Because he wasn’t wrong…but he wasn’t right either.
“Look,” I said. “You weren’t there, Whit. I said some fucked up shit, put my foot in my damn mouth like I always do…and there was a goddamn snake in my bed. How the hell do you come back from that?Please come back and help me clean up the church, sorry you almost died here?”
Whit gave me the same look he’d given me when I fell out of the pecan tree and broke my arm when I was thirteen—a little annoyed and a little smug all at once.
“I mean, you didn’t put the snake there, did you?”
“I don’t know how a snake ended up in my bed.”
“Then why are you beatin’ yourself up about it?”
“Because the curse?—”
Whit groaned, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Silas…I swear on all that is holy?—”
“That’s kind of the point,” I snapped. “I’m not crazy, Whit. This is about patterns, about history. First our folks, then Amelia, and all the ones who lived and died before us…”
“Didn’t Willow and Rhett get it on in the woods and takecare of all that?” Whit asked. “I could’ve sworn we were past the curse shit.”
“You don’t just move past somethin’ like that when it killed your fiancée.”
“Or maybe it’s just hard to move past the dead fiancée, full stop.”
Whit’s words stopped me in my tracks—the burger forgotten, my jaw clamped shut. I sat there, stomach churning, heart beating too hard.
Whit held out his flask.
“Trade ya,” he muttered.
I handed him the burger and he handed me the flask; I took a sip, he took a bite.
“Silas, you fuckin’ bastard,” he said. “I’m not here to give you shit—well, maybe a little bit—but you can’t blame the curse forever. Sometimes…weird shit happens, especially in Willow Grove.”
“Weird shit like seein’ your dead girlfriend’s ghost?” I asked.
Whit had to do a double take at that; now it was his turn to forget the burger while I took another, longer sip of whiskey.
“You wanna run that by me again?” he said.
I just stared up toward the steeple, into the light of the stained glass window.
“The night June got bit,” I said. “I saw Amelia’s ghost walkin’ her into the back at the clinic…didn’t quite look right at me, but I knew it was her. Clear as day.”
He finally found his voice. “What the fuck?”
“I know how it sounds,” I said. “I thought it was shock at first…or sleep deprivation. But it wasn’t like that. She looked…she looked real.”
Whit rubbed both hands over his face. “You really think it was her ghost?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this earlier?”
“What was I supposed to say, Whit?” I grumbled. “That I saw Amelia’s ghost escortin’ June to the other side? Hell, folks already think I’m crazy for the snake—may as well add ghosts to the list.”
“Folks think you’re crazy for way more than that,” Whit muttered.
“Not helping.”
