Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Acknowledgments
Questions for Discussion
Carla Carter s Diary
Twenty-one years ago
Dear Diary,
Happy birthday to me! So, this is it. I’m twenty-one today and I’m feeling excited and sort of mature and, to be honest, also a bit scared. My birthday’s fallen on Friday the thirteenth this year, something Gran has surely noticed. She’s going to be on edge all day, expecting the house to be struck by lightning or for my candles to set fire to her curtains. I seriously doubt she’ll be expecting the big news I’m going to share with her after my birthday tea, the decision I’ve been deliberating over for months.
My birthday presents felt extra lucky this morning. Gran gave me a tiny glass eye on a silver necklace, telling me, “If someone or something is jealous or wants to harm you, the eye will reflect or distract them.” It sounds useful, if highly unlikely. The pendant belonged to my mum, and I saw tears in Gran’s eyes when she fastened it around my neck. It’s really tough for her with Mum and Granddad gone, and hard for my little sis, too, which makes what I’m about to tell them both even more difficult.
Jess has been teasing me about getting old. I suppose an eight-year gap between sisters seems pretty wide when you’re only thirteen. She bought me the cutest little brass paperweight in the shape of a four-leaf clover, and I already know my aunts Mimi and Evelyn will insist on reading my tea leaves.
Gran and Jess are putting the finishing touches on my cake in the kitchen. It’s my favorite, sponge filled with jam and buttercream, and the house smells of vanilla and strawberry. I don’t believe in premonitions but I already know what Gran will say when I go back downstairs. “If you blow out all twenty-one candles at once, you’ll be married within the year. Miss any and the number left is the number of years until your wedding day.”
I’ll try not to roll my eyes. The older Gran gets, the more she believes in this kind of stuff. Mimi and Evelyn are the same, forever reminding me and Jess about an old curse that claims women in our family are destined to be unlucky in love. When I blow out my candles, I’ll try to emit the tiniest puff of air, to leave them all alight. That way I won’t walk down the aisle until I’m forty-two!
Why would I even think about marriage at my age anyway? Life is short, and losing Mum is proof of that. She was the only one in my family who didn’t care if she opened an umbrella indoors. “Act now, think later,” she used to tell me.
I can’t believe she’s been gone for eleven years, and the longer she isn’t here, the more I miss her. The more I want to be like her.
So, I’ve made up my mind to do just that.
Dear Diary, I’ve decided to drop out of university to go traveling for a year.
There, I’ve put it in writing now, so have got to do it.
Yes, I’ve completed two years of my business studies degree. Yes, I’m scoring A’s and have made some great friends. Yes, I know I’m usually Miss Cautious and that Jess really misses me when I’m away at university, but she isn’t a kid any longer and there will never be a perfect time for me to go traveling. I just feel like there’s something or someone out there, beckoning me. Call it intuition or a sixth sense, but I have to explore what it is and throw caution to the wind for once. I think it’s what Mum would have wanted.
And who knows? Maybe there is a special person waiting for me so I can prove our family curse wrong, once and for all.
