The Witches of Snyder Farms (The Wicked Garden Series) (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Irvine, 2010s

             
Ame pulled the necklace out from under her shirt.

Diana, looking as if she had been punched, fell back against the couch.

Peter smiled.

Eli gaped.

Gretchel laughed until she cried.

“
When Mom gave it to me, I stuck it in a drawer. I didn’t want to wear it because I thought it was from Troy. I put it on for the first time today, after I figured out that it was from Eli. And that’s why my mother is laughing like a psycho in a slasher flick.
I’m
the other woman you’ve been waiting for, Diana. And the reason you haven’t found me before now is because
you
split my parents up.” 

When Eli comprehended the full extent of what his mother had done, he dropped his head in his hands and sobbed. Gretchel stopped laughing, and the grin fell from Peter’s face. Diana looked like she might be sick.

Ame unclasped the chain from around her neck and tried to hand it to her grandmother. Diana shrank from it, so it dangled in the air between them all. Everyone but Eli watched it glitter in the last light of evening.

This was the stone that had inspired Diana’s quest, and then turned that quest into an obsession. This little purple quartz had caused immeasurable heartache, and it had numbed Gretchel into a mere simulation of life.
It was evil.

But this stone had also led Eli to Gretchel. It had helped Gretchel get sober, and, in doing so, it had saved Ame’s life.
It was holy.
 

Peter stood up and took the amulet from his granddaughter’s outstretched hand.  He cupped it in his.

“Purple quartz, created by Gaia and time and the tears of Dionysus. It’s just a stone. We make it magic.”

Then he handed the necklace back to Ame. “And it’s yours now, my girl. Make of it whatever you will.”

Ame took the necklace and clasped it around her neck again.

Eli finally lifted his head. Then he stood. He helped Ame to rise, and he reached out a hand for Gretchel. He led them both to the bedroom he shared with Gretchel, and then he shut the door.

Peter sat down next to his wife and put his arm around her shoulder.

“Please don’t tell me you’re disappointed,” he said.

“No! Of course I’m not! I’m relieved, but still…. This is a l
ot to take in.”

“
You’ve found what you’ve been looking for.”

“
But I’ve tortured my son! For so long, and for no reason!”

Diana crumpled against her husband, wracked with sobs. Peter let her cry.

When her tears subsided, he spoke again. “That’s all in the past, Diana. It’s over. Eli has what he wants now. Maybe this was the only way he could get it.  You have what you want, too. And we have a granddaughter!”

“But that woman!” Diana was done being distraught. Now she was irate.

Her husband laughed and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

“I don’t see what’s so funny. Gretchel is
not
well. Her mother and grandmother seem to think that she’s possessed, I think that she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and I’m certain that there are things in her past that she and her family are hiding—not just from me, but also from Eli. I hate to think of our son burdening himself with that much damage.” 

Peter bristled. He knew that his wife was overprotective. He didn’t like to think that she was also heartless. “Our son loves Gretchel, and you have promised to respect that love—
and
the fact that she is Ame’s mother.”

“That’s another thing! Ame
cannot
be the twenty-first descendant. There’s so much here that doesn’t make sense!”

“Diana, for the love of all that is living and breathing, could you please let it go for just one night?”

Gretchel, Ame, and Eli emerged a short time later.

Diana jumped up off the sofa and threw her arms around Eli’s neck. He was shocked, but he managed to catch his mother. He held her for a moment before setting her back on her feet. He kissed her on the cheek.

“I love you, Mom.”

“But do you forgive me?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure what there is to forgive. Maybe this is the path we had to take to get to this moment.” Eli looked at his father, who smiled proudly. “I don’t know. But I do know that hating you for the past isn’t going to make a better future.”

Diana accepted her son’s words with a humble grace that no one present would have believed that she could manage.

“And, one more thing, Mother.”

Diana raised her head to look at her son.

“If you ever shriek at my daughter again like you did today, you will discover that your overprotective tendencies are
nothing
compared to mine. I have
decades
to make up for.”

Diana simply nodded.

Eli couldn’t suppress a smile. This, he was fairly certain, was the first time he had ever seen his mother retreat from an argument.

Gretchel took care of reheating the forgotten Chinese carryout. The first meal she and her daughter shared with Eli’s parents was… quiet.

Too quiet.

Ame felt the need to speak up.

