“When do you think I’ll get boobies like yours?” she asked.
“Oh, soon enough, trust me.”
“Did Naomi have big ones? I can’t tell because she’s all shimmery. I can’t get a good, long look, you know?”
“I suppose I’d say they were average size. Smaller than average, perhaps. Maybe you should ask Jackson?” I suggested, laughing.
I found an old, cracked bar of soap from God knows when and took my dirty niece to task.
We both giggled. I can’t tell you how good it felt.
“I don’t remember much about my mama,” she said, washing between her toes.
“Well, you never met her,” I said.
“No, but I knew her. I felt her. Aunt Wyn? I need to tell you something. And it’s a big, fat secret.”
“Go right on ahead, my queen,” I said. “I’m a photographer, and what we do best is capture secrets that we never, ever tell.”
Minerva was headed toward us with a stack of fluffy, white towels, some shampoo and conditioner, and a comb, thank God. She dropped it all beside me and turned right on back around.
“Okay. Here goes. Sometimes I don’t remember things. I don’t know why, and it’s probably part of all my other strangeness. All I know is that night, you know what night I’m talking about because you don’t strike me as no fool … well, I’ll just say it.” She took a deep breath. “Aunt Wyn, I don’t remember anything from that night. Not one thing. And I’m afraid I might have done something I shouldn’t have. Made a big mistake.”
“Byrd, honey, I know what you think,” I said. “I found my tarot cards. I’m not mad. I’ll even share them with you if you like. But was that why you thought I was being obtuse?” I lathered her hair and rinsed it.
She nodded.
“Well, if it helps at all, memory or no memory, I don’t believe for one second that you did anything wrong. Do you hear me?”
She nodded again, her eyes wide with relief.
“Byrd? Did you know something was going to happen that night?”
“I didn’t … but the night before I had a bad dream, and I was all alone. I need to pay more attention to my dreams.”
“My mother had terrible dreams. She thought they were omens or predictions, but they weren’t. That’s why she died, hiding her magic. Don’t worry about your dreams, Byrd.”
“I won’t. I don’t want to lose my magic. I can’t even imagine a life without it.”
“I guess she wished she didn’t have so much of it. It made her lonesome. It took things away from her.”
“That’s sad, kinda like you tryin’ to bury up the person you were born to be,” said Byrd.
Truth is worse than soap in the eyes.
“But there’s something else,” she whispered as I put conditioner in her hair and tried to comb it through. What a mess.
“Look, there’s nothing you can say to me that will make me believe that you did such a thing. You loved them. You couldn’t kill them. And I know you wouldn’t harm your daddy, either.”
“Aunt Wyn, I have this collection of pocketknives. And you know somethin’? I haven’t been able to find my favorite one since the night they died. How can you explain that?”
“I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it as soon as I can. I was planning on doing some of that work today, but it looks like we have other things to do.”
I wasn’t worried about a little girl’s missing knife. Not then.
I helped her out of the tub and wrapped her in the towels. She smelled so good, like sunshine.
“You ready yet?” called Jackson from across the yard.
“Not yet, Jackson!” called Byrd.
“It’s the Fourth of July! We got a parade to attend!” sang Jackson, who was dancing around the yard. Waltzing with his big bottle of bourbon.
“La, la-la-la-la-laaa,” He hummed. “Annie’s Song.”
Byrd broke free from my arms and ran across the lawn.
“You better go get dressed!” she called out. “You’re still in your nightie and Ben’s comin’ off Highway Fifty as we speak! Lawdy, lawdy! You got yourself what? An hour at most to git yourself together? Hurry up, Aunt Wyn!”
I’d known he was coming, I just didn’t know he was already in Alabama.
Nervous, I ran back to my cottage to get dressed.
I carefully pulled on a starched, white, button-down polo and a khaki miniskirt and slid on a pair of espadrilles. Then, standing in front of the mirror, I gathered my hair back. All the curls kept trying to pop out, but I wouldn’t let them. Ben was coming.
