My mother’s long chestnut hair is pinned back with one delicate hummingbird hair clip. Silver with beautiful painted eyes. There were two of them, originally. She wore them all the time. And I loved them because they were a set. Like Elora and me. But one of them got lost at some point. Before this picture was taken, I guess. I still have the one she’s wearing in the photo, though. It’s tucked away in my bedroom, but I never wear it.
I let my gaze linger on my mother’s face. I’ve always thought our green eyes were identical. A little too big. A little too round. Hart used to say I reminded him of a tree frog.
But our eyes don’t look the same in this picture.
Mine look innocent. My mother’s look haunted. Hollow, maybe. Like there’s nobody left inside.
I think about what Sera said yesterday. Your mama had deep power.
If that’s true, it’s the first I’ve heard about it. Of course, there are a lot of things I’ve never known about my mother. Starting with why she took her own life when I was only eight years old.
I can’t stand to be in the kitchen with those haunted eyes, so I head out into the shop.
Honey is busy arranging tiny bottles of essential oils on a silver tray. buy one, get one free. Her face wrinkles up in concern when she sees the dark circles under my eyes. “Long night, Sugar Bee?”
I nod and crawl up on the tall stool behind the register. “It’s hard being here without her, that’s all.”
It’s not like I made a conscious decision not to tell her about my late-night visitor. Or about what happened before that. Evie crying in the night. My near-death experience on the dock. I hadn’t even realized I was going to lie – at least by omission – until I did it. But once the decision is made, I don’t know how to undo it. I’ve been home twenty-four hours, and I’m already juggling secrets like knives.
Honey nods. “Anything we lose comes around in another form,” she reminds me. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t grieve.”
I still want to believe Elora’s alive somewhere, but with every one of those terrifying flashes, that hope gets harder and harder to hang on to. It’s like trying to hold an ice cube while it melts and drips between my fingers.
“Do you think she’s dead?”
Honey stops rearranging bottles to look at me. “Are you asking me what I think? Or what I know?”
“The second one, I guess.”
Honey sighs. “I wish I could tell you for sure, Grey. But it doesn’t work like that. If it did, we’d all be lottery winners, wouldn’t we?” She squeezes the last delicate bottle on to the tray. “It isn’t like placing an order at a restaurant or picking something out of a catalog. I tried to explain that to the sheriff. The dead tell us what they want us to know. Not what we want to know for ourselves.”
“I miss her,” I say, because it seems like the only thing I can say for certain.
“Oh, Sugar Bee,” Honey says, and she lays her hand on my cheek. “I know you do. And I wish I had the answers you need. It’s so hard when someone goes away and leaves a hole.”
I don’t mean to ask the next question. It just falls out of my mouth.
“Did my mom love me?”
Honey turns back to the tiny bottles. She picks up an orange one and holds it up close to squint at the label. “You were her whole world, but there were things that were hard for her to live with.” She puts the little bottle back in its place. “Things that ate away at her until there wasn’t much left. Especially the last few years.”
Before I can ask what things she’s talking about, the bell over the door jingles and the next group of tourists comes in to poke around. We offer them water and sandwiches and books on astrology. They pay for a thirty-minute reading, and Honey asks me to watch the register before she leads them over to the little alcove in the corner and pulls the privacy curtain.
When the bell jingles again, I look up, ready to say, “Welcome to the Mystic Rose, gentle spirits.” Like Honey taught me when I was barely old enough to talk. But it’s only Hart.
It makes me a little sick to see him, because I already know I’m not going to tell him about my stranger. Or about those drawings the twins showed me. The missing black trunk.
He wouldn’t want me protecting him. He’d be pissed as hell. But I can’t stand to cause him any more hurt.
Not until I have an idea what it all means.
Hart saunters up to the counter like I’m an Old West bartender and he’s here to order a double shot of whiskey. He rests his elbows on the glass top and runs his fingers through his hair.