Spells for Forgetting(45)

“You know you can tell me anything, don’t you?” I said.

“I know, Uncle Jake.”

I nodded, giving up. Pushing her wasn’t going to do any good. “He’ll be gone in a day or two. Hang in there, Em.”

She tried to smile, but it wasn’t reassuring. If anything, it worried me. “Thanks.” Emery stood, straightening the paperweight on my desk before she left.

I stared at the yellowed keyboard in front of me as Sophie called out a goodbye, and as soon as I heard the sound of the door scraping, I picked up the phone. The distorted minor tones of the numbers chimed in the receiver as I dialed, and when it started to ring, I pressed it to my ear.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end of the line crackled.

“Hey, it’s Jake.” I rubbed the place between my eyes with one knuckle. “She was just here.”

A pause. “And?”

“She was asking about Lily. Stuff about the investigation.”

A long exhale sounded, followed by silence. “All right. I’ll deal with it.”





Twenty-Five


    THREE YEARS BEFORE THE FIRE


   AUGUST


The beam of the flashlight swept over the balcony of the lighthouse, catching my eyes and I hissed, turning away from it.

“Sorry!” Lily’s laughter lifted over the sound of the waves below.

I looked down to the beach, but I couldn’t see her and Emery on the rocks except when the flashlight occasionally caught one of their faces. It was a cloudy night, hiding the moon, and we’d been drinking cider since sundown. At some point, we’d thought it was a good idea to hop Nixie’s fence and steal a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins. Getting them to the beach was one thing but hauling them up the steps of the lighthouse was another.

“Ready?” Dutch shouted beside me, picking up another one.

“Ready!” Emery answered back.

Dutch swung the pumpkin back in both arms, flinging it over the railing, and we both watched as it hurtled into the darkness. The flashlight’s beam followed it all the way down until it smashed into the rocks, exploding.

The girls cheered. “I give that one an eight!” Emery called up.

“Nine!” Lily followed. “I’m pretty sure there are pumpkin guts in my hair!”

Dutch set both elbows on the railing, tucking his hair behind his ears. He still had that glazed look in his eyes, but my buzz was wearing off, making me tired.

“How many are left?” I reached back, pressing a thumb into the sore muscle at the corner of my shoulder. “I gotta get home.”

“Just one, Cinderella.” He rolled his eyes.

“I have to be at the orchard by five.” It was almost two in the morning and I was already dreading the hangover I’d have the next day.

“Poor August Salt, with his inherited family business and a job he’ll never lose,” Dutch muttered. He was still smiling, but I knew him well enough to hear the hint of bitterness in the words.

“It’s not as sweet a deal as you think.” That was putting it lightly.

“Oh yeah, what would be so great about all that? I sure as hell wouldn’t want that problem.”

I couldn’t blame him for being resentful. Dutch’s dad was the most pathetic creature on the island and he never held a job for more than six months. He went from fishing boat to fishing boat, running out his luck every time. Eventually, he cycled his way back through.

“Sorry, man. I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, sinking down to haul up the last pumpkin.

“You never do.”

I set it back down, looking up at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

I fell quiet, letting the fuse burn out between us. Dutch was an angry drunk and nights like these usually shook loose the things he wouldn’t otherwise say. It would pass. It always did.

The truth was my future had been planned out and written in stone while Dutch’s would never be certain. Not until he was out from under his dad’s mistakes and making his own way in the world. He would gladly trade places with me and vice versa.

“Do you want me to see if my grandfather has any openings for farmhands in the spring?”

Dutch’s eyes lit up. He pushed off the railing, turning toward me. “Really?”

It only occurred to me then that I should have offered a long time ago. But he’d never asked. “Yeah. It’s not a big deal.”

“Do you think he’d take me on?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. If I ask him to.”

Dutch grinned. “Yeah, man. That would be awesome.”

“Might be able to get him to take your dad back, too.”

“Seriously?” It almost made me sad to see how excited he was.

I smirked. “Maybe between the two of us we can keep an eye on him so he doesn’t get himself fired again.”

Dutch laughed. “We can try. But he’s got a talent for fucking up.”

“Yeah, he does.”

“How is he”—Dutch paused—“your grandfather?”

Again, the flashlight’s beam skittered across the face of the lighthouse’s balcony.

“Same,” I answered.

It had started with a cough. Mom had tried to get him to go to the doctor in the city when it was clear Leoda’s cures weren’t doing any good, but he’d refused. I didn’t know why she wasted any time worrying about the cruel bastard. Slowly, the color had left his skin and for the last few weeks, I’d caught him wiping blood from his lips with his handkerchief.