The Witch of Belladonna Bay (11 page)

“Yessir, I do. I hope it comes and takes down this place and you and Mama with it.”

That made him come right out onto the porch.

He sat next to me on the swing, and I squished myself as far away from him as I could.

Why do you suppose we do that, push ourselves away from those we love right when we need them the most? The whole damn fight could have been avoided right there if I told the truth—that I loved them both more than anything—and just sidled up next to him for the hug he wanted. But if BitsyWyn Walen was anything, it was downright stubborn.

“Go on inside, Daddy. Go on in and check on Mama. I don't need you now. Paddy don't need you. We needed you years ago.”

“Don't drag me into this thing, Wyn.” Paddy laughed it off, but there was a whole lot of anger all caught up in my chest and brewing up like the storm.

“Oh, here we go. You've been
so
neglected. Jaysus, sugar. You've never wanted for anything. And I love you. You know that. And your mama loves you,” he said.

That was it.

“Love? Oh, please. If all this”—I made a wide circle with my arms—“if all this is love, then I don't want it! I don't want you! I don't want any of this! You are
killing
her! You're a fucking murderer!”

Lord, how we sometimes scream out our own prophesies.

“Bronwyn, quiet that vile tongue of yours or I swear to God I will rip it out, and rip it out slow,” said my father through clenched teeth.

“Good! Because then I could go into town and actually have some abuse to report!”

“You'd have to bring a pad and pencil with you, as you wouldn't be able to speak.” Paddy smiled, trying to get a laugh out of us.

My father grew still. Our brutal words leaving marks on both of us. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I continued talking, knowing I was hurting him, wanting to cut him deeper than he could ever cut me.

“Ten to one you get up right after this little ‘vile' speech of mine and drown your sorrows in that bourbon calling to you downstairs. But how about we have a little wager, Daddy? Tell you what: if you stay here, right here next to me, and watch the storm come in with us, I'll shut up. Forever.”

Only now did I realize the trap I'd set. There was no way he wasn't going to need a drink. An alcoholic always chooses escape. But I was sixteen with a heart full of anger, and a whole world to punish.

He left, and I scooted right on back to my spot on my swing.

“Nice job,” said Paddy, clapping slowly.

“Screw off. You want some, too?” I said. But I couldn't help but smile. Patrick never made me mad. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it.

He laughed. “I swear, Wyn, you made the storm worse with all that crazy fuckall. Look how much darker the sky is now.”

“Shut up and watch,” I said.

The storm crept in, a gangrene god's hand, pointing dead fingers at the swirling clouds. The opposite of a golden touch. More Medusa than Midas.

I closed my eyes, envisioning Magnolia Creek and all its residents.

The children slept, deaf to the trouble brewing above. The adults held each other, silently waiting. Lovers couldn't speak the words waiting on their lips.

Then, when the storm arrived, Paddy and I danced like savages on the porch as the leaves spiraled frantically, bullied by the winds.

We were different from everyone else. A stupid, brave breed.

Then we ran wildly, hollering with mad joy all the way to their house and sat there at their cozy kitchen table. Susan always had something delicious to eat. That night she'd made a big pot of minestrone soup. Steaming, and full of greens, beans, and some salt pork, it warmed my cold soul. And Grant sat too close to me and made me tingle, God love him, as we heard the news about the storm.

All the surrounding towns had a death toll but not Magnolia Creek.

“It's your mama,” said Susan in a quiet, solemn voice. “She's failin' fast, and she's creating' all this stuff with her mind. I swear, I don't know if it's God or the Devil in that woman.”

“Mama!” scolded Charlotte. She loved Naomi. So did Susan, but my mother had become unkind as she slid into the throes of her last big bout with opium. Susan had grown distrustful of Naomi. And Naomi had fired her from the Big House. That's how bad it got near the end.

Susan Masters. The comfort she gave me. Grant, God, Grant, so handsome. Sweet Paddy. And poor Lottie, gone forever.
I didn't even get to say goodbye.

