by Laura Sibson
“What about cabins?”
We come to a stop in front of the diner.
“You’re wondering about your family’s place?”
I nod. “I went back there after our run the other day, and it was . . . not normal.”
“Whoa. Seriously?”
I nod. “What have you heard?”
“Well, there have been accounts or urban legends or whatever you want to call them of peculiar things happening around there. I remember one story where a guy trespassed up there with his dog. He said that they got a few yards from the cabin and the dog wouldn’t move any closer. Just kept barking and barking. And there are other stories of people—like our age or even in college—who dared each other to sleep over in the cabin. One story goes that when they tried to get in the house, one guy was thrown like fifty feet backward. Nobody I know has ever even walked up the driveway. What happened when you went there?”
I blow out a big exhale. “I can’t even explain it. There were these shadows and it was cold. Something’s definitely not right, and I can’t talk to GG because she told me not to go back there.”
“You know . . .” Tess starts to say. “Rhia knows a lot about this sort of thing.”
“The girl who I ran away from the other night?” I shake my head. “Hard pass. Not in a hurry to embarrass myself again. I’ve got to go. Text later?”
“She could be really helpful!” Tess calls after me as I jog toward the marina.
* * *
* * *
Tess’s words about the cabin follow me back to the boat. While the guy getting thrown fifty feet sounds like typical exaggeration, the generally abnormal occurrences definitely track with what happened to me when I was there. While washing my hands, I notice that those faint black lines that appeared on my palm when I held that rock have not gone away. In fact, I think they might have grown, which definitely makes me nervous.
I take my time changing out of my running clothes because I need to ask GG about these lines on my palm, which means I’ll also need to admit to returning to the cabin. Based on how she reacted back in the perpetual woods, I need to brace myself for a less-than-warm response.
“GG,” I say after my shower. “Do you know what this is?” I show her my palm.
GG sets aside the herbs she’s working on to take a look. But her usual calm demeanor disappears. “When did this start?”
“I just noticed it the other day. I thought it would go away, but I think the lines are growing.”
GG presses on the spot and I feel a sudden and intense chill. Darkness begins to cloud around my vision. I snatch my arm back.
“Edie, it’s very important that you tell me the truth. Where have you been?”
I look at the floor when I say, “I went back to the cabin.”
“You did what?” GG’s tone bristles with disbelief that I disobeyed her. I sense a surge of magic from my grandmother, but just as quickly, she composes herself. I can only dream of having such control.
“You knew I wanted to go there. I read about it in Mom’s journal, which you gave me. I thought if I saw where she spent summers that maybe it would help me with missing her so much. And you wouldn’t talk to me about it. So I went on my own.”
“Is that where you’d been yesterday when you arrived here so upset?”
I nod. I don’t mention the strange rock. A little at a time seems like the best approach. “I used Mom’s unlocking spell,” I say.
“Oh my gods and goddesses, Edie, you’ve no idea what you’ve done.” She presses a hand to her mouth and paces. The canisters on the kitchen counter tremble in response to a flare of her magic.
“I didn’t do anything wrong! I went to a cabin that belongs to our family.”
“You weren’t to go there. You’ve messed with magic that you don’t understand.”
“I didn’t know!”
GG whirls on me, eyes blazing. “But you should have. You are a seventeen-year-old witch who should have learned her craft by now.”
Her words sting as though she slapped me. “I wasn’t ready. Mom understood.”
GG shakes her head. “Being ready is a luxury we cannot afford, Edie. Your mother indulged you and now you’re in danger because of it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve gotten yourself infected.”
I stare at my palm and the tiny lines that seem to be etched there. “Infected? By what?”
GG’s sigh is as deep as the ocean. “Corrupted magic.”
“But you can fix it, right?”
GG falls heavily into a chair. She looks at me. For as long as I can remember my grandmother has been strong, competent, no-nonsense. Except for now. Because now she looks helpless. And that scares me more than any shadow could.
Finally, she speaks. “I will do what I am able,” she says. “But if we can’t stop it, you’ll be lost to us forever.”
Chapter Eight
MAURA
June 25, 2003
It’s been raining for days and I’ve barely risen from my bed. Dad’s box of ashes sits on my dresser. The constant drizzle has caused the plants and trees to burst forth in an otherworldly green. Dad’s ghost still has not appeared. In fact, I haven’t seen any of the ghosts. I don’t think Mom has either, though I can’t be sure. She usually talks to them, but of course she’s not speaking.
Even though it was late in the season, I’d bought some vegetable plants and herbs on my last trip to the market and Mama planted them yesterday. That seemed like a good sign.
But when I got up today, I found her in the kitchen boxing up Dad’s things. He was barely gone, and Mama was gathering up his belongings.
I told her to stop. I asked what she was doing.
She looked up but didn’t speak. Is this why she had wanted to leave our house in Baltimore? Because she couldn’t be surrounded by Dad’s things?
I went to her and placed my hands on hers. I begged her not to throw these things away.
Her hands stilled.
I asked her to talk to me.
