by Etta Faire
I was feeling especially confident for someone who had no idea where she was going with this.
Gloria vanished, and I continued writing out our schedule and my plan to help her.
Jackson hovered by my side, reading over my shoulder in that annoying way he always did, even when we were married. “That’s a lot of channeling you’ve got planned. Are you sure you’re up for that?”
“Of course,” I said in my most confident voice.
I knew he was concerned about the effects the channelings were starting to have on me. Truth was, I was concerned too. But I was also starting to feel drawn to them. I needed those channelings, and the ill effects that went with them. Possible hallucinations. White specks impeding my vision. Dizziness. The whole thing was like an intoxicating package that needed me to unwrap it, again and again.
I pulled the shoe box off the bookshelf in the living room and sat down at the coffee table. It was where I kept all the research I’d done on the crows and the history of Gate House. All the articles from 1954 about skull-crushing birds with thick yellowed beaks. And my notes. If anyone told me anything about Gate House, shapeshifters, curses, the Dead Forest, or birds, I put it in there, along with the things I remembered from every channeling and seance. I didn’t have much so far.
There seemed to be a curse, all right, and I felt like I was supposed to end it somehow. But that was about as much as I knew, except for the fact I looked exactly like the woman who put the curse on the house in the first place. No idea why, but a coincidence didn’t really seem possible.
My mother wouldn’t tell me anything about my biological parents or my adoption, except to say the lawyer in the case resembled the lawyer I had now, a man who didn’t seem to age, and kind of looked like he’d just stepped off the field of a Civil War reenactment.
Every week I’d think of some other thing to research, some other key word that might unlock the mystery behind this curse and my life, so I’d head optimistically over to the library.
But Parker’s grandmother Mildred had been right. There wasn’t nearly enough coverage in Potter Grove about the things that mattered, the supernatural things that terrorized this town. And might be back.
But with Gloria’s help, I was about to do my own firsthand research and see things for myself in real time.
Chapter 3
Inconsistencies
I bumped the library door open with my butt because my hands were full of to-go cups of coffee. Stopping just inside the doorway, I closed my eyes a second, enjoying the warmth from the vent blaring out heat right above me. Giggles, screams, and squeals interrupted my thoughts, so loud they echoed off the walls.
There were kids in the kids section?
We had a kids section?
“You didn’t get me,” a little voice taunted. “Come on, at least try.”
A toddler screeched.
“Lil Mil, sit down. Mrs. Nebitt is still reading the story.”
I recognized the voices immediately. Landover Lake’s newest single dad, Parker Blueberg, and his family. I walked toward the sounds and leaned against one of the book racks to watch the very first story time this library probably ever had. Mrs. Nebitt’s frail, veiny hand shook as she struggled to hold the book out so the pictures would show to her audience as she sat on one of the metal chairs in the children’s section, a section about the size of a small bathroom.
Parker grabbed Benjamin, his toddler, and secured him on his lap even though he was squirming to break free, while Lil Mil, his five-year-old daughter with wild curls, was spinning around on the floor in front of them. He smiled and waved to me when he noticed me standing there.
Mrs. Nebitt ignored the interruptions. “Where was I? Oh yes. ‘This must be a home,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve always wanted a home.’” The 80-year-old closed the book with a soft sigh. “Corduroy. One of my favorites. I remember your great grandmother reading it to your dad when he was a baby. You might not know I am very good friends with your great grandmother.”
Benjamin got up and started spinning with his sister. Mrs. Nebitt was quickly losing her audience, but oddly, not her patience. She picked up another book, seemingly oblivious to the children who were now chasing each other through the stacks in the nonfiction section. That woman used to shush me whenever I’d move a chair too loudly and now she had children screaming through the library and she hardly noticed?
