Chapter 3
“Well, good. I’m tired of running him off every time he comes around here. He shows up here every Sunday afternoon, and every Sunday afternoon I’m out there yelling at him to get back in his car and go away and leave you alone.”
I blink at her. I don’t know what to say. The bitter taste of disgust coats my tongue. Either she’s lost her memory or I have. Two solid years of Bobby molesting me under their noses, and neither of my parents ever told him to leave. Not once. My dad had worshipped the ground Bobby walked on, and my mom had been petrified to say anything to Daddy that might be construed as defiance, including standing up for me against a predator.
My mom’s jaw drops, and she sucks in a long draw of air. Her words are slow and measured as she tries to piece together the puzzle.
“Lauren! I just remembered!”
Her hand finds mine, and she squeezes it as she closes her eyes and nods, as if she’s already explaining to herself what she’s remembered. Mama’s hand is cool and dry in mine, thin, quivering, like the belly of one of those lizards that races around the outer walls of her house.
Mama never knew what happened to Bobby, and I don’t like these memories resurfacing now. I’d been twelve years old when I begged my dad not to force me to go camping in the nearby woods with Bobby, who had promised Daddy he’d teach me how to build a campfire and other survival skills.
I’d learned survival skills all right!
My dad had called me spoiled and thankless and a little brat, so I turned to my mom as a last resort, knowing she would never stand up to my dad for fear of what he would do to her—and to me. I had such awful feelings being around Bobby, and yet, none of his behavior was out of the norm in my family and I was too sheltered and naive to understand exactly what was wrong. I hadn’t realized for another thirty years just how dysfunctional my upbringing had been. For all the shadow work I’ve done during my Second Degree phase with the Grand Coven and in the years since, Bobby is the one shadow I have yet to eliminate, so I’ve left that old wound covered and safely unaddressed.
“Pecan pies.”
Great. That’s what Mama remembers. Desserts, but not the truth of my childhood. She can’t look at it, and I won’t.
“I forgot. I knew when the boys were coming over and that you’d be home soon, Lauren, so I made a snack. My famous little pecan pies.”
“Pies?” From the living room, Dix winks at me as if to remind me of his status as the most eligible bachelor in a tiny Southern town full of desperate, pie-making women.
Mama ambles toward the kitchen and returns minutes later, balancing three dessert plates, each one with a fist-sized helping of pecan pie. Her two guests and I each pry the pie from its small aluminum pie plate, and I bite into mine like a giant cookie. My little brother, who is closer to Virgil’s age than to mine, tells everyone it’s his favorite snack, except that Shelby tends to put a big scoop of vanilla ice cream between two of the little pies and then tries to shove the whole thing into his mouth all at once.
I nod fervently and open my mouth to proclaim my mom’s pie delicious, as always, but something sharp digs into the back of my mouth. I freeze as a sickening crack explodes in my eardrums. I gasp, choking on whatever has lodged between my molars. Before either guest can leap to my rescue, I turn away to spit out the pie. With trembling fingers, I pluck out from between my teeth a hard brown pecan hull and a wide jagged shard of my own tooth. I slowly raise the pie for inspection and squint at the single bite I’ve taken of it. Dozens of perfectly shelled pecans scar the tart surface, each one cradling a deadly pecan hull poised to rend unsuspecting teeth.
Ugh!
Both men, watching me, stop short of taking their first bite. Virgil picks up his brother’s pie, places it atop his and heads to the kitchen.
“You know what, Miss Emma? Dixon and I are going to ruin our supper if we eat now, but if you don’t mind, I’ll just get some tin foil and wrap these up and we’ll take these back with us, okay?”
Pleased, my mom smiles. “Y’all are such good boys. I’m so glad you both moved back here. Y’all take such good care of me. And Dixxie, I hope you’ll be taking my daughter out and seeing what y’all can rekindle.”
Dix grins up at me. “I’m game.”
I rub the side of my jaw. I tentatively run my tongue along the ridge of my molars, and when it hits a jagged edge, I feel a sting. My mouth fills with the metallic taste of blood.
I’ll have to see if there’s a decent dentist in town who can work me in tomorrow. But it also means I’ll have to make sure I’m the one doing all the cooking for my mom while I’m here. I’m not sure if she can’t see the pecan hulls in her pies or if she’s been uncharacteristically careless, but this is the first time in fifty years that I’ve known of even the tiniest piece of hull to make it to her final product, let alone dozens of large pieces.
“And Virgil?” Mama says.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Sometime this weekend, I need you to go walk down to where the woods on my property turn into swamp, and see if you see anything.”
A shiver starts at the base of my spine and works its way up. Why would she send him there? To the last place anyone saw Bobby alive, that someone being me.
“Uh, yes, ma’am, but what am I looking for?”
“I—I don’t know. There’s something there, though. I can’t remember what, but I need you to check it out.”
“I’ll do that for you, Mama. Let’s not impose on the Caine brothers.”
“I didn’t tell you? They just moved into the old Coleman place and started renovating it. Dixxie and Virgil are my neighbors!”
“I-I didn’t realize.” In my head, I play back everything I’ve learned about them, none of which included the location of the property their mother had bought before extracting a promise to move back to their hometown. “So you’re both retired now? When did you move back?” I’m full of questions, but I don’t want to be rude.
