Walt brightens. “Grandmother Bramble!”
“You knew her?”
“I interviewed her. She was the last granny woman of the hollow.”
“Granny woman?” I cock my head. “Isn’t that just a nice way of calling someone a witch?”
Maggie sets one of the donated books on the counter a little aggressively. “Granny women were not witches. They were healers and midwives.”
“Who were known to practice magic,” Walt says. “I interviewed her the day she turned a hundred. She lived a whole year after and died in 1989.Surviving that long out there in the woods? I don’t know, Maggie, it feels like magic to me.”
Maggie scowls.
“Is she related to Mistress Bramble?”
“Sophronia was Coraline’s grandmother.”
At the perplexed look on my face, and probably Twig’s, too, Maggie clarifies. “Coraline is Mistress Bramble’s first name. And she, believe it or not, was born ‘en caul’.”
“Was she really?” I ask, exchanging an excited glance with Twig.
“And,” Walt says with a twinkle in his eye, “there are rumors swirling that she will be this year’s storyteller at Night of the Howl.”
7
MISREMEMBERED
On Sunday afternoon, Twig and I go to Mistress Bramble’s cabin in the woods. I think I hear movement on the other side of her drawn curtains, but she doesn’t answer. We leave—disappointed, but not defeated. I will return every day if I have to. I will keep knocking on her door and I won’t stop until she speaks with me.
That evening, I have two more terms to search.
Tala’nihandde Overlaag.
Neither produce results.
I tell Jude about them over the phone, hoping he might invite me over to talk about it further. But he isn’t feeling well and doesn’t want to spread his germs. I wake up the next morning to a text message.
He’s still under the weather. He can’t give me a ride to school.
I stare at my screen, a tiny knot forming in my stomach.
Normally, Twig would be my backup. But he has a follow-up appointment at the burn clinic, which is killing him softly. The appointment, not the burn. If Lainey is going to be at school today, Twig wants to know what she has to say. I thought Jude’s curiosity would be just as piqued. And yet, he’s staying home. Which means, he must be really sick. I have a hard time picturing Jude—perfect, angelic Jude—sidelined by such trivialities as a head cold or the flu. The idea doesn’t jive in my brain.
Dad pulls to a stop at the front of the carpool line. I give him a peck on the cheek.
“Have a good day,” he calls as I scoot out of his Bronco.
Up ahead, I spot someone with shiny brown hair swinging in a ponytail and my insides pull tight with excitement. But then the girl turns around and it’s not Lainey.
One of my good friends, Harper Mahoney, joins me with a friendly nudge. “Where’s your man?”
I frown. “He’s not feeling well.”
“Don’t worry.” She wraps her arm around myelbow. “I’m sure when school’s over you can order him some soup from the Cobbler and nurse him back to health.”
The idea makes me smile.
Inside, the air hums with anticipation. Classmates talk animatedly, many of them craning their necks to look this way and that. Apparently, I’m not the only one hoping to catch sight of Lainey. As Harper and I weave through the throng of students, I pin my attention on her locker. Last week, it was a shrine. Now? It’s just a regular locker. The custodian must have taken all the notes and decorations down. Meanwhile, Ivy Winslow’s shrine remains.
