Chapter Four
FOUR
MAVEN
Davina, Esme, Bea, and I are sitting front and center in the row of chairs when people begin to arrive to pay their respects to Granny.
Or rather, gape at her up close like they were never brave enough to do while she was living.
The first pair in are Ingrid and Helmut Schneider, the elderly German couple who run the local bakery.
Helmut removes his cap and nods respectfully at the aunts.
Ingrid makes the slightest little curtsey, then Davina inclines her head in acknowledgment.
Looking solemn, they approach the casket arm in arm.
Esme leans closer and says under her breath, “I wish everyone were like the Schneiders.”
“Why do you say that?”
“People from the old country still have respect for the ancient ways. Oh look, there’s Becca Campbell, that nasty little piece of work who used to bully you. Remember that time she spat on you in front of everyone at the winter carnival?”
I do, but I’m too distracted to answer. The sight of my archnemesis—once a leggy blonde all the boys went crazy over, now frumpy and frazzled with deep acne scars marring her face and a pronounced limp—has produced in me a profound sensation of pity.
Seeing my pained expression, Esme tuts. “Pardon me for saying so, love, but that soft heart of yours will someday be your downfall.”
“I’m not softhearted. I’m a Spartan. I’m a warlord. I’m Attila the Hun.”
She pats my hand. “That’s the spirit.”
When I turn my attention back to Becca, she’s frozen in the doorway, staring at me with bulging eyes and flared nostrils.
Two seconds before it happens, I realize she’s about to do something weird.
“You!” she shrieks, then lunges from the doorway toward me with her arms outstretched and her fingers curved like talons.
I leap to my feet, ready to defend myself. But before Becca can reach me, she trips and crash-lands face-first onto the shag carpet.
When she looks up, her nose is crooked, her mouth and chin are smeared with blood, and Auntie E is smiling.
“Careful, now,” she drawls. “We wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
Helmut Schneider makes a move to help Becca rise, but freezes when Esme pins him in a hard stare. He blinks, swallows, and turns quickly back to his wife.
Looking afraid instead of angry now, Becca scrambles to her feet and backs away from us. She bumps into Davina and spins around.
Davina’s gaze is withering. She says something too low for me to hear. Whatever it was, it makes the color drain from Becca’s face. With a strangled scream, she runs from the room.
From her chair, Bea watches her great-aunt with a look of utter fascination.
More people enter the room. I recognize some of them, others I don’t. Stomach churning and heart racing, I walk to a window and stare out into the gray morning, trying to catch my breath.
This goddamn town. Why did I think anything might have changed? It’s as awful as ever.
I don’t know how long I stand there, but when I turn around, the Schneiders have left, and Bea and Davina are standing hand in hand a few feet from the head of the casket, engrossed in conversation.
I start to cross to them, but stop in my tracks when an older man in a wheelchair rolls through the door. Though one eye is taped over with bandages, and his hair has turned pure white since I last saw him, I recognize him instantly.
It’s Elijah Croft. Patriarch of the Croft family, and former head of Croft Pharmaceuticals until his eldest son took over.
He’s Ronan’s father.
Everyone’s attention swings to him. The room falls silent. Esme rises stiffly to her feet and gazes at him with a hatred I can almost feel from where I’m standing.
The hatred on his face as he looks at Esme matches hers.
Unsurprising, considering our families have loathed each other for generations. Ever since Megaera Blackthorn was hung for witchcraft in the town square more than three hundred years ago, we’ve been feuding.
Megaera’s judge was the prominent local magistrate, Levi Croft.
“You’re not welcome here, Elijah.” Esme’s voice is stone cold.
“Did you think I’d let you get away with it? Did you think I’d cower like the rest of them? Because you were wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now leave.”
He pushes a button on the arm of his chair. With a mechanical whirr, he glides a few feet farther into the room. He glances at the casket, then at Davina, then turns his attention back to Esme. “Call it off.”
Esme responds with scathing contempt. “I see you’re getting dementia in your old age. Not surprising, considering you were never very bright to begin with.”
“I said, call it off.”
She snaps, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The birds! They’re attacking me!”
She and Davina share a fleeting glance, then she says icily, “If you’re being bothered by wildlife, maybe you should try a different cologne.”
A movement outside the window catches my eye. A big black raven has landed on one of the bare branches of the maple tree in the yard outside. As I watch, another one glides down from the sky and lands on a nearby branch.
Then another. And another.
In a moment, the branches are full of them, restlessly fluttering their wings so the entire tree looks alive.
One by one they settle, peering with strangely intelligent black eyes at the window.
No, not at the window. Through the window.
At me.
In the distance, the eerie wail of a siren rises through the air. I catch an acrid whiff of sulfur at the same time I see the first black tendrils of smoke rise above the forest’s tree line and billow up into the cold October morning.
