The Witch of Belladonna Bay (35 page)

“It was the look in her eyes. I could tell she'd had one of her ‘blackouts.' Those damn strange ways of hers. It's a curse. So I picked her up and told her everything was gonna be just fine. That Carter was gonna fix up everything just so. And I put her back to bed.”

Carter stopped there for a second and took out a handkerchief. His eyes had welled up, and he was trying not to cry. Strong, older Southern men crying is the most awkwardly beautiful thing on this earth. I wanted to hug him just then, but he continued.

“Then I got some supplies and went out back across the creek to fix up Jamie. Only he wasn't there.”

“What do you mean, he wasn't there?” asked Stick.

“Exactly what I said. And now we know the truth. But back then I was sure he'd crawled off somewhere to die. So I looked for him. I did. I swear it. But there wasn't even a trail. And I'm a half-decent hunter.

“I figured I'd go back in the morning. I made sure the fire was nice and warm in case he made his way back. It soothed me, makin' that fire. Made me feel better. Like I wasn't doin' something terrible. Even though I was.

“I walked back into the Big House and washed my hands good in the sink, and then made my way upstairs to check on Patrick. I was relieved when I heard Patrick in his room. I knocked on the door and he let me in. He'd taken a shower. He seemed way too calm and clearheaded. I'd not seen him so sharp in a long time. ‘I called Stick,' he said.

“‘Oh hell, Paddy, you didn't. What did he tell you? What did you say?'

“‘I called him and told him he needed to get to Lottie's in the mornin' and to come here right after. He was half asleep. And he don't know the hell he's gonna face in the morning. So I'm sure I have tonight. Stick ain't never rushed anywhere in his whole life.'

“‘What are you gonna do, Paddy?'

“‘I'm gonna confess. What else?'

“‘But you didn't do it!'

“‘No, but we both know who did.' He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it hard. ‘Look, Carter. I'm not gonna say this twice. I'm not ever going to let one hair on her head come to harm. It aint her fault she's the way she is. It's my mama's fault. It's all our faults. And I'm gonna have to ask you to do one more thing.'

“‘What's that, Paddy?'

“‘No one will know what we saw. They can guess, but they can't ever
know
. Okay?'

“‘You could get the chair, Paddy. How'm I supposed to sit back and let you die?'

“‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won't. But it don't matter. Because she's worth it. You understand me?'

“I just shrugged. I couldn't shake the vision of Paddy in the electric chair. My boy. I'd raised him up since he was sixteen. He was combing his hair like a dandy in the mirror, all clean and neat and to one side.

“‘Did you take care of Jamie?' he asked.

“‘Yes. Only when I went back, he was gone.'

“‘Gone, like dead?'

“I thought about telling him the whole truth, but I knew he needed to be free of worry to do what he needed to do. So I just nodded.

“‘I hate to say it, Carter. But that might be the best thing. Did you take care of the knife?'

“The knife. I'd forgotten about it.

“I took it out of my pocket.

“‘Shit! Carter, we gotta hide it.'

“‘Where?'

“‘You decide. But don't tell me about it. Don't tell no one.'

“‘Okay.'

“He hugged me then. Hugged me like he hadn't since he was a boy.

“‘I'm not scared, Carter. I feel better than I have in a long time. I feel, useful. And now I'm gonna crawl into bed with my little girl and hold her like I did when she was a baby. You hide that knife and get some rest. You're gonna need it to help with Byrd come tomorrow.'

“So what was done was done. And when I went to the cabin on Belladonna the next day, Jamie was
still
gone. I looked for hours. Not a sign of him. So I thought he was dead, for real … and eaten up by an alligator or something.”

“Where did you hide the knife, Carter? That's gonna be important,” asked Stick.

Carter laughed. “You wanna know? Here you are: it's in the kitchen of the Big House in the junk drawer near the back. I wiped it, though.”

“Carter, you could have left it at the bottom of the creek and we'd still be able to lift prints off it. Don't worry.”

Stick pressed Stop on the tape recorder.

“I'll need you to write it down, too. And then sign. That all right with you?”

“Anything we need to do to get this whole mess straightened out,” said Carter.

“Come on, Wyn, let me walk you out. You better get home now, there's a storm comin'.”

When we were back at the front of the office, I turned to Stick and said, “Look here, I'm going to ask you something, and you're going to comply, okay? I'm not going to throw out any threats or tell you how you fouled up this whole thing. I'm just going to ask you a favor.”

“What, Wyn?”

“You go back in there and record that confession again. And you have Carter take out any mention of Paddy. You tell him to say he'd done the whole thing himself thinkin' Paddy did it. Covering for him. I know it's a lie. But it's a good one. It will save a lot of people a whole lot of pain.”

“I can do that. I shouldn't. But I can.”

“Good,” I said. And I knew Carter would be more than willing to fix it up for Paddy. He loved him with a real sort of love. The kind that doesn't ask for anything in return. The kind of love I was just learning about.

“Can Jackson do anything with whatever charges Carter will face?” I asked.

“Sure he can. And he will. Paddy will be home in no time.”

“How long is ‘no time'?” I asked.

“Soon, Wyn. And man, that's gonna be something.”

“Sure is,” I said, and then, “Hey, Stick?”

“Yeah?”

“I consider you a friend, and I'm grateful for what you're about to do. But really? You're a shitty sheriff.”

Then I left.

 

30

Byrd and Wyn

 

It was night by the time I got home.

Byrd was rocking back and forth on the front porch of the Big House. She ran at me so fast I thought she'd project herself right over the railing.

“Hey! Hey there, slow down. Are you trying to fly or something?”

That's when she burst into tears and threw herself at me. I almost fell backwards down the stairs. I sat hard on the top step instead.

Weeping. My girl was weeping.

