“That would’ve been better than this. Now she wants to know what else I’ve been keeping from her. And what’s gonna happen if she wants to know where her no-good husband ran off to a few years back or what Mother’s spent our inheritance on? Am I gonna be forced to tell her and break her heart all over again?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” one of the other women said.
Then they were all talking at once, accusing Rachel of letting the man’s son know he’d sold their family farm on the outskirts of town. Of making one of the women confess to her mother that she’d been swapping out her prescription pain pills with sugar pills to keep her from getting high on a daily basis, which promptly resulted in the mother threatening to have her daughter arrested for possession of a controlled substance if she didn’t stop. Of granting another woman’s wish to know if her husband was faithful and learning he’d only kept his vows for three months after they married over twenty years before.
Whatever was behind these wishes coming true, it wasn’t her. Couldn’t be her.
Unless somehow her ability was changing. Getting stronger so that she didn’t even have to know the wish existed for it to come true anymore.
How could she keep people safe if she didn’t even know what she was doing to them?
Rachel crossed her arms over her chest and dug her nails into the soft flesh on the backs of her arms. She forced her face to remain calm, the picture of innocence, though none of them would believe it. When Everley ducked her head out to see what was going on, Rachel mumbled a quick apology about still not feeling well and fled.
* * *
By the time Rachel got back to the house, she’d made up her mind. The longer she stayed in Nowhere, the more secrets would come out. And everyone would blame her whether she was at fault or not. So she had to leave.
Even if leaving was the last thing she wanted now that she’d finally found somewhere that felt like a home should.
Even if she had nowhere else to go.
She snatched up the latest wish that had manifested on the drive from LUX from the passenger seat and crammed it in the glove compartment unread. The wind caught the car door when she opened it and she flung it shut behind her. The force of the wind railed against her, shoving her along the stone pathway to the back door.
Catch was in the kitchen, eyes narrowed and mouth ticked up on one side in concentration. Her pallid skin hung loose on her face and she sat on a stool while she crimped the edges of the pie crust instead of standing like usual when she baked. “You better not be skipping out on work again because of me.”
“This one’s all on me,” Rachel said.
“Care to enlighten me?”
“I overheard you talking the other night about that woman’s secret getting out. She was right. It was my fault.”
“If you heard me, then you know we aren’t responsible for what other people do or say once they’ve asked for our help. We can’t make them do anything they don’t want to.”
“That may be true for you, but not for me. Wishes can make anything happen. I can make anything happen, and the whole town knows it.”
Catch rolled her eyes, the skin wrinkling around them with the movement. “Oh, let Lola talk. I have to believe most people are smart enough not to listen to a single word that comes out of her lying lips.”
“It’s not just Lola.” Rachel dragged a hand through her hair and fisted it at the base of her neck, twisting her hair into a thick knot that sent a spark of pain along her scalp. “There were half a dozen people waiting outside LUX for me this morning. Accusing me of making them spill their secrets and demanding that I fix it. But I don’t know how. I’ve never been able to control what I can do, and I can’t seem to escape wishes here. Even when I don’t mean to make them come true, they still do somehow. They’re everywhere, and they’re all making things worse.”
“Do you think my pies always worked out well in the beginning? No. I had to learn—sometimes the hard way—how to control it. What we do, it’s as much a skill as an innate ability. Like any other talent, we have to practice if we want to get better at it.”
“How am I supposed to practice thinking? Because all I have to do is read a wish and it comes true. And more often than not, it goes wrong. There’s no ritual like with your pies that I can keep working at until I get it right.”
Catch’s coffee cup clanked against the counter when she set it down. She frowned at it and then at Rachel. “Did you ever consider that it goes wrong because you don’t believe it will go right, Miss-Always-Expecting-the-Worst?”
“You know that saying, ‘Seeing is believing’? Well, I’ve seen enough bad results to not expect something good to happen when a wish is involved.”
“And that’s exactly why you can’t get a handle on your ability. You don’t trust it. It’ll never work the way it’s supposed to if you don’t believe it can. Don’t believe that you can.”
Rachel leaned her elbows on the counter, wringing her hands. “How can I trust myself, Catch? If it weren’t for me, all the secrets you’ve covered up for people would still be secret. And now that people know that I can undo what you’ve done with one wish, they won’t stop until everything’s out in the open and everyone in town is miserable.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“Then what are you going to do about it?”
“The only thing I can. Leave,” Rachel said.
* * *
It took Rachel even less time to pack up her belongings in her attic room than it had when she’d left Memphis. Catch didn’t try to stop her, just watched from the front porch as she loaded a few boxes and her duffel bag into the back of her Pathfinder. Rachel didn’t wave goodbye, and neither did the old woman who had become like family to her over the past month. She resisted the urge to run across the lawn and throw her arms around Catch. Partly because Catch was not the hugging type and partly because Rachel wasn’t sure she’d be able to leave if she did. She looked away, breaking eye contact, and reversed out of the driveway.
