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Charlotte had made it out of that life.
Pepper hadn’t.
Tucked into a makeshift envelope glued to the back cover of the diary was a photo their seventh-grade teacher had taken for the school yearbook. Neither Charlotte nor Pepper had been able to afford the yearbook, and Minister McCauley wouldn’t have let them keep it anyway, so Mr. Hartman had given them this photo at the end of the school year. They were standing by the windows of theclassroom, their arms around their shoulders, two thin, scruffy girls who looked happy at that moment, that single moment.
Charlotte turned on her side and put the photo on the pillow next to her. The glass balls above her shimmered, casting light on the girls.
Her eyes slowly closed. She was caught in that never-never land between sleep and waking—not here and not there—when she thought she heard something beyond the murmur of the television. A click. Then another. Something like a doorknob unlocking and turning, but then being caught by the interior dead bolt. Her brain wanted to wake, to tell her someone was trying to break in. But her body was too far gone into exhaustion, and she fell into a deep, dreamless nothing.
When Charlotte opened her eyes the next morning, the first thing she saw was the photo on the pillow beside her.
She always got maudlin when she thought of Pepper. Or maybe being maudlin made her think of Pepper. Either way, she was sick of wallowing.
There was music coming from Lizbeth’s place next door again. Zoey back at work. Charlotte rolled over and stared at the ceiling. The witch ball ornaments were swaying slightly in the cool air blowing from the AC.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes.
Then realized the AC wasn’t on.
So why were they moving?
She opened her eyes again and saw that the balls were now still. She must have imagined it.
With a good night’s sleep came some clarity about her next steps.Number one, she needed to scout out new places for a henna table. Pronto. Number two, Zoey. She never socialized with neighbors. There was no point, giving how often she moved. But Charlotte was ashamed of how standoffish she’d been yesterday. None of this was Zoey’s fault. Charlotte owed her an apology.
She got up and put the photo and the diary back under her bed. Then she dragged a chair to the center of the bedroom and untied one of the witch balls. She jumped down and walked next door.
Lizbeth’s patio now had an arsenal of cleaning supplies stacked by the doors, which were wide open. Inside, Zoey’s back was to her. She had on shorts, a T-shirt, yellow rubber gloves, and purple plaid rain boots. “Stop bothering me! You’re acting like those birds outside,” she was saying over the music. “It’s none of your business if I want to do this. But if you’re that concerned, I’ll be done faster if you quit knocking things over.”
Charlotte looked around to see who she was talking to, but no one was there. She knocked on the doorframe.
Zoey turned and Charlotte saw that she was wearing a white cupped face mask. Zoey put down the box of magazines she was holding and pushed the mask to the top of her head. With her pixie-cut hair, arched eyebrows, and ears that stuck out slightly, she looked like a very tall elf. She was so fresh, so new to the world. It almost hurt Charlotte to look at her.
“It looks like you’re already making a dent,” Charlotte said. Zoey had cleared a good ten feet of boxes away from the patio doors. It wouldn’t be long before she reached the doorway to the bedroom, if the layout was anything like Charlotte’s condo. But who knew how much was in there?
“It’sallpaper,” Zoey said, as if she couldn’t believe her good fortune. She peeled off her gloves and turned down the music on herphone. “Weird stuff like old receipts and newspapers and junk mail from decades ago. I haven’t even found any furniture yet.”
Charlotte held up the glass ball. It was the size of an apple and was one of her prettiest, graduating from clear on top to a bubbled lavender color on the bottom. One of the glassblowers at the Sugar Warehouse had made it. “I came over to give you a housewarming gift. Welcome to the Dellawisp.”
Surprise registered on Zoey’s face. She stepped out onto the patio and took the ball from her. Sunlight caught the three strings of glass suspended inside and made them shimmer like icicles.
“It’s called a witch ball,” Charlotte said, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her cutoffs. “Those thin glass strings are supposed to catch spirits that come into your house and trap them inside the ball, protecting you from them. If the ball breaks, it means you have a particularly strong ghost. Not a bit of truth to that, but it makes a nice story.”
Zoey looked around for a place to set it, deciding on an industrial-sized box of recycling bags. She stepped back and admired it. “Did you make it?”
“No.” Charlotte shrugged. “I just collect them.”
“I love it. Thank you.”
“It’s also an apology. I’m having some issues, but they have nothing to do with you. I just lost my job,” she said, deliberately not mentioning her missing money. Zoey had seen Benny leave that night, and she didn’t want her to make the connection and go to the police herself. “Yesterday, my first thought was that Frasier should have offeredmethe job cleaning this place out. But he didn’t know. So why should he ask me? I feel ridiculous.”
“Don’t feel ridiculous,” Zoey said without missing a beat. “I’ll go tell him I changed my mind and that you offered to take over. I’ll even help you. For free.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got everything under control.” Heaven forbid anyone think otherwise.
Zoey studied her. “Where did you work?”
“I had a booth in the Sugar Warehouse, on the other side of the island. I do henna.” She took her hands out of her pockets to show her, just so those dark eyes would stop boring into her own.
