Chapter 12

“If you shift, you will die.”

I know I heard this. I know it was not my imagination. Those were Bea’s words.

“Control over your emotions is the only way to stay alive.”

Her justification for the daily meditations she insisted I perform with her while we lived in .

However, the one thing I never heard from her was, “Your mother did this and now she’s dead.”

My aunt just allowed me to assume this to be truth by following a presumed line of logic: if Evangeline had the same ability and this ability caused one to die when it was used, then she must be dead.

But if I shifted and I didn’t die, then my mother might still be alive somewhere. Notwithstanding the fact that she is my flesh and blood, that she gave birth to me, and that I never even met her, Evangeline Bellflower is someone just like me.

And that alone is reason enough to want to find her.

“All right, Calliope, why don’t you have a seat?” Mrs. Gibson ushers me into her cave-like office and again clears her chair of books and papers. “I’m just about to have some tea. Would you like to join me?”

I recall Julia’s claim that the librarian’s tea smelled like feet. “Um, no, thank you, Mrs. Gibson. I just had some coffee.”

The woman frowns before she turns her back to me. “Coffee is not a proper drink for a young lady.”

“Then why do they make it so tasty?” I expect Mrs. Gibson to laugh, if only to be polite but she doesn’t. My own laugh, to my surprise, sounds anxious.

“You and your aunt are settling in, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And how do you like Darby Cove so far?”

“Um, well, the town is kind of cute, I guess. I haven’t seen much of it.”

Mrs. Gibson glances over her shoulder at me. “You should. It’s rich with history.”

“Any good places for coffee?” I add, “Ha, ha,” which earns me a half-smile from the librarian.

She returns to her desk with her tea in a china cup and saucer. As she raises the cup to her lips for a sip, I notice it does indeed smell like feet and I have to swallow back a laugh.

“So let’s talk about your family tree, Calliope.” She sips her tea again and smiles serenely. Like she’s about to give me good news? Her body language gives nothing away.

My fingers pull on the hem of my uniform. Unlike Fiona, navy blue and gold are not the best colors on me. Gold ends up looking like yellow. Yellow makes my pale skin look sallow and sick.

Why am I thinking this?

Yeah, okay, I’m nervous. Part of me hopes Mrs. Gibson might have some information about my mother. Is that so farfetched? Julia made it sound as if the librarian’s books are magical. Not that I believe her; I’m not a child.

And yet…

“First of all, let me say that I see no impediment to your initiation into Bell Book and Candle.” Mrs. Gibson smiles broadly: this is the best possible outcome, of course, and I should be jumping joyously to hear this news.

I force a grin. “Awesome, Mrs. Gibson, thank you so much.”

She nods modestly. “It was nothing. A little research, that’s all.”

“It’s…it’s terrific. I’m very, very…” Add one more. “Very glad.”

The librarian raises her cup and saucer to her chin. I notice the pattern: an intricate design of scarlet roses with thorn-tipped vines ringing the handle and rim. My eye follows the greens around and around the cup as they intertwine and branch off; they seem nearly three-dimensional, which is impossible, of course. It’s merely an illusion. But a compelling one and it’s hard to tear my gaze from it.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some?” Mrs. Gibson holds the china closer to me and I get another whiff of the tea. “I grow the leaves myself in my garden.” She points to an overflowing windowbox, the only living thing in this stuffy grey office. The plants’ leaves are striated with white and yellow, their undersides painted a pale shade of green.

Julia’s wrong. The tea doesn’t smell like feet. It smells like lilies. White lilies with their velvet leaves curled into a tube around an orange pistil. Strong, yes; pungent, certainly. But not unpleasant.

“Um…” I finally glance up, meeting Mrs. Gibson’s eyes. “No, thank you.”

She smiles, suit yourself, and takes another sip of her tea before reaching for a wide cloth-covered book in a deep forest green, like a photo album or scrapbook. Her hazel eyes twinkle as she carefully turns the pages.

“Your history is quite interesting,” she says. “Far more interesting than some of the other pledges’.”

What does that mean? Am I weird? Weirder than other girls? The heat of anticipation warms my skin.

“Oh yeah? Cool.”

“Did you know that we can trace your family tree all the way back to the 17th Century?” Her face nearly beams her joy in telling me this.

“No, I, uh, didn’t know that.”

“Your ancestors were the Sweets, Abigail and James Sweet.” Mrs. Gibson consults another page in her book. “The Sweets were from this area, as a matter of fact, and they are buried nearby in cemetery in Darby Cove.”

“They are?” How odd that Beatrix never mentioned this to me when we moved here. Then again, I have a feeling there’s much she hasn’t told me about myself and my family. I sit up straighter in my chair and lean forward over the librarian’s desk. She obliges my curiosity by turning the book to face us both.

