It’s better that he didn’t kiss me, she decided, certain that if Reed Oliveira ever got close enough to learn all her terrible secrets, there would be no denying that pain might in fact be all Nor knew.
Nor wove her way through the piles of abandoned junk that made up the Society for the Protection of Discarded Things. A wintry rain pattered gently on the roof.
She picked up a book on aphids with one hand and a mystery novel about a murder on a train with the other. “Savvy, what section am I in?”
“Green,” Savvy answered from her perch on a director’s chair near the front counter. With a red scarf tied expertly around her plum-colored pin curls and an old jumpsuit from her dad’s mechanic shop hanging off her petite frame, Savvy looked a bit like a punk rock Rosie the Riveter.
The Society served as a glorified scrapyard, and it looked the part: piles of junk sat atop other piles of junk, some in towering configurations even Savvy had to marvel at from time to time. Almost anything could be found here — used appliances, water skis, a full set of silver cutlery. And if something was lost, it was always the first place to look. Savvy once claimed she had found a nun’s habit, a pair of red clogs, and an abandoned engagement ring (minus the diamond), all while digging through a day’s worth of deserted items.
“Green?” Nor put the two books — noting they both had green covers — off to the side and grabbed a dog-eared paperback from one of the other shelves. After glancing at the lustful couple on the cover, she tossed it to Savvy. “I found that book you didn’t know you were looking for.”
“Damn.” Savvy examined the lewd cover. “Well, you know what they say. The best time to find something is when you’re not looking for it. A couple of weeks ago, Heckel Abernathy wandered in and found some old matchbox car he had as a kid — the very same one — and he swore he’d lost that thing like seventy-five years ago.”
“He’s not that old.”
Savvy rolled her eyes. “Well, then, fifty years ago. Anyway, the point is that if shit gets lost on this island, it always ends up here. That’s science.”
“That’s — what?” Nor laughed. “No, that’s not science, Savvy. That has nothing to do with science.”
“Believe what you want. This book is a keeper, and you know it.” She wedged the book into her backpack. Sighing softly, Bijou shifted in his sleep, his body curled into an impossibly small circle of fluff at her feet.
Behind them, two girls sorted through a rack of vintage clothes. A man carrying a long hose of copper tubing over his shoulder searched a box of spare appliance parts.
To say the Society for the Protection of Discarded Things was a bit slow this morning would have been an understatement; all the shops along Meandering Lane seemed to be suffering from the same problem. Madge had even suspended the Witching Hour’s walking tours. Nor had first assumed it was just the time of year or that maybe one of the ferries was out, but as more time passed, the less likely either of those seemed. With each passing day, fewer and fewer people were on the island. She recalled what Savvy had said about how dogs could sense an earthquake even before the ground started to shake. To Nor, it felt eerily similar to the way the ocean receded before a tsunami hit. Or how the birds flew away before the forest burst into flames.
On her morning run that day, even the ground, covered in a typical early December frost, had set her teeth on edge. Nor had tried to focus on normalcy: her arms pumping at her sides, breath turning to clouds in the cold, heart beating, feet pounding down the trail around Celestial Lake, the rhythmic panting of Antiquity at her side. Still, she hadn’t been able to shake a feeling of doom. Her head had felt strangely empty without those squirrels and chipmunks twittering at her from the trees. Near Lilting Falls, she’d seen a cluster of oak trees with nettles wrapped around their trunks, covering them completely. It was as if they were prepared for battle, dressed in the armor of stinging leaves. A peculiar fog had settled over the ocean, just a couple of miles offshore. To Nor, it had looked as if those opaque clouds had swallowed the rest of the archipelago whole.
Nor absentmindedly pulled the crow’s claw Reed had gotten her for her birthday out of her pocket. It wasn’t particularly pretty — it was certainly a bit macabre. She thought the opaque gemstone could have been an opal; it was hard to tell. It was cloudy and dull and most of it blackened, almost as if from flames. Only when she held it up to the light could she see the tiniest bit of purple peeking through. Still, if it was an opal, then Nor could see why opals had once been called “eye stones”: it made her feel as though there were something staring back at her.
