At the Corner of King Street (15 page)

She suckled, her eyes moving toward the sound of my voice.

“I'm sorry, am I boring you? “

Carrie grunted softly and kept eating.

“No one seems to believe me when I say I'm not the person to fix all this. I'm not.”

Carrie didn't bother a glance or a sound as she ate. I watched the crew move quickly and efficiently with the stones. Zeb and his men, no longer willing to stand on the sidelines, transported the stones to the bed of my truck, moving as one unit. His operation was a well-oiled machine, whereas mine was working but was held together with bubble gum and string.

Carrie finished her bottle easily. I burped her and changed her diaper before repositioning her back in the sling. She fell asleep, her face relaxed and peaceful.

She was learning to depend on me. Learning to expect that when she cried I'd be there with a bottle, a clean diaper, or a soft word. My words of warning fell on deaf ears. I only hoped she would have someone she could really trust.

An hour later, the chimney of the hearth was dismantled as well as
half the base. The job I thought was out of reach this morning was nearly done.

Margaret knelt in front of the hearth and then rose, waving me over. “Addie, come over here and see this. Very interesting.”

I moved across the thick grass and, tucking my hand under the baby's bottom, knelt. “What is it?”

“Look inside the hearth.”

I glanced at the stones long ago blackened by fires that kept a home warm. Weeds grew among the soot-stained stones, sticks blown in by wind clustered in a corner, and dozens of large ants scurried toward one of the cracks. Time never waited. “What am I looking for?”

Margaret pulled a small flashlight from her back pocket and shone it in the corner. The light shimmered off a near-invisible surface. “See that?”

“Yeah.” Cupping Carrie closer, I leaned in, feeling the same pull of energy felt years ago when I touched the key and more recently when I looked at the portrait in my room. Unsettled, I tensed. “What is it?”

She reached in with a small stick and gently chipped away at the dirt around the object. Her hands moved methodically, reflecting the experience earned over a decade of dusting away the past. Slowly, the dirt fell away to reveal the shape of a bottle turned upside down in the dirt. With her fingertips, she scraped away more dirt until she was able to wrestle the bottle from the earth.

Margaret slowly turned the bottle right side up. It was short, made of brown handblown glass, caked in dirt. The cork, blackened and coated with age and filth, was sealed in place by wax.

“What's that?”

“Judging by the glass, I'm guessing it was made in the mid-seventeen hundreds, give or take a decade or two.”

“That dates the fireplace.”

“It does.” Margaret held the bottle up to the light and, as she moved, a metal-like object rattled inside. “This is truly amazing. I can barely breathe. I can't wait to show the folks back at the center.”

“Grace has a bottle like that.”

“Like this?”

“She calls hers a witch bottle.”

“I think that's what this is.” Margaret shook her head. “I doubt it's as old as this one. We have only one or two in museums that have survived intact.”

“Maybe hers isn't so old, but they do look the same.” Carrie fussed and squirmed. “I should offer this to Dr. McDonald. We're here to remove the stones. The rest really belongs to her.”

Margaret frowned. “Can we just hang on to it for a few days? Give me a chance to figure out what it is. I'll clean it up for her.”

“I can't, Margaret. I have to show it to her.”

“Can I go with you? Maybe I could make a case for history and the center.”

“She wasn't open to sharing the ledgers.”

Margaret pushed out her bottom lip in a pout. “I'll be nice.”

“Let me talk to her. I'm good at turning a no into a yes.”

“Really?”

“It's not possible to run a vineyard without getting a lot of personalities to work together.”

Margaret pressed her hands together in prayer. “I would really like to study the bottle. You know my birthday is soon.”

“Give me the bottle, Birthday Girl, and let me ask.”

She reluctantly held it out to me. “I suspect you can be nicer than me.”

The energy from the bottle all but hummed as I reached for it. For a moment, I hesitated to touch it. Finally, drawing in a breath, I wrapped
my fingers around the bottle's neck. An odd sense of unease shot up through my fingertips. Sadness and fear collided. My breath hitched.

What the hell? I studied the simple bottle, half tempted to hand it back to Margaret. The same thing happened when I held Grace's bottle.

“You okay?”

“Sure. Fine.”

“You're pale.”

The vibrations around the bottle waned, softened, and then vanished, leaving me to wonder again if magic or madness was at play. “Be right back.”

Heading toward the house with the bottle in my right hand I was struck by its weight. Not that it was heavy or fully loaded, but it pulled toward the earth, seeming to wince against the bright light. The bottle was very similar to the one on Grace's hearth.

