Six Times a Charm

by Deanna Chase

  There were objects on the shelves, as well. I uncovered a set of jade runes, and another of gold, and a partial set of wooden tiles. I found three different wands, each as long as my forearm, each carved out of a different type of wood. I discovered a set of three nested iron pots, all shaped like classic witch’s cauldrons.

  In one corner, sheltered beneath a dusty crocheted afghan, there was a wooden chest. I opened it to discover dozens of glass vials, each carefully labeled. Robin feathers. Columbine. Tortoise shell. I glanced back at the books, wondering what sort of potions I could make with the ingredients.

  After finding the first few objects scattered among the books, I realized that I needed to take care of all of the treasures. I couldn’t just consign them to further forgotten life on their dusty shelves. I waited until I heard Neko close the front door one afternoon, and then I darted upstairs to find my laptop computer. It was a hand-me-down from Scott that I’d had for almost five years but never used. I plugged it into one of the basement wall sockets, fired it up, and pulled up the ancient database program that Scott had loaded on it years ago.

  I took great pleasure in deleting the files that Scott had stored away. In fact, I enjoyed wiping out his databases so much that I opened up his Office program. I started to delete everything there, but I paused when I found an email folder labeled “Amelia.” Amelia had been in Scott’s law school section; they’d studied together for first year and remained friends after they’d both graduated. I double-clicked on the folder icon.

  It was locked; I needed to type in a password. I barely hesitated before entering Scott’s birthday, two digits each for month, day, and year of birth. If I’d learned nothing else in library school, I’d learned that most people are completely unimaginative when it came to protecting their computer files.

  Sure enough, the folder sprang open as if it were loaded on a spring.

  If I’d expected an exegesis of criminal law, I was disappointed, but I managed to uncover a great deal of criminal intent. Okay, maybe not criminal. But I found myself utterly fascinated by the notes that Scott had written to Amelia. They’d had email sex. They’d apparently had phone sex, too, on several nights when I’d left the apartment, hoping to make it easier for Scott to study for exams. And they’d had real sex, on numerous occasions, in the bed that Scott and I had shared.

  With fingers trembling so hard that I could scarcely type, I closed Amelia’s folder, and I opened the next: Birgit. Then Cathy. Donna.

  The folders read like a list of hurricanes, and each one ripped through my gut. Woman after woman after woman. Scott had flirted with all of them, lured most of them into online antics, and many of them into his bed. Our bed.

  How could I have been so blind? How could I have missed the fact that my fiancé, the love of my life, the man I was going to marry and love happily ever after, had been screwing anything in a skirt?

  And what did it mean that even when I was free from my philandering significant other, I had immediately sought out Jason, a man who was carved from the exact same stone?

  Nauseated, I deleted all of it. The email, word processing files, spreadsheets. I would have reformatted the entire computer hard disk, but I wanted to use the programs that Scott had installed so long ago. I wanted to use his computer, to use him, to make something good come out of the years I’d wasted on him.

  Tears trickling down my cheeks, I reopened the database program and started to build my library catalog. I made neat entries for my witchcraft books—their titles, authors, subject matters, physical descriptions. I created records for the slips of paper that had been tucked between their pages; I made special notes about the objects I’d found.

  The work took a long time, but it was mostly mindless.

  And that gave me time to think. Time to cry. Time to look at the mess I’d made of my life.

  Why was I so good at choosing bad men? Why did I seek out the same type, time after time? Why did I write stories in my mind, justifying them, explaining them? Why did I hang on to them so desperately?

  And what was I possibly going to do with myself, now that I knew I had to let them go?

  Chapter 28

  I thought that I was dreaming when I smelled the chocolate chip cookies.

  I’d spent four days in the basement, working feverishly whenever I wasn’t sleeping. Although the room was cool, I knew that I smelled, um, somewhat less than fresh; I still hadn’t brought myself to waste time taking a shower. It just seemed unnecessary. I mean, it wasn’t like I was ever going to see a man, ever again. Scott had lied to me. Jason had lied to me. Even the nice guys, like Harold, were driven away by my bitchiness.

