The Witches of Snyder Farms (The Wicked Garden Series) (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

Irvine, 2010s

             
It was Saturday morning when Ame awoke to the smell of a country breakfast. She opened one sleepy eye to glance at her alarm clock, raised her head in momentary panic, and then let it drop just as quickly. She had been going non-stop for two weeks. Truth be told, it was probably much longer than that.

             
Today was the last day she would have to run ragged for a while, and she even got to sleep in for the first time in… She couldn’t remember. It was the beginning of spring break and her last day of scheduled nonsense for a week.

             
She took another whiff of her mother’s culinary goodness and let it lure her up out of bed.  Thoughts of all she had to do to that day invaded her mind. “Stop it,” she whispered aloud. Then a smile spread across her freckled face as it occurred to her that she would finally get a chance to talk to Eli and her mother, in the same room, at the same time.

             
Miss Poni had kept the girl away from the cottage for a week after Gretchel’s breakdown in the Wicked Garden. No one was willing to tell Ame much about what had happened that night. She had figured out for herself that it was probably a good idea to steer clear of the ghost she had met—Ame knew enough to know that she shouldn’t even say her name if she could help it. Miss Poni had gone so far as to explain to her great-granddaughter that this malign spirit was one manifestation of an ancient family curse, although the old woman was stingy with further details. She did tell Ame to tell her or her grandmother immediately if she ever heard strange voices in her head or felt a burning sensation that she could not explain, but Miss Poni responded to most of Ame’s questions with a shake of her head. 

             
Those unanswered questions had consumed Ame. Not so much the idea of the malevolent spirit. Being secretly raised by witches had prepared her for strange phenomena. Hell, she had already committed herself to kicking that spirit’s ass if she dared to show herself again. What truly tormented Ame were thoughts of her mother’s breakdown. How much of Gretchel’s behavior was a result of the family curse? How much was simply mental illness? And how much was Ame’s family refusing to tell her about both?

Ame felt ready for any supernatural threat, but the thought of an inherited mental weakness terrified her. She had no tolerance for weakness. For as long as she could remember, she had refused to let her father see her weak. She still regretted that dumb luck had killed him before she had let him know what she truly thought of him. Ame knew that the memory of Troy would always haunt her relationships with men, and she hated him for it.

Even though she still had plenty to do, Ame had never been more ready for summer. The last few months had been… intense. It was hard enough to be a normal teenager when you were a six-foot, three-inch witch with flaming red hair. Remembering that your father tried to rape you the day before he died didn’t make things any easier, and trying to care for a mother prone to psychotic breaks—while nobody would tell you what the hell was going on—made any sort of attempt at normalcy pretty much pointless.

But Ame was trying. She was definitely trying.

She stretched like a cat and realized that she’d actually had a solid night’s sleep. She hadn’t heard her mother scream once. Maybe the nightmares had ended for good. Maybe.

Ame pulled an old sweatshirt over her camisole and tiptoed down the cottage stairs. Glancing into the kitchen, she saw Eli kissing her mother’s neck. She had never seen Gretchel being doted on—loved—by a man before. 

Ame cleared her throat and spoke a little too loudly. “Good morning!”

Eli smiled exuberantly. “Good morning, Ame-with-an-E!” he stepped forward, going in for a huge hug, but when he saw her flinch, he settled for a soft embrace and light pat on the back.

Ame accepted Eli’s show of affection as gracefully as she could and released herself as quickly as politeness would allow.

Gretchel dispelled the awkwardness by sweeping in with a hug of her own. She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Hello, stranger! Do you have an open slot in your planner for breakfast at home?”

Ame took the breakfast plates off the counter and began setting the table. “I totally have time for breakfast at home, especially if there’s biscuits and gravy.”

Ame watched her mother bustling around the kitchen, humming while she cooked. She watched Eli as he watched Gretchel, a goofy grin spread across his face.

“I knew that we were meant to meet, Eli-with-an-I.”

Ame’s words pulled Eli’s glance away from Gretchel—reluctantly.

Ame continued. “I don’t have the same psychic abilities as Holly, but I felt that I should know you when we met in that elevator.”

“Was that a psychic moment, or was it intuition?” Eli asked, giving Ame his full attention.

“What’s the difference?” she asked as she poured a cup of black coffee.

“Well, a psychic episode usually involves awareness of something that is
going
to occur. If it were intuitive insight, it would have been like knowing something that you already knew, but didn’t know you knew, until you knew that you knew it.”

Ame gave Eli a deadpan stare. “You lost me at
episode
.”

“I think what he’s trying to say is that, if you were psychic, you would have known you were going to see him before you saw him, but you didn’t. Instead, when you met him, you had a strong sense that you were supposed to meet him. That’s intuition.” Gretchel pulled herself up to the table. “Am I right, Eli?” 

“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.