The Catalain Book of Secrets

by Jessica Lourey

  There is a bee, a honeybee, that tries to whisper to Jasmine when she turns to knead the bread dough. She fans it away. She is complete in the kitchen, happy, her true self in the right place at the right time.

  Her soup smells so good, Velda once said, that it would raise the dead from their graves. She doesn’t know about that, but she likes the scent of the chicken bubbling in the rich, velvet broth. She is kneading the bread when her neck prickles. There is someone at the door.

  That was as much of the memory as Jasmine could bear. She let the hissing back into her brain, the keening sound that had started on the other side of her ornamental pig shelves when Katrine first returned to town. It was horrible, this sound, and it would kill her, but at least it drowned out the past. She turned her back on her cheating husband and drove home.

  Chapter 35

  Katrine

  Jasmine hadn’t returned her calls for five days. It was like she had dropped off the earth. Katrine was worried. She would have known what to do with old Jasmine. New, brittle Jasmine was different. She broke easily. Katrine didn’t want to risk that, and so she turned to something that had calmed her back when she was growing up.

  This is why she was on her knees.

  A gardening trowel, a spade, and a compost bag rested on one side of her, and Rum River ran nearby on the other. The silver water sluiced and whistled through ornate ice sculptures at its banks, reveling in the freedom of an early spring. The air smelled of thaw and hope. The ground cracked and moaned. Katrine wrote the sound off to the unusual warm-up.

  “You reclaimed the whole plot, didn’t you?” she asked no one in particular.

  Her gloved hands pulled at the fern, clearing the overgrown spot where she’d tended her own garden as a child. Growing up, she hadn’t wanted to ask Ursula for anything and certainly had no interest in letting her mom know she thought she might enjoy gardening. Rather, she’d cleared a patch by the river, where she’d had some luck growing cucumbers and watermelons. Her peas, beans, and tomatoes had never taken off.

  As a child, she would bring the successful veggies to Jasmine to cook, maybe an underripe watermelon one year, a handful of scraggly cukes the next. She liked that she had to sneak to her garden, that she was the only one who knew of its existence. The secret made her feel safe.

  The beautiful, early spring welcomed Katrine back to her little garden perched between the woods and the river behind the Queen Anne. It was too early for any sort of planting, but something about yanking at the weeds and creating order scratched at a deep itch. Her brain, which still sometimes cycled on thoughts of Adam, what he had done to her, what he was doing without her, began to empty, leaving a sweet, quiet rhythm in its wake. Pull horsetail. Scratch dirt. Get at the root of the crabgrass. Scratch dirt.

  Thoughts of Jasmine and why she hadn’t returned Katrine’s calls would enter, or the question of what she was doing in Faith Falls and how long she’d stay would flit through, but the harmony of working the soil would gently shoo them away. She was encased in the comfort of practical action, her mind empty.

  “Ursula would give you a patch of your garden if you told her you wanted it,” she said to herself out loud, in response to a breeze riffling the dried leaves still clinging to the oaks above. She heard her voice and laughed. “Who am I kidding? Ursula would shit her pants if she knew I liked gardening. Best to not get her hopes up.”

  Katrine returned to her digging.

  “Whatcha doin’?”

  Katrine jumped. She turned to see her niece standing behind her in an oversized yellow parka. She brushed dirt off her knees and glanced behind Tara. “Are you alone?”

  “Yup.” Tara tugged her cap tighter on her blonde curls. Though it was warm for March, patches of half-melted snow still littered the ground like brittle glass. “Are you gardening? Ursula’d probably let you use some of hers, you know.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “I stopped by the house, and no one was there so I came to the river.”

  “Your mom with you?”

  “She’s sleeping.”

  Katrine’s stomach dropped. “What? It’s past noon. Is she okay?”

  Tara shrugged. Her face was pinched.

  “Tara?” The child’s quiet made Katrine uneasy. The soil that moments before had felt warm and welcoming now sucked at her shoes, the cold seeping into her body.

