Love Charms and Other Catastrophes (32 page)

November thirtieth was not cold enough for the competition to be relocated indoors. Fallon and the twins had helped Hijiri pick an outfit from her closet: a soft, creamy-pink empire-waist dress, silver gloves and boots, and thick black stockings. A red scarf hung loosely at her neck. Hijiri pulled her long hair into a braided bun and thought about her parents. They knew about the event, but she hadn't heard from them.
Maybe they couldn't clear their schedules for today
, she thought, smoothing down her bangs.
I shouldn't be surprised. Though I wish Mom and Dad would be here for this. I want them to see me compete. The Hijiri they know would never have stood onstage before hundreds of people.

Before she left, Hijiri picked up the charmed bell Ken had given her. She took a deep breath and rang it, letting the sound wash over her. She hoped it would reach her parents somehow.

Verbeke Square had never been so intricately decorated for an occasion. White and gold streamers miles wide stretched across the square from one roof to another, forming a flimsy canopy overhead. Paper lanterns burned in the gray daylight. Confetti congregated in the cracks between the cobblestones. Vendors pushed their carts through the crowds: sausage and onion baguettes, waffles dripping with slices of plums and walnuts, and tea hot enough to melt bones.

Hijiri waited for the competition to begin, standing with the other love charm-makers on the side of the stage. Everything she needed was already onstage: a rolling cart carrying her missed-connection love charms. The green glass bottles twinkled.

Mandy and Clea wore their smocks and crystal butterfly pins over their coats. Makeup couldn't hide the bags under Mandy's eyes; she leaned on Clea, hiding a yawn with her hand. Battling the lovesickness in the hospital must have sapped her energy. Clea glowered at Hijiri.

She must still blame me for Mandy being attacked. Not that it's my fault her fiancée is unhappy with her.
Hijiri glared back.

“A fine day for a spectacle,” Sanders muttered beside Hijiri. The stoop in his shoulders was more pronounced, his forehead creasing as he watched the crowd grow.

Hijiri noticed that he was wearing a chef's coat under his jacket. Whatever he had brought with him was going to be edible. “Your charmed sweets have created enough of a spectacle,” she said, “and yet you're going to keep making more.”

“Mind your own charm,” he said, frowning.

Bram took the stage in his usual noir garb, this time decorated with some romantic touches—a red-ribboned fedora, a masculine yet lacy brooch pinned to his trench coat. He looked uncomfortable with the frilly additions to his outfit, a far cry from his anti-love reputation, but he gamely took the microphone with a smile for the audience. “Finally, it's time to see what our love charm-makers have been working on these past months,” he said.

The rest of his opening speech was a blur as Hijiri searched for her friends in the audience. Gage was there; he had been released after being proven innocent, though disqualified from participating in the competition. Ms. Ward's eyes followed Bram's strides as he crossed one side of the stage to the other. The rebellion stood in front of her: Femke and Mirthe side by side, Martin holding his little sisters in a tight grip, Nico, Sebastian, Anais, and Bear. But where were Fallon and Ken? Hijiri squinted and tried looking again. Neither of them were short enough to disappear in the crowd. Panic crawled its way up her spine.
Where are they?

Her parents not showing up was one thing: it hurt, but she was used to the disappointment. Her best friend and the boy she loved not being there? Was this a nightmare? Her palms felt clammy.

“The rules are simple,” Bram said, drawing Hijiri back to the task at hand. “The love charm-makers will each present their best love charms. After the last charm-maker is done, it'll be time for the audience to vote for the last time.” Some volunteers wheeled three tables in front of the stage: red, yellow, and purple. A box and bowl of marbles sat on each of the tables. “We're going to vote via marbles again, Grimbaudians. One vote per person. Put the marble in the box belonging to the love charm-maker whose charm impressed you the most. Detective Archambault will be watching to make sure there's no cheating with the voting.”

The detective looked sharply at Bram and nodded.

“Repeat after me: yellow for Love For All, red for Metamorphosis, purple for the charm theory club. Got it? Great. Let's begin with Sanders of Love For All!”

