The Zodiac Collector Page 4

  She puts up her hands in surrender. “No catch. I’ll study bio this afternoon while you work on memorizing history facts. Remember your flash cards?”

  “Oh yeah, those were helpful.” I slump in my chair. “I lost them.”

  She hangs her head to the side. “No, you didn’t. I put them in a safe place.”

  Relief bathes me in sunny warmth. “You’re too good to me.”

  “Don’t forget it.”

  We settle into our work. My brain hurts almost as bad as when I got brain freeze at the theater, but Mary helps me through it and by noon—three hours later—I’m able to find “X” all by myself, like a boss. I fist my hand and puff my chest, ready to take on the Descartes Dingoes and Rithmetic Rangers single-handedly. (Seriously, those are the names of our Nerdtastic—ahem, I mean Scholastic—clubs, coined by the king of geeks and math teacher extraordinaire, Ms. Sutters.)

  On the walk home, Mary tries to rope me into a discussion of To Kill A Mockingbird. It’s what she considers a break. I love the book, but I’d rather talk about Watership Down, even if it is about killing innocent, fluffy-tailed bunnies.

  “What happened in that book is sickening. The court convicted an innocent man.” Mary shakes her head.

  I can’t disagree with her. “But it’s fiction, right?”

  She nods. “Yeah. Okay, let’s discuss vocabulary and grammar.”

  I groan. Forgot about that. “I don’t have enough room in my head for all this crap.”

  “You’d have more room if you stopped stuffing it with star magick.”

  “Zodiac magick.”

  She whips out a pile of flashcards. “This is real, Anne. So is the SAT. If you want good scores, you’ll need to embrace reality and stop dreaming about Zodiac signs and constellations.”

  I groan again.

  Ignoring my protest, she quizzes me on the definitions of words like “harbinger,” “extrinsic,” “fastidious,” and “iconoclastic.”

  I’m practically brain dead by the time we get home. “You’re ‘inexorable,’” I say as we climb the front steps.

  “And you’re ‘impertinent.’”

  “Yes, but I’m ‘ebullient’ to try a spell during our break.” I trot upstairs, ignoring the growing wheeze in my lungs. Less than a minute in the cigarette-smoke-laden house and my asthma is flaring.

  Mary trundles up behind me. “That’s not the correct use of that word.”

  “Why not?” I drop my backpack on my bed and pull out my inhaler from my pocket. After a puff, I can feel my lungs open and the tingly fire of tightened airways subsiding.

  Mary fetches my history flashcards from her desk. “Actually, I don’t know.”

  Our fleeting laughter is as precious as shooting stars.

  I take the cards and set them next to my backpack. Then I retrieve my spellbook and flop on the mattress.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Mary asks, laying out her morning texts and swapping them for her afternoon pile.

  “I want to try something first.” Even though we keep our bedroom door shut most of the time, smoke from Mom’s cigarettes still filters through. It’s the dregs of a dragon’s poisonous breath. I’m sick of smelling it. I’m sick of sucking it in. I’m sick of having asthma attacks because of it.

  “You don’t mean a spell.” Her eyes widen.

  I shrug. “What can be so hard? We just read the spell and that’s that.”

  “No way. Grandmother said to wait. She said there are consequences.”

  I search the pages for a purification spell. “Gemini is an air sign, which means we might have better control over it.”

  “Over what, air?”

  “Yeah.”

  She sits on the edge of her bed, wringing her hands. “I don’t know.”

  “It won’t hurt to say the words.” I lean over the book. “Ah! Here it is.”

  “Anne.”

  “I need your help. It’ll work better if we chant together.” I jitter from a shockwave of anticipation. We can totally do this. It’ll be a small spell and Gamma won’t even have to know.

  She bites her fingernail. “But…”

  “Please? If it doesn’t work, then I won’t bug you anymore, okay?”

  “Promise?”

  “I swear.” I hold out my pinky.

  She pops up and slides to my bed, hooking pinkies with me as she lands. “What do we do?”

