Spells for Forgetting(57)

Thirty-Three


    EMERY


The trees hid the scars well.

I climbed to the top of the ladder with the cloth sack draped over one shoulder, ducking through the branches. From this high up, you could hardly tell where the fire had blown through the orchard. But I could still remember the blackness of the earth where the flames had been. The smell that had hung in the air afterward.

It had been a beautiful day on the island. I remember that, because I remember the dappled light on the lawn in front of the school during graduation. But hours later, a single wind rolled over the sea ahead of the oncoming storm. It crashed up the bluff before tearing through the orchard and when it found the weakened branch on one of the oldest trees, the glass lantern fell.

By all accounts, the town shouldn’t have survived it. The annual tradition of riding the ferry to the island each fall was overshadowed by the news coverage of a dead girl, and there wasn’t much reason to visit when the orchard was closed. It had taken years, but the new trees did grow. The ferries returned. And Saoirse went right on living.

I wedged the heel of my boot into the crevice between branches so I could reach higher. The apples on the topmost branches were always left behind by the tourists, but we would make use of them in preserves and jams and vinegars that would be sold through spring and summer in the shops.

Every year, the orchard called for volunteers to help wrap up the last of the season’s work and every year, we answered. Closing up the farm was a responsibility that stretched beyond the payroll. It was something we all did—together.

I yanked another apple from the branch and dropped it into the sack. My fingers were already numb and I’d left my gloves in the truck, but the day was colder than expected. By nightfall, when all the clearing and pruning was done, there would be supper and mulled wine at the orchard house. I’d been dreading it for days.

I’d come because I was expected to, and because I didn’t need to give anyone more reason to talk. But it had already begun—the watching. The wondering. And someone had already taken matters into their own hands by setting fire to Eloise’s truck.

August was right. No one had come. The phone at the marshal’s office had gone unanswered each time I called it, and I imagined my uncle at his desk, watching it ring as he sipped whiskey from his coffee cup. The thought made me tremble.

I didn’t want to think about the possibility that Jake had set the fire himself, but I knew my uncle wasn’t exactly the upstanding marshal that outsiders might expect him to be. I had a hard time believing that my dad would have set a fire when he bore the scars of one. But Dutch…

The front page of the Saoirse Journal was plastered with a photo of the blackened truck that sat in front of the Salt cottage, and by now everyone on the island would have heard about it. But this wasn’t the random spark of a bonfire gone rogue or a discarded cigarette butt. Someone had set that fire. And they may have also stolen the letter.

I’d gone out in my wellies and nightgown as soon as it was light enough to see, searching the yard, the garden, the ditch that stretched along the side of the road. I couldn’t remember setting the letter down. I’d had it in my hand and then I didn’t. I told myself that the wind could have blown it out the front door. That it could have skipped down the road in the pouring rain and if it had, there was no way it survived the storm that blew over the island throughout the night. If anyone found it, it would be no more than a smear of white pulp in the dirt.

But there was a tingle over my skin as I peered through the branches of the apple tree, studying the faces I’d known all my life. More disturbing than the idea of any of them being responsible was the fact that I could believe it.

“Em.”

I jerked, catching myself on the limb overhead as I looked down between my feet. Dutch stood at the bottom of the ladder, my gloves clutched in his hand.

My breath fogged in the air as I regained my balance, and I tried to slow my racing pulse. “Hey.”

He took hold of the ladder, and I hesitated before I climbed down with the weight of the apples pulling at my hip. When I reached the ground, he lifted the bag from my shoulder, handing me the gloves. “Saw them sitting on the seat in the truck.”

I took them, sliding my hands into each one as he watched me. “Thanks.”

Dutch looked more like himself than he had in days, and I wondered if it was being in the orchard that did it. Here, he was in charge. He controlled things.

“I finally got a call from the city,” he said. “The glass for the window will be here Friday.”

I nodded, looking for the anger that had been in his eyes the night I went to see Nixie. But it wasn’t there now.

He stepped past me, setting the hat back on his head as he walked toward the end of the row. I swallowed hard, changing my mind several times before I finally said it. “Dutch?”

He stopped, turning back. “Yeah?”

His eyes had an open look to them. A hopeful one. He was waiting for me to close the space between us.

“Were you at the house the other night?” I asked.

“What?”

“Two nights ago. Did you come by?”

Dutch’s eyes narrowed as he shifted from one foot to the other. “Are you serious?”

I stared at him, clenching my teeth so hard that my jaw ached. I wanted him to deny it.