The Witch of Belladonna Bay

by Suzanne Palmieri

  Minerva had my mother laid out on the long kitchen table. Naomi’s nude body glowed, thin and white like a marble statue. I watched as Minerva washed my mother, gently, with a white piece of cloth. She dipped the cloth in a glass bowl filled with cloudy water. Salt water. Minerva had used the same milky water on Paddy and me when we were feverish, as she told us stories about these rituals. “Chun na farraige,” she sang as she carefully wiped down each part of Naomi. To the ocean. Minerva got a kick out of teaching us certain words and phrases when we were little. I learned them all. I’ve always been quick with languages.

  When she was done with the water, she laid the bowl aside and anointed my mother with pungent rose oil. “Chun an domhain.” To the earth, she sang.

  I sat in the shadows and watched Minerva wind flowers into my mother’s hair as she sang. Wild roses with leaves, thorns and all.

  Gracefully, she wrapped my mother in crisp white linen sheets. “Chun na gaotha.” To the winds, she sang. All the corners of the earth were part of their past lives in Fairview. Only one rite was missing.

  Fire.

  But there would be no fire.

  The traditional funerals of the Green family of Fairview, Massachusetts, demanded that the dead be delivered into the afterlife (or the In-between, as Mama and Minny used to call it) much like the Vikings. Placed on a large pyre and sent floating on a barge of light and never-ending life.

  But Jackson wouldn’t have it. He asked that she be buried. And buried she was, so Minerva stayed.

  I didn’t really think Naomi would mind being in the ground.

  The ground. The earth itself was a bit of an obsession for my mother. All of the natural world, really.

  Besides her garden, Naomi loved trees.

  Sitting there, on the steps, steeping in the heat and a tidal flow of memories, I looked out across the sprawling front gardens where the plum trees and oaks leaned together making an inner circle, a barrier of sorts holding back the taller pines. Naomi used to run from tree to tree, crying and holding them.

  “Why do the trees make you cry, Mama?” I’d asked her once when I was still little, before I shut her out of my heart. Before I stopped being curious about her strange ways.

  “Oh! Can’t you hear them, Bronwyn? They’re screaming at me!” she’d say.

  I was six, or maybe seven, and I’d caught her between trees. I could tell by her frantic, tearing eyes that she wanted to break away from my questions so she could go soothe another one.

  “I must calm them or else they get so loud. But it’s hard, you know? Because I don’t have the answers they want. What do you want?” She’d already turned away from me and was talking to the trees again.

  “What are they asking you, Mama?”

  “Not just me, darling. Everyone. They’re asking everyone. Only I seem to be the only one who can hear them.”

  “Maybe I can help?” I asked. “Only you have to tell me what they are asking.”

  “‘Why?’ That’s what they ask, darling. Always ‘Why?’ First, they ask quietly, politely, then if I don’t answer right away, they get louder. If I still don’t answer, they start to scream.”

  “Why do they ask ‘why,’ Mama?”

  “Why everything! Oh, never mind. You won’t ever understand. Just let me go and try to answer them, would you? I wish they’d shut up.”

  I watched her embrace each tree, murmuring softly to them, one by one. And then the tension in the air eased, their leaves relaxed, and their branches allowed the wind to move them as it wished.

  I never could figure out what in the world she saw. What kind of ‘why’ … and I never heard the trees scream. But sitting there, staring at those damn trees, with a scream of my own hidden deep inside my mind, I understood.

  All the trees were shaped like Ys. Their trunks coming up and branches stretching out, asking several different questions all at once. It made so much sense. And with the sense came sadness because I’d never given that crazy, magical portion of my mother much regard once I got older.

  I must have sat there for an hour, because the sun was directly over Main Street. High noon.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I said, standing up.

  I turned and walked up the wide stairs into the Big House. My childhood home. My mother’s gilded prison. My body yearned to throw open that front door and run up the stairs all the way to the east wing and yell, “Mama! I’m home! I saw the why’s in the trees!”

