“You make the voices go away better than the booze,” she whispered.
“The voices?”
“The ones in my head, especially the angry one. She yells at me, tells me what a no-good, worthless whore I am.”
Eli looked up at the ceiling. He needed his grandmother, and he needed her badly. He wasn’t qualified to doctor the little girl inside this woman. The only thing he was capable of doing was listening to her and loving her unconditionally. He said a silent prayer asking for guidance, then did the best he could.
“Gretchel do you see things?” he asked. She nodded her head yes. “Have you been seeing the ghosts again?”
“Yes,” she whispered through a sob. “And sometimes I see animals—animals that nobody else can see. I’ve seen them since the accident. Sometimes it’s worse than others. Right now it’s really bad.”
“What kind of animals?” he asked. She didn’t answer. He pulled himself away from her, and reached out a hand. She let him pull her up, and he laid her on the bed and snuggled up next to her.
“A wolf mainly, and lots of deer,” she finally answered, "Sometimes I see a snake and a massive stag,” she continued. “Since I’ve been pregnant I keep seeing a white horse beckoning me in my dreams and a black horse in my nightmares,” she said, and nestled her head on his chest.
“Do they mean anything to you?”
“It seems like they should, like I already understand, but at the same time I don’t.”
“Do you think they have anything to do with the truck and the Wicked Garden?” he asked.
She nodded again. He tried to process this information. “Gretchel,” he started as tenderly as he could, “is Troy the first man to hit you?”
She shook her head no.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Oregon, 2010s
Eli stood, staring at his suitcases, still not sure about whether or not he was going to load them into his trunk. It was the last week in March. Ame had sent him a message thanking him for the package he’d sent, but he hadn’t heard a word from her since.
Going to see Rebecca had not helped. Not at all. She had chewed him out about the night he’d gotten drunk and started talking about another woman. It was pretty clear that their relationship—such as it was—was finished, so Eli had left without staying the whole weekend, and they both knew he wouldn’t be coming back.
Spending time with his friends hadn’t done him a whole lot of good, either. Rappelling down mountains, camping in the wilderness, going to shows, getting baked on the beach—none of it was sufficiently distracting anymore. Not even the thought of sailing—once his greatest passion—could pull him out of his renewed obsession with Gretchel.
He thought about taking the suitcases back inside, unpacking them, and getting on with the rest of his life… But he just couldn’t. His chance encounter with Ame gave him hope that he would see Gretchel again, and everything he had learned since that first conversation in a hotel elevator assured him that Gretchel needed him. He was ready to go, as soon as the time was right.
In the meantime, he really needed to get his shit together.
Eli was reading—trying very hard to avoid both Facebook and weed—when he heard a knock at the glass door that led to the patio. It was Andy, Jim, and Rick. Eli sighed and walked, reluctantly, into the evening air to greet them. Andy sat a cooler on the patio and handed Eli a bottle of beer.
“You’re really starting to creep us out, man,” Rick said. “What the hell’s going on?”
Eli took the beer, twisted off the top and, with the cap between his thumb and middle finger, he snapped it across the patio, directly into a zinc bucket already half-filled with bottle caps.
“He’s still got it,” Jim said, attempting the same thing, but watching his cap take a wrong turn, ricochet off the house, and come back to hit him in the leg.
“I’m just like my mother. I’m obsessed. I can’t for the life of me get Gretchel out of my head.”
“Well, this was going to be an intervention. Guess you’re not in denial, so what next. Andy?” Rick asked.
Andy glanced at his best friend. Eli had been there for him through everything. He was the best man at his wedding, the first one to visit after they brought both kids home from the hospital. Hell, Eli was his kids’ favorite babysitter, and he had provided all kinds of money and resources for Andy’s disabled daughter. When Andy was determined that he could start an olive farm in the Pacific Northwest, Eli had gone in as a partner. And he wasn’t just a financial backer, either. Eli had worked as hard as anybody to make sure the farm was a success. Andy was indebted to his friend, and he knew that his friend would never ask for or expect any kind of repayment.
Andy tipped back his own beer, but he had nothing to say.
“So, why did she leave you hanging in the first place? Did she have daddy issues or something?” Jim asked.
Eli thought about the truck that sat in the Wicked Garden. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she has some serious daddy issues.” He took a long pull of his beer.
“Ought to go well with your mommy issues,” Rick mumbled, and Jim snickered, spraying beer involuntarily.
Eli chuckled, too. He knew it was the truth.
“You know, there’s a gaggle of women from here to Portland waiting for you to ditch Rebecca.”
“I already did.”
“Thank god. She wasn’t your type, dude,” Jim said. “What’s Gretchel look like?”
Eli pulled out his wallet, and showed his friends the picture of Gretchel with her kids.
“Holy hell,” Jim whispered.
“Good god almighty,” Rick agreed.
Eli looked to his best friend for answers. Andy took another drink of beer while he considered what he should say. He had no right to not tell Eli what he really thought. It would be selfish. He had to do it.
“Go,” Andy said.
“What?”
“Get the hell out of here, Eli. Why are you still here? Why are you still here?”
