The Witch of Belladonna Bay (31 page)

“Move, Ben!” I shouted.

He moved away from my still, beautiful Byrd, who seemed even smaller than she usually appeared.

“Work, please work,” I whispered, rubbing my hands together, praying.

They felt a bit like sandpaper. I clapped, once, and there it was, the glow. Born of sadness, of fear, longing or frustration. Whatever, wherever it came from, I didn't care. It was there. I laid my hands on her head and chest, like Minerva used to do when I was little.

It didn't take but a moment. Byrd coughed, sputtering out water. She jolted up, her eyes stricken with terror, which frightened me because I'd seen a lot of things on that girl's face, and terror wasn't one of them.

“You okay, honey?” Jackson said, picking her up and rocking her in his arms. Tears ran down his face.

But she couldn't say a word. Not even the Declaration of Independence.

Ben looked at me with haunted eyes. And for the first time I wondered if maybe I'd been the worst thing to ever happen to him. But the thought didn't make me any calmer.

“What the hell is going on here?” asked Minerva, walking up behind us, Carter by her side.

“It's all gone to hell in a handbasket, Minerva,” said Jackson, carefully passing Byrd from his arms to mine. “And I don't wanna know any more about it. Give me a holler when she's talkin' again, Wyn. And don't bother me until that time comes, you hear?” Jackson took a flask out of his back pocket, drank a large swig, and walked, shoulders defeated, back to the Big House. My broken father. “She'll be fine,” I heard him mutter to himself. “Mermaids don't drown.”

That sentence scared me more than anything.

Ben tried to console me. But I pushed him away.

“I don't even want to look at you,” I said.

“Why? What did I do?”

“You kept me away.”

“Come on over to the Big House with us, Ben. Let's give Bronwyn some time with Byrd,” said Carter.

“You used your hands,” said Minerva, who came to me and pushed the hair out of Byrd's face.

“I did.”

“Good girl,” she said and followed behind Carter.

Ben didn't say a word. He just followed them.

That's when Minerva stopped, turned around, and yelled, “I swear to Christ I leave for five seconds, for breakfast of all things, and this family falls apart.”

“Apparently so,” I said, carrying my little Byrd into the safe haven of the cottage. She'd built it for me, but now
she
was the one who needed it.

And then I stopped short.

She found him.
Byrd must have found Jamie's body, because if she hadn't, Lottie wouldn't have let her cross back over. Blue or not.

She'd come face-to-face with her biggest sorrow. I wanted to scream for a thousand years.

*   *   *

Minerva, Carter, Ben, and Jackson came back like ants to a picnic to check on her not half an hour later. Min even brought a carafe of
coffee.

“Don't be angry with me, Bronwyn,” Ben pleaded, after we tucked Byrd into my bed.

“I don't understand you. I don't understand a lot of things,” I said, looking down at my hands. Hands that had taken millions of photos, hands that had saved Byrd.

And then I walked away. I needed to clear my mind and find the truth. Until Byrd could talk, she wasn't out of the woods. And I wouldn't have her death on my conscience along with everything else I'd done. So I went to find Stick.

“Let me come with you!” yelled Ben.

But I kept on walking. I didn't even turn around. I was being rude, I know. But it's part of who I am. Rude, entitled, vain, loyal, and passionate. How on earth had I forgotten who I was?

Didn't matter. I had
things
to do.

*   *   *

I walked down Main Street with a purpose. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I couldn't quite grasp it. I stopped, every so often, to lean on the trees that lined the street.

“I still see them, Mama. I still see the why's in the trees. But now I understand. I'd just like things to be quiet. Just for a moment. So I can catch my breath. Is that how you felt?”

The wind kicked up. A
not at all
usual thing to happen on a humid July day. It swirled around me, and I heard Naomi's voice.
Yes.

I took off running down the street and didn't stop until I was in front of the sheriff's office. My reflection in the glass was distorted and sweaty. A Bronwyn I didn't recognize. Hair sticking out, curls flying everywhere. Thinner. The realest version of myself I'd ever seen. BitsyWyn all grown up. That's who she was.

