Moon White: Color Me Enchanted with Bonus Content (13 page)

“Well, Hudson came over to my house yesterday. I wasn’t really sure why, but we just sort of hung and listened to music and talked and stuff.”

I give my stubborn locker a hard hit with my fist, then turn and look at her.

“Don’t get mad,” she says, actually stepping back.

I force a smile. “I’m not mad.” I nod to my locker. “It’s just stuck.”

“Oh.” She sort of laughs. “So you’re okay with it?”

“With what?” I ask as I attempt the combination again. This time I dial it very carefully, as if I’m counting to ten, and then it opens.

“About me and Hudson,” she says.

I open my locker, retrieve my geometry book, then turn and look at her again. “What about you and Hudson?” I ask, looking straight into her eyes and thinking I want to make her squirm.

“Well, we sort of like each other.” She glances away.

“Oh.” I slam my locker shut.

“You’re not mad, are you?” she asks, trailing behind me as I walk toward the math department.

I sort of shrug. “I guess I feel slightly betrayed,” I admit, which is a huge understatement.

“I know,” she says, “and I feel really bad. I mean, it’s not like we planned this. But things happen, you know, sort of like chemistry. And if you like someone, well, you like them. It’s not like we could help it, Heather.”

I stop walking now and turn and look at her. “Fine,” I say in a very stiff voice. “Whatever.” Then I walk off. I hear her calling my name, but I just ignore her. Why shouldn’t I? Friends don’t do this to friends.

By noon, I’m still fuming. Oh, I try to act like I’m not, but I am boiling mad. I cannot believe Liz has stabbed me in the back like this. Or that she thinks I should just accept it as something that just “happened.” And when I see her waiting for me in the usual spot at lunchtime, I am so furious that I simply turn around and go the other way. She calls my name, but I walk faster and eventually run. I duck through the library, then exit and go around the school and finally out to the parking lot, where I get into my car. Even though I don’t have a pass, I drive away. I have no idea where I’m going or if I even care. But I just keep driving and eventually find myself on the coast highway, heading north.

It’s a cold, foggy day, and I can’t even see the ocean from the road. But maybe I don’t really care. This isn’t exactly a sightseeing trip. I think of my mom as I drive, remembering how she used to drive up the coast sometimes. “It helps me to think,” she told me once, “sort of clears out my head.” But it’s not helping
me
to think, and as I hear my tires squealing around a corner, I realize that I’m
not even paying attention to the road or my speed.

Feeling somewhat shocked at how irresponsible I’m being just now, I pull over to a viewpoint on the ocean side and stop, turn off the car, and get out. Then I walk around to the front of my car and actually begin pounding my fists into the hood. “Why is this happening?” I cry out over and over again. Then finally, after my hands are cold and beginning to ache, I quit and just turn around and sit on the hood of the car and blankly stare out to where the ocean should be, only it’s shrouded in a heavy blanket of fog.

I wish I could talk to my mom right now. I wish I could ask her to tell me what to do, or what I’m doing wrong. I feel like such a loser. Maybe this whole Wicca thing is to blame. I don’t know. It seemed to really work for me at first, like everything was under control and going so great. And now this. I don’t get it.

Then I remember Sienna and her offer to help me. I remember how she even suggested I might contact my mom through her. Suddenly, it seems that she really is my answer. Why didn’t I see it sooner? I pull out my phone and then realize I don’t know her number. I can’t even call information to get it because I don’t know her last name. But I do know where she lives, and I decide to drive back to town. I realize she could be playing for a dance class, but then I also know that Naomi doesn’t have that many classes this time of day since school’s not out yet.

I park in the back, as usual, and go through the side door. I quietly go up the stairs, listening for music. But other than the sounds from the restaurant downstairs, the building is relatively quiet. I tiptoe past the second floor, worried that Naomi will pop out and question why I’m creeping around here when I should be in school, but I make it safely up to the third floor. I think Sienna said apartment three, but I’m not sure. I stop by the door and actually
listen, and I think I can hear music in there. But I have to admit that I’m feeling spooked. It’s pretty dim in this hallway, and the rundown appearance and old musty smell sort of gets to me. I quietly knock on the door, almost getting ready to run. But when it opens and I see Sienna standing there in front of what looks like a fairly normal, in fact a fairly attractive, apartment, I’m relieved.