The remorse set in. I wanted to slap myself for being such a stupid, selfish girl. But then Byrd emerged, and before I knew it, my mother's ghost was trying to hug me, Grant's ring was back on my finger, and Byrd had offered me her hand.

Emotional whiplash, that's what it was.

“You're hurting a lot, being back here, ain't ya?” asked Byrd.

“I suppose I am.”

“Well then, let's take you someplace new, okay? New and old at the same time.”

“That sounds like a great plan.” I smiled.

Byrd took my hand gently, and that's when it happened.

At first I thought it was sunlight coming through the windows. But it was the wrong time of day, and there were no shafts of light to make dancing, shimmering dust mites.

It was her hand. Glowing warm and bright inside mine. The two of us stared, watching the pulse grow between us.

Love, respect, trust. They all flowed from her hand to mine.

I never wanted to let go.

She held my hand tighter and looked up at me, curious and open. But she didn't let go. Instead, she led me right out of the Big House, taking me out of my past and straight into a future I didn't know I was looking for.

*   *   *

Her hand, soft and small in mine, pulled me down a tunnel-like path crowded over with live oaks and willow branches. A parallel rabbit hole I'd gone down often as a child.

“You know where we're goin'?” she asked.

“Sure I do. My old stomping ground.”

“A place you went to feel safe, right?”

“Yes.”

And right there, in the middle of what some would deem a forest, there was that familiar grouping of small cottages built for the workers who ran the sawmill. The Whalens kept them up even after there was no more work for tenants.

Most of them were one-room domiciles with kitchens and bathrooms on the outside.

“Minerva and Carter lived in that one over there since they went and got hitched.” She pointed at a shack closer to the creek. “But they moved back into the Big House with me and Jackson when … you know.”

Fresh paint and a small garden out front told me Minerva still spent some time at her “old” place.

“She seems happier now than she did when I was small,” I said.

“Don't let her fool you. She's still just as mean. Now, take off your shoes.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Feet tell you a lot about a place. Sharp, soft, safe. You know.”

“I don't think I want to let go of your hand, Byrd.”

She let go, reaching up to touch my face. “What happened there between us? That glow? It's only ever happened once, and I'm takin' it as a sign. So I'll trust you, Aunt Wyn. That light lives inside of us now, and it ain't goin' nowhere.”

She called me Wyn.
I took off my shoes.

“Careful for the crawfish holes! It's been dry, and they come all the way up into the mud,” she said, skipping ahead of me.

“I
did
grow up here, you know.”

She turned around and walked backward as she talked, “I keep on forgettin' that! You were here before I was. But you still never saw things the same way. No one does. Maybe you will
now
though.”

“I hope so,” I said.

The birds were chirping in the trees. I glanced up. The leaves of the magnolias were shiny and broad. Their undersides varied from red to brown, their big pods, left over from the spring blossoms, spiked and sticky. Alien and otherworldly.

Those magnolias were more mysterious than any sort of magic. You have to love it when a tree can make seeing spirits seem normal.

“Wanna hear my favorite Christian song?” asked Byrd.

Her voice was high and beautiful, pure like the clearest water.

“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful; the Lord God made them all.”

“You religious, Byrd?”

“No, ma'am, I ain't, but I think it's important for people to have someone to look up to. Someone to make them feel all safe and cozy in their souls.”

“Who helps you feel that way?”

“Jamie. But he's lost. And I can't find him.”

“He's your best friend, isn't he?”

“Yeah. He's a bunch of other things, too. I suppose Jamie does that for me. Jamie's my own personal Jesus!”

Then she shrieked with laughter, running ahead of me.

That's when I saw it. The last river shack on the very edge of our property. The one Paddy and I used as our playhouse growing up. The place we ran to when we needed to escape.

She'd transformed it completely.

Byrd was already jumping up and down on the porch. “Hurry up!” she yelled.

