The only thing I had going for me was that Dad was at work, of course, and Hilary must be at her Mama Yoga class since it was Tuesday. Yay. I had no witnesses to my crime.
It was hard—no, impossible—to explain. But when I had seen that book fall out of Morgan’s backpack, it was like it was my book that I had lost a long time ago, and here it was. So I took it back.
Just in case Hilary popped in anytime soon, I locked my bedroom door. I felt strange—maybe some of Morgan’s weirdness was rubbing off on me. I almost felt like I was dreaming—watching myself do stuff without knowing why.
I ran my fingers over the cloth cover and felt a very faint tingle. I flipped open the cover, and the first thing I saw was a handwritten name. My eyes widened—it was Sarah Curtis, which was my own mother’s maiden name! “Oh my God,” I whispered, not believing what I was seeing. Was this why I had been so drawn to it?
I began to read. It was a diary, a journal, that Sarah started keeping in 1968, when she was fifteen, my age. Flipping through to the back, I saw that the book ended in 1971. I leaned back against my pillows and pulled my grandmother’s flowery crocheted afghan over my feet. Ever since Hilary had moved in, our thermostat had been set to “Ice Age.”
From the very first page I was totally hooked, but the book only got stranger. My jaw dropped by the second page, when I saw that Sarah Curtis lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts—just like my mom. How many Curtises could there be in one Massachusetts town? Maybe a lot. Maybe Curtises had lived there so long the name was really common. But if it wasn’t, what did that mean? Could I be sitting here reading my mom’s diary? It was impossible! I had gotten this book from Morgan! Then a chill went down my spine: Morgan had said this was a witch book. My eyes opened wider, and the back of my neck tightened.
On Saturday will be the annual Blessing of the fleet. It’s funny how today people still rely on the old traditions. Mom says the fleet has been blessed every year for over a hundrend years. Of course, it’s the Catholics who run it and make the big show. But I know that Roiseal always does are part as well.
I stopped for a moment. Ròiseal? The Blessing of the Fleet I had heard about—a lot of fishing communities have it every year, where the priest comes out and sprinkles holy water on the bows of the fishing boats to protect them through the year and give them luck.
Sam and I went down to Filbert’s today and got some orange soda pop. Mom would kill us if she knew. Mom and her “whole food, natural food” stuff. She thinks artificial flavours and taste are enough to dull your sense and abilities. I haven’t noticed any difference.
Whoa, I thought. And I thought Hilary was bad, with her organic toilet paper. I mean, she thought sodas weren’t good for you, but I didn’t think she actually believed they would dull your senses. A glimmer of a memory went through my head, of my mom saying something to me, telling me a story about when she was a little girl. About how funny her mom had been about some stuff. But the memory was too vague to really remember—maybe I was getting mixed up. After all, my mom had died when I was three. This was an amazing coincidence, though. If it was a coincidence, a scared little voice inside me whispered.
I am still trying to talk Mom and Dad into an out-of-state college. I figure I have another three years to work on them—who knows what could happen? They just don’t want me mixing with people who aren’t like us—like if I meet different people, I’ll leave and not come back.
I frowned as I remembered Dad telling me about how Mom’s parents hadn’t wanted her to go away to college, either. Oh, God—what did this mean? This couldn’t just be a coincidence. But how was it possible—God! As if mesmerized, I turned back to the book for answers.
The lilacs have been blooming for a couple of weeks now. When I go outside, the damp salt of the sea is overlain with their gorgeous, heavy perfume. Mom’s bushes are covered with bees in ecstasy. Seeing the lilacs in bloom breaks me out of my northeast winter blues every year. I know that warm weather is coming, that summer is almost here, that school will be out soon.
My throat felt like it was closing. Once I had brought home a little bunch of lilacs from the grocery store, and Dad had looked at them and turned pale. Later he told me that they’d been Mom’s favorite flower, that she had carried them at their wedding, and that it still made him sad to see them. So I’d eighty-sixed the lilacs. Oh, Mom, I thought desperately. What’s going on?
In the mean time, my asinine brother, Sam is still auditioning for the world’s biggest pain in the butt award. Last week he switched all of the copper plant labels in the garden around, so the chard has “carrots” written above it and the corn has “radishes”. Mom almost had a fit. And twice he has taken my bike and stored it up on the widow’s walk. It was a nightmare getting it down through the trap door, listening to him cackle in his room. But I am getting him back—this morning I sewed the toes of all his socks together. Insert wicked laugh here.
I chuckled, feeling relief sweep through me. Thank God. This wasn’t my mom. This Sarah Curtis had a brother. My mom was an only child, and Dad had said by the time he met her, she was estranged from her family and never saw them. That’s so sad. It means I grew up with only one set of grand-parents and cousins. None from her side. But God, what a relief to hear this woman had a brother. I had been practically shaking with dread about this witch Sarah Curtis.
Time to go. I have to practice the full moon rite that I’m supposed to do on Litha.
I turned the page.
Ok I am back. Mom is in the kitchen making a healing tea for Aunt Jess. Her tonsillitis is acting up. I can’t believe I have school tomorrow. I keep looking at the calendar: three more weeks until Litha. Litha and summer. Mom and I have been crafting a fertility spell for the last two months. Basically it is to make everything in the land and sea do well and multiply. A typical Rowanwand all-purpose spell. I can’t wait. At Litha all of Roiseal will be there and it will be the first big spell I’ve cast in public since my initiation last Samhain.
With a thud all my sensations of fear and nervousness came back. This couldn’t be my mom—I knew that. But someone with my mom’s name had written this book. Hands trembling, I set it down.
She had come from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Like my mom.
Like my mom, she’d loved lilacs. It was too weird, too similar.
But some things didn’t fit: her brother, Sam. The fact that this Sarah Curtis had been a Rowanwand witch.
Crash! I jumped about a foot in the air. My wooden jewelry box had fallen off my dresser and was lying on its side on the floor. How the hell had that happened?
This was all crazy. I closed the book without marking my place and went to my jewelry box. It was one of the very few things I had that had been my mom’s. I picked it up and cradled it in my arms.
That Sarah Curtis had been a witch.
My mom hadn’t been a witch. I searched my patchy, foggy memories. My mom, who smelled of lilacs. Her smile, her light brown hair, her laugh, the way it felt when she held me. There had been nothing about her that said witch. I didn’t remember spells or chants or circles or even candles. There were two Sarah Curtises. One of them had been a witch. One of them had been my mom. Just my mom.