With very little ceremony, the Cheesemonger had closed down. Ocean Vines, the tony wine shop next door that Molly had been briefly attracted to on her job search at the beginning of the summer, was quietly expanding to take over the gourmet store’s narrow space. Ashley Green, for one, could already no longer remember when she hadn’t risen early to bake for her guests in her own kitchen at Rose Cottage, since there was absolutely nowhere in town to buy a decent muffin or scone. Only Jean-Baptiste, as he prepared to return to New Orleans for the fall, recalled, wistfully, that the raspberry and ginger scones from the Cheesemonger had been nothing short of exquisite.
It would have been a happy and relatively carefree time for the twins were it not for two things. The case back in New York was still looming. Dad had called to somberly announce that a September trial date had now been set. And, even more urgently, no one quite knew what to do at this point with the ring. For now, it was “safe” on Mardi’s hand. She seemed to be the only person who could keep its evil in check. Something about her skin nullified the curse. But still, she wanted it off her body. Even if it stayed inactive, it put her in grave danger.
Molly had made it very clear that she would never wear the ring again. It was too bound up for her with the nightmare of her escapade in Montauk. Whenever she looked at it, its pattern seeming to move like a slithering diamondback rattlesnake, she felt a wave of horror.
“Promise me,” she said to Mardi, “that when we have our accounts back, we’ll come up with a different symbol to float to each other. I never want to see that thing again.”
“Of course,” Mardi agreed. But that was the least of their problems.
• • •
Mardi suggested to Ingrid and Freya that they bury the ring. But Ingrid pointed out that it might poison the soil, ruining crops and causing strange cancers and birth defects.
“Okay, then. Scratch that,” Mardi sighed.
“What if we melted it?” Molly asked.
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Freya said, glancing at the light on Mardi’s finger. “It’s not the ring itself but the Rhinegold that’s cursed. The Rhinegold can assume any shape at all and still wreak havoc in the world.”
The four witches were gathered in Freya’s airy living room, sipping fresh-squeezed lemonade from tall glasses on the coffee table, which was nothing more than a simple glass cube. Because this room was so uncluttered, they felt they could think clearly here. Even the piles of Freya’s excess clothes were neat and streamlined, like colored pillars in a work of minimalist art. This was neutral territory, slightly outside of space and time, removed from the living chaos of everyday life. It was a place for introspection, and perhaps even for reason.
Mardi, Molly, Freya, and Ingrid were waiting for Jean-Baptiste in order to have a final session. This would not be a memory session per se, since, thanks to Alberich’s overpowering need to brag about his crimes and his hatred to Molly, the facts about the fateful New York night had finally been fully recovered. Instead, the witches had asked Jean-Baptiste to help with their remaining dilemmas: how to deal with the ring, how to use the evidence on Alberich’s cell phone to prove Mardi and Molly’s innocence so that the White Council would be appeased, and how to find out who had saved them from the jaws of death that night, sending them back, oblivious, into the comfort of their beds. Even if the god of memory did not directly provide them with the answers they sought, they hoped that his guiding questions and eminent wisdom would help them come to these answers in his presence.
There was a polite knock on the front door.
Mardi jumped up to answer.
“Hello, Jean-Baptiste. It’s really great to see you.”
“The pleasure is all mine.”
He seemed to arrive everywhere on foot, no matter the distance, without ever having broken a sweat, jacket on, pocket square freshly pressed. He was the incarnation of elegance.
Mardi took a moment to appreciate him. “You’re pretty cool for an old guy.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He smiled.
“Come in,” Freya said. “We saved your spot for you.” She gestured to the tan leather Eames chair.
“I believe,” he said, taking his accustomed seat, “that the painful part of our work is now behind us. We are now faced, at present, with practical concerns. These are urgent, yes. But the urgency is of a different nature from before. I hope I can be of some assistance.”
They told him that their first order of business was to find a safe place to keep the Rhinegold. They weren’t sure how much longer Mardi’s magic would be able to neutralize it. The pressure was too great. She wanted it off her finger.
Having listened carefully, Jean-Baptiste began by putting an open-ended query to the witches: “Is there anywhere on this Earth that you could conceive of hiding it?”
Ingrid answered him. “On this Earth, no. Midgard is too fragile an ecology to absorb so much negative energy. With all the global warming and pollution and strife already affecting this planet, a curse this strong would push it into chaos. We can’t let that happen. Midgard won’t support it.”
“Wait a second!” Molly stood and started jumping up and down in her steep wedges.
Mardi winced. She wished her sister could be a tad more dignified. But once she had she heard Molly’s idea, she stopped caring. Between exclamations of “OMG!” and “I’ve got it!” Molly was able to articulate a plan to have Trent ask the Valkyries to come back for the ring and take it for safekeeping into Limbo. “Let it curse people down there for all we care!”
“I never thought I’d say this, Molly, but you’re brilliant.” Mardi beamed.
Jean-Baptiste was more measured in his response. “Freya? Ingrid? What do you say to this plan?”