“Oh, that reminds me. I’ve got something for you,” Savvy said, hopping off the chair. It fell to the ground with a clatter, and Bijou scurried away. Savvy marched past Nor in her leopard-print platform shoes, calling “We’re closed now!” over her shoulder.
“I like to keep obscure hours,” she explained to Nor after the few customers had left. “It adds to the mystique of the place. Ambience is everything, you know.”
Nor followed Savvy down the narrow aisles, past toppling piles of timeworn quilts and yellow-stained lace curtains.
“Hey! Be mindful of my crap!” Savvy scolded when Nor knocked over a pair of hedge trimmers.
Savvy stopped at a glass display case and pulled out a tarnished silver tray bearing a sign written in Savvy’s handwriting: TREASURE TROVE. The tray held various odds and ends that only Savvy could consider precious, like several bullet casings, a crystal from a chandelier, a necklace that looked like a snake, and a long silver chain. Savvy plucked the tiny crow’s claw out of Nor’s hand, and before Nor could say a word, slid the trinket along the silver chain and fastened it around Nor’s neck.
“There,” she said, stepping back and examining her work. “Now the next time you see Reed, he’ll think you actually like his gift. Even though it’s weird as hell.”
Ever since their run — the one that had ended with Reed not kissing her — Nor had pretty much done everything she could to avoid him. She hadn’t responded to the text message he’d sent her last week. She didn’t answer when he called a few days after that. Sure, it was partly out of sheer humiliation, but it was also in his best interest: if Reed was determined to stay away from pain, then it wouldn’t do him any good to get entangled with her.
Outside, the rain began to beat against the windows, shaking the panes of glass in their flimsy frames. Through the rain and the Society’s open barn door, Nor glanced at the Witching Hour, relieved that the windows were too fogged up to see through. Earlier in the week, Nor had walked in on a discussion Vega and Madge were having in the shop. Based on the way Madge had been gripping Vega’s arm, Nor assumed it was some kind of disagreement. There was something unsettling, almost brutish, about how Madge had smiled at Nor when she saw her: her lips pulled too taut, her teeth bared. Her motions had seemed newly felid; Nor almost expected to look down at her hands and see claws, to see fangs, not teeth, in her mouth. There were beads of sweat on Vega’s trembling upper lip. When Madge had turned, Nor spotted the fronds of a fern peeking out from over the top of her T-shirt. The green tattoo made her warm beige skin look sickly.
The scene had reminded Nor too much of how they used to be before Fern had left the island, when Vega and Madge and all the rest were at Fern’s beck and call. Even then, however, she’d never seen anything in them that resembled cruelty or fear.
Nor was certain the disagreement was somehow linked to those fern tattoos. Lately, it felt like everywhere she looked, another person had one. She’d noticed Bliss Sweeney’s first, of course. Then Vega and Wintersweet and Madge. Now they seemed to be all over the country. Talk show hosts, television stars, and even some religious leaders — all had green ferns scrawled across their skin in worshipful mimicry of their new deity, Fern Blackburn.
Nor saw her former classmate Catriona dash across the street and find refuge from the rain in the Witching Hour. Nor was certain that underneath that new size-two winter coat, Catriona’s
skin was covered in coiling green tattoos.
“Your mom has fans everywhere these days,” Savvy mused. “Did you hear she met with the president last week?”
Nor nodded. Fern’s popularity had apparently earned her an invitation to the White House. There were pictures of her mother and the president all over the Internet. When Nor looked closely enough, she’d seen that, sure enough, their country’s leader had a new fern tattoo on her arm.
“Your mom is amazing,” Savvy continued, “but also kind of terrifying, in an evil-queen kind of way. I can totally imagine her convincing the huntsman to kill me so that she can eat my heart, you know?”
Nor did know. Her mother was like a perpetual stink in the air, a dull ache in the back of her head, the incessant beat of a snare drum. Nor wondered if the ominous events on Anathema were connected to a sense she had that her mother was drawing closer with each passing day. When she peered out into the rain, she almost expected to see her lurking out there in the gloom, almost expected to see everything the way it had been the last time Fern was here: flames shooting from the Witching Hour’s roof, those too-bright stars in the sky, blood pouring from Nor’s wrists and elbows.
