At the Corner of King Street (23 page)

“Not bad. She cried, ate, and pooped. She seemed easier today. Like she's settled in a routine she's been craving since she was in the womb.”

“I haven't stopped to think about Janet's pregnancy or ask where Janet has been the last few years. I have no idea what her life was like.”

“I got postcards from her from time to time. Chicago, New York, even Orlando. She waited tables in bars mostly. She's pretty and I know she could charm big tips out of the customers.”

“Do you have any idea who Carrie's father is?”

“No.” Grace picked up a roughly shuffled collection of postcards tucked at her side. “Here are the postcards. You might be able to find information in them that I couldn't.”

I set the beer on the hearth and took the cards. Carefully, I thumbed through them, searching specifically for November and December of last year. Carrie was a term baby so she'd have been conceived around Thanksgiving. A shuffle through the cards and I discovered she was in Orlando for the winter. That postcard featured an alligator with sunglasses. Blue skies were so Janet. She loved warm weather. But by spring the postcards featured Times Square with the bright lights and buzz of people. She'd have been pregnant by then, but I wasn't sure if she'd realized it. Her handwriting wasn't as crisp on this card, suggesting her mental health was likely failing. If that were the case, she could have missed pregnancy signs altogether. “She never contacted me once during this time.”

“When she did call last week, why didn't you call her back?”

“Because I can't fix her, Grace. She'll listen to me for a while, maybe a few months, but by winter, she'll be getting restless and day-to-day rules will feel like a straitjacket.”

“You don't think this time is different? She just gave birth to her second baby.”

“Her son and husband weren't enough. Why would Carrie be enough?”

The rocker creaked back and forth. “Then you adopt the baby. Raise her with that man on the vineyard. Fresh air is good for babies.”

Oddly, the idea really appealed for a split second. I tried to imagine Carrie at the vineyard with Scott. No longer did I believe I could take care of all this and never tell Scott. At some point an invisible point of no return came and went. This life was growing around me like thorny vines and getting free wasn't really possible anymore. I was going to have to tell Scott.

“You're thinking you're going to have to make a choice,” she said.

“I didn't say that.”

“You think Carrie won't fit on the vineyard and Scott won't fit here.”

“I don't know.” I sipped the beer, hoping it would ease the banding tightness. “I don't know.”

“You know. You know.”

I brushed away buzzing doubts. “He's not just a guy, Grace. I love him. I've imagined us being married.”

A gray brow arched, disapproving. “Has he talked about marriage?”

“We've talked about a future together, but we've been too busy to discuss marriage.”

Grace shook her head. “Okay.”

“Okay?” My defenses rose. “What does that mean?”

“It means okay.” Fatigue rushed behind the words. “This is for you to sort out.”

“You aren't a bystander, Grace.” She pulled me into all this. “Carrie is yours as well.”

“No, she's yours.”

I gulped more beer. “She's Janet's.”

“No, Addie. She is not Janet's. You've said it yourself. She won't be able to take care of the baby in the long run. Winter will come, and she'll get restless. I saw it so many times with my sister. They're unwilling to take medication. You know. We both can see it coming.”

“I survived.” A tightness knotted my chest as I thought about all the forgotten birthdays, missed appointments, hungry nights, and Mom's ranting speeches.

She nodded her head. “Yeah, you survived. If that's what you want to call it.”

Hands on my hips, I drew in a breath, struggling to steady a heart that beat too fast. “I'm doing pretty damn well.”

“You could do better. And honestly, would you have wished your childhood on any child?”

No. Anger churned, scraped at my insides. “Why didn't you step in when I was twelve and keep me? I begged you to let me stay, but when Mom showed up you just let us go.”

Grace nodded, accepting the anger like a fist to her chin. “Your mother said you and Janet could stay if she could stay.”

“You didn't want Mom.”

“I refused to have that insanity in my life. I could see you were gonna be fine, but Janet was showing signs of the curse. I knew you could get by without me. But your mom needed you. You were her lifeboat.”

“You could have been her lifeboat.”

Grace tapped a swollen, bent finger on the arm of the chair. “No. She and I never mixed well.”

“You could have found a way for
me
.”

The rocker creaked back and forth but Grace said nothing.

My shoulders slumped with a biting weariness that went beyond the
day's physical labor. For as long as I could remember, I ran to keep up with my mother, Janet, Scott, and now Carrie. “Thanks for the beer.”

