Girl's Guide to Witchcraft (28 page)

I thought that I was dreaming when I smelled the chocolate-chip cookies.

I’d spent four days in the basement, working feverishly whenever I wasn’t sleeping. Although the room was cool, I knew that I smelled, um, somewhat less than fresh; I still hadn’t brought myself to waste time taking a shower. It just seemed unnecessary. I mean, it wasn’t like I was ever going to see a man, ever again. Scott had lied to me. Jason had lied to me. Even the nice guys, like Harold, were driven away by my bitchiness.

I
was
going to have to do something about food. The apples had only lasted until Tuesday. The pretzels were long gone; I’d run out of cheese the night before. I’d even resorted to eating the canned Bartlett pears that had lingered at the back of my kitchen shelves for months. I’d fallen asleep, wondering if Neko’s Stupid-Fish-engendered guilt was great enough that he would run to the grocery store for me, solely on the strength of a written note. Could I trust him to bring back a pint of Chubby Hubby? Or would my favorite ice cream go the way of my poor, lost fish, right down Neko’s gullet?

So, I thought that I might be hallucinating the chocolate-chip cookies.

I crept to the top of the stairs and listened carefully. The night before, I’d stayed awake until nearly dawn, finishing the catalog of my witchcraft books. I had to admit that I was impressed—Hannah Osgood had brought together quite a collection. Even though I couldn’t say which were rare in the world of witchcraft, I knew that most were by different authors. Many reached back several centuries, and all were now neatly listed in my sortable, printable, one hundred percent accurate and up-to-date catalog.

Now, huddled at the top of the stairs, I smelled something else beneath the aroma of chocolate-chip cookies. Something salty and hot, a memory of childhood sick days.

I twisted the knob and eased the basement door back on its hinges.

Chicken soup. Hot chicken soup. With rice, if I remembered anything from my childhood. Easy tears sprang back into my eyes. Someone had cared enough about me to make chicken soup.

I tugged my bathrobe tighter around my waist and crossed to the kitchen, only to discover a half circle of earnest, silent women. Okay. Three women and Neko. But Neko was looking his most feminine, brushing on clear nail polish and studying his fingers as if they were works of art.

“Hi,” I said, suddenly aware of just how greasy my hair must be.

Melissa stood up. “Hi,” she said. “We thought you might be hungry.”

“Yeah, well…” I trailed off, taking a moment to dash my palms against my damp cheeks.

Gran stepped up beside my best friend. “Why don’t you go take a shower, dear? Then, we’ll all sit down to a bit of midnight supper.”

I glanced at the clock—11:30 p. m. I had completed another sleep marathon.

Clara rose to complete the triumvirate. “I’ll make some sandwiches to go with the soup. Turkey or ham for you?”

“Turkey,” Melissa and Gran both answered, before I could. They knew I didn’t like ham.

“Go ahead,” Melissa said to me. “Wash up and come eat with us.”

Gran volunteered, “I put some clothes on your bed. You can change into them after you shower.”

Neko twisted shut his bottle of nail polish and came to stand beside the others, waving his drying fingers in the air. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I wasn’t going to keep taking messages forever, you know. I had people to see. Places to go.”

Fish to eat, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Instead, I shut myself into the bathroom and turned on the water for the hottest shower I could stand.

Someone had been at work here, as well, and I suspected Melissa’s hand. My favorite Body Shop shampoo was standing on the floor of the shower, partnered with conditioner and a matching bar of glycerine soap. My toothbrush and toothpaste had been retrieved from the Farm; they were laid out on the counter like offerings to some goddess of hygiene. I peeked underneath the sink and found my entire cosmetics bag, the one that I had abandoned in the Girls’ Room, tucked away safe and sound.

As I soaped up a washcloth, I remembered how good a shower can feel. I lathered shampoo into my hair and filled my lungs completely for what seemed like the first time in weeks. Toweling dry, I realized that I was starving, ravenous, as if I had eaten nothing for months.

I ducked into my bedroom and found that Gran had been true to her word. Fleece pants were laid out on the bed, grey to match the heathered sweatshirt beside them. I tugged the pants on and was pleased to see that the elastic waistband was a little loose. I wouldn’t market heartbreak as the diet of choice, but a girl had to take her benefits where she could.

