The History of Hilary Hambrushina

by Marnie Lamb

  And let’s not forget about sadness, fear, and uncertainty. It was horrible to think so many people would be willing to gang up on an innocent person. What if it happened again? And what did this mean for my quest for Chanel’s approval?

  I wanted to talk to Kallie, but I wasn’t sure I should. Maybe she needed some time alone. I hung around the living room, staring out the front window. My mom noticed and asked whether I was O.K. For a minute, I wondered if I should confide in her. No, I thought, she’ll probably just blame me for upsetting Kallie. So I said, “Fine.”

  A couple of days later, Kallie phoned me to make plans for going to the island. She sounded much happier. “I think you’ll really like my grandma. She’s an artist, too.”

  We took the ferry to the island with Kallie’s parents and the dogs. My mom had given me a jar of strawberry jam to take to Kallie’s grandma. At first I was nervous being around Kallie. She seemed her usual self, though, and soon, we were talking as easily as before. As we were leaving the boat, she stumbled on the gangplank. I grabbed her arm, crying, “Are you all right?”

  She laughed. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’m not breakable.”

  We headed towards a cluster of streets at the end of the island. Kallie’s mom was carrying a basket full of purple flowers, and Kallie was holding some flowers she’d picked from their garden. After a short distance, we arrived at a crooked gateway between two trees. Beyond the gateway, a stone path led to a sunken brown bungalow with vines trailing up the walls and a lone window that stared at us like a giant unblinking eye. Kallie’s dad rang the bell.

  A woman shorter than Kallie opened the door. At first I thought she was a maid. Her complexion was the colour of sand, and she had long black hair tied into a ponytail. She was wearing a red two-piece dress with gold threading. Several gold bracelets, including one filled with charms, dangled from her wrist. But when she leaned forward to hug Kallie’s dad, I realized, with a jolt of embarrassment, that this must be Kallie’s grandma.

  “Son,” she said. Then she said something in another language, and Kallie’s dad replied.

  Kallie’s mom gave the woman a hug. “Good morning, Rawnie.”

  “Calypso,” said the woman. “And Kallie.” Kallie gave her grandma an enthusiastic hug and a kiss on the cheek, squishing the flowers. Kallie looked disappointed, but her grandma laughed. “I can always get plain flowers. But I cannot always get flowers that have been specially squished by my granddaughter.” She turned her mesmerizing eyes on me.

  “And you are Hilary.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes. It’s nice to meet you,” I said breathlessly as we shook hands. I’d never been introduced to someone like this before, and it was like meeting royalty.

  “Come in,” she said.

  We stepped into the room with the eye window and were greeted by the scent of fresh bread. Not counting Kallie’s bedroom, this was the oddest room I’d ever been in. It was like an old well-loved encyclopedia. I’d never seen so much stuff crowded into such a small space before. Hundreds of books, a violin, a piano, a funny-looking machine like the one you see in ads for the Grammy Awards (What was it called? A gramophone!). Not to mention all the little tables and footstools and chairs.

  I hadn’t realized I’d been staring, until I noticed that everyone was smiling at me. I stepped forward and held out the jam jar to Kallie’s grandma as if making an offering.

  “This is for you.”

  “Thank you.” She picked up a pair of glasses from a small table and put them on. “Very nice. A lovely colour.”

  I wanted to look around the room, but I didn’t want to be rude by turning away. Instead I let my eyes roll to the edge of their sockets.

  I don’t know whether Kallie’s grandma noticed this, but she said to Kallie, “I think Razi, Calypso, and I will go to the garden now. You girls can look around if you like.”

  They disappeared through a small back door in the kitchen, and Kallie ran to the gramophone, plopped down, and began searching for a record to play. I noticed some herbs and flowers drying on the windowsill.

  “What does your grandma do with all that stuff?” I asked, pointing.

  “She uses it to make potions. She’s a witch.”

  I stared at her disbelievingly. But when she stared back, I knew she was serious.