  Tara shook her head, opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “She went shopping five days ago. She hasn’t been the same since.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She stays in bed all day. She says she hears hissing, like snakes. I got her aspirin and said she should go to the doctor. She made me promise not to tell dad. He doesn’t live with us anymore, so it’s just me and mom.”

  Katrine knew this, though Jasmine had never told her. She’d seen Dean and Jasmine growing closer, though, and had hoped husband and wife would be living under the same roof before the summer. “Hissing?”

  “She won’t shower. She won’t eat the food I bring her. I don’t even know if she drinks water.” Tara bit her lip, looking anywhere but Katrine’s face.

  Katrine pulled her niece into a hug. “Let’s go into the house, make some hot chocolate, and figure out what to do, okay?”

  She felt Tara nod, but barely over the shaking sobs the girl finally released.

  ***

  She’d gotten herself cleaned up and fed Tara some hot cocoa and cookies before driving her to the grocery store to pick up more food for her and her mom. There, they did more talking. From what she could gather, Jasmine and Dean had had a terrible fight, and it had knocked Jasmine for a loop, though Tara made Katrine swear she wouldn’t tell anyone. It was concern for her mom that had driven her to Katrine.

  When Katrine drove Tara home, her niece had insisted she not come in, had made her promise not to tell anyone else about how weird Jasmine was behaving. She said she didn’t want to betray her mom. Katrine had agreed on one condition: if Jasmine wasn’t up and around in 48 hours, Katrine would come in and drag her back into the world. This compromise seemed to relieve Tara, though it left Katrine unsettled.

  After dropping off Tara, she’d gone into the newspaper office, where Heather had handed her her latest assignment. Covering the spring Sadie Hawkins dance at the high school wasn’t the worst way to spend an evening, she figured. She was almost looking forward to it. As much as she was confused about living in Faith Falls, there was comfort here. A little bit at a time, she was finding her way back to herself, though the progress was glacial.

  “Can you spare a photographer, or do you want me to snap pics, too?”

  “Sorry. Kevin is covering a baseball game. It’s all on you. Now, get going. The dance starts in an hour, and I want shots of the decorations before the gym fills up.”

  Katrine reached for the digital camera Heather offered her. She was rekindling her love of writing through the Faith Falls newspaper, of all places. She’d reconnected with her aunts and even filled in at their store a couple times. She and Ursula had a prickly relationship, but what was new there? Jasmine was in a low spot, but the two of them had grown so much closer that Katrine was confident she could help her sister through it, once she could convince Jasmine to finally unburden herself of her terrible secret. Katrine knew what it was as confidently as she knew that Jasmine had to be the one to reveal it to set herself free. And she hadn’t texted Adam since her slip-up last fall, and was only thinking about him every other day rather than every day. The door was opening. Cracks of sunlight were streaming in.

  On her way to the dance, tooling through the streets of Faith Falls in her new-to-her raspberry-red Honda Civic with 145,732 miles on it, she observed that the early, warm spring was acting like a tonic on the townspeople. Strangers waved at her, couples held hands. It was difficult to fight the promise of life in the air, the sun’s warmth stopping to caress her cheek on its way to heat the earth, the vibrating hum of buds preparing to pop.
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  She found herself smiling when the townspeople’s unprotected squirrel thoughts came to her, sweet morsels of hope time to put in the garden I think I love her opportunity finally passion new business green. She shut off the random input of other’s brain meanderings, as she’d learned to do while still in grade school to keep herself from tipping into crazy, and pulled into the high school parking lot. The dance wasn’t set to start for an hour, so she nabbed a parking spot close to the back entrance.

  Her old high school. It was like visiting the person she used to be. Slipping through the propped-open double doors of the gym, the musky-tart smell of contact sports and industrial cleaners brought her back to the first wrestling match she’d attended. Heather had been there as well, head of the cheerleading squad. Katrine had tried to look cool, slipping out to smoke Virginia Slims that Heddy Larsen had pinched from her mom, then prancing back in lightheaded and reeking of tobacco. She’d thought life was so difficult back then. It almost made her laugh. If teenaged Katrine could see herself now, working for her worst-enemy-cum-newest-friend and scarred by battles of her own making, she’d be humbled.

