Chapter 26
“You know Circe was a witch.”
Scoot examined the book. Ingrid held herself very still. Held her hand very still at her side.
Don’t react. Don’t say a word. She doesn’t deserve it.
Scoot’s lips curved into a smile. “She lured men to her, then cursed them, and turned them into pigs. But I’ll be honest. I often wonder about that story. Maybe we have it backward. Maybe the men were pigs to start with, and Circe actually just broke the spell.”
Scoot laid the book down again, the picture still safely tucked, undiscovered, between its pages. Ingrid’s breath flowed out of her body in a low, even stream. She released the horns and flexed her fingers.
“Ingrid,” Scoot said in a somber voice. “There are things I need to know. Things that still … plague me, even after all these years.” Her eyes felt like two blue, diamond point drills on Ingrid.
“Oh,” Ingrid said in a breathless voice.
Scoot licked her lips, looking distracted.
“Like how they felt about each other, for instance, my husband and your grandmother. You know she was over at the house all the time, back when Rill and I first met. When we started dating. Rill’s parents had discovered her—at another party one of their friends threw—and she’d done really accurate readings for them.
They adored her, of course. Used to have her over for their dinner parties and their annual Halloween event. ”
Ingrid willed her face to remain a stone. For her body to stay still. She could not give anything away.
“Everybody loved Edie.” Scoot’s voice was soft now. “She was so bright, so beautiful and warm, even I’m not too jealous to admit that. I knew right away Rill had a crush on her. Everybody knew; it was obvious from the way he looked at her. Found excuses to be near her. To say her name …”
A faraway, almost dreamy look softened her face. The sharp angles seemed to melt, the icy eyes went unfocused.
“He knew I was jealous, of course. I wasn’t very good at hiding it.
He stopped bringing Edie to the house in town.
Only had her to the parties he threw out at the Tybee place.
And I wasn’t allowed at those parties. Not by him, nor by my parents.
Everybody knew how wild they were. The drinking and the drugs.
The types of people invited. The carrying on.
You know, Savannah, back in the nineties. One big, decadent orgy.”
Ingrid said nothing. She felt like she was standing in a field planted with land mines.
Scoot raked her nails through her hair, shaking her head, letting the waves fall into perfect place. “You know how I knew he’d finally given up on Edie? The day he proposed to me. That’s when I knew I’d won and she’d lost. But he kept me in suspense all the way until the bitter end.”
“But then you got married.”
Scoot sent her an amused look. “And you think that fixed everything? It only made things worse. He moped all during our engagement. He refused to help with the wedding plans. He lost interest in sex. Sex with me, at least.”
Now Scoot was closing the distance between them. Ingrid could see how the thick makeup settled into the wrinkles around her eyes and her upper lip. Her mascara flaked and smudged. Ingrid felt her throat closing. Scoot seized Ingrid’s arm and shook her hard enough that Ingrid winced.
“You’ve got to let me talk to her, Ingrid.” Scoot squeezed her arm. “I need to know if he ever had any love for me. If there’s anything still left for me.”
Adrenaline flooded Ingrid’s body. Scoot’s grip tightened. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak.
“Please. Ingrid. I’ve done so much for you, and I’ll keep on doing it, I swear. You’ll never have to struggle again, Ingrid—to keep up with bills, to be safe. Just do this one thing for me.”
Ingrid’s whole body was shaking now. Not because she was afraid, but because at the moment Scoot had taken hold of her, the Daffodil Room had changed. It had gone dark, suddenly doused in shadows and edged with an odor of something sharp and rank and deeply unpleasant.
Then Ingrid smelled something else, beyond the vile thing. Ana?s Ana?s, cherry almond lotion, and the faint whiff of incense. She felt soft, papery skin brush against hers.
Edie …
Edie was here.
In the room.
Ingrid let out a short, surprised huff of air. There was a low murmuring sound swirling around her, like someone trying to speak underwater. She closed her eyes, trying to discern the words from the garbled symphony of voices, but it was so hard. There was so much noise.
“Ingrid?” Scoot’s voice was like the crack of a gun. “What is it? What’s happening?”
So many voices. So many words. Conversations happening in the unseen realm and all around her. And then one voice sharpened and rose above the rest. A sweet voice, talking low. Repeating a sentence over and over that started muffled then grew increasingly clear.
