Page 9

Chapter 9

Becoming a Penguin

I put the creepy nutcracker on my bed, my heart thudding as I wait for something bad to happen. Ethel purrs loudly in Hazel’s arms, nuzzling under her chin.

“You’re so cute I could eat you,” Hazel says through her teeth, looking at Ethel like she’s really thinking about it.

I told my family I’d meet them at the vacation rental in an hour—I just have to get Ethel and shove a week’s worth of clothes into a bag. Hazel came to help.

Away from them, this gives us a chance to check out the nutcracker.

“What do you think?” I ask Ethel, studying her for a reaction. “Cursed?”

She ignores it, batting Hazel’s braid. At nearly five months old, she has the energy of a kitten but the confidence of a fully grown cat, making her a sassy menace.

Disappointment trickles through me—followed by shame for feeling disappointed. I should be relieved I haven’t found another curse. But I can only think about what this means for our become-a-penguin idea.

“Would a curse have made weird stuff happen by now?” Hazel asks .

“Maybe.” I scowl, arms crossed, then point to it like a cop in an interrogation. “Let’s see if you’re really who you say you are, Mr. Nutcracker .”

I go search the pantry for nuts—but I don’t buy whole nuts and my roommate doesn’t keep food here, so I don’t know why I bother. The most nut-shaped things I find are peanut-butter stuffed pretzels. I grab one and return to the bedroom.

I put it in the nutcracker’s mouth and press the cold wooden lever on its back. Nothing happens. I push harder, the flimsy wood straining under the pressure, until the pretzel pops out and rolls across the floor. Ethel leaps off the bed to chase it.

“What kind of nutcracker can’t even crush a pretzel?” Hazel asks.

“Exactly,” I say suspiciously, tossing it back onto the bed.

We study it with crossed arms while Ethel bats the pretzel like it’s a toy.

I sigh. “Let’s pack my stuff. Give it a minute to see if we get attacked by spiders.”

“Um—” Hazel starts.

I wave a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

I’m piling clothes into my suitcase when there’s a pop behind me, and Hazel screams.

I spin, dropping the sweater I was holding. “What happened?”

“All good.” She shakes her head. “I unplugged your laptop and it sparked.”

I snap my gaze to the charging cord stretched across the bed. The wire is exposed. “Weird,” I say pointedly. “Maybe a stroke of bad luck ?”

Hazel’s eyes widen.

The nutcracker is where I left it, staring at the ceiling with dead eyes.

Ethel comes to sit in my doorway, her tail swishing. The pretzel she was batting around is probably under the couch.

What if I’ve stumbled on another Rebecca?

“Just call her,” Hazel says, plunking down on the bed. “It’s better to be safe. ”

The excited gleam in her eyes tells me she might have an ulterior motive.

Honestly, I might too. “Okay.”

Hazel lets out a squee, confirming my suspicion.

My hands tremble as I pick up my phone, my insides doing a jig. I hover over Natalie’s name until my screen dims, then suck in a breath and tap it. I put it on speaker.

It rings twice.

“Katie?”

My stomach swoops. The smooth way she says my name will be the death of me.

“I bought a nutcracker from the Christmas market, and I can’t tell if it’s cursed.” I sit on the bed next to Hazel, and she leans in.

“Jesus… One sec.” There’s a scuffle. People talk in the background—maybe Natalie is somewhere for the holidays. Her voice comes back closer than before, firm and brusque. “What’s it doing?”

“It doesn’t work, for starters.”

A pause. “Maybe it’s supposed to be decorative.”

I meet Hazel’s eye. She grimaces, and my cheeks warm. Dammit, that might be true.

“Okay, but my laptop cord just sparked,” I say.

“Has Ethel been entertaining herself with it while you’re not looking?”

I spin toward Ethel, who stares back. The heat in my face intensifies.

Natalie might be right about this too.

I glare at the useless decorative nutcracker.

“Anything else?” Her voice is tight, like she’s trying not to laugh.

My insides squirm, and I stand, pacing the room. “Yes. I tried to make banana waffles last week with a new waffle maker, and they turned out disgusting. Could the waffle maker be cursed?”

