The Zodiac Collector (2 page)

Her mouth twists to the side.

I sweep my hands back and forth to erase the idea. “Okay, forget dressing up the dogs.”

“Let me organize your clothes and I'll go along with your birthday idea.”

“Low blow!”

She grins. “What are sisters for?”

“Okay, but you have to promise to keep it a secret from Mom.” I hold out my pinky finger. Mary wouldn't voluntarily let the secret out, but no one withstands Mom's inquisitions.

She winces. “Mom's heinous when she's in interrogation mode. You won't be able to keep it from her if she grills you, either.”

I dropped my hand. “We need something more, then.”

“Like what?”

For as long as I can remember, Gamma's house has been a safe haven for us, like an enchanted garden protected by wish-granting fairies and good witches. It's been too long since she's opened her spellbook, lit candles around us for the elements, and chanted a good-luck charm. I miss dreaming about her happily-ever-after stories starring twin girls with dark, curly hair and green eyes.

I grin at Mary. Maybe it's time to break out the magick.

Chapter Two

“
W
e could dress the dogs up in chain mail, or as unicorns.” I can't resist jabbing at Mary with corny ideas. It's better than fighting and it's better than not talking at all.

“Unicorns?” She tucks her chin in and purses her lips. It makes her look like a baby mid-poop.

When Gamma's house comes into view, Castor and Pollux yip and hop over each other, tangling their leads like foxhounds honing in on a kill. In this case, they get home-baked treats rather than a fox.

“Release the hounds,” I exclaim, rushing ahead with Castor while Mary hangs back, correcting Pollux for his eagerness.

Gamma's front door is open, so I knock on the screen door's frame. “Gamma? It's Anne and Mary.”

The TV is blaring in the living room. Sounds like a Seventies game show. Ick.

“Gamma!” I glance at Mary. She's still at the base of the steps, hands gripping Pollux's lead tight, chewing on her bottom lip. Absolutely no help. With a sigh, I yank open the screen door and slip inside. The door slaps shut behind me. Castor whines, his tiny toenails tapping and skittering on the hardwood floor.

There's a scratching at the door. I peek over my shoulder.

“Pollux!” Mary picks him up and hugs him to her chest. He wiggles in her grasp and licks her face, his tail wagging like a pinwheel in a tornado. She comes inside and sets him down next to Castor. They greet one another like long-lost brothers separated by famine and hardship only to be reunited in the land of plenty.

I unhook Castor's leash. Hardships forgotten, he sprints away, heading down the hallway that slices through the center of the cottage. He slides around the corner, colliding with the wall before catching enough friction to steady himself. In the kitchen, he yips and whines.

Pollux barks in reply, pained at the immediate abandonment by his brother. We all suffer trials and tribulations, Gamma would say.

“Shh,” Mary taps his nose.

“Let him go,” I say.

“He needs to learn how to behave.”

“He's a dog. You can't expect him to be as perfect as you.”

“I'm not perfect,” she murmurs. Rushing by me, she sets him down farther into the hallway. He scrambles behind Castor.

Gamma shuffles out from the living room, carrying a stack of magazines, and pauses. “What's all this ruckus? Oh, hi, girls. Didn't hear you come in.”

“The TV is too loud.” I point to the living room.

“Eh?” She peers up at me, then turns to Mary. “Mary, love, turn the TV down, will you?”

Mary tries to suppress a smile. “Okay.”

I follow Gamma into the den. Bookshelves line the walls, filled with knick-knacks, books, pictures, and drawings that Mary and I did when we were kids. A pair of wingback chairs flanks the window, their pale blue fabric paling on one side from years in the sun. Gamma's desk is covered with stacks of papers and a tray of candles, some short, some tall.

We used to call this our conjuring room. It's where Gamma told us stories while we drank tea and ate cupcakes. The smell of aging paper, leather, and wax ignite memories of chanting rhymes and studying plants with magickal properties. It's hard to remember when things changed, when I decided it was fake and let go of my faith. I can still have fun imagining, but that's what it is—fiction, fantasy, a way to avoid reality.

Avoidance. That's what Mary does.

