The Sins of Our Fathers, page 8
“No.” I kept my eyes on the crick. I’d gone over what I’d say to him dozens of time in my head, but seeing him as I tried to speak erased all my eloquent plans.
“Helene—”
“Isaiah.” I wrung my hands in my lap. He reached out and placed his palm over my fingers to stop me from fussing, as my grandmother would have said. He’d done the same thing when he’d sat by me at my mother’s funeral. Heat traveled from his hand, up my arms, and settled in the center of my chest. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” His voice was light. It brought the weight of the subject to the surface with it and made it easier to speak.
“I should have let you apologize twenty years ago. I kept us all in a state of regret and hate because I was too broken to resolve anything.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Helene.”
“I’m not saying I should have forgiven you back then. Just that I should have listened. Now we’ve been married, had children, lived through many deaths, and we’re still here dealing with the same thing.”
“I’m thankful we’re here and have a chance to deal with things.” I lifted my hands, and his palm fell to my thigh, making me jump as if his accidental touch had set me on fire.
I faced my first love. “Isaiah, I want to move forward, not backward. If we never discuss that time again, it will be too soon for me.”
“I’m fine with moving forward.” He stood, too.
I took another step back toward the crick. I’d fall into it before I let him touch me again. “I want to be friends.”
He looked at the green growth between us on the ground and let the truth in my words sink in.
“The way we were freshman year. I want to laugh with you again and go fishing . . . maybe.” I knew that would be too much, but if we were just discussing what I wanted, then that was part of it. “Together, I want to watch our children build their lives. You and I, and Sloane and Lovie and Gisel.”
“I want that, too.” The dense blue of his eyes was pulling me back to him.
“That’s all I want.” I held my hands up between us. It was either a defensive position or a retreat, but I didn’t think I could hold my resolve if he kept moving toward me. I was committing to him in the only way I could, and he would have to be okay with that.
Isaiah ignored my hands and took a step toward me.
I disappeared but came back in the next second. “I’m not going to run and hide. We’re too old for that.”
He shook his head. “Don’t ever run from me again. I promise, Helene, I’m not going to hurt you. My God, I will die before I do. You have to believe me.”
I did believe, but I’d trusted him before. What was I thinking? None of that mattered because we’d never be close enough again for Isaiah to tear me apart the way he had back then. “There are many more people to consider now. Not just us.” I looked him in the eyes. I faced our entire past and said, “I don’t want to love you like that again . . . and I’m not going to.”
He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You already do.” Isaiah stood straight.
I kept my eyes low. My sight was fixed on his chest as I steadied myself against his claim. When I looked up, he was smiling as if this, too, were one of the hilarious jokes of our freshman year in high school.
“I’m going to go now. Not running. Just leaving.”
“I’ll follow you,” he said and moved out of my way.
We traversed the crude path from the bank of the crick, up the hill, and into my driveway in silence. His truck was parked near the house, blocking the path for any other vehicles.
“It’s like you live here,” I said and patted the quarter panel.
“I could. Everyone else does.”
He made me laugh. Just like old times. “Goodbye, Isaiah.”
With tremendous mercy, he did not follow me inside. I wasn’t left broken and exhausted the way I usually found myself after a conversation with him. Ever was lying on the couch with Carl curled at her feet and our mothers’ old notebooks and journals all around her.
“Where did you find all of this?”
“In the basement. When the three of you used to read these every night, you were looking for a way to overturn the curse, weren’t you?”
I flipped through the pages of a faded yellow legal tablet until the paper turned black and the ink turned silver. Sloane’s notes on spell casting covered the page. I nodded. “And now what are you searching for?”
“Anything about a hunter.” She sighed, leaned over to the coffee table, and switched the journal she’d been studying for another one.
“Find anything?”
Ever’s smile lightened the dismal tone of the conversation. “There was a man named Hunter who Poppy was secretly in love with. They cast a spell for him to find love in hopes it would be with her.”
“Ruby’s grandmother was something.”
“It runs in the family,” she said. “Judging by the fact Ruby’s grandfather was not named Hunter, it doesn’t appear to have worked out how Poppy had hoped it would.”
“Well, if there is a record of someone called the hunter, it would be here.” That didn’t seem to relax her at all, and I set the notebook down and asked, “Anything else going on?”
She sat up straight against the arm of the couch. “You heard about the police officer who had the accident? The one who died?”
“I did.”
“Well, I flew out there this morning.”
He’d been killed. Instantly, I hoped. “Why would you go there?”
“I had a dream about him.”
I froze. Witches never dreamed, but that condition didn’t seem to apply to my daughter. “Before he died?”
“I don’t know.” She exhaled. “I think the night after, but I didn’t really know it. When I saw his picture on the news, I remembered the dream.”
“It was tragic. A single car loss on a bright sunny day. Maybe it affected you to the point of thinking you had some connection to it. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I wasn’t really, but something told me to go to the accident scene and look around.” Ever held still as if her mind needed a moment to process what else the forest had told her. “The Roman numerals three six seven were painted in red on a trunk a quarter mile from the accident.”
