It’s not a big one. But it feels big to me. I clip off some rosemary and basil from the plants on Blix’s windowsill, and grind the leaves with a mortar and pestle I find under the sink. Then, when I’m in Best Buds the next time, I collect some petals of wild pansies (for love) and some hibiscus blossoms (for fidelity), and I mix everything up together.
The spell book didn’t tell me any words to say, but Sammy says we have to say something. So, at his insistence, we close our eyes and hold hands and say some magic-sounding words, calling on the forces of love and forgiveness and happiness for everyone. He makes me laugh when he shouts, “Hocus-pocus!”
Best of all, he and I sit together while he practices his flute and I sew a little pocket out of red silk. (Red for passion.) He’ll put that in his mother’s purse and have her carry it to the concert, I tell him.
“But what about my dad? We need him to be in the spell, too,” he points out.
So then I grind up more flowers and leaves and sew them in another red pocket, and Sammy says he’ll put that in his dad’s car.
We do a high five.
“But the most important thing is what you’re doing,” I say. “Right? The flute, and the love you beam right over to them.”
The school auditorium is packed with parents and grandparents, all buzzing around and smiling and waving. There’s an excited hum about the place. Jessica saved me a seat right next to hers, and I get there to find her waving and smiling and motioning me over.
Her cheeks are bright pink, and she looks beautiful, with her long hair in loose, shiny curls. Andrew will melt when he sees her. “Look at this program! It turns out that he’s not only playing the flute,” she says, “but he’s also reading a poem. A poem he wrote! He didn’t tell me that, the little scamp. Oh my God, I may have to be carried out of here.” She starts fanning herself with the program.
“That’s actually wonderfully cool,” I say. “You look beautiful, by the way. I think you should relax if you possibly can, because all this is going to be fine.”
Jessica is smiling. “It would be more cool if I’d gotten to see the poem first.”
“Hmm. Maybe not.”
I turn the program over and over in my hands. And even though the spell book told me that you have to do a spell and then release it and not worry, I can’t help it. I keep craning my head around to watch people entering. And finally, finally there’s Andrew arriving, dipping his head just so, humbly standing at the back while he scans the auditorium, and you can just see he’s marinating in his own little sauce of nerves. I see the moment when he spots Jessica—his eyebrows go up—and he starts to head our way.
She says to me, “Don’t let him sit next to me. Is there a woman with him? No, don’t look at him! Is he with someone?”
“It’s hard to look and not look at the same time, but no, I do not believe he has a woman with him.”
“Okay, then. Still, let’s hope he sits somewhere else.”
“He’s not going to sit somewhere else. In fact, he’s almost over here. Smile and be calm.”
When he gets to us—smiling and wearing his usual guilty-but-hopeful expression—I slide over so that he can have the seat next to Jessica. She gives me a look that might be gratitude or it might be hatred: right now those looks are the same.
May you be blessed and bold, I think to him as hard as I can and surround him with white light. May you stop looking so guilty.
He glances down at his program. He fidgets, tells me how he played the flute as a kid, and says he never could have played it in public. He says his kid is braver than almost anyone he knows.
I’m about to ask him if he will come to Thanksgiving dinner, but then the curtain opens, and a teacher gets up and says this is a sacred space when children are performing things they’ve practiced so hard, and he personally will come out into the audience and confiscate any cell phone that happens to ring, and the audience laughs nervously, and then he adds that he will also smash it to pieces, and we all laugh even harder when a man yells out from the audience, “Please! I’m begging you! Take mine!”
Then the music begins and kids tumble out onto the stage, jumping all around, singing songs. Some perform cartwheels and some leapfrog over big beanbag pillows. And they sing about freedom and happiness, and I can’t concentrate on the words because I’m suddenly smiling so hard that my ears aren’t working anymore. The whole stage is a blur of colors and radiance.