She opened her mouth a tiny bit and I waited. The feathers spilled out. Mama clamped her hands over her mouth and turned away from me. When she turned back, her mouth was set in a grim line and she returned to her work. There was no talking her out of it.
I couldn’t stay and watch her pack my father’s belongings. I left, letting the screen door slam in the way that used to make Mama call out after me. But nothing. I spoke the words of the spell to keep dry and then I walked down to the dock like I did on the first afternoon we arrived. Dad’s wreck of a boat nodded to me. I nodded back. He would have been working on this boat if he were here. It would have been this summer’s project. Like the wooden porch chairs one year and the porch itself years before that. Dad always had a summer project when we came here. Mama said that because Dad is a Virgo, his form of relaxation is work. Was a Virgo. Was.
I cocked my head, studying the fiberglass hull and rain-slicked surface of the bow. I am not a Virgo, but that doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of work. I went back up the steps. Mama was still looking at Dad’s items, turning them over in her hands and placing them on the table in piles.
After I tugged on duck boots, I tucked Dad’s box of ashes under my arm and spoke the spell again. Then we walked outside into the rain. As I navigated the saturated earth to Dad’s workshop, I saw that Mama’s plants had been drinking up the rain, their leaves brilliant green against the dark, rich earth beneath them. The raindrops pattered on the leaves of the trees above us and the earth gave off a rich loamy smell. Dad and I remained dry.
I told Dad that we’d check and find out what supplies he had already. The lock wouldn’t give at first, but of course I knew which whispered words would coax it. I couldn’t remember a time that I’d ever been in this workshop without my father. Right away, the
smell of sawdust assaulted me with memories of measuring and cutting, of nailing and sanding.
I set the box on the edge of Dad’s workbench. The workshop seemed bigger without Dad’s presence filling it. His tape measure sat nearby, waiting to be consulted about the size and scope of the next project. I turned it over in my hand, feeling the blocky weight of it. I hooked the metal edge of the measuring tape on the windowsill and walked across the room.
“Fifteen feet, eight inches,” I said to Dad’s ashes.
The tape measure didn’t care that I held it now, that my dad was gone, that he would never again use it to measure twice so that he would cut only once. Of course either Mama or I could have magicked him the most accurate measuring possible. But like I said, he was a simple man and preferred his old-fashioned ways. I dropped it into my bag, satisfied by the way it landed in the bottom like it knew its place in the world.
I told Dad that we needed to go to the hardware store.
With care, I locked his workshop, grabbed the car keys from the kitchen, and left. As I pulled into the hardware store parking lot, it hit me that I had no idea where to start and I couldn’t ask my father, who was now a pile of ashes in a wooden box. I collected myself. I couldn’t give up before I’d even started.
Inside, I held Dad under one arm as we walked by the wall of photos of people proudly showing off the projects they’d worked on. I wasn’t sure when the Wall of Fame started, but I always remembered it. One time I had asked Dad why he had never submitted a photo to add to the Wall. He had said that he couldn’t imagine that his projects were worth showcasing.
I smiled at the memory of his understated confidence as I cast around for some guidance in the store. The guy working the register looked around my age. He wore an Orioles baseball cap and a T-shirt for the cross-country team of the local high school. I told him that I wanted to rehab a boat. He asked me a lot of questions to get a sense of what I might need. I was even able to answer some of them. I loaded up on everything that he told me—steel wool, a handheld sander, cleaning supplies, primer, paint. He double-checked the color, asking if I was sure. I confirmed that I wanted purple. Just because I was rehabbing Dad’s boat didn’t mean I had to choose a Dad color. Then he told me that I’d need to wait for the rain to stop before I could sand and paint the exterior of the boat. I didn’t want to wait though, so we talked about how I could rehab the inside, until the rain let up.
As I was paying with Mama’s credit card, the guy asked what was in the box. His warm eyes made it impossible for me to lie, so I told him that’s where I keep my father. He laughed and said that was a good way to keep him out of trouble. It hurt my heart to hear joy. Even so, he had a nice laugh. I let him think that my comment was a joke.
Chapter Nine
EDIE
After GG’s terrifying declaration, she told me she’d need some time to pull together a poultice for my hand. When I asked if she wanted me to help, she said it would be better if she worked on her own. That was her way of sending me to my room, I guess.
I had pulled out Mom’s journal for answers and—if I’m honest—maybe comfort. Now, after reading the entry, I try to imagine Mom working on this boat. But I’m too agitated to dwell on the fact that Mom sanded each panel of wood with her own hand. Or the mystery of why Grandfather’s ghost hadn’t appeared after his death.
I rub the page in the journal hopefully, and there’s another smooth spot at the top of the entry. This time, when I touch it, the same thing happens as before. The room grows brighter. I feel more awake. And a new spell appears to me, superimposed over Mom’s journal entry.
CHARM TO KEEP DRY
1. First of all, note that this will not work if you are already wet.
2. Before going out in the rain, touch the crown of your head, each eyelid, and your belly button.
3. Say these words:
From crown of head to baby toe,
Hear these words and make it so.