  The pep squad had done a passable job decorating the gym with blue and gold streamers, the school colors. The wooden bleachers had been pushed back. Folding tables lined half of the far wall, full of sweating canned soda and bottles of water, each available for $1 as a 4H fundraiser. A DJ was setting up his booth near the soda, and a janitor was stringing up a single disco ball, a glittering uvula dangling in the warm mouth of the gym.

  “Are you here to dance?”

  Katrine pulled herself from the musty, innocuous world of memories. She was surprised to find Ren standing next to her, and even more startled to discover she was blushing. She’d thought of him more than she’d cared to admit since he’d caroled at the Queen Anne, asking Xenia and Helena about him, hoping against hope that he’d felt the same zing as she had when their eyes met, that he would maybe track her down and ask her out. He hadn’t, and she’d accepted that as her fate and even had the wisdom to be grateful. She would learn to stand on her own.

  But here he was, in his tall, sturdy glory, his soft blue eyes crinkling at the edges, his hands stuffed into his jean pockets. Part of her was screaming at her to hide, to protect herself from any potential pain. Instead, she held up her camera. “I’m here as an official representative of the Faith Falls Gazette.”

  His eyes scanned the gym. Other than the janitor’s pants riding a little lower than decorum dictated, the space was the picture of small town security, with hopes and dreams writ large in crepe paper and hand-penned banners decorated with sayings like “We’ve Got Spirit, Yes We Do.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I presume this isn’t investigative reporting?”

  She smiled. It was his words combined with the easiness about him. When he brushed his curly hair back from his forehead, her eyes were drawn to his fantastic long hands, the fingers strong and straight. “Pretty straightforward human interest piece, though I’ve heard talk about a student strike if the cafeteria doesn’t stop microwaving the hamburgers. Some things never change. You didn’t go to high school here, did you?”

  He shook his head. The same lock of hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it away absentmindedly. “Born and raised in Duluth. Met my late wife in college, and we moved here when I got a chance to buy the store downtown.”

  She felt a twinge at the mention of his wife. She did not pry. “So, what brings you to the dance?”

  He pointed at the nametag on his chest. “Chaperone. Both my daughters are attending, and I want to make sure they stay a ruler’s width from any boys. Don’t tell ‘em I said that.”

  She drew an “X” across her chest with her pointer finger. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  A woman on the other side of the gym waved at Ren. Katrine recognized her as Mrs. Tappe, the same English teacher who’d been here in Katrine’s tenure.

  “Oops. Guess I better get to work.”

  Katrine watched him amble away, her heart hammering in her chest.

  Bright, chattering teenagers began filing in. The lights were dimmed and the disco ball lit, and pop songs as empty and smooth as soap bubbles filled the gym. Katrine snapped occasional photos and got blurbs from teenagers, but her eyes were drawn to Ren. She didn’t want a relationship. She had to figure some stuff out for herself, by herself. But she felt better knowing he was in the world.

  She was asking a young woman with pretty brown eyes about her college plans in the fall when her shoulder was tapped. She turned to see Ren holding out a hand.

  “May I have this dance?”

  A mercifully slow song was playing. Most of the teen boys had gravitated to one side of the gym, the girls to the other, leaving the long-term couples in the middle, swaying and clinging.

  She felt flustered. He recognized it. “This is purely a fact-finding mission,” he said, holding up his hands. He nodded over his shoulder. “See the girl dancing with the boy in the blue t-shirt? That’s my oldest daughter.”

  “Hold my camera and notebook?” she asked the girl she’d been interviewing.

  Katrine found herself whisked onto the dance floor. A wave of anxiety washed over her. She didn’t want to be in his arms. Would he feel what had been done to her? Would she sense darkness in him? But the fear passed. He held her, but not so close that their bodies touched, a firm hand on the small of her back, the other clasping her right hand. He led, but gently.

