Hazel 

Thursday, May 11th

Lost: A heart (again)

The spellbook is missing. I found it, I need it, and now it’s lost. It was on the table when Olive went home yesterday. We looked through it again, me and Rowan and Ivy. We read all the lists of offerings, the prayers to Saint Anthony and Saint Jude, we touched all the trinkets stuck to the pages. Then we got up to make dinner and it’s like it disappeared. Ivy and Rowan say they didn’t take it, but one of them must have. It couldn’t have just vanished by itself.

It’s all I can think about and I nearly smash, like, five glasses at work. Mags snaps at me and sends me on my break early. I grab my cigarettes and help myself to a bottle of beer on the way out. No one’ll ever know.

When I get outside, there’s somebody crying at the corner of the parking lot, their back to the fence where I chain my bike. At first I keep my distance. Crying makes me kinda uncomfortable. Especially crying girls. And it is a girl—I can see that as I come closer. She’s hunched over and doing that crying-into-the-knees thing. Her hair’s long, wild, and black. The ends of it trail on the concrete. She’s wearing a blue school uniform with the skirt stapled at least three inches shorter than would’ve been allowed in my old school, but that makes sense because of the weird stuffy heat and the fact that she has great legs. Her shirtsleeves are rolled up and as she moves to rub her eyes I see that there’s something written in marker on her arm.

That’s what makes me stop and talk to her. I stand awkwardly in front of the girl and say, “Are you okay?” Then I change it to, “Obviously, you’re not, because otherwise you wouldn’t be crying, but it’s just not socially acceptable to go up to a complete stranger and say, Hey, tell me why you’re crying, you know?”

To my relief, the girl laughs at that, head still in her arms on her knees. Then she looks up, and I realize like a kick in the teeth that she’s really, really beautiful.

“Fuck what’s socially acceptable,” she says, and that’s it—I’m in love.

Uninvited, I sit on the curb beside her and take out my cigarettes. I offer her one, but she waves it away, so I put the packet back in my pocket.

“So, hey,” I say. “Tell me why you’re crying.”

She takes a breath and swipes the tears away with the palm of her hand. Watery black streaks her cheeks. “Waterproof eyeliner,” she says. “My kingdom for waterproof eyeliner.”

“You’re crying because you don’t have waterproof eyeliner?” I say, just to hear her laugh again. “Seems like a bit of a contradiction.”

Her laugh is addictive. Like I’ll straight-up die if I don’t hear it again.

“Well, if I don’t cry every eyeliner off, how will I know which one’s waterproof?”

“Good point,” I say. “So this is all just a makeup test?”

“Basically, yes. I’m pretty passionate about my beauty products.”

“Well, I admire your dedication.”

She reaches into her skirt pocket for a plastic bottle. She unscrews the lid, lifts out a little wand, and blows a bunch of bubbles over the parking lot. When she exhales, her shoulders drop slightly, like she’s relieved.

“I quit smoking,” she explains when she notices me looking. “This helps my craving.”

“Right.”

“You go ahead, though, if you’re having one. I like the smell.”

I light a cigarette while she blows her nose. She takes out a little mirror and rubs at the makeup under her eyes. When I cry, I look like shit. My skin looks like it’s been scrubbed with a stone and I get red blotches around my nostrils. This girl manages to look the way crying girls do in films: red eyes and puffed lips and no blotches.

“What’s your name?”

The question comes out more intimate than I meant it to.

“Rose.” She closes her mirror and glances at the tattoos on my arms. “You’re Hazel.”

“I am,” I say, and I try not to sound taken aback.

Rose smiles mischievously. She says, “Your brother’s called Rowan, you ran away from home, you’re living in a boarded-up house in an abandoned development with a blue-haired girl.”

“How do you—”

“It’s like something out of a film. Tattooed teenage runaways squatting in a ghost town. Olive told me. She’s my best friend.”

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

“We won’t tell,” Rose says. “I mean, Olive told me, but we won’t tell anyone else.”

“Thanks.” I tap ash onto the concrete. Rose blows bubbles into the air.

“So why did you run away from home?” Rose asks.

“I’m testing out the waterproof-ness of abandoned housing developments,” I tell her.

Rose nods. “Okay, I guess I deserve that.” Then she looks at me, right in the eyes. It’s something people don’t do a whole lot, and it feels weird, and good, and weird. I clear my throat. Her eyes are a soft dark brown, lined with smudged makeup like a photo shoot in a hotel bed. Her eyelashes go on for miles.

“Okay,” Rose says again, seeming to steel herself. “I lost my virginity at the town bonfire party, so that’s why I’m crying. Mostly.”

I’m not sure what to say to that. “Mostly?”

“Well.” She taps the wand like an ashy cigarette. “I don’t actually remember it. Mostly.” She dips the wand back into the bottle, takes it out, and shakes it viciously. “And I didn’t realize that’s what’d happened at first. But the guy who . . . was there, too . . . remembers it.” Her wrist makes a snapping motion, fast and violent. A bunch of bubbles appear and pop-pop-pop-pop like a spray of bullets all around us. “And he keeps.” Flick. “Sending me.” Flick. “Fucking.” Flick. “Messages.”

I reach out carefully and take the wand from her hand. It keeps shaking.

“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.” I put the wand on the ground. “Do you know the guy?” I ask.

“He’s in, like, half my classes.” It sounds as if she’s trying to speak through a whole apple stuck in her throat.

“What kind of messages?”

She doesn’t answer, but she hands me her phone. I scroll quickly through her messages, but she doesn’t watch me. She picks the wand up from beside her foot and blows a bunch of bubbles across the parking lot instead.

