The Forgetting Spell

  Tally pulled out her wallet and withdrew a shiny gold Starbucks card, which she wiggled. “My treat.”

  Darya scanned the menu again. “Um . . . something without a hyphen?”

  Tally looked at Darya, then at the menu, which was above them behind the counter. Then she laughed. “They’ll make it however you want. You can order it hyphen-free.”

  “Okay, then the Old-Fashioned Glazed Doughnut, hyphen on the side. Please.”

  Tally ordered it just like that. For herself, she ordered something called an Undertow. It involved espresso and cream, and Tally threw back her head and downed it in one quick shot.

  “Impressive,” Darya commented.

  “I try,” Tally said.

  They sat at a high table far from the door. Darya’s legs dangled from the tall stool. It made her feel like a little kid.

  “So what’s up?”

  Darya’s thoughts flew to Mama’s letter, which hopefully wasn’t getting crumpled in her back pocket. But it would be rude, wouldn’t it, to dive right in with me, me, me?

  “How’s your day been?” she asked.

  Tally looked at her funny. “How’s my day been since we saw each other two hours ago? Fine.”

  “Do anything cool?”

  “There’s a sketch I’m working on. Water droplets on a blade of grass. I’ve been trying to figure out how to capture the way light behaves within something transparent.”

  “Yeah?” Darya said. She tried to come up with something to contribute. “Um . . . pastels or pencil?”

  “Graphite. Darya, you couldn’t care less about how to draw water droplets.”

  “I do! I really do!”

  Darya wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a change in Tally’s eyes. She continued to hold Darya’s gaze, but something turned off inside them, sort of.

  “All right, maybe I don’t,” Darya admitted. “But I do care about your art. I wish I were as talented as you. I feel like it would . . . give my life purpose, kind of.”

  “Is that why we’re here, to discuss your life’s purpose?”

  “No, because I don’t have a life’s purpose. Yet.”

  “Then . . . ?”

  Darya fidgeted on her stool. She let some time slide between them.

  “It’s been a strange afternoon,” she said. “And a strange week before that, and a strange couple of months before that.”

  “So, ever since your birthday?”

  “I guess.”

  “All right,” Tally said. “Strange how?”

  “Ms. McKinley called me an abomination. She’s the librarian. Not at school, at the public library.”

  “An abomination?”

  “And . . . before I tell you, you have to promise not to say a word to anyone. Not anyone, I mean it.”

  Their eyes met and caught, and the promise was given and received and understood. They were different, the two of them. They were alike in their difference, and it bound them together.

  “My mom’s back,” Darya said. “She came back. My mom. She’s here, in Willow Hill.”

  “She’s here? In Willow Hill? Darya, that’s awesome!”

  “Is it?”

  “When did you find out? Have you seen her? Where was she during all that time she was gone?”

  “I have, and it was . . . it wasn’t what I thought it would be like. And I don’t know where she was. She didn’t say.”

  Tally studied her. “By ‘it wasn’t what you thought,’ do you mean bad?”

  “Not bad, but . . .” The words formed in her brain, and she had just enough time to acknowledge her own hypocrisy before hearing herself say, “It’s complicated.”

  “Most families are,” Tally said. “Tell me.”

  Darya broke off a bite of her doughnut, which she crumbled into pieces, littering the clean Starbucks table. She broke off another bite and haltingly told Tally about finding out from Natasha that Mama was back in town and most of what had happened since.

  She left out the bits about the Bird Lady and the Forgetting Spell, as those details were prickly and just for herself. She made a point of including the bad stuff, however: Mama’s new smoking habit; her abrupt, jittery movements; the depressing, trash-filled swimming pool at the motel she’d stayed at, which was far grosser than Tally’s foster mom’s house. Only after painting this grim picture did she tell Tally the worst part of all: that Mama wanted Darya to use her Wishing Day wishes to fix Mama’s past mistakes.

