A Wonder Springs Cozy Mystery Omnibus: Books 1, 2 & 3

by B. T. Alive

  He snapped me a curt nod. “Good evening, Summer.”

  “Hey,” I said. I hesitated, then forced myself to add, “Uncle Barnaby.”

  He scowled, and beside me, Tina smothered a giggle.

  “Barnabas,” he said, enunciating with stentorian flair. His huge white beard rippled with indignation. “Please. Let us commence our long-delayed relations with mutual courtesy. Barnaby sounds like a circus clown.”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Seated across from him, a woman and another man twisted back to greet me. The woman rose first, and I startled at the “touch” of her wide, dark eyes. I remembered her, of course; the same woman who’d first greeted me when I parked at the Inn. Now she was beaming.

  “I’m your Aunt Helen,” she said. “Tina’s mom.”

  She sounded so… normal. She looked normal too, like any middle-aged mom dressed up for a meeting. She could have been an accountant. I wanted to hug her and not let go.

  But I held back, and not just because of my Touch. Watch out, I thought. Another empath. And this one’s a pro.

  My new aunt cocked her head, and her eyes twinkled. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m off duty.”

  “Really? You can turn it off?” I said. “Wait, then how’d you know what I was feeling?”

  “You have a very expressive face.”

  “Mom!” Tina said. She gave me a rueful look. “I can’t stand when she does that.”

  My aunt made a mock look of prim rebuke, then patted the shoulder of the man who’d risen beside her. “And this,” she said, “is your Uncle Denny.”

  If she looked normal, he looked positively rumpled. His gray suit was baggy, even on his overweight frame. His top hair had thinned to a few wispy fronds that floated like sea ferns. Even his mustache looked like he’d found it in a thrift store.

  But his bright smile shone all the way to his eyes. And from the way his wife touched his shoulder, and the glance Tina gave him, it was clear they both adored him.

  He gave me a nod and a polite wave of his thick fingers. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said. “Tina’s told us very good things.”

  “I highly doubt that,” I said. “So what’s your secret power? Laser vision? Talking to ghosts?”

  He rumbled in a deep chuckle. “Pumping septics,” he said. “I clean up the mess.”

  “He’s really good,” Tina said.

  “Cool,” I said, mortified. “So is this everyone besides Grandma? The whole family?”

  “Oh no!” Tina said. “You should see us at Thanksgiving! It’s packed.”

  “But I mean, that lives here? At the Inn?”

  Still seated, Uncle Barnaby (Barnabas? Barnabossy?) sniffed. “I’m afraid you may sporadically encounter your Aunt Trudy.”

  “I love Aunt Trudy!” Tina cried. “She’s so fun!”

  “She is exceedingly eccentric,” Uncle Barnaby intoned.

  “I don’t know why you mind her so much,” Tina said. “Lots of people talk about their past lives.”

  “Um,” I said.

  “Her own supposed past lives, I could stomach,” said Uncle Barnaby. “But everyone else’s?”

  “Barnabas!” snapped a brisk voice that was all too familiar.

  My white-bearded uncle zipped his mustached lip and made his face a stoic mask.

  Grandma had taken her place. She stood at the head of the table.

  The relatives (my relatives) quickly shuffled to their seats. Tina hesitated, but only a moment, and then took the empty place by Uncle Barnaby. I slipped to the seat beside her, reflecting that, although I had saved her life, she had saved me from sitting next to Uncle Barnaby. We were probably even.

  Without a word, Grandma closed the round window, and glanced through to the outside as if to check for any lurking eavesdropper. Then she sat on her cherrywood throne.

  “So, Summer?” she said, in a tone that was formal even for her. “What is your decision?”

  My relatives murmured in confusion, but I knew exactly what she meant.

  “You mean about staying?” I said.

  She inclined her head in a micro-nod.

  “Well…” I said. Over the years, I’d presented in hundreds of conference rooms, burning in the crosshairs of every gaze. I’d hardly ever even broken a sweat. But now, under the table, I was clenching my fists.

