The Witch's Kind by Louisa Morgan

Author:Louisa Morgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2019-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

13

June 1945

When Will reappeared, we settled into a pattern that was deceptively domestic. I went to work each morning. Charlotte shut herself into her studio. Will busied himself working in the garden, or repairing a loose step, or resetting a post in the fence. When I came home from Tibbals Hill, he had usually shopped for dinner and was cooking when I came in the door. Charlotte never commented on any of this beyond a raised eyebrow. I didn’t know what to say, and I had no idea what to do beyond carrying on as I had done for the past three years.

The garden had never looked better. Will cut the grass, trimmed the hedge, and pruned the sprawling camellia bush. He spread gravel under the bench and cut back the shrubs that blocked the sunshine from it. He raked the gravel in front of the house and tidied the flower beds, which had always more or less grown at random.

I said once, “I had no idea you were a gardener.”

“My father’s an orchardist,” he said. “My mother always kept a huge vegetable garden. I know a few things.”

His parents were still a sore point for me. He promised, in the first few days of his return, that he would write to them and explain, but I hadn’t seen a letter go out, or one come in, either. It was nice, though, to have someone buy groceries, and he seemed to have plenty of money. He told me his back pay had accrued lots of interest. I knew nothing about money, since Charlotte and I had never had much, so it seemed logical enough.

“He’s courting you,” Charlotte said one afternoon. It was one of my days off, and Will had driven away somewhere in the jalopy, saying he had a line on a job. When I asked what it was, he winked at me, and said he would tell me all about it when he landed it.

“Courting me? Is that what you think?” We were lounging in the newly tidied garden, with glasses of lemonade and the morning paper beside us.

“I do, kiddo. I think he’s trying to win you back. I don’t know if it’s working.”

“It’s kind of sweet.” I picked up my glass and traced a pattern in the condensation. “I don’t know if I trust it. It was all such a shock.”

“That it was.” Charlotte smoothed the newspaper over her knees, but she gazed off into the summer sky, her lips pursing. “How do you feel about him now?”

I knew the answer to that one. “I feel sorry for him,” I said promptly. “He thought war was going to be glory and medals. Instead, it broke him.”

“Not sure pity is a good basis for a marriage.”

The lemonade was cool and tangy, and I savored a mouthful of it. After I swallowed, I said, “You’re not exactly the ‘You made your bed, now lie in it’ sort of person, are you, Aunt Charlotte?”

She laughed and reached underneath the paper for her cigarette pack.

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