The Witch of Belladonna Bay (28 page)

Now, do as I say, BitsyWyn Whalen.

Run

Run

Run!

I looked back up at the branch, hoping to catch another glimpse of her, but she wasn't there. Instead, a snake, the one from my dream on the plane, was curled up in her place. It raised its head to strike me but instead struck out in the direction of my cottage.

That's when I knew. And that's when I ran.

I got to the end of the path, just in time to see Byrd walk straight into the mist over Belladonna Bay.

I kept running, screaming her name, and I must have screamed help because I heard Jackson and Ben calling from behind me, their footfalls growing close.

“Wyn! Stop! You don't know what you're doin,'” yelled Jackson.

“You don't know shit about shit!” I yelled back and dove straight into the mist after Byrd.

Only, I found Charlotte instead.

 

It All Comes Out in the Wash

Evil and good walk hand in hand, like hate and love. You can't have one without the other.

—Byrd, age eleven

 

22

Byrd

Then if a child comes to you, and if he laughs, if he has golden hair, if he doesn't answer your questions, you'll know who he is.

—The Little Prince

Why is it that just when we think we're free of trouble, it comes up behind us and hits us in the back of the head? I'd been lookin' for trouble since I was a baby. Carryin' the weight of everyone's sorrows and fears. And the mornin' when my own worst fear was realized, I had no thought of it whatsoever. I woke up and went out onto the porch to find Aunt Wyn. That's when I took a good, hard look across the creek at Belladonna and noticed somethin' peculiar. The mist had lifted … just a bit. But that bit was enough to let me see a familiar shadow movin' back and forth on the island itself.

Well, hell …
just when I was startin' to feel normal.

So, I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and ran straight across that creek. I don't think I was afraid. Not really.

When I crossed over, I was ready for the mist to be sweet and clingy like buttercream. But I wasn't quite prepared for the nausea and complete joy that hit me all at once. Pretty soon there was nothing but mist all around me, and I couldn't help but start thinkin' on Naomi.

I wondered if she'd hopped, skipped, and jumped across the creek or if she'd taken her time. I reckon she just ran across not thinkin' 'cause I don't think she did much of that. Thinkin', that is.

Then I wondered whether or not this feeling washing across me, all wonderful, horrible, and wonderful again, wasn't something she felt when she did those drugs. And something Jackson felt when he was three sheets gone, something just so delicious that I'd want to stay inside it forever and ever. I had to fight it 'cause I started to understand all those stories of people not comin' back at all, or not comin' back the same. But then I thought about Carter. You know when somethin' really important happens and the whole thing just melts out of your damn brain? I'd been so worried that I killed my Little Prince and his mama, and all filled up with guilt over my daddy in jail, that I'd forgotten about Carter. He'd gone into the mist. He'd gone over and come back, sure … he was covered in blood, but he'd come back. And he hadn't changed.

So maybe the mist didn't do nothin' at all?

A person can go from terrified to brave real fast.

And you know what? The second I wasn't afraid … that mist was
gone
.

Also, I'd figured everything out. And I couldn't let myself get all sweaty with fear. I had to come back from Belladonna in one piece. Because everything rode on it.

I had to save them all.

So I needed to be brave. Too brave. You might be askin' yourself if there's such a thing as too brave. Well, there is.

When that mist cleared, I was standin' there on the Belladonna's banks, bein' all brave, lookin' right at my very own Little Prince.

Ever been on a roller coaster and you're at the top, right about to go over and straight down?

That's what it felt like. Standing there, looking at him. My heart dropped straight down into my toes.

“Damn, girl. It sho' took you a long time to git on over here,” he said.

“Are you a ghost, Jamie? No foolin' with me!”

He smiled big. “I ain't no ghost! I'm as real as you are. Pinch me if you wanna.”

“I didn't know you were over here … I didn't … oh, Jamie!”

Jamie. I ran to him, up the small sandy bank and toward the tall pines that seemed to go up for ages. The sunlight shone silver, diffused here by the mist, still lingering above the island like a bubble.

