Page 69 of Big Witch Energy

After they’d taken a day to recover from Caroline’s sleepwalking theatrics, they’d returned to the cliff. It had taken surprisingly little digging to recover Emily’s skeletal remains. As they gently laid the bones (and Emily’s shoe buckles) in a lovely rosewood box Riley purchased from Alice’s shop, they sang songs they hoped Emily would enjoy. The academic in Edison was in an emotional fetal position, changing historical space this undocumented way, but he silently supported them as they carried Emily’s remains to the churchyard.

Mina and Josh had been included in the effort—under Ben’s uneasy supervision—and Caroline didn’t think it was a coincidence that Rose didn’t try to stop them. Mina probably had a good point about being immune to Rose. Caroline’s ancestor wouldn’t like that. How they’d all managed to bury the remains under some ivy growing near the building’s historical marker, Caroline had no idea. Emily had shown up at the churchyard gate, smiling.

“Right at the cornerstone? Oh, I like you.” Emily had chuckled as Ben took the kids home. Riley, Edison, and Alice wanted to stay, but there were things that Caroline wanted to say to Emily in private.

“I’m sorry it was my family that did this to you,” Caroline said. “I really didn’t know.”

“I understand that,” Emily said. “But did I enjoy that it was Rose’s own blood that would give me what I wanted? Yes, I did. It all worked out for the good.”

“I’m assuming that you and Rose aren’t on speaking terms,” Caroline said, making Emily snort. That was something Caroline didn’t even know the dead could do. “But I think maybe Rose cursed her descendants, so that we couldn’t leave the island. I don’t want to believe it…but from what I’ve seen… How, how could she do that?”

“Rose would rather tear something valuable to the ground than allow someone to defy her, to think they’d won.” Emily reached out to pat Caroline’s arm, sending a shiver down Caroline’s spine. “The woman wanted to run her own little kingdom, where she was queen—unquestioned, unchallenged. And she met any opposition like most mad monarchs do.”

“Swift violence and unrelenting bat-shittery,” Caroline nodded. “Got it.”

“That’s an interesting word,” Emily mused. “‘Bat-shittery.’ I like it. It’s almost enough to make me want to stay, to learn more. But, a bargain is a bargain. And I have nothing left to hold me here. I want to move on to what’s next, to see if I can find Emmett in whatever’s beyond.”

“Good luck to you,” Caroline told her. “And thank you. I’m not sure we would have learned what we did about Rose without you, well, provoking her.”

Emily grinned. “You’re a good woman, Caroline Wilton. Better than she ever was. Just…don’t let Rose lie to you. She’s good at that, and you, being an honest person, won’t see what she’s planning for you.”

“I appreciate the wisdom,” Caroline said.

Emily’s smile began to fade as she faded, gently transitioning from this plane to the next until she was just a tiny speck of light in the early morning shadows. It was always easier, almost beautiful, when the ghosts moved along voluntarily.

So now, Caroline found herself shuffling through the silty shores, close to the Wilton family home. The old house rose in the distance. Overlooking the water, the shabby Dutch colonial with peeling blue siding and white trim that hadn’t been painted since…since Chris. The bushes, once so tidy and trimmed, were wild and overgrown. Her mother didn’t have time to tend to them, much less replant the flowers that had once bloomed in the window boxes on the first floor. While Caroline didn’t have flowers planted either, her own little cottage was at least recently painted a sunny yellow. Her mother had hated it, calling it the color of a “half-rotten egg yolk.”

She wondered when her family had moved to the old house. She’d never thought much about it. The house had always just been there. Surely, they’d moved there after Rose had died. Maybe it was because Rose’s ghost was making them uncomfortable, living in the bar?

The lights were off upstairs, but there was a lamp burning golden in the little den her father had claimed as his own a few years before. He’d insisted that it was so he didn’t wake her mother with the TV when insomnia woke him in the middle of the night. But she and her brothers knew that he simply waited for her mom to drift off—usually before nine—and crept down the creaky stairs to sleep in his drooping mustard-colored recliner.

She could just go home, she told herself. She’d had a long day, and the sun was barely rising. She could shower and drink some coffee and catch an hour of sleep or so before she returned to Riley’s for a team meeting.

She sighed, staring at the lonely light in the window.

Shit.

Instead of the much more comfortable option of walking to her cottage, Caroline climbed the creaking porch steps. Her parents still didn’t bother locking their doors, something she could not understand in the age of Dateline.

The house smelled as it always did, of old cooking and older paper. Her father’s paperbacks were stacked on every available surface in the den, but somehow, their smell permeated throughout the room, reminding Caroline where she’d gotten her love of the written word. She followed the sound of the TV playing some seventies cop show involving a lot of car chases and screeching tires.

Denny Wilton was sprawled in his easy chair, his green terry-cloth robe open over his worn pajamas. Caroline stilled, tilting her head against the doorframe as she watched her father doze. When Chris died, her dad hadn’t turned to gambling or alcohol, which Caroline would have almost understood, given the family’s vocation. He’d turned to grief. It was his whole day, sitting in this dark room, thinking about Chris. And part of it made her angry. He had three children left. What about them? Why couldn’t they be enough reason to carry on?

Caroline wasn’t being fair. She knew that. The death of a child and the devastation that followed wasn’t an algebraic equation that ended in all sides being equal. But it didn’t stop her from feeling this way.

The pajamas and robe were normal attire for Denny before about three p.m. After three, Mom got home from work, and she’d fuss if she found him in his pajamas. But at this time of day, she was probably upstairs getting dressed for work.

His brown eyes fluttered open, and he smiled when he looked up and realized she was there. “Hey there, apple dumpling.”

The corner of Caroline’s mouth lifted. “Hey, Dad.”

“You’re up and about early,” he said as she sat on the drooping goldenrod-colored couch beside him. “Your mom said you’re just about ready to go back to work.”

“Yep.” She nodded. “No crutches, no brace.”

“Well, that’s good, dumpling. I know your mom needs your help. Get back out there and give ’em hell.” He reached out and patted her knee.

Caroline nodded. She could let it go. It was early. She’d already been through the emotional wringer—for the day, for the week, for the year. But…she might never have this opportunity—or the nerve—again.

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