Spells for Forgetting(23)

“You think I shouldn’t have gone?”

She seemed to think about it, finding a place to stand on the other side of the counter before she reached up to tuck the hair behind my ear. “No. I’m glad you were there.” She looked weary, even older than her seventy-two years. She reached past me, picking up another roll of tissue, and she held on to it, turning it over in her fingers nervously. She was quiet for a moment before her blue eyes lifted to meet mine. “Did you know he was coming?”

“What?” Her words cut deep. “No. I haven’t seen or heard from August since he left, Leoda. You know that.”

She nodded, and her lips pressed together, deepening the lines around them. “Of course you didn’t.”

I tried to read the look on her face. Lily was Leoda’s only grandchild, and she’d changed after Lily died. We all had. She’d never abandoned me, like so many others on the island had, but there were times when I still wondered if a part of Leoda blamed me. Maybe because I hadn’t been with Lily that night. Or because I’d defended August when everyone was convinced he’d killed her. I hadn’t ever had the courage to ask.

There were plenty of people in town who thought I knew where August went when he disappeared. That I’d lied for him. Betrayed Lily. Her death had garnered headlines in the city and gotten the island years of unwanted attention when the details emerged. A seventeen-year-old girl found in the middle of the woods with lungs full of seawater and no clue as to how she’d gotten there. No one could explain it.

Then only a few weeks after it was announced that August wouldn’t be charged with murder, he and Eloise disappeared. No goodbyes. No clue as to where they went. He was just…gone.

“Why don’t you come over for supper?” she said finally, coming back into herself. “Hans made an apple pie last night.”

I blinked, picking up the other package and cradling it in my arms. “I can’t. I’m headed to Nixie’s after I close up the shop.”

“All right.” She stared at me silently for a moment before she went back around the counter. “Next time, then.”

I nodded, watching as she dipped the long wooden spoon into the pot and began to stir. “Next time.”





Thirteen


    AUGUST


I pulled another drawer open, thumbing through the files with a cough buried in my chest. The dust in the air cast everything in a choking haze that diffused the afternoon light. Even with the rain falling outside and the windows propped open, that staleness had lingered, making my lungs burn.

I’d been at it for hours, combing through the paperwork that my mother had meticulously organized. The old filing cabinets sat forgotten in the back room, and through the crack in the door, I could see into the bedroom that had once been mine. The corner of the bed was covered in a quilt, and the floorboards were tinged with a thin layer of white. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to go in there.

There weren’t many bad memories in this house. My mother had been more a friend than a parent, and she was the only family I had besides my grandfather. And Emery.

My jaw clenched tight as I pulled the next file from the drawer. Other than a few birth certificates, an expired insurance policy on the house, and clippings from the Saoirse Journal, its contents were mostly from the orchard.

My dad left when I was two years old and my mother had taken his place at the orchard, managing the books and the tourist season while my grandfather ran the farming work. Henry had never seen her as anything more than a burden, but everyone on the island knew that my mother was the backbone of the business that kept the town afloat.

She’d loved the farm and I’d never understood why. My grandfather made it clear that she’d never inherit it. He would rather have watched every last tree sink into the ocean than see them fall into her hands. The orchard would only go to a Salt and he’d never seen her as one.

The cottage was the first thing that had ever really belonged to her. She’d come from nothing, and when the required seven years had passed after my dad left and she had the house put in her name, Henry was furious.

But in the end, he hadn’t gotten his wish and I was glad the bastard had had to swallow that bitter pill before he died. After we left, there was no one to leave the orchard to except the town—something he swore he’d never do.

Still, Mom painstakingly cataloged order lists, equipment records, seed notes, and employee rosters, anything my grandfather overlooked or didn’t bother to keep track of. Every family on Saoirse had someone working at the orchard at some point. It was the summer job for most kids and a seasonal job in the fall for nearly everyone else. Salt Orchards had built the town and then it had run it. Until the fire.

The last time I’d seen it, almost half of the rows had been burned to the ground, leaving a stack of even black stripes on the earth. I dreamed about them sometimes, and I’d wake with the smell of char swirling in the air around me before I remembered where I was. It didn’t matter how far I went, the orchard and its scars had followed me.

I’d thought about going to see it. Maybe walk the trees one last time. But there were more ghosts in that orchard than I could count.

I opened the next folder, sorting through the papers and letting my eyes skim the old typewriter ink. At the bottom of almost every page, my mother’s signature stared back up at me. The paper-clipped packet was a survey of the acreage that stretched up into the hills on the west side of the island. Every square inch grew apples of almost every color and I’d known more about the fruit than I wanted to since I started talking. The orchard was in our blood, my grandfather said, but to me it had always been just a curse. I still hated him for it.