by Dani Lamia
Phoebe held the sheets to her nose and wandered blissfully in and out of sleep for a while, thinking of Dzolali. The intensifying brightness of her little room marked time and reminded her that she needed to get out of bed.
“Ow!” she cried when she tried to move. Her spine felt like it was on fire, and her stiffness made it a chore to leave the bed. She sucked air through her teeth when she finally reached her modest height. “Ow,” she repeated when she felt the bump on the back of her head.
Phoebe pulled some clean clothes from a garbage bag and waddled to the bathroom for a shower. Her pains made the process take much longer. The warm water helped loosen her muscles, though hot water would have been better. The water heater seemed to be incapable of that, however.
Phoebe stared into her eyes in the mirror as she dried her hair with the towel. She became painfully aware of two things in that moment. These two things outstripped her desires to write her book.
Firstly, she needed to know what was in the gingerbread men that was keeping Ned Onenspek in such a horrific state. Since the realization of her error in giving the man an extra cookie, she felt duty-bound to do something. Onenspek’s very life may be in danger.
Secondly, she was in love with Dzolali. If it was not love that she was feeling for this person, it felt strong enough to be confused for love. She had felt similarly for the two men she had brought into her life. Jeremy, who she had met in college, had gone his separate way after graduating, and it had broken Phoebe’s heart. It had been broken again when Thomas had left after she’d been laid off, but those relationships had taken time to cultivate. Dzolali was, in every way imaginable, a completely different experience.
Phoebe sighed and shook her head. “Un-fuckin’-believable, Phoebes.”
Phoebe walked back to her room to make her bed, this time making it her first maid’s stop for the day and stripping it completely. She dumped the sheets down the chute and, once they were gone, found herself shamelessly inhaling the lingering water lily and vanilla that lingered in the hall.
Phoebe took her time descending the stairs to the first floor. Going quickly seemed impossible, so stiff and achy her back remained, from neck to tailbone. She headed to the kitchen, hoping for coffee and painkillers if she could find any.
Pushing past the kitchen door, she found a woman standing near the window overlooking the vast back yard and sipping coffee. Phoebe froze and blinked, trying to focus her eyes. The woman was tall, straight-backed, with hair so black it was blue in the morning light. Her cheeks were smooth and pink.
Phoebe blinked and the vision was gone, replaced by her great-aunt Hester. Silver haired, slightly hunched at the neck, with wrinkles at her eyes and those that carved far into her cheeks.
Hester turned at the sound of the door. Her clear blue eyes turned hard and piercing. “It’s about time you got up. It’s past ten again.”
Phoebe, thinking that she had gone insane in the night, now stood, staring.
Hester noticed Phoebe’s odd stance. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked in a dull tone.
“I fell out of bed,” Phoebe answered with one hand on her back, the other on the island.
“Why?”
Phoebe chuckled harshly. “It seemed a great idea at the time, Auntie Hester. Thanks.”
Hester clucked her tongue and stepped toward her grandniece. Her stare was not harsh, but it was stern. She set her coffee cup down on the wooden surface of the island.
“Stand up straight and turn around,” she directed.
Phoebe looked at Hester for a moment, unsure. Sighing, she did as her great-aunt told her.
“I can’t have you going about your work in this condition,” Hester said with the slightest hint of kindness. She placed her wrinkled hands on Phoebe’s shoulders, thumbs pressing into the base of her neck. She whispered words so quietly, Phoebe turned her head to hear. Hester interrupted herself. “Face forward, child.”
Phoebe was uncomfortable with the touch for a few seconds, but Hester’s hands were strong and soothingly warm. In her great-aunt’s chant, she caught only the words, “Great Goddess Hecate,” and two others: “grant” and “healing.”
Phoebe closed her eyes and lifted her head. Whatever Hester was doing was working on the place of her neck that hurt the most. Only the bump on her head was more intense.
Great-Aunt Hester moved her hands down Phoebe’s back, pressing her fingers and whispering the chant. Her right thumb found a sore spot under her right shoulder blade.