Eli shrugged his shoulders. “My mother.”
All three men face-palmed in unison.
“Look. Eli, everyone knows Diana could make a lumberjack piss down his leg with just a glare, but this is your life, man. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Go to Illinois.”
∞
Eli had the blessing of his friends. It still wasn’t enough to convince him to leave. So, he made a call to the maniacal genius who would give him the final push.
“Is Mom in the house?”
“Yes, sweet boy, but she’s sleeping. What’s on your mind?”
“Dad,” Eli began clenching his fist, “Gretchel’s husband is dead. I’ve been communicating with her teenage daughter through Facebook, but I haven’t heard from her in weeks. They’re living at her family’s cottage.”
“The dirtbag’s dead?” Peter asked.
“Yes.”
“You know where Gretchel is, and haven’t gone to see her yet?”
“No.”
“What kind of pussy are you?” Peter bellowed into the phone.
“But Mom...”
“Cut the cord already, Oedipus. You’re almost forty years old. Oh, for the love of all that is orgasmically grown. How long do you want to live like this, Eli? Because you’re the one that makes that call, not some fucking prophecy. I love your mother, son, but we’ve never seen eye to eye on this ‘second love’ issue. If there is such a thing as fate, I’ll tell you one thing for sure, its only job is to set the pattern; it’s your job to make the choices of how you will arrive. To your mother, you’ll always be those fluttering swallows in her belly, the sweet baby that she had to protect from the world. But you’re a grown man, Eli. Go out and live your life! I’m driving to your house tomorrow, and if you’re still there I will personally kick your ass from here to Timbuktu, which is an interesting enough place to visit, but I’d think you’d much rather be in Illinois.”
“Are you done?” Eli asked.
“Oh,
I’m just getting started, son. You are an abomination before the god of love.”
“I’m just waiting for Gretchel’s daughter to let me know it’s all right to come. I haven’t heard anything from her in weeks."
“You’re waiting on a teenage girl to give you permission to live? Are you serious? Go out into the woods of Illinois and make life happen, Eli. Get your ass off the sidelines, and dive head first into the abyss. Life is malleable, son. What do you have to lose?”
Just my mother’s trust, love and respect, he thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Irvine, 2010s
Gretchel was bored. It was the first of April, and she was hoping someone—anyone—was planning a joke. Maybe boredom was the April Fools’ gag the universe had in store for her. She hoped not. Boredom was dangerous for a recovering alcoholic—or a not-quite-recovering crazy lady.
She’d already done all the laundry, cleaned the cottage from top to bottom, mapped out a garden on paper, and planted what she could. She had paid bills, balanced the checkbook, and tried not to faint when she saw what was left in the bank. She had piled up the trash for Ame to burn, tried to start the mower (unsuccessfully), washed down patio furniture, repainted two Adirondack chairs sage green to match the cottage, filled bird feeders, mulched every flower bed around the property, and trimmed the hedges. She had organized her closet (twice), brought in firewood, and planned meals for the next month. She practiced some spells and she sewed an intricately detailed dress—the first time she had sewn in ages. She finished turning the nursery off the master bedroom into a studio, and she tried to paint.
She tried, but she wasn’t ready. She was far from ready.
Maybe she’d call Teddy. No. He was swamped at the salon. Cindy? No. She was busy helping Marcus in the fields. Maybe she could help with the farming. No. She needed a job, but working on the farm would be her last resort.
She paced the living room, and Suzy-Q–who hadn’t left her side since she returned to Snyder Farms—paced with her. Gretchel stared up at the buck on the cottage wall. She remembered the covenant she used to renew with him every year. She laughed to herself. It had been ages since the thought even crossed her mind. Maybe it was time to renew the agreement. It was April Fools’ Day after all, and she was definitely a fool.
Instead, she plopped herself down into the big storybook chair. Suzy-Q settled on the floor next to her. Solitude made her anxious, and she certainly didn’t want to be left to her own thoughts, since her thoughts did not tend towards the placid or the happy. When she was busy, she was able to keep her worst thoughts at bay, which also meant that the voices were mostly silent.
There was more to her sense of unease than her fear of bad thoughts and the voices they conjured, though. She felt like she was waiting for something, but she didn’t know what.
“I can’t take this,” she said to the buck.
The silence became overwhelming, and she gasped for breath as if she were resurfacing from a deep pool of water. She clutched her heart, and realized for the umpteenth time that the amethyst was gone.
What had it done to her? It saved me, she thought. But it also numbed her in a way that was unexplainable, and she was still ambivalent about feeling again. She was a girl that had felt too much. As a child she had felt everything; she could read a room in seconds and know just what was about to take place just by the aura the inhabitants gave off. Maybe it was safer not to feel. Yes, it was safer, but it made her whole life meaningless.
She thought about the man she had conjured with her spell, and she shuddered. That had been a mistake. He had called again just that morning, but she was determined to keep ignoring him.
Two hours after that screened call, Gretchel had taken delivery of a dozen white roses. She stared at them as they sat on the dining table, wishing that they had been from Eli. They could paint them red together. She smiled. Then she thought of the man in town again.
