4152 Witchwood Lane

by Katie Winters

  4152 Witchwood Lane

  Sisters of Edgartown

  By

  Katie Winters

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © 2021 by Katie Winters

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Katie Winters holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Other Books by Katie

  Connect with Katie Winters

  Chapter One

  In the glossy haze of the early morning, Mila could sometimes hear Peter’s voice. She swore it. She would squeeze her eyes tighter and dig herself deeper into the mattress as Peter’s sturdy, powerful vocals rang out from the kitchen. “Babe! I’m making coffee!” Mila’s heart jumped around wildly; a small piece of her brain told her that, yes, this was natural — her husband of the previous twenty years was up, prepped, ready to head off for another boisterous day in early retirement. All that was left for Mila to do was what she had always done: slowly rise up, stretch her arms over her head, and slip into Peter’s strong arms for an early-morning, coffee-stained kiss.

  But memory folded over her far too quickly: memory that, two years before, Peter had left this world forever. Memory that, for the past two years, Mila had had to do nearly everything alone — take care of the finances, maintain the house and yard, scrub herself clean in the shower, chase after her twins, Isabelle and Zane, to ensure they’d done their homework or hadn’t gotten into trouble. All of those important tasks that normally took two people, not one—all of it alone. And in a way, wasn’t she terribly proud of that aloneness? In the wake of Peter’s death, she had told herself she was strong enough for it; she wouldn’t devolve into nothingness and fade away. Peter hadn’t married some kind of waif. Even when they’d married — he at forty-two, she at twenty-two — he’d told her, “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve met in my life.”

  It was now July. Mila gaped at the calendar as it fluttered against the kitchen wall. The coffee was brewed strong; she’d recently taken to sipping it through a metal straw, which Camilla had purchased for her for Christmas after Mila had complained tirelessly about her coffee-stained teeth. It was Mila’s job to notice the little aesthetic details. She had owned her esthetician salon for the previous twenty-ish years. She could give herself a half-glance in the mirror and notice a fresh wrinkle, a new line around her lip. It was kind of a curse, maybe, but it also meant she got out in front of the aging process in ways that made her look especially “fresh and vibrant,” at least, according to many of the women she knew.

  Not that it mattered. She did look good and she knew this. Mila knew the way she looked orchestrated the way she moved through the world and the way the world reacted back. But in many ways, she felt her very best when she wore a pair of ratty-looking pajamas, covered with oreo crumbs, while she sipped wine with her girlfriends and forgot all about her laugh lines. It was a tragedy sometimes that women had to live such high standards in the world — that they were required to dye their hair and opt for botox and buy all the creams to keep youthful-looking. Time was time, wherever you were. And time always won in the end.

  Isabelle, her eighteen-year-old daughter, who looked almost exactly like Mila had back in the day, rushed through the kitchen at that moment. Her dark hair fled down her back.

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  Isabelle paused and blinked at her mother as though the sight of her in the kitchen in the morning was something she hadn’t seen in the previous eighteen years of her life.

  “Oh. Hi, Mom. I was going to meet Harry at the Frosted Delights.”

  Mila chuckled. Harry was Isabelle’s long-term boyfriend. The pair was thicker than thieves. They’d even been best friends through childhood, prior to their realization that they were in love, around the age of thirteen. Mila was grateful for this, in a way. She trusted Harry with her Isabelle. He wasn’t one of those deceitful, athletic boys who tugged at the heartstrings of girls and toyed with their emotions.

  “Yummy. Say hi to Jen for me,” Mila replied.

  “Of course.”

  “Is your brother up yet?”

  Isabelle shrugged. “Zane? Up before noon? Are you crazy?”

  Mila laughed inwardly. “I honestly don’t know how he’ll manage to be away at college. Maybe I’ll have to go with him. Make sure he wakes up for class.”

  “I’m sure that’ll make him a huge hit on campus. I guess you’ll also go with him on all his dates to make sure he doesn’t spill sauce all over his shirt?”

  “That’s a given,” Mila said as her grin widened.

  MILA TURNED ON ALL the lights at the esthetician salon. The space was endlessly charming, with floor-to-ceiling, ornate mirrors, beautiful paintings from artists who’d grown up on the island — mostly seascapes, with frothy waves, bright sands and majestic boats, and glowing, large-basin, antique sinks, which Mila had insisted upon, despite the enormous price tag at the time. Now, when the online reviews came in, it seemed that nearly everyone mentioned the sinks. “It feels like stepping back into time, but with all the beauty benefits of the modern era,” one woman had written.

  Mila checked the schedule for the day. She employed six women at her salon. There was Evelyn, Monica, Chastity, Piper, Sasha, and Vivian — but only Vivian and Chastity would be in for the day. Piper was on her honeymoon; Monica had recently discussed opening her own salon, and Sasha had a baby at home. Mila braced her heart for another round of changes. It definitely played at her heartstrings as she loved her girls to bits.

