The Witch of Belladonna Bay by Suzanne Palmieri Page B

to my spot on my swing.
    â€œNice job,” said Paddy, clapping slowly.
    â€œScrew off. You want some, too?” I said. But I couldn’t help but smile. Patrick never made me mad. He knew it. I knew it. Everyone knew it.
    He laughed. “I swear, Wyn, you made the storm worse with all that crazy fuckall. Look how much darker the sky is now.”
    â€œShut up and watch,” I said.
    The storm crept in, a gangrene god’s hand, pointing dead fingers at the swirling clouds. The opposite of a golden touch. More Medusa than Midas.
    I closed my eyes, envisioning Magnolia Creek and all its residents.
    The children slept, deaf to the trouble brewing above. The adults held each other, silently waiting. Lovers couldn’t speak the words waiting on their lips.
    Then, when the storm arrived, Paddy and I danced like savages on the porch as the leaves spiraled frantically, bullied by the winds.
    We were different from everyone else. A stupid, brave breed.
    Then we ran wildly, hollering with mad joy all the way to their house and sat there at their cozy kitchen table. Susan always had something delicious to eat. That night she’d made a big pot of minestrone soup. Steaming, and full of greens, beans, and some salt pork, it warmed my cold soul. And Grant sat too close to me and made me tingle, God love him, as we heard the news about the storm.
    All the surrounding towns had a death toll but not Magnolia Creek.
    â€œIt’s your mama,” said Susan in a quiet, solemn voice. “She’s failin’ fast, and she’s creating’ all this stuff with her mind. I swear, I don’t know if it’s God or the Devil in that woman.”
    â€œMama!” scolded Charlotte. She loved Naomi. So did Susan, but my mother had become unkind as she slid into the throes of her last big bout with opium. Susan had grown distrustful of Naomi. And Naomi had fired her from the Big House. That’s how bad it got near the end.
    Susan Masters. The comfort she gave me. Grant, God, Grant, so handsome. Sweet Paddy. And poor Lottie, gone forever. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
    The remorse set in. I wanted to slap myself for being such a stupid, selfish girl. But then Byrd emerged, and before I knew it, my mother’s ghost was trying to hug me, Grant’s ring was back on my finger, and Byrd had offered me her hand.
    Emotional whiplash, that’s what it was.
    â€œYou’re hurting a lot, being back here, ain’t ya?” asked Byrd.
    â€œI suppose I am.”
    â€œWell then, let’s take you someplace new, okay? New and old at the same time.”
    â€œThat sounds like a great plan.” I smiled.
    Byrd took my hand gently, and that’s when it happened.
    At first I thought it was sunlight coming through the windows. But it was the wrong time of day, and there were no shafts of light to make dancing, shimmering dust mites.
    It was her hand. Glowing warm and bright inside mine. The two of us stared, watching the pulse grow between us.
    Love, respect, trust. They all flowed from her hand to mine.
    I never wanted to let go.
    She held my hand tighter and looked up at me, curious and open. But she didn’t let go. Instead, she led me right out of the Big House, taking me out of my past and straight into a future I didn’t know I was looking for.
    *   *   *
    Her hand, soft and small in mine, pulled me down a tunnel-like path crowded over with live oaks and willow branches. A parallel rabbit hole I’d gone down often as a child.
    â€œYou know where we’re goin’?” she asked.
    â€œSure I do. My old stomping ground.”
    â€œA place you went to feel safe, right?”
    â€œYes.”
    And right there, in the middle of what some would deem a forest, there was that familiar grouping of small cottages built for the workers who ran the sawmill. The Whalens kept them up even after there was no more work for tenants.
    Most of them were