I don't know if it was the way the sun hit the new paint or maybe it was my worn brain, overstimulated from feeling my dead mother's breath on the back of my neck, but whatever it was, Byrd had created my dream house.

“How did you do this?” I asked.

She was grinning at me. “Oh, I suppose I had a bit a help, here and there, you know, with the heavy construction. The Towners helped out, mostly.”

“Did you read my mind?” I asked.

“Of course! You're a silly aunt. I couldn't just guess on this. I had to be sure. Can you predict things, too?”

“No, I mean … not like this. I used to be able to see a few things other people couldn't, but I haven't used that muscle in a long time.”

“Maybe, because we glowed … the magic will grow. Then we can be magic girls together! Witches in wonderland. That sounds pretty, don't it?”

“It does. And thank you, honey, for the cottage. I can't wait to see inside.”

I took in the pale red metal roof, the pristine glossy white outer walls with light purple hurricane shutters, the color of lavender flowers in full bloom. Naomi and Minerva always used to say that lavender grew better in the rocky, sandy soil up north. Ben did too, when I'd try to grow it on our fertile land in New York State. He'd say, “Lavender's for luck. That's why it grows in the places where it shouldn't, and mostly when you're not paying attention.”

Bits of butter-colored, gingerbread trim clung to the small peaks and brackets. And the porch stood solid, coated in a deep, shiny Caribbean blue. I came up the stairs, barefoot, and remembered my dream from the plane. Blue floor. Bare feet.

I'd seen my future. But where was the snake?

“Go on in!” she said, full of excitement. “See it on your own. I'll be right here on the porch with Dolores. She won't come inside yet, not until she knows you. She's a nervous Nelly.”

Byrd had created a doll's house for me. I'm sure she knew well the part in
Tom Sawyer
where he got all his friends to paint the fence. I could envision her with a broad smile, sitting up in the plum trees eating one after another while she watched her vision unfold. All the free construction happening while she spat pits on the ground and made her face purple.

As I walked into the newly renovated cottage, the open floor plan and sea breeze colors made me feel right at home.

I wandered over to an old record player and found one of my favorite albums waiting for me. John Coltrane.

As I put it on, and the first strains floated out into the Alabama heat, my mind drifted to Ben's hands. I closed my eyes, and I could almost feel them on me …

My eyes popped open in alarm.

She was
still
reading my mind.

“Miss Byrd, you get outta my head! Some things are private!” I called with only the hint of a smile in my voice.

Byrd came in from the porch, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She looked ready for a scolding. Dolores refused to follow her. She sat there whining after Byrd instead.

“Quiet, Dolores,” she hushed, and her dog listened quick, lying down after a final whine. Then she turned back to me. “Sex ain't private. It belongs to everyone, Aunt Wyn. And besides, I think it's romantic. I can't wait till I'm old enough to do those things.”

I could tell she was scared. She didn't know how I was going to react. And to be honest, I didn't know
how
to react. I'm not a mother. So I did what my heart told me to.

I held out my arms and she ran right into them. I picked her up and carried her onto the porch, stepping over Dolores, hoping we might be able to catch a breeze. I sat us down on a cushioned wicker love seat, and she curled up in my lap just like a cat. The relief flooded out of her like an electric current.

“Why are you so all fired up to be grown, honey?” I asked, rocking her a little and breathing in her smell.

“I don't know,” said Byrd in a whisper that came from deep inside. “I just don't know, Aunt Wyn.”

I rocked her some more, looking out over the wide porch railings at Belladonna Bay.

“I hear your mama, Stella, had magic in her, too.” I said.

“I don't want to talk about her.”

“Why not? I'd love to know more about her.”

“She died when I was born, remember?”

I fell silent then. The last thing I wanted to do was bring up the same sort of sorrow inside of her that was lurking inside me.
It doesn't matter, it's already there,
said a voice in my head, one I thought I recognized.

“Aunt Wyn?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“What does it feel like to be in love?”