She stared up at the buck. “What am I going to do with myself? How am I going to survive without a hero or a magic jewel around my neck? I don’t think I’m going to make it this time,” she told the inanimate object. “Please give me a sign. Show me that this punishment is almost over.”
Nothing. The buck remained quiet. Did she really expect him to talk to her? Maybe? She was crazy, after all. She sunk deeper into the chair, and something dug into her backside. She sat and up pulled a book from between the seat cushion and the back of the chair. A gasp escaped her lips. It was the Graham Duncan book Eli had given her on her nineteenth birthday. She thought she had lost it long ago. Gretchel smiled at the buck and whispered, “Thank you.”
Graham Duncan’s books had changed the way she saw the world. It was as if the author knew her, as if he could reach inside her mind and pull out wisdom and insights that had always been there, if only she could have seen them for herself.
She flipped through Hermes In Heat, and saw a passage that she had underlined. What is it you really want, and what illusion are you willing to sacrifice to claim it? Chew on that for a while.
Gretchel felt goose bumps rise on her arms. She eased back into the big, comfy chair, and she began to read.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Irvine, 2010s
Across town, in a tidy and secure subdivision, Ame and Holly sat in the Brown family’s driveway.
“I’m always waiting on this little shit,” Ame told her cousin. “Come on already. I don’t have time for this.” She honked the horn, and then she saw Zach motioning for one more minute from a second-floor window.
“Ame, can I tell you something?” Holly asked.
“What’s wrong?” Ame panicked. This was not the kind of thing she liked hearing from her slightly psychic cousin.
“I’ve had a bad feeling all day. Something’s going to happen.”
“What is it? Tell me,” Ame insisted.
“Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye,” Holly whispered.
Ame was speechless. She’d heard Holly spout out predictions, but she had never heard her speak gibberish.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I’ve heard Miss Poni say it, but I’ve never quite understood it. I keep hearing it, though, in my head. And I can’t see what’s going to happen—I can only feel it. It’s something big.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Holly whispered in frustration. She turned to her cousin. “I’m sorry.”
“No sweat. Now, if you had the answers to next week’s physics test and you suddenly went blank, well, then I’d be irritated.”
Holly chuckled.
Ame turned on the dome light and started digging around in her backpack. She pulled out a book and handed it to her cousin.
“You got the new Graham Duncan!” Holly said, eyes lighting up.
“The day it came out. I’ll get it to you when I’m done. Shouldn’t take long.”
“I’ll buy my own, thanks,” Holly beamed. “He’s my hero. He’s a hero to anybody who rejects mediocrity.”
“Yes, but you’ve missed his whole philosophy. You’re supposed to be your own hero, Holly.”
Holly thought for a moment. “Yes, Ame. You’re right. That is his point.”
“Chew on that for a while,” they both said simultaneously, and laughed.
Then a knock at the window nearly sent Ame flying into the back seat. She turned to see Cody staring at her.
“Stalk much, Brown?” she snapped.
“Sorry. Hey, Holly. How’s your mom doing, Ame?”
Ame grimaced. She was sick of answering this question. “She’s nuts. She talks to herself all the time, and the nightmares are just too much.”
Cody shook his head, taking in the information. “What does she think of Zach staying here every night?”
Ame looked at him incredulously. “What do you think she thinks? She’d rather strangle your wife than look at her. I understand Zach can’t sleep with the nightmares,
but give me a break. She’s managing. We’re managing.”
“Does she ever tell you what the nightmares are about?” he asked.
Ame looked at him funny again. “No. She won’t talk about them at all. She never talks about anything. She never has. You’ve known her forever, right? You must have a lot of stories to tell. Has she always been crazy?”
“Yeah, I used to work at Snyder Farms, but Gretchel and I were never close. I don’t really have anything to tell you.” Cody sounded nervous.
“Bullshit. You’re hiding something. Everybody’s hiding something. I’m sick of the secrets. I’m the one who has to live with her and take care of her, but I have no idea how to do that because I’m clueless as to what she needs. Start talking, Brown. Now.”
God, she’s just like her mother, Cody thought, Impossibly gorgeous and completely terrifying. He was still struggling to formulate some kind of response when Zach walked out of the house carrying two duffle bags and a suitcase. Cody pulled himself away from the driver’s side window, thankful for the distraction.
“Pop the trunk,” Zach yelled.
“I’ll pop your trunk if you don’t hurry your ass up,” Ame grumbled back. Then she shouted, “I’m not done with you, Brown,” at Cody’s back as he scurried into the house.
“What was that about?” Zach asked, jumping in the back seat.
“Nothing. I can’t believe you’re coming home tonight. You’re doing a good thing. Mom will be very happy,” Ame said, backing out of the drive.
Zach was quiet for a moment. “I need you to stop at the Irvine Hotel.”
“Why?” Ame asked.
“Just do it,” he growled. He turned his face to the window. “I’m so sick of this town I could puke."
“Eat a cracker,” Holly said sweetly. Ame snickered.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m leaving soon,” he said, “I’m going to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Shea. Michelle thinks it’s the best thing for me right now.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ame said.
The Wicked Garden Page 20
