She was drawn to the brick wall. The sound was low, almost below the level of hearing, but the closer she stepped toward the wall, the louder it became. She pushed aside two porcelain piglets so she could stick her ear against the cool brick. Yes. A hissing, she was sure of it, like air leaving a tire.
I will take your power when the snakes rise.
The words the man had whispered in her ear rose, unbidden, icing her blood, and just as quickly, with the help of decades of habit and medication, she squelched them, and the sick thud of her heartbeat. She wouldn’t let that secret eat her, and she wouldn’t infect anyone else by sharing it with them. She would bury it again and a million times more if she had to.
Kids, playing in the tunnels. It must be, though she’d never heard any sound from there before. She made a sideways fist and pounded the brick. The noise was swallowed by the dusty stone, and, as if to mock her, the hissing grew louder.
“Hey!” she yelled.
Tara came to the top of the stairs. She was holding a book in one hand, her finger marking her page. She was wearing gray sweats and a Guess t-shirt that Jasmine had bought at Goodwill. “Yeah?”
Jasmine stepped back from the wall. Why was her heart beating so fast? “Nothing. I…I was just cleaning.”
Tara shrugged and disappeared. Jasmine returned the two pink pigs to the shelf, one balancing on its two front legs, the other a swollen, milking sow, its eyes comically wide as if to say how’d this happen? Jasmine hadn’t intended to collect ceramic pigs, but ever since she’d picked up a salt-and-pepper piglet set at a garage sale the year after Tara was born, Dean had decided that pigs are what he would buy for her whenever an occasion called for a gift. And she’d decided she loved them.
Jasmine kept her hands on the shelf. The murmuring sibilance had stopped, but she still felt shaky, threatened. She forcibly relaxed her shoulders and told herself it was okay that she’d agreed to let Helena and Xenia take Tara to dinner and then the movies tonight. She shouldn’t have let Helena talk her into it, shouldn’t have allowed her to plead that a family night would be great fun for Tara and that it’d be good for Katrine, too. In reality, it was neither love for her daughter nor hope for her sister that had broken Jasmine’s resolve. It was Helena saying that she’d heard Dean was coming back to town, and that he and Jasmine could have a date night if Tara went to the movies with her aunts.
Date night. Michelle Jakowski had used the term just yesterday, when she was telling Jasmine about her husband tramping around, looking for love elsewhere.
“Think he’ll be attracted to me again if we have a date night?” Michelle had asked.
“It’s worth a try,” Jasmine had replied. Michelle didn’t believe in divorce, and Jasmine thought that was a fine way to be. Date night sounded so normal. She’d had to cajole Dean, to convince him that they were meeting to talk about Tara, that she wasn’t expecting anything else from it. And that’s why tonight, she would have a date night with her husband to see if she could win her good man back, and Tara would go to a movie with her aunt and great aunts.
The doorbell’s shriek set her heart to pounding again. She forced herself to walk, not run, up the basement stairs. The front windows of the house were open to let in the sultry, late August breeze. The air smelled like nectar and
river. Jasmine scratched her nose and opened the door.
“Jasmine! Thanks so much for letting us steal your beautiful girl.” Helena beamed at her, wringing her hands in front of her banana-colored pleated dress, sewn by Xenia. Jasmine couldn’t help but return a shrunken version of that same smile. Helena had been a loving constant her whole life, a warm pillow of affection. Of course Helena still relied on the magic that Jasmine had denounced, but she was her favorite aunt nevertheless. Xenia stood behind Helena, glancing toward the church steeple, and next to her was Katrine.
“We’re going to have a wonderful time,” Helena continued, “and so are you.”
Jasmine nodded, noting that some color had returned to her sister’s cheeks, though they were far from the plump roses she remembered. She thought again of the buzz in the tunnels. It had sounded hollow and mean. “I’m sure Tara will enjoy it. PG-rated movie, no pop, okay?”
