Chapter 24 #2
“Is that the best idea?” I asked. Panic was thrumming through my veins. I realized I was scared to go to my grandmother’s house. I hadn’t been there since the night my mom and I had fled, and I was uneasy about returning.
Olive stopped walking and turned to face me. She lowered her sunglasses and peered over the top of them at me. I was getting accustomed to that look and found I wasn’t as intimidated as usual. “Yes, it is.”
“But what if the new owners don’t like trespassers and call the police on us?” I asked.
Olive shrugged. “I don’t care.”
There were many things to admire about Olive Prendergast, but honestly, her zero-fucks-given attitude about what anyone else thought was my favorite.
“Griffin, the ferry will be docking soon,” Olive said. “Can you slip on board and retrieve our vehicle?”
“Absolutely. Text me the address where you want me to meet you, and I’ll be there.” His gaze met mine briefly before he added, “Good luck.”
He turned and walked away. I tried not to stare after him, but it was a struggle not to run after him and beg him to take me with him so I could avoid what I suspected would be a difficult emotional time for me when we arrived at Mamie’s house.
“Now, that’s a travesty!” Eloise drew my attention as she waved her hands in the direction of an organic smoothie shop with a giant blow-up pineapple in the front window.
“The bakery where Toni and I used to get our morning coffee and pastry is now this . What even is a pineapple cleanse? Never mind. I don’t want to know. ”
She looked distraught, so I stepped forward and walked beside her, falling in behind Olive. “How long has it been since you’ve visited the island?”
“Since Toni died,” she said. “I had to follow the book, which meant tracking Juliet. I almost caught up to her a few times, but she was always out of reach.”
I nodded. That checked out. My mom had popped in and out of my life so sporadically, I couldn’t imagine trying to chase her down. It made Agatha’s theory about my mom hiding in a different timeline very plausible.
“What did you do to get by?” I asked.
“I’d take odd jobs and work here and there, keeping busy while I waited. Time is rather inconsequential when you can’t die.” She sounded sad and I felt a flash of annoyance with my mom.
“Did my mother know about you?” I asked. “Did she know you were stranded without someone to help you move on?”
Eloise glanced away, looking anywhere but at me. It was answer enough and I didn’t believe her when she said, “I don’t think so.”
“I promise, as soon as I figure out how to do it, I will send you on,” I vowed.
“I appreciate that, my dear.” She patted my arm.
It occurred to me that despite her propensity for having random body parts fall off, I’d gotten quite fond of Eloise and I would be sad to see her go.
As the cluster of shops fell behind us, Olive led us along a narrow paved walkway that followed the twists and turns of the shoreline.
We passed house after house. I didn’t recognize any of them.
Then we turned down a narrow dirt hiking path, moving quietly through the seagrass and summer rosebushes now barren of blooms. When we turned the corner, Olive stopped abruptly, causing me to plow into her back.
She turned and glared at me, but I was too shocked to care. Rising up in front of us was a concrete, steel, and glass colossus. Olive glanced from her phone to the house and back three times before she said, “This is it.”
Something fractured inside of me then. Gone was the quirky shingled cottage with the row of wind chimes hanging across the front porch.
The sanctuary I remembered had been plowed down to make room for this modern monolithic structure.
Anything that had been Mamie’s was gone and there was no way for me to get it back.
The feeling of loss was unbearable in its intensity.
A gravel shortcut led past the house to the beach beyond. “Excuse me,” I muttered, and left them, not caring if the new owners saw me or not.
“Zoe,” Eloise called after me.
“Let her go,” Olive said. I appreciated the understanding or disinterest, whichever it was that motivated Olive. “I’m going to see if anyone’s home. You stay here and keep watch.”
“What am I watching for?” Eloise asked.
“Anything out of place,” Olive answered.
I heard Eloise say something in return, but I couldn’t make out the words over the sound of the wind and waves. It was just as well. I was too consumed with my churning emotions to participate in a meaningful way at the moment.
I stepped onto the beach and the size and shape of the boulders in front of me brought me right back to my childhood and the summer days I’d spent scrambling over these same rocks, pretending I was an adventurer, a superhero, a mythical creature of the sea, whatever my imagination conjured on any particular day.
