She sat up as she heard the sound of people entering the inn … voices, the rattle of luggage wheels.
“The guests are here,” Zoë said. “I’ll go with you to meet them.”
“No, we’re supposed to keep our distance. Priscilla is showing them to their rooms. She has the keys.”
Zoë looked bewildered. “We’re not supposed to welcome them?”
Justine shook her head. “Mr. Black is all business. He doesn’t want to be bothered with trivial social customs like saying hello and shaking hands and making small talk. The group will be down for breakfast in the morning, but he wants a health shake brought up to him at six. Priscilla said she would e-mail you the instructions.”
Zoë went to pick up her phone from the counter to check her e-mails. “Yes, it’s here.” She did a double take as she read the e-mail. “There must be a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Spinach … protein powder … peanut butter … soy milk … I won’t tell you the rest, because your stomach is already upset.”
Justine grinned at Zoë’s appalled expression. “That sounds like a variation on the Green Monster smoothie. Duane drank them all the time.”
“This will look like blended-up swamp.”
“I think the point is to make it as nutritious and disgusting as possible.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Zoë wrinkled her nose as she looked over the recipe. “I thought I would probably meet Mr. Black, since he’s negotiating with Alex. Now I’m not even sure I want to meet him.”
“Zoë, if this deal goes through, you and Alex are going to make so much money, you’ll want to name your firstborn child after him.”
The purpose of Jason Black’s visit to the island was to view a twenty-acre parcel of land bordering Dream Lake, which Alex had once bought with the intention of developing it as a residential area. Although the crash of the housing market had cleaned him out financially, Alex had managed to hold on to the Dream Lake acreage.
This past summer, a Realtor had approached Alex with an offer for the Dream Lake parcel. It seemed that Jason Black planned to establish a community retreat for education, innovation, and inspiration. The proposed development would include several buildings and facilities, all of them environmentally low-impact. Alex was LEED certified, which meant he could build according to the strictest environmental and energy regulations. As a result, the negotiations involved a stipulation that, along with the sale of the property, Alex would be hired as the retreat’s managing contractor.
Justine hoped the deal would go through, for Alex’s sake but especially Zoë’s. After the tough times Zoë had been through, including the recent death of her grandmother, she was due for some luck.
And Justine had a personal interest in the deal: In the summer she had bought and renovated a small lakeside cottage on Dream Lake Road. The cottage had been boarded up and decaying from decades of neglect. Zoë had wanted to live there with her grandmother, who had been diagnosed with vascular dementia. To help out, Justine had bought the cottage and paid for the renovations, and had let Zoë and her grandmother stay there rent-free.
If the Dream Lake land were eventually turned into an upscale community retreat and learning center, the value of Justine’s cottage, which bordered the property, would increase substantially. A win-win for everyone.
“I told Alex that Mr. Black must be a very nice person,” Zoë told Justine, “because the idea of creating an educational institute is a very noble goal.”
Justine sent her a fond smile. “And what did Alex say?”
“He said there’s nothing noble about it—Mr. Black is doing it for the tax-exempt status. But I’m still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Justine laughed. “I guess it’s possible that Jason Black has some redeeming qualities. Though I wouldn’t hold my breath.” She gulped the rest of her tea, stood, and went to put the cup into the dishwasher. “I’ll put out some wine and snacks in the lounge area.”
“No, I’ll do it. You’ve been busy enough today, cleaning all those rooms with only Annette to help. Did you find out what was wrong with Nita earlier? Was it the twenty-four-hour flu?”
“It’s not quite that temporary,” Justine said with a smile. “She texted me a little while ago. It was morning sickness.”
“She’s pregnant? Oh, that’s wonderful! We’ll give her a baby shower. Do you think we’ll need to hire someone to fill in for her when she gets past the first trimester?”
“No, we’re heading into the winter season, so business will slow down. And I can easily pick up the slack.” Justine heaved a sigh. “It’s not like I have a personal life to get in the way of work.”
“Go to the cottage and relax. And take these with you.” Zoë went to the pantry and unearthed a plastic container filled with treats left over from yesterday’s afternoon tea: icebox cookie squares studded with cranberries, buttery nuggets of shortbread, dark and chewy molasses rounds, and French-style macarons sandwiched with layers of homemade marionberry jam. It was a wonder that any were left—Zoë’s cookies were so delectable that guests at the inn’s afternoon teas usually showed no compunction about slipping cookies into handbags and pockets. Once Justine had seen a man fill his baseball cap with a half-dozen peanut butter blossoms.
She held the box as if it contained a lifesaving organ donation. “What kind of wine goes with cookies?”
Zoë went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Gewürztraminer. “Don’t have too much. Remember, you might have to bring Mr. Black his vodka tonight.”
“He’ll probably want Priscilla to do it. But I’ll take it easy just in case.”
Zoë glanced at her with an affectionate frown. “I can tell you’ve already made up your mind about what you can’t do, and what you’ll never have … but you can’t give up. When there’s no reason to hope, that’s when you need to do it the most.”
“Okay, Mary Poppins.” She gave Zoë a quick hug before heading out through the back door.
