At the Corner of King Street (3 page)

Guilt chewed at me as I stared at 4 “Missed Calls” on my phone's display. Janet was back, no doubt bringing with her another wave of destruction.

We spent our first night in Alexandria in the tavern built in the shadow of the tobacco warehouse. Mr. Talbot, the tavern keeper, sent a female servant to attend me. Pale-skinned and gaunt, the servant kept her capped head bowed as she moved about my room. She barely spoke two words to me, but I felt her scorn. Thin as a reed, she moved as silently as a cat. When she finally lifted her face and I looked upon the ice blue eyes, recognition mingled with fear. I knew her. She is Faith. Witch of Aberdeen. A castout.

That night, nestled close to Dr. Goodwin, I asked him about Faith. He told me she is indentured to Mr. Talbot, who bought her contract from the McDonald family. Talbot says she is a curious woman but means no harm.

No harm. Mr. Talbot surely does not know his servant's dark past. I wanted to ask Dr. Goodwin more, but feared my questions would arise his curiosity. Better he never know my association with the witch.

M
inutes after two, the sun reached the hottest part of the day, its harsh light heating the rolling green hills of the valley and burning off the morning's cool and pleasant breeze. I closed the doors to the tasting room. The air conditioner now hummed, the vents gently fluttering the muslin curtains. A wine-bottle wind chime, hanging near a window, clinked.

All morning, I prepped for the launch party by setting up tables and chairs. The table linens were inspected and placed on each table. Table decorations—small wine casks with a bundle of white roses and grapevines in the center—would arrive Friday morning. Candles would be placed tomorrow, and the wine-cork place card holders would go out before the event.

With one table to dress, I stood back, savoring the order and organization. I invested energy and care into each place setting, hoping that by creating order on every eight-foot round, I somehow restored balance to the Universe tipped out of balance by Janet's four calls. The
phone remained quiet since the initial burst of calls but, as much as I wanted to believe all was well, silence often came before disaster. I was in the eye of the storm.

As I smoothed my palm over the last white table linen, an old truck rumbled up the main drive, its engine grinding and humming as its tires crunched gravel. Gears shifted and groaned as the truck slowed. The old truck radio blared a country western song about wishes and moonshine. The song coaxed a smile. It must be Scott in one of the farm vehicles. Scott liked country western music. Though raised in an upper-middle-class home, he somehow fancied himself a good old country boy. Gentleman farmer described him best.

I expected the sound of his booted feet thudding up the steps to the porch, no doubt sprinkling clumps of dirt in their wake. Scott never was good about the boots or cleaning up messes. Never.

Scott worked harder than anyone else on the vineyard, so I couldn't criticize. But he expected hard work and productivity to end with the desired result. Two plus two always equaled four in his world. He never toiled toward a goal only to see it ripped out of his hands and destroyed.

Since this morning and Janet's call, I imagined Fate flipping a coin now flying high in the air, turning end over end. Soon, the coin would fall toward the ground losing side down.

When I didn't hear footsteps, I rose from the table. Suddenly, I pictured Janet standing outside the tasting room, staring at the building, ready to charge inside.

Heat rushed at me as I opened the door and, shadowing my eyes from the high sun, I didn't see a vineyard vehicle, but a red, rusted truck.

The door opened and an old woman got out. Her graying hair was pinned back in a tight bun; deeply tanned, well-lined skin surrounded her eyes and her mouth. She wore an old sweatshirt, faded jeans, and scuffed brown work boots. Crystal blue eyes snapped and bit as her gaze roamed.

Not Janet. My Aunt Grace. My mother's sister. The last time I saw her, I was packing up my car, my body still battered and bruised from the car accident. She asked me to stay. I refused.

My walkie-talkie buzzed with Scott's voice. “Addie, I'm headed up to the tasting room. Sorry, I'm late.”

I plucked the walkie-talkie from my hip and pushed the red button, my gaze squarely on Grace. “Scott, head up to our house. Grab a hot shower. I'm minutes behind you. There's nothing else for you to do here.”

“You sure? Thought you wanted me to check the layout.”

“It can wait. I have a vendor onsite, and we're gonna have to talk for a few minutes.”

“Ten-four.”

Shifting focus, I clipped the walkie-talkie to my hip and moved across the open veranda and down the steps. I approached Grace much like I would a stray dog.

Grace was the strong one in our family. The summer I turned twelve and Janet turned fifteen my mother needed to be hospitalized. Social Services contacted Grace and she agreed to take us. Aunt Grace was never a chatty woman or very maternal, but those three months were delightfully predictable. I hoped to stay forever but then Mom returned. Janet was thrilled as we sailed away from Grace's safe harbor toward the choppy waters with Mom.

“Grace.”

Grace eyed me for long, tense seconds. “You don't answer your phone.”

“Lots of work today. I turned it off.”

She rested bent hands on narrow hips. She was fifteen or twenty pounds leaner. “You turned it off when Janet started calling.”

“Yes.” Steel, which I kept in close reserve, molded around my heart. “I suppose she's in trouble again.”

“You could say that.”

I folded my arms over my chest, knowing I might not be cursed with madness, but I was indeed cursed with a sister who refused to release her grip on me. “What has she done this time?”

“She's in the Alexandria Hospital.”

No insurance likely. No money. What was the issue? Overdosed? Fallen? Another car accident? “Did she toss out her meds again? Is she psychotic?” Seven years separated Janet and me, but in a blink, all the old fears and anger rushed me.

“She's out of it pretty bad.” Grace approached, but neither of us made an effort to close the remaining feet between us and hug the other. “She also gave birth this morning. This time it's a girl.”

