Spells for Forgetting(36)

It was Dutch who finally broke the silence. “Sorry about Eloise.”

“Thanks.” I nodded, eyeing the bits of straw stuck to the hem of his flannel shirt. “You still working at the orchard?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s running things over there now?”

Dutch and Emery shared another silent exchange before he answered. “I am, actually.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise at that. “Wow.” That was all I could think to say.

My grandfather had tolerated Dutch, but he’d never thought much of him.

“Jake says you’re packing things up over at the cottage,” Dutch said.

“Packing up?” Emery echoed, the defensive tone creeping back into her voice.

“Yeah. I’m selling it.”

I didn’t know what that look on her face now was. Nostalgia? Betrayal? Maybe both.

“Well, let me know if you need any help. I can come by.” Dutch came around the table to stand behind the stool Emery was sitting on and I didn’t miss that his leg brushed her arm.

Emery’s eyes dropped from mine again and her cheeks flushed, confirming it. They were a thing now. Maybe more than a thing. My eyes instantly went to the ring finger of her left hand, but it was bare, and it took every ounce of will not to exhale with relief. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help it.

“Well, I was just headed out.” I stepped backward, looking between the two of them. “I’ll see you guys.”

I pulled the door back open and drew in another breath that made my lungs ache. My feet came down the steps more quickly than necessary, and before I’d even crossed the street, the shop door was opening again.

“Hey! August!”

I stopped, hesitating before I turned around. We didn’t need to do this. In fact, I didn’t want to.

Dutch’s even pace crossed the street until he reached me. He was smiling, but it was thin. I could see right through it. “That was kind of weird back there.”

“Kind of.”

He ran a hand through his hair, taking on that air that he used to have when we were teenagers. Like he was in control, even though we both knew he wasn’t. And just like back then, I let him have it. “Emery and I have been together awhile. Didn’t mean for you to find out like that.”

I shrugged. “It’s been a long time, Dutch. I think we’re good.”

He lifted his chin, looking down his nose at me. There was something he wasn’t saying.

“What is it?”

Dutch took his time, looking up the street toward the woods before he answered. “I don’t know, man. You leave without a word and then you just show up out of nowhere…I guess I just don’t really know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say.” I was trying to give him an out, but he wasn’t taking it. He’d never known when to shut his mouth.

“You sure about that?” He paused, lowering his voice. “I mean, how could you just take off like that after…”

“After what?”

Dutch’s voice lowered. “After what I did for you.”

My eyes went over his head, to the cracked shop window. The light was cast onto the street in a diagonal line. That’s what this was about. Emery. “Does she know?”

“No.”

That time, I did exhale. I didn’t want to admit it, but the possibility of Emery knowing everything made my stomach turn. If I had to guess, I would have said that Dutch felt the same.

“And I think it should stay that way.” He leveled his gaze at me.

“I get it. You don’t want me messing anything up for you.”

“Come on, August, I just don’t want Emery—”

“To find out I’m not the only one who lied that night?” I cut him off.

Dutch leaned back, his expression instantly changing. The timid friend walking on eggshells he’d been inside the shop a moment ago was gone now. He matched my cold stare wordlessly.

“I told you. I’ll be out of here in a few days,” I said, heavily. I turned on my heel, pacing up the street and leaving him standing in the dark with the glow of the shop behind him. “It’ll be like I was never here.”





Twenty


    EMERY


I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.

I sat on the living room floor, the quilt pulled tight around me. The fire had almost gone cold, but I couldn’t feel the chill. I’d lain awake in the dark for hours with the sound of the woods coming through my window, afraid to fall asleep. Because when I did, I knew what would come.

Albertine had warned me when I was little that there was no such thing as nightmares. Not really. Dreams carried all kinds of messages, some of them unpleasant, but they were messages all the same.

They started the night I came back to the island, after staying at the hospital in Seattle with my dad. I’d tossed and turned in my bed, thrashing in a cold sweat until the screams woke Nixie and I opened my eyes to her standing over my bed, shaking me. It took months for them to fade with the help of one of Albertine’s charms, bones of crow.

But going to my grandmother again was a last resort. She would press beneath the surface until she found the aching wound, and I couldn’t bear that.