“What’s a caretaker, Mama?” asked Paddy once.
“Well, sweet baby, where I’m from there is this strange idea that certain people are born and connected to other people, and that it’s their life’s job to protect them. Take care of them … see? Caretaker!”
“Is it like that for everyone?” asked Bronwyn, combing out a tangled mess of hair on one of her dolls, not looking at me. She was always the one to ask the practical questions.
“No, at least I don’t think so, sweet girl. Though I suppose you could call it ‘soul mate’ or something like that. Only it’s not romantic, at least, not all the time.”
This made Paddy laugh. “Imagine you and Min kissin’, Mama!” he said, rolling around on the carpet next to my bed.
We all laughed. Those were still the laughing days.
What I didn’t tell them was the way my family treated me. But I never forgot it and that invisibility haunts me still. You’d think, coming from a family with strange ways, that I would have been accepted fully. Lauded, even. But it didn’t work that way. Turns out, I had more magic in me than anyone wanted to believe or understand.
“There’s a difference between guessing what a person is thinking and being able to predict their exact time of death, Naomi,” said my gran. Having too much magic had hurt our family in too many ways, and she didn’t like that I had, let’s call them enhanced talents. Besides, I’d chased her daughter away. She blamed me for that, too.
“You belong over there,” Gran would say, shaking a large knife as she cut stems off nettle or peeled mandrake root. She’d look out the kitchen window of Coveview over the ocean to the misty island of Fortunes Cove.
That was an insult to me, to all of us, because we all knew that crazy things happened on that island. Crazier and scarier than anything ever experienced in Fairview.
We’d seen them come and go, those people who lived there, furtive, secret, strange, sparkly residents.
Everyone in Fairview figured the island was cursed because no one who didn’t already live there could go there.
There was no rule. Nothing like that. Just a pure, sweet sickness that you got whenever you tried to cross the sea between. So Gran telling me that I needed to live there was really just saying she’d rather never see me again.
I was such a little girl. Who does that to a little, lost girl? And why not love me regardless?
The answers to those questions took me a long time to figure out. I’m still figuring them out, I think.
But I believe I’ve gone on a tangent. I do that more and more lately, thoughts spinning and veering like birds in the sky, taking formation in one direction or the other. The Whalens call those kinds of thoughts “the crazy fuckalls.” A crude saying really, but accurate.
Birds. Back to the birds.
In the Green family we have a lot of traditions. And one of them, my favorite of all, is that when we die our souls become birds. I was kind of excited about getting a chance to be a bird. And when the redbirds came the day they laid me in the ground, I thought they’d take my soul with them. Only … they didn’t. They flew away and left me here. Left me like everyone always did. Everyone but Minerva.
Even my babies left me.
Bronwyn left when she was a child. She was right in front of me, but I couldn’t find her anymore. One day she was there, her eyes full of love. And the next, they were vacant. She started to hate me. Then she left again when I died. I suppose I wanted her to go, because being caught in a place where you don’t belong is a special kind of hell.
Paddy left me when he realized he could count on Bronwyn more than me. And Jackson, dear sweet Jackson, he waltzed me through our happy years, only to leave me for his true love, liquor. See, my husband’s addiction was, and still is, as bad as my own.
I’ve been watching these people I love lose pieces of themselves, bit by bit, year after year. Maybe that’s why I’m lingering. Maybe I’m supposed to repair what I broke.
I don’t know.
At first, when Stella and Paddy got married, I thought I was sticking around to help Stella with her impossible choice. See, she had her own mysteries and sorrows. She knew she’d die in childbirth, but her own sight had shown her two paths. She could have stayed where she’d grown up, and lived to raise Byrd. But that path meant that Byrd would be trapped in some sort of evil web Stella couldn’t show me. Something so dark that she blocked it from her mind. The other path was to leave that place and search for loosely related people to help raise her daughter. But that path meant she’d die, and not get to be with Byrd at all. She was a better mother to Byrd by accepting her fate than I ever was.