  “But that’s ridiculous, right?” Darya said. “And selfish! Parents are supposed to be the grown-ups. They’re supposed to take care of us, the kids.”

  “Ha, ha,” Tally said. “Good one.”

  Darya checked Tally’s expression. “She wore red lipstick the day I saw her, so maybe she was making an effort. And she doesn’t live in the crappy motel anymore. But why are you looking at me like that? You are on my side, right?”

  “What’s your side?”

  “That I shouldn’t use my wishes on her! That they’re my wishes, so I should use them on me. Right?”

  “So now you are going to do the whole ritual-tradition-thing? Couldn’t you do both?”

  “No! Maybe! I don’t know. Just say, ‘You’re right, Darya. Of course you are.’”

  “You’re right, Darya. Of course you are.”

  Darya scowled. She reached behind her, threaded her hand past her coat to her back pocket, and pulled out Mama’s letter, which she slapped on the table. Doughnut crumbs bounced and skittered.

  “She left this.”

  Tally looked at it. Then she looked at Darya.

  “It’s a letter. She wrote it before she left. Meaning, she knew she was going to leave, but she still took time to write me a letter. She wrote one to each of my sisters, too.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Yes! Kind of! Because—” She broke off, frustrated that she didn’t understand the workings of her own heart.

  Tally waited.

  “I think it was me,” Darya confessed at last, voicing her most shameful fear.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think I did something. I’m not sure what. But . . . I’m the reason my mom left. Please don’t tell anyone!”

  “I would never,” Tally said. “But Darya, you know that can’t be true.”

  “And I think . . . I think that’s why my mom’s fine with using my wishes. It’s the only way I can make sense of it. She thinks I owe her—and maybe I do!”

  “Darya, stop. You’re flipping out.”

  “Am I? How do you know?”

  “You can’t remember what you did, but whatever it was, that’s what drove your mom away? You told me you were five when she left, Darya. You were five, and your mom was a grown woman, and yet you drove her away?”

  “How do you know I didn’t?”

  “Because I do,” Tally said. “Omigod, you’re acting like every single kid in the world who blames herself for her parents’ divorce or whatever. ‘Did I not put my toys away? Did I whine too much? Was I so awful that I ruined everything?’”

  Darya swallowed. Was Tally still thinking about Darya, or had she gone to her own dark place? Surely Tally didn’t blame herself for own mom’s messed-up life . . . did she?

  Darya tapped the envelope with Mama’s letter on it against the table. “The thing is . . . what if it’s right here? The truth. About everything.”

  “You haven’t read it?”

  Darya shook her head.

  “Your mom left you a letter, and you haven’t read it?”

  “I’m scared.”

  Tally’s eyes flashed. “Too frickin’ bad! Oh my God, I can’t even . . .” She slashed the air with her hand. “Oh my God, Darya!”

  “You’re not helping,” Darya whispered. “Just . . . what should I do?”

  “As opposed to moping around doing nothing? Here’s a thought—read your mom’s letter.” She flung herself back in her chair. “My mom hasn’t written or called or texted in over a ye
ar. I tried to visit her in the treatment facility before I got sent here—that’s what they call it, a treatment facility—and she told the nurses ‘No visitors.’ To me. And here your mom is, reaching out, and maybe she’s not perfect, but who is?!”

  Darya stood up. She grabbed Mama’s letter and shoved it back in her pocket, and announced shakily that she was going to the bathroom.

  In the ladies’ room, she splashed cold water on her face. Then she dried her skin with a rough paper towel. She peed, holding Mama’s letter in place when she tugged her jeans down and securing the letter again when she finished. She washed her hands. She dragged everything out, half hoping the table would be vacant when she returned. But Tally was still there.

  Darya’s pulse jumped all over the place as she took a seat on her stool. Not sure if it would make things better or worse, but unable to think of a better idea, she said, “Well . . . so tell me about her. Your mom. Tell me a happy memory about her.”

  Tally narrowed her eyes.