Sanders met a rise of boos from disgruntled parents and cheers from the younger children in the crowd. He ignored both, talking to the space just above everyone's heads. “I won't bore you with the details,” he said. “The chocolates I've made for you today are my finest creations. You'll see what makes them charming. Let's start with the taste-testing.”

He gestured at the sides of the stage, where employees from his shop sprang forward, each carrying trays of square chocolates. Martin struggled to hold his sisters back, when the younger one started crying and hit him in the leg. The crowd lurched forward, hands reaching for the trays.

“Nobody touch that chocolate!” shouted a voice from the back of the crowd.

A man and woman wearing health inspector uniforms loudly made their way through the crowd, led by none other than Fallon Dupree.

Mrs. Dupree hadn't needed a microphone. Her voice carried all the authority and assurance Hijiri had come to see in Fallon, only amplified. “Sanders Lemmens, you are in violation of”—she paused, consulting her clipboard—“
numerous
health code violations.”

Sanders balked. “This is ridiculous! You have no right to stop me.”

Hijiri chewed on her lip, waiting. Sanders had managed to worm his way out of trouble until now, but the Duprees were different.

“Look at them,” he said, sweeping his hands across the crowd. “They love my charmed sweets. This town is practically begging for them. Grimbaud shouldn't be deprived of my superior confections. Not even the local chocolatiers can compare.”

“Your ‘superior confectionary talents' won't erase the
months
of flagrant disregard for the health and wellness of minors in this town,” Mr. Dupree said firmly.

“If Detective Archambault would kindly escort Mr. Lemmens off stage, we will let you get back to your competition,” Mrs. Dupree said.

From the matching dirty looks the Duprees gave the detective, Hijiri knew that Archambault would get an earful about her neglect in private.

The twins, nearly identical in matching red dresses stitched with lace shaped like snowflakes, high-fived Fallon and snickered at Sanders's retreating form. In the commotion, Hijiri stood on her toes and searched again for Ken and her parents. Still not yet. She wished she could ring the hearth charm again, just to feel better.

 

Chapter 23

UNMEASURABLE

“Looks like we're down to two competitors,” Bram said, drawing the crowd's attention. The yellow table was wheeled away. “That just means we'll be drinking hot chocolate and congratulating the winner much sooner. How about we continue with Metamorphosis?”

“We're ready,” Clea said.

They dressed the stage like a makeup station. Mandy wheeled a bouquet of eye shadows onstage, every color under the sun, while Clea carefully chose a brush to start with.

“They say that eyes are the windows to the soul,” Clea said. “So what if we could unlock those windows?”

While Clea pulled a volunteer from the crowd, Mandy explained their newest product. Eye sockets held power in forming the face. They acted as window frames. With proper attention, frames could provide a different view of the world—or in this case, heart—within.

The woman Clea had chosen sat stiffly in her chair; she had small, pebblelike eyes and flushed cheeks.

“Tilt your head up,” Clea said, bending over the woman like a surgeon. “There we go.”

Mandy followed Clea with the eye shadows, murmuring suggestions as Clea dipped different brushes in various colors. The end result was not one of beauty.

Clea had covered both of the woman's eye sockets with grays, charcoals, and purples that produced a vortexlike effect. Hijiri couldn't look away.

As a fellow charm-maker, Hijiri was allowed a closer look at the charm first. When she was only inches away, she was able to see a series of faint images flashing in the woman's eyes—her inner heart. It felt so personal and strange to witness. Her dreams of love, the man at the grocery store she hoped to attract, and her disappointments when it came to romance.

Even Bram was unsettled by the charm. “Clea and Mandy will escort our brave volunteer off stage so you will be able to see the charm at work. Informed voters are fair voters,” he said. The crowd pressed in on the woman and the Metamorphosis owners.

Hijiri felt uneasy about Metamorphosis's charm. She couldn't imagine anyone willing to wear makeup that made them look zombified, even if it exposed the heart like no other love charm.
That type of exposure is dangerous
, Hijiri thought.
What if the wrong person happened to catch your eye and see something precious and private? It would just make things like blackmailing and heartbreaking so much easier.
She couldn't let their love charm win.

