The Witch of Belladonna Bay Read online

  Miasma. That’s one of my favorite words, too.

  Every person that goes on over there comes back changed. At least that’s what they say. And I believe ’em because I’ve seen a lot of things that just ain’t possible. (And that’s sayin’ something when you consider the source. Me.)

  They say Naomi went over chasing some silly ginger cat across the creek. Skipping over the stones like a ballerina. See, she’d fallen into some kind of mental distress a few months after giving birth to my aunt Bronwyn, and Jackson says that cat kept the sadness at bay. But the animal was drawn to the sick sweetness of Belladonna Bay and ran right over, and Naomi, havin’ a bit of magic livin’ in her own self, didn’t think nothin’ of it.

  But when she came back she fell deeper into the sad. And no one can recall what came first, the opium or her jaunt across the creek.

  My own mama went over there, too. My mama was Italian, see. Not from the country but in her blood. Her last name was Amore. It means love. She came down here lookin’ for her history and found my daddy instead. She went over there pregnant with me, to find the Belladonna that she expected grew there. My mama had magic in her too, see. It’s why I’m extra odd, I suppose. She died right when I was born, and I’m sure that little trip had something to do with it.

  I miss her sometimes.

  And there’s story after story just like those. Everyone in Magnolia Creek has a story about someone who defied instinct and fell prey to the mystery. Someone who they loved who came back a different person. All filled up with miasma.

  I seen it firsthand. Carter, he went over. I saw him crossing back. It was the night they say my daddy did the killin’. The moon was high and I was staring at it out my bedroom window, and there he was, Carter coming out from behind that curtain of mist, his white shirt covered in blood.

  I ran outside thinkin’ he was hurt.

  “Carter, Carter!” I yelled. “What’s wrong? Where are you hurt? Why’d you go on over there?”

  His silver hair shone bright in the nights light. For a second I didn’t think he recognized me, his eyes were so wild. Then he said something I didn’t understand.

  “Don’t worry, honey, everything’s gonna be all right. Carter’s gonna take care of everything. I been takin’ care of this family for years, and I don’t plan on stoppin’ now. Don’t you worry.”

  He said those words to calm me, but they didn’t. Because he said them while he held me too tight, through tears. And not once, in my whole life, had I heard or seen him cry. Not Carter. He’s a “man’s man” if there ever was one. It makes me almost faint just thinkin’ on it.

  And later on, when I heard my daddy and Carter talkin’, I couldn’t make out exactly what they were sayin’, but it sounded to me like my daddy, my dear sweet daddy, was tellin’ Carter that he did it. Did what? I wondered.

  Then my daddy said he wasn’t goin’ to even fight about it. And Carter kept on arguin’ with him. I couldn’t figure any of it out.

  By the next morning everything started to make an evil sort of sense.

  And you know what? I blame it on Belladonna Bay and the mist around it. Nothin’s been the same since that night. Not one thing. Because that night the miasma crept into all of us.

  The next morning, Stick (or Sheriff Croft if you want to get fancy) came round to pick up my daddy as soon as the sun hit the sky. And he was quiet about it, my daddy. He walked out the front door like a prince; his back straight and his golden hair shinin’ like a crown. “Come on, Stick,” he said. “Take me in.”

  (Everyone calls him Stick ’cause he’s so thin.)

  Anyway, Stick didn’t want to take my daddy in. They were friends. Hell, my daddy was friends with every Towner. No one didn’t like Patrick Whalen.

  “I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding, Paddy,” he’d said as he put cuffs around my daddy’s wrists. I remember he went and carefully rolled up the cuffs of Daddy’s starched white shirt. (Minerva sure knows how to make a man look handsome.)

  As the cuffs clicked closed, my daddy looked back at me and did the oddest thing. He winked. “Nope, ain’t no mistake. I killed ’em, Stick. I was drunk and angry. Now take me in and hear my confession.”

  “Jaysus, Paddy! Ain’t you gonna wait for me to read you your rights? Shit!”

  “I don’t have no rights. I gave those up last night.”

