Chapter 9
I turn my head to address Maggie. “Can—”
I want to ask her if magic can help with any of this crap, but the words won’t come out. My throat is constricted, like right before you’re about to cry.
But I’m not about to cry.
If anything, now I’m more mad than sad.
“Guck,” is all I can say.
“Oh, and the magic will not be spoken,” Maggie mutters. “In front of outsiders, I mean. Might as well stop trying.”
I clear my throat and manage to swallow. “This is a lot for me to take in,” I tell Cait. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you a bushel and a peck.”
“More like half a tablespoon right now, I’m guessing,” she says dryly. “But I love you a bushel and a peck, too.”
The call ends, and I fall back into the cushions, disrupting the cockatoo on my shoulder, who squawks and flaps to the sofa, sending feathers into the air.
“Those girls are completely irresponsible,” Maggie says.
“Jemma is young and Cait tries hard,” I shoot back.
Maggie blinks at me.
“And they’re both used to me solving their problems,” I admit.
“Beautiful girls, though. Wish I could’ve seen you-all when you were little. Always wanted grandbabies, and now you’re taller than I am. Was. Definitely bigger than me now.”
Which is nice and all, but I have questions. “So there’s no mortgage to pay?” I ask.
Maggie struts. “Own everything outright.”
“No internet or cable?”
“Don’t need any of that junk. When there’s a movie store downstairs, you just pop something in the VCR and settle in.”
“What are the bills like?”
Maggie flutters up to the table. “Just got here and you’re already in money mode?”
“I quit my job and rented out my folks’ old house to move up here. I need to know where I stand. This is…” I look around the kitchen/living room, notice how the afternoon sun slants prettily through the broken blinds. “This is my life now, apparently.”
For a moment, Maggie just stares at me, head bobbing. “You make bad decisions, too, huh? Miranda really did a number on you girls.”
I snatch her off the table and hold her up to my face. “Don’t you say one word against my mama! She put herself through college, married a good man, was a good mother, and taught us to be responsible members of society.”
“Then why’d you quit your job and move up here on a whim?”
“Your lawyer said it was a significant inheritance!” I have to look away.
“And it just so happened that my boss fired me so he could hire his niece, and my ex and his cop brother were making my life hell. Truth is, I felt trapped. I needed a do-over. And if you hadn’t made your will so bizarre, we would all be fine.
Why’d you do that anyway? We’re your next of kin; you were dead. Why can’t we just sell and move on?”
Her wings flap like crazy, but I hold her in place.
“Because this is my legacy—”
“I’m your legacy! Those two irresponsible ninnies are your legacy. Why can’t you trust us?”
“I didn’t even know you! Your damn mama—”
I squeeze her a little too hard, and she pecks me, so I almost drop her.
“My damn mama loved me, and she told me I had to take care of my sisters when she was gone. I have had a job since the day I turned twelve,” I say with gritted teeth.
“I drive an old car. I use coupons. I eat store-brand cereal. The only way I could live cheaper is by being an only child. I didn’t ask for any of this. ”
“Then just run away from your responsibilities like your mother did!”
My jaw drops.
I can’t believe—
I place my grandmother—the cockatoo—on the kitchen table.
“I can’t listen to this anymore. I need some space to think.
You’ve got food and water, and if you can’t control your own cloaca, that’s your problem.
I’m going to go check into my B&B and come to grips with”—I gesture madly around me—“all this. You.”
“None of this is my fault,” she snaps. “All I did was die!”
“Die and leave me buildings I can’t sell in a town where there are clearly no jobs that young people can live on?
” I stomp into the next room and change into a new pair of jeans and a T-shirt as I continue to shout at her.
“Die and take over the body of a bird that was honestly my best friend, and now she’s just—just banished to the ether so my uppity grandmother can insult my entire family?
And I can’t even tell you to drop dead, because you already did. ”
Maggie runs into the room and flaps into my face.
I bat her away carefully, but she doesn’t stop hollering in my head.
“You should be grateful! You have a free home and a thriving business, with an extra bonus grandmother! And again, everything would be a hell of a lot easier if you had the good sense to have a cat instead of a stupid pink bird!”
“I didn’t know I was going to become a witch today, so thanks for making me dump your ashes in the stupid magical waterfall.
