The Witch of Belladonna Bay

by Suzanne Palmieri

  And when she came out, she seemed to know right where I was, but somethin’ else caught her eye, that swing on Esther. I love that tree. (I don’t let Dolores pee on her, not ever.) Aunt Wyn was starin’ at that swing for so long I thought maybe she’d gotten sick. But then she walked through the garden, picked a bunch of lavender, and headed my way.

  I got nervous then, because I knew I’d have to tell her the whole dark truth. So I recited the Declaration of Independence in my head, until she reached the tub and looked inside.

  Everyone has a dark side. I can see it like a shadow behind them all the time.

  Some dark sides are more interestin’ than others. I like the ones that are complicated. Pure evil ain’t interestin’. But take me, for example, I ain’t pure evil, but I sure have a dark side.

  Mostly I don’t notice my darkness.

  And I don’t worry about it too much. It’s like dyin’, I suppose. We all gotta die, and we all gotta live with the things our dark sides do. People are afraid of their darkness, though. Spend their whole lives so scared of dyin’ that they never get to live. Spend their whole lives pushin’ down that darkness, until there ain’t no light at all.

  The only thing that worries me … is sometimes I have these spells, these pieces of time I don’t remember. Like my soul just floats out of me when I least expect it, and when I come around again, I’ve been doin’ all the things I shoulda been doin’ only I can’t remember any of it.

  No one notices. Not Jackson, not Minerva, not my daddy neither.

  Only Jamie. Jamie always knew when I was “absinth,” that’s what he called it.

  Well, we were little, maybe five or so, we were skipping rocks on the creek. I remember it got real hot, and then I was sitting at the kitchen table eating pickled okra out of a jar with a fork.

  “What happened? How did we get on in here?” I asked him, grabbing for a biscuit on the table because ordinarily I don’t even like pickled okra. Call me crazy.

  “It was like you were there … but not. Like when a kid is out of school, they call it absinth.”

  I miss Jamie when he was little. All those screwed-up words and tiny lisp. I always felt like I could be a little kid around him, even though I feel like I was born a grown-up in this awful small body.

  “Your eyes were empty, like when I come home and the house ain’t got no lights on,” he continued. “It scared me.”

  It scared me, too. And it has ever since. But it stopped scaring Jamie. Sometimes I thought he liked fooling me. When he’d see me go, he’d think it was funny to put me in a crazy situation when I “woke up.”

  In a treetop.

  Tied to the porch.

  Or, the worst ever? Sitting in school.

  And after he disappeared, I went about crazy thinkin’ on how I couldn’t remember one thing from that night.

  You see, the night Charlotte was killed, and Jamie disappeared, I was absinth.

  I can’t remember a thing. For months and months, I was scared I’d done the impossible. But then, that first morning with Aunt Wyn, when that kiss told me Grant might be another option? The idea that another person might have gone and ruined my whole life, and it wasn’t me, was a piece of heaven right there.

  But there was something else.

  See, I collect things. Things a lot of folks might think are strange.

  One of my favorite collections is pocketknives. I like how they click open and shut. I like how some have all sorts of layers to ’em. Forks and knives, baby scissors. All kinds of things. Only …

  My favorite knife from my whole collection? The one with the mother-of-pearl handle. It was gone. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

  Lottie and Jamie were stabbed, but no one could find the knife that did it. At my daddy’s trial, the Dr. Specialist Whatever Mr. Person, he said that it was a small knife. That’s why it took so many cuts.

  Dark, dark, and darker.

  11

  Bronwyn

  When Paddy and I were little, all we had was time. Long stretches of time where we simply luxuriated with nothing to do. The recollection tugged at me as I woke up, slow and lazy in my new little house.

  I could smell the scent of those days with Mama, Jackson, and Paddy. Soft, loamy ground and bleached cotton. Those were the good days, before she got too sick. When Jackson’s laugh rang through the whole house and we’d gather as he lit a cigarette and sat back in one of his old armchairs saying, “Ain’t got nothing but time and money. And right about now I’m feeling too lazy to waste money, so let’s just sit here a while and waste some time!”

