The Witch of Belladonna Bay Read Online Free PDF Page B

when my own touch of “shine” showed up, even the parts of our family history we thought were exaggerated seemed true.
    When I was little, there was magic around me. The rising moon, the setting sun. I saw it hidden in Naomi’s sea-green eyes and in Great-aunt Minerva’s glowing palms. I felt it the first time Grant kissed me.
    So hearing Byrd had strange ways didn’t shock me.
    It was the next sentence that threw me under the bus. “She looks like your mama, too.” I wondered for a moment at the straight-up unfairness the world had to offer. I grew up wishing nothing more than to see my mother’s face looking back at me in the mirror. Her full, black hair and pale skin that tanned a honey gold in the Gulf Coast sun. Those big, startling, green eyes, and delicate yet strong elfin chin. If she’d had a tail, she’d have looked just like the mermaids in the stories she used to read to us.
    I longed to look like her. To be a mermaid.
    Instead, I look like purebred Whalen. Not a breath of my mother in me. Patrick, either. We’re both blond with ice blue eyes and porcelain skin. Dolls, those Towners used to call us. The Whalen Dolls. The only thing I had of hers were her hands. Delicate and thin. She loved that we had that in common. She’d put my palms up and make them cup her face, then she'd kiss each of my fingers and fold them shut one by one.
    â€œThere’s an island just across the bay from where I grew up, did you know that, Bronwyn? I was always afraid of it, just like you’re afraid of Belladonna Bay. So I never went. But I heard stories, that over there when mamas do that with their babies, and the babies open their hands, the smell of roses fills the air, and a feeling of love washes over them, making the word love unnecessary. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, love? If I could give you that?”
    There was such sadness in my mother. She never did understand that those light kisses on my fingers gave me all the love I’d ever need.
    The very thought of that bit of land behind the Big House, shrouded in a veil of sweet, sick mist was enough to make me turn right around all together.
    â€œYou still there, sugar?”
    â€œI’m here,” I said, choking back tears. “But I got to run. You tell her I’m coming, okay? You tell Byrd that Aunt Bronwyn is on her way.”
    Jackson laughed so hard he dropped the phone.
    â€œAnd what, may I ask, is so goddamned funny?” I asked when I could hear him breathing in the receiver again.
    â€œLook, sugar, she ain’t gonna care a lick about you showing up or not.”
    â€œOh, yeah, then if she doesn’t need me, why am I coming?”
    He was quiet.
    â€œI didn’t say she didn’t need you, I said she wouldn’t care. She’s wild like them snakes that hide in the tall grasses, Wyn. You’re gonna have to charm her some. Then again, I could be mistaken. I can’t tell which way that girl will go. Just like your mama, bless her soul.”
    I figured that was all I was going to get, so I tried to ask him about Paddy, but he’d dropped the phone again, and my flight was boarding.
    *   *   *
    One of the problems with taking photographs for a living is you can’t just glance at anyone. You have to look into them.
    The people boarding the plane looked, almost without exception, like each had been disillusioned with life somewhere along the line. But what really got me was the kids. Not like you’d think. They never annoyed me, it was worse than that. Especially the little chubby towheaded toddlers. They hit me like a sucker punch straight to my gut. All of whom, boy or girl, could have been Paddy as a baby.
    And there’s one of those blond babies on every flight, isn’t there?
    I flew home to Magnolia Creek by way of Mobile, Alabama, with a little twin of baby Patrick sitting right in front of me the whole way home. Each mile that