  “You can’t leave!” Tina said. “I thought you left your job!”

  “I can’t just stay at this Inn indefinitely,” I said.

  “Why not?” Tina said. “We do!”

  Aunt Helen cut in, confident and grown-up. “Don’t worry about money, Summer. There’s always work to do here.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said, focusing on her and avoiding Grandma. “But as a long-term plan, I’m not sure that minimum wage—”

  “You’re griping about your salary?” boomed Uncle Barnaby. “Have you no sense of the bigger picture? The larger fight?”

  “Not really,” I said. “You all haven’t said much. Or anything.”

  “But they already attacked you,” Tina said. “That Disruptor was Uncle Enoch! From Great-Uncle Vincent—”

  “Wait, what?” I said. “You know that guy’s name? And what do you mean uncle?”

  Everyone around the table fell silent.

  Aunt Helen spoke first. “Our… extended… family is a long story,” she said. “But Summer, you can handle them. You’re a Meredith.”

  There it was again. The thrill at that forgotten, remembered name. Here and now, at this table, the thrill was stronger, almost unbearable, as if all the others were feeling it too.

  “You’re family now,” Aunt Helen said. “One of us.”

  “Yeah, now,” I said.

  The silence went cold.

  Very quietly, Grandma spoke. “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “What’s to elaborate?” I said. “I’m in my late twenties! If you all care so much about family, why’d you wait decades to contact me?”

  “I can see why you’d ask that,” Grandma said. “But the reasons are various, and cannot all be explored here. To begin with, we wanted to keep you safe.”

  “Safe?” I said. “That Enoch guy nearly killed me!”

  “We were not aware you’d been located,” she said. “Not until the last minute.”

  “You mean you didn’t even know where I was?” I said. “How is that possible?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, and her eyes dimmed. “There were certain… incidents. Your mother broke off contact. She changed her name. So did your father.”

  “What?” I said. “Dad’s last name wasn’t really Sassafras?”

  “No,” Grandma said, with a dry snort.

  I know you’re thinking, That name was made up? Shocker! But I’d grown up with it; it sounded just as plausible as any other random last name. At least this explained Dad’s complete lack of relatives.

  Oh, crud. If Dad had been lying… I could have a whole other set of relatives on his side.

  I was not going to think about that.

  “But why didn’t you look for me?” I said. “Did you even try?”

  “Of course,” huffed Uncle Barnaby.

  “But we didn’t have much to go on,” Aunt Helen said. “We’d never even met you, sweetheart.”

  “We were also thinking of your best interests,” Grandma said. “It was highly likely that you did not have an unusual gift. In that case, contact with us could only be a liability.”

  “Of course I had a stupid gift!” I said. “I’ve had it since I was a kid! But I had to figure everything out myself… do you understand? Completely alone.“

  Grandma furrowed her brow. “Summer, I truly regret—”

  “No, listen! By the time I had any clue what was going on… I mean, I was twelve, I tried to tell Dad, when I managed to catch him sober, and he listened to the whole thing and he was like, he made me swear it, Never tell anyone. Not even me. Then he grabbed my hand…”

  Cr
ud, my eyes were burning wet. I was not going to cry in front of these people.

  No one spoke.

  I managed to keep my voice. “And now you all are like, Welcome to the family! You’re a Meredith, hooray! But you wouldn’t even take me now until I’d passed some stupid test. I thought family was supposed to mean unconditional love!”

  “It does, child,” Grandma said. “More than you’ve ever known.”

  “Then why? Why’d you wait so long to tell me?”

  “Because the Merediths have people we have promised to protect,” she said. “And each of us is free to choose. To help or to hurt.”

  “What do you mean, choose?” I said. “Is that what happened to my mom?”

  Grandma’s face closed. Her lips pressed firm, and she seemed to wilt into her biological age. She looked ancient and sad.

  Then the French doors rattled.

  Grandma snapped them a fierce glance. Uncle Denny was closest to the doors, and he leapt up, lunging toward them with surprising speed. But they’d already opened, and a man had burst through, leading with his nose.