  “We say the spell together.”

  “Don’t we have to light candles or make a salt circle or something?”

  “Uh, yeah, we can do that.” I hop off the bed and paw through my junk drawer. Collecting four tea lights and a match, I light each wick and anchor a candle at each compass point. “North, South, East, West.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  I pick up the spellbook and drag her to the center of the room. I hold the book up for both of us to see the chant.

  “Four elements of life,

  Earth, fire, water, air.

  Four corners of the earth,

  North, South, East, West.

  Four elements of the Zodiac,

  Purify, purify, purify!”

  Mary scans the room. “Nothing happened.”

  I take a deep breath and immediately start coughing. The air is heavy with scruffy dog and stale smoke smells. “Must’ve screwed it up.”

  “Or maybe this stuff isn’t real.”

  I stuff down the scratchy, dry idea that she’s right and herd the dogs out of the room. “I’ll take the boys for a walk.”

  To Gamma’s house.

  Chapter Five

  Gamma’s in her fairy garden when I arrive. It stretches along the length of the house. Stone gargoyles perched on either side of the front steps cling to their guard posts, silent watchers of the comings and goings around them. Fairy statues nestle between the Roses of Sharon, hibiscus, asters, double-headed marigolds, and daisies. Some sit on mushrooms, others lounge on the ground, and some hover on hooks so they look like they’re flying. One has her nose stuck in a geranium blossom. Her gossamer wings flutter in a soft breeze.

  Gamma’s on her hands and knees, pawing in the dirt with a trowel to eject an invading dandelion. Next to her is a wicker basket overflowing with puffy, purplish-blue hydrangea blossoms. A pile of weeds, wilted flowers past their prime, and browned leaves fills a black wheelbarrow.

  “Hi, Gamma. Need some help?” I tie the pups’ leashes to the porch railing. They yip at me as I walk away, probably disappointed I haven’t taken them directly inside for a treat.

  Gamma cranes her head around. Her red-framed glasses cling to the tip of her nose like a mountain climber realizing she’s afraid of heights. “Anne, hello. Take that barrow and dump the weeds on the compost heap, would you?”

  “Sure.” I take the evicted dandelion from her and drop it on the pile. It’s a fairly short walk to the backyard where Gamma keeps her compost. I tip the wheelbarrow over and shake it a few times to make sure all the bits fall out. When I return, she and the dogs are gone. The clipped flowers are still there, so I return the wheelbarrow to its spot in the garage, then pick up the basket and go inside.

  Gamma’s washing her hands in the kitchen sink, humming an off-key tune. The dogs are sprawled on the area rug next to the stove, crunching on their treats.

  I set the basket of organic pom-poms on the counter next to her.

  “Find my blue vase, dear.” She plugs the drain and lets the faucet run to fill the sink.

  “Okay.” I head to the pantry and spy the vase on the top shelf. I have to stand on my toes to reach it.

  “Do you know the magickal properties of hydrangea?” Gamma asks, already re-cutting the stems under water to prevent air bubbles from entering and blocking the flowers from sucking up enough water. Steam hovers above the sink like a warm fog.

  “No.” I set the vase on the counter.

  “You used to.”

  Those three little words bore into my chest, opening a wound I’d stitch
ed shut a long time ago. The gaping, hungry beast of disappointment tunnels inside, searching for crumbs of memories devoured by neglect. “I don’t remember.”

  She hands me a bunch of discarded leaves. “Breaks curses.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nods, filling the vase with lukewarm water. “Arrange the flowers as I hand them to you, dear.”

  I add cutting after cutting to the vase. The tight clusters compete with one another for space and crowd the rim. Soon, I struggle to find a place to stick in another stem. “Mary would love to photograph these.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Home.”

  Gamma glances at me. “Had another fight?”

  “No,” I answer too quickly. Defensively.

  She pins the nosepiece of her glasses to the bridge of her nose and stares me down. “The magick won’t work right if you’re divided.”

