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“Why not just sell them at a garage sale? Or give them away?” Jane demanded.
“Well, that would be rude!” Mrs. Jameson cried.
“Bet you don’t put Jenny’s gifts in a closet,” Jane muttered.
“Don’t start that,” her mother warned her.
“OK, so are these in chronological order?” Jane sighed. “If I dig deep enough, will I find the clay handprint I made for you in kindergarten?”
Since Jane seemed to find the situation funny, Mrs. Jameson had relaxed a bit and stopped trying to wedge herself between us and her trove of rejected treasures. “No, there’s no order to it. It was sort of like playing Jenga with gift boxes. I just stacked it however it would fit.”
Jane shot an amused glance my way and rolled up her sleeves. “I hope you like tedious stacking games, Nola.”
* * *
I bloody hated Jenga.
We’d been through nearly every box in the closet, and so far, we’d found tea towels, sets of bath products in various smells, and a frightening number of angel figurines.
“I thought you collected these!” Jane exclaimed, chucking another reject over her shoulder.
“No, your grandmother used to give them to me every year, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I found them downright creepy,” Mrs. Jameson confessed with a shudder. “And then you girls got to the age when you started buying us gifts, and you sort of latched onto the angels. And by then, it was too late.”
“I need to take a break,” Jane muttered. “Mama, do you still keep the—”
“Faux Type O, red label, in the vegetable crisper,” Mrs. Jameson assured her. “Nola, can I get you something?”
“More water, please?” I asked, smiling despite the fact that my teeth still tingled a bit from the sucrose assault on my dental enamel.
I heard their voices fade as they descended the stairs. I flopped back onto the guest bed and closed my eyes. My head felt cloudy, and my nose itched from all the dust in the closet. How in the bloody hell did I get here? I wondered. Lying in some strangers’ guest room, rifling through their unwanted knickknacks. Just a few weeks ago, I’d had a normal life with a normal job. Well, seminormal. I was able to pretend well enough that Stephen hadn’t run for the hills.
Aw, hellfire, I’d forgotten to call Stephen again.
He was going to be furious with me! And rightly so. I’d been in town for days, and I had only called him once. Even after my shirtless Neanderthal neighbor mocked our relationship, I’d just sloughed off to bed and fallen asleep. This did not bode well. It boded . . . very badly.
I was starting to realize how little Stephen really fit into my life. I tried so hard to compartmentalize our time together so it wouldn’t overlap with my family life. That wasn’t healthy. I could imagine Jed sitting around with my uncles at the Black Sheep, sharing horrid, manly stories. I could see him charming my aunts in a way that didn’t make them feel condescended to. I shook off these thoughts, as they were neither likely nor productive. Nor were they fair to Stephen.
Squirming on the purple quilted bedspread, I dug my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and dialed Stephen’s number. It was ungodly early by Dublin time, but I thought perhaps I could blame exhaustion and time difference for my lack of communication. I sat up slowly as the call went to voice mail. I yawned loudly and tried to sound addled and sleepy. It wasn’t that much of a stretch.>I took out the sketch of the object Nana had called “Sea,” which was your typical silver bell, dotted with intricate Celtic designs that spiraled out like ripples on the surface of water. Nana described it as heavy and “flat,” meaning it never quite rang with the delicate, resonant note it was meant to have. The next sketch showed a circular clay altar plaque, “Earth,” which was vaguely shaped like an acorn. Then there was “Air,” the long, thin ritual knife used to direct energy flowing through the air. Ritual knives were also associated with fire, but I suppose my ancestors wanted to be as obvious as possible by using a magically preserved candle—“Flame”—to represent fire.
Jane joined us, poring over the sketches to see if she recognized anything. When her gaze landed on the rendering of Flame, she gasped. “Oh, no!” She clapped her hands over her face and began cursing vehemently.
“What?” I cried. “Please don’t tell me you threw it out, Jane.”
“No, nothing like that,” she promised, looking up at me with a distinct grimace. “I may have given that candle to my mama for Mother’s Day last year.”
Dick broke out of his near-catatonic staring-at-me state and let out a loud, barking laugh. “You regifted your mama something from the shop for Mother’s Day?”
“No one ever gave it to me as a gift; therefore, it is not a regift.”
“You didn’t pay for it!” Andrea protested.
“Did you see the storeroom before I got here?” Jane demanded. “Trust me, I paid for it.”
“Can we focus on the fact that Jane’s mother may be using my family’s magical heritage to decorate her guest bath? We need to get to your parents’ house before she decides to light it!”
There was a long pause, followed by Jane and Andrea laughing hysterically.
“I’m glad you two find this so amusing.”