  Home is a funny concept. I was expecting a lot of things from my homecoming to Magnolia Creek. What I wasn’t expecting was how quickly I’d slip back into my old ways.

  When I woke up and found Byrd already gone, I walked back to the Big House in my nightgown, barefoot like my niece told me I should walk, and went straight around back, through Naomi’s herb garden, to the kitchen door. I didn’t go in right away, just peeked through the panes of glass at the top of the door.

  I knew Minerva would have black tea steeping, and she did. I knew there’d be a bowl of figs on the table, and there was. I knew she’d be sweeping the wide pine-planked floors, and she was. I waited for her to make her way upstairs before I went inside. I needed more time before I saw her and talked to her about the strange things happening with my own shine.

  The kitchen of the Big House was always one of my favorite places. Airy and sunny. No modern cabinets or anything like that. Just a room full of windows, set into wise, worn walls.

  The long, well-loved table still graced the center of the room. That table was the first piece of furniture the original Jackson Whalen made for his family. Older Hoosier cabinets were there for storage, each with all sorts of hidden compartments and open shelving that showcased all of Minerva’s fine jams and pickled things. The kitchen door, painted red from the day Naomi moved in, and a geranium, also red, outside on the stoop, gave the whole area a feeling of whimsy. Something I’d looked for in every place I’d lived since I’d run away. Something I’d never found.

  When I walked in through that door, it slammed loudly behind me. I’d forgotten how loose it was on its hinges. “Damn!” I said. “So much for being sneaky.”

  Minerva hurried back into the kitchen.

  “Good morning, seems it didn’t take long for you to feel at home,”

  “Surprisingly not,” I said, reaching for the bowl of figs on the table. I took a nice firm fig, biting the skin away to reveal the stained flesh underneath. It was a childhood habit to eat the soft, purple green skin first, and then the sweeter inside. There were always ripe things in the bowl from the surrounding orchards and forest. Figs in midsummer. Later on, beautyberries and loquats. Then persimmons. Peaches and plums, too.

  Minerva went to the fridge and placed a platter of cut, plump figs, wrapped in prosciutto and garnished with lemon wedges, in the center of the table. There was a loaf of thick, crusty bread on the table, too. I pulled off the heel of the bread and held it to my nose. Susan, I thought.

  “I miss her, too,” said Minerva. “She was a fine companion and a wonderful cook. You know, when Stella came, she brought this little recipe book with her, full of food she wanted to make for us. I never had the heart to tell her that most of those recipes were already up here,” she said and pointed to her forehead.

  “You make fine Italian food, Min. I’ve lived places where the food is supposed to be better, but nothing compares to the things you and Susan used to make. You really are a chameleon, aren’t you? Fitting in wherever you go.”

  “Aren’t we all?” she said, and then she pointed to one of the kitchen chairs, directing me to sit my butt down. She poured tea into two small, dainty cups and sat down across from me, sighing heavily.

  “Bronwyn, we can look back to our past later, but right now we have to talk about Byrd and Ben.”

  I started to ask why we had to talk about Ben, but she hushed me. “First, we�
��ll speak about Byrd. You need to be careful with her. She’s a sweet child, don’t get me wrong. I love her to pieces. And, as you might have guessed, she reminds me of my people back home in Fairview. Mostly of your mother, but the others, too. The ones that left and had terrible times because of the magic they had. That’s the problem.” She took a sip of her tea and then placed it with a clink back in its saucer. Little cups full of tea were one thing I didn’t miss. I wanted coffee. Strong coffee in a mug, something to hold on to with both hands. Something solid. I looked down into my cup as I took a sip and saw the tiny leaves floating in the brew.

  “I know you want coffee, I’m sure there’s some back at your cottage. In my kitchen, you get tea. Now, pay attention. You know me, Bronwyn. I am the only one left who can even begin to explain the family we’re all part of. When you’re a Green, no matter where you hail from, you understand there is good found in the bad. Bad things have to happen and there is a certain beauty there. But this … almost … medical side to Byrd, it scares me sometimes, and I don’t scare easily.”

