Page 53 of Two’s A Charm
BOOK, BELL AND SISTERLY SPELLS
Effie
Mentally applauding herself for managing not to berate her sister the whole ride over, Effie unlocked the library’s side door and ushered Bonnie and Theo into the elevator.
The elevator whisked them down, and Effie felt a stomach-twisting sensation that might have been due to the elevator’s movement or to the way that Theo’s hand grazed her arm.
Or maybe the fact that half the town was hopped up on Bonnie’s wayward magic.
How many times had Effie reiterated that it was dangerous to use magic on people!
The elevator came to a jarring halt, its doors sliding open to reveal the dim basement area, which was presently lit only by a few exit signs and the light of the moon pouring in from the glass bricks set into the ground around the library’s foundations.
Effie flicked a row of switches by the elevator doors, and rows of antique light fixtures and lamps slowly hummed to life, casting the basement in a soft golden light, and revealing endless orderly stacks of storage boxes, overflow shelves for the big folio-style books, and the antiquated card-catalogue cabinets that Effie couldn’t bear to part with.
‘This way,’ said Effie, leading Bonnie and Theo through the stacks and towards a small room off to one side of the basement – the one she secretly called her Speller Cellar, but whose unassuming metal sign read ‘Storeroom’.
Rather than bothering with her keys, she pressed a hand against the lock instead.
The green crackle of her magic lit the air, and the door swung open.
‘Um,’ said Theo, impressed, but clearly a little unnerved. ‘Cool.’
Effie ushered the others into the Speller Cellar.
‘Don’t bump anything – you could cause an explosion. And we have the books to think about.’
Theo hugged himself, keeping his hands safely around his sides. ‘Noted, Oppenheimer.’
‘Wow,’ said Bonnie. She poked at a stack of dusty spell books that Effie had purchased from an estate sale and was slowly putting into the library system. ‘I never took you for such a hoarder.’
Leave it to her sister to find a barb with which to poke her when Effie was cleaning up yet another mess of Bonnie’s.
‘It’s not hoarding ,’ said Effie, slapping Bonnie’s hand away from an ornate hourglass filled with ground amethyst. ‘It’s collecting.’
Bonnie perused a stack of hammered-metal spice jars decorated with lunar symbols. ‘Spoken like a true hoarder.’
Theo jumped as he bumped into a pot filled with crow-feather quills. ‘So, um, not to be that guy, but it would be really great if someone could explain what’s going on.’
‘Effie’s amazing at womansplaining,’ said Bonnie.
Effie shot daggers at her sister. ‘Shouldn’t you be more contrite, given the entire reason we’re here is because you erased the memories of everyone in town for, what was it again? A kickback from Uncle Oswald?’
Bonnie cast her gaze downward. ‘I didn’t mean to wipe everyone’s memories. They were miserable with all their New Age stuff. You saw them. It was information overload. All the lunar cycle apps and horoscopes and tarot cards and crystals – it was all too much to handle.’
‘So what?’ said Effie. ‘We live in an overwhelming world. We’re bombarded with news and horrors and new technology and a constant need to be available. Is it ideal? Not at all. Believe me, I’d rather be reading.’
‘According to your shirt, anyway,’ said Theo.
Effie glanced down. He was right. But she wasn’t done.
‘Just because people are poor at dealing with something doesn’t mean that you simply take away their ability to parse what’s going on.
You teach them critical thinking. Media analysis.
You steer them towards resources and skills that might actually help them deal with the problems they’re facing. ’
‘Like your crystal display,’ mused Theo.
‘Exactly.’
Bonnie threw her hands up. ‘But you use magic all the time!’
‘On little things! The laundry! The book return chute! The elevator close button! Never on someone’s memory .’
‘Yes, because you don’t have debt . Do you know what it takes to run a small business?’
Effie gritted her teeth. Typical Bonnie. Even with the consequences of her actions blazing in front of her face, she tried to defer responsibility.
‘I do, actually. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been head librarian here for three years now. Managing the budget is one of my key responsibilities, and I do a damn good job of it.’
Theo stepped between them. ‘Holy shit, you two! Look, clearly you have some stuff to work through, and I appreciate the open dialogue – and I have a great psychologist if you need one – but should we maybe deal with the situation at hand before we try to tear each other’s throats out?’
Effie caught herself. Theo was right. This wasn’t just a Bonnie problem.
