The Rosemary Spell

by Virginia Zimmerman

  “Mr. Cates?” I raise my hand. “Adam and I want to do Constance Brooke. Is that okay?”

  “I thought you jaded citizens of Cookfield felt overexposed to the celebrated Constance Brooke,” he replies.

  “Yeah.” Adam shrugs. “But since Rosemary lives in her house and all, we thought, you know, it could be, uh, interesting.”

  “Indeed!” Mr. Cates smiles and pushes his curls back. “You may certainly research whatever poet you find ‘uh, interesting.’”

  He winks at us and goes to help Josh and Alex, who are pretending they don’t know how to get off YouTube.

  I set the diary next to the keyboard, where its ancient, cracked cover looks just plain wrong.

  Adam clicks through to the biography site and types Constance Brooke in the search box. The first thing that comes up is an entry from Twentieth-Century American Poets.

  “Wow!” I say as Adam scrolls down the list of publications. “She wrote a lot more than twenty poems!”

  He gets to the actual biography part, and we read together. She was born in Cookfield in 1914. Her father, Arthur, taught Shakespeare at the university.

  “Like your mom,” Adam points out.

  Constance lived with her parents on an island in the river. We already know this. I start skimming. Her mother died in the 1919 flu pandemic when Constance was five.

  “That’s sad!” I exclaim.

  “What?” Adam catches up. “Oh, that sucks. So it was just her and her dad, I guess.”

  Now we’re both skimming. The 1924 flood destroyed their house. They moved into town. Into my house. Early writing, which they call juvenilia.

  Maybe I should write juvenilia in the diary—it is our poetry journal after all—but I don’t want to open the book. I try to pin down whatever is making me uneasy, but it skitters away.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t . . .” I begin.

  Adam glances at me. “It’s too late to worry about writing in it, Rosie. Just go ahead.”

  “Okay,” I agree, but my stomach churns, like when I have to do a presentation in front of the whole class. I find the page where we jotted notes yesterday and write juvenilia at the top and then = writing she did when she was a kid.

  “Does that mean our poems are juvenilia?”

  Adam cocks his head. “I think it’s only juvenilia if you become a famous writer. It’s, like, retroactive.”

  Mr. Cates appears out of nowhere and squats next to us. “Have you selected your detail?”

  “Not yet,” Adam replies, his eyes still on the screen, his finger on the scroll button.

  Mr. Cates looks at me. “Perhaps the house? An obvious choice, I’d think.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe both houses. You know, the ruin on the island and my house. Her house, I mean. But also memory . . .” I try to put together a thought about the stones of the ruined house and monuments and memory.

  “Look up her poem ‘Moon Mangled Memory.’ It may speak to you. Let the muse do her work . . .” His voice goes slightly spooky, and he wanders off to Kendall and Aileen, who wouldn’t know the muse if she smacked them in the face.

  “Is the muse speaking to you?” I whisper.

  Adam looks me in the eye and raises one eyebrow. I love that he can do that and hate that I can’t.

  He opens a new window and searches for “Moon Mangled Memory.” It comes right up. I lean in so we can both read it off the screen. It begins We mark time by the moon.

  I read the first line of the second stanza aloud. Math of shadow and light. “That’s cool.”

  Adam picks up farther down:

  A new moon is nothing.

  A beginning that is

  Absence, blankness and void.

  “Kind of creepy,” he says.

  I read the last stanza:

  A new moon is nothing.

  No light. No sight. Recall

  Only darkness. Absent

  Souvenir. All is lost.

  I’m puzzled. “I don’t really get how it’s about memory.”

  “Yeah,” Adam says. “It’s more about the moon.”

  “And maybe forgetting.” The vagueness of the poem clarifies just a little. “There’s all that ‘nothing’ and ‘darkness’ stuff. And the title says mangled memory, like memory is damaged, which would be the same as forgetting, I guess.”

  “Is it speaking to you?” Adam asks.

  “Not yet. I need more time.”

  “I don’t have thyme, but I have rosemary,” Adam jokes, waving the rosemary bookmark in my face.

  “What a dork,” Kendall says behind me. “Why are you friends with him?”

