Chapter 15
Fifteen
“I need to tell you something.” Roberta was crunching on a Tootsie Roll pop again—this time grape—and I now realized this was something she did when she was nervous, a fact I found kind of endearing. We sat together at the kitchen table at Jason’s house, a table that had once belonged to Phillip’s parents. Phillip had told me it was the first piece of furniture they’d ever bought together. We sat with two mugs of steaming tea in front of us, a third mug on the counter waiting for boiling water should Phillip come in any time soon.
“Shoot.”
“You’re not the only one with a long-lost brother,” Roberta said, and I took a sip of tea, bracing myself. This wasn’t a topic Roberta mentioned often.
“I know about your brother,” I reminded her gently, sitting my cup back down. “You mentioned him, remember?” Roberta had told me about her brother Jorge, who was in jail on drug-related charges. Not only had she barely mentioned him in the time I’d known her, but when she did, her entire body became like a coil of nerves, tensed and ready to strike.
“Yeah, I told you that he’s in jail, right?” I nodded, and she went on. “But what I didn’t tell you was how and why.”
“I’m listening now,” I said. I pushed her mug toward her and smiled. “Let’s hear it.”
She didn’t drink but wrapped her fingers around the mug, as if enjoying the warmth. “Well, you might’ve guessed, you might’ve not but… Jorge got into drugs because of my dad and Guthrie.” Roberta’s voice was full of bitterness. “He was always a good, well-behaved kid until they started on him.”
“What happened?” I asked. “What did they do?”
“To tell you that story I’ve got to tell you everybody’s story,” she said. “You know some of it already, that Guthrie and my father were into the drug game. That it wasn’t just the magic that kept them afloat, that they were dealing. Well, it was a much larger operation than you might imagine. Much, much larger.” She looked at me. “And it has carried on, all this time. Those who were in back then—well, the ones who aren’t dead or in jail like Jorge—are still very much in.”
“I see.” Roberta was warning me, giving me a chance to protest, to decline, to keep pleading ignorance. But we were too far into it now. “Tell me.”
“Guthrie started out just dealing pot back in the nineties,” she said, running a hand through her damp curls. “Him and literally everybody else, right? Everybody in town, including the cops, I assume, knew he was dealing weed, but he was a middle-aged white hippie guy so nobody gave him any trouble, so long as he stayed out of the big time. But eventually he wanted to start dealing harder stuff, like cocaine, heroin, stuff like that.” She sighed. “He had a good gig going, was making all kinds of money, but he got greedy. That’s when he enlisted my dad.”
“Your dad was a heavy drug user?” I thought back to my gapped-up memory. Had I ever seen Elvin with anything other than baggies of weed and the odd pill? I didn’t think I had, but nothing would surprise me.
“Not really. Not for himself, anyway,” Roberta answered. “But he was never one to miss an opportunity to enrich himself or exploit someone. As soon as Guthrie decided to expand his business, so to speak, my dad wanted in.”
“Ugh.”
“That’s an understatement,” Roberta said, her face pinched. “I don’t know the particulars of how they got their supply or whatever since I was too young and then when I got older, I didn’t want to know…But at some point, they started dealing heavy shit. Pills, then heroin and coke, and some other stuff too. They had a pretty lucrative business going for a number of years. And as time went on and they got a reputation and a list of ‘clients,’ they also found themselves a few worker bees to help them run drugs and recruit more clients. It’s only grown over the years, and before Dad and Guthrie died, it was a full-on operation.” She grimaced. “That was one of the main reasons Lydia left Guthrie, you know…a lot of it had to do with the magic and her discomfort with his exploitation of it, and a lot of it had to do with the way he treated Lee…but the main part, the part that scared her, was the drugs. She was so afraid there would be a raid any day and that Guthrie would go to prison.” She smiled grimly. “If only that had happened; it might’ve saved us all a lot of heartbreak.”
“So your brother was one of their, um, their employees?”
“Yes,” Roberta answered. “Him and quite a few others. Can you guess who else?”
“Tess,” I said automatically, then frowned. “Sloan.”
