The Curse Of Dark Root: Part One Part 4

"No, he can stay at Harvest Home. He may be a louse but he's the baby's father. I've got to start getting used to his presence, I suppose."

Merry tilted her head, letting her long ponytail fall across her shoulder. "Why Maggie, that may be one of the most grownup things I've ever heard you say."

"I'll camp out there with you tonight," Ruth Anne offered. "It'll be fun to watch a TV with more than three channels for a change." Her gaze fell upon our poor little television with its coat hanger antenna. "Every penny I make from my next book will be used to buy a new flat screen."

"I'll stay over there tonight, also," Merry said.

"Merry, I'm okay for now," I insisted. "You should get some rest."

"Oh, no! I'm not staying alone in this house at night."

"But we already banished the ghost," I reminded her, my eyes looking upwards to the nursery on the second floor.

"Demon," Merry corrected. "And even so, a house doesn't have to be haunted to be filled with ghosts."

I gave Merry a curious look but she said nothing more.

I could only a.s.sume she meant her memories. There was no escape from them here. They were as thick as Aunt Dora's chowder, lurking in every nook and cornerthe rooms we ate in, played in, hid in, and cried in, throughout all our ages and stages. Sometimes I swore I saw seven-year-old Merry coloring near the front window, or ten-year-old Ruth Anne reading Tolstoy at the kitchen table.

Of course, there were other memories too, those that didn't belong to us but to our mother's generation, and to her mother's before that. The house brimmed with pictures of people we had never met, oddities gathered by Mother during her extensive travels, and knickknacks taken as payment by those who didn't have the money to pay for Mother's services. They watched over us, these remnants of the past, guardians from a bygone era.

Merry's eyes drifted towards a small chair in the corner of the room and the red crayon that peeked out from beneath it. I realized that she wasn't afraid of what still lingered here; she was missing what was gone. Her daughter June Bug.

"It's settled then," I said with more vigor than I felt. "A family dinner and sleepover at Harvest Home."

Michael entered through the front door as I spoke, wiping his feet on the welcome mat. "Excellent. It will be like living in the compound again."

I affixed him with my own evil eye. "Michael, if I wanted to relive my past I would have stayed there."

"We're all reliving our past, Maggie. Some are just more aware of it than others."

FIVE.

Baby Love "I'm huge." I wrapped my arms around my belly as I stood before the mirror hanging in the breakfast nook. I had seen my reflection in this very mirror hundreds of times, but I hardly recognized the one currently staring back at me. The pregnancy weight extended far beyond my belly, in both directions, lending shape and volume to my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips as well. Even my face seemed larger.

Merry scrunched her lips to the side, in stern concentration. "You're eight months pregnant. You're supposed to be huge. I gained weight in my rear end, too. Frank called me Double Bubble."

"I still can't believe you married that creep," I said, turning to view my profile. From this angle it looked like I'd swallowed a watermelon whole.

"It's not like we had a role model for what to look for in a mate," she said, chancing a peek out the window.

Michael's van was gone. We had sent him grocery shopping and knowing him he'd be rambling around the store for hours, trying to decide between soy milk and coconut.

"I can't see my feet," I said, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of my toes without success. "Merry, how is all this..." I gestured to my belly, "...supposed to get out?"

"With great difficulty."

"That doesn't make me feel better."

"It's not supposed to, but women have been doing it forever. We can blame Eve for the pain."

"Our sister?"

Merry laughed. "No, of biblical fame."

"Oh, right. You eat one apple and you screw over an entire gender. She could have at least held out for chocolate."

"Enough chit chat. Time to get you dressed. Michael will be back soon. It wouldn't be proper for him to see you in just your skivvies."

I stopped myself from telling her that at Woodhaven, I walked around completely naked and that had never prompted him to mount me, even when I wanted him to. Ruth Anne may laugh but Merry would not be amused.

"Is dinner a pointed hat affair?" I jested as Merry rummaged through one of Mother's old jewelry boxes. "Or will simple black robes and brooms suffice?"

