Spells for Forgetting(6)

“We’ll see,” she muttered. “How’s your dad doing?”

I took the broom from the corner, sweeping up the glass around her feet. “Better, I think. Like he’d tell me otherwise.”

She went to the counter, taking a length of the trimmed twine I used for packages from behind the old register. She methodically laid out the rosemary and tied them together, knotting it three times. Always three.

“Well, it’s no wonder he’s nearly caught his death. Out there on the water before dawn in that fishing boat like he’s a twenty-year-old man.” She shook her head. “He’s lucky it’s only a cold.”

She reached into the pocket of her sweater, pulling a small parchment bag free and setting it on the table. “Twice a day. Four times is better. Tastes like horseshit, but it’ll do the trick.” She lifted a finger into the air. “Steeped fifteen minutes, no less. You tell him.”

“I will.”

That seemed to satisfy her. She crossed her arms, peering through the window in the door. The light changed her blue eyes to a pale gray. “Already pouring down the street,” she murmured, pursing her lips.

The people of Saoirse hated the seasonal tourists almost as much as they needed them, but we’d learned the hard way what happened when the ferries were empty.

The last of the mainlanders would be headed to the island before things shut down for winter, and I couldn’t afford not to have the shop open. It was the last surge of income I’d have until spring, when the ferry schedules picked up again. Then, we’d have the whale watchers and birders to contend with. Maybe a scientist or two looking for a rare mushroom or performing water tests. In our eyes, they were all the same—strangers.

My dad had always said that they were a necessary evil, though he’d never really seemed to mind them. Not like Leoda did. The Morgan family was one of the oldest on the island, and there was no one more protective of it than her.

I watched her mouth slant, her gaze growing dimmer as a woman in a pink jacket passed the broken window with a little girl trailing behind her. I could feel it, too, the magic of the island retreating as they poured off the ferry, like water finding the cracks in pavement.

“Morning!” The woman stepped inside, her cheeks flushed from the ride on the ferry. “Cold out there, isn’t it?” She pulled the gloves from her hands.

“It sure is,” I said, eyeing Leoda.

She stepped backward, watching the little girl with her lips curled, as if she was afraid the child might nip at her heels.

As soon as she was clear of her, Leoda caught the edge of the door to keep it from closing. Her eyes went from me to the bundle of rosemary on the counter. “Over the threshold, dear,” she rasped.

A few unsavory words I couldn’t quite make out faded as she took the steps back down to the apothecary next door.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.” I sank to the ground, brushing the pile of glass and dried herbs into the dustpan.

The woman gave me a tight smile as she picked up a sack of tea. But her eyes drifted to the jar of black salt on the worktable, where The Herbarium was still lying open.

I set the dustpan on the table and lifted the heavy corner of the book, closing it with a snap.

The people who came to Saoirse didn’t just come for the apples. The town had hardly changed in the last hundred years, and there were stories about the island and the people who lived here. Most of the old shops didn’t have Wi-Fi and cellphones got little reception beyond the harbor, but the tourists came in droves to walk Main Street and recount those tales.

Witches. I’d heard children from the mainland whisper the word like a secret from the time I was little, playing in my mother’s shop as she worked. I’d always thought that strange, because on Saoirse, the word wasn’t a secret. It was deep magic that ran through the blood of every woman on the island. It seeped into the earth of the orchard, its leaves unfurling every spring, falling to rot every autumn before turning back into the ground.

For people from the mainland, the old ways had left their families somewhere up the line, untethering itself from them. But it was different on Saoirse. While the outside world was burning their witches, we were here. On the island.

“What happened there?” The woman frowned as her eyes skipped over the broken glass that filled the dustpan.

I dumped it into the trash bin. “It’s nothing. Just a bird.”

She studied the crack in the window behind me.

I slid The Herbarium from the table and hauled it up into my arms before stowing it in the drawer of the hutch. I could feel her curious stare follow me as I rounded the counter, but I ignored her. I was good at that.

When she finally started toward the register with a bag of tea in her hands, I gave her a warm smile. “Anything else?”

“That should do it.”

I plucked a honey stick from the crock beside the register and held it out to the little girl, but her expression was apprehensive beneath her thick mop of dark bangs.

The woman laughed, looking between the two of us. “Well, go ahead.”

The girl reluctantly took it, twirling the stick between her fingers and watching the light sparkle on the crystallized sugar inside. Her mother ran a hand over her head affectionately before pulling the wallet from her purse.

“You know, I haven’t been here since before the fire.”