Chapter Fifteen
FIFTEEN
MAVEN
That night, I dream I’m dying.
It’s long after dark and bitter cold. In the middle of the town square, I’m tied with rope to a stake that rises from a large pyre of wood.
A jeering crowd is gathered around me. Dressed in rags, my body aching with bruises and cuts from the beatings I’ve suffered, I strain against my bonds and curse at the unfriendly faces.
A man steps forward with a torch and lights the pyre. Smoke stings my nose and burns my throat, making me cough and gasp for air.
Then the tinder explodes into flame.
Starting at my feet, my skin blisters, blackens, and falls off. As my skin is incinerated, my muscles shrivel and contract, my joints swell and pop, and my lungs fill with blood. The pain is excruciating.
The laughter and cruel taunts of the crowd carry above the roar of the inferno. When the flames reach my neck and my hair catches fire, the crowd’s laughter turns to cheers.
The man who lit the pyre stands to one side, grinning. Though his lips don’t move, I hear his voice inside my head.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
The last thing I see before the world turns black are his merciless pale blue eyes.
I wake up with a pounding headache and another nosebleed, this one worse than the first. The pillowcase is covered in blood.
I strip it off the pillow and let cold water run over it in the sink as I wipe my face with tissues and try to get the bleeding to stop.
Once it does, I dress and head downstairs, bleary-eyed and cotton-headed, to find Bea and Q at the table, poring over a textbook.
“Morning, you two. What are you up to?”
“Q’s teaching me about the Fibonacci sequence.”
Just as I’m about to ask where the aunties are, the front door slams, and they bustle into the kitchen.
“You won’t believe it. Anderson’s Funeral Home has been shut down!”
Reaching for the teapot, I freeze. “Shut down?”
“They weren’t answering their phone this morning, so we walked over there to get an update on Mother.
The place was deserted and the doors were locked, but there was a big sign on the front door announcing that they’ve been closed by order of the State Board of Funeral Directors.
Which must mean they somehow got wind that Mother’s missing. ”
Apparently, Mr. Anderson didn’t get back to Ronan on time, and he made good on his threat to put him out of business. It’s amazing how much power the Crofts have.
Though I shouldn’t be surprised. Big pharma always has its dirty hands in politicians’ pockets. Croft Pharmaceuticals is about as big as they get.
I have no doubt Ronan will expect something from me in return for the favor.
Davina sets a pair of green fabric bags on the kitchen counter. She accepts the other two Esme holds out to her, then starts unpacking vegetables.
“Hey, Mom, did you know that the Fibonacci sequence is found all over nature? The number of petals on a flower, the shape of a seashell, the pattern of pine cones … all kinds of stuff.”
I fill my mug, then turn and lean against the counter. “Math is a great tool for understanding the universe.”
Esme pours herself a mug of tea as well, then sits next to Bea at the table. “We stopped by the grocer’s on our way home. You’ll never guess who we ran into.”
“Who?”
As if about to divulge a terrible secret, she lowers her voice and glances around. “Ronan Croft.”
My heart skips a beat, but I manage to keep my voice even. “Oh?”
She nods. “He was suspiciously polite. Offered his condolences about Mother. Apologized for his father’s behavior at the viewing. We couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”
Over her shoulder, Davina says, “God forgive me for this, but that boy has grown into a real beauty.”
Bea crinkles her nose. “Boys aren’t beautiful. They’re gross. Except you, Q. You’re nice.” She smiles affectionately at him.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was getting misty eyed.
I pretend indifference to the subject and peer at the ceiling. “I’m surprised Mr. Homecoming King still lives in Solstice. Didn’t he get a football scholarship somewhere?”
“We heard he got offers from all over but turned them down to study business at Harvard. As soon as he graduated, he built a house on the west side of town and moved in. Some huge modern thing with too many windows. We see him out and about every once in a while, but he’s never spoken to us.
That’s why it was such a shock when he approached us this morning. ”
Davina’s voice sours. “You should’ve seen the way the girl at the checkout swooned over him. Positively undignified. Bea, never show your interest in a man. It’s a surefire way to get him to ignore you.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“The whole gender doesn’t make sense. We’d be better off if we stuck to our own sex when choosing lovers. At least then we’d be dealing with a certain level of intelligence.”
Esme laughs. “It’s not their intelligence you’re after, dear sister.”
Bea thinks for a moment. “I don’t get it.”
“She’s talking about penises, darling.”
“Can we change the subject, please?”
“Sex is a perfectly natural act that shouldn’t be surrounded by shame.”
