The Witch of Belladonna Bay (32 page)

“Ain't you direct?” he said.

“Well, I simply wanted to know because, well, if a girl is going to have her first kiss she should be prepared.”

He leaned in and tilted my face with his finger on my chin, and that kiss—the kiss all first kisses are made of: cotton and hot summer days—left me thick with new sensations. Waking up parts of me that I didn't know I had.

A girl's first kiss. In one kiss, climbing a tree will never be the same. Music will never sound the same. One kiss. That first kiss changes everything for everyone. But I couldn't help but feel, that day, with the breeze off the Gulf and Grant's strong mouth pressed against mine, that I was special. That no one had ever had a first kiss quite like that.

“Well,” he said, pulling away from me. “How'd I do?”

“Fair,” I said, and then pinched him on his upper arm and ran away. Ran all the way home. Not because I was scared but because I wanted to be alone and remember that kiss. Make it last in my mind.

So I ran, leaving Grant to find Paddy and Charlotte. And when I got home, I went in through the kitchen and straight up the stairs, determined to lie on my great big bed under the ceiling fan and stare into my memories for a while.

But Naomi was standing at the top of the stairs. I was so surprised to see her up and about that I almost fell backwards.

Instead, I tried to get past her without touching her, I didn't want to be touched by her. I didn't even want to make eye contact with her. But she held her two stick-thin arms out, blocking me.

“Where have you been?” she asked me.

I decided to push past her anyway. And as I did, she fell limp against the hallway wall.

“I am talking to you,” she said.

I turned around. That rage I had as a child held no bounds.

“Now? You want to talk to me now? I haven't even
seen
you in a week!”

“It's not my fault, Wyn,” she said. But she used that voice, that soft, weak voice that made me cringe. The one that she used when she needed attention.

“It's not
your
fault! What are you even talking about? Who smokes that poison into their lungs, Mama?”

“Where were you?” she repeated.

“I was out playin' with Paddy and Lottie and Grant, okay? May I go now?”

“Why don't you kids hang around here anymore? I miss you all so much.”

She walked toward me and put her arms around me and smelled my hair. I used to love that when I was little.

“Because you told us we couldn't! Now stop touching me, Mama,” I said, pulling away.

“You've been kissed,” she said.

I turned around and headed to my room, fast.

“
You are too young to be kissing!”
she screamed after me. And she continued screaming and screaming incoherently. My door was shut, my eyes were shut, my ears were shut, and I could still hear her. And then Minerva must have come, or Daddy, because the world went quiet again.

And then, as if nothing happened, I stared at my ceiling as I'd first planned and remembered the feeling of Grant's lips on mine.

The screen door slammed and I was all grown up again with more on my mind than kissing. Because it slammed only once. Lottie and Patrick weren't around to make it slam again.

“What are you thinkin' on?” asked Grant, jolting me back to the present.

He didn't sit next to me, just leaned against the railing and handed me a glass of tea and a lighter for the cigarette I was still holding.

“So I see you're fixing up the place.” I ignored the question, placing the glass of tea on the ground and lighting my cigarette.

“Yeah, I figured it was about time I came on back. You know. Face stuff.”

“So you said. What are you facing, Grant?”

“Demons, I guess. Mistakes. Seems to me, you're doin' the same thing.”

I laughed, because he was right. And because he always made me laugh.

“I suppose so,” I said. “Only I'm not cleaning up a crime scene.”

“Stick told me I could. Told me it wasn't considered an active crime scene anymore.”

I just looked at him, standing there all solid and handsome. I noticed the bloodshot eyes were gone. I noticed that he seemed less rough than he had in New Orleans. He cleaned up quick.

“Well, I was just coming on by to check it out for myself. I know there's a murder weapon around here somewhere.”

“What you want it for, Nancy Drew?”

“Because it might have prints on it. I have to figure this thing out, Grant. There's not much time left.”

“Maybe whoever did it wiped it clean.”

“Maybe they did,” I said, eyeing him.

“You really think I did it?” he asked.

“I don't care.” I lied. “But I do know Paddy didn't do it. I know it like I know the back of my own hands. Anyway, Stick just gave you an alibi.”

He put out his cigarette and went back to the wet saw.

“Look, I'm tryin' real hard to get myself back on track. I quit drinkin' and got a job over at Sam's. Barback, but it's a start. I don't need this shit from you. And you know what else?”

“What?' I asked, getting up and snubbing out my own half-finished cigarette.

“You never could see past your own self. You're so sure Paddy's innocent. But you don't even know him anymore. You may think you know him like the back of your hand, but my mama always had a saying that I think is more appropriate for you right now.”

“Oh, yeah? What was that?”

“Can't see the forest for the trees. You're blind to what's closest to you, Wyn. Just like all you Whalens. Just like all of us, I guess.”

I felt the anger in my throat tighten into a knot. I walked over to him and poured my sweet tea over his head. Then I punched him hard. In the arm.

“Fuck you,” I said icily, walking down the porch steps. I took one at a time. Waiting for some retaliation.

There wasn't any.

“Don't bother calling me, you son of a bitch,” I yelled from the main road. The saw started up again, only I heard him yell after me anyway.

“I never said shit about calling you.”

Damn. He hadn't. Had he?

 

26

Byrd

One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.

—The Little Prince

My prince had created a castle out of all the things that had gone missing since he killed his mother.

These were Jamie's prizes: corrugated rooftop shingles, trash cans, plyboard, even half of a garage door.

He had built me a junk castle and a junk garden, but it was beautiful. Half in a tree, rambling down to a ground floor. He was a regular Robinson Crusoe.

“Come live with me and be my love,” he said. “Or princess of the alligators, you like that title, right?”

How could I still love him? It don't matter, I just did.
Don't trouble yourself anymore about it, just keep on listenin' to the story like you been doin'.
But my infernal mouth took over.

