Cursed be the Wicked (15 page)

“You can still find remnants of everything that’s happened to the island over there,” she says. “If you try hard enough, you can see what she used to be.”

She rests her head against me. I’m very aware that I’m shaking but I don’t know if it’s from the chill in the air or what she’s telling me.

“I know sometimes it hurts to look back, especially when someone we cared about did something awful to us,” she tells me. “But if you look beyond the surface, sometimes you find something you missed the first time around.”

That blog post I read haunts my thoughts again. I speculate as to whether there’s any truth to any of it. If there is, Finn’s right, I missed it.

“Sometimes surviving a nightmare is more important than looking for clues that someone didn’t bother telling you existed,” I tell her in my own defense.

I feel her arms slide around my waist, then she squeezes a little. I haven’t had this intimate of a talk with anyone. Ever. It’s easier than I thought it would be all these years. But then again, it’s only easier because it’s with Finn.

I remind myself she’s also lost her parents. I’m sure this conversation hits home for her too. Maybe she thinks some signs went unnoticed by her.

“Hey.” I tilt her chin up with my finger. “Sometimes there are no signs. Sometimes things just happen.”

She agrees, silently, and looks away, leaning her head against my chest again. We’re there another minute or so. I can’t see her face but I can feel her fisting my shirt in her hand. I want to comfort her somehow, tell her life goes on and everything will be fine eventually, but I don’t believe the words myself. How can I sell it Finn?

“It’s getting late,” I tell her for fear I might say or do something she doesn’t want reciprocated if we stay here. “We should go.”

We start to slowly make our way back to the car and I tug at her hand. “Hey, thanks for that.”

“Sure,” she says, and just like that, she slips away from me. “That’s what friends are for, right?” She starts to take my coat off and I find it disturbing that her words stab my chest the way they do.

Friends. I don’t like the term. It’s not what I consider us to be. It’s more like, a part of her sneaks inside of me every time I’m with her and when she’s gone, I’m just not right.

She makes things make sense.

Which is why I resolve that for her, I’ll try to have an open mind about my mother.

On my way back to the B&B, after taking Finn home, I stop at the end of my street again. There are no street lamps lit. The darkness is like a door that refuses to open for me.

I want to get past this.

I let myself think of Mom, and focus on a good memory with her.

“This is really good, Coop,”
she’d told me one night. It was a rare moment when she was in a good mood.

I’d showed her a short story I wrote for my fifth grade Language Arts class. I had written my own version of Huckleberry Finn. In my story, he didn’t sail down the Mississippi, but became a secret agent who tracked bad guys for the FBI.

“You have a real gift, Cooper,” she told me with a sad smile. “Never forget how to use it.”

She read a few more paragraphs and then dropped the paper to her lap as she lifted her head. She stared at the front door and went in to some sort of a trance.

“Mom?”

She didn’t answer me.

“Mom,”
I called out louder this time. She turned and said with a scowl,
“Go to your room, Cooper. Dinner’s in a couple of hours.”

I didn’t understand, just moments before she was happy, and now she was mad.

“What did I do?”
I asked her but she simply stood, ignoring me. She pushed the paper I’d written into her apron pocket and shoved me toward the stairs.

“Go. To. Your. Room!”

I went, running up the stairs, scared she might do more than yell. Another minute later, I could hear my father’s truck pulling into the driveway.

The next day, I asked Mom for my story. I wanted to show Dad. She said she had no idea what I was talking about.

As Dad walked into the room, I told her she was nuts.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? I just showed you last night?”

“Showed you what?”
my father asked. Mom answered, but not before looking to me with a fire burning in her eyes.

“Nothing, he didn’t show me anything. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You most certainly are,”
she insisted but I refused to give in.

“No, Mom, I’m not.”

She slammed her hand against the counter.

“You are, now get out!”

I left when she screamed and the veins in her temple began to pop out. I didn’t want either one of us to get physical. All the way to school, I couldn’t shake the confusion I felt though. I couldn’t understand why she would lie like that. Or why she would be so angry about it.

