Chapter 14 #2
I know some things about monsters. The way they don’t ask for permission, how they take whatever they want, and how some don’t need submission.
Screaming, crying, begging doesn’t matter or change the outcome.
Mine held me against my will, stole parts of me—physically, mentally, emotionally, and despite being ready to die, I survived it.
I’m not as brave as some; I don’t know how to kill monsters, but I can keep secrets.
Birdie stands, opening the slim double doors that lead to her garden.
The smells of rosemary and damp earth waft inside as she lights a long skinny cigarette.
She leans against the frame, half inside and half out, giving herself an extra moment to decide what detail comes next or to stop sharing altogether.
She perches the filtered end between her lips, hollowing out her cheeks and taking a long drag.
On her second pull, she finally looks at me.
The herb-smelling smoke lingers on her exhale as she says, “There’s a certain way we go about things like this?—”
“Stan got messy,” my mother cuts in.
Birdie huffs for being interrupted. But my mother finishes her margarita, and then claps her hands in front of her, doing it again. “I love the drama, but sometimes we need to cut to the chase, Ma.” My mother shifts her attention back to me. “This will make you an accessory, Wynona.”
I already knew that.
“You won’t be able to unhear it. I know how you already think of me, but Birdie’s flawless charm will seem a little less sparkly?—”
“For fuck’s sake,” I breathe out, exasperated as I tip my head back. This isn’t about her passive-aggressive tendencies shining through.
“Lu,” Birdie says, pinching between her eyebrows. When she looks at me, she says, “Wyn, Stan Billings isn’t missing. He is very much dead.”
Hearing it and the details surrounding it have me feeling lighter, almost relieved.
The reality of what it means settles like a heavy weight on my shoulders.
I shake my head, knowing I need to hear more.
“There needs to be . . .” I look over to Lu and more quietly say, “Tell me that there’s a good reason why. ” I need them to not be monsters.
Birdie nods as she hops up onto the counter.
She knocks over the saltshaker when she says, “Deputy Billings has been dealing drugs for nearly a decade, which, normally, I say, enjoy however you choose to get fucked up.” Crumbling up a piece of paper, she plops it into her empty glass and nudges her chin to Birdie.
“We’ll call that fodder for now. His verbal abuse started by putting Cora down privately, then it turned public.
It happened more and more often. I witnessed it a few times over the years.
I’m sure plenty have, but then it escalated.
Hurtful words and shitty names turned into shakes then shoves, slaps then punches, kicks then props. ”
My chest tightens, knowing what props had been used with me.
“Cora endured it for years.” Birdie tosses my mom a gold lighter.
She flips it, pulls, lights the wadded paper in her glass on fire.
Gathering some of the spilled salt, she sprinkles a pinch of it into the flame.
“It was easy to spot—the bruises and over-explained stories about how they happened.” My mom takes a breath, runs her fingers along her palm and up her wrist. Her pause makes me wonder how well she knows the progression of abuse.
My eyes blur from the tears welling.
“You know people talk, but it’s not our place to step in,” she says as the small flame snuffs out.
It leaves a stream of rising smoke that she wafts away.
“Usually when the authorities aren’t helpful, or if there’s enough anger simmering beneath a woman’s hurt, then those women find themselves flipping tarot cards and asking for help in a different way. ”
I swipe away the couple of tears that fall and sit taller in my chair. There were a lot of people in and out of The Whispering Fool, this house even, my mind swirls with thinking about how that could have been so much more than what I ever paid attention to.
All of the rumors that had been circulated about my mother my entire life . . . The Black Widow of Rumor. The most dangerous Crowne. A death trap.
I look over to my mother. “People have been saying things for years about you,” I say, biting back emotions as I look at my mom.
“You can thank your grandmother for that. Garden club and having an in with the church’s prayer tree has its benefits, I guess,” she says. “Sometimes rumors can mask the things we don’t want people talking about, or noticing.”
I look between the both of them, unsure how to organize any of this.
All of those horrible things were there to take the focus away from what had been actually happening.
I blow out a rush of air. Being responsible for one man’s death is ridiculous enough, but this, what they’re saying .
. . “I have more questions,” I tell them.
Birdie crosses her arms. “Thought you might. Just know we can’t answer all of them.”
“Then why tell me at all?” I push out a frustrated and almost angry huff at that response. “Why sit me down like some sort of intervention?—”
“Because you walked into a storyline that you have no business being a part of,” my mom shouts.
Her brow pinches and lips turn down like she’s mad, but her eyes shimmer with tears threatening to escape.
“If I could erase it. If I could make sure you didn’t need to know this about me and your grandmother, I would,” she says, holding her fist to the center of her chest. “But you’re a big girl, Wynona.
” She sniffs a laugh that isn’t laced with any lick of humor.
“I have a feeling you know exactly why we keep things from the people we love. Call it selfish, call it lying, but we’ve done it all these years to protect the people most important.
” A tear finally escapes, and she bats it away, lifting her chin.
“And now the best I can hope for is that this is something you can live with.”
Do I really have a choice?
“Is it just men?” I glance at Birdie, and then back to my mother.
They both tilt their heads to the side. “As it turns out,” Birdie says.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and drop my head.
Getting oxygen into my lungs feels like it’s taking more effort than usual.