On the page she shows me are a series of boxes connected by thick or thin lines and inside each box is a name and title. At the very bottom is my box: 'Calliope Louise Bellflower,' and above it are two boxes, one with the name 'Evangeline Marie Bellflower, Mother (deceased),' and the other, 'Unknown, Father.' They are connected to me with two lines but not to each other.

Mrs. Gibson follows my eyeline and answers the question on my face. “That’s because they weren’t married. If they had been, I would have drawn a thick line between the two boxes.”

“I get it.”

“What’s most important to us is this line,” she says, pointing with her from myself through my mother to her mother and hers and so on, going back through the centuries, until she finally lands on Abigail Sweet at the top of the chart. “The female line.”

“Why is that?”

“Why…because we are a sorority.”

“Oh.”

“And what concerns us are the women from whom you are descended.”

The women…like my mother. And her mother. I follow the line Mrs. Gibson showed me on my chart. All the females names from me back to Abigail: were they like me? Did they have my ability?

Where did the shift begin? With my grandmother…with Abigail?

“You said the Sweets were from Darby Cove?”

Mrs. Gibson nods. “As far as I can tell, they never left . Born here, died here. Abigail was a seamstress and her husband James fished. He was often at sea for months at a time while she was left to raise their family.” She shakes her head with a disapproving tsk-tsk.

“How do you know this stuff? Did you google it or something?”

“Oh no, no. Most of this material isn’t available on the internet. I had to go to the original sources.” She turns in her chair and gestures to the wall of books behind her as if she were showing off a case full of jewelry at Tiffany’s. “These are from my own personal collection.”

As I did on my first visit to this office, I stare at the spines of all of Mrs. Gibson’s books. Some titles are in actual foreign languages while some merely include letters in Ye Olde English – where “S” is written as “f” and there are a lot of redundant “e’s.”

And then there are the books with the symbols.

“May I see some of your books, Mrs. Gibson?” I half-rise and point to the shelf directly behind her to the trio which are pushed in an extra inch.

“This one?” She points to 'Henry VIII.'

“Not the Shakespeare. One of those. With the gold leaf on it.”

Her finger grazes the corner of one spine and stops. “I’m sorry, Calliope. Many of these are in a very delicate condition. I’d rather you didn’t touch them.”

“Oh. Okay.” I stare down at my hands which are really quite clean and rarely truly clumsy. “I’m pretty careful with other people’s things—”

“I’m sure you are. But these books…they’re irreplaceable.” She smiles with her lips pressed together. “You understand, don’t you?”

“Yeah, okay,” I say again.

“I’ve spent a very long time collecting them.” Her gaze falls upon them, lovingly, her precious beauties. The expression on her face changes abruptly as she swivels back to me. “So, that’s about it. Any questions?”

“Um…” Yes! Did you learn anything about my relatives other than where they were lived? Other than their occupations? And the ages they and their children died?

Did any of them have any special skills? Were they remembered for anything unusual? Did they write their memoirs, keep journals, send annual Christmas letters in which they recalled how wonderful it was when li’l Janie finally learned to shift for the first time and what a grand old time they had when she pretended to be Grandpa Morty and left his fake teeth in the collection plate at Sunday mass?

“No, ma’am. Not that I can think of.”

Mrs. Gibson closes the genealogy book with two hands and then tucks it beneath an identical cloth-covered tome on a two-foot tall stack on her desk.

“Wow, that’s a lot of family trees,” I say. “A whole forest of them.”

The librarian places her hand on the topmost book. “Many, many girls have pledged Bell Book and Candle.”

“Yeah, but, that’s a lot.” Assuming each book holds 200 pages, with 2 pages per girl, that’s a hundred genealogies, and there are 15 books just on Mrs. Gibson’s desk…could she have traced the family trees of fifteen hundred girls? Or more?

The librarian stands then and offers her hand for me to shake. “Congratulations, Calliope. I’m sure Fiona will be thrilled to know you’re cleared to formally pledge Bell Book and Candle.”

Oh boy. I can’t not shake the woman’s hand. After all the research she’s done on my behalf, all the time she’s spent above and beyond her regular duties as a librarian, I can’t ignore the woman’s hand.

But if I do…

I have to.

I grasp her fingers in my own, feel her calloused palm and slender fingers, stronger than they look, perhaps from re-shelving books all day long. Now I’ve got you, I think.

“Thank you, Mrs. Gibson.”

She winks at me before she releases my hand. “When you’re a member, you can call me Mary.”

I allow myself a small smile: little does she realize I already have.

“Next time you’ll join me for tea,” she says as I start to leave.

“Oh yeah, sure.”

I close the door to Mrs. Gibson’s office behind me, thankful to breathe the relatively fresh air of the library, and stumble through the stacks and out into the quad. Despite the light mist that coats my skin and uniform the moment I step outdoors, my brain is consumed with the family tree I just saw.

Who was Abigail Sweet? Could she shift too? I wonder if Beatrix knows.

I wonder if she’ll tell me the truth.