“Yep.” She clucked sympathetically. “And me and my brother for a while, until he went to jail and I decided to get out of it. And Shank, of course. Lee, from time to time, when he wasn’t having a crisis of conscience. And…”
I finished for her. “…And my dad, right?”
She slowly nodded.
I stared at her, my stomach rolling over with unease. I’d already assumed as much, but hearing her say it so casually still made my stomach churn. “Is he a former employee or current?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“I don’t know,” Roberta admitted. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out. But I’d guess current, or at least up until the house fire.” She finally took a sip of her tea. “I don’t know who burned his place down, but it reeks of some kind of ‘warning,’ some kind of message they were trying to send him.”
“He says he’s clean,” I said stupidly, looking down at my lap. “He’s been saying it for a long time.”
“He may very well be,” Roberta said in a soft voice. “He might have just been helping them without actually using. Maybe he decided he wanted out, after everything that’s happened recently. Maybe it had to do with you—trying to keep you safe. And somebody retaliated against him.”
I gulped. “Now I need to tell you something.” I quickly relayed what I knew about Colt Leather and how he’d been backstage with Shank before running off into the night like a coward. “Shank said he”—I swallowed again—“insinuated that Colt was the one who started the fire that killed Tess. He laughed about it.”
“What motive would this Colt dude have to run with Shank and the rest of that bunch?” Roberta asked, her face pinched in confusion. “How does he tie in?”
“He doesn’t, really,” I admitted. “Except Phillip said he’d auditioned for the Bloomer Demons once. He didn’t get the gig. Sour grapes, maybe?” I shrugged. It was a long shot, though, and I knew it.
“Maybe,” Roberta said thoughtfully with a long sigh. “But Shank could have been lying. It could’ve been anyone who started that fire. It could’ve been my brother.” As she said the words, her voice barely a whisper, her face turned drawn, and she almost looked haggard with sadness.
I stared at her for a moment. “But how?” I asked, my eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “You said Jorge is in jail.”
“I said he was in jail,” Roberta answered, her soft brown eyes full of distress. “He got out a month ago, Stormy. He hasn’t called or shown up at the house. I’ve been wondering all this time where he was, why he didn’t come to see me. I can’t help but think maybe…what if…what if he’s behind all this? Some kind of revenge plot…? I can’t bear the thought.” Roberta put her head in her hands, face down on the table, her dark curls bobbing as she cried.
“Hold on…slow down.” I came over to her side of the table and put an arm around my friend. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. What reason do you have to suspect your brother of such a thing?”
“I don’t have one, really,” Roberta said, raising her head and wiping at her cheeks furiously. “But he should have called me, he should have come home. We talked about the day of his release for months; we were looking forward to it. He was so excited to get out. He had all these plans… He wanted to fix up Uncle Albert’s land.” She gulped, and I suppressed an involuntary shudder. That land was the patch of swampy wilderness and outbuildings we’d pinned Elvin to, where he’d almost managed to kill Benny and Roberta. “And he wanted to go back to school. He’s always been interested in becoming an electrician. He was going to go to tech school. He’d already started applying for loans and grants. He wouldn’t have just…disappeared!”
“There’s got to be some logical explanation,” I said hopefully.
“Like what?” she demanded. She pushed the mug of tea away. “I wasn’t able to meet Jorge there the day he got out, and he said it was fine, that he’d just take the bus and come to the house. He never showed, and for a couple days, I just assumed he was sowing some wild oats, that maybe he’d hooked up with a girl or was meeting up with old friends. But after a few days, I started to worry.” She bit her lip. “If he isn’t behind what happened at your dad’s, then that means something even worse has happened. That somebody has taken him, like they took Lee! He could be in danger, or he could be?—"
“I’m sure that’s not the case,” I said, but my voice didn’t carry any real certainty in it. What if she was right?
“I thought for a while there—” Roberta’s voice choked up and she cleared her throat, swallowed, and continued. “I thought Jorge might be the body in your dad’s house. I…I feel bad, but I was relieved it was Tess. Relieved because it wasn’t my brother.”
