Drawn Away

by Holly Bennett

“Uncle Steve?”

  “They’re trying to get a message to Stephen. He’s overseas again—in Syria, I think.” My dad’s brother was a Doctors Without Borders staffer with an apparent compulsion to serve in the most dangerous and difficult conditions possible. My father had spoken of him with equal parts pride and exasperation, and I’d overheard him remark once that Steve’s brief marriage had died of absenteeism.

  “I guess, now that I think of it, he’s not likely to be much help.”

  Mom shook her head. “We’ll be lucky if he makes it to the funeral.”

  “I’ll go with you.” The words tumbled out of my mouth without forethought, but they felt right. She needed me.

  “Oh, Lucy.” Now my mom was teary, but she sniffed it back. “Thank you. It means the world to me that you offered. But you don’t have to.” She ran a hand through her hair in a vain attempt to smooth it down and turned to face me, her eyes direct and serious. “I know you carried too much when your dad died. You took on things no kid should have to, and I’m sorry for that.” I didn’t see the point of denying it, not now, so I just nodded. “But you don’t have to do it again. When Daniel died, I lost the love of my life. I’m truly sad about your grampa, and a little overwhelmed at what needs to be done, but I’m not going to fall apart over this. Okay?”

  The relief that washed through me told me how terrified I had been of just that. I nodded again. “Okay. But I’d still like to come. If you write me a note, I can talk to my teachers today and bring work along with me. Is leaving tomorrow soon enough?”

  “Yes, sure. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh! What an awful thing to say.”

  But I grinned at her, glad beyond words to see her able to make a little joke. That, more than her assurances, convinced me she wasn’t about to revisit Zombie Mom. “Grampa wouldn’t mind. Remember those terrible jokes he used to tell?”

  JACK

  “Yeah, of course you have to go. He’s your grandfather.” I said the words and tried to mean them.

  “It’ll only be a few days,” Lucy said. “Though I guess we might have to go back for the funeral or something.”

  “No worries—I still have over three weeks till my next scheduled appointment.” I meant it to sound jokey, but it came out pretty tense. Three weeks sounded like a lot less than a month.

  “I know. I was thinking though—can you come over tonight?”

  “Why, yes, I can.” I leaned over and gave her a smooch on the neck, and then another, and then nibbled the row of rings in her ear, breathing in a combination of smells: shampoo and fresh air and exhaust from the school bus parked beside us. “We definitely need a proper goodbye.”

  She snuggled in against me for a delicious moment, then straightened up and frowned at me. “I have more than that in mind. Work first. Then play.”

  The bus was about to leave. I grabbed one more kiss, then hopped on.

  Lucy had cleared off the living-room coffee table, covered it with a cloth and put an odd assortment of items on it: a candle and matches, a large saucepan, a plastic milk pitcher…

  Looking equal parts solemn and embarrassed, she said, “I thought we could do a thing I read about before I go. It might help.”

  “A thing?”

  She squirmed a bit. “You know, a spell, I guess. I seem to have trouble acknowledging the craziness of what we’re doing.”

  “No shit. Okay, I’m in.” I was way past protesting that I didn’t believe in magic. At this point, belief didn’t even seem relevant. I’d thought seriously about going into the Catholic church in my neighborhood to ask about exorcism—and not only was I not Catholic, I’d only ever been in a church once, for my cousin’s wedding. My parents could be transported by the wonders of fish-scale structure or the miracle of birth, but they didn’t have a religious bone between them.

  So there I was, sitting on the floor at the coffee table, watching Lucy melt a bit of wax, stick the candle on the bottom of the pot and pour in water from the pitcher. Then she sat back.

  “So…here’s how it works. If it works. It’s all about focused intent and channeling energy. We light the candle. You watch it burn, imagining that the candle flame is the spell that’s binding you. When the candle burns down to the water, the flame goes out, and that breaks the spell.”

  “That’s it?” It seemed a little minimal, considering the weirdness I was up against.

  “It’s the only one I could find that was simple enough to manage at short notice. But it’s supposed to be effective.” She shrugged. “At least, you know, according to witch.com.”

