by Mary Rickert
Nan picks up a long, winding red stem that might be a wild strawberry. It should be planted in a tall boot, something where it can cascade and show off its tendril of pink flowers, but there is no time for that. What’s so special about Nan? It’s just the sort of thing Mavis would say, insult disguised as query.
“It’s the house. It’s some kind of portal, I guess. Like in that movie. You should have seen it. What a mess—the broken windows, the rotting porch wood—it stood abandoned for twenty years, which is why I could afford it. From my inheritance, you know. Who would have guessed that little bit of money could buy all this?” Nan waves her dirt-streaked hand like a conjuring magician. “Of course the yard was overgrown and wild. But once I saw the place, I knew it was home. The locals tried to talk me out of it. They said it was a bad-luck place. A doctor built it for his wife, and she died on moving day, right on the front staircase, rubbing her hand over the calla lilies carved in the banister. They said it was haunted like that’s a bad thing. Truth be told, I considered it a positive point, but it turned out to be difficult. She shows up whenever she wants to. She doesn’t wear gowns or rattle chains or such nonsense, of course. She won’t talk to me. I’ve always thought she’s just waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For me. For when I die. For revenge. Oh, don’t look like that, Mavis. I remember how sweet Eve was, but we were all changed by her death, weren’t we? It makes sense she would be too. It’s all right. I figure it’s what I deserve.” Nan picks up another lily of the valley, its leaves torn. Where are these coming from? She tosses it aside, reaching for the foxglove instead. It, too, is a dangerous flower, but only if a person is foolish about it. No one should ever imbibe the water any flower has been sitting in (or accept a drink of any kind from a stranger), for instance. Nan shakes her head, slightly disgusted with herself for blaming the boy for her own criminal behavior.
“Why would you deserve to be haunted?” Mavis asks, easing herself down to kneel on the damp ground. She grabs an old saddle shoe and a fern frond, which likely won’t take root, but Nan is not really sure of anything in her garden, and besides, she doesn’t want to risk discouraging Mavis with details. “I’m surprised you believe in ‘deserve.’ I got over that a long time ago.”
Of course Mavis has never been hampered by expectations or accounting. She always has been capable of setting her own rules, an annoying trait Nan now wishes she possessed and passed on to her daughter. If Bay didn’t worry so much about being normal, Nan wouldn’t be so worried about her now. Is Mavis capable of understanding any of this?
Nan explains how Bay was left all those years ago in the caul-draped box. “I told her almost everything right from the start,” Nan says, “but I said it was lace. I wanted her to have a nice picture in her head about her arrival. And I think I was right to do so. After all, she only recently learned about the caul, and even at her age, reacted poorly. I didn’t even get to the part about her special talent for ghosts. I didn’t get to tell her that she’ll be able to see them and talk to them as though they are still alive, before she ran out of the room. I thought…well, I don’t know what I was thinking. I thought she would see the three of us together and realize it’s not a terrible thing to be a witch. I thought that would make things easier for her after I was gone. I had the silly idea, I realize now how silly it was, that you and Ruthie could take care of her. You know, if something ever happened to me.”
“A witch?”
Nan is having difficulty adjusting to this aged Mavis who has trouble staying on topic. Who would have guessed Mavis would get funny in the head?
“Yes,” Nan says, careful to speak clearly. “If she saw the three of us and how normal we are…” But Nan doesn’t know how to continue, looking at Mavis with her lavender hair and pasty face, thinking of Ruthie with her prayer circles and exorcists.
“Oh, Nan,” Mavis sighs.
“What?”
In this bright light, Mavis, frowning broadly beneath her frantic hair, looks like an unhappy chrysanthemum. In spite of everything, Nan giggles.
“I’m glad you find something amusing,” Mavis says. “Apparently, my face.” She wipes her hands on the nightgown, sets aside the saddle shoe she’s been working on, and with a good deal of effort, stands. “Come. You need to get out of the heat.”
