Passover

by Aphrodite Anagnost

  She leaned on her two aluminum canes and heaved up out of bed, then shuffled over to her armoire to collect her paisley wash dress, compression stockings, and orthotic shoes. She pulled her favorite scarf off its hanger with the crook of her cane. Her breathing was rapid by the time she sat back down on the patchwork quilt to wrestle the clothes on. She donned a heavy raincoat that would keep out the chill from the coming storm. Damp cold weather always aggravated her rheumatism. She popped an extra Percocet just in case. She’d already checked the Weather Channel. The temperature was forty-eight, eighty percent humidity, and a low-pressure system was sweeping north from the Carolinas. Meteorology was such a soft science. She wrapped the blue scarf around her neck, preparing for the icy blocks of air she was sure to encounter in the yellow house now infested with a severely restless spirit—the famous one on Zebulon postcards, called “Daisyland.”

  Outside her cottage, she paid little attention to Nijinsky. The Russian blue had come walking stiffly out of the barn. Something was the matter with that cat, but she didn’t have time to think about it. Beatricia rambled through her ivy lawn and across the shell drive to the main house. Rain pattered on fallen leaves piled together like tiny corpses at a mass funeral. She glanced back at Nijinsky and frowned. He not only looked a dead translucent grey, but all four paws were aflame. In fact, he wasn’t breathing. His form wove around her damp ankles as she stumbled her slow way up the side porch steps. The cat’s fur was cold, spiky as ice crystals in an old freezer. She stopped to steady herself on the iron railing at the second step.

  “Get out of my way.” She swung both canes. Nijinky’s feline aura was gone. He was not advanced enough to be a true ghost—what was left of the cat was just a mirage.

  She patted her cheeks and felt the back of her head to check that her bun was still bound, then heaved up the top two steps of the porch. She squinted at the noonday sun that eked a few dismal rays through the expanding carpet of sooty clouds. By the time she reached the side door, Creed had climbed off the dining-room table. Dave was making coffee; Rachel had probably refused to do it. When she spied her tottering mother on the porch, she frowned and scarfed down another Oreo. The sheriff stood in the foyer, next to the grandfather clock, flipping through his pocket notebook. He held his cell phone up to an ear and stomped around the parlor, positioning himself to obtain the best cell signal, all while barking orders at his deputies.

  “Take me to Daisyland,” Beatricia said, the pair of canes straining under her weight, a rain-spotted spirit board tucked under one arm. She reached into the sweater pocket that held the anxious planchette, and rested a hand on it to keep it from stirring.

  “I’ll stay with the kids,” said Dave.

  “Forget it.” Rachel shook her head. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “You’re right,” said Dave. “Number one, we have to stay together. Number two, we’re at maximum strength here. Number three, there’s no point.”

  “Oh yes, there is, you doubting Thomas, you,” said Beatricia.

  “How do you know anything about this, Mother?”

  Beatricia sniffed. “Where’s that smoke coming from? It’s been in the air all morning.”

  No answer.

  She indicated the spirit board with the nod of her head. “I have my ways.”

  “That’s a lie,” said Rachel. “You’ve been talking to someone.”

  “Of course I have, dear,” Beatricia said. “And that thing outside isn’t your cat, or even his ghost.”

  Rachel set another half-eaten cookie down on a trivet, cream filling smudged on her lower lip. “What thing? Nijinsky died, not a mark on him. We buried him.”

  “Something that looks like the cat is out there walking around, setting my pine mulch on fire with his feet.”

  “What?” Rachel ran to the door and peered through the pane. “Where is it?”

  “Don’t open that door,” said Dave. “There’s no cat out there.”

  “Believe what you want.” Beatricia flipped a wrist. “To each his own.”

  Sheriff Wise snapped his cell phone and slipped into the dining room—quietly, for such a large man. “I can’t let you go into Revel Petty’s house, Mrs. Fulbright.”

  “You’re still sheriff because of me,” she said. “Suppose everyone knew we helped your pot-head sons jump bail and slip off to California.”

  Wise paled. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I have six months to live, Phil. Maybe less. My heart is failing. What I do now, I do for my soul.”

  “Damn it all, Bea.”