  Something else was bothering me. “Lucy…what if I go over there while we’re watching the candle? I mean, it’s happened before when I was zoning out.”

  “Oh. God. I never thought of that.” We stared at each other, trying to weigh risks we didn’t understand. Lucy spoke first.

  “It has to be your decision, Jack. Maybe we shouldn’t risk it—I mean, it’s likely this won’t even work.”

  “Theoretically, I have till the full moon.”

  She nodded. “I know. But whether the theory holds…” She looked at me, her face solemn. “Jack, this is going to sound kind of crazy. But I have this feeling like we’re in a triangle—that you are being pulled by the Match Girl, and somehow I’m her counterpart, pulling you back.”

  I thought about that—or, rather, didn’t think so much as tried to picture it. “That seems right somehow. Though it’s not what I want our relationship to be about.”

  She gave the little smile, an almost secret little smile, which put all kinds of distracting ideas in my head, but she stayed on topic.

  “If you want to try this, let’s hold hands while we do it. You think about the candle and the spell. I’ll think about keeping you here.”

  And that’s what we did. I’ll admit I was nervous, and glad to feel Lucy’s strong little hands firmly squeezing mine. It all seemed so silly, like something thirteen-year-old girls would do at a sleepover, and yet it was deadly serious.

  Lucy lit the candle, and at first I was restless, my mind flitting everywhere and not wanting to light on the wavery little flame. But gradually it drew me in, and I felt my focus become narrow and steady. And then I pictured the Match Girl and her stupid doll, whatever she was doing with it, and layered that onto the flame.

  And then…shit, I could feel it—I’m not kidding here. It was like a thousand sticky spiderwebs pulling and tugging at me. I panicked and tried to blink or look away, but I couldn’t. I was just staring and staring and feeling more and more stretched. But I could also feel Lucy’s hands, and they didn’t feel like spiderwebs—they felt solid and warm. It was so weird; I could feel the pull of the binding spell getting stronger and stronger, but I could feel Lucy too, like an anchor.

  And then there was a hiss, and the flame guttered and went out. And it was as if the spiderweb lines all snapped at the same moment.

  I let out a long, shaky breath.

  Lucy was peering at me, her eyebrows raised into question marks. “Okay?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. And Lucy—I think it worked.”

  She jumped up and started bustling around. “Good. Then let’s clear this creepy shit away and get on with a proper goodbye.” She gathered up everything while I sat there, kind of in a daze, and then she took another look at me. “Jack, maybe you better test while I do this. You look a little weird.”

  She was right, of course. I was racy with adrenaline and probably looked stunned. Anytime I felt that weird, blood sugar could be involved.

  Not only was I not low, but I was up to 12, probably from the stress. I keyed in a correction and followed Lucy into the kitchen for a glass of water (feed a low, dilute a high). I resolved to put the Match Girl out of my head, at least for tonight, and focus on Lucy.

  SEVENTEEN

  KLARA

  What has happened? I don’t understand it, and it makes me angry. It was working, I am sure of it. Over and over,
I would pull out my little Jack and concentrate fiercely on the real Jack, murmuring my spell: “Bring Jack to me, forever to be.” It’s not fancy poetry, I know, but I don’t suppose Mad Gerda’s spells were either. And I could feel Jack coming closer. At first it was so faint I thought it was just my own hopeful imagining. But it grew stronger each time I repeated the spell. And then suddenly—he was gone.

  Something—or someone—has interfered. But Jack is mine. He came to me, didn’t he? I’m not about to let anybody else steal him away.

  My spell worked the first time. It was slow, but it was working. I’ll just start again. I have plenty of time, after all. I will never give up—and sooner or later, Jack will come to me before that interfering nosybody can get in my way.

  EIGHTEEN

  LUCY

  It was so strange and sad to walk into Grampa’s house and know he’d never set foot in there again. But there was too much to do to think about it for long. Mom had a long conversation with Uncle Steve on the phone, which sounded at my end like this: “Oh, good. I’m so glad you can get away. Saturday? What time? We’ll meet your train. Meanwhile…yes, okay…Do you have any preferences? Okay, well, we can try. Lucy and I will get things started…What? Oh God, Stephen, I don’t know. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Hmm?” My mom seemed deep in thought, or maybe submerged in panic.