Whether it be sprinkle or it be storm,
Let dryness on me be the norm.
4. Go out in the rain and stay dry.
This one seems pretty useless. The memory of it seeps back to me, though. Mom tried to teach it to me a couple years ago when we had a heavy rainstorm. I told Mom that I could get wet like normal people do, that I wasn’t going to melt. But she convinced me to do it with her, just us in our backyard. She said the words and out we went in our bubbles of dryness and danced in the pouring rain and stomped in puddles—and not a drop of water landed on us. I shut the journal with care, the memory of my time with Mom blossoming in my mind.
GG calls me and I find her in the kitchen. Mildred floats nearby and Temperance bats at a purple-and-blue witch ball. “Come here. And give me your hand.”
With the obedience that comes from seeing fear in an adult, I give her my hand. She spreads one of her honeys on my palm. I yelp in pain. The honey sends a burning sensation through my hand and up my arm. GG nods to herself. “That’s good.”
“It doesn’t feel good.”
GG doesn’t respond. She layers mashed basil leaves over the honey.
“Will this cure me?”
GG’s eyebrows pull together. “I’m not certain,” she says. “At the least, it should arrest the infection.”
“You know people say that place is haunted.”
“I’m aware of what people say.”
“Is that why I got infected? Is there some sort of curse?”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
I watch while GG works, her movements sure. She’s now layering cabbage leaves over the honey/basil mixture. After she wraps it all in gauze, I ask her the question that’s been on my mind.
“What did you mean when you said that I could be lost forever?”
GG looks me in the eyes for the first time since we started this discussion. “We’ve got to stop this progression before it reaches your heart. But let’s not worry about that just yet.”
“You can’t say something like that and then tell me not to worry! What if your remedies don’t work?”
GG eyes me as if gauging if I can handle the answer. “If this doesn’t work, our next course of action will largely be up to you.”
GG embraces me then, sudden and fierce, and that’s how I know that I’m in real trouble. No matter what she says about not worrying, I can see worry etched in the lines around her eyes and in her brow when she thinks I’m not looking. I want to go home, back to a normal life, but obviously I can’t do that if I have a magical infection working its way toward my heart. And if learning the family magic could help me—could’ve helped me avoid this mess to begin with—then I need to learn.
After we clean up the mess from the remedy, I say, “Okay, where do we begin? What do I need to know?”
“What?” GG wipes out her mortar and pestle with a clean dishtowel.
“You’ve sufficiently scared me. I’m ready to learn.”
“Good.” GG gives me one of her nods and then hands the mortar and pestle to me. “Crush these herbs. When you’re finished, come find me.”
As I work, Mildred, GG’s dead sister, watches over me, shaking her head. I imagine she’d be tsking if she could speak. I look past her to the rows of small glass jars of dried herbs labeled in GG’s neat handwriting. Beside the sink, several mason jars full of GG’s honey wait for her wax seal. It’s a whole production line in here. Too bad I can’t put the ghosts to work. My wrist hurts by the time I finish mashing all the herbs and I can’t stop sneezing.
I find GG rocking in her chair on the back deck of the boat. A family paddles by—the parents in a canoe and the children in kayaks. They’re struggling against the flow. I think what easy paddling they’ll have on their way back.
“My great-aunt made sure I did everything correctly,” I say.
GG smiles. “Mildred always was a
busybody.”
I sneeze again.
“Here.” GG gives me a palmful of sunflower seeds, which she’d harvested from her own sunflowers the summer before, I’m certain. I pop a few salty seeds into my mouth, spitting out the shells in the river and chewing up the rest. I sneeze again.
“Do you need a tissue?”
“I thought you gave me those seeds to help with my sneezing.”
GG shakes her head. “I was simply sharing a snack with you.”
“I don’t need a tissue,” I say.
GG rises then and I follow her into the kitchen, where she begins to melt wax to seal her jars.
“So is there like a rubric or something?” I ask.
“A what?” GG says.
“A guide for what I need to learn and a measurement of my proficiency.”
“There’s no rubric.” GG says the word as though it tastes bad in her mouth. She pours the hot wax over the lids of the jars, then presses her seal into the wax before it hardens. A honey-bee within a Celtic knot appears on each lid down the line.
“How will you know I’m ready? That I can protect myself?”
GG doesn’t stop her work. “You will survive. That’s how you’ll know.”
“Harsh.” I frown. She must be kidding, right?
GG turns to look at me. “This isn’t child’s play, Edie.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I can’t forget what happened three years ago, when I decided to stop learning about magic.
GG sets down the pot and wipes her hands on her apron. “How did you learn to drive?”
“Not that again.”
“What was the process?”
“I practiced. A lot.”
“There you go.”
“But there was a book I studied with all of the content I needed. And then there was a test.” It’s only Day One and I’m already exasperated with my grandmother—my fear notwithstanding.
“You have your mother’s journal, right?”
“Yes,” I concede. “But it’s not exactly a study manual.”
