“Yeah, I guess she did.” And I realized it was true. I did believe it, and I always had. I swiped at my tears with my bare hands and tried to pull myself together.
“Well, she was wrong. I suspect Ginny Taylor was wrong about a whole lot of other things too,” he said, pulling a tissue from a pack in his jacket pocket and handing it to me.
“Really, like what?”
“Like thinking it was a good idea to leave her doors and windows unlocked. The door was unlocked when you got there, right?”
Again, I felt myself tighten up. “Yes. Aunt Ginny never locked up. She didn’t need…” I started, but then realized that if I explained how Ginny thought she could keep the bad guys out, I might be opening another whole can of worms. Cook smiled and let my faltering statement pass. He had known my family for years all right.
“So it was common knowledge among your family members that Ginny never locked her doors.”
“Well, yeah, it was common knowledge to everyone. The dry cleaner, the grocery delivery guy. Everyone, not just family.”
“I see,” Cook said, briefly flipping his black book open and then closing it again just as quickly. “So tell me, Miss Taylor. Why did you call your Aunt Iris rather than the police? Were you maybe trying to protect someone? Someone like your Uncle Connor, that is? He’s a big man, with a big temper. He’s well known for it, right?”
“Uncle Connor”—I began almost choking on the “uncle” part—“had nothing to do with Ginny’s death.”
“You sure about that? You can give him an alibi?”
“I saw him at breakfast. I’m sure he was with Iris all morning. You can ask her if you haven’t already, but I know he never would’ve done it.”
“Not even for the inheritance he’s going to get from Ginny?”
“He isn’t getting anything from Ginny,” I guffawed. “Ginny made no secret of the fact that she thought Maisie was the only one of us who was worth a spit and polish. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving dinner without her announcing that when she was gone, she planned on leaving everything to Maisie.” I realized I had stepped in it.
“Well thank you for your time, Miss Taylor.” He stood up abruptly, if a bit stiffly. “I can let myself out.” He smiled and left the room, leaving me with the strong sense that I had just been had.
SEVEN
“Mercy! Mercy!” an excited squeal came from behind me. I almost jumped out of my skin, but then I turned to see Wren standing in the corner.
“Were you in here the entire time?” I asked.
“Yes,” he responded, looking down. “I just wanted to show you this,” he said as he held up another new toy, this time a blue pickup truck.
“You know you aren’t supposed to come into a room without announcing yourself,” I said, trying my best to sound stern. But how can you get angry with a little boy who has been a little boy forever, even before you were born? A child you once played with yourself? A child who isn’t even really a child? When dealing with Wren it was easy to forget that he wasn’t real, that he had started out as Uncle Oliver’s imaginary friend. But when a young witch with as much power as Oliver has invents a playmate, that playmate can truly take on a life of its own. While Wren looked as real as could be, he was in actuality just a thought-form, a bit of imaginative energy so thoroughly well imagined that it had been able to separate itself from the one who originally envisioned it.
Wren dropped to his knees and began to push the truck up to me, running it over my feet as if they were speed bumps. After a moment, he stopped playing with it and looked up at me. “I don’t like that man,” he said, trying to change the subject just as a real child might.
“I don’t think I like that man much either,” I said. I put my hand on his head, and his warm, glossy curls felt so real to me. After all these years and too many games of ring-around-the-rosy to count, I don’t know why it still surprised me, but it did. Even though he looked just like any other kid you might see riding his tricycle down the street or tagging along with his parents in a store—your average six-year-old—Wren was an uncanny creature, something unnatural to this world. And it didn’t seem right that there weren’t any outward signs of that.
Iris told me that Wren had faded away by the time Oliver hit puberty. The family had thought he was gone for good, but he had evidently been dormant, waiting for the arrival of another child to reawaken him. That child had been Ellen’s son, Paul. By the time Maisie and I were born, Wren had already returned to being an accepted part of the family, never growing or aging past his initial incarnation.
“My truck is better than Peter’s,” Wren said.
“And how do you know that?” I asked, amused.
“I’ve seen his truck. His is old.”
“Yeah, but his is real,” I said, regretting it instantly. He stood and kicked the truck away, causing it to roll into the far corner.
The door opened, and Ellen stuck her head in.
“Ellen!” Wren squeaked and ran toward her, totally deserting the toy truck that had captivated him only seconds before. She came into the room and knelt down next to him, kissing his forehead and pulling him to her.
Ginny had often complained that “it” should be dissolved and laid to rest. The family’s job was to maintain the line, not pluck at it like a guitar string. But after Ellen’s son Paul died, she had latched onto Wren. No one, not even Ginny, had had the heart to rip another child from Ellen’s arms, so in spite of Ginny’s churlishness, a tacit agreement seemed to exist in the family that Wren would be kept “alive.” I suspected it was the combination of booze and this need to hold onto an illusion that was siphoning off Ellen’s power. He had to be getting his juice from somewhere; I doubted that he was pulling much from Maisie, who had no need for him anymore, and I had none to give him.