Iggy
My baby is crying, his wails distant and angry. I can feel his little spirit. Noah, I knew it from the first moment I laid
eyes on him, is a rebel, a powerhouse. But right now, he’s just a baby, one who needs his mom. I have to go home to him.
I swim up through layers of consciousness, higher, higher, reaching desperately for the milky light I see above me. I have
no body, no voice, no words. His name shimmers in my mind. Noah. Baby. My baby boy.
A flutter of light, a flicker. A strange beeping. A harsh white glow. Brock, pacing the room, looking at his phone. He looks
so tired, so afraid. Ana thinks he’s weak, but he’s not. He’s a thinker, a feeler, loyal. Most men believe that anger is power.
Throw a punch; wield a gun. They think that’s what makes them strong. Brock has been taught differently. I am not Marge’s
biggest fan, nor she mine I’m sure, but she has raised a rare kind of man, one who respects female power.
I try to speak but my throat only aches. A tube. Tubes everywhere, coming from my arms, leading to machines. I try not to
panic but my heart starts to race, and the monitor beeps faster. He turns to me.
“Iggy! Iggy! She’s awake.”
A crowd then, all around me. Nurses, the doctor who’s been here often, young, Indian maybe, with kind eyes and a smooth, earnest face.
“Iggy, relax,” the doctor says, keeping eye contact. “You’re okay. I promise. Okay, cough big for me. Hard as you can.”
I do as he says, and he expertly pulls the tube. It comes out of me and I gag, then I am gasping for air, throat on fire.
“Easy, easy,” he says, one hand on my shoulder, one on my arm. The healing touch. He has it. I can feel it travel through
my body, soothing me. “I got you. You’re good. Breathe. Breathe.”
Brock has my hand, his eyes holding mine. “I’m here,” he says. “Iggy, I’m here.”
As soon as I have my voice back, I rasp, “Noah.”
“He’s fine,” Brock says, but his eyes say something different. “He’s with—Ana.”
“Ana?” I ask, incredulous, the word just a squeaky croak. Oh, no.
He lifts a palm. “She’s been helping with him. Actually.”
“What’s happening? What’s going on? Where is he?”
“He’s safe at home.” Brock holds out his phone, so that I can see an image of Noah asleep in his crib. Seeing him there safe
and sound, my breath comes easier, the beeping of the monitor eases.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” says the doctor. “We’ll be back to draw some blood, run some tests. But welcome home, Iggy.”
It all comes back to me in a rush. The brunch. Paul found murdered.
“Who did this?” I ask. “It wasn’t—Ana?”
“I don’t think so, no,” says Brock, sitting. “She came with a milk thistle mixture yesterday. We put it in your IV drip. Honestly,
I think that’s what saved you, Ig. You started to get better right away.”
Ana. I should have known she’d never hurt me. That she’d come through for me when I needed her.
I remember the girl she was when we were in college, fiercely loyal, wild, always with me, willing to do anything, go anywhere, veering from one bad relationship to the next.
In so many ways, she was my first love, the way you can only love a friend, or a sister.
That unconditional bond, which is stronger than anything you will ever have, could ever have, with a man.
The reason our relationship is strained now is because of Brock and Noah.
Not because she wanted Brock, or a baby, or because she’s angry Brock and I are together.
It’s because my love for him and Noah comes before my love for her.
It’s the same reason she was angry when Vera got pregnant.
She knew Vera would never put her husband before her sister.
But Vera’s children would be a different story.
But Ana has come to love Coraline and Grant in her way. She’s a good auntie to them now.
“She’s good with him actually,” says Brock, as if reading my thoughts.
This makes me smile. I always knew she’d come around and be Noah’s loving Auntie Ana as soon as she realized that there was
just one more person to love her.
“Where is she?” I ask Brock now.
“I—don’t know. I haven’t been able to reach her. Vera’s with the baby now. We’re not sure where Ana went.”
Other memories come back, ugly ones, dark ones.
“She’s in trouble,” I say, trying to get up. It’s on the air. I can feel her energy. It’s dark and dangerous. She needs me.
But my body doesn’t work, my limbs filled with sand, my head pounding. The toxin mingles with my blood, a blackness spreading
through my system. I think back to the brunch. What did I eat, drink?
There were pastries, creamy, flaky, filled with jam. Champagne, dry, bubbling in my throat.
Ana’s cassoulet.
I ate it like I hadn’t eaten in weeks; it was rich and meaty, delicious. I ate it until I couldn’t eat another bite.
I think about the table. Payton, chic and powerful. Vera, elegant and cold. Esme, cheerful and kind. Ana. She seemed fragile to me. In pain, needing attention. Who else was there? There’s a fog in my head, obscuring memory.
April.
April Snell was in the kitchen with access to all the food, all the plates, all the glasses, and the serving wear.
She carefully ladled out the portions of cassoulet into bowls, served one to each of us.
Quiet, meek little April. Always in the shadows. Lisander’s pet. April’s mother, Trina, tried to poison her, made April sick
so that Trina could have the attention doctors shower on the mothers of ill children. Trina always maintained her innocence,
claimed that she was trying to heal April. But poor April wasn’t ill until her mother Trina started to administer her “medicine.”
Trina went to prison, but the real punishment came from The Cove. From Agnes, who was its leader until her untimely death.
Or so I’m told.
I didn’t grow up in The Cove like so many around here have. I joined later, when Ana learned about my gift with potions, and
taught me some of the things she knew. She brought me in, and I have loved this sisterhood. Women helping women, using the
power of the planet to heal each other. To protect each other when necessary.
But why would anyone want to hurt me?
Unless.
“What happened at the brunch, Iggy?” asks Brock now. I tell him all the things I’ve been thinking. And he listens, brow furrowed
with concern.
The pieces start to fit together.
“Ana’s in trouble,” I say again. “She needs me.”
“Ana has to take care of herself now,” says Brock, pulling up the chair beside me.
“Noah and I need you to take care of you, to get better. If your liver function doesn’t improve, they’re talking about a transplant, Ig.
You have to rest, okay? You need all your energy to fight the poison in your system. ”
He puts a heavy hand on my shoulder as if he thinks I’ll try to get up. As if I could. I’m so weak.
I look at my husband. His expression is loving, gentle but stern. I wonder if he’ll understand when I tell him what I’ve done.
“Honey, I need you to hear me. You have to help me.”
In the dim of the room, I whisper to him the truth of what I’ve done, what I suspect might be happening now, and what I need
to do next. He would be within his rights to walk out the door and not come back. He could take Noah away, even call the police.
After I’m done, I hold his eyes. I see his shock, his fear.
“Will you help me?” I manage in the dim quiet, praying he won’t get up and walk out on me for good.
“Iggy,” he says instead, a gentle hand to my cheek. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Relief and love wash through me. Outside the window, I see the blue glow of the full moon. The Wolf Moon.
“Then help me get out of here.”