“Well,” she says, “I thought you’d come, but I didn’t expect you this soon. Are you playing hooky?”

I kind of smile. “I guess.”

“Come in.” She opens the door wider and I go into what is a well-lit room with windows facing Main Street. Her style reminds me a bit of Augustine’s, only I can tell that Sienna’s is probably accomplished on a shoestring, whereas Augustine’s funds sometimes seem unlimited.

“This is nice,” I tell her.

She smiles and glances around the room. “I’ve fixed it up a lot. But I like it.” She points to a couch covered in a colorful blanket that looks like it’s from a Latin country. “Sit down.”

So I do, and she sits across from me in a wooden rocker. “What can I do for you, Heather?”

So I just begin, once again, to dump on her. I tell her about Liz and how she’s betrayed me, and how I drove up the highway a little recklessly, and how I wish I could talk to my mom, and how I feel pretty lost right now.

She nods. “I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. But sometimes it’s the hard times that show us how to live our lives.”

“Then you’d think I’d be an expert by now.”

She sort of laughs. “It’s what we do with our life lessons that changes us. And I have to admit that I’m not always the fastest to learn in my own life. I think sometimes it’s easier to look at someone
else and see where they need help.”

“Well, I sure feel like I need help.”

“What can I do for you?” She folds her hands in her lap and waits.

“I was thinking about your offer to sort of teach me,” I begin.

She nods and waits.

“I think I’d like that.”

“Good.”

“And . . . also, I was thinking about my mom . . . and how you said maybe you could contact her . . .”

“I can’t promise anything, Heather. But I can try.”

“Uh, do you charge anything . . . I mean to contact the dead? I read that some people do . . . that it’s kind of a business.”

She frowns. “I don’t agree with that. I think if you truly have a gift, you should use it to help others, not to make money.”

I nod. This is reassuring.

“There are a couple of ways to do it,” she begins. “Sometimes it works with just a couple of people, and sometimes it helps to have a small group. It also helps to have an item that belonged to the person we’re trying to reach, or to be someplace where that person enjoyed being.” She looks at me and smiles. “Of course, since you’re here, that could be enough in itself. I’m sure your mother would want to communicate with you.”

I reach for the locket that I’m wearing today. “This was hers,” I say as I unlatch it. “I did have a photo of her in it, but I seem to have lost it.” I shove down a wave of guilt for losing my mom’s photo, but I’ve searched everywhere and it seems to have totally disappeared.

“Yes, that will be helpful.”

I look around the room and wonder what my mother would think of this. Then I remember something. “My mom always loved
being in the dance studio,” I say suddenly. “She loved watching me dance.”

Sienna nods. “Well, then maybe we have enough to work with right here. Do you want to give it a try?”

I feel sort of nervous now. “I guess so. I mean, if you think it’s okay. I don’t want to push things. This is all so new to me.”

“Don’t worry. It’s really not such a big deal.” She’s walking across the room toward the bank of windows now. “It does help me to concentrate if I pull the drapes, though. Do you mind?”

“No.”

So she pulls some dark blue, thick velvet drapes shut, and the room instantly gets very dim. She goes over to a round table covered in a paisley cloth and lights some candles. “We’ll work over here,” she says. “And I’ll put on some music. Sometimes it helps me to relax better, and to tune out the distracting sounds from the street.” She pushes a button, and some flute music mixed with the sound of chimes begins to float through the apartment.

I sit down at the table, and she brings a black velvet bag over and reverently opens it and removes a shiny black bowl.

“What’s that?” I ask in a quiet voice.

“It’s a scrying mirror,” she tells me, carefully setting it in the center of the table. “Sometimes I can see things in it.”

I look at the black surface and wonder why it’s called a mirror.

Sienna takes a deep breath, then slowly exhales. She does this several times and then sits down across from me and places both of her hands, palms down, on the table. Then she leans over and looks into the bowl.

I sit and wait for a long time, and finally Sienna speaks. “Did your mother have a flower name, sort of like yours?”