After being diverted by an accident blocking Main Street, Rachel took what looked like a shortcut to the highway she’d come into Nowhere on, according to the map she pulled up on her phone, but it dumped her out on a winding stretch of road that went on for miles. Oak trees infested with thick strands of spongy moss flanked the road. In places, the branches had stretched across it and twined together so it was impossible to tell where one tree ended and the other began. With the dark clouds of a summer afternoon storm amassing above in varying shades of gray, it looked more like a tunnel than a country road.
Fields of cotton plants stretched out behind the oaks on both sides. Every mile or so a long dirt driveway cut up the fields to the road.
When the flash of white appeared on the seat beside her, she swatted the wish to the floorboard. She pressed the gas pedal harder and sped through the tunnel of green and brown and gray, desperate to reach the town limits and be on her way to wherever came next.
But nothing ever came next. She seemed to be driving in circles without ever passing a turnoff for any other roads.
By the time Rachel pulled off into the brown half-dead grass underneath one of the oaks, it was almost too dark outside to see the farmhouse set way back on the property. Thunder cracked, and a few seconds later the sky opened up, releasing a burst of rain so thick the road was obscured from view after a few feet. The car vibrated around her from the force of it.
She checked the map on her phone again. It showed three streets she should’ve passed already and another two a few miles ahead. Not that she’d be able to see them even if she continued driving.
“Damn it!” She cranked the windshield wipers and squinted into the rain. “Just let me go,” she said. A slash of lightning and deafening boom of thunder answered her plea.
Rachel’s fingers trembled on her phone keys
. She pulled up Ashe’s number and sent him a text message: Stuck on Old Gin Road. Come help? Her windows fogged up as she struggled to calm her breathing while she waited.
Ashe arrived ten minutes later, his headlights slashing through the darkness. He parked his truck behind hers and jogged through the rain to her passenger-side door. A gust of wind and rain rushed into the car with him. He slammed the door and shook water from his hair.
“What are you doing way out here?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where ‘way out here’ is.”
Pointing out the driver’s-side window, he said, “That house there, that’s the one I built for my parents.” The sprawling house commanded the farmland from the crest of a hill, all wide windows and pale-gray paint that blended into the sky. “Not that that tells you anything about where you are, but it’s odd that you’d wind up right in front of it by accident.”
“I was trying to leave,” she said.
“Leave?”
She dug her thumbnails into the leather of the steering wheel. “They’re all so mad at me, Ashe. And so scared of what else I might do. I’m undoing everything Catch has done just by being here. I don’t mean to. I don’t want to. But I can’t make it stop so I have to go.”
“You’re not making any sense. You were just going to leave without saying bye to anyone?”
“I didn’t want to risk anyone changing my mind. And I know you well enough by now to know that you probably could have.”
His lips curved in a half smile. “Where were you planning to go?”
Rachel ignored his use of past tense. “To another town. Any other town where there aren’t so many secrets.”
“Good luck with that.”
“I’m serious. I can’t stay here. Not with however many years’ worth of secrets Catch has kept hidden and how many wishes people throw out there hoping to get an answer. It’s too much.” She dropped her head to the window, letting the coolness of the rain on the outside of the glass calm her. “But every road I take leads me back here. Even the roads I know for a fact will take me away from town somehow dump me right back in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even know Nowhere had an actual ‘middle of nowhere’ until today. Yet here I sit, unable to escape it.”
“So you’re lost?”
“Yes, but that’s beside the point. I can’t leave.”
He took her hand, rubbing circles on the back with his thumb. “Okay.”
“No, it’s not okay. It is the farthest thing from okay,” she said.
“I’m not going to tell you I understand what’s going on, because clearly I don’t. But this storm is getting pretty nasty and with you as upset as you are, you do not need to be out driving in it. Why don’t you come back to Catch’s tonight, and we’ll figure out what to do in the morning. When everything’s clearer.”
She gripped his hand, squeezing it tight to her chest where her heart threatened rebellion. “One night won’t make a difference. They’ll still all blame me in the morning. And by then there’ll probably be even more of them to add to the list. I have to go before that happens. Please just help me find a way out of here.”
“You can’t let a few people convince you that everyone’s against you. Whatever’s happening, whatever they’re making you think is your fault, can’t be fixed by running away. Like you said, one night won’t make a difference. Come back with me and I promise I’ll help you figure this out.”
The SUV shook again, the surge of wind pummeling it with a heavy sheet of rain. Lightning flashed in the distance followed by a loud crash of thunder a few seconds later. Ashe was right: She wouldn’t make it anywhere in this weather or this mood.
“Okay,” she said.
“I’ll follow you home,” he said and shoved himself back out into the storm.
Home. The word twisted in her gut. Not anymore.
22
Ashe followed her back, but when Rachel turned onto Catch’s street, he continued to his own. She sat in the car for a moment, trying to settle her nerves. The rain had all but stopped now, as if the town was appeased by her decision to stay.
The air between her car and Catch’s house was so thick with humidity that Rachel struggled to get a full breath. She coughed in an attempt to expel the slightly rotten flavor that lingered on her tongue as she made her way to the back door.
