I choked on a dry sob as I pulled back to look up at her. “How do you always know the right thing to say?”
“It’s a talent. I think it goes hand-in-hand with being right all the time.”
I rolled my eyes but chuckled. “I love you so much that I hate you sometimes.”
“At least I got that smile back,” Quinn said with her arm still around my shoulders. “So, you said you haven’t read this in a while. Can we read it now? I would love to learn more about your family.”
And so we did just that.
Together, we opened the grimoire. As soon as we did, the smells hit me.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to get as much of the scents in my nose so I could never forget them again. They rushed into the room like a burst pipe, threatening to drown me in nostalgia and grief. Well, that is unless my tears beat them to it. Despite how many times I had opened and read the grimoire, the smells ofhomewere ones I would never be able to get used to. Mom’s apple-scented perfume. Pop’s citrus and herb body wash. The ever-present scent of bonfire that seemed to cling to Aunt Max’s skin. The smell of sunshine and beachy sand that made up Everett’s scent. Home-cooked meals made from the soul without a recipe and seasoned by vibes alone. Lazy days around the house, where the sun shone just as relaxed as we were. Fresh flowers, cut from the entrance to the forest outside. Pine needles stuck in my unraveling plaits. Fire blazing over freshly chopped wood. Hot chocolate with a dash of salted caramel. As always, tears tickled my eyes at the strong presence of memories in the air. I couldn’t help but caress the pages of the book in longing. The warmth of the book’s magic surged as if to reassure me, and it only made the tears stinging my eyes grow.
I don’t think the grief will ever get any lighter, really,I thought, wanting to not just know the memory but to go back to that time when my family was alive and whole.
This was what Lilah had missed, I realized as I studied the moving pictures in the grimoire. It was the little details that shecouldn’t capture because I didn’t even know them, but the ones that reminded me that those that I had lost weren’t just figments of my imagination. It was the twitch of Mom’s eyebrow and the quirk of her lips before she told a joke. It was how Pops’s smile and laugh always came easily but still felt so well-earned. It was how Aunt Max looked at me like I was the most entertaining person on the planet. It was how real they felt, how it all took me right back to before I lost them. It was how my fingers wanted to claw at the page like they wanted to claw at this gaping hole in my chest underneath the black pendant around my neck to either force it to close or to open it wider to swallow me up.
Quinn and I looked through page after page, just like it was a photo album. With the grimoire restored just like my memories, the old parchment pages were full of the swirls and curls of my mom’s handwriting as well as moving pictures depicting what she was describing. As soon as she saw my mom alive on paper, Quinn marveled at how I looked just like her, and my heart soared like it always did at the compliment. We read about my mom finding out she was pregnant with me and her celebrating with Pops. Quinn gushed about how adorable I was as a baby and how I looked just like a little doll. We saw my first steps, my first Halloween, my first day at school, and my first of many recitals. Then, we got to see things I never knew, like my mom going to Aunt Max for advice on how to handle me and girls, or my mom asking Aunt Max and Uncle Everett to be my Guardians and godparents. The sleepless nights of Mom and Pops trying to ensure my safety. The late-night hushed conversations about what I might be like when I am grown up and how bright my future was. Quinn read it all, utterly enraptured and absorbing every snippet of new information like the Archive took in new materials. I wished out loud that she could have met Mom, Pops, and Aunt Max. She agreed, completely enthralled. My eyes stung as I remembered Lilah’sChristmas gift to me. As much as I wished that could be real, this was close enough and better because itwasreal. My necklace was warm with the nostalgia and joy of it all, and I was grinning hard enough to make my cheeks hurt.
“When was this, baby girl?” Quinn asked, pointing to one illustrated page where I leaned onto the middle console in a car. My black curls were freshly stretched from a braid-out and were going down my back. A younger Uncle Everett with fewer freckles sat on my left, and Aunt Max sat on my right. Her terracotta red eyes blazed brightly as they looked at me with nothing shy of pure amusement. Pops was at the wheel, his height and size making the larger vehicle seem small. In the passenger seat beside him was none other than my Mom. Always radiant, Mom’s dark skin shimmered in the light of the day. Her long afro framed and displayed her face beautifully as her golden hoops peeked through the curls. She was turned in her seat, listening to me with rapt attention. It was wild to see, considering how much we reflected each other with the same straight eyebrows, upturned round eyes, nose, high cheekbones, and full lips.