“Oh, Roberta,” I said softly, and she shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“A lot of reasons,” she confessed, looking down. “I already had so much other shit to tell you, and I had no idea how to start. It’s just one more thing to add to the pile, and I guess I was feeling embarrassed, and ashamed, and protective of my brother. I didn’t want you to assume he’s just like my dad and my uncle.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “Does everyone else know, at least? At the Wolfden?”
She shook her head, surprising me. “No,” she said, guilt crossing her pretty features. “I haven’t told anyone, Stormy. Nobody knows that Jorge is out of jail, much less that he’s been a no-show.”
“Roberta!” I was shocked. “You tell them everything! For all that talk you do about how we’re a family, how?—"
“I know!” Roberta interrupted, spots of color appearing on her cheeks. “I know, okay! I should have told everybody. I will tell everybody.” She squared her shoulders, a gesture that seemed both defiant and delicate. “It’s just that he’s my brother. The only family I have left at this point, the only one I’ve ever been able to trust fully. I love Lee, but I can’t even say that about him, Stormy. I feel protective over Jorge in a way that I can’t explain. He’s my blood!”
“I get it,” I said, and I did. I might not have grown up with my baby sister Shably or my newfound brother Nikolai, but there was an instinctive, built-in unconditional love that came with having a sibling, especially one vulnerable or younger than you, that I understood already. I could see—and feel—that Nikolai saw me that way too. And I was grateful for it. “You don’t have to feel guilty for loving your brother, Burt.”
“I keep thinking I should go home,” she said. “Coming to Boston with you guys was a mistake. I wanted to see the show so bad, and I thought maybe a distraction would do me some good, but I can’t stop thinking about him.” Roberta sighed. “I feel like I should go back home to Brunswick and wait. What if he shows up and I’m not there? What if he’s wondering where I am?”
“Then you should go,” I said firmly, and she looked at me in surprise.
“Seriously?” she asked. “I figured you’d want me to stay. At least until you guys are ready to go home.”
“I’ll even go with you,” I said, making up my mind on the spot. “We’ll make a little road trip out of it, just you and me.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Roberta said, her eyes welling up. “I know how much you’ve been looking forward to these shows. And after what happened earlier, you deserve to see one good set that hasn’t been ruined by some idiot with a bomb.”
“You’re more important,” I said with a shrug, putting my arms around her shoulders and giving her a little squeeze. “And who knows if the second show will even happen. I mean, the venue was bombed. It might be cancelled. Phillip will understand,” I argued. “He’d want me to be there for you.”
“I do appreciate it, Stormy, but I can’t ask you to do that,” Roberta said with finality. “I want you to be here with Phillip. You deserve to be.” She faced me with a smile. “I feel bad that I’m flaking on you right now after what just happened.”
I mock-glared at her. “No ma’am. I won’t hear that shit from you, Burt. It’s not your job to pick up the pieces. I can take care of myself. You have to put your needs and your family first. And I can guarantee you that Benny and Jamie and Lee and Nikolai and Clara would all say the exact same thing.”
“Thank you,” she said with a genuine smile. “I think I just needed to hear somebody say that out loud. You know?”
“I do,” I said. “Sometimes it just takes someone else giving you permission to put yourself first.”
Exhausted, I pushed my way back inside the house, kicking off my combat boots the moment I stepped through the doorway. I picked them up and padded up the stairs toward Phillip’s room, doing my best to be quiet.
It had taken Roberta a few hours to get her ducks in a row, her bags re-packed, and the necessary motivation to get in her SUV and begin the arduous drive back home. I was relieved that Clara had offered to go with her, even if Clara wasn’t my favorite person, because I didn’t relish the thought of Roberta driving back home by herself. I’d tried to talk her into letting me come with her, but she’d refused me no less than ten times, insisting that I stay in Boston and enjoy my time with Phillip. She’d barely allowed me to walk outside and see her off, but I’d put my foot down.
Now she was headed back to Georgia. Upon her return, I hoped she’d find that Jorge had turned up and all was well. But worry lingered in my belly.
Ollie was sitting on the bottom stair, thumbing at one of Jason’s acoustic guitars. His impossibly clean black Vans were tapping on the floor, keeping perfect time as he played. “I didn’t know you played guitar,” I said. It was still a marvel to me when I found out new things about the band I’d loved since I was a teen.
