The Witch of Belladonna Bay

by Suzanne Palmieri

  The moon, set free from the storm clouds, was full and misted over, framed by the magnolias. The lightning bugs dotted the landscape.

  He stopped me again and held me close, Spanish moss swayed above our heads. “Let’s stay here a second, Wyn.”

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “You’re beautiful, Wyn. As if you’d swallowed light.”

  He cupped my face with his hands and leaned in for another kiss. A sweet, long kiss that could have ended with one of us pulling away again, but didn’t. A kiss that grew into a frenzy of kisses, our arms entwined, my fingers tangled up in his hair.

  His hands moved down under my cotton shirt, finding their rightful place on my breasts. I couldn’t stand it.

  “Now, Grant, please,” I gasped, and he set me gently on the grass, pushing up my skirt.

  Sex is a word. It doesn’t mean anything. There are some things that don’t have words. They’re only experiences. Language-less. Grant and I didn’t have sex under the wide green leaves of the magnolia. We did something that has no words. But we moved together, forgetting everything around us, all our troubles, sorrows. Arm over arm, legs entangled, thoughts clear … Grant, Grant, Grant, like a heartbeat. My body glowed next to him as it should have been from the beginning, now it was.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you,” I said. “And I’m never leaving again.”

  “Do you think we can make it to the cottage, or are you gonna molest me again in the grass?” he asked.

  “No more grass,” I said. “I have mosquito bites where they ain’t oughtta be. Let’s get inside.”

  * * *

  We made love all night. “Makin’ up the lost years,” Grant said. But I was living in the moment, without worry, without fear.

  As the sun rose, we went out onto the porch and saw, for the first time, the entire island of Belladonna. Forested and lovely. No mist at all.

  “He’s not there. I know it. You don’t have to say anything, but nod if I won’t have a chance to get to know him,” he said.

  I nodded.

  He looked off at the rising sun for a bit.

  “I can’t reconcile it in my heart,” he said. “Maybe I won’t ever be able to make it right.”

  “Right and wrong are two sides of a coin, Grant. Flip it over in your head. If you can’t forgive yourself, who will?”

  “Damn, girl, what happened to you? You’re different. Nah, that ain’t right. You’re you, only … the best possible you. I want to learn how to do that. How to become the best possible me. You’re gonna teach me, okay?”

  “How?”

  Byrd and Dolores came bounding up onto the porch. Dolores ran inside the cottage, surprising all of us. Byrd curled up in between me and Grant on the porch swing.

  “You’re gonna do it like you did it with me, Aunt Wyn. You’re just gonna love him like crazy.”

  * * *

  A week or so later, Stick drove up to the Big House with Paddy in the backseat.

  We’d all been eating a late breakfast together on the side porch and not one of us could believe our eyes.

  When Stick got out of the police car and let Paddy out, Byrd ran like a girl possessed and threw herself into her daddy’s arms.

  I don’t know how long they stayed like that, but it didn’t matter. The rest of us were watching a miracle. We were watching two people heal right in front of us.

  He carried her up onto the porch and we all took turns hugging him, welcoming him home.

  “Stick, you son of a bitch,” said Grant, laughing. “How the hell did you manage this so quick?”

  “Well, we got a man here,” he said, giving a nod at Jackson, “who knows a shitload of people in this state.

  “Son, it’s good to have you home. I—I’m sorry I even thought for a second you did this thing.”

  “Daddy? You don’t have to worry about nothin’,” said Patrick. “I felt it was my fault. And in a way? It was. I’m still cheatin’ if you look at it. Carter lied. I was there that night.”

  Everyone looked at me. “What?” I said.

  “What nothin’, Wyn,” said Paddy. “It’s a good thing that old man ain’t gonna serve too much time because I woulda told the whole truth and nothin’ but if he’d gotten a second more.”

  Minerva leaned over Paddy’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. “You’re a good man, Patrick. He’s fine. Trust me. Your mother would be so proud of you.”

