Spells for Forgetting(64)

“Knot them together, like this.” I felt for twine, gathering up the three ends and showing her how.

“It’s done.”

I reached out, to where the three strands dangled from her hands, finding the knot. “This”—I held it tightly between my fingers—“is the oath you made.” It was a point in time. A moment. “Now, take the three cords and braid them to their opposite ends.” I held on to the knot as she wove the strands together in a slow rhythm. “Past, present, future,” I murmured. There was one strand for each. A soft tug pulled the knot back and forth. I could feel her hands shaking as she folded one over the other. “Now, knot the other end. This is the present moment.”

The room filled with silence again, despite the crackle of the fire and the hum of the rain. All around us, the air was alive. But the stillness was coming from Emery.

The braid stretched taut between us, her with one end and me with the other. I found the knife on the stone ledge, holding it up.

“Are you sure?” I asked heavily, hoping she would say that she wasn’t.

I’d felt it in the air between them when they were young—the strike of electricity. It was a rare thing, but not a delicate one. And if she cut the cord, she wouldn’t just lose August, she would lose a part of herself.

Emery was quiet so long that for a moment, I almost lost my hold on her presence in the room.

“I’m sure,” she answered, taking the blade.

I sighed, closing my eyes. “Say the words.”

Emery’s fingers slid over the thick page in the book of spells and the sound of her voice deepened. “Past, present, future, I sever the bind.”

I felt the braided cord pull against my fingertips as she set the knife against it.

“Again,” I instructed.

“Past, present, future, I sever the bind.”

“A third time.”

Her voice rose, the sound of it changing with the words. I could hear it beneath her tongue—the magic. Emery hadn’t always taken to the work like other women in our family had, but I’d sensed her time was near. Gooseflesh rose on my skin and the door tapped against the wall as the wind lifted. Outside, a strike of lightning filled the open house with a buzz.

When her lips fell quiet, I nodded, touching her hand that held the knife to the braided cord.

Her breaths rose and fell swiftly, like the sound of the sea, and another strike of lightning cracked through the night as the tension of the blade pressed heavier against the cord. I held my breath, waiting, but in the next moment, the sharp sound of the knife hitting the stone broke the roaring silence.

I froze, listening. But there was only the sound of the rain. The pages in the book of spells fluttering in the wind. When she said the words, they were like the thin touch of first frost on glass.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t do it.”





Thirty-Eight


    AUGUST


Halo Beach was our place. The four of us spent most weekends on its rocky shores our senior year of high school, when we figured out that it was the one spot our parents never came looking. The island was surrounded by beaches, but this one was all jagged shoreline and piled stones, with harsh winds that made the water crash even on the calmest days.

Standing there now, it had lost all its beauty.

It was nearly dawn and it was the last one I’d ever see on Saoirse. When the ferry left, I would be on it.

The thought put a stone in my throat, though I couldn’t understand why. The day I left the island was the day I was freed. Not just from the suspicion and accusations about Lily. That was the day I was released from the orchard. From the Salt legacy that had been an ax hanging over me my entire life.

My mother said that the island would always call us back. That anyone who left would feel that pull for the rest of their lives. And it was true. I couldn’t help but wonder if her final wishes weren’t just a way for her to return, but a way for her to be sure I would return, too. Maybe both.

The dense tree line overlooked the beach below, the water bubbling and fizzing as it drew itself away from the rocks. In the distance, the black breaches that broke the water in waves were only barely visible, but they were there. The orcas. I used to watch them from the lighthouse in the fall when I had a rare day off from the orchard, and Emery had to work at the shop. In a few days, they would be gone.

I’d woken when it was still dark and started up the road, not really knowing where I was going. I didn’t want to see the black stain on the earth that encircled the skeletal remains of the old Ford truck when the sun rose. I didn’t want to see the caving-in porch or the photograph on the mantel. The remembering was worse than anything else.

Emery, Dutch, Lily, and me, spread out on the sun-warmed rocks like lizards. Sharing two swiped beers between the four of us or smoking pot Emery took from Nixie’s barn and laughing over nothing until our bellies hurt.

Lily had this high-pitched screech of a laugh when she got going. But that Lily—the one from the beach—was a far cry from the Lily I’d last seen. I could still hear her crying. Still feel her hands twisted into my shirt, her knuckles white. They were the moments that trailed behind me everywhere I went, and even here, the roaring sound of the water couldn’t drown them out.

I stared into the tide pool at my feet. The shape of my reflection fractured into pieces on the water’s surface and then re-formed, creating endless versions of me.