  “Jake!” Grandma cried, scowling at the sheriff. “I believe I’ve made it crystal clear—”

  “It’s that woman. Kitty Carter,” he said. He was literally panting. “She’s dead.”

  Chapter 43

  My little poor-neglected-Summer drama instantly evaporated. Which, honestly, was for the best. For now.

  “Dead?” Grandma barked. “How? Where?”

  The sheriff shut the doors, then crossed his arms and planted himself facing Grandma. “The official story,” he said, “is that she jumped out a three-story window at the hospital. Suicide.”

  “Oh!” Tina said, with a hand on her mouth. “That’s awful.”

  “Yes, well…” The sheriff frowned. “I saw the body before we sent it off. The woman’s face was terrified. What was left of it.”

  “She jumped,” Grandma said. “Of course she was terrified.”

  “Also,” the sheriff said, “her hair was white. Complete and perfect white. And the grass where she landed was completely dead.”

  No reply this time.

  I don’t know what the others were thinking. But all I could think of was a cadaverous man touching my houseplant and wilting it to death.

  Finally, Grandma said, “Go on, Jake. You must have a theory. What would he want with her?”

  “A very interesting question,” said Sheriff Jake. He turned to me with a glare of inquisition. “I haven’t had the pleasure of your statement yet, Ms. Sassafras, but according to Tina here, the late Kitty Carter had become privy to your unusual… gifts.”

  “Not to mention that she had her own,” Grandma put in.

  “That’s right,” I said, still dazed by this whole conversation. “But why would they attack her? Wouldn’t they want to recruit her, like they tried with me?”

  “I found this among her effects,” the sheriff said. He produced a plastic evidence bag which held a single piece of paper. “Recognize this?” he said, handing it to Grandma.

  Grandma frowned. “It looks like one of our old promotions. For the Inn.”

  Tina hopped up and went to look over Grandma’s shoulder. “That’s right! I remember she showed it when she checked in. Got a big bulk discount for a bunch of rooms.”

  “She did?” Grandma snapped. “We haven’t run this promotion in years.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Tina said. “But I checked the expiration. It still had time.”

  “That’s not possible,” Grandma said. She held the bag close, scrutinizing the paper’s fine print. She grunted, then tossed it down in disgust. “It must have been faked. Unbelievable.”

  “Faked?” I said. “Why would anyone fake a coupon to your Inn?”

  “Not anyone,” she said. She slipped off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This is new,” she muttered.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Are you saying that this… this ‘Great-Uncle Vincent’ guy, he enticed Kitty to come here?”

  Tina piped up. “She was the one who planned the reunion.”

  “But I mean… did he know? That she was planning to kill someone? Does he have the power to do that?”

  “Oh, yes,” Grandma said, and she donned her glasses like a helm. “Never underestimate Vincent. He has devoted himself to… self-improvement… over a very long life. And more concerning still, he has chosen to enlist… help.”

  “So he hires psychics? Like Enoch tried to hire me?”

  “He does. And also others.”

  “What others? And why would he even care that she was planning to kill Nyle? Did he know Nyle too?”

  “Not personally, I’m sure,” she said. “But depending on exactly what your clients said about you when they asked to cancel their contracts—”

  “You think this Vincent guy heard about that? And figured out my power? But how would he ever—”

  “He has… associates, Summer. Dark entities.”

  The air in the room chilled. No one would meet my eye, not even the sheriff.

  I swallowed. “Are you saying… not human?”

  Grandma nodded. “They can offer him services available nowhere else. Even with his extensive connections. In return, however, they always expect…” She hesitated. “Payment.”

  “So that’s what happened to Kitty? He sent that Enoch guy to do some kind of… ritual?”

  The sheriff grunted. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “No,” said Grandma. “But this is the first time he’s attacked us directly. Here.”

  “It’s not technically an attack,” put in Uncle Barnaby. “Kitty Carter was the one to do the act. Technically, the Truce remains intact.”