  “Oh God, what?”

  “Oh. Shamus made both Stephen and me executors, just to cover the bases. But Stephen’s asking if I’ll do it all and take some money for it.”

  “What’s an executor?”

  She shook her head, looking tired. “It’s the person who carries out the instructions in a person’s will—takes care of all the financial stuff, sells the house, finds out what other money there is, doles it all out the way the will specifies. It’s a lot of trouble and time, is what it is. Meanwhile, it’s Thursday and he wants to have the service on Sunday or Monday, so he can get back.”

  So we launched into it—arranging cremation, tracking down Grampa’s church and setting a service date with the priest, writing an obituary, going through his phone list to find and call his friends, tracking down cousins and aunties I’d barely heard of, ordering flowers. In between all that, we tackled the fridge, throwing out the old festering food. Then we brought in some basics for ourselves.

  “God, Mom,” I finally blurted out. “Did you have to do all this when Dad died?” It was only Friday night, and I was exhausted. Trying to sleep on Grampa’s lumpy old couch the night before hadn’t helped.

  She sighed and shook her head. “It’s pretty much a blur,” she said. “But I remember feeling like I couldn’t handle doing one more thing, yet dreading when it would be done and reality would well and truly hit.” It was the most she’d ever told me about that time, and I had a sudden urge to jump up and hug her—hard. But I hesitated and lost my chance. Mom glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall and jumped up. “Oh Lord, I have to meet with that priest soon. Lucy, would you be a dear and rustle up some sort of lunch? And then you can stay here, if you want, and get some homework done.”

  “You sure?” I was grateful for a break, though the worry about my mom was not banished yet. But she gave me a quick squeeze and said that it was great having me here, but yes, she was fine.

  I didn’t get much work done. Mostly I wandered around Grampa’s house, looking at his stuff and remembering him. He teased me about how I looked when we started visiting last year. Mom resolutely never commented on my new style, and Kate asked me earnest questions like, “Who are you armoring yourself against?” But Grampa took one look at me and cackled, “Well, Little Miss Hole-in-Your-Stockings, did you get in a fight with a pair of scissors?” And then he ran his gnarled old hand over my chopped and razored hair. He saw me just fine through the hair dye and boots, and I loved him for that.

  I found a stack of photo albums in the shelf beside his easy chair, full of pictures of my dad and Uncle Steve as kids. I looked carefully at the photos of my grandmother. According to family lore, she had waited dutifully until her sons went off to university, then packed her bags and left, eventually landing in California and remarrying. She had written to my dad every Christmas, but never came to visit.

  I put the albums on the coffee table, thinking Uncle Steve might want to look through them. He’d told Mom he just wanted to get rid of the house and its contents as quickly as possible, and we should take anything we wanted as a keepsake. I wandered aimlessly around, glancing into kitchen cupboards and at the cheap old knickknacks on the shelves, and then I opened the door to the dark, ladder-like steps leading up to the attic. I had a sudden, vivid memory of discovering these stairs as a kid and being firmly forbidden to go up there. “It’s not safe, Lucy,” my dad had said as he latched the little hook that locked the door.

  There was a light switch on the wall, and when I flipped it, a dim light blinked on. Still, I rummaged around in the kitchen until I found a flashlight—and then headed up.

  Mom got back late in the afternoon with a liquor-store bag, from which she unpacked two bottles of wine. One went into the fridge, and the other she opened. To my surprise she poured two glasses, handed one to me and sprawled out in Grampa’s big armchair, easing off her shoes.

  “Time for a break.” She sighed and then lifted her glass to me. “Here’s to your Grampa Shamus.”

  I reached over to clink her glass, and we had a solemn sip. “I hope Stephen appreciates this.” Mom sighed again.

  “How are we doing?” I asked.

  “I think things are pretty much ready to go. If Stephen wants to change anything about the service, he can see to it on Saturday, but he doesn’t seem to care.” She leaned her head back against the headrest, which honestly looked kinda grubby, and closed her eyes. “Let’s find somewhere nice to go for dinner tonight. I’m tired of camping here.”

