The Witch of Belladonna Bay by Suzanne Palmieri Read Free Book Online Page B

Southern honesty.
    â€œSo that’s how it’s going to be,” I said, but I smiled at him as I said it. A truce of sorts.
    He opened the door for me, the air conditioner blowing out the “new car” smell. Jackson upgraded all his cars every year. I wondered if he ever got rid of my old car. My love. A cherry-red Mustang convertible. Probably not. Jackson may have liked upgrades, but he was also a collector. He would have kept that car as part of his “Bronwyn the First collection.”
    I slid into the cool cave of the car and let Carter close the door.
    â€œHow’s Paddy?” I asked when he’d situated himself in the driver’s seat.
    â€œWell now, I suppose he’s doin’ as best as one would expect, considering. But how ’bout we get you all settled before we open that can a worms.”
    He drove out of the airport. “You want me to take Ten to Ninety-eight straight on down? Or would you rather we take scenic Ninety-eight? Might give you a little time to reacquaint yourself.”
    The absence of traffic gave me a second of culture shock. “How much have things changed down here?”
    â€œNot much in the towns, but the interstate is the interstate no matter where you go these days in this fast-food nation of ours. Wall-to-wall convenience. Outlets too, by God.”
    â€œI guess we better take the scenic route then,” I said.
    We drove twenty minutes on the highway, and then we were on county roads. Damn, if the Alabama coast isn’t still the best kept secret in America. I watched the trees go by as we drove. Palm trees and crape myrtle bursting with luscious red and pink blossoms. Large, waxy leaves dancing among the magnolias’ hundred-year-old branches, their prehistoric and otherworldly pods dangling from the crux of the leaves. And then, the straight-backed pine trees, defiant in their opposition to the twisted trunks of their neighbors.
    Trees down south have a difference to them, a subtle, slinking movement, mile by mile—a gracefulness, a swagger. Lanky trees stretching out their wiry thin, Spanish moss–covered branches, moss that sways and beckons … come here, come here, it says.
    â€œI’m too late for the magnolia blossoms,” I said.
    â€œYep. We’re in the green season now. Nothin’ much grows in July, as I’m sure you recall.”
    â€œHas Esther bloomed since I’ve been gone?”
    Carter laughed a bit and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Nope. She’s older than dirt. She can’t bloom no more.”
    We passed pecan farms, peanut fields, and grazing livestock. Sweet, little cottages dotted the byways, and soon we were crossing small bodies of water. I’d forgotten how each home had a sign out front with not only the house number but the name of the family who lived there. Calaman, Dumond, Du Puis, Kelsey, Miller, Freehold, Berman, Cooper, and on and on. There’s a lot of pride here in the South, and it’s so clean. I’d forgotten how clean. As we passed the beach at the town line, our little bit of the Gulf of Mexico, I saw my childhood in the docks, the pavilion, and the stretches of sand where I’d run free from May through November.
    Before I knew it, we were making the drive up Main Street in Magnolia Creek.
    My mind took pictures. Click, click, click , until they all bled together like a choppy Super 8 film. Nothing had changed. I could almost see the sides of the filmstrip, frames bound in black, the negatives showing the dark underlight of it all.
    But I could not get drawn back into this place so quickly. It would be easy to drown in its beauty and forget that Lottie was dead, and my brother gone, too. Dead in another way altogether. Mermaids don’t drown, I thought.
    â€œWant to hear some music, Wyn?” asked Carter, as the filmstrip in my head sputtered and melted off the reel.
    â€œThat would be nice,” I said absently.