Nan looks at the flowers lying in the sun; there is still so much to be done. But when Mavis extends her hand, Nan takes it, rising to her knees, slowly standing. Mavis puts her arm around Nan, in that stiff way she has. It’s not a comforting hold, Mavis being more mast than sail.
“But the flowers—”
“What about Bay? We can’t leave her alone in there with Ruthie and Stellora, can we? Who knows what they’ve been telling her.”
Why has she been worrying about the garden when Bay is alone in the house with Stella’s questions about Eve and Ruthie’s way of speaking without censure? It is disturbing for Nan to realize she’s lost her focus so entirely. “Wait,” she says, stopping on the porch. “We need a plan.”
“A plan?”
It’s distressing, Nan thinks. Mavis, who used to be so wickedly smart, standing there frowning as if Nan makes no sense at all.
“You know, how should we act around Stella?”
“How should we act?”
Nan decides right then that the best way to proceed with the weekend is to rely on her skill for subterfuge. It’s clear she can’t count on Mavis, and Ruthie has never been a serious contender for cunning. “We need to act like we have nothing to hide. We need to act normal.”
Mavis turns to look at the front door as though she doesn’t know how they have arrived there. “Okay,” she says, “we’ll act normal. Whatever that is.”
In spite of the solemnity of the situation, Nan is giggling when she enters the house, blinking away sunspots in the dim foyer.
“Good morning.” Bay’s voice floats from the top of the stairs. She seems to have taken special care in dressing, wearing her yellow sundress, languidly descending the steps like a 1940s film ingénue, stealing a look in the direction of the parlor.
Bay kisses Nan’s cheek and turns to Mavis. “I can’t believe everyone is up! I slept terribly late!”
Nan exchanges a look with Mavis. Obviously the girl is overdoing it, but why?
“Isn’t it a beautiful morning?” Bay says, glancing at the parlor.
“Don’t do anything drastic,” Mavis says to Nan. “I’ll be right back. I have to take care of a little business.” She walks up the stairs, clutching the banister like a seasick cruise passenger.
At the end of the hallway, the kitchen door swings open. Ruthie, wearing an apron over her nightgown, takes short, quick, black-socked steps toward Nan and Bay, pausing at the open front door to shake her head and wave her spatula, turning to point it at Nan. “What are you doing? Breakfast is ready. Come. Eat!” Without waiting for a response, Ruthie pivots, pushing the door as she does, though it only closes halfway as she glides across the wooden floor to the kitchen.
Before Nan can stop her, Bay strolls over to look outside. It’s one of those habits she inherited from Nan; they both like to begin the day by greeting the garden. Nan steels herself for the hysterics sure to erupt. Bay always has hated the tricks people play, and as she’s gotten older, her despair over such behavior has gotten worse. Also, Bay loves the shoe garden, though she won’t admit it. Nan suspects Bay loves the garden more than she loves breakfast, which is saying a lot.
“What a beautiful day,” Bay says, turning to step back into the foyer. “Do I smell pancakes?”
Nan watches Bay, with her new languid walk, stroll toward the kitchen. How could she not have noticed the destruction? Maybe she was stunned into a stupor; she’s in shock, poor thing, but when Nan rests her hand on the door to close it entirely, she finds that she is the one stunned. She shakes her head in case she’s hav
ing one of her memories again, in case she isn’t really seeing what she thinks she sees.
The walk is clear of dirt, flowers planted in shoes that only moments before were scattered in the yard, the hollyhocks returned to their boots, the cosmos happy in their sneakers, the daisies in their slippers; every flower in a shoe, every shoe standing. Nothing is in the right place, but the entire front yard is restored to some semblance of its own, quirky normalcy.
“Pancakes!” Bay hollers from the kitchen.
Nan loves pancakes! She swallows, licks her lips, and swallows again. The taste of ash is gone, replaced by a slightly sweet, floral flavor, as though instead of planting flowers this morning, she’s been eating them.
