The Witches of Snyder Farms (The Wicked Garden Series) (8 page)

Eli sighed, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. He wanted to tell the truth, of course, but he wasn’t sure how much. “My father did some work in the early ‘70s that attracted the attention of the FBI. There was an effort to nail him on drug charges, but the United States government is no match for that trickster. He went underground, and he’s stayed there. I’ve been his messenger boy since I was a kid. I’m pretty sure that the feds lost interest in him sometime during the Carter administration, but I think he enjoys the idea of being an outlaw.”

Gretchel smiled. “You do realize that you have said almost nothing about your mother.”

“My mother.” Eli sighed again. “I’m pretty sure that my father would actually be willing to give up on the whole secrecy thing if not for her. My mother’s paranoia is… multifaceted. If she had her way, I’d be living in a plastic bubble.”

“Why?” Gretchel asked.

Again, Eli was torn between telling Gretchel everything and honoring his family’s secrets. “She took the FBI’s interest in my father very seriously. She was pregnant with me when it was probably at its most intense, and she didn’t want it to endanger me. But she also believes that I’m the object of a prophecy.”

Gretchel raised her eyebrows.

“
She claims to have had a vision while visiting the family estate in Scotland. She was on some really stout LSD from my grandparent’s lab.”

“So, what’s this prophecy?”

This was hard. His mother’s obsession had had a devastating impact on Eli’s relationship with Gretchel. “It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that this prophecy has really screwed up my life. It’s the reason I left Carbondale, and at the moment, I’m not even talking to my mother because of it.”

Gretchel didn’t prod. She was intrigued by the idea of a prophecy, but she could tell that just talking about his mother made Eli anxious. She decided to change the subject.

“So, your grandparents were experimenting with acid…. I guess drugs weren’t exactly taboo in your family. Maybe it was unfair of me to freak out when you got high with Ame.”

Eli smiled.
“I took my first trip when I was just thirteen,” Eli laughed, remembering that day on the Caspian Sea. “What were
you
doing when you were thirteen?”

Gretchel was startled. She thought that she had guided the conversation safely away from herself. “Me?” She looked down at the quilt and began picking at its loose threads. “Well, when I was thirteen
I was painting like a madwoman. I was obsessed with Vincent van Gogh and Henry David Thoreau, and just discovering Graham Duncan. I was running wild across Snyder Farms and having a damn good time of it.” She paused and looked away from Eli, back into the great fields that stretched across the horizon. “At thirteen, I was pregnant for the second time.”

Eli couldn’t hide the shock on h
is face. “Excuse me?” he stammered.

“
Let’s go back to your story. I like it better.” Gretchel put her hand on Eli’s knee.

He was trying to think of the right words to say.
“Gretchel, what will it take for you to trust me? What will it take for you to overcome your past?”

She slipped her hand into his,
and stared up at him. “I don’t want to live in my past, Eli, but I have no choice. The Woman in Wool holds me captive there. When I was with Troy it was easier, because I had the amethyst necklace to protect me.” Eli tensed up. He didn’t want to hear about the amulet his mother had given him, and he certainly didn’t want to hear about Troy.

“That amethyst saved me, Eli. It kept me from feeling—even better than booze. It gave me the strength to stop drinking altogether. But now that it’s gone, I feel
everything
.

“And I have to feel these feelings. It’s important that
I feel and release the feelings if I’m ever going to get better, if I’m ever going to emerge from this nightmare. I want so badly to tell you everything, but I’m afraid you’ll run away from me. I’m afraid if you knew the things that I did as a kid, and in college, that you’ll leave me.”

“
That would never, ever happen. I swear to you,” Eli whispered.