I’ve been pretty exceptional at keeping my panicked moments away from them.
Closing my eyes tightly, I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
I run through all the tarot readings Birdie has done over the years.
There have been thousands. How many of those resulted in this same way?
“What about my dad?” If there’s a story behind anyone disappearing, there has to be one about him.
She laughs and mumbles, “I wish.” But it’s Birdie who interjects and changes the topic. “You have questions about Julian, too, I’d imagine.”
I have plenty. They expand far beyond what my mind’s able to process tonight.
A plume of smoke lingers around her words when she asks, “Would you rather ask him for those answers?”
“I’d rather not have any of this be an actual topic I need to consider,” I bite back.
Birdie looks down at her palm with a tight-lipped smile.
“Yes,” I say softly, knowing that what they’ve just shared is more than any one of us wanted. “I have questions for him. But can you tell me, how did you find him?”
“Family business,” my mother chimes in. Looking down at her phone, she types away and adds, “Three, maybe four generations. Doesn’t matter, because if he was doing his job like he’s supposed to, then Julian should have already left.
Him still being here attracts unwanted attention, as I’m sure you’ve noticed tonight.
Don’t think Jameson and Fury aren’t keeping tabs on the comings and goings of people right now. ”
“Who are you texting?” I ask in an annoyed tone.
“None of your business,” she says on an exhale. She looks up, and over to Birdie first, and then to me. “The Jeweler would only stay if something was keeping him here. Or someone.”
“Are you planning to share about where you met him?” Birdie asks.
Mom points at me with a smirk, before I even try to answer.
She hops down from the counter. “Looks like you’re a Crowne deep down, after all, Wynona.
Listenin’ to tales about killin’ bad guys and pining after morally gray men.
” She raises her eyebrows and lets out a raspy laugh.
“You looked good behind that bar tonight too.”
I bite down, grinding my back molars. She knows how to piss me off quicker than anyone else.
Moving toward the kitchen again, she says, “It would be smarter now if he stays. Maybe entertain the idea of fucking around with him for a little bit longer. He has a thing for you. Though I don’t understand how a person learns how to erase a crime scene . . .”
I squint at her because she can’t be serious with that line of thinking after telling me she and Birdie are out here killing people.
“His dad was always in and out. Never had to worry about police asking him any questions,” she says, glancing at Birdie, who looks uncomfortable for the briefest moment.
“I feel like I have to say it, but this is not something to talk about. You’re not going to your therapist with a new level of detail contributing to all the ways your mother fucked you up. ”
I want to throw this glass at her right now.
“Your sisters do not know any of this either. This is after-midnight-margarita chatter only, Wynona.”
I raise my eyebrow, and with a sarcastic laugh, say, “You actually feel like you need to say that to me?”
“Yes. Yes, I do,” she says back with a snark.
I need to get out of here.
“I’m still trying to figure out who came back here seven months ago.
I think this woman,” she says, looking at me from the tips of my boots to the top of my head, “the one who’s looking at me like she's not sure if she wants to deck me or hug me is the kind of woman I consider unpredictable. Before . . .” She shakes her head, cutting her words.
“Before you were gone, I knew what to expect. But now, I have no clue.”
I stand and walk toward the still-open doors that lead to the garden, just as my mother rushes out to the kitchen, full of added drama, as usual.
The one person I didn’t expect to see me so clearly just read me like a book. I’m still not sure who I am here, and I’m not sure if it’s more comforting or frustrating that she knows that about me. It feels like it knocks the wind out of me. I need to get out of here. I shake out my fisted hands.
“She wanted to keep this away from you girls. It’s the one thing she’s always stuck to her guns about,” Birdie says as she watches me linger in the doorway.
“You know your mother, she’s a wild card in every way, except when it comes to you and your sisters.
There isn’t much she wouldn’t do to make sure you all feel safe. ”
The problem is, it doesn’t matter what either of them wants. There was a time when I wasn’t safe, not even close.
“I have to go,” I say, looking back at Birdie.
She fixes her caftan and nods just as I move through the doors.
Instead of the path up to her garden, I bank a left and move toward the bar.
My shoulders start aching from how they’ve been bunched, my jaw sore from clenching as I walk across the footbridge to my place, my feet moving forward on autopilot.
I exhale, feeling lightheaded as I type in the code and enter. I brace my hands on my thighs, bending forward. In through your nose and count, dammit!
It’s not panic, but I need to calm down.
I feel my pulse racing as I find the edge of my bed and stare out my window.
My skin feels tight and my muscles tense as I play the conversation over in my mind, trying to make sense of it.
Trying to berate myself for not knowing any of it before tonight.
They gave me some answers, but I don’t know if I’m better or worse for having them.
If it was only Stan, then maybe I could justify it—the knowledge that he was a shit human and hurt people in various ways.
But knowing that this wasn’t the first, and there’s no mention of it being the last, I’m reeling.
I think about the people who have disappeared, left town, or have gone missing, and I can’t help but wonder if it was Birdie or Lu behind it. I’m equal parts horrified and mystified.
They’ve outsmarted everyone.
And as much as I want to feel good about knowing this truth, like I can wrap my head around their moral code and scream at the top of my lungs that they’re unhinged but I love them, what I really want right now is a distraction.