I sensed a shift in the earth under my feet and a wave of nausea passed over me. Another female in the clan. More madness. “A girl.”

“Six pounds. Six ounces.”

“Physically healthy.”

“A miracle, considering how Janet must have lived the last nine months.”

Oddly, we Shire women enjoyed strong constitutions. Physically, we rarely were sick. Pregnancies and births were easy. We could count many among us who lived into their eighties and nineties.

But I wasn't worried about the child's physical health. Selfish, maybe, but my focus rested solely on her mental state. Of course, it would be too early to tell. The madness didn't show itself right away, and though some would argue it might not ever come, the odds were stacked against us.

This morning, mere phone calls from Janet stoked my imagination with a thousand disaster scenarios. Now with the actual news in, the burden nearly made my knees buckle. I shifted, hoping maybe I could shake it off. But like a perched hawk, it clung with strong, sure talons.

“Who's the baby's father?”

The lines around Grace's mouth, which some might have mistaken for laugh lines, deepened as she frowned. “I asked, but she's too far out of it to know.”

“What are the chances that she'll ever know?”

Grace held up her palms in surrender. “I'm not here to defend your sister or what she's done.”

“Why are you here?”

“To ask you to come home.”

“I am home.”

Her frown deepened. “Home to Alexandria.”

I touched the walkie-talkie, wishing I could call for help. “No. I am not going.”

Grace shifted her stance. “I know you love this fantasy life you've made for yourself here. I know you want to forget you are a Shire.”

“I'm a Morgan.”

“You're half Shire. And the days of pretending you don't have a family are over. We need you.”

“I'm not pretending.” The pitch in my voice rose before I caught myself. “This is my life, and I love it.”

The lines deepened around Grace's mouth as her forehead furrowed. “It's not a real life. It's pretty. It's neat and clean, but it's not really your life.”

In the distance, I heard Scott's truck rumbling in from the fields. My heart slowed as I waited until I heard it make the turn toward our house. “How can you say that?”

“Do your new friends know about your mother? Do they know what you did to yourself in college?”

A jab of ice sliced through my chest right into my heart. “What I have with these people is none of your business.”

My walkie-talkie squawked. “Heading home, Addie. See you soon.”

My eyes on Grace, I lifted the radio to my mouth. “See you soon, Scott.”

Grace nodded. “Scott. That's a nice name. I bet he's handsome. Nice. Great smile.”

My fingers gripped the hard edges of the walkie-talkie.

Grace's head tilted. “He doesn't know, does he?”

My teeth ground so tight I feared my fillings would crack. “Would you lower your voice?”

“Addie, my back is to the wall with your sister.” Her voice was a raspy stage whisper. “I can't do this without you. You need to come home for a few days or until we can figure out what to do.”

The walls inched a little closer and the air grew stale. “I don't want any part of Janet's latest drama.”

“You think I want to deal with this shit? Do you think I want to clean up another mess? For all the dramas you cleaned up with your mother and Janet, I've done the same plus more with my own mother.”

Steel wrapped my heart. “Janet is not going to ruin my life.”

“I will if you don't deal with this.”

A cloud passed in front of the sun, blocking its rays. The glare from my eyes was gone and I could really see the disaster shaping up before me.

“She doesn't know where I am.”

“But I do. And if you don't come back with me now, I'll smash this life to bits. No Shire woman gets a free ride.”

I stepped toward her, my temper heating. “That's crap. You've no right to come here and threaten me.”

Grace arched a brow. “If you've been honest about your past, then the truth I got to share won't matter a bit.”

My jaw clenched. “I don't want you talking to anyone here.”

“I didn't think so.”

Outrage collided with fear. “This isn't fair, Grace.”

That prompted a laugh. “Fair. Don't toss fair at me, girl.”

As the cloud moved away from the sun and the light shifted again, I noticed the slight tremor in Grace's left hand. Her shoulders stooped forward an inch or two more, and though she was now threatening me, I could feel the desperation rumbling under each word. Calling the bluff of someone with little to lose never ended well. She drove two hours south from Alexandria to find me. She played every card in her deck. And if we went head to head, I'd lose. “What do you want me to do?”

“Help me deal with the social workers. I don't have patience for those people and all their questions and forms.”

The stone under my feet turned to sand, shifted. “If I talk to the social workers and get the baby placed and Janet committed, you'll leave me be?”

Grace's well-lined hand pushed back a shock of gray hair from her sharp eyes. “Sure. I'll cut you loose. But you've got to deal with the city people. You know I don't do that.”

My calloused fingers clenched and unclenched. “I want to be clear. I'm not staying past tomorrow. I have a huge event here on Friday. I have to be here.”

“I'm not asking for your life, Addie. Just a day or two to help me get this fire put out. It's been a long time since I handled this kind of situation, and I don't have the spirit to do it.”

“You have the fire to drive here and blackmail me.”

Grace rested a clenched fist on her thin hip. “I still have a move or two left in me.”

I ran a hand over my tight ponytail. “Put one fire out and then another starts. That's how it goes with our family.”

With squinting eyes, she stared off toward the mountains, the
longing for the quiet and stillness burning in her gaze. “It's always the way, Addie. It's always the way. But I can't worry about a new fire when one's raging at my feet.”

I looked back into the reception hall, so pretty and neat. So perfect. This was my world. My perfect life. “This is bull. I don't want to deal with this.”

“Are you coming or not?” Grace sounded weary but determined.

My gaze shifted from the neat and organized to the road that snaked toward the main road and eventually the city. I lost the coin toss. “I'll see what I can do, but I'm not staying. I swear to you, Grace, I'm not staying.”