She walked across the yard, past the herb garden that separated the backyard cottage from the main building. It had originally served as a writer’s retreat, back in the days when the inn had been a private residence. Now Justine lived in the tiny two-bedroom dwelling.
“There’s plenty of room here for a chicken coop,” Justine said, even though Zoë couldn’t hear her.
The afternoon was deep and full-slip ripe. Dandelion light slanted through the scalded red branches of a single madrone, and gilded the brown tassels of alder catkins. The pungent green scents of a raised-bed herb garden steamed through screens of pestproof fencing.
Justine had fallen in love with the former hilltop mansion as soon as she’d seen it, and had bought it for a steal. As she had painted the rooms and decorated each one according to a different artist such as van Gogh or da Vinci, she’d felt as if she were creating a world of her own. A quiet, welcoming place where people could relax, sleep well, eat well.
After a childhood of constant wandering, the weight and feeling of home was deeply satisfying. Justine knew practically everyone on the island. Her life was filled with all kinds of love … she loved her friends, the inn, the islands, walking through forests thick with pine and sword fern and Oregon grape. She loved the way Friday Harbor sunsets seemed to melt into the ocean. With all that, she had no right to ask for anything more.
She paused before the doorstep of the cottage, her lips quirking at the sight of a disappointed brown rabbit staring through the steel mesh at the plants it couldn’t reach. “Sorry, buddy. But after what you did to my parsley last June, you can’t blame me.”
She reached for the doorknob, but hesitated as she felt something catch at her senses. Someone was watching her.
A quick glance over her shoulder revealed that no one was there.
Her attention was drawn to one of the second-floor windows of the inn, to the dark, slim silhouette of a man. Instantly she knew who he was.
There was some
thing predatory in his stillness, something ominously patient. The chilled wet neck of the wine bottle dripped condensation over the tightening circle of her fingers. With an effort, she shook off the feeling and turned away. The rabbit broke for cover, streaking to its burrow.
Justine walked into the cottage and closed the front door, which had been painted sky blue on both sides. The furniture was comfortably worn with layers of paint gleaming through the scuffed places. The upholstery was covered in linen printed with vintage flower patterns. A pink and beige rag rug covered the wood floor.
Setting the wine and cookies on a bistro table, Justine went into her bedroom. She sat on the floor by her bed, pulled out the spellbook, and held it in her lap. A slow, unsettled breath escaped her.
What’s wrong with me?
She had felt this ache before, but never so intensely.
As Justine unwrapped the linen, a wonderful perfume rippled upward, honey-sweet, greeny-herbal, lavender-musty, candle-waxy. The cloth, with its frayed selvage and ancient fingerprint smudges, fell away to reveal a leather-bound book with ragged deckle-edged pages. The leather binding gleamed like the skin of black plums and cherries. A design of a clock face had been tooled on the front cover, with a small copper keyhole in the center.
She traced the single word emblazoned on the book’s spine: Triodecad. It was the word for a group of thirteen, a number that bonded multiplicity into oneness. The ancient book, more than two centuries old, was filled with spells, rituals, and secrets.
Usually a grimoire was burned upon its owner’s death, but a few, like the Triodecad, were too powerful to destroy. Such rare and revered volumes had been passed down through generations. Since a grimoire preferred to remain with its keeper, it was almost impossible to steal one. But even if someone did manage such a feat, he or she would never be able to open the book without a key.
“Never read page thirteen,” her mother had warned on the day she had given the spellbook to Justine.
“What’s on page thirteen?”
“It’s different for everyone. It will show you how to achieve your heart’s desire.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“It never turns out the way you expect,” Marigold had said. “Page thirteen teaches one lesson only: Be careful what you wish for.”
Justine had looked down at the grimoire with a chiding grin and jostled it playfully. “You wouldn’t get me into trouble, would you?”
And she had felt the Triodecad’s cover flex as if it were smiling back at her.
Now, as she stared guiltily at the spellbook, she knew that what she was considering was wrong. But she wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. She wasn’t asking for anything extraordinary. Was it so terrible to want to change her own heart?
I should leave well enough alone, she thought uneasily.
Except that leaving well enough alone was only an option as long as things really were well enough. In Justine’s case, they weren’t. And if she didn’t do something, they never would be.
She reached beneath the neck of her T-shirt and pulled out the copper key on a chain. Leaning forward, she unlocked the Triodecad. Instantly, the book rustled and flipped of its own accord, fanning her with the resinous perfume of vellum and ink. The rag paper pages revealed a rainbow blur of illustrations … sunflower yellow, peacock blue, medieval red, soot black, deepest emerald.
The spine of the volume slumped abruptly as it reached 13. Unlike the rest of the book, this page was blank. But beneath Justine’s curious gaze, symbols appeared in random places like bubbles rising to the surface of champagne. A spell was forming. Justine stared at the page, her pulse thumping hard at the base of her throat.
The first line, written in elaborate and archaic letters, puzzled her:
TO BREAK A GEAS
Justine knew little about a geas, except that it was pronounced like “guest” with a sh sound instead of a t. A geas was a lifetime enchantment, most often a curse. The effort to break one was so difficult and dangerous that the results were potentially even worse than the original curse. The unlucky victim of a geas was usually better off learning to live with it.