Dix laughs. The same laugh I remember from high school, but deeper. “Beginning of the year. Right after Christmas. Your mom says we just missed you. I retired the last day of the calendar year. Thirty years as an attorney at our dad’s firm. Our granddad’s firm, too, but I guess it ends with me since I never had any little Dixxies. I’m the last of the backwoods Southern lawyers you can’t trust your soul to.”
I nod appreciatively at the reference to a song from our childhood about the night the lights went out in Georgia. He laughs again, this time at his own joke.
Virgil chuckles. “Dix shouldn’t say he’s retired. He may not practice law anymore, but he dabbles in real estate twice as many hours as he ever spent at the firm.”
I study Dixon’s aura as he rises, arms over his head, to stretch. He’s ill. Lingering and slow. Nothing to be done about it, but nothing happening for a few years. I wonder if he knows.
I glance discreetly at Virgil. His aura doesn’t carry any of the murkiness of his brother’s or the undertones of red. Instead, the energy around him glows a pale white, clean, clear, and a vivid blue at the outer edges of his energy field. Whatever challenges his life has wrought up until midlife, he’s made his peace with them.
“What about you, Virgil? You’re not old enough to be retired.”
He pats his right knee. “I’m afraid the Department of Defense would disagree with you. I hoped to wear stars on my shoulder one day, but after I got shot nine times in Afghanistan, they decided it was time I take a break and do something else. One of the colonels I worked with convinced me to come back to my roots. After caring for my mom the last few years, I decided to take a job with the nursing home here. I specialize in end-of-life transitions. I seem to have a talent for it.” He smiles faintly. “Dix and I have been renovating the old Coleman place. My mom always loved it there. It’s where she met our dad at some youth choir cookout when she was a kid. If you see grave digging equipment in the field behind our house, don’t let it scare you. We’ve started a green cemetery. Besides my mom, we have six occupants now.”
I pause to let his words sink in. The kid I used to babysit grew up to get shot nine times, works with the dying, and now owns his own environmental-friendly cemetery next door to my childhood home. I don’t sense any witchy vibes from my old flame, but magick swirls all around Virgil.
Is he a witch like his mother? And the bind rune on his wrist? Is it what I think it is? A symbol of an ancient priesthood of non-Wiccan witches who don’t live by the same rede as I do?
Dix sticks his hand out. “If you give me your keys, sweetheart, Virg and I can grab your luggage out of your car and bring it in for you.”
I fish my keys out of my pocket and drop them into his palm. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve held that hand. What I remember most about him is that he was a good kisser. That and the fact that if his mom hadn’t come home early that night, I probably would have lost my virginity to him before I was old enough to drive.
My mom closes the door behind him and turns to me. “Dixxie is such a nice man. And he’s single. You should be glad I’ve made this match for you. I remember how googly-eyed you were over him when you were a teenager. You need a husband. You’re not getting any younger, you know? This may be your last chance.”
“Aw, come on, Mama—”
It’s not that I’m permanently done with dating. I just don’t need to. I’m happy as I am, and if someone interesting comes along, so be it. But I’m no longer chasing that dream of having a loving partner. I’ve had one in Jesse, even if I lost it, and that’s more than many people get. Besides, all Dixon Caine and I ever had in common were raging hormones.
I frown at the half-eaten pecan pie in my hand. I can’t risk any more broken teeth. I put the pie back in the fridge, all the while claiming I’ll eat it later and knowing that I will drop it inconspicuously in the garbage. I move jars of expired food around inside the refrigerator and open an old container to find lettuce leaves that have turned yellow with age. She literally has nothing in the house to cook.
“Mama?” I call over my shoulder. “I’ll buy groceries for you tomorrow and cook for you while I’m here.”
I’m not exactly being altruistic. If I cook it myself, at least I’ll know what’s in my meals. Preferably not pecan hulls. Plus, it’s got to be healthier than what she’s been eating lately, probably under the excuse of saving money.
“Hey, Mom? For tonight, I’ll have a pizza delivered, and we can watch some of your old British movies on the old VHS player if you like.”
She readily agrees as the Caine brothers stumble through the back door with two suitcases, my laptop bag, and all the clothes that have been hanging across a clothes rod in the rear of my car.
“Jesus, girl,” Dix mutters as he drops my suitcases near my mom’s recliner. “I’ve never seen a car as packed as yours. Looks like you Tetris’ed a whole house in there.”
I did, but I don’t tell him that. I’ve been away from my mom’s home all these months while I made repairs to my house and sold it. As of five o’clock this morning, I’m legally homeless. Everything stuffed into my car is what I absolutely cannot live without until I move my storage unit full of furniture to wherever I decide to settle down.
Carefully avoiding the recently dried-out Mother’s Day bouquet on the coffee table, Virgil drapes my clothes and their hangers over the back of the sofa and then cautiously places my laptop bag next to my suitcases. With a sleight-of-hand maneuver, he passes a note to me.
“That’s the name and phone number of the new dentist in town. He’s just taken over his father’s practice and he’s usually really busy on Saturday mornings, but I’ve already called his office, and they can work you in.”
I can almost hear what Virgil doesn’t say aloud: As a favor to me.
“You boys aren’t leaving, are you?” My mom glances from Dix to me and back again. “I was gonna get something out of the freezer and whip up some supper, but Lauren has a better idea. She’s going to order some pizzas for us. Then, after supper, we can watch the moon rise over the pasture from the back porch. And then maybe you boys can help me figure out whatever happened to Lauren’s Uncle Bobby.”
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