I knocked on the back door and seconds later heard the clip of high-heeled shoes. Dr. McDonald opened the door and the rush of cool air blended with her perfume and swirled around me. She glanced toward the hearth. “It appears to be almost done. Progress.”

“Yes. We should be finished within the hour.” Carrie squawked and squirmed. Patting her bottom, I held up the bottle. “We found this at the site.”

Dr. McDonald took a step back and straightened. “What is that?”

“An old bottle. Handblown. Margaret thinks seventeen hundred-ish.”

Her noise wrinkled. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“We found it on your property. It belongs to you. I'm contracted to take the stones only.”

Dr. McDonald's gaze settled on the bottle and for a moment her eyes lingered. Her face paled as her fingers reached for the top button of her silk blouse. I was ready to hand it over to her when she shook her head. “Keep it. I don't want it.”

“You're sure? It's old and might be of value.” Carrie fussed louder, so I swayed, hoping the movement would lull her back to sleep. Her fussing slowed to grumbles.

“I don't want it. You're welcome to it and whatever else you find by the stone hearth. Just get it all off my property.”

“Okay.”

Taking a step back, she stood rigid, her hand poised on the door. “Is that all?”

“Yeah. Just wanted to check in about the bottle.”

“Okay. Let me know when you're finished.” She closed the door and the high heels clicked, growing more distant as the house swallowed her up.

“Sure.”

Margaret jogged across the lawn. “What did she say?”

“She said we could keep it.” I handed it to Margaret. “And I'm giving it to you.”

“Giving?” A million dollars in cash wouldn't have made her happier.

“The least I can do.”

Margaret accepted the bottle and cradled it close to her chest. “This is so awesome.”

“Happy Birthday.” I glanced at Carrie and discovered she'd found her thumb. I was fairly sure in some baby book it warned that this was not good, but the kid sucked greedily, and I sure wasn't going to be the one to tell her she couldn't enjoy comfort when she found it.

Margaret held the bottle to the light, but caked dirt and mold blocked us from seeing through it. She gently jostled it and again we heard the clink of something inside. “If I find out any information about the bottle, do you want me to tell you about it?”

I'd be gone by Friday, so it didn't really matter about the bottle. “Sure.”

A light snow fell today, blanketing the muddy streets with a pure white. Until today, Dr. Goodwin worked with the men building our house. He seems most anxious to have us all settled. He tells me he is using the profits from the last voyage of the
Constance
to buy fine furniture for us.

Though I am excited at the prospect of a real home, the baby weighs heavily in my belly and I find it hard to get comfortable. My time will come any day now.

I
dropped Margaret off at the Archaeology Center by three and then drove the few extra blocks to the warehouse. Pulling into the alley parking spot, I glanced in the rearview mirror. I couldn't see Carrie's face but the steady sound of her breathing told me she was asleep. Maybe I could squeeze out ten or fifteen more minutes.

Since arriving in Alexandria, I was always racing the clock. Racing to get Janet in the hospital, racing to a meeting with the social worker, racing to remove the stones today, and now racing to feed the kid. After the Friday morning meeting with the social worker, it would be a race against time to get back to the vineyard and finish up the details of the opening.

Tick. Tock.

The air conditioner still running, I sat back and leaned into the seat, willing knotted muscles to release. The pace might be crazy now but it wouldn't be forever. Days from now, I'd wake up in my own bed, refreshed and ready to face my real life.

Past the warehouse and through the thicket of trees, the waters of
the Potomac flowed slowly. During my summer here, I often snuck down to the riverbanks and stuck my toes in the cool water. Once Janet tried to convince me to take a swim with her, but the current was so fast and looked dangerous. She called me a baby. She said I was scared, as she tugged off her shoes and jumped into the water. The chaos of her hyperactive mind couldn't override the strong pull of the water, which quickly began to pull her downstream. Panic flashed in her blue eyes as and she reached out to me. Without a second thought, I grabbed on to a tree branch and leaned out to take her hand. She took hold with a surprising grip. I pulled, fighting a current I thought would take us both. But I didn't let go. I held on to the branch and Janet.

“Karma, I've paid in a lot of goodwill over the years, and if there were a moment in time when I needed payback, it's now. Find me a good home for Carrie and make Janet better. I won't ask for another favor.”

For a beat or two, silence swirled, making me wonder if Karma heard my plea. An expectant smile teased the edges of my lips and then the baby wailed.

“Thanks, Karma. Thanks.” I shut off the truck engine and got out, opened the back door, and pulled the car seat free. “I know. It's been a long day. Hopefully you'll soon be in a nice new home, and I'll be back home. Auntie Addie is going to have a very big glass of wine on Friday.” I kicked the car door shut with my foot, irritated at Karma and myself for expecting a miracle. “You'll have your new, happier home, and I'll get my life back. I'll make it happen.”

