Spells for Forgetting(61)

“Not really.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “It’s not been easy for anyone, all of this mess with August.”

I stiffened, clenching my teeth. I didn’t want to talk about August.

“You know I’m here if you need me,” she said, more softly.

I nodded. “I know.”

“Do you? Because it looks to me like you’re carrying quite the burden.”

We hadn’t talked about Lily much through the years, but Leoda was one of the only people left on the island who understood what we’d been to each other. Thorns, and all.

“We”—I breathed—“Lily and I argued the last time we spoke. Did I ever tell you that?”

“No. You didn’t.”

“We were having lunch at the pub after graduation and we got into a fight about something. It was stupid, but she was angry with me.” I swallowed down the pain in my throat. “It was the last time I ever saw her.”

“Well, the two of you were like sisters, Em. Sisters fight.”

I’d told myself the same thing many times. Lily was furious when she found out about the ferry tickets and our plan to leave the island. I’d known she wouldn’t be happy, but the look in her eyes…

Leoda picked up one of the trimmed willow stalks on the table, rolling it between her fingers. “It’s normal, you know. To replay it in your mind. To pick apart the moments and try to make sense of them.”

“Do you remember the last time you saw her?” I sat down, placing the bottle between us.

She blinked, her lips pursing, as if I’d just pulled her from a memory. “Sure I do. It was at graduation, out on the lawn of the school. We were taking pictures and Lily was impatient, but she posed for the photos anyway.” She suddenly smiled to herself. “The last time I saw her, she was running off, that graduation robe billowing out behind her.”

I could see it, too. Her straight blond hair looked like gold in the summer, her fair skin dusted with freckles. We acted like sisters, but looking at us, we couldn’t have been more different. Our temperaments weren’t similar, either. Lily was all passion and fire. I’d been the quieter one who followed her lead.

“She wasn’t a simple girl. She had her demons like anyone else,” Leoda murmured.

My eyes snapped up, studying her, and I wondered for the first time if maybe Lily had told someone about her secret. If she’d gone to anyone after she found out she was pregnant, maybe it would have been Leoda. I waited, hoping she would say something to confirm it. But the tenor of things unsaid faded in the silence.

“You know, for years after the fire, I thought this town might not make it. There were some dark days. I would wonder what Greta Morgan would say if she could see what we’d made of her magic. But it turns out that sometimes, death is the only thing that can set things right.”

“Set things right?”

“Never mind,” Leoda said, setting a soft, warm hand on top of mine. “You’ll tell me if you need anything, won’t you?” She waited for me to answer with a nod before she shuffled back to the door, pulling the scarf tighter around her.

I watched as she picked up the lantern and turned the key. The propane hissed to life as the light inside the glass ignited, and the glow of it faded as she made her way down the street.

I’d never told anyone about that fight with Lily. Not even my parents. Maybe because I was afraid to remember it myself. We’d fought a thousand times about a thousand things, but that argument had been different. For a moment, as I sat across the table from her, I’d felt like I was seeing her clearly for the first time. For a split second, I’d even hated her.

The rattling began again, softly, and my eyes lifted once more to the hutch, where the green teacup was gleaming in the candlelight. The last time I’d held it in my hands was the first time I’d felt the full weight of the darkness that swelled beneath the island. It rushed in my veins, snaking through me like poison.

The lid of the teapot and the saucers clinked as I placed my hands on the table and leaned forward over the candle. The heat of it licked against my skin, and I focused, watching the flame dance on the wick. A single drip of clear wax beaded beneath it and I could taste the fire on my tongue, feel it boiling in my belly. My eyes burned with the light as I imagined the wick empty. And just as I thought it, the flame snuffed out, leaving me in the dark.





Thirty-Six


    EMERY


I woke with a gasp, my hands clutched to my sweat-soaked nightgown.

I was home, enclosed by the four walls of my bedroom, but the dark sea still flashed before my eyes. The burn of fingernails scraping over my skin. I could feel the biting sting where they’d been only seconds ago.

I searched the length of my arms for the marks I’d seen there, feeling over my bones with shaking fingers. I could feel them, but they were gone.

First, the nightmares had returned in broken pieces. A frayed thread. But now, they were a fully painted canvas across my mind. My fists full of wet, tangled hair. The cold water lapping around me. The screaming. I could still hear the screaming.

I tried to slow my breathing, opening the top of my nightgown so I could feel the cool night air on my hot skin. I’d never told a soul what I saw in the dark between waking and sleeping. I’d never dared to utter it aloud.