Chapter Twenty-Six
Nolan
e land without fanfare on the brick walkway outside of a pristineW colonial home. White lights twinkle from the landscaped gardens that sit perfectly symmetrical on either side of the entryway. A brass knocker on the door in the shape of a Venetian mask watches us impassively.
Harriet snickers. “The irony of this moment is not lost on me.”
“Irony?”
She gestures at the knocker. “You know. The movie? The book? The thing with the face on the door.” She twists her features into something solemn and I rub my knuckles over my grin, trying to hide my amusement. Her face wasn’t meant for frowning.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell her. She blinks, surprised.
“You’ve never read Dickens?”
“A Christmas Carol? Aye, I’ve read it.”
“And?”
“And I thought it was boring when I was alive. My opinion hasn’t changed in death.”
Harriet scoffs. “Even though it turns out everything he wrote about is true?
That didn’t impress you? Even a little?”
I roll my eyes. “The things he wrote in that book are hardly true, Harriet.
Do I look like a flickering candle to you?”
Her lips twitch as she stares up at me. Her eyes look like they’re glowing in the reflection of the lantern hanging above us, her chocolate brown a bright and brilliant gold.
Maybe she’s the candle, and I’m the idiot drawn to her flame. She’s so damn beautiful.
“No,” she says. “You look like a surly sailor.”
“I believe the term you previously used was rugged.”
“A rugged, surly sailor, then.”
“Better.”
Harriet turns to the door, studying the knocker. “I would have thought
someone cracking open your entire secret universe would be more
impressive,” she muses.
“Secret universe?”
“The whole traveling through the past thing. Ghosts. Spirits.
Whatnot. Dickens knew something.”
“Ah. Yes. Well.” I clasp my hands together. “I always preferred The Muppet Christmas Carol version. There’s something oddly captivating about Miss Piggy.”
A laugh sputters out of her. “What a surprising man you are, Nolan
Callahan.”
“I am a man with layers.”
“Apparently.”
Her amusement slowly evaporates as we linger on the front porch. I’ve noticed that the past gives her more time to come to terms with her memories than most. We never drop into the middle of one. We’re always given enough time for Harriet to ease her way into it.
“I suppose we should go in, then,” she says.
I shrug. “Or we could wait. I’m in no rush.”
Her shoulders fall. “No, we should. Best to get it over with, and all that.”
This memory is different. Harriet isn’t curious, or delighted. She’s bracing
herself for something.
She knows where we are.
She knows when we are.
Footsteps sound behind us on the walkway and we turn to look. Past Harriet stands at the end of the walkway, her hair twisted into some sort of sleek bun. She doesn’t look much younger than she is now, maybe a handful of years. But she does look more strained, stretched far too thin. Lines that bracket either side of her mouth and an uncharacteristic dullness to her amber eyes. The idiot with the phone trails two feet behind her, still preoccupied, still not paying her an ounce of an attention. Harriet turns to look at him, frowns, then lifts her hand to the brass knocker. She’s wearing fitted leather gloves. A jacket that’s tailored within an inch of its life. There is no pink coat. No candy canes. No color.
She knocks twice and waits, firming her shoulders. She looks like she’s preparing for battle.
“Shall we keep an eye out for clues?” I suggest, watching with interest as the past version of Harriet bites at the tips of her gloves, whipping them off
and cramming them in her pockets. Her nails are bare, free of the polish she favors now, and it’s almost as jarring as whatever it is she’s done to her hair.
“This isn’t a trip for clues,” Harriet says. “I know why we’re here.” The door swings inward, her mother appearing in the entrance. She’s older than the train memory. Older, but no less dignified. She greets her daughter with two air kisses against her cheeks, but saves her true enthusiasm for the man behind her. A wide grin splits her face as she greets him.
Next to me, Harriet sighs. “This is the night I broke my mother’s heart.”
Harriet slowly grows more rigid as we follow her memory through the house.
By the time the past version of herself is sitting down for dinner at a table overflowing with shiny silver dishes, she looks one touch away from shattering across the floor.
Whatever it is that happened in this memory for Harriet, it isn’t good. I reach for her, relieved when she doesn’t pull out of my grip.
“I’m here,” I tell her. “I’m right here with you.”
She threads our fingers together, gripping tight. “I know,” she says. She exhales a shuddering breath. “I know that,” she says again, quieter, and I think, maybe, that might be the problem.