  For the first time in her life, Katrine imagined what it’d be like to feel safe with a man. The idea laughed with joy, and the song skipped, replaced by an upbeat Michael Jackson tune from her youth.

  She began to walk off the floor but was surprised when Ren didn’t follow her. She turned to see him still dancing, in a way. Everything sort of came loose on him. His body vibrated with the music, full of silliness and innocence, his hands in the air, and Katrine saw him without her eyes. Strength radiated from him.

  She returned to dance by his side, feeling some of the rebelliousness she had honed in this school two decades earlier but somehow lost the last few years. She was aware of teenagers rolling their eyes and of both of Ren’s daughters looking mortified, and even of Heather’s mother staring imperiously at them from the line of chaperones, but the attention made the moment sweeter.

  His eyes closed, he rotated his upper body, his hips gyrating and his thumbs up, swaying and smiling.

  It was the most honest thing she’d ever witnessed. She felt herself begin to fall, and for once, she didn’t fight it. She let herself believe that finally, maybe, it was just possible that she would get a happy ending.

  Chapter 36

  Jasmine

  The hissing sibilance that she’d first heard on the other side of her basement wall after her sister came back to Faith Falls had returned with a vengeance when she witnessed Dean inside her mother’s cottage. The sound had scratched itself into every cell in her body, a tiny distant tune that could not be escaped no matter where she went or what she thought.

  Its pitch was somewhere between a baby’s cry and the squeak crunch of the yarns of a cheap wet sweater rubbing against one another. She couldn’t sleep for it, could barely eat. It was pushing her to the brink of insanity, a place where her mind vibrated so fast it was as if it stood still.

  She had been drinking steadily since she’d witnessed Dean at the cottage, doubling her dose of antidepressants, staying in bed, but even in those rare snatches where her body quit from exhaustion, she still dreamed of the snake song on the other side of the brick wall.

  Dean had left on a long haul after she’d confronted him about Ursula. He’d denied he was having an affair with her mother, but what else could he say? Tara was worried for her, she recognized that. She walked on the edges of the room, scared to speak to Jasmine for fear she’d jump down her throat.

  This morning, Jasmine had caught a glimpse of herself in a hallway mirror and jumped. Her eyes were sunken, her lips a tight gash across the lower half of her
face. She’d thrown the mirror away. But it wasn’t enough. The hissing continued, an itch that couldn’t be scratched, a dream destroyed, a lover killed.

  On an unnaturally warm March day, the intensity of it finally drove her to act. “Tara, we’re going to Ursula’s.”

  Tara twitched. But she followed her mom.

  Jasmine didn’t have a plan, just a sense that Ursula was to blame for everything bad that had ever happened to her. She felt jittery, and she didn’t know if it was the last of the green and white pills she’d swallowed that were doing it to her. It was time, though, time for her to do something drastic to leave both the memory and the hissing behind.

  The ground rumbled as she walked, and so she ran to the car, Tara hustling to keep up. Jasmine didn’t speak the entire ride. Jasmine, the woman who had protected her daughter from every harm, sewed her clothes, cooked her meals, tucked her in at night, home-schooled her so the world couldn’t damage her beautiful spirit as it had clipped her own wings, could not hold a single thought for the hissing in her head. The noise faded the farther from the Sam Street tunnels that she drove, but it never disappeared.

  She believed if she could put a name to it, like the lyrics of a distant song, she might be free, but just when she thought she recognized a string of notes or a clear word, the hideous sound would switch tenor. In her lowest moments, it was enough to make her consider slicing off her ears and if that didn’t work, sticking the sharp silver point of the blade in the remaining cavity and scouring until only black and silence existed.

  Tara’s presence kept her from this drastic act. She didn’t want her daughter to find her in that state. But her tenuous grasp to even her daughter was fading, and she knew there was one person who might be able help her.