Elena is temporarily grateful for the connection to someone else who’s not in this room. Cal is good-looking, obviously. He’s probably one of the most famous, well-regarded men on the planet. He’s kind andreal. Honestly, it would take a will of steel to say no. But she really doesn’t want to sleep with him.
The second text she reads is from Gael.I know who the guy is that’s been following you, it says. A square pops up on her screen with a little circle to show that a picture should be loading. She stares for a few seconds, but it’s taking forever.
She pockets her phone, deciding that it’s time for her to leave anyway. She’s about to say so when Cal places his glass back on the table and picks something up. It’s the little glass sculpture of the mountains. The one that was missing from the shelf.
“I really like that piece,” she says, stealing a glance past him toward the door. Where did she put her stuff?
“I had it commissioned,” he says. “It’s the Three Elks.” He touches each of the points in succession and then looks at her. Elena senses that he’s going to make a move any minute now.
“I think I should go,” she says quickly, placing her cup on the bookshelf. There’s no coaster under it, and she sees him frown. “I’m meeting someone for dinner.”
She expects him to say something awkward, to look bummed, or to ask her if she’d like to stay for one last drink.
She does not expect him to take a step toward her. Far too close to be considered polite.
An alarm bell inside Elena’s head begins to trill.
55Quinn
February 2011
Four months before the fall
I’m freezing outside on my dad’s doorstep. It’s still firmly winter. Scabs of snow dot the ground all around me. New Year’s passed with a trip to the spell circle and a sleepover at my house after. Elena brought a bottle of André, of course, and we did an illusion spell to change my hair color to lavender. Then we summoned some sparklers and danced around, ringing in the new year. We’re only two months in, and it already feels like this year is going to be…different.
I knock three more times and call out. “Dad?” No response, so I try the door. It’s unlocked. Inside, he’s right there, ten feet from me, asleep on the couch. Passed out, actually. I shake him, try to wake him up, but he doesn’t rouse, just lets out a snore. We were supposed to host his friends for poker tonight, but maybe they’re avoiding him after what happened. Two days ago, he drove his car into a telephone pole in town. It was awful. I pull a blanket over him and let him sleep.
I drop my overnight bag in the kitchen. A box of stale Triscuits sits in the pantry next to a few cans of beans. In the fridge, there is just a crusted jar of mustard and a cloudy pickle container. And a pizza box. With a flicker of hope, I open the lid, but it’s empty, stained with grease.
I steal another look at him on the couch, his leg dangling off the side like he wanted to get up but couldn’t quite manage it. It’s so early. It’s not even four. I wring my hands and look up at the ceiling, hoping for an answer to this mess to be printed there. I wish I knew how to save him, but alcoholism is in the mind as much as it’s in the bottle. Even I know that. And it’s powerful. River’s grandfather was an alcoholic, the asshole kind. He told me horror stories about his grandfather’s physical decline and drunk driving incidents that never landed him in jail—probably because River’s dad is a cop—and how he punched a tourist right outside the Strike for no apparent reason—again, no charges—at sixty years old. Booze makes people lose themselves. I’m losing my dad, and I wish there was a way to help him.
I sling my bag onto my back and head out the front door. Around the back of the house where the yard meets the woods, I look down the hill and see the spell circle. I wonder if I could do a spell to help him. I turn a fraction, thinking about the merit of this idea. Would I even consider doing a spell on my own?
That’s when I see it, all the way at the top of the hill. The glass house. It’s lit up, which makes me pause. I’ve never seen lights on in there before. I thought the place was abandoned. But bright white lights shine out from the windows. I have no idea what compels me toward it, maybe it’s boredom, or maybe it’s because it looks like a beacon.
Either way, I start to walk up the hill.
56Sophie
“A what now?” Sophie can feel the disbelief rising inside her and nearly lets herself smile because surely this is a joke. But then she sees how serious Barbara is.
“A blood sacrifice.” Barbara’s voice is funereal. “My chatty great-aunt used to tell a story about one of the girls who was initiated with her…and her fiancé. The fiancé was a miner. He had next to nothing. One day, he must have found the book. At the time, all the spells were right there, on the page. Anyone could see them. One of the spells he saw was bloodspell. He figured he could use it, take her magic for himself, and get rich.” She cuts off with a look of resignation. “Anyway, he tried to murder her.”
Sophie feels a violent roll inside her. “Oh my god.”
“That tough woman refused to back down without a fight. There was an axe involved, and the fiancé was killed. Blanche actually went to prison, something women didn’t often do in those days. But I guess the crime was so brutal, self-defense didn’t cut it. Anyway, from that point forward, the spells in the book were hidden. All of them. And most ofthem, save for illusion, summoning, and healing spells, are hidden away for good, or at least I don’t know how to reveal them.”
Sophie watches Barbara tear the tape from the butcher paper around a whole chicken. Through the window, lightning thrusts the backyard into momentary brilliance.
“I understand hiding bloodspell, but why hide the entire book?” Sophie has so many questions.
The chicken is in a deep pot now, and Barbara pushes pads of butter beneath its elastic skin. “It’s a great question. Protection is the only explanation I can think of. There are probably more spells in there that, if they fell into the wrong hands, would be catastrophic.”
Sophie picks up the peeler and slides it down a carrot.
“The secrets were passed down to me, not created by me,” says Barbara. “I only know that there is a way to reveal the rest of the book’s contents. I just don’t know what that is.”
“Quinn knew.” The carrot peels pile on top of each other like a nest of snakeskins. “In the journal, she says she unlocked the entire book.”
