Piper and Natalie sat in the same compartment on the train ride home. Instead of watching the blur of white and brown out the window this time, Natalie scribbled in her journal a plan. She would cancel any other appointments she had made, and spend the full three days on Peter's side of town, even if she had to rent out a cabin in Stagwood. She would worry with all other errands later and would not focus on she and Peter's friendship. It was not about that now. Of course she cared, but she had to worry with herself. Colette's words had hooked themselves in her mind. "In all of these revelations, I learned that you have made other bold moves in the past. One in particular no mind weaver should be able to withstand."
Natalie knew she had made bold moves. For one, her cabinets, though Colette did not seem to worry with them like she had feared. This move she made apparently was one no mind weaver should be able to withstand. Surely it was not simply keeping Peter's memories. A mind weaver could certainly withstand that, it was the client they fretted over, and it was only advised to avoid it, albeit severely. And what did she mean about receiving all she had lost? She knew if she asked Piper, she would receive no answer. It was as if everyone knew more about her than she did herself, unless they were lies.
Piper lay across the seats on her side of the compartment, and was snoring loudly, a half finished crab cake in her hand.
Natalie pushed her notebook across the seat next to her and tapped the front, thinking. Perhaps allowing herself to dream a little of she and Peter. Perhaps it was the rocking, lulling train, lack of sleep, or a bit of Cape Colette's wine still in her blood, but Peter came to her in her mind, pressing her to that post on the corner of the main road, this time his eyes flashing with a kind of selfish passion, his lips crushing hers until they felt frost bite. She allowed her mind to conjure the touch of his hands, gripping the fabric of her skirt, the heat of his breath in the smog, his towering frame like her very own castle, his chest a shield.
She blinked when a vendor stopped at their compartment door. It slid open with a series of squeaks, and Natalie ordered she and Piper coffees. The vendor poured two cups, not particularly smiley, but polite enough, and then left. Once, when Natalie was about twelve, she convinced herself that she would work on Cape Colette's train when she became an adult, so she could visit all of the towns every day. Eventually she would visit the world outside of Cape Colette. She heard there were cities much larger, so that it took days for their train to make it to each one, and buildings the size of Cape Colette's castle, with lights that from a hilltop resembled cages of fireflies.
She loved eavesdropping on hearsay, about people who spoke differently or practiced beliefs as separate as middles, mind weavers, and witches in Cape Colette. Oceans between them so vast, they had to take boats across. When Natalie found herself on the cliff side in Pemawick Cove, she would often wonder what life was like in those other worlds. Were they tied down by rules like she was? Did people hate each other over differences? What traditions did they celebrate?
At the end of the year here in Cape Colette, people gathered at the river in Winter Wells with bottles, in which they put whatever they wanted, to honor the new year. Some wrote themselves a letter, mostly about what they wanted to achieve or experience in the new year; witches would charm them so that at the end of the new year, the bottles with their letters would come back to them. Others put a trinket from that year in their bottle; if it was a special item, it was supposed to grant them a new special trinket for the next year. If it was something they wanted to forget, it was supposed to offer a sense of renewal. That was the cheaper, and more natural way to move on, without the need of a mind weaver.
Then there were other ideas that were not so popular, like the middles' tradition. They would trap a spirit in their bottles, mostly bad ones, to keep them from hooking onto their summoner. The witches liked to put spells in theirs, mostly good ones, like love, fortune, or beauty, so a person might find it washed up on a beach far, far away.
Mind weavers followed the normal traditions, but Natalie liked to come up with her own. Mostly she would gather flowers and pluck them of their petals, making a wish on each one before dropping it in her bottle. They were simple wishes, like confidence, love, and simplicity. Once, as a pre-teen, she put love letters to her make believe boyfriend in the bottle. She described someone confident and handsome, funny and sensitive. She wrote them like he would read and reply back to her. Just before she released the bottle, a middle person, though at the time Natalie could not tell the difference, asked her what the letters were about.
Embarrassed, she lied, "To the boy I love."
The middle person smiled craftily.
She wondered, years later, what the woman had seen.
Piper sniffed and jerked awake, startling Natalie so significantly, she felt her skin jump. The witch stretched, yawning loudly, and smiled at the coffee Natalie had placed in the cup holder next to her. "I thought I smelled something equally bitter and delicious." She put the cup to her lips, but leaned her head to the cushioned chair back. "What did I miss?"
"Well, other than trying to ignore the doom that awaits me, not much."
Piper shook her head and smiled at the ceiling. "No doom awaits you."
