Burned to a Crisp

by K A Miltimore

  “You know what I am and you don’t believe me, do you think those girls would believe me? Also, I can’t pinpoint exactly when something is going to happen, only that danger is there. That is why I went and asked about security or people lurking around. I even stayed nearby, watching to see if anything looked amiss but there was nothing. I decided to use the time to check out the first fire and hope that maybe it would give me a clue that I could use to prevent whatever was coming, whenever that was. I was wrong, clearly.” Bren came over to the bed and sat next to Hedy.

  “I feel terrible, Hedy. Truly. Now you know why I want to end this curse that hangs over me and my life. Everywhere I go, I find danger of fire in the wind and it haunts me. If I could have saved the girl or stopped the fire, don’t you think I would have done it?” His voice sounded strained, almost pleading.

  Hedy looked at Bren, scanning his brown eyes to see if she could see the truth in them. Adelaide was right, there was smoke around him. She couldn’t tell if what he said was true or not. Her gut instinct, usually spot on about people, was silent.

  “Bren, if what you say is true, you bear a terrible burden and I can understand why you wish to be free of it. You have to understand though that the girl you met, the girl who made you that terrible coffee, is gone. There is no sign of her and likely something awful has happened to her. If there is any way you can help, I think you should. Part of your curse is that it brings responsibility.”

  Hedy stood up and left him alone in the room; he didn’t try to stop her. It wasn’t her place to lecture him but his decision to leave the coffee stand unguarded likely left the girl to the very danger he knew was lurking. Bren wasn’t to blame for the fire or the disappearance of the girl, at least as far as Hedy knew, but in Hedy’s eyes, he hadn’t done all he could have to prevent it and she didn’t know how to reconcile that. She climbed the stairs to the attic not feeling any better than when she came down them. It would be a long night for both of them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The first hints of clouds were waiting for Hedy as she faced the morning. They may not have held rain but they were a sign that the sunny October days would be drawing to a close. Maybe they were a sign of other things too, since Hedy’s mind was clouded from a night of little sleep. To top it off, Mr. Jeffries was also waiting for her on the front porch when she opened the shop.

  “Good morning, Mr. Jeffries. What brings you…”

  “I thought we had an understanding about the yard. Weren’t you going to be bringing in a gardener? The leaves are back and the gardens that face my house are a disaster. I shouldn’t have to look at that rubbish.”

  Hedy was in no mood for humoring his rudeness. “Sir, I will tend to my garden as I see fit. As I told you, I will be contacting a gardener, and I will. It will be on my timeline, not yours. Unless you have anything else to discuss, I need to open my shop.”

  “Hedy, is everything alright?” Anahita had come up behind her and was standing near her elbow by the door. Jeffries gave the girl a withering look.

  “What are you running, a hotel? The city has ordinances against hotels in residential areas, you know.” Jeffries’ blotchy face was turning a lovely shade of purple.

  “Not at all, Mr. Jeffries. Just houseguests for no compensation, nothing remotely illegal about that. But feel free to try again, what else do you have this morning?” Hedy knew she shouldn’t be goading the man but she had had her fill of his nosy neighbor routine.

  “If people like you would have some decency and behave like you ought to, this world would be a better place. We don’t need your kind of sloppy and freewheeling living.”

  “That’s enough, sir. This conversation is over.” Hedy firmly shut the door in his face, leaving him sputtering and apoplectic on the front porch.

  “So much for ‘love your neighbor’, huh? I should have taken the high road but honestly, it is much too early for that much stupidity and rancor. Lack of sleep has not helped my disposition.” Hedy sighed dramatically. Anahita chuckled, which caused Hedy to laugh as well. “And to show that I am more than just an indecent, sloppy, freewheeling garden destroying ‘kind’, I’ll even call the gardener today.” They both headed into the kitchen to get coffee and put Mr. Jeffries and his demands out of their minds.

  “Good morning, ladies. There is a delivery on the back porch, Hedy.” Alice trilled her words rather fetchingly, clearly feeling chipper on a cloudy morning and excited to have some news to share. Hedy knew that the bird always wanted to be helpful.