He chuckled and picked out a casual rendition of “Blackbird,” his low, smoky voice crooning out the words. Then he rested his hands on the guitar and smiled. “You know how many drummers start out wishing they were the front man? Just about every drummer knows how to play two or three other instruments. Just in case they end up the lead singer.”
“You have a great voice. Why didn’t you consider fronting the band after…” I trailed off, not wanting to finish the question. Now was the time to bring up that I’d seen Colt. But Phillip should be here for that conversation too.
Ollie was watching me. He stood up and placed the guitar back on its stand in the corner of the foyer. “You know, Stormy,” he said, even though I hadn’t spoken. “There’s no replacing Phillip Deville. We’re going to have a hard enough time replacing Kim.” Then, to my surprise, Ollie stepped forward and gave me a hug.
He was warm and smelled good, and I found myself resting my head on his shoulder, comfortable and easy, as though I’d known him for years. When he pulled away, his eyes were kind. “You looked like you needed that,” he said, and I realized he was right.
“Thank you, Ollie,” I said, my hand on the banister, moving to go upstairs. Then I turned back, giving him a grateful look. “I’m so glad you guys are back together. I really am.”
“Me, too, girl,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen. I walked up the stairs to Phillip’s room, touched.
I pushed Phillip’s door open to find the room empty; he must be in the bathroom. It was late and I was tired, so I decided to change into my pajamas and get the bed ready for us. Phillip was no doubt far more tired than I was. It had been well into the afternoon before he’d finally made it home; he’d pulled an all-nighter. He hadn’t wanted to talk about the ordeal, but I knew that having to talk to all those cops, reporters, and fans, combined with the endorphins from playing his first show in over twenty years and worrying about me after the explosion, likely had him feeling totally insane. It had been less than twenty-four hours since the show and the explosion that had cut it short, but it somehow felt like years had passed, and I was dog tired.
Whatever it took to make him feel all better, I would do. I smiled to myself, turning down the covers and patting Phillip’s pillow. Whatever he asked for, it was his.
I stripped off my gauzy blouse and reached for the suitcase at the foot of the bed, pulling out my favorite cozy 7 Year Bitch T-shirt, so old and worn and beloved that it had holes in the collar and the armpits, but it was soft as a baby blanket. I pulled on a pair of fleecey boxer shorts with black roses and skulls on them that I’d bought at Hot Topic a million years ago and grinned at my stupid reflection in the mirror. I looked about twelve years old; the only tell that I wasn’t an angsty adolescent and in fact a thirtysomething nerd were the dark, tired circles under my eyes. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d go for something sexy, like a black, lacy teddy or my candy corn thong that Phillip loved, but tonight was all about comfort.
Pulling my hair up into a messy bun, I called for Phillip. The light was on in the adjoining bathroom, the door ajar. “You taking a shower, honey?”
He didn’t answer. I noticed a Dos Equis on the night table that he’d opened and left, still beading with condensation. I grabbed it and took a long swig, sighing with pleasure as the cold liquid went down my throat. I sat on the edge of the bed, relief hitting my shoulders as the tension started to slowly leave my body. I took another long sip of Phillip’s beer, savoring the icy coldness. I’d have to go get him another one if he didn’t hurry up and come out.
Beyond thirst, I realized I was ravenous. I hadn’t had a real meal all day. Phillip likely hadn’t either. I wondered if there were any local barbecue joints that had vegan options where we could grab takeout. Not likely—this was Boston, after all, where there was likely no barbecue, much less the vegan variety—but I was craving the comforts of home, which meant Brunswick stew, tangy barbecue, and mountains of mac n cheese and squash casserole. Banana pudding for dessert, the whole nine. If Dee, who hadn’t known how to do anything but burn Pop-Tarts when she’d married my dad, could whip up a full Southern vegan meal, surely there was a restaurant around here with a decent facsimile of a veggie burger.
