Page 10 of The Magic We Made

“How is that different from any other summer?” I ask. Center Island is beautiful, but all the illegal camping there has been a continuous problem for law enforcement. Not as big a problem as the noise pollution coming from Ash’s house, in my opinion. But having a brother-in-law in Fish and Wildlife has so far been completely unhelpful in that regard.

Troy shrugs again and takes a swig of beer. “Like I said, there’s more of ’em than usual. Alotmore. Not to mention all the holes.”

“What holes?”

“Someone’s been digging holes all over the island, like they’re looking for something.”

“Are theyfairyholes, Daddy?” Seven-year-old Portia, Troy andAngie’s oldest daughter, has wandered in from the den with her little sister, Bianca. Both of them have evidently been listening to our conversation with great interest.

“Fairy hole?” Troy looks momentarily confused. It’s not often his job—which usually consists of fining RV owners for illegally dumping wastewater—involves mythological creatures. “What’s a fairy hole?”

“Where fairies live!” Portia’s tone suggests that she thinks her father very silly for not knowing this. “Fairies dig them to get to their magic kingdom.”

“Not unless those fairies are boozehounds,” Troy replies with a laugh.

Now Portia is the one looking confused. “What’s a boozehound?”

Mom warns, “I piu piccoli!” This isn’t a topic she feels is appropriate to discuss in front of her impressionable grandchildren.

“Sorry, Ma,” Troy says, chastened.

“Are you two ready for dinner?” Angie asks her daughters. “Do you want Daddy to help you wash your hands?”

“Yes!” Portia squeals with excitement when Troy leans down to scoop up both her and her sister. “Nonna, will you come, too?”

“Yes, Nonna will come, too,” my mother says as she follows Troy and his happily shrieking daughters.

Angie barely waits until they’re out of the room before turning to us and rolling her eyes.

“He knows better than to talk about stuff like that around the kids—and Ma.”

Mark shrugs. “Maybe itwasfairies who took your neighbor’s booze, Frankie. It’s as good an explanation as anything else.”

“There’s no such thing as fairies,” Dina says authoritatively. Ifind this comment interesting, coming as it does from a practicing witch, but keep my opinions to myself as Dina goes on, “Though Ididread awhile back that archeological evidence proves Center Island and the Seat have been in perpetual use by humans for over a thousand years—”

“Wait.” Mark looks excited. “A thousand years? So some Viking dude could have buried his stash of gold there, and then died before coming back for it?”

“And someone is out there digging for it?” Dina looks thoughtful. “I suppose that’s one possible explanation, although I’ve heard rumors that there are intersecting ley lines—paths of dark energy laid during the earth’s creation by Gaia, the primordial mother goddess—around here somewhere, and that’s what gives West Harbor such a magical—”

I interrupt. I can’t help it. “You know it’s probably just tweakers, right?”

This causes immediate indignation on the part of everyone: “There’s no meth in West Harbor!” “Tweakers don’t have boats!” “How would meth heads know about the hoard?”

I watch as my family argues over the existence of fairies, ley lines, Viking treasure, and meth in West Harbor. It’s sort of restful in its normalcy. Ever since that celebration at the courthouse last year—the one I didn’t go to—nothing has felt very normal... at least, not to me.

“It was only a thunderstorm!” insist many of the people who were there, including my own brother.

But if it was only a thunderstorm, why did my ex come home shaking with shock?

“I... I don’t know, Frankie,” was all Richard would say when I asked what had happened. “I don’t know.”

Anyone can be at a loss for words after a traumatic event, even someone like Richard, who always prided himself on his extensive vocabulary. That’s why the preferred treatment for post-traumatic stress is cognitive processing therapy—talk therapy.

But Richard wouldn’t talk about whatever it was he’d seen that night. He claimed he was fine. Just fine.

Except he wasn’t. This was proven when, about month later, without a warning to anyone—including his own wife—Richard not only abandoned his private practice as a clinical psychologist as well as his position as head of West Harbor Hospital’s behavioral health department, but also emptied out his retirement and savings accounts (incurring a hefty tax penalty), bought a boat, and declared he was going to sail around the world.

But not with me. With our twenty-five-year-old yoga instructor, Devorah Rainbow (born Debi Waicukowski of Bridgeport). The name change only occurred after “the incident at the courthouse,” but whether Debi changed it to make her business more attractive to all the witches suddenly flooding into town—the way my sister Angie changed the name of her hair salon from Glow-Up to Hairitic—or because she truly believes she’s now Devorah Rainbow remains a mystery.