Somewhere out in Solstice, a fire has started to burn.
Elijah leaves in a state of agitation. The rest of the viewing is less eventful, but still awful.
I’d almost forgotten what it feels like to be the town curiosity, the carnival sideshow act everyone wants to stare and snicker at but only from a safe distance. It’s as if they think our strangeness is contagious, but they still can’t resist.
The only bright spot of the day is that Bea witnesses firsthand what dignity looks like. Even knowing they’re the subject of as much ridicule as they are fear, Esme and Davina are regal. Shoulders back, spines straight, chins lifted, they look every person in the eye without a hint of shame.
Finally, it’s over, and we’re on the way back to the house. Sitting in the front passenger seat of the Caddy next to Q, Bea turns around and looks at me.
“Are we in the Mafia?”
If only it were that simple. “No, honey, we’re not in the Mafia.”
She glances doubtfully at Esme, then Davina. “You sure?”
Davina says, “Not the kind you mean.”
“Not any kind. We’re a normal family.” After a beat, I add, “Okay, that’s untrue, but we’re definitely not mafiosi.”
“We’re much more interesting,” says Esme dismissively.
“Why did that lady scream at you? I thought she was going to beat you up. She was really mad.”
Esme scoffs. “Your mother would’ve pummeled her.”
“She’s always been wickedly strong,” Davina agrees. “When she was your age, darling, she chopped down a maple tree all by herself. Has she told you that story?”
Bea looks intrigued. “You chopped down a tree? Like with an axe?”
I want to say no, but I’ve got two witnesses. I try a diversionary tactic instead. “It was a small tree.”
Esme pats my hand. “She’s being modest. The tree was huge.”
I should have known that wouldn’t work. “It was diseased. Hollowed out.”
“Now you’re just fibbing. There was nothing whatsoever wrong with that maple.”
Davina agrees with a nod. “Except its location.”
I draw a breath and try to block the memory. But the harder I try, the more strength the memory gains, until I’m seeing it in vivid Technicolor under my lids.
The tree in question stood just outside the iron front gates of the house. It had a wide canopy with staggered branches that grew out a few feet up from the base of the trunk, making it an easy climb.
It was clearly visible from my bedroom window. I can’t count how many mornings I woke up to find the branches fluttering with pieces of paper scrawled with hateful messages.
Burn, witches!
Blackthorn whores!
Go back to hell!
Sometimes, there were effigies. Naked plastic dolls with nails driven through their chests for decoration.
Q would climb up the tree and take everything down, but not before I’d gotten an eyeful. I’d sneak into the trash bins afterward and go through the crumpled papers with shaking hands while tears silently streaked down my cheeks.
Every nasty word was a fresh cut. And every time it happened, the wounds opened deeper.
We never discovered who the perpetrators were, but knowing their identities wouldn’t have made a difference. There wasn’t anything anybody would do to stop it.
Until I—literally—took matters into my own hands.
“It was the wrong thing to do,” I say, my voice low. “It wasn’t the tree’s fault that people can be monsters. I wish that maple would’ve lived.”
After a moment, Esme says, “Maybe it will.”
“It’s been a stump for almost twenty years.”
Her smile is mysterious. “Some things only appear to die. There are more states of being than you can imagine.”
“What was that old man in the wheelchair saying about the birds who attacked him? That was weird.”
I open my eyes to find Bea staring at me, her chin resting on her folded hands, her green eyes bright with curiosity.
I keep my face stony when I respond. “Poor Mr. Croft. He fell and hit his head. His mind hasn’t been the same since.”
Davina snorts.
“Bea, turn around and put on your seat belt.”
She obeys me without an argument. But the moment she’s finished clicking the belt into place, she sits upright and points at the windshield straight ahead.
“Look! There’s a fire!”
I lean forward, peering out at the view of the street.
We’re slowing to a crawl because the street has been blocked off with orange cones at the intersection ahead.
A uniformed police officer waves oncoming traffic around the block.
A few hundred yards up from the intersection, three fire engines are parked in front of a house.
It’s engulfed in flames.
Plumes of noxious black smoke billow from the broken upstairs windows. Orange licks of fire climb the outside walls. The roof over the front porch has already been obliterated and lies in smoking piles of blackened timber on the lawn.
As we turn the corner, a portion of the main roof collapses in on itself, releasing a huge shower of ash and glowing cinders high into the sky.
Q accelerates. The house disappears from view. Only the smell of smoke remains, lingering heavily in the air.
“Auntie D?”
“Yes, darling?”
“Was that Becca Campbell’s house?”
Behind the black netting of her veil, her green eyes burn eerily bright. Another fire engine roars past us in the opposite direction, lights ablaze and sirens screaming.
“Was it?” She turns her head and gazes out the window, her lips curving into a small, secretive smile.