“Ah, well. They say once in a few generations a highly intuitive witch comes along…” Barbara dusts salt over the pale flesh of the chicken; then she lets her head sag. Sophie thinks she’s going to keep explaining, but she doesn’t. Instead, she pushes the heel of her palm into one eye, then the other. She takes her time putting the chicken in the oven, then opens a bottle of wine.
Sophie traces a finger along the edge of the journal. “Do you think this could be like the book?”
Barbara frowns in response and then takes a long sip with her eyes closed.
“When I first found it,” says Sophie, “it was empty. There were no words on the pages. But now there are, obviously. Maybe it’s a similar kind of magic?” This explanation doesn’t feel quite right, but she truly isn’t sure.
The kitchen fills with the smell of cooking. Barbara taps her finger on the stem of her wineglass. “Did the writing appear slowly over time? Or was it all at once?”
“Over time.”
Barbara takes a sip, thinking. “It doesn’t sound like the kind of magic in the book. It would have been revealed more immediately. At least that’s my understanding of the old magic anyway. To me, this journal sounds like an illusion spell.”
Inside the oven, the chicken crackles as it begins to cook. “I thought about that, but an illusion spell only lasts for five years,” says Sophie. “It’s been fifteen since Quinn would have written in it, so wouldn’t the spell have faded years ago?”
Barbara toys with the stem of her glass. “Which could mean someone is updating the illusion spell every five years.”
There’s a low growl of thunder, and the lights above them flicker.
“Let me ask you this,” says Barbara. “Is there any way someone else might have gotten their hands onThe Book of Aspens?”
“We haven’t seen it since Quinn died,” she says, shame making her spit the words out as quickly as she can.
Barbara inhales sharply. “Oh, honey, is that true? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”
“We couldn’t find it after Quinn died. She was the keeper, and then we just grew distant, and the book stayed lost. We should have looked for it. We’ve been looking for it since we’ve been back, but we can’t find it. This is bad, isn’t it? This is so, so bad.” She is breathless. She knows the answer to her question before Barbara gives it.
“Yes, I think so.” She taps her finger on her wineglass. “If this journal has been hidden by an illusion spell for fifteen years, that means someone’s been updating it every five years. So, someone knows where the book is.”
Thunder reverberates off the mountains and through Sophie’s mindas she absorbs this. “Are you saying the illusion spell was never meant to reveal the words in this journal? It was meant tohidethem?”
Barbara gives her a solemn nod. “I believe what we are seeing here is the fading of an illusion…because someone has yet to update it.”
Sophie’s next words are almost silent. “Which means I was never meant to see this journal. I was never meant to know what I know. No one was meant to.”
They both stare at the journal sitting alone in the middle of the table as if it will come to life and confirm that they are right.
The world tips, and Sophie feels an unmistakable plunge of fear.
57Joey
The back door of the inn clicks open, and Joey slips inside. Quietly, she makes her way up the stairs. She can see Kathy’s hair-sprayed coif from here, but she’s busy with a noisy game ofCandy Crush. Room three is just at the top of the stairs on the right. Joey silently unlocks the door.
Inside, it smells faintly floral. The bed is made, and there are clothes draped over it. The closet is open, and there are more clothes, mostly neutral in color but all delicate and pretty. A slender woman with dark green eye makeup and nude lips pouts at her from an issue ofVogueon the nightstand. Joey wonders, momentarily, what it would be like to be a glamorous public figure.
She sees nothing masculine in the room. Not a watch or a shirt or a pair of shoes. She steps into the tiny bathroom, which to Kathy’s credit, has great light and is appointed in soft white porcelain with matte black fixtures. Makeup is scattered on the counter. A case of brushes catches Joey’s eye, and she digs through it. A hair straightener and an electric toothbrush sit next to a cosmetic shop’s worth of face creams. She’s not sure what she’s hoping to find. Some clue that will point her in theright direction, perhaps.
Back in the bedroom, she opens the drawer beside the bed. Empty except for a remote control and a laminated paper with the Wi-Fi details. She closes it with her hip and looks around the room. This was not worth stealing the master key and breaking Kathy Renner’s trust forever for. There is nothing in here that can help her. She is about to leave, about to make her way silently down the stairs and try her luck at the restaurant, when she spots Nicola’s suitcase peeking out from the closet. It’s gorgeous white leather and looks as if it’s never touched a luggage carousel in its life. She wheels it out of the closet and finds the zipper. Splaying it open on the floor like she’s doing a dissection, she examines the interior. Empty. But when she reaches a hand inside one of the pockets, she feels something square and flat, about the size of a book.
She pulls it into her lap and instantly recognizes it. It’s the painting of the old general store, with a carved wood frame around it—the one that, until recently, hung on the wall of Aspect Coffee since Barbara had it commissioned in the nineties.
Processing the bizarreness of this discovery, Joey digs around again in the pocket and feels something else. A kitschy wooden bear holding a sign that says Whisper Ridge Inn. Excitement and curiosity make her dig her hand into the same pocket a third time.
This time her fingers find something small, cold, and solid. She already knows what it is before she pulls it out, and she feels a sudden burst of anger. The ring. The gold one with the black onyx stone and single gold droplet. She knows now, holding it in her hand, that this is not from a vintage shop in LA. It was a birthday gift to Quinn from her grandmother. She holds it under the lamp to examine it closely. The light catches on an inscription on the inside of the band.Quinn Winter, 12/13/1993.
A sound makes Joey look up. Someone is at the door. She searchesaround for somewhere to hide. In the closet? Under the bed? But there’s no time. In another half-second, Nicola’s block heels appear, and the door thunks closed behind her.
“Oddio!” Nicola throws a hand to her chest when she sees Joey, who is crouched on the floor with a suitcase wide-open in front of her. Nicola is dry and unruffled, despite the weather outside. They stare at each other for a long moment, and Joey wonders if she is going to run away, call for help, or attack her. She stands up slowly with her hands out.