Tara appeared next to Jasmine. She was now wearing a worn purple terrycloth jumper, also from Goodwill and five years out of style. Jasmine could feel her daughter trembling, a horse ready to bolt its pen. “I’ll be fine, mom.”
Xenia raised her eyebrows. “That outfit ought to preserve her virginity.”
Jasmine grimaced. “Have her back by 10, all right?”
Tara rolled her eyes, but Jasmine could see her heart wasn’t in it. She was too busy beaming at Katrine. Jasmine shot another look at her sister. “You go to the newspaper?”
Katrine focused her gaze, and Jasmine steeled herself for the liquid tingle of her sister’s attention, but it never came.
“I’ll probably do some freelance there,” Katrine said.
“Great. Heather said she’d help you if she could.” Jasmine watched for her sister to flinch at the mention of their old rival, but it never came. It made her sad, in a distant way, that her sting hadn’t left a mark. Realizing where her thoughts had taken her, she grew even sadder. She hadn’t realized how much anger she’d stored up against Katrine for leaving all those years ago and for never before returning, even to meet Tara. She knew it was unfair. After all, she’d cast the spell that had pushed her sister. “Well, I better finish getting ready. No telling when Dean’ll get home, so I have to be prepared. I’ll take a hug, Tara.”
Tara obliged. “Thanks, Mom,” she whispered, and pecked her mother on the cheek before leading the way down the sidewalk.
Jasmine turned without another word. In the kitchen, she slid a cup of onions into a microwave-safe bowl, cooked them for three minutes to the second, and sprayed the air with honeysuckle air freshener to cover the scent. Her plan was to sneak the onions into the lasagna she was premaking for supper tomorrow. If she cooked them down now, Dean wouldn’t have a guess that they could be in his food the next day, if she could talk him into eating at home. He liked his food simple.
Kitchen clean, she returned to her ironing, the hissing in the basement forgotten.
Chapter 14
Katrine
They’d enjoyed a spicy but delicious dinner at the Great Hunan and were now in the lobby of the Hobbes, which was buzzing with patrons scrambling to buy chocolate-covered raisins and oversized sodas, smiling in anticipation of the evening’s escape. The smell of popcorn and butter oil was overwhelming and as welcome to Katrine as laughter. She followed her aunts to the candy counter but demurred when asked if she wanted anything.
“You don’t like popcorn,” Tara said, but it was a statement rather than a question.
Katrine glanced over. In the short time she’d known her niece, she’d already observed that the girl possessed her grandma’s habit of disappearing by mirroring those around her. Now she wondered if Tara was a people-reader, too. “Not the taste, but I love the smell. Reminds me of working here when I was a teenager.”
“Did you like it? Working here, I mean.”
Katrine felt a tickle at the rim of her heart. Her niece was beautiful, with her big liquid eyes and pointy chin. Katrine wanted to simultaneously protect her from the world and take her shopping for clothes that didn’t look like they had been handed down from an orphanage. “Yes, I really think I did. You work?”
“I wish. I’m only 14.”
“Don’t wish your life away.” On impulse, she grabbed her niece’s hand. The smile she received in response was radiant. With her free hand, she pointed toward theater three. “It’s filling up fast.”
A form emerged from her peripheral vision to join her aunts at the counter. It was Artemis. He was wearing a worn newsboy cap and an ironed button-up shirt in deep blue. His hands were shoved into his pockets. He nodded as if he’d planned to meet them all along. “Thought it would be a nice night to catch a movie. Care if I sit with you ladies?”
“Not at all,” Xenia said, leading the way. Artemis hung back to help Helena with her two brimming buckets of popcorn, one glistening golden and the other naked except for salt. Katrine and Tara trailed behind. They managed to find the last five seats together three rows back from the screen and strained their necks watching a modern romance where they were supposed to laugh at the woman tripping in her high heels and the man being emotionally distant but sensible.