That I’m here. That I’m going to experience whatever this memory is with her.
My magic bounds another restless loop on the inside of my chest. I’m unnerved by this silent and cold version of Harriet and my magic is reacting accordingly. It settles like pins and needles against the palms of my hands.
An itchy restlessness at the base of my spine.
In the formal dining room, the five people staring dutifully at their plates have barely exchanged more than pleasantries since they sat down.
Cardboard cutouts of people playacting at love and family. Her mother and father sit on both ends of the table. Harriet and her sister anchor the other two sides. The … fopdoodle with the phone seemingly surgically attached to his hand sits to Harriet’s left.
My forehead creases. “Well, this is certainly lively.”
Harriet shifts on her feet but doesn’t say anything. I busy myself by studying the room. Despite Harriet’s insistence that this isn’t a
reconnaissance mission, I treat it like one all the same.
Fine china. Artfully arranged flowers. Woefully depressing and probably heinously expensive artwork. This place looks like a mausoleum pretending to be a dining room.
“I think I lied to you,” Harriet whispers as I’m studying some of the carvings on the oversize chandelier hanging low over the middle of the table.
I can’t figure out if it’s a fox in distress, or a particularly ugly man.
The whims of the wealthy. I’ll never understand.
“How so?” I ask, distracted.
“I think I might be a bad person,” she whispers.
I stare down at the top of her head with a frown. She’s curled in on herself, holding my hand with both of hers in front of her body. “Ah, yes. A tiny woman who favors colorful sweaters and thinks candy is one of the primary food groups. You’re a proper villain, indeed.”
“I’m serious, Nolan.”
“As am I.”
She falls silent. In front of us, the conversation moves around Harriet as she pokes at her potatoes. It’s like she’s another vase on the table. No one asks her how she is. No one asks her opinion.
How sad it must have been, to be so lonely in a room full of family. “What if your opinion of me is wrong?” Harriet asks as her mother prattles on about something involving monograms. “What if my opinion of me is wrong?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But what if—”
“No,” I cut her off easily.
I don’t know how or why she’s gone from confident to discrediting herself at every turn, but I don’t like it. I don’t like how she’s done her hair or the idiot at her side or the way no one seems to realize she’s sitting at the table. I do not like this memory. “Are you about to leap across the table and stab
your father with the serving fork?”
“No, but—”
“Perhaps set fire to the curtains?”
“No, but what—”
“They’d certainly deserve it. That pattern is atrocious.”
A small smile cracks through her turbulent expression. Then she releases my hand. “There are things you don’t know about me.”
“And there are things you don’t know about me.” I nudge her shoulder
with mine. “One overly formal dinner won’t change my opinion.” Glass rattles on the table. Silence descends. I didn’t realize how much the limited conversation was filling the room until it’s gone entirely. My attention snaps from the Harriet next to me to the one at the table, gripping her fork with a white-knuckled grip.
She places it beside her plate, then folds her hands in her lap.
“It’s the right choice for me,” she says, her voice trembling at the edges. I watch as she physically gathers her courage, eyes flicking up to her mother and away again. She blows out a breath. “I know it might be a disappointment, but—”
At the head of the table, her mother laughs, caustic and sharp. “It’s not a disappointment, Harriet. It is a betrayal.”
Both Harriets flinch. Clearly, I missed a part of the conversation. “What’s happening right now?” I ask.
“I just told my mother I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
Shock grabs me by the back of my neck. I’d be less surprised if she told me she trained lions for the circus. Or competed at one of those competitive- eating competitions the town of Annapolis seems so fond of during the summer picnic months. If she told me she was crowned Queen of the Blueberry Pies, it would make more sense than this. “You were a lawyer?”
“I don’t like to talk about it.” She meets my eyes briefly. “I know it’s hard to believe. It sounds ridiculous when I say it.”
“Ridiculous isn’t the word I’d use,” I reply. Incompatible, maybe. Out of character. Harriet fits at the Crow’s Nest in a way that’s intrinsic. I cannot
imagine her in a courtroom.
It’s too small for her. Too … gray.
“I only worked in law for a couple years.” She wraps her arms around herself, palms cupping her elbows. “This is the night I told my mother I intended to leave the role she secured for me at a prestigious firm. She, uh— she took it personally.”
Personally seems a bit of an understatement as Donna York visibly seethes at the head of the table.
