“I can do that. I shouldn’t. But I can.”
“Good,” I said. And I knew Carter would be more than willing to fix it up for Paddy. He loved him with a real sort of love. The kind that doesn’t ask for anything in return. The kind of love I was just learning about.
“Can Jackson do anything with whatever charges Carter will face?” I asked.
“Sure he can. And he will. Paddy will be home in no time.”
“How long is ‘no time’?” I asked.
“Soon, Wyn. And man, that’s gonna be something.”
“Sure is,” I said, and then, “Hey, Stick?”
“Yeah?”
“I consider you a friend, and I’m grateful for what you’re about to do. But really? You’re a shitty sheriff.”
Then I left.
30
Byrd and Wyn
It was night by the time I got home.
Byrd was rocking back and forth on the front porch of the Big House. She ran at me so fast I thought she’d project herself right over the railing.
“Hey! Hey there, slow down. Are you trying to fly or something?”
That’s when she burst into tears and threw herself at me. I almost fell backwards down the stairs. I sat hard on the top step instead.
Weeping. My girl was weeping.
“Shh, honey. It’s all over. It’s all over now. Your daddy’s comin’ home. We’ve solved all the mysteries.”
“No, Aunt Wyn … not all of them. I … please. I can’t talk about it. I need you to try and read my mind.” She put my hands on her head and shut her eyes tight.
“It doesn’t work that way, honey, we just love each other too much. And even if I could, I can already feel this thing you need to tell me is hiding so deep inside, you’d block it away from me anyway. Like a dam, right?”
She nodded, hiccupping with sobs.
“A girl can try, can’t she?” she cried out, wailing again.
“Lord, Byrd, what is the matter?”
“I want to tell you something. But I can’t tell you. So you need to see it and I can’t figure out how to get you to see it!”
I understood. There was one more piece.
“I have an idea,” I said.
Her head popped back up. “What?”
“Well, why don’t you go back to the cottage and get my tarot cards. I’m pretty good at using them. Maybe if I read your cards I’ll figure out your secret and you won’t have to tell me anything,”
She jumped from my lap and ran toward my little house.
“They’re next to my bed!” I shouted after her.
“I know!” she yelled back.
“Hurry up! It’s already starting to rain!” I shouted louder, because she was farther.
“I know!” she yelled out over the thunder that rumbled, shaking everything around us.
* * *
The Big House was empty. A large, empty house is always a scary thing. Your mind can play tricks on you.
I went to the kitchen and turned on the lights, but they flickered and went out. It would be one of those quick, violent storms. I felt around for the candles and matches Aunt Min always kept on the windowsill over the sink and lit a bunch on the kitchen table.
“This is a good place,” I said to the dark room. I would do her reading on the table that had seen more than its fair share of Whalen triumphs and tragedies. We’d be able to put things in perspective that way. More voices could come through the cards.
“A good place for what?” asked a voice from the shadows.
“Ben! You scared me, I thought you were with Jackson and all them at Sam’s.”
“I was.”
I could hear the grandfather clock in the hall. Tick-tock, tick-tock … silence.
“You’ve never been a winter sort of person, Bronwyn,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it,” he said. “Winter. It explains, precisely, the difference in personality between someone who hails from the North of this country or the South.
“When you live through winters—true, deep, dark, snowy winters—you can hibernate your soul. You can pretend to be quiet. You learn how to shut yourself off. You’ve done that for too long. I allowed you to live a Yankee life, a true northeastern life for so damned long you shut yourself down. Completely.”
His words resonated.
The South. It seeps out and thaws a person so quickly. If it’s in you, it comes right back as soon as you accept who you are. And it was Ben, out of all the people and out of all the things that happened that summer, who taught me this lesson. Birthed it out of me through our contrasts. Allowed me to see the truth.
Be who you are.
If you’re broken, be broken. If you’re crazy, be crazy. If you’re opinionated, yell your opinions from the rooftop. If you have strange ways? See it as a blessing, not a curse.
He sat me down at the kitchen table as the rain poured down outside.
“I’m going back to New York.” he said.
“I know.”
“And you’re not coming,”
“I know,” I said softly.
“I will ship your things. Don’t worry about me; I realize, now, that you can’t come back, Wyn. See … even I’m calling you by your true name now. You love it here. You belong here. And there’s something else…”
“What?”
“You love Grant. You loved him when you were small, and you love him still.”
You know when you look at someone in astonishment, only it’s not really astonishment at all, you just need something to say because you’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar? That’s what I felt like. So I came up with the only thing I could think of. “You are crazy. You’ve gone and lost your mind in this heat and this storm.”
He smiled a knowing Ben smile.
“Bronwyn, you have to let me go and let him know how you feel. If the way he looked at you in New Orleans when you weren’t looking is any indication, he’ll walk on clouds when you tell him.”
“I’m so sorry, Ben.”
