“Precisely,” he replied as he spooned some sausage gravy over his biscuits.
“Hmmm. Maybe I’m just very intuitive, then,” Ame pondered.
“Oh, I’d say that you’re definitely intuitive,” Eli said. “And that’s a very good thing to be.”
“Why is it so good?”
Eli chewed his food and thought about the question. “Your intuition doesn’t tell you your future. It guides you toward your potential. I don’t believe that the future is preordained. Intuition helps us see a little further down the path we’re on. It helps us see other paths we might take. Intuition is the insight we need to make wise choices.”
“Goddess guidance,” Ame said.
“You can look at it that way. I often do,” he replied.
Ame looked up from her plate to stare at him, “Who the hell are you, Eli-with-an-I?”
Gretchel smiled brightly, and put her chin in her hand. “That’s a really great question, Ame. Who the hell is Eli-with-an-I?”
This was a question Gretchel had wanted to ask for a long, long time. Eli had always been reluctant to discuss his family and his background back when he and Gretchel lived together in Carbondale. She never got the sense that he was lying to her, exactly…. But sometimes she could tell that he was hiding more than he was revealing, They had talked a little about the sequence of events that had led him back to Snyder Farms, but, she had been so grateful to have him in her life again that she was willing to let some questions remain unasked. Both of them had spent the last two weeks gently tiptoeing around the past.
But Gretchel was tired of tiptoeing. She was ready to stomp.
Eli ran a hand through his hair and looked at the two redheads on either side of him. He was trapped, and he knew it. He sighed.
“I never understood what you meant all those years ago when you said you weren’t who you said you were, but then I tried to find you. I tried for years. It was impossible. It was like the Eli Green I knew had never existed. I would like to know what, exactly, you hid from me. I’d like to know who you really are.”
Eli couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or cry. She had been thinking of him. She had even been looking for him. He put down his fork and sipped at his coffee. “You’re right. I’m nearly impossible to trace. That’s on purpose, of course. I had my reasons—well, my parents had their reasons. But I don’t think any of that much matters anymore.”
Eli took one more sip of coffee. Ame and Gretchel watched him, silently waiting. “First of all, my last name is not Green. My birth certificate reads Elliot Stewart.”
Gretchel’s nostril’s flared, and Eli prepared himself for the worst.
“My name is just too confusing to explain,” he added quickly.
“Try me,” Gretchel said, and Eli swore he saw her cheeks flame red before his eyes.
“Well, I have two last names.”
Ame and Gretchel just stared. “You’re not exactly clarifying matters, Mr. Stewart. Or, should I say, Mr…?” She raised an eyebrow as she let her question trail off.
“Let’s start with your middle name, shall we?” Ame asked brightly.
Eli shot her a look. “It’s Dominic. My grandmother told me that it was my grandfather’s name. At least she thinks it was.”
“She thinks it was,” Gretchel asked incredulously.
“The circumstances under which they met were… unconventional. She wasn’t able to have a child before she got pregnant with my father. In fact, her husband had left her because of that. My father never met him. I certainly never met him. My grandmother wouldn’t say much about him, except that he was a ‘poetic vagabond’ and a gift from the gods.”
“I’d like to hear more about this grandmother of yours,” Ame said.
“Well, she was a professor at SIU—”
“Excuse me?” Gretchel’s face was flaming again. “She taught at Southern Illinois University? The same Southern Illinois University where you and I met?”
“She wasn’t in Carbondale when we were, Gretchel. But she did own the house on Pringle Street, and now it belongs to my father, who I believe you spoke to when you called about the room,” Eli’s tone was soothing and contrite. Gretchel glared at him. He knew he had a lot of half-truths to answer for if he and Gretchel were going to have any kind of future together. “My grandmother died a few years before we met. Please, just let me finish.”
Gretchel folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. Ame watched the interplay between her mother and Eli, transfixed. She had never seen her mother interact with her father this way—as true equals.