“Ow,” Phoebe uttered.
“Shh!” Hester said in the middle of her whispers.
Phoebe quieted. Surprisingly, Hester’s warm hands were doing wonders. Phoebe’s bound-up muscles loosened, and the horrible aching lessened. Overall, she felt relaxed, relieved. She sensed not so much a kindness in Hester, but a purpose, as if her acts constituted a step in a process.
A moment later, Hester’s hands left Phoebe’s spine. She opened her eyes to find Hester standing in front of her with the cup of coffee in her hand, watching Phoebe’s face with a faint air of impatience.
Phoebe foolishly checked behind her, as she had not noted her aunt’s movement. The hands had just left her being a second before.
“Better?”
“Um, yeah,” Phoebe answered gratefully.
“Good,” Hester said and turned to the kitchen door. “Can you clean the microwave for Alva? Today or tomorrow is fine, depending on how things go for you.”
“Oh, sure,” Phoebe said, after considering her aunt’s choice of words for a heartbeat.
“Excellent,” Hester said and exited the kitchen.
Phoebe stared at the empty space for a moment, shocked that Hester had such a magic touch. She tilted her head, bent at the waist, and straightened. Only a faint trace of the pains remained.
“Well, I’ll be cheese in a pretzel,” she said to the empty kitchen.
Phoebe poured a cup of coffee and made some toast. She leaned against the counter, enjoying her quick breakfast. Her eyes fell on the cabinet next to the door, the cabinet where the gingerbread men dwelled.
She set her coffee down and went to the cabinet, opened it, and retrieved the tin. She set it on the counter and removed the lid. There was a new batch below the two that had remained from yesterday, when she had handed one to Ned. The new ones were separated from the old by wax paper.
Phoebe contemplated the idea and took stock of her feelings. Her yearning for Dzolali was real, it was intense, but whether it was love or extreme lust was in question. The image of the redhead appeared in her mind, and her hands shook with want.
Suddenly irritated by her situation, Phoebe knew she had to have answers. She dropped the aluminum lid onto the granite counter with a clatter and began searching the kitchen. She found a box of sandwich bags, took one, and tossed a gingerbread man into it. She replaced the tin back into the cabinet.
Phoebe bounded upstairs to her room and retrieved her car keys and her black hoodie. She went to the front door and pushed the screen door out of her way. The springs sang and the raven called as she exited.
“Shut it, bird,” Phoebe grunted and headed for her Chevy.
She strode along, hoping that Hester and the others in the parlor would not observe her leaving. She tried to mingle her pace with an air of casualness, turning her face to the sky and planting a smile on her lips, just in case.
Phoebe dropped into the driver’s seat and shut the door, trying not to make it slam. She turned the key, and the starter, as it was apt to do on occasion, just whirred. Its brushes failed to contact the flywheel and didn’t turn the engine over. She let go of the key and tried again with the same result.
“Damn you!” she shouted and hit the steering wheel with the back of her fist. Furious, she turned the key once more.
This harsh and irrational method of starting the Capr
ice had, until that moment, achieved a one hundred percent rate of failure. This time, however, the starter managed to catch a tooth of the flywheel and start the engine.
Phoebe backed out of the spot and followed Gable Way to the two-lane road, then turned left, toward town.
***
“Where do you think she’s going?” Glendarah asked as she watched the Caprice go past the parlor window.
“It may be nothing. Just out for a drive, perhaps.” Hester considered for a moment. “Still, it’s not wise to assume things.” She stepped out of the room, and Glendarah followed.
The high priestess moved quickly, stepping onto the porch and to the birdcage. The bird was facing the door, as if it had been expecting the visit. Glendarah kept her distance, remaining at the front door as Hester whispered to the big black bird and took the cage from the hook. She set it on the porch and, opening the catches that kept the floor attached to the frame, lifted the cage from the base.