  I was going to have to do something about food. The apples had only lasted until Tuesday. The pretzels were long gone; I’d run out of cheese the night before. I’d even resorted to eating the canned Bartlett pears that had lingered at the back of my kitchen shelves for months. I’d fallen asleep, wondering if Neko’s Stupid-Fish-engendered guilt was great enough that he would run to the grocery store for me, solely on the strength of a written note. Could I trust him to bring back a pint of Chubby Hubby? Or would my favorite ice cream go the way of my poor, lost fish, right down Neko’s gullet?

  So, I thought that I might be hallucinating the chocolate chip cookies.

  I crept to the top of the stairs and listened carefully. The night before, I’d stayed awake until nearly dawn, finishing the catalog of my witchcraft books. I had to admit that I was impressed—Hannah Osgood had brought together quite a collection. Even though I couldn’t say with were rare in the world of witchcraft, I knew that most were by different authors. Many reached back several centuries, and all were now neatly listed in my sort-able, print-able, one hundred percent accurate and up-to-date catalog.

  Now, huddled at the top of the stairs, I smelled something else beneath the aroma of chocolate chip cookies. Something salty and hot, a memory of childhood sick-days.

  I twisted the knob and eased the basement door back on its hinges.

  Chicken soup. Hot chicken soup. With rice, if I remembered anything from my childhood. Easy tears sprang back into my eyes. Someone had cared enough about me to make chicken soup.

  I tugged my bathrobe tighter around my waist and crossed to the kitchen, only to discover a half-circle of earnest, silent women. Okay. Three women and Neko. But Neko was looking his most feminine, brushing on clear nail polish and studying his fingers as if they were works of art.

  “Hi,” I said, suddenly aware of just how greasy my hair must be.

  Melissa stood up. “Hi,” she said. “We thought you might be hungry.”

  “Yeah, well….” I trailed off, taking a moment to dash my palms against my damp cheeks.

  Gran stepped up beside my best friend. “Why don’t you go take a shower, dear? Then, we’ll all sit down to a bit of midnight supper.”

  I glanced at the clock. 11:30. P.M. I had completed another sleep marathon.

  Clara rose to complete the triumvirate. “I’ll make some sandwiches to go with the soup. Turkey or ham for you?”

  “Turkey,” Melissa and Gran both answered, before I could. They knew I didn’t like ham.

  “Go ahead,” Melissa said to me. “Wash up and come eat with us.”

  Gran volunteered, “I put some clothes on your bed. You can change into them after you shower.”

  Neko twisted shut his bottle of nail polish and came to stand beside the others, waving his drying fingers in the air. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I wasn’t going to keep taking messages forever, you know. I had people to see. Places to go.”

  Fish to eat, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Instead, I shut myself into the bathroom and turned on the water for the hottest shower I could stand.

  Someone had been at work here as well, and I suspected Melissa’s hand. My favorite Body Shop shampoo was standing on the floor of the shower, partnered with conditioner and a matching bar of glycerin soap. My toothbrush and toothpaste had been retrieve
d from the Farm; they were laid out on the counter like offerings to some goddess of hygiene. I peeked underneath the sink and found my entire cosmetics bag, the one that I had abandoned in the Girls’ Room, tucked away, safe and sound.

  As I soaped up a washcloth, I remembered how good a shower can feel. I lathered shampoo into my hair and filled my lungs completely for what seemed like the first time in weeks. Toweling dry, I realized that I was starving, ravenous, as if I had eaten nothing for months.

  I ducked into my bedroom and found that Gran had been true to her word. Fleece pants were laid out on the bed, grey to match the heathered sweatshirt beside them. I tugged the pants on and was pleased to see that the elastic waist band was a little loose. I wouldn’t market heartbreak as the diet of choice, but a girl had to take her benefits where she could.

  Clean for the first time in days, I returned to the kitchen to find a simple meal set out on the counter, buffet-style. Gran loaded up a plate for me, ignoring my half-hearted protests that she was giving me too much food. We all decided to sit in the living room, because there weren’t enough chairs in the kitchen.