  “Thank you, Alice. It must be the bushel of apples I ordered from the farmstand last week. The Honeycrisps must be ready.” Hedy popped open the back door and sure enough, a large box of apples was there. “That certainly puts a better spin on the day. I think some poison apple pie might be just the thing - do you think Mr. Jeffries would like a slice?” Hedy grabbed the handle and dragged the box into the kitchen. She gave the door a kick with her foot but it didn’t quite latch shut.

  “Real poison or just one of your peculiarities?” Anahita said as she came over and helped Hedy lift the large box onto the kitchen table. Hedy thought the girl was joking but there looked like a tiny bit of doubt on her face. That amused her.

  “I suppose not real poison, though it would be a little tempting.” The front door bell tinkled; Hedy had forgotten to lock it. “That will be Mel, I think.” Anahita gave Hedy a smile and headed into the shop.

  “I think those two like each other, wouldn’t you say? I’m not the brightest bird, I know, but even I can see that.” Alice trilled again from her perch and Hedy nodded back. Hedy scooped up several Honeycrisp apples and placed them in the bowl with the Granny Smiths she already had.

  “There is a connection there. Time will tell if it is friendship or something more.” Hedy smiled at Alice as she picked up the bowl brimming with fresh apples. There were few things in the world that Hedy loved more than in-season apples.

  “Girls, would you like to make a poison apple pie?” She carried the bowl into the shop, leaving the back door ajar behind her.

  Though a few early morning customers interrupted the pie crust lesson, both girls had an opportunity to learn how to properly make a lard pie crust. It was a bit finicky for first-timers, but under Hedy’s watchful gaze, both mastered rolling it out with a minimal amount of handling.

  “Very good, that looks perfect. Now, loosely roll it back onto your rolling pin and use it to carry it to your pie pan. Yes, like that. You both are naturals.” The girls smiled and Hedy helped them flute the edges of the crust until they had two customer-worthy pie crusts, waiting for the filling.

  “My mom would never believe I made a pie crust from scratch. Baking in our house might happen if we have some of those crescent rolls in a tube or prefab cookie dough. What about you, Ana?”

  “Definitely no baking in my family. I’m not sure what my mother would say about this.” Anahita’s face was smiling but Hedy heard a slight hesitation in her voice.

  “Hedy, do you know there is a fox in the kitchen?” Maurice had joined them in the shop and made his way to the top of the counter. He said the word ‘fox’ with a thick varnish of disdain.

  “Uh, did you just hear that?” Mel’s face was stricken in surprise and fear and her voice was a shriek. “Did that chinchilla just speak?”

  Anahita and Hedy looked at each other with worried looks. This was Mel’s first time hearing one of the members of the menagerie.

  “My dear, don’t worry. I can explain everything, I really can. But first, I need to see to the fox in the kitchen.” Hedy gave Anahita a nod, indicating she should watch over Mel while Hedy dealt with the intruder.

  Just as Maurice had said, there was a fox over by the potbelly stove. The creature didn’t seem afraid when Hedy entered the room, and instead seemed to be warming himself.

  “Hello there. I see I must have left the backdoor open. I hope you are a friendly fox and not going to cause any trouble.” Hedy spoke out loud, mostly for herself, b
ut just in case the fox understood her. She didn’t know if the staff in the hallway would have any effect on a wild creature wandering into the house. Alice was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully he hadn’t had a magpie snack.

  The fox looked at her curiously, his fluffy white tipped tail coiled around his feet. With a tilt of his head, he turned and headed silently and slowly back toward the door.

  “Thank you.” Hedy gave a small sigh as she watched the fox cross the threshold.

  The fox turned back to look at her before heading for the stairs. “My name is Ren. Never heard a human speak before, didn’t know they could. Huh, imagine that. Wait until the missus hears.” With that, he was gone.

  Hedy came back into the shop to find the girls gone. She checked the entry and found them in front of the staff on the wall. Anahita was explaining the story to Mel.

  “So, you're telling me that animals in this house can speak because of this stick?” Mel gestured toward the staff and Anahita nodded.