Really enjoyed having human remains in my hair.
I guess now I know why Mama hated you. You’re an asshole!
” I shove my pajamas in my bag, zip it closed, and slide on my boots before stomping over to the door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow once I’ve cooled off a little.
Then you’re going to tell me how to rent out all this shitty property so I can move back home with my sisters.
I’ll drop you off with your real owner, and you can screech at him all you want, because he actually deserves it. ”
The door slams behind me, and I’m barreling down the stairs and out into the alley.
The nerve of that woman! I had always pictured my missing grandmother as sweet and kind with curly white hair and an oven filled with cookies and cornbread.
Fluffy pink sweaters and house slippers and rosy cheeks.
Never once did I imagine she might be an infuriating, self-righteous cockatoo.
I feel guilty for just a moment—I have essentially locked a conscious adult in a room with no way to escape—but she’ll be fine. There’s enough food and water to last a week, now that she’s a bird, and she’s in her own apartment, and whatever she does next is her own business.
After I get my car unwedged from its spot in the alley, I head for the nearest drive-thru, get some food, and come back into town.
The Magnolia Inn is just around the other side of the square, so it feels a little ridiculous parking close enough that I can see the video store from there, but I didn’t really want to be seen dragging a suitcase around the sidewalk and crying.
It is a small town, after all. As I stuff fries and chicken nuggets in my mouth in the inn’s passive-aggressively marked parking lot, I wonder if I should go close up the video store, but what’s the point?
Honestly, if somebody broke in and stole all the movies and both slow cookers, I don’t think I would mind.
It was a terrible business idea even ten years ago, and there’s no chance it could support me into retirement. Thriving business, my ass.
The faster I rent it all out, the better.
I’m so desperate to escape this whole situation that I call Colonel. His voicemail warmly informs me that the law office closes promptly at five. Damn it.
Once I’ve eaten an adequate amount of my feelings, I grab my chocolate milkshake and drag my suitcase toward the front door.
This place seemed pretty expensive to me, but I felt like it was okay to splurge a little, considering the situation.
I’ve only stayed in three hotels in my entire life, and I wanted to try one without a number in the name.
Now I’m mad at myself for not sticking with the Motel 6 just outside of town, which would’ve cost half as much and not required me to stare across the square into the dingy windows of the last video store in the world.
When I walk in, there’s no one at the front desk, and I let out an explosive sigh because honestly, it would be nice if one single thing was easy today.
“Rough travels?” someone asks, and it’s then that I notice the figure sitting in a wingback chair by the fireplace, reading a book.
He’s a blue-eyed, prematurely gray silver fox, probably mid-thirties, but definitely not outside the realm of possibility.
There’s a bookshelf beside him filled with a wide range of titles, not just the usual 1980s used books people buy to take up aesthetic space, and I grudgingly tell myself I picked the right place.
A dog sleeps peacefully on the rug, stretched out as if warming itself by a fire that doesn’t exist. It doesn’t so much as blink an eye at me, but I suppose a B&B dog would get used to constant customers.
“The travels were fine, but the destination is proving to be a challenge,” I tell him, wishing my eyes weren’t so wet and runny.
He stands and walks behind the counter. “Rhea Wolfe?”
“That’s me.”
His smile is sympathetic as he checks me in.
When he takes my ID, I notice the wedding ring, and I’m honestly kind of disappointed.
It would’ve been nice to know there were two hot, available men in town, especially considering the first one is apparently related to my grandmother’s sworn enemy, not that she’ll give me details on anything pertinent to that fact.
“So I’m Nick, one of the owners, and you can let me know if you need anything. My husband, Nathan, will have the included breakfast on the table from eight to ten. Do you have any dietary restrictions?”
“Nope. Give me all the bread and nuts. And there will be coffee?”
He puts a hand to his chest and closes his eyes. “If not, what’s the point? We bring in beans from Atlanta, and we got a really nice espresso maker for our last anniversary.”
“Sounds like I have no choice but to wake up, then.”
“Please do. We supposedly have enough ghosts as it is.” Nick hands me an old-fashioned key on a metal ring. “Not in your room, though. You have the Dogwood Room, on the second floor. Hope you don’t hate pink.”
“How much pink are we talking?”
“A…tasteful amount.”