The Wolf Witch (The Keys Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

fronds rattling in the breeze. Paradise. Her mother had painted it over and over and again, childish paintings, each one so similar that they blurred into one. Sometimes a boat, sometimes a leaping dolphin, but always with a palm tree, a crescent of white sand beach and a tropical sea. One time Regina had painted the whole living room wall, in a burst of activity so fierce and ecstatic that Blue dreaded the inevitable crash more than any that had come before. When it came the mural was nearly finished; Blue found her mother kneeling in front of a half painted conch shell, brush drooping between her fingers and her eyes staring straight through the wall into the inevitable abyss.
    You kept busy. You tried not to dwell. That was the knack of it.
    Footsteps on the stairs. A chorus of drunk giggly shushing. Blue heard the door slam.
    She turned on the light and sighed. In a few moments the sex noises would start again. The AC unit rumbled and creaked, finishing the job that the sauna of a night had started. There would be no sleep for a while, especially not now that the waitress had once again entered the bone zone.
    The box was in the nightstand. Blue would never admit it to herself (could you really be creeped out by the body of the person whose body had been your entrance to the world?) but it was losing her sleep. Ever since she had come to Islamorada she had found herself checking out each palm-fringed beach for its potential, its resemblance to Regina’s drawings. But there were always people on the beaches, and it was then that Blue realized that there had never been a person in the paintings. And now she would never be able to ask why; if it was because her mother couldn’t do people or whether the pictures, with their prayer-like repetition, were some kind of invocation to solitude.
    It was as good a time as any. She took out the cardboard box and slipped her key into the pocket of her robe. Next door the waitress moaned, a low, nerve-jangling note that made anger flash up Blue’s spine, settling in the vertebrae of her neck. Not for the first time she imagined yelling, pounding on the wall. Selfishness – that was all it was. An inability to think about anything beyond her own itchy crotch. Some people had bigger problems; money, jobs, hurricanes, mothers in cardboard boxes.
    Blue tiptoed down the creaky attic stairs, down onto the balcony above the laundry and down those steps to the ground. The sea was louder now, a steady, low roar behind the softer sound of the tamer waves on the shore. The beach was still so new to her that just that afternoon she had wished she had a child or two, so as to have an excuse to build sandcastles.
    She opened the lid of the box where it was still light enough to see. The plastic bag inside was white, opaque, and when she lifted it she was shocked by its lightness. This was all, in the end. They gave it grand words – ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the Lord is my shepherd – but here, in her daughter’s hands, what was left of Regina Beaufort felt as prosaic as a package of cornstarch.
    Determined not to cry, Blue walked down the lawn towards the water. The grass was soft under her feet but beneath it she could still feel the heat of earth that had yet to cool down completely from the day. Cicadas chirred in the deep, rustling darkness. There was a light on at the end of the jetty. A boat bobbed just beyond, its white side (port or starboard – she didn’t know) gleaming like a beacon against the black of the waves. She ducked her head and kept walking, unable to go back now. The prospect of goodbye was almost obscenely desirable; how many times had she braced herself for this over the years? Now that it was nearly upon her she knew there was no way she was taking that package back upstairs, where it would sit in the nightstand and make her dreams uneasy with the worry of duties undischarged. It was time. Long past time to go.
    She dipped her feet into the ocean. The waves