When Sammy comes out and does a series of cartwheels across the stage, I sneak a peek at Jessica and see that she is no longer in this hot, hard auditorium; she’s gone someplace else, and Andrew is right there with her. They are smiling at each other! I say this to Blix, who might not hear me, being dead and all.
There are choruses and dances and the bright, shining faces of kids. A group of boys reenacts “Who’s on First.” A girl does an improbable series of handsprings all across the stage to thunderous applause.
And near the end of the show, when the moment comes that Sammy edges over to the front of the stage, I think we are all going to die there. The spotlight beams on him, and oh, he’s such a little boy standing there in the yellow pool of light, so sturdy and yet so vulnerable. He starts out in a wavery voice: “The day my dad moved out I ate a plate of eggs . . .”
The room falls silent, and Jessica puts her head in her hands. Andrew, next to me, stops breathing. He reaches for Jessica’s hand and holds it.
The poem isn’t long. It’s about a boy looking at a plate of over-easy eggs and thinking how his father is the yellow part and his mother is the white part, the surrounding stuff that holds the family all together, but then later when he’s eating a hard-boiled egg, the boy sees the yellow part hop out and fall away. Then there’s something in there about the boy noticing that he’s the piece of toast; he’s not the thing that holds the yolk and the white part together, but the thing they can both join with, like he’s an egg sandwich maybe?—and then it’s done, and the air comes back in the room, and everybody claps for him. People stand up, clapping and cheering. And several of the other parents smile at Jessica and Andrew, and one woman pantomimes wiping away tears while she’s smiling. Andrew is now holding fast to Jessica’s shoulder and she’s leaning against him and they’re both shaking their heads and smiling.
When it’s all over, we walk outside together, but I find a reason to separate from this fragile, private love between Jessica and Andrew and Sammy because it’s at that stage, you know, when the night is holding it so delicately and I could blink and it might all disappear, all the magic might be gone, and Jessica would be complaining again about Andrew’s supposed maybe girlfriend, and Sammy would look miserable instead of triumphant.
And anyway I want more than anything to be back in Blix’s bedroom, sitting on her kantha, looking at her book of spells. And of course getting ready for Thanksgiving. That.
I walk to the subway, and my phone dings with a new text message.
But I am already underground, having stepped out of the cold, blowy night into the harsh yellow of the underground world, which always feels like stepping inside a huge world of light and noise, and the train is coming now. It’s here, having screeched to a halt, all the metal clanging as if it would fall apart. And people are getting off and then getting on, and I have to hurry to make it.
I look down at my phone, but the train is crowded—at this hour of the night!—and all I see, before the cellular service disappears completely, are two words, from Patrick:
Can you
And suddenly I am so happy. It’s ridiculous how those two words can have such an effect. They’re not even words you’d expect could make somebody happy; they’re not, for instance love you—but there they are, lighting me up just the same. I’m beaming as I hold on to the pole, bobbing back and forth, smiling into the faces of strangers, thinking how lucky I am to be here.
I send some white light to the rumpled-up guy who is panhandling, and the older woman who has rolled down her stockings
and has her eyes closed, and the girl in the cloche hat, the one who keeps running her fingers along her boyfriend’s neck and then leaning over to kiss him. There is so much love for all of us, and Patrick needs me to do something.
Can you, can you, can you.
Whatever it is, I can!
When my stop comes, I press the button, and the phone lights up again, and I can see his message for real. And my heart drops into my stomach.
Can you come here as soon as possible? Don’t go upstairs first!!
THIRTY-SEVEN
MARNIE
Patrick has made cream puffs filled with vanilla pudding, and he hands me one as he lets me in.
“What do you think? Should I have made them with ricotta instead? That’s more authentic Italian, I think.”
“I like pudding best,” I say. “So, why couldn’t I go upstairs? What’s happened? After that text of yours, I expected to see police tape outside the building!”
“Oh. Was I overdramatic? So hard to get texting just right.” He looks at his phone, scrolls back. “Oh, yes. I see. It was the two exclamation points. Sorry. It’s just that there have been new developments this evening, and I wanted you to come here in case Noah is upstairs.”
