Liza could feel tension building in her shoulders. “Jessie’s been having plumbing issues. I told her she could use mine whenever she needed to.”
“Yeah, well, she came in with a towel and shampoo and I didn’t know her. Do you always let strangers just waltz into your home without asking?”
Liza nodded. “Yes! She needs a shower or needs to sit on the toilet then she’s welcome to come on in. And Jessie’s not a stranger.”
“Well, she was to me.”
“What did you say to her?”
Bryar closed her eyes again. “I told her she was not allowed in here and to turn around and march right out before I called the police. Actually, I felt kind of bad about that last part. I think I really hurt her feelings. It’s been bothering me.”
“Oh, Bryar,” Liza sighed, feeling a headache coming on. It was just one more person she’d have to do damage control with. “Next time just ca–”
But Bryar didn’t hear her. She was already snoring again.
* * *
“WHAT’S THE MATTER?”
It wasn’t just the solemn look on Mare’s face that had Liza’s heart beating with worry–it was the fact that Mare, Whinny, Filly, and Bridle were all gathered in Colt’s living room sharing the same expression.
“Did someone die?” Colt joked.
Filly looked away, suddenly fixated on a wood bee beating its tiny wings against one of the living room windows. The corners of Bridle’s mouth turned in at the same time that Whinny sighed.
“Oh God, they did,” Liza groaned. “Who?”
“Irma Pigg,” Whinny answered. “This morning.”
Liza turned and looked at Colt for an answer. He shrugged, appearing as bewildered as she felt. “But–but–I just saw her!”
Irma had looked fine in the grocery store. Sure, put out by Bryar Rose’s performance, but otherwise healthy. Liza’s imagination immediately jumped to an accident, but the vision that flitted behind her eyes showed Irma lying unconsciously in a hospital bed, the generic gown swallowing her tiny frame. “How? Why?”
“It happened very quickly,” Bridle replied. “Her daughter said she’d been feeling a little ‘off’ for about a week; they thought it was the flu. She got better for a day or two and then it escalated last night. They took her to the hospital and she passed on this morning.”
“But who will drive the ice cream truck now?” Liza asked in confusion.
Mare did her best to suppress a giggle but it escaped nonetheless.
“I’m sorry,” Liza said, bringing up a hand to cover her mouth in embarrassment.
“It’s okay,” Whinny replied. “We’re all a little shocked over it.”
“So what happened to her?” Colt asked.
He sat down in the Lazy Boy recliner in the corner of the room and tugged Liza down to his lap. She snuggled into him and he ruffled her hair. He smelled like horses, pine trees, and sunshine. His sap-stained jeans were rough against her bare legs. She’d worn a skirt and had been looking forward to a nice evening at home with him, had even packed an overnight bag. With the whole gang there, though, she saw the kinky part of her plans going up in flames.
“Don’t know,” Filly said. “Doctors have no earthly idea what’s going on.”
“It looks like the same thing Gwen has,” Mare said quietly. “All they know is that both women had an extraordinary amount of lead in their systems. Nobody knows why, or how long they’ve had it.”
A little warning bell began dinging inside Liza’s head. There was something a little “off” about the whole thing and she didn’t like the knot that was currently forming in the pit of her stomach.
“So a virus or something?” Liza asked hopefully.
“Or something,” Filly agreed.
“I saw Irma a week ago,” Liza said slowly. “At the grocery store.”
“Yeah,” Whinny nodded.
“And that’s when she got sick?”
Oh, please say no, please say no, please say no.
“Yes.” (That came from Bridle.)
“And isn’t Gwen the one your sister bitched at?” Filly asked.
Liza nodded, gathering her lip between her teeth and biting down.
Mare looked away this time, unable to meet Liza’s eyes. She knew she wasn’t being paranoid about it; Mare was actively trying not to look at her.
Liza Jane stiffened on Colt’s lap. He must have felt the reaction because he ran his hand up her back, kneading the muscles as he went, trying to relax her.