  “What? I thought you said she was an artist.” I glanced around quickly, as if Kallie’s grandma might sneak up on me and strangle me with long bony fingers.

  “She is, but she’s also a singer, dancer, jewellery maker, and a witch. She’s many things.” When Kallie saw my face, she said, “She’s not a bad kind of witch, she’s a good witch. She uses herbs and flowers to make medicine.”

  I looked out the kitchen window to where Kallie’s grandma was leaning over her lush garden pulling up a carrot. I tried to imagine a black hat sprouting from the top of her head and a black cape billowing from her shoulders, her face breaking out in warts and claws growing from her fingers. But it didn’t work. Whatever kind of witch she was, she wasn’t the kind you’d see in cartoons. She was much more powerful than that.

  After I’d watched her for a while, I wasn’t afraid, just intrigued. I thought of my own grandmothers. They didn’t have houses like this, they didn’t wear clothes like that, they didn’t speak other languages. Well, one of them spoke French, but that wasn’t very interesting to me since I studied French at school.

  “What language was she speaking to your dad?” I asked.

  “Romany. She’s a gypsy.”

  A witch and a gypsy! No wonder Kallie was … not odd, unusual, I told myself. Look at her background.

  “What kind of art does she make?”

  “Mostly crafts, like those dolls over there.” She pointed to a row of finger-high dolls leaning against a shelf. “She does some sketching. But her stuff is very different from my dad’s.”

  I went over to see the dolls. They all had dark hair and wore white blouses and head scarves. The dolls were lopsided, like they’d been stuffed with tiny potatoes, but that only made them more interesting to me.

  I turned to a bookcase and saw a book called Names. I pulled it out gingerly, expecting dust to fly. But the book was just old, not dirty or neglected. I opened it. It was a book giving the symbolism of first names. I remembered how I’d wanted to know what my name meant.

  “Kallie, look!” I said. “A book of names!”

  She leapt up. “Let me see.”

  I handed her the book, and she began flipping through it. “Here’s your name,” she said. I wasn’t sure how she knew what I wanted without asking, but I was glad she did. “‘Hilary. A Greek name meaning ‘filled with pleasure.’’”

  I wondered what that could mean. Maybe that things weren’t as bad as I thought and that I’d have a really good time at school next year. I beamed. “Well, that’s good!”

  But Kallie wasn’t listening. She continued flipping through the book. “I’m in the mood to look up names. Any other names you want to know about?”

  I sat down beside her and tried to think of the names of everyone I knew. Lynn was short for Linda, which meant “pretty.” That makes sense, I thought. George, my dad’s name, meant “farmer,” which made me laugh. He could barely get grass to grow on the lawn. My mom’s name, Sylvia, meant “woods.” Well, I thought dryly, she is hard, like a tree. “Damian” was “sweet and harmless.” I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of Damian Sámos having such a wimpy name.

  Kallie’s grandma reappeared through the kitchen door. When she asked whether we’d found anything that interested us, Kallie told her about the book of names. Her grandma asked, “Have you told Hilary about your name, Kallie?”

  My guilty feelings returned when I realized I hadn’t asked Kallie about her name. But then something else happened. For the first time, I saw Kallie blush. She squirmed and shook her head.

  “I know it’s one of the moons of Jupiter,” I said.

  “Yes, it is,” said Kallie
’s grandma. “But originally it came from Greek mythology. Callisto was one of the attendants of the goddess Artemis, who was a huntress. Callisto became pregnant, and Artemis was so angry that she turned her into a bear and had the rest of her attendants hunt the bear. But then the great god Zeus saw how Callisto was being persecuted, so he took her and put her in the stars. You can see her there now, as the constellation Great Bear. The name Callisto means ‘beautiful.’ I first told Kallie that story a long time ago, when she was not as high as the piano bench over there.”

  As Kallie and her grandma exchanged warm smiles, I felt something I’d never felt towards Kallie before. Jealousy. I wished I had what she had. Part of me even wanted to be her. I turned away and looked out the window.