I glanced at the pile of rocks now secured under the tarp and immediately filed them under tomorrow's agenda. Today demanded last-minute calls for the wine reception.

Climbing the stairs, I passed several packages addressed to me. More party details. As much as I wanted to dive into them, I went
straight to my bedroom, where I found a fresh set of clothes for the baby in the clearance bag. Grace. Not helping and helping. Like me.

I changed the baby and hefted her up on my shoulder. The routine was becoming smoother and not as nerve-racking, and as tempting as it was to feel good about that . . . I didn't. I was her temporary fix, not her permanent solution.

Ten minutes later, I sat in a rocker in the living room, a bottle in the baby's mouth as she greedily sucked.

My back relaxed into the rocker, but as much as I wanted to close my eyes, I didn't. There were too many party details to handle. My printer shipped the guest cards to me here so that she could go through all the names tonight and arrange the seating chart. A few hours of work and then I'd call Scott, remind him that I loved him, and wait for him to say the right words that would soothe the numbing guilt overcoming me. I wasn't giving Carrie what she needed and I wasn't giving Scott or the vineyard all of me. This feeling of not being enough first flickered as smoldering embers and now burned brighter with each day.

Stomach grumbling, I didn't have the oomph to get up out of the chair and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I couldn't take care of myself.

For an instant I half hoped Scott was climbing the stairs, rounding the corner, and smiling to greet me. As much as I didn't want to share this part of my life with him, I needed him to take me into his arms and hold me close. I needed to hear, “I love you, no matter what.”

No matter what.

Tears glistened, and I closed my eyes to stop the flow of tears.
No matter what
. All love came with conditions. Unconditional love wasn't real. People loved each other for many reasons, but there was always a reason. I was loved because I was glue. I held lives together. My
shining armor didn't glisten in the sun. It seeped into the cracks and crevices and held tight.

“God, but I need a
me
right now.” The seams of my life were unraveling. And as much as I wanted to ask Scott for help, I knew it tempted ruin.

My gaze drifted to the mantel and settled on the witch bottle found the other day. Margaret's discovery of a similar bottle prompted several questions. In the mid-seventeen hundreds, Alexandria was a new, bustling city with a growing collection of wood-framed and brick homes. Though it was a far cry from its more sophisticated sister cities of Williamsburg and Richmond, Virginia planters saw a bright future. However, the bottle proved some superstitious people remained rooted in the past.

Two women. Two bottles. Could a woman like Faith have scared them so much that they cast a protection spell?

The door downstairs opened and closed and steady, determined footfalls moved up the stairs. Grace rounded the corner, carrying two plastic grocery bags. Silent, she moved into the kitchen and unloaded her purchases.

Carrie finished the remains of her bottle, and I slowly lifted her to my shoulder and gently rubbed her back until she burped. When her cheek relaxed against my shoulder her breathing grew slow and deep. I rose and carried the sleeping child to my room and tucked her in the makeshift dresser drawer bed.

In the kitchen, Grace opened a sleeve of white bread and was buttering each side as a skillet heated on the stove. She tucked cheese between the slices and placed two sandwiches in the pan. “I see the truck is full of stones.”

“We salvaged nice pieces. And Zeb thinks he might have a buyer, a stonemason, who's been commissioned to build a hearth in a mountain home. The man is supposed to come by and look at them tomorrow.”

Grace flipped over the sandwiches, turned down the stove, and reached for two mismatched plates in the cabinet. “What about Social Services?”

“Ms. Willis is still coming by the warehouse tomorrow at eight in the morning.”

“Maybe we'll all have what we want by then.”

“Maybe.”

She slid a sandwich on each plate and handed me mine before she wordlessly sat at the table and began to eat.

“Thanks.” I filled a glass with water from the tap and drank before I sat with my sandwich. Seemed a sin to enjoy such a simple dish that was loaded with fat and refined wheat, but the grilled cheese sandwich soothed nerves firing nonstop.

The silence settled between us, trapping me in my thoughts and Grace in hers. Neither of us wanted to be here, but here we sat, each controlled by an illness that seeped into so many lives.

“Are you going to see Janet before they move her to the mental health facility?” she asked.

“I'll ask Janet's doctor about her, but she needs to focus on getting well.”

“Focus. That's never been her strength.”

“Nope.” I tore off a piece of butter-soaked crust and ate it.