  “So,” Gran said, when we had settled on the hunter green couches.

  “So,” I repeated. What did they want me to say? I’d been an idiot? I’d been a desperate fool? I filled my mouth with turkey sandwich, trying to ignore the salty taste of renewed tears at the back of my throat.

  Clara jumped in to fill the silence. “We had quite an interesting ride back to D.C.”

  I wasn’t interested, but I had to say something. “Really?”

  Clara looked at Gran, who clicked her tongue primly before saying, “Well, your young man showed up at the farmhouse wearing nothing but his shoes. Poor Leah thought she might go into labor then and there, from the surprise.”

  “Leah was awake?” I asked, intrigued despite myself.

  “Oh yes,” Gran said. “Neko saw to that.”

  I turned to Neko, who was studying his manicure with pursed-lips nonchalance. He shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t be sure which room you were staying in, could I? I needed to call your name from the driveway, let you know that I’d made it to the Farm after my weekend in Boston. I knew that you’d be worried.”

  “Your weekend in Boston,” I repeated, beginning to understand the cover story that Neko had concocted.

  “I got a little carried away, though,” he admitted, lowering his eyes in false shame. “It must have been that Tennessee Williams retrospective I saw last month. For the record, it’s much easier to bellow ‘Stella’ than ‘Jane.’”

  Melissa guffawed around a mouthful of ham sandwich, and I shook my head at his silliness. “So, Neko arrived…from Boston and woke everyone with his Stanley Kowalski imitation.”

  Clara nodded and said, “Just in time for us to see Jason stumble out of the woods. He had some strange story to tell—that you’d mistakenly taken his clothes when you borrowed his car to return home. He said you had an emergency back here.”

  Gran broke in: “Which certainly didn’t please the other man.”

  “Other man?” I asked, looking at Neko, only to catch his minute nod.

  Clara explained. “David, he said his name was. He came over from the Blue Cottage right after Jason.”

  Gran shook her head. “What a pity they didn’t run into each other on the path in the woods. David could at least have given Jason his overcoat to wear.”

  “Pity,” Neko said, with a doleful shake of his head.

  Gran took up the story. “Well, at least Simon was able to loan Jason some clothes, but that poor young man was simply swimming in his borrowed dungarees.

  “Now, Mother,” Clara said. “They probably wouldn’t have fallen down if the twins hadn’t ‘pantsed’ him.”

  I made a mental note to thank Simon’s boys. Melissa asked, “So then what happened?”

  “Jason insisted that Jane had left,” Clara said. “David seemed rather put out. He told Neko—”

  Neko interrupted. “He and I discussed things. In fact, we strolled back to the Blue Cottage to tidy up. And then he went on his way.”

  “On his way?” I asked, glancing apprehensively toward the door.

  “He said that he understood that you had a lot, um, on your plate, and he’d catch up with you later in the week.” Later. Great. That could be now.

  Gran, oblivious to my concern, continued her story. “By the time Neko came back to the house, most people had left. We all piled into the Lincoln and drove home.”

  “All?” I asked.

  Neko clarified. “Clara drove. And a fine driver she is—never went a mile above the speed limit. That gave us plenty of time to talk to Jason.”

  “Jason was with you?”

  “In the back seat. With me. While your grandmother sat up front.” Neko fluttered his hands in front of his eyes. “The poor man just could not get comfortable. I think that he was positively chafed by the time we got to his house.”

  Clara took up the tale. “Of course, we waited with him at his place, to make sure that he could get inside. He’d misplaced his house keys, somehow. Or that’s what he told the woman who finally showed up.”

  “Ekaterina?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

  “Is that her name?” Clara snorted and tossed her flame-red hair. “Sounds about right. Poor thing looked like she was going to faint away when she saw all of us. She burst into tears. No strength to her at all. No meat on her bones.”

  “Speaking of meat on bones,” Melissa said, and she jumped up from the couch. “Neko will you help me?”