  “That’s what she says. Though I haven’t ruled out that she is a witch. That makes more sense, really.”

  “I’m not a witch, Anahita. At least not by training, though it might be in my blood. If you had been in the kitchen with me with the fox, you would have had another example of the staff having an effect on animals. Apparently even wild animals who wander inside can be affected.” Hedy filed that tidbit away in her mind. The dealer she had purchased the staff from way back when hadn’t mentioned any of this.

  “Incredible. It is amazing. Do you know how much money you could make by showing this to the world? You are a regular Dr. Doolittle!” Mel said with amazement. Hedy looked quizzically at Mel and Anahita shrugged her shoulders; neither knew the reference.

  “Look, Mel. You can’t tell anyone about the staff. It would be dangerous for the animals, and frankly dangerous for me. People fear what they don’t understand and before you know it, things could get ugly. Can I count on you to keep this secret?” Hedy looked at Mel, hoping the girl understood just how dangerous such knowledge could be. She really needed to be able to trust her with this secret.

  “Oh, of course, I won’t say a word. I mean, who would believe me? I can’t believe it and I heard it for myself. Can we go talk to him some more?” Mel sounded excited at the prospect.

  “Well, you can try. You might get him into a conversation if you ask him about his book on Proust.” Both girls looked shocked at Hedy’s statement.

  “Yes, I forgot to mention. They can read as well.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  True to her word, Hedy called the gardener she had located on the ad in the grocery store. At least, she thought she had called the gardener. The person on the other end of the phone had a thick Scottish accent and quite possibly the world’s worst cell phone, combining into a difficult conversation at best. She thought they had agreed to meet at the shop and discuss the bid around noon.

  The girls had tried in vain to get Maurice to be more communicative, so they were off in search of Zelda. Bren, true to form, hadn’t made an appearance this morning, though given how they left things last night, she wasn’t sure what would be the state of things when he did show up.

  The bell signaled the door and Hedy looked up to find a woman standing in the doorway. Rather than enter the shop, she hovered in the entry, looking at the walls and artifacts with obvious fascination.

  “Good morning, can I help you?” Hedy came around the counter to close the gap but the woman never turned her head to acknowledge her.

  “So, this is the place.” The woman spoke softly, so close to a whisper that Hedy wasn’t sure she had heard the woman at all.

  “Pardon me, did you say something?” Hedy came closer to her but stopped just out of arm’s reach.

  “Not at all what I expected, to be sure.” The woman spoke again, still not looking toward Hedy, but rather stepping lightly into the entry and toward the stairway.

  “The shop is back this way. Perhaps if I knew what you were looking for, I could be of some assistance.” Hedy stepped into the entry and watched the woman examine the objects and paintings closely.

  “Indeed, what I am looking for is always the same thing.” The woman finally turned to face Hedy, “But sometimes, I happen on a very special place, such as this town.” Her eyes were very dark, with hardly a rim of white around the edges. She smiled but it had no warmth at all, only menace.

  “Enumclaw is a nice town, certainly.” Hedy didn’t know what else to say. The woman’s gaze prickled the skin on Hedy’s neck. Her eyes were not natural and Hedy couldn’t look away.

  “Special to be sure, but hardly ‘nice’. No doubt you know about the fires and the women who have gone missing. Nothing very ‘nice’ about that, wouldn’t you say?” The woman came closer to Hedy and it was all she could do not to back away from her. Hedy’s gut was telling her to get away.

  “You are special too, aren’t you? You and this house, and the people and things in it. All very special, very precious. I must say, it makes my days much more interesting when there are special people such as yourselves in my path.” Her voice had hardly risen above a whisper.

  Hedy wanted to tell the woman to leave the house but her mouth wasn’t moving. The woman headed toward the door, unasked. “I will be seeing you again, I am sure, you and your lovely house, and your special friends. It’s nice to meet you in person. You may call me Lyssa, Miss Leckermaul.” The woman was gone.

  Hedy was not one for taking a sip of spirits early in the day but she poured a small bit of whiskey into her coffee cup. She had no idea what had just happened.

