by Tamara Berry
It had been my intention to pull open the door and lose no time in making my way to the scene inside, but at this I pause, my hand on the knob.
“Unfortunately, she’s managed to get both Sid and Elspeth in hysterics with her. Not for her this slow wasting of time in making a survey of the island. Surely you’ve figured out by now that you’re not going to find any gold here. What do you think of it?”
Of the island, I don’t think much. It’s too big for me to search by myself, too difficult to navigate in weather like this, and far too remote for my peace of mind. I’d have been better off trying to find hidden treasure in a place like Barra. It might be a hundred times the size of this island, but at least I wouldn’t be battling so many unknowns.
Of Otis Stewart’s belief that there’s no gold to be had, however, I think plenty. Either he knows more about this business than he’s letting on or, well, he knows more about this business than he’s letting on. Come to think of it, that sweater he’s wearing looks to be cashmere. That seems like an awfully nice wardrobe for someone who drives a tour boat around a place that sees maybe fifteen visitors a year.
“I think the island is excessive,” I say, deciding to repeat my sentiments from last night. It seems like the safest approach while I’m standing near so many cliffs with a man I neither know nor trust. “I understand why the Stewarts of pirates past might have wanted to live in a castle in the middle of an ocean with nothing but the stars to keep them company, but sitting out here on a gilded rock protecting a cursed treasure in this day and age is ludicrous. We’ve put men on the moon and mapped the entire human genome, yet we still hold fast to the idea that a hex put on an inanimate object half a millennium ago wields unfathomable power. Believe me when I say that the only thing condemning your family to a life of misery is themselves.”
“Bravo, Madame Eleanor,” he says, using my name for the first time. It doesn’t appear to bring him any joy. “I wonder why can’t you march inside and say all that to my cousins?”
“Because, Otis Stewart,” I say, returning the gesture syllable for syllable. Like the game I’m playing with Birdie White, I’m rapidly coming to learn the rules of this one, too. “You’ve spent the past—what?—thirty or so years of your life trying to reason with these people, but it doesn’t seem to have done you the least bit of good. I’m guessing you’re not the first one to try, either. Harvey Renault, for example, must have done his best to get your uncle to strengthen his grip on reality once or twice in their long friendship.”
Otis’s glance is sharp. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, for one, he embarked on a long and tedious train journey—and with his health—to ensure that I wouldn’t be left alone to influence the Stewarts with my evil, superstitious ways.”
Otis’s burgeoning sneer confirms me in this theory, so I keep going. My next move is a bold one, but I’m sure enough of my ground by now that I don’t falter. I’ve dealt with enough skeptics in my lifetime to know how to handle them. Some of them, like my own dear Nicholas and the honorable police inspector Peter Piper, view me with reluctant respect. They might not believe most of what I do and say, but they know I get results—and that results are the most important thing. Others, like Otis Stewart, would gladly see me tied up, tossed into the ocean, and laid to eternal rest with the fishes.
I’ll let you guess which type I prefer.
“For another, he called to warn you of what was intended,” I say. There’s no wobble in my voice, no sign of discomposure as I hold my gaze steady with his. “He asked you to join him at this castle, to take part in these proceedings by his side. He hoped that between the pair of you, you could force Sid and Ashley to realize how ridiculous all of this is. But that, unfortunately, was where the pair of you took a misstep.”
“Oh?” he asks, his voice dangerous. That slice of steel, that sharp note that’s meant to reduce me in size, tells me that all my theories are correct—and that he’s not happy about it. “Is this where you tell me that if he’d heeded the curse, he might still be with us today?”
“No. It’s where I tell you that although you might not think much of my tactics, I promise you that I’ll be able to bring peace to this household much faster using my methods than you will be using yours. You’ve done it your way, and it hasn’t made any difference. A man is dead—no, two men are dead—and you aren’t anywhere nearer a resolution now than you were before. Don’t you think it’s time to try a different approach?”
