by Mary Rickert
***
Using the skirt of her dress as a bowl for the apples, Bay blinks against the sun to watch a cardinal flit past, a flash of red, quickly gone. She squints, spying Stella, Thalia, and Howard, like strange flowers in the grass. Bay walks over to them, thinking they look so peaceful she is tempted to lie down beside them, to share their dreams. She turns to survey the yard. What is she looking for? Does she think her Nana, Mavis, and Ruthie were visited by the same strange compulsion to sleep on the ground like wild animals? Was there something in the air last night that enchanted everyone?
“What time is it?” Stella asks in a sleepy voice.
Bay looks at the sky, pretending she can read time there. “I don’t know. Early, I think.”
Stella brushes her dress, inspecting it for damage the way Bay inspected hers. “We have to talk.”
“You already told me,” Bay says. “I know.”
“You do?”
“You forgive them all. You were never angry at any of them. You were glad they were there in your dark hour.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I guess I freaked you out. I’m sorry, Bay. I was trying to do the right thing, okay? But I never said I forgave them.”
Bay shrugs. What’s the point?
“I mean, they’re nice old ladies, but they can’t just get away with it. You understand, don’t you, Bay? I’m sorry to tell you this. I’m sorry, but I’m really beginning to suspect they had something to do with Eve’s death.”
Bay rolls her eyes. Stella is plain crazy, not in the mentally ill, needs-compassion-and-medication way, but in the she-says-stuff-that-doesn’t-make-sense-and-there’s-no-reasoning-with-her way.
Bay turns on her bare heels in the damp grass. She is suddenly consumed with an overwhelming need to make pie. She hopes there’s enough butter.
“Bay? Bay, you understand, don’t you?”
Why do you care? Bay wonders. Why is it so important to you that I believe your lies? She walks up the lawn to the back stairs and opens the door into the sunny kitchen. I don’t care if my Nana is a witch, she thinks. I’m going to make a pie. After everyone leaves, we’ll sit on the porch to eat it, and everything will get back to normal around here. Stella’s lies can’t ruin the sweet truth of apple pie.
APPLE Apple blossoms are symbols of love, youth, beauty, and happiness. The apple, which has cancer-fighting properties, is associated with immortality.
Apple pie, apple crumb cake, apple strudel, apple cider, and in the back of Nan’s china cupboard, the apple wine she bought last fall at the Harvest Festival, subtly flavored with cloves and cinnamon, she was told. It’s going to be either wonderful or nasty. Maybe that’s why she still hasn’t opened it. It’s rather nice to recall something hidden in her cupboard that might be pleasant. Much better than remembering something that wasn’t.
Nan opens her eyes, surprised to find herself lying on top of the bed, still wearing the velvet dress. She wonders how that happened, then remembers Ruthie and Mavis interrupting her dark plan. What had Nan been thinking? Clearly she’d lost her mind for a while.
Ruthie is no longer in the room, but Mavis is curled on her side, making a pillow of her folded hands. At some point she must have grown tired of the wig, because it’s no longer on her head, which is bald and much smaller than Nan would have imagined, surprisingly smooth but spotted, like a quail’s egg. The box rests in the center of the bed. Nan opens it in a hurry and pulls back the tissue, relieved to see Bay’s caul safely nestled there. She refolds the tissue, smoothing it as she does, and puts the lid back on, absentmindedly tapping it with her fingers. How frightened she has been of the truth. For so long! How she’s let this fear rule her.
“Are you practicing for the drum corps?”
“Oh, Mavis! Did I wake you?”
“I suppose you want me to lie.”
“What? Oh, no.” Nan giggles, feeling almost like a child again, caught in some innocent transgression.
“What time is it? I have a plane to catch.”
Nan is surprised by the arrival of sorrow. Well, what did she expect, that this would go on forever? Wasn’t she just yesterday counting the hours until everyone would leave and things could get back to normal? That is, if normal ever comes again. Who knows what Bay will think when Nan tells her everything.
