Hijiri’s forehead wrinkled. “He still stubbornly believes he’ll win me over. He smiles too much. And he’s too nice.”
“None of that sounds magical,” Mirthe said.
“I disagree.” Femke crossed her arms. “Niceness is magic, but no one thinks of it that way since it’s quiet and constant.”
Mirthe ignored her. “But what about the charms? What’s he made out of?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Look, he won’t answer any of my questions.” Hijiri brushed Mirthe’s hands off her shoulders. “I’ve tried to see if he knows anything—he has to—but he’s been dodging my questions. Or conveniently has coughing fits.”
Femke gasped softly. “The coughing. Does he really do that only when you ask him questions?”
“I guess so?” She hadn’t paid that much attention.
“Try to test that. If he doesn’t have a cold,” she said, “maybe it’s some sort of defense. Like, Love built him to keep his secrets, so Ken can’t tell you anything that would help you solve him.”
Hijiri’s pulse quickened. Could that be true?
“Love wouldn’t make it easy for you,” Femke said, smiling. “You have to be cleverer.”
“That’s why we’re here! The De Keyser twins, at your service. Tell us what we need to do, and we’ll have that charm-boy solved by the end of the week,” Mirthe boasted.
“Such a short time frame,” Femke muttered.
“Maybe not a week, then. But soonish.”
Hijiri sighed. “Thank you for the help. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“We’ve given her a lot of think about,” Femke said to her sister. “We should go.”
“You just want to get home faster,” Mirthe said. “Dad’s going to give you another fog charm lesson, right? Go ahead. I don’t want to be there.”
Femke’s green eyes flashed, but she said nothing.
After she left, Mirthe hopped back up on the teacher’s desk and pretended, very badly, to not care that her sister was gone.
Hijiri huffed in exasperation. “What’s going on with you two? I’ve never seen you fight.”
Mirthe tapped her fingers on the desk, the hollow sound filling the room. She looked ready to burst. “Femke and I need to make a big decision when we graduate, since we’re weather charm-makers,” she said in a rush. “Our discipline is so broad that we’re required to claim a specialty. What we choose determines our apprenticeships for the next few years.”
“How could you possibly decide? There’s no way I could with love charms.”
“Love is love,” Mirthe said, “but weather is snow, fog, clouds, wind, heat, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornados, sun, and moonlight … I could keep going.”
“Is that why you’re upset? You can’t make a choice?”
“That’s part of it,” Mirthe said, squirming in her seat. “But the bigger problem is my sister. She’s engrossed in studying clouds, kind of like my dad with his wind. But clouds are boring. What could she do with them? I’ve tried to tell Femke she needs to choose something more exciting. She won’t listen.”
Hijiri waited. She knew there had to be more.
“We’re supposed to do everything together. We’re twins. I’m scared we’ll go our separate ways unless we pick the same specialty.”
They wouldn’t be twins anymore. Out in the world, under different apprenticeships, Femke and Mirthe would be individuals. For the first time, it sounded like. Hijiri didn’t have siblings, but she tried to show some sympathy. “Being alone isn’t so bad,” she said.
Mirthe gasped. “That’s a lie.”
“I’m happy.”
“You don’t always look happy. Content, maybe. But there’s a difference.”
Hijiri’s heart rattled in its box. She mentally sat on the lid. “If it’s that bad, you should learn to love clouds.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Then what?”
“I’m going to make her fall in love with another specialty.”
Hijiri balked. “I’m not making a love charm for this.”
Mirthe burst into laughter. “No way! Even if I was tempted, seeing what happened to Zita is enough of a warning. I’m glad that weather charms don’t often infect a person’s insides like love charms do.”
“So what’s the plan, then?”
“I just have to show her how much fun other weather elements are. She’ll see.”
Hijiri wasn’t convinced. More than that, she was worried. The twins probably do need a love charm for this, she admitted to herself. Not manipulation, but there must be some way to help them. Another charm to make.
