Chapter 22
“Hey, baby. Come here.” Mom enveloped Shanna in a hug, squeezing her tight as if she wanted to take her life force with her. “Be good now, yes?”
“Are you leaving?”
“Only for a spell.” Mom smiled, but it was a strange smile. Not happy, like when she laughed at a joke or when Shanna showed her the first spell grid she’d drawn and Mom said she did a great job.
“But don’t you worry.” Mom held Shanna’s little chin. “I’ll be back so quickly, you won’t even know I was gone.”
***
Shanna clenched her knitted purse, straightened her spine, and, with a deep breath, pushed in the door of The Witchy Swarm. “Hi, I’m back—” She stopped when she realized the woman behind the counter wasn’t the salesclerk from the other day.
The years had added up into the smile lines around her eyes and mouth, but Isabel O’Connell was still easily recognizable from the pictures Shanna had seen of her, even the one of her waitressing time in Wellington.
Her blond hair had shifted from golden more to silver, but it was still as lush and voluminous, surrounding her head like a soft cloud.
And her eyes—a bit blue, a bit gray, just like Shanna’s.
Seeing her mom again wasn’t the biggest shock, however.
It was the utter lack of memory. Despite knowing exactly how the curse worked, Shanna was certain that when they met again, something would stir in the deepest corners of her heart, or brain—something not even the curse could beat.
But it didn’t. She stared at Mom, and she knew it was her, and her heart filled with happiness and longing and regret, but not a single long-gone memory.
“Oh, hello,” Mom said. “You’re not one of the regulars. Well, you’re just in time! I was about to close.” She gave her a polite smile—a seller to a customer, not a mother to a daughter.
Shanna swallowed a lump in her throat. What did you think, stupid? That Mom would magically remember her, and they’d fall into each other’s embrace? “I—I—”
“Just tell me what you need, dear. Unless you only want to peruse, in which case I won’t bother you.” Mom glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Well, for the next fifteen minutes. Then I have to close down.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I meant, close down for the day, but actually, I am.” Mom wagged her pointer finger at her. “You’ve got that witchy sense, huh? Unless someone told you.”
“Your employee. A few days ago. But …” Shanna shook her head. “I’m also—I’m your daughter.”
Mom stopped with her hands frozen above a few herbal pouches she’d been sorting out.
“I’m Shanna. Don’t you remember?”
Mom blinked. “I’m sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else. I don’t have a daughter, and I don’t know any Shanna.”
“You’re Isabel O’Connell. Aren’t you?”
She scrunched her nose, letting her hands fall on the counter. “I hadn’t used that name in years. I go by Bella nowadays.”
“But once upon a time, you were Isabel.”
“Look, girl …”
“Shanna.” She made a few steps forward, lifting her chin to offer Mom a better view of her face. “Shanna. You named me. You brought me into this world. You were my mom. And then you left me.” The low, tear-announcing tone mixed in with the sudden resentfulness in her voice. “Why?”
“Honey, I realize you might have some issues, but I’m not the one to address them.”
Shanna wanted to snap back—how not, when she was the reason for them—when she realized what Mom meant. She didn’t believe her. She thought Shanna had picked some random person to pour out her grievances to.
The last sliver of hope died. Back when Mom had left, she must have resisted the pull of the curse for a longer time than Shanna had ever experienced with any of the people forgetting her.
Unless Mom had some spell that delayed the curse, she would have remembered Shanna for at least a month—enough time to travel across New Zealand and send all the postcards.
It had been an encouraging thought for Shanna, making a connection in the back of her mind that if Mom could resist the curse for so long, perhaps this time around, Simon would as well.
Staring into Mom’s clueless, slightly annoyed face was an awakening harsher than dipping herself into a bathtub full of ice. Of course, the curse got to Mom eventually. She was long gone.
And Shanna wasn’t going to achieve anything behaving like a lunatic. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I am a witch. My family has some problems, so I left.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Were they the ones who told you about me?”
“Y-yes. I was hoping I could learn from you.”
“Well, that’s quite flattering, but like I said, I’m leaving in a few days.
However, I didn’t get any offers for the shop.
I suppose I am a bit of an odd duck in Queenstown.