Clean for the first time in days, I returned to the kitchen to find a simple meal set out on the counter, buffet-style. Gran loaded up a plate for me, ignoring my halfhearted protests that she was giving me too much food. We all decided to sit in the living room, because there weren’t enough chairs in the kitchen.

“So,” Gran said, when we had settled on the hunter-green couches.

“So,” I repeated. What did they want me to say? I’d been an idiot? I’d been a desperate fool? I filled my mouth with turkey sandwich, trying to ignore the salty taste of renewed tears at the back of my throat.

Clara jumped in to fill the silence. “We had quite an interesting ride back to D. C.”

I wasn’t interested, but I had to say something. “Really?”

Clara looked at Gran, who clicked her tongue primly before saying, “Well, your young man showed up at the farmhouse wearing nothing but his shoes. Poor Leah thought she might go into labor then and there, from the surprise.”

“Leah was awake?” I asked, intrigued despite myself.

“Oh yes,” Gran said. “Neko saw to that.”

I turned to Neko, who was studying his manicure with pursed-lips nonchalance. He shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t be sure which room you were staying in, could I? I needed to call your name from the driveway, let you know that I’d made it to the Farm after my weekend in Boston. I knew that you’d be worried.”

“Your weekend in Boston,” I repeated, beginning to understand the cover story that Neko had concocted.

“I got a little carried away, though,” he admitted, lowering his eyes in false shame. “It must have been that Tennessee Williams retrospective I saw last month. For the record, it’s much easier to bellow ‘Stella’ than ‘Jane.’”

Melissa guffawed around a mouthful of ham sandwich, and I shook my head at his silliness. “So, Neko arrived…from Boston and woke everyone with his Stanley Kowalski imitation.”

Clara nodded and said, “Just in time for us to see Jason stumble out of the woods. He had some strange story to tell—that you’d mistakenly taken his clothes when you borrowed his car to return home. He said you had an emergency back here.”

Gran broke in: “Which certainly didn’t please the
other
man.”

“Other man?” I asked, looking at Neko, only to catch his minute nod.

Clara explained. “David, he said his name was. He came over from the Blue Cottage right after Jason.”

Gran shook her head. “What a pity they didn’t run into each other on the path in the woods. David could at least have given Jason his overcoat to wear.”

“Pity,” Neko said, with a doleful shake of his head.

Gran took up the story. “Well, at least Simon was able to loan Jason some clothes, but that poor young man was simply
swimming
in his borrowed dungarees.”

“Now, Mother,” Clara said. “They probably would have been okay if the twins hadn’t ‘pantsed’ him.”

I made a mental note to thank Simon’s boys. Melissa asked, “So then what happened?”

“Jason insisted that Jane had left,” Clara said. “David seemed rather put out. He told Neko—”

Neko interrupted. “He and I
discussed
things. In fact, we strolled back to the Blue Cottage to tidy up. And then he went on his way.”

“On his way?” I asked, glancing apprehensively toward the door.

“He said that he understood that you had a lot, um, on your plate, and he’d catch up with you later in the week.” Later. Great. That could be now.

Gran, oblivious to my concern, continued her story. “By the time Neko came back to the house, most people had left. We all piled into the Lincoln and drove home.”

“All?” I asked.

Neko clarified. “Clara drove. And a fine driver she is—never went a mile above the speed limit. That gave us plenty of time to talk to Jason.”

“Jason was with you?”

“In the backseat. With me. While your grandmother sat up front.” Neko fluttered his hands in front of his eyes. “The poor man just could
not
get comfortable. I think that he was positively
chafed
by the time we got to his house.”

Clara took up the tale. “Of course, we waited with him at his place, to make sure that he could get inside. He’d misplaced his house keys, somehow. Or that’s what he told the woman who finally showed up.”

“Ekaterina?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

“Is that her name?” Clara snorted and tossed her flamered hair. “Sounds about right. Poor thing looked like she was going to faint away when she saw all of us. She burst into tears. No strength to her at all. No meat on her bones.”

“Speaking of meat on bones,” Melissa said, and she jumped up from the couch. “Neko, will you help me?”