  I was screamin’ and cryin and carryin’ on like a baby. Carter had to hold me back. Jackson was already drinkin’ in his study. The air was thick with a secret bein’ kept from me.

  So Stick put my daddy in the back of his police car and drove him down that long driveway leadin’ off our property and straight into town. One straight line down Main Street. The same road my aunt Bronwyn took the day she made her homecoming.

  And both days I stood out on the steps waiting and watching. Watching him leave, then watchin’ her come, murmuring to myself, “He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t do it.”

  My daddy might’a confessed, but it was Carter who was covered in blood. I didn’t want to throw blame around like that though. I mean, a girl has to be sure of a thing.

  And sooner than I wanted, another, more troublin’ idea came into my mind. One that shook everything up like a rattlesnake in a chicken coop.

  * * *

  My aunt Bronwyn drove up to the Big House in the shiny black car Jackson sent for her like she was the queen of the world. I stood there frownin’. You might think you’re the queen returning for your crown, only that ain’t never gonna happen. I’m the queen of the Big House now.

  I know it was a childish thing to think, but I’m a child. Most days anyway.

  I came right out onto the front porch and made sure I was three steps above her so I could look her straight in the eye. Jamie always said you gotta look your opponent straight in the eyes. Said because we’re human we can’t rightly piss on our territory like the animals do (manners were important to my Little Prince), but looking at people straight worked almost just as well.

  Jamie liked to study the animals. We like nature and outdoor stuff, me an’ Jamie. And the day Aunt Bronwyn showed up, I was missing Jamie so damn much I thought my fingers and toes would turn blue.

  Then it all went to hell in a handbasket. I was simply not prepared for how she looked and moved just like my daddy.

  “Hey, Byrd,” she said, all soft like cotton. She was wearing a gypsy-style green shirt over faded jeans, and her hair was pulled back, but the sticky hot of the day had set it free, curling it around her face. That Whalen towhead hair has a wildness all its own, and I’m jealous of it. And she had this big, fancy camera around her neck on a colorful strap. Boy, did I want to get my hands on that. I like taking pictures.

  My heart melted right away because of her likeness to my daddy, and something else I couldn’t quite figure out. I wanted to run to her. I wanted to say all the things I couldn’t say.

  They say my daddy killed Jamie and his mama. But he didn’t. No matter he says he did it. He’s liy’n. But my lips wouldn’t budge. My hand wouldn’t even come out to shake hers. Sometimes I can be more stubborn than I oughta be.

  “Hey there,” she repeated.

  Jackson was watchin’ us. Waitin’ to see if we’d hit it off or not. Either way, it wouldn’t a mattered to him. Nothin’ life hands that man, good or bad, can hold sway over him. Minerva calls him an “eternal optimist.” Hell, if that’s what the bourbon gives you, more power to it. But him watchin’ me was annoyin’, so I guess I might have said, “I heard ya the first time,” or somethin’ a touch rude like that.

  Next thing she did was ask me about Dolores. Dolores is my dog. She was at my side like always. And even though Dolores seemed to like her fine, I still couldn’t speak to Bronwyn of Magnolia Creek. I could list the ways she’d hurt the ones I loved most. Leavin’ like she did. Makin’ Jackson and my daddy miss her an’ worry over her. But I do have to admit it, she was damn pretty, with a soft bit underneath … so instead of just walkin’ away from
her, as I’d planned, I muttered some kind of answer, I think.

  Then she did the strangest thing.

  She thanked me for watching out for her brother … in French. And I thought I’d faint. So I said, “You’re welcome” (in French, of course … I mean I’m tryin’ not to be too rude), and ran off. ’Cause I didn’t know what to say next. And nothing, not one thing was coming out right or feeling the way I’d figured it would.

  I ran off into the side yard and climbed up into Esther. She’s the biggest Southern magnolia in more than fifteen counties. And she’s the oldest on our property. I love her.

  I sat in her branches so I could watch what would happen next from way up high. Would my aunt turn around and leave again? It’s what I’d expected.… No matter how much preparation I’d done for her arrival, I didn’t think she’d actually stay. I figure it’s the same for most folks. You plan and you make things all pretty for your guests, but in the end you want them to come for a bit, ooh and aah, and then go on home thinking about how amazing you are.