For a long, drawn-out moment, I think I’ve gotten through to him. We’re still standing on the threshold to the castle, my hand paused on the doorknob. The only sounds I hear are the lashings of the ocean and the steady thud-thud of my heart. Otis can’t move past me unless he physically forces his way in through the door, throws me into the ocean, or answers my challenge.
The last one wins out.
“My opinion on your presence in this house is unchanged,” he says tightly. “But I’ll repeat what I said before . . . If you want to succeed, you’re going to have to find a way to beat that other one first.”
I barely manage to subdue my groan in time. Birdie. By now, her hysterics have probably become a three-ring circus—a three-ring circus where she’s the ringleader, acrobat, and elephant all in one.
“Birdie White isn’t my enemy,” I say with a convincing show of truthfulness.
“No?” he asks with a sardonic lift to his scarred eyebrow. “Forgive me if I don’t take comfort from that. You obviously don’t think I’m your enemy, either, but I’ll warn you right now that I am.”
Truth be told, I do think Otis will do whatever he can to thwart me in my efforts. Concerning how far those efforts will take him, however, I’m still uncertain. I don’t think he’ll resort to murder, but there’s no denying that the deaths of both Glenn and Harvey are clouded with suspicion.
“As strange as you may find this to believe, I’m only here to help,” I say, and pull open the door. A blast of warm air swirls around us, but neither of us heeds it. We’re too busy locking horns. “I took this job because Nicholas asked me to, and that’s all there is to it. There’s no ulterior motive, no dark deed undergirding my purpose.”
Otis doesn’t seem to buy it. “How odd that Nicholas isn’t here to back that claim up,” he says. “You’d think he’d be moving heaven and earth to be by your side.”
Since these are sentiments I share, there’s little I can do to counter them. “He will be,” I say, more in a show of optimism than actual belief. Whatever spell Birdie cast to keep him away seems to have been successful. Either that, or his business is turning out to be more difficult than he anticipated. Since Birdie’s spell casting is no more real than mine is, I’m leaning toward the latter. “And until that time, you’re just going to have to trust me.”
From the glowering look Otis gives me, it’s obvious he’d rather fling himself from the nearest parapet, but I don’t mind. As little as Otis Stewart trusts me, there’s one thing I can promise for sure: I trust him a lot less.
Chapter 8
After separating ways with Otis, I lose no time in heading to the wine cellar.
It’s not, as the name suggests, located in a cellar of any kind. Birdie had been correct when she pointed out the lack of an underground infrastructure on this island. Whether because of the movements of the tide or because it would be incredibly difficult to drill into all this rock, the castle is lacking in those damp, dark places where wine, hidden treasure, and the bodies of their enemies would normally be stored.
Instead, I find myself walking through a glass-paned door into an interior room in the main wing. Floor-to-ceiling wood shelves cover almost every square inch of wall space the room contains. They’re filled with bottles that are older than I am and worth much more. Otis and Ashley were unsuccessful with the generator, so the room is plummeted into the same darkness seeping through the rest of the castle, but I imagine that’s a point in the wine’s favor. A point not in the wine’s favor,
however, is the fact that Birdie is yanking bottles at random and flinging them around her in a shattered arc of alcohol and broken glass.
Sid heralds my arrival as she would a savior. She practically falls on my neck the moment I walk through the door.
“Oh, Madame Eleanor, please make her stop,” she begs, her whole body aflutter. “I know it’s only wine, and most of it is insured, but she’s in such a state.”
I can see that for myself. Not content with the smashing of wine bottles, Birdie is also muttering to herself in a low, gravelly voice that I can only assume is meant either to be her guide Montague or Glenn Stewart speaking through her.
“Hey, now—not that one!” Ashley makes a leaping grab for a particularly weathered bottle Birdie is preparing to smash at her feet. He makes it in time, but just barely, almost losing his balance in the process. I can hardly blame him for it; all that wine does make it a touch slippery. “She’s made it to the French vintages. Please, Madame Eleanor. Do something.”
