Triple Moon Read online

  “I’ve inherited my mom’s sweet tooth,” Freya complained. “Ever since she left this world, it’s as if I’ve taken on her curse. I can’t go a day without chocolate. It’s a good thing I’m running off my feet for eight hours a night.”

  Molly looked across the tiny round café table at Freya. The brownies didn’t appear to be doing her an ounce of harm. She was flawless in a tight black jumpsuit with a scooped back, her tiny waist cinched by a gold rope elaborately knotted at her navel. Her toenails glimmered a wicked purple in peeky-toe heels. Her lips were impossibly glossy, and her cheeks glinted as if by the light of their own private moon. She exuded magic from every pore of her body. How, wondered Molly, did she keep it in check?

  “You should stop by the bar sometime, Molly,” Freya suggested. Then she turned to Marshall, who was behind the counter, dicing cucumbers for a Greek salad. “You too, Marsh. I won’t card you guys if you don’t tell.”

  Marshall graced Freya and Molly with a shy but knowing smile. Molly had to admit that there was something endearing about him. As he loosened up around her, he was beginning to banter and make jokes. His cracks were often self-deprecating and amusing without being mean.

  He liked to make up little songs while he worked. Her favorite was “Mangoes on My Mind,” to the tune of “Singing in the Rain,” which he sang as he prepped the mango salsa for the crab cakes.

  Marshall was cute, but she was much too impressed with Tris Gardiner, who loomed large in her mind’s eye from the Fair Haven party, to give Cheeseboy any serious consideration. It might be fun to have him follow her around like a puppy, but he was nothing compared to Tris.

  “Tell me”—she leaned in close to Freya—“what do you know about the youngest Gardiner brother? Is he really bad news? Or do we sort of like him?”

  “Well, well, well.” Freya raised her eyebrows playfully. “So we’ve met young Trystan, have we?”

  “Maybe. And maybe he’s been texting me.”

  “Really?” Freya asked, raising an eyebrow. “But I thought . . .” She frowned.

  “Why? Is that so hard to believe?” Molly asked, annoyed.

  “No. I guess I just had him pegged wrong, then,” Freya said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

  “Anyway, he’s pretty hot,” Molly admitted. “I mean, he’s certainly a catch in this town. But it’s not like there’s fierce competition.”

  She stole a glance at Marshall and saw that he had stopped chopping.

  “Molly,” he said softly, running his hand nervously through his fine sand-colored hair, “can you mind the store for a few minutes? I forgot to pick up my heirloom tomatoes at Jasper Farms. I’m going to ride my bike over right now. I’ll be back soon.”

  “No problem,” she said, standing up, retying her apron and making a show of going to stand behind the counter.

  Freya gestured to Marshall with her chin. “I think you might have hurt his feelings. I think he likes you.”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “Does it look like I care?” But she felt a small, unfamiliar twinge of regret for her harsh words.

  She got up and manned the counter. It was close to July, business was picking up, and Molly found she enjoyed the ritual of entertaining the Cheesemonger’s customers. There was a certain elegance to the activity of slicing, wrapping, and serving beautiful foodstuffs in pretty packages and charging a lot of money for them. She enjoyed the feel of the register keys on her fingertips. The job was like playacting, and she was quite good at it. It was even fun, until someone was rude, impatient, or, God forbid, belligerent. Unsavory customers would often find their picnics infested with red ants, their cars covered in seagull droppings, or their sunglasses mysteriously shattered in their cases.

  For the moment, though, the Cheesemonger was empty, except for Molly and Freya, who was sipping a double espresso with the last of her brownie. Molly seized the opportunity to ask the question that was really on her mind.

  “The Gardiners are warlocks, aren’t they? Tell me I’m right. I get the impression that they are divine, like us. I got such a magical vibe the other night. Am I onto something?”