  “We’re not fighting. I decided to take Castor and Pollux for a walk, that’s all. They wanted to come here.” I tip my head toward the dogs.

  She chuckles. “I’m sure they did, but what brings you?”

  I carry the bouquet to the kitchen table. “Well, I wanted to talk to you about the Zodiac spellbook.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Yeah.” I slide into a chair. Castor trots over to me and climbs up my leg. I pick him up and hold him on my lap. “How do the spells and chants work?”

  Gamma sits next to me. “Getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

  I shrug. “I want to try something.”

  She leans against the counter and crosses her arms. “Have you been chanting?”

  “No.” I shake my head until I’m dizzy.

  Her lips purse like she’s sucking on a thousand lemon sours. “You have to invoke the twins first; otherwise the spell won’t work.”

  I sit up straighter. “How do I do that?”

  “You don’t. Not by yourself.” She wags a finger at me. “And don’t you try to do it on your own.”

  My throat goes dry. “I won’t,” I croak.

  She shuffles to the table and sits in the chair next to me. “You didn’t bring the book.”

  I shake my head.

  “No matter. We can go over the basics without it.”

  I lower Castor to the floor and prop my elbows against the table.

  “The first step is making sure you and Mary are united.”

  “United how?”

  “Both of you need to work together. Realize the power of being sisters—of being twins—is greater than any magick.” “What do you mean?”

  Gamma whips her glasses off and wipes them on her shirt. “I shouldn’t have let you girls lose your connection with the Zodiac magick. This’ll be so much harder now.”

  “What’ll be harder? I’ll practice all the time and Mary will help, I swear.” I’m on the edge of my seat, swallowing down the swells of panic erupting from my gut like a soda-fueled belch.

  “You can’t force someone to believe, Anne.” She slips her glasses back on.

  I slump over the table and dig my fingers into my hair, falling into the pit of lost screw-ups. “We used to believe, didn’t we?”

  “Mary and you?” I nod.

  “You sure did. Don’t you remember chanting with me? We’d set up candles in the four corners, invoke the Zodiac signs with an offering, and read from the book.”

  The memories pick at me like hundreds of little teeth. I close my eyes, rolling back the scroll of time, unraveling the days, weeks, months, and years. The pungent tang of a freshly sparked match, the cloyingly sweet scent of vanilla candles, and the bitter aftertaste of bergamot tea mingle together, creating a foundation on which I can plant my feet and anchor my soul.

  My eyes fly open. “We invoked the Gemini twins.”

  Gamma claps her hands and laughs with glee. “That’s right. You remember!”

  “We made butterflies sparkle.”

  “And flowers glow.” She fiddles with a strand of my hair. “Mary won’t want to remember.”

  “Why not?” I lace my fingers with hers.

  “The Zodiac power is wild, strong, and unwieldy. Mary likes consistency and certainty.”

  I sigh. “When I tell her about our chants, she’ll remember.”

  Gamma uses her free hand to pat mine. “Of course she will.”

  A “to be continued” silence settles over us.

  It’s up to me to figure out how to get Mary on board. Roadblocks with signs screaming “she’ll never believe” pop up in my mind instead of ideas. I change the subject. “What kind of offering should we give?”

  “The twins are warriors, first and foremost. They like weapons.”

  No problem. I’ve got an arsenal in my closet. Not. I lean back in the chair, deflated by another obstacle. “Oh.”

  “They were also skilled equestrians. Untamable horses would bend to their will.”

  My shoulders slump. “Where do I get a horse?”

  She taps my temple with an index finger. “You should remember. All you need is a symbol, dear. A figurine, statue, or toy.”

  “Oh!” Excitement courses in me like a power surge. “Where do I put the offering?”

  I dodge Gamma’s finger. She draws an “X” in the air. “Intersect the lines between the candles, of course. In the cross section is where you place the offering. That’s where you stand, too.”

  My eyes glaze over a bit. Sounds a lot like algebra to me. “Okay. When do we get started?”

