Spells for Forgetting(91)

The faint sound of tapping rose over the wind outside and my eyes went to the house up the hill. On the far side, the branches of the willow were scraping against the kitchen window.

I went rigid, my fingernails digging down into the soil.

The willow.

Beside me, Albertine could sense my stillness. “What is it?”

“Lily was wearing one of those willow branch bracelets you taught us how to make. Do you remember?”

She frowned. “Yes, I remember.”

It was an old practice that my grandmother had learned from her grandmother—tying a braided willow branch around your wrist to protect you from dark magic.

“She had matches. And wax, dripped on her dress,” I whispered.

“Emery.” Albertine’s voice deepened, warping. I couldn’t tell if it was her or if it was me. Everything was jumbled. Splintered.

“Lily was found in the middle of the woods, but she drowned. How did she get there?” My mind was racing so fast now, my mouth could hardly keep up. “If there was wax, then maybe there was a candle. And she was wearing a willow branch around her wrist,” I murmured.

Albertine was suddenly careful to keep her face turned away from me.

“What does that sound like to you?” I swallowed.

“Well, that sounds like…” She fell quiet, pressing her lips together as if to keep herself from saying more.

“Oma?”

There was no mirth in her voice this time. No telltale smirk at the corner of her mouth. “I was going to say, it sounds like…spellwork.”

“It was her,” I breathed, pulling my hands from the pot and walking toward the door. “She was here.”

“Em?” Albertine followed on my heels, her hand tapping the fence behind me every few steps to follow.

I climbed the hill and pushed through the back door, going to the fireplace. I took the book of spells from the mantel, cradling it in my arms as I carried it to the kitchen and set it down on the table.

“What’s going on?” Albertine had her ear turned toward me, her brow wrinkled as she tried to decipher the sounds.

“She came here. For the book of spells,” I said, flipping through the pages. “But she wasn’t doing just any magic. If she was wearing the willow branch, she was doing dark magic.”

“She couldn’t have. There’s no way she could have worked a spell like that.”

“Exactly.”

Albertine lifted a hand to her mouth, thinking.

“What could she have been doing?”

Albertine shook her head. “I don’t know. A candle and a willow branch aren’t much to go on.”

“Seaweed.” I said, remembering. “She had seaweed in her stomach.”

Slowly, Albertine’s expression changed.

“What? What is it?”

“There is a spell in that book. For drowning.” The last word was almost inaudible. She reached over me, feeling the edges of the pages. “Somewhere in here.” She held open a section and I started turning the pages, studying them one by one.

“Sailor’s something.”

My finger frantically dragged over the handwriting until I found it.

Sailor’s Scourge.



It was an old spell. A very old one. The edges of the paper were brittle and yellowed, the ink blotted in places along a drawing of a branch.

“On a dark moon.” I read aloud. “In the right hand, the anchor. In the left, a stalk of henbane. Spoken three times over candle’s flame, with blood and seaweed on the tongue: ‘air to water, water to lungs.’?”

A sharp chill crept over my skin. “What do you mean it’s a spell for drowning?”

“It’s not all blessings and abundance charms in that book, love. You know that.” She answered. “I suppose it was a spell crafted to drown someone. By the name it was given, I can guess it was a sailor. A fisherman, maybe?”

I read the words again. “What is the anchor? Like on a ship?”

“No. An anchor binds the spell to its intended recipient.”

“How?”

“It’s an item, usually. A possession. A lock of hair…”

“That doesn’t make any…” The words disappeared on my tongue as it came to me. The necklace. A sick feeling roiled in my belly. “Oma”—my voice was brittle—“she had my necklace.”





Fifty-Four


    AUGUST


This time, I bought two tickets.

Emery hadn’t said yet if she was coming with me, but if she did, I was going to be ready for the first ferry out in the morning. If she didn’t, I had no idea how I was going to leave without her.

I came up the drive, shooting a glance in the direction of the burned truck. Maybe it would sit there another fourteen years, slowly eaten up by the vines and reeds. Like everything else, Saoirse would take it for her own.

The cottage was bathed in sunlight and it beamed through the windows as I came inside. The wood floor popped in a familiar pattern as I checked the rooms one last time. All I had to do now was lock the door and give the keys to Bernard. My stuff was packed at Emery’s, along with the paperwork I was able to find in my mom’s files, but I’d decided against taking anything else from the cottage. I’d gone this long without the keepsakes my mother had left behind, and now they felt like they belonged to another time. I wasn’t sad to see them go.