  I took the opportunity of their absence to look at my mother and grandmother, to really study these women who were so like me. I reached out to take their hands. “Thank you,” I said.

  Gran smiled slightly, and then Clara, and I knew that I would one day tell them everything that had happened in the Blue Cottage. Well, not everything….

  “Gran?” I said, realizing this was the perfect time to ask them both a question. “Clara?” They looked at me expectantly. “Have you ever done …” I trailed off, realizing that I was going to sound like an idiot. “Have you ever worked …” That was no better. Well, there was no way to avoid this. They’d stuck with me this long; I couldn’t imagine they’d abandon me now. “Do you believe in magic?”

  Clara glanced at Gran and then quickly looked away. She dropped my hand and raised her short, blunt fingers to her mouth. She chewed on her fingernails distractedly until Gran said, “Stop that!”

  Clara folded her hands in her lap and finally met my eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I believe in magic.”

  “Clara—” Gran said.

  “No!” My mother did not raise her voice, but she spoke with great force. She looked me in the eye and said, “I first felt it when I was a teenager. If I held my worry beads, I could…make things happen. And when I cast runes, they truly told the future.” She swallowed. “It frightened me. A lot. And so I drank. And got high. And just stayed away from home, where the feelings were strongest.”

  Gran looked flustered. “You know I don’t believe in those things, Clara. I never have.”

  “But you believe in your traditions, like the rhyme at the Farm. And that old pregnancy necklace.”

  “Those are different,” Gran countered immediately.

  “And you used the crystal Jane made for you, when you were in the hospital.”

  “That was a gift!”

  “Mother!” Clara said, and her voice held the exact same note of exasperation that I had perfected as a teen. Clara turned to me. “I’m sorry, Jane. What can I say? You come from a long line of weird women. Stubborn, wonderful, gifted, magical women.”

  There was a sudden clatter in the kitchen, and Melissa and Neko returned with a towering plate of chocolate chip cookies, a pitcher of milk, and a tray of glasses. From the studious way they avoided meeting our eyes, I figured they’d overheard all of that last bit.

  Melissa slapped my familiar’s hand as he attempted to drink directly fro
m the pitcher. He settled for a tall glass of milk and a single cookie. Melissa poured for me and held the serving plate in front of my nose until I’d taken two, then three, and finally four cookies. “They’re best when they’re hot,” she said, passing the platter to Gran and Clara.

  Suddenly, I realized how much I’d missed my best friend, up at the Farm. How much I’d needed her. I clutched at Melissa’s free hand as she sat down. “I’m sorry,” I said to her.

  “What?”

  “I’m so sorry. When I was, um, with Jason, I realized that I…pitied you. I thought your First Dates were ridiculous. I thought that I had everything, that I was leading some sort of dream life, and I actually felt sorry for you. I was an idiot.”

  Gran answered before Melissa could. “We’re all idiots.” She offered her pronouncement around a large bite of cookie, and she swallowed before she elaborated. “We women who forfeit what we believe in, just to please a man. We’re idiots.”

  I took a mournful nibble of my own. “Not you,” I said to my grandmother. “You loved Grandpa, and now you love Uncle George, and you’ve never been an idiot.”

  “Except for that foolish concert opera.”

  “What?” I was astonished. “You love the opera.”

  “I like the people,” she conceded. “But the operas? I might as well listen to cats yowling at the moon.” She sipped her milk. “George loves it, though. At first, I was afraid to tell him how I really felt, and now it’s far too late. So I suffer half a dozen nights a year. I’m an idiot.”

  “Six times a year!” Clara said, helping herself to another cookie. “I was locked into a weekly meditation group for six entire years. That’s one of the main reasons I decided to move back here.”

  “What happened?” I stared at her.

  “I met a man at the food co-op in Sedona. He had the most sensitive hands I’d ever seen….” She sighed, and I tried to picture her scooping quinoa from a bin, standing next to her Adonis. “He told me about a meditation group he was setting up. Group chanting in the box canyon. It was utter crap.”