He picked me up right off my feet, and I realized he'd gotten taller. I touched his face and his arms and his nose to my nose. Jamie. He smelled good. Like sunshine and love and the deep red dirt he'd been livin' on.

If love has a smell, it's Jamie.

“What took you so long, Byrdie? I missed you.”

“You know as well as I do that I can't just see things when I want. Especially you! Who's closer to me than you? No one, that's who.”

Jamie looked down, away from me.

“I'm real sorry about your daddy, Byrd. I wish he hadn't confessed to anything. He didn't do nothin'.”

“How do you even know what's been happenin'? You've been all cooped up over here, right?”

“No … I mean … I just want you to know he shouldn't be in prison.”

“Well, hell, Jamie! You better come back on home and tell everyone that! Do you know who did it? Was it Grant? Aunt Wyn thinks it's Grant one second and then she goes all crazy fuckall—”

“Don't curse, Byrd. It sounds terrible comin' out of that pretty mouth of yours. Time you learned some manners, don't you think? But, nah, it ain't Grant. But I wish it was. I wish it
was
him in the kitchen that night. I hate him and wish he was dead.”

We sat down next to a small fire he'd made in the sand out of pine mulch and needles and twigs. It smelled so strong. If you eat pine and don't die, it makes you forget. I hoped that just smelling it wouldn't make me or Jamie forget anything because I needed to know all the things he knew. And my heart was
singing
. My daddy hadn't done it! And Jamie was alive!

“What's your trouble with Grant?” I asked. I'd only met him once. But I'd liked him. He seemed lost and broken. A deep sadness lived inside Grant Masters. And he was handsome. I like pretty, broken things.

“You know what I found out?” Jamie's voice got real hard just then. “Not two weeks before … you know, she died … I found out that he ain't my uncle. He's my daddy. It's sick! They're brother and sister!”

Well, now … maybe we are a bit backwards,
I thought, but didn't want to give him more fuel for the fire burnin' inside him. “Not really. Not by blood,” I said.

“Sure are … by the way they grew up and all, raised like sister and brother. And what's worse? My mama'd loved him her entire life, till it finally took over her whole self. She got him real drunk one night, and he fell for it. They both got wound up in the worst kind of weakness, and used it against each other.

“So they did what they did, and my mama got me. Only she didn't get him. Because he felt tricked and sick. Lied to. I'm a living lie, Byrdie. And then he wanted to see me, and my mama was yellin' at him on the phone. That fight I told you about? Well, I was too dang embarrassed to tell you the whole reason why … me bein' a lie and all … but he wanted to see me. And she was screamin' and cryin' and tellin' him that she wouldn't let him near me unless he'd love her, too. Can you imagine? She was more desperate than a pig on the way to bein' bacon. He'd left me for all my years with that crazy piece of work. I hate him for leaving me. I'll hate him forever.”

I knew right then how angry Jamie musta been. He'd spent his whole life tryin' to figure out who his daddy was. The only thing we ever knew for sure was that it wasn't
my
daddy because we'd asked and asked when we were little. And I know Jamie'd had a hard spot on his heart ever since he finally believed it. Because he'd have liked to have my daddy, who wouldn't? Only I wasn't upset about it, 'cause then we couldn't grow up and get married and have babies like I thought we would. Which made me understand just how mad Jamie was, and just how desperate Lottie must have been. I loved her right then, Lottie, because I could have turned out just like her.

It was damn messy.

“A foul business for sure, Jamie,” I said, leanin' forward to push some of his hair out of his eyes, my hands glowing from just from bein' near him.

But still. He knew what happened, so I had to ask. Only I shut my eyes tight when I did because I was afraid of the answer. It had to be bad, bad enough for him to hide out here away from me.

“Did I do it, Jamie? I did, didn't I? I did it and you came out here to either get away from me or to protect me. Right? That's got to be it. You been stayin' away so's you could protect me.”

He didn't say anything, so I opened my eyes.