She needed to start crafting.
* * *
When Hijiri returned to her apartment, she dove into her love charm supplies. Her cramped bedroom was still a problem. She inched past the shoji screen to root through her open suitcase, tossing wrinkled clothes on the bed in her search for materials. “Candles, candles,” she muttered, finding a packet of dried hollyhock petals and a few loose red strings instead. Orange candles would be best for the charm she had in mind for Nico and Martin. Orange candles felt lively, like sunrise waking a sleepy couple with its bright rays, a comfortable touch that opened the lines of communication.
Balanced on her heels, she clung to the sides of the suitcase to keep herself steady. She thought she saw orange underneath her sweaters. When she reached for it, her foot slipped and she fell backward, knocking into the shoji screen.
The screen crashed into the table it hid. Everything else happened in slow motion.
With so many materials and experiments piled on her table, Hijiri had failed to notice the table’s dying creaks and groans. The impact from the screen caused the table leg to break, sending glass bottles and open containers tumbling to the floor. Her heart jumped into her throat. She was scared to look behind her; her hand landed in rosewater from a spilt bottle.
A feeling worse than dread settled in her stomach. When she finally peeked over her shoulder, she couldn’t breathe. Most, if not all, of the glass bottles had shattered on the wood floor. If she had left any dry materials open, they were now soaked and useless. Tears burned the back of Hijiri’s eyes, but she forced herself to her feet and wiped her hand on her shirt.
The materials are replaceable, she reminded herself. Nothing was too expensive. It’s okay. Anything to take away the numbness spreading through her body.
Then she heard a knock on the door.
Hijiri rubbed her eyes and gingerly stepped around the broken glass.
She opened the door while Fallon was in the middle of talking to someone—Ken. “Ms. Ward still can’t believe the school paid for new card catalogs,” she said, “and I can’t either. The library’s seen better days. If the carpets could be replaced too, I’d call that an improvement.”
Hijiri croaked out a hello.
Before Fallon could respond, Ken shoved himself through the doorway and cupped her face. “Your eyes are red,” he said, his brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
His hands were warm on her face. She tried to smother her tears, to push them down with her other buried feelings, but the hurt was too real. Too soon. Tears ran down her cheeks and wet his fingers. “My charms,” she managed.
Ken dug a tissue out of his pocket and wiped away her tears.
Fallon sniffed the air. “Something smells … strange. Like candy and flowers mixed together.”
“I knocked them over,” Hijiri said.
“Oh no,” Fallon said.
They entered her apartment and headed straight for the chaos in her bedroom. Fallon gasped when she saw the shattered materials. “Can you find anything to salvage?” she asked.
Hijiri couldn’t speak, but she nodded.
“There’s too much broken glass. Just tell me what you want and I’ll get it,” Ken said.
While Fallon ran back to her apartment to get a broom, pail, and cleaning supplies, Ken picked through the mess fo
r Hijiri. She pointed to everything that could be wiped clean, that hadn’t lost potency being mixed with the liquids. Ken handed her golden buttons, cinnamon sticks still sealed, rose quartz, and a few sentimental items that made her charms stronger when she held them while crafting.
“How do you use these?” Ken asked, tossing her a teddy bear missing an eye.
Hijiri wiped her nose with the tissue. “If I tell you, you’ll steal my ideas.” She was only half-kidding.
“I don’t know the first thing about crafting love charms,” he said.
“You’re lying.”
“That’s not something Love felt was necessary for me to know.”
“But you’re—”
Ken turned his face away from her, intent on brushing more glass out of the way with a towel. “There are other subjects, other parts of life, that interest me.”
Hijiri sank down on her bed. Clearly, he hadn’t forgotten their earlier conversation at the club meeting. Neither had she. Love made him for her, so logically he’d have to be a love charm-maker himself, or at least have the aptitude for it. What was the point in making him otherwise? She couldn’t let it go. “What else could you possibly like?”