“I find I have reached a time in my life,” Mavis says, “where I must, in all seriousness ask, do you know where my hair is?”
Nan looks from the messy bedside table to the messy dresser to Nicholas lying curled on the floor. He rarely sleeps on the hard wood, and he is not sleeping on it now; lavender hair pokes out around him. Nan has to admit it’s a very pretty combination, his white fur against the purple.
Still holding the box, she slides off the bed, prattling about how the wig must be around somewhere, making enough noise to wake Nicholas, who she nudges with her foot. He lowers his brow at her but stands to arch his back. Nan scoops up the wig, holding it close as she walks to the dresser. “Here it is,” she says, pretending to find it there even as she opens the drawer and returns the box to its nest of underwear and slips.
“Is that clock working?”
Nan frowns at the red numbers. “I think so.”
Mavis sits up slowly, stretches her arm toward Nan, who understands she is expected to hand over the wig. “I’m going to have to borrow your phone. I had an early flight. I should have brought another one of these with me.” Mavis brushes and plucks the wig littered with dust and cat hair.
“Why don’t you stay?” Nan says. It’s a word burp. She doesn’t know where it came from. She can’t believe she’s said it.
“Stay?”
“Don’t you feel like we’ve only just got started? Don’t you think it’s too soon to go?”
“It feels sudden,” Mavis says, “though I always knew it would come.”
Nan realizes the conversation has veered, and the thought of where it has veered to makes her sad. She sits on the edge of the bed. “We have doctors too, of course,” she says, and when Mavis starts to speak: “I understand you are done with all that. I’m just saying. If you changed your mind, there are doctors in town and a hospital in the city. If you changed your mind, Mavis. I wouldn’t do anything against your wishes.”
“My family—”
“Would always be welcome.”
There is a silence during which, Nan notes, Mavis does not insist on leaving, but only picks at her wig, the morning sun shining on her bald head.
“Do you smell apples?” How Nan loves the seasons! “Stay. You can sit on the porch and watch the leaves change color. I’ll make apple butter, and we’ll have apple toast, apple muffins, and apple pancakes. We’ll decorate the house for Halloween and eat all the candy we want, and make pumpkin soup.” Nan claps her hands, one quick clap. She can’t believe how excited she feels. “Stay.”
“You paint a lovely picture,” Mavis says, turning the wig in her hands as though it is something strange she’s found. “But we both know death is a messy process.”
“Stay,” Nan says. “I’m not saying you have to be neat about it.”
There is a soft knock on the door. “Nana, are you up?”
“Bay?”
Mavis hurriedly puts on the wig; there is no time to make adjustments. Bay steps into the room, wearing an apron over the butterfly dress. She looks from her Nana to Mavis on the bed. Are her Nana and Mavis girlfriend-girlfriends? This is all right, of course. Of course! People love who they love; Bay is certain she’d feel equally odd about the situation if it were a man in her Nana’s bed.
“You look quite befuddled. Are you all right?”
Bay feels her eyes slide toward Mavis. She knows it’s rude to stare, but what is going on with her hair?
“I have to tell you something,” Bay says. They both nod, Mavis’s hair sliding oddly.
“Do you know,” says Nan, “that you smell like apples this morning?”
“I made a pie.”
“Well, that’s just lovely. What a lovely thing for you to do.”
They are both looking at Bay, their eyes hooded but kind. Even Mavis.
“Bay, do you need to speak to me alone?”
“Don’t mind me,” Mavis says and begins to work her way across the bed. “I’ll just disappear.”
“No. Stay. You should probably hear this too.”
Mavis scoots back, propping a pillow against the wall. Nan starts to help, but Mavis glares and says she’s not an invalid.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Bay says, struggling to begin. “You know how some people say you are a witch and how that always made me so mad?”
