“It’s not that.” She broke their hold and jiggled the bracelet. “It’s this. Something is wrong with it. I can’t feel it at all during the ritual, and given what a powerful item it is, I should.”
“Maybe it’s a fake,” Chris said.
Shanna shook her head and disappeared inside. She rummaged through her bag; through the sheer curtains, Simon saw her press a crystal to the bracelet and murmur something. When she came back, her face was pale.
“It’s been destroyed,” she said.
“But it looks undamaged,” Simon said.
“Not physically. The enchantment is gone.”
“Like, it lost it over the years?” Chris asked.
“Things like this don’t fade with time. It should still be as strong as the day it was created. No, someone purposefully broke the enchantment.” Shanna shook her head, her lips trembling. “And unless some random person was so upset with my mom they had to track down the bracelet and destroy it, it could only have been her.”
Simon sat down by the table, staring at the candle’s small, bright flame. “But why? If she wanted you to find it, if she knew this was going to happen …”
“I don’t know.” Shanna mimicked his pose, then hid her face in her hands. “All of this to sabotage me in the end?”
“Is there anything else in the letter? Any clues we missed?” Chris asked. “What about the postcards?”
Shanna went to retrieve them, and they spread them across the table.
“Maybe there’s a code hidden in her messages,” Simon said. “You say it out loud, and it would re-enchant the bracelet?”
“Or, like, one of those sigils,” Chris said. “What happens if we connect the points where the postcards came from?”
They tried it all. Simon dived into trying to unscramble the code, and by the time he’d given up, Shanna’s fold-up map of New Zealand was scribbled all over as she and Chris tried various connections between the places to find a shape that was anything else than a random zig-zag line.
“Wait,” Simon said. Maybe it was his brain in full word-riddle-solving mode, but what if …
He drew again over the line connecting the four places from the postcards, in the order they’d visited them. Wellington, Abel Tasman, Ross, Milford Sound. He circled the first letter of each name.
“WARM,” he muttered.
“Itisa word,” Shanna said, as if she were trying to encourage his efforts.
It was, but it didn’t make any sense, at least not without context. He grunted, slouching back in the chair. It felt like they were so infuriatingly close to something but couldn’t grasp it.
“Maybe you need to hold the bracelet over a flame,” Chris said. “That would be warm.”
They tried that. With one candle, two, three. They tried hovering it above, as well as letting the flames lick it. Shanna tried heating it up in her clenched fist, but whatever they did, she still felt nothing. And when after all the experimentation she and Simon repeated the ritual, nothing happened.
“I give up.” Shanna collapsed onto the chair. Night had fallen by now, and the deep blue sky was littered with stars. “I’ve had it with Mom and her Mercurial Crystal.”
Chris laughed but cut herself off. “Sorry. I thought it was funny.”
“Our misfortune?” Simon asked.
“No, the name. That’s what the counselor at the shelter used to call me. Mercurial Crystal.”
Shanna raised her head. “Why would she call you that?”
“Crystal is my real name. But everyone calls me Chris.” She glowered at them. “Don’t you dare call me Crystal, ever. As for the mercurial part, I assume it was ironic. You know, because I change my moodso often.”
Shanna rose, standing straight as if struck by lightning. “Mercurial Crystal.”
Simon leaped to his feet, too. “What did your grandma say? It doesn’t need to be a crystal.”
