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“Tell me,” I begged him.
He smirked and raised his eyebrows. “The shadow never moves. It isn’t a sundial. It’s a time lock that’s keeping that little patch of earth nice and fresh and as close to how it was the moment Maisie disappeared as possible. Now tell me, do you feel a little more like celebrating?”
I went up on my toes and kissed his forehead. Maybe, just maybe, everything would end up all right after all.
EIGHT
We needed a large space, one where we could work magic without attracting the prying eyes of the other witch families. To my surprise, Jilo volunteered the use of her haint-blue chamber, a magical hall that existed just outside our dimension but could still connect to any place within it. It stood as a testament to Jilo’s skill that she, a non-witch, could use borrowed power to build such a thing. For years, she had secretly connected it to a room in our own house, making her capable of coming and going as she pleased. Not that she’d snooped around too much on her own. She’d relied on the boo hag who had camouflaged himself first as Oliver’s imaginary friend, Wren, and then as Jackson. Wren had manifested himself in our home for decades, but my family had never caught on to his true nature, assuming he was a tulpa, or a thought-form, a thing so well imagined that it had separated itself from the one who’d originally envisioned it.
I hadn’t been inside Jilo’s haint-blue room since the night I’d found Wren there holding a knife to Jilo’s throat. Walls, floor, everything had been colored the same aquamarine that was prized for its efficacy in repelling unfriendly spirits. That being said, if you invited the spirits in, the way Jilo had done when she’d made her pact with the boo hag, the haint blue wouldn’t do you much good.
Today, Jilo’s cerulean throne was missing, and in its place Oliver had drawn a chalk sigil. The etching consisted of a crisscrossed combination of lines and circles that took up a good portion of the room. Walking around it, I counted ten circles, and I noticed that a pentagram had been inscribed in the centermost one.
“Jilo told him, he oughta use blood, not chalk, but that sweet uncle of yours would have none of it.” Jilo’s voice echoed around me, although my eyes couldn’t get a fix on her yet. To me, the room looked completely empty. Then the air in one corner rippled, like August heat coming up off the highway, and there she stood. “He,” she said, punching the word into the air, “say he know what he doin’, though, so Jilo need to stand back and let the expert handle things.”
“What is it supposed to be?”
“He say it the ‘Tree of Life,’ but it sure don’t look like no tree Jilo ever lay eyes on. We didn’t talk much. He just pranced in here, made his scribbles, and took off.”
Disdain for my uncle dripped from her every word. That Jilo would ever allow Oliver into her sanctuary, that she and Oliver would or even could work together, amazed me. “Thank you for helping us, Jilo. Thank you for letting us use your . . .” I struggled for a term. Room? No, it wasn’t a room. Rooms remained stationary, but this space could coexist with any other point on the earth. Right now it hovered over our own garden. The pentagram at the center of Oliver’s drawing overlaid the point where he’d placed the sundial. “Well, just thank you. And thank you for putting up with Oliver’s ego too.”
Jilo’s creased face smoothed as much as her advanced years would allow. “You welcome, girl. All the same, Jilo like to buy you uncle for what he worth and sell him for what he think he worth.”
A humming filled the air, and the lines on Oliver’s diagram began to glow. I was focusing so intently on them, I didn’t notice the shimmering air that signaled his arrival. I sensed his presence—a tingling that ran down my spine—and looked up. He stopped dead in his tracks and took a moment to absorb the haint-blue chamber. “I failed to say so last time, but this truly is impressive, Mother.”
I was grateful that he’d used the term of respect when addressing Jilo.
“I don’t think many of those born of the power could construct a chamber like this.”
He had meant it as a compliment, but to Jilo’s ears, it sounded like another reminder that she had no power of her own, only borrowed power. “Well that is mighty ‘witch’ of you,” Jilo said, her eyes narrowing.
“I meant no offense,” Oliver said, offering a courtly bow.
“No need to bend over for Jilo. You ain’t her type,” the old woman sniped and then chuckled at her own barb. “Let’s get on with this.”
“You have the jar?” I asked, meaning the Ball jar where we’d been storing the remaining flames.
“’Course,” she said, her voice laconic, cold. Her eyes looked in our direction without focusing on us. Her mouth was set in a straight line. I hadn’t seen this look on her in quite a while. I had grown unaccustomed to Jilo’s reptilian mask. She had allowed Oliver into her realm, but she would not display any sign of gentleness that he might mistake for weakness. She pulled her red cooler literally out of thin air, its color a vibrant contrast to this turquoise world.
Jilo opened it and passed the jar to me. Bright little sparks flitted about inside, bright little sparks that would hopefully lead me to my twin. I watched them interact for a moment, changing colors briefly as they bumped into one another and then flew apart. I offered the jar up to Oliver’s outstretched hands.
“So how will this all work?” I asked, as he placed a satchel that I had not previously noticed on the floor next to him.
He knelt and set the jar down next to the satchel, then opened the bag. “Earth,” he said as he pulled a brown paper sack out of it. He gave Jilo a taunting look. Dirt played such a great role in her form of magic, but she and I had completely overlooked its power up until now. Jilo grunted to show that he had not managed to impress her.
“That’s from beneath the sundial?” I asked.
“Yes,” he nodded. “It’s the earth where Maisie was standing when she disappeared.” He sat the bag down. “Air,” he continued, pulling out a perfume atomizer and giving it a quick spray. Maisie’s favorite scent rose up around us, summoning an image of her face as clearly as if she’d appeared before me.
“Fire,” he said lifting up the Ball jar. “And water.” He produced a bottle of scotch and three glasses. “Single malt, twenty-one years old. I’d intended it as Maisie’s birthday present.” He lined the three glasses up on the ground next to the satchel, filling them without spilling a drop. He held a glass up. “Mother?”
She hesitated, but only for a moment. She took the glass from Oliver’s hand. “Thank you,” she said, and then knocked it back in one gulp. “Amen,” she said, sucking in a deep breath. Oliver saluted her with his own drink and downed it in the same manner.
“I can’t,” I began. “Baby and all that.”
“Oh, this one isn’t for you, Gingersnap. We need this for the spell. You’ve had a chance to check out our workspace here?” he asked, pointing at his chalk sigils.