Considering that Birdie White stands half a foot taller than me and outweighs me by an entire case of all this wine, I’m not sure what he expects me to do. I’m already starting to feel giddy from the overpowering scent of spirits.
Still, I feel somewhat responsible for her presence here. My supernatural senses tell me that nothing short of throwing her off that train would have prevented her from eventually making her way to Airgead Island on her own, but I did make things easier by letting her travel with me. I can at least save the family’s burgundy.
“Birdie!” I call, my voice sharp.
To my lack of surprise, she ignores me and continues tearing through the bottles. I’ve been known to break a few myself in the name of spiritualism, but this is taking things too far.
“Birdie, can you please stop that for two minutes so we can sweep up some of this broken glass? You can get back to your destructive trance once it’s less of a hazard.”
She turns toward me with such awful deliberation that I shiver where I stand. The room isn’t the least bit cold, but there’s something about her expression that would strike fear into the most stalwart of hearts. It’s too dark for me to make out the details, which might perhaps account for the terror I feel. Her features aren’t human so much as human-like. I’m not sure how else to describe them. Instead of eyes, she has two black holes. Her mouth is a blood-red slash, her nostrils flaring and wide. Even her eyebrows, which normally make me giggle, have taken on ominous proportions.
“You dare to interfere with Gloriana?” she asks in that low, croaking voice. “You dare to intrude in matters you cannot possibly understand?”
“Yes, I do,” I say, though not without a little quiver of fear. I don’t know what she’s done to make herself look like that, but her special effects are nothing short of fantastic. “It’s been a trying day, and you’re wasting perfectly good wine.”
The nostrils flare wider. “What do I care for wine?”
“You cared quite a bit for it last night, if I recall correctly.” I clap in an effort to bring us both to our senses. “Let’s go, Birdie. Enough is enough.”
“I will not stop for him. I will not stop for you. You will feel my fiery wrath before I’m through.”
Her recitation calls to mind some of Ashley’s worst poetical turns. “Yes, yes. You don’t like green eggs and ham, either. I’m familiar with the tale.”
My flippancy elicits nothing but a shriek of dismay from Sid. She clutches at my arm with a strength belied by her fragile, wispy air. “Please, Madame Eleanor. Don’t you know a . . . chant that will call her back to us? She must be inside there somewhere.”
With an inward sigh, I realize that the only way I’m going to end this charade is by becoming one of the players. With a nod toward the Stewart siblings, I take a deep breath and draw closer to my target.
I know, in my heart of hearts, that the woman I’m approaching is just that—a woman. A very skilled woman, yes, and a woman who clearly knows how to get the most out of a crowd, but she’s still flesh and blood, like me. She’s still a sneaky, conniving fake medium, like me.
It’s important to bear that in mind, especially when she lifts an entire magnum of wine and brandishes it over her head like a club.
“Hguone si hguone,” I murmur, my voice pitched low to match hers. “Uoy deen ot llihc.”
The recitation isn’t my best work, but it’s what happens when I don’t have time to plan ahead. Rock songs played backward have been known to frighten soft-hearted parents into believing their children possessed of the devil; words spoken backward have a similar effect.
“Lla sgniht ni noitaredom,” I add, lest she think I’m trying to cut her off at the source. It’s true, too—all things should be done in moderation. Theatrics like this are acceptable when it comes time for the grand finale, but we haven’t had an opportunity to lay the groundwork first. I need to talk with the family members and Elspeth one-on-one. I need to learn more about the mysterious circumstances surrounding Glenn’s death. I need to talk to someone about the way Harvey died and whether or not Birdie had any contact with him on the train before she made her way to my side.
However, none of this is going to happen if I have to rush in and do damage control every time Birdie decides she’s been too long without the spotlight.
Since my backward chanting seems to have soothed not just the spectators in the room but Birdie, too, I decide it’s safe to take a more proactive approach. With my arms outstretched to protect me from any wine bottles that might become airborne in the next few seconds, I draw forward and place my hands on Birdie’s shoulders. The moment I make contact, it feels as though I’ve plunged my hands into the frigid ocean, numbing them all the way to the wrist.