If Bonnie hadn’t felt scared to come to Effie earlier, this whole situation could have been completely avoided.
She could have helped out with a business plan.
She could have helped Bonnie apply for the small business loan she knew Bonnie had been rejected for.
Or honestly, she could have just given Bonnie the money, because she had it, and what good was having savings if you didn’t use them when they were needed?
She could bang on about fiscal responsibility all she wanted, but maybe sometimes it was better to be empathetic than right.
Besides, Bonnie was trying. Perhaps a bar wasn’t the business that Effie herself would’ve staked her inheritance on.
But Bonnie was striving to make something of it.
And she was continuing Mom’s legacy in her own weird way: the brownies on the dessert menu, the patio film nights, the paintings on the walls of the landing.
They were opposites in every way, but they were still sisters. They were all that was left of Mom. Well, other than Uncle Oswald, and Effie had a good mind to scrub him from their family tree entirely.
‘I’m sorry, Bonnie. I should’ve helped you. I should’ve seen what was going on. But I was so caught up, you know.’
She trailed off, shooting a meaningful glance in Theo’s direction. Fortunately, Theo was busy dangling a witch pendulum from his fingers, his brow furrowed as it swung gently from side to side.
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, that all worked out.’
‘What did?’ asked Theo.
‘I’ll take that,’ said Effie, pulling the pendulum from his fingers. A witch pendulum helped channel one’s sixth sense to make the answer to questions clearer. Effie wasn’t sure that was precisely what Theo needed right now – Effie was the one who was going to try her best to explain the situation.
‘Right now, I need your help,’ said Effie.
Pulling one of the quills from the holder, she scooted it, together with an inkwell, over to Theo.
Then she produced a sheet of handmade paper, one of the beautiful marbled pieces that Tessa had made for her as a birthday gift the previous year.
She felt a pang as she considered all the hard work and love that Tessa had put into the gift just a few months earlier, and the hurt way that Tessa had spoken to her tonight.
She’d make it right, she vowed. She’d make it all right.
‘Theo, I need you to write down a memory for me. A special one, though. One you hold very dear.’
‘I’ll try. I haven’t handwritten anything longer than my signature in years. Especially not with a quill.’
‘I believe in you,’ said Effie drily. ‘But there’s a caveat.’
‘Sounds bad,’ said Theo, lifting his quill from the page.
Bonnie sighed. ‘There’s always a caveat with magic.’
‘You’ll lose the memory.’
Theo frowned. ‘I thought we were trying to restore memories?’
‘We are. But magic like this involves giving something of ourselves in return.’
Theo nodded slowly. ‘I’m beginning to see why you stick to elevator doors.’
‘Bonnie, can you do the same?’ Effie slid a quill and sheet towards her sister.
Bonnie was frowning. ‘Wait, so you’re saying that every time I had a nightmare,’ she said slowly, ‘Bobby was giving up one of his memories?’
‘He always offered,’ said Effie quietly.
‘And Mom was okay with that?’
‘He only ever gave up memories of you,’ said Effie. ‘Because he knew that he could always make more.’
Bonnie went silent as she considered this, turning her quill over and over in her hand.
‘We’ll speak them aloud,’ promised Effie. ‘So that even if one of us is giving up a memory, the others will remember.’
‘All right,’ said Bonnie in a small voice. She scratched down a memory on her page.
‘Mine is when Mom showed us how to French braid our hair, and we all sat in front of that antique mirror practising and practising. Even you, Effie, even though you’re still terrible at it.’
Effie’s eyes brimmed at the memory. ‘I remember,’ she said.
Grabbing a quill herself, Effie carefully wrote down her own memory.
‘My memory,’ she said, trying to keep her voice calm, ‘is when I was trying to do that enormous jigsaw puzzle over the summer, but I’d bitten off more than I could chew, even though I refused to admit it. You and Mom spent a whole week working with me on it, pretending that you actually wanted to.’
‘I remember,’ said Bonnie, blinking away tears.
‘Mine’s from when I first met you, Effie,’ said Theo, his green eyes gentle as they met Effie’s. ‘I remember the way the fairy lights on the patio hit you just so. Like magic. You were so proud and so strong and so curious to me, and I desperately wanted to get to know you.’
Effie smiled. ‘I remember.’
‘I remember, too,’ murmured Bonnie, giving Effie’s hand a squeeze.
