“Awesome,” cried Mardi, high-fiving Freya.
“Cool,” Molly echoed.
“Come on, Freya,” Ingrid chided. “You’re not helping our cause here. You and I live in North Hampton, a disorienting space that doesn’t exist on any map and is protected by strong spells. It would take a heck of a lot for us to be persecuted here in this day and age.
“But you twins, on the other hand,” she continued, looking squarely at Mardi and Molly, “have been living large in the public eye. Granted, New York City can absorb massive amounts of weirdness. Which is all the more reason that we have to hand it to you. It’s quite a feat on your part to have the mortals who live there actually beginning to suspect witchcraft and enchantment. It’s saying a lot in today’s skeptical, electronic age . . .”
Ingrid seemed to lose her train of thought for the moment. Freya took up the slack: “The rumor about that young couple who died is that the two of you somehow put a spell on them and used your powers to force them onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. If that rumor turns into a formal legal accusation, we’re in big trouble. The one thing the White Council has forbidden is another witch hunt. They won’t tolerate any more trials or convictions. So, if it’s not true that you killed them, you’ve got to cooperate with us to help us figure out what really happened. You have to let Jean-Baptiste help you to retrieve that night.”
“What do you mean, ‘if it’s not true’?” Mardi’s blood rose. “Of course we didn’t kill them. We barely even knew them. We ran in totally different crowds. But that’s beside the point. We would never kill anyone. I’ve never even killed a roach with my magic.” She paused to gather her thoughts. “Okay, maybe we express a little uncontrolled anger here and there. But mostly, we have fun with our powers. Believe me, we don’t murder people. We don’t even really hurt people. We sometimes toy with them is all.”
“Yeah, mostly we just embarrass them,” Molly added.
“Molly, Mardi.” Jean-Baptiste rolled their names off his tongue with calm authority. “Or, rather, I should call you Mooi and Magdi, for those are your true given names, Thor’s daughters, twin goddesses of strength and rage: you will both grow serious now, if you please. And you will both please close your eyes.”
Before she had time to raise an objection, Mardi’s lids dropped thick and leaden over her eyes. Instantly, the cubic beach house was blacked out. She no longer felt she was sitting in the light, airy living room on stilts over the beach. Gone were the pale wood, the brushed steel, and the glassy views of the gray green sea. Instead, she saw a swirl of lush, garish colors: bloodred, royal blue, burnished gold, all tinseled over with sprays of silver. She sank into a decadent and disturbing dream.
There was water here too, but it was not at all the vibrant water of the ocean. It was the overheated water of an interior lap pool encased in black marble. She was swimming in somebody’s private pool, in a dimly mood-lit room. Along the shining black rim of the deck were half-empty glasses of alcohol in varying shades. The drinks were sloshed everywhere. For all she knew, what looked like the white flakes of a snow globe, swirling around the filter, were the remains of spilled cocaine. The water was too warm to actually move in, and the pool was much too small for real laps. One flip turn and you would be halfway across it. Mardi felt herself stewing, like a lobster in a pot over a flame, slowly losing her will to live.
As her senses grew more acute and the picture of the pool in its luxurious setting came more sharply into focus, she realized that she wasn’t alone in the water. Molly was there too. And Molly wasn’t wearing a swimsuit. Mardi looked down at her own body. Neither was she.
They were skinny-dipping. And there was a boy with them. He was chasing them in a half-playful, half hostile game. There was much splashing and flirting, but also a bit of fear. Was it Bret? He had Bret’s sharp features and platinum hair, but she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t remember.
Molly seemed to be teasing the boy, whoever he was. “It’s so, so powerful. You know you want it! But the ring is ours. You can’t have it. And you can’t have us.”
Mardi’s every intuition told her they should get out of this water and run. But her body was lulled by the warmth, and it was all she could do to dodge Bret-not-Bret’s unwelcome caresses as he dove after her and her sister. When was this farce going to end?
Then the boy was shouting at them. Except his voice was different from Bret’s, higher-pitched and whinier, but oddly familiar. She knew she had heard this voice recently, but in the confusion of her fugue state she could not match it to a face.
Finally, Mardi’s frustration boiled over. Tapping into the anger at her core, she was able to break through whatever curse was blurring her mind.
“Get away!” she screamed. The desperation in his movements made her feel physically sick. Fitfully, he grasped for the girls’ limbs in the dark water of his private Manhattan pool. “You bitches are going to burn in Hell!”
Mardi despised him as she had never despised anyone before. “Leave us alone! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch my sister! You can never have our ring!”
The power of her own voice brought her back to her senses. She opened her eyes to find herself back on the couch in Freya’s stark modern living room, surrounded by kindly, curious, and concerned faces. She looked at Molly, who was also blinking and who appeared deeply confused. Molly was shaking, pale, and drained.
Mardi had the urge to take Molly into her arms and cling to her. What was it that they had been through together? Who was that weird guy in the pool with them? Why did he want their ring? What was so powerful about it?