As I rose, her gaze followed me. “Would you take Janet on, if given the choice?”

The answer came quickly. “No. No, I would not.”

She leaned forward in her rocker, the frame creaking like old bones. “I might not be perfect. I sure made mistakes, and I've lived with them all. They haunt me. But I'm not much different than you.”

The words stung, but as much as I wanted to argue, I couldn't.

Silent, I moved out of the room and into the bathroom. I stripped off the dirty clothes of the day and turned on the shower's hot spray. I moved into the water, hoping it would not only wash away the dirt and grime of the day, but decades of sadness.

Tears filled my eyes and streamed down my cheeks, melting into the spray. What did I do to deserve all this? What did Grace do? We both wanted our freedom from the curse, but the Universe—the curse—didn't care.

The days are long, tedious, and the summer heat hot and humid. The baby suffers with the heat. He cries often. I long for Scotland. I miss my sisters.

Dr. Goodwin worries over the loss of the
Constance
. He does not say, but I know he worries over his finances. He travels to Berkeley Plantation today to discuss a loan.

Penny fell ill with a fever. I tended to Penny myself, but no amount of care eased her fever. Desperate and with my babe in arms, I went to Faith at the tavern. She was so heavy with child she could barely stand. Releasing my pride, I asked if she would help Penny. Her sharp blue eyes stared at me a long moment and then she gave me dried herbs and bade me to put them in hot water to make a tea. Once the tea cooled, I was to give as much to Penny as she could stomach. I gave her a silver coin and hurried home. I brewed the tea for Penny and forced her to drink. Her fever broke at midnight.

What would God think of me? The witch had now helped me twice.

B
y seven
A
.
M
.
the baby was fed and settled in a makeshift crib in the warehouse so I could sort the items from the Prince Street property. To keep her entertained, I strung old keys, scrounged from a box, on a wire to make a mobile of sorts. As I hung it above her, a breeze from an open window moved the keys gently back and forth. The
clink, clink, clink
sounds caught Carrie's attention and she stared at them, wide-eyed and amazed. Though I wasn't sure how much she saw, I was grateful for the quiet and the time to unload the truck.

We'd intentionally loaded the big stuff in first. The doors, two stained glass windows, an old farmhouse sink, and a trunk. But the smaller items were boxed into manageable crates so I could unload them. I set up a couple of sawhorses and suspended planks between them, which created a sorting table.

Grace rounded the corner as I pushed up the truck's tailgate. Since our conversation we'd kept our distance, and neither one of us
mentioned last night. The very old and painful wound we shared opened easily. Whatever scar tissue we imagined formed was really paper-thin. Band-Aids were applied, but we were both tender and fearful the wounds would reopen.

“All that from a basement?” She brushed her fingers over the mobile keys.

Her tone was lighter, less gruff. Her idea of an olive branch. It would have been easy to keep silent or swat away her effort.

But I was willing to tread lightly. I was tired of anger, which weighed heavily on me for too long. “Hard to believe people shoved this kind of stuff away out of sight.”

“When decisions can't be made, items get stowed. Everyone thinks they'll deal with it, but sooner always becomes a lot later.”

I grabbed a cardboard box filled with yellowed envelopes, scraps of paper, and a leather journal. We would never hug or say sorry but we could find a peaceful middle ground. “I'll set what I can on the worktable in the front of the warehouse. We can sort, figure out what to sell and what to toss.”

Grace glanced in a box and retrieved a crystal doorknob. “Sounds like a plan.”

We had doorknobs, windows, and boxes to unload and discuss. All safe. Work would be our way to survive and go through the motions without being too engaged.

Grace tried to carry a few boxes from the truck, but she moved carefully and slowly, considering each step. I offered to unload the rest of the boxes from the truck if she would unpack the boxes in the warehouse. With a nod, she moved to the sorting table, taking her time emptying each box. I moved faster, half expecting Carrie to squawk, and within a half hour the table was full of boxes.

As I set the last box on the long sawhorse table, Grace was unpacking her second box. Books. Glasses. Jars. Old windup toys. There was no rhyme or reason to what the family tossed in the basement.