  The pine smell rises off the bookmark and summons images of books and boats and costumes. I’m friends with him because I always have been, and not even the boys-are-gross years separated us. I wouldn’t be me without Adam.

  “Shut up, Kendall,” I snap.

  Adam gives me a look layered with gratitude and worry.

  I take the bookmark and match his bad pun with my own. “You are so sage. Get it? Like, wise?”

  “I get it, Rosie. At least, parsley.” He laughs a sharp bark of a laugh. “Like partly?”

  “Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,” I murmur.

  “We should write that down!”

  “Why?” I ask, but I turn to the next page.

  The heavy parchment almost resists.

  And there it is. The thing I couldn’t grab before. Remember Wilkie. Wilkie. Wilkie.

  “Wilkie.” I whisper the name, half expecting that the words on the page will disappear.

  Adam swallows. Turns back to the screen and pages down, seeking an explanation. “There’s no Wilkie in the biography.”

  “He had to be important,” I say. “For her to write his name over and over like that.”

  “We could ask her!” He perks up. “We should go see her.”

  “Go see her?” This had never crossed my mind.

  “At River House,” Adam explains. “She still lives there, right? So, let’s go ask her about Wilkie.”

  “But we don’t know her,” I protest. The theory of Constance is one thing. The reality is something else altogether.

  “She’s an old lady in a nursing home.” Adam dismisses my anxiety. “She’ll be happy to have visitors.”

  When our second-grade class sang holiday songs at River House, the people didn’t seem happy about much of anything. A group of hunched white-haired people smiled vaguely or slept or stared at something the rest of us couldn’t see.

  “Maybe she just wants to be left alone,” I worry.

  “It can’t hurt to try.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It seems like an invasion of her privacy.”

  “We already crossed that line when we read her diary,” Adam replies.

  “I . . . okay,” I concede. “I guess we could go.”

  Adam checks the clock. “We have a few minutes. Let’s get our thoughts organized. You know, sort out what we understand about the book and figure out what we want to ask her.”

  Out of nowhere, Adam produces graph paper and is happily drawing boxes. He writes Constance in one and Herb Person in another.

  “You should add our writing,” I suggest. I point to the Hamlet quote. “It didn’t vanish.”

  Adam adds A&R in a third box.

  “Maybe Shelby could come with us,” I say.

  “She’ll have rehearsal again. Anyway, we don’t need her.” He says it too loud, and Mr. Cates starts to make his way toward us.

  We pretend to be busy with our research.

  I copy a good line from the biography: The flood was stronger than stone.

  “That’s when it became a ruin,” Adam observes.

  “Imagine!” Mr. Cates leans in. Maybe he thinks he’s our muse. “Imagine your home as a ruin.”

  I dutifully picture my room with the new curtains in tatters and the walls broken and jagged, the roof torn away so daylight slants on the muddied floor. My books swollen and coated i
n slime, the cupboard door gaping open like a wound.

  “Rosie”—Adam checks to make sure Mr. Cates is out of earshot—“do you think the book . . .” He swallows and puts more confidence in his voice. “Do you think it could actually be magical?”

  My heart yearns toward yes. Books I love say yes, but the fluorescent lights and the computer screen and the partners chattering around us all say no.

  “I wish it could be,” I say. “I mean, part of me hopes . . . but it just seems so unlikely.”

  Adam looks away.

  Suddenly, I remember two years ago, when Adam and I wanted to do a talent show. Shelby refused. She said she was too old. Adam said just he and I could do it. He stood there with a handful of piano music and some silly hats, two on his head at once. But I followed Shelby’s lead, and I laughed at him. He looked so wounded. I felt awful.

  And now I’ve disappointed him again.

  “I’m sorry.” I have tears in my eyes now. “I’m just trying to understand. And it doesn’t make sense, and that . . . that freaks me out.”

  He stares at the boxes he made.

  I try to meet him on the stable ground of graph paper and organizing things. “Here are possibilities. One: We’re crazy . . .”

  Adam sits up and labels a new list Theories and writes 1. Crazy.