“Didn’t make it very far, I see,” Catch said when Rachel walked inside. She didn’t bother to look up from her baking, but her tone scolded as much as a reproving look would have.
“I’m not in the mood to fight with you again,” Rachel said, dropping her purse on the counter.
Catch’s head snapped up, and she locked her watery blue eyes on Rachel’s. “Good thing, Little-Miss-Runs-Away-from-Every-Damn-Thing.”
Rachel fought the urge to smile. “Why? Are you worried I might win the argument?”
“No. I’m just hoping it means you might be in more of a mood to listen,” Catch said and slapped her palm on the lump of dough she’d finished rolling into a ball.
“I’ve been listening. And you know what I’ve heard? Most everyone in this town is scared of me. They don’t want me here, and I can’t blame them.”
“Oh, don’t listen to those idiots. They don’t know what they want. You need to listen to the town itself ’cause Nowhere isn’t through with you yet. Or did you think you just happened to get lost in a town the size of a peach pit?”
Rachel had guessed as much, but hearing it said out loud—as if being magically trapped by a town was an everyday occurrence—made the hairs dance on the back of her neck. “Are you saying the town won’t let me leave?” As much as she wanted to believe that the town itself wanted her to stay as much as she did, the idea that some outside force could keep her here unnerved her.
“What I’m saying,” Catch said, letting a little annoyance tinge her words, “is that you are here for a reason. And it’d be a shame if you were too scared to ever find out what that was.”
“I’m not scared for me.”
“Like I told you earlier, you’ve gotta trust in your ability if you want it to work right.”
* * *
The sidewalk was blissfully abandoned as Rachel turned the corner, bringing LUX into view. She fast-walked toward the door and slipped inside without incident.
“Hey,” Everley said, drawing out the word. Her smile was as easy as it had always been, no trace of annoyance or fear tightening her lips. Skirting around the counter, she pulled Rachel into a one-armed hug. “What happened yesterday? Are you okay?”
Rachel squeezed her back quickly, then extricated herself. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have bailed on you like that. I just needed to get away. From everything.”
“Don’t worry about it. Everybody has days when they just can’t deal with people another second. But after Ashe filled me in this morning on what’s been happening, I totally get it. So, seriously, are you okay?”
“Not really. But I don’t know what else to do yet.”
“Do you want to work today? Get your mind off everything for a while?”
“If you still want me to,” Rachel said.
Everley reached behind the counter, grabbed an apron from the hook, and thrust the frilly pink fabric at Rachel. A thick curl spilled onto her cheek and she tucked it back into the mass with the rest. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because half the town thinks I’m out to ruin their lives?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s more like ninety percent.”
“Even better.” Rachel knotted the apron ties around her waist and stowed her purse beneath the counter. Straightening, she met Everley’s eye. “Listen, you know I can’t stay in Nowhere after all this, right?”
“That’s just ridiculous. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Not for lack of trying, that’s for sure.”
Everley rolled her eyes.
“Once I can leave town, I will. I have to. But I prom
ise I won’t bail again. And I’ll find you a good replacement before I go,” Rachel said.
“Just give it some time, Rachel. People will come around once they have a chance to see all the good you could do, and you’ll look back at all of this and think, ‘It was pretty damn stupid of me to think I had to leave because of all that shit.’”
“Doubtful.” But Rachel smiled anyway. After what happened with Michael, she swore she would never make another wish for herself. But if she did, that one would be close to the top of her list. Staying in Nowhere.
She turned as a customer entered. The squat woman with short dark hair curling around her face fanned herself with a magazine as she sagged back against the door. The air gurgled as she heaved it out of her open mouth. When she pushed away from the door, she left damp splotches on the glass.
“It feels like heaven in here,” she said.
Everley eyed Rachel before saying, “And you haven’t even gotten started yet. We’ve got a talcum powder that’ll make you forget you were ever hot and sweaty. Rachel, why don’t you grab a sample and show her?”
“Sure thing.” Rachel smiled, grateful the woman hadn’t turned and immediately walked out upon seeing her.
Running her finger across the labels, she read the various scents—pear and peony, juniper berry and lime, coriander and olive tree, orange and fennel, ginger and lemon, vanilla and pineapple—and tried to pick the one that fit the woman best. She carried a jar of the juniper-berry-and-lime-scented powder to the woman, unscrewed the lid, and motioned for her to hold out her hands. She shook out a fine mist. The scent was crisp and cool with just a hint of sweet.
“Go ahead and rub that in,” she instructed.
The woman’s rings clinked on her thick fingers as she massaged the powder into her skin. “I hadn’t really planned on getting anything,” she said, her gravelly voice a few notches above a whisper. “I was just looking for a few minutes somewhere it was cool. But she knew that, didn’t she? Your boss. She knew I wouldn’t leave without this.” She lifted her hands to her face and sniffed before swiping the back of one hand across her forehead.
The Secret Ingredient of Wishes Page 17
