Chapter 27 #2
Women like that always unsettle me a little. The ones who see straight through the version of you that you’re hoping to get by on charm and good lighting.
Seraphine eats half a sandwich slowly, her other hand resting near the herbs on the table.
I look at the herbs, then, before I can talk myself out of it, I say, “Jasper mentioned you knew a lot about dreaming.”
Seraphine’s eyes find mine across the table. She looks at me, then picks up the herb bundle and holds it out to me with a smile.
“Oh, I didn’t mean…” I start, but take it anyway, and notice it’s still warm from her hands.
“Mugwort,” she says, touching one sprig. “Valerian.” Another. “And lemon balm.” Her finger rests on the last one a moment longer. “For the soul.”
That should not be a phrase that makes me this nervous.
“The soul?” I frown.
“Before bed.” She sits back. “Tea, but not too hot. Let it cool until it’s gentle.”
I look down at the small bundle in my palm.
“What does the soul have to do with sleep?”
“Everything.” She reaches out and turns the herb bundle over in my palm, so the dried flowers face up.
“When you sleep, your body stays. Your mind goes somewhere else.” She taps her own temple lightly. “But the soul goes farther than both. It moves through levels. Through doors… and in those places between, you have to protect your soul.”
I keep my face very neutral. “Protect your soul from what?”
“Agreements.” She tilts her head. “Contracts, and promises.”
Mabel has gone quiet across the table. She’s still holding a sandwich, not looking at either of us, which somehow makes me feel like she is.
“Promises in the waking world, you make with your mouth. Your conscious mind. You can change your mind tomorrow, you can just forget about them.” She shakes her head.
“Promises in dreams and soul contracts are different. They are made from the part of you that doesn’t sleep.
The part that stays awake even when the rest of you is somewhere else entirely.
” She touches her sternum. “That part does not forget. It cannot.”
Cold moves through me. “So if you make a deal,” I say slowly. “In a dream—”
“It is not simply a dream. That is the mistake people make. They think because it happened while they were sleeping, it’s not real.
” She meets my eyes. “It is the most real thing there is. More real than paper. More real than anything you can say out loud in waking life, because it comes from the part of you that has no reason to lie. There are people who don’t have your best intentions in mind elsewhere, but they are good at making you think they do. ”
My hand has gone very still around the herb bundle.
“And the thing about a soul contract is that it binds like a thread.” She slowly laces her fingers together, demonstrating.
“Once it is woven in, it becomes part of the fabric. And cloth already woven won’t take a thread that fights it.
Whichever found its place first, a promise or a soul contract, holds. The other has nowhere left to bind.”
Oookay.
The kitchen is so quiet I can hear the wind outside in the garden.
I think about the flower field, a hand held out, palm up. About the word deal sitting in the air between us, and the heat that shot up my arm when I shook it. About something locking, and nothing like a normal handshake, or something I should have been able to feel in a dream at all.
About the pull I feel toward Ridge that I can’t explain, as much as I can’t explain why I let him do to me what I let him do while both of us have been lucid.
I have been trying very hard to treat that pull like proximity or dream weirdness.
Anything but fate with paperwork.
“Is there a way to undo one? A soul contract, I mean.” The question comes out quieter without permission.
“No. Soul contracts are permanent. That’s what makes them dangerous, and why you need to protect your soul from them.”
Shit.
“Drink the tea,” Seraphine says. “Before bed. Not too hot.”
I look down at the herbs in my hand. Mugwort, Valerian, lemon balm. For the soul.
I close my fingers around them when the front door bangs open.
Jasper materializes in the kitchen doorway still wearing his backpack, curls everywhere, his eyeliner smudged on one side, suggesting it was either a very long school day or a very strong opinion about aesthetics. His eyes find the plate on the table and lock on immediately.
“Is there food?”
“Hi,” I greet. “I brought you guys some lunch.”
“Thanks.” He’s already reaching past me for a sandwich triangle, then takes a massive bite and chews. He looks slowly around the table, and his expression shifts into suspicion. “Why are you all so weird right now?”
“We were just talking.”
He points at me with the rest of his sandwich. “Your face is doing the thing.”
“I don’t have a thing.”
“You absolutely have a thing.” He shoves the last of the triangle in his mouth, drops his backpack on the floor, and starts rummaging through the front pocket. “Anyway. I got a new pendulum I need to show you.”
Mabel exhales through her nose, and it’s almost a laugh.
“Why do you have a pendulum?” I ask.
“It’s for divination.” He resurfaces holding a thin silver chain with a small pale purple crystal hanging from the end, amethyst maybe, pretty in a pointed sort of way.
He holds it up so it reflects the light coming from the window.
“You ask it questions, it tells you yes or no. I’ve been calibrating it all day. ” He grabs my wrist. “Come on.”
“I was—”
“Two minutes,” he says, already pulling me toward the living room.
I throw a look back at Mabel, who waves her hand in a go-ahead gesture that suggests this is not the first time Jasper has dragged someone out of the kitchen mid-conversation and probably won’t be the last.
But I wanted to ask his mom some more questions.
In the living room, on the floor, pillows lay about. Big, mismatched, embroidered pillows, a little flat from years of use. Jasper drops onto a dark green one and points at the one next to him.
I cautiously sit as he pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket and smooths it on the floor between us with both hands. He’s drawn a cross on it in blue pen, and written YES at the top and bottom, and NO on either side.
He holds the chain between his thumb and forefinger, the little amethyst point hanging perfectly still above the center of the paper. “Quiet. Let it calibrate.”
“I didn’t even tal—”
“Shh.” He watches the crystal with the focused patience he usually saves for tarot, and after a moment, he says, “Okay. Ready.” He looks up with bright eyes. “So. What do we ask?”
“I thought you were asking.”
“I am. I like to build anticipation.” He turns back to the pendulum. “Does Lennon like my brother?”
Of-fucking-course.
The crystal swings back and forth, straight toward YES.
“That’s because I like him as a friend,” I say immediately, which would sound more convincing if the pendulum hadn’t almost thrown itself off the chain.
“Fine.” Jasper’s mouth twitches. He holds the crystal still again, lets it settle, then asks, “Does Lennon like my brother romantically?”
The pendulum swings so hard from YES to YES, it nearly clips the paper.
“Wow,” Jasper chuckles. “It’s really going now.”
“It’s broken.”
“It’s not broken.”
“The chain is probably just—”
“Lenny.” He looks up at me with enormous patience. “It’s a crystal on a chain. There’s nothing to break.”
I press my lips together. The pendulum, unbothered, keeps going.
I should have stayed at the inn. In the kitchen. With knives.
He holds the crystal still again and looks up at me. “You know you can tell me to mind my business.”