“Phillip, you hungry?” I called. He still didn’t answer. Weird. Oh well, I’d find something myself; do a food delivery service. I picked up the phone, and as I opened Google, the phone immediately went dead. I groaned. I didn’t feel like digging out my charger, which always seemed to be lost, so I dragged myself from the bed and over to the little table where the landline phone was and the phone book, leftover relics from Phillip’s teen years that Jason had never gotten rid of. I made a mental note to tease him about that, this weird time capsule he called a house. It was downright creepy. Fuck it, I’d open up the yellow pages and find some food the old-school way.
I frowned; the phone wasn’t on the table. I noticed the cord was reaching from the wall and into the bathroom. Phillip was on the phone, and for some reason, he’d taken the call in there. Weird , I thought again.
Curiosity piqued, I dropped the yellow pages and ventured over to the bathroom, pushing the door open ever so slightly.
Phillip was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, his legs actually in the tub, with his back to me, one long finger winding the cord around and around like a teenage girl. I smiled; he was so damned cute without even trying. I could imagine this was how he’d sat romancing girls on the phone when he was in high school.
Phillip nodded, listening to whoever was on the other end of the line. I opened my mouth to admonish him for dirtying up the bathtub with his crusty shoes and to let him know I was home when he said something that made me stop cold.
“Yeah, so I’m thinking just a twelve-stop tour will be the best bet; we don’t want to overwhelm ourselves with any more than that. I don’t want to be gone all year. Let’s just do one season, mid-size venues at first, see how ticket sales go, and decide from there?” He was silent for a moment, listening to the response, still nodding. “Yeah, and I figure if we release like, one single before the tour, and then drop the entire album about mid-way through? That seems to be how bands are doing it these days…lots of promotion via social media. Maybe we can hire someone for that because we’re all too old for that shit, and Lee’s got enough on his plate…” He laughed. “I might not look it, but inside, I’m just as old as you, you fucker…Oh, shut up about the magic. Are you going to throw that in my face every day?”
My face burned. Phillip was planning not only a tour but an entire album and social media blitz, and I hadn’t heard so much as a word. When was he planning on telling me? Hadn’t we spent the first portion of our relationship arguing about how I never kept him in the loop? After everything that had happened the night before, he hadn’t even considered running all this by me first? Didn’t we have more important things to talk about before he began planning the next year—or more—of our lives?
His life. Not mine. The thought occurred to me as I quietly shut the door. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned it to me first just illustrated that point. I might be Phillip’s girlfriend, but he was a one-man show, and all I could do was hope to trail behind him as his career took back off and he left me in the dust.
I turned and went back to bed, pulling on my running shoes and grabbing my phone, blinking back tears. I knew I should just talk to him outright, but for the moment, I just wanted—needed—to be alone. Suddenly, barbecue was the last thing on my mind. I needed to go for a run to clear my head and keep myself from crying.
I hadn’t intended on ending up at Lydia’s, but my feet found their way there, and the next thing I knew, I was standing on her porch for the first time since I’d been literally stuck there in a binding spell.
I stared up at the cobwebby trellis, my heart pounding in my chest. I stepped onto the first step, then the second, wondering what in the hell I was playing at. Why had I come here?
By the third step, the door had opened and a familiar white, curly head poked out.
“Well, if it isn’t Fee,” Lydia said with a smile—well, what counted as a smile for Lydia, which was little more than the expression you make when you eat something sour—gesturing for me to come forward. “Come on in; I was expecting you.”
“You were?”
“Why yes, of course,” Lydia said in her thick Boston accent, taking her time to settle down in the chair across from me. She seemed a little more sprightly than usual, but she was still pretty worse for wear. I wondered how far her cancer had progressed; the last time we’d spoken, she’d told me she was stage four. In fact, most of her involvement in trying to subdue my magic was because she had plans to revive herself when her inevitable demise came.
“Thank you for your concern, Fee, but I’m a good deal better,” she said, crossing one leg over the other with some difficulty. She was wearing jelly shoes, like the kind all us kids wore in the eighties, over taupe pantyhose, and smiled with bemusement. “I don’t think my imminent demise is as imminent as it once was.”
“How is that possible?” I asked. Cancer was cancer, after all, and Lydia had even had an oxygen tank the last time I’d seen her.
