The Flower Bowl Spell (7 page)

Viv looks impatient. “I haven’t been up to
talking about it much.”

“Of course.”

We stand for a moment, Viveka looking on the
verge of crumpling yet unapproachable. I wouldn’t dare try to hug
her. Her aura is dark and crackling. I put the towel back on its
hook.

“What about Gru? Can she watch your girls?
She’s their great-grandmother, right?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “It has to be you.
And please don’t tell her about this.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know.”

I stare at her. “You don’t know?”

Instead of answering, she looks at me and
lifts her chin. “Why
not
you?”

I have a few reasons, but I doubt she’d care
to listen to them. My next question is an obvious one, but I don’t
ask it. With the way this conversation is progressing, I already
know what her answer will be—she won’t tell me where she’s
going.

I take the kettle out of the sink and start
filling it again. “How long?”

“I can’t say,” she says. “Maybe a few days. A
couple of weeks.” She sounds uncertain and I am so tempted to touch
her again. Her aura has calmed down to a shimmering cool blue, like
deep northern ice.

“I have to go on a business trip,” I say.

“The girls won’t mind. They’re good
travelers.”

I put the kettle on the stove and light the
burner. I can feel the girls’ concentration, as if they are in the
room with us. Especially Cleo.

“Don’t they have school?”


“They’re home-schooled. They’re good about
doing their work. You just have to get them started.”

I pour cocoa powder into mugs, my hands
surprisingly steady. “My boyfriend doesn’t get home for a few
hours. I need to talk to him about this.”

“I don’t have time to wait. Besides, you’re
going to do it.”

I give her a sharp going-over. As a child,
Viveka never showed signs of intuitiveness.

She reaches into her purse, a black,
faux-leather hunk, and pulls out an envelope. “It’s money,” she
says. “And their medical records. There’s also a note from me
giving you permission to watch them.” She slides the packet across
the counter.

“Viv.” I shake my head. “This is so...”

“I know. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t
have to.”

“Can you at least tell me what this is all
about?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not even—” She
stops and I see her choosing her words. “Later. When I know
more.”

We stand there for a while in silence,
sometimes looking at each other, sometimes not. In a panicked
surge, I want to grab her hand and squeeze out whatever information
I can from her, to manipulate her thoughts—change her mind!—no
matter how wrong it is. And the thing is, I know it wouldn’t work.
She opened up to me a little when she first got here—those faces I
saw—but her guard is up now.

Part of me is intrigued. Part of me wants to
see where this thing is going to go.

The kettle begins to whine. Viveka leaves the
kitchen while I’m pouring hot water into mugs. I carry them into
the living room. Viv is hunkered down in front of her daughters,
who look as if they have not moved one inch from where we left them
on the couch. Her words are murmured and they gaze into her face,
barely moving, occasionally blinking.

The girls don’t budge as I place the cups in
front of them on the coffee table. I step back, not sure if I
should go or stay. I want to stay, to witness everything about this
extraordinary situation. There’s so much I don’t know. I don’t even
know their father’s name.

Viveka leans forward and the girls follow her
lead. They hug her, their small fingers pressing into her sweater.
She whispers something like, “Jesus bless you.” The moment is
fraught with its inevitable end, and when they break away from each
other, the girls’ faces are wet with tears. Viv stands up and turns
to me, and for the first time since she walked into my home, the
shield of defiance is gone.

“Thank you, Memphis,” she says and reaches
for my hand. There are no more visions, but a flutter of something
runs from her to me—mother-strength, I hope.

“I can call you, right?”

She shakes her head. “My phone won’t be
working. But I’ll call you. Soon.”

“But what if something happens?” I glance at
the girls, not wanting to alarm them.

“Don’t worry.” She walks to the front door
and opens it. “The girls will be fine. Nothing’s going to happen to
them.”

“But—”

“I just know.”

But how could she know? She doesn’t have
It.

Viveka steps forward and gives me the hug I
could not give her. “Thank you,” she says. Almost instantly I feel
her push me away, and she is gone.