Freya answered him first. “I say close, but no cigar.”
“Yes,” Ingrid echoed. “You’re on the right track, girls, but it’s not so simple.”
The twins cried out in protest together. For once they were able to agree on something, and instead of celebrating with them, Freya and Ingrid were going to poke holes?
“We don’t exactly want the Rhinegold in Limbo. There are too many unsavory characters languishing there. And if the Valkyries make a big deal of bringing it down, Alberich might somehow get his hands on it again.”
“But,” Freya took up Ingrid’s thread, “Molly’s idea of hiding the ring in another world is an excellent one. And, since North Hampton happens to be located on a seam, we’re uniquely placed to get it into the gloaming space that borders the Underworld. If we could find the entrance to the gloaming within the renovated Fair Haven, we could bury the ring there and know that it would be safely out of the way for centuries, or until we find a way to undo the curse.”
“The passageway used to be in the ballroom,” Ingrid continued. “They changed the paneling in the renovation, but I imagine that beneath it the connection is still intact. I’m sure that Tyr will help us find our way.”
“Of course he will,” Freya agreed.
“It seems,” said Jean-Baptiste in conclusion, “that you have found your solution. And that the four of you have found it together. Bravo.”
Mardi tingled with restlessness. Now that there was an end in sight, she wanted to be rid of the ring immediately. “Great! What are we waiting for? I’ll text Trent right away. Let’s go.”
Molly grabbed her bag. “What she said!”
“Just a moment, girls.” Ingrid stayed resolutely seated. Why did she always have to be so slow and deliberate about everything? “I know you are eager to rid yourselves of the ring. We all are dying to get it out of our lives, believe me. But, as long as we are fortunate enough to have Jean-Baptiste among us, don’t you think we should let him help us come up with a way to prove your innocence in New York? After all, he guided you toward discovering what really happened that night. His instincts are invaluable.
”
Mardi had to admit that Ingrid had a point. She looked at Molly, who was gently placing her purse back on the floor, ready to stick things out a little longer. They both had realized by now that if they blew the police investigation, the consequences would be dire. The White Council had been quiet of late. No more warning notes to Dad. But this was not to say that the Council did not hold major punishments in store for anyone who threatened to reveal the covenant of its witches.
The twin goddesses of strength and rage looked to the god of memory for guidance.
“We have the phone that shows everything that really happened and proves beyond any doubt that we didn’t kill them—in fact, we tried to save them—but we don’t know how we can use it.” Mardi spoke with a rare tentative quality to her voice. She pressed her tongue stud against her teeth in thought. It was so frustrating to have the perfect proof, and to have no way to use it. “It—it reveals way too much about magic to the mortals. The White Council would roast us alive if we introduced it as evidence. There’s no way to prove what happened without doing exactly what we’re supposed to never do.”
“Yep,” Molly summed it up. “We’re pretty screwed.”
“It seems to me,” Jean-Baptiste mused, “that in this particular instance, Magdi and Mooi, you two have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, if I were your father, I would be very proud of you. My advice to you is this: no matter what the ultimate outcome in the mortal realm, you have behaved overall with great honor and bravery. You risked everything. When the choice was before you, your true characters shone through. And since your arrival here in North Hampton, you have defeated both Alberich and the curse of the Rhinegold, two of the greatest scourges of our times. Your story is one of supernatural courage. And if I were your father, I would want to know it. And, as I say, I would be proud. Very proud.”
“Well, when you put it like that . . .” the twins thought aloud, as one.
Immediately, they emailed their dad the video from Alberich’s phone, along with a blow-by-blow of their exploits.
Within twenty minutes, Mardi’s cell rang.
“S’up?”
“How about ‘hello, Dad’?”
“S’up?”
“I see that some things are never going to change.” There was a lightness to his tone that Mardi hadn’t heard for a long time.
“Dad, I can tell you have good news. What have you done?”
“Well, first of all, I’ve convinced Headingley not to suspend you and Molly next year, provided there are no more bizarre incidents with flying lunch items and radical changes of hair color among the staff. I’m afraid this called for a very large donation on the part of our family foundation. We’re endowing a scholarship.”
“How nice of us. But did you look at the video we sent? Is there anything we can do?”
“You’ve already done it, Mardi.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes, believe it or not, honesty is the best policy. I’ve shared the tape with the White Council.”
“Dad. You didn’t! And, Dad, it’s not called a tape. It’s a video. You’re, like, twenty-five years behind the times.” She rolled her eyes. Dad was such a loser, but he was their loser. Molly, Freya, Ingrid, and Jean-Baptiste were all staring at her, the beginnings of smiles lighting up their faces.
“Darling, please hear me out. Because you two have taken such great risks, both to save the mortals and to fight the curse of the Rhinegold, the White Council has determined that it will, in turn, take a risk on your behalf.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The Council is has given me permission cast a spell of oblivion around the deaths of the mortals.”
“What, their families and friends are going to forget them? That’s not right!”