She tapped her finger to her chin. "I don't think it's going to be fancy, but we should probably clean you up so that Aunt Dora doesn't worry. So, what do you think of these earrings? Remember how Mama wore them on special occasions?" She lifted a pair of green pendants that matched the color of my eyes.

"Real emeralds?" I asked, taking them.

"No, but they're still pretty."

I had never been a jewelry kind of girl but I put them on because it would make Merry happy. She was the keeper of our family memories, and if seeing me in those earrings made her smile, I'd comply.

"I've got earrings, giant underpants, and a bra that should have been burned in the early 70s. What else you got for me?"

"I'm sorry. I should have brought you clothes over from Harvest Home." She removed a silver locket from the box, smiled in private memory, and then put it back into the chest. "I'll look through Mama's old closets. She was pregnant four times. I'm sure we'll come up with something."

She trotted upstairs and I continued to inspect my image in the mirror. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s were heavy and achy and I lifted my bra to get a better look. I wished I hadn't. My nipples had nearly doubled in size since I'd last seen them.

"Merry?" I hollered. "Do you have anything for large nipples?"

"Just a large baby." She reentered the room, a stack of clothes still on hangers draped across her arms. "Mama must have gotten rid of all her maternity wear, but I did find a few things that might work." She handed me a billowy, crushed velvet blouse. "I know chanteuse isn't your color but it will do for now."

"Mother wore this? It seems a bit conservative for Miss Sasha Shantay."

"Nope. It was mine. I bought it right after June Bug was born to camouflage the pregnancy weight." She sighed, her hands lingering a second too long on her abdomen.

I pulled the blouse over my head but could only get it halfway down before it stalled, somewhere between my new bosoms and my expanding belly.

"I'm stuck." I tried to lift the s.h.i.+rt off but it wouldn't go up nor down. The sheer frightfulness of itof losing who I'd beensunk in and I cried, right there with my s.h.i.+rt halfway on and my arms stuck out to the sides like a wallowing scarecrow.

"Oh, honey, it will be okay. You'll see." Merry pulled and tugged while I wriggled and flailed until I was freed. I stood there in my horrible underwear, still sniffling, and she handed me a tissue.

"I'm ugly. Fat and ugly and my b.r.e.a.s.t.s look like fried eggs."

She offered a warm, knowing smile. "You're more beautiful now than ever, Maggie. Softer, inside and out."

"Can't I just be softer inside?" I sniffed, returning her smile. I wiped an errant tear from my cheek and blew my nose. Then, looking at my reflection one last time I added, "Thanks for telling me I'm beautiful. Too bad you're not my target audience."

"Shane's crazy about you, large nipples and all. You're a lucky woman, Maggie. A baby on the way and two men vying for you. What I wouldn't give..."

Michael's van rattled into the driveway and Merry tossed me the robe I'd been wearing all day. I pulled it on just before he opened the door.

"Doesn't seem like you made much headway since I left." He set two brown paper sacks filled with groceries onto the breakfast table. "Perhaps I should drive over to Dora's and get you some clothes."

"Stay out of my drawers, Michael," I warned him.

He licked his lips and smiled. "Now Maggie, why would I want to do that?"

I rode shotgun in Merry's maroon sedan while Ruth Anne took the back seat. Michael drove his beat up van ahead of us, waving his hand out the window every time he changed lanes or turned onto another road.

"He's acting like we've never driven this route before," I grumbled.

"He's in Daddy-Bear mode," Merry said. "I think it's kind of sweet."

"He's a dork," Ruth Anne countered. "What did you ever see in that bozo?"

I rolled down my window, wondering if I should defend my taste in men or be annoyed that Merry found him sweet. Vanity won out. "He might be a dork now but he used to have some kind of magnetic appeal. When I first met him, he could get people to do whatever he wanted, no matter how misguided."

I pressed myself into the back of the seat, lost in the memory of how Michael had found me in Mother's store nearly eight years ago. He had asked me to go with him and I had gone, willingly and eagerly and not knowing him at all. Was that his charisma, I wondered, or simply my desire to get out of Dark Root by any means necessary?