Gamma heads to the corner of the room and bends, head turning left to right, as if she's taking a mental inventory of the odds and ends littering the floor. Magazines, paperbacks, newspapers, and old mail stuff the bulging woven baskets. Several stacks stand alone, filling the spaces between them.

We shouldn't have come here for a solution. Gamma can't help us with a silly spell or luck charm. She can't even decide where to store her junk.
Wake up to reality, Anne
.

Gamma hums like she's serenading her stockpile of useless stuff.

“Need help?” I ask.

“I got it, dear.” She files her magazines in a row of baskets.
Gardening With Gloves
in one,
Herbs For Today
in another, and
Fruits and Veggies
in the last. All are addressed to Edith Cripper, my Gamma. She used to subscribe to magick magazines—
Fae and Fantasy, Modern Spells, Quick Chants
—and read them to me while I colored. It's been so long that I've forgotten most of the rules and tricks I'd learned.

Finished with her chore, she looks me up and down, her brown eyes enlarged by the magnification of her dollar-store glasses. Their fire-engine red frames span from above her eyebrows to beneath her cheekbones. “What brings you by?”

Mary's voice echoes down the hallway. She's trying desperately to tame Castor and Pollux. With her occupied, I have the perfect opportunity to talk to Gamma, but my lips won't move. Truth is, I'm not a knight fighting a dragon. I'm a little girl pretending to be greater than I am. My mother may rival the rage of mythical beasts, but she's all too human and there's no magick trick that'll cure her. The fragile bubble of hope collapses in my brain like a startled soufflé.

“What is it, Anne?” Gamma smoothes a strand of hair behind my ear.

I turn away from her and run a finger along the bookcase shelf. My journey leaves a wobbly trail in the fine layer of dust. “Mary and I turn sixteen this year.”

She laughs softly and edges in front of me so I can't avoid her. “When did you grow up? I remember when your mom toted one of you in each arm, wee little babes.” She brings her hands together and holds them a few inches apart.

“We want a special party.” I wander to the candles and peel some of the melted wax off the tray.

“I don't blame you.”

I wipe my hand on my jeans. “Mom won't let us.”

Her mouth puckers in sympathy. “Oh, I wouldn't be so sure of that.”

I blow a raspberry. “She said so. She's
working.”
I air-quote the word.

“It is almost faire time. I don't know how she does it, making all those dresses every year.” Gamma twirls a bangle on her arm and heads out of the room. “Let's get a snack.”

I shuffle behind her to the kitchen, eyeing the flowered wallpaper and wondering who in their right mind would combine mustard yellow, olive green, burnt orange, and candy-apple red. In the kitchen, the black and white checkerboard linoleum tiles are worn in the corners and the cabinets are pale oak, covered in what seems like at least an inch of varnish.

Mary's sitting at the chrome and speckled Formica kitchenette table, holding Pollux and leaning over to scratch Castor's chin. Pollux wiggles out of Mary's grip and jumps to the floor. He scrambles to Gamma's feet, sliding like a hockey puck into Castor. Gamma laughs.

“I suppose you two want a treat?” she teases, sliding her feet inch by inch, herding the twins toward the pantry. She reaches for a Tupperware container on the second-highest shelf and peels open the cover. It gives a soft
pop
. She hands one bone-shaped peanut-butter crisp to each dog. “One for you and one for you.”

I slump into the turquoise vinyl chair next to Mary.

Gamma returns the treat container and selects a package of double-stuffed chocolate cookies. She joins us at the table, tearing at the plastic seal. “Help yourselves, girls.”

Mary slides out of her chair and collects three glasses from the cupboard. She sets them on the table, then fetches the milk and pours a glass for each of us.

“Cookies and milk. Nothing like it.” Gamma takes a big gulp of her one percent and chomps on a cookie. Crumbs settle on her chest and the table. Mary eyes them and squirms. I wonder if Gamma will get the whole cookie eaten before Mary's cleaning the bits left behind with a napkin.

I separate the chocolate wafers and lick the vanilla-cream filling. “Mmmm.”

Gamma reaches for a second cookie and Mary's out of her chair again, dousing a towel in the faucet. She wrings it out and wipes the table down.