  “Truce?” I said.

  “I don’t care about the niceties,” Grandma snapped. “He sensed that this woman Kitty was contemplating murder, and he deliberately lured her to our Inn. Possibly with the added hope of entangling Summer, if she refused to go with Enoch and instead came here, with the murder of her own co-worker.”

  “So your Truce thing doesn’t really work?” I said, though it was kind of a relief to find out there was a reason that the Pritchetts had just happened to show up, of all places, at my family’s Inn. “I thought this place would be safe.”

  “It is safe,” Tina soothed. “The hospital where Enoch got to Kitty is down the road. It’s not in Wonder Springs.”

  Uncle Barnaby frowned. “At the hospital, Enoch might not even have had to enter her room,” he said. “They could have used a telempath.”

  “Telempath?” I said. “Is that like, making you feel something?”

  “Exactly,” Uncle Barnaby said, with the smile of a patronizing professor. “Telempathy is my own particular specialty. Recall how I used it to guide you to sleep.”

  “Guide? You knocked me out!”

  Aunt Helen cut in. “We needed to, sweetheart. For the healing.”

  “You didn’t even ask,” I said. “What else can you ‘telempaths’ make people feel? When I first tried to drive away after the sheriff here found that vial, I’m pretty sure someone ‘guided’ me into a freaking panic attack!”

  Even just remembering the attack as I said this, I could feel myself starting to freak out.

  Up by Grandma, Tina winced. Then she gasped.

  “Is that how you felt?” she said. “Oh my gosh! Mom! Can’t you tell?”

  Aunt Helen frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “The feel! Summer’s right, she got attacked. By Malice Alice.”

  My relatives all muttered in shock. Even the sheriff looked grim.

  “Who?” I said. I was partly terrified, but also partly hoping Malice Alice might just be a local 80s metal band. Actually, no, that might be worse.

  Aunt Helen pursed her lips. “One of Vincent’s telempaths. Probably his best. But she wouldn’t be able to strike from outside. We have a shield.”

  “A shield?” I said. “Around the whole town? H
ow? Why?”

  “Because we’re at war,” said Grandma.

  “It’s a long story,” Aunt Helen said smoothly, clearly regretting that she’d brought this up. “But the Shield does keep us safe, Summer. It repulses almost all of our known enemies. Enoch, for instance.”

  “So then how could this Alice person make me freak out?”

  Aunt Helen frowned. “She’s a highly skilled telempath. If she were amazing at shielding her own presence…”

  “No!” Uncle Barnaby cried. “It’s not possible.”

  “I believe it is,” said Aunt Helen. “She could walk right through. And strike from within.”

  Aunt Helen closed her eyes, tensing with concentration. After a few seconds, she shook her head and grunted with frustration. “If she’s near, I can’t tell. And I should.”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” Uncle Barnaby said. “Her presence past the Shield would violate the Truce.”

  “But only if we proved it,” Grandma said. “We can’t base that charge on Tina’s impression.” She gave me a piercing look. “Where did this attack happen? The Inn has its own additional… protection. Were you outside the Inn?”

  I nodded. “In my car. It was the first time I’d left the Inn since I got here.”

  Now my family hubbubed with concern. Another attack… Malice Alice… grave danger…

  “You all are freaking me out!” I said. “You’re telling me some demented psychic in this perfect town wants to drive me insane?”

  “Don’t overreact,” Grandma said. “Clearly, you resisted her.”

  “Because I held my cat! The feelings only went away when I touched his fur.”

  I instantly realized how ridiculous that sounded. But of course, this being my family, most of them just nodded.

  My family. Had I really just thought that?

  “Fascinating,” said Uncle Barnaby, abruptly academic. “I’ve heard of mild assistance from animal contact, but a complete defense?” He eyed my cat with interest. “I must have a closer look at this specimen.”

  “Don’t you touch him,” I snapped, holding Mr. Charm close.

  “Summer, listen to me,” Grandma said. “Kitty Carter had committed murder. And attempted more.”