  * * *

  Later, Paddy asked if I’d walk with him, show him the cottage. We needed a moment alone.

  I held his hand. And there it was, for just a second. The glow.

  When we got to the cottage, we sat on the steps. We were always step sitters when we were little. Easy to run from, easy to get back to. Like base during a game of tag.

  “So it’s true, you have a full-blown case of Mama’s magic. Amazing,” he said.

  “Peculiar, I think, is a better word,”

  “Thank you, Wyn. Thank you for fixin’ this whole thing. Thank you for comin’ back, for takin’ care of Byrd. For believing in her.”

  “Paddy, anyone in your position would have thought what you thought. Don’t beat yourself up. And I’m to blame as well. I should have come back sooner. Maybe we’d all be here. All of us.”

  “Have you gone?”

  “Where?”

  “Have you gone to Lottie’s grave?”

  I hadn’t. I hadn’t even thought about it.

  “No. I can’t believe it, but no.”

  “Let’s go. We’ll go together, the three of us. Me, you, Grant. Okay? Let’s go and tell her how we feel,” said Paddy.

  “Yes, we will. Let’s go get Grant and pay our respects. Say goodbye. Say sorry and mean it.”

  “And then, you know what I’d like to do?” he asked.

  “Anything, Paddy,”

  “I’d like you and me, Grant and Byrd to get in the car and drive to Apalachicola. I’ve been dyin’ for some oysters. Can we do that?”

  “I can’t think of a finer idea,” I said, smiling.

  He leaned over and hugged me hard. “I love you. And I want you to know that I was never mad. That I never felt like you left me. When I really needed you, you came. That’s what good sisters do.”

  I started crying, a million pounds of guilt coming off my shoulders.

  We got up and walked back toward the Big House.

  “Hey, Wyn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your eyes. Did you notice? They changed color. It’s the damnedest thing. They’ve gone green. Like Mama’s.”

  31

  Byrd

  For she did not want him to see her crying. She was such a proud flower.

  —The Little Prince

  So here we go. Hold on to your hats ’cause we’re comin’ up close to the end of this tale. Right after Aunt Wyn made her way back over from Belladonna and had her reunion with Grant, things started turning all kinds and colors of curious.

  And my daddy came home. But I can’t explain that feeling, because sometimes there are no words.

  Anyway, a mighty strange thing started to happen once all the dust had settled down. The mist moved. I swear. It just lifted up and we all thought, for half a second, that it was gone. But it wasn’t. Just like those colonists the Old-timers used to yammer on about, it moved. It moved over us like a cloud and settled in full around the border of Magnolia Creek proper.

  I kid you not.

  Kinda like that ring in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back? Yep. Just like that. Seems like we didn’t cure the town of no kind of curse. Seems like we made the curse, well, worse.

  But curse is a funny word, ain’t it? I mean, back in the old days ladies who got their periods called ’em curses, right? Only those curses brought life. So I looked up the absolute definition of curse in the dictionary and look what I found:

  Curse: The cause of great harm, evil, or misfortune; that which brings evil or severe affliction; torment.

&nb
sp; So, like I said. It’s a funny sort of word. I mean, if you take the word curse outta the definition above and replace it with love it means the same damn thing, don’t it? Let’s try.

  Love: The cause of great harm, evil, or misfortune; that which brings evil or severe affliction; torment.

  See?

  Now let’s try another one, because it’s what I’m gettin’ at.

  Fear.

  Fear: The cause of great harm, evil, or misfortune; that which brings evil or severe affliction; torment.

  See, that’s what happened, though it took me longer than it shoulda to figure it out.

  The mist over Belladonna was made of fear. And as soon as we fought that fear, it lifted.

  Only not everyone fought it.

  So, I figure, the scared people left Magnolia Creek and the brave people stayed. Simple as that. And those scared people stayed scared of what we did here, fightin’ off all that evil and comin’ to terms with our own loves, curses, and sorrows … it scared them so much that they left the mist all on the outside of the town.