“Shh, honey. It's all over. It's all over now. Your daddy's comin' home. We've solved all the mysteries.”

“No, Aunt Wyn … not all of them. I … please. I can't talk about it. I need you to try and read my mind.” She put my hands on her head and shut her eyes tight.

“It doesn't work that way, honey, we just love each other too much. And even if I could, I can already feel this thing you need to tell me is hiding so deep inside, you'd block it away from me anyway. Like a dam, right?”

She nodded, hiccupping with sobs.

“A girl can try, can't she?” she cried out, wailing again.

“Lord, Byrd, what is the matter?”

“I want to tell you something. But I can't tell you. So you need to see it and I can't figure out how to get you to see it!”

I understood. There was one more piece.

“I have an idea,” I said.

Her head popped back up. “What?”

“Well, why don't you go back to the cottage and get my tarot cards. I'm pretty good at using them. Maybe if I read your cards I'll figure out your secret and you won't have to tell me anything,”

She jumped from my lap and ran toward my little house.

“They're next to my bed!” I shouted after her.

“I know!” she yelled back.

“Hurry up! It's already starting to rain!” I shouted louder, because she was farther.

“I know!”
she yelled out over the thunder that rumbled, shaking everything around us.

*   *   *

The Big House was empty. A large, empty house is always a scary thing. Your mind can play tricks on you.

I went to the kitchen and turned on the lights, but they flickered and went out. It would be one of those quick, violent storms. I felt around for the candles and matches Aunt Min always kept on the windowsill over the sink and lit a bunch on the kitchen table.

“This is a good place,” I said to the dark room. I would do her reading on the table that had seen more than its fair share of Whalen triumphs and tragedies. We'd be able to put things in perspective that way. More voices could come through the cards.

“A good place for what?” asked a voice from the shadows.

“Ben! You scared me, I thought you were with Jackson and all them at Sam's.”

“I was.”

I could hear the grandfather clock in the hall. Tick-tock, tick-tock … silence.

“You've never been a winter sort of person, Bronwyn,” he said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Think about it,” he said. “Winter. It explains, precisely, the difference in personality between someone who hails from the North of this country or the South.

“When you live through winters—true, deep, dark, snowy winters—you can hibernate your soul. You can pretend to be quiet. You learn how to shut yourself off. You've done that for too long. I allowed you to live a Yankee life, a true northeastern life for so damned long you shut yourself down. Completely.”

His words resonated.

The South. It seeps out and thaws a person so quickly. If it's in you, it comes right back as soon as you accept who you are. And it was Ben, out of all the people and out of all the things that happened that summer, who taught me this lesson. Birthed it out of me through our contrasts. Allowed me to see the truth.

Be who you are.

If you're broken, be broken. If you're crazy, be crazy. If you're opinionated, yell your opinions from the rooftop. If you have strange ways? See it as a blessing, not a curse.

He sat me down at the kitchen table as the rain poured down outside.

“I'm going back to New York.” he said.

“I know.”

“And you're not coming,”

“I know,” I said softly.

“I will ship your things. Don't worry about me; I realize, now, that you
can't
come back, Wyn. See … even I'm calling you by your true name now. You love it here. You belong here. And there's something else…”

“What?”

“You love Grant. You loved him when you were small, and you love him still.”

You know when you look at someone in astonishment, only it's not really astonishment at all, you just need something to say because you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar? That's what I felt like. So I came up with the only thing I could think of. “You are
crazy
. You've gone and
lost your mind
in this heat and this storm.”

He smiled a knowing Ben smile.

“Bronwyn, you have to let me go and let him know how you feel. If the way he looked at you in New Orleans when you weren't looking is any indication, he'll walk on clouds when you tell him.”

“I'm so sorry, Ben.”

“Babe, you and I were over the second you got on that plane. I know it now. And don't misunderstand me. I wish I was wrong. I wish you loved me and wanted to go back to our life together. But I can't have that, so I'm letting you go.”

I started crying. From relief and pain so intermingled I didn't know what was what. Then he took my hands and switched my rings. Put Grant's on my left, and his on my right.

“Can we still be friends?” It sounded so pathetic in my own ears I could have slapped myself. But it was true. I didn't want to lose all of him.

“Always.”

Just then, Byrd came bouncing in through the kitchen door, soaking wet, with my tarot cards held close to her chest. She looked at the two of us, confused for a moment, but just a moment.

“I reckon I'd tell you I'd give y'all some space, but I don't think neither of you want none of that. So while you say your goodbyes I'm gonna set up this table so Aunt Wyn can work her magic. Okay?”

“It was good to know you, Byrd,” said Ben.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

“She's going to miss you. That's what that means.”

“I know. But we'll see each other again soon. I can feel it in my bones. Kiss me one more time and then I'll be gone.”

I wrapped my arms around him and felt his strength. His solidity. I kissed him full on the mouth and wondered if I was making a huge mistake.

He pulled away first. “No, you're taking steps back so you can move forward. But thank you for the kiss, I needed that,” he said, walking out the door into the rain and out of my life. But even as the minutes passed, I could still hear him in my heart.

“Thank you, Ben,” I said, my eyes closed, hoping he'd feel my words as he drove down those dark, lonely, country roads.

“You can still hear him? In your mind?” asked Byrd.

“Yeah,” I responded, shuffling the cards.

“You know what that means, right? Or do I gotta explain it to you?”

“No, I get it now. I can hear him because he's far away from me.”

She nodded her head, as if suddenly she'd become very old, and the day that had just occurred was already a part of her memory, long forgotten until stormy nights like
these.

The past, present, and future live side by side …

“Hey,” I said, clearing my throat, “before we get started, and just in case this reading turns up things we don't really care to know, you want a drink?” Like I said, no moral compass whatsoever.