The Crystal Cave

It was as clear as day, Justine Hoffman thought, sadly, as she realized that after ninety-nine failed love spells, the number one hundred was not going to have any more effect than the others."All right. I give up."She would never fall in love. She would never understand or experience the mystery that fused one soul with another. In truth, she'd always suspected as much, but she'd tried to keep herself busy enough not to worry herself too much.
The problem with keeping busy, though, is that sooner or later you run out of things to do, and then the thing you'd tried so hard to forget becomes all you can think about. Justine had made wishes upon seeing a shooting star and blowing out the candles on her birthday cake, she had thrown coins into every fountain, she had blown on the plume of a dandelion, sending the seeds soaring into the air in tiny feathered parachutes.
With each wish, she had whispered an evocative spell: "These words foretell your fate... you will not rest while I wait... may destiny find you... love has caught you... Come to me."However, his soulmate had never appeared. She had carefully read every page of the magic manual her mother had given her when she was sixteen. But there was no ritual or spell for a witch with an empty heart. There was nothing for a young woman who longed for something so extraordinary, yet so ordinary, as love.
Justine had tried to pretend to everyone, even herself, that she didn't care. She'd said more than once that she didn't want any ties, that she didn't need them. Yet in moments of solitude, she would stare at the small swirl of water in her bathtub drain or the shadows thickening in the corner of her bedroom and think, "I want to feel."She longed for the kind of love that would take her on the journey of her life.
She dreamed of a man who would strip away all her defenses like silk garments, until she was finally able to let go of herself. Maybe then the world would stop seeming so small and the nights so long. Maybe then her only wish would be that the night would never end. The sad procession of thoughts was interrupted when her cousin Zoë entered the kitchen."Good morning, " Zoë said cheerfully. "I brought you the book you asked for.""I don't need it anymore, " Justine said, barely looking up from her coffee cup.
She was sitting at the wooden table, her chin resting on her hand. "But thank you very much anyway."A September morning breeze had drifted into the inn, mingling with the salty scent of the ocean and a hint of diesel fuel from the nearby Friday Harbor docks. The smell was pleasant and familiar, but it didn't improve Justine's mood one bit. She'd had a rough night's sleep, and the caffeine hadn't helped."Don't you have time to read?" Zoë asked sympathetically.
"You can keep it for a while. I've read it so many times I practically have it memorized."Her blond curls swirled around her shoulders as she placed the romance novel in front of Justine. Its pages were worn and yellowed with age, some barely holding onto the spine. On the cover, a woman wrapped in a gold satin negligee seemed to faint languidly.