Then I put my camera around my neck—again. My buffer against the world. I was mad, and yet I wanted nothing more than to see him and have him hold me. There was a tightness in my chest that I couldn’t identify.
I walked back to the Big House as calmly as I could, went into Jackson’s study, and poured myself a drink. Then Carter walked in from behind a bookcase, and I dropped my glass, whiskey and all.
Damn secret passages.
Before I knew it we were on our hands and knees gathering up pieces of glass and ice and mopping up the spill with a cloth he’d had tucked in his pocket.
A gentleman, I thought.
After helping me up, he poured us both a drink.
He was quiet. Just staring out the window.
A strange, quiet gentleman.
“How was your morning?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said. He didn’t look at me, he didn’t even answer with a “How about yours?” He just stared out the windows toward the circular drive. Like he was waiting on someone, too.
Make that a strange, quiet man with no manners.
“So … I haven’t had a chance to thank you, Carter.”
He turned around then, a little too fast.
“For what?”
“Well, for being good to Patrick. For making Minerva happy, and … oh, hell, I don’t know. I was just trying to make conversation.”
I gave up and sat down on the huge leather sofa, sunken in from all the drunken nights Jackson spent there.
“Better watch out, you’ll rumple yourself up good. Want to look your best for your fiancé, don’t you?”
“How did you know he was coming?”
“Ran into Byrd,” he said. “She’s mighty excited about the parade. She’s taken to you quick. You might want to pull back on some of that love you’re spreadin’ on her.”
I stiffened. “I don’t see how loving a child is a bad thing.”
“Look at you,” he said, taking in my outfit. “You don’t look like you’ll be stayin’ ’round here. You’ll be back up north and then traipsing around the world takin’ pictures in no time. And then what happens to Byrd?”
“Now look, just because you’re married to my great-aunt does not give you the right to talk to me like that. I don’t think anyone has spoken to me that way since—”
“Since what?” he interrupted. “Since you left? Of course they haven’t. No one really knows who you are up there. How can they tell you anything honest? You don’t even know who you are anymore.”
A strange, quiet, mean son of a bitch.
It was all I could do to not throw my glass at his head. I was shaking mad.
“But,” he continued, “you’re welcome anyway. It’s been a joy takin’ care of Paddy. And Byrd, too. And Minerva? She’s a fine-lookin’ woman for an old lady, so we got ourselves a nice little romance.”
He began to walk away but paused.
“You know what? You’re a girl on fire. And seems to me, you been dousing those flames for years. Let yourself burn a little.”
Then he was gone.
“Screw you, too,” I muttered.
As if on cue, a rental car pulled up in front of the Big House. Ben. I hope he’s in the mood for a parade. I thought.
* * *
One thing I had never forgotten about Magnolia Creek was the Fourth of July. I always loved it. No matter h
ow hot, people would line the streets. The parade didn’t start on Main Street like most. Instead, it began at the town limit sign and wove its way down all the oak-lined neighborhood avenues. There was the requisite fire truck, golf carts decorated with glittering flags, classic cars, and Uncle Sam riding a tractor. But the best part—the part that made it stand out from all the northern festivities—was that each of the parade participants that drove, biked, or even just walked by, threw things into the crowds. Beads, candy, even stuffed animals. The children of Magnolia Creek always brought bags with them to the parade. And when it ended at the small fire station in the middle of town, there’d be a picnic where they all got to compare their treasures.
Paddy and I were “Founders,” so we always had to march in the parade, tossing out gifts. It made Paddy jealous, so Jackson made sure he had some sort of present at the end of it. The day always ended with me and Lottie and Paddy and Grant running as fast as we could down to the docks and throwing ourselves, holding hands and fully clothed, into the Gulf. And the four of us would hold our breath, our hair and clothes floating all around us, and the reeds and the sea grass, submerged branches and moorings tickled our feet, making us giddy with fear. We’d come up for air screaming, “Snake! Gator! Dead body!”