  The day started at nine-thirty. Mila found herself up to her elbows in other people’s beauty problems, other people’s facial disasters. She fell into easy gossip with women both from the island and those who passed through in the midst of their summer vacations. Frequently, women came in as their husbands went out on various fishing or sailing trips. Most of them were grateful to get away from their men — a fact that Mila laughed at, despite the bruising of her own heart. It did her no good to tell them that she’d lost her husband. She couldn’t be that black hole of sadness.

  Around four-thirty, two young women appeared in the doorway of the salon. They looked almost like twins: dark hair that swirled across their shoulders, bright smiles, and beautiful blue eyes. They exchanged glances and shivered with laughter.

  “Hi, there!” Vivian greeted them at the counter. “Do you girls have an appointment?”

  “She does,” one of the girls replied. “I’m just along for moral support.”

  The other girl grimaced. “My name is Audrey. Audrey Sheridan.”

  Vivian inspected the calendar. “Looks like Mila’s all set for you over in the corner.”<
br />
  Audrey’s eyes found Mila’s. The name rang a bell. The Sheridans were something like a Vineyard staple within the community — and in the previous year, all three of the Sheridan girls had returned to the island after twenty-some years away. If Mila wasn’t mistaken, Audrey was Lola’s daughter. Lola had always been Mila’s favorite; she had this zest for life that the darker Christine and the rule-oriented Susan lacked.

  “Hello, Audrey!” Mila greeted with a huge smile. “And you must be...”

  “Amanda,” the other girl said.

  “Ah! Susan’s daughter, right?”

  “Guilty,” Amanda affirmed.

  “People know who we are everywhere we go. It’s a bit creepy,” Audrey confessed as she slid into the chair.

  “Well, you know. This island is about as small as they come. Everyone knows everyone,” Mila said.

  “We don’t know you, though,” Amanda pointed out.

  Mila grinned. “I’m Mila, the owner of the salon.”

  “You’re absolutely stunning, Mila. Whatever you do to yourself in this salon, do it to me for the rest of my days,” Audrey said.

  Mila laughed good-naturedly. “You’re what? Eighteen? I don’t think you need a whole lot of work done.”

  “Actually, I’m twenty,” Audrey corrected. She then lowered her voice as she added, “And I just had a baby, which made my hormones totally out of whack.” She then gestured toward her upper lip, which did have the slightest of dark mustaches.

  Mila nodded. “It can happen.”

  “I love that baby to pieces, but jeesh. What he did to my body? I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive him,” Audrey said.

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “Your body is exactly the same as it was last summer.”

  “My body bounced back like that, too,” Mila affirmed. “I had my babies pretty young. I’m grateful for it, too. One of my best friends, Amelia, is pregnant at forty-one, and I have to say that I don’t think it’ll be as easy for her.”

  “One and done,” Audrey affirmed. “Baby Max is all the world needs from my uterus.”

  Mila chuckled. “You might not feel that way forever.”

  “I’m praying for it,” Amanda joked. “You didn’t have to hear all that complaining. And the number of snacks we had in the house! It was certainly crazy times.”

  “As if you let me eat them,” Audrey said. “She had me on a strict, boring, nutritional diet.”

  “Sounds awful.”

  Mila heated the wax and spread it evenly over Audrey’s upper lip while Amanda flipped through a magazine. Throughout the salon, Vivian and Chastity conversed with their clients as the radio buzzed with tunes from the early ‘00s. When Mila yanked the wax from Audrey’s upper lip, she half-expected the girl to screech in pain, but Audrey didn’t even make a sound. When she looked at herself in the mirror after it was over, she breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s crazy what women have to put up with,” she said, echoing a sentiment that Mila had had buzzing around in her mind all morning.

  As Audrey and Amanda stood at the counter to pay, a familiar face plunged through the door of Mila’s salon. Mila focused on Audrey, on the money exchanged, on the “I hope you have a good day, and say hello to your mothers for me!” that she echoed out. But when Audrey and Amanda had retreated back into the glittering sun of a late July afternoon, Mila could do nothing but face the woman before her.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Diana Ellis was sixty-four years old and stood a few inches taller than Mila. Her mother had legs for days and an oval face, which only had a few wrinkles, thanks to Mila’s diligent facials, and she’d dyed her hair religiously since the first fleck of grey had appeared, around the age of thirty-four. She was a proud woman, a woman who’d worked as a family physician until her retirement three years prior.

  She had never been particularly fond of the fact that Mila hadn’t bothered with college. In fact, Diana was very vocal about all of the ways she felt Mila had “failed” in her life. Even her marriage to Peter, which was one of love and companionship, had seemed like a failing in Diana’s eyes. “You shouldn’t have married someone so much older than you,” she’d said once when Peter had been very sick. Mila would never forgive her.

  “Looks pretty dead today,” Diana said as she scanned the empty chairs.

  “We actually had a really packed schedule. We're just wrapping up for the day,” Mila informed her.

  Vivian rushed past. “Oh, man. It was a busy one! I’m exhausted.”