  “Two: We’re having a collective hallucination.”

  He looks confused.

  “Like at the Salem witch trials,” I explain.

  He adds 2. Hallucination.

  “Three . . .” I take a breath and set skepticism aside. “It’s magic.” And possibilities from books crowd together in my head and scramble over each other with glee. Portals and ghosts and time travel.

  Adam grins and writes in all capital letters: 3. MAGIC.

  Five

  MOM DIDN’T WANT to take us to River House, but now we’re sitting in the car, which idles in the U-shaped drive in front of the nursing home. Mom’s twisted around so she can look at us in the back seat. She speaks slowly, choosing her words: “Constance Brooke is a great poet, and she was a kind woman—I met her when we bought the house. But she is old—very old, nearly a hundred—and she has Alzheimer’s. Her memory is terrible, and she’s not who she used to be. It’s great that you’re taking your poetry project so seriously, but you may not find her very helpful.”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I assure her, but I’m not anxious to go inside.

  “We understand,” Adam agrees earnestly.

  “I’ll be back right here to pick you up in an hour,” she says, then hesitates. “Are you sure you don’t want me to . . . ? We could all go in together . . .”

  “No,” I say sharply.

  “We’ll be fine,” Adam says. “Really.”

  “Okay,” she sighs.

  We dart out of the car before she can change her mind and hurry through the automatic glass doors into a sterile lobby.

  “Can I help you?” A woman sits at a reception desk peeking through an aggressive arrangement of fake flowers.

  “We’re looking for Constance Brooke,” I say.

  I space out while she gives directions, but Adam listens, and he leads the way down a long corridor. I puzzle over the strange smell. Overcooked broccoli and cleaning liquid and something else.

  I tug the rosemary bookmark out of my bag and clutch it close to my face, letting its piney scent overpower the sad odor of the nursing home.

  Doubts swirl around me like dry leaves. “This isn’t a good idea. This place is . . . is sad, and the smell . . .”

  Adam grips my arm and pulls me along with him. “It is a good idea, Rosemary. She can tell us about the flood and also about . . .” He searches for the name.

  “Wilkie,” I say. “But what if she doesn’t remember him?”

  “She can’t have forgotten someone whose name she wrote over and over like that. Even with Alzheimer’s, she’ll be able to tell us who Wilkie is.”

  He leads us into a sunroom, decorated with white wicker furniture and gentle floral prints. The room tries too hard to be pleasant.

  A man wearing skin two sizes too big sits in a wheelchair, his hands crumpled like talons awkwardly in his lap, his mouth open. Spit drools down his chin and onto a terry cloth bib tied around his neck. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t seem to see anything. He moans, low and rhythmically. Then, offbeat, with a gruesome syncopation, he shouts, “You’re not Maud!”

  We hurry past him toward a table where two women sit across from each other. Each holds a handful of cards. This seems more promising.

  “I said hearts, Anna!” cries the nearest woman. Her gray hair is messily pulled back into a Hello Kitty clip.

  “No, clubs,” the other answers, shaking her white head dramatically.

  A mess of cards lies scattered under the table. They can’t really be playing a game when they’re missing so many cards. Adam kneels down and starts to gather them up.

  “We’re looking . . .” My voice comes out in a whisper. I clear my throat and start again. “We’re looking for Constance Brooke.”

  Anna stares at me, her jaw clenching and unclenching like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Suddenly, she barks, “I’ll take the pot pie.”

  I don’t know what to do. Adam stands and puts the cards in a neat stack on the table. He asks, “Do you know where Constance Brooke is?”

  The Hello Kitty woman stares at Adam. Anna stares at me. Suddenly, as if on cue, they both turn back to their cards.

  “I said hearts, Anna!”

  “No, clubs!”

  It’s like Alice in Wonderland here, only the people in Wonderland make more sense. I pluck at Adam’s sleeve and edge toward the door.

  A soft voice rises from the corner. “Constance is in her room. Down the hall. That way.” A bony finger points to the left. The finger is attached to a tiny woman in a bright red dress.

  “Thank you.” I smile at her, grateful that someone seems to be sane.