“You don’t know that.
You grew up in a beautiful dream. I grew up with an alcoholic father who, in the end, would just as soon spit in my face as look at me,” Gretchel’s voice turned desperate. “I was curious, Eli. I wanted to know things. I wanted to experience life, just like you. That’s all I ever wanted. I never wanted to be an alcoholic, a liar, and a whore. I never wanted to marry a man who would beat me. I never wanted to hurt you, or hurt my kids. I never wanted to hurt my family. I never wanted to hurt
anybody
.” Tears were falling down her cheek, soaking into the old quilt. “All I want now is to get better, so that I can love the people who love me the way they should be loved. I want to give them back what they have given me, and I just don’t know how.”

“What can I do?”

She thought a long while before she spoke. “You can love me, and hold me, and kiss me.” Then she grinned wickedly, “And you can keep doing that one thing… I think you know what I mean…” Eli nodded, the heat rising in his face. “You can make me laugh, and you can keep prodding me out of my comfort zone…” Gretchel’s face fell.  “I just have this horrible fear that...”

“That what?”

Gretchel hesitated. It took effort to speak. “I have this vision all the time. I’ve had it since I left the house on Pringle. I painted it, years ago, when Troy locked me in the basement.” Eli blanched, but he didn’t say anything. “I see you sailing away, and I can’t get your attention. It’s the same every time. In this vision, I know that I’ve lost everything except for Ame and some sort of bag. The bag is kind of heavy, cumbersome. You’re leaving me on that boat, and I know that I’ll never see you again. All I can think about is drowning myself.”

A searing
, familiar pain penetrated Eli’s chest as he thought of the descendants of the Solstice Twins. His mother was wrong about Gretchel’s ancestry. She
had
to be wrong.

“I will never, ever leave you.
I promise,” he whispered.

Gretchel didn’t respond. She just stood up and gestured for Eli to get off the quilt.
“We better get back to the cottage,” she said. Eli was grateful to see that she was smiling.  She put her socks and boots back on, tucked the quilt into the backpack, and slung the bag over her shoulder. “You can drive this time. I trust you.”

∞

After returning to the cottage, Gretchel worked in the garden, while Eli fired up the grill for a late lunch. Holly and Dylan, had arrived, but they had set off on the other four-wheeler to join Ame and Peyton almost as soon as they got to the cottage.

Eli walked out to the garden and plopped himself do
wn where Gretchel was working. “You’re not withering away anymore,” he started.

She
laid down her spade and sat next to him. She dug her bare toes into the soil, and he proceeded to bury her feet. He looked at her and grinned. “What?” she laughed.

“The first time I met you, we were sitting under an oak tree and you told me that when you were disconnected
from the earth’s natural beauty for too long, you felt like you were going to wither away. Now you’re back in Gaia’s arms, and she’s nourishing you again. That’s why you felt so at home earlier, Gretchel. You’re starting to trust your natural instincts again. You’re starting to regain spiritual strength.”

“Maybe,” she smiled,
and then looked at her fingernails. “But I’ve destroyed the manicure.”

“
I think I like your hands better when they’re filthy.”

Gretchel’s smile widened. “I feel good right now.
I’m starting to feel like I can trust people again, too. It feels like I can trust
you
with my spirit. Is that what growth feels like?”

“D
idn’t you feel that way before?

“Not when you first got here. I haven’t trusted anyone for a long time, with the exception of Teddy.”

Eli pouted. “Why is he so damn special?”

Gretchel laug
hed. “Because I’m convinced the Great Mother sent him to me as some sort of guardian angel. After the accident, I tried to commit suicide—twice. The second time I woke up in a psych ward, but I wasn’t really awake. I was so drugged up I truly felt that I had died and gone to hell. I couldn’t feel anything, which was good and bad. When I finally got out and came back to the cottage, it was no different. I was still highly medicated, still numb. One day I finally woke up—for real—and Teddy was there. I’d never met him before in my life, but he was there, brushing my hair and telling me how lovely I was. I never took another prescription pill for my mental illness again. The point is Teddy helped me wake up, Eli. Teddy’s presence, touch, and sweet words brought me back to life.”

Eli took in the information.
The suicide attempts gnawed at his heart. He needed to know more. He wanted to know it all. “Why was Teddy brushing your hair if you didn’t know him?”