“Oh, I suppose it helps that my son is dating someone with certain…talents,” Lydia said, winking at me, and my eyes widened. Benny. It made perfect sense. Of course he’d be willing to heal Lee’s mother; he’d do anything for Lee.
“Oh, he hasn’t healed me; his powers don’t extend quite that far,” Lydia said with a dry cackle that might have been a cough. “I’m not completely restored, but I think he might have prolonged these old bones for a couple years longer.”
“That gives you plenty of time to wield a spell for immortality,” I said with a smirk, and she rapped her walking cane on the floor and laughed.
“From your lips to the goddess’ ears, Fee!” Her cheeks scrunched with merriment. “To write such a spell, can you imagine?” She leaned back and reached for a pack of her long, gross cigarettes. I’d have thought that she’d have quit smoking by now, after what Benny had done for her, but I supposed old habits died hard.
“They do indeed, Fee, and you just mind your own business. I’m a grown woman, after all.” She smiled, and I felt my own cheeks flush with embarrassment. “Now. Why are you here?”
“I…I don’t exactly know,” I admitted.
“Are you…recovered…after your ordeal?” she asked with as much kindness as I imagined she could muster.
“Oh…yeah. Benny healed me too. I’m okay,” I said. “A little shaken up still about Shank. But I hated him, so I don’t know why I’m worried about it.”
“Shank’s dead? Well, good riddance to him. He was a grade-A piece of trash,” Lydia said primly, lighting her mile-long cigarette. She took a long drag and smiled. “With any luck, he’s rotting in hell with my husband. But that’s not what I meant. I meant the ordeal at Elvin’s.”
“Oh.” Of course that’s what she meant. Lydia probably had no idea about the explosion at Phillip’s show. “Yeah. I guess I’m okay with that too. I’m mainly just glad all of you are okay. Benny, and Roberta, and Lee…and you and Renee too.”
“And that blonde bimbo you call a best friend?” Lydia asked, ashing her cigarette with a repugnant expression.
“Sloan? She’s not my best friend anymore,” I said.
“I imagine you’re smarting from that too,” she said. “When you lose friendships in your thirties, for some reason, you feel them so much stronger than when you were younger. And it’s so much harder to replace those friendships when you’re an adult too. Why we don’t place as much importance on friendships as we do romantic relationships is a travesty. All types of love are important to have a healthy, spiritual relationship with one’s own self.”
I looked at her, surprised. I’d been having similar thoughts recently. It was a comfort to hear someone else say them.
“I’m occasionally wise,” Lydia said with another dry cough-laugh. “So stop dodging my question, Fee. Why did you come here?”
“I told you I don’t know,” I said, throwing up my hands. “I went for a run, and I just…found myself here.”
“We didn’t get a chance to speak much after you all rescued Renee and me,” she said, drawing on her cigarette. “I imagine you’d like some things cleared up?”
“Yes and no,” I said honestly. “Some things I’d rather just forget at this point, move on. But I wonder…I wonder…”
“What is it?”
“I know I got my powers from you,” I said, wringing my hands in front of me. “I know what happened when I was a kid. That my mother OD’d and you were trying to save her, and I came in and pooled my magic with yours and that’s when everyone found out I was special. When Elvin decided to start, I dunno, playing with my head. Using me as his little magical conduit or whatever. And I know Guthrie was part of that too, at least to some extent. It’s what led to everything happening these past few weeks. Me and my stupid magic.”
Lydia frowned, but she didn’t interrupt.
“So I know the magic started with you and somehow came to me. And I know Guthrie and Elvin are the main two who were behind all the bad stuff that’s happened, from then to now. I thought when they were both gone, it’d be over. But stuff keeps happening. My father’s house burned down, Shank tried to blow us all up, I find out that Nikolai is my friggin’ brother…” I swallowed. “And a lot of this stuff seems to lead back to my father. Up until a few days ago, I’d seen him maybe twice my entire adult life. But now I find that he’s as knee-deep in all of this as anyone.” I looked at her. “You remember my dad, right?”
“Of course,” Lydia said quietly, stubbing her cigarette out in a thick green glass ashtray. “I remember everything.”
