Spells for Forgetting

by Adrienne Young

There were tales that only the island knew. Ones that had never been told. I knew, because I was one of them.

I’d lived enough years now to know that there were some ghosts that haunted you forever. Saoirse had secrets, yes. But so did we.

Nearly six weeks late, and with no warning at all, every tree on Saoirse had turned in a single night. I knew better than to dismiss such things. We all did. It was the time of year when the veil between worlds was thin, and in that moment, I could feel the tingle of the Otherworld tiptoeing lightly up my spine.

Sometimes the signs were subtle, like a fleeting shadow or an echo in the trees. Other times, the island wasn’t gentle with her words.

First, the nightmares had returned in broken pieces. A frayed thread. But now, they were a fully painted canvas across my mind. My fists full of wet, tangled hair. The cold water lapping around me. The screaming. I could still hear the screaming.

“There are spells for breaking and spells for mending. But there are no spells for forgetting,” I warned her.

My mother said that the island would always call us back. That

The light darkened and I looked up to the sky, where black clouds were creeping like a wave toward the island. I could feel the storm gathering overhead. The buzz of it in the air. The cold pushing in from the sea. It was as if Saoirse had heard him say it. I was sure that she had.

I shook my head, trying to understand. “Why would Dutch lie before he even knew you needed him to?” August kept his gaze pinned on the window. A strike of lightning made the lights dim, before they brightened again. “August.” I pressed. “He wasn’t lying to protect me, Emery.” He breathed. “He was protecting himself.”

August reached up to rub his face with his hands. “They were seeing each other.” “Who?” “Dutch and Lily.” My hands fell limply

“I don’t know. Why did Lily do anything she did?” He paused. “Dutch asked me not to say anything, so I didn’t. Lily was really paranoid about people finding out. She didn’t even want him telling me.” I raked my hair back with one hand, thinking. “She was pregnant.” “What?” August gave me a confused look. “Jake told me she was pregnant.” August stiffened. “And he told you it was me?” he guessed. “That me and Lily were…” I nodded. Something like a curse sounded under his breath. “I didn’t believe him. But Dutch…” My voice trailed off. “Why would he keep that a secret? After all this time?” “I don’t know. We all lied about something.”

I now had more questions than I had answers about Dutch Boden.

And there was nothing that haunted me more than knowing what that single choice had cost.

“You’re not an idiot. Which is why I don’t believe for a second that you just happened to not go to Washington State. And then just happened to get with Emery. You were after her the second I left. You forget that I know you, Dutch. Lily wanted me, fine. I didn’t want her. But you always wanted Emery. You were using Lily the same way she was using you, so don’t act like it broke your fucking heart.” He leveled his gaze at me, his voice turning cold. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? Emery’s the same desperate whore that Lily was, looking for someone, anyone, to climb into bed with her.”

He smiled, as if he was amused by the interrogation. “I have two classes right now. ‘Early Medieval History’ and ‘Archaeoscience and the Rise of Capitalism.’ ” “Archaeoscience,” I repeated. It wasn’t what I would have guessed he’d end up doing, but somehow, it fit.

“If he did, then why would they need you to sign it over?” I said. I could see him figuring it out, the way I had, as he read Nixie’s signature below his. He pressed a clenched fist against his mouth as he read over the document again. “What exactly are you saying?” I drew in a long, measured breath. “I’m saying that Lily isn’t the only reason they weren’t happy you came back.”

sad. “I know you feel like I left you here, but you followed me everywhere I went.”

I’d been in love with August Salt since before I knew what the words meant. I don’t know when it happened—the narrow space between seconds, when a spark like the birth of a hundred stars found a home in my blood. Since then, every day had been colored with the glittering light of it dragging me in its wake, pulling me beneath its surface. And I didn’t care. If this was what it was like to drown, then for the rest of my life, I didn’t want to take another

years ago. It hurt every time I looked at it, but I hurt anyway.

urge to tap my finger impatiently on the table. “Look, I’m not stupid enough to believe the bullshit reasons you gave when you offered me the position at the orchard. I’m going to guess it had something to do with knowing I wouldn’t ask questions, and I haven’t. So, keep that in mind when you’re deciding whether to pull me back into this shit.” I arched an eyebrow at him. The arrangement with Dutch had been

“She came here. For the book of spells,” I said, flipping through the pages. “But she wasn’t doing just any magic. If she was wearing the willow branch, she was doing dark magic.” “She couldn’t have. There’s no way she could have worked a spell like that.” “Exactly.”