The details turned in my mind as I tried to process her account. She pulled something up on her phone and handed it to me. It was a picture of the fallen officer. It listed his rank, name, and badge number. Three six seven.
They were never going to stop. “The Virago have no morals. A police officer.” I shook my head.
Dainty flashes, like that of a sparkler, flew from a journal Ever had abandoned on the coffee table. She looked at me before picking up the book. Her eyes widened as she turned it over in her hands. It opened to a page three quarters of the way from the beginning, and the sparks halted.
“I didn’t see this before.”
“What is it?” I slid to her end of the couch and read over her shoulder.
Know your enemy.
With knowledge comes destruction.
Not all family can be trusted.
Not all honor is to the craft.
“This handwriting doesn’t match anyone’s,” Ever said and reached for the other notebooks.
I recognized it as a part of my youth. “It’s Clara’s.”
“What does it mean? Not all family can be trusted.”
I stared at the words. “It’s rich coming from Clara.” Ever flipped through the pages of the book again, and Clara’s words disappeared.
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. We need to write down what she said. I don’t think it was from when she was alive.” Ever only stared at me. “She’s trying to warn us of something.”
I wrote down the warning on a sheet of paper I’d ripped from the back of a notebook.
“Not all honor is to the craft,” Ever recited. “What other honor is there?”
“The world is full of men and women who fight to the death to honor their beliefs. Just because their views are opposite of our own does not mean their actions are dishonorable to them.”
“The Virago?”
“I don’t think so.”
Ever stared at the words until I thought she was going to cry. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes.
“Ever . . .” I caressed her arm.
“I can’t stop thinking about that couple in Upper Pittsgrove. What if Auburn is no longer sacred, either? What if the Virago have found a way to overturn the protection?”
“A witch’s spell cannot be overturned,” I said.
My daughter and I only looked at each other in silence.
I’D PUT ALL the witches’ secrets back on the shelf in the basement the night before, but I couldn’t get the conversation with Ever out of my head. I hung the fall wreath on the front door. Black and silver ribbon wrapped around it and secured a large witch’s hat hanging from the bottom. It was a gift from Sloane for my and Owen’s first Halloween together. He’d hated it. I was in love the minute I pulled it out of the box.
Lovie stood in the middle of the empty family room with three laundry baskets by her feet and folded laundry on nearly every square inch of the sectional.
“Need some help?”
“I think we need less clothes. No one would believe how many articles eight women could wear in one week.”
“I’ll get some water and help. Do you want a drink?” I opened the refrigerator and found all four girls’ lunches staring back at me from the shelves. “They forgot their lunches.”
“Oh no.”
I poured myself some water from the pitcher and replaced it on the refrigerator door. “They were running late.” I stepped into the makeshift laundry room with Lovie. “Said they couldn’t find anything to wear.”
“That makes sense.” She laughed as she checked the clock on the television. “I’m going to run them in.”
“You shouldn’t do that. They have to take responsibility, and dealing with consequences is a great way to learn.” I was shaking my head as I spoke.
“I know, but it goes against my personal beliefs for them to eat cafeteria food, and today is Salisbury steak.” The meal’s grotesque nature was evident in her curled lip and tilted head. Lovie couldn’t even stomach the idea.
“Suit yourself. I’ll keep folding.”
Lovie moved to the kitchen, checked to make sure all the lunches were balanced and fresh, and loaded them into a tote bag. She’d missed her calling as a chef. I folded Ever’s favorite hoodie and started a new pile for her clothes next to Gwen’s.
When the silence of Lovie’s absence hit me, I put on the old boom box on the kitchen counter and music filled the downstairs of the house. I sang along as I pulled the basket of towels toward the empty chair in the corner.
The hint of honeysuckle hit my nose and paralyzed me as I bent down.
“It’s just me,” he said casually, as if I shouldn’t be alarmed that he was in my home with me.
“Have you ever considered knocking?”
He leaned closer to me. His leg brushed against my arm that still rested on the basket. “Wouldn’t that be strange? Having someone that you can’t see ring the bell?” Air swept by me as he sat back in the chair. “What if you weren’t alone? How would you explain that to one of your . . . sisters? Or worse, to Ever?”
“Okay.” I raised my hand. I folded a towel and dropped it right on where I imagined his lap was.
“You’re annoyed,” he said.
“I’m annoyed or you’re annoying?” I kept folding the towels.
“Touchy. What has gotten into you today?” I didn’t answer.
I dropped the next towel and sighed. “It’s just becoming less appealing not being able to see the person I’m talking to. I know nothing about you, and you just show up here whenever you want.” If Xavier was doing anything besides concentrating on what I was saying, I couldn’t tell. “It feels like I’m a toy you play with at your whim.”
“I apologize.” The towel I’d dropped disappeared and became visible again when it was tossed on top of the pile perfectly folded. “Perhaps if I contribute.” Another towel followed. “It isn’t wrong, it’s different.”
“What is?”
“Our relationship.”
“Is that what this is? A relationship?”
