Page 33 of Spellbound
“Were the two of you out all day shopping?” I asked, in what I thought was a casual way to change the subject, but Janet glanced over at Rosalyn before she answered.
“Most of the day, yes, I’m afraid we both got a bit tired.”
“Speak for yourself,” Rosalyn snapped, her voice a little harsh. “I’m fine.” That really wasn’t like her to snap at her sister. I wondered if they were already getting on each other’s nerves a bit.
I looked back down at my plate. Tonight’s dinner was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, carrots, and fried okra.
“Everything looks delicious.”
Rosalyn grunted out some reply and started dishing things up, refusing all attempts to help her. After we ate, and Ash and I got chased out of the kitchen again, and we went to sit on the front porch. I wondered if I should have insisted both of them go put their feet up, but one menacing glare from Rosalyn convinced me to let sleeping dogs lie.
It was a beautiful evening in late spring, with just a bit of a chill in the air as we sat down on the porch. The sun was setting, and the stars all came out in a rush to light up the night sky. I reached for Ash’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“I think maybe cooking dinner might have been a bit much for them both after shopping most of the day,” he said. Actually, Janet had seemed fine, but I knew he was trying to be polite.
“I agree, but it would have just upset her more if we’d said so.”
“How old is Rosalyn if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Sixty-six.”
“And my grandmother is twelve years older. Rosalyn’s better now, though, right? From the cancer? My grandmother said she’d been through all of her treatments, and the doctors gave her a good report.”
“Mostly, yes. As far as the cancer goes. But she was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when she was fifty. That’s an extraordinarily long time to go without many symptoms at all. I think that what was left of her magic has mostly held it off and kept it at bay so far, along with the medicines she takes, but I’ve noticed things getting worse lately.”
We stopped talking about it then because we heard them coming out to join us, and Ash’s grandmother brought us botha glass of sweet tea. Wine would have been better, but I took a sip anyway. It was good tea, if you liked iced sweet tea. I, unfortunately, did not, so I drank a few sips to be polite, but just a few.
I sat back and let Asher make all the appropriate small talk and thought about how soon we could leave without upsetting anyone. I was anxious to get him alone again. I knew how fast this all was and considered briefly again that it might be some kind of spell, but I’d tested myself for love spells, and I was clear of any. I was afraid this must be the real thing that my father warned me about. My “nemesis,” indeed.
After a minute or two, Janet touched Asher’s arm. “I’ve felt nostalgic all day. Today would have been my and Rosalyn’s mother’s birthday.”
“Really?” I said, turning to her with interest. “How old would she have been?”
“Oh, let’s see… she was born in 1914, so what would that be? A hundred and eleven years old? My goodness, that’s hard to believe. She lived to be in her mid-nineties. I’ve been thinking about her all day.”
“A hundred and eleven. The things she must have seen in her lifetime.”
“Yes, indeed. She had the best stories—especially the ones about when she was a girl, living up in the north Georgia mountains. They didn’t have electricity in those days where her family lived, way up on the mountain, you know. She had to ride a horse to get to school, and they didn’t have a telephone or running water or electricity. I know it must be hard for you to fathom that.”
“It is, a little. Did she tell you stories about it?”
“You don’t miss what you never had, so she didn’t talk much about doing without modern conveniences,” Janet said.“But she told us stories about her life where she grew up in the Appalachian foothills. Ghost stories, some of them.”
“Really?” I said, watching Ash listening raptly to his grandma.
“Like what?” Asher asked eagerly. “Tell us one.”
“Oh, well, there were so many. The Appalachians have always been haunted, you know.”
“How do you mean?”
“I guess I think that because they’re so old. People can’t even imagine how old. Just think about the number of people who died here over those long centuries. So many are buried here.”
“Tell Ben about the one where your father saw his wife after she died.”
“Now you know my grandfather—your great grandfather, Asher—was a hard worker, but like a lot of men, he made a little white liquor for his own purposes. He could have been drinking that night, though he always swore he wasn’t. He said he was wide awake.”
“White liquor?” Ben asked.
