Five
‘So how did you turn the coin to gold?’ Amelia and Alyssa asked.
The twins, Dean and I were sitting at the back of the history classroom. The teacher was running late, so I was telling them about my bizarre run-in with Mr Barrow.
‘Well, I already knew the trick to turning it silver. I looked up the rest when I got home,’ I said. ‘Turns out I accidentally got the science right – placing the silver coin on the hotplate and then in the cold water is actually the correct sequence to turn it golden. So I guess it’s not magic after all,’ I sighed.
‘But the sequence of events was magical – you couldn’t plan that!’ exclaimed Dean, and the twins nodded. Dean had become a welcome addition to our group; he fitted right in, and I trusted his opinion.
‘Yeah, maybe it was some kind of magic.’ I shrugged. ‘But Barrow really seems to have it in for me. He said something really weird—’ At that moment Bryce walked in, followed by the teacher, Mr Vale, and I buried my head in my study book.
I couldn’t help sneaking glances at Bryce as the class dragged on. Normally I would have found history interesting, but I couldn’t concentrate on what Mr Vale was saying. Bryce was sitting in the back row, three seats away from me. Cassidy and her friends were on the other side of the room. I wondered why he was sitting on his own. I must have looked at him ten times, but I never caught his eye. He was staring off into space. Something seemed wrong.
The bell rang and everyone made a dash for the door, except Bryce. I hesitated, too, and he finally turned in my direction.
‘Vania, could I talk to you for a minute?’ he said, coming over to my desk.
He smelled sweet, like vanilla and cookies.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said. ‘I’ve been avoiding you, but I have a good reason, I promise.’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ I said. I was still embarrassed about looking like an idiot, and his admission made my anger flare up again.
Before he had a chance to speak I got up and walked out of the classroom. He wasn’t going to win me over that easily.
I dodged Bryce for the rest of the day. I only had one other class with him, and I asked the twins to shield me by sitting in the seats surrounding me.
‘We don’t know about this, Vania,’ Alyssa said when the class was over. ‘Maybe you should listen to what he has to say.’
‘No way,’ I fumed. ‘I’m never going to let him make a fool of me again.’
Summerland was a pretty cool town – not just because it was founded by people who liked talking to the dead, but because the centre was full of historic buildings and interesting little curio shops. Call me a nerd, but I liked old things, and there were still lots of places I hadn’t explored.
I wanted to find a unique present for my mother in one of these stores rather than just going to the mall and getting something generic. We were still getting along really well, and I wanted something special. But I only had an hour before I had to be home, and I only had twenty dollars. Everything was more expensive than I’d thought it would be. I was starting to think a plain old book might be the best option. Then I saw the cafe.
It was tucked down an alley, and it only caught my eye because there was a large purple raven perched on the wooden awning out the front. It looked so lifelike I expected it to flap its wings and fly off at any second, but on closer inspection I saw that it was an impressive model.
‘Waiting for him to fly?’
A woman emerged from the dark interior of the cafe. She was tall and beautiful, and her dark skin and long black hair also made me think of a raven. I noticed she had one eye that didn’t blink and was a bit taken back.
‘My gramma said I sacrificed it for the inner sight,’ she said as I tried not to stare. ‘My name’s Brenda,’ she added, putting out her hand. She wore a stack of beaded bracelets around her wrist.
‘I-I’m Vania,’ I stuttered as I shook her hand. She didn’t let go.
‘Come inside,’ she said, leading me into the cafe.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The decor inside was exotic. There were tapestries on the walls and candles on the tables, and the whole place gave me the feeling of being inside a cocoon, shielded from the outside world.
Brenda was standing by the counter. A soft glow coming from the display case there lured me over. It was full of beautiful cookies all cut into intricate shapes – flowers, birds and snowflakes.
‘I make them with a recipe my mamma passed down to me,’ Brenda said.
‘They’re beautiful!’ I said.
‘They taste good, too.’ She picked up one of the bird cookies with a pair of ornate silver tongs and handed it to me. I bit into it, expecting it to be dry and crumbly, but instead it melted in my mouth with a subtle, delicious flavour like orange blossoms.
‘It tastes . . . magical!’ I said.
‘Secret recipes from Mamma’s grimoire. The birds help you see the truth, the snowflakes are for healing and the flowers are for fertility.’
‘A grimoire? Isn’t that a book of spells?’
‘Well, cooking is a magical art, don’t you think? You take a few things, put them together and then add some power . . . and something new is created. Something that didn’t exist before you decided it would.’
I could only nod in agreement.
‘I’m interested in magic, in alchemy – I have friends who are psychic, and another one who is a Spiritualist,’ I blurted out.
Brenda smiled. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place. I find that special, the way like-minded people are drawn to this enchanted little town. Mamma was a voodoo priestess in New Orleans before she passed over a few years ago; my gramma passed there, too, not long before her. I would have stayed in New Orleans, but I felt a calling to come to Summerland, when they crossed over. Here is where the veils between the worlds are at their thinnest.’