Chapter Seven

At the bottom of my front stairs, Viveka has
left two duffel bags and a child’s booster car seat. It’s official.
The kids are with me.

They’re sitting on my couch. I sink down
across from them in Cooper’s armchair, the one he occupies to watch
sports and the History Channel. The girls look at me, their faces
open.

Viveka was never magickal. She scoffed at the
adults who surrounded us, a rebellious preteen bucking her
heritage. But her girls, they aren’t ordinary. At least, Cleo
isn’t. It’s in her face—hers is a whopper of an old soul.

“How’s the cocoa?” I ask.

Romola, the older one, picks up her mug and
takes a sip without slurping. Cleo looks at her sister. “It’s too
hot for her, ”Romola says. “Better wait a little bit.”

Afternoon is wearing into evening. What was I
going to eat for dinner before all of this happened? Oh, right.
Celebrate my professional coup with my feller. I go to the
refrigerator. One foil-wrapped slice of pizza, two bottles of a
six-pack, condiments. Nothing here for little girls.

Back in the living room, Cleo has scooted
onto the floor and is blowing furiously on her mug. Romola sits
with incredibly good posture.

“Do you take ballet?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Gymnastics.”

“Me too,” Cleo says, tipping her mug. I’m
expecting disaster at any second, but I don’t want to scare her
into spilling the drink. No sudden movements. I try to think about
what it was like with Hillary. She was close to Cleo’s age when I
started babysitting her. She was bratty sometimes. She also knew
something was going on between her father and me before we did.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew, but I
didn’t let myself know. After all, I was one of his underage
students. But Hillary caught on.

“Daddy likes you,” she said once out of the
blue. We were playing a game in their backyard—this was in their
Inner Sunset house and he was still married to Hil’s mother. I
remember looking around to see if any of their neighbors were
within listening range.

“That’s sweet,” I said. “He’s a cool
teacher.”

“Yeah, but he likes you, you know, like, not
like a girl but like a grown-up.”

I didn’t reply. We continued with our game
and I thought perhaps the embarrassing subject was forgotten. But
after a while, Hillary said, “Do you like my daddy?” Her voice was
full of sly knowing. “Do you want to be his girlfriend?”

“You’re being silly, Hil,” I said. “Your dad
is married to your mom. And I like her a lot too.” That was no lie.
I did like her, and I still do. Any bad blood she might have tried
to infuse between us has been erased by her shiny, new
venture-capitalist husband.

But what to do with Viveka’s girls? Cleo has
successfully brought her mug to her mouth with both hands and is
slurping down lukewarm cocoa, her head tipping far back on her
slight neck.

“What would you like to eat?” I ask them.

Romola shrugs. And then her eyes widen. “Can
we have French fries? Mommy says they’re only for special
occasions.”

“French fries, French fries!” Cleo
chants.

There are a couple of burger places on
Twenty-fourth Street that would do, but it seems better to get out
of my neighborhood. I rack my brain until it comes to me—the
perfect spot. I haven’t been there in years. We’ll have to drive,
but a car ride will kill time, give us something to do.

I hold out my hands to the girls and they
clasp them in their own. “French fries it is.”

****

Installing Cleo’s souped-up car seat requires
skill sets I didn’t know I possess. The buckles and clasps seem
like a test designed to determine I.Q., dexterity, and luck. Romola
helps.

“I like your doll,” she says as I make a
right turn into a parking lot. I’m not sure what she means until my
eyes land on the hula girl I’ve glued to the dashboard. She bobbles
not so gracefully as I pull into a parking spot.

“Thank you.”

The girls crane their necks up at the red on
white sign, which hangs dully against the gray, twilit sky: Lucky
Penny. Neither one moves, even after I get out of the car. They
just sit there in the backseat, staring at the sign, mouths hanging
open. I give them a moment, fussing with my bag and pretending
there’s something in there I really need to hunt down.

“Come on,” I say after I’ve palpated every
inch of the bag’s interior. I’m not even sure why I’m stalling.
They undo their seatbelts. Romola helps her little sister open the
door. Once they’re both standing in the parking lot, she slams it
shut with both hands.

