The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender (6 page)

THE NEWS OF
Connor Lavender’s death spread throughout the neighborhood, quickly followed by a thick and tangled web of gossip, tall tales, and lies. Some said he died of a brain aneurysm. Others insisted it was a tumble down a flight of stairs that did him in. Almena Moss, who lived with her sister Odelia in one of the rented rooms above the post office, claimed to have seen Emilienne purchase a rather large bottle of rat poison at the drugstore, which only bred rumors more fantastic than before. But whatever happened to Connor Lavender, there was one thing everyone in the neighborhood agreed on: no one would ever again step foot in that bakery. Not with
her
in charge.

So the shop remained empty, and Emilienne learned to live on the leftover loaves of bread that no one came to buy. That is, until an early February windstorm brought Wilhelmina Dovewolf to Pinnacle Lane.

Exactly where Wilhelmina came from very few people knew. A direct descendant of an infamous Seattle chief, Wilhelmina was a member of the Suquamish tribe — her lineage obvious by her prominent cheekbones, bronzed complexion, and the thick black hair she wore in a long braid down her back. Wilhelmina was twenty-two years old — only five months older than Emilienne. She’d spent her formative years at an Indian boarding school, where she was repeatedly beaten for speaking her own language. As an adult, she carried with her the air of someone forever displaced — not quite part of the white race, yet no longer fitting in with the members of her tribe. In other words, Wilhelmina was a very old soul in a young body. The people of Pinnacle Lane regarded her in much the same way they regarded Emilienne, meaning, of course, that they didn’t regard her at all.

The scent of Emilienne’s bread coaxed Wilhelmina inside. Emilienne was in the back, her fists deep in a lump of white dough — what would soon be another loaf of unsold bread — when the bells above the door rang through the shop. The sound gave both Emilienne and Viviane such a start that the baby, once content in the cardboard box, began to wail in fright. Emilienne quickly ran her palms together to dust off the flour.

“I’ll be right there,” she called, making her way to the front of the shop. She caught only a fleeting glimpse of Wilhelmina’s back, her braid a swinging tail behind her, as she ran out the door. A loaf of rye bread had been taken from the front window, and in its place sat a small cedar basket.

Ignoring the crying baby in the back of the bakery, Emilienne cupped the basket in her still-doughy hands and watched as her first customer disappeared down Pinnacle Lane.

It took a few weeks for Wilhelmina to return. By then Emilienne had been surviving on bread alone for three months, and Viviane had begun to roll over and to babble in the incoherent way that infants do. When Emilienne heard the bells on the door, she only peered out from the back of the shop and watched as Wilhelmina stealthily took one of the loaves from the display window and left another basket in its place. She scurried from the shop and Emilienne followed her.

The woman paused in the shelter of the three birch trees in front of the bakery. Keeping her distance, Emilienne watched the woman tear a piece from the loaf of bread, place it in her mouth, and, closing her eyes, thoughtfully chew then swallow before wrapping the rest in her scarf and tucking it under her arm.

A week later Emilienne was ready. As soon as she spotted the long braid swinging over Wilhelmina’s shoulder as she made her way down Pinnacle Lane, Emilienne wrapped a loaf of freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven, in white paper, tied it with string, and left it on the counter.

From her hiding place in the back, Emilienne could see Wilhelmina approach the package cautiously and sniff, as if checking the air for the scent of danger. Then, with a scowl, she pulled out a tiny purse and began rummaging around for what Emilienne assumed was a string of beads, which just goes to show how little Emilienne knew about the world.

“Take it,” Emilienne said, stepping out from the back. “I’m giving it to you.”

“I don’t take handouts,” Wilhelmina replied gruffly.

Emilienne’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “Fine, then.” She drew herself up to her fullest height, making her a few inches taller than the Indian woman. “That’ll be twenty-five cents.” She held out her hand.

Wilhelmina brushed Emilienne’s hand aside and opened the package of bread. She tore pieces from the loaf and stuffed them into her mouth. “Got something better,” she replied. “I’ll make you a deal.”

Emilienne folded her arms. “I’m listening.”

Wilhelmina took another bite of the bread. “Rumor has it you’re the neighborhood witch.”

Emilienne raised her eyebrows.

Wilhelmina chuckled. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I ain’t the type to resort to name-calling, plus I tend to make up my own mind about such things. Got my own way of figuring stuff out.”

Emilienne nodded. So did she. For example, Emilienne could tell that Wilhelmina had been born in October from the opal pendant that hung from the woman’s neck.
October
, Emilienne mused,
a Libra. Balanced. Diplomatic. Even-tempered.

Wilhelmina cocked her head, eyeing Emilienne thoughtfully. “There is something about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I am sure about one thing, though. You’ve seen a lot of death. I’m right, ain’t I?”

Death. Emilienne winced. Of that she had seen her fair share.

“That’s what I thought. It wasn’t just the husband, was it?” Wilhelmina sighed when Emilienne didn’t answer. “Death just seems to follow some of us, don’t it? Death’s been following me for years. It’s easy to spot your own kind. That kind of sorrow you can’t just wash away; it sticks to you. And people, they can tell. They can
feel
it. And ain’t nobody likes the feel of death — especially in a place where he eats. What you need is a cleansing ritual.”

Wilhelmina finished the bread and pulled two bundles of dried herbs tied with red cotton string out of her pocket. “Burn them as you walk through the shop. Pay special attention to corners and places behind doors.”

