The Witch House of Persimmon Point

by Suzanne Palmieri

  She bottled wine. She went to church. She made fresh pasta. She worked her fingers raw.

  And she never forgot, not one time, that she was already dead.

  12

  Lucy in the Gatehouse with a Gun

  1911

  After the house was completed Nan gave birth to Lucia, who would grow up beautiful and wild and would demand to be called the Americanized version of her name, “Lucy.” Nan tried not to compare Lucy to Ava, but it was impossible. Each breath Lucy took invoked a river of regret in Nan.

  Nan fell swiftly and deeply in love with her new baby, and the more her love grew, the more the guilt grew. This guilt tempered her outward affection toward Lucy. She would find herself wanting to fawn over her darling girl, but instead, Nan was full of discipline, and when Lucy was grown, she would tell stories about her childhood. “That woman has ice in her blood,” she would say. Lucy would never know the love Nan had for her, the love that lived on the inside of Nan’s skin, the love that came out in the food she cooked, in the gardens she kept, in the priests she served at church. Everything she did was for Lucy, simply everything.

  Lucy was irresistible. And she was naughty. She learned early to lie, often and well, and if caught … to smile and be charming.

  “You think too much about the past,” Nan’s priest told her. “Lead a simple life in both thought and action. Each day, make a list of tasks, and follow it. Do not color outside the lines. Sorrow lives there.”

  Nan listened, and she listened well. One of her tasks was to find tenants for the gatehouse in order to make ends meet. So as she left the church she went straight to the newspaper office to post an ad, and though many prospective renters came to view the gatehouse, no one rented it.

  * * *

  She went from looking ten years younger to ten years older in the course of a few months. Nan was happy with the effect. She didn’t need to be young and attractive; she wanted to be left alone to her house and her garden.

  In her dreams she was young, and she was still dancing with Reginald. Little Ava watching from the stairs. Her true family.

  In reality, she was far away from home, and she had no one, and no one had her. And though she loved Lucy, she hated herself.

  1918

  Lucy had a sickness in her brain. From the time she was small, she suffered from chronic, random fits of terror, but the flu that hit Haven Port and the country at large pushed the little girl into a clear frenzy.

  From all the corners of her mind, like shadows, “the crazies” (that was what she called them as she grew older) would come and the world would get dark. A low hummmm of anxiety existed inside her mind. When it was low, she could function. But when the hummmm grew loud, piercing, as it did late at night or when she was alone or when she cared too much about anything, the sound became deafening and even her screaming couldn’t quiet it.

  Lucy’s first “attack” had terrified Nan. But Nan dealt with it as she dealt with everything else … stoically and with God. She dragged her raving daughter, past bodies waiting for caskets in the streets, to a priest and insisted Lucy had a demon inside of her.

  But Nan was wrong. Lucy’s soul remained chained in the dark recesses of her own mind even as she tried to live life, as she pretended to be just fine. And she never quite forgave Nan for not being able to take it all away.

  * * *

  “I want to know about my father. If he is alive, I want to live with him. I can’t stay here with you. You are too cold. I think I need more love. If you loved me, I wouldn’t have my fits.” said Lucy.

  Nan started mumbling in Italian.

  “Speak English, Mama, please. I understand it better.”

  “Lucia, you do not need to know your father’s name. He is gone. There is no family. There is no point in discussing it. And of course I love you.”

  “Who is the little girl on the mantel, Mama—they say she was yours.”

  “Who says that?”

  “The nuns, the neighbors, just everyone, Mama.”

  “Lucia, they are all fools! Just a little something pretty I took from Haven House.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “You don’t have to. But understand me, Lucia, this is nothing but a shadow.… Nothing but a shadow in a pretty frame.”

  Nan wanted to tell her daughter that the terror and pain Nan herself had suffered at the very start of Lucy’s life was the root cause (she was certain) of Lucy’s fits. That the hidden things in the dark were her own memories and longings. Lucy could feel the secrets. A sorrow that never belonged to her was suffocating her.

