Spells for Forgetting(19)

“I promise I didn’t come up here to make you feed me.” I sank back into the chair.

She followed the counter with one hand until it ended and found her way to the table, sitting down across from me. There was a knowing smirk on her lips. “I thought you liked my griddle cakes.”

“I do.” I smiled, setting two on each of our plates.

“So? What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

I answered too quickly, but my grandmother was a patient woman. She picked up her knife, feeling for the butter dish and scraping a thick mound of it off the top. I watched as she smeared it over the cakes, sipping my coffee.

Through the arched doorway to the kitchen, I could see the glow of the fire in the living room. The wood beam mantel was littered with shells, dried flowers, and half-burned candles. A perfectly oblong stone wrapped tightly and knotted with jute twine. At the mantel’s center sat The Blackwood Book of Spells, its dark leather cover worn and soft. The thick tome was filled with rituals, charms, and lunar magic that had been passed down in my family the same way The Herbarium was. As a child, I would sit before that fire and flip through the thick pages, breathing in the smell of old ink and dried mugwort that was pressed between the pages. Too many of those memories had Lily in them.

“Nixie called up yesterday afternoon,” she said, finally.

I closed my eyes, pressing a finger to my temple. She wasn’t letting me off the hook that easily, and I could always count on Nixie to rat me out.

“She said our boy is home.”

I stared at her, taking a breath before I answered. “He’s not our boy, Oma.”

She set her chin on her folded hands. “Have you been to see him yet?”

“No.” The edge in my voice hardened the word and I pushed the tangled hair back from my face. It wasn’t exactly a lie. I’d seen him, but I hadn’t gone to see him.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t,” I said, swallowing. “You know I can’t.”

Everyone on Saoirse believed that August killed Lily and got away with it. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times that I’d wondered if it was true myself. But the reason I couldn’t go see him was more complicated than that. For fourteen years, my life had been defined by questions I didn’t have the answers to. And I wasn’t sure if I even wanted them anymore.

“I didn’t see you at the meeting last night.” I picked up my fork, pushing the blueberries around the edge of my plate.

“You know these hips. My bones get tired after sundown. I’m getting too old for town business, anyway.”

I smiled at that. Albertine wasn’t too old for anything.

“The Morgans weren’t happy Jake’s letting him bury Eloise here,” I murmured.

She lifted one eyebrow. “Well, Leoda’s always had a knack for putting her nose where it doesn’t belong.” She folded her hands together on top of the table. “I’m just glad Lily’s parents aren’t here to suffer through all this fuss.”

Sometimes I went months without thinking about Oskar and Leah Morgan. They’d moved to the mainland a couple of years after what happened, and I’d been ashamed of how relieved I was when they went. There were reminders of Lily everywhere and I was happy to be rid of two of them.

“You should go see him,” she said, gently.

The sound of her voice made me suddenly feel like I was going to cry. August’s face came back to me, the way it looked as his eyes locked with mine across the road. The way his jaw clenched tight. I bit down on my lip to keep it from quivering and took a sharp sip of coffee, sniffing.

“Might not get another chance to put that heart of yours to rest, honey.”

A single tear rolled down my cheek. If I didn’t know my grandmother, I’d be glad she couldn’t see that tear. But she had senses the rest of us didn’t. She could pick up the subtle tenor of pain from a mile away.

“My heart’s just fine.” I set my hand on her arm, more to comfort myself than to reassure her.

Again, my eyes trailed to the book of spells. More than once, when I’d woken from the nightmares or when I was eaten up by loneliness, I’d considered coming here and opening it. Searching its pages for something that might cure me of the pain that wedged itself deep inside me when August left. I wasn’t totally sure that’s what I hadn’t been doing when I drove to her house in the middle of the night.

“Well, what are you going to do?” she asked, holding the steaming coffee before her. A lock of her endless white hair fell over her shoulder, dropping into her lap.

The last time I’d been with August Salt, his eyes had glinted with daybreak, his mouth hot on my cold skin. Those years blurred together, in a long swath of dark wind that swirled in my mind. A clumsy stitch of broken memories I was careful not to pull at the edges of. They were sleeping monsters. Hungry. But I’d still been afraid to lose them.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

It had been fourteen years since August left, but he’d never been gone. Not really.





Eleven


    SIXTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE FIRE


   EMERY


“Dutch Boden, I’ll kill you!” Lily screamed, the words breaking with laughter as Dutch hauled her up out of the water and tossed her into a crashing wave.