When Byrd was born, and so alone … I thought maybe I was here to protect her. Turns out she’s been more of a comfort to me. Figures.
Byrd is the girl I would have been if I’d had more people around than Minerva to love me.
Nothing could explain why my soul lingered—until my first baby, Bronwyn, came back home.
She’d been gone for the right amount of time. Fourteen years. Seems like an even number, only it’s not. It’s comprised of two sevens. It took her seven years to run away completely, and then seven years to find her way back.
At first, she looked like a beautiful, poised, grown-up woman … but the little, wounded blond girl, with a bright red bow in her bouncy curls, was standing next to her. Trying to get her attention. Making her whole soul tilt to one side.
She was in a prison, just like Paddy. A prison she’d created for herself.
And then I saw the magic, and was relieved, because if she could grow her talents enough to see me, I could set us both free.
Because I really thought being dead would be way more fun. I’m tired of this game. Maybe there’s glitter in the light.
Now I just have to get there.
9
Bronwyn
Before Byrd emerged from the secret doorway, I let my hand touch Naomi’s bedding, just briefly. She died here. And in that moment, I felt that tingle I used to feel when whatever bit of magic I did have would riot up to the surface.
Remembering can be like swallowing glass. Cutting you up from the inside out.
Emily Dickinson said, “Remorse is a memory awake,” and I’ve never met anyone who’d want to wake those types of things up. Let sleeping dogs lie. Never wake a sleeping baby. Et cetera. Now, add a bit of “shine” to that remembering and it becomes a cinematic nightmare playing out right in front of you.
There was one big fight Jackson and I had before Naomi died. Sometimes I think if it weren’t for that particular fight, I might not have left home at all. I might have stayed.
We were on one of the upstairs porches, the one we used to sleep on when the summer nights got too hot. The Big House porches are not ordinary porches. There are handwoven carpets covering white-painted, wide wooden floors. Massive tropical potted plants live out there in the summer and are moved back inside during the winter months. And ceiling fans line the bead board under the roof, bringing a constant soothing breeze. They were a sanctuary, my own personal heaven—until that fight with my father.
A huge storm was rolling in, bringing an unbearable humid heat. Naomi lazed in her rooms, and Paddy and I ran out onto the large porch and took up our usual spots. Paddy, the hammock, and I, one of the cushioned porch swings.
“You ready, Wyn? It’s gonna be a big one!”
“I sure am, maybe it’ll take down this whole damn house.”
Jackson was walking past the porch doors and heard me.
“That what you want, sugar?”
Problem was, he wasn’t drunk that day, he was lucid. And he was mad. And I just didn’t know how to deal with a mad, sober Jackson. So I did what BitsyWyn did all the time. I fought back, only I never fought fair.
“Yessir, I do. I hope it comes and takes down this place and you and Mama with it.”
That made him come right out onto the porch.
He sat next to me on the swing, and I squished myself
as far away from him as I could.
Why do you suppose we do that, push ourselves away from those we love right when we need them the most? The whole damn fight could have been avoided right there if I told the truth—that I loved them both more than anything—and just sidled up next to him for the hug he wanted. But if BitsyWyn Walen was anything, it was downright stubborn.
“Go on inside, Daddy. Go on in and check on Mama. I don’t need you now. Paddy don’t need you. We needed you years ago.”
“Don’t drag me into this thing, Wyn.” Paddy laughed it off, but there was a whole lot of anger all caught up in my chest and brewing up like the storm.
“Oh, here we go. You’ve been so neglected. Jaysus, sugar. You’ve never wanted for anything. And I love you. You know that. And your mama loves you,” he said.
That was it.
“Love? Oh, please. If all this”—I made a wide circle with my arms—“if all this is love, then I don’t want it! I don’t want you! I don’t want any of this! You are killing her! You’re a fucking murderer!”
Lord, how we sometimes scream out our own prophesies.
