In Search of the Rose Notes (12 page)

“Well,” Charlotte said, glancing down at her papers, “what does he think of your girls’-room story?”

I hesitated, picking up
Alien Encounters
out of the musty box. I wondered if my face changed color as easily as Charlotte’s did.

“Well…” I said, trying to recover, “he, uh…”

Charlotte twirled her red pen, waiting for me to continue. I just shook my head, letting my sentence go unfinished.

“I see,” she said slowly. “Jesus, Nora. I’m sure he’d understand. I’m sure someone who got stoned for a chem lab would understand a little lapse of—”

“It’s not about that,” I said. “It’s not about what he’d understand. Of course he’d understand. I wouldn’t
marry
someone who wouldn’t understand. It’s just never seemed relevant. It was so random it’s not relevant to anything.”

“Okay,” Charlotte said, shrugging. “I guess I know what you mean.”

I wondered if she needed further convincing, but a moment later it didn’t appear to matter. She’d started in on a new batch of sentences and seemed content to drop the subject.

I opened
Alien Encounters
and perused the first few pages.

“Have You Been Abducted?”
asked a gray breakout box. “
The Signs to Look For.”

I smiled at this, remembering how Rose would often make us answer all the questions whenever there was a quiz section like this one. I silently took the quiz as Charlotte tore through a few more of her papers.

“Missing time?”
Nope.

“Confused memory?”
Sometimes.

“Irrational terror?”
Well, that depends on what you consider irrational.

“Nighttime disorders?”
Only very occasional insomnia.

“Finding blood on your pillow?”
No.

I flipped through the next few pages, looking at pictures drawn by abductees. A line of blue-suited spacemen standing in a pretty yellow kitchen. A stick-drawing woman strapped to a table, humanoid figures removing her eggs. A big glass portal in outer space, guarded by a creature resembling the Pillsbury Doughboy.

“Sorry about my brother,” Charlotte said suddenly. “He wasn’t in the friendliest of moods.”

“Does he come over often?”

“No,” Charlotte said. “He helps with the yard work when he can, but he’s usually pretty busy with his kids.”

“Oh.”

“But he’s been having a hard time lately. Keeps coming over to talk.”

I didn’t ask what the “hard time” was about, since it wasn’t any of my business. Charlotte looked up from her correcting and cocked her head. It seemed almost as if she were waiting for me to ask, but I wasn’t sure. I studied a photo of a crop circle and waited, too.

“Paul thinks it’s possible that Aaron could have done something to Rose,” Charlotte said, setting her papers aside.

“Are you serious?” I said, closing the black book. “When did he first start saying this?”

“Tonight’s the first time he said it outright. He says he put it out of his mind at the time but that Aaron really
was
very angry at Rose. Says it was getting pretty bad. I guess he suspected she was seeing someone else, and he wasn’t taking it well.”

“Then why didn’t Paul say something about it at the time?”

“Well,
lots
of kids told the police that things had been tense between them. But I guess that little tidbit didn’t lead anywhere. And remember, Paul and Aaron were
together
the evening Rose disappeared. The whole soccer team, they were together.”

“Yes. You mentioned that.” I remembered Joe telling me he’d been working that night. It seemed all of Rose’s old male classmates were eager to remind everyone of their alibis. “So how—”

“And, you know, in the end everyone thought it must’ve been some random psycho kidnapping. That’s what it seems like. Aside from her running away, that always seemed the most likely possibility. Paul says he focused on those two possibilities and tried not to think about Aaron.”

“But that’s changed now that they’ve found her?”

“The theory that she’d run away is now proven wrong, obviously. I guess after a few years passed and there was never any sign of her, that possibility was eliminated. Not that anyone ever talked about it. And a random psycho… well, would a random psycho come back with her body and bury her in Waverly a couple of decades later?”

“How sure is anyone that the body was moved? Why can’t a random psycho be local?”

“Why can’t the random psycho be
Aaron
? Aaron’s parents retired and moved out of Waverly just a couple of years ago. Think about it.”