“You’re misunderstanding me. No one will forget them. But people are going to soon be forgetting how exactly they died. It’s a very complicated process of erasure, which is the reason it is almost never performed. There’s not a lot of room for error. It involves going back and restreaming months’ worth of media as well as entering the memories of dozens of witnesses to blur the lines. Luckily, the Council trusts me to carry it out. And if I blow it, it’s on my head. So I’ve got my work cut out for me. The real estate deals are on the back burner for the next few weeks. I may not have always been here for you, girls, which no doubt explains a few things. But I watched what you did in that subway station. And now it’s my turn to kick in.”
“Wow, Dad. I never thought I’d hear you sing the praises of blurred lines. I’m impressed.”
“Blurred lines? What are you talking about?”
Molly reached for the phone, and Mardi handed it to her.
“Dad, we have one more question. Maybe you can help us.” Molly felt all the eyes of the room fall on her. “Who could have rescued Mardi and me after we were killed on the subway tracks? Who brought us back from the dead?”
There was silence on the other end of the line. A sigh. “I can’t be positive,” he said. “But I do know there is someone with strong ties to the Underworld who loves you very much and who may have called in a very special favor. Someone who thinks you and your sister should fulfill your destinies here on Earth, to make sure witches use their power for the good, to stay strong against the hatred of certain evil men.”
Instantly, although she had never met her mother, Molly was flooded with certainty. “You mean our mother? She’s looking out for us?”
“Always,” he said. “Your mother is quite a force.”
Molly looked straight at her twin. Their smiles locked. They weren’t abandoned after all.
41
I’LL BE MISSING YOU
It was the twins’ last evening in town. Labor Day. They were getting ready for their farewell dinner at Goose’s Landing, which was opening that night, at long last, to great fanfare. The dock was strewn with fairy lights and ribbons in celebration. There was going to be a lobster bake under a full moon.
Trent would be there, of course, along with Freya, Ingrid, and Matt. Graciella had offered to babysit for Jo and Henry. Jean-Baptiste, his mission accomplished, had already headed home to New Orleans, so they would raise a glass to him as they ate. He had given each girl her own pocket square as a souvenir, suggesting that they carry them as handkerchiefs. Mardi’s was jet black. Molly’s was hot pink.
“Let me dress both of you tonight,” Freya had offered. “That way you can pack all your stuff so you won’t have to deal tomorrow.”
At first, Molly had been skeptical. She thought she had made it perfectly clear that she was not so into the vintage.
“Come on, Molly, I have some classic pieces that will look amazing on you.” Freya winked a bright green eye. She was irresistible.
Half an hour later, Molly was wearing a pink leather body-hugging jacket and skirt.
“Oh, Fury!” Molly squealed, picking up her little dog and standing on tiptoes to admire herself in one of Freya’s many full-length mirrors. “Check us out!”
“You can keep it,” said Freya.
Molly didn’t know how to thank her.
While Freya worked with Mardi on something more down and dirty to wear, Molly tried on several pairs of strappy sandals, finally settling on a simple white option that looked reassuringly new.
When Ingrid poked her head into the attic wardrobe wonderland to say it was almost time to leave for their reservation, Mardi gave Molly a significant look.
Molly knew it was time to bring up the subject that she and her sister had stayed up half of last night discussing. She had said she would ask, and she was going to be as good as her word. Molly took a deep breath and dove in. “Ingrid, Mardi and I have something we want to ask you, but we don’t think we should do it in front of Matt at dinner. Can we have a minute now?”
Ingrid nodded kindly. Freya looked
intrigued.
Molly continued. “Do you remember the night of the storm, when we were searching for Mardi on the water, and we found that little drowned boy, and you, well, you called on your mother and you were able to bring him back from the other side?”
“Of course,” Ingrid replied softly, understanding now why they would not be able to discuss this matter at the dinner table.
“Well, here’s the thing: Mardi and I were hoping you could do something like that again. For our friends. What happened to them was so totally unfair. And even though we didn’t do it, our magic was involved. We want to make it right. Please, Ingrid? Can you and Freya please get your mother to help bring them back from the Underworld? They don’t belong there yet.”
Molly found she was crying. She looked at Mardi, then Freya, then Ingrid. They all had tears welling up in their eyes too.
Ingrid put her arm around Molly, while Freya took both Mardi’s hands. The two older witches looked long and searchingly at one another and shook their heads.
“It’s a beautiful thought, girls,” Ingrid said gently. “But it’s impossible. It’s much too late. They have been dead too long. There is nothing of their souls left anymore in the mortal realm. If we were, by some miracle, to be able to bring some part of them back, the results would be disastrous.”
“They would come back as zombies,” sighed Freya. “Or, maybe even worse, as wraiths.”
“So,” Molly sniffed, “there’s nothing at all we can do to show them how much we care?”
“Nothing?” Mardi echoed.
“Well,” Ingrid said, “there is one possibility.”
Freya gave her sister a questioning look.