Spells for Forgetting, page 18
“Nixie!” Leoda greeted me with a rare, relaxed smile. That should have been my first clue.
I lifted a hand in greeting and took the winding path up through the tall grass. I’d have to tread carefully if I was going to keep the peace. Leoda’s ire wasn’t known to fade quickly, and her seat on the town council was a weighty one. I’d learned the importance of making sure we were on the same side.
“I’ve got a fresh pot, if you’d like it,” she said.
I untied my scarf. “I would, thank you.”
Leoda rose from the chair as I sat and she disappeared into the house, fetching a second teacup. When she returned, she set it down on the small table beside me and filled it. Her feet were bare despite the chill.
“As happy to see them go as I am, aren’t you?” She arched one eyebrow.
That was one thing Leoda and I saw eye to eye on. We’d never had any qualms there. The tourists descended upon the island like locusts, picking it clean, but there was no arguing with the fact that we needed them. Without those full ferries, the island would die. It almost had, once.
“I’ve lived with them this many years. I suppose I can stand a few more.”
Leoda laughed, “Come talk to me when you’re my age.”
I studied her. Lily’s grandmother had always been something like a mother hen to everyone on the island. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood she was more raptor than prey.
“We’ll see if I make it that long,” I said, without thinking.
Leoda paused at that, surveying me with a curious look.
I hadn’t thought about the words before I spoke them. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be grim.”
The truth was the news about Eloise had brought my own end into sharp focus. The time of year didn’t help, either. Samhain was right around the corner, and I could smell the decay of fallen leaves and fermenting fruit in the air. It was the season of death.
The two sisters I’d made blood oaths with on the stormy beach one summer night were both gone. I could almost hear their voices whispering to me from the other side.
I took the paper from beneath my arm, setting it on the table between us.
Leoda stared at it, but she said nothing.
“I hope I don’t have to ask.”
She pursed her lips. “I hope you don’t, either.”
I sighed, swirling the tea in my cup. Leoda was the person you went to if you wanted to get something done on Saoirse. But she was a train that, once moving, was almost impossible to stop. “Leave him alone, Leoda. He’ll be gone in a few days.”
“That’s what Jake said when he arrived, and now he’s been here more than a week, Nixie. Sophie says he’s been to the records office, and I’m not the only one who thinks his departure is overdue.”
So, she hadn’t acted alone. She never did. But if August was sniffing around Henry Salt’s will, there’d be no reasoning with her.
I finally looked at her, studying the lines around her eyes. To her, we were all still kids. Me, Noah, Jake, Hannah, Eloise. But somewhere between blinks, we’d grown old. We’d grown into a lot of things.
“Is this what we are now?” I said, more heavily. I was really asking. It was difficult to remember what kind of people we’d been before.
Leoda raised the cup to her lips again. “Let’s not pretend that your hands are any cleaner than the rest of ours. When you came to me for what needed doing, I did it without question.”
I stared at her, my blood running ice cold. We’d sworn we’d never speak of that night. But there was a warning in her voice. A threat, even. “I know.”
When I went to her all those years ago, I hadn’t known what would follow. I couldn’t say that I regretted any of it, either. But I wasn’t sure if Leoda knew that I could see it was all part of the same intricate web, and I wondered if any of it would have happened if I hadn’t knocked on her door that night.
“I’m the last Morgan on this island, and that’s a responsibility I take seriously. I know you have a soft spot for that boy because of Eloise, but you need to remember it’s Salt blood in his veins.”
That’s what this really came down to for her. The orchard. It was always about the orchard. After Lily died and her son and daughter-in-law left Saoirse, people wondered if Leoda and Hans would follow. But she was as much a part of this island as the cliffs or the woods or the coves.
“We’ve all done things for the good of this town, you included.” She took her time, finishing the last of her tea. “He never should have come back here, Nixie. So, let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Thirty-Three
EMERY
The trees hid the scars well.
I climbed to the top of the ladder with the cloth sack draped over one shoulder, ducking through the branches. From this high up, you could hardly tell where the fire had blown through the orchard. But I could still remember the blackness of the earth where the flames had been. The smell that had hung in the air afterward.
It had been a beautiful day on the island. I remember that, because I remember the dappled light on the lawn in front of the school during graduation. But hours later, a single wind rolled over the sea ahead of the oncoming storm. It crashed up the bluff before tearing through the orchard and when it found the weakened branch on one of the oldest trees, the glass lantern fell.
By all accounts, the town shouldn’t have survived it. The annual tradition of riding the ferry to the island each fall was overshadowed by the news coverage of a dead girl, and there wasn’t much reason to visit when the orchard was closed. It had taken years, but the new trees did grow. The ferries returned. And Saoirse went right on living.
I wedged the heel of my boot into the crevice between branches so I could reach higher. The apples on the topmost branches were always left behind by the tourists, but we would make use of them in preserves and jams and vinegars that would be sold through spring and summer in the shops.