“So you think when they made him come and take all his old Star Wars figurines and baseball pennants, he figured he’d go ahead and move his old girlfriend’s body, too?”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m just trying to understand your reasoning. You don’t think the police have thought this all over again?”

Charlotte shrugged. “I didn’t say anything about the police. I was just telling you what Paul thinks. He and Aaron weren’t great friends, but they knew each other fairly well from playing sports together. He says Aaron had a temper and maybe not much of conscience.”

“Are you sure Paul’s not just getting paranoid, now that she’s been found? I mean, these are scary times for everyone, with her body turning up like that,” I reasoned. “Maybe it’s just kind of a knee-jerk fear. And it’s natural to start doubting what you remember when—”

“There’s something Paul’s not telling me,” she interrupted.

“What makes you say that?”

“I can just tell. I always thought there was something between him and Rose. When I was a kid, I liked to think they secretly liked each other. Remember?”

“Why don’t you just ask him?”

Charlotte shook her head and had a weary, halfhearted sip of wine.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Nora. But you don’t have siblings. That’s not how we communicate. By
just asking.
”

“Well, do you
want
to know?” I asked her, ignoring the correction. “Do you want to know what he’s not telling you?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

Magical Arts:

October 1990

It was my idea to make the runes, but Charlotte took over the operation. While I’d thought we could find flat stones outside and scratch the symbols into them, she wanted to do something quicker. She found a big piece of corrugated cardboard and set to work cutting jagged little ovals out of it with a tiny pair of craft scissors.

Charlotte’s scissors gnawed away at the cardboard for at least an hour. She stopped every so often to count her runes and to shake her sore hand, but never to ask us for help. Rose and I lounged on the couch, flipping through
Magical Arts.
I had to look away for a moment as she paused at the page with a picture of a sheep’s heart stuck full of nails.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of gross things in this book,” Charlotte said when she saw what we were looking at. “In a different chapter, there’s this thing called a love pie. It’s when a lady gets all sweaty and then dries herself with flour and then saves the flour and mixes in a few of her fingernail and toe clippings all ground up and then makes a pie out of all that stuff and gives it to a man she likes, and then he eats it and he’s supposed to fall in love with her.”

“Ew!” I cried. “Can’t he taste the toenails?”

Rose’s reaction wasn’t as spirited as Charlotte was probably hoping for.

“I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing that,” she said, not looking up from the book. “Thanks.”

“There’s love potions, too,” Charlotte offered. “Near the end of the book. If you’re looking for something less gross.”

“I’ll have to look at those later.”

“Yeah, you might need them,” Charlotte said. “Since you broke up with Aaron, I guess you’ll be looking for a new guy.”

“You think so, do you?” Rose murmured.

“Why’d you break up with him anyhow?” Charlotte wanted to know.

“Because…” Rose hesitated, turning a page of the black book. “Well, I already told you. He’s a jerk.”

“No he’s
not.
I met him at Paul’s pizza party. For his birthday. He seemed nice to
me.
”

“When was that, Charlotte?”

“Like three years ago.”

“Uh-huh. Well, that was three years ago.”

Charlotte reluctantly started cutting her cardboard again. “So…
are
you gonna get a new boyfriend?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You will,” Charlotte assured her. “I bet you.”

“I don’t really care right now, actually.”

“Are you sad you broke up?”

Rose and I both looked up from the book. I thought Charlotte should quit bugging Rose, but I was interested in her answer. Because Rose
did
seem a little sad.

“No,” she replied.

“Did you used to kiss Aaron?”

Rose ignored the question. “Hey,” she said, pushing the book over so it sat half in her lap, half in mine. “Look, it’s that same circle stone you liked from the other book.”

The picture was of a huge, perfectly round stone with a hole in it, sitting in the grass. It was put there by the Druids.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I keep wondering how they made the hole in it.”

“It’s big enough to walk through,” Rose observed. “It says people walked through it to be healed. Kids would walk through it nine times.”

“Did you used to—” Charlotte began again.

“I heard you the first time.” Rose interrupted. “Charlotte, aren’t you finished with those things yet?”