The first few messages are from Sunday—the day after the party.

Hi Rose did u get my friend request. Had fun last nite. Do u want 2 go out sumtime?

“Who writes like that anymore?” I mutter, and Rose gives a weak smile.

Ur beautiful. Do u want 2 get 2getr again?

I snort. Rose makes a face and waits for me to read on. It’s a long string of messages sent over the last week. Most of them were sent on Sunday and on Monday morning, pretty much every half hour.

This is rose rite????

Hope u had fun haha lets do it again

Hi rose how r u

Hows it goin

Sent u friend request dont no if u got it

U want 2 go out nxt wknd?

Rose never answers, but the guy doesn’t get the hint. Then, on Monday afternoon, the messages suddenly switch gears.

Ur an ugly bitch

Ugly lesbo dike

Bet u loved ur pity fuck id never go out with a hoor like u

How much 4 u to blow my mates? ill give u ten quid

U love 2 do it 4 free dirty slut

And it goes on. Some of the messages have pictures. I give Rose back her phone, holding it like there’s something rotten in there. “Why don’t you just block him?”

“I did. He sends texts from his friends’ phones now.”

“Jesus.”

“I told him I wasn’t interested,” Rose says. “That I didn’t remember it and I didn’t mean to—” She breaks off and shakes her head. “He didn’t take it well.”

“Let me guess, this was sometime on Monday?” I point at the first of the awful messages.

Rose manages another weak smile. “Bingo.” She nudges the bottle of bubbles with her foot and it tips over, spills on the ground. The stain spreads over the concrete. I reach out and drag my shoe through the soapy water. I draw a flower. Rose stretches her leg out and writes Fuck this.

“What are you going to do?” I ask her. She shakes her head.

“Drink too much,” she says. “Not go back to school until September, when it’ll all have blown over. Keep telling my parents it’s PMS.”

“Sounds familiar,” I say in an undertone. Rose gives me kind of a knowing look.

“My dad was never really around when I was little,” I say quickly. “But when he was, my mom was different. He was always . . . kind of like that.” I gesture at her phone. “Hot and cold, but always blaming her for it. I’d tell you to go to the police except I know firsthand they can’t do shit. Even if they’re nice about it, they’ll just say there’s no proof.”

I kind of expect Rose to get upset, but instead she nods like that’s something she already knows. “Is that why you ran away?”

I sigh. “No. She did. My mom. Ran away, I mean.” Rose raises her eyebrows in question. “She left us with our grandparents and went off to be with our dad. Crazy, right—that she still wanted to be with him, despite the way he treated her? My grandparents raised us until my granny died a few months ago. Granda’s in a hospice now, ’cause he’s not doing so good. So. My parents came to get us. It didn’t work out. Me and Rowan are kinda better off alone.”

Rose nods again. “I’m sorry,” she says. “About your grandparents.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I’m sorry about . . .” I gesture at her phone again, at her smudged, nonwaterproof eye makeup. “All this.”

We stare out across the parking lot together. After about a minute Rose takes my hand.

“You’re the only person I’ve told,” she says.

I kind of laugh and say, “Same.” I don’t tell her there’s a lot more I’m not telling. “I’m probably a shitty first person to tell,” I admit. “I’m a complete stranger and I have literally no advice for you.”

“You know my best friend; you’re not a complete stranger. Although you are pretty strange.”

I properly laugh this time, and say, “You have no idea.”

Then she says, “I like strange,” and I wonder if she might be flirting with me. I look down at her hand in mine. She’s upset. Fuck upset—she’s in pieces. She’s probably just looking for somebody to listen. For advice. For a solution. I can still just about see a few letters of a word written in marker on her wrist. Like Olive had on her arms yesterday. Does everybody write on their arms in this town?

I look up at her suddenly.

“I don’t have a solution for you,” I say. “But I do have a spell.”

“A spell?”

“Yeah. There was a book. A spellbook. I found it yesterday on my way home, in the same field the party was in last weekend. Someone must have lost it there. Spellbook of the Lost and Found, it’s called. It’s got a spell to call up lost things. I guess if your virginity is a thing you can lose, maybe it’s a thing you can find again.”

I don’t tell her I don’t have the spellbook anymore. It doesn’t matter. I read that spell so many times, I know it by heart.

Then, quick as a flash, I remember something. Something Olive muttered when she read it. There was an ingredient for each of us. And rose thorns. There’s an ingredient for Rose.

Another flash of memory: The spell calls for poteen. It was something about the waters of Lethe, which Ivy said was a river in Greek mythology, but it said you could use poteen instead. It all lines up.

We’re going to have guests, Ivy said she saw in the crossword. When Olive showed up yesterday, we all figured that’s what it meant. But what if it meant two guests? She’s important, Ivy said. Maybe Rose is important, too. Olive and Rose, the spellbook, the poteen. I know already that Rose and Olive will drink it with us. I know already that they will help us cast the spell.

Mags appears at the back door of the pub. She shades her eyes and scans the parking lot. I’m late back from my break.

“Olive told me about the spell,” Rose says, her eyebrows drawn together. “But I didn’t think it was actually . . . real.”

I shrug. “I live with a girl who believes in magic and work for a woman who’s probably a witch. Real is a kinda fuzzy concept.”

“I can imagine,” says Rose. Her smile is seven kinds of sunlight.

I stand up and dust off the back of my trousers. “Come by the development this weekend,” I say, stamping my cigarette out on the ground. My belly’s a cage full of butterflies. “Real or not, it can’t do any harm to try.”