Thinking back, and taking into consideration the things I’ve read now, and Finn’s advice, I know there must have been more to her temper tantrums than just having an extreme dislike for her son.

My cell phone rings and I answer it but no one’s on the line. I check the call and it’s that same damn number from somewhere inside Salem city limits.

I should just hang up but find myself listening.

Maybe even hoping.

“Mom?”

I feel stupid even saying it but the word leaves my mouth before I can stop it. My eyes sting as the line goes dead. I swallow down the lumps in my throat and toss the phone into the passenger’s seat.

I curse at the air. I’m twenty-eight years old. A grown man. I’m supposed to be over this.

I hate how I feel right now. Lost. Alone. Scared I might have had the wrong idea about my mother all this time. Terrified that my dad might not be who I thought he was.

I grab the steering wheel and squeeze. I close my eyes. I breathe until I don’t want to throw up anymore. Then I put the car in drive and head back to the B&B.

I don’t think about what Finn said earlier, or the house, or the calls. Not even Jack Diggs. I ignore them all.

I’m here to do a job.

Just a job.

Chapter 10

Bridget Bishop

Some time in the early hours of the morning, I roll out of bed as unsettled as I was hours ago. I haven’t slept much. I haven’t eaten. I find myself pulling a notebook and pen out of my laptop bag.

I start a list, about my Mom.

Favorite song,
that’s easy,
Escape by Rupert Holms. She hummed it all the time.

Favorite food, tacos.

Favorite flower.

I stare at the word. My mother didn’t have a favorite flower. She had a favorite tree, though.

Rowan
.

There was one in our back yard. I’m curious if it’s still there. She adored that tree. Obsessed over it and hung the branches all over the damn house. Even over the doors. I even recall this poem she used to sing while she was cutting the branches.

Rowan is the tree of power, causing life and magic to flower.

I’m surprised I remember that but now that I do, I also remember that she said it all the time. Told me she read it in a book that rowans are special.

She read a lot actually.

Damn, she did.

I write another item to my list.

Favorite book.

I pause. Her favorite book would have to be
The Wizard of Oz.
She read it so much to me when I was a kid that the spine was worn and the pages had to be taped. She continued reading it, to herself, long after I outgrew being read to at night. She couldn’t get enough of it. She couldn’t get enough of books in general.

A moment of connection hits me when I realize we had this in common. I’ve been an avid reader since I can remember and I wonder if we had anything else in common.

Other things make the list but I’m stuck thinking about this one song. I can’t quite remember how it went but I remember she sang it to me. A lot. I’m racking my brain trying to figure out the words to the damn thing.

For some reason I immediately think of Finn and how I’m fairly certain she’d know it even if all I could do was hum a chorus of it for her.

I think about calling her but I never asked for her number.

I check the time and wonder if she’s home.

It’s still early. Too early. I doubt she’s up and even if she is, I’m sure she’s at some job she has on the side somewhere. I need a time waster. Showers and shaves only last so long.

Downstairs, I stop by the dining room. Betsy is setting up for breakfast. I convince her to pretend she didn’t see me as I snag a muffin and some coffee on my way out. She blushes and giggles and shakes her head. I wink at her and she lets me go without a single attempt to convince me to eat with the rest of the guests.

Finn was right. Betsy is good people.

Outside, I stop short. Darkness is looming off in the distance. The clouds are rolling. They threaten to make my day a miserable one but I ignore them, for now, and drive off to find a diner to hang out in until the rest of the world is awake.

I find one, just on the outskirts of the city and the view is good. I grab a seat that faces the woods and place my order. Then I wait for the storm to roll in. But by nine a.m., the rain hasn’t come yet and I’m sure Geneva will be awake by now. So I head over there to get some time in with her granddaughter today.

“She’s not here, I’m afraid, Mr. Shaw,” Geneva tells me when I ask to see Finn.

