Crystal Cove (Friday Harbor #4)(42)

Justine affected a tone of grave concern. “I hope he hasn’t ruined any stereotypes for you, Rosemary.”

“I don’t stereotype. I generalize.”

“Is there a difference?” Justine asked with a grin. “You have to explain it to me, because I don’t see one.”

“I’ll explain it,” Sage interceded. “If Rosemary were to say that all men are insensitive brutes who love football and drink beer, that would be stereotyping. However, if Rosemary said that most men are insensitive brutes who love football and drink beer, she would be generalizing.”

Justine listened with a dubious expression. “Neither version gives men much credit.”

“That’s because none of them deserve it,” Rosemary said.

Sage said to Justine sotto voce, “That is stereotyping.”

The three of them worked companionably in the kitchen, rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher until it was full. Justine volunteered to wash the large soup pot in the sink. As she plunged her hands into hot soapy water and scrubbed the pot, she pondered how best to open the subject of the curse, when Sage did it for her.

“Justine, darling … Rosemary seems to believe that you have somehow managed to break the geas. Which I told her couldn’t be true, since it would be nearly impossible for you to accomplish such a thing on your own.”

Justine didn’t pause in her scrubbing. “So you admit there was a geas?”

A nerve-grating silence greeted her question.

Justine was astonished that they were trying to keep secrets from her, even when those secrets had a profound impact on her life. After Zoë, there was no one Justine had ever trusted more than these two women. To be deceived by them hurt her on as deep a level as Marigold had ever reached.

“There was a geas,” Rosemary admitted quietly. “Let’s return to the main room and sit together while we—”

“Not yet. Still working on this pot.” Justine scoured the stainless steel with frantic intensity. She needed an activity—if she had to sit still with nothing to occupy her, she felt as if she might explode.

“Very well.” The two women sat on wooden stools at the small kitchen island table.

Sage’s voice again: “Justine, will you tell us how you found out? And what you’ve done about it?”

“Yes. But first I’m going to tell you why I did it. Although you already know.”

“You wanted love” came the quiet reply. Justine wasn’t even certain which one of them had said it.

“I wanted at least a chance at it.” Justine drained the soapy pot and began to rinse it industriously. She tried to speak calmly, but her voice had tightened like a windup mechanism until it threatened to break. “How many times have I sat in this kitchen and bitched and cried and told you that I knew something was wrong with me? I even asked you once if it might have something to do with magic, and you both said no. You said things like, ‘It’ll happen someday, Justine. Just be patient, Justine.’ But you were lying. You knew there was no freaking chance I’d ever have anyone. That I would always be alone. How could you do that to me?”

“One can be alone,” Rosemary said, “without being lonely. And lonely without being alone.”

Infuriated, Justine set the pot on the counter with unnecessary force. “I don’t need fortune-cookie wisdom. I need answers.”

Sage spoke gently. “Justine, you were going to tell us how you found out about the geas.”

Still facing away from them, Justine braced her wet hands on the sink. “The Triodecad,” she muttered. “Page thirteen.”

Her shoulders stiffened as she heard audible gasps.

“Jumping Jupiter on a pogo stick,” Rosemary said.

“Oh, Justine,” Sage faltered, “you were told never to do that.”

“I was told about a lot of things. Unfortunately the geas was not one of them. So I had to find out from the Triodecad.” Justine turned to face them defiantly. “It’s my spellbook, and my decision to make.”

Rosemary sounded more bewildered than accusatory. “You aren’t nearly so naïve as to think you can break one of the rules of magic without causing consequences for everyone in the coven.”

“I’m not a covener. So it’s my business and no one else’s. I opened the Triodecad to page thirteen, and it gave me the spell to break a geas, and I followed the instructions.” She gave them both a rebellious glance. “Now I’ve got some questions: Who cast a curse on me, and why? Does my mother know about it? Why hasn’t anyone ever told me? Because I can’t imagine what I’ve ever done to make someone hate me that much.”

Neither of them wanted to reply. As Justine looked from one face to another, she had a bad feeling, a standing-on-the-train-tracks feeling.

“It wasn’t done out of hatred,” Sage said carefully. “It was done out of love, dear.”

“Who the hell was it?”

“It was Marigold,” Rosemary said in a quiet voice. “She did it to protect you.”

Justine was stunned, suspended in ice. It made no sense. “Protect me from what?” she managed to ask, although it hurt to force the words from her throat.

“Marigold barely survived losing your father,” Sage said. “She wasn’t … herself for a long time afterward.”