“It’s a long story,” she said.

“I have time.”

“You’ve awakened me, too, Eli. The garden has awakened me
, painting, and the countryside have awakened me. I’m starting to feel really…  ‘good’ just isn’t the right word. ‘Alive’
might be more appropriate.  Yes, I think I feel alive.”

“You are alive
, Gretchel,” he replied as he tenderly caressed her face.

“The question that has always taunted me is do I
deserve
to be?” she asked, and then she freed her feet. Eli felt a rush of frustration wash over him. “Come on, Hermes. Story time is over. We have four teenagers to feed, and teenagers are dangerous creatures when hungry.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Oregon, 2010s

             
To trip, or not to trip? That was the question.

Now that he had endured his first bad trip, Peter finally understood how that experience could dim one’s
view of the mighty psilocybin fungus. After a few weeks of contemplation, he had come to believe that his bad trip was the result of a buried emotion—a very deep emotion, an emotional landmine. How could he defend himself from something he couldn’t even anticipate?

I can’t,
he thought.

Then he thought some more.

I guess,
he reasoned with himself,
I’ll have to rely on intuition… And maybe my sense of humor.
That was it. Trying to defend himself against a primal emotion, he had merely hidden it—given it time to grow, to fester. He had made it more powerful. Now, he needed to face it straight on and say, “Okay, asshole, you are what you are, and I is what I is.”

In a moment of fear, Peter had forgotten that he was a psychic clown, a cosmic trickster, a descendent of the great god Pan. He had forgotten to laugh, and he had let his ego prevent him from getting at a truth that his ego wasn’t ready to deal with. He thought of The Fool, the zero in the Tarot deck, walking off a cliff with a little dog nipping at his backside. Well, Peter was determined to walk off that cliff. 

Then Peter looked down at the mushrooms cradled in his hand and realized that he was still afraid.
Damnit!
he thought.
I’ve figured it out, but my conscious mind can’t handle it. It’s chickenshit!
Fear. It was fear that stopped him from eating the mushrooms.

He shook his head, telling his ego to go to hell while making a mental note to remember the phrase “psychic clown.” He might just want to use that in his work.

Without another thought, he popped the mushrooms in his mouth and began to chew, chew, chew. He didn’t know where he would go this time, but his intention was to retrieve some insight into his son’s fate. Neither he nor Diana had heard from Eli in weeks. Peter missed the little bugger, and he was starting to get a bit worried—an unnatural state for him. It occurred to Peter that the truth his ego was trying to protect him from might concern his son. He let the resulting chill run down his spine, and then he imagined himself dropping his drawers and wagging his bare ass at that fear.

∞

Irvine, 2010s

Ame was peaking.
For an hour, she and Peyton had laughed hysterically at the edge of the misty lake. Now the giggling had subsided, and she was seeing extraordinary things. She hadn’t expected it to be this real, this vivid.

As sh
e gazed toward the setting sun, she could see a herd of deer. She felt like she recognized them, like they were kindred spirits. One seemed to be walking toward her. She turned her head to Peyton, but he was no longer there. Instead she was face-to-face with a wolf. She was surprised, but not frightened.

“I thought yo
u knew the way,” the wolf said.

“I do,” Ame replied. Her voice sounded odd.
She looked down at herself, and was shocked by her appearance. She was tall, but not this damn tall.

“When do we go?”
the wolf asked.

“The Solstice,” she said. “We have to wait for the Solstice.”

Ame didn’t quite know what she was talking about, but she also knew that, deep down—at a level of her psyche she’d only read about in books—she
totally
knew what she was talking about. As much as it went against her essentially pragmatic nature, she decided to trust that knowing.

The wolf began to growl. Ame looked into the distance and saw a redheaded woman approaching. The wolf nuzzled Ame and whined. She put an arm around its neck, and could feel the muscles beneath the fur tense—as if the wolf’s instinct was to flee—but it stayed by her side.