  Jackson sauntered into the kitchen carrying a silver ice bucket. He was a walking oxymoron. A strong-weak man. A right-wrong man. He went straight to the freezer and took out two metal ice trays. Then he began banging the ice out into the bucket.

  “A bit early, even for you, Jackson,” said Minerva.

  “I got a lot of things on my plate today, woman, and I don’t expect to be able to do any of them with a clear head. Clear heads are overrated. Like open arms or busy hands.”

  “Oh, yes, let our minds be muddy, our arms rest closed, and our hands stay idle. That’s the way to live,” said Minerva.

  “If you’re rich and lousy drunk in Alabama, there ain’t no reason to exist otherwise,” he said as he walked back out.

  “Now then,” said Minerva, “about Ben.” She reached into her apron pocket and brought out a ring almost identical to the one Ben gave me, only the one she was holding had a ruby star, where mine was an emerald.

  “This was your mother’s. There’s a matching necklace that we, as caretakers wear. I’m sure Ben has the matching one to yours, if you need some kind of proof. I know his family, the Masons. They’re from Fairview. He’s your caretaker, honey. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you. I don’t know how he found you. I don’t know what it means, either, so don’t ask me. He’ll be here, sooner than you know, and you can ask him. I’m just as surprised as you are, honey.”

  What she was saying made no sense and all the sense at the very same time.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I told her, confused.

  “Don’t say anything, just hold this ring and see what it says. You still have some shine?”

  “More than I thought,” I said, as she nodded knowingly and placed the ring in my hands.

  I thought I’d get flashes of my mother. But instead I saw Ben. Moments when he looked at me when I wasn’t looking at him. A nervous, worried Ben who I did not know. The first day we met, as I dealt his tarot cards … worried, confused Ben. The day we went to look at the house in Upstate New York and I was talking to the Realtor … nervous, anxious Ben.

  “He hid things from me. But why?” I asked.

  “Ben’s going to have to explain himself. There’s a reason for all of this, I’m sure of it.”

  “So, he lied to me. These past seven years have been a lie?”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Besides, right now we have bigger fish to fry. Just concentrate on Byrd. Make sure you understand her before she works her magic on you. You’re already under her spell. I can see it. She’s powerful, Bronwyn.”

  “She sure is,” said Jackson, coming back into the kitchen and opening the junk drawer. He clattered things around and came out with a bottle opener.

  “Odd, too. You should see where she stays,” he said.

  “You mean her room?” I asked.

  “No, where she stays,” echoed Minerva. “He’s right. Go with him, you might learn something.”

  Jackson led the way upstairs. I followed him, trying to quell the rage rising inside me. Ben lied. He could have told me, but he lied. I can’t stand a lie when it’s not necessary.

  He didn’t deserve my thoughts if he was a liar because Minerva was right, I had bigger fish to fry.

  I had to push it aside and take care of the present.

  As I followed Jackson down the second-floor hallway, we passed my old room, open and just the way I’d left it. I peeked in, surprised I hadn’t wanted to see it sooner. Looking at it, even in a glance, gave me a jolt. I’d shared my mother’s taste. My room looked a lot like hers.

  And then Paddy’s. Now a grown-up man’s room, a Southern gentleman’s room. Next, there was Byrd’s room, which used to be one of the many guest rooms we have at the Big House.

  “Is this it?” I asked, peering in. Pink. Very pink. Didn’t seem like her at all. Fancy and frilly. A canopy bed. Dolls everywhere. Unopened gifts in the corner. A large, dusty window seat piled with children’s books she’d probably read when she was a year old.

  “No, I told you … where she stays.”

  He walked up the third flight of stairs to the attic. Paddy and I used to play up there. It was a treasure trove of Whalen history. I remembered it with sheets covering furniture, and trunks containing old pictures, clothing, and bits of moldy correspondence.

  Now it was a fun house exhibition.