Ken balled up the towel. When he looked back at her, his eyes flashed with bitterness. “I am more than you think.”
Chapter 8
CHANGE OF PLANS
Hijiri stared at her feet. Another pain flared up, worse than seeing her supplies break. Maybe he wasn’t real. His heart might be iron, his blood made of charms, but he obviously thought different of himself.
“Anything else?” Ken asked tightly.
“No.”
He stood up and inspected his wet knees from kneeling in the spilled liquids. He let out a ragged sigh and said, more softly, “It’s okay to think of me as a person, you know.”
Hijiri’s heart wiggled up her throat and stayed there. To think of him as human would mean she had given up on trying to solve him. She couldn’t indulge in that kind of thinking, could she? “I’m not giving up,” she said.
“I know that,” Ken said. “You could pretend sometimes. See how it feels.”
Hijiri turned inward, mentally poking her heart for feedback. Maybe she could try. Charm or no charm, he was asking for respect, and she had to find a balance between that and her own desire to solve Love’s riddle.
“Sorry,” she said.
“I’m sorry too,” he said. He plucked the tissue from her hand and gave her a new one.
“If you don’t want to craft love charms,” she ventured, “what do you want to do?”
Ken was about to answer when Fallon came back.
Fallon held up her broom like a sword. “Leave the cleaning to me.”
Ken turned back to Fallon. “I think everything else here is beyond saving.”
“That’s fine.” Fallon grinned. “After this, your room is going to be the cleanest it’s ever been.”
Hijiri had no doubt of that.
Between the three of them, cleaning the bedroom took about an hour. Hijiri moved her suitcase out into the living room, along with the shoji screen, and Fallon generously dusted the inside of the closet when they were done.
“The leg snapped,” Ken said, inspecting the table. “Bad structure.”
“Someone had left the table out for recycling last year. Seemed like a waste to leave it when it worked,” Hijiri said.
“It lived a good life,” Ken said.
Hijiri let out a laugh. The tension between them had eased with Fallon’s presence and a task to focus on.
“How are you going to craft your charms now?” Fallon asked. “Please don’t move it into the kitchen. That’s unsanitary.”
“I need a safer place to store my materials,” Hijiri said. Once she put them back in order, she would be able to start experimenting with her competition charm ideas.
Ken brightened. “Fallon, you were talking about the library before. What happened to the old card catalogs?”
“Ms. Ward said she couldn’t bear to get rid of them. Too many memories.”
Ken clapped his hands. “Would she give one to Hijiri?”
Fallon matched his excitement. “I don’t see why not. Hijiri, can I use your phone? I’ll ask her right now.”
“That would be perfect,” Hijiri said quietly. All those deep compartments. Most of her materials were small. She could fit almost everything into the catalog drawers.
Fallon went to the phone and dialed Ms. Ward’s new number. After the Spinster Villas were shut down, Grimbaud High’s head librarian found an apartment close to the school. Fallon worked in the school library as part of the office-experience program; she and Ms. Ward had formed an alliance, then a friendship, all because they had shared love fortunes declaring them spinsters from Zita’s shop.
“I didn’t want to say anything before,” Ken said, “but you could use more furniture.”
Hijiri sighed. “It just never seemed important before.”
Decorating had been so far from her mind last year. She hadn’t given up on the idea of transferring to a Lejeune high school back home after seeing how tight Zita’s grip on Grimbaud had been. She was thankful now that she stuck it out in this town, but that meant she needed to treat her apartment as a home away from home. Add some of her personality and make it look like she was really living there. That also included fixing her love charm-making situation. She’d have to have all her materials safely stowed and at hand.
Fallon returned with good news: Ms. Ward would be happy to give one of the card catalogs to Hijiri. They could go see the catalog right away at Ms. Ward’s apartment, just to make sure it would fit in Hijiri’s place.
* * *
“I’ve never seen so many books,” Ken said as soon as he entered Ms. Ward’s apartment.