“I suspected that’s bothered you.”
“Well, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I want you to know I wouldn’t change anything about you.”
Nan folds her hands over her heart, as though it is in danger of floating away.
Bay parts her lips to say more, but the door opens, and Ruthie steps into the room. “Water is leaving.” She wiggles her fingers beside her head. “I just had a brain wave, I guess. Not Water. Who would name their daughter Water? I meant to say Thalia.”
“What about Thalia?” Bay asks, but even as she speaks, she hears the car pulling up in front of the house. She walks across the room to watch Thalia running in her bare feet, clutching her backpack, sleeping bag, and shoes.
“She has to leave,” Ruthie says. “They’re going somewhere today, and she has to go.”
Thalia opens the car door, then looks up at the house. Bay waves. Luckily, Thalia sees her and waves back.
“Ruthie, she’s still wearing your dress.”
“Oh, do you think I could fit into that little thing? I told her to keep it.”
Thalia ducks into the car. The door barely closed, Mrs. Desarti peels away.
“She seems like she’s in a big hurry,” Bay muses, not realizing she spoke out loud until Ruthie says that Thalia had asked her to deliver a message to Bay. Something about being “sorry she had to leave so early, but she had to go, she had to go…well, I’m afraid I don’t remember where or why,” Ruthie says. “I’m sorry, Bay, I know messages are important.”
Bay turns from the window. Her Nana sits on the bed, still wearing the blue velvet. Mavis sits against the pillows, looking—what word should Bay use? Why Mavis, Bay is surprised to discover, looks quite loving, as does Ruthie, standing by the door, smiling, even her killer eyes, too close to the narrow nose, are filled with kindness.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Ruthie says, turning to go.
“No, wait,” says Bay. “I have to tell you something. All of you.” She takes a deep breath. “I think you should know. Stella thinks you are all involved in murder.”
“Murder?”
“I told her she’s wrong, of course.” Bay is interrupted by Mavis, grumbling as she inches across the bed, saying something about writers and secrets and how they should have sent Stella away as soon as she arrived. Nan says they need to set the record straight, and it’s all just a horrible mix-up. Ruthie breaks into the noise without even raising her voice.
“He didn’t die,” she says. “I didn’t actually kill him.”
What is that expression her Nana uses? You could hear a petal drop? Yes, in the hot silence, Bay thinks she can hear moonflower petals falling to the ground below the bedroom window.
“Who didn’t die? Your husband?” Nan asks.
“No, not him. Why does everyone keep saying that? My husband is alive and…well, whatever he is. I grew out of all that years ago, don’t you see?”
“Not really,” says Nan. She starts to inch across the bed but finds her butt against Mavis’s bony knee. “Move over. I have a feeling this is going to take a while.”
Mavis scoots back, and Nan follows, stopping every few inches to adjust the skirt of her velvet dress, which twists beneath her in a most uncomfortable manner. Once situated, she signals Bay to join them, and she more or less throws herself across the bed, which emits a grunt from Mavis and a murmured apology from Bay. All three of them look up at Ruthie, who remains standing in front of the closed door, blinking teary eyes at them.
“I never told anyone,” she says.
Bay nods. She wants to believe in Ruthie, she really does. She wants to believe there’s a good explanation, though she can’t imagine what it would be.
“I came back the summer after I got married,” Ruthie says. “I already knew I’d made a mistake with my husband. I kept thinking about Eve, how if she’d been alive she never would have let me make such a bad choice. She would have protected me, even though I did such a poor job of protecting her. I aimed for his heart but hit his leg instead.”
“Who? Who?” Mavis squawks.
“Mr. Leary,” Ruthie says, shaking her head sorrowfully. “Eve’s father.”
“You shot him?”
Ruthie nods and brings a fist to her mouth, blocking her lips just as they turn up at the corner.