  Tables lined the slanted walls and were topped with precariously placed jars of every sort of creature, from spiders to bees to lizards of every size, some floating in liquid, some just dried up.

  Piles of Naomi’s clothing littered the floor, and Byrd had one large mirror leaning against the wall across from a mattress covered in all sorts of dusty quilts and old down pillows.

  Books were haphazardly stacked everywhere, covering subjects from etymology to ancient Greece and even Latin grammar.

  One book, open on her bed, was familiar. It was my mother’s Book of Shadows, the one that brought her here, to Magnolia Creek. Byrd was evidently adding to it by placing dried plants and flowers in-between the pages and making notes in its margins. I loved her more, looking at that book, at the care she was taking with her additions.

  She also had a bulletin board on the wall covered with Polaroid photos of the people from town. Taken with my old Polaroid that was next to her bed. Some of the people’s pictures had notes scribbled under them. Mr. Wrong, Medicine? Eating herself to death. Mother ill.…

  “What do you think?” asked Jackson.

  “What do you think?” I asked back.

  He scratched his head. “I don’t know what to think. She’s got strange ways. This is part of all that.” He gestured wildly.

  “I think she wants to feel loved. To feel appreciated for who she is. I think she wants to feel safe,” I said.

  “What do you mean? She’s loved. She’s safe. Goddamm it, Bronwyn! Why make this into another example of how no one in this family can love?” He started to walk down the attic stairs. Stopped but didn’t turn around. “I love her. I love you. I love Paddy, and God knows I loved your mother. You can’t measure other’s peoples’ love, sugar. You best try stopping that particular obsession.”

  His words hurt.

  But who allows a child to live like that? Goddamn Southern hippie rich mayor guy. That’s who. Too drunk to notice much.

  “Go have a drink!” I shouted after him. Knowing it would cut him, and unable to stop the words from coming out. Old habits die hard. “Grow the fuck up,” I whispered to myself, going over to Byrd’s mattress. Sitting down, I tried to catch my breath, to make sense of too much information coming at me all at once.

  I felt like crying. For half a second.

  That’s when I saw them. My tarot cards. The deck that never left my bedside. The one connection to my mother that I’d never let go.

  My odd, beautiful niece had taken them. I wasn’t mad. Not even a bit. I supposed she was trying a little divination for herself. />
  I took out the cards and shuffled them. It soothed me. There were two missing. I glanced around, and there they were.

  The two missing cards taped to the window by the mattress.

  Written on scraps of paper fixed right above them were, Did my daddy do it? and underneath, the Death card—a card that can be read many ways. And then … Did I do it? and underneath? The nine of cups—the biggest yes of all time.

  He thinks I did it, she’d said. Could Byrd really believe she’d done something so terrible?

  I took the cards off the board and held them.

  For someone so smart, she should have known better. Yes or no questions are the wrong ones to ask. It’s a fortune-teller’s first rule of business.

  The cards are too vague, and if you want an answer to come out a certain way, it does.

  But these particular cards were screaming at me, so I needed to talk to someone who could help me figure out how to read them. If only to explain it better to Byrd when I found her.

  I found Minerva in Naomi’s rooms. She must have been lost in thought because I startled her, and she dropped the blanket she was folding. She was making my mother’s beautiful bed with those same white cotton sheets I remembered. Those soft, downy linens embroidered with light blue and sage green, the colors of the sea. Some were embroidered with plain, untarnished white. Naomi spent so much time in bed that it had to be a paradise. And it was, for all of us … when we still wanted to be around her.

  “Is there something that you need? Are you all right?” Minerva asked once she regained her composure.

  “You still change her bedding?” I asked softly.

  “I miss her. And it helps me,” she said.

  I understood that too well

  “Minerva, I found something in Byrd’s attic,”

  “She keeps a lot of odd things up there. Your mother had collections like that when she was a girl. What did you find?”

  “My tarot cards. She took them to do a reading about the murders.”

  Minerva didn’t skip a beat. “What spread did she use? Do you know?”