Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(67)
Binah had gotten her features, and her sweet voice, from her mama. Would that be enough to bend Jesse’s heart to the girl? But that red-tinted hair—auburn, folk called it—and those bright blues eyes of hers, those came from a father who’d probably never even bothered to set eyes on her. Would Jesse have found enough love in his heart to take the girl on as his own? May would like to think so, but Jesse was still a man, after all, and a man’s pride could prove a fearsome barrier. Didn’t really matter though. Her Jesse was gone, and May had fallen completely in love with yet another of Betty’s cast-off children. Didn’t matter whose blood ran through either of those girls’ veins. They both belonged to May now.
May heard another voice. Still high, but breaking every so often as it began to slide down into the speaker’s chest. Binah’s friend, that young boy Willy, was out there, probably helping them with the watering. Despite the delicate way he carried himself, he was good at hauling the heavy bucket from the spigot to the garden. Seemed he was always underfoot, but May didn’t have the heart to chase him away. Binah had been born straddling two worlds, marked as she was by her parents’ different traits. May figured it was her granddaughter’s firsthand knowledge of what it was like to be not quite the one and not quite the other that drew her to Willy. Some might protest having the kid shadow their girl at every turn, but May had seen this gentle, delicate kind of boy before. Binah, and her honor, were safe as could be in his presence. The world didn’t cotton to boys like him, and soon he was gonna have to learn how to hide his softness or have it beaten out of him. But that day didn’t have to be today, and that beating certainly wasn’t gonna happen here.
May rose and emptied her cup, then rinsed it and set it on the counter. She gripped the porcelain lip of the kitchen sink and leaned forward.
“Your nana,” she called out to the girls, “she’s gonna go lie down for a spell.”
Jilo’s head shot up at her words. “You feeling okay, Nana?”
May knew she was fading, and she knew Jilo could see it. “Fine. I’m fine,” May said, surprised by the annoyance she heard in her own voice. “I’m just old and worn out.” She forced herself to smile. “Don’t you worry about your nana. She just needs a little rest.” May wondered what was going to become of these children once she was gone, though rightly, neither one could be called a child anymore. Jilo was full-grown, with a baby of her own coming, and Binah was fourteen, not really that much younger than May herself had been when she married.
Jilo nodded, but said, “I’ll come check in on you shortly.”
May felt another flush of irritation, but refused to let herself show it. “All right.”
Backing away from the window, she headed down the hall to the room that once again served as her bedroom. Instead of meeting customers in the house, she now held audience with them in the old cemetery in the center of town, where any and all could see. Cut down on the folk who weren’t serious enough about their troubles to need her help. Before, when she let people sneak into her house, she found most of the problems she addressed could’ve rightly been handled with a little more common sense and a little less laziness. The folk who were desperate enough to set aside their fear and pride and walk right into Colonial Cemetery, they were more likely to have problems that merited her help, and the courage to face whatever solution her magic would provide.
Of course, she made a lot less money that way. She’d questioned more than once if she should open up her home once again, especially now that Jilo was home and expecting. But in truth she no longer had the energy for the midnight knocks at the door. No, best to keep business and home separate. Still, May wished she’d managed to set more aside, but she’d paid for Jilo’s and Opal’s schooling, hoping they’d manage to take care of themselves afterward. Although Opal had done well in school, she no longer worked as a nurse. She’d married Nate, her soldier, years ago, and the two of them had three children of their own now. Children May had never laid eyes on in person. Nate had stayed on in the service, and Opal always said she couldn’t visit because they were stationed in places like Japan and Germany. But May didn’t believe it. She knew it was the magic that kept her eldest grandbaby away as sure as it did sweet Poppy.
May had wanted to cut all ties with magic that winter day Poppy had taken off for Charlotte, swearing on the Lord’s holy name never to set foot there again. But life hadn’t left her much of a choice. Maguire had long ago seen to it that she’d never find another respectable job again. Besides, even though she wished it were otherwise, she knew she’d grown too frail to do the hard physical work she’d once done at the Pinnacle. It struck her that the hotel was no longer there, anyway. Destroyed by fire caused by faulty wiring, they said, though May had her doubts. She’d seen something else in the paper, too—Sterling Maguire had welcomed his third son into the world. If May failed, as her mama, too, had failed, to take Maguire out, the old man would probably find a way to continue jumping from body to body to continue poisoning the world centuries after May had been forgotten. May knew that any attack against Maguire would most likely culminate in her own death. That’s why she’d put it off as long as she had. But she was running out of time. She’d sure like to help see Jilo’s baby into the world first, but maybe it’d be better to make sure that babe could be born into a world without Maguire.