Six Times a Charm

by Deanna Chase

  “Structures?” I asked, because that seemed like the only concrete word in everything she had said.

  She nodded and fished for a gold chain that had slipped inside her blouse. When she pulled it out, I could see a perfect quartz crystal. “Structures,” she repeated. “Crystals, to guide our meditation. To show us the ways of balance. To heal.”

  Crystals.

  My biological mother believed in crystals. Had I just stepped back into the 1970’s without any warning? I looked around wildly, hoping that Melissa would bail me out, but she was helping a customer at the counter.

  But there was something about Clara’s words, something that reminded me of dinner with David. Power. She was interested in the hidden power of the world around her.

  “Are you a witch?” I asked, before I’d even thought about the question.

  “A witch?” She blinked, confused.

  “You know. The powers that you’re talking about. Do you work spells? Do you channel power that way?”

  Clara’s face shut down just a little bit, and she let her crystal slip back beneath her blouse. “I’m not kidding about this, um, Jane. It’s very important to me. I’m not just making it up to be strange.”

  “No!” I heard how loud my voice was, and I swallowed before continuing. “No, I didn’t mean to say that. It’s just that….”

  “Just that what?”

  “I’ve become interested in witchcraft lately. I thought that maybe I’d gotten that interest from you.” Okay, so it sounded lame. But it was practically the truth. Even if it did sound like I’d been spending my time browsing the stacks in a library. Not working spells. Not summoning familiars. Whatever.

  Clara shook her head. “No. No witchcraft that I know of in my past. Although I think that there are times that I’ve been more than a little possessed.”

  I wondered if I should ask her for details, but the question seemed too intrusive. Instead, I stared out the window, watching a handful of sycamore leaves drift to the sidewalk. The silence stretched out between us until it was something palpable. Something uncomfortable.

  “Did you—”

  “Your grandmother—”

  We both started at the same time; then we both insisted that the other speak. I finally gave in to her and completed my question: “Did you ever come to see me? Did you ever watch me, when I didn’t know you were there?”

  She shook her head. “At first, I didn’t want to. I was too busy worrying about where I was going to get my next fix.”

  There. She’d said it. In plain English. She’d wanted her drugs more than she wanted me. More than she even wanted to see me. I felt myself shut down. My shoulders hunched up around my shoulders, and I started to chew on my thumbnail.

  “Don’t do that,” she said, reaching out to pull away my hand.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” I was surprised by the intensity of my anger. I jerked my hand back as if she had burned me.

  “You’ve got such beautiful hands,” she said, folding her own in her lap. “They’re from your father’s side of the family. Mine were never much to look at.”

  I folded my fingers into fists. Childish, I know, but I didn’t want her to look at them anymore. I didn’t want her to see the chewed fingernails.

  “Jane,” she said. “I know that I’ve hurt you. I know that this all must be a huge surprise.”

  “Do you? Do you know that?” I dared to meet her eyes—mirrors of my own. “Do you know how many times I wanted you to come back? How I hid your picture beneath my pillow? How I talked to you, late at night, when I knew no one else could hear?”

  “I did what I thought was best,” she said. “I knew that I wasn’t strong enough to help you. To give you everything you needed.”

  “Maybe that was true when you left, but it’s been twenty-five years! You must have found the strength at some point.”

  “I did. Or I thought I did. I stopped using sixteen years ago, after I woke up in a city hospital without any memory of who I was or how I’d gotten there. It took me a few years to get my own life back. When I first contacted your grandmother, though, she said that you weren’t prepared to see me, that it would be too disorienting. You were starting high school. It was a difficult time.”

  I flashed back to an image of me at fifteen—gawky, ungainly, absolutely unsure of myself. From day to day, I’d change from a loving, immature child to a haughty, tantrum-throwing teen. I wanted to go on dates, but I was afraid to. I wanted independence, but I was terrified of being on my own. I couldn’t have handled my biological mother’s disclosure. Not then.

