Chapter 18
Cora
Fifty-Six Years Ago
“Does she need feeding?”
Cora asks pointedly. The baby’s little face is turning puce. Ivy walks back into the room, arms outstretched for the cross little bundle. Cora gladly hands her over and picks up her mug of tea as Ivy sinks into the sofa, getting ready to feed.
Lillian. A name Cora had on her baby list, the one she keeps at the back of her diary. But she bit her tongue when Ivy told her what she named her baby, even when she said she first heard it from Cora. Really, she’s been biting her tongue her whole life, keeping her temper in check, knowing that any sharp words, however little, won’t endear her to her family. She’s nothing like Ivy. Sweet, mild Ivy with the perfect baby, the cottage in the shadow of the mountains, and the husband she doesn’t mind working away all the time.
The clock ticks away the seconds on the mantelpiece, and Cora feels the gloom settling like a blanket over her shoulders, the autumn turning as slow as treacle to winter. She has begun to hate winter, to hate how the world dies off around her. What she wants right now is life—life around her, life to grow within. Not that she and Howard have been married that long. There’s plenty of time. It isn’t a competition, as her mother likes to say. But with Ivy, she can’t help it. She’s always comparing herself and measuring her achievements against those of her older sister. The perfect sister.
“You haven’t asked about the book,”
Ivy says, piercing the silence. She hushes Lillian, swapping her over to the other side with a slight grimace before cooing at her, the baby’s fist gripping her blouse. “You always ask about the book.”
“Maybe I’ve given up asking.”
“You know, I’ve been reading some of the stories inside it.”
Ivy leans forward, eyes suddenly wide. “Did you know that the mountains will let you make a bargain? A kind of . . . trade? Like for like? They ask for certain ingredients from you. At least that’s what Grandma Tabitha’s own grandma recorded in her account. But she says she was able to reverse a terrible harvest one year. For a price.”
She lets that hang in the air between them. Cora swallows her tea, meeting her sister’s gaze. With Ivy, there is always a reason to bring something up. She thinks over things for days, weeks sometimes. But this subject, so casually mentioned . . . she may have been turning it over for months. Cora’s skin prickles, and she clutches her mug tighter. “What of it, Ivy?”
Ivy swallows, as though preparing herself. A flicker of sadness sparks in her eyes, but is quickly blinked away and hidden. “If you really want the book, Cora, if it still means so much to you, we could make a trade.”
It seems to Cora that the entire world stills at that moment—that the very mountains open an ancient eye and hold a collective breath. “What?”
“A trade,”
Ivy says, smiling tentatively. Then, “Ooo, she’s done!”
Cora holds out her arms instinctively as the tiny, well-fed Lillian is passed to her. She maneuvers the warm, milk-drunk bundle up to her shoulder, then gently pats her back to bring up the trapped air. Smelling the baby scent on Lillian’s hair, the tiny wisps of it curling over her skull, she thinks that Ivy’s baby is almost perfect. Almost. But Cora longs for, obsesses over, only one thing, and it isn’t made of soft curls and warm milk. It’s made of paper and magic.
She stands, shifting her weight to rock Lillian, and fixes her attention on Ivy, now reclining on the sofa. “Explain.”
“You’re always so sharp, Cora,”
Ivy says with a troubled sigh. “Good thing Howard loves all those jagged edges.”
“This is about Howard, isn’t it?”
“In a way.”
Ivy fidgets with her blouse buttons, not meeting her sister’s frank stare. “I want you to be happy, Cora. You have Howard now. You have a home . . . you should be happy. Content. But you’re not, are you?”
Cora continues moving around the room, swaying with the warm, fidgeting bundle in her arms. “What do you mean?”
“I think you’ll only be truly happy when you have the book. When all those stories, all the old ways, are yours. And I want that for you. I want for you to be happy with your life.”
Cora narrows her eyes. “But Mother gave it to you, not me.”
“There’s a way,”
Ivy says softly. “I can give it to you, break my bond with the book so it’s yours, so you’re the keeper of it all. You know I do not use it. You know it’s not for me. But you will have to pay the price . . . by giving up someone you love.”
“And you’re worried that’ll be Howard.”
“I am.”
Cora moves toward the Moses basket and pours the sleeping, flushed-cheek bundle into it. She rocks the basket gently, watching the rosebud of Lillian’s mouth opening and closing. Howard wanted children; she knew that much. How many did he say when they first started courting? Four? She pinches her lips, trying not to think of Howard. Trying not to think of his needs, his wants. If she takes the book from Ivy, what love will she lose? A future child? The prospect of ever having children? The mountains extract payment somehow, she knows that much. Sometimes in ways you don’t see coming.
As she watches Lillian sleep, still gently rocking the Moses basket, she thinks of how much Howard would love this. Their own child in a Moses basket in the front room, Cora pottering around the kitchen getting the supper ready. He’s that kind of man. But what she wants, what she has always wanted . . . is the book. The old ways. The tales of the mountains, the closest thing on this earth to real magic. “I guess we’d find out,”
she murmurs to herself.
Ivy sighs, a frown pinching her forehead. “I was afraid that would be your answer.”
“Why now? Why would you hand it over to me now?”
Cora glances at Ivy, noting how tired she looks around her eyes, how limp and a little thin her hair is. How she slumps on the sofa like she’d be happy to nap for half the day.
“Because . . .”
Ivy stops, biting her lip. “Because when I look at Lillian, I see everything I ever wanted. I have this deep peace within me, this certainty. And I want you to be happy, Cora, more than anything. I want you to have that same peace, and I don’t think you’ll get it from having children. I think the only way is if I give you the book. But—but it won’t be my price to pay, and that’s what I’m afraid of. That you’ll lose something, or someone, either now or in the future, and the price will be your happiness, when that’s what I’m trying to fix.”
Cora turns to Ivy, fixing her with a look. “Someone I love for the book. That’s the price.”
“Yes. That’s what the book says. That’s what the mountains will ask of you.”
“Done.”
Ivy blinks, sadness flooding her eyes, then finally she nods. “All right then, if that’s your decision. I’ll follow the steps and break the bond. On the next full moon, the book will be yours.”
Winter
November–December