The Witch of Little Italy by Suzanne Palmieri

Author:Suzanne Palmieri
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

19

Itsy

Mama always went a little crazy near summer solstice. It was to be expected. It’s the most magical time of the year for us witches. The garden received her full attention and us, too. She’d make new summer dresses for all of us, and crisp white shirts for the boys. She’d make soda crackers to put in tins before the days got too hot to bake. She’d prune and plant and water. Cajoling, almost daring her garden to bloom louder than ever before.

She was a tidy woman, most times. But she had priorities, and cleaning was low on the list during the times when she felt her hands were full with other things. Piles of cotton and ribbon and spools of thread would pile up in the kitchen and living room. Mountains of flour covered the counters, muddy footprints to and from the back hallway marking her constant route.

Papa, though he knew she would be her old self soon, never seemed to have much patience for it. He’d yell and try to clean up after her. She’d yell back, telling him to leave her piles alone.

It was during this time of year that she told us the story of the “Mound Builders.” I think she told us so that she could discount Papa’s words without discounting Papa.

“The Mound Builders were people who lived here long before the earliest colonists arrived. They dug deep into the earth and created mounds to bury their dead. For them, the mounds were treasured. A way to remember, to memorialize. There isn’t anything wrong with building piles to remind us of things.”

But some years were worse than others. She’d whisper with Bunny and the boys would try to clean up after her as well. She’d swat at them with her dish towels and shoo them away.

* * *

The year Mama took us on a day trip to Fairview was a year when their fighting was particularly bad. We took the train from Penn Station. The older boys stayed home, of course. Georgie and I were eleven or so, still able to be mesmerized by the station and the swarms of people and the elaborate red velvet seats.

Mama was quiet. We behaved. We knew there was something amiss. We got off the train in Boston and onto a smaller, fancier train. I felt like I was going deeper and deeper into a storybook the more miles we traveled. The stop in Fairview was in front of what looked like a fancy fortress. I thought it looked very romantic and wanted to explore it right away. Bunny whispered to Mimi that it was a lunatic asylum. Georgie heard it and pulled on Mama’s skirt.

“What is it, love?” she asked, with an uncanny distance in her voice.

“Why are we at a lunatic asylum, Mama?”

Mama shot Bunny a look that could have been a poisoned dart.

“What? I’m sorry,” she said.

We walked around the building and entered the center of a bustling, pretty town. Mama guided us to a bench under a large willow tree.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.