“Mother,” her sister interjects. “Maybe we should let Harriet finish.” Her mother’s face pinches, her posture rigid. “Yes, Harriet. Please continue explaining how you intend to destroy our family’s reputation.”
Harriet’s date snorts a laugh into his closed fist. “Told you,” he tells her, loud enough for the rest of the table to hear. Harriet’s cheeks burn scarlet,
and I want to slam his face into his dinner plate. Maybe shove the device he seems so fond of down his throat.
“Maybe you should sleep on it,” Harriet’s father offers, an apathetic look on his face. He doesn’t look up from his green beans, continuing his dinner like this is a typical Sunday evening conversation. “This is a big decision.
You haven’t thought it through.”
How many times has Harriet gathered the courage to speak, only to be dismissed like she never opened her mouth at all?
“Well, I’m—” Harriet pauses and swallows heavily, shifting in her seat.
“As you are aware, I’ve been—”
“For god’s sake,” her mother snaps at the head of the table. “All this dithering. Spit it out.”
“I don’t like being a lawyer” bursts out of her. She presses her palm to her mouth like she wants nothing more than to shove the words back in. “I don’t —it doesn’t make me happy. I want to be happy.”
“Happy.” Her mother sneers. “Your career isn’t supposed to make you happy. It’s supposed to build your legacy. The legacy of your family. Or have you forgotten?”
“I disagree,” Harriet says. She fights to hold eye contact with her mother.
“There are other ways to honor our family’s legacy. Law hasn’t been a good fit for me. You know it hasn’t. Aunt Matilda says—”
Donna York goes still. Harriet’s just poured kerosene over an open flame.
“You’ve talked to Matilda about this?”
“I have.” Harriet hesitates. “But it’s not what you think.”
“And what do I think?”
A hush descends over the table. Even her father looks invested now, his eyes darting between mother and daughter.
“She had to dig it out of me. I didn’t go to her with the intention to complain. But she can tell, Mom. She can tell when I’m unhappy.”
Her mother arches one elegant eyebrow. “And I can’t?” Harriet doesn’t respond, but her silence is loud enough. You can’t. You haven’t.
“I see.” Her mother places her fork to the side and folds her hands beneath her chin. “And what did my sister have to say on this family matter?”
“I don’t think—”
“No, no. I’d love to hear what Matilda has to say about this. Matilda,” her mother says, her voice twisted with sarcasm, “who is so very adept at disregarding familial responsibilities. Did she have some tips and tricks for
you? Best practices?”
Harriet looks to her sister for support, but Samantha stares down at her plate, pushing her vegetables back and forth. Harriet’s boyfriend is just as useless, reclined in his seat, arms crossed over his chest with both of his eyebrows raised while he watches the conversation like a tennis match.
“We had coffee after the Jacobs case last week,” Harriet begins. “Oh, wonderful,” her mother interrupts. “You’ve been weighing this decision for a week.”
“Longer than a week,” Harriet says, her voice wobbling. I remember an argument in a closet where I accused her of being just as rash.
How long have you been thinking about this? I squeeze her hand in mine.
“The Jacobs case was quite the fumble,” her dad guffaws while he cuts a piece of his steak. Harriet’s face turns crimson. “The clerks were talking
about it all week.”
“What happened?” I whisper to Harriet.
She shakes her head, running a trembling hand along her forehead as she watches her memory unfold. “I was nervous to present in court. I … threw up in a trash can midway through my opening argument. Then I kicked over the trash can.”
“Oh, love.” I know how much Harriet cares what others think.
She must have been mortified. “That’s awful.”
“It was,” she agrees.
At the table, Donna continues to stare down her daughter. “So?
What did my sister have to say?”
Harriet looks like she wants to sink through the floor. “She told me I should think about what I really want. That I’ve been blindly pursuing this path for years. That maybe … a little time wouldn’t hurt.”
Donna laughs, mirthless. “Of course. Matilda has spent her entire life floating on a breeze, chasing her little whims. She’s been everyone’s favorite shop girl while I’ve had to maintain everything. She lives in a fairy tale, Harriet. This is real life.” Her mouth pinches and she resumes eating her dinner. “This will pass. One stumble won’t set you back. You just need to work harder. Apply yourself.”
Harriet’s eyelashes flutter against her cheeks. “I have been,” she says quietly. I can tell she’s trying not to cry.
“I heard she applied herself all over the courtroom floor,” her dad snickers.