The wind gusted across the sand by the water’s edge and I hunkered into my coat.
I pressed a hand against one of the rain-slick boulders and the memory of Mamie and me walking this beach together filled my mind.
She’d always had time for me when we’d visited her.
She taught me all sorts of things about the natural world: how to tell when rain was coming, the way the maple tree’s leaves appear to turn upside down, or that honeybees actually spend two-thirds of their time doing nothing, so to her, being a busy bee meant giving herself plenty of downtime, usually with a good book.
I glanced at the ocean. The tide was coming in, although technically, as Mamie had explained it to me, the ocean doesn’t actually move so much as Earth rotates through the bulge that the moon’s gravitational pull on the ocean creates, producing the illusion of a tide that comes in and goes out.
I shook my head. Mamie had taught me so many things.
I glanced at the beach and remembered the day she had insisted I memorize some figures she drew in the sand.
She told me someday I might need to use them.
I frowned. I found a piece of driftwood and started drawing in the sand, trying to remember.
There was a triangular shape and then a swirly one, a cross, and a trapezoid sort of thing.
What were the words she’d taught me to go with them?
I hadn’t thought of them in years. I mumbled the first two, couldn’t remember the third, and stammered around the fourth.
“Mater matris hmm-mm ready.” I frowned. When I was a kid, I’d thought it was just some silliness she’d made up to entertain me, but now with my own magic rising inside me, I knew she’d given me something more.
I didn’t remember seeing any of these symbols in the book. Still, the memory strengthened my resolve. Maybe Mamie’s house was gone, but there had to be someone on the island who remembered her, who could tell us something to help with the grimoire. I dropped the stick and strode back up the path.
Olive was coming around the corner from the house, a frown turning down the corners of her mouth.
“The owners were not accommodating?” Eloise asked.
“They’re not there,” Olive said. “No one is, which was easy to see, as their glass house is see-through, front to back, and there’s practically nothing in it.”
“It’s such a shame.” Eloise sighed. “Toni’s cottage was so charming, with its front porch surrounded by hydrangea bushes and her collection of wind chimes.”
“Now it’s ornamental grasses and not a wind chime in sight,” Olive said. “Quite depressing, actually.”
We stood like the weary travelers we were, taking in a landscape that felt unduly harsh at the moment. A large black SUV rolled up beside us.
“Need a lift?” Jasper rolled down the driver’s window and smiled at us.
“Yes, back to town.” Olive gestured for Eloise and me to take the back seat.
“I take it the house didn’t offer any insights?” Jasper asked.
“None other than the new residents have horrible taste,” Olive said. “There was not a single book in sight.” She shuddered and I felt a small smile tip my lips.
The rest of the car ride was silent until Jasper pulled into a spot in the center of town. “Where to next?”
Olive turned around in the passenger seat. “Eloise, you mentioned Toni might have some friends still on the island?”
“Potentially,” Eloise confirmed.
“We can start there, then,” Olive declared. I had another idea.
“I’m going to the library,” I said. “I want to look up any local news articles there might be about Mamie.”
Olive glanced at me, considering, and then nodded. “Suit yourself. We’ll meet you there in an hour. Griffin, you go with Ziakas. Don’t get into trouble.”
“Me?” Jasper’s outraged expression was over the top. He was clearly teasing Olive, who unsurprisingly was not having it.
“Do you see anyone else named Griffin in here?” She didn’t wait for his answer but popped her door open and stepped out. Eloise let out a small yip and hurried to keep up with her. I hoped she didn’t lose a leg for her efforts.
“Shall we?” Jasper asked.
“We shall.”
As we walked, I ignored him mostly, focusing instead on the figures I had remembered Mamie teaching me and trying to recall the name of the third symbol, which I had never seen before or since. Maybe it would come to me if I focused on something else.
The library was a small white clapboard cottage with green shutters nestled on a side street off the town square. Thankfully, it was open and Jasper held the door for me as we entered, stomping our feet on the doormat to get the excess rainwater off.
A just-past-middle-aged man wearing a cardigan and glasses—sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason—greeted us when we approached the reference desk.
“Hello, how can I help you?” he asked. I noted his name tag read Roger .