“Hijiri Kitamura, are you ready?” Bram asked.

She felt the weight of this moment heavy on her shoulders.
Don't fail now
, she told herself.
Love is on your side. Your friends believe in you
.

Friends. But what about her charm-boy?

Hijiri mechanically walked over to the rolling cart. Her fingers tightened on the cart as she pushed it to the center of the stage. When she heard the pregnant silence of the audience, everyone waiting for her to speak, the words were ice frozen in her throat.

Hijiri searched the crowd once more. Her friends held their breaths, looking worried as the silence stretched. Fallon pressed her hands together and mouthed for her to
go on
.

All the way in the back of the crowd three figures were running. The two in front looked remarkably like her parents. Mrs. Kitamura held on to her husband's collar as they maneuvered through the crowd. They were wearing their office clothing, of course, and looked severely overdressed among the Grimbaudians.

Ken cupped his hands around his mouth, telling them to keep going, to push through the crowd to see their daughter better. His cheeks were red from running. His eyes met hers, burning with something stronger than affection. His look melted the ice in her throat.

Hijiri's heart fluttered in her chest and she smiled. Any last tendrils of tension left her body, replaced with excitement. She was ready.

“Everyone has missed connections,” she started. “They come and go, perhaps lost forever. Until now. The heart is capable of remembering what the head has forgotten. Even if years pass, the threads that connect you to the lives you've crossed and connected with never break. You might know them as heartstrings.

“Imagine your heartstrings as telephone wires, stretching as far as the horizon, lines unused but connected to loved ones and strangers. My love charm taps into that power. With it, you'll be able to send a message to your missed connection and receive an answer in return.”

Hijiri took one of the glass bottles. “When you open the bottle, think about your almost-love, your missed connection. My charm will help your head remember as the heart pours the memory into the bottle. Once you're done, send the charm off into the world—it will find your lost love and deliver the message.” Hijiri put the bottle down and turned to the audience. “Ms. Emma Ward has agreed to demonstrate how my charm works. If you would please come to the stage.”

Ms. Ward blushed at the applause and slowly made her way to the stage.

Hijiri took one of the bottles, about to uncork it, when she noticed something green flash and disappear above the crowd.

Seconds later, a green glass bottle shimmering with memory materialized in front of her. Hijiri gasped and nearly dropped the one she was holding.

“What's this?” Bram asked, teasing. “Is that bottle for you, Miss Kitamura?” He took the bottle she had been holding for Ms. Ward from her hands. “What do you say, folks? Should she open this mystery bottle?”

The crowd cheered. Bram was doing her a favor, giving her time to recover from her shock. This hadn't been part of the plan, but … there was only one boy in the world the bottle could be from, and after waiting for so long, it felt almost unfair that she had to uncork it in public. But she wasn't about to wait any longer.

Hijiri pulled the cork out and a memory began to form in the air for all of Grimbaud to see.

She saw a boy in a hospital bed. He was Ken, but not the healthy, lively Ken she'd been spending the semester with. His skin was unnaturally pale, as white as the sheets tucked around him, and his lips were cracked and dry. His eyes opened from time to time, hazy from pain and medication. Doctors and nurses came and went like his memory was on fast-forward. A man and woman, his parents, held their son's hands when the doctor showed them diagrams of hearts, when he shook his head and pointed at a list, Ken's name toward the bottom.

The memory shifted to a common room in the children's ward. Soothing green curtains framed the windows and toys for the younger children littered the floor. Ken slumped in his wheelchair, facing the window and breathing shallowly.

A nurse stepped into the room pushing a snack cart, with empty cups and a teapot losing curls of steam out its snout. A girl trailed behind the nurse. She had her hands in her pockets, timid and sticking too close to the nurse. Her clumpy, oily hair hid her face. Hijiri Kitamura.

Hijiri knew then when this memory was: middle school, when she had been obsessed with wearing the same lavender T-shirt because it had a sparkly heart on it—she had considered it a proper charm-maker's uniform at the time.