Chapter 1 #3
When Christine finished reading, she sighed deeply. “I rescued this one from the library sale,” she said, waving the little yellowed paperback. “I had a feeling it was destined for the landfill.”
“Pretty sure they recycle them,” Georgie said.
Evelyn shook her head. “It’s just awful. This town has had its ups and downs, but I never thought we’d lose the library.”
Burrsville’s public library had been in the same building since the founding of the town; it was a squat, brick thing with a flat roof, from which an assortment of weeds had been growing for years.
The town was too poor to maintain it, and even if someone had the wherewithal to apply for a grant, no one wanted to dole out precious state funds to resurrect something that looked like a bomb shelter.
The library, technically, still existed; after massively downsizing its collection, the town had moved it to one of Main Street’s many empty storefronts.
Nonetheless, everyone knew it was only a matter of time.
“We can bring it back,” Georgie said with forceful optimism. “There was a time when I thought I’d have to close, but I powered through.”
“I don’t know,” Paul said softly. “It just doesn’t feel like home anymore.”
Everyone paused. Paul rarely liked to be the center of attention of the whole group, typically only engaging one person at a time and listening more than talking. He glanced around nervously, an uncomfortable but determined set to his mouth.
“I didn’t just sell the bull,” he went on.
“I have a buyer for the whole herd, and I’ve decided to sell the farm.
It’s breaking me down. I’m thirty-two years old and I fall asleep in my chair every night at seven-thirty—this is the latest I’ve been up in months.
I’ve had carpal tunnel in my wrists for so long I don’t even remember what they’re supposed to feel like.
We lost the farmer’s market, we lost the co-op, and besides all of you, the only people who buy from me are the yuppies in the city.
It feels like it’s all crumbling underneath me, and I’ve got to get out now or go down with it. ”
Evelyn reached across the table and folded her hand over his, her eyes glassy. Paul stiffened at the contact but didn’t pull away. “What will you do?” she asked.
“Go back to Virginia for now. My mom and dad turned their farm into one of those barn wedding places and they need some help running it. Doesn’t sound so bad to me.”
The pause after his words settled deeper this time.
Paul had talked before about selling off his stock—it was a common refrain from November to March, when the snow and wind made life on the farm hellish instead of pastoral—but never about leaving Burrsville or going back to his parents. He’d never sounded so certain before.
Evelyn was visibly fighting back tears. She’d always viewed Paul as, if not a son, at least a product of her hard work.
“Burrsville needs new blood,” she often said, and even though Paul had been here ten years, she still held him up as an example.
After he arrived and set up his farm, she’d waited with bated breath for the flood of other new young people who would surely arrive.
They never did, and now losing Paul in the same year as the library must’ve seemed like hard evidence that all her work was for nothing.
I sat up a little straighter in my chair, raised my glass, and met Paul’s eyes. “We’re lucky to have had you for this long,” I said, “and we’ll cherish every minute we have until you go back to Virginia.”
“Here, here,” Max murmured, and glasses clinked around the table.
“Whatever you need, we’re here to help,” Georgie added.
Paul cleared his throat roughly and ducked his head. Christine moved the conversation along to the annual harvest festival, the planning of which she’d run for the last several years even as it continued to shrink. I settled back into my chair again and let the words drift over me.
As disheartened as I was by Paul’s announcement, I couldn’t deny the small relief in it too.
I’d been friends with all of them for at least a decade, Georgie longer than that, and in another few short years, they would start to notice the wrong things about me if I didn’t stop it.
It would’ve been the most difficult with Paul, whose mind was younger and sharper, who wouldn’t have forgotten me so easily.
Despite Christine’s best efforts, the mood was subdued for the rest of dinner, and Georgie stood up to leave as the clock struck eleven.
Since she was Evelyn’s ride, Evelyn went too, and Paul got up a short time after, clearly not wanting to be the last to leave.
Christine offered to help me clean up, as she always did, but I waved her off, and she and Max left a few minutes later.
As they all went, I pressed the leaf and acorn charms into their hands.
“Party favors,” I laughed, and because they were all my friends, I knew they’d put them on their mantels or their kitchen tables, at least until the Christmas decorations came out.
My magic would steep in the energy of their homes, diffusing slowly, deepening my power and the strength of my influence.
I’d felt guilty about it at first, making them complicit in their own domination, but I didn’t do it to become rich or powerful or privileged.
I did only what I needed to protect myself.
When the last car had disappeared down the driveway and I heard the faint clang of the gate shutting, I returned to my chair and poured myself one last glass of wine before I started cleanup.
There were still a few charms left on the table, including the one in front of Max’s seat.
I picked it up and turned it over absently.
Just then, the white candle went out again. The flame did not waver or tremble; it simply disappeared, as if pinched out by invisible fingers. There were still a few inches of taper left, but I did not move to relight it.