Spells for Forgetting(67)

I half laughed, already annoyed. “Thanks.”

But he wasn’t smiling. He looked at me straight on, with a coldness in his eyes that I’d only seen a few times before. It made me instinctively want to take a step back, but I kept my feet planted.

“Did you seriously think I wasn’t going to find out?” he asked, looking suddenly taller.

But I still wasn’t following. My mind raced, sorting through whatever he could be angry about. The list was endless. The fence. A tractor left in the rain. A mistake with the seed order.

“Saw Carl over at the pub.”

The slow, sharp realization cut through my mind like a hot blade. Carl worked the ferry ticket booth at the harbor.

I wet my lips, trying to play it off. “So?”

“So”—he pushed off of the wall, taking his time as he crossed the room—“he told me you bought two one-way tickets for tomorrow. First ferry out of the harbor.”

My heart thumped beneath my jacket so loud that I was sure he could hear it. I shrugged. “Emery and I are going to the city for the weekend,” I lied.

“The city for the weekend,” he repeated.

“She wanted to do something after graduation. I got us the tickets this morning.”

“Why aren’t they return tickets?”

“We haven’t decided what day we’re coming back yet.”

He stared at me, his face blank. He wasn’t buying it. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

I clenched my teeth, trying not to do anything that would set him off further. But we were already past the point of no return.

“I’m not too proud to admit that your dad was a coward, August. I could see it from the time he was young.” He moved closer, his eyes on the ground. “But I’m not making the same mistakes with you that I did with him.”

Before I even saw it coming, his hands flew up between us, taking hold of my jacket, and he drove me backward, slamming me into the wall. His eyes were on fire, his nostrils flared as he peered down into my face. This wasn’t one of his drunken rants. He was stone-cold sober. And that was far more terrifying.

When I tried to slip from his grasp, he put one hand around my throat, pinning me there.

“You listen to me,” he growled. “You aren’t going anywhere. You’re going to stay on Saoirse, where you belong. And you’re going to take over the orchard, like you’re supposed to.”

“I don’t want the fucking orchard,” I rasped. It was the first time I’d ever said it out loud to anyone but Emery.

His fingers clamped down harder, making me still. “I don’t care what you want. This town thinks it’s finally going to get its hands on our family’s work and I’m not going to let that happen.”

I shoved him off of me. “You can’t keep me here.”

“Yes, I can.” He lifted a finger into the air. “Try and use those tickets tomorrow, and I will make sure you regret it. You leave this island, and your mother loses her job at the orchard. The cottage, too. Got it?”

My eyes searched his. He was serious. My mom had lived in that cottage for almost twenty years.

“You can’t do that. The cottage is in her name now.”

“I can do whatever I want to on this island.”

He was right, I realized. If he wanted to, he could take it from her and no one would stop him. As long as he was breathing, everything on Saoirse belonged to Henry Salt.

“Bastard,” I muttered, swallowing painfully.

My mom was the only person on this island who loved the orchard the way he did, but he’d never seen it. After my dad left, Henry refused to change his will to leave it to her. The orchard would only go to a Salt. Bearing the name wasn’t enough; my mom didn’t have his blood. And he knew I wouldn’t make a single move that would hurt her.

He didn’t say another word as he watched me think about it, and I could see the exact moment he knew he’d won. He let another nauseating silence fall before he finally turned and walked out the door. I listened to his footsteps trail down the loft stairs, biting the inside of my cheek so hard that I could taste blood. As soon as they were gone, I ran my hands over my face, pinching my eyes closed. The darkness of the room pushed in around my vision, making me feel like at any moment I was going to pass out.

I breathed, pulling in the air in one long draw, and then pushed it out, trying to slow my pulse. Thirteen hours. That’s how close I’d been. But my grandfather knew me as well as I knew him. I wouldn’t leave if I thought he’d take everything from my mom. And he would.

A numb, cold feeling inched its way through me at the thought, and I stared into the mirror, meeting my own eyes. I was an idiot for not realizing it before. The moment I left, he would punish her for it.

I followed the steps down from the loft, watching the shadows move over the ground below. They were spinning in the lantern light, the smell of food in the air and the clear starry sky stretched out over the island. Like it was any other night. Like my whole life hadn’t just ended upstairs.

The side door of the barn swung behind me as I pushed through it, and I followed along the first row of apple trees, stopping to watch from the darkness. The whole town was gathered in the clearing, encircled by twinkling lanterns hanging from the branches.

I stopped breathing when I saw her.