I handed her the coffee while she carefully put the children’s books back, in their exact right spots along the shelves. She hesitated to take it, glancing over at the “No food or drinks” sign posted along the side wall next to the sign that read, “Quiet Please.” Lil Mil screamed louder from the back, and Mrs. Nebitt snatched the coffee from my grasp, thanking me.
“I need research on another ghost,” I said. “For my book.” I added that last part so Parker would know I wasn’t crazy. “Someone named Gloria Thomas. She was one of the partiers from 1957 who died in that unfortunate boating accident.”
Mrs. Nebitt’s smile dropped and she stammered her words a little. “Microfilm section again,” she finally said after a couple seconds.
Parker leaned against a table, like he didn’t have kids running crazy in a library right now. “I heard you were writing a book,” he said. “I’m very impressed.”
“Don’t be. So far it’s just a lot of research.”
Even though I had the first chapter written about the suffragette’s suicide sitting at home on my laptop, I would rather jump into a vat of hepatitis needles with it than have anyone read it yet.
I caught Parker’s profile as he craned his neck to look for his kids. Beige sweater and jeans, his hair tousled like he hadn’t had time to brush it. He rocked the frazzled, single-dad look; that was for sure. I looked at my phone, pretending not to be looking at Parker. Jackson’s voice echoed in my head, something about wondering if Justin would approve.
A loud crash came from the back, followed by even louder laughter, and Mrs. Nebitt shot Parker a look.
“Sorry, Mrs. Nebitt,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.” He ran after the noise as Mrs. Nebitt and I walked to the periodicals section together. It was a short walk.
She mumbled to herself, tugging on an ear. “So, let’s see. 1957…” She set her coffee down on top of the cabinet and opened a drawer.
“You were here in 1957,” I said, thinking about the large black-and-white photo that hung on the wall over the copiers. The library’s ribbon-cutting ceremony had to have been from around that time. “Do you remember the boating accident?”
She hummed loudly to herself as she sifted through the boxes in the drawer, like she was ignoring me.
“Did you know the people involved? Were you at the dance?”
Still nothing.
Parker came back over, carrying a grinning toddler on his shoulders while holding Lil Mil’s hand. “Tell Mrs. Nebitt thanks for the story time, kids,” he said, heading for the door.
“Thanks for the story time, kids,” Lil Mil echoed back in a gravelly deep voice that sounded a lot like her great grandmother’s. Benjamin just waved and blew kisses. And I bit my lip, mentally yelling at my uterus to stop being so needy. We would have kids when we were meant to, if we were meant to.
Mrs. Nebitt pulled on her ear. “What was that?” she asked Parker in a soft, faraway tone. “My hearing aid was down.”
I knew from helping my mother take care of my grandmother just before she passed away that hearing aids didn’t just turn down on their own. Older people turned them down when they didn’t want to hear you anymore.
I walked Parker and the kids to the door so I could get a look at the photo of the ribbon-cutting ceremony again. He put his hand on my shoulder before he left. “That accident you’re looking up. That was very hard for Mrs. Nebitt and my grandmother.”
I looked at him sideways.
“They were chaperones at the dance and were pretty much blamed for the accident. Someone spiked the punch and kids got out of contr
ol. And when some kids drowned because they were drunk… It was a rough time for the family.”
I gasped. “I had no idea.”
“Just tread lightly,” he said then left with his kids.
Mrs. Nebitt waddled over to me as soon as the door closed behind them. “They are driving me nuts, running around like that. Parker asked if we did story time. What was I going to say? Poor guy’s looking for cheap entertainment for those kids. But honestly, I don’t know how to do a story time for toddlers. Run a book club for 90-year-olds, sure. But toddlers…”
“I can do it next time,” someone said, and I realized it had been me. I immediately tried to back peddle. “I know you would hate that, though, because you would hate for someone else to take over. And there probably won’t even be a next time.”
Mrs. Nebitt’s face relaxed, so it was only halfway scowling now. “I will take you up on your very kind offer,” she said.
