Cursed be the Wicked (21 page)

I stare at my cart of bagged things, half of which I don’t need.

“Sir?”

“What?”

“Your total is $213.98,” the cashier repeats.

I pay her and leave before yet another person can recognize who I am and all conversation turns toward me.

On the way back to the house, I drown my thoughts out with loud music and I stop for some cheap coffee somewhere feeling almost productive, until I run into Danny Moss.

“Coop,” he booms with a hearty laugh that sounds like we’re great friends to anyone but me. I try not to grimace but I am acutely aware of the fact that it’s happening anyway. More eyes are on me than just Dan’s now. I’m uncomfortable and I can almost hear the wheels inside people’s heads turning. They remember my name from somewhere, they see my face, they’re placing me in direct alignment with Maggie Shaw.

I turn toward the cashier and pretend I didn’t hear Dan calling me out.

“Hey, Coop,” he repeats, out of breath and a little lower in decibel this time as he joins me in line.

I nod and stare forward, anxiously awaiting my turn to purchase something highly caffeinated.

“Gettin’ coffee, huh?”

No, dumbass, I’m purchasing a new car at the coffee shop.

“Yep.”

“Avoiding the chaos huh?” he asks, as though he’s telling a joke. “Can’t say I blame ya, wouldn’t want people second guessing your involvement again, am I right?”

He nudges me and I eyeball him.

Danny clears his throat.

“Seen Finnley today?”

And there it is.

“No, actually, I haven’t.”

Not technically anyway.

He smiles. “Well, that’s just like her isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?”

He’s baiting me, I know he’s baiting me. I can’t seem to extinguish the curiosity, regardless.

“You know, she warms up just to cool down. Pays close attention then backs off.” He shrugs. “It’s her way.”

“Her
way
?”

“Yeah, you know.”

He leaves his sentence unfinished. I turn to him as the line grows shorter. “No, I don’t.”

He ignores my response.

“Can I ask you a question, Coop?”

I’m tempted to tell him no, but I’m curious.

“Sure.”

“What do you think happens to Finn when you leave to go back to wherever it is you came from? Do you think you can just swoop into her life, pay attention to her, maybe get laid, maybe not and what? Change her life?”

“I’m not trying to-”

“It goes back to exactly what it was before you got here man. Same shit. Different day.”

His words throw me off for a minute or so. The fuel to my fire is burning out and I’m tired.

“I’m not trying to change anyone’s life. I’m a journalist. Doing a job. That’s all.”

He nods like he approves of my answer. “That’s good to know.”

He turns to face the cashier again.

“It’s not like you can take her with you, and even if you could, she wouldn’t go.”

He gestures that I need to step up. I let what he’s just said sink in as I near the counter. What
is
going to happen when I leave? I can’t stay and he’s right, Finn won’t leave Geneva. Why would she?

My heart sinks a little and all of a sudden, I’m not in the mood for a caffeinated beverage anymore.

I leave the coffee house feeling defeated. My stomach turns when I think about leaving Finn but what choice do I have here?

I’m still pondering this thought when I get back to the house but force myself to focus on the house instead. I pull my supplies out and put my earbuds in, then get myself to work.

I carry cleaners and scrubbers upstairs, figuring I’ll work my way down.

Once I’m situated, I pull every curtain down from the windows and any sheets that are left in the house off of the beds. I drag it all downstairs and start my first load of laundry. The washer actually works, I find. This gives me hope that maybe I won’t have to put a huge amount of money into replacing all the appliances when I sell.

While I’m downstairs, I open up the refrigerator to let it air out and, or defrost if need be.

Back upstairs, I use a broom and pull all the cobwebs down, then I find a vacuum cleaner in the hall closet, the same Hoover my mom used when we lived here. It surprises me the damn thing still works but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. It gets
most
of the dirt off of the floors.

When my preliminary cleaning is finished, I inspect the entire place, top to bottom. I find rust stains in the bathrooms, floor boards that need replacing, doors that need painting and a ton of wallpaper that’s desperately begging to be pulled down. There’s also a ton of work I’m not at all qualified to handle, like running toilets and leaky pipes, but I think I can get most of the smaller jobs done myself.

Sometime mid-afternoon, I’m beat. I’ve forgotten to eat lunch so I’m starved
and
dripping with sweat. I need a second shower and I kick myself for not bringing some clothes back with me from the B&B, otherwise, I could have just grabbed one here.

I check on the laundry, put another load in and figure a run over to the Camilla Rose will be long enough for the machine to run.

When I pull my earbuds out, I immediately hear a woman crying.

“Finn?” I call out but she doesn’t answer.

I wonder when she came back and why she didn’t say anything. I also try to come up with a reason for her to be crying and the only one I can think of is Danny Moss.

“Finn?” I call out again but she’s still not answering me, so I walk around a little, listening for where she’s hiding. When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I’m staring up at the top platform and oddly enough, I don’t think it’s Finn anymore
.

I think it’s Mom.

I run up the stairs and burst into my parent’s old room but the crying has stopped and no one is here.

I eye the closet and check the secret room. It’s empty too, except for a book that’s lying open on the table in there. I scan the room once more before I pick the book up and read the page it’s open to.

He hates me. I know he hates me. I can’t blame him. How can I? This is my fault.

That’s all there is and I turn a few pages but they’re all blank until about ten more, where I find nothing more than a bunch of symbols that mean absolutely nothing to me and a single word.

Oblivisci.

I drop the book and pinch my eyes shut.

There’s no more crying and no reason for me to think anyone is here with me, but me.