Brent joins in with a loud bark of a laugh.
“I’ve said the same thing, Donna,” he says as soon as he’s done laughing at Harriet’s expense. He dabs at the corner of his mouth with his napkin, shooting what I’m sure he thinks is a charming grin down the length of the table. I have no idea what Harriet is doing with a man like this.
“Brent,” she whispers, shooting him a betrayed look he doesn’t even notice. “You told me you understood. You said—you said you’d help me figure it out.”
“I didn’t say I’d help you quit.” He nudges her cheek with his knuckle and she flinches. It’s dismissive and juvenile, and my blood hums angrily in response. “I get it. You were embarrassed. I bet you’ll feel differently in a week or two. I’ll talk to Jim. See if he can put you on a new case.” He pats her shoulder and my hands clench into fists at my side.
“Finally, a productive solution.” Harriet’s mother beams at him. “That’s an excellent idea, Brent, thank you.” Case closed, as far as she’s concerned. She gestures with her knife. “Samantha. Tell us about the arbitration you’re working on. You’re the lead, yes?”
“Hank is happy with your work,” Harriet’s father says around a mouthful of green beans. He points his fork at her with a wink. “Good work, hotshot.”
Samantha spares a fleeting glance toward Harriet. Harriet, who is staring at her plate with her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her eyes far too shiny for the dim lighting. Harriet, who has once again been treated like an inconvenient object, and not another person with thoughts and feelings and dreams.
She truly thought this was her great atrocity? Choosing herself? “Thank you,” Samantha says slowly, flicking her gaze away from her sister. She forces a smile. “I feel good about the opportunity.”
Just like the others.
My magic pulses and golden sparks dance between my knuckles. “Time to
go,” I tell Harriet.
“Not yet,” she says. “There’s more.”
“I don’t need to see more.”
“I do,” she says, completely defeated. She cuts a look in my direction.
“And I think it’s good for you, too. So you understand.”
“I’ve already told you. I know the truth of your character.”
“We’ll see.”
I keep my eyes on her past, watching the way she wilts at the table. So much of her is unfamiliar in this moment. Her hair, her quiet. Her overly
formal clothes and the string of pearls around her neck. But I recognize the look in her eyes. The hurt she’s trying desperately to hide. But then something changes. The table explodes in laughter and Harriet’s eyes flick up. She considers each person, her gaze lingering the longest on her sister.
She seems to find a well of defiance.
A little girl with a boat in her hand.
“I wasn’t done,” she says. The table quiets. “I’ve made my decision, and it had nothing to do with Aunt Matilda.” She swallows. Braces herself. “I won’t be continuing my role at the firm. I’ve given them my notice.”
Her mother’s face pales. “You’ve what?”
“I’ve put in my notice,” Harriet repeats. “I plan to conclude my role during the last week of January. This wasn’t meant to be a discussion. It was a courtesy. It’s done.”
Donna sets down her silverware so hard, the crystal glasses rattle. “And what will you be doing instead? A retreat to the wilderness, perhaps? A séance to discover your true calling?”
Harriet firms her jaw. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Donna laughs. “Oh, excellent. You don’t have a plan.”
“I’m going to take some time to figure out what I actually want.” She pauses. “I’ll be spending time at the Crow’s Nest, helping out Aunt Matilda in the interim.”
Donna shakes her head. “Of course you are.”
“I have a few calls set up with various opportunities, but I think time is the thing I need most,” Harriet continues, voice clear. Confident. “I’m—I’m happy there. It’s a good place for me while I figure things out.”
Donna holds her daughter’s gaze across the length of the table, expressionless. “What a fine punishment you’ve crafted for me, Harriet. Well
done.”
“Punishment?”
“Is that not what this is? You’ve chosen the cruelest blow possible to follow your so-called dreams.”
Harriet blanches. “I’m not— I don’t want to be cruel. This decision is about me. It has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me,” she seethes. “You went to my sister.
The one person who has always made her disappointment in me crystal clear.
She hasn’t deigned to speak to me in years, yet she has no trouble speaking to you. You eat up her placations, content to be perfectly ordinary when I have
always pushed you for more. So, yes. This is about me. This decision is about me. It is cruel. And selfish. I didn’t think you capable of either of those things, but you have, at long last, finally figured out how to exceed my
expectations. Congratulations.”
“I didn’t—”
“I’d like for you to leave.”
Harriet’s face fractures. “What?”