  “What’s this all about?” Rachel snapped a rubber band on her wrist three times, a sign she was sliding into anger.

  Creed laughed, in spite of his injury, hand cradling his side. He seemed energized by the brief dispute. He rose and sauntered about the room. “I’ll go with you, Mrs. Fulbright,” He smirked at the sheriff.

  Outside, a tractor bounced down Burnt Chestnut Road in misty silence—except when Lev opened the door to the side porch and the noise briefly rumbled in.

  “Nobody goes without me,” said the sheriff.

  “Then we’ll all go.” Creed smiled.

  “To hell with it,” said Rachel. “I’ll round up the boys.”

  Beatricia looked into Dave’s eyes. They were dilated, and the upper lids sagged with fatigue. The lines in his forehead were more pronounced than usual. His lips were compressed, as if to hold in a string of angry words. Beatricia shook her head.

  Creed had the narrow-eyed look of a spy. He was calm, but she didn’t trust him. In contrast, she’d liked Lev since she’d first met him when he’d ridden up to the door of her cottage on Queen Mary the Pious and let her feed the gray mare carrots. She’d laughed like a child, letting the horse nuzzle her fingers. Lev’s smile was delicious. His scar made it even better. She enjoyed his company. And there was depth to him, a spiritual aura. His shoulders and neck were relaxed. His breathing deep, slow and rhythmic. His skin always smelled of saddle soap. He had the face of a Benedictine monk—rational, serene.

  “Lev,” she said.

  He looked up. Smiled so broadly the skin around his scar crinkled piratically which only made him more handsome. Zack once said he wanted a scar like that. If Lev knew, he’d say, “Real scars are earned.”

  “Would you be a dear and go in my cottage, get the black duffle at the foot of my bed?” asked Beatricia. “And don’t forget the little jar of holy water on my altar. New stuff from Father Steven.”

  “Happy to, Mrs. Fulbright.”

  “We’ll need coats for Daisyland,” said the sheriff, his lids descending to half-mast as if to shut off further arguments.

  “Lev,” said Beatricia, in her come-hither voice.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Ma’am?”

  “Bring my coat, too. The red wool with the fake lamb collar.”

  Lev let the screen door slam behind him.

  “It’s a warm spring day,” said Dave, shaking his head. “We don’t need coats. Don’t be silly.”

  Wise looked at Deputy Ruiz and Beatricia, and nodded.

  “We’re gonna need them,” said Beatricia, arching a plucked eyebrow. “Expect cold spots when spirits are present. Isn’t that right, Sheriff? And it’s starting to rain.”

  Wise laughed. “I’ll be wearin’ my bomber jacket, Bea.”

  She hobbled over to a mirror hanging by the side door, and took a good look at herself. “Not bad,” she said. She put a finger in her mouth, moistened it and used it to flatten her eyebrows. “Let’s get going. We’re burning daylight.”

  Phil Wise helped Beatricia settle into the passenger seat of his patrol car.

  “Love the Crown Victoria,” she said, running a hand across the leatherette dashboard. “Naugahyde. A cruelty-free fabric.”

  Wise patted the car top like the head of a favorite dog. “She’s got a hemi engine.”

  “Nice.” She flipped down the vanity mirror and painted her lips a saucy red. “Why not look your best?�
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  “Bea, you always look good.”

  “That Deputy Ruiz, she’s a nice-looking girl. Must be nice to be surrounded by men all day.”

  Wise adjusted the rearview and saw the patrol car carrying the deputies pull up behind them. He heard the engine rev when they passed the Charger. The Sheltons, Lev, and Creed had already begun walking to Daisyland.

  The sheriff leaned over and buckled in his passenger. “There you go, Bea.”

  “That’s not necessary.” She unclipped it. “I haven’t got long, you know.”

  Wise’s smile faded. “But…”

  “Besides, I’m more likely to die in a meteor shower than a car wreck. You’re driving.” She reached over the gearbox and pinched his cheek. “Remember?”

  “It’s the law.” He leaned over again and grabbed the strap. “We’re not going anywhere unless you buckle up.”

  She sighed. “Fine.” Wise patted her hand, chewing his lip. Drops of rain fell on the windshield. “That wasn’t Nijinsky.”

