Page 32 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
“And you didn’t... tell me?” Jess says, clutching the stem of her wineglass so hard it could snap. Fear and anger war inside her, tying her stomach in nauseous knots. “Is that where you’re going tonight?”
“No! No, of course not. Just meeting Billy for a drink.” He brushes a hand down his face. “I guess I wanted to know why. Why she left like she did, why after all these years she’s back now. I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
Jess takes another sip of wine, then another. She’s trying very hard to hold it all together, to hold the shriek of rage and hurt inside. “You shouldn’t have gone at all.”
“I realize that now. Dumb move. I’m sorry.”
Jess closes her eyes, a dull thumping beginning in her temples. This is what she’d been afraid of with Carrie’s return. And really, with what she did all those years ago, did she have any right to be cross?
She snaps her eyes open and finds Tom looking at her uncertainly. As though she could explode at him, blowing up their carefully constructed life. Her fear deepens, beating back her anger. Does she want this argument? Does she really want to damage what they have? She takes a quick breath, breaking her gaze from his. “It’s understandable you’d want answers, I suppose. As long as that’s all it was. Just please...pleasedon’t go behind my back again.”
“I’m sorry,” he mutters again.
She eyes him as he moves around the kitchen, pulling out plates and piling up the roasted chicken and veggie risotto he’s pulled together. She winces at the oily tideline around the edge of the pan, but says nothing. She’ll have to soak it overnight.
He places the two dinner plates with careful, clipped precision on the dining table. “Glass of water?”
“Please,” she says, sitting down. A wave of nausea overtakes her as she looks down at the food, but she begins to eat it anyway, almost mechanically.
Tom sits beside her, and she notices the creases appearing in his eyelids as he tenses his jaw, chewing and staring into space. When did they become so distant? So unattuned? She tries to tell herself that his going to see Carrie is nothing, that they were together so long ago, it means nothing now. But Jess’s heart skips, a dull thud echoing through her like a stone dashed across the surface of a lake. She can’t help picturing their limbs tangled together, Tom whispering promises into Carrie’s ear. Jess’s stomach twists, bile rises up her throat, and she pushes back her chair roughly.
Tom looks up. “Jess?”
“Just something stuck in my teeth,” she murmurs.
“Jess, I’m sorry, I don’t need to go out—”
She closes the bathroom door, cutting him off, locks it, and braces her hands on the edge of the sink. She counts to ten, slowly,mouthing the words as the storm clawing through her begins to subside. Then she blows out a breath, takes a drink of cool water straight from the tap, and dashes the back of her hand across her mouth.
When she looks up into the mirror, she can’t find herself. All Jess can see is a tired woman with skin too pale, eyes a little bloodshot. She grips the edge of the sink again, staring at herself. This is what she chose: domesticity, simple and orderly everyday calm punctuated by quiet joys—like reading a new book. But she’s off-kilter, unbalanced, and it isn’t really about Tom or Elodie. It’s about her.
“You know what you’ve got to do,” she says to her reflection. “Youknow.”
Tom leaves after Elodie is in bed. He insisted on doing the whole bedtime routine and fussed around Jess with medicine and an extra blanket until she told him to please go out. Now he’s definitely gone, and she calls her mum to come over and sit in the lounge. “Just an hour, Mum. I need to pick up a few bits at the supermarket. I was rushed off my feet this week.”
She’s already driving before she changes her mind. She picks up that item down the aisle she usually avoids, the one in a slim box, and hustles into the supermarket loo. The queasiness claws at her, making her feel just the way she did the last time, and she wants to be certain. It might be the chicken, but she doesn’t think so. Afterward, she’s not doing a big shop. There’s somewhere else she needs to go, a place she has to keep secret. She’s going to the one place she’s avoided, down the old country lanes she knows better in the dark, or on foot, than in the daylight.
She steels herself for a night that could change everything.
Chapter 26
Cora
Eighteen Years Ago
Lillian’s garden is riddled with giggles. Cora keeps glancing out of the kitchen window, and every so often she spies a dash of pink gingham or a flutter of blond hair. She chuckles to herself as she pulls out the old Mason Cash bowl she gave Lillian as a wedding present and stirs the muddled mint and rose petals into the infusion. Carrie and Jess, toting matching wicker baskets on their arms, are picking petals and leaves that they think smell the nicest and look the most beautiful, as instructed by Cora. She sighs happily as she gently stirs the potion with a wooden spoon, all to keep the girls entertained for the afternoon.
And if Carrie takes a shine to the magic, well...
Would that be such a very bad thing?
Ivy seems to think so. Ivy, the true grandma, the hesitant one who gave up the book and all that came with it. She doesn’t want Carrie inheriting the magic. If it were up to her, it would be buried in the back garden, deep in the loam, to make worm feed.
“We think we’ve got enough!” Carrie says breathlessly, rushing in trailing the scent of pollen and grass. She pushes her hair behind one ear, still giggling as she turns back to Jess, whose eyes are glittering, a wide grin on her face. Cora can’t help but chuckle again as she moves to inspect their baskets.
“Verbena, good, good, and plenty of petals, some honeysuckle...Carrie, is that a nettle leaf?” Cora asks, searching for something to pluck it out of the basket with so she won’t be stung. That would not do at all, not for what she is brewing. Not for a love potion.
“I like them,” Carrie says stubbornly, sucking her index finger. “And I had to move it so Jess could reach the yellow rose.”