Halfway through, Katrine found herself growing sad, and then, even worse, disconnected. She’d felt that way last night, lying in her childhood bed, disassociated and rootless, the feeling she’d hoped to escape by returning to Faith Falls. The sensation left her so anxious that she’d gone to the paint room in the basement, selected a half-used can of pine green that Ursula’d bought earlier in the summer to touch up the porch trim, and returned to her childhood bedroom in the dead of night. She pulled all the paintings off the wall, moved the furniture toward the center, lined the floor with newspaper, and started painting over the creamy walls.
Each stroke made her feel safer. The dark color kept her in the house, at least while she worked, and the acrid smell reminded her she was grounded in her body. But then the walls were painted, and she found she was still disconnected. It was terrifying, a mixture of claustrophobia in her skin and agoraphobia in the world.
And so, after painting, she’d done what she promised herself she’d never do, but the only move that promised her relief: she texted Adam. It was the first contact she’d attempted since she’d left London. She told herself it was to let him know she forgave him so she wouldn’t have to carry the burden of him anymore. Her hands shook, making it difficult to type.
Hey. It’s me. I moved home. Thinking of you. Wishing you peace.
She hit “send.” Her heart raced into her mouth and throbbed there. All the images of him that she’d been keeping at bay flooded her. Adam. No facial hair, a smile that made her thighs buzz, skin that smelled like cinnamon. They’d talk for hours, holding hands, whispering, giggling. She waited three months to sleep with him, sure this one would be different. Oh yes, it would be different. She knew this looking up at him the first night they had made love, at his glorious naked chest, his eyes closed in concentration, caressing her, whispering her name, telling her she was tight, she felt so good, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
They’d met at a photo shoot, she covering it as a staff writer for Vogue and he in charge of lighting. He’d come to her wounded, his heart sliced by a critical mother, two ex-wives, and a tour of duty serving the British Army in Iraq. She would fix it, mend it, decorate it with her toothbrush and an overnight t-shirt. She helped him enroll in the university, encouraged him to begin talking with his mom, tracked down a volunteer job for him working with veterans at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. They’d be everything for each other, no matter what. He would owe her that much, after all the help she’d given him.
Sometimes she worried she didn’t know what true love looked like or that maybe he didn’t support her dreams as much as she would like, but when his head was between her legs, it sure felt like the real thing. Make love to me, she’d cry, when she couldn’t stand it any longer.
He’d laugh, and his hot breath would send her over the edge,
shivering, quaking. He’d crawl up beside her. I was, he’d whisper in her ear, his voice husky.
Three years into the relationship, she was offered a full-time editorial position at Vogue and took it as a perfect sign that it was time to get married. She’d wanted to be a writer since her first journalism class in college. She’d assumed she’d be covering politics, or human interest stories, as those were her passions. Still, the money at Vogue was good until something better came along. She proposed. They married, small ceremony, only close friends invited, before renting a flat in West Hampstead together. The first two years of marriage had felt blissful, with the extreme highs and crashing lows she’d come to associate with love.
And four weeks ago, he’d started fucking her intern, a pretty Asian girl named Lucy whom Katrine had taken under her wing. At least, Katrine had discovered the affair four weeks ago. It could have been going on for months. She’d discovered her husband in Lucy’s flat when she stopped by with soup and tea. Lucy had called in sick for work, had only lived in London for eight months and didn’t know anyone, was flat-bound. Or so Katrine had thought.
The true horror of it was that Adam wasn’t a bad person. Or maybe the horror of it was that she could still make herself believe that, and that most days, she wanted him back. He wasn’t the first. Her past was littered with the retreating backs of the emotionally stunted men who told her how beautiful and smart she was, who sucked her in, who cheated on her and then left. There was Quint, the 18-year-old stunning, sleek farmer’s son who’d taken her virginity when she was in tenth grade, and that of her best friend, Samantha, a week later. She took him back afterward, felt like a queen in his arms, loved the way he loved her body, wept for days when he skipped town with the substitute English teacher with big boobs.
The Catalain Book of Secrets Page 7