  “What?” He glanced at her as he twisted the key. The motor finally turned over.

  “The cat. An impersonator. Just a shadow with flaming paws that resembled Nijinsky.” Her voice sounded unnaturally calm.

  “Bea.”

  She shuddered, then reached over and patted his hand. “It’s not him, poor old kitty. That thing was just a ball of energy. Not conscious. Not as I understand consciousness, anyways.”

  “You’re saying the cat was, like…some kind of illusion, or…phantasm?” He shook his head as if he were rattling a jar of coins.

  “Phil, for God’s sake. I don’t know exactly what it is. Was. Somehow fear feeds it. Organizes it. Like a golem. Makes it more solid. And I’ll tell you something else. The cat is no stranger than the killer.” She held out her hand, admiring her new French manicure. “Hands are still beautiful, don’t you think, Phil? Heck. I only have a few months to live, at most. Why not look my best?”

  “Is the cat…evil?” asked Wise.

  “I told you. It’s not a cat.” She shook her blue-gray head. In the light Wise could make out the beautician’s glitter coating her fresh curls. “It only appears to be one. A golem. No—it’s more like a hologram. From the power of animal magnetism.”

  He listened to her séance plan for a few moments, the engine idling, then drove the two hundred yards down Burnt Chestnut and onto the circular oyster-shell drive. He maneuvered between two giant iron rendering pots flanking the front porch of Daisyland and parked.

  “Well,” he began, but the words faded off as if sucked into a noise vacuum. He turned to Bea, clearing his throat. Their gazes locked. “It’s as though today the Earth is standing still.”

  “The deaths were unnatural. And today itself, Phil, is unnatural.” She nodded like a schoolteacher and pointed to the locust shells lining the bottoms of the rendering pots. “Things are going from sublime to perilous.”

  He grunted, then shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “I want you to tell me all about animal magnetism, Bea.”

  A yellow tribe of jonquils bordered the dormant flowerbeds in front of Daisyland. Their heads nodded to one another in the damp breeze, conversing. Rachel stood on the ribbon of crushed shells, folded her arms and smiled to mask her worry. The deputies looked like two ne’er-do-well amigos and one spectacular amiga playing dress-up, coasting the two hundred yards down Burnt Chestnut, two in the front, one in the backseat of the Crown Victoria. At least they carried loaded rifles and knew how to use them. Presumably.

  The boys sat on the brick steps of the wide front porch, waiting. Dave peered through one window into a gap between the curtain’s edge and the window frame. “Nothing,” he said.

  A light rain had begun, but the drops were too small and scattered to matter.

  “You’re late.” Creed smiled at Beatricia and Wise when at last they emerged from the sheriff’s car.

  “For good reason,” said the sheriff.

  Rachel unfolded her arms and peeled a loose chip of paint off the step with a fingernail, her eyes bloodshot and stinging, her forehead throbbing. Beatricia flashed her don’t-you-dare-open-that-mouth look. Rachel frowned and held her tongue. It had made her ill to see Phil Wise help Beatricia from the car as if she were a princess and he, her courtier. Rachel turned away, put a hand to her chest and coughed. There was something wrong here: a stench in the air, the scent of simmering, rancid fat. Treetops were all but invisible in the sooty miasma of overcast sky.

  Zack and Leo wrestled and punched each other’s arms, laughing. Rachel put a finger to her lips and blew a muffled “shush.” They slumped and stared straight ahead, slack-jawed, a look they’d rehearsed and perfected in church.

  Lev’s eyes were bright and expressive. He had Bea’s duffle slung over one shoulder, carrying the bag like a bellhop. His free hand gripped a plastic bottle of holy water with a gold cross on it. God, she thought. Not Lev, too.

  “Listen up,” said Beatricia, still arm-in-arm with the sheriff. “We all need to be on the same page before we go in.”

  “Go ahead, Mom,” she said. There was no chance of being on the same page with her mother, but there was no sense in protesting. Beatricia had been a den mother for the Boy Scouts. Just get this over with, Rachel thought.

  “Let’s all try to work together,” said Wise, letting Bea lean on his shoulder. “Look at all the possibilities.”