I took the opportunity of their absence to look at my mother and grandmother, to really study these women who were so like me. I reached out to take their hands. “Thank you,” I said.

Gran smiled slightly, and then Clara, and I knew that I would one day tell them everything that had happened in the Blue Cottage. Well, not
everything
…

“Gran?” I said, realizing this was the perfect time to ask them both a question. “Clara?” They looked at me expectantly. “Have you ever done…” I trailed off, realizing that I was going to sound like an idiot. “Have you ever worked…” That was no better. Well, there was no way to avoid this. They’d stuck with me this long; I couldn’t imagine they’d abandon me now. “Do you believe in magic?”

Clara glanced at Gran and then quickly looked away. She dropped my hand and raised her short, blunt fingers to her mouth. She chewed on her fingernails distractedly until Gran said, “Stop that!”

Clara folded her hands in her lap and finally met my eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I believe in magic.”

“Clara—” Gran said.

“No!” My mother did not raise her voice, but she spoke with great force. She looked me in the eye and said, “I first felt it when I was a teenager. If I held my worry beads, I could…make things happen. And when I cast runes, they truly told the future.” She swallowed. “It frightened me. A lot. And so I drank. And got high. And just stayed away from home, where the feelings were strongest.”

Gran looked flustered. “You know I don’t believe in those things, Clara. I never have.”

“But you believe in your
traditions,
like the rhyme at the Farm. And that old pregnancy necklace.”

“Those are different,” Gran countered immediately.

“And you used the crystal Jane made for you, when you were in the hospital.”

“That was a gift!”

“Mother!” Clara said, and her voice held the exact same note of exasperation that I had perfected as a teen. Clara turned to me. “I’m sorry, Jane. What can I say? You come from a long line of weird women. Stubborn, wonderful, gifted,
magical
women.”

There was a sudden clatter in the kitchen, and Melissa and Neko returned with a towering plate of chocolate-chip cookies, a pitcher of milk and a tray of glasses. From the studious way they avoided meeting our eyes, I figured they’d overheard all of that last bit.

Melissa slapped my familiar’s hand as he attempted to drink directly from the pitcher. He settled for a tall glass of milk and a single cookie. Melissa poured for me and held the serving plate in front of my nose until I’d taken two, then three and finally four cookies. “They’re best when they’re hot,” she said, passing the platter to Gran and Clara.

Suddenly, I realized how much I’d missed my best friend, up at the Farm. How much I’d needed her. I clutched at Melissa’s free hand as she sat down. “I’m sorry,” I said to her.

“What?”

“I’m so sorry. When I was, um, with Jason, I realized that I…pitied you. I thought your First Dates were ridiculous. I thought that I had everything, that I was leading some sort of dream life, and I actually felt
sorry
for you. I was an idiot.”

Gran answered before Melissa could. “We’re all idiots.” She offered her pronouncement around a large bite of cookie, and she swallowed before she elaborated. “We women who forfeit what we believe in just to please a man. We’re idiots.”

I took a mournful nibble of my own. “Not you,” I said to my grandmother. “You loved Grandpa, and now you love Uncle George, and you’ve never been an idiot.”

“Except for that foolish concert opera.”

“What?” I was astonished. “You
love
the opera.”

“I like the
people,
” she conceded. “But the operas? I might as well listen to cats yowling at the moon.” She sipped her milk. “George loves it, though. At first, I was afraid to tell him how I really felt, and now it’s far too late. So I suffer half a dozen nights a year. I’m an idiot.”

“Six times a year!” Clara said, helping herself to another cookie. “I was locked into a weekly meditation group for six
entire
years. That’s one of the main reasons I decided to move back here.”

“What happened?” I stared at her.

“I met a man at the food co-op in Sedona. He had the most sensitive hands I’d ever seen….” She sighed, and I tried to picture her scooping quinoa from a bin, standing next to her Adonis. “He told me about a meditation group he was setting up. Group chanting in the box canyon. It was utter crap.”

I snorted. “Why?”

“He chose nonsense words for us to chant. Had us yip like coyotes and howl like wolves, communing with our inner carnivores. Every Wednesday night. For six long years.”