“Oh, c’mon guys,” she tried to joke, although her voice trembled a little. “You couldn’t think I had anything to do with them getting sick. I like Gwen and Irma!”
“Not you,” Filly muttered.
“What?”
“Your sister,” Filly said. “She’s the–”
“Filly!” Whinny snapped. “You wouldn’t want someone talking about your sisters like that.”
“I was just gonna say witch,” Filly muttered again. “And it’s not like it isn’t true.”
“Bryar Rose wouldn’t do something like,” Liza said, feeling an overwhelming sense of protectiveness towards her sister while, at the same time, the knot in her stomach grew hot as a coal. Could Bryar have done something like that? No, it wasn’t possible.
“What if she did it by accident? What if she didn’t mean to?” Bridle asked gently. “Is that a possibility?”
“No!”
It was true that, growing up, Bryar had let her temper get the best of her at times. Puberty had been…interesting. Before she knew how to control herself she’d caused quite a bit of drama at school: making a rival’s hair fall out, causing a cheerleader on top of the pyramid to sprain her ankle on the dismount, setting off the fire alarm whenever she wasn’t prepared for a test…but she’d stopped those things a long time ago. Bryar knew that whatever she sent out in the world would come back on her, three times worse.
Filly was back to looking at the window again.
“Do other people think that?” Liza asked, feeling the first waves of panic wash over her. “Do you all think that?”
“No,” Colt replied immediately. The others were eerily quiet. They didn’t have to respond; the looks on their faces gave her the answer.
“Does everyone think that?”
“Honey–” Whinny began.
“I mean, I know she snapped at Gwen and was kind of rude to Irma and backed into Pepper’s car, but she wasn’t mad. And what we have doesn’t work like that!”
More than a little rattled now, Liza jumped up off Colt’s lap and stood before everyone. Colt stood as well and now they all formed a line–the Bluevines facing her like a firing squad. The fiery knot in her stomach was an inferno and she gagged as hot acid rose into her mouth. She forced it back down with a swallow, willing herself not to vomit.
“We don’t do that,” she exclaimed. “We just don’t! We don’t hurt people!”
“Oh,” Whinny murmured, “Liza Jane.”
“Sweetie,” Colt tried, reaching his stained and dusty hand out to her.
She couldn’t stay in that room, though–not with everyone in there standing around thinking that her sister was making people in town sick and killing them off. Bryar didn’t care for Kudzu Valley and wasn’t interested in making friends there, but it didn’t mean she wanted to kill them all, one by one.
Liza flew from the room without an ounce of grace–she ran into an end table and hat rack on the way out–and left the house in a flurry of movement. She made for the driveway, intent on driving back home. Then she remembered that Bryar Rose had her truck; she’d ridden over with Colt.
It was very difficult to make a dramatic exit when you couldn’t actually leave.
Without thinking of where she might go, she jumped from the porch and began walking towards the rows of Douglas Firs. They grew close together and some were taller than five feet. Once she was inside a row they grew up around her, shielding her from the outside world like a little forest. Tuck
ed safely away inside of them, unable to see Colt’s house, the barn, or the road she sat down on the cold ground and tucked her head in her arms.
Then she began to cry.
“I hate you, Mode,” she sobbed into her arms.
It wasn’t the Bluevine girls she was mad at–it was her ex-husband. He was the culprit; she liked to cast blame on him every chance she got. He deserved it.
Mode had always been afraid of her abilities. He’d thought it was kind of cute at first. Figured it was a “phase,” even. In the beginning he’d say things like, “Well, I’m not going to make you mad as long as you think you’re a witch…” Later, once he’d witnessed her in action, things had changed. He didn’t mind if she practiced her gift in the living room or hotel room or outside in the back yard. He just didn’t want to be around when she was doing it.
Then he’d starting getting weird about it.
What if the neighbors saw? What if his co-workers in the pop opera group he managed saw or heard about it? It might end up in the tabloids!
