Page 63 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
As the band strikes up, Howard holds out a hand. She arches an eyebrow, letting him lift her from the chair, drawing her over to the space in front of the band, to the dance floor, with all of Woodsmoke looking on. He spins her once, placing his hand on her waist to catch her, and the band sinks into an old, familiar song by Frank Sinatra.
“Howard Price, you young fool,” Cora says quietly, recognizing the song. “It’s the one you chose on the jukebox after our first date.”
“When I wouldn’t take you home straightaway. We went for Coke floats at Benny’s.”
She laughs breathlessly, leaning her cheek on his shoulder. “You young fool.”
She likes how he smells. All forest and earth and clean laundry. She likes how his hands are always warm, how solid he feels to her. She’s grown to love the steady glow of his quiet strength and goodness these past few months. They’ve had a short courtship by the usual standards, but after all, she’s known Howard since they were at school together. In her mind, the final steps that led them to this day, to this dance floor, were just formalities. She knew what she wanted the moment she heard this song playing on the jukebox at Benny’s.
He twirls her around, and a few more couples join them. Ivy winks at her, and her mother gives her a small, proud smile. But somehow, it’s still just him and her. She likes how he makes her feel, like she’s someone important. Like she’s the only person in the room.
“I want five kids at least,” he murmurs in her ear. “I want to raise them right here in Woodsmoke, and they can help on the farm, and we’ll all be together. Always. You think you can handle that?”
She snorts, leaning in closer to nuzzle against his neck. “You even need to ask?”
He chuckles, dipping her like they do in the black-and-white films, like they saw at the pictures last week. He dips her and kisses her, and she’s distantly aware of whoops and cheers, of clapping. But she doesn’t push him away. She throws her arms around him and lets that kiss linger on her lips.
She pictures it, all of it. Their shared future together, this path opening up before her, and for the first time in her life she feels like it could be enough. As he brings her back up, the band is moving to the next song, and they slow-dance across a crowded dance floor. She hides a smile, ducking her head against his shoulder, and says, “You know what, Howard Price? I actually think I love you.”
Chapter 49
Jess
Jess makes the call the moment her gaze hits the map. Standing in the center of the cabin, she is transfixed by the vastness of it. The trails and routes Matthieu has carefully staked out, the intersections, the research. She feels for Tom’s hand, whimpers when his fingers close around hers.
“No...” she breathes. They both stare at the map silently, barely moving. The sheer scale of the mountains, of the danger, eclipses everything and brings her right back to her teenage self. When she and Carrie were as close as sisters, when she couldn’t imagine a space or time in her life that wasn’t inhabited by Carrie. The past decade of silence between them vanishes in her mind as her heart focuses like an arrow. None of that matters now.
“She—she’s out there, she could be anywhere—”
“We’ll find her,” Tom says, even as his voice shakes.
Jess can’t even nod, can’t articulate the landslide of fear that holds her in its grip. She doesn’t know this time. She doesn’t know. She shifts her eyes away from the map, to the sofa, the kitchen, the door leading to the back room... it’s all so ordinary. There’s no imprint of a life here, no clutter to indicate the history of a person. She drifts over to the kitchen, opens a cupboard at random, and finds four plates, four bowls, four mugs neatly stacked. She bites her lip, a prickle rising along her hairline, trickling down the back of her neck. This man Carrie is searching for... was he ever really here? She hasn’t heard his namementioned around Woodsmoke. Hasn’t seen a stranger in the supermarket or wandering the market square. Usually there would be gossip, threads of whispers surrounding a newcomer. But she hasn’t heard a thing.
She doesn’t want to voice that kind of fear aloud, not here. Not when the mountains are listening. She glances around, hoping for some sign of life, a used coffee cup, a crumpled crisp packet,anything—
Then she sees it.
A carelessly discarded old envelope, one corner folded down, as though rubbed with a frantic thumb. An image floats before her eyes, summoning a memory. Carrie used to do that. As the chemistry teacher droned on about something obtuse, she looked over at Carrie and saw that she was folding the corner of the page on her notebook and then smoothing it out, folding it over, creating a tiny triangle, and then smoothing it out, over and over. Jess snaps back, blinking quickly. The note had been left on the kitchen counter. Abandoned. Or...
She rushes for the envelope and snatches it up, and her heart bursts when she sees the writing scrawled across it. “It—it’s Carrie’s handwriting! Oh God, she was here, you were right.” She gulps, forcing back the tears, focusing her mind like a needle. “She’s gone looking for him—for this Matthieu. Says she’ll take the trail across to the three peaks—”
“Shit...”
Jess swallows, passes the note to Tom. She looks at him, the agony on his features reflecting her own. Neither of them says it yet. That they are partly to blame, that they should have been the people she could turn to when she returned. Her people. Instead of pushing her,shovingher away—
Jess blows out a breath and holds up her phone. “I’m going to find signal. I bet she couldn’t; I bet she’s not on the right networkanymore.” Jess gathers herself, creating a mental bullet list, the salient points she’ll relay on the call. “Search for anything else, any clue—I don’t want to go the wrong way. I don’t want to give search-and-rescue the wrong information to find her.”
Tom only nods as Jess steps outside, already punching a number into her phone. She cradles it to her ear, praying for the tinny dial tone, almost passing out with relief when someone answers at the other end. She rattles it all off, where the cabin is, who has gone missing. And finally, she confesses, in her clipped, librarian tone, her worst fear. That no one has seen her since the night before.
The wait for search-and-rescue is the darkest hour of Jess’s life. She scans the skies, as though search-and-rescue will suddenly appear, as she paces back and forth, bile curling and writhing in her stomach.
“You should sit down, Jess. You should drink some water—”
“Don’t. Just please... don’t.”
Tom blinks steadily. “Okay, fair enough. But all the same.”
“You literally walked out last night, and I didn’t have a clue where you’d gone. So no. You do not get to tell me to sit down.”