  Kallie’s grandma suggested that Kallie and I take the dogs for a walk. I was glad for the opportunity to leave the house. Before we left, I checked the book of names. It didn’t have “Chanel” in it.

  Kallie and I walked back towards the dock through a park. She assured me it was safe to let Woof and Fortunado off their leashes, and they went tearing across the grass, yapping excitedly. I asked Kallie where her grandma was from.

  “England. After the Second World War, her father decided to come to Canada to find work.”

  “Work? But I thought gypsies just travelled around.”

  “They do, but they still need to work to support themselves. My great-grandfather was a metalworker and a jewellery maker, and he thought he might find more work in Canada, so they all came over. It was a big family, and my great-grandfather was the head of it.”

  “Was your grandfather also a gypsy?”

  “No. He was Irish. That’s why one of my middle names is Irish. My grandparents met at a fair in Toronto. My grandma and her sisters were selling scarves and jewellery they’d made. My grandfather was very shy, but he stopped to talk to her, and they fell in love.”

  I wondered whether my grandmothers had any interesting stories like that. Somehow I doubted it.

  “That’s nice,” I said. “Did they always live on the island?”

  “Oh no. That wasn’t until later. My grandfather was in the army, so they moved around a lot. My grandma liked it at first because it meant she got to travel, but it was a different kind of travel than the kind she did with her family. Plus, the army people weren’t always very nice to my grandparents. They didn’t like gypsies.”

  I lowered my eyes and said quickly, “Doesn’t she ever miss travelling?”

  “Sometimes, but she’s happy here.”

  We walked the last few steps to the dock.

  “Kallie?” I began.

  She looked up from where she was petting Woof.

  “I’m sorry about the way I treated you. I haven’t always been very nice,” I said.

  She looked down again.

  “I was pretty rude the first time we met. It’s just that I thought you were…”

  “Weird. I know.” She sighed.

  “But you’re not weird in a bad way. You’re weird in a good way.”

  “I’ve never heard that before.” She smiled slightly.

  “It’s true.” I frowned. “Why did you keep trying to be friends with me, even after I was so mean?”

  Kallie rose and looked at me. “Because I wanted a friend. After the whole thing with Sheila, I didn’t try to make any friends, and I just ended up being lonely. So when we moved and I found out there was a girl my age living next door, I decided I was going to try as hard as I could to be friends with her.”

  I looked down at the weathered planks.

  “The other thing I learned is that you should never stop trying to defend yourself against people like that. Otherwise it means they’ve won.”

  We were both quiet until Kallie smiled and said warmly, “Anyway, let’s not think about all that. We’re good friends now and nothing can change that, right?”

  “Right,” I said, smiling.

  The rest of the day went by too quickly. It was one of those twenty-five-degree days with no humidity and no clouds, and the sun gently warmed our skin as we spent the entire day outside. We rented bicycles and rode around the island, bought ice cream, and stood on the observation deck and gazed out at the horizon. The blue of the water melted into the blue of the sky so you couldn’t see where the water ended and the sky began.

  After dinner, we sat in the room with the eye window. The dogs were asleep under separate chairs. Kallie and her dad put some happy fiddle music on the gramophone and sat near it playing cards. Kallie’s mom and grandma sat beside a small table, doing a crossword puzzle together.

  “My daughter must help me,” Kallie’s grandma explained. “She knows how to fit the right letters into the puzzle just as she fits the right parts into the computer.”

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Kallie’s dad said to me, smiling. “Rawnie Foster can do the Globe and Mail crossword puzzle backwards in ink.”

  “Now, now, Razi, that was only once.”

  I smiled, feeling like I belonged. I hadn’t talked much to Kallie’s mom, but just having her there made me feel warm. A feeling I realized I didn’t often get with my own mother. And I felt comfortable enough with Kallie’s grandma to explore the room.

  I wandered around, examining different objects. Kallie’s grandma didn’t look up, so I knew she trusted me not to break anything. I found a small wooden box in a corner of one shelf. As I picked up the box, I noticed that the wood was chipped and the gold clasp was broken. The box held a stained pink cloth. I unwrapped the cloth carefully.

