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I catch Landon’s gaze and point up, and we both swim to the surface.
“We need to swim back,” I say, already moving toward the shore.
Landon follows, and it isn’t until we’re safely on land that I meet his gaze.
“What was that about?” he asks, looking out over the water.
I catch myself before telling him about the currents. I don’t know if the mainlanders are aware of the damage we’ve caused to the sea, and I don’t know how my mother would react if I made them aware.
“Nothing,” I say, trying to sound casual. “I just don’t want the governor’s son to catch a cold.” I say it playfully, but Landon is watching me. He knows that there’s something I’m not saying, something I’m not being honest about. But it isn’t in my control.
We head back to our blankets and wrap ourselves up, shivering and wet and cold. Wolfe’s angry words enter my mind, accusing my coven and me of destroying the island we’re supposed to be stewards of, and I hate that he’s right. I hate that there’s nothing we can do about it.
What good is magic if we can’t use it to protect our home, the very thing it’s meant for?
As soon as I think it, I try to shove away the thought, forget it, wipe it from my mind. But it takes root, weaving through the paths and alleyways of who I am, burrowing in. It finds a home in me, and against my better judgment and every impulse inside me screaming that danger lies ahead, I let it.
fourteen
News of my date with Landon spreads through the Witchery like kudzu vines, fast and invasive. The perfumery sees an influx of customers, and my mother acts like my bodyguard and personal assistant, all rolled into one unfathomably put-together woman. She coyly steps around the questions she doesn’t want to answer and demurely responds the ones she does.
I haven’t been to the shop for several days, but I can’t avoid it forever.
I take a detour on my way to the perfumery, visiting the western shore and the field where I met Wolfe. I take my time gathering grasses and blades of kelp, then cut through the woods in the center of the island and make my way to Main Street. It’s so quiet on this side of the island, overgrown and untouched. It’s a shame we only use it for the rush. Then again, if we used it more, it would lose the qualities I love most about it.
I turn onto Main Street and am almost to the perfumerywhen Mr. Kline stops me. His white hair is blowing in the sea breeze, and his weathered skin crinkles around his eyes. He takes off his wool cap and holds it in his hands.
“Hi, Mr. Kline,” I say, hugging my basket close to my body. “How are you?”
“I’m well, Miss Tana, thank you.”
“Glad to hear it,” I say. I’m about to start walking when Mr. Kline says my name again. He’s rolling his cap in his hands, and he looks at the cobbles as if he’s nervous. When he raises his eyes to mine, they’re wet.
“I wish my parents were alive to see this. They always believed it would happen one day. ‘Just stay the course,’ they used to say to me.”
“Landon is a wonderful man. I’m very lucky.” I smile as I repeat the words my mother told me to say, and Mr. Kline’s eyes widen as I confirm the rumor he heard. He takes my hand and pats the back of it.
“Landon is the lucky one,” he says.
“Thank you.”
I gently pull my hand away and give Mr. Kline another smile before stepping around him and walking the rest of the way to the perfumery. But when I get there, I stop. The storefront is clogged with people, and I can’t make my feet move, can’t force myself to go inside. I take several steps back and turn away before anyone sees me, then round the corner and walk down the path behind the building. I slip into the back room of the perfumery and breathe out in relief, thankful that the door leading into the retail space is closed.
I hang my coat on a hook and set my basket on the island, taking out the things I gathered from the shore and the field.
The sounds from the shop fade into the background as I put the grasses in a mortar and grind them into dust. The comfortable familiarity of the pestle in my hand eases the strain on my mind, and soon I’m replaying memories from the field and memories from the shore on a loop, over and over again.
Memories of the magic.
Memories of Wolfe.
I’m ashamed that my mind finds refuge in remembering the lines of his face and the feel of his magic, ashamed that when the house is quiet and my parents are asleep, I’m met with thoughts of him in the dark.
It doesn’t feel real, the night we had together. It feels like a dream, soft and hazy, already fading away at the edges. It’s so far removed from my daily life that I’m almost convinced it didn’t happen. And that’s good.
Dreams aren’t threatening. They can’t grab the corners of your world and pull it out from under you. They can’t change the course of your ship.
I continue to work the grasses into a fine dust, lost in the motion. “When memories fade and time makes them weak, spray this perfume for the moment you seek.”