I could feel the water on my skin, the exhilaration of the fear. The companionship. All gone. Now I was all grown up and sipping a drink in my father’s study, watching my fiancé get out of a green rental sedan.
Beautiful Ben, in a white linen shirt and a pair of lightweight jeans, was walking effortlessly up the steps to my home. So confident, so straight-backed.
And all I wanted was to sit down on Jackson’s couch and drink myself far, far away. I missed my childhood friends. I wanted my baby brother back. And I couldn’t help but think about how Ben had lied to me, had always been lying to me.
14
Byrd
What makes the desert beautiful … is that somewhere it hides a well.
—The Little Prince
I had a lot to think about as I got dressed for the parade. I was up in my attic, where I feel safest of all. So I got to thinkin’ about the things I only think about, really think about, in that attic of mine. And it is mine. I don’t care if it’s been here a hundred million years.
There’s lots of legends about this place, because it’s so old. I’m a historian of sorts when it comes to that kind of stuff. I love this old house. And the most interestin’ thing about it, is its history. I love history. Jamie’s always makin’ fun of me ’cause I love learning about how things were.
“All you gots to know is how things are, or how they’re gonna be. Why waste your time with all that old, dusty stuff?” he said. We were walkin’ to school when he said it. I don’t go to school. But he does. Well, I go when I want to. When I feel like there’s a subject that needs some pontification. Pontification being my favorite word at that time. And that day I was goin’ because they were teaching the history of the Big House and I wasn’t goin’ to miss that.
“It ain’t fair that you get to just come and go as you please, Byrd. It just ain’t,” Jamie complained.
“Life ain’t fair,” I said as we rounded the bend to the schoolhouse.
That day I walked into the classroom with my head held high. The other kids always get this scared look on their faces when I come in. So I just stared at them with a look that screams: I know you. I know all of you and your deepest secrets. Then they turn down their eyes. It works every time.
Jamie was supposed to be in the sixth grade, but they kept him back ’cause he has so many absences. Takin’ care of his sad ol’ mama.
The teacher, Miss Pimms (like the drink, spicy and elegant, Jackson always says), welcomed me because she knew better than to throw me out.
“Well, hey, Miss Byrd. What brings you to school today?”
Her shaky smile told a world of truth.
“I hear you’re fixin’ on telling the history of the Big House, and I wanted to see if you got it right,” I said.
“I suppose the dog is staying, too?” she asked.
“Why, that’s so nice of you to invite her, Miss Pimms!” I said, as the class erupted into laughter so hard I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
I could tell she wanted to give me a whoopin’ so I just slid into a chair and scooted up close to Jamie’s in the back.
Time after time I’d told him to sit up front. “It makes ’em think you’re smart,” I’d say.
“I’ll leave smart to you, Byrd, and stay back here where I can sleep,” he’d say. Lord I missed him and his lazy ways.
Miss Pimms began, “The Big House was bought by Jackson Whalen the First in 1873.”
I raised my hand and shook it around. Daddy used to call it “jazz hands.”
“Yes, Byrd?”
“Well, with all due respect, Miss Pimms, that ain’t exactly true,” I said.
Miss Pimms sighed and sat at her desk. She stared out the window for a second and then looked back at me. “Byrd Whalen, why don’t you tell this story if you know it so damn well.”
The whole class took in a collective, surprised breath. It ain’t often a teacher like Miss Pimms will let a curse word out her mouth.
I couldn’t wait to tell the story, it’s the whole reason I went to school that day in the first place! So I made my way up to the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk and wrote down, The History of the Big House, Magnolia Creek Alabama. I turned to face the class, clearing my throat dramatically.
“Well, first of all … it wasn’t called the Big House back then. It was a river shack built out of virgin pine. It had two rooms and a kitchen outside. Jackson Whalen the First, who everyone called ‘Big Daddy,’ brought his wife and six kids to live there. He was a lumber baron and he’d been cuttin’ yellow pine and milling it for a decade before he found the perfect spot to settle down. He built a mill first. And as soon as the mill was operatin’ he had to build onto the shack because his wife, Deborah Jane, kept having more and more babies so there weren’t no room. He got the best architects from New Orleans to come build. That’s why it looks so grand.