  But sitting there in that tree, I changed my mind.

  Because everything wasn’t fine. And I thought maybe I needed her.

  And I never thought I’d feel that way about no one, ’cept for Jamie.

  I was relieved when Jackson finally went into the house and Aunt Bronwyn set herself right down on the front steps lookin’ off into the distance. She hadn’t come after me. Maybe she understood. Maybe she’d be the one to solve the mystery. Maybe she’d love me and stay forever.

  These kinds of thoughts I have, that go one way first and then the other so quick I can’t keep track, are the thoughts my daddy calls “the crazy fuckalls.” I’m not supposed to say it ’cause there’s a curse word in there. But it’s a good way to describe curvy thoughts.

  “Byrd,” he’d say—laughing at me because I’d said I didn’t want ice cream because I hated it and then I did want ice cream because I like rum raisin and ain’t it the best thing ever?—“you got a case of the crazy fuckalls,” then we’d laugh and eat a whole carton of rum raisin.

  I’d almost forgot his smiling ways and eyes and hands.

  My daddy’s got the smoothest palms. Rich man hands. Not like Jackson. Jackson doesn’t live like he’s rich. He did hard work next to the farmhands when he was young and prefers the outdoors—like me. At least he did, until the drink made him escape into the universe inside his chest. That big ol’ place where he still lives all twisted up with Naomi. Beautiful Naomi who still dances across the floor of her rooms in the east wing of the Big House. Jackson keeps them locked up, and Minerva cleans them, then locks them up again. But I get in, always have. I go visit her.

  Naomi throws fine tea parties. For a dead lady, that is.

  5

  Bronwyn

  BROWNWYN WHALEN.

  I saw the sign as soon as I got off the plane, but I ignored the man holding it.

  And I’ll be damned if he didn’t follow me down to baggage claim anyway. Every last person in Alabama seems to know a Whalen when they see one.

  Grabbing my bags off the luggage carousel, I made my way to the exit. I could see him roll his eyes and follow me, but I didn’t care. I’d been making eyes roll all over the East Coast for fourteen years. BitsyWyn Whalen was surfacing far too quickly for my liking.

  Walking into the heat, I felt more than the heavy air. I felt the weight of my memories. The ones I’d hoped would come back slowly—drip by drip, moment by moment—only they weren’t cooperating. Instead, they tried to ambush me from behind the air, so I held my breath because I was sure the minute I inhaled, BitsyWyn would wake up and snatch my quiet soul.

  The idea that I’d “get my bearings” was laughable. Born out of an orderly northeastern way of thinking about things. You’re off the I-95 corridor now, Wyn.

  Naomi had flown into this airport with Minerva, just like me. They’d waited on a driver sent by Jackson, too, and taken the same road into the unknown.

  My mother’s unknown began winding itself around mine, and I started to feel the intoxicating love I had for her when I was a little girl. Sorrow is a heavy thing.

  “You ready, Miss Wyn?” asked the man sent to bring me back home.

  Wyn. He called me Wyn like he’d known me forever.

  I decided to take a real look at this escort of mine, so I could get a good feeling for the fellow who’d bring me back to my former life.

  He was an older man but not an Old-timer. Not a Towner either. Old-timers were the ones from way back. From the time when the Whalens owned every bit of Magnolia Creek. When the lumberyard was the place every man worked, and every woman worried about. When Jackson took over, he closed down the mills and offered all the workers a fine pension. It’s those men and their wives (the ones that are left, anyway) who we call Old-timers. The rest of us, the children of all those people, young and old alike (depending on whatever age the Old-timer was when Jackson closed the mill), we’re the Towners. But this man wasn’t either. He was new.

  “I seem to be at a disadvantage here,” I said. “You know my name, only I don’t know yours.” I knew I sounded haughty, but I couldn’t help it. Sometimes my brain makes my mouth say things to protect my heart.

  “Sorry about that, Wyn. My name’s Carter. No nickname, no funny sort of pronunciation. Just plain ol’ Carter.”