Eli continued. “Honestly, I wish that you had been able to meet her, Gretchel—you too, Ame. She was an extraordinary woman. There was a lot that she didn’t know about my grandfather, but she did know that, in that one weekend they spent together, he had taught her more about love and divinity than she had ever experienced. She said she felt like she had seen Hermes manifested, and that he had entrusted her with Pan’s seed. She always told me that this was where my father and I got our hair and eyes.”
Eli took a moment to refill his mug. “I can tell you that my father loves the idea that he’s a descendent of Pan.”
Gretchel put her forefinger to her lip, and her eyes squinted remembering. “Pan’s garden. The statue…”
“Exactly,” Eli was relieved to see Gretchel’s glance softened. “And my grandmother’s name was Penny—short for Penelope.”
“So…?” Ame asked.
“Well, Penelope was the name of the nymph who gave birth to Pan after a roll with Hermes.”
Ame looked to Gretchel. Her mother shrugged. Turning to Eli, she asked, “Do you think your grandmother maybe romanticized her brief encounter with a handsome stranger? Maybe just a bit?”
Eli scraped the last bits of sausage gravy on to his fork. “She was the professor. And it was her story. Who am I to judge?” He took the final bite of his breakfast.
By the looks on their faces, Eli judged that Gretchel and Ame were skeptical, but eager to hear more
“So, your last name…” Gretchel asked. “Or, last names, I guess…?”
“Right. Well, as far as the government’s concerned, Stewart’s my last name—like I said, it’s on my birth certificate. It’s actually my mother’s maiden name, though. My father’s last name—my true name—is a secret, and I’m afraid it’s going to have to stay that way until my father says otherwise.”
Eli looked at Gretchel to see if it was safe to continue. She was glowering again, but silent.
“You knew me as Eli Green, Gretchel, but I’ve also been Eli Smith, Eli Jones…. Sometimes, the aliases were fun. Mostly, they were an annoyance. And I hated being anything less than honest with you, Gretchel. But I had promised my parents that I would keep a low profile. My goal was always to move quickly and try to be as inconspicuous as possible.”
Ame stood up to retrieve more coffee. “Sorry, dude, but with that crazy hair and those turquoise eyes, I suspect that you’ve always been pretty conspicuous. I’m thinking it would be hard to forget you.”
“Not hard,” Gretchel whispered, “Impossible.” She reached out and gave Eli’s hand a squeeze. He was momentarily relieved, but quickly learning that he couldn’t expect this gentle mood to last.
“I’ve been hiding my identity most of my life because my mother is a tyrannical control freak, and my dad is a paradoxical paranoiac. They are both insane.” He quickly glanced at Gretchel. “Not that there is anything wrong with that.”
Gretchel rolled her eyes.
“In any case, it’s not as if anybody was looking for me—anybody who was a threat, I mean. Nobody knew that I existed as the person that I existed as, and it’s not as though it mattered anyway.”
“You’re talking in circles again, Eli,” Gretchel said.
“All right,” he said throwing his hands in the air. “Here’s the big secret: My mother is Diana Stewart. I’m sure you’ve heard of her. She’s written several bestsellers. She does lecture tours. S
he’s basically the high priestess of transpersonal psychology.”
“Yeah—”
“Carry on, Eli,” Gretchel interrupted.
“My grandparents—Diana’s parents—worked in LSD labs all over the world. Miranda Stewart—the late, great transpersonal psychologist of the 60s—was my grandmother. She knew Leary, Grof—all of them. So that’s the big secret. Well, half of it, anyway,” Eli mumbled.
Gretchel considered this information for a moment. “As intrigued as I am by your mother’s occupation, and absolutely astonished that Miranda Stewart—whose work I deeply respect— was your grandmother, it doesn’t explain why would you would have kept your identity secret. No offense, but your mom is not that big of a deal. Self-help and spiritual mumbo-jumbo aren’t exactly radical. I mean, is the Spanish Inquisition after her or something? Are bogus gurus selling enlightenment and cosmic awakening being burned at the stake these days?”
Ame, who had been listening intently to her mother, turned to see how Eli would counter this verbal attack.