  “There’s no point in trying to tell you otherwise if you already sense it,” answered Freya, serious all of a sudden. “Yes, they are like us. Fair Haven sits on the seam between two of the nine worlds of the Known Universe: Midgard, where we are destined to live out our days, and the Land of the Dead. It’s the joining of the living and the twilight words. Somewhere inside that mansion is a crucial entry point into the skeleton of the universe. I used to know where it was, but the refurbishment has obscured all that. It’s a mystery again.”

  “Wow.” Molly’s eyes widened. She was not easily impressed, but this was intense.

  Freya continued. “Our mother, Joanna, placed a powerful containment spell on the house centuries ago. Ingrid and I are the spell’s guardians now. Believe me, you don’t want to be messing with those boundaries, especially in your delicate situation. You really don’t want to be rocking the boat at this point.”

  This was getting too heavy for Molly. It was time to bring it down a notch. “All I want to know is whether or not you think fooling around with a Gardiner brother is a good idea.”

  “Fooling around, my dear, is always a good idea, especially if his last name is Gardiner.” Freya laughed, appearing relieved to change the subject and to leave the spooky territory of the gloaming behind in favor of happier concerns. “You don’t need my approval for that!”

  “That’s great news because I did actually text him back and—”

  At that moment, the bell to the store’s entrance tinkled, and in walked Mardi, wearing a pair of cutoff OshKosh overalls over an electric yellow tube top.

  Molly gave Freya a meaningful look and put a finger to her lips. She did not want her sister in her business.

  “Hey, guys,” she said. “What’s good today? I’m ravenous. I’ve been lifting crates of sardines all day.”

  Molly sniffed the air, crinkling her tiny nose. “I can tell.”

  “Hey, I showered after work.”

  “Where? In the public bathroom?”

  “If you must know, I showered on a yacht.”

  “Which yacht?”

  “None of your business.”

  Freya burst out laughing. “I thought Ingrid and I were bad when we bickered. You girls put us to shame. If you don’t watch out, you’ll scare away all of Marshall’s customers.” She downed the final sip of her espresso, gave each twin a kiss on the cheek, and drove off in her pumpkin-colored Mini Cooper to begin her night of charmed mixology at the North Inn.

  “Freya invited me to come to her bar sometime. She’s not going to card me,” Molly boasted once she and Mardi were alone.

  “I’m sure she won’t card me either. No one ever cards me.”

  “That’s because you cheat with your magic.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “You got me there,” sighed Molly. There was a shift inside her, something about the way her sister’s rainbow tattoo caught the afternoon light as it slanted in through the Cheesemonger’s picture window, which made Molly want to let up and enjoy this moment. She found that she didn’t feel like fighting anymore. “I’ll admit that I use my magic on bouncers, bartenders, and door guys all the time too. So we’re even. Truce? Want a sandwich?”

  “Sure.”

  “Roast beef? It’s rare like you like it. And we have this gorgeous purple mustard. It’s purple because it’s made from the must of wine grapes.”

  “Gorgeous mustard?” Mardi teased, but with no sting in her voice. Molly could tell Mardi’s heart wasn’t in it, and so she didn’t take offense.

  “For once, can you please trust me? Try it.”

  As Molly sliced focaccia, spread the purple mustard, layered the meat wi
th crumbles of Gorgonzola and arugula leaves, a question began to form in her mind. She didn’t know exactly what the question was, but she knew it had to do with that fateful night back in April, with the party at Bret’s house, the lost hours, the tragedy. It wasn’t until she handed Mardi her sandwich with a bottle of high-end root beer that the words came out fully formed: “Did you have the ring on that night?”

  Mardi, of course, knew exactly what night Molly was referring to. The twins were symbiotic. This was the precise reason why they were also the bitterest of rivals. Intuition is not always an easy thing to share. But there were moments like this when they both relaxed their guard and searched for common ground. Together, they were circling the idea that maybe their ring was more than just a private symbol between the two of them. It had some kind of power. After all, it was the only thing they had left of their mother.

  “I don’t think so. No, I didn’t have it on at Bret’s. I did wake up wearing it, weirdly. But I didn’t have it when I was checking out that awesome spider sculpture with him. I remember feeling for it and thinking you must have had it.”