  But Nan wouldn’t tell Lucy. She’d woven too many lies to turn back. Besides, she’d kept her safe from the flu. What more did the girl want?

  1920

  Two years later, a man arrived.

  At first, Nan couldn’t make out his face, but something made her go out onto the porch. Something in his posture that reminded her of pulling hay from her hair and the taste of disgust on her tongue.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered.

  “What is it, Mama? Are you okay?” asked Lucy, alarmed by the look in Nan’s eyes.

  “I will never be okay again.”

  “Why? Who is that man?”

  “He is my penance. Go to your room and don’t come down until I say. Go now.”

  * * *

  “You look well, Nan,” said Giancarlo, sitting in her sunny kitchen as if he had all the time in the world. “And this house is magnificent.”

  “It is.”

  “How many years has it been? Seventeen? You’ve made quite a life for yourself, no?”

  “I have no time for small talk, Carlo. What is it you want from me? You want money? I have no money. You want to see your daughter? She is dead. There is nothing for you here. I was kind, letting you sit at my table and drink from my cup. When you finish your coffee, you will leave.”

  “How is it you don’t have any money? This is a fine piece of land. This is a fine house. I saw a smaller one at the end of the drive.”

  “What do you intend to do, Carlo?”

  “I intend to stay here.”

  Nan thought it over. He was a virus. He needed to be contained. And she needed a renter.

  “You will not live here. You will live in the gatehouse. And you will pay rent. And you will speak no words of our daughter again. I have another one to raise.”

  “And if I refuse? I can take this from you, Nan. I can rip it away.”

  “How? You have no idea who I am or what I can do. Maybe I can illuminate it for you. When I got here, I grew into my mother’s ways. You remember her, I’m sure. How the town feared her. You were so afraid of her you almost married me.” Nan laughed but all Carlo heard was a cackle.

  He pushed back from the table and agreed to Nan’s terms. She didn’t seem as formidable as Ava Amore had been back in Italy, but he didn’t want to take the chance.

  * * *

  Giancarlo hadn’t really intended to stay. He’d run into Vincent, that little shit brother of Nan’s, and he was bragging about Nan this and Nan that. So when he lost his job (for drunk and disorderly conduct), he thought it would be a good time to investigate.

  But, when he got there.… the house called to him. It wanted him for something. He didn’t care what it was, just knew he had to stay. In the end, it didn’t matter what the house wanted—what mattered most to Carlo was Lucy.

  She wasn’t his daughter, and he was glad of it. Child or not, Lucy kept him awake at night in his room, watching her window from his own. He’d never wanted a body more than he wanted hers. He’d never been attracted to children like the perverts in the papers. Still, he ached for her. And it disgusted him, and it fascinated him.

  * * *

  He hired a boy named Vito from town to help Nan with the grounds.

  “I’m too old to work like a mule. The boy is good, from a good family.” he’d said.

  Lucy knew Vito from school, and as he spent all his after-school h
ours on the Witch House property, the two children became quite close.

  Giancarlo tried to use their friendship to manipulate Lucy. To have her over to the gatehouse for lemonade. To play games of cards on the porch, but she refused.

  When Vito asked why, she answered.

  “I can’t stand the way it smells in that house.”

  She hated the gatehouse more than any other place on earth. She hated it even more than she hated the Witch House.

  Lucy began her obsession with France right around the same time that Vito mistakenly told her Giancarlo might be her father. Instead of asking anyone if it was true, she decided she was going to run away to France. Of course, Vito would have to come.

  When they were fifteen Vito had to quit his job to work with his family business.

  “I want you to stay away from Carlo. I don’t like how he looks at you. I don’t care if he married your mother, or if he may be your father. He’s not to be trusted.”

  My father? Mon dieu! thought Lucy.

  * * *

  “Are you my father?”

