Spells for Forgetting(77)

“You think I should leave,” I said, following her train of thought.

But then her eyes lifted, meeting mine, and for the first time since she’d walked through the door, they were focused. “That won’t stop whoever this is from using this against you.”

I stared at the letter unfolded between us. “Then what?”

“I think we should find out what really happened to Lily.”





Forty-Five


    ONE DAY BEFORE THE FIRE


   EMERY


Black elder was my mother’s favorite for reading the leaves.

Lily hovered over the green, gold-rimmed cup, peering into the last few sips of tea before she raised it to her lips. We sat on the floor of the shop with the wind howling outside, but the flames on the candles we’d lit were calm.

She’d been begging me to read her tea leaves for months because my mother refused, saying that she didn’t like looking into the futures of young people. That it never brought anything good. I finally agreed to do it as a kind of parting gift to her, whether she knew it or not.

It was the last day of school and the night before graduation. My last night with her in the world we’d grown up in together. The thought made my stomach drop a little.

My mother had been teaching me to read the leaves since I was a little girl, and the ritual of it was memorized in my fingertips. From the way I wrapped the towel around the handle of the kettle as I lifted it from the flames to the position of my hand as I turned the cup. But it wasn’t until that previous fall that she finally let me begin reading tea leaves for customers who came into the shop.

“All right.” I placed the folded linen napkin in front of Lily. “Flip it over. Carefully.”

Lily did as she was told, tipping the cup quickly so that it landed upside down.

I sprinkled another handful of crushed, dried cedar over the coals in the brass bowl beside us and the smoke lifted into the air, filling my lungs.

“Now turn it clockwise. Three times.”

She set her fingertips on the cup’s bottom, rotating it with an excited gleam in her eyes. In that moment, she reminded me of the Lily I’d run barefoot with through the woods. The one who laughed all the time. Sometimes, I forgot about that version of her.

When she was finished, she set her hands in her lap, peering up at me.

“Ready?” I asked.

She nodded, lips pursing as I flipped it back over.

The herb was sprawled along the inside of the cup, sinking into a pool at the bottom. I tilted it toward the light and the shapes took form, glistening against the pale green ceramic.

But my hands tightened on the cup when I saw the only clear symbol in the swath of trailing black. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes, convinced that it was a trick of the smoke or the flicker of candlelight.

There, along the rim, a perfect circle looked back up at me, one straight line jutting out from its side. I’d never seen it in a reading, I only recognized it from my mother’s Herbarium, where the hand-drawn symbols were listed with their meanings. It was Death.

My eyes flickered up to Lily, who was still waiting with a wide grin.

“Well?” She reached for the cup, but I drew back, holding it out of her reach.

She laughed, climbing over the smoking cedar and candles to take it from me, but the cup slipped from my fingers. It hit the wooden floor and bounced before it rolled under the table.

Lily was half-lying on top of me as she snatched it, peering inside. Half of the tea leaves were gone, scattered over the floor. “What did it say?”

I felt the blood drain from my face as the window rattled over our heads. Far in the distance, a rumble of thunder was creeping toward the island.

It wasn’t just the symbol. It was its placement along the rim of the cup, away from the handle. It was Death. And soon.

“What’s wrong with you?” She still thought this was a game.

I sat up, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I wasn’t a skilled reader like my mother. And I’d only seen it for a moment. It was possible I hadn’t seen it at all.

“Em?”

“Love,” I lied, forcing a smile. “It says you’re going to find love.”

Her eyes brightened instantly, her grin stretching wider. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Lily settled back down, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her wet hair was braided up over the crown of her head so that it would be wavy for the graduation ceremony tomorrow, and there was a warm glow to her cheeks. She was still smiling.

I pinched my eyes closed, shaking my head before I looked into the cup again. The black elder was now just a glob on one side of the porcelain.

But my eyes trailed back to the spilled tea leaves on the floor beneath the table, a sick feeling billowing inside me.

Lily took the second cup from the floor, setting it before me. “Okay, now let’s do you.”





Forty-Six


    EMERY


If there was one thing true about Saoirse, it was that almost nothing changed. That simple truth had been a source of pride for many of the people who lived on the island. While the mainlanders barreled ahead with the chaotic pace of the world, Saoirse was a refuge, a haven for those who lived by the old ways.

Today, it was the reason I knew exactly where Jake would be at eleven-fifty a.m.