  Gamma pushes off the table with her hands and groans as she stands. “Not today, dear. Your Gamma is old and needs her rest. Go on home and get back to studying. Work on your sister, but don’t push it. Belief in magick can’t beforced.”

  I scrunch my nose. So that’s where Mary got her nag gene.

  * * *

  I grab a slice of cold pizza and chomp on a bit of cheese as I climb the stairs to my room. The dogs try to knock me over to get a bite. I shoo them away and sit on my desk, out of reach. Mary frowns at me—the potential for rogue crumbs must be blowing her mind—but doesn’t say anything.

  “I won’t leave a mess.”

  “Because Castor and Pollux will suck up anything you drop.”

  “Furball vacuum cleaners—the perfect backup plan.”

  “Where’d you go, anyway?”

  “Gamma’s.”

  Mary gapes. “Why?”

  “Why not? I wanted to talk to her about the spellbook.”

  “Did you tell her what we did?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  I arch a brow at her.

  “You heard me. We weren’t supposed to do anything yet.”

  “Well, she gave me some tips on how to do it right.”

  Mary groans. “You’re not thinking of trying again, are you?”

  “Why not? I know how to do it now.” I wipe the grease from my hands onto my jeans and hop down.

  William gave me a jousting-horse figurine last summer during the faire. I snatch it off the bookshelf. It’s the size of my hand. The horse and knight are black and the shield is painted in yellow and blue. The knight holds a tiny lance. A horse and a weapon. Bingo! I align myself in the center of the “X” like Gamma said.

  Mary sets aside her textbook and rises from the bed. “Grandmother said it was okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “Invoke the twins.”

  “Huh?”

  “You don’t remember chanting with Gamma when we were little, do you?”

  She squares the stack of books on the bed.

  “Mary?”

  “I remember. Just like I remember wishing Mom would be normal.” She tucks her hair behind her ears. “We tried chanting it. Remember that?”

  I exhale, expunging the hope of rekindling Mary’s belief while the memory trickles in one drop at a time. It was so long ago that it doesn’t seem real. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Why are you holding ont
o this kid stuff?” She waves her hand at the figurine, then glances at my pillow and the spellbook hiding underneath it.

  “It’s not kid stuff. It’s real. I’ll show you.”

  She shakes her head, whipping her tight curls back and forth. “How?”

  The only way to get her buy in is to pick something she’ll go for. An idea perches on my shoulder and whispers in my ear. “I’m going to make sure we have a great birthday, without Mom interfering and ruining it.”

  “With magick?”

  “That’s the idea.” I pull my hair into a ponytail.

  “It won’t work.” She sounds like Penny Archerson snarking at Katy Nelson when she tried to do a special backflip in gymnastics. Penny was right and Katy twisted her ankle on the landing.

  “Yes, it will. I wasn’t doing it right before, so it didn’t count.” She can’t argue with my foolproof logic.

  “Please, don’t.”

  “You sound scared,” I challenge.

  She folds her arms across her chest. “I’m not scared.”

  “Then we can try again.”

  “Don’t be silly. Magick isn’t real, Anne. Science and physics are.”

  Funny how she doesn’t remember the chants that worked. And by funny, I mean convenient. “Thanks, Professor Knowitall. You tell me how Mom knew when we tasted the ale last year at the faire? She wasn’t anywhere near us and no one saw us, either.”

  “So, you think she has her own Zodiac spellbook? She doesn’t. She’s just crazy.”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying that there’s more out there than we think. Things with no rational, logical explanation.”

  “Whatever. Anybody could’ve seen us and then told her. Everybody knows everything around here.”

  “That’s small-town living for you.” I offer her the figurine. “Hold this.”

  She plucks the thing from my hand and bites her bottom lip.

  I spin and grab the spellbook. Standing there, in the middle of my bedroom, I flip through the pages, searching for the invocation spell. Anticipation sharpens its talons by raking them up and down my spine. The oily scent of ink mixes with the bitter leather and teases my nose. I take in a deep breath and smile. Yes, this will work.