Every year, the orchard called for volunteers to help wrap up the last of the season’s work and every year, we answered. Closing up the farm was a responsibility that stretched beyond the payroll. It was something we all did—together.
I yanked another apple from the branch and dropped it into the sack. My fingers were already numb and I’d left my gloves in the truck, but the day was colder than expected. By nightfall, when all the clearing and pruning was done, there would be supper and mulled wine at the orchard house. I’d been dreading it for days.
I’d come because I was expected to, and because I didn’t need to give anyone more reason to talk. But it had already begun—the watching. The wondering. And someone had already taken matters into their own hands by setting fire to Eloise’s truck.
August was right. No one had come. The phone at the marshal’s office had gone unanswered each time I called it, and I imagined my uncle at his desk, watching it ring as he sipped whiskey from his coffee cup. The thought made me tremble.
I didn’t want to think about the possibility that Jake had set the fire himself, but I knew my uncle wasn’t exactly the upstanding marshal that outsiders might expect him to be. I had a hard time believing that my dad would have set a fire when he bore the scars of one. But Dutch…
The front page of the Saoirse Journal was plastered with a photo of the blackened truck that sat in front of the Salt cottage, and by now everyone on the island would have heard about it. But this wasn’t the random spark of a bonfire gone rogue or a discarded cigarette butt. Someone had set that fire. And they may have also stolen the letter.
I’d gone out in my wellies and nightgown as soon as it was light enough to see, searching the yard, the garden, the ditch that stretched along the side of the road. I couldn’t remember setting the letter down. I’d had it in my hand and then I didn’t. I told myself that the wind could have blown it out the front door. That it could have skipped down the road in the pouring rain and if it had, there was no way it survived the storm that blew over the island throughout the night. If anyone found it, it would be no more than a smear of white pulp in the dirt.
But there was a tingle over my skin as I peered through the branches of the apple tree, studying the faces I’d known all my life. More disturbing than the idea of any of them being responsible was the fact that I could believe it.
“Em.”
I jerked, catching myself on the limb overhead as I looked down between my feet. Dutch stood at the bottom of the ladder, my gloves clutched in his hand.
My breath fogged in the air as I regained my balance, and I tried to slow my racing pulse. “Hey.”
He took hold of the ladder, and I hesitated before I climbed down with the weight of the apples pulling at my hip. When I reached the ground, he lifted the bag from my shoulder, handing me the gloves. “Saw them sitting on the seat in the truck.”
I took them, sliding my hands into each one as he watched me. “Thanks.”
Dutch looked more like himself than he had in days, and I wondered if it was being in the orchard that did it. Here, he was in charge. He controlled things.
“I finally got a call from the city,” he said. “The glass for the window will be here Friday.”
I nodded, looking for the anger that had been in his eyes the night I went to see Nixie. But it wasn’t there now.
He stepped past me, setting the hat back on his head as he walked toward the end of the row. I swallowed hard, changing my mind several times before I finally said it. “Dutch?”
He stopped, turning back. “Yeah?”
His eyes had an open look to them. A hopeful one. He was waiting for me to close the space between us.
“Were you at the house the other night?” I asked.
“What?”
“Two nights ago. Did you come by?”
Dutch’s eyes narrowed as he shifted from one foot to the other. “Are you serious?”
I stared at him, clenching my teeth so hard that my jaw ached. I wanted him to deny it.
“I saw the paper, Em. I’m not a fucking idiot.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He sneered, giving me a look I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before. It took me a moment to realize who it reminded me of—his father.
I exhaled.
“You need to stay out of whatever August has himself wrapped up in.”
“Someone on this island set that fire, Dutch. That doesn’t bother you?”
“You don’t know that.”
“I was there. I saw it.”
His expression changed again, turning darker. “What do you mean you were there?”
“I could see the fire from the house.” I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d been with August when I saw it. The less ammunition he had, the better.
Dutch shook his head, staring at the ground. The muscles in his arms flexed, the veins in his hands surfacing under the skin. “So you thought you’d do what? Run over there and save him?”
“Are you saying if you’d seen a fire at Nixie’s out your window, you wouldn’t go over there?”
“He’s not Nixie. And I know you went to the burial.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? It’s not a secret.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“We haven’t talked in days.”
“Whose choice was that?” His voice rose.
I stilled, looking around us. Molly Tulles’s husband was in the next row, watching. By tomorrow, she’d have even more gossip to spew at the market.
“The burial was for Eloise. You should have been there, too. And don’t pretend like this is about the funeral. You’re not even angry about August. You’re angry at me.”
“Is there a difference?”
“What?”
“It’s all the same, right? Everything goes back to him. Like always.”
My heart twisted as I remembered taking August’s hand as we stood over Eloise’s grave. I hadn’t thought twice. I hadn’t agonized over it or weighed the cost of that moment, I’d just done it. And I could still feel his touch on my palm, like sunlight pooled between my fingers.
