Page 49 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
“Well,” she says carefully, her gaze sliding away as she blinks furiously. It’s the slightest slip of composure, so slight that it could easily be overlooked. But I notice. “This is a turn-up for the books.”
“Ivy used to say that,” I blurt out before thinking. Before I can push the words back into my mouth.
Her left eye twitches again, but she says nothing.
“Anyway... I need you to sign off on the lease. She rented it from you.”
“She did.”
The familiar sense of treading on eggshells around Cora surfaces. Like there’s a layer of history between her and Ivy that I willnever quite understand. “I can... pay you in advance? How do you want it to work?”
“We’re selling it,” Cora says, her eyes swiveling to the shelves opposite. “You can purchase it, if you like. But not candles. Make something else. That was Ivy’s thing, and I think it’s time this town had something of yours in it. Don’t you?”
I think about the sketchbook I left on the kitchen table. Half filled this winter with pencil drawings of the mountains, of Matthieu, of the details I notice more keenly being back here. “I’m thinking of selling my artwork. I started... started sketching again.”
Cora’s eyes flare briefly. “At last.”
“It’s a start. I haven’t painted in a while, but the back bedroom at the cottage is a good space. I’ve been thinking, with the afternoon light, it might be a good place to set up an easel.”
“Ivy would have liked that,” Cora says quietly, turning her gaze toward the window. She sighs, watching as a mother walks past, pushing a buggy and putting a snack in a red mittened hand reaching out. “She would have liked that very much.”
I nod, watching her. “I should have come back when she was alive.”
Cora stands, pushing herself up slowly, and the chair groans from her absence. “What’s done is done. She left you the cottage and the lease for a reason. She always knew more than she let on.” Her features soften. “I want you to stay. Desperately. I wish you’d never left to begin with and created this—this hole. But what’s done is done. We all made our choices.” She hesitates, placing her fingertips on a candle in the window display. “Just... do it differently this time. Carve your own path and don’t cling to the past. That was always my mistake.”
She walks toward the door, and I feel a weight settle between us. Like this is a door she will close behind her and I will never beable to walk through it and find her again. “Wait,” I say. “I want to tell you about him. About Matthieu.”
She stops in her tracks before turning sharply. “You can start by forgetting him. Don’t make him the reason why you’re staying.”
“Cora, we’ve been over this—”
“He’s notreal, Carrie.” She closes her eyes, like she’s trying to explain something to a stubborn child. “He’s not real. He will leave with the frost and never return. It’s the curse the mountains carry. He will break your heart, shatter it, and this time you won’t be able to mend it again. This time it will haunt you, it will hound you, as you try to find peace, searching for him across the mountain—”
“Stop,” I say. I rub my hands down my face. “Just stop. If we’re both letting go of the past, then the stories—that book—”
“—is the only true thing I have.” Cora smiles sadly. “You can hate me for it. Sometimes Ivy hated it. You can curse the book and all the stories it holds. But one day it will be yours, and then you will understand.”
“I love him.”
Cora draws a jagged breath, and her hand flutters to her chest. “Then it’s already too late. You’re cursed. You’ve returned, and the mountains have cursed you for leaving. You’ll have to work out how to break it, before—”
“Cora,stop. Just stop. You could meet him. You’ll see then, you’ll see what he’s like. I’m not cursed. He’s been searching for clues about his brother who went missing, he’s been here to get some closure, some peace—”
“Has anyone met him, Carrie?” Cora cuts in. “Anyone at all?” I open and close my mouth, wanting to retort that of course someone other than me has met him. But the day Howard called in, Matthieu left before he reached the door. And at the ice-skating lake we went to, I can’t remember whether he spoke to a singlesoul. Or when we went to the builders’ merchant, when he disappeared for a time...
I frown, but say nothing, not wanting to let that seed of doubt take root. Then I remember. “Ivy,” I blurt out. “Ivy knew him. He helped her with the cottage last winter.”
“Convenient that we can’t ask the dead.” She sighs and kneads her temples with the tips of her fingers. “Look, my dear, Howard’s unwell. He’s slowing down, he doesn’t want me to notice, doesn’t want me to do anything it seems... but still. He’s not well, and I thought you ought to know.”
“What kind of unwell?”
“The kind where you should be dropping by each day.” Cora sighs. She inhales, then blows out a breath, and suddenly I have a fleeting glimpse of the world inside her. What I see is a tempest, a whirl of torment and sadness, so different from the hard and aloof exterior she presents to the world. “We’ve missed you. It wasn’t just your mother or Ivy you left behind. It was me as well, dearest. And now you’ve been back for a few months, and it’s like you’re still gone. Still absent.”
“You’re right,” I say, moving toward her. I hold out my hand, take hers in mine, and feel the papery cold of her skin. “I haven’t been over enough. I’ve been too wrapped up in the cottage and my own feelings about being back here... I’m sorry. I’ll come by. Tomorrow. I’ll come by every day for tea. I’ll bring Matthieu... if you like.”
She searches my features, as though trying to find something she’s misplaced. Then she nods, gently removing her hand from mine. She doesn’t mention Matthieu. “Eleven. Don’t be late.”
Cora leaves the same way she arrived, with a gust carrying the smell of frost and fumes from the cars snaking past outside. I watch her through the window as she walks stiffly down the street and feel the sharp little needles of guilt I always feel. Theunnerving sense I always have with Cora that something has been left unfinished.