We sit at a booth with a view of the parking
lot. Cars line up to park at the Trader Joe’s next door, and I make
a mental note to head over there after we eat. Must stock up on
kid-friendly foodstuff. I’ve ordered the same thing at the Lucky
Penny ever since I was a girl, coming here with my parents or
Auntie Tess: grilled cheese on rye. Back then it was called the
Copper Penny. Maybe the owners decided the association between
copper and food isn’t really all that appetizing.

“Get whatever you like,” I tell the girls.
“See, they have French fries.”

“And onion rings,” Cleo says.

I study her, trying to remember how old I was
when I knew how to read a menu—or anything else, for that matter.
“So, how old are you girls?”

“I turned nine last week,” Romola says. “And
Cleo’s gonna be four in April.”

“That’s when my birthday is too,” I say.
“April fourteenth.”

“Hers is the twentieth.”

Cusp child. Between the fish and the ram.

“I’m having a big party when I’m twenty,”
Cleo says. “And when I’m four, because April is number four.”

Ah, don’t forget numerology. “Four is a lucky
number to Native Americans,” I say. But not to the Chinese. Not
that she needs to know that.

“I thought seven is lucky,” says Romola.

“Sure. And thirteen.”

“Is not!”

I shrug. “To some. The people your mom and I
grew up with.” I hesitate, wondering how much they know about
Viveka’s upbringing and if she’d want me to talk about it or not.
“Well. They like the number thirteen a lot.” I tap my fingers on
the table. “I’m sorry about your grandma. About Sadie.”

Romola looks uncomfortable. Cleo’s mouth
turns down at the corners.

“You must miss her,” I say.

“She’s in heaven,” Cleo says. She gives a
big, dramatic sigh and suddenly smiles. “Mommy’s been here.”

“She has?” I look to her sister, who has
begun a busy perusal of the milkshake selection.

Cleo nods. “I want pie.”

“I want French fries,” Romola says.

Viveka came here. When? Her family always
lived outside of the city, and there’s no reason to come to a diner
dive like the Penny unless you don’t have a lot of money or you’re
depressed. But Cleo is right, I realize. Viveka came here with the
coven once for breakfast after a dawn sun salutation in the
Presidio. I remember this because she ordered a banana split at
seven in the morning.

****

I get the girls to brush their teeth and
settle them in our spare room—sometimes Hillary’s room—after
watching
The Wizard of Oz
, which I had to dig out of a box
in our hall closet. I watch them for reactions to Glinda and the
Wicked Witch of the West, but they seem entirely unperturbed,
except when the Wicked Witch of the East’s toes curl and shrivel up
under the house. Who
doesn’t
find that disturbing? They go
to bed when I tell them to. I hear their voices through the door,
but I don’t try to listen in. Some things, like the whispers
between sisters, are especially sacred, especially to those of us
who’ve never had one.

It’s nearly ten when Cooper comes home. I’ve
been going over what to say to him since the Lucky Penny waitress
brought the check. He takes the news of our unexpected houseguests
with his usual composure, although there’s a frown between his
eyes. He has me repeat the story, starting with my friendship with
Viv, if you want to call it that. I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned
her to Cooper. He listens, sitting upright in his chair, one finger
pressed against his cheekbone while the rest of his fingers ever so
slightly tap his lips. When I finish the tale, he takes his hand
away, and there’s a red mark on his face that glows brightly before
beginning to fade.

“This is very odd,” he says.

“I know.”

“What do you suppose she’s doing?”

I take a moment to reach out to her with my
thoughts. I haven’t tried this yet, and I’m nonplussed by the
results—I can’t find her trace. I know I’m out of practice, but how
can this be?

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I say. Maybe
she has magickal help. My first guess is Gru. But then why didn’t
Viveka take the girls to Gru’s?

“We’ve got to find her,” Cooper says. “This
is unacceptable.”

“But—” I stand up from where I’ve been
sitting on the couch. “It’s too late now. They’re here and she’s
gone, and that’s that.”

He glances down the hallway, as if it’s just
occurred to him that we really are not alone in the flat. “Well,
when is she coming back for them?”