Eli simply stared at Gretchel with disappointment in his eyes. “Remember, when you did ‘shrooms on your birthday, Gretchel.”
Ame’s eyes bugged and she could not suppress a crazy grin. Her mother ignored her—pointedly.
“What was that about, if not enlightenment and cosmic awakening? You know what I think, Gretchel? I don’t think it’s that you don’t believe. I think it’s that you’re afraid you’re going to miss out, that the cosmic awakening will leave you behind.”
Ame’s grin turned into a look of pure shock. She glanced at her mother and saw that Gretchel was giving Eli the death stare.
Ame pushed her chair back from the table, stood up, and laid a hand on Eli’s shoulder. “Hate to tell you this Eli-with-an-I,” she whispered, “but you just stepped in a pile of shit.”
CHAPTER TWO
Irvine, 2010s
After Gretchel stormed off to the bedroom, Eli took his time cleaning up the kitchen. Then he moved to the living room to mess with the fire, which they kept burning off and on during the cool days of spring. Eli poked at the smoldering logs, trying to calibrate just how long he should let Gretchel seethe. He was considering the vintage portraits on the mantelpiece when Ame came bouncing down the stairs.
“Hey, Ame-with-an-E, can you put names to these faces?” he asked.
“Hmmm...” she said, sitting on the arm of the storybook chair. “The first one is Bridget. She was my great-great-great grandmother. The second is Mary Catherine. I think she’s the one who built this cottage. And you already know Miss Poni and Grand Mama Elphame.”
Eli nodded his head silently as a disappointed ripple worked its way through his body. No Carlin. He hated the thought of participating in his mother’s obsession, but he also knew that she would get off his back about the whole prophecy business if he could prove that Gretchel was the woman Diana was looking for.
“Excuse me,” Ame said, nudging Eli from his reverie as she moved him out of her way with a hip bump He smiled at her and she smiled back. Then Ame’s smile dissolved into a pointed stare as she nodded her head away from the fireplace and out of the room. Eli took the not-so-subtle hint. When he took one surreptitious look back into the room, Ame was kneeling on the hearthstone and gazing at the buck’s head mounted on the wall.
Eli was wiping down an already spotless countertop when Ame came into the kitchen a few minutes later. She reached into her backpack, pulled something out, and offered it to him. It was a wad of cash. “Here’s most of the money back from the money order you sent. This is my first payment.”
Eli suppressed a chuckle. Ame was a never-ending source of astonishment. She was so much like her mother. She was what her mother might have been…
“I don’t want your money. That was a gift. I just wanted to help you and your mom get by.”
“I have a job, and that helped us get by, Eli-with-an-I.” There was a steely note in Ame’s voice.
Eli almost reached out to touch Ame’s shoulder. Instead, he softened his voice. “I know that you’ve worked hard to take care of your family, Ame-with-an-E. But you can’t repay a gift. And now that I’m here, you can stop worrying. I can give you whatever you want.”
Ame’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of job do you have, Eli-with-an-I?”
“I don’t have a job. I have an inheritance,” he explained.
“So, you’re a trust-fund baby. That must be nice for you. But that doesn’t mean that you can come in here and start changing things.”
“I think you and I both know that you mother could use some change.” Eli spoke as gently as he could.
Ame still looked defiant. “I stand corrected. What I’m saying is, don’t make this into a Cinderella story, Eli-with-an-I. My mother married one man who controlled her with money, and she doesn’t need another.”
Eli began to object, but Ame’s glare stopped him. “And I’m accustomed to paying my own way. My dad tried to make me beg for everything I got from him, and then he called me a spoiled brat. I learned pretty early on that the less I relied on him, the less power he had over me. I’ve never been poor, but Mom has, and seeing what it did to her scared the hell out of me. My parents taught me—without meaning to—that I need to take care of myself. So, Eli-with-an-I, take the money.” She held out the wad of cash again.
Damn, she’s a pistol, Eli thought with admiration. He knew that he was walking a very fine line here. He couldn’t pull any macho bullshit with Ame—not that pulling macho bullshit was his style. Be he couldn’t just back down, either. He needed Ame’s respect, and he was going to have to earn it.