Ruth Anne leaned in between our seats. "I stand by my original summation. And those eyes of his, they give me the creeps."

Merry clicked her tongue. "His gaze is so intense. I've never seen a shade of blue like that."

"They're grey, actually," I said, trying to hide my agitation.

"Well, they're nice. And he's nice. I didn't give him a chance before. Apart from..."

"Apart from him cheating on me?"

"Yes, but remember he was under Leah's spell. Besides that, what other problems did the two of you have?"

"He was too neat," I said, watching the rows of trees whiz by, their boughs turned up with the promise of sun. I inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of fresh pine and spring rain.

"Too neat? What do you mean?"

"He folds his socks, takes two showers a day, and has had the same comb for nearly twenty years!"

"Geez," Ruth Anne said from the backseat. "The longest relations.h.i.+p I've had with a grooming implement was six months and that's because I kept my toenail clippers on a key ring."

"There are worse things than being neat." Merry stated.

When we reached Harvest Home Michael stopped me on the front porch steps before going inside. He handed me a plastic cup with a straw, filled with a lime-green concoction that smelled like gym shoes.

"I brought you this from an organic juicer in Linsburg. Drink up, young lady."

I wrinkled my nose and slushed the goop around in the cup. "What is it?"

"It's a kiwi-spinach-broccoli juice." He smiled broadly to indicate how fortunate I was to receive such a gift. Then, poking me on the forehead he added, "It's very good for you."

He had changed clothes, and now wore jeans and a baby blue, b.u.t.ton down s.h.i.+rt that looked like it belonged in an Easter catalogue. He had shaved and his face was smooth yet defined. Even though he was pus.h.i.+ng forty, he somehow looked younger than the day we'd met.

I blushed when I realized he was scrutinizing my own appearance. After a thorough once-over, he leaned back against one of the grand pillars that supported the balcony.

"That's an interesting outfit, Maggie."

"Ruth Anne and Merry dressed me," I explained. I tugged on the sleeves of Merry's snug corduroy jacket while trying to hide Ruth Anne's camouflaged T-s.h.i.+rt beneath it. With my hair tied up in a satin ribbon, and my feet encased in combat boots, my style settled somewhere between Old American Girl and Pregnant G.I. Jane.

"You shouldn't tease me," I said, catching his expression. "Back at Woodhaven, you made us dress out of thrift stores and the lost-and-found."

He locked his hands behind his neck, still surveying me. "It's kind of s.e.xy, actually. Makes you look both innocent and feisty."

"What is wrong with you men?"

Ruth Anne rapped on the window from inside the house, gesturing for us to come inside. I nodded and held up a finger to let her know it would be a moment.

"Why are you here?" I asked, my lips hovering above the straw as I summoned the courage to take a sip of the broccoli juice. I sucked halfway, then let it fall again before it reached my mouth.

Michael pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "I'm here for the baby. That's all."

"You look different." It wasn't only his hair and clothes that had changed. His waist was slimmer, his biceps were rounder, and there was a healthy glow to his skin, as if he'd been spending a lot of time outdoors.

"Just clean living." He turned to view the wilderness, a panoramic, ancient forest that surrounded us on three sides. A leaf drifted down and he caught it, setting it as gently on the porch as one would a pet. "I started meditating more and training in the art of Karate a few months ago. It's changed my life."

I inspected the back of his head. "Clean living grew your hair back, too?"

"Same old Maggie," he chuckled.

"Same old Michael, with different packaging."

At last, I nerved myself to take a drink. It tasted worse than it smelled. I handed it back to him. "If this is clean living, I'll stay dirty."

"I'd want nothing less."

I turned back to the door. "Michael, what's waiting for me inside?"

"Nothing you can't handle."

My family knew more than they were willing to tell, of that I was certain. And tonight I'd find out the rest.

"When I agreed to join the family business, no one ever mentioned curses," I said.

"People have always been persecuted for their beliefs. But the alternative is a world without magic. You wouldn't want to live in a world like that, would you?"