I’m frustrated because I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know what my mother is trying to say in her journals, or why I’m hearing things, if I’m going insane or if I’m supposed to actually do something with all the information I’m getting.

I stop and think. The first thing that enters my mind is Finn’s note she left this morning.

You should go,
it said.

Maybe I
should
go. Maybe I need to get the hell out of this house before I turn Mad Hatter. Maybe trying to avoid the funeral is what’s been making my mind work on overdrive the past couple of days.

Maybe going will let me move past all this bullshit once and for all.

I find a piece of paper and write the strange word down from Mom’s entry. I pack up some of the supplies I used today and check the time. I only have a little while before the funeral starts, so I hurry.

Back at the Camilla Rose, I ask my new friend, Betsy, about Finn as I grab some food left out on the buffet for the guests but she says no one has seen her today. I’m curious about where she is, where she’s been all day, and why I haven’t heard from her.

I start to call her but stop myself. If she’s helping Geneva, I don’t want to hassle her. She doesn’t want to deal with my issues every day. Hell,
I
don’t even want to deal with my issues every day.

I don’t have a black suit with me, I remember. I hadn’t planned on going to the funeral, but I do have some dark jeans, so I throw those on, along with a dark polo and my leather jacket. At the last minute, I see the nazar I took from the house and stuff it into my jacket pocket.

I’ll be fine.
Even without Finn,
I tell myself,
I’ll be fine.

I’m lying.

It’s gray outside. Fitting, I think, as I pull up to the cemetery where they will “officially” put my dead mother into the ground. It’s later in the day now, nearly nightfall. Just about every leaf on the trees seems to have left for this very occasion, making the atmosphere perfect for a Salem Witch burial.

I roll my eyes as I near the large crowd that’s gathered around the outside of the cemetery. Most are just here for gossip but some, I can tell, are here for their own reasons, whether it’s the fanfare or some sick obsession with the Curse of Maggie Shaw.

Before I’m even at the police barricade that’s keeping out the uninvited, I pass seven costumed Grim Reapers, women wearing very overdone witch’s makeup and probably fifty or so protesters, carrying signs that read “Free Maggie” on them.

Free her from what? I ask myself. Death?

I don’t know if I’m up for this all of sudden, yet I somehow find myself showing my I.D.,
my real one
, to the officer so I can slide through, anyway.

Shadows pass overhead as I walk up near the designated hole in the ground for Mom’s casket. I look up at the sky. The clouds have darkened.

It’s gonna rain again, dammit.

Not many people are allowed this close to the casket and I don’t know the ones who are. There is one person I’m familiar with though.

Jack Diggs.

He’s standing off behind a tree, quietly watching.

He’s about ten, maybe twenty feet or so away from me and he’s alternating his balance, from one foot to another as the procession brings Maggie’s casket to her final resting place.

There are whispers and cries coming from the crowd of onlookers but I’m not paying attention to them. I’m paying attention to Jack. He doesn’t make a move to get closer. He doesn’t want to be close; he wants his distance.
I feel your pain, Jack.
And when the funeral director begins to chant about ashes and dust, I see Jack’s hand start to twitch.

He pulls his jacket around him and I see a patch on the arm of his coat. It’s a bear of some sort. I squint and try to read the logo, but I can’t make it out from this distance.

I can, however, see Jack talking to himself. He starts to look around, maybe to see if anyone’s paying attention to him and before I can look away, he spots me.

I feel awkward but I raise a hand to him and nod.

He turns his face away, embarrassed maybe.

I get to thinking about how he reacted that day at the diner and how sure I am that he has more information then he’s letting on, about my mother. Now I’m thinking he might even know something that would be helpful in figuring out what her journals mean.

I start to head over toward him when Finn steps into my path.

“Coop. You made it.”

She smiles up at me and I’m caught in her eyes for a minute before I look up over her shoulder, only to find Jack is gone.

I look around and see him nowhere. He’s vanished.

“Dammit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just . . .” I blow it off. “Nothing,” I tell her. I can’t stress over where Jack Diggs might have run off to when the one person I’ve been dying to see all day is here. “I’m glad you came. How’d you get through the barricade?”

“They know Gran. You okay?”

I nod. I smile. “I’m fine.”

It’s not a lie. I am fine. “Now that you’re here,” I tell her.

She wants to ask me something but I don’t want to talk about anything right now. I just want to look at her. I am curious, though.

“Where
is
Geneva?”

“What? Oh, she was tired, needed a nap, we did a lot of running around today.”

“Yeah. Where were you?”

Our conversation is interrupted by the director of the funeral, whose voice is now booming with some announcements about final peace and tranquility.

I tense and Finn takes hold of my hand. She squeezes and I don’t pull away. I’m relieved she’s here.

We stand there together, while a few people stand up to say nice things about my mother.

She had a good heart, one woman tells the crowd.

A loyal friend, says another.

Neither one of them is anyone I recall being in Mom’s life.
They must be part of her “before”,
I think. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought about my mother having those moments in her life and I name it for her.

Before and after Ben Shaw.

My father isn’t mentioned by anyone and neither am I but no one knew I would be here so that doesn’t surprise me. The purpose of this ceremony is to celebrate Maggie Shaw, not dwell on the negative aspects of her life.

As the last person that wants to speak steps up to the casket, my phone rings. I answer it quickly and quietly while people give me looks of disapproval.

“Hello,” I whisper. Nobody answers.

Of course they don’t answer. Why would they answer?

I know who it is. Or isn’t, depending on how you look at it. I check the number anyway and sure enough, I’m right.

“Who is it?” Finn asks me. I shake my head. I listen some more to the static as it plays on the other end of the line, then the call goes dead.