Nan closes the door and turns to smile at Mavis as she comes coughing down the stairs, clutching a pack of cigarettes. She looks startled but returns the smile, a fleeting expression that subtracts a great deal of age from her face. Nan understands. The thing about witches, after all, is that they must learn to wear masks. It’s something almost all of them do as protection against judgment. Even in the midst of this summer morning, Nan shudders at the history of witches: tortured, burned, hanged, or strangled. Horrible things were done to them as ward against their rumored strength. It is so easy to forget that they were real women. Nan decides not to frighten Mavis (who apparently still does have her power after all) with words of gratitude, but what harm can there be in a smile, even if Mavis now scowls in response? They walk to the kitchen together, inhaling the wonderful aroma of coffee and pancakes.
WILD CARROT Wild carrot, or Queen Anne’s lace, is an aromatic herb that soothes the digestive tract and stimulates the uterus. It bears a striking resemblance to the poisonous hemlock.
Ruthie, humming at a surprising pitch, stands at the stove, flipping pancakes. “Good morning, Sunshine!” she says. “Bay, this is Stella.”
Stella? Bay doesn’t remember anything about someone named Stella. The newcomer sits at the table with her chin in her hand. Her smile reveals dimples and small white teeth. Bay wonders what her Nana could possibly have to do with someone so young? She suddenly realizes that the stranger, her head tilted, is studying Bay as though thinking the same thing.
“She makes the best pancakes,” Stella says. “I mean, seriously, what’s your trick?”
Bay pulls out a chair, and Ruthie sets a plate of pancakes before her.
“No trick,” she says.
“No trick?” Stella shakes her head as she eyes Bay’s plate. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, you don’t really expect me to give away all my secrets, do you?”
“I was hoping you might,” Stella says, watching Bay fork a triple-decker slice of pancake into her mouth. “You know, I think I will have one more!”
“Oh my gawd,” Bay says, maple syrup dripping from the corner of her mouth.
Stella nods. “I know, I know. They’re not even pancakes.”
“They’re…they’re heaven—”
Together they exclaim, “Heavencakes!” which makes them laugh.
Mavis, wearing a dirty nightgown, her violet hair spiked like an attack on her head, pushes through the swinging door, followed by a smiling Nan, also still wearing her pajamas accentuated by red boots. She glances sideways at Bay and Stella smiling at each other across the table. “What’s going on here?”
“Pancakes. They taste like heaven,” Bay says.
Nan drags the computer chair across the floor to the crowded kitchen table. Stella offers Mavis her chair, but she replies with one of her looks, as though the suggestion she might need to sit is insulting. Ruthie flips a perfectly round pancake from the spatula to Stella’s plate.
“How many for you, Nan?”
“How many what?” Nan asks, which has the effect of freeze tag on everyone. Ruthie stops between table and stove, her spatula held upright, a cook’s exclamation point. Mavis stands with one hand on the coffee pot, the other holding a mug; even Stella stops chewing to frown at Nan, who, Bay realizes, looks especially odd this morning, her hair dotted with petals and stems.
“Nana?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Do you feel all right?”
Nan presses her fingers against her temple. “I’m having one of my headaches.”
“How many would you like?” Ruthie asks. “How many pancakes, that is?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nan says, “perhaps six.”
“Six?”
“Nana loves pancakes.”
“Do you need an aspirin? I think I have some with me,” Stella offers.
“I’ll just have my headache tea.”
Nan moves to stand, but Ruthie tells her to stay put. “I’m right here. I can get the kettle on.” She veers around Mavis, leaning so far into the refrigerator she is all backside. “What are you looking for?”
“Apparently the only thing not here,” Mavis says. “What is all this? Why are there all these flowers?”
“Flowers? In the refrigerator?” Nan asks. “Why ever would you be looking for flowers in the refrigerator?”
Mavis backs out, standing to her full height of shocked purple hair, a small pink petal dangling above her ear. “I don’t suppose there’s any cream.”
“Right there.” Ruthie uses the spatula to point at the blue pitcher on the counter.
How fun, Bay thinks, to have a whole kitchen full of people for breakfast. Is this what it feels like to be part of a large family? Ruthie hums something unidentifiable and off-key as she flips pancakes. The stove is remarkably clean, Bay notices. When she makes pancakes, the batter gets everywhere.