  Don’t get me wrong, there’s still some fear here now and again. But we puzzle it out and get to the rotten core. Kinda like pullin’ a bad tooth.

  Ain’t it funny how things work out? Life can be so interestin’.

  The thing is, losing fear doesn’t make you feel less lonesome.

  I was real lonesome after the mist lifted. Even with my daddy back, even with Aunt Wyn lovin’ on me every second.

  I wanted Jamie. Still.

  I tried searching Belladonna Bay now that it stood there shinin’ in the sun, open for all to see and explore.

  But he wasn’t there, and our castle stood empty.

  Jamie realized I’d tricked him. That I wasn’t going to stay with him forever. And then he realized the thing of which I do not speak. That’s when he told me he would never forgive me. He cursed at me, too. Said terrible things.

  That’s why I was screaming when I found my voice.

  But I was sure he’d get over it and I’d be able to find him and fix it. Ain’t nothing broken that magic can’t fix. At least, that’s what I thought. I think I’ve been wrong about that.

  I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.

  So my heart stood empty. Just like our castle.

  I’ve wondered, more than once, if I shouldn’t have just stayed there with him. Evil boy or not, he was my boy. Seems to me that what he did might have been a mistake more than anything.

  Aren’t we all allowed a few of those?

  And if it was a mistake, then I made a bigger one. I can’t think on it. I just won’t. And you can’t make me, even if it makes this story make sense. I won’t ever say.

  * * *

  I was tossin’ all those thoughts around early one morning, lyin’ out on the grass and lookin’ up at the sky. It didn’t take too long for Aunt Wyn to find me. She’s good like that, always keepin’ her eye on me, but not aggravatin’ me with it, either.

  “Hey there, Byrd,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

  “You got a baby in there,” I said, poking her stomach as she leaned down.

  “I know,” she said, smiling. “How do you feel about it?”

  “I think the better question is how do you feel about it? I ain’t the one gotta push a watermelon outta my body.”

  She laughed so hard then that I laughed, too. Then she got down next to me to look at the clouds.

  “That one’s an elephant eating a boa constrictor,” she said.

  I love her.

  “How do you feel about all these people comin’ and goin’ in our town, Aunt Wyn?”

  “Change is good, I think,” she said. “And the worst thing that can happen is that we have a really boring Fourth of July parade.”

  I rolled over and curled up in the crook of her arm. “Can’t have everything, I guess.”

  Epilogue

  Wyn

  After I had had my baby, Byrd came into my big bed, and she snuggled up so that the baby was cradled between us. Grant and I had taken up residence in the Big House and now called Naomi’s rooms our own. It was midspring and the Southern magnolias were blooming everywhere. A lemon-vanilla heaven with a touch of spice that you can only recognize if you smell it in person. All the windows were open and the breeze was blowing all kinds of pretty air around the rooms. The bed was made up in Naomi’s old favorites. White and cream with bits of lace and pretty swirled embroidery.

  “Know what?” I asked her.

  “What?”

  “We’re callin’ him Jamie.”

  Her eyes got wide and filled with tears. She didn’t need to say anything. Her hands were glowing.

  We smiled at each other, and each took one baby hand and held it to our cheeks. Then we both kissed each of his hands.

  Byrd did the counting, “One, two, three…”

  And we blew. I could tell you that the room smelled like roses, only it didn’t. It smelled of cotton and lavender and hot sun. It was salt and water and honey. It was persimmons and figs and loquats. It was the forest and the pine. It was Naomi’s and Stella’s garden. And weaving over and under and in between was the scent of the magnolias.

  That year, Esther bloomed for the first time since anyone could remember.

  * * *

  Later that same night I walked quietly down the hall to check on the baby.

  Byrd was with him and she was speaking to him softly. Both my loves. I listened by the door.