“Anyway, Deborah Jane was none too happy about the mist over Belladonna. Not one bit. So she made Big Daddy promise never to go over onto the island to mill any of those trees. He listened. But sadly, some of the kids got adventurous and ran off down there. Who can blame ’em, really? I bet some of you have wanted to go over there too, haven’t ya?”
Jamie was holdin’ his hand over his mouth, tryin’ not to laugh. Everyone’s scared of the mist.
“None of them came back the same,” I continued, making my voice all spooky-like for effect, “but it was their youngest son, Farley, who was the most changed. When he was grown, he got drunk in New Orleans and raped a Cajun woman. She was a fortune-teller and mistress of the voodoo, and the story goes that she put a curse on the entire Whalen clan.” I gestured wildly with my arms.
“Byrd? Don’t you think that’s enough, honey?”
“No! Miss Pimms, it’s not. Not nearly enough. I’m sorry if you feel it’s in poor taste, but the truth is the truth. May I finish?” Miss Pimms sighed, so I thought I might as well go on.
“Anyway, the curse! It’s said the curse made it so they’d never be able to have big families again. And that all those children were bound to leave and find lives far away. I guess she figured it was worse to curse the mother of the sinner than the sinner himself. But whether the curse worked or not, in the generations that followed, all the Whalens spread out. And only one or two children were born in each family. My grandpap is the first one to stay forever. I think it’s because he closed down that mill. Sort of switched all the destinies around.”
Jamie waved his hand like a maniac. “What?” I cried out, half laughing.
“Tell them about the ghosts, Byrd!”
“Well,” I said, letting my fingernail screech against the chalkboard. “I ain’t sure these kids can handle that.”
“That
’s quite enough, you two,” began Miss Pimms.
“Y’all want to hear about the ghosts?” I asked, making my eyes real big.
But really, what kid doesn’t want to hear a good ghost story?
Then I did something a little rude. I try to be nice, I swear it. Even if it’s only ’cause my daddy gets mad when I’m what he calls “impertinent,” but sometimes my worst self gets hold of me and won’t let go.
I turned to the lovely Miss Pimms, and I placed my finger in front of my lips. She crossed her arms and got all kinds of huffy, but I knew I had the okay to continue.
“First, there’s Naomi Green, my dear old gram. Only she ain’t old. She died young. Way before any of us were even thought about. Not even a glimmer in our mama’s eyes. Sometimes I think she’s the worst because she’s caught. She can’t speak and she hovers around all murky-like.” I shivered there for emphasis. “Some people think the curse young Farley brought upon the family was broken by her. See, Jackson … my Jackson … he traveled the world. Left the Big House like all the other Whalens. Even after he closed the mill. But when he was up north, he met Naomi and they fell in love.” I went all dreamy and made kissy noises with my mouth. Everyone giggled.
“Then there’s Janice Whalen, who was in love with Michael DuMond. They’d been in love for as long as anyone could remember. They couldn’t have been more than nineteen when they got into a terrible car wreck where old Route Ninety-eight turns into Route Ten. There’s still that creepy memorial there, a rotting old cross with drooping flowers all tucked in it helter-skelter like. So the legend goes that Janice lived for a bit on the side of the road, and when the sheriff got there, she told him, ‘Tell my mama—cough, cough—tell my mama to bury me with Michael. I don’t want to be dead without him—(cough)!’”
I pretended to be Janice, laying myself half over Miss Pimms’s desk and knocking over a cupful of pens in the process.
“Byrd, please get on with this,” Miss Pimms said impatiently.
“Janice’s mama and daddy, the Whalens of the time, refused to do what she’d asked for. The lovers were buried separately. And now, late at night, you might see the ghost of Janice Whalen in the Big House gardens. Crying and searching, arms outstretched, for the one she loves. Only he never comes.”
The Witch of Belladonna Bay Page 14