  We sat in silence for a bit—a nice silence, though, not awkward. Things seemed to be changing with my mom and me. When I thought about it, maybe they had been for a while, but this trip was pushing things along. I didn’t feel like we were on eggshells with each other anymore. Mom sat up, and her eyes fell on the photo albums. “What’re these?”

  “I found them this afternoon. I thought Uncle Stephen might want to take a look.”

  She picked one up and sat beside me on the couch. “We should take a look too.” She took a good slug of wine, as if to fortify herself, and opened the album.

  What happened next was amazing, but it’s hard to explain why. It sounds normal, right? Looking at family photos after someone dies. But for us, it wasn’t normal. We laughed over goofy photos of my dad as a kid, his hair so blond I could hardly believe it was him. We watched him grow tall and skinny and pimply and then turn into a handsome, dark-haired college student. When we hit the wedding photos, my mom started bawling, and so did I, and she put her arm around me and passed the Kleenex box, and we sniveled our way through my mom showing off her pregnant belly and my dad holding a red-faced bundle that was allegedly me and then me as a toddler on this same old couch. And then my mom closed the album firmly, dragged her hand across her nose and said, “That’s all I can handle for now.” She looked at me and I saw her lip kind of quiver, and she said, “But this was good. And I’m really glad you’re here with me.” And then I got teary again too, but we laughed it off and jumped up to get ready for dinner.

  On the way to the restaurant, I sent Jack a quick text. Miss you. But I think I have my mom back!

  Over dinner I told Mom about my find in the attic. “It’s mostly junk, I guess, beat-up old chairs, bags of clothes or curtains or whatever, some suitcases like the kind you see in old movies. I found a box of books with leather bindings that looked intriguing, but it turned out to be a set called Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. They’re, like, four famous books per volume, each down to 100 pages.”

  Mom snorted in amusement. “Great literature for the short attenti
on span.”

  I hurried on. “But anyway, under that box I found an old metal trunk. It’s not big, but it’s kinda heavy to bring down the stairs myself. I dragged it out into the open, but I couldn’t get the lid up. I don’t think it’s locked, just all rusted and jammed.”

  “Huh. I think your grampa would have been too young to be in the war,” said Mom thoughtfully, “but maybe it’s some other kind of travel trunk?”

  “It seems too small for that,” I said.

  “Curiouser and curiouser!” Mom’s eyes widened. “You don’t suppose he was carrying on a secret love affair and that’s why his wife left? Maybe we shouldn’t open it.”

  “You’re kidding, right? We have to open it.”

  That night we rummaged around in Grampa’s basement until we found WD-40, pliers and a screwdriver, and then we climbed up to the attic and pried open the trunk’s clasp. The lid lifted with a screech, and I peered in.

  “If a mouse jumps out of here, I’m going to scream,” I said as I cautiously lifted out a small, moth-eaten blanket.

  “That looks like a baby blanket.” My mom sounded bemused. “But it’s such coarse wool, too scratchy for a baby.”

  Next came some brittle folded papers that I opened gently and trained the flashlight on. One seemed to be a United States immigration record for Donal and Sigrid Sullivan, dated 1811. The other was a marriage license, dated Boston 1812, between Donal Sullivan and Sigrid Larsdatter. Oh, that was cool. “Mom, that must be a Sullivan ancestor. Geez, how many greats back would that be?” Under the certificate was a folded piece of lace, now yellow and stiff.

  “Marriage veil?” My mom guessed. “Though…” She peered at the two papers. “They came over as a married couple. Why would they get married again?”

  Finally, at the very bottom of the chest, I found the real treasure: a sheaf of papers, punched and tied together between cardboard ends, inscribed on the first page: Sigrid’s Story: as told to her daughter-in-law Anna Sullivan (née Mahoney) on June 12, 1859. Gently I turned a few pages. Lines of slanted, loopy handwriting in faded black ink stared back at me. I shook my head, frustrated by the dim light. “Let’s have a closer look downstairs.”