Spells for Forgetting(26)

Nixie pushed through the kitchen door and I followed her out back, where the falling sun had painted everything in the dusky blue of twilight. The red barn sat taller and wider than the little house, its doors open just enough to let a crack of orange light through.

She took hold of the iron ring with both hands, pulling one side open, and I lifted an apron from where it hung on an ancient iron nail driven into the wall. Old, rusted farming tools dangled from the ceiling and rows of strung-up yellow and red onions covered one wall, curing for the farmer’s market in spring.

I took a long drink, letting the ale burn down my throat before I sat down on the stool. The metal trough was filled with clear melted beeswax that glistened in the lantern light. Nixie lit the burner beneath it and lifted the first dipping frame from the hook on the post. Together, we strung the length of wicking through the pegs, until each one held the spines of twenty-four candles.

It was a process that needed no instruction. I’d been helping Nixie with her candles since I was a child, and I had a couple of scars to prove it. Before I was old enough to dip the frames, my job had been to cut the wicking while my mother and Nixie worked over the galvanized buckets. They’d drink brandy and laugh until the sparkle of tears gleamed in their eyes, and I could almost hear the sound of it echoing in the dark corners of the barn.

“Didn’t see Albertine at the meeting last night. You go up to check on her this morning?” Nixie finally asked, tying off a wick and trimming its length.

I pulled a pair of canvas gloves on, studying her. Her eyes were on the shears in her hands, but her shoulders were a little too drawn back, her jaw set. “Yeah.”

“And?”

“She says she’s too old for town business,” I answered, picking up the first frame and lowering it down into the wax.

Nixie half laughed. “Aren’t we all.”

I pulled the frame back up, letting it drip before I gave it a hard shake and handed it to her. She immediately sank it into the trough of water to harden it and then lifted it back up.

“How are you doin’? You okay?” Again, she didn’t look at me.

I’d been prepared for this—Nixie’s gentle, loving probe that always had a way of getting beneath my skin. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know if I was okay. That when I’d seen August, it had felt like the woods would swallow me whole. But admitting that felt dangerous.

“I’m fine,” I said, steadily.

“Emery…” Nixie’s voice changed then. She turned her back to me, hanging up the first rack to cool, but when she sat back down, she dropped her hands into her lap, waiting.

I reached for the next set of wicks. “Everyone has a first love, Nixie.”

“Not like that, they don’t.” The words struck hard, threatening to unravel the carefully constructed calm I’d managed to keep since I’d seen August.

“The two of you were…that was no ordinary childhood love, Em,” she said, more carefully.

I bit the inside of my cheek, letting the sting gathering behind my eyes come in a painful wave. “It’s been fourteen years.” My voice was a little uneven now.

“So?”

“So, he left,” I said, exasperated, “after all of that. After Lily, my dad…he just left. None of it matters anymore.”

“Sure it doesn’t,” she muttered.

I gritted my teeth, glaring at her. “What?” I snapped.

“You think I don’t know why you won’t marry Dutch?” she said, matching my tone. “You never wanted to get married because you couldn’t marry August. You didn’t want to have children because you couldn’t have his children.” She looked me right in the eye when she said it. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I stared at her, unblinking. Hardly breathing. She’d never said it outright, but she’d accused me of it over and over in the way she looked at me. It had been laced beneath a thousand other words exchanged between us.

Nixie finished the next rack in silence, her unspoken thoughts cast over her face like a shadow. “After he left…Hannah worried we’d never get you back. That we’d lost you for good.”

I hardly remembered the months after August left. I’d spent them beneath the quilts on my bed, letting the excruciating hours pass. I’d watch the light creep over the floorboards in silence, listening to my mother’s voice on the other side of the door, and eventually I’d lost the will to even cry.

When I finally did leave my room, I’d spent every waking moment trying to discover where he’d gone. But they’d left without a trace. Not a single clue to go on.

“It feels like before,” I said, swallowing, “everyone watching me, whispering.”

Nixie leaned forward, setting her elbows on her knees, as if she was resisting the urge to get up and wrap her arms around me. “They’re just scared. No one wants to think about the night of the fire.” Her eyes seemed to glaze over with the dark memory.

Those were the words that people identified that day by keeping Lily’s name as far from their tongues as possible. It wasn’t the night Lily Morgan died. It was just the night of the fire.

I pulled the gloves from my hands, setting them in my lap. “You’ve never told me about it. About when you found Lily.”

Her mouth twisted, her eyes dropping to the ground. “It’s not really something I want to relive, Em.”