I draw my hands away as if I’ve touched fire rather than ice. Humans can’t be that temperature and still be alive. I’m sure of it.
“Birdie?” I ask, more cautiously this time. “Are you all right?”
If she answers me, which I doubt, I don’t register her remark. It’s at that moment I notice what she’s doing. The abandon with which she’s been tearing through the wine isn’t as reckless as it seems. In fact, she has a clear destination in mind. Each bottle and rack she’s gone through has brought her one step closer to a small cubby inset into the back wall.
“Quick—Sid, Ashley—one of you get me a candle.”
Neither sibling is willing to get that close to Birdie, even though she’s no longer thrashing about. I’m forced to make do with the flashlight function on my cell phone, even though I’d prefer to conserve what little battery I have left until I manage to discover what those little boys did with my luggage. I hold up the bright beam of light, which glistens on the broken glass and spilled wine in a kaleidoscope of brilliance, to reveal a small black box sitting in the cubby.
Sid’s gasp is all I need to know what I’m looking at.
The gold. Birdie found it. In less than twenty-four hours and with nothing more to go on than a spirit guide and a few apocryphal family tales, she’s located the cause of all this misery. If I thought her work brilliant before, it’s nothing compared to the downright magnificence of this latest development.
I’m nudged not-so-gently aside by Sid, whose fear of Birdie’s antics is now displaced in favor of her find.
“Not yet—” Birdie flings up her arm, her voice returned to normal. I dare to make a quick sweep of my phone’s light over her face, but there’s no sign of any stage makeup or other prosthetics that would have made her look so terrifyingly haggard. I know, without quite understanding how, that if I were to touch her, her body temperature would be back to normal, too.
Birdie winces at the bright light but doesn’t chastise me. “Let me ensure there’s no spell trap on the box before we lift it out.”
I open my mouth to suggest that it’s a little late—and a little silly—to worry about spell traps, but I keep my thoughts to myself. I might not be willing to assign Birdie the powers of clairvoyance, but som
ething strange is going on here. Yes, she was in this wine cellar last night, by her own admission, but she can’t have planted the box herself, since the shelves are literally built into the wall. There’s more at play here than mere trickery.
I should know. Trickery has been my stock-in-trade for years.
Birdie delivers a quick chant that I could almost swear is “I found it first” backward and waves her hands over the box before stepping aside to allow Sid access.
“I can’t believe this.” Sid drops to a crouch, looking like a child in front of the worst Christmas present of all time. Her hands hover over but don’t reach for the hinged lid. “Ashley, what do we do now?”
“Not open it, that’s for sure,” he says with more decision than he’s shown thus far. He brushes past me, his feet crunch-crunching on the broken glass, to squat by his sister’s side. He glances back over his shoulder at me. “Didn’t you say you could break the curse?”
I can, but not yet. That’s another reason I’d like to take Birdie soundly to task. She’s allowed us no time to build up a sense of mastery over the curse, no opportunity to create the kind of spectacle that could lay this specter to rest for good. These sorts of things need to be established slowly and carefully, allowed to simmer alongside the family’s trust.
“It’ll take some time, but it can be done,” I promise.
Ashely nods and reaches for the brass handles on either side of the box. They’re the only ornamentation save for a small clasp on the lid. Although Sid draws in a sharp breath as he makes contact, she allows him to hoist the burden.
A thing he does far too easily, if you ask me. I can’t say that I’ve often held a small fortune’s worth of gold in my hands, but gold isn’t exactly a light metal.
“As long as we don’t open the box, we’ll be fine,” Ashley says, more to allay his own fears than any Birdie and I might harbor. “No harm can come if the gold remains unseen.”
Sid nods her agreement. “We’ll have to find a new hiding place. I’ve been thinking about what Otis said, about the safe. Perhaps we should keep it there until we can come to some sort of arrangement—”