  “Of course I’m not.” said Carlo from the doorway.

  “I’m not sure if I believe you. Have you ever been to France?”

  Carlo saw his opportunity. “I have, in fact. I also have a set of very rare books on France. That I bought … guess where?”

  “In France?”

  “Yes. Come inside. I’ll show you.”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Don’t be silly. You were just convinced I was your father. We are family. I watched you grow up! The bookshelf is right over there.” Carlo opened the screen door and she walked inside.

  Lucy found the bookshelf and honed in on the books she needed. How to speak French, how to cook French food, all about French plays, French history, French music.

  She began to read.

  He grabbed her from behind.

  “Let me go.”

  “I will set the books on fire. You won’t have them anymore.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Just keep reading.”

  And as she read, he touched her in almost all the ways he’d dreamt of. She was older now, it wasn’t such a sin. Soon, he’d own her like he’d owned her mother all those years before.

  He told her she had to come back or he’d tell Vito and Nan she was a whore.

  No one noticed she was being abused.

  They noticed other things.

  Vito noticed her sudden interest in all things French.

  Nan noticed her night terrors that had subsided, returned, and brought her to the priest.

  The priest said her change in personality could be the result of yet another demon. “So many demons you have, Lucia!” declared Nan, dragging her home.

  Could someone scream themselves to death? Lucy wondered. So she had to concentrate on other things. Lucy was concentrating very hard on becoming French.

  The nuns at school noticed her sudden interest in literacy—oh, but the books they would catch her reading! There were books on French fashion (couture!) and culture, and food, and the music; books on sexuality and love; books on French gardening and temperament.

  One night, while Nan was cleaning the living room as Lucy sat on the couch, ferociously reading a book on the history of the French Revolution, she decided to confront her daughter about this obsession.

  “Lucia, it is like there is a fire in you.… You are not French, you are Italian. Please don’t do this to me! It embarrasses me. I don’t understand it. Don’t be like this!” Nan begged her.

  Lucy stood up, immediately furious; she always had trouble containing rage. “How would I know that? I could be half French.… Maybe you don’t even know. You never talk about my father!” Nan slapped her across her face. Lucy stared hard at the floor and whispered, “Mama, there is so much I don’t know. Can’t we talk? Can’t you tell me who he is? Who he was? Alive or dead? Rich or poor? Italian? French? Just tell me it isn’t Carlo, Mama. Because he is a bad man. The way he touches me.…”

  Nan froze. She didn’t want to believe Lucy. And she wanted to believe her. She wanted to hold her close and love her. She wanted to push her away. She just didn’t know how to love Lucy. It had been too long. Nan was in a panic, so she pretended to be in control. She chose the easiest path.

  “You lie.”

  “Please, Mama, what I tell you is true,” Lucy cried, running upstairs to her room to fetch a ripped nightgown. She held it to Nan’s face, but Nan pulled away.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Lucia, and go wash your face. Tears will make the skin bad. I will make some tea.”

  Lucy grew very calm. She got up and said good night to her mother, kissing her softly on the cheek. Nan felt better and assumed she had been right about Lucia lying, once again, for attention. “I won’t take tea tonight. Thank you, Mama.” Lucy walked out of the kitchen, and Nan turned to put water on to boil anyway. But Lucy did not go to bed. Instead, she walked right into the front room, took off her clothes, every single stitch, and out through the front hall. She opened the front door quietly and stepped out into the night. She did not look back. She did not run. She just held her torn nightgown against her nakedness and watched her bare feet walk down the hill. Down the hill and over the bridge to Vito. She would be reborn.

  When Nan went to check on her and found her gone, she was relieved. Lucy wouldn’t be her problem anymore. And yet she sat on her bed and cried, cried for many reasons, reasons she did and didn’t understand. But as always, the next day came, full of chaos and all things good and bad. Time doesn’t stop for runaway children. Time doesn’t stop for tragedy or elation; it plods onward, always onward, for the living and sometimes even for the dead.