  Inside was a pack of cards. But it didn’t look like any pack of cards I’d ever seen. There were too many of them, way more than fifty-two. The first one showed a man dancing and playing the flute, like a joker, but as I flipped through the pack, I didn’t notice any suits on the cards. Instead there were swords and cups, and lots of cards with people on them. The cards intrigued me, and I sat down with them for a closer look.

  “I see you have found a pack of tarot cards,” Kallie’s grandma said.

  I looked up, surprised. So that’s what they were. I’d never held a pack of real live tarot cards before.

  “Those are very old cards,” she continued. Everyone was looking at her now. “They were given to me when I was a child, younger than you and Kallie.”

  I looked at the cards again. Even though they were well-thumbed and creased, the pictures on them were bright and clear.

  Then Kallie’s grandma said, “Hilary, would you like me to do a reading for you?”

  A thrill of delight mamboed up my spine. Having my tarot cards read was slightly dangerous, like sneaking in to see an R-rated movie. So of course I said yes.

  “Do you want me to get one of the newer packs, Grandma?” asked Kallie.

  “No. There must be a reason Hilary found this one, so we will use it.”

  What reason, I wondered. It was just luck. But I was excited about having my fortune told. I’d always wanted to phone up one of those psychics — you know, the ones on TV who’ll tell you exactly what’ll happen to you — but you always had to be at least eighteen. And here I was getting my own personal psychic. Just imagine what Lynn will say, I thought. If I tell her.

  Kallie’s mom and grandma cleared everything off the small table, placed a red cloth over it, and moved the only lamp in the room next to the table. Kallie’s mom went to sit with the others, outside the circle of yellow light.

  “You sit here, Hilary,” Kallie’s grandma said, pointing to the chair opposite hers. I placed the tarot cards on the red cloth and sat down, feeling like I’d been chosen to be the follower of a powerful priestess.

  “Before we begin, I must ask you a question,” said Kallie’s grandma. “Have you ever had your tarot cards read before?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then I would like to tell you about the tarot, and about what it means to have your cards read. The tarot does not always predict the future. When it does, it does not give exact details. You cannot turn up
a card that will tell you, ‘Tomorrow you will meet a one-legged man coming back from the market carrying a banjo.’ The tarot is not like one of those psychics you see on TV.”

  The others laughed. I shifted in my chair and stared at the red tablecloth.

  “Tarot cards reveal what is hidden deep in your heart and mind. This is helpful because by understanding your heart and mind, you will be better able to make decisions that you think and feel are right. You must have a reason for consulting the cards. Perhaps you are concerned about something and want some guidance. Is this the case?”

  I nodded. My concerns could be summed up in two words. Junior high.

  “I thought so. Now every tarot card has many meanings, and the meaning that applies to you will depend on the other cards in the spread. If the spread is negative, do not be alarmed. Just remember that in the tarot, as in life, the dawn always follows the night.”

  I couldn’t speak. I was riveted to her every word.

  “We will use a simple five-card spread. You will shuffle the deck and pick out five cards. The first card you lay down will represent your past. The second, your present situation. The third, influences on your situation. The fourth, advice about your situation. And the fifth, the likely outcome of the situation if you accept that advice. The cards will tie together to form a story. Do you understand all that?” I nodded dizzily. “Good. If you have any questions, please ask me.”

  But my head was spinning. This was getting complicated. Kallie’s grandma handed me the cards, which felt heavier from when I’d first held them, like an empty container that has been filled with water. Taking a deep breath, I shuffled the cards quickly and put down the first five. One was facing Kallie’s grandma instead of me, and I reached to put it right side up.

  “No,” she said in a voice that made me jump. “A card that appears upside down is important. Let it be.” She crossed her knuckles under her chin and stared at the cards for so long I grew bored. At last she said, “This is very interesting. All of the cards are from the major arcana. This is a very powerful and important spread.”