‘I’m so sorry,’ I offered, but my contrition wasn’t nearly enough for my aunt. ‘You know I didn’t choose any of this. If we could swap, I’d hand it all over in a heartbeat.’
‘You really think I’d want it?’ Ashley asked. Her furious expression turned into one of surprise and the corner of hermouth flickered bitterly. She looked away and shook her head. ‘I know it’s not your fault. Hating you won’t help me any, but if your dad hadn’t run away, if he had stayed and I had left, things would have been very different for all of us.’
‘Catherine says he left because he wanted me to have an easier life,’ I said cautiously, tiptoeing around our uneasy truce. ‘What do you think?’
She pulled at a loose thread on my comforter, pulling it taut and wrapping it around her finger.
‘Men don’t do so well with the reality of our situation,’ she replied. ‘Historically speaking, there haven’t been many sons in the Bell line. But when Catherine fell pregnant with Paul, she failed to take the proper precautions to ensure the baby was a girl. She won’t admit it but I reckon Daddy wanted a boy first, a good old-fashioned southern son and heir. As if that means anything in this family.’
‘Is that something we can do?’ I asked, unable to hide my surprise. ‘Choose the sex of a baby, I mean?’
Ashley looked at me like I’d just asked if the sky was blue.
‘Sure. It’s just a matter of giving nature a push in the desired direction.’
She twisted the thread tightly around her forefinger, the thin cotton digging sharply into her flesh. Then she flicked her wrist and snapped the thread in two.
‘Can’t change the past,’ she said as she tossed it away onto the floor. ‘Your magic is all that matters now. The blessing comes first, everything else is a liability.’
‘Things change,’ I replied as she climbed down from the bed, tracking more dirt behind her on her way out. ‘You could still meet someone else.’
She stared at me from the doorway, head tilted to one side as though considering my suggestion and whether or not I might be right.
‘Not while there’s a Bell witch living in this house,’ she decided before slipping away into the darkness of the hallway. ‘There’s nothing for me in this whole world while you and Catherine are alive.’
Chapter Nineteen
I found Catherine in the sunken back garden of Bell House. High walls, camouflaged by flowers and vines, kept us in and the rest of the world out. The flowerbeds were so full they looked like a patchwork quilt and every inch of available space was filled with dozens, if not hundreds, of different plants, from seedlings in tiny thimbles to towering trees in wooden boxes more than half my height. Birds sang in the trees and bees buzzed around my grandmother as they flitted from one flower to the next, happy and pollen-drunk. Ashley’s thinly veiled threats had sent me spiralling but when Catherine smiled at me I couldn’t help but smile back.
‘There’s my little witch.’ She tipped her chin towards the empty seat across from her and I sat. ‘I see someone caught the sun today, wherever have you been?’
She plucked a glossy leaf from a spiky plant and snapped it in two, handing half to me. A cool, clear gel oozed out over my fingers.
‘It’s aloe, it’ll soothe the burn,’ she said as I cautiously dabbed it on the bridge of my nose. ‘There, doesn’t that feel better?’
‘It does,’ I replied, tapping the gel into the tight skin on mycheeks. ‘I went out to Tybee Island but I guess I didn’t wear enough sunscreen. It’s gorgeous out there.’
Catherine’s eyebrows drew together and her mouth tightened.
‘It most certainly is but I wish you hadn’t gone alone,’ she said. ‘The ocean can have a strange effect on our magic, especially when everything is in flux as it surely is for you. Did anything peculiar happen?’
If I told her about the pull of the ocean, she would only worry and maybe even try to keep me in the house. Not that my aunt was the most reliable source but it sounded as though Catherine had grounded Ashley for an entire decade and I couldn’t take that risk. I couldn’t lose Wyn the way Ashley had lost Ellie.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not that I can think of.’
‘The tides can have an unpredictable impact on our magic,’ she replied as I turned the chunk of aloe over in my hands, thick and shiny and edged with sharp spikes. Helpful and dangerous at the same time. ‘Sometimes they amplify our abilities, sometimes they take them away. Or they can simply confuse matters, the way a magnet can confuse a compass. Witches and water do not play well together.’
‘Is it the same for rivers?’ I asked, thinking back to all those times my dad had made excuses not to take me to the beach.
‘Just the opposite. Rivers represent a positive flow of energy, they refresh and revive our magic. That’s one of the reasons our family thrived in Savannah. But the ocean is truly unpredictable. Until we have a better understanding of your abilities, it would be best to stay away from the beach.’
She took her half of the aloe leaf and sank it back into the ground, patting down the soil around it.
‘Is that magic?’ I asked as she picked up a little red watering can.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s gardening.’
Everything around us was full of life, vibrant and promising. Even the woodshed looked like it was part of the garden, aged by the sun with honeysuckle vines climbing up one side. I tried to imagine what life might have been like if I’d grown up here, Dad pushing me on the swing that hung from a tall beech tree, picking strawberries with my mom, watching the fish in the koi pond with Catherine. Would Ashley like me more if I’d always been here? Through the kitchen window, I saw her bustling around, wearing her usual miserable expression. At least she might not wish I was dead.
