Page 53 of Hairpin Curves

“Lots of people don’t.” Gaelen smiled apologetically. “I think maybe I’d be more popular if I lied to people.”

Scarlett laughed. “Turns out, that doesn’t work out so well, either.” She rubbed her jaw, staring down at the cards again. Looking at the whole spread made her feel lighter. There it was. All the cards on the table, literally. “Is it weird that I feel better?”

Gaelen began gathering up the cards. “No. That’s normal.”

The cold air stole her breath as she walked out of the shop a few minutes later, a paper shopping bag dangling from her fingertips. The sky seemed grayer. There was no snow on the ground, but a look of snow about the air; she remembered the gray tinge to the sky and the smell of snow from her time living in New York. Come to think of it, she hadn’t checked the weather at all in a few days. Was it supposed to snow?

She was just pulling out her phone to check when Megan’s text came through, saying she was done. Tucking her phone back in her pocket, she headed back to the little witchy shop.

Megan smiled as Scarlett entered, holding her own purchase in a similar paper bag. “What’d you get?” Megan asked, gesturing to Scarlett’s bag.

“Tarot deck.” Scarlett held it up. “You?”

“Hand-carved candle.” Megan looked bright-eyed and happy. She’d been happy like that a lot lately, on this trip. It made Scarlett want to kiss her, and she resisted the desire by stepping back away. She fumbled her phone to check the time.

“We should go if you want to catch the show at the museum.” Scarlett nodded to the door, and then they were on their way, and she could put these feelings aside. There were still many miles to go, and big emotional confessions were not a great idea for long car rides. She could ignore these feelings as long as she needed.

The cards in her bag pulled on her fingertips. Maybe she couldn’t ignore her feelings forever.

Megan’s candle was on her mind all day. She still wasn’t sure how much of all this she believed. Liz, the woman working at the witchy shop, had been a completely non-judgmental listener as Megan unloaded all her complicated feelings. It had started with a few questions, and then Megan was pouring out all her history as Liz listened. Liz had suggested an engraved candle for direction and clarity, and Megan had agreed. For the next half hour, Liz had carved a tall orange candle while Megan had continued to brain dump about her dilemmas, her fears, her uncertainties. Now, sitting in a small restaurant in Salem, she couldn’t quite remember everything she’d said to Liz, but the candle sat beside her waiting to be burned, a physical manifestation of...something.

“You okay?” Scarlett interrupted her reverie, and Megan came back to herself with a start.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” She turned her attention back to the menu spread out in front of her, again looking but not really seeing. The candle weighed on her mind like she hadn’t expected. Liz had told her that once she started burning it, she should burn it every night, keeping it lit each time until the top was entirely melted, and to be open to whatever form direction and clarity might take. She hadn’t expected to feel this connected to a simple hunk of wax, and maybe that was a sign that she wasn’t sleeping enough or something. It took all her focused attention to choose something to eat and then order it when the server came by.

Scarlett started frowning at her phone when the server left. “We’re making the last leg of the trip tomorrow, right?”

“Right.” It was a six-plus-hour drive, first up through the scenic white mountains, then over the border into Canada, and finally the last few hours to Old Quebec.

Scarlett made a face. “How do you feel about moving that up a bit?”

“What?” Megan was looking forward to another good night’s sleep in the hotel. “What do you mean, move it up a bit? We just moved it back a day to get some sleep.”

Scarlett turned her phone around. The image on the screen was an image of mottled blues and purples superimposed on a map of the northeast. “Is that snow?” Megan asked.

“Yeah. That’s for tomorrow.”

“When tomorrow?”

Scarlett looked back at her screen. “Afternoon, it looks like.”

With a six-hour drive, if they left early enough, they should be able to cross the border and be in Quebec before the worst of the snow was falling. And she’d just gotten new tires for her car, so she should be fine, right? The mechanic had told her that with front wheel drive, she shouldn’t have any problems if they ran into snow. “Let’s leave really early, then.”

Scarlett nodded. “I’m really not up for doing that drive tonight.”

“Plus, we’ve already paid for the second night at the hotel here. I don’t want to pay twice.” This was a good decision. They’d get up early, get on the road before the snow, and cross into Canada in the morning. With any luck, they’d be in Quebec by lunchtime.

“I like this plan.” Scarlett put her phone away. “You ready to see your first new country?”

The border crossing felt like the culmination of their trip, even though they were planning to spend some time in Quebec. Once they crossed into Canada, things would change. They’d be heading for the wedding, turning their attention to Juliet, and getting a break from the car. Megan wouldn’t mind getting out of the car, even if it meant the end of her one-on-one time with Scarlett.

“Ready.”

Chapter Thirteen

Scarlett did not like this sky. She couldn’t stop looking up as they loaded the car, at the sunrise turning the horizon bright red despite the gathering clouds. “Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” She’d known the rhyme since childhood, spoken often by her grandfather, a commercial fisherman off the Florida coast. He swore by those rhymes, and he would have told her that these weren’t skies for easy fishing. But they weren’t in Florida, they were driving north out of Salem, Massachusetts, and the snow was already starting to sift lightly out of those gray-washed clouds.

“I thought you said it was supposed to start in the afternoon.” Megan frowned out the window at the skies, eating a muffin from the hotel’s sparse continental breakfast spread that had been even sparser at six in the morning. “It looks like it’s starting now.”