The raven let out a cringe worthy “Rawk!” and bounded onto the low porch wall. The bird took flight, thrusting itself into the sky at a steep climb.
Hester watched the raven turn to the southwest and slip beyond the trees and out of sight. She became aware of Glendarah at her elbow. “He will guide us, sister.”
“So mote it be,” Glendarah said with hope.
***
Phoebe turned onto White Lake’s main drag, a two-lane street that featured the bulk of the town’s shops and the police station. She parked in between a pair of White Lake Police cruisers.
She headed inside and asked to see Detective Backstrom. She produced the card he had given her and showed it to the policewoman behind the bulletproof glass. Phoebe was buzzed through the door and stepped into the waiting room, a small rectangular room with windows facing the street. The walls were blue-painted cinderblock. She sat in one of the orange plastic chairs for just a few minutes before the detective came in from another door.
“Miss Pyncheon,” he greeted.
“Hi,” she said and stood. “I need your help.”
“You have something on the Hillsborough case?”
Phoebe paused, looking dubious. “I thought you said that was an animal attack.”
“We’re not done investigating,” Backstrom said, watching her face intently.
“Well, this isn’t about that,” she said. “At least I don’t think so.”
Backstrom said nothing, waiting her out.
“Look,” Phoebe continued. She shook her hair from her eyes and pulled the baggie from her hoodie pocket.
“You want me to look at a cookie,” Clive Backstrom said without emotion. He looked at her doubtfully.
“It’s a gingerbread guy.”
“Uh-huh.”
Phoebe quickly told the detective about Ned Onenspek and his apparent dependence on the gingerbread men, and her own nightmares, leaving out the sordid details.
Backstrom took the baggie and gave the gingerbread man a close look in the ceiling lights. “And you’re thinking these are laced with something,” he concluded.
“I suspect that, yes,” Phoebe said. “Is there a way you can test it?”
“Not here,” he said.
Phoebe’s shoulders drooped and she crossed her arms.
Backstrom sighed and looked at her sidelong. “I can run it over to County. They have the forensic lab.”
She brightened. “Can you do that?”
“I can, but I have to open a case file,” he said. “You know, to make it an official investigation.”
“Cool. Thanks!” she said and shook his hand. She turned to leave.
“Hey,” he called after her.
“Yeah?”
“If it’s positive, you realize we’ll be busting the place,” Backstrom said. “You may want to consider getting out of there.”
“I don’t have any place to go,” she said. “It’s why I’m here at all.”
Clive nodded in understanding.
“Do you know when the tests will be done?” she asked.
“Probably day after tomorrow. Tomorrow maybe. How can I reach you?”
“I don’t have a cell,” she admitted. “So maybe I can sneak a phone call to you. If you call, my Aunt Hester may be tipped off.”
“True enough. Give me a call tomorrow.”
Phoebe left the police station and stepped out into the sun, unaware that she was being observed. She went to her car, reversed into the street, and headed back to the House of the Seven Gables under the shadow of black wings.
***
Hester and Glendarah sat in the deep shade of the porch upon the wooden Adirondacks, awaiting the return of Phoebe and the raven. The sighing of the screen door springs grabbed their attention.
“Excuse me, Ms. Pyncheon, Ms. D’Amitri,” Ned Onenspek addressed them from the doorway. His eyes danced nervously, and he hid his shaking right hand in his pants pocket. He smiled at them with an apologetic expression laced with hope.
Hester shifted in the chair with mild annoyance. His need was theirs, however, so she braced herself to stand. “Ah, Mr. Onenspek. Is it that time already?”
Ned looked away to the dirt path that was Gable Way, as if looking for something he had lost but not remembering what it was. His breath was short and quick, and he wished that he was back in his painting. Swiping his colors, concealing himself, the white of his past, creating new the visions of old, the bloody, the lessons learned but forgotten. He needed to hide in the blood. The red of paint would suffice, but he needed the seeing of it all.