“Do you know where she went today?” I ask but she doesn’t. So I force a smile and start to leave, wondering what Finn might be up to. She wasn’t at the Camilla Inn, I’d have spotted her a mile away.

“Thanks anyway,” I tell Geneva but she stops me before I can go.

“You left something here the other night, Mr. Shaw.”

“I did?”

She leaves the door wide open and disappears into the house. I go in and already, she’s nowhere in sight. I eye the sofa Finn and I spent the night on. I smile to myself as I think of holding her while we talked, falling asleep with her in my arms, and waking up that way.

I move a little further into the hallway but stop at an antique looking picture frame, hanging on the wall. There’s an old, worn out, hand drawn portrait of Finn inside it. She’s younger and her hair is different. She looks like she’s wearing one of those old Pilgrim outfits, like from when they first settled in America. I’m about to call out to Geneva and ask her if it’s one of those “Old Time” photo shots when she answers from behind me.

“That’s not Finn,” she says. “Looks just like her though, doesn’t it?”

I nod. The young woman in the picture pulls my attention back to her and I study her features. It’s difficult to make them out. The drawing is worn, but I still see similarities.

Geneva continues without my having to ask her.

“It’s my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Bridget Bishop.”

I’m doing the possible math in my head and it’s not escaping my attention that this drawing must date back to at least the seventeen hundreds.

Geneva reads my mind once again and nods. “That’s right, Mr. Shaw, you’re looking at one of the first witches of Salem to be hanged in Sixteen-Ninety-Two. By the time I happened along that name was long gone but I took Bishop back after my husband died, rest his soul.”

I notice the woman, Bridget, even had that same glint in her eyes as Finn.

“The similarities between the two of them is crazy,” I muse, and Geneva chuckles.

“You don’t know the half of it, young man,” she informs me. “Our Finn gets
all
her personality from that woman. She dresses different than most, stubborn as a mule, outspoken. She’s more free spirited than the dead.”

She sighs, thoughtfully. “Of course those same traits are what gets them targeted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Bridget spoke her mind, didn’t conform, and dressed how she wanted instead of the way the rest of those Pilgrims did. It drew attention to her, made her
weird
in most folk’s eyes. Got her hanged.”

“So, you’re saying she wasn’t a witch?” I ask. It’s interesting to hear Geneva Bishop, the woman I once considered a witch from back in the day, make things sound so explainable.

“Oh she was a witch,” she says. “I’m
saying
she didn’t deserve to be prosecuted because of that fact.”

She holds her hand out. I look down to see she’s holding my recorder in the palm of her hand. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing. I’m sincerely hoping she didn’t listen to the session I had with her my first day here. If she did, she’s not busting me on it. She just eyes me for a minute and then goes about her business while giving me some very Finn-esque type advice.

“You know, Mr. Shaw, sometimes when you’re not paying attention, the things you thought you needed can get away from you.” She shrugs. “Of course the good thing about that is, it leaves room for the things you do need.”

I take the recorder and push it into my jacket pocket. I get what she’s saying but because I have no idea how to respond to any of it, I skip a response. Instead I tell her, “I think you can call me Coop now, don’t you, Geneva?”

She doesn’t say anything, just smiles and waves goodbye.

Before I go, it strikes me to ask her something else.

“Hey, did you happen to know my mother?”

I put it out there without hesitation but she does not answer likewise.

“I did. Once,” she tells me in a somber tone. “Before.”

“Before? Before what?”

“It’s not right what happened to her, Coop,” she tells me. Sympathy is dripping from her words. It doesn’t sound right. I’m used to people telling me what an evil witch she was to my father and me.

My brow twitches. I’m nervous to ask another question.

“What happened to her, Geneva?”

She gets lost in her thoughts for a moment, then looks off into the distance. As though she’s just now noticing I’m standing here, she looks to me and smiles.

“What was I saying?”

“You were—”

She waves a hand. “I can’t sit here and chitchat all day, Cooper Shaw,” she tells me, cutting me off. “I’ve got a roast in the oven and a book club meeting later over in Marblehead, so, go on.”