“This can’t be right,” Justine said in bewilderment. “This won’t fix my problem. What does a geas have to do with anything?”
The page rippled emphatically, as if to say, Look at me. Slowly it dawned on her: This was the answer.
The words played through her mind with strange variations on emphasis … this was the answer … this was the answer …
“I’ve been cursed?” she asked after a long time, in the insulated silence. “That’s not possible.”
But it was.
Someone had condemned her to a lifetime of solitude. Who would have done such a thing to her? And why? She had never hurt anyone. She didn’t deserve this. No one did.
Too many feelings were coming to her at once. The cage of her chest was too small to contain them, pressure building behind her ribs. She trembled, breathed, waited, until the shock and pain burned down to a white-hot core of fury.
It took considerable skill and power to cast a spell of lifelong duration. The crafter would most likely have had to permanently sacrifice a portion of her power, which was sufficient deterrent to make a geas a rare spell, indeed.
All of which meant that this had been done to Justine by someone who had hated her.
But a geas wasn’t unbreakable. Nothing was. And no matter what it took, Justine would break this one.
Four
Justine didn’t give a damn about what it would cost her to get rid of the geas. She would do whatever it took. So mote it be. A blaze of injustice filled her. She had spent the past few years waiting and wishing for something that was never going to happen. Because that choice had already been made for her, regardless of what she might have wanted or dreamed of.
She would find out who was responsible. She would turn the geas right around back on them. She would …
Her plans for vengeance faded as she blinked hard against a salty blur. She pressed her palms hard against her eyes. A headache throbbed behind the front and sides of her skull, the kind of pain that no medicine could ease. She thought briefly of calling her mother, even though she and Marigold had been estranged for four years. Even knowing it would do no good. Marigold wouldn’t be sympathetic, and even if she knew something about the geas, she wouldn’t admit it.
Some women gave their children unconditional love. Marigold, however, had meted out affection to Justine like expensive arcade tokens, withholding it whenever Justine had disagreed with her. Since traditional education didn’t interest Marigold, she had done everything possible to discourage Justine from going to community college. She had mocked and criticized Justine’s job as a hotel desk clerk. The last straw, however, had been Justine’s decision to buy the inn.
“Why have you always been so impossible?” Marigold had demanded. “You’ve never wanted to do the one thing you’re good at. Are you really telling me that the biggest dream you can come up with for yourself is housework? Cleaning toilets and changing dirty sheets?”
“I’m sorry,” Justine had said. “I know how much easier it would be for both of us if I’d turned out the way I was supposed to. I don’t belong anywhere … not in a magical world and not in an ordinary one. But between the two, this makes me happier. I like taking care of people. I don’t mind cleaning up after them. And I want a place that’s all my own, so I’ll never have to move again.”
“There’s more to consider than what you want,” Marigold had shot back. “Our circle is the oldest lineaged coven on the West Coast. Once you’re initiated, we’ll have a total of thirteen. You know what that means.”
Yes, Justine had known. Thirteen witches in a coven would result in a power greater than the sum of its parts. And she had felt horribly selfish for not wanting to join, for putting her own needs above the others’. But she had known that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be like them. A lifetime was an awfully long tim
e to be miserable.
“The problem is,” Justine had said, “I’m not interested in learning any more about the craft than I already know.”
That had earned her a scornful glance. “You’re satisfied with knowing a handful of bottle spells and crystal runes? With having barely enough magical ability to entertain children at a birthday party?”
“Don’t forget, I also do balloon animals,” Justine had said, hoping to coax a smile from her.
But Marigold’s face had remained stony. “I never would have had you if I’d thought there was a chance you wouldn’t be part of the coven. I’ve never even heard of a natural-born witch who turned away from the craft.”
The impasse had been hopeless. Marigold was convinced that her plans for Justine’s life were infinitely better than anything Justine could have come up with. Justine had tried to make her understand that it was every person’s right to make those decisions for herself, but eventually she had realized that if Marigold had been capable of understanding the point, she never would have been controlling in the first place.
And if Marigold couldn’t have the kind of daughter she wanted, she didn’t want a daughter at all.
As a consequence, Justine had developed an ambivalent relationship with magic, which was inherently an all-or-nothing proposition. Trying to remain a magical dilettante was like trying to stay a little bit pregnant.
She read the spell again. If she were reading correctly, the rite had to be performed beneath a waning moon at midnight. That made sense: The last phase before the new moon was the ideal time for banishing, releasing, reversing. To succeed in lifting a curse as powerful as a geas, it was best not to cut corners.
Standing, Justine went to the antique writing desk by the window to consult a lunar phase Web site on her laptop.
As luck would have it, tonight was the last night of the waning crescent. If she didn’t try to break the geas now, she would have to wait a full month before she could have another shot. Justine was certain that she couldn’t make it that long. Every cell in her body screamed for action. She felt off course, like a comet that was about to break free of its solar orbit and hurtle out into space.