Spells for Forgetting(14)

Leoda scoffed, flinging a hand into the air. “Eloise gave up that right when she covered for her son.”

A few others echoed in agreement. “She’s not a Salt, anyway.”

Eloise had become the unwanted daughter of Henry Salt when she married his son Calvin, but Calvin had run off and left her when August was only a few years old. Henry blamed Eloise, and she’d spent the rest of her years on Saoirse paying penance for it.

“Eloise isn’t the only one who covered for him.” Another whisper cut through the rumble of voices and I stiffened, swallowing hard. A few pairs of eyes glanced quickly in my direction, and Dutch leaned into me just slightly.

“Now, look,” Jake said, more heavily, “I don’t think I have to remind you all that August was never charged with Lily Morgan’s murder.”

Another silence fell, but this time, it was reverent. Lily’s name was hallowed on Saoirse and I’d only heard it spoken a few times in the years that had passed. It wasn’t just the town that had changed that night. It was the island, too. She started keeping secrets from us then, my grandmother said. And those secrets had become like the wild blackberry vine, choking out everything that came before. Before the fire and Lily.

Before August Salt.

The night of the orchard fire had folded my life into two perfect halves—one colored in amber light, fogged with hot breath in the dark of the woods, the full blood moon hanging in the night sky. And the second, wrought with missing the first. Everything had changed in a single moment. In a single breath. And I could feel that same thrumming now, faint beneath the wind rattling the stained-glass windows.

Nothing had ever been the same again.

Hans’ voice took on an uncharacteristic edge of anger. “Everyone in this room knows he killed my granddaughter, Jake. That doesn’t change just because you couldn’t prove it.”

My uncle shrank back at the words, the muscle in his jaw ticking. Lily’s unsolved murder was Jake’s greatest shame. His greatest failure. In a town where nothing bad ever happened, his job as marshal had always consisted of mediating neighbor disputes or the occasional act of vandalism committed each summer by a few teenagers drunk on cider. There had never been anything like a murder.

But it was also no secret that Jake had loved Eloise Salt, even if she never loved him back in the same way. And the belief back then had been not that Jake couldn’t prove August killed Lily, but that maybe he didn’t want to.

My father cleared his throat, stepping into the glow of the pendant lights. “Guilty or not…I, for one, don’t think that Eloise should pay for the sins of her son. She was one of us.”

No one argued with that. There was no dispute on the town’s hatred of August, but Eloise was a different matter. My parents, Jake, Nixie, Eloise…they’d all grown up together like siblings.

“It’s already decided,” Jake said again, “August will bury Eloise’s ashes in the cemetery and then he’ll be on the first ferry off this island, I promise you that. Until then, he’s been told to keep his distance and I’m saying the same to you all now. I don’t want to hear about anyone hassling him or stepping foot on that property. Am I clear?” He let his gaze float out over the room, waiting for someone to disagree.

But there was only quiet. As if everyone in the chapel was remembering the last time we’d stood beneath this roof talking about Lily.

Jake slipped his hat back on, dismissing the meeting, and I didn’t move as everyone silently got to their feet, filing toward the doors.

My father’s hand landed softly on my shoulder before he wove through the crowd and I watched Leoda move in the same direction, followed by Zachariah and Bernard. Nixie wasn’t far behind them and the talk of Eloise gleamed in her eyes. She looked as if she’d been crying.

Whatever Jake had decided, the town council would still have more to say about it. They took the side door out, already arguing in rasping whispers, and a few moments later, Dutch and I were the only ones left in the chapel.

“You ready?”

I stared blankly at the floor, picking at the loose thread along the hem of my sweater. I didn’t know why I felt guilty any time the subject of August hung in the air. It was years after he left that Dutch and I started this thing between us. “I’m just going to head home and turn in.”

He let out a long breath, but it was more sympathetic than angry, and I was glad. I didn’t have it in me to fight with him. “Come on, Em. Let me walk you.”

“I’m fine, Dutch,” I said, a little too harshly, and I immediately regretted it.

He didn’t look fazed. Almost as if he’d expected it. He gave me a single nod before heading toward the doors and he didn’t look back as he disappeared in the dark.

I waited until there was only silence on Main Street before I started the walk to the house. The dirt road was almost pitch-black but I had every bend and buried rock memorized. I could walk it with my eyes closed.

Milk-white moonlight flitted through the tree branches overhead, flashing over me like distant lightning. The sky had finally cleared, the clouds peeling back to uncover the stars. But I could already smell more rain on the eastward wind.

When I reached the top of the hill, I stared at the ground and took three steady breaths before I found the strength to lift my eyes. Eloise Salt’s house was tucked far back in the trees, just across the road from my own. The land was overgrown with honeysuckle and summer brush, the porch slanted with rot on one side.