Hijiri smiled at that. Of course he hadn’t. Still, Ms. Ward did have an excessive collection of books. With so many books, mostly hardcovers, the librarian had to find inventive ways to make space for them. Books were stacked behind the front door, next to the shoe rack, and Ms. Ward had installed small shelves above the door to accommodate magazines. The living room had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Some books were shoved between couch cushions. Others were piled underneath the coffee table.
“How did you organize them this time?” Fallon asked.
“By height,” Ms. Ward said.
Hijiri looked at the shelves again. One side of the room had tiny books, gradually growing in size as she turned to look at them down the hallway.
Ms. Ward had soft features hidden by the cat-eye glasses that swallowed her face. In her twenties, she had been the youngest of the spinsters, and took to wearing skirts with cat prints, though she didn’t have pets. “You couldn’t have come at a better time,” she said, leading them through the kitchen. One cabinet was open, revealing numerous cookbooks crammed inside. “I have a few books still in storage, but with the catalogs, I have no room to bring them home.”
Ms. Ward had both card catalog cabinets in her bedroom; Hijiri could see that losing one of them would give her some breathing room—or more likely another bookshelf. The drawers were too small for her to fit books inside. The card catalog was made of oak, with brass handles and frames around the labels.
Imagining all her materials inside each little drawer was easy. Her heart thudded as she ran her fingers over the labels. “I’d love it.”
“Great.” Ms. Ward said they’d need to arrange movers since the catalog was heavy even when empty.
They sat down at the kitchen table, calling a few companies in Grimbaud’s directory until they found one that offered a reasonable price and speedy service. Ms. Ward brewed some green tea and unearthed a half-eaten chocolate cake from the fridge to celebrate. Fallon wouldn’t try the cake, but Hijiri didn’t hesitate to take a slice. Neither did Ken. The frosting was fluffy and sweet, a perfect match with the dark chocolate inside.
Ms. Ward welcomed Ken as quickly as the others had, asking him a few question
s, but nothing too invasive. She seemed preoccupied with another matter. “Fallon, we have to talk about throwing some events at the library this year. Something fun for students to do besides just using the space for studying.”
Fallon frowned. “About that … I’ve been meaning to tell you … everyone … that I secured an internship at the police department.”
Hijiri gasped. “Is this about Sanders?”
Fallon’s jaw tightened. “Not exactly. After what happened with Zita, I wanted to see if I was interested in using my inspecting skills to catch other charm criminals. With a new detective at the helm in Grimbaud, I have hope that we’ll see changes. I want to be there helping in any way I can.” She shrugged. “Of course, while I’m there, I’m going to make sure Sanders is not overlooked. That man needs to be stopped.”
Ms. Ward smiled fondly. “That means you’re going to be busy.”
“After school, yes. I know you have big plans this year; I’m sorry I can’t help.”
“That is a problem,” Ms. Ward said. “I can check with Mr. Drummond if there are any students willing to switch jobs in the program. I’ve tried before, of course, but they just love working in the front office.”
Fallon brightened. “What about you, Ken?”
Ken pointed at himself, bemused.
“You were telling me that you got the last open position in the program.”
“Working in the copy room,” he said.
“The library is more exciting than being crammed in a tiny room, getting paper cuts,” Fallon said.
“We have windows. With sunlight,” Ms. Ward said.
Hijiri didn’t know whether to laugh or feel mystified. She hadn’t known he had signed up for the office-experience program. Then again, she never asked him about orientation.
Ken sat back in his chair, his eyes crinkling with his smile. “Okay, okay. Save me from the copy room.”
Ms. Ward and Fallon exchanged victorious grins.
Hijiri asked him, “Why the copy room?”
“As much as I’m enjoying school, I can’t stand sitting all day,” Ken said, sobering. Something sad flickered across his face. “Getting a little relief by helping around the school sounded like the perfect solution. Obviously, I’ll get more exercise in the library.”
Love Charms and Other Catastrophes Page 9