“I agree, Auntie D, but it’s nine o’clock in the morning. Let me have my breakfast before you launch into the sex ed portion of the curriculum.”
Q turns the page in the textbook and points at something. Bea leans over to read. Watching them, a deep sense of melancholy overtakes me.
This is how I was educated, here at home at that same kitchen table. I attended school, too, but the majority of my knowledge was gleaned from books like the one Bea is studying, one of the thousands tucked into bookcases and onto shelves all over the house.
Like all the Blackthorns, my mother was an avid reader. She passed that love of reading along to me.
“May? Are you all right?”
Blinking away the moisture in my eyes, I force a smile. “I was just thinking about Mom. Being here makes me miss her so much more than usual.”
Bea says, “How did your mom die? You never talk about her.”
Everyone is staring at me now. Uncomfortable with the subject, I sit at the table across from Bea and Q and clasp my hands around the mug, pushing away memories of my disturbing dream.
“She died of a fall.”
Esme mutters, “That’s one way to put it.”
Bea looks at her curiously. When Esme glances at me for permission to continue, I shake my head. It’s too convoluted to get into.
The official cause was ruled accidental. The coroner said she lost her footing and slipped. It was December and icy that day so it was plausible, but they neglected to include one important detail in their final report.
Her footprints weren’t the only thing they found in the snow around the building.
They also found wheelchair tracks.
I close my eyes, remembering the chaos in the aftermath of her death. There were so many questions. What was she doing out in the dead of night in freezing temperatures in December? Why had she gone to that deserted, dilapidated church?
Most perplexing of all, why was she on Elijah Croft’s property?
That’s where they found her body, on the ground outside the old church that was once the Croft family’s personal place of worship in the eighteenth century, not a quarter mile from the main house. The police said it appeared she climbed up into the bell tower and stepped out onto the roof.
The crumbling, steeply pitched, icy roof.
The paramedics had already arrived when the aunties were notified that there had been an accident. A groundskeeper called them. He was the same one who found her body, and was so deeply distressed, he later suffered a heart attack and spent weeks in the hospital.
When questioned by the police about the wheelchair tracks in the snow, Elijah denied he’d been anywhere near the chapel that night. And so that detail was simply struck from the final report that was filed.
But the aunties had seen the tracks with their own eyes. And no matter how powerful the Croft family was, they couldn’t erase the fact that Elijah had been at the scene at some point before my mother’s body was discovered.
It was just more fuel to add to the fire of the burning hatred between the Blackthorns and the Crofts.
I didn’t tell Ronan, but Granny tripped on the last step of the stairs and snapped her neck. Esme found her in the morning when she was coming down to the kitchen to put the coffee on.
Old bones are brittle and old folks break them in falls all the time, but I have a feeling there’s more to it than I know. When Bea gets up to chase after the white cat and leaves the kitchen, I turn to Davina.
“How did Great-Granny Cleda die? I never heard that story.”
“She was run over by a horse-drawn milk cart.”
“Trampled? How awful.”
Finished putting the groceries away, Davina washes her hands in the sink. “Mother’s sisters both died tragically, too. Tisi in an auto accident and Perse…” She pauses to think.
Esme supplies the answer. “She drowned in the bathtub, remember?”
“Oh yes, how could I forget that? I’m going batty in my old age. Yes, Auntie Persephone took a bath after one too many glasses of wine at the winter solstice festival.”
I’m distracted by the sudden and unwelcome realization that all the women in my immediate family died of accidents.
And I was almost killed yesterday by a ton of falling cement blocks.
Spooked, I think of Bea. “What about Cleda’s mother? How did she die?”
Esme frowns at me. “You don’t want to talk about sex early in the morning but this macabre topic isn’t off-limits? Priorities, love.”
Hoping it will buy me the information I want, I smile brightly and shrug.
Davina says, “I don’t believe Mother ever mentioned it. Esme, do you know?”
“If I did, I’ve forgotten. How do you think we’ll get any more information now that Anderson’s has been shut down? We know the police won’t be any help. That new chief hates us.”
“I’ve got a few contacts at the museum who can point me in the right direction. Some of our donors are pretty well connected.”
That’s what I say. What I mean is that I’m going to take a walk around the west side of town today in search of a certain modern-looking mansion. Despite my conflicted feelings for him, Ronan Croft might be the only person who can help us find out what happened to Granny.
After that, I’ll head over to the courthouse to see if I can dig up any Blackthorn vital records from the old days.
If there’s a pattern to the way the women in my family die, I’m going to find out.