Mode was very concerned about his own reputation and therefore Liza’s by extension. He had cultivated an image of himself that he wanted others to perceive him as and he’d do nothing to risk tampering with that image.
(The thought of him freaking out about Bryar Rose’s performance at the awards’ show almost made her smile.)
After awhile she’d been delegated to a spare bedroom, all her supplies tucked away out of sight. And, oh, he’d made fun of her too.
“You really believe you have any control over the universe?” he’d ask sarcastically.
“You going off to talk to your candles? ‘So mote it be, so mote it be’,” he’d mocked her.
She finally reached a point where she barely practiced at all.
And why?
Because Mode was scared. At his core, he was afraid of her. He wasn’t a non-believer like he maintained. He didn’t think it was really “hocus pocus” as he claimed. Oh no. Mode believed all right. And he believed she was dangerous and could hurt him.
She’d worked so hard to prove that she was good. That she would never hurt anyone–that she was a healer, like her grandmother. That she was as good as Nana Bud.
And here came Bryar Rose, sending it all to hell.
* * *
THE SOFT STRUMMING of Colt’s guitar wrapped itself around the cool night air and floated away towards the stars. When he didn’t think she was listening, he’d sing along kind of soft and low, his voice gentle and sweet.
Liza Jane rocked back and forth on the front porch swing, fleece Christmas blanket pulled snugly around her shoulders, wishing she could bottle up the moment and keep it forever.
She didn’t have a spell for that.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” she apologized again when she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to pick the tune back up.
And if she’d had a spell for that, she would’ve erased that entire scene from the Bluevines’ collective memories.
“You think my sisters never got mad before?” Colt snorted good-naturedly. He looked up from his guitar and grinned at her, his smile as handsome as any movie star’s–and more handsome than most. “You’re not the first one to go storming out the front door.”
“I was afraid,” she whispered, still ashamed at the way she’d acted. Colt had found her an hour later, still huddled beneath a Douglas Fir. He’d been holding a heavy wool jacket, something he wore when he worked in the barn. When he’d slipped it on her, it had carried the sweet-smelling aroma of hay and Ivory soap.
“Afraid of Filly? Of Bridle?” His tone was teasing but his eyes were concerned.
“Afraid that you all wouldn’t want me anymore if you thought my sister and I were capable of doing such things to people.”
“Nah,” he replied, looking back down at his guitar. “Trust me, we’ve put up with a lot worse. So you get pissed off at someone and give them the flu. It’s not like you’re grinding them up and using them as seasoning in your chili.”
Liza smiled thinly. “But we didn’t do it. Or rather, Bryar Rose didn’t.”
“To be honest, I don’t think my family believes it either. They like you. They may not know Bryar Rose well yet, but I don’t think they actually believe you could be capable of such a thing, so she’s off the hook by extension.”
“It sure felt like they believed it,” Liza grumbled.
“Are you sure,” he asked, now sounding more serious, “that she didn’t do it by accident?”
“Look, I know Bryar can be a pain in the rear. Nobody knows that more than me, but inside she’s a really sweet person. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. Honest to God, she wouldn’t! Bryar is very empathetic. She feels stuff sometimes more than I do. I mean, after that day at the restaurant she got really upset about the way she’d treated Gwen. She–“
Liza paused then and pursed her lips. She wasn’t sure if she should say the next part but the open, inviting look on Colt’s face made her continue. “She doesn’t just feel things more than most people she…she punishes herself for things. Sometimes for things that aren’t even her fault.”
Liza Jane had never told anyone that before, not Mode or her mother or any of her friends. Now, as she told Colt, she could feel something akin to a weight lifting from her shoulders.
He did not look more enlightened, however. He was going to need more information. Colt was currently wearing the same expression Liza Jane had worn during the majority of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “Inception.”
“If Bryar thinks she’s done something wrong to somebody, she punishes herself for whatever injustice she believes she caused. That night, after her little outburst to Gwen about the restaurant, she refused to eat. Wouldn’t eat the next morning either.”