“I don't want to stay here, Jamie. I want to go back home and put everything back to the way it was before.”

“We can't do that, Byrd. If'n I go back, they'd put me away. Somewhere for crazy people. Like in that movie
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
a place like that, only for kids. They might not even let me out when I git grown. They could just keep me.”

I stood still, crossing my arms. But I have to admit, the castle was really interestin' and I wanted to explore it some. But I knew I had to stand my ground.

“I wouldn't let them do that. I'd be on your side the whole way.”

“Don't you care that I killed her, Byrdie? Ain't you scared of me now?”

“No, I ain't!”

I meant it. But that didn't matter. I needed to get back so I could tell someone what he did so I could get my daddy outta jail.

“There has got to be some way that we can
all
get what we want,” I said.

“I want you to stay here with me. It's nice here. Quiet. We could live here together like in
The Blue Lagoon.
”

“You know what I think? I think you an' me spent too many Sunday afternoons watching junkola movies in your room, that's what I think.”

“Please, Byrdie. I'm so lonely. And sometimes I feel him rising in me, and I don't like it.”

“Feel who?”

“Farley! I'm possessed by him, don't you know? How else could I have killed all those little animals? How else could I have killed my own mama?”

He was getting upset.

“I was there when you killed those animals, you did it because you were savin' them. 'Cause they were all sick and weak and dyin'. It was a good thing, not a bad thing.”

“It wasn't always the case, Byrd.”

“What?”

“Sometimes, when you weren't with me. I'd take one that was just … fine. And kill it. I don't know why. It's Farley. I know it. I'm full of him up to my eyes.”

Jamie. My Jamie. He could kill his mama … and I'd understand. Sort of. He could put my daddy in jeopardy, and still, I was willin' to forgive him. But animals? Ones that weren't even hurtin'?

My blood turned to ice, I swear it.

“Farley's not real. Jamie. He's made up. I know it and you know it. And if it
was
real, I'd be the one to bear it, not you. It would travel in the blood.”

He knew I was right.

“Don't say that! I
have
to be him!”

“Why?”

“Because if I ain't, then it's been me this whole time bein' evil. And I don't want that to be true. I want to be the me
you
see
,
Byrd.”

“Then you are,” I said. But I was thinkin' something different. Evil comes in all shapes and sizes. Like princesses and princes. Also I was thinkin' that love sure as hell
is
blind.

“I'm hungry, Jamie,” I said, a plan of sorts taking shape. “If you want me to stay here, I better get us somethin' to eat. I don't fancy squirrel.”

“What if you get lost?” he asked.

“I will always find you,” I said. And I looked him straight in the eyes so he knew I was talkin' true. It's something we do, me and him.

“You won't run away, will ya, Byrdie?” He was peelin' a stick and poking it into the sand. Jabbin' it hard.

“No, I would never do that, Jamie.”

That's when I did a thing I thought I would never do.

I was walking in the woods of Belladonna and suddenly, there she was. Lottie. And she was showing me what I had to do. Even though I was already on my way to doin' it.

But the thing I did? It broke my heart.

But you know what broke my heart more?

The thing I hadn't thought of while he was busy confessing, cryin,' and showin' me our new home. Sure, I get why he didn't come back to save my daddy. But he must have known I blamed myself. He must have. And he knew how much I missed him, too.

And still, on all his trips stealin' this or stealin' that, he never once came and told me he was okay. He let my heart ache.

I couldn't forgive him for that. Besides, I wasn't gonna be no princess of alligators. He didn't know me at all. I'd be the queen. Love lies.

So I did what I had to do. Aided by his dead mama. Belladonna Bay, it turns out, is a fair and true name for that island.

It was pure luck that the berries were ripe. When it was done, I held my breath and dove back into the mist. Only I couldn't quite get my breath back when I was on the other side. Sorrow has a soft edge around it, like feathers in one of Naomi's fluffy pillows. A soft edge that can suffocate you when you ain't lookin'.

 

27

Wyn

 

Walking back to the Big House, I'll admit I was at a loss. There were no files on Carter. Grant was home, blocking me from searching his house for the knife. And though I tried to conjure them, there were no apparitions in magical gardens leaving me clues. Byrd had been right, sometimes these ways can be downright frustratin'.

“Start with Byrd,”
Stick had said. And seeing how I was out of time and ideas, I listened.

I went straight up to Byrd's attic.

I'd like to say I was respectful, but I wasn't. I tore the room apart. Clothes and papers went flying. I worked up a sweat looking for something I couldn't even imagine. But then I spied a Polaroid of her and Jamie at what could have been last year's Fourth of July parade. I grabbed it, thinking I could use it to coax her to speak again. I knew it would be hard for her, but Jamie was the key. I had to get her talking again. I needed her help. I ran down the stairs like a teenager and stopped on the landing where my mother and father had framed pictures I'd taken when I was younger.

My camera.

I'd seen this boy before.

I remembered going through my camera to look at the pictures Byrd had taken while I was off on my trip to Angola and the Big Easy.

There had been a little boy who looked just like this, peering out through a drugstore window.… Couldn't be …

He wasn't dead at all. There'd be no body to find. Byrd had found Jamie. Alive.

I ran so fast I was out of breath by the time I got to the cottage. I ran in, past Minerva, Ben, Carter, and Jackson, all sitting on the porch, and threw myself on the bed next to Byrd, bouncing us both a few inches into the air.

“Damn, girl, you best wake up because I need your help.”

Nothing.

I picked her up and brought her out to the living room and sat her on my lap.

It had to be Jamie. It was the only logical answer. An awful, logical answer. I pulled my camera from the side table and scrolled through all the pictures. And there he was, only it wasn't just in the pictures that Byrd took.