Hester’s gingerbread men brought the seeing, the flashes of uniformed men clashing, cutting each other to ribbons, blasting each other apart, sending fountains of blood in every direction. When the seeing came, his hands could paint their pictures, one at a time or a few at a time, it mattered little. Ned could see his hands now, moving in a blur of activity, dotting the details, filling in with sweeps. With the scene set, the battle or torture ready, the red paint would come to the palette. With trembling fingers clamped to his brush, the blood would fly in sprinkles. A brief pressing onto the canvas made blossoms of red.
Hester touched his elbow to bring him back into the now and led him into the house. He followed like a dog at dinner time. She pushed the kitchen door out of her way, careless if it sprung back and hit him. She opened the cabinet door and pulled off the cover.
She frowned.
Ned walked up to her and he didn’t like the frown. The frown was bad. “Is something wrong, Ms. Pyncheon?”
Hester’s eyes peered over at him, drilling into his with deep suspicion. “Have you been in this tin, Mr. Onenspek?”
Ned’s eyes jumped to his left and hung there for a second. He thought it through, unsure, as his eyes shifted right, then left again before returning to meet hers. She remained staring at him, deadly still.
“I have not touched your cookie tin, Ms. Pyncheon,” he finally settled on.
“We’re two gingerbread men short,” she growled.
“Two?” Ned uttered. Panicked for an instant, he grabbed a corner of the container and, without pulling it from Hester’s grasp, looked inside. “Can’t be two.”
“Why can’t it be two, Mr. Onenspek?” she asked, catching his lie.
Ned dropped his eyes shamefully. “She was just trying to be nice.”
“Who gave it to you?” Hester pushed.
“She doesn’t know the arrangement.”
“Who gave it to you?”
Ned shuffled his feet. “Phoebe. It was my fault. She doesn’t know they help me, Ms. Pyncheon.”
Hester snapped the cover back onto the tin and looked down her nose at the artist. “I’m not blaming her, Mr. Onenspek.”
Ned’s desperation rose to the surface. He began to breathe heavily and fast, looking to the tin and then to the acc
using eyes of Hester Pyncheon. “Oh, please.”
“Go,” she demanded, still holding the tin within his reach as if to dare him to try to touch it.
After some unintelligible whines of perseveration, Onenspek turned and fled the room.
Hester hid the cookie tin in a different location and, with her fury building within her, flung the kitchen door open with only a thought. It remained open as if it waited for her to pass, then closed violently, left swinging in her wake.
“Hester,” Glendarah called from the open front door. “He has returned.”
The high priestess moved swiftly, joining Glendarah on the porch. The raven was perched on the porch railing, watching Hester’s face steadily.
Glendarah gave a bow and stood back as Hester moved to the great black bird and conferred with it in whispers. In a moment, Hester returned to her coven sister.
“Phoebe has gone to the police,” she said, seething.
Glendarah’s eyes widened with concern. “Yes. Yes, the deep suspicion I felt from her as she left now fits.”
Hester nodded. “Ned confessed to me that he took an extra cookie,” she added. “But two are missing,” she said, leading Glendarah to the logical conclusion.
Glendarah’s eyes closed halfway as she tilted her head back. She sensed the approach from beyond the forest to the south. “She returns.”
“Yes,” Hester agreed, feeling the same. She stepped to the raven on the rail and whispered further. A moment later, it took flight in the direction that it had before, this time, with greater urgency.
“It’s a shame,” Hester said as Glendarah approached. “I rather liked him.”
“A shame, Hester?” the blonde asked. “He will be quickly replaced.”
“Yes, but the investigation should die with him,” Hester assured her coven sister.
***
Backstrom stood from his desk and stretched. It was lunchtime and he was famished, having not eaten that morning, choosing instead to sleep until six and rely on the coffee to do its job.
Might as well get that sample to the county lab while I’m out. He retrieved the baggie with the baked suspect sealed within from a drawer and left the station. He intended to grab a sit-down lunch at his favorite truck stop along the way. It was after the peak hours of the lunch crowd, so it would be quick.