“Bronwyn, quiet that vile tongue of yours or I swear to God I will rip it out, and rip it out slow,” said my father through clenched teeth.
“Good! Because then I could go into town and actually have some abuse to report!”
“You’d have to bring a pad and pencil with you, as you wouldn’t be able to speak.” Paddy smiled, trying to get a laugh out of us.
My father grew still. Our brutal words leaving marks on both of us. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I continued talking, knowing I was hurting him, wanting to cut him deeper than he could ever cut me.
“Ten to one you get up right after this little ‘vile’ speech of mine and drown your sorrows in that bourbon calling to you downstairs. But how about we have a little wager, Daddy? Tell you what: if you stay here, right here next to me, and watch the storm come in with us, I’ll shut up. Forever.”
Only now did I realize the trap I’d set. There was no way he wasn’t going to need a drink. An alcoholic always chooses escape. But I was sixteen with a heart full of anger, and a whole world to punish.
He left, and I scooted right on back to my spot on my swing.
“Nice job,” said Paddy, clapping slowly.
“Screw off. You want some, too?” I said. But I couldn’t help but smile. Patrick never made me mad. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it.
He laughed. “I swear, Wyn, you made the storm worse with all that crazy fuckall. Look how much darker the sky is now.”
“Shut up and watch,” I said.
The storm crept in, a gangrene god’s hand, pointing dead fingers at the swirling clouds. The opposite of a golden touch. More Medusa than Midas.
I closed my eyes, envisioning Magnolia Creek and all its residents.
The children slept, deaf to the trouble brewing above. The adults held each other, silently waiting. Lovers couldn’t speak the words waiting on their lips.
Then, when the storm arrived, Paddy and I danced like savages on the porch as the leaves spiraled frantically, bullied by the winds.
We were different from everyone else. A stupid, brave breed.
Then we ran wildly, hollering with mad joy all the way to their house and sat there at their cozy kitchen table. Susan always had something delicious to eat. That night she’d made a big pot of minestrone soup. Steaming, and full of greens, beans, and some salt pork, it warmed my cold soul. And Grant sat too close to me and made me tingle, God love him, as we heard the news about the storm.
All the surrounding towns had a death toll but not Magnolia Creek.
“It’s your mama,” said Susan in a quiet, solemn voice. “She’s failin’ fast, and she’s creating’ all this stuff with her mind. I swear, I don’t know if it’s God or the Devil in that woman.”
“Mama!” scolded Charlotte. She loved Naomi. So did Susan, but my mother had become unkind as she slid into the throes of her last big bout with opium. Susan had grown distrustful of Naomi. And Naomi had fired her from the Big House. That’s how bad it got near the end.
Susan Masters. The comfort she gave me. Grant, God, Grant, so handsome. Sweet Paddy. And poor Lottie, gone forever. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
The remorse set in. I wanted to slap myself for being such a stupid, selfish girl. But then Byrd emerged, and before I knew it, my mother’s ghost was trying to hug me, Grant’s ring was back on my finger, and Byrd had offered me her hand.
Emotional whiplash, that’s what it was.
“You’re hurting a lot, being back here, ain’t ya?” asked Byrd.
“I suppose I am.”
“Well then, let’s take you someplace new, okay? New and old at the same time.”
“That sounds like a great plan.” I smiled.
Byrd took my hand gently, and that’s when it happened.
At first I thought it was sunlight coming through the windows. But it was the wrong time of day, and there were no shafts of light to make dancing, shimmering dust mites.
It was her hand. Glowing warm and bright inside mine. The two of us stared, watching the pulse grow between us.
Love, respect, trust. They all flowed from her hand to mine.
I never wanted to let go.
She held my hand tighter and looked up at me, curious and open. But she didn’t let go. Instead, she led me right out of the Big House, taking me out of my past and straight into a future I didn’t know I was looking for.
* * *
Her hand, soft and small in mine, pulled me down a tunnel-like path crowded over with live oaks and willow branches. A parallel rabbit hole I’d gone down often as a child.
