“Besides, it’s all your usual mumbo-jumbo. Piles of fancy books in front, cult meetings in the back, trying to profit off all sorts of superstitions.”
“That sounds useful,” I said. “That is exactly what we need.” Though its facade was modest, the same discolored brick and brown-trussed plaster as the shops that surrounded it, I felt that were a bogeyman watching me, sharpening his claws, this shop would be his prime location. If there was a darkness comparable to my own that remained in Coeurs Crossing, this was surely where it hid.
“Some quack selling us evil eyes and cow’s blood?” Matthew frowned.
“Piles of books. Superstitions. Experts who might know about the map and the spirals.”
“I wouldn’t call the folks who work there experts,” said Matthew.
“More expert than we are.”
“Maisie, I’m telling you, it’s useless. And too crowded to comfortably have you poke around asking questions. What if you accidentally brushed against a walking stick, or some old freeze-dried rat?”
“I’d think the superstitious sorts would love that,” I said. Matthew grimaced. “But really, you’re making it sound even more enticing. Just the sort of place that Peter might have made acquaintances, the sort of people who might know about his work. What if I wait for you here, and you just bring the map and ask them? Find out what they know. There’s no harm can come from asking.”
This last must have been an expression I’d read somewhere, as it was certainly not one that my father or Mrs. Blott had ever used with me. As a child, my harm had all begun with asking: What would happen if I touched this; how could that possibly hurt? Better, I’d been taught, to firmly corral curiosity. I would find out when I was older, they said, and should save the sorts of questions whose answers spawned action for Peter’s experiments and labs.
But Peter was gone. Until he had come home again, all experiments would have to be my own.
Matthew sighed. “All right,” he said, “if you promise to stay in the car with the dog, I’ll go in and see about the spirals. You should keep the map here. Just in case.”
He parked the car a short walk from the shop’s entrance, behind a large, unlabeled van, its back hatch propped with cardboard boxes, apparently in the midst of being unloaded.
“Stay here,” he instructed. I could not tell if this direction was intended for myself or for my dog. I scowled. As Matthew exited the car, three chatting mothers passed along the sidewalk with their baby carriages, and I sank lower in my seat, cowering from their gossip, as if just by looking at me they might learn of my curse. I remembered the one trip to the ocean I’d taken with Peter, the anonymity of the endless pebbled beaches and rising tides. My father had never explained his logic, why I was welcome to journey (under strict supervision) to a place so far from home, and yet forbidden to visit the village. I’d understood instinctively: Coeurs Crossing was too near us, too incestuous, too small. It would be too difficult to contain gossip if the village discovered my dangers.
Once Matthew had gone I pressed the locks down on the car doors, but then promptly pulled them up again, ashamed of my anxiety. Still slumped, half hidden by the dashboard, I stared directly ahead, watching as two men returned to the white van in front of me. They wore matching jackets, embroidered at the chest with red lettering I was too far away to read, although I could tell that the boxes they transferred from the souvenir shop were heavy, requiring both men to grip each one. Sacred rocks, I imagined, or statues.
Marlowe squeezed in beside me, brushing up against the glove box. Suddenly aware that this could be my only chance to investigate Matthew’s car without him in it, I pulled myself up and pushed Marlowe away to examine its contents: a broken pencil, his car insurance, an empty bag of chocolate candy, a single little girl’s pink glove. Why just the one? Was a little girl waiting somewhere with its partner? Was it stolen? Did Matthew’s outer kindness hide some dark depravity, an anger that would compel him to come across a child and snatch away her—
Of course not: the surname Hareven was written next to a phone number in blocky letters on the glove’s inner tag. A daughter? He was much too young. He’d mentioned younger siblings. A sister, then. It was easy to imagine Matthew holding a tiny, ungloved hand. It suddenly occurred to me that Matthew’d had a full life before he had met me. How naive I’d been to imagine myself his only company, simply because he was mine. A torso hid under his T-shirt; in his head, thoughts all his own. When he went jogging, closed the violet bedroom door, he did not disappear into some void, Paleocene and stagnant, waiting for my consciousness to summon him. I shuddered and reached back for Marlowe.
The couriers in front of me returned from their second trip, slamming the van doors. Before they could climb into the front seat, they were stopped by a new man, much younger, dark-haired and tall with a striped scarf and chiseled jaw. The three spoke for a while, the larger of the workmen gesticulating grandly, broad shoulders heaving as he seemed to either chuckle or to cry. Eventually the two workers climbed into their van and pulled away, leaving the younger man behind. There was something familiar about him, although I could not place it. He adjusted his scarf, looked straight at the car without appearing to see me, and ducked into the shop.
The street was quiet. I twisted the pink glove in my hands, staring at the phone number as though it might give me a glimpse into Matthew’s other life. I gained no insight, though the handwriting was soon branded onto my mind. I thrust it back into the glove box. The car’s digital clock had turned off with its engine, so I did not know how long I had been waiting. I felt it had been too long; maybe something had gone wrong. Just as I steeled myself to open the car door and step outside, prepared to blame Marlowe if questioned, Matthew emerged, carrying a handful of pamphlets and some sort of dangling charm. I yanked my hand from the door handle and tried to look innocent.
“Well?” I asked as he clicked in his seat belt. “Did they have good advice? What did you find? Come on, now take me step by step. What happened?”
Matthew turned to face me. “I went inside, they asked what they could help with—”
“They?”
“An elderly couple. A woman and a man.”
“They were the only ones there?”
“Those two and a customer. And someone in the back, unloading boxes.”
“And the elderly couple told you what, exactly?”
“Calm down, you’ll disappoint yourself. It’s not at all exciting. They know your father, though not well. He came in years ago before your mother died, but has barely been seen in the village since. They suggested I speak with my aunt . . .” He bit his lip. “They hadn’t realized . . . For such a small place it’s amazing how slowly word gets around here.”
“The maps?”
“I didn’t ask about the maps. Only the spirals, which, I was told, mean either the holy trinity or phases of the moon. Or the movement of the stars. Or life, death, and resurrection. Or a triple goddess. Or the interconnection of everything. Or mind, body, and spirit. Or a mother and her child. Or a whole host of other options, spelled out in these booklets, which I think they must have printed off some website that we could have found ourselves.”
“So much to work with!”
“No,” said Matthew, starting the engine, “not so much to work with. We have nothing. If the spirals mean everything, they basically mean nothing. We’d do better to forget it all and stick to what we know. We’d do better, in fact, to head back to your house and wait for Peter.”
“Just because something can be interpreted in different ways doesn’t make its meaning useless,” I said. “You must see some value in having gone into the shop.”
“Yes,” said Matthew. “The single useful thing they mentioned is the cemetery just outside Coeurs Crossing. Apparently it’s got your spiral symbol carved into some of the gravestones. If you still insist on spending the afternoon searching, it seems like the place to start.”