The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender(13)

Emilienne folded her arms. “I’m listening.”

Wilhelmina took another bite of the bread. “Rumor has it you’re the neighborhood witch.”

Emilienne raised her eyebrows.

Wilhelmina chuckled. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I ain’t the type to resort to name-calling, plus I tend to make up my own mind about such things. Got my own way of figuring stuff out.”

Emilienne nodded. So did she. For example, Emilienne could tell that Wilhelmina had been born in October from the opal pendant that hung from the woman’s neck. October, Emilienne mused, a Libra. Balanced. Diplomatic. Even-tempered.

Wilhelmina cocked her head, eyeing Emilienne thoughtfully. “There is something about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I am sure about one thing, though. You’ve seen a lot of death. I’m right, ain’t I?”

Death. Emilienne winced. Of that she had seen her fair share.

“That’s what I thought. It wasn’t just the husband, was it?” Wilhelmina sighed when Emilienne didn’t answer. “Death just seems to follow some of us, don’t it? Death’s been following me for years. It’s easy to spot your own kind. That kind of sorrow you can’t just wash away; it sticks to you. And people, they can tell. They can feel it. And ain’t nobody likes the feel of death — especially in a place where he eats. What you need is a cleansing ritual.”

Wilhelmina finished the bread and pulled two bundles of dried herbs tied with red cotton string out of her pocket. “Burn them as you walk through the shop. Pay special attention to corners and places behind doors.”

Emilienne took the smudging sticks of sage and hyssop from the Indian woman. Reluctantly, she rolled the herbs in her hands before dropping them to the counter. “And doing this will accomplish what exactly?”

“Clean the air. Rid the place of any curses, illnesses, bad spirits. Burn these herbs, and people won’t be thinking about death every time they walk by the shop. Or by you, for that matter.” Wilhelmina paused. “Listen, you seem like a smart woman. Do like I say, and, I promise you, business will change.” She wrapped her scarf tighter around her shoulders and turned to leave. “Then you can give me a job.”

Emilienne snorted. “You want to work here? I barely have enough money to buy flour. I can’t afford to hire you.”

Wilhelmina smiled. “Trust me, you’ll be needing the help.”

Whether it was out of curiosity or sheer desperation, Emilienne burned the bundles of dried herbs per Wilhelmina’s instructions — making sure the spiraling smoke touched every corner, reached behind every door of every room.

The very next morning, she arrived to a line of customers waiting at the bakery door. The line stretched all the way to the drugstore down the street, some four doors away.

Most claimed that the scent of rising yeast and freshly baked bread had drifted into their dreams the previous night. As the years went by, the people of Pinnacle Lane found that a day wasn’t well spent if their meals didn’t include a slice of bread or a roll from Emilienne’s bakery. There were Almena and Odelia Moss, who always dressed the same and came into the bakery for a loaf of cinnamon bread every Monday afternoon. There was Amos Fields, who was partial to the heavy pain brié. There was Ignatius Lux, who would become principal of the local high school many years later. There was Pastor Trace Graves and Marigold Pie, a war widow and a good devoted Lutheran one at that. There were the Flannerys, the Zimmers, the Quakenbushes. And then there was Beatrix Griffith.

It was Beatrix’s husband, John, who fueled the neighborhood’s initial isolation of the widowed Emilienne Lavender. He considered her strange and, as such, unwanted. It was John who first implied — loud and often — that Emilienne Lavender was a witch. Soon after the Lavenders moved onto Pinnacle Lane, he informed his wife, Beatrix, that they would have nothing to do with her. And John Griffith was not a man who changed his mind.

Unbeknownst to her formidable husband, Beatrix secretly came into the bakery every week anyway for three loaves of sourdough bread. When the bakery began to thrive under Emilienne’s and Wilhelmina’s talented hands, John Griffith sneered at his neighbors, “Any day now you’ll all be traveling by broom.”

Not knowing that with each morning breakfast of toast and eggs, he, too, was making his own contribution to Emilienne’s success.





MOTHERHOOD PROVED bewildering for Emilienne. At only twenty-three years of age, she had already lost her parents, all three siblings, and a husband. She was the sole owner of a now-successful bakery and the sole parent of a little girl whose exhausting exuberance seemed to double with each passing day.

By the time Viviane turned two, Emilienne realized that she’d given birth to a child unlike herself in every way. Whereas Emilienne was dark like her maman, with long black hair that she kept wrapped in a thick chignon, Viviane was pale like her father, with wispy thin brown hair framing her cherubic face. To Emilienne, seeing a spider spinning a web was a sign of good luck; to Viviane, a spider was a reason to fetch a jar, preferably one with holes hammered into the lid. There was nothing Roux about Viviane, as far as Emilienne could tell.

Occasionally, Wilhelmina Dovewolf stepped in to take care of my mother — typically when she was sick. It was Wilhelmina’s long braids Viviane reached for in comfort when struck with a case of the stomach flu or a bout of bronchitis. Viviane would later come to connect Wilhelmina’s woodsy scent of dry leaves and incense with a feeling of safety and security.