  “But I didn’t,” said Molly, instinctively checking her right hand to make sure the ring was still there now. “I remember thinking you must have had it.”

  “Well, one of us has to be wrong. The ring never disappeared, obviously, because it was still there in the morning.”

  Molly bristled. The brief interlude of sisterly bonding was so over. “Well, it’s obviously not me who’s wrong!”

  “Are you implying that it’s me?” Mardi tore into her roast beef furiously. “Because it can’t be me. There’s no way. I am so much higher functioning than you.”

  “Oh, so I’m supposed to be the ditzy one?”

  “Well, since I’m not the ditzy one, it goes without saying that you must be.”

  “You’re the one who was wearing it the morning after! I think that proves that you spaced, not me!”

  The girls were interrupted by Marshall, returning with a small wooden crate of green, yellow, and orange tomatoes in all kinds of funky, nonengineered shapes. He’d obviously recovered his spirits and was all freckled smiles from behind his colorful heap of summer bounty.

  “Have I stumbled on an epic battle?” He grinned.

  “Sort of,” Molly and Mardi answered as one, starting to laugh in spite of themselves.

  “Great,” Marshall said, putting his vegetable crate down on top of the cheese case, “because deflating massive conflict happens to be my specialty. Did you ladies know that I have ten-year-old identical-twin half brothers? Whenever I go to visit them in Philly, they make me wear a cape with a capital P sewn on the back. P stands for Peacemaker. That’s my superhero identity.”

  “Where is this going?” Molly asked, cracking a reluctant smile.

  “You’ll see. Now, I don’t have my cape here, so you’ll have to use your imaginations. You’ve got to picture me flying over the counter, like so.” In an agile leap, he cleared the counter to land right in front of the cookie basket. He took an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie—both sisters’ favorite—laid it on a small plate with a knife, and put the plate on the counter. “Here’s the twin challenge,” he said, somehow maintaining eye contact with both of them. “One of you gets to cut the cookie in half. The other one gets to pick her half first.”

  “This is my store,” Molly said immediately. “I work here. So, I get to decide. And I want to cut the cookie,” she insisted.

  “Okay, that works out great,” Mardi quipped, “because I want to choose my half first.”

  “Wait a second, never mind. You can cut. I’m picking! It’s my store, remember?” Molly knew they were bickering like children. It was even worse here in North Hampton than back in the city. It felt like someone had hexed them with a curse of discord. Why did they have no control of themselves?

  “That is so unfair!” Mardi grabbed the knife. But instead of turning it on the oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, she pointed it at Molly’s face.

  Molly laughed. “Marshall, as you are my witness, my own sister is threatening me with a knife.”

  “A butter knife, I might add,” Marshall said, totally deadpan. “Ladies, would you like to witness my earth-shattering peacemaking skills in action?”

  Mardi lowered the knife, and they both stared at him in disbelief as he began to eat the disputed cookie himself.

  He began to sing a song from Sesame Street: “C is for cookie. That’s good enough for me—”

  “Are you channeling the Cookie Monster right now?” Molly couldn’t help but smile at Marshall. She was melting inside.

  “Scrumptious,” he sighed, by way of an answer. “My mom’s secret recipe. I’m the only soul on Earth she will ever trust with it.” He took a long, languorous bite, then he took two more cookies from the basket and handed one to each girl. “The moral of this story is all you ever have to do in life is realize there is always enough to go around. That full basket has been there this whole time.”

  The girls chewed in silent contemplation. He was sort of right, Molly thought. And sort of adorable. And he baked killer cookies.

  “Would you girls like some strawberry lemonade?”

  They nodded.

  Marshall poured three tall glasses, stirred in fresh mint leaves, and handed them around. “Ladies, I would like to propose a toast to Peace. With a capital P.”

  In unison, they raised their lemonade. “Peace!”

  Molly gave this happy new state of affairs about five minutes. But she supposed it would be sweet while it lasted.

