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“Not now. Friday, or something. We could see a movie.” I stuck the spoon in my chemistry book, closing it.
“That’s gross.” She made a face, and turned the page.
“What do you mean?” I could feel my face turning red.
I was only talking about a movie.
You idiot.
She pointed at my dirty spoon bookmark. “I meant that.”
I smiled, relieved. “Yeah. Bad habit I picked up from my mom.”
“She had a thing for cutlery?”
“No, books. She would have maybe twenty going at a time, lying all over our house—on the kitchen table, by her bed, the bathroom, our car, her bags, a little stack at the edge of each stair. And she’d use anything she could find for a bookmark. My missing sock, an apple core, her reading glasses, another book, a fork.”
“A dirty old spoon?”
“Exactly.”
“Bet that drove Amma crazy.”
“It drove her nuts. No, wait for it—she was—” I dug deep. “P. E. R. T. U. R. B. E. D.”
“Nine down?” She laughed.
“Probably.”
“This was my mom’s.” She held out one of the charms suspended from the long silver chain she never seemed to take off. It was a tiny gold bird. “It’s a raven.”
“For Ravenwood?”
“No. Ravens are the most powerful birds in the Caster world. Legend has it that they can draw energy into themselves and release it in other forms. Sometimes they’re even feared because of their power.” I watched as she let go of the raven and it fell back into place between a disc with strange writing etched into it and a black glass bead.
“You’ve got a lot of charms.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked down at the necklace. “They aren’t really charms, just things that mean something to me.” She held out the tab of the soda can. “This is from the first can of orange soda I ever drank, sitting on the porch of our house in Savannah. My gramma bought it for me when I came home from school crying because no one put anything in my valentine shoebox at school.”
“That’s cute.”
“If by cute you mean tragic.”
“I mean, that you kept it.”
“I keep everything.”
“What’s this one?” I pointed to the black bead.
“My Aunt Twyla gave it to me. They’re made from these rocks in a really remote area of Barbados. She said it would bring me luck.”
“It’s a cool necklace.” I could see how much it meant to her, the way she held each thing on it so carefully.
“I know it just looks like a bunch of junk. But I’ve never lived anywhere very long. I’ve never had the same house, or the same room for more than a few years, and sometimes I feel like the little pieces of me on this chain are all I have.”
I sighed and pulled a blade of grass. “Wish I’d lived in one of those places.”
“But you have roots here. A best friend you’ve had your whole life, a house with a bedroom that’s always been yours. You probably even have one of those doorjambs with your height written on it.” I did.
