Page 26 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
He hesitates, looking back at me. And slowly nods.
Then he’s gone, walking across the drifts to his own car, leaving me in a pool of silence and snow.
Chapter 21
Carrie
He asked her if she liked the ribbons. She said she did, but she had no coins to pay. He smiled at her, the kind of smile that caught at her imagination, and she kept seeing it, hours later, as she was scolded for shirking her work on washday.
—Tabitha Morgan, July 19, 1929
The frustration grows inside me. Over the next few days, I pace up and down Ivy’s cottage, the conversation with Tom swirling around the walls like a storm. It needles me, the way he expects me to leave again. Like this isn’t my town too. Like Jess wasn’tmyperson before his. They were both mine before they were each other’s, but he’s erased that entirely. It’s all been conveniently swept away, along with the ghost of my very existence.
I’m the one who left, but now I’m the one left behind.
On the third day, Matthieu shows up, all smiles and mugs of tea and talk about the progress I’ve made. I swallow down the bitterness, the unease Tom has stirred up inside me. We make small talk, and he tells me about a migrating bird he found that blew in with the snowstorm. But with every hammer blow, every chunk of plaster I remove, I imagine all the things I should have said to Tom. And to Howard. One wants me to leave, and one wants me to stay. It’s as though the town is divided, and that same divide sits in my heart. I wonder if they’re all talking aboutme, gossiping in shop aisles and over café tables. I picture them stoking the embers of the past, just as Howard predicted.
As I imagine my presence lighting a match and casting it into these perfectly honed lives, for the first time I want them to burn. I want them to feel the cold as they flee their smoldering homes, driven away with ash in their lungs. Sniffing, I reach for the next length of skirting board and grip it so tightly that my knuckles flare white. It’s my choice, isn’t it? Whether I stay or go. I want to belong. I do. I want to feel that deep, rooted comfort of home that others seem to feel so easily, so naturally. But what if Woodsmoke and the mountains just don’t love me back?
“Carrie... your hand,” Matthieu says quietly.
I look down to see a lone trail of blood, beginning in the soft folds of my palm, extending toward my wrist.
“Oh,” I say, a dull ringing beginning in my ears. “Oh, right.”
Matthieu takes the board, gently prying it from my hands. He’s peering down at me in that calm, steady way some people have, his whole being focused on me. I sag slightly as the ringing grows louder and my skin flushes hot under the layers of my clothes. I was so deep in the past that I wasn’t focused on the present.
“You need to sit,” he says, his voice seeming far away. I think of how different he sounds from Tom. There is no razor at the edge of his syllables. No tiny cuts at the end of each word. Only a low, soft roundness that wraps around me. I drop down, bringing my knees up to my chest, and he hunkers down next to me, keeping a polite distance. As he hands me a clean rag to press into the folds of my hand, I can’t help it. Maybe because he’s not from Woodsmoke, or maybe because he’s just here, in this moment, and there’s something about him that feels almost familiar. Comforting.
It all spills out.
“It’s getting to me, being back here. I can’t move without memories exploding around me. That man who was here the other day?”
“Yes.”
“He’s my great-uncle. Howard. He’s basically my grandfather. I’ve always thought of him that way anyway. But—but he’s worried about Cora, my great-aunt. He told me I should stay and not flit in and out, and I don’t know, maybe he’s right. But now, if I leave, it’ll upset Cora, and then I think maybe I shouldn’t have come back at all. Maybe—”
“Carrie,” Matthieu says, holding his hand out for the rag before passing me a bandage. I take a shuddering breath and look at him, feeling foolish for unburdening myself. “That’s up to them, how they react to you. You can’t control them. You can only take hold of howyoufeel. Howyoureact. Yes?”
I nod, tearing my gaze from his. The tears are threatening, closing up my throat, and I swallow them back down as I carefully place the bandage on my palm. I must have caught it on a loose nail or a splintered piece of wood. I’m not really present. Haven’t been since I arrived back here. I have one foot here in the present and one all the way back a decade ago. And I wonder if it’s the same for Tom. Was that what Howard meant? Have I pulled everyone I’ve ever cared about in Woodsmoke back to ten years ago, making them relive the moments that have led to my return? That’s what I was afraid of with my homecoming. That it would cause such a ripple that it would be more like a tidal wave.
“I spoke to Tom as well,” I say quietly. “It didn’t go well.”
“Who’s Tom?”
“My—my ex. Well, more than an ex in some ways, I guess. An old friend as well. At least, I thought of him that way.” I take a deep breath. “I was meant to marry him, but I let him down. He wanted the family here, the house, the life... and I wanted to explore the world. Now he has all that with Jess... who used tobe my best friend. And I guess... I guess I thought it wouldn’t matter. I thought maybe I’d run into them, but it’s not that simple. You can’t snap your fingers and vanish ten years of absence. It feels like I’m still suspended in the decision I made that day to leave. Still eighteen and having to defend my own choices. Even if they’re not what other people wanted for me.”
Matthieu is quiet for a moment. “I understand that, going against expectations. When Henri—” He swallows, glancing at me. “I told you I had a brother, and we loved hiking the mountains here? Well, when I was sixteen, he went missing here. Never found a body, never found any answers. He just... vanished. We were staying at a guesthouse, and when I woke up I was alone.”
“Oh, Matthieu, I’m so sorry,” I say, blinking quickly. “Are you here to...”
“For closure, I think,” he says with a shrug. “And maybe answers? My family didn’t want me to come here. They thought I should leave it all in the past. But they weren’t here when he vanished. It was just me and him. And I can’t shake that feeling I had when I woke up in the guesthouse and he was gone. That... fear.” He smiles ruefully. “So I understand... well, searching. For answers. And not doing what everyone expects of you.”
I look at him, the angles of his face, the way he’s hunkered over, still keeping a respectful distance from me. “I’m assuming the police...”
“Yes, all that happened. It was a long time ago, but lately, just in the last couple of years, I can’t shake this feeling about the mountains. Maybe I won’t find anything this winter, or maybe I’ll finally put the ghosts to rest.” He bites his lip. “I think we should stop for today, take a break. I need you to see something.”
I nod as he gets up. He offers me his hand, pulling me up so we are standing next to each other. I take a few steps away, readjust the bandage, pull my jacket sleeves back over my wrists.