  “Are you a Towner, Carter? I don’t remember you,” I said, knowing full well that he wasn’t. Small talk …

  “No, miss, you don’t know me,” he responded, “We ain’t never met. I came on over from Birmingham to visit your dad about a job. I don’t know, maybe a month or so after you … left.”

  He’d been here, living with my family for almost as long as I’d been alive before I ran off. Time is a blurry thing.

  “Heard he was tryin’ to cultivate some newfangled ’maters,” continued Carter. “And since I know a thing or two about ’em, I came on down, and that’s when I met Minerva. I married that woman quick.”

  Minerva was married. My own great-aunt got married and I never heard about it.

  Typical Jackson. He’d written about the hydroponic farm but left out the part where Minny got married.

  I smiled and placed a hand on Carter’s shoulder.

  “Nice to meet you, Carter. I’m sure you’ve been a big help with Paddy. I wish Jackson had written me about your marriage, I would have come for the wedding.” He smiled back at me and moved to put my bags in the trunk of a long, black town car. “Buy American!” Jackson always said.

  “No, Wyn. You wouldn’t have. But it’s mighty nice of you to say so. Now, Paddy’s wedding? That one was truly beautiful. That’s the one you shouldn’t a missed.”

  Nothing beats a slap of Southern honesty.

  “So that’s how it’s going to be,” I said, but I smiled at him as I said it. A truce of sorts.

  He opened the door for me, the air conditioner blowing out the “new car” smell. Jackson upgraded all his cars every year. I wondered if he ever got rid of my old car. My love. A cherry-red Mustang convertible. Probably not. Jackson may have liked upgrades, but he was also a collector. He would have kept that car as part of his “Bronwyn the First collection.”

  I slid into the cool cave of the car and let Carter close the door.

  “How’s Paddy?” I asked when he’d situated himself in the driver’s seat.

  “Well now, I suppose he’s doin’ as best as one would expect, considering. But how ’bout we get you all settled before we open that can a worms.”

  He drove out of the airport. “You want me to take Ten to Ninety-eight straight on down? Or would you rather we take scenic Ninety-eight? Might give you a little time to reacquaint yourself.”

  The absence of traffic gave me a second of culture shock. “How much have things changed down here?”

  “Not much in the towns, but the interstate is the interstate no matter where you go these days in this fast-food nation of ours. Wall-to-wall convenience. Outlets too, by God.”
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br />   “I guess we better take the scenic route then,” I said.

  We drove twenty minutes on the highway, and then we were on county roads. Damn, if the Alabama coast isn’t still the best kept secret in America. I watched the trees go by as we drove. Palm trees and crape myrtle bursting with luscious red and pink blossoms. Large, waxy leaves dancing among the magnolias’ hundred-year-old branches, their prehistoric and otherworldly pods dangling from the crux of the leaves. And then, the straight-backed pine trees, defiant in their opposition to the twisted trunks of their neighbors.

  Trees down south have a difference to them, a subtle, slinking movement, mile by mile—a gracefulness, a swagger. Lanky trees stretching out their wiry thin, Spanish moss–covered branches, moss that sways and beckons … come here, come here, it says.

  “I’m too late for the magnolia blossoms,” I said.

  “Yep. We’re in the green season now. Nothin’ much grows in July, as I’m sure you recall.”

  “Has Esther bloomed since I’ve been gone?”

  Carter laughed a bit and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Nope. She’s older than dirt. She can’t bloom no more.”

  We passed pecan farms, peanut fields, and grazing livestock. Sweet, little cottages dotted the byways, and soon we were crossing small bodies of water. I’d forgotten how each home had a sign out front with not only the house number but the name of the family who lived there. Calaman, Dumond, Du Puis, Kelsey, Miller, Freehold, Berman, Cooper, and on and on. There’s a lot of pride here in the South, and it’s so clean. I’d forgotten how clean. As we passed the beach at the town line, our little bit of the Gulf of Mexico, I saw my childhood in the docks, the pavilion, and the stretches of sand where I’d run free from May through November.