“You think he’s there?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure—I haven’t heard noises up there for a while, but earlier he had a long, loud conversation on speakerphone with his mother, right on the sidewalk here. I had taken the recycling out, so I was where he couldn’t see me, and so of course I stayed there and listened. Not nice of me to eavesdrop, I know, but I think you ought to know that she’s furious with him. About the will.”
My heart sinks.
“Yeah. Apparently she and his father want to contest Blix’s will, and she was yelling at him that he’s not been doing his part.”
“His part?”
“Yes. His job has been to figure out how you might have manipulated Blix into leaving you the property. I guess because you’re such a known vixen who probably goes around getting old ladies to leave you stuff all the time.”
“Only if their grandnephews dump me. Otherwise, I let them give their stuff to anyone they want.”
“Well, sure. You’re chill that way.”
“So how are they going to decide if I’m guilty? Did they say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Blix wrote me a letter that the attorney gave me . . . and in it . . . oh God, in it she talks about how I asked her for a spell to get Noah back. And he—well, one night he asked me if he could read it. Oh my God.” I put my hands over my mouth.
“Wait. There’s more,” Patrick says. “His mom said that if they can’t prove you tried to influence Blix, they most surely can prove that Blix wasn’t of sound mind when she wrote the will. On account of her doing magic and all. She was a practicing witch, is what his mom said. And she thinks maybe that would stand up in court.”
“Witches aren’t of sound mind?”
“She kept saying she knew they could prove whatever they needed to, and that their family attorney was only too happy to get involved in this case, but—and I think this is really creepy—in the meantime she wanted Noah to look for any supporting stuff he might find—you know, stuff that showed she was crazy—and mail it to her. She said they’ll have someone do a psychological evaluation so he should mail everything. Artwork, good luck charms, talismans—whatever he could find.”
“And did he go back upstairs after that? Could you hear him?”
“No. He didn’t even seem all that interested. But she kept pestering him, asking him questions about Blix’s state of mind when he first got here, and then he started telling the story about how Blix wouldn’t go to the hospital. He told his mom that she did spells and stuff instead. Honestly, you would have thought, to hear how his mother was reacting, that Blix was out drinking bats’ blood in the full moon.”
“Oh my.” I swallow hard. “This actually might be a good time to tell you that I found Blix’s journal. It was in a book of spells she had in her kitchen, and I read it, and she did have all kinds of spells and remedies—not bats’ blood that I remember, but she talked to her ancestors, and she contacted some spirit god and went out in the dark of the moon.”
“Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and think we need to put that in a safe place. Do you know where it is now?”
I try to think. I’d been reading it in bed, but then I’d taken it downstairs, hadn’t I, when I made up the little pockets for the spell for Sammy? I think I’d put it back in the bookshelf. That’s right. I did. I tucked the whole thing back where it had been, there among the cookbooks.
Right out in the open.
Where it’s always been and where anyone could find it.
I stand up. “I think I have to go.”
“Call me if you need backup.”
All the lights are off in the apartment when I go upstairs, and Noah is nowhere to be found.
Feeling ridiculous, I call his name, walking through, turning on lights, looking into corners. I’ve watched enough thrillers to know that people always hide behind doors and curtains, so I make sure these do not go unchecked. I even go into the bathroom and rip aside the shower curtain while I yell.
I’ve got myself all worked up just the way Natalie and I used to do after watching horror movies. Still, it’s true that there is a strange vibration in the house tonight. Bedford is cowering in his crate and he whimpers when I let him out. There’s something . . . it’s as though the air has gotten all messed up somehow, like the molecules got scrambled and weren’t able to reassemble themselves before I came in.
“Noah!” I call. “Are you here?”
There’s no answer. His bedroom door is open and the light is off. “Noah?” I flick on the light. The bed has been stripped, and his closet has about eight empty hangers and nothing else. Bedford licks my hand.