“So then you know…” I trailed off, not sure how to phrase my question or certain I even wanted to ask it.
“What is it you’re wanting to find out?” Lydia asked calmly.
“Was my father… is my father…one of them?” I spat out. “Working with, for, however you want to phrase it, Guthrie and Elvin? I know he did at one point when I was a kid, but has he always been a part of this?” I shook my head. “Because the former I can digest, but if I find out he was still working for them when they were sending spies after me, having me kidnapped, trying to harm me, and Phillip and everyone close to me…if I find out he had a hand—even indirectly—in Tess’ death…”
“It’s unforgiveable,” Lydia finished for me.
“Yes,” I said. “I would never forgive him.”
Lydia seemed to consider this for a moment, then reached for another cigarette, lighting it with a trembling hand as the smoke from her previous cigarette lingered around her. The cherry flickered bright orange as she inhaled, then she regarded me with a soft look. “You know, when things started to get real, as you young kids call it, I was the one who suggested that Guthrie and I move to Boston.” She smiled, appearing lost in her memories. “We’d both lived in Georgia for so long, and it really felt like home. I loved it there. South Georgia has such a dry, eerie feel to it…something lurking there in those swamp waters, near the sea; it called to my spirit and still does. I was sad to leave it, butI wanted to get Guthrie away from Elvin. I knew his brother would only drag him down into the evil. That even though Guthrie might want to pull free at some point, it would be near impossible. I knew once he was fully enmeshed in his brother’s world, he’d be lost.”
“He’d be powerless against Elvin’s powers,” I mused.
Lydia snorted. “Fee, you know as well as I do that Elvin had no powers of his own. What little he possessed were simple parlor tricks I taught him in the hopes of mollifying him, and what he was able to glean through exploiting you and others.” She shook her head. “I’m not speaking of magic here, or any other type of otherworldly power. I’m speaking of good old-fashioned malignant narcissism. Elvin was good at manipulating people, especially those who loved him. Guthrie loved his brother and would have done anything for him.” She smiled sadly. “When my husband was young, he was quite a different person than the Guthrie you knew. He was sweet. A bit na?ve, even. Gullible. In the beginning of our marriage, when Lee was very little, we were happy. But then Elvin moved to be near us and started sinking his hooks into Guthrie, and that was the beginning of the end.
“So I talked Guthrie into moving here. He agreed pretty readily; I think deep down he knew he needed to get away from Elvin, from the drugs and everything that was going on. He knew Elvin had been doing exploitative things with the kids in his old trailer park—you and the others—and it made him uncomfortable. We moved here and got away from all that, and for a couple blissful years, I thought everything would go back to normal. It very nearly did.” Lydia sniffed. “He was still selling marijuana here and there, and probably harder stuff too, though he kept all that from me. The only time we really fought was when he sold Phillip Deville that spell. He laughed at the time and said I was being paranoid, that nobody would ever know how to use that spell, even if they were dumb enough to try. I guess we showed him, huh?”
“And how,” I said, and she laughed.
“You speak like an elderly person for such a young woman,” she said with a dry laugh. “I like that about you, Fee. You’re very old world. I think that might be down to your powers. Anyway, it was around the time he sold that spell to Phillip that he began talking to Elvin more and more. Phone calls, the odd trip down to visit for the weekend, things like that. And then one weekend, he went down for one of his trips, took Lee with him, and come Sunday evening, they just…didn’t come back.”
“He took Lee?”
She nodded. “When they still hadn’t turned up by Wednesday morning and Guthrie wasn’t returning my calls, I was forced to call the police and file a missing persons report. It was only after the cops showed up down in Brunswick that Guthrie finally called and told me he wanted a divorce. He thought he’d keep Lee; didn’t even ask or wonder whether I might want custody of my only son, just announced it like it was an already made decision.” She shook her head angrily. “I told him I’d bring his whole operation down around his ears and Elvin’s, too, if he didn’t bring back my son. We worked out a 40/60 arrangement, and that continued all the way into Lee’s adulthood.