“Seaweed.” I said, remembering. “She had seaweed in her stomach.” Slowly, Albertine’s expression changed. “What? What is it?” “There is a spell in that book. For drowning.” The last word was almost inaudible. She reached over me, feeling the edges of the pages. “Somewhere in here.” She held open a section and I started turning the pages, studying them one by one. “Sailor’s something.” My finger frantically dragged over the handwriting until I found it. Sailor’s Scourge.

“On a dark moon.” I read aloud. “In the right hand, the anchor. In the left, a stalk of henbane. Spoken three times over candle’s flame, with blood and seaweed on the tongue: ‘air to water, water to lungs.’ ” A sharp chill crept over my skin. “What do you mean it’s a spell for drowning?” “It’s not all blessings and abundance charms in that book, love. You know that.” She answered. “I suppose it was a spell crafted to drown someone. By the name it was given, I can guess it was a sailor. A fisherman, maybe?” I read the words again. “What is the anchor? Like on a ship?” “No. An anchor binds the spell to its intended recipient.” “How?” “It’s an item, usually. A possession. A lock of hair…” “That doesn’t make any…” The words disappeared on my tongue as it came to me. The necklace. A sick feeling roiled in my belly. “Oma”—my voice was brittle—“she had my necklace.”

This was about the orchard.

3:36 p.m. The flash of Lily Morgan’s flaxen hair flit through the trees like a fire spark as she ran.

dress, Emery’s necklace still dangling from her fingers. There was no undoing it now. Emery was gone. There was finally room for Lily to find a way into August’s heart, and she would. At the very least, she’d find a way into his bed. And when Lily bore a child that everyone thought was his, she would get what she deserved. For the first time in generations, things would be set right. It was a Morgan who’d planted the first seeds of the orchard and it was a Salt who’d pried it from her family’s white-knuckled fingers. But there was one thing that Lily had forgotten—that the magic belonged to me.

It looked down at her, eyes black and unblinking, as Lily Morgan drowned on dry land.

“Calvin was a drunk. He was hurting Eloise,” Nixie said. For me, it had never been about saving Eloise Salt and her baby. It was clear from the beginning that getting rid of Calvin was hitting two birds with one very well-aimed stone. One less Salt on Saoirse brought me one step closer to putting things right. Calvin got warnings first, of course. A visit from Zachariah, Jake, and Noah. They’d hoped after a few broken ribs that he’d come to some sense, but I knew better. I knew the Salts. When he didn’t stop hitting Eloise, we dealt with it. We took care of our own on Saoirse.

I’d spent months preparing the curse for Henry, and I’d cast it by burying the spell deep in the woods. A few days later, the coughing began, and a month after that, the bleeding.

My great-grandmother planted the first five seeds of the apple orchard and my family line had tended it until one of them married a Salt and the Morgans were pruned from the vine.

I was born a healer on this island, and the Salts were a bone-deep cancer. That’s why I told Lily exactly what to do when she came to my door, red-faced

told her that the bond between them could only be broken by death. It was easy to reason with someone who was heartsick. It took only minutes to convince her to go to Albertine’s for the book of spells, and then I went to the apothecary and unlocked the cupboard, just like I promised. I knew that trusting her with the task was a risk. I’d have done the spell myself, if I could.

It was true. Saoirse was like poison. A thick, creeping sickness. And at the heart of it all was the goddamn orchard. My mother had never been able to see that, either.

Jake’s eyes ran over me, landing on the trail of blood that had dried stiff on the shoulder of my white T-shirt. I could feel it like scales on my ear and neck. “It’s not the first time someone’s beat the shit out of me,” I said flatly. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?” He stared at me, clearly uncomfortable.

“I don’t think it was any kind of secret.” His head tilted a little to one side. “I would have done anything for Eloise. And I did.” My brow cinched. Whatever he was referring to filled the room with a deeper cold. The look in his eye was hollow, his voice distant. “Then why’d you turn against her?” “I didn’t.” “All right. Why’d you turn against me? You know

“But Lily didn’t have the skill for a spell like that,” I began again. “And instead of killing me, she killed herself.” Leoda’s gaze was empty now, completely vacant of the warm, protective woman who’d fluttered over me like a hen for my entire life. “And when Lily died, you had to change the plan. You may not have been able to get him charged with her murder, but August left Saoirse. So you got what you wanted. All you had to do was wait for Henry to die so you could be sure the orchard ended up in the right hands.”

“That orchard belongs to the Morgans. Not the Salts. Lily was the sacrifice the island required.” She said it with an unnerving conviction that sent a chill up my spine.

But there in the kitchen, almost three hundred miles away, I could hear my grandmother’s time-worn voice recounting the oldest of Saoirse’s legends: That if you left the island, it would always call you back.