“Where’d you find the recipe? ”

“TikTok.”

She sighs.

Fine, I’m smarter than this, and I’m overlooking the obvious. Time to get to the point.

I stop pacing, gripping the phone tighter. “I can’t help noticing that you didn’t correct me when I used the word cursed. ”

She says nothing.

My heart does a victory leap. Ah-ha!

Hazel clenches her fists under her jaw like she’s going to burst.

“Anything else leading you to believe the nutcracker is cursed?” Natalie asks. “Any more boils? Can you breathe okay?”

There’s the breathing question again.

I inhale deeply. No problems. “I’m fine. So you admit Lucy and Rebecca were cursed, then.”

Hazel’s mouth drops open. My face tingles. Did I just get an actual piece of information?

Natalie’s breath hits the phone. “Katie, you’re trying so hard to solve a mystery… but what if this is tough to figure out because you’re not meant to figure it out?”

“Everything is meant to be figured out.”

“Spoken like a true scientist.”

The mysterious vial lingers in my mind’s eye. “Is that what you are? A scientist?”

“Depends how you define science.”

“What was in the vial?”

She pauses.

I chew my lip, waiting for her answer.

Hazel tugs me back to sit next to her. She leans close to the phone again and puts a hand over her mouth to stay silent .

In the background of wherever Natalie is, people talk and shout to each other. She moves away from the noise, her voice returning in a low purr. “Are you ever going to let this drop?”

“What do you think?”

“It would really be in your best interest to drop it.”

“Good to know.”

There’s a shout, a hiss, a bang, and Hazel and I both lean away from the phone as it crackles.

We exchange a bewildered look.

Hazel mouths, Where is she?

I shrug.

Someone shouts Natalie’s name.

“Coming!” she calls back, then returns with a note of urgency. “Okay. I’ve been thinking, and there are a few things I can explain. But I need you to do me a favor in return. Are you free to meet up tomorrow?”

Hazel grabs my arm as the words jolt through me like a lightning strike.

Meet up? In person ?

“I—I can’t until after Christmas,” I say. “My family’s visiting. How about the 28th in the afternoon?”

It’s the day my family leaves. I can go straight to Natalie after saying bye at the airport.

“I’ll pick you up at your place at three.”

Hazel’s grip is so tight on my arm that I can tell she’s going to detonate like a bomb the second we hang up.

“Okay,” I say, breathless.

Natalie ends the call before I can ask what the favor is.

I turn to Hazel. My inner victory dance is reflected on her face. I did it. The plan worked, and Natalie is finally going to answer some questions!

I just have to wonder what changed… and what favor she could possibly need from me.

Natalie steps out of a black electric car in a forest green button-up shirt, tight jeans, Vans to match the shirt, and her hair in that deep side-sweep. With her smooth movements and posture, she radiates such strong energy that it takes everything in me not to drool a little.

My parents got me a tapered wool coat for Christmas, thank God, because otherwise I would be in the ski jacket she met me in when I stumbled into the vet’s office—so between that, my most flattering jeans, and a tight black shirt, I’m feeling cute and confident as I walk over. I may or may not have spent an hour curling my hair and doing full makeup.

Natalie holds the passenger door open for me, and my knees weaken at the gesture. As I get in, her dark eyes trace over me and she smooths the front of her shirt, making my stomach swoop. Am I imagining the way her gaze is lingering?

It smells like her in here—warm, herbal, with a hint of sweetness. As she shuts the door and walks around to the driver’s side, I take a deep breath to get ahold of myself, which is a terrible idea because now my whole body is full of her scent.

I put on my seatbelt. “So, are you taking me to the Temple of Zacharias where all cursed items are stored?”

Her cheeks lift, giving me a peek of her dimples. “Not exactly.”

“But you’ll tell me what’s going on?”

“I’ll answer some of your questions in exchange for meeting up with me like this.”

Ha. She says it as if meeting up with her is a burden.

We drive through Vancouver, heading north. The sun’s long rays glint off patches of lingering snow, and Natalie puts on a pair of dark sunglasses.

Ugh, those cheekbones .