  As Nan expected, it was Vito that Lucy went to for her rescue. They were married the following weekend. Nan had to sign papers that came from the court, because Lucy was so young.

  Lucy did not go back home. She did not talk to Nan. It is surprisingly easy to avoid people, even in a small town. Nan missed Lucy. Lucy missed Nan. But they didn’t understand that the empty pit in both their stomachs belonged to that very missing. If they noticed, then it would be a nuisance to their lives. And Nan, at least, had no time for nuisance. And Lucy did not miss the house.

  * * *

  Giancarlo kept to himself after Lucy left.

  It was the smell that told Nan something was terribly wrong. She knew what she would find when she entered. She was expecting a mess, but not quite the mess she found. Carlo was hanging, had hung himself from the broad sturdy beam that went across the kitchen ceiling.

  She gave him a little push with her hand, and he swung for a moment. The noxious odor that came out of him made her feel faint, so she stepped back to catch her breath. She leaned her head on the Hoover hutch in the kitchen that served as a desk for Giancarlo. Her eyes caught on her name, and then Lucy’s, on a piece of writing paper.

  His confession.

  “I can’t go on without her.”

  Nan fell to the floor and cried up at heaven. “Oh, my dear sweet God, what have I done? What have I done? I knew he was a sick man. I chose not to believe her!” She steeled herself. “You did what you needed to do … now go clean this up.”

  She washed the floor. She put down an old sheet, cut him down, and then called the constable.

  “Fuck you,” she whispered when she was done.

  As the constable asked her questions, she pretended not to know anything and was believed. She thought she could, should, would, apologize for not believing her. But it was over now. And she had a gatehouse to scour and rent. She’d go tomorrow.

  Lucy would love her again. Tomorrow.

  13

  Vito in the Alley with a Machine Gun

  Eventually, if one tries hard enough, it becomes the little things, the accidental things, that make a home: an apron hanging on a nail in the cellar stairs, a stack of books, the chair that becomes dedicated to a carelessly thrown wrap, a key hook. These things become nostalgi
a. Lucy crafted nostalgia well.

  Vito painted their house bright yellow with a green door and green shutters; it had a brick basement like all of the oyster homes on the bay side of Haven Port. Oystermen needed tall basements for storing the oysters. Vincent’s family didn’t only oyster, they fished, and they thrived.

  The house was very small but cozy. The architecture was the same as every other house on the river, but this one felt special … kinder. The first thing Lucy did as mistress was paint the door a bright raspberry red. She found the paint in the basement. Vito bought it thinking she would like it for inside. But he was wrong, and amused, and he loved her more for it. She had him create little wooden window boxes and in the spring and summer filled them with vining flowers and greenery. She knew to put impatiens on the shady side of the house and petunias on the sunny side. She asked him to make the kitchen window box bigger so she could grow herbs to put in her “one-pot wonders.” Lucy was always making magic with her cast-iron soup pot. Whatever she threw in would simmer all day, fill the house with tantalizing smells, and then taste even better.

  Lucy liked to walk to the docks and mingle with the Persian women. She would visit their shop stalls and buy wonderful, vibrant fabrics with which she created pillows, bedding, skirts, aprons, and her favorite: large patchwork satchel-type bags that she would take with her to market. The Persian women began to buy the bags from her, and then the women in town were soon to follow, knocking on her door, asking to purchase her creations. Lucy colored the town. Everyone loved her. She was a rainbow. Lucy’s life was sweet and safe.

  The baby came a few years after they were married. No gossip necessary. They named him Dominic, meaning “for our Lord,” because both Vito and Lucy wanted to protect him from all the evil they believed surrounded them. To cast a godly light onto their lives and remove the stains Giancarlo had left all over them. They made love all the time. And they loved madly. Lucy still had fits, but Vito knew all about them. He knew Lucy. Inside out. He felt her blood running through his veins.