Spells for Forgetting(25)

“Good. Then I know you’ll understand when I ask you to stay away from Em while you’re here.”

An uncomfortable silence settled between us as I stared at him.

He shrugged. “I just think it’s best if you leave her be.”

When I couldn’t stand to look at him any longer, I let my gaze fall to the floor. “I’m not here to see her.” The words were true, but they felt like a lie.

“Good.” Noah breathed, visibly relieved. “That’s good.”

It took a minute for me to get the courage up to ask. “Is she…” I swallowed, not daring to meet his eyes.

“She’s okay,” he answered. “She’s good.”

I nodded, unsure of what else there was to say.

He took the few steps between us and I tried not to flinch when he reached up, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Now, you come say goodbye before you leave. I’m living over in the fishing cabin now.”

I forced a smile, giving him a nod. “I will, Mr. Blackwood.”

He set the hat back on his head and opened the door without another word, closing it behind him. The breath trapped in my chest came out in a gust and I rubbed both hands over my face, pinching my eyes closed until the sound of his footsteps faded away.

When I opened them again, my gaze went to the window that faced the Blackwoods’ house across the road. I could barely make out the yellow paint on the cottage through the trees. In my mind, I could still see the image of Emery standing there in the drive.

I don’t really remember when things changed between us. Emery, Dutch, Lily, and I had grown up in a kind of separate world on the island. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with Emery in a way that I was both too young and too na?ve for. I could see that now. But the tangled roots of it were still buried deep beneath the surface of me, and that pain I felt when I saw her standing across the road was still there. It had always been there.





Fourteen


    EMERY


Taking the long way to Nixie’s from the shop meant I didn’t have to pass the Salts’ cottage in the daylight. But avoiding Dutch wouldn’t be so easy.

Usually when we fought, he’d stay away, giving me space for a few days before we slipped back into the comfort of our usual routine. Me sleeping at his house or him at mine. Dinners and weekends together. Sundays out on the boat. And maybe that’s exactly how things would have gone if the last two days hadn’t happened. Me, Dutch, and our problems were one thing. The past that we shared with August was another.

When his cabin came into view at the bottom of the hill and the truck wasn’t in the drive, I relaxed. It was one of the only homes on the island that had been built in the recent past, and it had stuck out like a sore thumb on the wooded road when it was first finished. It still smelled like freshly planed wood on the inside, but the rain and snow had begun to paint its exterior into Saoirse’s landscape, as if it had always existed there. The island had a way of doing that—claiming things for her own.

I followed the drawn-out hum of katydids hovering in the trees, the woods afire with the colors of autumn at my back. They’d surrendered to the season in only a day since the leaves had changed and the air had shifted, too, growing thin and crisp in the setting sun.

The last of the pumpkins in the field behind Nixie’s house were buried in their withering vines, nestled in the overgrown patch behind the wood rail fence that surrounded the Thomas land. Nixie would let the last of them rot to seed for the next year’s harvest, when the new pumpkins would cover the ground.

The house’s wood siding was painted in a pale, chipped blue beneath a metal roof. The screen door squeaked on its spring as it opened and Nixie appeared, already wearing her father’s old carpenter’s apron.

“?’Bout time, chicken!”

I held up the warm bag of fish and chips in my arms. “You want to eat or not?”

Nixie rubbed her hands together, crooning at the sight. I came up the steps, knocking my boots against the doorframe before going inside, and as soon as I stepped over the threshold, I felt like I could breathe again. Nixie was the first to catch me out, but she was also the first to let things go. I needed that right now.

She pulled two beers from the icebox and popped the lids on the opener nailed to the wall. “I’ve got the wax melted. Just need to do the dipping and the cutting. I’m not going to do another batch until the new year.” She lifted the long silver hair from her shoulder, letting it fall down her back as she sat.

“You said that last month,” I said, unpacking the cardboard boxes. The kitchen filled with the warm, salty smell of battered fish.

“Well, I can’t help it if those idiots coming in on the ferry keep buying me out.” She popped a fry into her mouth and picked up her beer, waiting for me to do the same. “To those bastards from Seattle.” She clinked her bottle to mine.

I listened as she prattled on about supplies and the order from the store in the city that carried her candles through the winter, and when the bags were empty, I fetched two more beers from the icebox. The scene was a familiar one, and I was so grateful for it that I could have cried. For a moment, it was as if things were normal—our version of normal, anyway. The only thing missing was Mom, and I’d missed her more in the last two days than I had in the last two years.