  “I always asked about you, though,” Clara said. “I always wanted to know how you were doing. Your grandmother should have—”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what Gran should have done!” Again, my flash of anger overwhelmed me, confused me too. After all, I was angry with Gran. Why should I protect her? She was the one who had kept this secret from me. This was her fault, hers and Clara’s together. They had ganged up on me from the moment I was born.

  “Jeanette—”

  “My name is Jane!”

  “Jane, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t.” I scrambled for my purse. “Look, I just remembered that I have a meeting to get to. At work.”

  “On Saturday?”

  I nodded, trying to think of something, anything, that would get me out of Cake Walk. “Big cataloging meeting. We’re going over acquisitions for the next year. All the staff. All day.” I stood up and pushed my chair up to the table. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t spend more time together. I’m sorry.”

  I saw Melissa’s concerned glance, but I faked a smile and a wave, mimed that I would pay her later for the tea and cookies. I grabbed my shawl and flung it around my shoulders with a panache that beat Clara’s glasses, hands down. She stood, but I was already half-way to the door.

  “Jean—Jane! I’d like to see you again.”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “We’ll do that. I don’t have my calendar, though. Call me, and we’ll get together. Very soon.”

  My fingers fumbled with the doorknob, and it took three tries to get the door open. I heard Melissa call my name as I finally wrenched it free. I half-turned and waved. “Staff meeting!” I called before I fled onto the cobble-stoned street.

  I did not let myself think about Clara’s eyes, those eyes the same shade as mine, those eyes that were welling up with tears as I fled home to my cottage, to my books of witchcraft, to the life that I had carved out without any mother to call me by someone else’s name.

  Chapter 13

  Melissa set her right fist against her left palm. “One, two, three,” she said.

  Scissors.

  I tried to fold the “paper” of my flattened hand into a rock, but she closed her fingers around mine, sawing hers in a time-honored motion. “Scissors cut paper.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, none too happy. “I know. I will see Clara again. I promise. It was just too much—the cult thing, and the crystal, and the way her eyes were exactly like mine.”

  “That was a little creepy, wasn’t it?” And that’s when I knew that Melissa would let this thing rest. She’d let me figure out how to meet Clara again, on my own timetable.

  For now, though, we had bigger fish to fry. So to speak. As it were.

  Jason Templeton was arriving for dinner in four short hours.

  I’d taken the afternoon off work, and Melissa had stepped up to the plate with the unprecedented act of closing the bakery to come to my aid. We’d spent the better part of the past week—when we weren’t dissecting every second of the disaster that had been my reunion with Clara—planning a menu.

  Against Melissa’s advice, I’d decided to go with a colonial theme. Eighteenth-century delicacies. Things that would show that I was an intellectual woman, not just an infatuated librarian.

  The problem was, tastes had changed a bit in the past two-hundred odd years.

  I
hadn’t had any trouble finding sample menus. The Peabridge had a huge collection that covered kitchens, gardens, and foodstuffs, along with countless diaries from housewives, butlers, and more than a few men of the house.

  I’d spent the better part of Monday plowing through them, reaching up to run my fingers through my unruly hair, consistently forgetting that I wore a satin-ribboned mob cap. I’d spent Tuesday selecting the best candidates, winnowing the possibilities down to a meager half-dozen contenders. I’d spent Wednesday writing up lists of ingredients, organizing the recipes so that I could cook them most efficiently, writing up detailed flowcharts of what needed to be accomplished when.

  And I’d spent Thursday freaking out and wondering if this wasn’t the biggest mistake of my entire romantic life.

  We were talking about Jason Templeton, after all. The man who was supposed to sit at my table, eat my cooking, stare into my eyes, and realize that we were destined to be together forever.

  The man I was meant to spend the rest of my life with. The man who was going to make me forget Scott Randall and his controlling, manipulative, debasing, two-timing ways forever.