  11

  REHAB

  Amy Winehouse was singing about not wanting to go to rehab, and Mardi was singing right along with her. She hated anything that smacked of an intervention, and this scene had all the elements.

  She and Molly were sitting side by side on the couch in the living room of Freya’s spare modern house, the one she had taken over from Matt when he got married, piling it high with her excess clothes. In this glass and steel setting, the clothes, stacked by color, looked like abstract expressionist art rather than clutter.

  Presumably, this out-of-the-way location, with its unfettered views of empty beach and open sea, was a neutral spot, the exact sort of place where interventions were staged.

  Mardi trailed off a lyric in the face of Ingrid’s admonishing glare. Even Freya looked dead serious beside her sister. For once, her neckline gave no hint of cleavage. The two women sat cross-legged on a sleek leather-upholstered bench.

  Most ominous of all was the dapper older man whose lanky frame was folded into a camel-colored Eames chair. He appeared every bit the Upper East Side shrink in a bespoke gray suit complete with a red pocket square. He had a faint mustache and goatee. His bald brown head was shiny under the light.

  “Girls,” Ingrid began, “this is our dear friend Jean-Baptiste Mésomier. He has been very helpful to us through the centuries. The most recent time he came to our aid was about ten years ago when we had our last crises of memory threatening the community. In order to speak to you, he has kindly agreed to travel up from New Orleans back into our midst.”

  “Jean-Baptiste,” Freya chimed in, “Molly and Mardi Overbrook, Troy’s girls.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” said the old man in a light French accent. “Now, how may I help you?”

  This sounded suspiciously like the kind of open-ended therapy question Mardi despised. “Could you start by telling us what exactly we’re doing here?” she retorted.

  “Mardi!” Ingrid looked mortified. “Please be respectful. You are speaking to the god of memory himself.”

  “He’s come to help you with your amnesia,” Freya added helpfully. “We’re starting to think that someone has been messing with your memories. There’s no reason for you both to be so vague about what happened the night those kids were killed in Manhattan. We suspect fou
l play.”

  “You mean we didn’t just black out because we were wasted?” Mardi was in the depths of a dark sarcastic mood. “Why do you guys have to tease everything out to make it so meaningful? Why can’t we just be ordinary kids who do ordinary stupid things at parties?” She knew she was being disingenuous, but she couldn’t stop.

  “But, Mardi,” Molly interjected, “we can’t be ordinary.” She pronounced the word ordinary as if it were toxic. “We’re extraordinary by nature. We’re not like other kids. We’re—we’re . . .”

  “We’re legendary!” exclaimed Mardi, intending to be sarcastic, but realizing as she pronounced the words that they were absolutely true. Her father was the god of thunder. The mortals had named Thursday after him. That was her family heritage: the days of the week were named after her forebears. Who else could claim that?

  “Yes,” the old man purred, “indeed we are legendary. We are all myths and legends. Powerful ones, I might add. And, as my great friend and countryman Voltaire once said, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”

  “I thought that was Spider-Man,” said Mardi, genuinely perplexed.

  “Actually I think it was Thomas Jefferson,” Molly chimed.

  “Regardless of who said it, it pertains to the two of you,” said Jean-Baptiste.

  “Girls,” Ingrid sighed, “this is serious. Please pay attention and try to focus. Here’s the problem as we see it. You two have been creating quite a stir in and around your high school in New York. You are wanton with your spells and hexes—making girls’ hair fall out in clumps, causing sworn enemies to make out with one another in broad daylight, rewriting test questions to make them—quote, unquote—less dry, inducing temporary paralysis in your rivals, and the list goes on.”

  “Way to go, girls!” Freya interrupted with irrepressible glee. “I turned a teacher’s eyebrows purple once because she told me I wasn’t trying hard enough in geometry, and once, I made my elementary school principal loudly declare his undying love for our class’s pet lizard. He got down on his knees to propose and everything. I can’t remember what lifetime that was, but it was a good one.”