Chapter 20
“Hey, Dad. Hey, Mom. Got some updates for you.” Sitting down on the greenery, Simon picked a blade of grass and twirled it between his fingers.
“New series of phones coming soon. We’re trying the folding technology.
Finicky for now, but with the improvements in glass materials, I think we can work out the kinks. You’ll see, it’ll be amazing.”
He crumpled the grass blade into a little ball and tossed it away. “Kerry and I didn’t work out. She told me I should give her a free new tablet. I told her she should free the room she was staying in.”
He turned around and leaned his cheek against the raspy coldness of his parents’ gravestone. “Next time I’m dating, I’ll go incognito. Pretend to be someone else. Maybe put on a wig. What do you think? Black or blond?”
When no answer came, he laid his hand on the stone. “Thanks.” Of course, Mom and Dad couldn’t say anything back. He wasn’t talking to anyone—just some rock, a bunch of dirt, and ash. But it still felt good to get some things off his chest.
God knew he’d never get a woman who’d care enough to listen.
***
To get away from any more bird thievery, once they returned from their trip, Simon suggested they drive back to Te Anau, the town they’d spent a night in before. And so, off they went, with emergency duct tape holding together their wrecked car.
By the time they reached the town, got their rooms, and took care of their needs, a calming twilight descended, the pinks and purples of the dying sun outlining the peaks of the mountains across the lake.
According to Shanna, this time of the day was a good time for rituals, and it would commence soon in their room—a spacious suite with a view of the lake and a terrace that continued straight out onto the lawn behind the complex.
In an hour, Simon would be free.
He twisted his wrist, eyes following the delicate markings of the tattoo.
It was for the best in the end, even if after three weeks, it would feel odd to be without it.
But once he and Shanna were unbonded, they could finally have a real talk, without their vicinity problem hanging over them.
When they returned home and their adventures were over, would Shanna stay? Would she let him into her life?
With the curse her family has been burdened with, he understood her reluctance, especially since he’d already forgotten her once. His heart told him he’d never forget her again … but how did he make Shanna see that?
“Hey.” Shanna leaned on the open door to the terrace. “Everything is ready. If you are.”
He was ready to get his life back. He was ready to save his company from Everett’s clutches. But still, he was … scared. For the company’s future, and for his own, if it didn’t include this wonderful woman by his side.
He stood and plastered a smile on his face, more for his own encouragement. “Let’s do it.”
There was a knock at the door, and upon Shanna’s summons, Chris popped her head in. “Can I watch? If it’s not forbidden.”
“Of course you can,” Shanna said. “Come in.”
They gathered on the terrace, bathed in the descending night, lit by a few honey-scented candles Shanna had meticulously arranged on the round table. Shanna unclasped the bracelet and offered Simon one end, holding it by the other.
“The hand with your tattoo.” She guided them into the correct position. They stood facing each other, hands joined at the bracelet.
“This is it?” Simon asked. “No herbs, no other crystals?”
“This is it,” she confirmed. “Just the bracelet and us.”
She closed her eyes. Simon followed her lead.
“Focus on your tattoo. Imagine it dissolving. Imagine washing it from your skin,” Shanna’s soft voice guided him. “Imagine it as a band across your chest. Let it break as you breathe in. Repeat.”
In the perfect silence that followed, only his breathing filled his ears. Not even a breeze stirred.
“In death made, in life broken,” Shanna whispered. She slowly repeated the words until Simon joined in.
It went on for a minute, two, five; Simon didn’t know if the ritual was meant to take this long, but he didn’t dare ask.
When he’d participated in Shanna’s rituals before, he’d at least felt something by this point—usually a kind of pleasant shivering, as if his body was being charged with electricity.
But nothing was happening now.
Shanna stopped chanting. “It’s not working.”
He opened his eyes.
“Did you do it wrong?” Chris said from the shadows.
“No.” Shanna’s eyebrows furrowed in determination. “I’m doing it correctly, I’m sure.”
“Should we do it for longer?” Simon suggested.
“It’s not that.” She broke their hold and jiggled the bracelet. “It’s this. Something is wrong with it. I can’t feel it at all during the ritual, and given what a powerful item it is, I should.”
“Maybe it’s a fake,” Chris said.
Shanna shook her head and disappeared inside. She rummaged through her bag; through the sheer curtains, Simon saw her press a crystal to the bracelet and murmur something. When she came back, her face was pale.