“You know where we’re goin’?” she asked.
“Sure I do. My old stomping ground.”
“A place you went to feel safe, right?”
“Yes.”
And right there, in the middle of what some would deem a forest, there was that familiar grouping of small cottages built for the workers who ran the sawmill. The Whalens kept them up even after there was no more work for tenants.
Most of them were one-room domiciles with kitchens and bathrooms on the outside.
“Minerva and Carter lived in that one over there since they went and got hitched.” She pointed at a shack closer to the creek. “But they moved back into the Big House with me and Jackson when … you know.”
Fresh paint and a small garden out front told me Minerva still spent some time at her “old” place.
“She seems happier now than she did when I was small,” I said.
“Don’t let her fool you. She’s still just as mean. Now, take off your shoes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Feet tell you a lot about a place. Sharp, soft, safe. You know.”
“I don’t think I want to let go of your hand, Byrd.”
She let go, reaching up to touch my face. “What happened there between us? That glow? It’s only ever happened once, and I’m takin’ it as a sign. So I’ll trust you, Aunt Wyn. That light lives inside of us now, and it ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
She called me Wyn. I took off my shoes.
“Careful for the crawfish holes! It’s been dry, and they come all the way up into the mud,” she said, skipping ahead of me.
“I did grow up here, you know.”
She turned around and walked backward as she talked, “I keep on forgettin’ that! You were here before I was. But you still never saw things the same way. No one does. Maybe you will now though.”
“I hope so,” I said.
The birds were chirping in the trees. I glanced up. The leaves of the magnolias were shiny and broad. Their undersides varied from red to brown, their big pods, left over from the spring blossoms, spiked and sticky. Alien and otherworldly.
Those magnolias were more mysterious than any sort of magic. You have to love it when a tree can make seeing spirits seem normal.
“Wanna hear my favorite
Christian song?” asked Byrd.
Her voice was high and beautiful, pure like the clearest water.
“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful; the Lord God made them all.”
“You religious, Byrd?”
“No, ma’am, I ain’t, but I think it’s important for people to have someone to look up to. Someone to make them feel all safe and cozy in their souls.”
“Who helps you feel that way?”
“Jamie. But he’s lost. And I can’t find him.”
“He’s your best friend, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. He’s a bunch of other things, too. I suppose Jamie does that for me. Jamie’s my own personal Jesus!”
Then she shrieked with laughter, running ahead of me.
That’s when I saw it. The last river shack on the very edge of our property. The one Paddy and I used as our playhouse growing up. The place we ran to when we needed to escape.
She’d transformed it completely.
Byrd was already jumping up and down on the porch. “Hurry up!” she yelled.
I don’t know if it was the way the sun hit the new paint or maybe it was my worn brain, overstimulated from feeling my dead mother’s breath on the back of my neck, but whatever it was, Byrd had created my dream house.
“How did you do this?” I asked.
She was grinning at me. “Oh, I suppose I had a bit a help, here and there, you know, with the heavy construction. The Towners helped out, mostly.”
“Did you read my mind?” I asked.
“Of course! You’re a silly aunt. I couldn’t just guess on this. I had to be sure. Can you predict things, too?”
“No, I mean … not like this. I used to be able to see a few things other people couldn’t, but I haven’t used that muscle in a long time.”
“Maybe, because we glowed … the magic will grow. Then we can be magic girls together! Witches in wonderland. That sounds pretty, don’t it?”
“It does. And thank you, honey, for the cottage. I can’t wait to see inside.”
I took in the pale red metal roof, the pristine glossy white outer walls with light purple hurricane shutters, the color of lavender flowers in full bloom. Naomi and Minerva always used to say that lavender grew better in the rocky, sandy soil up north. Ben did too, when I’d try to grow it on our fertile land in New York State. He’d say, “Lavender’s for luck. That’s why it grows in the places where it shouldn’t, and mostly when you’re not paying attention.”
The Witch of Belladonna Bay Page 8