As the figure drew closer, Ame recognized the Woman in Wool. An enormous rage, impossible to contain, filled her chest.

“
Leave them alone! They’ve suffered long enough!” Ame shouted. Again, she had no idea what she was saying. Her words were pure instinct.

“Naw me
.”

“The stories will be told,” Ame
said.

“Won’t matter, lassie. Ye dinnae ken my hawd on the scarred one. Ye and the blue-eyed lad will turn on her before it’s all o’er.”

“Perhaps you’re the one who does not know,” the wolf said.

“How dare ye
speak to me after wha’ ye bred!”

The wolf
tensed again, but it held its ground and bared its fangs.

As Ame stared down the Woman in Wool, she noticed movement on the surface of the lake. Something was crawling toward the shore. Many somethings. They moved closer, and Ame saw that they were skeletons. She began to shake.
Not again. I can’t deal with this. I need my mom
.

Ame dug her fingers into the wolf’s fur and took strength from its presence. She felt the rumble of its growl and heard it say, “Don’t back down.
Accept the fear, and move past it.”

Ame closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and gathered her courage. She was huge. She was a freaking goddess. She was not afraid of mysterious redheaded ghosts with Scottish accents. She was not afraid of dead bones—even surprisingly lively dead bones. 

Ame felt her fear drain away and turned the full force of her fury on the Woman in Wool. “Howsabout we just get this over with. You’re asking for a righteous country thumping, and I’m ready to give it to you.”

“Yer
the weakest branch in the family tree.”

“Nice try,” Ame countered. “I’m not like the others, and you know it.”

The specter retreated. Ame stepped toward her.

“Don’t follow her.
It’s a trap!” the wolf cried.

Ame didn’t hear the warning, and then she was engulfed in a sea of ghouls. She didn’t care. Arms flailing, she smacked skulls off vertebrae and cracked empty ribcages as she stalked her adversary.

When the Woman in Wool reached the water’s edge, she dove in. The water burst into flames. Undaunted, Ame kept moving forward.

She found herself running through a forest. Time and space had shifted. She was carrying a heavy bag. She felt a fur-trimmed cape around her shoulders. She felt it floating heavily in the breeze. She sensed hoof beats behind her. She turned to see that a rider on a black horse was drawing close to her. She screamed, and the sound rang through the forest.

She had to get away. She mustn’t let him catch her. She mustn’t! They were counting on her. She had to get out of this dream. Her bare foot caught on a root and she tripped.

She was
immersed in water, but she was burning. She could feel the liquid fire filling her lungs as boney claws dragged her deeper and deeper.

∞

Eli was trapped in a nightmare. He was a sailor, doomed by a curse to drift forever, his boat surrounded by skeletal women taunting him, coaxing him from beneath the waves. He knew that he would succumb eventually. He didn’t know why he hadn’t already. As he gazed at the water’s surface for the millionth time, he saw them beckoning. Then he saw flame-red hair floating like seaweed, and a skull with the ghost of Ame’s face.

“No!”

Gretchel, who had been sleeping soundly next to him, awoke with a start. “Eli, what’s wrong?”

He shook his head, coming to his senses. He chose not to disclose the horrifying vision of Gretchel’s daughter, drowned and doomed. “It’s nothing. Just a bad dream. I’m going to go for a walk to clear my head. You go back to sleep, my love.”

Gretchel gave him a slightly coherent nod, dropped her head to the pillow, and was asleep again in seconds. Eli brushed the hair out of her face with his fingertips. He kissed her cheek. Then he climbed out of bed, fumbled for clothes and shoes, and exited the bedroom as quietly as he could.

He was walking toward the lake when he heard a cry for help. He took off in a dead run, hoping that he wasn’t already too late.

Ame gasped as she hit the ground.

“
You scared the hell out of me!” She recognized Peyton’s voice, but she couldn’t see him. It was Eli who was hovering over her. She shivered as the night breeze chilled her lake-soaked clothes.