I’m shooed out of the house. Before I can get another question out, the door is shut and I’m standing there on her front porch, a little dumbstruck.

I take a moment to appreciate just exactly how bizarre that exchange was between us. I also resign myself to the fact that even if I did knock on that door again, Geneva wouldn’t answer. Not now anyway.

I leave and with nothing else on my agenda today, I head back to the diner I found this morning, for lack of anything more interesting to do.

I’m aware that I have more work to do on my article. I’m also aware that I could always stop by my mother’s old house and try that again. I’d simply rather not do either of those things.

As I pull up to the establishment this time, I see Jack Diggs of all people. He’s getting kicked to the curb by one of the servers. I park and follow him a few feet past the diner to try and see if he’ll talk to me again.

“Hey Jack!”

When he doesn’t acknowledge me I call out to him again. He’s either deaf or stubborn so I break into a sprint to catch him. When I do, he’s still trying to ignore me.

I grab him by the arm.

“Hey.”

He stops and eyes my hand, then me.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” he tells me, angry.

I let go of his arm because he seems like he’s about to deck me if I don’t.

“I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes. If that’s okay.”

He won’t look me in the eyes. He could be contemplating making a break for it, so I offer him something I know he wants. “You’re hungry right?” I ask him.

He looks around like he’s checking to see if anyone sees us together. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s not supposed to be talking to me, or vice versa.

Either way.

“Come on, Jack, it’s just some breakfast.”

He nods, finally agreeing and I lead him inside. We take the same booth I had this morning. A waitress eyes us carefully, she takes our order and I ask her to bring a stack of pancakes. That should fill Jack up for a while.

We sit in awkward silence until the food comes. After the waitress leaves, Jack only thinks about it for a second before digging into the pancakes and sausage. I give him some time. I know he’s hungry but when he looks like he’s slowing down a bit, it’s go time.

“Jack, I need to ask a couple of questions if you don’t mind.”

His eating stills.

“Jack?” I wait for his eyes to meet mine. “You knew my mother, didn’t you?”

He swallows. His eyes fall to the plate in front of him and I could swear he smiles.

“We were best friends a long time ago.”

“Best friends?” It comes off harsher than I anticipated and Jack flinches, but he answers with a small bow of his head.

He nods.

“She was Magpie, then.”

The way he says her apparent nickname gives me pause. I had never really thought of my mother having a life of any kind outside the one I knew her from, much less a best friend who used to call her something like
Mag pie
. In one short sentence from this man I already know more than a whole website, dedicated to my mother could tell me.

I regroup.

“How long did you know her?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Jack.”

“Forever,” he finally says. He looks pained. Like he’s been stabbed in the heart. “Do they serve beer here?”

I empathize with him. I’d like a beer myself. But I still don’t get how I’ve never met him. I ignore his question. “Why didn’t I ever see you around?”

“I was mostly before, and very little, after,” he tells me.

I feel more lost than ever. It’s like pulling teeth, getting information.

“Before what, Jack?”

“Blood and tears,” he mumbles. “Fists and pain,” he says louder. He seems agitated.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask, even though I have a funny feeling I already know the answer.

Jack’s jaw muscle flexes before he speaks again. “Her smiles were gone,” he tells me, staring at nothing now. He notices people are staring. He backs off and starts eating again.

I try to decipher what he’s referring to. My mother’s madness? Or maybe something having to do with that website where I read up on my father.

A bell rings at the front of the small restaurant. Jack’s eyes dart in that direction and I see my aunt entering alone. She eyes me immediately but I don’t have time for her. I turn back to ask Jack another question but he’s already slipped out from the booth.

“Jack, wait,” I call out. He darts toward the door and is already out of the diner before I can gather my things and go after him.

“Dammit.”

I get up to leave, but my aunt steps in front of me. She doesn’t look very happy. But what’s new?

“Why are you talking to him?” she asks.