  “Maybe I am selfish. Maybe I am a coward. I’m sure I am!” Darya said. “But . . . we’re in this together. Kind of. The Missing Daughters Club, remember? So come on, one happy memory.”

  Tally thought for several long moments. “I can’t think of anything. Sorry.”

  “Yes, you can. What about decorating the house for Christmas or making cookies together or something?”

  The fire in Tally’s eyes dimmed, replaced with resignation. “Sure. Yeah. We did decorate Christmas cookies once.”

  “And was it fun?”

  “It was great.”

  “Well . . . see?”

  There was a beat.

  “I’m not trying to make everything be about me,” Darya said.

  “I know. And I’m not trying to always say that I’ve got it worse.”

  “But you probably do,” Darya admitted.

  “Who knows?” Tally said wearily. “It’s not a contest either of us should want to win.”

  Outside the coffeehouse, before they parted ways, Tally lightly traced the embroidered vine on Darya’s jacket. “Has that always been there?”

  “The vine? Yeah.”

  “You wear that jacket all the time. How have I never noticed?”

  Darya shrugged.

  “It’s really pretty,” Tally said.

  “Thanks,” Darya said. “And thanks for talking to me, or listening, or whatever. For telling me to read my mom’s letter. I will, all right?”

  Tally squinted.

  “As soon as I get home. I swear!”

  “Did the librarian really call you an abomination?”

  “Huh? Well, she called me abominable. Same difference.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. ’Cause I am?”

  “No. Or if you are, then I am, only a thousand times worse.”

  “No, you’re not. Why would you say that?”

  Tally gnawed on her lower lip.

  “Tally, what?”

  Tally looked worried, which made Darya worried. Then smoothed her features and said, “Nothing.”

  “Tally . . .”

  “No, seriously, I have no idea what I was going to say.”

  They embraced awkwardly and went their own ways. As Darya walked, she thought about bravery and fear, pain and regret. She thought about all that was known and all that wasn’t. She thought about mothers. Fathers, too, and aunts and sisters. But mainly mothers.

  Halfway there, she reached back to pat the bulge of Mama’s letter, which she would read as soon as she was in the privacy of her room. She’d said she would, and she would.

  Except . . . what the crap?

  She patted again. She patted the other pocket. She pushed her jacket aside and twisted around, contorting her body to see for herself.

  She felt very hot, then very cold. The letter was gone.

  I wish I could take it back.

  —TALLY STRIKER, AGE THIRTEEN AND A HALF

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  She raced back to Starbucks, scanning the ground with wide desperate sweeps. No letter. She went inside the Starbucks and searched on and around the high table she and Tally had sat at. She searched the ladies’ room, too. No letter.

  She asked the people sitting nearby if they’d seen it.

  She asked the barista, too.

  “I lost a really important letter,” she said desperately. “Maybe someone turned it in?”

  “I’m so sorry, but no,” the barista said.

  Darya was afraid she was going to cry. She stumbled back outside and thought—the Bird Lady! It made no sense, but once the idea had landed, Darya couldn’t shake it off.

  Two months ago, on Darya’s birthday, the Bird Lady had warned of memories leaking out. Did a letter count as a memory, if the letter was old and practically forgotten?

  And she’d asked if Darya remembered the Forgetting Spell that Darya had supposedly requested. Back then, she’d answered no. Because, please.

  But now, as she walked distractedly back home, Darya couldn’t stop pairing the two things together: Mama’s letter and this Forgetting Spell, which, if Darya was honest with herself, didn’t seem quite as impossible as she’d tried to tell herself.

  “Impossible,” the Bird Lady had said on Darya’s birthday. “You’re fond of that word, aren’t you?”

  What if Darya had asked for a Forgetting Spell?

  It sounded ridiculous. It was ridiculous!

  And yet, she couldn’t find her mother’s letter.