” She chuckled. “Should’ve rebranded to sell potions to enhance skiing abilities.
” She looked at Shanna from the side, the storm-blue eyes shrewd and calculating.
“Come here.” She led her over to a shelf.
“Can you tell me which one does not belong?”
Shanna perused the bottles of herbs arranged alphabetically on the shelf. “The borage leaf. It represents air. The allspice, basil, and black pepper are all fire.”
Mom nodded approvingly. “And where would you place this crystal …” She walked over to another shelf. “In a six-pointed star grid, if you’re focusing on prosperity?”
“Trick question,” Shanna said. “For prosperity, the grid should be a five-pointed star.”
“Well done.”
“Gran taught me.” Shanna scanned Mom’s face at the mention, but there was no sign of recognition.
“I’ll tell you what.” Mom went back to the counter and leaned her elbows on it.
“Lina says she’s not up to taking over the shop, and to be honest, I agree with her.
She’s an eager young witch, but she’s not ready.
But if you’re interested, I’ll give you a trial run.
If need be, I can postpone my departure for a few days to sign the papers and whatnot. ”
“The papers?”
“Come back here tomorrow morning. We’ll work together for a day so I can measure you up.” Mom grinned. “If my witchy senses deem you worthy, and you’re up for it, the shop is yours.”
***
Simon watched, strangely entertained, as Chris again T-posed for the TSA officer at their security check. “I told them it was the piercings,” she said once they were both through and headed onward to pick up their luggage. “It’s always the piercings.”
“You enjoy messing with them, don’t you?”
“At least it makes the day less boring for them. You should try it.”
“I think I’ll abstain from faking criminal activities for now, thanks.”
They got to the passport check. Chris effortlessly scanned hers, then showed her tongue to the face detector for a second before letting it properly scan her face.
Simon shook his head, though not so much in disapproval as in amusement.
He scanned his passport and automatically stepped to the swinging door, but it didn’t open.
He scanned the passport again. The light on the scanner was still red.
“Excuse me.” He stopped an officer patrolling the line. “My passport won’t scan.”
The officer tried himself a few times, then shrugged. “You’ll have to go to the other lane for the manual check.”
Simon looked to the monster lane of people snaking through the majority of the long room. Great.
“Thanks,” he said, and went to the end of the line. Chris raised her hands in a what’s wrong gesture, and he made a vague motion with his passport before the rest of the people in the line obscured his view of her.
He waited for twenty minutes and moved one entire row.
Out of eight.
He should call Shanna. Not to complain about his small problem of having to wait in a line, but to hear her voice and know she’s well, and tell her they’d landed. He pulled out his phone and tapped his screen.
Dark.
He tried turning it on—nothing, not even a display of low battery.
He should have been annoyed, but instead, he smiled. Oh, Shanna. Even halfway across the world, she still managed to break his phone again.
Maybe that was the problem with the passport, too. Could her technology-breaking curse influence it in such a way that it couldn’t be read by scanners?
As he came to the end of one row in the line, he shouted to Chris, who was sitting on the chairs past the passport check, her head leaning to the side in absolute boredom. “Can I borrow your phone? I need to call Shanna,” he said as she approached as close as she could.
Chris tried to move past the counter where the officer was checking the passports but got stopped by another officer. “I just need to give him the phone—ah, never mind.” She rolled her eyes, stepped back, and shouted over the officer’s shoulder, “I’ll call her!”
Ten minutes later, she returned, shouting in the same manner, “I told her we landed safely. And that you snored throughout the whole flight!”
Simon chuckled, then, at the looks of not-so-amused passengers waiting around him, cleared his throat and resumed his normal position in the line.
Finally, after only about six years, he reached the passport check. An older man, looking bored out of his skull, took his passport, glanced at Simon, back at the passport, and the computer.
And stopped.
He did another few passes—Simon, passport, Simon, passport, computer.
With a bit of nervousness tingling in his belly, Simon smiled. “Nice day we’re having, isn’t it?” To be fair, he had no idea what the weather was outside. But a little smile could go a long way.
The man gestured to one of the patrolling officers. They whispered for a few seconds, and then the officer said, “Step with me, sir.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“Come with me, please.” The officer maintained his poker face.