Chapter Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREE
MAVEN
When I head downstairs, I find Davina on the sofa in the living room, strumming an old guitar. Lounging on the overstuffed chair to her right is Esme, smoking something sweet out of a hand-carved wood pipe that smells suspiciously like cannabis.
“This is a cozy scene. Where’s my daughter?”
“Bea’s in the greenhouse with Quentin.” Red-eyed, Esme squints at me through a haze of smoke. “Your aura is off today, love. It’s dark and furry around the edges.”
“Speaking of dark and furry, did you hear the whispering the other night?”
The aunts look at each other in confusion, then look back at me. “We didn’t hear anything.”
Did I dream it? Am I imagining things? Is my mind playing tricks on me?
I have to admit it’s a distinct possibility, considering my brain has already gone off the rails. My trysts with Ronan are proof of it.
I flop down onto the sofa next to Davina and sigh.
“What ails you, darling?”
“Life.”
“You’re too young to be such a cynic.”
“I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist.”
“Call it what you like, you’re depressed. You know what you need?”
“If you say the word ‘penis,’ I’m leaving.”
“I was going to say a nice cold glass of champagne.”
That makes me brighten. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.” I stand and head to the kitchen. “Three glasses?”
She laughs. “As if you had to ask.”
Ignoring the clock on the wall because I know it’s not noon yet and the only people who drink champagne at this time of day are on vacation or alcoholics, I find a bottle of brut in the fridge and crack it open.
I pour the aunties two glasses and deliver them, then return to the kitchen to pour my own.
Glancing up, I see Bea and Q in the greenhouse.
He’s bent down, gesturing to an herb growing in one of the hundreds of terra-cotta pots that line the long wooden tables. As I watch, Bea carefully cuts a few woody stems from the plant and holds them up for his inspection.
He nods and pats her back; she grins and does a little happy dance, and I feel as if I’ve been punched in the chest.
She needs a father.
Not an old caretaker who lives in an attic, not an unpredictable rich guy with ambiguous morals and secret motivations, and not a single mother doing her best to be both a mom and a dad and mostly failing at both.
An actual father.
If I said that aloud, the aunties would disown me.
Carrying my champagne back into the living room, I rejoin them and sit in deep thought. Then I ask them if they think a child can be well-adjusted if they grow up in a single-parent home.
“Of course,” says Davina. “One good parent is far better than two assholes.”
I raise my glass to that and drink.
Esme nods. “It’s not the number that counts, it’s the quality of parenting. Though I do admit, the logistics are easier if there’s more than one. Raising a child is like taming a lion. The more people you have cracking whips at the creature, the better.”
I look at her with raised brows. “That is a deeply disturbing analogy. It’s probably good you didn’t want kids.”
“Oh, I adore children! It was the worry I didn’t want. Once you become a mother, you’re never rid of it until you’re dead.”
“That reminds me. I think we should exhume a few Blackthorns and have postmortems conducted on their remains.”
I might as well have suggested we open a drive-through wedding chapel with an Elvis impersonator as the chaplain. They stare at me in baffled silence.
“Hear me out. I went to the courthouse to do some research. Did you know that all our relatives died of accidents?”
“Nonsense. Megaera was hanged by the neck.”
“Okay, except her. Everybody else after that died in a weird accident.”
Esme says, “What you consider weird and what we consider weird are probably oceans apart, love.”
She has a good point. “How about tripping into a well? Is that weird?”
“No, that’s natural selection.”
Okay, she has another good point.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that literally every Blackthorn died accidentally.
There isn’t one natural death of old age among us.
Or disease, either. Nobody has a heart attack or dies in their sleep.
We all fall out of trees or get trampled by horses or catch fire while cooking.
Doesn’t that strike you as the least bit suspicious? ”
“It’s rather glamorous, actually,” muses Davina, sipping her champagne. “Who wants to die from something so common as a disease?”
Esme shudders. “I’ve always dreaded the thought of losing my memory with age. Please hold a pillow over my face when I start telling the same story on repeat.”
“What I’m saying is that maybe someone is targeting us.”
Brows arched, Davina gazes at me over the rim of her champagne glass. “For murder?”
“Yes.”
“Your grandmother fell down the stairs. That’s hardly a homicide.”
All these good points she’s making are exhausting me. I guzzle the rest of my champagne, then head to the kitchen for more.
