Chapter Eleven
Sunday afternoon Mim did something Bailey had never seen her do.
She actually left the house.
And Bailey wasn’t the only one startled by it.
People immediately got on their phones and called their neighbors, tracking her movements across town the way they might have tracked a grizzly bear that wandered out of the woods.
She walked by Mr. Cranston’s house, where he stood stock-still while watering his begonias, hoping she wouldn’t see him.
Regina Olmstead said she knew Willamena had walked by a few minutes later because her lights flickered (but, to be fair, her children frequently overloaded her outlets with their chargers); then she came to a stop in front of the house belonging to the principal of the elementary school.
She just stood there, nodding slightly as if listening to someone, though no one was around.
The principal was watching from his bedroom window, telling the woman behind him to stand back, lest she be seen.
Then Mim walked home.
One of the stories Tasha told Bailey was that Mim only went to church on holidays, and to the hair salon every three months.
But the moment someone got too vocal about why she, who almost never showed her face, was given such deference when she did, Mim would quietly pull that person aside and say something that made them look terrified.
Bailey witnessed this herself on her first day of kindergarten.
On Monday morning, just as she and her dad were leaving for school, Mim walked down the hall and informed Tug that she would like to join them.
Tug hesitated by the front door. “Why?”
“Your father was always the one to take you to school. Perhaps I just want to experience it myself.”
“No, really,” he said, as if she were joking. “Why?”
“You wound me, Tug.”
“That’s impossible.”
“What if I ask nicely?”
“You could have asked nicely days ago, and not in front of Bailey.” Then, as if not wanting to argue because he knew Bailey hung on every word when it came to Mim, he said, “We’ll wait for you outside.”
This was even better than Bailey expected. Mim was walking her to school, too! She wondered if this was what Mim meant by helping her navigate things. Maybe Tug would have gotten them lost.
Several minutes passed as Bailey and Tug stood on the sidewalk, misty morning air curling around them like string. Tug kept checking his watch. Finally, he said, “Go tell your grandmother if she doesn’t hurry, we’ll be late.”
Bailey immediately stopped hopping across the sidewalk to feel the satisfying bounce of her new backpack, and ran back up the steps to the front door. Tug had left it slightly ajar, and she could hear Mim talking as she approached.
“This isn’t up for discussion,” she said. “The one thing my grandmother let me choose was my own friends, and look where it got me, where it got you. I have to do this.” She paused. “I’m not beautiful when I’m angry. And I’m too old for you to be flirting with me.”
Bailey’s school clothes were so new they made sounds when she moved—her sneakers squeaked and her dress rustled—so Mim turned quickly from looking into the living room when Bailey stepped into the foyer.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked.
“Just myself.” Mim smiled. “It’s been a while since I’ve had other people in the house. I need to curb my tendency to speak out loud.”
“Daddy said we’re going to be late.”
“I’m getting my jacket now,” Mim said, and walked down the hall to her bedroom.
Bailey hesitated a moment, then quickly poked her head into the living room, fully expecting to catch Jack by surprise.
The room was empty.
When they reached the school a few minutes later, it was bustling with the nervous energy always accompanying firsts. But once it was known that Willamena was there, people grew quiet and actually parted in the hallway for her.
Everyone, that is, except Pam Keller, who came toward them at a fast clip.
“Tug! Exciting day, isn’t it? My first day at work!” She stood back as if to let him admire her. She looked better than Bailey had ever seen her, in slacks with a crisp crease, and rather a lot of makeup.
“And the girls’ first day of school,” Tug reminded her.
“Yes, of course.” Pam turned to Mim and looked like she wanted to curtsy, just as Bailey had the first day she met her. “Hello, Mrs. Wester. I’m Pam Keller. My ex-husband is Jani Keller’s nephew. She was like your sister in high school, right? We’re practically related!”
Mim just stared at her.
Pam waited a few seconds longer than most people would have, which began to feel awkward. Finally, she laughed and waved her hand. “I should go!”
“Good luck,” Tug said. After she left, he added in a lower voice, “You could have at least acknowledged her.”
