Spells for Forgetting(86)

It slowed as it passed and when it reached the gate, Dutch was sitting in the driver’s seat. He watched me, one hand hanging out the window, before he hit the gas, tearing down the road.

I looked down at myself. I was barefoot in only my jeans on Emery’s porch. “Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.

A crackle sounded on the other end of the line. “What?”

“Nothing.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to alleviate the throbbing in my head. “Okay, what do I do about this?”

“You need a lawyer.”

“I’m talking to one.”

“I’m not that kind of lawyer.” He laughed, “Seriously, you’re in deep shit here. I’ll send you the name of someone in Seattle. It would be good to have someone local on it.”

“Okay.”

Eric fell silent again.

“You there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I have a bad feeling about this, man. I think maybe you should get back to Portland.”

My eyes went to the window again. Emery was sitting at the counter, perched on one of the stools. She had Lily’s file open, its pages spread out before her. “I’m working on it.”

I watched the road where Dutch’s truck had vanished around the turn. My grandfather had never really gotten along with the town, or any person, really. Growing up, I’d thought he was paranoid, fixated on a threat that wasn’t really there. But he’d been right. The town wanted the orchard, and they’d taken it. What were they willing to do to keep it?

When my mom told me she wanted to leave Saoirse, I thought it was because she couldn’t bear the rejection of the town, but maybe she’d known what I hadn’t—that these people weren’t just quiet, rural folk with strange superstitions who wanted to live in peace. There was a shadow on Saoirse. And it was growing by the day.

Emery didn’t look up from the paper in her hand as I came in. The coffeepot dripped and sputtered beside the stove, but she ignored it, her eyes pinned to one of the photographs. “What does that look like to you?” She set it down.

I came to stand behind her, studying the image. It was the one of Lily’s hand, where a bracelet around her wrist was no more than a blur. “Like a bracelet. Why?”

“It doesn’t look like a chain. It almost looks like twine or something. Or willow.” Her voice trailed off.

“Willow like the tree?”

“Yeah, my grandmother taught us how to make these twisted willow bracelets when we were little. We used to make them all the time,” she said, distracted. “What did Eric say?”

“Exactly what you thought he would. The original copy of Henry’s will names me the beneficiary. Of everything.”

Emery’s eyes widened. “So, you own the orchard.”

The thought made me feel like the entire house was turning on an axis around me. I hated the orchard. Not just because of the expectations it had put on me, but because of what it had done to my family. It was a curse. A sickness. I’d never wanted anything to do with it, and to know that it belonged to me felt like a cancer growing in my gut.

Emery returned the photo to the stack, staring at me. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears, a gesture that made her suddenly look so much younger. I kept forgetting that I hadn’t seen her in so long. It felt like fitting a piece back into me that had gone missing. Like I could finally draw the air deep into my lungs again after fourteen years of shallow breath.

I came to stand on the other side of the counter, watching her bite her thumbnail as she tried to work it out in her mind. “We need to talk about this,” I said.

“What?”

“Me and you.”

She wet her lips, sitting up straighter as she closed the file in front of her. “Okay.”

“I can’t stay here,” I began.

“I know.”

“But after last night, I don’t know how I’m going to leave if you’re not coming with me.” I just said it. We didn’t have time to dance around this thing. I’d lost any shred of pride a long time ago when it came to Emery.

She looked stunned by the words. Her gaze moved over me, like she was remembering last night, and I had to clamp my hands down on the edge of the counter to keep from touching her.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked.

“Yeah. I do.”

I knew it was crazy. That to anyone else, none of it would make sense. But Emery and I had always been something that didn’t make sense, and I’d lived long enough without her to worry about the risk of sounding like an idiot.

She sat still, winding a strand of her hair around her finger.

“What are you thinking?”

She hesitated. “What if this is just unresolved feelings, like a need for closure? Or some kind of fantasy we’re trying to play out or something?”

“It’s not. You know it’s not, and so do I.” I could see that she was afraid. I couldn’t blame her.

“Everything’s changed. We’ve changed. We don’t even know each other anymore.”

“Yes, we do.”

“I’m not the same girl you gave those ferry tickets to, August.”