When Riley and I first started hanging out here, neither of us had any idea what we’d find between the rough-barked oaks and bushy maples that wept milky, obscene-looking sap. We didn’t even know to look out for the thick patches of poison oak until a sticky summer afternoon when we ducked into the woods for shade, our sandals clacking so loud that we startled the birds out of the trees. By the time we limped back to my house, we were both covered in balloon blisters and scaly red rashes up to our knees.
Stretched out on holey beach towels on the floor of my bedroom, covered in calamine lotion and oatmeal up to our thighs, we watched hours and hours of Disney movies, hoping the happy endings would distract from the fire-hot pain and explosions of yellow goop down our legs. As the sun went down, I looked over at Riley and asked why she was still with me when she could go home and recuperate alone. And she laughed and said, “You can’t get rid of me now. We’re blister sisters. Blisters before misters.”
And it wasn’t that funny, but the pain and the grossness and the stupidity of it made us laugh so hard that we couldn’t breathe, and Izzy started banging on the wall to tell us to shut up, and eventually my mom came in with more cold oatmeal and her disapproving head shake.
After that, I found my boots and baggy denim jacket at Goodwill and stared wearing them in all weather, and Riley made sure that she always had on long pants and high-tops. The next time we went to the woods, Riley shimmied up to the top window of the Yarrow house and broke the lock on the back door so we’d have somewhere to go if we ever wanted to wear sandals.
The Yarrow house had been abandoned for years. According to Mrs. Greenway, the town council has been trying to find a way to tear it down forever but can’t get around the fact that it is, technically, a historical landmark.
“This is the problem with Californians,” she’d say in her sharp Michigander accent. “They think anything older than a hundred years is priceless. The Yarrow family hasn’t lived in Cross Creek for fifty years.”
For Riley and me, this meant that there was no chance that the house’s owner would come sniffing around, wondering why the house smelled like raccoon shit and incense.
Most of the rooms inside the farmhouse are wrecked with disuse. The floor droops in the living room. The ceiling sags with water leaking from the bedrooms above. The stairs are missing planks. There’s a basement that I’ve never been brave enough to explore. But the kitchen is solid as long as you aren’t skittish about seeing the occasional mouse or wolf spider. It’s the brightest room in the house since it has a whole window with no boards. The October breeze isn’t strong enough to slip through the hairline fractures snowflaking in the corner of the glass.
It’s hard to believe that it has only been a week since the last time I was here. Riley wanted to drop off a bag of new white candles for a spell that had to be completed on the full moon. The candles are here, lined up carefully in the sagging cabinetry. None of the cabinets have doors, so all our magical inventory is visible.
Chunks of pastel stones, candles in all colors, brown vials of essential oil, herbs drying in bundles, cast-iron pots from Goodwill to contain anything that needed burning, Riley’s entire magic library—from the first Silver Ravenwolf book she ever read, still adorned with the Cross Creek library barcode, to the handwritten spells she bought off Toby at Lucky Thirteen. A glossy blue full moon chart is tacked to the wall where a fridge used to be.
There’s a shelf just for Riley’s fortune-telling supplies—multiple packs of tarot cards and polished gem rune stones and bags of muddy-tasting tea next to a chipped teapot. She loved the instant gratification of divination. Knowing what was coming was half the joy for her. The rush of expectation that makes me want to puke.
There’s a dollar-store broom propped in the corner, its bristles weak and basically useless for anything but swatting moths away. I pick it up and try to clean a square for my backpack. If I come home dirty, Mom will flip out and make me spend the weekend shampooing the carpets.
Mr. and Mrs. Greenway wouldn’t let Riley keep anything related to paganism in their house. They’re good Christian morticians who thought Riley was inviting the devil into their home when she bought a box with the Celtic Green Man painted onto the top. Mrs. Greenway smashed it with a hammer and tossed the splinters into the yard. After that day, we’d started sneaking anything witch-related to the Yarrow house. Xander had helped, carrying loads over on his bicycle since we’d all been too young to drive.
Magic makes my parents vaguely annoyed and uncomfortable; it made the Greenways livid. When Riley had asked her mom about the idea of Jesus as the embodiment of love rather than a literal, physical being, she’d been gifted a slap in the face and some emergency weekday church.
Wicca doesn’t mind if you work in metaphor. Wicca never minded that Riley and I didn’t really know what we were doing. The only vengeful deity in witchcraft is yourself. Do bad shit, get bad shit. Do good, get good. Or be like me and Riley and do almost nothing but giggle over incense and get perfumed smoke in your nose in return.
The floor is still dusty with old chalk circles and sigils. Riley and I have only been here a couple of times since the school year started. The last big spell we worked was the end of last month for the autumnal equinox. We’d spent an entire day running through the woods, picking up the first fallen leaves and acorns off the ground and dragging them inside. The decorative squash Riley had stolen from her parents’ mantel is starting to decay in the corner of the kitchen. I can picture her setting it victoriously in the center of the chalk circle, the sunlight winking against the rose quartz necklace she never went anywhere without. There is nothing flashy about an equinox spell, and there was something about its simplicity that made it feel realer.
“Most magic is just telling the universe you’re thankful to be here,” Riley had said that day before closing her eyes to light the first candle.
I hope that I’ve been thankful enough to have built up some brownie points with the universe. I need a big favor right now.
After lighting a stick of incense—rose, for luck, and because it’s the best for covering the rodent stench—I yank down the books by the handful, making a stack on the floor. I know that it’s unlikely that I’ll find a way to use magic to uncover a murderer in Sexual Sorcery: Lust Spells for the Hedgewitch, but I’m not going to leave a single stone unturned here. I sit on my backpack to keep the dust off my jeans and turn on the noise-canceling app on my phone that I normally use for studying. It makes the house sound like it’s trapped in a rainstorm, which kind of adds to the whole Hogwarts library vibe of the day. I flip through every page of every book, reading carefully. I understand that finding a “Hey, Here’s Who Killed Your Friend” spell might be a bit of a stretch, but I’m not above patching together a variety of spells. I make a list of stones and herbs that inspire people to tell the truth, and I dog-ear a spell for opening your third eye to see into the past—though that one only works in dreams, which would require me to actually sleep.
I wonder if I should track down a Ouija board and just let Riley herself guide my hand . . .
I squeeze my eyes shut, dizzied by how stupid this feels. Maybe my parents and my sisters and Dr. Miller are right. Maybe I’m delusional. Maybe I snapped the second my mom shook me awake and whispered, “There’s been an accident,” in my half-dreaming ear. I hadn’t believed her. I clung to her shoulders until her forehead crinkled in pain and her brown eyes started to leak tears. My mom isn’t much of a crier. She prefers to choke down all her feelings and let them out in fizzing bursts.
She had left me alone in my room. The first thing I did was roll over and grab my phone, the impulse to text Riley and ask if it was true so strong that it momentarily wiped away my reasoning. And then I dropped the phone onto the carpet. My nails clawed into my sheets. My body writhed, possessed by blinding pain. That’s when the screaming started, rising out of me without my permission. Guttural screams tore through my throat until I was sure my esophagus would crack and bleed, leaving me permanently silenced.