Walking into Stick's air-conditioned office was like getting ice water thrown on my face.

“Wyn! What's goin' on? You're all flustered!”

“Why, thank you, Sheriff!” I said, as Southern as I remembered passive-aggression to be. “Now, if we are done with commenting on my physical appearance, may I ask you a very important question?”

“Sure thing. Anything. You know that.”

“Is there
anything
you know about this whole case that you are not being completely honest about?”

“What do you mean? There's a whole lot of questions, that's for sure.”

“How do you know Grant didn't do it?” I asked. “Besides the fact that you all used to be friends. How are you so sure? You better tell me or I swear, now that I'm back in my daddy's good graces, I'll have you fired so fast you won't know what happened to you.”

He paused, but not for long.

“Well, we were together.” Stick was looking down, unable to look me in the eyes. And he was scratching at his damn side. “So, I'd say I have a pretty good reason.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Do you have any idea…” I panicked for a bit, thinking about what holes his confession could poke in my theories.

“Look, I didn't want you to know I wasn't here. I mean, the biggest crime in our town's history happens, and I take the night to go to NOLA and party with Grant? I was embarrassed, Wyn. Plain and simple.”

“Okay, I get that. Everyone deserves to let off steam,” I said, even though I wanted to slap him. I wanted to slap everyone. “But you didn't investigate Grant because you were embarrassed?”

“Oh, come on, Wyn! He didn't do it. You know it, I know it. He couldn't have done it. It's like believing Paddy did it. It ain't right.”

“So if Paddy didn't do it, and Grant couldn't have done it … why is my brother in jail instead of Grant?! Seein' as how they're both innocent!”

I paced. If that wasn't the biggest fuckall of all time.

“Look, if you really want to figure this out, start with Byrd, Wyn. She knows the truth. She has to. She knows everything.”

“First of all,” I said, pounding on his desk, “Byrd is not the caretaker of this town and she does
not
know everything. You people. Really. And second? Right now, Byrd is at my cottage in my bed unable to talk. She's been over to Belladonna.”

“Damn,” he said, resting his elbows on the counter between us and rubbing his temples. “Okay. Byrd might not be able to talk, but think like a detective … her things, the stuff she surrounds herself with. Start there. As the Old-timers say, ‘Thems that's closest to us ain't nothin' but moonshine and shadow.'”

“First things first, Stick. Now that you've come clean about Grant, I want to know more about Carter. After that, I want to find the damn murder weapon. As a matter of fact, let's reverse that. I'll go back and look through Lottie's house, while you find whatever information you gathered about Carter during the investigation.”

“Well, Wyn, see…”

“Of course. You didn't do any of that, did you?”

“Paddy confessed, Wyn. What part of that don't you understand?”

“What part of
you didn't believe he did it,
don't
you
understand? I mean, hell, Stick, weren't you even curious?”

He just looked at me, not able to say anything else.

“Oh, forget it. I'm goin'.”

“Do you need the keys?”

“No, Stick. I never even gave them back to you.”

*   *   *

I could feel Grant there even before I saw the yellow lines of caution tape in the yard were taken down.

I heard him breathe in and out, in my mind, before I noticed the cut lawn or heard the sound of the wet saw coming from the porch.

And if I'd been smart, the smart Yankee I'd learned to be during all my years away, I'd have simply turned around. Because I didn't need to see him again. At least I thought I didn't.
Our minds and our hearts do battle inside of us every day.

I stood at the end of the flagstone path that led to the front porch and waited for him to notice me.

He was standing there, leaning over the saw and cutting what looked like tile. He wore no protective goggles, and he had a cigarette hanging out of one side of his mouth. He was always able to do that—smoke without having to pull the cigarette out between inhales and exhales.