“I remember this style! It was one of the last times I wore my hair natural. So, I had to be twelve here. After this, I started getting braids more before deciding to get locs. Fuck, wash day used to takehours, even with Mom helping.” I shook my head, not missing the arm cramps and aching feet from having to shampoo, condition, detangle, and style hair that would still not be dry for another day or so. I did love spending that time with Mom, though, twisting each other’s hair while watching trashy reality television or our favorite sitcoms together.
“I love that you measure time based on what your hair looked like,” Quinn chuckled. “With your hair like this, though, youreallylook like your Mom. It’s adorable.”
I beamed at the praise before sobering. “This was the last Christmas before she died, and we were on the way to Chicago to see Pops’s family. We had worn our hair the same way with the same red bow pinning the sides back, too, because we were matching with everything else. We had a whole look in mind. Pops said it would help us show out when his family saw us. I think he had us do it to make me feel better.”
Quinn’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Feel better about what?”
“It’s so stupid now,” I shook my head, looking down at my Mom’s necklace as I fidgeted with it. “I had a cousin named Ayrie who was only a year and three months older than me. We were close, having that relationship where we could be apart formonths, come back, and pick right back up where we left off, like no time had passed. But she manifested earlier that year, and I wassojealous. I tried to be happy for her, but my parents could tell that it bothered me. I wanted to be a dragonsobad, and I was dreading getting to see her fly while I had to either watch or ride on someone’s back. In hindsight, it’s so childish and stupid.”
“That isn’t stupid. I would be jealous, too. You also were a teenager, who historically don’t think with the most rationality and logic.”
“True,” I chuckled, then I frowned. “I wonder why this memory is in here. I don’t remember anything super weird happening on this drive, and she hasn’t included any other ones like this in here.”
I glanced at the page with Mom’s handwriting to see if there were answers there, my fingers trailing underneath every word:
We had done the drive to Forrest’s family enchantment many times, but the city of Chicago was something to behold every time.
I usually marveled at the towering skyscrapers, bustling city streets, and stores decked out for the season. It remindedme of the Blackbell’s Business District, but far less sinister without the monsters that only come out at night. Having grown up in a small village in the mountains, seeing a city like this was always like experiencing true art for the first time. There were many entrances into the enchantment, but Forrest always took this one so we could go through the city. He knew how much I loved seeing the human streets transform to have supernaturals walking among them without them knowing it.
Byrd’s excitement was growing the closer we got, and that had all my attention.
I was worried about her being jealous of Ayrie’s manifestation, but if she was, she didn’t show it. She gushed about getting to play games with her cousins as well as play her cello in front of the family. She was still so excited to see everyone shift to be dragons like we did every year. I was so proud of my sweet girl for her resiliency and optimism.
Soon, we approached the entrance. This one was located between an expansive park and a street full of stores and restaurants. Humans walked about enjoying the snow and cheerfully shopping for the holidays. By design, the entrances around the enchantment couldn’t be seen. You had to know about them. Even still, you had to be a dragon-shifter related to the family or with a member of them to be allowed in. As we drove through, I kept my eyes on Byrd as she talked about a boy that Ayrie hated.
That was how I was able to see it.
The page of the grimoire flipped on its own. On the left, I saw the continuation of the scene before. As Pops drove on, I suddenly saw his wood-colored scales ripple down his face and hands that weren’t covered by his sweater. I could see the twitch of his wings under his shirt for a moment before the magic settled. Mom’s ruby-red scales did the same down her smiling face as she watched me speak. But, on young me, I saw aplatinum white shimmer glow and dance just under the surface of my skin. It wasn’t vibrant, but it was just bright enough to be seen with the trained eye. My mother gasped soundlessly on the page at the same time that I did.
It was the ghost of my scales.
More like the ghost of what could have been, I thought twistedly. My dragon had felt the pull of the enchantment even before I could. On the page, I kept talking, undeterred by this revelation, until I noticed my mom’s reaction. I even remember asking her what was wrong, and her response was just a smile and a compliment about how lucky everyone was to have me in their lives. It had been weird at the time, but I figured she was talking about how good of a cousin I was being to Ayrie and her boy troubles.
Now, I knew.
Did this mean I would have manifested soon if Mom hadn’t died when she did? Would I have been a dragon by Christmas next year? Would I?—?