“I brag to everyone who will listen that you are my best friend.” I threw a towel at him. It blinked in and out of view before landing at our feet. He leaned down to pick it up, and the hint of honeysuckle moving past me brought back my latest questions.
“Xavier?”
“Yes, Helene?”
“Have you ever been to a witch’s house in South Harrison? Her name is Maryann. She’s a part of the Kingsway Coven.”
Silence. I let the towel fall to my side. I didn’t really want to know. Not the truth if it meant he could hurt someone or threaten a child. Whatever Xavier was in my mind, it was good.
“I have been there.” I disappeared, too. I moved back a few feet until I was standing in front of the television. “Are you afraid of me?” His voice was barely a whisper and filled with hurt.
“Why were you there?”
“I’d heard about a plan some acquaintances were concocting.” He was moving closer to me. I couldn’t see him. I felt him, and instead of moving away again, I stood my ground.
“Acquaintances, as in friends?” His answer to this question would determine whether I ever spoke to him again.
“No.” He grabbed me by my upper arms in a firm grip. His fingers loosened right after he held me. “Helene, you have to believe me. I am not a part of those you hate. I wouldn’t be here if I was.”
“Have they ever seen you?” I longed to see him.
“No.” I exhaled at his single word.
What was he? Who was he? None of the details of Xavier made sense, not even the sense of safety I felt when he was near. “Do you know a boy named Billy Roberts?”
Xavier let go of my arms. “Yes.” He stayed directly in front of me. “He has issues.”
“Did you know his parents?”
“Yes. Didn’t you?”
Didn’t everyone in this town? “What kind of issues?”
Xavier waited before he answered. The delay was another reason not to trust him. If there were no alliance with the Virago or Billy Roberts, the answers should be easy for him to give me.
“High school is difficult enough without being different from every single one of your classmates in basic physical ways. Billy struggles with confusion and isolation.” I wished I could look into Xavier’s eyes. At least then I’d be able to judge the thoughts behind his words. “And his uncle abuses him.”
I lowered my head. Some shame for my hatred of a boy who’d been abused his entire life because his mother was like me fell on my shoulders. He needed help. Not more hatred.
“Not everyone can be saved, Helene.”
I stepped back out of his hold, picked up a towel, and continued with my folding. “Why are you here?”
“I told you.” He moved closer to me again. “You’re my bff.” I reappeared so he could see me roll my eyes. Xavier only laughed at me.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“No. Are you?”
“Not especially.”
“Did you have a good morning?”
“Were you watching me?” My words were harsh again.
“No.” Xavier was indignant. “I was just asking a question. What happened this morning?”
“Nothing.” I was going to leave it at that, but something forced me to admit, “Yesterday, I spoke with Isaiah.”
“Oh.” Xavier returned to folding towels from the basket and piling them on the chair. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to continue hating him and never speak to him again?”
Somehow, I was smiling even though our entire conversation was ridiculous. “I’ve tried that. It didn’t work out so well, and it was far from easy.”
“I think you should keep working on it. Perfect your silence.”
“I kissed him the other day.” Xavier embraced his own silence. There were no more signs of movement, as if time stood still when Xavier did. “In his tree house. I kissed him like a teenager.” I inhaled deeply the memory. “Like myself as a teenager.”
“Do you still love him?”
“Yes.” I didn’t have to hesitate with Xavier. He wouldn’t use it against me the way Isaiah would. “But nowhere near enough to have a relationship with him under the current circumstances. He is in the middle of a divorce with a member of my coven. Our children are dating. Our daughters are best friends. Isaiah was my past. Now, he’ll be a part of my future, but not in the same way.”
“I’m guessing he’s disappointed by that.”
“He hasn’t said exactly.”
“I’m sure he didn’t have to.”
“I guess that’s what old friends are like. Do you have many old friends, Xavier? How about work friends. Got a lot of those?” All the questions ran through my mind. I wanted to tie him up and keep him here until he answered every single one of them.
“Plenty of friends,” he said. “I think it’s time for me to go.” Of course it was. Why talk about Xavier when we could delve further into the intimate details of Helene’s life? “Thanks for having me, Helene.”
“Sure.” I let the sarcasm drip from my words. “Anytime. Just let yourself in. Don’t bother to knock.”
Xavier left. I thought. I continued to fold the laundry. I should have asked him about his first love. He certainly knew plenty about mine.
The girls remembered their lunches every day the rest of the week. The fear of Salisbury steak was more of a learning experience than starvation. The air was deliciously sweet and crisp like the apples that were being harvested from the orchards. October was my favorite month. Sloane had always shunned it because a witch’s favorite month shouldn’t be the one with Halloween, but I was fine with being perfectly predictable and ordinary, and I happened to love Halloween.
The weak sun warmed me in the afternoon light. I leaned my rake against the tree and wiped my brow with the top of my wrist so the dirt from my work glove didn’t cover me. The days were flying by. The hours of sunlight dwindled. Mondays became Fridays before dinner had been served. Time would propel us into the holidays, and the snow would soon arrive.