She wished me ill …
Ingrid inhaled sharply and her eyes flew open.
“What?” demanded Scoot, gripping her hard. “What did she say? I know she’s here. I can see it in your eyes.”
Ingrid swallowed. The shrimp sat uncomfortably in her stomach. The stench of old life, of death, of that which had been called back was so strong … too strong … she was going to be sick …
“Tell me!”
Ingrid’s mind raced, but she knew not to answer Scoot yet. Because there was more. She waited … waited … then she heard the voice again.
She wished me dead …
It was Edie’s voice. Her syrupy, old-fashioned, Savannah accent. Goose bumps covered Ingrid’s skin and something sour rose in her esophagus.
She wished me ill …
She wished me dead …
“She sees you.” It was all Ingrid could think to say. Not a lie. But not exactly the truth.
“What else?” Scoot asked. “Did she sleep with my husband?”
She wished me ill …
She wished me dead …
“Did she?” Scoot’s voice rang shrill.
“No,” Ingrid said. “She didn’t.” Another lie. Probably. Maybe. But a lie Ingrid had to tell until she knew more. Until Edie told her more.
Because this was it, wasn’t it? What Edie had been talking about at the end? Whatever had happened between Scoot and Edie—the thing Edie had wrongly overlooked—was the event that knocked everything off balance.
Ingrid had discovered it, just like Edie had intended.
But now what was she supposed to do? How could she deal with Scoot Loeffler and still stay in the light?
The woman was a force of destruction. She’d spent a lifetime being cruel to her children in so many ways, and now she kept them at arm’s length.
She’d craved her husband’s love and somehow constantly pushed it away.
This was dark territory, and Ingrid would need every weapon she possessed to navigate it.
All her weapons.
“He loved her, didn’t he?” Scoot broke into her thoughts. “He loved her more than he loved me.” Now her eyes were like two rain-slicked stones. Were they tears? Or just the vodka?
“I think …” Tread carefully. “I think that’s a question for Rill, Scoot. Not for Edie.”
Scoot darkened. “Fine. Then ask her if she loved him.” She lifted her chin, addressing the empty room. “Were you in love with my husband, Edith? Did you want to take Rill away from me? Did you keep him from ever fully loving me? Was it you?” Her voice broke on this last question.
Ingrid’s head clanged with Edie’s words. They came in a rush now, reverberating through her skull, sending points of searing pain through her eyes. ShewishedmeillShewishedmedead, ShewishedmeillShewishedmedead …
Ingrid let out a small whimper of pain and protest. It was too much. Too upsetting to imagine. Too overwhelming …
“What?” Scoot cried.
“She says no,” Ingrid gasped. “She wasn’t in love with him.” Her eyes met Scoot’s but now she didn’t shrink from the woman’s stare. “She didn’t stand in the way of you two. She was never the problem.”
Even as the words came out of her mouth—the lies—she felt herself taking that first step.
The first step off the path of light and into the land of shadows.
And yet she didn’t take the words back. How could she tell this woman what Edie was actually saying to her?
The truth was not something Scoot was capable of hearing.
She would tear Ingrid to pieces. Throw her out of their house. Out of Sailor’s and Cas’s lives.
Ingrid would lose everything.
Scoot hesitated, then she patted the skin under her eyes and gingerly pulled back the skin on her face. She turned that face, so cold and beautiful and now masked once again with the inscrutable Loeffler expression, back onto Ingrid.
“So I’m the one to blame for the disdain my husband has always treated me with? The distance he’s kept between us?”
Ingrid fists were now clenched by her sides. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, no.” Scoot fixed her with a brilliant, brittle smile. “Don’t back down now. It’s always better to know.”
Ingrid nodded and Scoot moved toward the door. She stopped, turning back.
“Oh, one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t get too attached to Casimir. He’s never actually dated a girl—or a boy, for that matter. He just likes to play with people. Make them love him, make them want what they can’t have and then deny them. He seems sweet but he’s always been a little off that way.”
Ingrid stared at the woman in shock, burning with shame. Scoot turned and exited the room, leaving the door open behind her.
Ingrid didn’t follow. She didn’t even move. She could still smell that sharp, sour smell, Edie all around her, permeating the air, now with a quiet disapproval. It occurred to Ingrid that the smell, the sharp, unpleasant aroma she sensed, was nothing more than death.