Page 51 of The Women of Wild Hill
“A feral hog?” Brigid scoffed. “That doesn’t seem fair. There are hogs all over the place these days. They’ve practically taken over San Francisco. How were you supposed to know it was a message?”
“It was abigfucking hog,” Phoebe said. “I’m actually surprised the Old One waited so long to call us back. The fires out west, the storms back east, the hogs everywhere—”
“Salt Lake City.”
Phoebe whistled. “Yeah. Salt Lake City. You think we could have done anything to stop that?”
“Don’t know what we could have done,” Brigid said.
Phoebe shrugged. “Calum Geddes could have done something. But he didn’t.” She swore she felt the earth move beneath her at the mention of his name, as though her ancestors’ bones had shifted in their graves. “Instead he let his network keep producing bullshit stories about windmills causing brain damage and climate change being a liberal plot.”
“Did you ever talk to him again after Mom’s funeral?” Brigid asked.
“Nope,” Phoebe told her.
“I wonder if Mom killed herself because she saw what kind of monster he’d become.”
“Who knows?” Phoebe took another bite of her apple. “Though we both know what happened between us would have broken her heart more than anything Calum ever did.”
Phoebe’s words, delivered so matter-of-factly, cast a chill over the conversation, just as she’d intended. She wanted her sister to know she hadn’t forgotten—and she definitely hadn’t forgiven. After thirty fucking years, she was still holding on to her grudge.
“Right.” Now that Phoebe had made it perfectly clear where she stood on the matter, Brigid rose from the ground. “Well, we’ve both been brought back here for a reason. I guess we have to work together.”
“Doesn’t mean we have to enjoy it,” Phoebe told her.
“Got it.” Brigid stood up. “It’s been nice talking to you. Let’s do it again in another thirty years.”
Turning toward the cottage, Brigid disappeared in the darkness, her black clothes blending into the night.
ALONE WITH THE ANCESTORS, PHOEBEfelt the past surround her. Every rock, every tree, every ripple in the earth held not just onememory but hundreds. She could see Ivy nestled in the nook at the base of the old oak, seeking its counsel. Brigid laughing as they watched their mother roll down the hill toward the sea like a little kid. Bessie waving to her from the window of the mansion. And then there were all the things she hadn’t been able to to witness. Like her mother’s last minutes, which had been spent very close to the spot where Phoebe now sat. It was all too much to bear.
A small black figure walked out of the darkness. The raven cocked its head, conveying a silent question.
“Yes, I brought the key,” Phoebe told the bird. She pulled the key from her pocket and set it on the ground in front of it. “But only to give it back. The Old One can find another sucker.”
The raven examined the object but refused to take it. The noise that emerged from its shiny black beak sounded a lot like a laugh.
Fate Finds a Way
As she stomped back toward the cottage, Brigid mulled over a memory. It was one that often slipped into her mind at quiet moments. She would watch it on repeat as though worrying a wound. In the memory she was fourteen, Phoebe was thirteen, and they had been arguing. By that point, pretty much anything could have started a fight. A sweater, a CD, the telephone, the last stick of gum. They were always at each other’s throats.
“Sit down,” their great-aunt Ivy ordered the girls. Flora sat down when they did. No one dared disobey Aunt Ivy when she got in a mood.
“What are your greatest gifts?” Ivy demanded. “Tell me!”
Phoebe, always keen to be teacher’s pet, cleared her throat. “I can heal things with my—”
“Wrong!” Ivy didn’t even allow her to finish. She turned next to Brigid.
“I see how people—”
“Incorrect! You two have no fucking idea, do you?”
Neither girl spoke. They’d never seen her quite so angry, and Brigid couldn’t recall ever hearing Ivy use the wordfuck.
“Your two greatest gifts are exactly the same. This family and each other. No other talent or skill or ability will ever be as important as those two gifts. Do you hear me?”
The answer was yes. They’d heard it before, too, and to be honest, neither girl had really taken it seriously. It sounded like the kind of sentimental bullshit a sitcom mom would say.
