The Witch of Belladonna Bay (6 page)

The idea that I'd “get my bearings” was laughable. Born out of an orderly northeastern way of thinking about things.
You're off the I-95 corridor now, Wyn
.

Naomi had flown into this airport with Minerva, just like me. They'd waited on a driver sent by Jackson, too, and taken the same road into the unknown.

My mother's unknown began winding itself around mine, and I started to feel the intoxicating love I had for her when I was a little girl. Sorrow is a heavy thing.

“You ready, Miss Wyn?” asked the man sent to bring me back home.

Wyn. He called me Wyn like he'd known me forever.

I decided to take a real look at this escort of mine, so I could get a good feeling for the fellow who'd bring me back to my former life.

He was an older man but not an Old-timer. Not a Towner either. Old-timers were the ones from
way
back. From the time when the Whalens owned every bit of Magnolia Creek. When the lumberyard was the place every man worked, and every woman worried about. When Jackson took over, he closed down the mills and offered all the workers a fine pension. It's those men and their wives (the ones that are left, anyway) who we call Old-timers. The rest of us, the children of all those people, young and old alike (depending on whatever age the Old-timer was when Jackson closed the mill), we're the Towners. But this man wasn't either. He was
new.

“I seem to be at a disadvantage here,” I said. “You know my name, only I don't know yours.” I knew I sounded haughty, but I couldn't help it. Sometimes my brain makes my mouth say things to protect my heart.

“Sorry about that, Wyn. My name's Carter. No nickname, no funny sort of pronunciation. Just plain ol' Carter.”

“Are you a Towner, Carter? I don't remember you,” I said, knowing full well that he wasn't.
Small talk …

“No, miss, you don't know me,” he responded, “We ain't never met. I came on over from Birmingham to visit your dad about a job. I don't know, maybe a month or so after you … left.”

He'd been here, living with my family for almost as long as I'd been alive before I ran off. Time is a blurry thing.

“Heard he was tryin' to cultivate some newfangled 'maters,” continued Carter. “And since I know a thing or two about 'em, I came on down, and that's when I met Minerva. I married that woman quick.”

Minerva was married. My own great-aunt got married and I never heard about it.

Typical Jackson. He'd written about the hydroponic farm but left out the part where Minny got married.

I smiled and placed a hand on Carter's shoulder.

“Nice to meet you, Carter. I'm sure you've been a big help with Paddy. I wish Jackson had written me about your marriage, I would have come for the wedding.” He smiled back at me and moved to put my bags in the trunk of a long, black town car. “Buy American!” Jackson always said.

“No, Wyn. You wouldn't have. But it's mighty nice of you to say so. Now, Paddy's wedding? That one was truly beautiful. That's the one you shouldn't a missed.”

Nothing beats a slap of Southern honesty.

“So that's how it's going to be,” I said, but I smiled at him as I said it. A truce of sorts.

He opened the door for me, the air conditioner blowing out the “new car” smell. Jackson upgraded all his cars every year. I wondered if he ever got rid of my old car. My love. A cherry-red Mustang convertible. Probably not. Jackson may have liked upgrades, but he was also a collector. He would have kept that car as part of his “Bronwyn the First collection.”

I slid into the cool cave of the car and let Carter close the door.

“How's Paddy?” I asked when he'd situated himself in the driver's seat.

“Well now, I suppose he's doin' as best as one would expect, considering. But how 'bout we get you all settled before we open that can a worms.”

He drove out of the airport. “You want me to take Ten to Ninety-eight straight on down? Or would you rather we take scenic Ninety-eight? Might give you a little time to reacquaint yourself.”

The absence of traffic gave me a second of culture shock. “How much have things changed down here?”

“Not much in the towns, but the interstate is the interstate no matter where you go these days in this fast-food nation of ours. Wall-to-wall convenience. Outlets too, by God.”

“I guess we better take the scenic route then,” I said.

