Cursed be the Wicked (26 page)

“Who’s known? What are you talking about?” I ask her. That’s when her stare moves from absolutely nothing to look directly at me when she says it.

“Liz.”

Trina blinks a few times as soon as she says my aunt’s name. She comes back to join us from wherever it is she just went. She looks up at me like she’s just had an odd moment herself but she tries to blow it all off as if it was nothing.

This is the first time I’ve ever really watched something like that happen. It’s also the first time I
haven’t
wanted to tell the person how full of shit they are.

“Are you sure I can’t tempt you to stay?” she asks, as though she never skipped a beat.

“Are you kidding me right now? You just-”

“Coop,” Finn says, pulling at my arm and smiling to the woman. “Let’s just go, and leave Trina to her real customers.”

Trina waves to us with a blank look. As Finn and I make our way back to the car, I look for answers.

“That was weird, right?”

Finn looks off into the distance, thinking. I watch her and try to get inside her mind. Chances are, I’ll never be able to do that.

“I don’t get it,” I tell her.

“You don’t get what?” she asks as she smiles, watching a couple of kids wave fake wands over their heads.

“Wouldn’t you rather I thought I saw my mother the other night? If you want me to buy into all this supernatural crap?”

She stops and glares up at me. “First of all, Cooper Shaw, if you don’t stop calling what I hold dear to my heart crap I’m going to have to hurt you.”

“Okay, okay,” I hold my hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

She calms down and we continue to walk.

“Second, I didn’t know
what
you thought. I just knew that if you got to the truth, it’d help.”

“How’d you know it would help?”

“It always helps, Coop. Always. Even if you don’t realize it right away. Even if the truth doesn’t support what you believe.”

The rest of the way to the parking lot, we’re quiet. It’s nice.

I don’t notice our entwined hands until we get to the car and I have to let go.

“What do you think she meant by, ‘
Liz always knew’
?” I finally ask Finn in the car.

“I don’t know,” she says. “But I bet you’ll figure it out when you’re supposed to figure it out.”

I think about what she means.
Mom’s journals
. If what we’ve experienced so far is any kind of indication of how it’s going to be going forward, I don’t think I have that kind of time.

Finn and I immediately make our way up to Mom’s old room and begin reading through the journals when we arrive. I don’t think methodically when I pick one up. I don’t worry about where I left off the last time. I grab the first one I come to and open it up to a random page.

He’s getting worse,
one entry says.

He was always like this in a way, but now it’s different. I’m worried.

He’s
getting worse?

Another symbol joins this entry. If I’m not mistaken, the straight line with a curved top is a scythe. This gets me thinking. I was under the impression that she was referring to Jack based on previous entries where she seems to want him to “go away”, but if Jack’s the bear, this entry can’t be about him. Unless he’s the bear
and
the scythe.

That doesn’t make sense.

Just below this paragraph, she’s taped a rowan tree leaf to the page and drew a heart next to it. Below, she’s written what Finn has suggested is another spell.

Sanare.

I take the paper out that has the other Latin words we’ve found, and I jot this one at the bottom. I Google it on my iPhone.

Heal.

“Finn.”

I call her over to take a look at the next page. This one has a new symbol before her entry. It looks like two stick figures with a slash through where their hands meet.

Sometimes the way she looks at him, I wonder.

Finn takes the book and reads what I’m showing her.

“I’ve seen this one too,” she says, pointing at the picture. An excited expression washes over her. “I think I’m getting the hang of what Maggie’s talking about in some of her notes.”

She gets the pad of paper she’s been scribbling on and shows me the alphabet she’s finished up, based on Mom’s code.

“So, you think she’s writing in Klingon.”

It looks like gibberish to me. In fact, the letters look like . . . my brow furrows, remembering a class I took in College . . .
Greek
.

It’s not Greek, obviously, but the symbols are similar to what the Grecians used, only different.

“See here?” She points to a few lines where Mom’s used her ‘code’. “I
think
she writes the word
mistake
, if the symbols are lining up with the alphabet the way I think they do
.
”

“And if not?”

She shrugs. “Then you’re right, it’s just doodling. Or Klingon.”

She doesn’t wait for me to respond when she says, “But I don’t think it’s either.”

I hate to admit this, but I think she’s right.

“Down here, she’s got another note in English.”

I read it.

He’s ruining everything.

“There’s the bear again.”

“Yeah.”

I take the book and check the dates on the outside. She started this one after I was born. A few years after, to be precise. So I flip through it to see if there’s any mention of me but there isn’t. Just a few more cryptic passages just like the ones I’ve already come across, like
‘I’m paying the price’
and
‘It’s my fault.’

A bunch of them have more rowan leaves taped to the bottom next to a heart shape, telling me how much she loves
someone
and one page even has another spell.

Protegat
.

I Google it.

Protect.

I write it down with the other words I’ve found that Maggie used and move on. I come across an entry that actually has more than just one word and I wonder who she’s referring to when she quotes the poet Pablo Neruda.

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

More hearts. More rowan.

“I am so confused right now.”

“I know,” Finn says.

“What mistake is she talking about?” I ask her, even though I know she has no idea either. Somehow, saying it all out loud helps though.

“Who is she talking about?”

Finn starts to talk but I cut her off.