“Babe, you and I were over the second you got on that plane. I know it now. And don’t misunderstand me. I wish I was wrong. I wish you loved me and wanted to go back to our life together. But I can’t have that, so I’m letting you go.”
I started crying. From relief and pain so intermingled I didn’t know what was what. Then he took my hands and switched my rings. Put Grant’s on my left, and his on my right.
“Can we still be friends?” It sounded so pathetic in my own ears I could have slapped myself. But it was true. I didn’t want to lose all of him.
“Always.”
Just then, Byrd came bouncing in through the kitchen door, soaking wet, with my tarot cards held close to her chest. She looked at the two of us, confused for a moment, but just a moment.
“I reckon I’d tell you I’d give y’all some space, but I don’t think neither of you want none of that. So while you say your goodbyes I’m gonna set up this table so Aunt Wyn can work her magic. Okay?”
“It was good to know you, Byrd,” said Ben.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”
“She’s going to miss you. That’s what that means.”
“I know. But we’ll see each other again soon. I can feel it in my bones. Kiss me one more time and then I’ll be gone.”
I wrapped my arms around him and felt his strength. His solidity. I kissed him full on the mouth and wondered if I was making a huge mistake.
He pulled away first. “No, you’re taking steps back so you can move forward. But thank you for the kiss, I needed that,” he said, walking out the door into the rain and out of my life. But even as the minutes passed, I could still hear him in my heart.
“Thank you, Ben,” I said, my eyes closed, hoping he’d feel my words as he drove down those dark, lonely, country roads.
“You can still hear him? In your mind?” asked Byrd.
“You know what that means, right? Or do I gotta explain it to you?”
“No, I get it now. I can hear him because he’s far away from me.”
She nodded her head, as if suddenly she’d become very old, and the day that had just occurred was already a part of her memory, long forgotten until stormy nights like these.
The past, present, and future live side by side …
“Hey,” I said, clearing my throat, “before we get started, and just in case this reading turns up things we don’t really care to know, you want a drink?” Like I said, no moral compass whatsoever.
I put some ice in a glass and filled it with lemonade, splashing some bourbon on top before handing it to her.
Aunt of the year.
She got right up, poured some off the top of her glass, brought the bottle to the table, and topped off both our drinks. Significantly. “I do believe we might want to get a bit silly, Aunt Wyn. I got a bad feelin’ about what these here cards are gonna tell us.
“Wait! My favorite song is on! Let’s dance too, Aunt Wyn. Just for a bit, one song before we sit and read these evil cards,” she said, even though there was no music playing. She pulled a wooden stool over to the refrigerator, where an ancient radio sat perched on top.
“The electricity’s out, darlin’,” I said.
She scoffed, rubbed her hands together and then switched the oversized knob to On. Just like that, Patsy Cline came pouring out of the radio.
Crazy, I’m crazy for feelin’ so lonely.… I’m crazy.… crazy for feelin’ so blue …
We danced together all over that big country kitchen. Its huge windows black against the rainy night showing our reflections. We sang at the top of our lungs, letting our lemonades splash onto the floor as we twirled, twisting and dipping each other. And every time Patsy sang, “Crazy for lyin,’ crazy for tryin’,” Byrd shook her hair back and forth with her eyes closed. My gypsy queen.
As soon as the song was over, she turned off the radio.
“Why not leave it on, honey?”
“This ain’t no time for music. Time we got serious. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, sitting at the table. I lit a few more candles and gave Byrd the cards to shuffle and hold. “Give them back to me when you feel you’ve told them the whole thing, okay?”
She took it seriously. She must have told a thousand stories to those cards. Her eyes were closed, tears silently falling.
When she gave them back, I took one of her hands and held it as I placed my other hand on the deck, connecting us both to the cards.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“I am, but remember. I’m not going to talk. So you’ll talk and you can ask me yes or no questions, and when it’s over? I don’t want to talk about it again. Ever. Okay?”
“Deal,” I said, laying the spread of cards on the table.
I did a full twenty-one-card storyboard. Those are difficult. But as each card turned over, I saw the truth. Three cards in particular were all I needed to know about what happened. The others colored in the gray areas, telling me how terrible she felt. But those three cards were clear as day.
The beginning: the priestess
“So you went into the mist and you were happy, but confused, right? And you saw many different ways you could try to help Jamie and everyone else.”
She nodded.
The middle: the alchemist
“But something happened. Didn’t it, Byrd? Something happened that led you to believe that you needed to do something right then and there to keep everyone safe. And it had to do with mixing things together.”
She nodded again, her lip quivering
The cards that came between were the saddest and most confused set of combinations I’ve ever seen. My heart was breaking for her. But when I turned over the last card, I knew why she’d been so adamant about never speaking about it.
The Ten of Swords. The card of intellect, and creativity. In this case, a bad sort of creativity. The card of winter. Death. The card of air and spirits. The card that told me she’d killed him.
