64 Birdie
BIRDIE
Frankie sits in the front seat of the Jeep, staring out the windshield, apparently content to say nothing for this whole ferry ride.
She’s so imposing. She’s as tall as Jasper and even broader in the shoulders.
Her brown hair is shaved on the sides, and the long hair on top is slicked back under a folded yellow bandana.
Arms crossed, she takes up the whole front seat, knees hitting the dash.
I glance her way, unable to stay silent a moment longer. “Soo . . . you’re around Jasper’s age, right?”
The witch just rolls her eyes. “We’re not gonna do this.”
“Do what?”
“Bond over Jasper. I’m not your girlfriend or your gal pal. I don’t sit around and braid hair and gossip.”
“Wasn’t aware that’s what we were doing but okay,” I say under my breath.
We’re parked at the front of the ferry, just behind the scrum of bikers and motorcyclists. We’ll be first car off when we dock. The Winthrop skyline looms ever closer, shrouded in a haze of rainy-day mist. We sit in silence for another minute, watching the cyclists laugh and chat.
Finally, I turn fully to face her. “You know I’m coven now, right?”
She scoffs. “Yeah, as if that means anything.”
“It does—”
She rounds on me. “Just because you know our secrets, doesn’t make you real coven. My coven doesn’t take in outsiders, especially not humans.”
“Didn’t,” I correct.
“What?”
“The form of that auxiliary verb needs to be past tense. Your coven didn’t take in outsiders. Or humans. Now it does. Times change, Frankie. Roll with them.”
Finally, I have her attention. “Oh yeah? How did you do it then? How did you join?”
“Jasper and I did a handfasting ceremony.”
“Fuck.” She deflates, turning away.
“We lit candles, and I crossed the threshold into his house,” I go on. “And then Mercy and I did this swirly-water-hand-thing, and she called me ‘sister.’”
“Fuck, Mercy? Seriously?”
“Yeah, and Ruby knows too. She’s bringing me fudge. And Hortie, obviously. She cried and gave me a pair of her granny Edwina’s carved jet cameo earrings.”
“Traitors,” Frankie mutters.
“They’re not traitors. They just know that if your coven doesn’t grow, it will die. Is that really what you want?”
“I want my people safe! And you’re a liability.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “You don’t trust me.”
“Duh! Why should I? You’ve been on the island all of a week, and already you’ve dazzled my high priest with your rainbow-scented vagina.
No one gets under Jasper’s skin like you have.
No one. Now you’re saying you’ve dazzled half my coven too?
For all we know, you’re some human-siren hybrid, luring Jas to his death.
He’ll drag us all along with him, straight to the bottom of the fucking ocean. ”
“Wow,” I murmur. “Brutal honesty. I like it.”
“Fuck you.”
“Do rainbows really have a scent? I always think of them as more of a color-based delight.”
“I don’t care.”
“I mean, if we’re gonna compare my vagina to juicy fruits, I’d say it tastes a bit like cantaloupe juice.”
Frankie groans, rubbing a hand at her temple. “Will you please shut up?”
“You brought it up,” I remind her.
“Yeah, and now I’m ending it.”
“I suppose we could ask Jasper what it tastes like—”
“I’m gonna swim back to shore,” she snaps, rounding on me.
I can’t help but smile. This rough exterior has to be a front, right? I can only imagine that deep inside Frankie Poole is soft as a teddy bear.
“Fine,” I say. “You don’t trust me yet. Not with your coven and not with your high priest. That’s fair. You don’t know me. And random strangers don’t get to just waltz onto your island and into your coven.”
She turns away, saying nothing.
“It might help to remind you that I’m not some random stranger. Phoebe and I have been good friends for three years. She vouched for me with Jasper. It’s how I got the job at Salt & Sage.”
“Yeah, well, Phoebe is captain of the Hot Mess Express. Just look at her now, winging halfway around the world to follow some wannabe DJ.”
I can’t help my laugh. “When it comes to love, I agree, Phoebe is a mess. But she has to be allowed to make her own mistakes and follow her very fickle heart wherever it leads.”
Frankie rolls her eyes. “You agreeing with me doesn’t strengthen your case—”
“That’s Phoebe and love,” I say over her. “That’s not Phoebe and friendship. When it comes to friends—real friends—the people she lets know the real her? Well, those are rare. She told me herself, I’m the first person she’s ever brought out to the island. Because I earned her trust.”
“Fair enough,” Frankie mutters. “Doesn’t change anything though.”
“How can it not change anything?”
“Because Jasper is being reckless!” She turns to me again, glaring with contempt. “Trusting a human to conduct coven business is risky and I don’t like it.”
“He’s trusting this human because he knows I can help,” I counter. “And I think you should cut him some slack.”
Her dark eyes narrow in annoyance. “You think you know him better than me?”
“I think these are uncharted waters for everyone,” I reply diplomatically.
“According to Jasper, your coven has never faced a challenge like this. You all live out on your island, safe and happy, warded by your magical dome of protection. You’ve never let a human into the coven before because you’ve never needed to before now.
You’ve never had to take any real risks to keep the coven safe—”
“You don’t know us—”
“I know risk,” I shout over her. “I know what it means to pack your bags and flee because you feel so unsafe in your own home that you’d rather live on the streets.
I know what it feels like to have to choose between leaving the car you live in to go search for food and staying in that car to fight off the other homeless teens who will try and steal your stuff the moment your back is turned.
I know worry and I know risk, Frankie. And yeah, trusting me is a risk.
A huge one. But so is me trusting you. So, why don’t we both pack away our shitty emotional baggage and just try to make this work, huh?
Because I’m coven now and I’m not going anywhere. Stick around and watch me prove it.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her dark eyes narrowed on me. “Fine,” she says at last. “We’ll try things your way.”
I heave a sigh of relief just as the ferry attendant steps in front of the Jeep, waving me forward. Buckling my seatbelt, I turn the Jeep back on. “Good. Now, let’s do this.”