Ame looked at Eli. Then she looked past him to find the wolf. 

“Don’t let her trick you again. Hold on. I’ll be back soon.”

Ame nodded as the wolf loped away into the night. Then she began vomiting lake water.

Once Ame
was able to sit up, Eli put his hand under her chin, and looked her square in the eye. “Don’t you ever,
ever
trip without me again. Do you understand?” Too drained to rebel, Ame nodded.

Wet, cold, and exhausted, Eli, Ame, and Peyton walked back to the cottage. It was one in the morning. As Eli opened the front door, they heard Gretchel screaming.

Peyton cast a questioning glance at Eli.

“Nightmare. Don’t worry about it. Just take Ame up to bed.” Eli put a firm hand on Peyton’s shoulder. “Don’t even think about touching her right now. She’s not in control of herself.”

“Dude, I figured that out when she jumped in the lake.”

∞

It was just after six in the morning. After greeting the dawn during her ritual morning run, Gretchel sat at the kitchen table nursing a mug of coffee. She heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She cleared her throat when Peyton stepped into the room, and the boy nearly pissed his pants.

“H
ave a seat, Peyton.” He pulled out a chair and sat down, but he wouldn’t look at her. “Why weren’t you sleeping on the couch when I woke up this morning?” she asked.

“It’s a long story, Mrs. Shea.”

“Call me, ‘Gretchel,’ please.”

Peyton nodded.

So, are you going to tell me what you were doing in my daughter’s bedroom?”

Eli stumbled into the kitchen looking like hell.
“Let it go, Gretchel,” he grumbled as he went for a cup of coffee.

Gretchel leapt up and shouted at Eli. “Ame is not going to end up like me!”

Peyton looked like he was ready to bolt. Eli shot him a sympathetic look as he guided Gretchel toward their bedroom.

“Let it
go
, Gretchel. Ame tripped on mushrooms last night, and I had a vision of her drowning. That’s the nightmare that sent me out for a walk in the middle of the night and that’s when I heard Peyton yelling for help. Ame had jumped in the lake, and he was trying to save her.”

Gretchel’s face turned white. “She got to her.”

“Yes, she did. I decided against telling Peyton about the Woman in Wool when I asked him to stay in Ame’s room and watch over her. But perhaps you’d like to explain. If you do, please invite me to the conversation because I think it’s high time I get the details, too.”

∞

After her conversation with Eli, Gretchel retreated to her studio. She knew that she wasn’t going to be able to do any work, but she wasn’t quite ready to deal with the reality that awaited her.

Unable to handle the tension of waiting alone, Gretchel took a sketchpad and pencil to the living room and settled herself in the storybook chair. Eli, sitting on the sofa with his laptop, glanced at her and went back to his work.

They sat in silence.

When Ame emerged, Gretchel had a sketchpad on her knees and a pencil in her hand, but she wasn’t drawing. She was staring at the portraits of her ancestors hanging above the fireplace. She turned her gaze toward her daughter when she heard Peyton enter the room. Gretchel waited for a few moments, to see if either of them had anything to say. They did not.

“Are you all right, Ame?” Gretchel finally asked.

“I’m fine, Mother.
I have a killer headache though, so if you can keep your bitching to a minimum it would be greatly appreciated,” she said.

Eli prepared himself for Gretchel’s inevitable outburst. It never came. He could see her swallow an angry reprimand, though. “I’ll get lunch ready.”

Ame was as surprised as Eli. “That would be great. Just let me wake up a little more first. I think I’ll make some coffee.”

Gretchel turned back to the portraits on the wall.

Peyton found Gretchel mildly terrifying, but, now that she was looking away, he couldn’t help but stare. She was amazing—a prime example of a species previously found only in his fantasies. Everything he loved about Ame was amplified in her mother. He found himself looking forward to the future.

“You know
...” Ame’s voice pulled Peyton from his reverie, “I would suggest that you take a picture to jack off to later, but, since she’s a witch, you can’t capture her image on film.”