She turned to her grandfather. “So, it turns out that Eli’s been lying about his name forever. Should I call you ‘Grandpa Peter,’ or is that bullshit, too?”

Most of the assembled adults choked on their General Tso’s chicken, but Eli’s father leaned back in his chair, stroked his ridiculous beard, and looked his granddaughter in the eye.

“‘Peter’ is the name I’ve used for almost forty years, but, no, it’s not my given name.”

“Well then, what the hell should I call you?”

“Some people call me the space cowboy…. ”

“Howsabout Maurice?”

Ame’s grandfather laughed, happy to know that his granddaughter was well-versed in the classics. “You can call me Papa, Gramps, Grandpa, Goober , or just plain Goofy if you want.”

“I’ll pass. I’d like to know what your real name is.” Ame was adamant.

“All right. I’ll give you a hint.”

Ame rolled her eyes. “Oh great, another riddle. As if my life wasn’t already riddled with riddles.”

When Eli saw the look in his father’s eye, he didn’t know if he was delighted or mortified.

Diana, seeing what was coming, was clearly the latter.

The man known as ‘Peter’ stood up, turned his backside toward his granddaughter, and dropped his trousers.

After a brief moment of horror and befuddlement, Ame saw it. A birthmark shaped like a phallus. Right there on her grandfather’s ass.

“Graham Duncan!” she shouted. “You’re Graham Duncan!”

Gretchel stood. She stared. And then she lost consciousness.

EPILOGUE

Gretchel hovered above the frantic scene in the living room. She saw her unconscious body on the floor. She saw Eli, Ame, Diana and Graham Duncan—
Graham Duncan!
—bent over, trying to revive her.

Then she saw the phoenix, and the scene inside the cottage faded away as she followed it. The shimmering bird led her to a field of poppies before it soared into the emptiness above.

Gretchel knew this place. She had painted it before she ever saw it. Now she understood that it was the Wicked Garden as it once had been. She stood just beyond its borders. It was beautiful—an ocean of orange and green—but she was still afraid of it.

Suddenly, there was someone standing next to her. She turned to see…

Ame’s boss?

What was a metaphysical-bookstore owner doing in Gretchel’s dream or vision or whatever this was?

“Claire?” she asked tentatively.

The raven-haired woman smiled. “Yes, I’ve been called that.”

Perfect
, Gretchel thought.
Does
everybody
I know have an alias?

“Is that what
I
should call you?”

“That will serve as well as anything else. Your kind tend to think it unwise to call me by my true name.”

“Fine,
Claire
. What are you doing here?”

“You have work to do, Gretchel, and I’m here to help you get started.”

“What work?”

Without a word, Claire pointed to the poppy garden.

“Oh, no,” Gretchel said. “I’m not going in there, not ever again.”

Claire tilted her head. “So you’re choosing fear.”

“What other choice do I have?”

“Redemption.”

The word filled Gretchel with longing.

She thought of her own terrible regrets. She thought of all the women in her family who had been unable to save themselves—or their daughters. She thought of the prophecy.

Shaking, Gretchel took a step among the poppies.

She had expected the malevolent energy of the Wicked Garden. Instead, it was soft, comforting. She ran her fingers, gently, along frail petals, translucent in the sun.

Gretchel felt something cool and smooth move along her bare skin as it touched the ground. She saw a snake, weaving itself in and out of her feet like the sign for infinity.

“I remember you,” Gretchel said. “I know you, but I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”

Then she was startled by a thundering in the distance. This was familiar, too. Gretchel quivered with anticipation. The white horse was coming.

Claire spoke. “She won’t approach now. She won’t come back again until you’ve done the work.”

The sunlight went brittle. The wind that blew through the poppies had a cold, stagnant edge.

“This is wrong!” Gretchel cried. “I shouldn’t be here!”
             

“You
should
,” Claire insisted, “if you have chosen redemption.”

Then there was a shovel in her hand. She offered it to Gretchel.

With shaking hands, Gretchel took it. She began to dig.

Go deeper into

T
he Wicked Garden…

You’ve met Pan and Epona, Hermes and Aphrodite. Continue exploring the world of gods, goddesses, and archetypes by subscribing to Lenora’s monthly email missive. Join an ongoing discussion of the power of myth in our lives. And find updates on forthcoming volumes in The Wicked Garden saga.

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Book Three

Beltane 2014