“Yes,” I say quickly. “It was Lillian, but she went by Lily.”

“Uh-huh.”

I’m impressed, but then I realize that Sienna might’ve learned that from someone in town, maybe even Naomi, since she and my mom were pretty good friends. Yet somehow I don’t think so. Sienna strikes me as someone sincere. And, I remind myself, she’s not doing this for money.

“I want you to focus on your mom,” she says.

“Okay.”

“Set the locket on the table,” she tells me. “It might help to get her attention.”

So I set the gold heart next to the bowl, carefully arranging the chain so that it looks nice.

“Good.” She takes another deep breath and exhales. “Now think about your mother, Heather. You can try to picture her face . . . or just think about a time that’s special to you, something you two did together . . . something happy.”

“Okay.” And so I imagine Mom and me walking on the beach, looking for shells and agates or interesting pieces of driftwood.

“Good.” She takes in another breath, holds it, then slowly lets it out. “I think I’m seeing something . . . your mother was a pretty woman.”

“Yes.”

“Not dark-haired like you, though?”

“No.”

“Fair-haired.”

“Yes.”

“Petite.”

“Yes.”

“A quiet spirit.”

“Yes.”

“Dark eyes?”

I nod without answering, but my hands are shaking.

Now there’s a long silence, and I guess it worries me. I wonder if something’s wrong. Is my mom sad? What does it feel like to be dead?

“Your mother loves you very much, Heather.”

I nod. Of course. I know this. At least I think I do.

“But she’s worried about you.”

I nod again, swallowing against the lump in my throat.

“She doesn’t want you to be lonely, Heather.”

“Yes?”

“And she’s worried that you’re going to be hurt.”

“I
have
been hurt,” I remind her. “Just today.”

“Yes, but I think it’s something more than that . . . it seems like she’s talking about something that hasn’t happened yet . . . something that’s troubling her.”

“Okay.” Now I’m thinking this is not such great news. I mean, I’ve already had a cruddy day. Are things going to get worse? “Do you know what she means exactly?” I ask.

“I’m not sure.” She peers into the black bowl and just looks. “I feel it has to do with a close relationship.”

“Like Liz?” I ask. “Or Hudson?”

“No.” Another long pause. “I think it’s someone in your family.”

“Family?” I consider this, thinking I’m a little short on relatives. “Who do you mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh.”

“I’m getting something else . . . oh, yes, I see.”

“What?”

“Your mother doesn’t want you to give up dance.”

“Oh.”

“Were you considering that?”

“Well, sort of.” Okay, I was really considering it today. I know that I’m not looking forward to spending
any
time with Liz anytime soon, and it’ll be hard to avoid her at ballet.

“Your mother wants to see you dance the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“To
see
me?” Okay, that’s encouraging because I’d love for her to see me dance that part. But I also want to point out that may not happen, whether or not I give up dance, but it seems sort of irrelevant right now. I mean, I’m just glad that Mom
wants
to see me or
can
see me — that it’s even possible. That’s reassuring somehow.

“Something else, Heather.”

“Yes?”

“She wants you to know that she’s okay.”

“Really?” I feel tears coming now.

“Yes. She thinks you’ve been worried about her, and she wants you to know she’s happy.”

“She’s
really
happy?” My voice breaks and hot tears slide down my cheeks.

“Yes. She says you don’t need to worry about her. She’s where she needs to be and she’s very, very happy there. She wants you to be happy too.”

“Oh.” Now I’m not sure how to react to this. I mean, I’m glad Mom is
very, very happy
. But I’m thinking I’m not there with her, and yet she’s still happy. I can’t quite wrap my head around that. Doesn’t she miss me? Sometimes I miss her so much that it physically hurts inside.

Sienna takes in another long breath and slowly lets it out. I hear the sound of chimes and almost jump, but then I remember it’s just
part of the music she’s playing. “I think that’s all,” she says softly. “For now anyway.”

I just sit there, trying to absorb everything I just heard. My mother is worried about me. She thinks I’m going to be hurt by a family member. She wants me to keep doing ballet, and she’s very happy to be where she is.

“But where
is
she?” I ask as Sienna opens the drapes again.