We drove twenty minutes on the highway, and then we were on county roads. Damn, if the Alabama coast isn't still the best kept secret in America. I watched the trees go by as we drove. Palm trees and crape myrtle bursting with luscious red and pink blossoms. Large, waxy leaves dancing among the magnolias' hundred-year-old branches, their prehistoric and otherworldly pods dangling from the crux of the leaves. And then, the straight-backed pine trees, defiant in their opposition to the twisted trunks of their neighbors.

Trees down south have a difference to them, a subtle, slinking movement, mile by mile—a gracefulness, a swagger. Lanky trees stretching out their wiry thin, Spanish moss–covered branches, moss that sways and beckons …
come here, come here,
it says.

“I'm too late for the magnolia blossoms,” I said.

“Yep. We're in the green season now. Nothin' much grows in July, as I'm sure you recall.”

“Has Esther bloomed since I've been gone?”

Carter laughed a bit and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Nope. She's older than dirt. She can't bloom no more.”

We passed pecan farms, peanut fields, and grazing livestock. Sweet, little cottages dotted the byways, and soon we were crossing small bodies of water. I'd forgotten how each home had a sign out front with not only the house number but the name of the family who lived there. Calaman, Dumond, Du Puis, Kelsey, Miller, Freehold, Berman, Cooper, and on and on. There's a lot of pride here in the South, and it's so clean. I'd forgotten how clean. As we passed the beach at the town line, our little bit of the Gulf of Mexico, I saw my childhood in the docks, the pavilion, and the stretches of sand where I'd run free from May through November.

Before I knew it, we were making the drive up Main Street in Magnolia Creek.

My mind took pictures.
Click, click, click
, until they all bled together like a choppy Super 8 film. Nothing had changed. I could almost see the sides of the filmstrip, frames bound in black, the negatives showing the dark underlight of it all.

But I could not get drawn back into this place so quickly. It would be easy to drown in its beauty and forget that Lottie was dead, and my brother gone, too. Dead in another way altogether.
Mermaids don't drown,
I thought.

“Want to hear some music, Wyn?” asked Carter, as the filmstrip in my head sputtered and melted off the reel.

“That would be nice,” I said absently. Looking out at the windows, I could almost feel myself back on my bike. Me and Paddy, Lottie and Grant, riding like wild children through town. When we got older, Grant and I would ditch them. Kids can be mean.
What if I'd just stayed and married him?
I wondered.

You fill up my senses,
drifted from the radio.

John fuckin' Denver. “Annie's Song.” It was
their
song. Naomi's and Jackson's personal waltz. This hit so close to my heart that I could hear it beating in my ears. I wanted to jump out of the car and run.

Breathe,
I told myself.
It's just a song.

“You okay back there?” asked Carter.

“Yeah, I'll be fine. That song's haunted me for years, and now that we're close to home, there it is, playing. Doesn't bode well for me, Carter.”

Carter laughed a little then, and I hoped it was because he appreciated my candor. “Ain't nothing like that, no spooky hoodoo voodoo about it. Jackson still owns most of this town, and the DJ at the radio station is told he's gotta play it every hour on the hour. And you know somethin'? We don't mind. It's a pretty song, don't you think?”

Come let me love you, let me give my life to you …

It
was
pretty, I guess. But the ache it brought on made my throat sore.

It can't hurt you if you own it, try to remember things on your own terms, you can do it,
Ben would've said something like that to me, and he held the key to my “calm,” so I tried. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift back in time.

The ballroom, mostly empty since Jackson's father held massive parties when the mill was still in operation, made a haunting backdrop for my own mother and father who could waltz around the entire room at any hour of the day. They lived on whim, my parents. And their waltz of choice was to “Annie's Song,” which has a distinct “one two three, one two three” rhythm that moved their feet as Paddy and I hid outside, peering in through the windows. I could almost feel them dancing, like I was the wind in Naomi's hair.

I can do this,
I thought.
I will do this.

When the song was over, I felt more confident. I opened my eyes and realized we were already at the twisty iron gates of the Big House, right there where Main Street ends. Paddy and I used to love giving people directions. “Take forty-nine until you run outta road!” Then we'd laugh like crazy.