  But a chill washed over me, a notion that once I crossed that threshold, I’d be walking back in time. It’d be like none of my adult life had ever happened. Just another dream woven in Naomi’s magical mind on yet another long, hazy day swirled and obscured by opium smoke. Maybe it’d be better that way, to go back in time and get the chance to do it all over again, I thought.

  I put my hand on the large brass doorknob and opened it, letting out a scream that could have woken Naomi in her grave.

  6

  Byrd

  Language is the source of misunderstandings.

  —The Little Prince

  I could feel the tugging sadness wash all over me like a sudden rain shower well before I heard the scream. And it wasn’t the scream that made me come down from my tree, it was the sorrow. Thick and heavy. A sorrow no person on God’s green earth should feel. So I did what I had to do. I went to find Aunt Bronwyn to help her get rid of some of that sad she was carryin’.

  When I got to the front door, it was hangin’ wide open, and no one was there. I walked cautiously inside the house.

  It’s funny. I don’t usually use that big ol’ front door. I have all sorts of other ways of gettin’ around and wasn’t too used to seein’ the Big House from that particular angle. I supposed it was possible there was something downright frightenin’ waiting for my aunt. I did let my mind wander over the fact that she shared a touch of my strange ways, and could have seen a spirit. But Jackson, Daddy, Minerva, and Carter all said Aunt Bronwyn didn’t have a lot of magic in her, just the ordinary fortune-teller sort of skills, and I believed ’em. And besides, if she did have the ways, she wouldn’t have been afraid of a ghost even if she did see one.

  I tried to figure out what my aunt might have gotten worked up over in that front hall. It’s a fine hall. Nothin’ too upsetting about the wide foyer or oriental carpets. Two sets of glass-paneled doors stand watch on either side of the reception area. When I was little, I used to try and fog up as many of those panels as I could so that I could draw B, Y, R, and D in each one … but the B always faded before I got to the D. Frustratin’, to say the least. Anyhow, ain’t nothin’ overly upsetting about those doors or the rooms they lead to. On the right they lead to Jackson’s study/library/living room/bar. And on the left they lead to a big, fancy-pants dining room that we don’t use much.

  I use it, though. I like to sit on the table. Right in the middle of its shiny, slippery surface. I light candles and put ’em all around me in a circle. See, there’s plenty of room for talkin’ to the spirits there. They can all sit, organized-like, on the chairs. It makes it easier. They have a lot to say, and it’s stressful. It was funner when I was little and couldn’t feel all their woes. Now that I’m growin’ into a woman, I can empathize and that makes it tiresome.

  Empathize is one of my favorite words.

  The night after they took my daddy to jail, I came in here. I had to do it, even though I didn’t want to. I was scared Charlotte and Jamie’d show up and prove me wrong. Worried sick they’d tell me my daddy did kill ’em after all. Worried sick they’d tell me he didn’t.…

  When on earth am I gonna learn to trust my intuition? Jaysus. I can be a stubborn witch. Charlotte showed up all right. Mighty nervous and scared, so I calmed her down. But she only told me what I already knew. I asked her, “Lottie, did my daddy kill you?”

  “Byrd? Am I dead? Is that why I feel so strange?” she whispered.

  I fairly rolled my eyes. She’s as thick dead as she was alive. I swear. But I tried
to be nice. “Yes,” I said. “You are. But who killed you, do you remember, Miss Charlotte?”

  I think the “miss” did the trick.

  “No, Byrd. I don’t remember. But I know it wasn’t Paddy.”

  I’ll admit, my heart soared and fell at the same time.

  And I don’t know why I even expected I’d see Jamie, too. He’s too close to me. Shoot, I can’t even see my own mama.

  Then Charlotte began awailin’ like they all do when they first realize they’re gone. It sounds like all the books say banshees oughta sound. Only I ain’t never seen a banshee.

  “Oooh, oooh, oooh!” she wailed as she began pacing up and down the long dining room. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. So I asked her the thing I always ask spirits who are just findin’ out they’re dead.

  “You see a light, Miss Charlotte?”

  “Oooh, oooh, oooh!” she wailed again, right before she disappeared into the walls. I stomped my feet and yelled after her, “That ain’t no kind of answer!”