“I don’t want to control you, Ame, and I think you know that, so why don’t we just cut the crap. I came here because I love your mother. That’s something you and I have in common: We both love your mother. Let’s try to remember that, because we’re not going to be able to do her any good—we’re not going to be able to help her heal the parts that are broken—if we’re fighting with each other.
“And here’s something else you should know: I love you, too.” Ame’s defiant stare was replaced with a look of surprise. “I’ve loved you since your mother put my hand on her belly and let me feel you kick. I will never forget that moment.
“I’m not trying to buy your love. Hell, even if you never love me, I will always love you—for your mom’s sake, and your own. But, before you reject me and my money, you might want to consider the fact that multiple years of college tuition—and we’re talking up to and including postgraduate degrees—wouldn’t even put a dent in my trust fund.”
A slow smile spread over Ame’s face. She cursed herself internally for showing even the slightest hint of surrender, but her father had never—ever—talked to her as kindly and as honestly as this relative stranger just had. She steeled herself.
“Don’t you worry about college. I’m going to get a full-ride volleyball scholarship.”
Eli deflated slightly, and Ame was surprised to discover how bad that made her feel. “But if you really want to give me something, give my mother back to me—whole, healthy, happy. Give me back my little brother. Even though he’s a huge pain in my ass, my mom shouldn’t have to live without her son. If you want to give me something, give me a home that I’m psyched to come back to every night after busting my ass all day long.”
Eli smiled broadly. “Do you realize everything you wished for was for your mother, with the exception of a happy home?”
“What’s your point?”
Eli shook his head. He just couldn’t get over this girl.
“What do you want besides a happy home, Ame-with-an-E. Aren’t you tired of driving Marcus’ old farm truck? Wouldn’t you like a new car? What do you want me to give you?”
“If you want to buy a car, buy one for my mom. She’s barely left Snyder Farms since we came here. She needs to be mobile again.”
“You haven’t answered my question. What can I give you?”
She thought about it for a
moment. He was hoping she would come up with something really grand that he could have delivered within a day.
“Give me your time, give me your honesty, and give me something that will help me grow into the woman I want to become.”
Eli was speechless, and almost moved to tears. His heartstrings were plucking the most beautiful song. He wished his father could meet this child.
“I can give you all of that. I promise,” he whispered hoarsely, struggling to push out the words without letting go of a sob. “Now, how about something crazy? Anything your heart desires.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“I want to meet Graham Duncan.”
Eli choked on a cough. It’s like she’s reading my mind. “Another Duncan fan. Good grief! You know meeting him is close to impossible right?”
“You look like a guy who can pull off the impossible, Eli-with-an-I.” Ame gave him a skeptical glance. “I’m just kidding, obviously.”
Eli tried not to laugh. “Oh, no, no, no. I promise you right now that I will give you everything you have asked for.” He gave her a little bow.
Ame rewarded him with an ironic smile and a slow clap. “Fabulous. Now, if you will excuse me I’ve got go to another volleyball tournament that my mom won’t be at, possibly stop by the fabric store for material to make my prom dress, and then I work until seven, after which I’ll come back here, do my chores, and try to find Uncle Marcus to help me with two weeks of physics homework so I don’t have to worry about it over my spring break which officially starts tomorrow.
Adopting a far-away glance, she continued. “Although I might close my eyes for a bit and wonder what it would be like to spend time with a boyfriend I never get to see, and dream about the stories I’ll never have time to write. It’s an ideal Saturday in the life of a goddess-in-training, I know. But what can I say? I’m only young once. Later.”
Then she swanned out the door.
Eli’s head was spinning as he heard her get into the old farm truck and speed away. This girl was in over her head. Of course, she was quite tall, so maybe not. He was, on the other hand, absolutely certain that he was in over his head—and that was even after accounting for inches added by curly hair.
The Witches of Snyder Farms (The Wicked Garden Series) Page 2