  “There she goes, flirting again,” Rachel whispered to Dave. “Really, she’s impossible. Even now.” The boys chuckled. Lev and the sheriff looked down.

  “Go on,” Dave told Wise. Leo cocked a fist, about to punch Zack. Dave sighed, reached over and tapped his son’s shoulder. “We’re all going to listen, and without any snickering.”

  Beatricia took a deep breath, scanning the faces of her audience like a revivalist about to deliver a hellfire sermon to a congregation of snake handlers.

  “The word ‘séance’ derives from the Old French word seoir, meaning to sit,” she said, “and that’s what we’re all going to do.” She drummed her nails on the handles of her canes. “But over the centuries the meaning has changed. Now we mean a group of people talking to the dead.”

  The swing creaked and swung in a puff of wind. Crockett, who’d had his nose buried in The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Wisdom, looked up. Ruiz applied a rosy lipstick to her lush lips as Leveaux fingered the blue glass beads around his neck, muttering prayers.

  Rachel groaned. “We all know what a séance is, Mother.” She hoped Bea had given up proselytizing years before, after Daddy had died and then refused to haunt her. But no.

  “What is not generally known,” said Beatricia, pushing her glasses up her ski slope nose with a finger, “is that there are two types of mediumship—trance and channeling.”

  Zack smirked. Leo grabbed him around the neck and drove his knuckles into his scalp. Rachel lifted a forefinger to her lips and glared. “Stop it, you two.” They cringed, feigning fear, the whites of their eyes visible all the way around dark green irises.

  “When channeling, the medium allows the spirit to take over her body and visit with the seekers in attendance.”

  Oh God, thought Rachel. Her muscles tensed. She looked into the woods to the east and imagined hidden eyes peering between leaves and branches. What a waste of time! Fear itself was a waste of time. Her fingers twitched. She needed to find something to do with her hands.

  “But I don’t channel.” Beatricia lifted her chin as she spoke. “I’m a trance medium— strictly.” Her eyebrows rose. “I’ll get a message from the spirit world but usually don’t remember it because information from the other side comes so quickly through the planchette. Lev and Mr. Creed will write down everything.” She looked at the two, who nodded.

  “Check,” said Creed. His mouth relaxed, lips rounder than Rachel remembered. He knew the forest. Something inside told her Creed had the balls to help them.

  “Okay,” said Lev, wiping sweat from his face. Rachel caught
Beatricia and him staring—as if at once they’d recognized something familiar in one another. She felt a surge of acidic fear in the pit of her stomach. Or was it the burn of jealousy? Lev dutifully rummaged through the bag and pulled out two candles, a notebook and a pen. He tested the ink with a few scribbles and gave one to Creed.

  “Purple ink,” said the rumored secret agent, buttoning the collar of his bloodied woolen woodcutter shirt. “Nice.”

  “Today, I’ll use a spirit board,” said Bea. “Write down what’s spelled out. Now get inside and make a place to sit. I don’t like the look of these stairs.” She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, and from one cane to the other. “I know already this is a very confused spirit. And in great pain. It’s looking for something.”

  Beatricia and Sheriff Wise led the group into the living room. Rachel followed, mind alive with bitten-off words that had ugly edges. The butter-yellow walls were busy with shadows. Everyone spread out in the huge living room like flower petals lifted by the fluttering draft of Japanese fans. Rachel found herself by the fireplace, closeted up with the scent of ashes.

  “Not as cold as I expected in here,” said Creed, crossing toward the dining room, his rifle leading the way.

  “You uncock that rifle, sir,” said the sheriff, shivering. “Maybe you’ll see how cold it can get. Or maybe not.”

  “If it ain’t cocked, it ain’t ready,” said Creed, glancing at Rachel.

  “You just wait a minute there, Mr. Creed,” said Wise, eyes fixed on the man’s trigger finger.

  “Don’t worry, Sheriff. I know what I’m doing.” He exhaled a long, condensed breath. His face twisted. “Damn cold in here, all of a sudden.”

  “You may work for the Feds. But I’m the law here. Uncock that rifle, now.”

  Creed released the hammer. “Under the circumstances, you’re right, Sheriff.”