“It’s been destroyed,” she said.
“But it looks undamaged,” Simon said.
“Not physically. The enchantment is gone.”
“Like, it lost it over the years?” Chris asked.
“Things like this don’t fade with time. It should still be as strong as the day it was created.
No, someone purposefully broke the enchantment.
” Shanna shook her head, her lips trembling.
“And unless some random person was so upset with my mom they had to track down the bracelet and destroy it, it could only have been her.”
Simon sat down by the table, staring at the candle’s small, bright flame. “But why? If she wanted you to find it, if she knew this was going to happen …”
“I don’t know.” Shanna mimicked his pose, then hid her face in her hands. “All of this to sabotage me in the end?”
“Is there anything else in the letter? Any clues we missed?” Chris asked. “What about the postcards?”
Shanna went to retrieve them, and they spread them across the table.
“Maybe there’s a code hidden in her messages,” Simon said. “You say it out loud, and it would re-enchant the bracelet?”
“Or, like, one of those sigils,” Chris said. “What happens if we connect the points where the postcards came from?”
They tried it all. Simon dived into trying to unscramble the code, and by the time he’d given up, Shanna’s fold-up map of New Zealand was scribbled all over as she and Chris tried various connections between the places to find a shape that was anything else than a random zig-zag line.
“Wait,” Simon said. Maybe it was his brain in full word-riddle-solving mode, but what if …
He drew again over the line connecting the four places from the postcards, in the order they’d visited them. Wellington, Abel Tasman, Ross, Milford Sound. He circled the first letter of each name.
“WARM,” he muttered.
“It is a word,” Shanna said, as if she were trying to encourage his efforts.
It was, but it didn’t make any sense, at least not without context. He grunted, slouching back in the chair. It felt like they were so infuriatingly close to something but couldn’t grasp it.
“Maybe you need to hold the bracelet over a flame,” Chris said. “That would be warm.”
They tried that. With one candle, two, three.
They tried hovering it above, as well as letting the flames lick it.
Shanna tried heating it up in her clenched fist, but whatever they did, she still felt nothing.
And when after all the experimentation she and Simon repeated the ritual, nothing happened.
“I give up.” Shanna collapsed onto the chair. Night had fallen by now, and the deep blue sky was littered with stars. “I’ve had it with Mom and her Mercurial Crystal.”
Chris laughed but cut herself off. “Sorry. I thought it was funny.”
“Our misfortune?” Simon asked.
“No, the name. That’s what the counselor at the shelter used to call me. Mercurial Crystal.”
Shanna raised her head. “Why would she call you that?”
“Crystal is my real name. But everyone calls me Chris.” She glowered at them. “Don’t you dare call me Crystal, ever. As for the mercurial part, I assume it was ironic. You know, because I change my mood so often.”
Shanna rose, standing straight as if struck by lightning. “Mercurial Crystal.”
Simon leaped to his feet, too. “What did your grandma say? It doesn’t need to be a crystal.”
“Any kind of object.” Shanna met his eyes. “But maybe it doesn’t even have to be an object. It could be an idea, or—”
“A person.”
In unison, they looked at Chris.
“What?” she said, crossing her hands in front of her chest.
“The Mercurial Crystal is made through an investment of two people in it,” Shanna murmured. “An investment of soul and heart. Of love.”
“Yeah, but, I don’t—” Chris’s objection was interrupted when Shanna buried her in a hug.
“It’s you,” Shanna said. “You’re our Mercurial Crystal.”
“I refuse to be objectified,” Chris said, but with more smile than bite in her voice.
“We can finish the ritual. With you.” Shanna extended a hand to Simon and drew him into the hug, sandwiching Chris.
“In death made, in life broken,” she whispered.
“In death made, in life broken,” Chris repeated.
“In death made, in life broken.” Simon intertwined his fingers with Shanna, letting their tattoos touch.
It began as barely palpable heat, spreading from that touch as they repeated the words. Then, suddenly, his wrist blazed up, as if the tattoo had turned into pure flame, even though on the surface, no change was visible.
“Hold on.” Shanna gripped his fingers tighter.
The heat was so strong Simon thought it would turn his bones to ash. The coiled design of the tattoo unwrapped itself, turned a fiery red, then a dull brown, and slowly faded as the scorching subsided.
“Did you do it?” Chris asked.