With their memories spoken aloud, Effie collected them, together with a sprig of rosemary, in a special obsidian mortar, which she set down on a small decorative wooden table grooved around its edge so that it could easily hold a ring of black salt.
Lighting a match, she set the notes aflame.
The fire licked slowly at them, casting a gentle curl of smoke up in the air.
The smoke alarm beeped, but Effie shut it down with a click of her fingers.
Theo’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. Apparently he knew enough about magic to keep his mouth shut during a spell.
Effie reached for Theo and Bonnie, and they stood, hand in hand, in a small ring around the table.
‘ Pen, paper and rosemary ,’ Effie intoned, ‘ may my truth return to me .’
The smoke from the folded pages started to change colour, from black, to grey, to purple, and in it flickered images of smiling people, sun-kissed places, and, of course, of Mom.
‘ Pen, paper and gifted detritus ,’ Effie intoned, ‘ may our truths return to us .’
The smoke spun around them, growing thicker and more colourful.
Effie’s own magic sparked alongside, her wrists afire with the Chalmers gift that coursed in every vein, every cell, every heartbeat.
Through the hand clasped around her sister’s, she could feel her own magic twining with Bonnie’s, the tentative purple that marked her sister’s less practised efforts streaming gently from Bonnie’s tattooed wrists and into the air around them.
Theo’s hand, in contrast, was cool and calm, a grounding element that kept the sisters’ magic focused.
His strong, unflappable presence soothed Effie, helping her stay attuned to the spell.
The magic reached its apogee, then suddenly exploded out through one of the glass bricks above them.
It shattered, and would’ve showered down upon them if it hadn’t been for Effie’s quick magical reflexes.
Dropping the others’ hands, she clicked her fingers, directing the shards to land in a nearby trash can.
‘Wow,’ said Theo, clenching and unclenching his hands. ‘I feel like I was just gently and lovingly electrocuted.’
‘Did it work?’ asked Bonnie, staring up at the hole in the wall above them, through which a possum looked curiously down at them.
The possum’s face was promptly replaced by Bobby’s. He looked down at them, extremely confused. ‘Bonnie? Are you all right?’ Rubbing at his forehead, he sniffed. ‘Has someone been smoking down there? In the library ?’
‘Bobby! Oh my goddess, I’ve never been so happy to see your stupid face!’ Bonnie exclaimed. She seemed as though she was on the verge of jumping up and down. ‘I’ve missed it so much. You have no idea.’
Bobby blinked, then broke into a delighted smile. ‘Wow, really? Are you sure?’
‘Yes I’m sure!’ cried Bonnie, clapping her hands to her throat. ‘Are you okay? What are you doing up there?’
‘I have no idea,’ Bobby admitted after a moment.
His voice was thick, and he sounded dazed, as though he’d just woken up from a deep slumber.
‘For some reason I was in the car with Kirsty. Neither of us had any idea how that happened. I pulled over and let her out so she wouldn’t have to let her friends know she’d been anywhere near me. ’
A huge grin broke across Bonnie’s face. Then, with a quick glance at Effie, she said, ‘Bobby, I promise it’s the last time I’ll ask, but could you do me a favour?’
‘For you, Bon? Always.’
Effie felt herself grinning as well. It was about damn time that Bonnie realized Bobby was as good as they came. Not to mention that in addition to the endless moral support, he also came with a lifetime’s supply of pastries.
Bonnie cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘Can you help Alana hold things down at the bar, just for a few minutes? Effie and I need to have some words with Uncle Oswald.’
Bobby gave her a thumbs up. ‘On my way. By the way, I have a ton of supplies for you in the back of my truck. For some reason I never dropped them off. Must’ve slipped my mind. Oof, do I have a headache, though.’
‘There’s some Tylenol behind the bar,’ said Bonnie. ‘And some stronger stuff, if you need it. I call it the Sunday Morning Tonic. But stay away from the purple cocktails, whatever you do.’
‘Got it. See you in a bit!’ With a cheery wave, he disappeared from view. ‘Don’t burn the place down!’
There was a roar and a chug as he started up his truck, then rolled down the street towards the square.
‘Ready to give Uncle Oswald what for?’ Effie asked Bonnie.
Bonnie frowned at the ashes left in the mortar.
‘I can’t remember what I...’
Effie understood, because she too knew that she was missing a small, treasured part of herself.
‘It’s okay,’ Effie promised her sister. ‘We’ll make new memories.’