“I think,” said Jean-Baptiste from the depths of his leather seat, giving Freya and Ingrid a meaningful look, “that that we have certainly done enough work for one afternoon.”
After they were released from their session, Mardi and Molly stood together on the empty beach in front of the house, catching their breath and comparing visions. They found that they had been in the same black marble pool, taunted by the same creepy guy with the bizarre whining voice. He had wanted their ring, and they had been trying desperately to keep it away from him.
“Did you see whether or not he finally got it?” Mardi asked.
Molly shook her head. “I’m not even sure which one of us had it that night.”
“It must have been you because you woke up with it, right?”
“I guess. It’s all so vague . . . But I remember clearly from the vision that it was really important to us to keep the ring away from him. I remember sensing that it was super powerful.”
“Yeah, I remember that too . . . Maybe the ring is more than we’ve always thought.”
“You mean more than just something between the two of us?” Molly lifted her finger. The rose gold caught the soft light of the setting sun. The diamondback pattern shimmered.
“Yeah, Molly, it’s definitely bigger than we are.” Mardi took a thick platinum box chain off from around her neck. “Maybe we should wear it around our necks for a while? That way we’ll be more aware of it, and of who has it, instead of slipping it on and off our fingers without always remembering. It’ll be safer. Here, take this chain.”
Molly didn’t argue. She took the chain, unclasped it, slipped the ring onto it, and put it on. The ring hit her just below her clavicle.
As Mardi looked at her twin with the rose gold gleaming against her chest, she had the distinct impression that she was gazing into a mirror at her own dark features, her own black hair, and her own uncertain future.
12
RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
What are you doing tonight?
With a surreptitious glance at the phone in her bag, since she was supposed to be minding the kids, Molly read Tris’s text yet again. She appreciated his restraint in not using abbreviations. Nothing was more of a turnoff than being referred to as “u.” Tris was obviously a product of good breedi
ng. She approved.
She started to compose an answer in her head. This was no easy task. She wanted to see him again, but she didn’t want to seem overly available.
“Jo,” she asked, “if you want someone to want to be your friend in kindergarten, what do you do?”
Molly was walking the children to the lunchtime story hour at the North Hampton Public Library, pushing Henry in his all-terrain stroller while Jo skipped beside her. The plan was for Molly to drop them off and then head to her afternoon and evening shift at the Cheesemonger.
The library was about a mile from the house, on a leafy green square with a stunning view of the water. When it had almost been torn down a few years ago to make way for condos, Ingrid had spearheaded the effort to have it landmarked, thwarting developers in order to preserve the character and integrity of the town. She still talked a lot about that battle, about getting the mayor on her side, the petitions and the fund-raisers. Ingrid, Molly thought, faintly baffled, was one of these people who actually took pride in bettering the world around her. Was Ingrid a different species of witch from Mardi and her? Molly couldn’t imagine herself ever taking in two obnoxious teenagers for a whole summer out of the kindness of her heart. Come to think of it, was there any kindness in her heart?
There had to be, didn’t there?
“If I like someone and I want them to like me back, then I ask Mommy to help me bake some brownies to give them,” Jo said matter-of-factly. “We always bake our brownies from my grandma Joanna’s recipe. I never got to meet my grandma, but Mommy says she still loves me and that her magic is still in the house, and that’s what makes all our sweets taste so good.”
This answer cut Molly to the quick. She had no idea who her own mother was; their father never talked about her—he was too sad—and no one had ever baked with her in her life.
Hating to feel sorry for herself, she scrambled to find the humor in the situation.
“I don’t think,” she smirked, “that brownies are the fastest way to his heart.”
“To whose heart?” asked Jo.
But Molly didn’t answer. She had veered into strategy mode. The trick to hooking Tris, she decided after several false mental starts, was to blame the fact that she was free tonight on the dullness of North Hampton. She should imply that, had Tris tried texting her back in the city, he would have had to get in a long, long line . . . Now that she had her message, she had to come up with the actual words to convey it.
• • •
Having handed Henry and Jo off to their mother, Molly went another mile to the Cheesemonger. Her crisp white bandeau-top sundress would easily transition into night if she were to meet Tris for a late dinner. She was wearing flats but had heels in her tote. Since Mardi had given her a ride home last evening from work, Ingrid’s bike was still parked behind the shop. Molly had aligned her stars so that nothing could get in her way. Getting what she wanted was a specialty of hers, she thought with pride, having completely recovered her confidence after her unexpected moment of doubt on the street with Jo, that sweet little witch.
Inside the Cheesemonger, Marshall was singing a song about the runner beans he was busy trimming. He waved a handful of beans at her and belted out a song about running with the devil.
It was the head-banging Van Halen song that Daddy still liked to blast through the house when he was feeling spry. It was so incongruous with Marshall’s boy-next-door looks that she burst out laughing.
“What?” He smiled. “What’s so funny?”