It was true, what Nixie said. I’d never let August go, not really. And it seemed so foolish, so childish, that I could hardly stand to admit it to myself. I’d been eighteen years old. I’d known nothing about suffering or responsibility or loss, but somehow, I’d known this soul-deep kind of love that I now wondered if most people never found. It cut open a vein in me that never stopped flowing.
“I’m not going to do this here.” I tried to go around him, but he stepped in front of me.
“If it were up to you, we’d never have this argument.”
“We’ve been having it for years, Dutch.”
“Tell me why you won’t marry me.” He blurted it out, making me wince.
“Because I don’t want to be married. I don’t want to have a family and make the life that everyone else on this island does!” I didn’t care who could hear me now.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“You act like you don’t want this life, but you’re still here, Emery. You could have left at any time and you didn’t.”
“No, I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t. My dad was hurt. Then my mom was sick. Someone had to take over the shop.”
Dutch was an expert at reading me, but I still didn’t know how to be honest with him. He was there after August left. He’d understood me, but that had never been enough. It all felt like crumbling dust when I held it against the body-aching need I’d known before.
Dutch was the kind of man who told me what I wanted to hear. He played by my rules when the waters got rough so that he could be the one to swoop in and save me. But this was different. I shook my head, exhausted. I couldn’t fight with him anymore.
“You have to stop asking,” I said weakly. “Please. I’m never going to say yes.”
Dutch leveled his gaze at me. I could see him searching for something to grab ahold of. Anything. “You don’t know everything”—he swallowed—“about that night.”
I went rigid, letting the words sink in, sure I’d heard him wrong. “What are you talking about?”
“I…” He scrubbed his hands over his face, breathing into them. “Jesus, I’ve almost told you a hundred times.”
I could feel my insides turning to liquid. Whatever he was about to say was the first few drops of an entire ocean.
He stared at me, his face flushing.
“What?” I said, louder.
His eyes lifted slowly, and there was a coldness in them that I didn’t like. “I lied, Emery.”
My mind raced, my pulse quickening. But I wasn’t putting it together.
“About August. I lied about being with him that night.”
A sharp sting like needles under my skin rushed over me, making my stomach turn. This wasn’t the last-ditch effort of a desperate man. He was telling the truth. I could hear it in his voice.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why would you do that?”
His lips pressed together. “Because he was my friend. I was scared for him.”
I took a step backward, trying to fill the bottom of my lungs with air. They wouldn’t inflate.
“I don’t know why I did it, I just did. And then once I lied, I couldn’t take it back.”
I leaned into the tree, trying to feel the gravity beneath my feet. Nausea crawled up my throat as I remembered Eloise’s words in the letter.
What August did…
“The only reason he wasn’t charged with Lily’s murder is because you said you were with him, Dutch. Do you get that?” But it wasn’t just that. Dutch’s lie was also the thing I’d clung to when everyone was convinced that August was a murderer.
“I know.” He nodded. “But I’m telling you now because I’m worried about you, Emery. I don’t want him anywhere near you.”
“Are you saying…” My voice wavered. “Are you saying you think he hurt Lily?”
He was quiet for a long moment. Too long. “I’m saying that I don’t know anymore.”
I stared at him wordlessly before pushing around him, onto the path. The row of trees pressed in on either side of me, making me feel like they were closing in, and I walked faster, fishing the keys from the pocket of my jacket. When I made it to the truck, a sea of eyes in the orchard house were watching me through the opened doors.
I tried to slow my breaths, blinking furiously through hot tears as I turned to face them. “If you have something to say, then say it!”
They stared at me wordlessly. Abbott Wittich, Etzel Adelman. Nixie, Jake, and my dad. A dozen others whose faces I couldn’t stand to look at.
I yanked open the door of the truck and climbed inside, swallowing down the cry breaking in my throat. I fumbled with the keys until the engine roared to life and pulled onto the road without looking back.
Almost everyone on this island had accused Dutch of lying that night. It had cost almost any chance he had at gaining anyone’s trust again, until the town council put him in charge of the orchard. But he’d never wavered from his story, not once. Not until now.
But if August wasn’t with Dutch that night, then where the hell was he?
Thirty-Four
THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE FIRE
EMERY
Lily’s straw-colored hair fell from the edge of the bed, almost touching the wood floor. She was lying on her back, her feet up the wall and her arms outstretched over the quilts as she watched her toenails dry. “I still think she deserves it.”
“What does it matter? I don’t even care.” I dipped the brush into the nail polish bottle and closed it. Lily had picked a dark crimson called Wicked for me—the last color I would have chosen.
“Well, I do.”
She’d come over after school when she heard what happened from Dutch and I’d known as soon as I’d seen her face that she wasn’t going to let this go.