“With the cutting, pretty much,” Charlotte answered.

Rose suggested we use pencil for the actual symbols, pressing hard to imitate the relief look of the runes pictured in Charlotte’s book. Rose finally flipped back to that page, and we all started drawing, each taking a row of seven runes. When they were almost finished, Charlotte disappeared into her bedroom for a few minutes.

“Look at this!” she said when she returned. She held out a small red velveteen pouch with a silver pull ribbon. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find it, but it’s perfect.”

“Where’d you get that?” I asked, only a little bit jealous.

“It came with lip glosses in it. I got it in my stocking last year.”

“I’m not sure if the Druids had velvet,” I pointed out.

“I think it’s a nice bag,” Rose offered. “And you want to keep your runes safely in one place.”

The book had suggested that you could toss all your runes at once for a detailed reading or pick out just one for a quick insight. We decided to do just one for now, since the book didn’t really detail how to go about giving a full reading.

I pulled first and got a relatively simple-looking rune. A single vertical line with a short tail hooking off it in a slant. I laid it on the coffee table so Charlotte and Rose could see it.

“The Laguz,” Rose said, and read its description to herself. “Let’s see. Hmm.
Very
interesting pull for Nora.”

“Just read it,” Charlotte said.

“All right,” Rose said. “It says, ‘A rune of initiation, Laguz, the lake, signifies water. It was originally associated with the pagan baptism of newborns. The rune also suggests emotion, intuition, and dreams, and the inquirer who draws it should pay special attention to the messages of the unconscious mind.’ ”

“Wow!” Charlotte said. “That
is
interesting for Nora. The messages of Nora’s unconscious mind…”

“I want to try again,” I said.

“You can’t go again,” Rose said. “It’s like a fortune cookie. You listen to what it says and take it or leave it, but you don’t get another one.”

I opened the bag to Charlotte, who fluttered the runes around annoyingly before finally pulling one out. Hers looked like a pair of chopsticks.

“The Naudhiz,” Rose announced. “ ‘This symbol represents human struggle in the face of adversity. Naudhiz, meaning need, indicates an overwhelming compulsion to achieve something. The inquirer who draws the rune is invited to examine his or her motivations and to separate true needs from desires. Trust fate, Naudhiz counsels, for it will ultimately guide you to what you need.’ ”

Charlotte looked thoughtful. Her eyes met mine. “I think we should try again,” she said firmly.

“So do I,” I said, grabbing the bag and shoving my rune back in.

Charlotte tried to do the same, but Rose stood up, leaned over her, and snatched the little red bag out of my hand.

“Oh, no you don’t. You don’t just keep putting them back till you get one you like. Then it doesn’t mean anything. Charlotte, that one’s perfect for you. And, Nora—I remember what yours looked like. I’m going to find it for you.”

She dumped out the runes on the sofa cushion and plucked my Laguz from them.

“What about
you
?” Charlotte asked.

“I’m going to pick mine right now.”

I slid the black book away from Rose so I could do her reading. She jammed her fist into the red bag and pulled out what I identified as the Tiwaz.

“ ‘Tiwaz,’ ” I read. “ ‘Rune of the Norse god Tyr, Tiwaz stands for his qualities of bravery, truth, and justice. According to myth, Tyr once sacrificed his own hand to the jaws of a wolf in order to save another god from destruction. Drawing this rune signifies that sacrifice and courage may now be required in the name of justice.’ ”

Again we considered the words for a moment.

“I’m glad I didn’t get that one at least,” Charlotte said.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rose replied, taking the book from me to reread the explanation. “This one is awesome,” she murmured unconvincingly.

“The jaws of a wolf?” Charlotte repeated. “You don’t want that. Come on. Let’s
all
pick again.”

“No,” Rose said, pulling away abruptly as Charlotte tried to reach for her rune. “We keep them. In fact, we should wear them. I think we should make them into jewelry.”

“What do you mean? You can’t
wear
this rune.”

“Why not? I’m gonna make a bracelet. We all should.”

Charlotte looked uncertain. “You can’t.”