  I can’t say I’ve seen her since. Jamie neither. And I been lookin’, let me tell you. They hold the answers, those two. But I can’t find ’em. Just thinkin’ on it frustrates me.

  I frowned, turning away from the dining room. Nothin’ scary in there with or without strange ways. Then I looked over at Jackson’s favorite room, and there he was, stretched out and snoring on the large, leather sofa, a glass rocking back and forth under his hand as it moved in time with his breath. You ever notice that? That in order to keep completely still you have to hold your breath. We act like waves, and when we hold our breath, we stop all our inner oceans. I spend a lot of time trying to hold my breath. I can hold it for three whole minutes. Jamie’s got me by half a minute. But he’s bigger.

  Anyway.

  “Just what kind of father sleeps himself through a scream like that! Damn it, Jackson. That’s no way to win back her love,” I said mighty loud. He just grumbled something I couldn’t understand and rolled over. I left Jackson there asnor’n and went upstairs to Naomi’s rooms. I knew Aunt Bronwyn’d go there if she was frightened. All girls want their mothers when they’re scared, I think. I didn’t have a mama so I don’t rightly know. And truth is, mamas seem like a whole lotta worry and then a whole lotta grief later on. Who needs that? When I’m scared I want Jamie. No, scratch that. I’m not scared of nothin’ ’cept Belladonna Bay.

  Maybe she hadn’t gone upstairs at all.

  Maybe she went across the creek out of pure sadness. And a feelin’ came up in me so strong that me and Dolores fairly ran out the back door. The mist was even thicker that day. I closed my eyes real tight and tried to feel her. But I couldn’t. Even Dolores shook her head at me and tried to lead me back to the house, those dog tags shining in the sun and tink-tinking together.

  Minerva yelled out the kitchen door. “Byrd, for someone who knows so much, you have your head on wrong about your aunt. She’d never cross that creek. She’s upstairs. But leave her be. She needs some time, she’s lost, Byrd. So lost.”

  Time, my butt, I thought to myself as I made my way into the house through the east balcony by the ballroom. There’s a secret staircase there that leads right up to Naomi’s rooms.

  There’s a legend about the day Naomi died. I’ve asked her if it’s true, but seein’ as she don’t talk, she can’t answer me. She’s a true spirit. More like the ghosts you’d think about if you ain’t never seen one before. Mournful and lovely, with a mistiness hangin’ on her edges.

  Story is that everyone in Magnolia Creek knew she was gone before they even found her body. That hundreds, maybe thousands of redbirds flew in over the town, nearly blottin’ out the sun, perchin’ themselves like a red blanket all over the Big House. It’s said that those birds coated the roof from peak to peak, and that’s when all the folks in town, drawn by the sound of whooshing feathers, or by pure human curiosity, began looking up toward the Big House, which was fairly dripping with those redbirds, and watched them rise in a hush and a rush, flying up in one big cloud, taking Naomi’s soul with them.

  People say, that for just a moment, it felt like there weren’t no more air in the whole county. That’s how they knew, Towners and Old-timers alike, that Naomi was dead.

  Jackson said she’d simply had enough of all the roughness of life and went to live with the angels where she belonged. Jackson, unlike most folks who are right in the head, preferred believing her death was a choice. He kept on sayin’, “Mermaids don’t drown, mermaids don’t drown.”

  But Minerva? She tells it right. See, Naomi’d been off that opium for a while. Cleaned herself up for some strange reason or another. And then decided to dip her toe back in. Only … she forgot to lower the dose.

  Who knows why crazy people do the things they do? Hell, they don’t even know why. But Minerva’s made of rock and salt water. And because she has the same Green blood runnin’ through her veins, she knows a thing or two about accidents.

  Because accidents happen to everyone, no matter how charmin’, special, or loved. But they sure seem to love those of us with Green blood.

  But I do wonder why Naomi decided to wade into that mess all over again. What could have made her so sad?

  Maybe Aunt Bronwyn would know. If I felt brave, I’d ask her. But I had to find her first.

  Secret staircase it was. I love those, they’re so dramatic.

