Chapter 32 #2
“I wasn’t positive you had it, wnuczka. I suspected. But you never mentioned spirits or odd situations.”
She’s right. No strange encounters, no conversations with people others can’t see. Not until—
I shake my head. “Trip—Carter’s cousin—was the first spirit I ever encountered.”
Babcia purses her lips. “Conversed with, possibly. But if you have this skill, I doubt he’s the first you’ve encountered.”
Tilting my head to the side, I give her a questioning look.
She raises an eyebrow. “New York is a big city. Lots of crowds. Not always easy to tell who is physically there or not. Though you might pick up on more now.”
Her eyes scan the cemetery and I follow her gaze to a headstone in the distance. An older woman kneels in jeans, running a hand over the smooth stone, shoulders shaking.
A man with graying hair stands behind her, hand on her shoulder. Except. His hand moves through her shoulder on the way down to his side. A spirit.
My eyes widen and I turn to Babcia. She nods, lips thin.
Air escapes my mouth, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Take it.”
I hold the stone out in offering to her, but she closes her palm around the smooth rock, her skin warm against mine. “Keep it. It’s yours. I have no need for it anymore.”
“I can’t be trusted—”
She shakes her head, pushing it back toward me. “Don’t you want to see him again?”
“Who—?”
She cuts me off with a glare that says, Spare me.
I sigh, tucking the stone back into my pocket. “I’m not even sure it’s possible. The Coldwell curse still exists. Until I find the missing Carmichael diamond”—I shake my head—“I’m running out of time.”
Babcia blinks. “You have the Coldwell heart?”
Right. My grandmother is perhaps even more familiar with the conditions of this curse than I am.
“Yes, that’s how I met—”
“John.” She nods, her eyes glazed, and I can practically see the gears of her brain working as she puts the pieces together. “What will you do, wnuczka? If you find it?”
I shrug and turn the stone over in my hand. My mind jumps to Trip, to Sabrina, and then to Carter. The people who could be saved from heartbreak—or worse—if the curse is broken. And me?
I do have the most to gain.
A tremor chases its way up my spine, and I shake my head to throw it off. “I think I would break it.” My eyes stay glued to my lap and the stone in my hand. “For my friends. I would want to do it for them.”
I tuck the stone back into my pocket and look up at the sky. The clouds are separating, wisps breaking apart like cotton candy in the wind. Behind them is the smallest sliver of cold, pale blue.
“And then I’d do something for myself.” The wind brushes against my cheeks, and blood rushes to the surface. The reanimation of a corpse. “Time to focus on the next chapter.”
A soft, papery hand slips into mine, fragile and strong at the same time. I offer Babcia a small smile and she returns one of her own.
But then a glimmer of something flashes in her eyes. Concern? “I have something I need to share with you.”
“What?” A shiver runs down my body, and not from the cold.
She unbuttons her coat and gathers the hem. Her hands fiddle with the seam of the lining, and her shrewd eyes inspect every stitch. With a firm tug, she pulls, and with the pop of several stitches, the silk inner lining separates from the wool of the coat. Has she officially lost it?
“Bab—”
“Don’t worry. I know a good seamstress.” She winks at me.
One hand slips into the lining of her coat and she digs around inside, until her eyes widen with the look of someone who’s won a prize. Pulling her hand from the lining, she presses her palm—and something—into mine.
She leans in to plant a soft kiss on my cheek. “I love you, kochanie.”
There’s a dampness on my face and I’m not sure whether it’s from her kiss or my tears, but the cold air chills the spot on my cheek. I glance down at the thin paper she placed in my hand. It’s a piece of stationery, folded in thirds. On one of the flaps, there’s writing in blue ink:
Something borrowed.—Grandma Eloise
“Wha—” My eyebrows pinch together and I unfold the delicate paper in my hands.
A flash of gold catches the light. I scan the design of intricate woven ivy and blossoms in full bloom. My heart stops. I’ve seen this pattern before. On Sabrina’s bathroom floor. Hearts. Diamonds. Spades. Clubs.
I flip the card over in my hand, my dexterity suffering in my shakiness. The image reveals itself in pieces. A solitary Q in the upper left corner, a flash of red, a woman’s face, and a large geometric shape.
The queen of diamonds.
My mind is a swarm of bees in a hive, but one question breaks away from the horde.
“But how? John Coldwell didn’t even know where it was.”
“He didn’t.” Babcia rolls her lips together.
“I found it sewn into the bodice of Sabrina’s wedding gown.
” She clasps my hand not holding the card.
“Oh, Elzbieta. I wanted to tell you. I wasn’t sure at first, never having seen the rest of the Carmichael deck.
But then we weren’t speaking and I didn’t know if it would harm more than help.
” She twists her fingers together, the skin thin over her bulging knuckles.
I read the words on the stationery again. “So the Carmichael women had it all along?” I look toward the sky. “They’ve handed down the power to break the curse.”
Babcia nods. “It appears so.”
“And this means—”
Trip. Alive. Emotion rises in my throat, and I feel as though I could suffocate from it.
Babcia rises from the bench. “I trust you. You have all the pieces.”
I need to find Sabrina. Scanning my mental calendar of the Coldwell wedding events, I try to determine the next in the lineup. Tomorrow. The rehearsal dinner. Shit, there are two days until this wedding.
I stand from the bench, gathering my bag and clutching the card in a tight grip between my fingers.
“Thanks, Babunia. I need to—” I peck her on the cheek, leaving the rest unsaid.
She nods as though she understands.
I’m several paces down the path when she calls out to me.
“Oh! And Elzbieta.”
I turn to face her. From here she looks her age—a stooped woman in a colorful headscarf, wrapped in an oversize coat. So small and delicate.
“I’m glad she didn’t come.”
I swallow and my chest tightens, my hand curling into a fist at my side. How can she say that?
“Why?” My voice cracks.
“It means her soul is at peace, kochanie.”