Some thought it odd. I found it sexy. The ultimate in multitasking. He finished cutting the piece of tile and stood up straight as he saw me. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it out in an ashtray, precariously perched on the railing.

It took him a second to say “Hey,” but just like always, I waited. It's always best to give a Southern man a second to get his bearings. Things work slower here, conversation happens in a much more practical way than up north. I was starting to realize that all that “fast conversatin',” as Byrd called it, was simply a wash of words. Because how do you find the things that really mean something in a fountain of words?

“Hey,” he said. But he didn't come down off the porch. I could tell he wanted to. I could almost feel the strain of his body working to keep still.

“How come you're here?” I asked.

“I don't know. Maybe your visit made me realize a few things.”

He sat down on the porch steps, and I walked slowly up the path, trying hard not to step on the grass that grew in between, like we used to do as kids

“Where's the Angel of Death?” I asked.

He'd taken a sip of his sweet tea and spit some out with a fast laugh.

“Yeah, I guess you'd think like that about her. And you ain't half wrong neither. I had to get outta there, Wyn. Hadda get home and start facing … hell, I don't know.” He took a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his T-shirt and shook one out.

“Want one?” he asked

“Sure,” I said.

I took one, and he searched for a light, bumping into me as he did, making us both laugh. For a second I felt free, like nothing bad had happened and we were there under normal circumstances.

“A lighter would help. I'll get one,” he said. “Want some tea? I'm goin' inside anyway. And I fixed the porch swing and fan if you wanna sit down up there and have a talk.”

“That'd be great. You sure were busy this morning,” I said as he walked inside. My voice held an awkward flirtation that made part of me cringe.

Hadn't I come here for facts? Hadn't I come here to find proof that put more blame on him than Paddy? Didn't it seem strange, maybe a little more than strange, that directly after he knew that I was thinking of him as a suspect he comes back and cleans up the place? Alibi or not, Stick could have been wrong about the time of death.

He'd been wrong about everything else.

But I didn't care. All I wanted to do was sit on their porch and smoke a cigarette, drinking some sweet tea, just like when we were kids, hoping he'd sit real close when he came back outside.

My ring felt even heavier on my finger. Oh, Ben. What was I doing to you?

When Grant came back out, he balanced a clean ashtray, a lighter, and two glasses of iced tea as he pushed the screen door open and let it slam.

The way that door slammed.

It used to slam twice …
once with Charlotte and me running out. And once with Grant and Paddy following along after us. All of us free. All of us sent out to play.

Free. Free to do and be and play, free from the future. The horrible future that I think, now, we all felt pressing on us.

Out of breath and halfway to the beach, we'd stop.

“Wanna play hide-'n'-seek?” said Paddy, always. It was his favorite game.

“Nah,” said Grant one day. We were thirteen at the time, Grant and me. Charlotte and Paddy were twelve.

“Aw, you just wanna go work on your boat engine,” said Charlotte, who usually lost all interest in playing if Grant wasn't around.

“I say we play hide-'n'-seek backwards,” he said.

“How do you mean?” asked Patrick, his amazing, open face completely ready to be duped.

“Me'n Wyn are gonna team up, see, and you and Lottie you go on and hide. But you have to stay there until we find you. No runnin' for base if you can't see us, okay?”

“So we stay together?” asked Patrick, already liking the idea, because he already liked Charlotte.

“Yeah, you got the picture, now … go!” he said, sending them both off running before he even had a chance to count.

“Come on over here with me, “he said, taking my hand.

“They ran off that way,” I said, pointing in the other direction.

“You really think I wanna play that fool game? I want some time alone with you, Wyn.”

My heart beat so fast I thought it would explode. That I'd die right there.

He led me to a bench by the beach. We sat there, staring at it, but he didn't let go of my hand.

Is there anything else in the world that compares to the first time a boy you like holds your hand?

“You gonna kiss me, Grant?” I asked.

That's when he laughed, his great big old laugh that sounded like he was much older than thirteen. Sounded like it should belong to a man that lived a long and wise life.