Why had I made such a very kind offer, anyway?
“We’ll talk about the details later. I set up the microfilm machine for you,” she said, sashaying off to her humungous desktop computer at the front, leaving me to do my own research for once. Every other time, she’d kept me company.
I looked up at the photo above the copiers before making my way to the periodicals section again. In it, Mrs. Nebitt stood with a pair of humungous scissors next to four smiling men in dark suits and one young woman in a beauty queen sash, Miss Potter Grove 1950-something. The woman was standing behind one of the men, so I couldn’t really tell the date on her sash. Mrs. Nebitt looked remarkably similar to the way she looked today, except in the picture her hair was dark and her glasses were thick and cat-eye looking as she glared down at the ribbon she was about to cut, like she might want to stab it instead.
I went back over to the periodicals section and sat in front of the machine. Mrs. Nebitt was humming to herself, causing a very loud distraction. The woman didn’t hum. She hated noise. I could already tell this case was going to be different.
Young Party Goers Meet Tragic End; Alcohol Suspected
Gloria Thomas and Annette Jerome, recent high-school graduates and cousins from Los Angeles, CA, were two of the four victims in the boating accident late Saturday night. Witnesses say alcohol was most certainly involved. After attending what was supposed to be a “sock hop” at the country club’s recreational center, the girls surreptitiously boarded a yacht owned by the Donovan family with Frederick Linder, 18, of Landover and his friends Clyde Bowman, Myles Donovan, and Darren Wittle. Also in attendance were Bill Donovan and Dwight Linder.
My jaw dropped. There, on the screen, were some of the biggest names in Landover County. Clyde Bowman was the mayor of Potter Grove (and was also Jackson’s uncle) while Darren Wittle was the mayor of Landover. And Myles Donovan was the Myles Donovan, the man in the largest house on the lake, the richest man in Landover. He was also Delilah Scott’s distant cousin. I didn’t recognize the Linders, though, even though there was a photo of them. I read on.
“I am actually surprised this didn’t happen sooner,” one of the mothers of a young party attender said. “We’ve been warning the country club for years. They need to do a better job chaperoning those dances. The punch was spiked again, and I suspect funny cigarettes were a part of it, too.”
Witnesses on the boat say the teenagers jumped overboard for a late-night swim, but were too inebriated to make it back and quickly became lost in the water.
Frederick Linder’s father, Dwight, apparently jumped in to save the kids, but was quickly lost too. A police vessel was summoned to the scene, but in the chaos, accidentally ran over the women who were still struggling to stay afloat. The search for the Linders continues. Ms. Thomas is survived by her parents, Tony and Velma Thomas and her sister, June, of Los Angeles…
Below the article were all three of the kids’ senior high-school photos. Gloria and Nettie smiled at me in velvet wraps and pearls. And Freddie Linder was a lanky kid in a bow tie and suit, his thinning hair parted neatly to the side.
“Who’s Frederick Linder?” I called out across the library.
Mrs. Nebitt shushed me and took another sip of her coffee. “This is a library, Carly Mae,” she said, like it hadn’t just been a daycare about 20 minutes ago.
In the middle of the article, there was a small grainy photo of the lake, with a couple large boats sitting along the bank and what looked like stretchers loaded with lumpy white sheets being wheeled along the dirt. The caption underneath said: “We didn’t know they were swimming when we pulled anchor and drove off. By the time we realized they were in the lake, we turned around but it was too late to find them. Freddie’s dad jumped in and we called the police.” — Clyde Bowman
I noticed the inconsistencies right away. Did the “witnesses” know their friends had jumped overboard or were they surprised not to see them onboard? And almost none of this went along with Gloria's account.
I printed out the article and wrote down every person’s name I could find in the margins, circling June Thomas, Gloria’s sister. There was very little chance Gloria’s parents were still alive, but maybe her sister was. Finding her might be a challenge, though.
