Laura Sibson - Edie in Between

When I wake to the chaotic sounds of the marina on this summer morning, I hear my grandmother in the houseboats kitchen, chatting with our ancestors. Sun streams through my small square window. Temperance, at the bottom of my bed, licks her paw and her tail flicks idly. There is a scent of honeysuckle and my mother floats near the bedroom door.

I smush the pillow over my head, wishing for the oblivion of sleep. But its no use. By the time I roll out of my narrow bed to slip my feet into flip-flops, Moms gone. I peel off the tank top I slept in and pull on a sports bra and T-shirt. I slept in my running shorts. Im efficient that way. I open my top drawer in search of a hair tie. Instead, my hand finds the dark purple velvet pouch. I open it, like I do most days. The silver necklace with the acorn pendant pools in the bottom, winking at me from the shadows. I pull out the tiny note handwritten by Mom: For when you need me with you. I close my eyes against the blaze of loss until it fades. Then I tuck the note back into the pouch with the necklace, tighten the drawstrings, and return it to my drawer.

After tugging my wavy mass of hair into an out-of-my-way ponytail, I head for the kitchen. Temperance leaps from the bed and slides ahead of me as if to say that it was her idea all along to go find my grandmother.

Sure enough, GG is surrounded by ghosts while she works with her herbs at the kitchen counter. She moves around my grandfather, Edward (cancer), to grab some calendula overhead, but then she backs into her sister, Mildred (heartbreak). GGs parents (old age for one, pneumonia for the other) come and go, as do some Mitchell witches who must be a century dead at this point.

As long as Id been in Cedar Branchtwo weeks todaynot a day has passed that GG didnt talk to dead relatives, often while torturing some innocent plants. She chopped them or smashed them or hung them from clothespins that perched on the string crisscrossing the ceiling. The plants, not the relatives. As ghosts, the relatives were incorporeal. They were also silent, but that didnt stop GG from conversing with them.

Should be nice weather tonight for the solstice, she says to her sister. Pity the full moon isnt for a few days yet. That would have made for a very powerful evening.

GG mashes a pile of basil. Must be for the poultice that calms mosquito bites. Very popular this time of year. GG prepares and sells many salves and healing remedies. But what shes most known for is her honey. People describe my grandmothers honey as revelatory, illuminating, and lifesaving. It may be difficult to believe that all those claims are true, but Im not saying that theyre not.

What did those herbs ever do to you? I ask, my tone teasing.

Good morning, Edie. GG glances up and smiles at me. Her long gray hair is braided down her back. Years of work outside has turned her white skin a weathered tan. She wears loose linen pants and over her cotton shirt is a smock, protecting her clothes from the messy war with herbs. Her feet are bare.

The houseboat rocks gently, an ever-present reminder that we are not on landthat I am far from the home I shared with my mother in Baltimore. When I first moved onto the boat, the constant rocking made me uneasy. I couldnt wait for my feet to feel solid, unmoving ground. Now, after only a handful of weeks, the rocking fades in and out of my awareness, but I still miss my houseand my old life.

The prisms hanging in the east windows cast rainbows of color across the room and through the ghosts, speckling me as I walk to the French press, avoiding the spirits in my path. Unlike GG, I choose not to interact with them.

The houseboat is bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. I dont mean that it seems bigger. I mean that its literally bigger. Youd imagine that GG would only have a tiny galley kitchen on this boat, but the counter is spacious (though there can never be enough room for me to avoid lingering ancestors). I had thought to ask GG how shed managed that extra space, but she might mistake my curiosity for interest in our family magic, so Ive kept my question to myself.

I duck to avoid getting smacked in the head by the bundles of herbs hanging like bats in a cave. There are also miniature plants and butterflies suspended in clear orbs. Bones dangle from the ceiling, too. Tiny ones stacked and strung together. They clack when you bump into them. I try not to bump into them.

That coffees is not likely to be hot anymore, GG says, her attention returned to the basil before her.

I meant to get up earlier, I say.

Im not judging, GG says.

Its true. GG doesnt comment about my sleep or eating habits, so long as I do in fact eat and sleep at some point.

Same with Mom. Back at home, runners on my cross-country team had commented more than once how lucky I was that my mother allowed me to come and go whenever I pleasedsleep all day if I needed to and eat whenever I was hungry. Theyd said Id wasted all of that freedom because I didnt use it to stay out late at parties. But I had wished for parents like theirs, who had normal-people jobs and paid attention to when their kids left the house and returned. When I let this wish slip to Mom, it was cause for Tea and a Talk. For this, Mom brewed a mix of spearmint and lemon verbena.

Over steaming cups, Mom explained that she viewed mealtimes and sleep times as arbitrary. Id argued back that adolescents crave structure and need it to develop a sense of safety. She asked if Id ever felt unsafe. I admitted I hadnt. I always felt loved by my mother and safe in our home.

Ten months ago, when my days were turned upside down by Moms death and I slept all day and haunted the house in the dark hours of night, no one stopped me. GG brought tea of lemon balm and hawthorn berries, sweetened with her own honey. It took me a month or so, but I managed to get myself back on a more conventional schedule. I had to if I wanted to get anything done and stay on track to graduate summa cum laude.