“And why in the hell doesn’t this woman speak English for crying out loud?” My head aches. My eyes are tired. Finn takes the book I’m reading and looks it over.

“You know those two stick figures?”

I eye the page again. “Yeah?”

“Did you know Maggie and Liz were both born as Geminis?”

I stare at her. I have no idea what she means.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Seven years apart, both born early June. They’re both Gemini and the Gemini’s sign is a symbol that closely resembles the Roman number two, but sometimes,” her finger taps the picture I was studying just a little while ago.

“Twins.”

Finn nods. “The slash through them might represent the break in their relationship at some point.”

“Okay.” I sit and think. “So if that’s Liz, and we’re assuming the bear is Jack Diggs,” I start.

“Oh, the bear is definitely Jack,” she insists. I give Finn a look that insinuates what a know it all she is but she blows me off as she grabs another journal.

“See those symbols around the bear?”

“Yeah,” I tell her. She proceeds to show me the alpha-code alignment that she’s come up with based on my mother’s symbols. The one over the top of the bear equals a J. The one to the right is A. The bottom, C, and the left is K.

I look at Finn like she’s some kind of freak genius and she explains.

“I Googled him. He attended Berkley after high school, left that Fall. Berkley’s mascot?”

She smiles and I answer for her.

“Bear.”

“Yep.”

“So that makes Dad-”

“The scythe.”

“Damn, Finn,” I say in awe of the mind this woman has.

“Scythes generally are associated with death.”

Shit.

“Does that mean she felt like Dad would be the death of her? Or is it part of her whole, wanting him dead theme?”

“I don’t know that part yet,” Finn admits.

I swear, if my mother could have just spelled this all out for me, I might know what the hell was going on by now, but with all the doodles and one line entries and spells, I’m never going to get through this thing with any more knowledge than the fact that my mother was cryptic.

Glass shatters loudly from somewhere in the house and my brows pinch together.

“Seriously?”

I toss the book down onto the bed.

“I’m putting an end to this shit, right now.”

“Where you going?”

“Outside.”

I jet downstairs and out to the back yard, calling out to any and all assholes that might be trying to fuck with me.

Finn opens the window from my parent’s old bedroom and leans out.

“Coop, I don’t think you’re going to find anything.”

I ignore her as I make my way around the yard, feeling slightly mad. “This shit’s getting old guys!” I yell out.

I push through bushes that line the side of the house, I check behind fences. But I stop when I get to the old rowan tree my mom had planted so many years ago, noticing something odd about it.

Its naked branches are blowing slowly, almost like they’re trying to get my attention. When I stop, they stop. I go to move again, they move.

I don’t know how to explain it as I stand there staring up at a single green leaf that holds on for dear life. It should be gone by now with the rest. But it’s there. Alone. Hanging on.

I wonder how long it’ll be before it gives up.

“Coop?”

I shake away the thoughts that are running through my head and look away from the tree to where Finn is calling to me. I wave and nod to let her know I’ll be right in. When I look to the tree, it’s blowing wildly, just like all the other trees out here.

I go back into the house before I freeze my ass off.

There’s no one outside.

I guess I already knew that.

Upstairs I sit on the edge of the bed but I have no interest in trying to read through my mother’s bullshit again. Not yet. I just need to breathe for a minute.

“Coop,” Finn says in a small, gentle voice. “I think it’s time you admit to yourself that there are things in this world you don’t understand.”

I stare at the floor. My mouth draws downward as I think about what she’s saying.

“That maybe your mom needs you to know things she didn’t have the guts to tell you when she was alive,” she continues. “Maybe she’s learned a few things since you left.”

It sounds like everything I’ve ever made a joke about. Everything I’ve ever previously believed had no substance whatsoever, but when Finn says it, I can’t help but consider things differently.

Or maybe I’ve already been considering them.

I breathe out. “I don’t know, Finn. I mean if I believe you, then what does that say about me? What does it say about everything I’ve ever decided was just a bunch of insane made up stories when it comes to all things Mom and what she stood for? ”

“Who is it, exactly that you’re trying to convince, Coop?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her. I’m honest when I say, “Maybe me. Maybe so that it would be easier to just, I don’t know.”

“Pretend none of it happened.”

I look over at her and nod. “Yeah.”

I look at the piece of paper I’ve been adding symbols and names to. “What does all this shit mean anyway?”

Finn takes the paper from me and looks at it, then the journal. “You forgot one,” she tells me and I watch as she draws a heart at the end of my list. It’s a replica of the heart my mother has drawn in several entries.

Finn writes my name next to it before handing me the piece of paper back.

I don’t know what to say as I stare at the symbol that, according to everything I thought was true when I was younger, doesn’t seem to go with my name.

Why would she love me in secret? And why does she associate me with dark things?

“It’s okay to be wrong sometimes,” she tells me with a hint of a smirk.

I don’t know anymore. About anything.

Maybe I
have
been wrong.

I pick up my mother’s journal again, the one I left open. I read the short passage again.

Sometimes I see the way she looks at him, and I wonder.

I think about what Trina said earlier.

She’s always known.

Who?

There’s at least
one
thing I’m positive about right now. Someone needs to be paid a visit. The only person still alive and clear of mind who had anything to do with my mother.

Someone who’s holding out on me for some reason and I’m sick of waiting around for her to decide whether or not she’s gonna share what’s inside those old memories of hers.

Liz
.