Spells for Forgetting(59)

I took a step backward, trying to fill the bottom of my lungs with air. They wouldn’t inflate.

“I don’t know why I did it, I just did. And then once I lied, I couldn’t take it back.”

I leaned into the tree, trying to feel the gravity beneath my feet. Nausea crawled up my throat as I remembered Eloise’s words in the letter.

What August did…

“The only reason he wasn’t charged with Lily’s murder is because you said you were with him, Dutch. Do you get that?” But it wasn’t just that. Dutch’s lie was also the thing I’d clung to when everyone was convinced that August was a murderer.

“I know.” He nodded. “But I’m telling you now because I’m worried about you, Emery. I don’t want him anywhere near you.”

“Are you saying…” My voice wavered. “Are you saying you think he hurt Lily?”

He was quiet for a long moment. Too long. “I’m saying that I don’t know anymore.”

I stared at him wordlessly before pushing around him, onto the path. The row of trees pressed in on either side of me, making me feel like they were closing in, and I walked faster, fishing the keys from the pocket of my jacket. When I made it to the truck, a sea of eyes in the orchard house were watching me through the opened doors.

I tried to slow my breaths, blinking furiously through hot tears as I turned to face them. “If you have something to say, then say it!”

They stared at me wordlessly. Abbott Wittich, Etzel Adelman. Nixie, Jake, and my dad. A dozen others whose faces I couldn’t stand to look at.

I yanked open the door of the truck and climbed inside, swallowing down the cry breaking in my throat. I fumbled with the keys until the engine roared to life and pulled onto the road without looking back.

Almost everyone on this island had accused Dutch of lying that night. It had cost almost any chance he had at gaining anyone’s trust again, until the town council put him in charge of the orchard. But he’d never wavered from his story, not once. Not until now.

But if August wasn’t with Dutch that night, then where the hell was he?





Thirty-Four


    THREE MONTHS BEFORE THE FIRE


   EMERY


Lily’s straw-colored hair fell from the edge of the bed, almost touching the wood floor. She was lying on her back, her feet up the wall and her arms outstretched over the quilts as she watched her toenails dry. “I still think she deserves it.”

“What does it matter? I don’t even care.” I dipped the brush into the nail polish bottle and closed it. Lily had picked a dark crimson called Wicked for me—the last color I would have chosen.

“Well, I do.”

She’d come over after school when she heard what happened from Dutch and I’d known as soon as I’d seen her face that she wasn’t going to let this go.

Clara Murdoch had called me a slut in front of half of my history class, and I couldn’t have cared less. Lily, however, was furious.

“Just one little black candle?” she pleaded, looking at me upside down with her bright blue eyes. “My grandmother has a whole drawer full dedicated to cursing Henry Salt.”

I laughed. “Why does she hate the Salts so much?”

“She hates everyone.”

“No black candles. No hexes, curses, or animal sacrifices,” I said, mostly kidding. The downside of having a protective friend was having to rein her in. The truth was, it was exhausting, and the closer to leaving Saoirse I got, the more I realized that there was a part of me that craved being apart from Lily. I loved her, but she was more unpredictable than ever and I had less and less interest in getting sucked into her drama.

“It looks like blood,” I said, leaning back onto my hands and letting my feet sway back and forth.

“That’s what makes it hot.” Lily flipped over, inspecting them. “What are the boys doing tonight?”

“I don’t know. August is probably working.”

“He’s always working.” She groaned.

I rolled my eyes. August did what he was told to keep the peace for his mom’s sake, but Lily had no idea what it was like to do anything she didn’t want to do. The way August looked at it, we would be gone in a few months, anyway.

“Let’s go get Dutch. We can go up to Wilke’s Pointe,” I said.

Lily stuck out her bottom lip.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She set her chin in her hands. “Let’s just hang out, the two of us.”

“Okay. Ice cream?”

“Yes”—she swung her legs off the bed and stood, pulling me up from the floor—“if you let me pick the flavor.”

“It’s your turn.”

“You’re right. It is my turn.” She gave me a wry look before going to the mirror over my dresser. I watched as she combed her fingers through her hair.

I felt guilty suddenly that I’d thought I wouldn’t miss her. She was impossible, selfish, and more stubborn than anyone I’d ever known. But it had always been the two of us.

When August and I first made the plan, there was a big part of me that thought it would never happen. But the closer it got, the more serious it became, and eventually I’d had to admit to myself just how badly I wanted it.