Page 12 of The Sun and the Moon
I mumble a response that I hope passes as affirmation.
My phone chimes with a text from Dad, and I check the time on my laptop.
It’s ten p.m.
He’s usually asleep in his recliner by now. Still in his button-down and khakis.
Hi, Birdie, Moira and I are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow evening.
Then a photo appears of him and Moira sitting on the porch together as the golden-hour sun washes over their faces. I flip back to the pic of her from her website. Not only does she look almost identical as she did in 2023, she also doesn’t look any more retouched in this texted selfie from Dad.
Love, Dad.
There’s a fist of guilt around my heart. I should at least give the woman a chance to make a case for her right to my father’s heart. But that isn’t stopping me from doing a little reconnaissance of my own tomorrow morning. Kismet opens at eleven, and I’ll be there with a disguise on.
Chapter Seven
Cadence
Kismet sits deeply and comfortably on a rolling half-acre lot. A dense fir tree curtains the roof, its long arms reaching around to cradle the edge of the river rock–accented front porch. Painted dark green, the trim a soft gray, it’s more weathered than it was the last time I saw it. The front room on the second floor that used to be mine still overlooks the street, its curtains open and one of the windows slightly ajar. It has a perfect view of the Arroyo Seco Canyon and all her many whispering ghosts.
As a child, I would sit on the porch for hours, watching wildlife that lived in the fir or visited just to eat from the bird feeders or built nests under the safety of its needles in the spring. The swing still creaks in the corner. The door is still red. The roof looks in need of repair from all the affection the fir bestows on it.
This place was never just my home. There were always customers trailing in and out of the front living room: shoppers seeking crystals, tarot decks, Moira’s tailor-made spell boxes, suitable for all occasions. There was Louisa, Moira’s longtime best friend, who had a revolving door of boyfriends and a daughter, Lola, agirl a few years younger than me. There were the ghosts, which I never saw myself, but after hearing Moira’s stories about them all my life, I was convinced they were real.
I’ve been back in LA over two hours—half of that spent in traffic on the way to the hotel—but it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet. This place—this city, this house, the canyon behind me, the hills to the northeast—once, I loved it like a best friend. It was my stomping ground. Full of danger and wonder, hope and possibility. I don’t know how long it took for it to change all the way, to become something menacing, more foe-like, but I know the reason why it did.
I shove my phone and wallet into the back pocket of my black jeans and tighten my denim jacket, hands in the pockets like that will ground me for the advance up the front steps. My booted foot against the wood sends a creak into the air, a startlingly loud sound in the quiet of this warm early-fall morning. A flock of doves let out a mournful coo as they fly to the sky.
I amble over the porch, fingers gripping the heavy metal door handle, nostrils flaring as I exhale my nerves. I didn’t call ahead. I couldn’t bear to hear the sound of her voice through my phone after almost four years of silence. She doesn’t know I’m coming. This may be the last upper hand I have for a while.
Inside, the air is dense with incense; the light from the stained-glass windows that flank the door breaks through the smoke and dust. A bell dings and from another room—the kitchen, by the direction—a young woman’s voice calls, “Coming! Hold on!” I hear clamoring. “Fuck! My finger!” More clamoring and chaotic sounds.
My eyes trail over the living room, full to the brim with her wares. At the far end, an ornate maroon door is shut firmly. Aboveit on a hand-painted sign are the wordsReading Room. Even though I can’t see inside, my mind conjures the image. Rows and rows of bookshelves messily stuffed with her personal mementos, her journals, her decks, her favorite literature. A small round table, two chairs on either side, covered in velvet and lace. Candles. Incense. Moira.
A redhead with wide, bright eyes shoots out from behind the swinging door to the kitchen, yanking me from my revelry. She’s sucking on the end of her finger, face screwed up in pain. When her eyes land on mine they go buggy.
“Oh my God,” she exclaims. “Cadence Connelly.”
“Hey, Lola,” I say, unsure if I should wave or not. My hands jerk, clenching into fists in the pockets of my denim jacket.
“Thought you might be dead.” Then her eyes narrow. “You’re not, are you?”
Kismet.
Just like I remembered it.
“I’m not a ghost,” I say.
“If you say so,” she replies. We hold each other in a stare-off. She’s twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven now. She’s dressed in a midriff-baring Blondie t-shirt and denim shorts over stockings. She’s got one ear pierced all the way to the cartilage. She has a nose ring, wrists weighted in clinking stacks of bracelets, and a tattoo of a poppy snaking up toward her rib cage.
Louisa, her mom, vanished when Lola was sixteen. Moira may know where she is but has never said. She let Lola move in, gave her a job. She wanted me to treat her like a sister, but I was in college when it all went down, and also, I’ve never been very good at that sort of thing anyway.
The whole familything.
Lola lunges for me, and I instinctively jerk back, away, but she’s wily, fast on her feet, and she grips me in a tight hug. Her hair smells of hemp and cinnamon.
“Welcome home,” she says, tightening her grip. “Had to make sure you were solid.”