“But after that, Guthrie was a lost cause. He fell right back into all the illegal drug dealings with Elvin, hanging out with and employing some very shady characters. He got heavily invested into the magic side of things too. Elvin convinced him that he if tapped into the power like he had, he could be very powerful. Of course, it didn’t work, but they were both convinced.” She put out her cigarette. “He was the one who asked for a divorce, but he never did sign the papers. Years went by, and he never did sign.” She smiled grimly. “I suppose I get the last laugh because I’ve inherited his house on Jekyll Island, the house where he died. Not that I want it; I’ve already signed it over to Lee.”
I shuddered involuntarily. I was responsible for that death.
“Guthrie is responsible for that death,” she said, reading my mind. “What’s that they say—play dumb games, win dumb prizes?”
“So what does this have to do with my dad?” I asked, confused.
“I meandered on the point, I suppose.” She laughed. “I wanted to illustrate to you that Guthrie wasn’t always bad, or all bad. At one point in time, he was a sweet, gentle husband and father. We had some good memories. But he was manipulated by someone stronger and more malicious than him. In some ways, I don’t think he could even comprehend that his brother might not have his best interests at heart. He trusted him implicitly.”
“Are you saying that my dad…”
“I’m saying that your father, along with many others, was duped, manipulated, and coerced by Elvin for a very long time. We do not have to forgive them for that. But I think understanding how it happened is important for our own healing.” She sat up in her chair, crossing her legs in the other direction. I could tell it was uncomfortable for her, sitting up so long. “What you choose to do with the information you have is up to you and you alone. Only you can decide who to forgive and when, and what forgiveness means.”
“So my father is still involved,” I said bitterly.
“Still? As you say, everyone is gone now,” she said kindly. “Perhaps ‘up until very recently’ is a more apt way of looking at it.”
“Either way, he had an active hand in hurting me,” I said. “Hurting Phillip. And literally everyone else I care about. How am I supposed to live with that?”
“When you discover the answer to that puzzle,” Lydia said, shifting again in her seat, “do let me know. Now, I think, Fee, you ought to go on home to your handsome man and let him explain himself.”
I grimaced. Of course she’d read in my thoughts that I was upset with Phillip. I didn’t feel like talking to him right now, but I could see that she was tired, so I stood reluctantly. “I’ll let you get your rest. It was nice talking to you, Lydia.” The truth was, I felt worse than I had before, but I supposed it had been good to see her.
“Liar.” She chuckled and accepted my extended arm, pulling herself to her feet, her other hand clutching her cane. “One more thing, Fee; You said that you ‘got your powers from’ me that night your mother was ailing?”
“Yeah,” I said, puzzled. “What about it?”
“That’s incorrect,” Lydia said. “You already had the power. I believe that’s why you were drawn to me; in your subconscious, even at such a young age, you recognized I was like you. You saw me doing a spell, and in a way, it activated your own powers. You started pooling yours with mine on instinct, through no intent of your own. It was all your magical self, your spirit self, tapping into your powers.” She smiled. “I gave you nothing.”
“Then where did it come from?” I asked. “Where does your magic come from? Why do some of us have powers and others, like Elvin, never do? Where did it all begin? Why is it I can bring someone back from the dead and someone like Benny can do the opposite?” I didn’t want to say “kill someone” out loud, for some reason. Maybe it felt too real. “Is there any rhyme or reason to any of it?”
Lydia’s laughter carried through the room. “That’s an awful lot of questions, Fee, and I don’t blame you for asking them, but I really am very tired.” She gripped her cane and turned to the doorway. “I suggest you ask Benny. I’m sure he’ll have some answers for you. I don’t know him well, but I believe he’s made a fairly extensive study of his own powers, and I’m sure he’ll be glad to enlighten you.”
“I will,” I said, a little disappointed.
“I do hope Lee marries him,” Lydia said, her haggard face taking on a hopeful look. “Though I don’t know how Lee will cope with a witch for a mother, a failed warlock for a father, and the most powerful one of all as his husband.”
“He’ll just have to learn to deal,” I said. “Because Benny is perfect for him.”
“I agree,” Lydia said, and she gave me a little shove with her cane. “And Phillip Deville is perfect for you. Now get out of my house and go find him, Fee. Conflict is so very boring.”