I plucked a piggy bank made of brass from one of my boxes. A shake rattled coins. The bank would have value and hopefully the coins did as well. “If this business ever taught me any lesson, it was to travel light. Like packing for a trip. Whatever you put in the suitcase, chances are you'll never use half of it. Same with life.”

“Hard to get rid of memories,” Grace said as she handled an old rag doll covered in mold. “It's not clothes for a trip. It's a lifetime.”

“I've made it a policy not to collect more than I can fit in my car.” How many times had Scott teased me about my Spartan life?

“Suppose that's natural. You didn't have many roots as a kid.”

I picked up an old shoe, and not seeing the mate tossed it in a pile that was officially now trash. “When I look back now, I don't see our moving around as totally bad. It kept me flexible. I can roll with the punches.” Not exactly true. I didn't own much, but I wasn't really flexible. I controlled almost every second of my day. Up at the same time. Laundry done on the same day. Pencils to the right on my desk. Phone charged on my bedside table every night. The list went on and on.

Grace picked up an old clock. She frowned at its dusty, dirty face and I sensed she wasn't thinking about the clock. “You're the strongest of us all. Always have been.”

“I don't feel strong. I'm treading water, barely keeping up. If I were strong, I'd have told Scott about my family a long time ago. I'd have told him about the decade-old decision that now affected our relationship. I feared our life together would be swept away by the past.”

“If it's on solid ground, it won't go anywhere.”

Maybe.

As I dug through a box, my fingers skimmed an old, plain, roughly
hewn box. Carefully, I flipped the rusted latch and opened the lid. Inside was a bottle. Lifting it toward the beam of sunlight cutting through the front window, I tried to peer through the dark green, dirt-smudged glass. I shook it and heard the clink of metal. The cork top was sealed with wax. As I held the bottle's neck, a wave of energy tingled up my arm, filling me with a sharp sense of sadness. Longing.
Fear
. I put the bottle in front of Grace, anxious to set it down. “Grace, look at this.”

She glanced over with disbelief and stammered, “It's a bottle.”

“It's just like the bottle we found at the hearth. Like the one you have. Is this a witch bottle?”

Her voice was barely audible. “Yep.”

Unsettling energy washed over me. “What are the chances of finding something like this?”

“Rare, I suppose.” She held the bottle up to the light. Dust, grime, and the dark hue of the glass repelled any light or attempts to glimpse the interior.

“Rare doesn't come close. What's going on here?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Grace. Three witch bottles. Three very old witch bottles that have remained unbroken for hundreds of years. Is there a coven of witches in town that I need to be aware of? Have we stumbled into the supernatural?”

Her eyes warmed. “No. The old bottles weren't so uncommon hundreds of years ago. Folks believed all kinds of crazy things. Witches, spells, and curses.”

“You know Margaret is checking into Sarah Goodwin's origins. She has a friend in Aberdeen, Scotland, who might be able to find something out about her.”

“I'd be curious to know more about her. I only know she came here as a young bride with her husband.”

“A doctor.”

“Yes.” She smoothed her hand over an empty old frame.

“The house from yesterday was built by a sea captain. His name was Cyrus Smyth.” I studied the witch bottle. “I wonder where your mother found the bottle?”

“That, I'm not so sure of. The time between has gotten lost.”

“The families must be connected.”

“Small town. Paths cross.”

I rubbed the bottle with the hem of my T-shirt, trying to clear away the smudge. But the dirt and grime were too thick. No amount of staring would wrestle any secrets free.

*   *   *

Margaret leaned back in her chair; her mouth hung open as she stared at the third bottle. “That was in the basement!”

“Yeah. Tucked away in an old box.”

The chair hinges squeaked as she leaned forward and stood. We were in the warehouse, surrounded by the contents of the basement. “This is beyond awesome. Do you realize how important a find this is?”

“I know one was odd. Two puzzling. Three is a pattern.”

“A pattern of white witch protection.” She reached for the reading glasses perched on the top of her head.

“Remember, the woman who first lived in that house was one of the goodwives who went after Faith,” I said.

“If she believed that Faith was a witch and accused of the crime, she might be fearful of reprisal. I mean, a witch doesn't need to come after you head-on. She can cast her evil spell and then suddenly you're sick or your crops fail.”

“Any more information on Faith?”

“Nothing more than what I found.”

“Grace said her ancestor was a doctor who invested in the ship captain's cargo.”

“Our Smyth cargo?” Margaret asked.