“You made him something to eat. Something with belladonna in it…”
She nodded yes as she took a shuddering breath.
She’d poisoned her prince.
“You were afraid he’d hurt other people, too.”
She nodded, moving across to my side of the table and sitting on my lap, her small body shaking with silent sobs.
“I love you, Byrd. And I bet that Jamie knew what he was eating. He knew that island too well, so don’t beat yourself up forever. Some people need a reason to hurt themselves. You didn’t kill him, honey. You gave him permission to kill himself.”
We were quiet after that, and I just held her tight as the storm raged around us. Sometimes what’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right. And we have to figure it out as we go along.
It was done, and the only thing that mattered to me was in my arms.
* * *
The old-fashioned phone on the wall in the kitchen rang, at the same time the lights came back on, startling us.
“You jumped first,” she said.
“Uh-uh. You did,” I said.
We laughed a little, both knowing that our solemn, magic evening was at its end.
“I’ll get it,” said Byrd. She was sounding like her old self.
“Hello, this is the Whalen residence, whom may I ask is speaking?”
“What the hell is that?” I said, looking at her funny.
“I’m tryin on a new pair of manners. I’m growin’ up and I think I need some.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
“Anyways, it’s for you,” she said, almost teasingly. She held the receiver out to me and then, when I took it from her, said: “Don’t do nothin’ I wouldn’t do.”
“Hysterical,” I said to her, then put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Wyn?”
My heart stopped dead.
Grant.
He’d called me after all.
* * *
It wasn’t a long conversation. He asked to come over. Said he was broken up over Jamie. “Well, I’m kind of in the middle of something,” I said. But Byrd was shaking her head like a madwoman and already gathering up the cards.
I held the phone to my chest. “You sure, honey?”
“I think we both know this is the best it’s gonna get … it is what it is. Plus, the storm’s over. So there’s that.”
She shrugged at me, finished gathering up the cards and was gone.
That damn girl. “I guess it’s fine,” I said.
“See you in a few,” he said.
I hung up the phone and banged my forehead against the wall a few times.
Do what feels right, I thought, and went out onto the front porch to light candles and the lanterns. The ones Naomi used to love, all strung up, colorful and warm. Oh, Mama. I miss you.
He didn’t drive. He came walkin’ up the stairs just like he always did. Like fourteen years hadn’t even gone by. And he was soaked through, too.
“You okay?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me.
“Want to stay here or go to my cottage? Byrd fixed up my old playhouse.”
“Walking sounds nice,” he said. “I got the lowdown at Sam’s. I needed some air.”
“Seems you’ve already had a good walk. Maybe you should dry off…”
He knows his son is dead. He knows.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Better now. Just lookin’ at you always made me feel better.”
He was nervous. His hands tucked in his jean’s pockets. His shoulders up to his ears, like he was ready for someone to hit him.
I held out my hand and he took it.
Jumping in the ocean off the docks, just us. On a day when Paddy and Lottie weren’t taggin’ along. Running like the wild things we were. Running against time. We jumped so, so high and the
n held our breath for so long amid all those reeds and weeds and brackish grasses. “In all the world, there ain’t never been a love like I feel for you, Wyn.”
The memory was a feeling more than anything else, a warmth that spread from my hand to his.
“It wasn’t you, Grant. It wasn’t ever you. I—it was my mother. And not just her death, the day she died. Remember? I told you a little bit when I ran to your house that night. I understand now why I left and never came back. I was hiding. And I found a wonderful, safe hiding place. To be honest, I could have probably lived there happily for the rest of my life. Only I never would have really lived at all, I guess.”
“Did you really think I did it, Wyn?”
“All I wanted was Paddy out of prison. You have to admit, you were a great suspect. If I’d traded him in for you, I would have been obsessed with getting you out next. I know it.”
“I know it, too,” he said.
We walked farther along the path toward my cottage. Still holding hands.
“I never got to know him, Wyn. My own son. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe if I’d taken responsibility for him, he’d have turned out different.”
“You tried, Grant.”
“A day late and a dollar short, I tried.”
“Sometimes we just have to accept what we’ve done and forgive ourselves. Byrd’s teaching me that. Sometimes people are just born bad. Not a thing you can do about it. And sometimes bad things happen. They just happen. And that’s the way you can tell when really lovely things happen. And they are—”
“You always talked too much,” he said, pulling me to him fast, and then pushing me up against a tree, kissing me like we were seventeen again.
Every cell in my body opened to a new sort of oxygen. I was alive for the first time since the night my mother died. I didn’t die with her. I came back to life right then and there with that kiss.
“I died when you left, you can’t leave again,” he said, pulling away breathlessly.
“Let’s get outta here,” I said, trying to shake off the passion building inside of me.
The Witch of Belladonna Bay Page 27