  I took a deep breath and looked down at my menu one more time. I wasn’t an idiot. I wasn’t about to serve the twelve courses that would have been standard in colonial times. I wasn’t going to offer a half dozen meats, as if this were the Hardy Lumberjack Buffet. I’d keep things simple.

  Peanut soup (don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it—it’s really pretty good). Lamb chops (substituting for the mutton that most colonialists would have enjoyed. Have you tried to find mutton in a store these days?). Peas—Thomas Jefferson’s favorite vegetable (it was late in the season to find fresh ones, but Dean and DeLuca, the gourmet grocery in the heart of Georgetown, had finally obliged me—for a price). Sweet potato and pecan muffins—already baked by Melissa. And for dessert, a pear tart.

  There. That wasn’t so complicated. Any girl could do it.

  My kitchen already looked like a battleground. Every horizontal surface was colonized by herbs and spices. The ingredients for the soup huddled by the toaster. The spices for the lamb mustered by the sink. Fresh peas in the pod assailed the tin table—I could not believe how many I’d needed to buy to make sure I’d have enough once they were shelled and cooked down. The tart looked like it would command the most attention—flour already powdered the countertop, and sugar threatened to dive onto the floor.

  Before I could implement my master plan of attack, the front door opened, and Neko waltzed in. My dry cleaning was draped over his arm; I had remembered just in time that I wanted to wear my pleated skirt.

  Neko stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, his eyes widening in shock. “You girls better have a lot of alcohol planned.”

  Alcohol! Wine! I hadn’t even thought of wine. What sort of hostess would I be, if I didn’t have wine for my guest?

  What fit the meal? I ran through a list in my head. Thomas Jefferson had been a francophile; he would have drunk something French—a fine burgundy, most likely. What about George Chesterton? Did I know his wine preferences? Maybe a claret? What the hell was a claret, anyway? And would it go with lamb?

  “Neko!” I said, reaching for my wallet. “Please, go buy some wine. Two bottles. You can go to the store down on M Street; they’ll help you choose something right. Make it French. And bold.” I gave him a twenty and watched disbelief twist his face. I extracted another bill from my wallet and folded his fingers around it. “Go on! The wine will need time to breathe!”

  Neko pocketed the cash. “I’ll just put your skirt in your closet,” he said.

  “No!” I shouted. Melissa jumped at the vehemence of my reply, but Neko wasn’t surprised. “You are not going into my room. You are not getting anywhere near Stupid Fish.” I had managed to change the tetra’s water the weekend before, but not without slapping Neko’s hands on three separate occasions. “Drape the skirt over the couch. I’ll hang it up when I’m done here.”

  He shrugged and set down the garment, catching it twice when the plastic wrap threatened to slide to the floor. “Can’t blame a boy for trying.”

  “I can very much blame the boy,” I said. My patience was wearing thin. I glanced at the clock. Four hours till Jason arrived. Four hours to make everything perfect. “Please, Neko. Go. And don’t stop off at Roger’s. There isn’t time.”

  Neko pouted, but he left.

  Four hours definitely wasn’t enough time for Neko to visit Roger. I’d gone to the salon with my enabling familiar on Sunday afternoon, still trying to recover from the fiasco with Clara. I’d decided to get my nails done. Roger had convinced me to splurge on a pedicure, to go along with the manicure I’d already chosen. He’d seduced me with scented lotions and heated towels, and I had luxuriated in every second of the treatment.

  And I’d been astonished to realize that Neko and I had wiled away an entire afternoon in the marble and chrome temple to self-indulgence. It was too easy to lose track of time there. Too easy to slip away from responsibility, from the details of daily life.

  “So, are you going to begin with the tart?” Melissa’s question tugged me back to reality.

  “Yep,” I said, and I took a deep breath. “The crust first, right?”

  “Right.” Melissa came to stand beside me. It really was brilliant for me to choose a baker as my best friend. She made all these little details fall into place.

