Page 29 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
I collect my order, leave the sweet-scented café, and cross the car park to my car, balancing it all in my hands. Matthieu isn’t by the car, so I place the doughnuts on the dashboard and carry our coffees to the builders’ merchants. When I push inside the door, I don’t see him. The list of things we need is on the counter, in that little notebook he carries, yet there’s no sign of him. I breathe in the scent of new wood as I look around the space. The floor is concrete, and the space behind the counter is filled with racks and racks of items like packs of screws, lengths of piping, safety hats, and a stack of brochures.
“Hello?” I call out, wondering if Matthieu is off in the recesses of the building, looking at lengths of skirting board. I place the coffees on the counter and walk toward the back of the building, along walkways filled floor to ceiling with timber, sheets of plywood, insulation board, skirting... “Hello? Anyone here?”
A distant voice calls back, and I retreat along the walkways back to the counter, hoping I’m easier to spot there. A sudden shadow dims the space, and I look out of the window to see clouds swirling over the sun. The first flurries hit just a moment later.
“Sorry, stacking up an order,” says a woman my age with brown frizzy hair and black dungarees as she marches over. She blinks at me and grins. “You’ve got a list there? I can check what’s in stock?”
“Oh, brill—yes, thanks...” I say as she pulls the notebook toward her, tapping on a tablet and frowning. “Was there a manin here? He must have left the notebook on the counter? Dark hair? Tall?”
The woman looks up, tapping her chin with a finger. “No one that looks like that today, I don’t think,” she says. “Unless he’s looking around the warehouse?”
“Maybe.” I shrug, reaching for my coffee.
The woman finds everything I need and rings it up, and I hand over my bank card for her to scan. Then we wrestle the lengths of skirting out together, and she helps me strap them to the roof rack. I pile everything else in the boot, eyeing the flurries settling on the road. It’ll turn icy soon, and there’s no grit down. I need to get back soon.
“Thanks for your help,” I say to her, and she waves, already running to get back inside the warm warehouse.
“Hey, sorry, I had to grab something.” I hear Matthieu’s voice behind me, turn, and find him leaning against the car. He has a wild look to him, hair disheveled, eyes sharp and watchful. I blink, wondering what it is about him. Why he looks like Matthieu but somehow... different. Like he did the first time I saw him, leaving the field by Ivy’s cottage for the mountain trail.
I pass his coffee to him. “It’ll be cold, but still caffeinated.”
“Thanks.” He smiles and shivers. “Shall we get going?”
“Sure.” I hand him his notebook and place the doughnuts on the backseat without thinking.
It’s not until later, after Matthieu leaves for the mountain trail, that I find them. And realize he never told me what he had to grab, or where he disappeared to before the frost re-formed.
Chapter 24
Carrie
Sometimes he would be gone for days, and she would wait for him. Wait for him to court her and bring her back pieces of the mountain. Stone, leaf, flower, a sketch of some forgotten, wild place up there.
—Nora Morgan, May 20, 1918
The snow falls steadily for the next two weeks as we glide further into November, my heart falling with it. His hand occasionally brushes mine as we pass each other, like when we converge on the kitchen at the same time to make a hot drink. Sometimes I catch him looking at me, a small smile on his face, and the heat instantly floods my veins. We call out the wrong answers to the quizzes on the tinny radio and have endless debates about what’s better, doughnuts or cookies. When I have to climb a ladder to reach a second-story window, the feel of his hands bracing my waist leaves me dizzy.
We talk about everything. Slowly at first, then more openly. About our childhoods, our families. He asks me hesitantly about theMorgan Compendium, and I tell him about reading it when I was younger, about Cora keeping it hidden now. He grows thoughtful, a frown pinching his features, when we talk about the stories of people going missing in the mountains, like Henri. Hikers, the brokenhearted—tales of the lost are scattered throughout the history of Woodsmoke. But he brightens when he shares detailsabout his brother—his auburn hair and wicked sense of humor, how he liked cricket and reading. We discuss the winter in the mountains, how fresh and renewing it is. He tells me about the other birds he’s found on his walks, and he shows me the pictures he managed to take before the flame-colored thrush we watched finally left.
What I don’t tell him is that he is becoming the siren call to the cottage each day, luring me deeper into this winter. When I woke up two days ago, my fingers had found my set of pencils and sketch pad and were tracing the shape of a dream on the paper before I had even fully greeted the morning. I don’t tell him that I hadn’t picked up my pencils since I returned here—longer than that even. I don’t tell him that he is coaxing out my true nature in the midst of all this frost.
I don’t dwell on the conversation with Tom, and no messages from Jess show up on my silent phone. I realize that our friendship is never going to restart and I have to accept that. On the few trips I make into Woodsmoke, I keep my eyes pinned to my boots and sweep in and out of shops like I’m stealing. No one tries to strike up a conversation or even shows that they know who I am. I wonder if Jess has changed, if she’s spread some poison about me among everyone in town. Or perhaps the other girls I knew back then, Gillian and Amy, did that. Then I shrug off my suspicions and find myself again as I drive away from the center of town.
One day in the second week after we saw the thrush, Matthieu leans over me as I chatter about something inconsequential—maybe paint colors? And I feel his fingers brush the shell of my ear. My heart stutters and I falter, electricity zipping through my veins.
“Some plaster dust. It fell in your hair,” he says, his voice low and close.
I swallow, tilting my head toward him. His face is so close to mine, I can see the depth of color in his eyes, the kaleidoscope of darkest blues and charcoal and gray...
“Thank you,” I say softly, my eyes flickering to his mouth, then back up to his eyes. If I leaned in a little closer, if I closed this small distance between us, what would he taste like? What would his mouth feel like on mine?
My phone trills suddenly, breaking the moment, and I fumble for it in my dungarees pocket, heat flooding my face. Matthieu moves away, and I answer a call from my dad, who’s checking in on the renovation, asking how it’s going. After I hang up the call, I realize I don’t remember a single word of what was said.
In the third week after we saw the thrush, the sun brightens a little, the wind stills her temper, and the frost thaws on the ground. As I begin the work for the day, clearing out the kitchen so the carpenter can fit the worktops, I don’t worry that Matthieu doesn’t turn up. Not even as the sun climbs higher on the bright late November day and the snow melts into sullen sludge.
It’s not until I leave the carpenter to it and check my phone for the time that I see it’s three o’clock. Matthieu hasn’t messaged. It still nettles me when I change clothes later back in the caravan, and later when I start tracing the lines of the pencil drawing I worked on at dawn.
“It’s just not like you...” I say as the sky darkens outside. I peer out, narrowing my gaze, seeking out the blurred edges of the field. My fingers slip over my phone, light it up, then pocket it again. I’m not going to call him, but I feel a little let down. I thought we’d reached an understanding since the day we walked up the mountain and saw that bird together. I thought that maybe we might be more than friends.