“That’s not my way, Tug,” Mim said.
“Yes,” he said as they walked into Bailey’s classroom. “I know that very well.”
While he and Mim went to introduce themselves to her teacher, Bailey ran to Tasha, who was standing alone in the classroom’s reading nook.
Tasha looked instantly relieved. She said her mother had dropped her off and not lingered, anxious to get to work, but Tasha’s shoelaces had come untied and she didn’t know how to tie them.
Bailey went to her knees and tied them for her.
She had so much to tell her about her weekend and tea with Mim, but as she stood, Tug approached and said, “We’re leaving now, sweetheart.
Have a good day. If you two stick together, you’ll be fine. ”
Bailey gave him a hug, her eyes searching for Mim and the possibility of hugging her, too, though Mim seemed very prickly about touching.
She found her by the teacher’s desk, where she was leaning in, whispering something.
The teacher jerked her head back as if shocked.
She finally nodded and got up from her desk, crossing the room to where the students’ desks were grouped in fours.
She took a name card off one of the desks and walked to the farthest corner and switched it with another name card.
Apparently satisfied, Mim went to the door to wait for Tug.
After that day, Bailey and Tasha weren’t even allowed to sit with each other at lunch, or be on the same team at recess.
Bailey was an instant object of attention, which she wasn’t used to being and thoroughly enjoyed.
But that wasn’t the case for Tasha. Several kids already knew her from church and seemed to actively dislike her, calling her Smeller, even though she didn’t smell at all.
She was, in fact, quite clean. It weighed heavily on Bailey’s mind, the sheer injustice of it all.
All week she concocted plans to thwart their teacher, to convince the rest of the kids to like Tasha, to rescue her.
She never once doubted her ability. It was just a matter of time.
Like her dad said, they had to stick together.
On Friday after school, Tug informed Bailey that Mim had invited her to another tea in the sunroom.
As soon as they walked into the Wester House, she dropped her backpack and darted to the sunroom, leaving Tug to pick the bag up. She knocked, and then ran inside.
“Tell me about your first week at school,” Mim said, and began to pour the tea.
Bailey hopped in one of the magpie chairs, and was immediately distracted by the fact that there were cookies on a plate today.
Thin, buttery ones with almond slivers that looked like shadows of petals baked inside.
Every day she came home from school positively ravenous, as if she’d been wandering in the wilderness for weeks.
“Our teacher separated me and Tasha. I don’t like that part, but I’m going to fix it. ”
“I’m glad she did as I suggested.” She extended the plate of cookies and Bailey took one.
“You told her to do it?”
“Suggested,” Mim said. “And that she should be more discreet if she continued to spend time alone with your married principal. I found it unwise to make friends when I was young, Bailey. Consider making strategic allies, instead. Friends will hurt you more than you can possibly imagine.”
“I can’t have friends?” she asked, alarmed. “What about Tasha?”
“You can do whatever you want to do. I won’t stop you. Just…” She hesitated, as if trying to figure out how to word this. “Be careful who you let in.”
Mim only ever said important things, so Bailey considered that as she ate the cookie. “Like how you don’t let people in the house?”
“It’s similar.”
There seemed to be a choice she had to make here, one Mim was trying very hard not to frame as one.
The only thing Bailey knew for sure was that Mim might not be a witch, but she had still conjured a life where she didn’t have any holes, so she never had to search for something to fill them.
A life complete with a haunted house, beautiful clothes, tea, and now cookies.
She had what she wanted, so she didn’t need anything else.
Until now all the belonging and happiness Bailey had ever experienced came from the outside world, not from inside her own home.
But the Wester House was different. Here, she had Mim.
And she was certain if she had her love, her approval, it would be enough.
So she didn’t really need friends, did she?
Later, at a different time and a much different place in her life, Bailey would wonder, if she hadn’t ever met Mim, would she have become someone else entirely? Someone good? Or had her nature been formed long before she was born?
But whether nature or nurture, one thing was certain.
That was the day she truly began to feel like a Wester.