  “Now, let me tell you another story altogether. Let me tell you the secrets in my heart that I didn’t even tell Jamie the first. I’ll share Aunt Wyn with you. Because in my heart she’s my own mother now. A mother is a person who’d lay their own life down on the railroad tracks for you. She’d do that. And you know what else? You’ll be my Caretaker and I’ll be your queen and maybe, when you’re older, we’ll search for him—that other Jamie, again … over there on Belladonna Bay. Just you and me.”

  I didn’t disturb them.

  Later, I went to little Jamie’s crib. I picked up my darling boy and nuzzled his peach fuzz head. I sang to him and told him stories, and just before I put him back into his crib, I pressed my lips against his baby ear.

  “Stay,” I whispered.

  Byrd

  I found him, you know. Just not the way you’d expect. I don’t know where the other Jamie went. My first Jamie. I’d thought he’d come to me in spirit. That he’d show himself and forgive me. And then I could forgive him, too. I forgot how close we were. I forgot the limits of my own magic.

  Maybe he did like those crazy colonists and disappeared right into the trees, the soil, the land itself. And I like that idea, I sure as hell do. That way I can feel him all around me.

  I found him in baby Jamie. When he grows big enough, he’ll help me. We’ll be a team. And I’ll try to explain that evil and good walk hand in hand, like hate and love. You can’t have one without the other. No matter how frustratin’ it is.

  I will always have Jamie. It’s like my favorite little bit of writing in The Little Prince. A passage I’d loved even before all the trouble started. When I read it now, I realize that all of us are the Little Prince. Not just Jamie … me, too. Everyone. We should all turn into stars when we die. Maybe we already do.

  And you’ll open your window sometimes just for the fun of it … And your friends will be amazed to see you laughing while you’re looking up at the sky. Then you’ll tell them, ‘Yes, it’s the stars; they always make me laugh!’ And they’ll think you’re crazy.

  See, that whole time while I was learning to love my aunt (a real and honest love), I finally read those words true. We gotta let people go, don’t we? If we hold on to them with all that anger, resentment, love … whatever, we strangle them. Spirits can get strangled, too, that’s what makes ’em linger.

  So, I realized something that broke my heart and glued it back together at the same time. My mama’s
name was Stella Amore. Stella means “star” in Italian. The world is an awful odd place full of coincidences, and magic … even if you can’t read a person’s mind. Sometimes all you have to know is their name in order to understand them.

  Every single night I go out into the yard and look up at the stars. “Forgive me, Jamie?” I ask. And then I tell him the most important words in the dictionary (if you truly mean them when you say them, which I do). I say, “I’m sorry.” Maybe he hears and maybe he don’t, but at least no one can say I don’t have good manners. Anymore.

  That’d be just terrible.

  Anyways, it seems to me, that whatever a person does, they should have a second chance at happiness and redemption. As long as they remember it ain’t about other people. It’s about forgiving yourself from the inside out. Like Jackson and Naomi, Grant and Aunt Wyn, Charlotte and my daddy. And me and Jamie, too.

  And damn, if redemption ain’t my new favorite word.

  Discussion Questions

  1. Some of the most complex characters in this book are children. Jaime and Byrd are drawn to each other and both have a light and a dark side to them in ways that the adults do not. Why do you think the author chose children to demonstrate the good and the bad in human nature?

  2. Naomi is a person who looms large over this family and yet she’s not physically present. Explore how Naomi’s absence has affected her own family. Would her family’s outcome be different if she were alive? If so, how?

  3. The family seems frightened of Byrd’s magical potential and yet loves and protects her. What is it about Byrd that draws her family to her, despite all the doubt they feel about her actions?

  4. Bronwyn and Byrd have a special connection. Do you think the absence of their mothers is what draws them together? If so, why? In what ways do you think this has made them different or similar? In what ways do you think Naomi has affected them? How do they reflect her? Discuss.

  5. Byrd says her favorite word is “obtuse,” that is, slow to understand. While she seems to dislike when other people are being obtuse, could she just be talking about herself ? She knows, or thinks she knows, what is going on around her even as she pretends to turn a blind eye. Discuss.