“I remember,” Nan says. “I remember hearing how he’d been cleaning his gun. Everyone said that family just couldn’t get a break, first his wife, then Eve, and—Ruthie—you shot him?”
“He couldn’t tell anyone. I said if he did, I would tell everyone about what he did to Eve. He pretended like he didn’t know what I was talking about. He called me a fat, silly girl, and then I shot him.”
Ruthie blinks rapidly as they stare at her. “I had too much wine,” she says. “It was just a graze. I didn’t kill him.” She looks directly at Bay. “I never drank again after that night. I felt miserable when I discovered Danny was home. Remember how he was? Always spying on us?”
Mavis and Nan nod solemnly, but Bay shakes her head, shocked that no one asks the obvious question. “Why? Why would you shoot Eve’s father?”
Mavis, usually so direct, is suddenly unreasonably focused on picking feathers off her dress. Ruthie’s eyes widen beneath the arch of raised brows, her lips pinched. Only Nan returns Bay’s questioning look with a steady gaze as she says, “I think Bay and I need some time alone.”
The bed groans, and Mavis does too as she slides across the mattress. Ruthie walks in her sensible, quiet shoes to wait by the bed, an easy arm for Mavis when it comes time to stand. Mavis, apparently noticing Bay looking at the crooked hair, reaches up and straightens it, winking as she does. A wig! Mavis and Ruthie walk out of the room arm in arm. Mavis isn’t exactly leaning on Ruthie, but she does lean toward her.
“Didn’t you have an early flight?” Ruthie asks. Nicholas makes it out just as the door closes behind them.
Nan isn’t sure where to begin. The silence is so expectant you could hear a petal drop, she thinks. “Remember when I used to tell you fairy tales?”
Bay nods, though it’s embarrassing to think of her love of fairy tales when she is well beyond the age for that sort of thing. She hates to admit she still enjoys them. I really must be some kind of freak.
“What did you say?” Nan asks.
Had she spoken out loud? Bay takes a deep breath. “Why does it always smell like lavender in here?” She remembers the scent from since she was a little girl sitting in the bed, the big book of stories in her lap, watching Nan brush her long silver hair in the moonlight.
I have lied to you about making soap, Nan thinks. But isn’t that a silly way to begin this serious subject? Won’t she be in danger of getting completely off track with such a start? Why did she feel she had to keep up such a foolish pretense, anyway? Is Bay really going to care that the soap has been store-bought?
“Lavender oil,” Nan says. “I sprinkle it in the closet.”
Which is true. It hasn’t all been lies.
Suddenly, and for no reason she
can think of, Bay isn’t sure she wants to know. She feels both thrilled and frightened, as though she is on a carnival ride, suddenly spinning in a new direction.
“This is a hard story to tell,” Nan says.
“You don’t have to.”
“When I was young,” Nan says. “When we were young, we were raised to believe that the best thing we could do with our lives was get married and have babies.”
Nan stands so suddenly she worries for a moment she’s had a stroke. How has she gone so quickly from the downy cushion of feather bed to the wooden floor? She turns to the window to draw the drapes, hoping to keep the heat out. Just the way, all those years ago, they shut the curtains in Eve’s room, as though that could shelter her from the damage already done.
“Now, where was I?” Nan asks.
“Everyone wanted to get married and have babies.”
“Well, not exactly.” Nan flits about the room, lightly touching things: the curtain, the painting of trees, the dresser where she pauses to pick up a mug with the film of tea at the bottom, staring into it as though she could read the mold for guidance. “Not everyone wanted babies, but we were told we should. I, however, was privy to a different, secret world, and I never even had to leave my front porch to find it.”
Nan sits on the edge of the bed. She would much rather talk about anything else, but Bay looks up at her, waiting. “The women came,” Nan says, “in gloves and hats as though for a tea party, but they came at all hours. One night my father discovered me watching. He asked what I thought they came for. ‘Well, it’s obvious,’ that’s what I said. ‘They’re witches.’