Grace set down a half-eaten section of sandwich and wiped her fingers on a paper towel. “Janet reminds me so much of your mother when she was younger. Pretty, vivacious, and full of life. I never met a man that wasn't drawn to her.”

I couldn't imagine my mother as a young woman. My memories were of an exhausted woman overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood and mental illness. Mom would sit for hours in front of the television, watching game shows and soap operas, drinking cup after
cup of coffee. She dozed during the day on the couch and then roamed the house until dawn. There were times when she made a grab for sanity, but it always remained out of her reach.

“She was always asleep when I came home from school.”

Grace studied me for a long moment. “Janet's going to be different.”

“Is she? Or are we good at telling lies to ourselves?”

I ate the last of the sandwich and rinsed off my plate. “I'm going to rest for a few minutes. The baby will be up around midnight and neither of us slept well last night.”

“I bought that powdered formula. The pre-mixed stuff from the doctor is about gone. I priced the big cans of ready-mixed formula, but it's too expensive so I bought the powder. I don't know how to mix it, but it can't be too hard.”

Unless it's midnight, and you have a crying baby in your arms. “Where is it?”

“On the counter.”

A glance at the canister told me instantly it was more work than popping a top and putting it in the baby's mouth. I read the instructions, pulled several of the baby's bottles from the sink, and rinsed them out with hot soapy water. Carefully, I scooped formula into each bottle and mixed in six ounces of water. Fifteen minutes later, there were three bottles to go in the refrigerator. “That should get me to breakfast.”

Grace bit into her sandwich. “See you in the morning.”

“Right.”

In my room, I glanced at the sleeping baby and sat on the edge of my bed. My gaze drifted to the portrait of the stern woman, Sarah Goodwin. Energy pulled. I wondered if she and the witch Faith crossed paths. Though her dark gaze appeared so practical and sound, I wondered if she could have been swayed by fear of the dark arts enough to make a witch bottle.

I yawned and rolled my head from side to side. Too tired to worry about Sarah let alone shower the day's sweat and grime off me, I kicked off my boots and lay back on the pillows. I thought about the place cards and the seating charts. Damn. I still needed to review them. Five minutes. That's all I needed. Two seconds later, I was out.

*   *   *

It was past midnight when Zeb tossed his pencil and pulled off his glasses. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Eric was asleep and the house silent. He rose, moving to the shelf holding a picture of a smiling Janet holding baby Eric. Her blond hair was bright and her eyes vivid.

Her leaving ripped through him and for a long time life was simply putting one foot in front of the other. Eric kept him going and slowly life found a new normal. Somewhere along the way, he assumed Janet would never come back into his or Eric's life. He believed the stability he and his son enjoyed was rock solid, and that she couldn't upset it.

But the last few days proved him wrong. Janet stumbled back into town, a new child in her belly, and they were all paying the price.

Eric's questions about his mother were frequent before, but then, Janet was a far-off smiling figure captured only in photographs. Forever smiling, she was the happy, vibrant woman in the slim-fitting white wedding dress grinning beguilingly as Zeb gazed at her. She was the young mom holding her infant son in her arms hours after his birth, or she was the pretty, slim woman at Eric's christening.

Sometimes, when he looked at the pictures, he forgot all the turmoil and remembered the woman he loved.

Zeb rose from the desk and climbed to the second floor of their house. A pull-down attic string hung from the ceiling and very slowly he tugged the steps and climbed into the attic. At the top of the ladder stairs, a tug on another string clicked on a bare lightbulb.

The space was mostly full of old furniture, business files, and Eric's forgotten toys. Seven years didn't seem so long until he came up here and stared at the relics of so many memories.

Zeb straightened, but the limited headspace required he walk stoop-shouldered past a collection of boxes, toys, and the footlocker that held his old uniforms. Reaching a darkened corner, he found the cradle that he'd built for Eric. Though dust covered it, the smooth walnut lines remained straight and sturdy.

He could build anything. He didn't need plans or patterns—just give him a picture, and he could figure out the construction. Janet found the picture of this cradle in a baby magazine, and she'd been so excited about the piece, she'd asked him if he could build it. Grateful to see his wife smiling, he tore out the picture and the next day began the project. It took him several months, working on the cradle after twelve-hour shifts in the new construction firm, but as Janet's belly grew, the cradle slowly took shape.

Janet loved the cradle, declaring it better than the picture in the magazine, and the day they placed their son in it was one of those perfect moments life rarely offered.

Janet's problems distracted Zeb from his son, who was growing so quickly. What should have been a joyous time was riddled with strife and fear. By the time Eric was four months old, he was too big for the cradle and Janet was gone from their lives.