  She went over it and over it. Natasha had given her the letter in Papa’s workshop. Rich, creamy card stock, the envelope thick and padded. Darya penned across the front. Darya had put it in the back pocket of her jeans, because she had places to go and people to see. Information to hide from, despite repeatedly insisting that she just wanted answers.

  She should have read the letter the minute she had it in her hot little hands. But she hadn’t, and now it was gone. She hadn’t acted; she’d just talked and talked and talked, blah blah blah, like Tally said.

  She was so stupid. God, she was stupid!

  She saw a jogger ahead of her, a young woman with her hair pulled back and earbuds in her ears.

  “Excuse me!” Darya said. She stepped into the woman’s path and waved her hand.

  The woman looked startled. She pulled one earbud out and said, while jogging in place, “Do you need help? Are you lost?”

  “I’m not, but . . . have you seen a letter, by any chance?”

  “A letter?”

  “Yeah. On the trail, maybe?”

  “Sorry, no,” the woman said, and jogged off.

  “Don’t you want to ask me?” an old woman asked.

  Darya yelped, then clapped her hand over her mouth. She glanced all around to make sure no one else was going to pop out of nowhere before saying, “Omigosh, you scared me!”

  “Did I, pet?” the Bird Lady inquired.

  “Yes, you did, and you meant to!” Darya said, knowing it was true. “Where did you even come from?”

  The Bird Lady tapped her chin. “Ah, an excellent question. If we start at the beginning, I suppose you might say that I came from—”

  “Never mind!” Darya said quickly. The Bird Lady was here, in front of her, the one person in the world who might know the truth about certain secrets from Darya’s past. Sure, Darya was interested in the answer to life, the universe, and everything. But that could wait.

  “Hmmph,” the Bird Lady said. “The short version is that you summoned me.”

  “I did? I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

  “I can’t always come, but I will when I can.”

  “What?” Darya said. “No. Forget all that. Could we just talk like normal people, please?”

  The Bird Lady cocked her head. “I don’t know. How do you define normal?”

  Darya wanted to cry out in frustration. She wanted to grab the Bird Lady and shake her.

  Instead, she reminded herself of the challenges she’d taken
on: don’t touch anything brown, don’t drink any water, hold your breath and don’t let go. Those challenges had taught her self-discipline, hadn’t they? Maybe this was what she’d been preparing for.

  Evening was coming on, and the light was dimming into purples and blues. Darya moved to the side of the path in case anyone else came along. The Bird Lady lifted her eyebrows and joined her.

  “All right, shoot,” she said.

  Darya took a deep breath. “My mother’s letter. Do you have it?”

  The Bird Lady drew herself up. “Of course not. You, of all people, should know better than that.”

  Should I? thought Darya. She no longer had any clue about what she “should” or “shouldn’t” know.

  “Okay, well, did you know my mother’s back in town?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Did you know she didn’t come home? That she’s back in Willow Hill, but that she’s not staying at our house. Her house. Did you know that?”

  “Obviously.”

  Darya counted to ten. She folded her arms over her chest. “She wants me to use her wishes for her. One of them, anyway.”

  “And?”

  And Mama had taken so much from Darya already! How could she give anything more away? “I don’t want to,” she said.

  “And?”

  Darya made an impatient sound, which she cut off midway through. “Aren’t you going to tell me I should? That it’s my duty?”

  “Is it?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Calm down, chicken,” the Bird Lady said, which aggravated Darya immensely because she was calm. She was so calm she was about to explode!

  “If we have the ability to help others, then I believe we should, yes,” the Bird Lady said.

  “But—”

  “Hold on, now. I also believe there’s a great deal to be said for doing all we can for ourselves, instead of relying on others to do things for us.”

  “Okay, so you’re saying that—”

  “I also believe that sometimes, parents can do for their children what they can’t do for themselves.” The Bird Lady eyed her sternly.

  “Please tell me what that means!” Darya said.

  The Bird Lady made the motion of checking her watch. Except she wasn’t wearing a watch. “You may ask me one last question.”