Spells for Forgetting(90)

A clinking sound echoed outside and I went to the window, pulling back the thin curtain to see the greenhouse at the bottom of the hill. The door was propped open and through the hazy glass, I could see the bright red glow of Albertine’s coat.

The tension in my shoulders unwound just a little, and I went out into the hallway, following it through the house. I paused when I passed the mantel above the fireplace, where The Blackwood Book of Spells was resting in its place. Only a few days ago, I’d stood in that very same spot, holding the heavy book in my hands with tears streaming down my cheeks. But in the end, I hadn’t been able to cut the bind that had been my agony for fourteen years. There were some things that were a part of you, no matter how badly they hurt.

I reached up and touched the thick leather cover, feeling the hum of it beneath my fingertips. Maybe I’d be leaving that behind, too—the magic. The quiet whisper of the island.

My gaze drifted to the window, where I could see a steady drip of rain was falling from the corner of the greenhouse in the distance. I opened the back door, following the stone trail through the tangle of climbing roses that lined the walkway. They reached across the path in wandering blooms, glittering with raindrops.

“Emery? That you?” Albertine stood in the doorway, an old, mineralized clay pot in her hands. Her plaid scarf was wrapped up around her head, her winter boots laced high up her legs over her jeans.

“There you are.” I shook out my wet hair, letting it fall down my back as I ducked inside.

The mossy glass panes bathed everything in the greenhouse in an emerald light. The bright faces of dahlias and hyacinths and anemones peeked out from behind knotted vines dangling from the old metal shelves.

The plants were another one of those things about Albertine that defied her lack of sight. It wasn’t just the herbalist in her that made the greenhouse stay filled with blooms, even in the dead of winter. She had never in her life seen any of the flowers she tended, yet she kept them going long after their season. The magic she wielded was rarely even spoken aloud. It touched every corner of her house and the land, like a wild vine.

“Didn’t know you were coming up.” Albertine went back to the potting bench with a bit of a limp in her step. Her bones weren’t warmed up enough to loosen the stiff joints that flared when it was cold.

“Just thought I’d check in on you.” I kissed her on the cheek before I slid onto the rusted stool beside her.

“Well, make yourself useful then.” She pointed a crooked finger in the direction of another empty pot.

I obeyed, turning it upside down into the bin on the ground to empty it of the old, dry soil. The violets were waiting on the bench beside it, and I trimmed the spent stalk before setting it inside.

I caught her watching me. “What?”

“Something’s up. I can smell it in the air.” She leaned into the bench.

“Are you going to tell me what you came all the way up here for or do I have to pry it out of you?”

I gave her a look from the corner of my eye. She could smell bullshit from a mile away. “I want to ask you something.”

“All right, shoot.”

“It’s about the night of the fire.”

Her hands stilled on the pot and she turned toward me. “All right,” she said, hesitant.

“You called Jake that afternoon because you thought you had a break-in.”

“Yeah.”

“Around three p.m., right?”

“I guess so. It was a long time ago, honey.”

“Can you tell me what you remember?”

She set a hand on her hip, her blank stare drifting past me. “What is this about?”

“I just need to know what happened.”

She sighed, flinging the dirt from her hands. “Well, I came in from the garden and there was someone in the house. I felt it right away—I was in the kitchen and I could hear footsteps, breathing. They moved from the living room to the front door and then they were gone. I called Jake and he came over a few minutes later and checked everything out, but nothing had been taken.”

“Who do you think it was, then?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. It wasn’t long after Beltane. The veil was thin.”

There were two times a year that the veil was thin. Beltane on May 1, and Samhain, which was coming in only a few days. It was said that on those nights, spirits walked back and forth over the crossing to the Otherworld and I’d seen my fair share of strange things to believe it. “Ghosts don’t use the front door, Oma.”

“Well, after everything that happened that night, Jake looked into it again, but he didn’t find anything.”

“Maybe it was someone who lives here.”

She grunted. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Why would they sneak around? If it was someone from the island, then I knew them. No reason to skulk out and not say anything.”

“Unless they were doing something they weren’t supposed to,” I thought aloud.

I packed in the dirt around the roots of the violets in the pot as I went through it again. If it was someone from the island, it could have been anyone. But there was nothing to steal in the house. I couldn’t think of a single thing Albertine owned that would be worth anything.

She stretched her arthritic hands before her. “I don’t like all this talk about the past, Em. No need to tempt the spirits. We should let sleeping dogs lie.”