  Diana grunted. “Well, I know I didn’t have an appointment, but I was hoping you could fit me in for a facial.”

  Mila knew better than to ever turn down her mother. She gestured toward an empty chair and said, “Sure, of course. Let’s get started.”

  Diana leaned back in the leather chair as Mila prepared everything.

  “I guess you’re getting all ready for Isabelle and Zane’s big move?”

  Mila did not want to discuss this at all. She cleared her throat. “It’s still a little over a month away.”

  “Sure, but there’s so much to be done, isn’t there? It’s their first time off the island for an extended period of time. You’re going to need so many supplies. I remember when your brother went to college. We went on a shopping spree. Bedspreads and notebooks and trash cans and kitchen supplies...”

  Mila began to cleanse her mother’s face. It was a strange thing, performing this technique on her mother, as she always felt she was performing it on a future version of herself.

  “But your brother had everything he needed up at Yale,” her mother continued. “And I felt safe in the fact that he was prepared. You’ll want to feel that way, too.”

  Mila nodded, only half-listening.

  “And you know, I think it’s perfectly wonderful that Isabelle is considering going out for pre-med,” her mother continued. “The medical field runs in our family, and Isabelle has always been a particularly bright child.”

  Mila knew they stepped into dangerous territory. She could practically feel a fight beginning to brew.

  “It’s just good that she won’t waste all that talent,” her mother continued.

  Mila paused and heaved a sigh. Her mother’s eyes found hers.

  “Are you going to stop? I can’t be here all night,” Diana said.

  Mila dropped her hands to her sides. They were covered with the cleanser. “I just don’t want to get into this all over again, Mom.”

  Diana arched one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows. “Get into what?”

  “You know. The fact that... well, I didn’t go to university or college. And also, we’ve been over this. Isabelle doesn’t know what she wants to be yet. So what?”

  Diana’s nostrils flared. “I just think you could have been someone, could have achieved so much more.”

  Mila gestured around. Both Vivian and Chastity pretended to be busy cleaning their stations to avoid eye contact.

  “I am someone, Mom. Look around you. Look at this place. Countless women trust us with all their health and beauty needs. I’ve built this from nothing and I’m proud of that.”

  “It’s not health, Mila. It’s cosmetics.”

  “Mom.” Mila’s eyes closed with exhaustion as the silence fell between them.

  But she couldn’t very well leave her mother the way she was: all slathered up with cream, volatile with her own firmly held opinions. She had to finish the facial if only to send them both on their way.

  “Well, you know how I feel,” Diana finally said.

  “I do. You’ve made yourself very clear,” Mila returned.

  They held the silence after that. It ballooned over them as Mila went step-by-step through the facial. When it was finished, her mother left her a massive tip on the counter — something she knew very well that Mila resented. She then said, “I guess we’ll see you in a few days,” then sauntered through the door. The bell jangled over the top of the doorway and then Mila fell back into the chair nearest the counter and placed her hea
d in her hands.

  “You got Diana-d again, didn’t you?” Vivian murmured.

  “She always knows when to hit me,” Mila said. “She should have been a war general.”

  Chapter Two

  Edgartown’s Seafood restaurant was a casual establishment with a large deck, which overlooked the water. As Mila hovered toward the side of the deck, she caught sight of the four Sisters of Edgartown — Jennifer, Olivia, Amelia, and Camilla, who had stationed themselves at the corner table and already ordered the first round of apps, hot crap dip, fish taco bites and drinks. The sea breeze fluttered through their hair as the early evening light bounced from their eyes, and their laughter, loud and boisterous and alive, echoed across the waters. Mila was so grateful to see them. After all, they were her “home.”

  “Mila!” Olivia rushed to her feet and wrapped her arms around her. “You’re late.”

  Mila buzzed her lips. “My mom made a surprise visit to the salon.”

  “Uh oh.” Amelia grabbed a fish taco and snuck it between her teeth. “Guessing that didn’t go well?”

  “You know how she is. Always eager to dig a knife into my back,” Mila said.

  “You’d think as a doctor she wouldn’t be so into stabbing,” Jennifer said. “Ugh. That sounds rough, Mil. We got you a glass of wine, but maybe you need something stronger?”

  “That'll do.” Mila lifted the glass of white to cheers her girls, then said, “But enough about me. How were your days?”

  Olivia heaved a sigh. “I swear, every minute that I think The Hesson House is ready for opening weekend, another problem comes up. I don’t know how people work in hospitality. I never thought I would say that I missed my teenagers at the high school, but...”

  “Oh, come on. You love being a teacher,” Amelia interjected.

  “True.” Olivia sounded contemplative. “I’m curious to see how juggling it all will be when school starts again.”

  “You want it all, Liv. The hotel, the hot boyfriend and the teaching career,” Jennifer stated.

  “You’re one to talk, Jen. You have about four careers going on right now,” Mila said. “Plus, a hot boyfriend to boot.”