“She supposes but she's not sure.”

She held up the bottle, tracing her fingers along the slim neck. “Okay, I'll see what I can find.”

“Great.”

“By the way, you still on for Friday? Rachel is excited about making a witch bottle.”

Girls night out. Where did the week go? “Yeah. Still sounds fun.”

“By then, I may have more info on the Smyths.”

“Maybe you can figure out when our family curse started.”

“Family curse?”

“The insanity. The madness. Many generations of Shires believed we're cursed.”

Margaret smudged a swath of dirt from the bottle. “Have you always called it a curse?”

“Yes. Every Shire has.”

“So when did this curse happen?”

“I don't know. It always has been. Madness and curses go hand in hand with the Shire name.”

Margaret waggled her eyebrows. “We have a curse. A witch. And three witch bottles. The plot thickens.”

*   *   *

I took Carrie for an evening stroll so that we could both get some fresh air. The walk along the crowded streets of Alexandria earned us glances from folks who smiled lovingly at Carrie while also tossing me curious gazes. One lady asked if I was sleeping through the night. Another commented that my figure looked great, considering.

Considering. I smiled, took it as a compliment, and didn't bother to explain our real situation.

When I climbed the warehouse stairs with Carrie, she was growing restless, and I didn't need to look at the clock to know she was hungry. “I have bottles made, kid. Let's eat.”

As I moved up the stairs to the second floor, I heard Grace's voice. It was polite but sounded stiff and annoyed. And then came the sound of a man's voice, soft and so low I couldn't make it out. Bracing, I came through the door, running through the list of people who might have paid us a visit.

It was Scott.

He looked great, as always. Crisp blue button-down shirt that set off his deep, rich tan; khakis that skimmed his narrow waist; and polished loafers. A gold watch, which he never wore in the field, hugged his wrist, and his Ray-Ban sunglasses dangled from his fingers.

When he raised his gaze and got a good look at me, his mouth dropped open and he stood, stunned at my appearance. When I was around Scott, I always kept my ponytail brushed smooth and makeup on my face. He liked the fact I looked pulled together. Neat.

Now my ponytail was slightly askew and curling tendrils encircled my head, suggesting I stuck my finger in an electrical socket. I wore no makeup and my clothes were sweat-stained and covered in dirt from an afternoon of sorting in the warehouse. Not to mention I had a baby strapped to my chest.

“Addie?”

“Scott.” The air whooshed out of me. All the rushing, hoping, and praying that I could still keep my two worlds apart collapsed. “I wasn't expecting you.”

“I can see that.” His gaze dropped to the baby. His thumb tapped against the edge of his glasses, as it did when he surveyed the vineyard after a bad storm. “I think we need to talk.”

On cue, Carrie squirmed and fussed. She couldn't care less about Scott, me, or anything other than her bottle.

“Let me get her a bottle,” I said. “It won't take but a second.”

“Sure.”

He followed me into the kitchen and watched me pull a bottle from the fridge and heat it quickly in the microwave. The baby cried and fussed louder, unmindful or uncaring that she had less than thirty seconds to wait. Now was all she cared about. My life was collapsing, but that was minor compared to her grumbling stomach.

The microwave dinged, and I quickly shook the bottle and tested it on my wrist before settling in a chair at the kitchen table. I pulled Carrie easily from the sling—this time not catching her legs in the straps—and settled her in the crook of my arm. As she kicked and balled her fingers into tight fists, I popped the bottle in her mouth like an old pro. She settled.

Scott didn't speak, but paced back and forth, glancing at me as if he did not know me. “I think you need to start this conversation, Addie.”

A sigh leaked from between my teeth, and I settled back in the chair, the weight of life finally hitting me hard. “I have an older sister, Janet. She called me last week in a panic. Long story short, she was in labor and gave birth to my niece, Carrie.”

His pacing stopped, and he stared at me. No missing the surprise and hurt in his blue gaze. “You told me your sister lived in California.”

Carrie's eyes closed and her little body tensed at the sound of my voice. “I know.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the hospital.” I hesitated and then basically ripped the proverbial Band-Aid off the past. “She's in a mental hospital. She's very sick and unable to take care of the baby. She's bipolar.” I repeated the speech practiced so many times over and over the last few days. “She
has good doctors, and they're trying their best. They tell me she should be stabilized in the next few weeks.”