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Every town, she supposed, had that madwoman who was accused of witchcraft by gangs of young children and ostracized by the sort of people who had neatly kept lawns and kept all their personal business carefully concealed—the better to make their neighbors envy them.
In Pear Blossom, that woman was Dana Groves.
Dahlia couldn’t explain how Dana had gone from object of pity to one of scorn and distrust. At least, she couldn’t identify the stages of it. Except that the town had moved on from her tragedy, and she had not.
Coupled with the fact that if something happened to a woman or girl, and it might involve sex, then she was seen as to blame in some way.
And by extension, the mother was absolutely to blame.
Dana had been a single mother, and the fact her daughter had disappeared—and her daughter’s boyfriend was most certainly responsible—had eventually been laid at her feet.
The problem was, by the time Dahlia was in high school, Caitlin’s disappearance wasn’t what people thought of when they thought of Dana, not specifically.
She was the hag that lived on the corner, the museum troll.
Dahlia had never seen her that way. Dahlia hadn’t forgotten her sadness.
But it was like Pear Blossom had been determined to blot out Dana’s sadness with the joy of finding Ruby, and Dahlia had never seen how that canceled out a tragedy.
But then, she was the one who had always seen something quite tragic in Ruby.
Dahlia’s reputation was firmly linked to Dana. Since Dahlia had once screamed down the entire football team for throwing rocks at Dana’s windows, and had, in fact, thrown a rock that had hit the star fullback in the shoulder and told the “pack of pricks” where they could shove their rocks.
That had done nothing to boost Dahlia’s popularity, oddly.
“I don’t see how everyone can be so mean about her,” Ruby said. “How can you not look at her and think about everything she’s lost?”
Dahlia felt kinship with Ruby just then. While Dahlia didn’t feel like her compassion for Dana came from kindness, she knew Ruby’s did.
“You went to school with Caitlin,” Ruby said to Marianne. “Wasn’t she only like a year ahead of you?”
Marianne looked ashamed. “I know. It’s hard to remember from before. I don’t usually... Consciously connect the two things. I know I should. Caitlin was... I mean, I didn’t really know her. She was always busy with her boyfriend.”
The boyfriend.
Everyone knew it had been the boyfriend.
He’d been vilified in town, in theGazette. He’d even been arrested, but he’d never been convicted because there hadn’t been sufficient evidence.
There had never been a body. There had never been anything.
Dana had never even seen justice done for her daughter. She’d never had closure. And once the initial impact of the tragedy had passed, the town had moved on, and eventually Dana had become nothing but a reminder of bad things.
Which had ultimately put her in the category of bad things.
The idea sat heavy in Dahlia’s stomach.
“Dana is always nice to me,” Ruby said.
“Well, that’s just that patented Ruby magic,” Marianne said, wiggling her fingers and twisting one of her rings back into place. “Which lotion is best?”
Ruby grabbed hold of Dahlia’s hand and lifted it to her nose. Then she sniffed her own hand. She tapped on Dahlia’s hand. “I like that one better. What is it?”
“Yours is lavender and salt, Dahlia’s is cedar.”
“Salt?” Dahlia asked. “Salt, Marianne. Really.”
“As in like sea salt,” Marianne said. “It has a scent.”
