Page 48 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
Inside the caravan, as we close the door, I feel the mountain sigh around me. As though it has also unburdened its heart beneath the bowl of stars and night.
As though it’s releasing a decade-long breath.
Spring
March
Chapter 38
Carrie
Edith burned the candle by the window, and the trapper came back to her. But not as a person, as a voice. Calling her. She followed that voice, stepping off the mountain paths.
No one has heard from Edith Tucker or the trapper since.
—Nora Morgan, May 20, 1918
Three weeks later, as we tip into March, I realize I’m ready to claim my home. The cottage is finished, and only a few small pieces of furniture are left to acquire. I move in, taking several trips from caravan to cottage, lugging my stuff across the glittering field.
There’s only a light frost today. The snow has melted away, leaving the glitter of ice painted on blades of grass. It crackles as I walk, and the scent of newness envelops me. Suddenly, I’m hopeful for spring, aware of what that means. The decision I’ve reached. The cottage isn’t going on the market, and I’ve made no plans to move on. I’m staying in Woodsmoke, perhaps not forever, but definitely for right now. I find it hard to deal in absolutes. But with every day, every moment I’m back here, I finally feel like my feet are on solid ground. As though I’m where I’m supposed to be.
And Matthieu, with his quiet ways, his solid presence since I returned, is a big part of this feeling. Not the only reason, but important enough that I can no longer ignore what it means. Aswe lay in the caravan the other night, limbs entwined, I realized it was time to carve out more space for myself. And doing that will mean also making space for him. By laying my cards on the table and asking him to stay in Woodsmoke with me.
The caravan was too small that night. He had to stoop to shuffle around the space, and as we clutched mugs of coffee the next morning, I pictured him preparing the morning coffee in the cottage. Heating the kettle on the stovetop, spooning the earthy granules into the French press, and carrying the hot mugs up the staircase to the bedroom at the front of the house.
In the afternoon, I close the door on the cottage, pocket the key like a secret, and drive into the center of Woodsmoke. There are only a few huddled figures around, and so less gossip than usual plumes in the air. A few half-familiar faces acknowledge me with a nod, and the butcher, who I went to school with years ago, even asks how I’m doing as I pass. I guess the gossip has quieted down now, and folks are accepting the fact that I’ve come back. It all feels so... ordinary.
So wonderfully ordinary.
I slip a second iron key from my pocket as I approach the shop. It slips inside the keyhole, and a soft click tells me I can enter. For the first time since I arrived, I step over the threshold of Ivy’s old candle shop.
I breathe in the scent of dust and lavender. My footfalls are cloying thuds in the hollow quiet as I cross to the counter and drop the key next to the till. It’s one of those old-fashioned ones, with the number 9 rubbed out from overuse. I place my index finger on the ivory circle, feeling the ghost of Ivy’s finger in the smooth indent from years of use. I picture her here, standing where I am now, giving me that knowing look before shooing a customer out to the bank around the corner. She only accepted cash, bills and coins, and sometimes she would write out a receiptby hand if someone particularly riled her, taking her time as they swayed impatiently from foot to foot. My grandma was a force of nature despite her sweet, reedy singing voice. You never, ever said no to her. Woe betide you if you did. I guess in that way she was just like her sister Cora, and like every Morgan woman who came before her.
Staring around the shop at the shelves lined with old stock, the patterned crimson rug in the center worn down to blush in some places from many feet, I feel more than nostalgia. It’s as though the shop has been waiting for me, and now it’s leaning in, inch by inch, with anticipation. Listening to the patter of my heart as it syncs with Woodsmoke again. I never could help longing for this slumbering town in my dreams, my nightmares. It’s followed me through airports and train stations, crisscrossing continents with me, trying to pull me back.
I’ve resisted for so long. I’ve walked the earth with the broken pieces rattling inside my chest, hoping someone, anyone, would be able to heal the pain. That another place would become my new home. Yet I’m here again, back in Woodsmoke, wearing my heart on the outside of my chest. And now there’s Matthieu. Even though I told myself,promisedmyself, that renovating the cottage would be the final chapter. The ending I’d been waiting ten years to write.
I haven’t been in this shop this winter because even entering it feels like beginning a new chapter. If I reopen the shop, if I change it into something full of things that I want to sell, then I’m making a statement. I’m staking out my place in this town full of secrets and old magic and memories. I’m proclaiming that these things are mine too. Until now, I haven’t been ready to even contemplate doing that. I heave a breath, lean my forearms on the counter, and gaze out into the middle distance.
Then I realize that a woman outside the window is watching me.
I blink, pulling myself up to stand straight and tall as she pushes open the door, the sharp breeze cutting the lavender-scented shop with the smell of car fumes and snow.
“Cora,” I say, swallowing back my nostalgia, my faint stirrings of hope. “Thank you for coming.”
“I’m not accustomed to being summoned.”
“This won’t take long.”
Cora sighs, wilting slightly, and shuffles to the armchair by the window. It has been used for many years by long-suffering partners, and children have scrambled over it while their parents sniffed at the waxy pillars on the shelves. It’s been neglected for many months, sitting in this relic of a shop that no one wanted to claim. Until now.
Until me.
“I want to reopen the shop.”
Cora says nothing for a moment, merely staring at me, her left eye twitching, with moisture gathering at the outer corner. Then she clears her throat. “You... want to stay?”
I feel that secret smile tugging up the corners of my mouth. “I think so.”