"You heard what Colette said! Most of the mind weavers in the castle are there because of a rule they had broken, a new ability they uncovered." She quoted the queen in a very deep, theatrical octave that sounded nothing like Colette's wool-soft voice. "If all appears well, you may just be one of my most powerful mind weavers known to date."
Piper took a minute, perhaps for realization to sink in, and then nodded. "I see what you mean. You are afraid she will promote you to the castle for the remainder of your mind weaving years."
"Yes, and there is no choice in the matter." Natalie pushed a lock of hair from out of her eye, her blood hot. "Those mind weavers do not live there because they want to. They can't, possibly! It is like volunteering to shut off your emotions for however many years! They sweep their robes through those halls like residual hauntings."
"Hold on there, cinnamon roll. This isn't Willow Haven manor we are talking about."
As though Piper had not commented, "I do not want to fail, of course, and perhaps she suspects I won't. Perhaps she is already having a robe made specially for me."
"Can we just focus on the matter regarding Peter? You are worrying yourself over things you do not know will happen. They are make-believe worst-case-scenarios."
With a deep breath, the mind weaver pulled at her own hands, then stopped. "You are right. Let's talk about Peter."
The witch wiggled her eyebrows. "Talk away."
But Natalie felt too serious, and contemplative, to understand the joke. "Piper, what happened that day Peter threw the salt at you? I felt like the two of you had some sort of understanding I was kept out of."
Her friend pressed her lips together. After a moment she said, "You are correct. It was an understanding."
"One I was kept out of?"
To her horror, Piper lifted one shoulder a little defeatedly. She had never known her assistant to be at a loss for words, but there it was. She let Natalie stare, slack-jawed, before finally speaking. "We've met up a few times for different favors. He would write down all of his memories before you took them, like a book, in exchange for... a vial of specially brewed medicine."
"Medicine for what?"
"The same one I made for you. The one that smelled like pine needles."
It did not seem odd to her that Peter wanted a spell to promote relaxation. These sessions took a lot out of her, sure, but it took a lot more out of Peter, in all the literal sense.
"Why do you want him to write down all of his memories? The whole point is to erase them and destroy evidence. Why make more work?"
Piper gestured as though the cabinets were in the compartment with them. "Wouldn't you want to keep it, for memory's sake? Miss Memory Keeper."
Natalie shook her head and turned toward the window. But her assistant was not completely wrong. Still, did she want to keep Peter's old memories if she hoped to make new ones with him?
The train clonked and hissed into Coldton's station two hours later, with a total of four hours' travel from Cape Colette. The women stretched on their way off the train and onto the platform, Piper's hair still quite in a disarray. People stared at them as they passed, whispering. Yes, they were the witch and mind weaver summoned to Cape Colette. Was it so unheard of? She was a mind weaver, after all.
Natalie could already hear what people hissed over the dinner table, in the bar, over books, shushed by the librarian, or even now.
"...yes, that is the mind weaver Colette came to visit."
"More like spy on."
"I hear her assistant betrayed her to the queen..."
"...best or the worst are summoned to the castle."
"...was seen outside the Sheinfeld residence."
Did she imagine the last whisper? But suddenly, everyone fell away, as one familiar face appeared in the jostle of elbows and blurred, gawking faces. It was as though Natalie could part the wave of people simply by rushing forward, for they stepped out of her way, making a perfect path straight to the man who stood, hands in his pockets, a little smile on his face.
She rushed toward him and threw her arms out, only to stumble into nothing. She toppled over her own shoes and fell onto the platform, suitcase skittering out of her hold, stopping at the base of a pole, the gas lamp above swinging in the impact, the little flame fluttering around like a fiery butterfly.
It was as though curtains in her mind had fluttered, revealing glimpses from the other side. A crown of lilies. A hand around hers, spinning her under a canopy of trees. Words whispered in her ear, "Dream of dancing with me..."
The mind weaver sat up and looked around for Mr. Sheinfeld, but he was not there. Not anywhere at all. It was as if she had simply conjured him up, like so many other things. People stood around, nobody bothering to help her up, just staring mindlessly, like she was a somewhat amusing street performer, until Piper shoved through them, much to their protests, cupping their shoulders and glaring at her.
She marched over to Natalie and yanked her up, dusting the old snow from her coat sleeves. Then she turned toward the gaping crowd. "Nothing to see here, block heads."
Though nobody except for a few moved on from the spectacle, Piper turned to Natalie. "Are you okay?"
But the mind weaver's wide blue eyes stared past her friend, moving from face to deadpan face, until they blurred, but none of them were Peter. The train's horn blared, and more people scampered away. Natalie Gorman turned and searched, trying not to let herself feel like a doll breaking at the seams.