Page 22 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
Remembering all the times we met there.
Remembering how it was to be the two of us.
I sit in the car the next evening, waiting for Jess. I could be seventeen again, my fresh driver’s license burning a hole in my pocket, waiting for Jess to get here so we can sit in the car, drink hot chocolate from a thermos, and revel in the thrill of being on our own in a carved-out space in the world. I had a secondhand Ford back then, cherry red, and it lasted a year before giving up the ghost. When I left, I didn’t bother replacing it. The car I have now is the first one I’ve owned in ten years.
Headlights glow as another car pulls into the car park on the edge of town, highlighting an arc of snow and absence. There’s a field beyond that’s used for football and rugby practice and a small play park where parents take their children between bursts of rain in the autumn and spring. I remember swinging there next to Jess when we were six, daring each other to go higher and higher, my heart soaring at having a best friend. Someone who didn’t care who my family was or believe the gossip about us.
Now, as the car stops a few feet away, the engine cutting out and the headlights killed with it, butterflies flutter in my belly. What if this isn’t Jess’s attempt to reforge our friendship? What if there’s too much between us now? What if—
I gasp softly as a figure gets out of the car. It’s not Jess at all.
It’s Tom.
Chapter 18
Cora
Fifty-Six Years Ago
“Does she need feeding?” Cora asks pointedly. The baby’s little face is turning puce. Ivy walks back into the room, arms outstretched for the cross little bundle. Cora gladly hands her over and picks up her mug of tea as Ivy sinks into the sofa, getting ready to feed.
Lillian. A name Cora had onherbaby list, the one she keeps at the back of her diary. But she bit her tongue when Ivy told her what she named her baby, even when she said she first heard it from Cora. Really, she’s been biting her tongue her whole life, keeping her temper in check, knowing that any sharp words, however little, won’t endear her to her family. She’s nothing like Ivy. Sweet, mild Ivy with the perfect baby, the cottage in the shadow of the mountains, and the husband she doesn’t mind working away all the time.
The clock ticks away the seconds on the mantelpiece, and Cora feels the gloom settling like a blanket over her shoulders, the autumn turning as slow as treacle to winter. She has begun to hate winter, to hate how the world dies off around her. What she wants right now is life—life around her, life to grow within. Not that she and Howard have been marriedthatlong. There’s plenty of time. It isn’t a competition, as her mother likes to say.But with Ivy, she can’t help it. She’s always comparing herself and measuring her achievements against those of her older sister. The perfect sister.
“You haven’t asked about the book,” Ivy says, piercing the silence. She hushes Lillian, swapping her over to the other side with a slight grimace before cooing at her, the baby’s fist gripping her blouse. “Youalwaysask about the book.”
“Maybe I’ve given up asking.”
“You know, I’ve been reading some of the stories inside it.” Ivy leans forward, eyes suddenly wide. “Did you know that the mountains will let you make a bargain? A kind of... trade? Like for like? They ask for certain ingredients from you. At least that’s what Grandma Tabitha’s own grandma recorded inheraccount. But she says she was able to reverse a terrible harvest one year. For a price.”
She lets that hang in the air between them. Cora swallows her tea, meeting her sister’s gaze. With Ivy, there is always a reason to bring something up. She thinks over things for days, weeks sometimes. But this subject, so casually mentioned... she may have been turning it over for months. Cora’s skin prickles, and she clutches her mug tighter. “What of it, Ivy?”
Ivy swallows, as though preparing herself. A flicker of sadness sparks in her eyes, but is quickly blinked away and hidden. “If you really want the book, Cora, if it still means so much to you, we could make a trade.”
It seems to Cora that the entire world stills at that moment—that the very mountains open an ancient eye and hold a collective breath. “What?”
“A trade,” Ivy says, smiling tentatively. Then, “Ooo, she’s done!”
Cora holds out her arms instinctively as the tiny, well-fed Lillian is passed to her. She maneuvers the warm, milk-drunkbundle up to her shoulder, then gently pats her back to bring up the trapped air. Smelling the baby scent on Lillian’s hair, the tiny wisps of it curling over her skull, she thinks that Ivy’s baby is almost perfect. Almost. But Cora longs for, obsesses over, only one thing, and it isn’t made of soft curls and warm milk. It’s made of paper and magic.
She stands, shifting her weight to rock Lillian, and fixes her attention on Ivy, now reclining on the sofa. “Explain.”
“You’re always sosharp, Cora,” Ivy says with a troubled sigh. “Good thing Howard loves all those jagged edges.”
“This is about Howard, isn’t it?”
“In a way.” Ivy fidgets with her blouse buttons, not meeting her sister’s frank stare. “I want you to be happy, Cora. You have Howard now. You have a home... you should be happy. Content. But you’re not, are you?”
Cora continues moving around the room, swaying with the warm, fidgeting bundle in her arms. “What do you mean?”
“I think you’ll only be truly happy when you have the book. When all those stories, all the old ways, are yours. And I want that for you. I want for you to be happy with your life.”
Cora narrows her eyes. “But Mother gave it to you, not me.”
“There’s a way,” Ivy says softly. “I can give it to you, break my bond with the book so it’s yours, so you’re the keeper of it all. You know I do not use it. You know it’s not for me. But you will have to pay the price... by giving up someone you love.”
“And you’re worried that’ll be Howard.”