There’s an empty cardboard box in the hallway, and one of Noah’s gym socks is stuck under the bathroom rug. So he’d finally come back for his stuff.
But did he come back in after talking to his mom? That’s the question. I run into my room, and head for the underwear drawer. The sweatshirt is still there, and I shake it out, searching in the sleeve for Blix’s letter.
Nothing. It’s gone.
I turn it inside out to make sure, but no. I can feel hot tears just behind my eyes. Why hadn’t I known he’d look for this at some point? Why, when he’d even asked me for it, did I think it was safe in the underwear drawer? Of course he was going to look!
Patrick texts me:
I hear you running around. Is he there?
Not here. His closet is empty.
Is the “eagle” safe?
Patrick, the letter is gone! The one that Blix wrote me. I just want to cry.
What about the OTHER eagle?
Checking now. Walking, walking . . . in the kitchen . . . YES! The spell book and journal are on the shelf! Safe and sound.
For God’s sake, speak in code! What kind of evidence hider ARE you?
Sorry. Forgot my #spyeducation. Going undercover now. Call me Natasha from now on.
SHUT UP I NEVER HEARD OF YOU
I remove the book from the shelf and take it downstairs with me. I’ll sleep with it tonight in my bed. And tomorrow I’ll call Charles Sanford and tell him what’s happened.
Bedford’s professional opinion is that we should go outside so he can pee, and then we should lock the bedroom door tonight, just in case. He actually lies on the floor with his nose by the door and growls every few minutes to make the point.
I’m pretty sure that Noah isn’t going to come back tonight, but then what do I know? I never thought Noah cared all that much about getting this building in the first place. And clearly he does.
I go over and scratch Bedford behind the ears. “No one’s here but you and me, boy. Come on up on the bed. Everything’s fine.”
He finally, worriedly comes up on the foot of the bed, but every car th
at goes by sends a cascade of light darting around the walls, ending in a point in the corner. And each time he lifts his head and growls a bit. There are noises, the settling of the house and the banging of the radiator, voices of people going past in the street, laughing even though it’s the middle of the night. A car backfires and Bedford and I both leap into the air.
At last he puts his head on the pillow. But he keeps his eyes open long after I think we should both be sleeping. It’s like he knows we’re not done with the bad vibes just yet.
And I feel so sad about the missing letter. My connection to Blix.
THIRTY-EIGHT
MARNIE
It’s after noon on Wednesday when I finally get back to the house from the store, lugging the eighteen-pound turkey and the bags of groceries—so many that I had to take an Uber instead of the subway.
Bedford is even more hyper than usual, so after I put all the food away, I leash him up and take him outside. But then he’s not interested in anything in particular. Pees on the curb with a lackluster air. He sits on the stoop and looks at me expectantly, like I’m the one who needed to come out here, not him.
When we go back inside, he charges into the bedroom.
My head is full of cooking plans, but he’s barking and running around . . . and that’s when the little prickles of dread start.
I follow him into Blix’s bedroom, which looks different, even since two hours ago when I left it. My dresser drawer is open a crack, and my flannel pajamas are on the floor. And the walls—they’re bare! Not entirely bare, but things have been taken down—Blix’s artwork, her talismans, her weavings.
And the bed—the bed is all in disarray, with the covers tossed everywhere.
My breath is high up in my chest as I run and lift up my pillow, which is where I had hidden The Encyclopedia of Spells.
It’s gone. I feel around under all the sheets and blankets, look under the kantha, look on the floor on the other side of the bed.
Bedford looks at me.
Blix’s secrets are gone. I slide down onto the floor.
Patrick comes right up when I call him. I let him in, and we walk through the rooms, and I show him all the places where there was once artwork. The living room, the kitchen, the hallway—everywhere you can see little pale patches on the wall with nails sticking out.
Matchmaking for Beginners Page 28