I could only find a couple other articles about the accident. Apparently, the other two victims had drowned. Mrs. Carmichael and old George had both been right. While I was printing out every article I could find, I looked up at the 50’s photo just above the copiers again.
I didn’t care that this happened 60 years ago. Someone from that boating accident was going to talk to me. And I was going to start with the person I didn’t have to look too hard to find. The mayor.
Chapter 4
The Investment Club
Mayor Clyde Bowman was a predictable man who loved three things: money, himself, and food. And Mondays were the day he could celebrate all three. The investment club always met at the Spoony River Cafe because chicken fried steak was on special, and that was an investment most people could agree on, even without an investment club.
After work I went over there. It was warm and loud, and smelled like grease mixed with blood pressure medication.
Mrs. Carmichael rushed over to me, strutting to Runaround Sue playing softly in the background. “There’s a spot open along the counter, hon. Coffee and chicken fried steak?”
“Just coffee,” I said, sitting down at one of the stools close to the investment club. The mayor was right behind me at his usual spot in the large corner booth next to five other men, leaning back into the sticky white vinyl of their seats, laughing, probably at some joke about poor people or taxes, or how they avoided both.
I knew this was a bad idea. There were too many people and it was weird to ask an almost 80-year-old man about a horrific boating accident that happened when he was 18. I gulped, but scooted my barstool over a little so I’d be close enough to overhear them.
Landover’s mayor, Darren Wittle, was among the group, a man who looked more like Pee Wee Herman’s creepy uncle than an authority figure worth voting for. He and Mayor Bowman were talking about how they might be able to take a trip to Florida together soon, on the taxpayer’s dime for business reasons.
Nobody glanced in my direction or smiled, even though they all knew me and saw me there. But then, I was the awful woman who had somehow swindled Gate House out of the Bowmans’ grasps, so I was getting used to being ignored.
Mrs. Carmichael carried a pot of coffee when she came back over. She fixed her pink waitress hat and set a white coffee cup by my place mat.
“When you told me about Accident Loop yesterday…” I began, loudly. I paused to see if the investment club at the large booth was looking over at me like I wanted them to. They weren’t, so I made my voice even louder. “I did a quick library search to see what you were talking about.”
Mrs. Carmichael stopped pouring mid-cup, suddenly interested. “So, tell me. Who was right? Was it a drowning or were those kids mangled by a boat?”
I studied the woman’s face.
I had no idea how old anyone was, really. But I guessed Mrs. Carmichael must have been in her late 50s so she probably hadn’t been around when the accident happened. And since not too many people talked about it anymore, she might not have known that two of the people involved were sitting at the booth next to us right now. I was about to fill her in, though.
“You were both right. Two of the victims were hit by a boat, the other two drowned.” She almost looked disappointed not to be fully right.
I pointed over to the booth with the investment club while she filled my cup the rest of the way. “I also found out the mayors of both Landover and Potter Grove were on one of the boats when it happened.”
Mrs. Carmichael turned so fast she almost spilled coffee on them. “These two?” She motioned with her coffee pot at the mayors. “Well, I’ll be,” she said, mouth open. Mrs. Carmichael prided herself on being the town’s biggest gossip, and now I’d scooped her on a story that George had already partially scooped her on.
Mayor Bowman cut her off. “Just a splash more coffee, Patsy,” he said, raising his cup. “And before you even ask, I don’t talk about that night. It was a horrible, tragic accident. One we all want to forget about.”
Mayor Wittle nodded his thin, turkey neck so hard in agreement, I worried for a second I’d hear a twig-snapping sound. “Horrible,” he repeated, voice nasally and shaky.
Mayor Bowman went on. “And it happened a long time ago. There is no reason on God’s green earth to relive it.”
“What if I gave you a reason? I don’t believe the accident happened like it was reported.”
He went back to his food and his friends. “Some people don’t know when to quit. Nobody cares about something that happened that long ago.”