“But what she said wasn’t that bad,” Colt said, scratching his head with his guitar pick. “I mean, it might have been a little witchy, pardon the pun, but it wasn’t terrible. No reason to starve yourself.”
“I know. But you can’t tell her that. Bryar does whatever she thinks she needs to do to atone for her actions,” Liza explained. “And, like I said, sometimes she punishes herself or things she didn’t do.”
“What do you mean?”
She’ll see a news story about a child being abused or something. It will hit her really hard. I mean, me and you? It might make us sad, you know? Make us angry. But not Bryar. It will hit Bryar right in the gut. She’ll not only feel sad and angry, she’ll feel the actual pain that child went through. She’ll feel it as clearly as that child did.”
“Dang,” Colt whistled. “That’s rough.”
Liza nodded. “About a year ago there was a story on the news one night. A child had been sexually assaulted. Little bitty thing. Hardly more than a toddler, really. Terrible situation. I was watching the TV when the news story came on. It made me upset, you know? I turned the TV off and went in the kitchen to get me something to eat. A few minutes later I got hit with the most overwhelming sense of fear and sadness, and even disappointment, I’ve ever felt–still to this day. Oh, it was gut wrenching.” Liza shivered now just thinking about it.
“Then I saw Bryar. I could see her, right behind my eyelids. I don’t get a lot of visions, that ability isn’t very developed in me, but when I do get them that’s how I see them,” she said. “Anyway, I saw Bryar Rose. She was right there behind my eyes. She was curled up in the corner of her couch, knees tucked up to her chin. Just rocking back and forth. She was hurting–not just mentally, although that was obvious, but physically. I knew then that she was going through exactly what that little girl had gone through. The pain that child had felt? It was ripping through Bryar, too. The disappointment of being betrayed. The hurt of not having anyone there for you when you need it. Oh, the things she felt. It was unspeakable. What I got was just the tip of the iceberg.”
Colt closed his eyes and winced, as though the mere thought of it was too much for him to imagine dealing with.
“Bryar punished herself. Sh
e refused to eat for almost a week. She threw up. She didn’t make herself throw up. I mean, she didn’t stick her finger down her throat or anything but she let herself get to the point where she was so upset that it was inevitable. She wouldn’t get dressed, wouldn’t go outside. Canceled plans with girlfriends. It was as though because that awful thing had happened to that child, she didn’t think she deserved to have anything nice or do anything fun. She punished herself for something she had nothing to do with.”
Colt put his guitar down and nodded. “I see what you’re saying now. She wouldn’t have hurt someone, not even on accident. She doesn’t have that inside of her.”
“Not at all,” Liza agreed. “She’s bitchy for sure. She lashes out at people and says terribly rude things sometimes. But hurting someone? Not even subconsciously.”
Colt stood up, stretched his arms over his head, and then shivered. “Goose walked over my grave,” he muttered into the black night.
Liza watched while, as though in response, a shooting star burst across the sky and appeared to land behind his barn. The soft whinnying of the horses echoed, despite the fact that the star hadn’t really landed anywhere near the farm.
“Well,” he began, turning to face her. Colt held out his hand to her and she stood, letting the blanket fall to the ground. When her hand was in his, he pulled her close until her cheek was pressed against his rough, stiff Carharrt jacket. “Bryar might not have done it but we still have one problem.”
Nuzzling into him, Liza signed with contentment. “That the whole town thinks she did?”
Colt coughed. “Uh, okay, so we have two problems,” he corrected himself.
“What’s that?” Liza asked. She pulled away from him and looked up into his eyes.
Colt frowned a little and brushed her hair away from her forehead. It was a nervous habit; she’d been around him long enough to know that now. When he was nervous, he played with her hair.
“Something is making people sick. Hospital says it’s not the flu. They’ve never seen a virus like it.”
Broommates: Two Witches are Better Than One! (Kentucky Witches Book 2) Page 9