She paused and looked around the room – well, actually, only one eye did. The other stayed fixed on me. I was trying not to look confused. What did she mean about the veils and the worlds . . . ?
‘Mamma and Gramma can speak to me from beyond most easily here in Summerland, so it makes sense for me to be here,’ she explained. ‘I make their enchanted cookies to honour their presence.’
Brenda’s wandering eye settled back on me and a sudden a chill went through me. I had the sense that eerie, ghostly spectres were watching us. Maybe the Spiritualists who’d started this town really had opened a doorway to another world.
‘Isn’t voodoo bad?’ I asked hesitantly.
‘No magic in itself is bad.’ Brenda frowned. ‘It’s all in the intention of the practitioner.’
I nodded. That made sense to me, but I was starting to feel that this was all a bit odd, and I needed to be getting home before my great new relationship with my parents turned into me being grounded for being out so late.
‘Well, thank you for the cookie, but I have to get going. I’m looking for a birthday present for my mother and I’m nearly out of time.’ I started to walk towards the door.
‘Why don’t you give her some cookies?’ Brenda said.
Why not? They were beautiful and apparently magical, and if nothing else they were definitely delicious.
‘Okay.’ I smiled. ‘How many cookies can I get for twenty dollars?’
I left the Purple Raven Cafe carrying a silver cardboard box tied with thick white ribbon. Inside were ten assorted cookies, individually wrapped in lavender-coloured tissue paper. It was the prettiest and unique present I could imagine. I was sure Mum would love them.
It was a grey morning. There were heavy swirls of mist coming in from the ocean, cloaking everything in their path. Summerland High loomed out of the fog, foreboding.
I was dreading getting off the bus. Usually I couldn’t wait to get away from Cassidy and her back-seat gang, but today I wished the bus would just keep going because I could see Bryce waiting at the stop. It had been two days since he’d tried to talk to me. I’d managed to avoid him by coercing the twins and Dean to walk and sit with me like bodyguards whenever he was nearby. Despite avoiding him, my feelings for him continued to grow. I felt so embarrassed – sure he could see my crush written all over my face, and convinced he’d asked to speak to me so he could let me down easily. I couldn’t face the humiliation.
I stepped off the bus. The air was damp and cold. My face was frozen like a mask as he walked towards me.
‘Vania,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s talk, please.’
His ‘please’ sounded desperate, and I finally cracked.
‘Okay.’ I didn’t smile.
Cassidy appeared next to us. ‘Ooh, look at Bryce, playing with his pet fish,’ she said loudly.
A look of anger crossed Bryce’s face. ‘Shut up, Cassidy!’ he said.
Cassidy looked hurt, but only for a split second.
‘Well, Bryce, it’s clear that you want to hang with this Fish Lips loser with her Shrek friend and Weirdo Twins crew. And I told you – it’s her or me.’ She stormed off. ‘And forget about being voted back in as class president!’ she yelled back over her shoulder.
‘You don’t have to talk to me, Bryce. Go and make up with your girlfriend,’ I said, walking away.
‘No, wait, Vania, you don’t understand.’ He followed me and gently grabbed my arm, forcing me to stop and turn towards him. ‘I’m so sorry I was avoiding you. Cassidy told me that I wasn’t to talk to you. That I couldn’t hang out with you. And I hoped that if she saw we weren’t spending time together she and her friends wouldn’t be so . . .’ his voice faltered, ‘. . . nasty to you.’
‘I don’t care if Cassidy is nasty, Bryce – she means nothing to me.’
‘Well, you mean something to her.’
I looked at him, confused. I knew what I meant to her; I was a loser who deserved to be picked on for the rest of my life.
Bryce seemed embarrassed. He looked down. I could see the long sweep of his eyelashes dusting his cheeks . . . soft and beautiful . . .
I had to get a grip! I steeled myself to hear the obvious.
‘I told Cassidy last night that she’ll just have to deal with us being friends.’ He looked over to where Cassidy was standing with her group of friends by the drinking fountain. She saw him looking and turned her back with a toss of her head. ‘I told her I need to take a break from her and that whole group, actually,’ he said.
I had to stop my jaw from dropping. My heart leapt, but just as quickly it sank. I needed to protect myself. A guy like Bryce would never fall in love with a girl like me, and right now I was falling head over heels.
I realised I was staring at him, saying nothing, and I quickly looked down, my hair shielding my face.
He put his hand lightly on my arm. ‘Friends, okay?’
At his touch I trembled, but he had said the F-word. I tried to think.
We could be friends – that would be safe. In fact, we could even be best friends. If he were to meet another girl and wanted to date her, I would cope.
‘Friends.’ I looked up and smiled. But inside, my heart closed shut with a thud.