Nor ran her fingers over her scars. Time might heal all wounds, but what about the scars those wounds left behind? Even if Nor’s physical scars faded away, she would always remember where they had been, always be able to trace the path of her pain with her fingertips.
Nor moved away from the door.
“These spells that your mom’s selling,” Savvy said cautiously, “she really can cast them?”
Nor sighed. “Yeah, I guess she can,” she admitted. “But, Savvy, I don’t think the Resurrection Spell is something —”
“I’m not asking about that,” Savvy interrupted. “I’m just wondering, if she can cast spells, who’s to say that you might not be able to do the same?”
“I’m sure I can’t,” Nor answered quickly.
“But you’re still a witch, right?”
Nor balked, nearly tripping over a pair of snakeskin boots. “I’m a — what?”
Savvy rolled her eyes. “Come on, Nor. You’re a witch or, well, you’re a something.”
Nor opened her mouth to deny it, and then she looked at Savvy, really looked at her. This was her best friend. Suddenly, Nor didn’t know how she’d managed to wait this long to tell her. “How long have you known?” Nor finally asked.
“A few days short of forever.” Savvy was so matter-of-fact that Nor couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s like I told you,” Savvy said. “I’m nosy. I notice shit, like you always know when the weather’s going to change. And the whales on your birthday? You seemed to know what they were thinking. Plus,” she added quietly, “you knew my mom was going to die before anyone else did. I could see it in your face.”
Nor opened her mouth and then closed it. She wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Why haven’t you ever said anything?” she finally asked.
Savvy shrugged. “I figured you didn’t want to talk about it. I mean, let’s face it, Nor. You don’t want to talk about most things. Though” — Savvy examined Nor with a careful eye — “now that you are talking, I have some questions.”
Nor sighed. “Yeah, that makes sense. Go ahead then.”
Savvy settled onto a mint-green settee and folded her arms comfortably behind her head. “Are you immortal?” she asked.
Nor smiled. “I don’t think immortality is possible, even in the magic world. Though my grandmother’s dog is over one-hundred-sixty years old, so I could be wrong.”
“What about him?” Savvy pointed to Bijou, who was busy trying to coax a mouse out from behind an old jukebox. “He isn’t immortal or hundreds of years old, is he?”
“No,” Nor answered, “and Bijou doesn’t want to be immortal, either.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can read his thoughts.”
“Interesting. Can you read mine?”
“No.”
“Why his?”
“I can only read the thoughts of animals — birds, squirrels, dogs. And plants,” Nor added.
“Plants have thoughts?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that plant thinking?” Savvy asked, pointing to a potted geranium on the windowsill.
“That it’s not a rose, and it wishes you’d stop referring to it as one.”
“No shit? But you can’t cast spells? Isn’t that what witches do?”
Nor shook her head. “Not necessarily. Casting spells is just one skill out of many that a witch can have. No one in my family has been able to cast even a simple memory charm since my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Rona Blackburn.” Nor did the best she could to explain everything she knew about Rona and the curse that had befallen all the Blackburn daughters after her.
“So you’re not just a witch, you’re a cursed witch.” Savvy considered this. “That’s totally fucked up.”
“That’s not even the worst part.” Nor sighed. “For generations, Blackburn women have been given one talent — incredible strength, speed, the ability to walk through fire, or heal pain through touch. My mother is casting spells she shouldn’t be able to cast. Practicing magic outside a witch’s natural abilities isn’t just frowned upon. It’s black magic. It’s considered wicked and evil because you have to do wicked and evil things in order to do it.”
“Like what?”
“You have to be willing to hurt someone,” Nor said softly. “Even kill them. Some witches have gone so far as to hurt their own children to get what they want.” The night sky bright with fire. The charred black of burned skin. Pools of blood. “Trust me when I say the price paid for one of my mother’s spells isn’t just monetary. The real price is blood. And pain.”