He'd stood up and started walking around in circles. He reminded me of a peacock the way he was puffing out his chest. He kept tryin' to say things, but he couldn't get nothin' out of his mouth.

“I'm like the moon,” he started, “the hidden side of the moon. Not seen because it don't want to be seen. Everyone knows ther's is shadow there, but no one looks. It's like that with me, Byrd. I'm part illuminated, part in shadow—and that part that shines is all you ever wanted to see. But it kept getting smaller, and now it's dark. I'm a new moon now, Byrd. All there is, is shadow. Can you still see me? Do you still love me?”

He was talkin' crazy. And I couldn't talk at all. I tried to make words and they wouldn't come outa my mouth either. He noticed and got even more worked up. He hadn't answered my question. What did that mean? And I thought about my book,
The Little Prince,
and how at the end, before he died, he got to talkin' crazy, too.

“I swear it, Byrd. I got home that night after we'd been fishin'. It started with that weak little tree in the front yard. I'd told her and told her to get the guy over who could fix it. But she'd been lazy and never called.

“I had no intention of killing her until I walked home and saw that tree all bent and broken. And I thought to myself, ‘Damn, I better just cut that sucker down, because nothing so strong should ever display such weakness.' And then I walked into my house and there she was, leaning up against our dirty, worn-down counter, sipping a glass of wine. Lookin' old.

“For the first time, I saw her,
really
saw her. Her gray hairs. Her roundness. She was old, Byrd. Like, all of a sudden.

“‘What you starin' at, Jamie?' she asked me. ‘You still mad I won't let you go over to NOLA to see that broken man of a father?' Seemed she'd had too much to drink already. I put my hands in my pockets and realized after fishin' I never gave you your knife back. So I grabbed it and …

“I killed her.”

Sometimes, there are no words.

Jamie didn't like nothin' weak, I knew that.

But that wasn't enough of an explanation. A dead tree, some mean words? There had to be more.

“But, Jamie,” I asked, “can you tell me
why
you did it? It can't just be 'cause she looked old. Did she come at you first?”

His answer came out so calm that I had to believe the thing he'd said about the moon. He'd gone dark.

“She was all tired from work and sat down at the crummy kitchen table. Same one she probably sat at when she was a kid. And lit a smoke. Asked me to take off her shoes.

“‘Take off my shoes, Jamie boy. Do you mind? Mama's been on her feet all day,' she said.

“And her feet, Byrd, you know how they smelled? Used up, that's how. Weak, sweaty working feet.”

“She
does
work hard, your mama,” I said. “I mean … did.”

“Lemme finish. So I asked, ‘Mama, you want a pain pill?' And I knew she'd say yes, but I gave her one from last year, where the dose was high 'cause she was eatin' 'em like candy, remember? She took it with her wine, got all groggy, and … Bydie? Why did it have to be like that? Why couldn't she be like you and Jackson? All smellin' of flowers and money. I'm like you, not her. She made me sick. And then I thought I'd kill her, like I kill all those animals when they ain't no use to nothin' no more. I told myself to stop thinkin' that way, that it was sick with a capital
S
. But when she asked me to rub her feet, I don't know, I just—”

He broke off, cryin'.

I can't stand to see Jamie cry. It ain't normal. So I held him, because no matter what he'd done, he's still my prince.

“How'd you get over here, you run?” I asked him.

“No. It's kind of a mystery to me. I was so crazy when I saw my mama there on the floor and seen what I done. I tried to cut my own neck, see?” He showed me a small, ragged scar on the side of his neck.

“But then I must have passed out, straight on into the glass door by the dining room. I had glass up and down my backside. And when I woke up, I was here in the cottage I built when I was little and a fire was goin' and I felt a little better. Only I don't know how I got here.”

“Jamie,” I asked, “you've been over here, without me? For years? I thought you were afraid of this place.”

He shifted his feet a little and looked up into the sun, squinting like he was tryin' to figure out how to weasel himself out of the biggest lie of all time.