Emilienne took the smudging sticks of sage and hyssop from the Indian woman. Reluctantly, she rolled the herbs in her hands before dropping them to the counter. “And doing this will accomplish what exactly?”

“Clean the air. Rid the place of any curses, illnesses, bad spirits. Burn these herbs, and people won’t be thinking about death every time they walk by the shop. Or by you, for that matter.” Wilhelmina paused. “Listen, you seem like a smart woman. Do like I say, and, I promise you, business will change.” She wrapped her scarf tighter around her shoulders and turned to leave. “Then you can give me a job.”

Emilienne snorted. “You want to work here? I barely have enough money to buy flour. I can’t afford to hire you.”

Wilhelmina smiled. “Trust me, you’ll be needing the help.”

Whether it was out of curiosity or sheer desperation, Emilienne burned the bundles of dried herbs per Wilhelmina’s instructions — making sure the spiraling smoke touched every corner, reached behind every door of every room.

The very next morning, she arrived to a line of customers waiting at the bakery door. The line stretched all the way to the drugstore down the street, some four doors away.

Most claimed that the scent of rising yeast and freshly baked bread had drifted into their dreams the previous night. As the years went by, the people of Pinnacle Lane found that a day wasn’t well spent if their meals didn’t include a slice of bread or a roll from Emilienne’s bakery. There were Almena and Odelia Moss, who always dressed the same and came into the bakery for a loaf of cinnamon bread every Monday afternoon. There was Amos Fields, who was partial to the heavy
pain brié.
There was Ignatius Lux, who would become principal of the local high school many years later. There was Pastor Trace Graves and Marigold Pie, a war widow and a good devoted Lutheran one at that. There were the Flannerys, the Zimmers, the Quakenbushes. And then there was Beatrix Griffith.

It was Beatrix’s husband, John, who fueled the neighborhood’s initial isolation of the widowed Emilienne Lavender. He considered her strange and, as such, unwanted. It was John who first implied — loud and often — that Emilienne Lavender was a witch. Soon after the Lavenders moved onto Pinnacle Lane, he informed his wife, Beatrix, that they would have nothing to do with
her.
And John Griffith was not a man who changed his mind.

Unbeknownst to her formidable husband, Beatrix secretly came into the bakery every week anyway for three loaves of sourdough bread. When the bakery began to thrive under Emilienne’s and Wilhelmina’s talented hands, John Griffith sneered at his neighbors, “Any day now you’ll all be traveling by broom.”

Not knowing that with each morning breakfast of toast and eggs, he, too, was making his own contribution to Emilienne’s success.

MOTHERHOOD PROVED
bewildering for Emilienne. At only twenty-three years of age, she had already lost her parents, all three siblings, and a husband. She was the sole owner of a now-successful bakery and the sole parent of a little girl whose exhausting exuberance seemed to double with each passing day.

By the time Viviane turned two, Emilienne realized that she’d given birth to a child unlike herself in every way. Whereas Emilienne was dark like her
maman
, with long black hair that she kept wrapped in a thick chignon, Viviane was pale like her father, with wispy thin brown hair framing her cherubic face. To Emilienne, seeing a spider spinning a web was a sign of good luck; to Viviane, a spider was a reason to fetch a jar, preferably one with holes hammered into the lid. There was nothing Roux about Viviane, as far as Emilienne could tell.

Occasionally, Wilhelmina Dovewolf stepped in to take care of my mother — typically when she was sick. It was Wilhelmina’s long braids Viviane reached for in comfort when struck with a case of the stomach flu or a bout of bronchitis. Viviane would later come to connect Wilhelmina’s woodsy scent of dry leaves and incense with a feeling of safety and security.

In the end, Viviane all but raised herself — meals were yesterday’s pastries; baths and bedtimes were rarely enforced. Her childhood was spent amid the scents and sounds of the bakery. It was her sticky fingers that topped the Belgian buns with glazed cherries, her hands that warmed the pie dough. As a toddler, she could easily whip up a batch of
profiteroles
, standing on a chair and calmly filling each
choux
pastry with cream. With barely a sniff of the air, Viviane Lavender could detect the slightest variation in any recipe — a talent that she would perfect in later years. Yes, Viviane spent many hours in the bakery. Her mother barely acknowledged she was there.

The summer before her seventh birthday, Viviane found an old white dress in one of the many forgotten closets in the house at the end of Pinnacle Lane. The dress resembled a child-size wedding gown. Emilienne assumed correctly that the dress once belonged to the young Portuguese girl for whom the house had been built. The First Communion dress was by then yellowed with age and had an inexplicable burn mark down the front. Through the course of the summer, Viviane refused to wear much else. It was subjected to many stains and tears — a blotch of raspberry jam on the collar, a rip along the seam.

It was while wearing this dress that Viviane met her best friend, Jack.

The day they met, Viviane climbed into the branches of a large birch tree in front of the bakery to watch a boy dig a hole in the wild overgrown patch that was his father’s lawn. It was a hole the boy believed would eventually lead him to the remains of King Tut. Burdened by shovels and buckets, the boy woke early each morning to take on what he considered a serious project, one full of routines and hours of dedication and more than anything else, of belief. His day began with a survey of the previous day’s work, a solemn walk around the site, a measuring of the depth of the hole. Buckets went to the left, shovels to the right. Rocks were separated from the dirt; worms and other insects were spared and collected tenderly into one of the buckets reserved solely for such sensitive things. At the end of the day, upon the collapse of the sun, the boy transported each insect from the bucket and placed it gently into the churned ground of his mother’s compost pile.