Which is why Nor had never told anyone that being able to communicate with nature — her most innocuous gift — was only one of many abilities she’d been given. Every time Nor accidentally stopped time or healed pain or saw a lie, she was afraid. Afraid that if people knew, they’d look at Nor and see someone evil and wicked, afraid they’d look at Nor and see Fern.
“So you’re saying on a scale of one to ten, the likelihood of you casting, I don’t know, a love spell is, what do you think, a four?”
“More like negative eleven. And love spells don’t actually make anyone fall in love with you. It just mimics the physical responses to the feeling of being in love.”
“So like sweaty palms and a racing pulse?”
“Pretty much.”
“Gross.”
Nor laughed. Of course, in some hands, a love spell could cause far more damage than an increased heart rate. A love spell could take away a person’s autonomy. They’d love you because they’d have to love you. They wouldn’t have any other choice. Nor thought about her father. Part of Nor knew Quinn Sweeney was still alive, that he was still under Fern’s control. What could such a spell do to someone long-term? Was there anything left of him, or was he just a shell of who he once was? “I guess we’re lucky that you don’t want a love spell then, huh?” she finally said.
“I might not, but you could sure use one,” Savvy said.
“My love life isn’t really my top concern right now.”
“Yes, it is!” Savvy insisted. “Whether or not your mom is a sociopath in witch’s clothing, you still totally want to get underneath Reed. Hell, girl, I’d even settle for you to hook up with what’s-his-name, that hot angry guy on the beach.”
“Gage Coldwater?” Nor exclaimed. “You can’t be serious. He’s hated me since seventh grade!”
“Which could be fun,” Savvy posited. “Nor, you care about Reed. And maybe you don’t want to admit it because then you’ll have to consider what happens if it doesn’t work out. You and I both know that losing someone hurts like hell, but that’s how you know that it meant something. That it was real. Isn’t that worth it?”
Nor glanced at the raised skin in the crook of her elbow. She could hear the scars on her
arm calling to her, and she could feel that familiar ache — the ache to stop caring, to mask it with blood and pain. She tugged down her sleeve and clasped her hand over her singing scars. Savvy was right. Nor did care about Reed. In fact, she cared so much that she sometimes felt it would swallow her whole. But that was the whole point. She cared about him enough to stay away.
“Okay, new plan,” Savvy decided. “I may not know anything about curses or psycho moms, but as your best friend, I promise that I will help you get it on with whomever you want. Reed or what’s-his-name or Heckel Abernathy if that’s your kink. On the condition that, should any of this manifest, you have to give me all the delicious details. Deal?”
Nor smiled, and then followed Savvy and Bijou out of the chaos of the Society for the Protection of Discarded Things — past toppling towers of scorched pots and pans, a scattering of broken-down lawn mowers, and an antique metal dress form. Though Savvy couldn’t actually solve the bulk of Nor’s problems, Nor felt better having been reminded that someone gave enough of a shit to try.
Around this time of year, Meandering Lane was usually ablaze with strands of tiny twinkling white lights draped across trees and strung along rooftops. There would be mistletoe and holly greens hanging above the front door of the Witching Hour, and Heckel Abernathy would have fixed the eight gaudy reindeer atop the Willowbark General Store. There would be a wooden nativity scene in front of the library and a menorah flickering from the front windows of Harper Forgette’s and Reuben Finch’s houses. A medley of secular Christmas carols would be blaring from the ferry speakers. But this year only a single strand of red and green lights hung limply from the front door of the co-op.
“The holiday spirit is hard to find around here this year,” Savvy said.
Though it was no longer raining, the air felt cold and wet against Nor’s face. She scooped up Bijou and wiped his muddy paws with her mittened hand before bundling him inside her jacket.
The heat from the ovens had steamed up the Sweet and Savory Bakery windows, but she could still see the blurred outline of Bliss Sweeney, preparing marzipan scones or maybe a batch of cranberry-orange biscotti — both favorites during this time of year — in the hopes of attracting some scant customers. Through the opaque glass, Bliss looked like a colorful ghost.