  She smiles back, and her smile is too large for her face, like the Cheshire Cat’s smile. It really is Wonderland in here.

  We escape into the corridor. The wheelchair man’s low moans follow us, and I jump when he shouts, “You’re not Maud!”

  “No one should have to live like this,” Adam whispers.

  “Can I help you?” A nurse stops us near a bend in the corridor. She holds a small cup of pills in one hand and a battered clipboard in the other.

  “We’re looking for Constance Brooke.”

  I try to muffle the desperation in my voice, but I’m sure she notices. Maybe everyone who comes here is a little desperate.

  “You’re not family.” She studies us over the clipboard.

  Adam babbles an explanation about our poetry project.

  “Room fifty-five. Just ahead on the left.” She walks past us, but the professional clack of her heels halts. She lowers the clipboard. “You know Miss Brooke suffers from Alzheimer’s disease? At her stage, she has lost most of her adult life.”

  “What does that mean?” Adam asks.

  “Her memory has diminished significantly. Most of the time she’s in the 1920s.”

  I do some quick math. “So she thinks she’s a child?”

  “Not exactly, but she doesn’t remember being an adult.” She notices the pills in her hand, and with a tight, frazzled smile, she clacks away.

  “I think forgetting your own life might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard of,” I say.

  Adam sighs. “She won’t remember Wilkie.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t . . .”

  “Maud!”

  The sharp voice from the sunroom drives me forward with the vague sense that we owe Constance Brooke the gift of our right minds. Maybe we won’t learn anything from her, but at least we can talk to her and be people in her present who aren’t demented.

  The door to room fifty-five is ajar, and I tap lightly.

  “Yes?”

  We walk together into the small room.

  Constance Brook
e is so frail it hardly seems possible that she’s alive. Her silver white hair almost gives off light, like LED Christmas lights. It’s held away from her face by a black velvety headband and curls in wisps to her jaw, which sticks out as if daring her faded skin to wither away. She’s neatly dressed in a white blouse with a bow at the neck and a sky blue skirt that flares just past her knees.

  “Come in,” she says, her pale cheeks widening into a gentle smile. “Do I know you?”

  “No,” I answer. I don’t know what to say.

  Adam clears his throat. “I’m Adam. Adam Steiner. This is Rosemary Bennett. We’re, uh, doing a project—”

  “I live in your house,” I blurt out. This seems more to the point than our stupid poetry assignment.

  Constance frowns, her eyes dimming a little. The headband tips slightly as her brow wrinkles in confusion. “My house?” Her voice is wispy like her hair, as if she doesn’t have enough breath for speech. “But my house is gone. Destroyed in the flood. At the new moon.”

  “No, I don’t live on the island,” I explain. “I live in the house you moved to after the flood. On Pear Tree Lane.”

  “Pear Lane?” She frowns.

  “Pear Tree Lane.”

  She closes her eyes, as if looking for the house in her mind. When she opens them, her face is blank. She notices us. Her paper cheeks arc into soft folds as she smiles. “Hello. Do I know you?”

  No. You don’t know us. You don’t even know yourself.

  Adam speaks slowly, carefully. “I’m Adam. This is Rosemary. We were asking about your house. Your house on Pear Tree Lane.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. You must have the wrong person. I lived on the island. A lovely stone house. Gone now.”

  “She doesn’t remember,” I murmur.

  “Miss Brooke,” Adam presses. “Could you tell us about Wilkie?”

  “Wilkie? I’m afraid I don’t . . .” She plucks at her skirt. Her gaze wanders out of focus.

  “Miss Brooke?”

  Her attention settles on us again. “Hello! I’m so sorry. I’ve forgotten my manners. Do I know you? I’m Constance.”

  Adam swallows and repeats, “I’m Adam Steiner. This is Rosemary Bennett.”

  “Rosemary?” Constance’s eyes settle on me, but her focus turns inward. “Father is magical with rosemary. Can get it to grow anywhere. He says he could make a rosemary farm at the North Pole, and I don’t doubt it. Simply magical.” She adjusts her headband. Seems to see us for the first time. “How do you do? I am Constance Brooke.”