While I’m refilling my glass, Ezra calls again. I stare at the phone, debating, but finally decide to pick up. “Hello, Ezra.”
“Hi.” He waits a full thirty seconds before sighing. “You’re relentless.”
“And yet still you called.”
“I’m hoping we can have an honest conversation about us.”
“We already did. We both agreed I’m terrible at relationships.”
He makes a sound of remorse. “I might have been too hard on you.”
“No, you were fair and accurate. You deserve more than I can give you.”
“I’m trying to understand. Is it that you can’t open up or that you don’t want to? Am I the problem? Is it something I did or didn’t do?”
“Ezra, please believe me. You’re not the problem. You never were.”
He’s silent on the other end of the line. I can’t tell if he believes me or not, but the point is moot. This dead horse has already taken too much of a beating.
“I do have a question that I know you can answer, though, if you don’t mind.”
“Which is?”
“What are the mathematical odds of every child born into a family over a period of more than three hundred years being female?”
His genius brain computes it in a nanosecond and dispenses the answer in a format I’ll comprehend instead of in some complex formula that could only be understood by him and Einstein.
“Worse than the odds of every cast member in every production of Wicked being mauled to death by a bear while on a ski vacation in Montana.”
“So not good. Gotcha.”
“I left you a voicemail.”
“I didn’t listen to it yet. What did you need?”
His voice softens. “I need you to give us another chance. That’s all I’m asking for. I think I pushed you away by asking for too much, too soon, and I didn’t mean to. I can do better.”
I close my eyes and exhale. “You’re a good person, Ezra. I meant it when I said you deserve more. Even on my best day, I’m nobody’s measure of ideal. And right now, my life is chaotic, to put it mildly. I’m sorry, but I really do just want to be friends and nothing more.”
There’s a short pause, then he sighs. “Okay. I understand. I’ll see you soon. Take care, Maven.”
I say softly, “You, too.”
If only all the men in my life were this understanding.
The contract from the PI comes in later that day. I review it and sign electronically, then send him his retainer fee. Then I conduct an hour of online research into how one goes about exhuming the dead.
Naturally, there’s a lot of red tape. Both state and federal agencies are involved, with permits and fees galore. I calculate the total possible cost to be around twenty grand.
That’s a lot of money to prove a theory.
On the other hand, if my theory that we’re being maliciously targeted is right, it’s worth every penny. Unfortunately, that would open up a whole new can of worms along with new questions.
Who? Why? When did it all get started? Is the entire town in on it, or is it a select group? What can we do to stop it? Is there enough evidence to prosecute?
And if there is, would we be able to?
Or by that time, would the remaining Blackthorns be dead?
Because whoever is organized, patient, smart, and evil enough to play a long-standing game of Cleverly-Kill-a-Blackthorn will surely be unhappy about being found out.
I think of those desecrated dolls swinging from the branches of the maple tree I cut down and shudder. Then I have a realization that flips the entire situation on its head.
The aunties should move to Manhattan with me.
There’s nothing keeping them here except Q, who I’m sure could be persuaded to move with them if they wanted him to. Why stay in a place where you’re obviously not welcome?
Even if my theory is wrong and they’re not in danger of anything more than being bored to death at Sunday service every week, why persist subjecting yourself to such obvious prejudice, fear, and suspicion?
Okay, pride. There’s that.
There’s also stubbornness. We’re legendary for it.
And some fuck-you energy, too. We don’t like to get pushed around. We stand our ground and fight, even when it’s more prudent to surrender.
If there’s one thing Blackthorns are not, it’s docile.
We’re the outcasts and the troublemakers, the malcontents and the misunderstood, the proudly, defiantly other. We’re tenacious as brambles and have as many sharp thorns, and if you hold us too tightly, the drops of your blood from the holes we pricked will remind you to be careful thereafter.
Even our hair is untamed. Like our hearts. Like our bodies. And if the price we pay for our unladylike ways is the scorn of those with loftier airs and lesser integrity, so be it.
We’re Blackthorns. We’re weird, we’re wild, and we don’t care what you think.
On impulse, I pick up the phone and dial Ronan. He answers on the first ring.
“Hello, Maven.” When I don’t say anything quickly enough, he demands, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
He’s so good at deception. He actually sounds worried. Which of course he would, knowing how it would affect me.
I swallow, breathe in and out, and feel the hard, painful beat of my heart. “If I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?”