“You’re right that you’ve been finding curses.” Her words come out terse, like she’s struggling with the confession. “It’s my job to get rid of them.”

Everything inside me erupts into a victory dance. Ho-ly crap .

All my questions fight their way to my lips. The one that comes out is, “When you say get rid of them —”

“I didn’t murder a kitten, Katie.”

“Good.”

When she doesn’t elaborate on what happened to Lucy, I move onto my next question. “ Why are all these things cursed?”

Her jaw works. “That’s one question I can’t answer. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but I’m breaking the rules for a reason.” Behind her sunglasses, she gives me a sidelong glance. “There’s something about you that I can’t figure out.”

“Okay…” It’s funny to think she can’t figure me out when I’m not the one running around with mysterious vials in my jacket.

She turns down West Broadway, making me wonder how far we’re going. A ripple of nerves flows through me. She’s not taking me to the highway, is she? Oh God, did I just get into a car with a stranger without thinking twice?

Natalie taps her fingers on the wheel and shifts in her seat. “When I asked you what attracted you to that kitten—”

“Lucy.” I’m determined not to reduce her to that kitten , no matter what Natalie says about her not being what I think she was.

“Lucy.” She glances sideways at me again, a flash of concern. “I wanted to know whether you picked up on the curse or if it was a fluke. Then you came to me with a second item, and…” She huffs. “It’s rare for me to see someone more than once. People end up with curses by accident. It’s happened before that I’ve seen the same person two or three times, but only because they themselves were cursed.”

I look sharply at her. “The person was…?”

“Yeah.” She rolls to a stop at a light and turns to me. Her expression is steady. “But I don’t think you are. I think, somehow, you can sense curses. You sensed it in Lucy and in the doll.”

I nod. She’s not wrong. “And that’s rare?”

“I’ve never heard of it before.”

I blink, astonished. A special ability? Me ?

I’d be honored, except I still don’t get what’s going on. This ability seems to concern her—or at least interest her. I search the side of her face. “What do you think this means?”

The light turns green, and we start moving again.

“I have no idea. Maybe your family history includes some—” She breaks off as if to concentrate on changing lanes.

“What?” I press, filled with a sensation like teetering on the edge of a cliff.

“I’m taking you thrift shopping.”

The change of topic ignites a spark of annoyance, but I’m too intrigued by where we’re going. “Why?”

“I want to see if you can find a cursed item. We can test if you have an ability or if it was a fluke that you found the other two.”

My pulse picks up. This feels like a weird job interview. She’s testing my skills. “And if I find one? Then what?”

“Then…” She scowls at the road, as unreadable as ever. “I’ll worry about what this all means if we’re successful.”

My heart misses a beat. If her job is to find curses, and I can find curses… It’s only logical that I help her, isn’t it?

“And if we fail?” I ask, unsure I want the answer.

Her expression turns solemn. “Then I’m making a pretty huge mistake right now.”

A pause. The way her face falls, I have to wonder who might discover that she’s told me stuff. Who does she report to, and whose rules is she breaking? Will she have to cut me out of her life if I don’t have an ability?

Cold trickles through me at the thought of her disappearing from my life. She’s been the most exciting thing to happen to me—possibly ever.

“Is a thrift store the best place to find a curse?” I ask into the tense silence. That news article about Natalie working at one suddenly checks out. She probably pretended to be a piano tuner at one time too, if a piano was cursed.

“You’d be surprised,” she says. “An item isn’t sitting right with someone—they get a bad vibe from it, or don’t love it anymore, or it isn’t working the way it’s supposed to—and they ditch it. Our other option is to go to the dump.”

I pretend to consider. “Tempting, but thrifting sounds nice. I could use some kitchen stuff, anyway.”

“Waffle maker?” she murmurs.

I laugh, which makes her cheeks lift.

I like this side of her. The side that jokes a little and teases me with half smiles.

Mission: Accepted. Though Natalie claims she’s not sure what comes next, I think I know, and it sends my heart racing. This skill I have would be an asset to her. We could work together, get to know each other… and take it from there.

She parallel parks and turns off the car. With a firm nod, she opens the door. “Time to see what you can do, Miss Alexander.”