The Price Guide to the Occult(8)

When Nor reached the lake, she paused to stretch and was surprised to find she wasn’t alone. A little ways off the beaten path, she saw a boy with dark hair attempting to skip rocks across the water. With each failed attempt, he grew more and more sullen. He was short — probably a good two or three inches shorter than Nor — but compact and sturdy. With a sinking feeling, she recognized him. It was Gage Coldwater.

The Coldwater family mostly kept to themselves, though Nor had always felt a certain animosity directed at her — specifically from Gage, who’d been in her grade at school. Savvy claimed she was paranoid, but Savvy hadn’t witnessed the fit Gage Coldwater had pitched in seventh grade when he and Nor had been paired for a science project. He’d even stormed out of the room — and received a week’s detention for it — when the teacher refused to reassign partners. It had been humiliating, to say the least.

The Coldwaters supposedly lived up here, though exactly where and for how long, Nor had no idea. All she’d ever seen were hemlock trees and snowberry bushes and black-tailed deer skirting around the trail; she’d never seen so much as a single house, let alone several.

Gage wasn’t alone. A girl with the same dark hair sat beside him on the wet ground. She was chewing her lip, lost in serious contemplation. The girl had what looked like tarot cards spread out on a black cloth in front of her. When it came to tarot, Nor was no expert, but she was impressed; if she didn’t know any better, she would have thought the girl actually knew what she was doing.

“You know the ground’s wet, right?” Gage said to the girl. He lodged another rock at the lake. It landed with a lively plop. He scowled.

The girl — Charlie, Nor thought, suddenly remembering Gage’s cousin’s name — looked up at him and rolled her eyes. “No shit,” she said. “Just shut up for a minute. I’m trying to figure something out.”

“Can you imagine what Dauphine would do to you if she found out what you’re doing?” he snorted. Charlie jumped up and punched him hard in the arm. “Come on. You know I would never tell her!” he said, wincing. “That woman already has it out for us.”

“She has it out for you,” Charlie said, sitting down again. “She likes me. She just thinks I keep bad company.” She looked at Gage. “Any idea who that might be?”

“Not a clue.” He picked up another rock and tossed it into the lake. “You could have at least waited for the sun to come out.”

The girl peered at the spread in front of her. “No, I couldn’t,” she said. “I need to do this now and I’m struggling with how to interpret this reading. You know that body they found on Halcyon Island last week?”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. Something about it just seems . . . strange.”

Gage leaned over her shoulder and pretended to study the cards. “I don’t know if this is helpful, but I’m pretty sure this card means that you’re full of shit.” He laughed. “Come on. It’s an abandoned island in the middle of nowhere! They probably thought, hey, here’s my chance to die in peace. What’s so strange about that? I actually envy that person right now.”

Charlie ignored him. She looked at the book she had open in her lap and then back down at the cards. “That it’s an abandoned island in the middle of nowhere is exactly my point. I have this feeling that —” She stopped midsentence, closed the book with a snap, and swept her hand across the cards to scramble them. She’d spotted Nor, and soon after, so did Gage.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Gage asked, glaring at her. Charlie rushed to gather up her things, then wrapped the black cloth around the deck. As she hurried past Nor, she didn’t notice one of her cards flutter to the wet ground.

Ignoring the sour look Gage was giving her, Nor picked up the card. On it was a picture of two people falling from a tower atop a rocky cliff. There was a lightning bolt in the sky and flames shooting from the tower windows. It gave Nor an unsettled feeling. Charlie took it from her, and the two left without another word. Nor finished her run wondering what it was Charlie Coldwater thought she had seen in those cards.

Nor cut across Red Poppy Road and hopped the fence into the fields where Harper and Kaleema let their alpacas out to pasture. Alpacas hummed when happy, a cheery ascending noise that sounded a bit like a kazoo, and it was a herd of buzzing alpacas that was soon escorting Nor the rest of the way home. The Blackburn home loomed ahead, a dark shadow against a fading sky. It was as imposing as a fortress. Much like her grandmother.

Nor tried to imagine the best way to tell Judd about her mother’s reappearance, about her book. She should probably tell her right away. Just get straight to the point, as Judd was always telling her. As if speaking with a woman known as the Giantess was ever easy.

I’ll find a way to tell Apothia instead, Nor decided. Nor’s grandmother and her partner, Apothia, had been together since before Nor was born. Better to let Apothia figure out how to tell Judd than her. Because what would she say? Her mother was doing the unthinkable and selling spells that hadn’t been cast for generations — spells for success, good luck, beauty, revenge.

Like an ancient relic from the Old World, Rona’s spells and the diary she’d recorded them in were kept only for their sentimental value, as a link between themselves and their matriarch, a reminder of times that once were and never would be again. From what Nor had been told, the last Blackburn daughter capable of casting spells was Rona herself.