  We had decided to go with a gingersnap base—no chance for me to ruin a traditional pie crust by adding too much flour, or by kneading for too long. Besides, the smell of the ginger would brighten the entire house—and gingersnaps were a colonial favorite. Melissa walked me through the details—placing the store-bought cookies (hey, a girl has to take a few shortcuts) into a plastic bag, crushing them with a rolling pin.

  It took a surprisingly long time to break them all into perfect crumbs. I was beginning to think that I should have bought one of those pre-made graham cracker crusts. After all, who was going to know the difference?

  I would, I chided myself, quickly regaining my senses. And Jason would. He would know that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) did not have graham crackers. He would know that my meal was not authentic. All the cachet that I hoped to gain with my scholarly feast would be lost.

  Besides, once the gingersnaps were crushed, the rest of the crust was easy. I added sugar and shortening and pressed the resulting mixture into a pan.

  “There,” Melissa said. “Now, you want to blind bake it for ten minutes.”

  “Blind bake?” I asked, picturing a trio of mice in dark glasses.

  “Without the pears. So that the crust gets done.”

  Right. I knew that.

  I put the crust in the oven, set the timer, and turned back to my friend. She was collecting the last of the dusty peapods from the table. The vegetables themselves were glinting in a bowl, fresh and inviting as summer.

  “How did you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Shell the peas? I was busy over here, and you were giving me advice the entire time. It’s like magic!”

  “You took long enough to press the crust into the pan.” She smiled to take the sting from her words. “And speaking of magic, when do I get to see the books?”

  “You saw them. Neko brought up the grimoire the other night.”

  “I mean all of them. When do I get to see the collection?”

  “It’s not like I’m keeping it a secret or anything.” We crossed through the living room, and I turned the key in the basement door’s lock. I’d replaced the lightbulb at the top of the stairs so that we didn’t need candles to light the way.

  Melissa exclaimed when she reached the bottom. I still hadn’t found time to put the books in order. Truth be told, I was a little afraid of them. I’d thought of asking Neko to get the collection in shape, but I wasn’t sure what I’d end up with if I put him in charge. Besides, David’s story jangled at the back of my mind. The books were part of Hannah Osgood’
s estate. They weren’t really mine. They’d have to be returned to their rightful owners at some point.

  “They’re incredible!” Melissa said. “Just smell them!”

  She was right about that. They did smell amazing. Leather, and parchment, and a hint of ancient dust. That was the scent that had roped me into libraries in the first place—the magic of the written word, separate and apart from any special powers.

  “May I touch them?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Might as well. They’ve definitely been handled in the past.”

  She ran her fingers along the spines on the nearest shelf before pulling out one of the larger volumes. Letters were picked out in gold on the cover, and I craned my neck to read along with her: “Elemental Magick.”

  She supported the volume with her left hand as she opened the cover, taking care not to spread it too wide. “On Water,” she read. “On its summoning and its banishing.”

  “Great. If the basement starts to flood, I’ll have somewhere to turn.”

  “You just can’t find good plumbers these days.” We both started to laugh but were interrupted by the triple chirp of my electronic timer up in the kitchen. “Crust is done,” Melissa said, leading the way upstairs.

  I reached for the timer as she opened up the oven. She took a half-step back, though, and said, “This oven runs hot.”

  “I set it for 350.”

  “I see that. It’s probably cooking at around 400, though. Maybe a little higher.”

  “Does that mean I can’t make the tart?”

  “No, it’ll be fine. Just turn down the temp. Cook it at 300 on your dial, and check it after about three quarters of the time.” The things I didn’t know about baking.

  The rest of the afternoon flew by. Under Melissa’s instructive gaze, I sliced the pears and layered them onto my gingersnap crust. I coated them with a honey glaze so that they wouldn’t oxidize, and then I baked them in my too-hot oven. As Melissa had recommended, I checked the dessert early, and I removed it just as the first hint of caramel color appeared on top.