“It’s just that you don’t look like you could run with the devil for a second.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” He shrugged his shoulders playfully. “Take, for instance, these very runner beans. They look pretty misshapen, and they have a few brown spots. Their color isn’t uniform. If you were looking for perfection in a gleaming supermarket, you might turn up your nose at these particular beans. But these particular beans are actually fantastic, bursting with flavor. All of their color and beauty is on the inside. So you have to know them in order to love them. Do you want to try one?”
“Sure. Can I eat it raw?”
“Absolutely,” he said.
Molly suddenly felt shy as she took a bean from his outstretched hand. He had been keeping his eyes mostly on his work, and this was the first time he was really looking at her. “Um,” he said, watching her face for signs of appreciation as she chewed. “You look pretty today. I mean, you look especially pretty today. Because you look pretty every day.” He grew flustered and looked down at the floor, where he obviously latched on to the first thing that caught his eye. “I like your shoes.”
“Thanks. I like your beans. You’re right, they taste way better than they look. I guess this is another one of your life lessons, right?”
He shrugged. “Do you want to help me slice them? It would be good to get ahead on prep work before people start coming in for dinner stuff on their way home from the beach.”
“Good thinking. Sure I’ll help you. Why not?”
Because Marshall assumed Molly wanted to be helpful, she found she actually did. It was like he drew a sweet shape for her to step into. She found herself in a cheerful role she had never quite imagined before.
As he was showing her how to slice the runner beans, humming the Van Halen song again, he placed his right hand on top of hers over the paring knife. “Try to do it diagonally, like this,” he said gently.
“Okay . . . So you think I’m pretty, huh?” she asked with a wicked smile.
Under normal circumstances, she would have tortured and humiliated a guy who tried to flirt with her like this when he should have known he had zero chance. But either she was starting to lose her edge, or she kinda liked him, because she was definitely flirting back.
The doorbell tinkled with the beginning of the late-afternoon rush. For the next few hours, she and Marshall worked together, side by side, until about seven, when business started to taper, since everyone in town knew that the shop closed at eight.
At one point around five o’clock, she stole into the bathroom, pulled out her phone, and finally answered Tris. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing tonight. The possibilities are so endless in this town that I don’t know where to begin. Any advice?
After that, she checked her phone between customers and sometimes even in the middle of preparing an order. Why wasn’t he texting her back? Who did this guy think he was?
The irritation she had felt back at the party over a week ago overtook her again. If anyone in the shop even thought about messing with her, if anyone asked for their turkey sliced a bit thinner or for light dressing on their line-caught tuna salad, she was afraid of what she might do to them. But the evening customers didn’t cross any lines, and Marshall stayed buoyant throughout. Molly found no excuse to blow her top, which made the waiting all that much harder.
Finally, as she was hanging up her apron and Marshall was starting to switch off the lights, a message flashed on her phone.
Have you finished your shift at the Cheesemonger?
How did Tris even know she was working there? They hadn’t seen each other since the party, and she hadn’t mentioned her job in any of her texts to him. He must be watching her from afar. Spying. How sexy.
Yes, she typed. She certainly was finished with the shop for today. Assuming he would now offer to pick her up and take her somewhere for the evening, she started fishing in her giant bag for her heels.
“Hey, Marshall,” she said, “do you mind leaving the lights on for another minute or two? I’m going to pop into the bathroom and freshen up.”
“Of course. I’ll wait for you. You have Ingrid’s bike here, right?”
“I do.”
“I—well—I have my bike too. And I was wondering, wondering . . . wondering if you wanted to take a ride together over to the North Inn. You know, the bar where Frey
a works?”
Marshall was seriously getting ahead of himself. He was nice and all, but she would have to put him in his place. The rush of haughtiness that filled her soul reminded her of who she really was. She was Molly Overbrook, and she was unattainable by ordinary means. She had been playing at being sweet to this cute, but very ordinary boy. But no more.
“Some other time, Cheeseboy. Sorry, I have a date tonight.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Although he looked disappointed, he was not as crestfallen as she would have liked, which meant he might try to ask her out again. She was coming up with something else to say when her phone beeped. It must be Tris saying he was on his way. She felt a rush of victory. Marshall became the last thing on her mind.
She darted into the bathroom, pulled out her makeup bag and began to curl her eyelashes. The lighting was terrible, overbright, so she did a little dimming incantation. “That’s much better,” she sighed to herself. When she had finished with her lashes, she took a look at her phone to see where she should wait for him and was miffed to read that he wasn’t actually coming for her.
Can I expect you at Fair Haven within the hour?
What, was he summoning her? How cosmically conceited of him! It was all she could do not to crack the bathroom mirror.
Somehow, she steeled herself and managed to walk out of the shop and hop onto her bicycle without wreaking any havoc.
“Well,” said Marshall, locking the door to the shop, “good night, Molly. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”
She waited for him to pedal off before she started riding in the direction of home. Because there was no way she was heading to Fair Haven and giving Tris the satisfaction of answering his booty call.
Or was there?