Free The Witch of Belladonna Bay by Suzanne Palmieri Page A

first realize they’re gone. It sounds like all the books say banshees oughta sound. Only I ain’t never seen a banshee.
    â€œOooh, oooh, oooh!” she wailed as she began pacing up and down the long dining room. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. So I asked her the thing I always ask spirits who are just findin’ out they’re dead.
    â€œYou see a light, Miss Charlotte?”
    â€œOooh, oooh, oooh!” she wailed again, right before she disappeared into the walls. I stomped my feet and yelled after her, “That ain’t no kind of answer!”
    I can’t say I’ve seen her since. Jamie neither. And I been lookin’, let me tell you. They hold the answers, those two. But I can’t find ’em. Just thinkin’ on it frustrates me.
    I frowned, turning away from the dining room. Nothin’ scary in there with or without strange ways. Then I looked over at Jackson’s favorite room, and there he was, stretched out and snoring on the large, leather sofa, a glass rocking back and forth under his hand as it moved in time with his breath. You ever notice that? That in order to keep completely still you have to hold your breath. We act like waves, and when we hold our breath, we stop all our inner oceans. I spend a lot of time trying to hold my breath. I can hold it for three whole minutes. Jamie’s got me by half a minute. But he’s bigger.
    Anyway.
    â€œJust what kind of father sleeps himself through a scream like that! Damn it, Jackson. That’s no way to win back her love,” I said mighty loud. He just grumbled something I couldn’t understand and rolled over. I left Jackson there asnor’n and went upstairs to Naomi’s rooms. I knew Aunt Bronwyn’d go there if she was frightened. All girls want their mothers when they’re scared, I think. I didn’t have a mama so I don’t rightly know. And truth is, mamas seem like a whole lotta worry and then a whole lotta grief later on. Who needs that? When I’m scared I want Jamie. No, scratch that. I’m not scared of nothin’ ’cept Belladonna Bay.
    Maybe she hadn’t gone upstairs at all.
    Maybe she went across the creek out of pure sadness. And a feelin’ came up in me so strong that me and Dolores fairly ran out the back door. The mist was even thicker that day. I closed my eyes real tight and tried to feel her. But I couldn’t. Even Dolores shook her head at me and tried to lead me back to the house, those dog tags shining in the sun and tink - tinking together.
    Minerva yelled out the kitchen door. “Byrd, for someone who knows so much, you have your head on wrong about your aunt. She’d never cross that creek. She’s upstairs. But leave her be. She needs some time, she’s lost, Byrd. So lost.”
    Time, my butt, I thought to myself as I made my way into the house through the east balcony by the ballroom. There’s a secret staircase there that leads right up to Naomi’s rooms.
    There’s a legend about the day Naomi died. I’ve asked her if it’s true, but seein’ as she don’t talk, she can’t answer me. She’s a true spirit. More like the ghosts you’d think about if you ain’t never seen one before. Mournful and lovely, with a mistiness hangin’ on her edges.
    Story is that everyone in Magnolia Creek knew she was gone before they even found her body. That hundreds, maybe thousands of redbirds flew in over the town, nearly blottin’ out the sun, perchin’ themselves like a red blanket all over the Big House. It’s said that those birds coated the roof from peak to peak, and that’s when all the folks in town, drawn by the sound of whooshing feathers, or by pure human curiosity, began looking up toward the Big House, which was fairly dripping with those redbirds, and watched them rise in a hush and a rush, flying up in one big cloud, taking Naomi’s soul with