  7

  Bronwyn

  A spider. A plain old Southern house spider from the look of it. Paddy used to collect them when we were small. How I let out that scream I’ll never know. High-strung, I guess. More Yankee than Southern girl. It fell right in front of me, landing on my shoulder. I screamed and jumped like I was walking on hot coals. When I saw it skitter away, I looked around, embarrassed. “Damn, girl,” I said out loud. “Get yourself together.”

  And then, there I was in the center of the foyer. Jackson was snoring away in his library. A hushed constant twilight fell over this part of the house. And the whir of the ceiling fans echoed throughout the halls with their white noise.

  “Minerva?” I leaned up the stairs and whispered her name. I didn’t want to wake Jackson and was relieved my scream hadn’t already.

  I headed up the long, ornate stairway. The pilgrimage I made almost every day of my childhood to “the world upstairs.” Naomi’s world.

  When we were all little, the four of us, me, Patrick, Lottie, and Grant, we spent hours upstairs in her rooms. Playing cards, making forts, and painting huge canvases that she’d have delivered from the artist colony up Route 98. Those were fun days. Laughter layered the walls and clung to the dust mites, making them sparkle like lightning bugs in the daytime.

  It didn’t stay like that. And even when it was like that, sometimes it wasn’t.

  My mother was addicted to opium in fits and starts for almost as long as I can remember, and her illness made her more childlike than a mother ought to be. Eccentric is one thing, incoherent is another. The worst part about her particular kind of sick was it kept her cooped up. Toward the end, she never left her rooms at all. The sweet-smelling smoke plumed under her doorway and crept downstairs like the mist over Belladonna Bay.

  It was my father, who loved her more than a healthy amount, who supplied her with that poison. The opium made her fun. The opium made her happy. The opium made her tired. The opium killed her.

  “She needs it,” I’d hear him say as he argued with the doctor.

  “It’ll kill her, Jack,” said Dr. Henry.

  “Nothing can kill Naomi. She’s a mermaid. Mermaids don’t drown,” he’d say, and the doctor always did as he was told. He was an Old-timer, and Jackson is practically God with that clan. How he got it, I’ll never know. I don’t want to know, not really.

  The memories crept back with each creak of the stairs as I climbed.

  “Olly olly oxen free…” I could hear Paddy’s sweet voice before it changed. Come play, come play … and pretty Lottie, dead in the ground Lottie, who did nothing but
chase both those boys from day one. Lottie who wanted to be a ballerina, but who fell down every time she tried to do a pirouette.

  And my brother? I saw him everywhere. Running next to me on the stairs, leaning over the balcony, and making me sick with fear that he’d fall.

  Paddy.

  I’d gone away and let him fall farther than I’d ever feared.

  How had I let go of him? How can anybody forget the things they love most? Tuck them away like old love letters, only to dig them out later and wonder where the hell their life went.

  When I got to the top of the stairs, there it was. Naomi’s portrait. When I was little, I would sit, cross-legged in front of it, with my hands under my chin just staring at her face. Then I got older and could barely look at it.

  Jackson had commissioned it from a local artist down in Fairhope, not long after they were married. It’s one of those paintings that’s true to life, with just enough whimsy and thick strokes to make more than an elaborate illustration. The artist had posed her outside, on the swing that always dangled from Esther’s branches.

  He’d captured both the sparkle and the sadness in her eyes. She was just shy of twenty, right before I was born. There they were, those lovely, perfect freckles of hers that Paddy and I used to count when we were small.

  “There’s thirty-eight,” I’d say.

  “No, thirty-two!” he’d say.

  Esther’s leaves dipped down and framed Naomi’s head like a halo. Blue skies rose in the back, and red dirt paths led away to the other gardens.

  But the real reason I was so transfixed by that painting when I was little was her smile. I never, not one day that I can remember, saw that particular smile. I waited for it, but it never came. The picture was painted before Naomi’s addiction. Drug-induced smiles aren’t real. The smile Naomi had in her portrait was real.

  I reached up and touched her painted lips. Full for such a tiny face, and naturally red. No need for lipstick.