I dip the wafers in the milk and let them soften for a minute. While the cookie soaks, Gamma's comment digs deeper inside me. She defended Mom. Pretty much blows any chance of planning a secret party with her. Disappointment prickles at the base of my neck, itching and gnawing its way through my body like a nest of termites. My leg jitters in response. We're here to talk about important stuff, and we're dipping cookies into milk like kindergarteners.

Mary gets Gamma a plate. “You can catch the crumbs.”

Gamma pats her hand. “Thank you, dear.”

I can't stand it anymore. “So, about our birthday…”

“I remember my sixteenth birthday. It was the same night as the school dance. I wore a purple dress with a satin sash. Momma had given me her sapphire hair clip. It was costume jewelry, of course, but it was so beautiful I worried about losing it all night. Well, until Billy Hatchfield asked me to dance. Oh, he was so handsome. Tall, crystal-blue eyes, and the warmest smile. Warm enough to thaw winter snow on the Adirondacks.” Gamma gets this far-off look to her eyes, like she's traveling in time to that specific moment. She blinks a bunch of times and removes her glasses. Tugging on the hem of her shirt, she wipes the lens clean. “I should've married him, but your grandfather asked me first. No one said no to Mitchell Cripper.”

“A school dance on your birthday.” Mary chews the heck out of a bit of cookie.

Being on June twentieth, our birthday generally falls after school finals, so there are no convenient school dances to latch onto. Generally, we don't have homework—awesome!—but this year is different. We're taking the SAT, the review course falls during the faire days, and the test is on our birthday. A trifecta of pain. I slide deeper into my seat. Mary can only focus on one thing at a time, two tops. One: studying. Two: the faire. Yet another strike against my grand idea of a smash-hit sixteenth
bon anniversaire
bash.

“What do you girls want this year?” Gamma slides her glasses on and brushes extra crumbs off her chest. They fling around the room, and Castor and Pollux compete for them. Opportunists.

My gaze darts to Mary. She swallows loudly.

I sigh and run my hands through my straightened hair. “A normal mom.”

“Anne!” Mary gasps.

“Well, it's true, and don't say you wouldn't wish for the same thing.” I smack my palms on the table. The noise startles the dogs. Their wing-shaped ears perk up.

Her eyes widen. “She's not normal and she never will be, so there's no point in wanting it. Wishes are for kids.”

“Consider this, love. Giving up on dreams means you've abandoned creativity and magick.” Gamma pats Mary's hand.

Magick? I sit up straight. She hasn't mentioned magick in
forever
.

“What does that mean?” Mary's alarm seeps into her voice.

She shakes her head. “Amazing how everyone forgets at such a young age.”

“Huh?”

Gamma sighs. She stands and rushes—kind of a half-walk, half-slide—out of the room.

Mary and I look at one another. “Do we follow her?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Dunno.”

A couple minutes later, Gamma ambles back in, carrying a rectangular box and a smaller, square box. She plops the bigger package in front of me, then hands the other one to Mary. After pecking the tops of our heads with kisses, she sits down. “Go on, open them. I'm not getting any younger.”

“But it's not our birthday yet,” Mary says.

I don't bother hesitating for formalities and tear into the silver metallic wrapping paper. Rainbows shimmer across its surface as I expose the gift beneath.

A leatherbound book, twice the size of my laptop. The edges are rough to the touch, but the cover is soft. A Zodiac wheel is inlaid on the front. I draw my fingers across the surface.
“Gamma.”

She chuckles. “I take it you like.”

“I can't take this.” I clutch the Zodiac spellbook to my chest. It's been years since I've flipped through the pages and scanned the spells and potions inside. Cold embers of a long-extinguished belief rekindle. I smile.

“I want you to have it.” The skin around her eyes crinkles with her smile.

The flattened soufflé of hope lodged in my diaphragm puffs up a bit. My chest swells and tears blur my vision.

“Thank you.”

Her smile fades. “I never told you, but this book belonged to my twin, Eneaz.”

“You have a twin?” I launch to my feet and set the book on the table.

A shadow crosses Gamma's face. Her gaze cuts to the floor. “It's not an easy thing, losing a sister. Be sure to hold onto one another, my dear granddaughters, no matter what. Do not let anger, jealousy, or any outside forces divide you. It's the bond you share,” she laces her fingers together, “in unity, that will help you overcome whatever adversities you face.”