Mavis stands by the screen door, staring into the backyard as she drinks her coffee, which gives Bay a chance to observe that even someone as intimidating as Mavis looks frail in a nightgown, positioned in such a way that the light appears to pass right through her.
“Nan,” Mavis says. “Do you know that Howard is in your backyard?”
Howard! Bay can’t believe she forgot about him—well, not forgot, because she had been disappointed not to see him when she came downstairs, thinking nothing could distract her from him, until breakfast did.
“Six pancakes!” Ruthie announces, setting a large stack in front of Nan.
“Howard? I thought he left.”
“He appears to be doing something untoward to the flowers.”
Nan’s forkful of pancakes stops halfway to her mouth.
“You eat, Nana,” Bay says.
“Yes. Eat. You need your strength.” Mavis sets her mug firmly on the counter. The teakettle whistles, and Ruthie yelps, which causes a distraction. The next thing Bay knows, the screen door is banging shut, and Mavis is gone.
“I’m surprised at Howard,” Ruthie says. “He’s starting to remind me of my son. Now, where’s this headache tea of yours?”
“I’ll get it.” Bay says, glancing out the window beyond the glass jars filled with cut flowers and various stones littering the sill, to see Howard, who is sitting in the backyard, look up at Mavis’s approach. Even at this distance it’s clear he’s surprised, and perhaps a bit horrified. Well, Mavis is looking pretty scary, Bay thinks, though Howard looks kind of odd himself, still wearing her Nana’s nightgown and holding a bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace surrounded by… Bay leans across the sink to peer at the backyard littered with overturned shoes and tossed flowers.
“I wonder what caused him to act so criminally,” Ruthie says. “Maybe he’s had a seizure of some kind.”
“A seizure?” Stella asks.
“You know. A fit,” Nan says. “Ruthie, these are the best pancakes!”
Not wanting to alarm Nan, though her gut quivers with that feeling of wasps building their nest again, Bay opens the herb cupboard (really an old broom closet fitted with shelves) and easily finds the headache tea; it’s been used so much lately. She turns, jar in
hand, surprised to find Ruthie and Stella watching with peculiar expressions, as though it were a closet of bones.
Stella turns slowly to address Nan. “Is Howard your husband?”
“No, he’s just a boy she hired,” Ruthie says, “to transport us about. Nan never married.”
“He’s very nice,” Bay adds, pouring hot water over the filter of herbs.
“She thinks she’s in love with him.”
“Nana!”
“Oops, it’s just these pancakes.”
“Isn’t it unusual for someone of your generation never to have married? I don’t mean to pry, if you don’t want to talk about it, though that is part of what my book is going to address, I think. You know, how you were when you were young, and how you are now. Well, not you, specifically, of course.”
“Here’s your tea,” Bay says, frowning at Stella.
No one ever asks Nan about a husband. Bay hasn’t thought about it since she was a little kid and used to fantasize a wedding for Nan and a father for herself, until she decided she liked her family just fine with only the two of them.
Nan doesn’t seem to mind the question, however. In fact it is unclear if she heard it; she appears entirely absorbed in eating pancakes and doesn’t seem to notice that Stella sits across from her with an expression that reminds Bay of Nicholas stalking a bird.
Who is she, anyway? What is she doing here? Bay wonders, suddenly eager to leave the warm kitchen, with its heavy scent of coffee and pancakes and an uncomfortable feeling she can’t quite name, the way the air feels before a storm, though it isn’t going to rain. “I’m gonna see if I can help,” she says, which no one seems to notice, so absorbed are they in their separate tasks: Nan eating her pancakes, Ruthie pouring batter onto the griddle in what appear to be perfect heart shapes, and Stella, her dark eyes slit, watching them both.
Bay carefully closes the screen door behind her. It’s one of those days, a Sugar Day, her Nana calls them, when the sky is bright blue and the sun polishes everything to a glow, like the sparkle of sugar-dusted frosting. She wishes she could enjoy the sweet feeling, but how can she with the entire back garden destroyed?