Donna picks up her fork and resumes eating her dinner. “You’ve picked your side. I would like for you to get out of my house.”
“I didn’t pick a side. I’m doing this for me, because I—”
“I don’t care who or what you’re doing this for. You’ve made your decision and now I’ve made mine. Get out of my house. This is a family dinner.”
Not a single person at the table says a word. Harriet is motionless, and then she’s not.
She pushes back from the table, folds her napkin neatly, and drops it next to her plate. “If that’s what you want.”
She hesitates—hoping, I’m sure, for someone to come to her defense. But no one does, and I have to watch as Harriet moves carefully around the chairs her family occupies, seeing herself out of the room. She keeps her face angled down, but that neat bun of hers makes it easy to see her face. The way her eyes shine in the candlelight. The way she’s pinching her lips together.
Harriet and her hopeful heart.
“If you cared about what I wanted, you would have talked to me instead of my sister,” her mother says tartly, just as Harriet is about to leave the room.
She tilts her head toward the hallway. “Fetch your coat on the way out.”
I can’t bear to watch Harriet walk out alone. I reach for her hand and tug her into me as my magic explodes in a rush, relieved for the outlet, spinning around us both and wrenching us forward through time. Harriet is wooden against me, one hand fisted in my shirt and her forehead pressed to my collarbone. I sift one hand through her hair to cup the base of her neck, the other holding tight to her hip.
But it still feels like I can’t grip her close enough. I want to stop the roaring around us and find a time and place where no one knows us. Where there aren’t expectations or consequences. Where there isn’t a clock counting down above our heads or memories of a darker, lonelier time.
A teasing glimpse of the dark, lonely future that awaits. I want to stop. I
want to breathe. I want to hold Harriet.
We land back in the storage closet of the Crow’s Nest with a dull thump. It feels like I’ve taken a barrel to the head. Flipped down a flight of stairs and rolled the entire way down. Time reminds me in no uncertain terms that I don’t get to want things. I’m a slave to the role I’ve been assigned. There is nothing but this.
Harriet steps back, her hair curtained around her face. She won’t look at me, and that’s another sort of disappointment entirely.
“Harriet.”
“I need to get back to the front,” she says, her voice subdued. “We’ve been gone awhile. I’m sure Sasha is wondering where I am.”
Never mind that we both know that only a handful of seconds have passed for Sasha. Harriet wipes quickly under her left eye with the back of her hand.
Something in me splinters.
“Harriet,” I try again, reaching for her.
“’M fine,” she mumbles with a sniffle.
“Please don’t cry.” I grip her elbow gently, trying to tug her back into me.
“I can’t stand it when you cry,” I confess to the top of her head.
“I’m just—I can’t talk about this right now, okay? I need—I need to get back to work.” She presses up on her tiptoes and brushes a quick kiss to my cheek, avoiding my eyes the entire time. “I’ll see you up there.”
She’s gone before I can convince her to stay. I wait before I follow her, caught between coming and going. Something is holding me here in this tiny room and the light bulb above me flickers, a manifestation of my indecision.
Off and then on and then off again.
I reach to fix it just as light bounces off of dented metal, pushed back on the top shelf. I step closer to inspect it. A coiled chain. A cracked face.
Flecked green paint and an arrow that never points where it’s supposed to.
Ice settles in my gut.
There, on the top shelf of the tiny supply closet in the very back corner of Harriet’s antiques shop, is a compass with a broken chain.
A compass I’ve held in the palm of my hand. A compass that should be at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Harriet was right. She does have something that belongs to me.
Because that compass is mine.
My stomach dips the same way it used to when my boat was cresting waves I couldn’t see the top of. Up and then down, down, down— tumbling
over itself. I can’t—I can’t get a deep enough breath. I should feel elation.
Relief. The key to moving forward is right in front of me, gathering dust on the back shelf of a supply closet.
But all I feel is panic. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
Hide it, my brain whispers. Hide the compass. Harriet doesn’t need to know.
I hesitate for only a moment before I find an old crate and toss it underneath. I push it to the very back of the shelf, then step away.
I’ll deal with it later. When Harriet isn’t so sad and when I don’t feel so out
of control.
It can wait.
Tomorrow, maybe. Or the next day.
But I can’t be here any longer, my control hanging on by a golden thread looped tight around my rib cage. I close my eyes, tug on that quickly fraying strand of magic, and disappear.