  “Hedy, are you alright?” Mel and Ana had returned from their search for Zelda and both girls looked worried. “Your face has gone white as your hair.”

  “I’m alright, just a very strange and unsettling visitor. And not Mr. Jeffries this time. A woman, a weird woman, with these weird eyes.” The girls came up to the counter and Ana gave a sniff at the whiff of whiskey she smelled coming from the coffee cup.

  “This woman came into the house, and just stayed in the entryway, looking at the walls and things. She hardly spoke above a whisper and she made strange statements about how ‘special’ we all were, not ‘nice’ but ‘special’ and how special Enumclaw was. She had these dark eyes, almost black, like they were all iris. I tried to tell her to leave but the words wouldn’t come out.” Hedy considered herself of hardy stock but she was shaken.

  “I wonder what she meant by ‘special’? What is so special about this town?” Anahita looked at Mel, thinking maybe she knew something that the other two did not.

  “Enumclaw is just a run of the mill small town. Nothing overly special as far as I know. It’s close to Mount Rainier and it has fierce windstorms some times. The whole plateau is an old lava flow from the volcano, which I guess is kinda special. But honestly, I don’t know what she is talking about.” Mel was searching her brain for any tidbits from her freshman Washington history class that might be useful.

  “What does the name ‘Enumclaw’ mean? I’ve never heard such a name before.” Anahita had found the name curious when she had first learned it was the site of a waystation on her journey.

  “If I remember right, the word comes from the Salish people and it means ‘place of evil spirits’ or something like that. I think it has something to do with Mount Enumclaw, which is just outside of town.” She’d lived in Enumclaw her whole life but she had never felt the urge to go check out the mountain. She wasn’t especially outdoorsy and even if she were, there were more interesting places to check out.

  “The woman, she called herself Lyssa, said it made her days more interesting when there were special people about.”

  “Did you say Lyssa? Her name was Lyssa? And you said she had very dark eyes?” Anahita’s face visibly blanched.

  “Yes, her eyes were almost black, almost to the edges. Why? Who was she?”

  “I can’t believe it but I think you just met the goddess of rage and madness, Hedy.”


  “Anahita, what are you talking about?” Hedy was in no mood for games right now.

  “No, hear me out. The name of Lyssa is known throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East as the name of the ancient Greek goddess of rage and madness. Legend has it that she is the child of Nyx, goddess of the night and that is why she has eyes of darkness. She travels the world sowing seeds of frenzy and hate, leaving destruction in her wake.” Anahita thought of the stories her grandmother would tell, the ancient Persian words echoing in her head.

  “But why would she be here, assuming a ‘goddess’ could be alive and well in the 21st century.” Mel had already had a day where she learned that animals in the house could talk; taking on the theory of a living, breathing goddess was a bit much.

  “She said she only ever has one thing she wants, though she didn’t tell me what that was.” Hedy tried to remember if there was anything else that Lyssa had told her, but that was all she could recall.

  “She is endlessly traveling the world, bringing rage in her wake. Why she would come to Enumclaw, I can’t say, but if she really is Lyssa, there is danger coming for sure.” Ana placed her hand on Mel’s and gave it a squeeze. Mel smiled and then blushed.

  “Who is coming and bringing danger?” Bren had come into the shop unnoticed. His voice sounded sharp.

  “Hedy had a visit this morning from a woman named Lyssa. From how she described her, she sounds like the Lyssa of legend. One who brings rage and madness.” Anahita said.

  “Rage and madness, and rabies in animals, I’ve heard the legends. But they are just that, legends. Why on earth would a goddess be roaming the farmland of Enumclaw? It sounds unlikely, wouldn’t you say?” Bren sounded like he was trying to explain away Ana’s theory.

  “Why not here? She travels the world and looks for places to sow the seeds of discord, to bring rage and anger to her followers. What better place than America right now, with all the fear of others that seems to be growing. Small towns are just the sort of place to stir things up, in a community that is close and connected.” Ana had a quiet strength about her and this was the first time Hedy had heard her really raise her voice.