Spells for Forgetting(34)

Hans and Leoda Morgan’s house sat at the end of Old Pine Road in its own grove of redwoods that made the house look tiny beneath their stature. I’d driven that road many times, but not all of them were good memories. Not all of them were moments I was proud of, either. But we all did what we had to on Saoirse. That much had always been true.

The truck came to a screeching stop behind Zachariah’s car, and I turned off the engine, sitting in the dark for a quiet moment. It was the last one I’d get for some time, I’d wager. Moonlight cast through the towering branches, painting white stripes in the dark, and I considered putting the key back in the ignition and leaving. But things had gone way past that now. I knew that.

The pain in my hip woke as I rocked myself out of the seat and I closed the door, tossing the keys through the open window onto the dash. The porch steps groaned as I climbed them and I knocked on the door in three steady beats. The lace curtain behind the window shifted just slightly before it opened, and Leoda stared up at me, eyebrows raised.

“Well, it’s about goddamn time,” she murmured, letting the door swing wide.

Inside, the fire was roaring, but the only light was coming from the dining room across the hall.

“Anyone see you?” She glanced over my shoulder.

“No.”

“Good.” She jerked her chin, waiting for me to enter before locking the door.

I could hear the voices before I saw them. Hans, Nixie, Jake, Zachariah, and Bernard sat around the table. In its center, a platter of pastries from the bakery was set between two candlesticks. Like we were at a fucking tea party.

Leoda lifted a teapot and filled a cup at the empty seat beside her. Mine, I presumed.

I took the hat from my head, stuffing it into the pocket of my jacket before I sat. But Leoda stood against the wall, watching me. “Well?”

My gaze traveled across the table from my brother Jake to Zachariah. The die had been cast long before this moment, but I still didn’t like it.

“We might have a problem,” I said, my voice hoarse. I picked up the tea and took a sip.

“What kind of problem?” Leoda waited, her mouth pressed into a hard line.

I stared into the cup for a long moment before I looked back up at her. “It’s Emery.”





Nineteen


    AUGUST


I shouldn’t have gone. Not just because Noah had asked me to stay away. But also because I’d known what it would do to me.

I stood out on the black street, staring at the sign that hung over the door.

BLACKWOOD’S TEA SHOP



I used to stand beneath that window on late afternoons, waiting for Emery’s mom to release her from the register. We’d go to her dad’s fishing cabin and tear off our clothes before jumping into the cold water. Then we’d swim until we couldn’t stand it, and lie on the dock in the sun until it went down.

The cabin was the place we’d had almost every first. The first time she cried in front of me and our first real, screaming fight. The first time she’d ever given herself to me was in that cabin and it was also the last place I’d seen her.

Now, standing in front of the tea shop, it felt like I was waiting again. For what, I had no idea.

I came up the steep stone steps until I could see her through the window. Emery sat at the wooden worktable with a laptop open and her face illuminated with the blue light. Her brow was wrinkled as she read whatever she saw on the screen, the braid over her shoulder unraveling again. She looked so much like her mom in that moment that it was almost unnerving.

I almost didn’t knock, talking myself out of it several times before my fist tapped the glass softly.

Her eyes snapped up and then squinted, and the moment she made out my face she shrank back. Her hands dropped into her lap and she stared at me for several seconds, as if waiting to see what I would do. She wasn’t going to invite me inside, but she wasn’t telling me to leave, either. I took that as a good sign that she wouldn’t throw the laptop at me if I let myself in.

I turned the knob and the bell jingled as the door opened. Above the threshold, a bundle of rosemary hung from a tied string. After years of not living with my mom, I’d forgotten those little things.

The orderly shelves of tea covered the wall of the shop, only half of the small room lit with a single overhead light. It felt smaller, the walls crowding in on every side, and the ceiling somehow seemed lower than the last time I stood beneath it.

And I wasn’t the only one who had changed. Emery always said she’d never run that shop, and yet, here she was.

She was still staring at me, and I immediately thought that it was just like her to sit there, waiting patiently for me to make an ass of myself. We both knew I would.

“Hey.” I breathed.

Her gaze moved from my face to my hair, down to my hands. “Hey.” The edge that had been in her voice earlier was gone. Now, she only looked tired. Exhausted, even.

“Look, I know you don’t want to see me. I just wasn’t sure if you’d still be here, on Saoirse, and—”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I just meant that…”

“What?” Anger sharpened the words again. “What did you mean?”

I gave up. It was a stupid thing to say. “Nothing.”