The Big House sits on what a cartographer would surely call a peninsula. Edged by a forest on the west side, and then the Magnolia River all around the rest. Toward the right, the river dribbles into a creek. I didn't want to look that way as we drove in, so of course, I looked. More out of curiosity than anything else … at first.

Memories have a way of playing tricks on people, and I wondered if maybe I'd made up that misty piece of sour land in my mind. But there it was, Belladonna Bay, all shrouded in its signature fog. Then the car veered left and it was gone from sight.

In front of me there was a finer view. Esther. Still as majestic as I remembered. And my mother's garden too, blooming even in the “green season.” But Carter was driving straight up to the front of the house, so I had to keep looking ahead even if I didn't want to.

I was acutely aware of the sound of the gravel under the tires as the car came to a stop. I was afraid to look up. Afraid things would be different, and afraid they'd be the same. When I forced myself to glance at the house, I saw her.

Byrd.

Standing on the steps of my childhood home. Flanked by a huge German sheperd on one side and Jackson on the other.

I let my eyes linger on that little girl. I knew her stance. Angry. Scared. Shy.

Beautiful.

Jackson wasn't kidding. She looked just like my mother. Only not broken. Well, not so much. But her frown, and her arms crossed … that was pure Paddy. And that combination won my heart before my mind even had a chance to think otherwise.

She was wearing an old-fashioned dress all covered up by one of my mother's aprons. Naomi loved to wear fancy aprons with ruffles and big pockets. She'd wear them over pajamas, dresses, even jeans when she was feeling well and walked out in the gardens with Jackson.

On Byrd the apron was oversized and all tied up like she'd rigged the thing herself. She had a mass of crazy black hair that looked like it hadn't seen a brush in a month and a gaze that dared the world to just
try
and brush it.

I wanted to rush to her and sweep her into a tight hug. But I knew better. I'd been in war-torn countries where children had no choice but to bear witness to terrible things. Even so, I'd have to coax them into letting me take their pictures. In their eyes I'd seen the same sort of despair. The same fearful longing.

She was prepared to hate me but wanted to love me, even if she didn't know it yet.

Jackson came strolling down the stairs. But Byrd stood her ground with her dog (I just knew it was hers) by her side.

“Sugar! Oh, hell. Just look at you! My girl!” said Jackson, opening the car door for me. “What a fine-lookin' woman you make, Wyn! Welcome home, darlin'!” He held out his arms.

The sun was shining behind him, bathing his features in shadow, but I saw enough to be amazed the boozing hadn't treated him as badly as it should have. He was still handsome, charming Jackson Whalen … same as he ever was. A bit thicker around the waist, a few laugh lines by his shining blue eyes. Thinner hair, too, but still that white-yellow he'd passed down to Paddy and me. I suppose it never goes silver, just fades to white altogether.

I leaned in for a hug, prepared to pretend everything was just fine. That way I wouldn't have to deal with anything awkward. There's a great deal of power in pretending. But no matter how I tried, my arms couldn't come up around him. He held me for a few, stiff moments and then let me go. He cleared his throat.

“Well, Byrd, darlin', here she is!”

He placed a strong hand on my lower back and began to guide me up the stairs to my niece.

She was tiny for eleven. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought she was no older than seven. It was her eyes that gave her away. Naomi would have called her an “old soul.”

“Hey, Byrd,” I said, as soft as I could, while holding out my hand. I made sure to stay a few steps below her. I knew she was the queen of this place now, and I needed to let her know I hadn't come to hurt her or to take her place. I just wanted to … take her picture. That was all I could think about. I didn't know what we'd be able to create in the middle of the silent, violent storm that was swirling around the people we both loved. All I knew for sure, at that very moment, was that I wanted to make her feel safe.

“Hey there,” I tried again.

“I heard ya the first time, I ain't deaf,” she said. Her voice was lower than I'd imagined, but melodic. Strong, too. I liked it.