The Curious Case of the Cursed Crucible

by Constance Barker

  “So precise?”

  “Almost six months to the day, in every case.”

  “Died or killed?” he asked.

  That was a valid question. I scrolled back and checked. “Each of them is listed as dead of ‘natural causes’.” That term has always bothered me. I mean, getting hit by a car is as natural as having your heart stop for no reason at all. And the antithesis of ‘natural causes’ was “unnatural causes” which these days I tended to associate with things like jumping out of a high-rise building with the Cabal hot on your tail and having an artifact not work. I was sure that medical examiners used a far different set of criteria... unless they worked for the Cabal, of course.

  “Regardless of what they are calling the cause of death, the timing defies coincidence,” Edgar said.

  “I need to tell Clarence.” So I sent him my findings using a messaging app and added a note mentioning that Ralph Logan had been cured six months ago. Almost to the day.

  Clarence got the message and moment later he popped up alongside us. “Are you sure about the dates?”

  “I double checked the obituaries in a couple of papers.”

  “That means...”

  “The party Ralph was preparing for wasn’t a party,” I said.

  “It’s a wake,” Edgar said. “He was planning his own wake. You know, it had that feel about it, now that I think back. But he was alive then.”

  “That’s what he meant by us being early,” I said. “He assumed we were there for the wake.”

  Clarence turned pale. “Which means he knew he would die in six months after taking the cure. He not only knew it would happen, that the cure was finite...”

  “He knew when he would die,” Edgar said. “I don’t even remember dying, if I did, in fact, die, but I can’t imagine what that would be like to know you were going to. If that makes any sense.”

  It didn’t, of course. But we let that pass. “You’re right, Clarence. He had to know he was dying. He must’ve known it for some time or he wouldn’t have been planning his exit so calmly.”

  “Calmly,” he said, nodding. “The man was resigned to his fate; he’d accepted it. No wonder he didn’t want to take the time to tell his story. We don’t know how precisely he knew the moment of his death, but when you know it’s coming soon why would he care about fame or even what happens to other people? He knows he’s at the end of the line. He wouldn’t be there to enjoy it.”

  Edgar looked upset. “That poor man. What can we do? Do you think there is anything we can do?”

  I thought about it. “I doubt we can do anything to prevent his death, but I think we should crash his party and see what we can find out while he’s still breathing. Anything he can tell us might be enlightening, or even help us identify and find the artifact.”

  “Seems a little ghoulish,” Clarence said, shuddering.

  “It seems a lot ghoulish,” I said. “And also necessary.”

  “Why is it necessary? We could just mind our own business.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Because, Clarence, suddenly it is clear that your instinct is right. This has to be the work of an artifact. And mind our own business? If we had any intention of doing that we would just go home and abandon the field to the Cabal.”

  “Or some other sinister and malevolent force,” Edgar said.

  I started to ask, but stopped and shook my head. “Do you mind if, just for now, we concentrate on assuming that the worst force out there is something we already know and are struggling to contain? At least for the moment?”

  “Fine,” Edgar said. “Keep your head buried in the sand if you must.”

  “At least that narrow perspective lets me operate as if there was a chance to succeed,” I said. “I can’t function well if I expect that new malevolent forces are going to be cropping up on a regular basis.”

  “Like Solomon Temple did in England?”

  I glared at him. “Exactly.” I didn’t really want to be reminded of that fight. “Right now we have our hands full with figuring out this artifact.”

  Edgar held out his hands. “I just wanted to be the Devil’s advocate.”

  Clarence shuddered. “I think we have plenty of those lurking around already, Edgar. And some of them aren’t content to stick to debating the issues.”

  Edgar sighed. “I suppose we do at that.”

  “We need to move now,” I said. “Not only is there never enough time in life to do all you want, in Logan’s case, well, it seems he has less than that for most people.”

  “And we have no idea how much that is for any of us.”

  “Just that Ralph Logan’s time is running out very soon, probably today.”

  We turned and headed for the car and drove back to Ralph Logan’s house.

  Chapter Four

  We pulled up in front of the house to find the driveway full and the street in front of it filled with parked cars. The front door was wide open. As we walked in, we saw a variety of people dressed in black. They wandered around the house in a bit of a daze, sipping drinks and muttering to each other. No one paid us any attention at all.

  “I think we are too late,” Clarence said.

  It did look that way. “I think we should join the party,” I said. “We need to poke around. The artifact could be in plain sight.”

  “Or long gone,” Edgar said. “I’m not sensing a thing, except confusion on the faces of these people.”

  “How do you think he knew?” a woman asked an incredibly thin and stiff man with a mustache. “I was so shocked when he invited me to his wake. I thought it was some sort of joke.”

  “He said he had a premonition, which was why he arranged things.”

  “Angels visit people sometimes,” a dowdy lady in a black veil said. “They might have brought him a message.”

  “More likely an artifact,” Clarence whispered, “but I doubt it was brought by angels.”

  “The Cabal, if it was delivered,” I said. “Let's look around and see if we can find a lead to its whereabouts.”

  So we did the best we could to split up for a quick look. In practice that means that Clarence went his own way; Edgar and I didn’t have that option but it gave me access to Edgar’s superpower. But none of us found anything to indicate the presence of an artifact of any description.

  “I’m fairly sure that there is no trace of one anywhere in the house,” Edgar reported. I saw a wistful look on Edgar’s face as he glanced at the buffet. “I wonder if he served tea?”

  “Why do you care?” I asked. “As you told Enid, you can’t drink it.”

  He shrugged in his ephemeral way. “I feel that it is a very civilized custom to offer people tea at a wake. Even if I can’t enjoy it myself one has to believe in standards.”

  I supposed one did. I might not know the truth about far too many things; I might not know if I was in the right time line. But I could see and appreciate his point.

  “What do we do now?” Clarence asked, ever pragmatic.

  “He must have had it at some point—whatever it was. So either he passed it along to someone else or someone came and took it away.”

  “Makes me wonder though,” Clarence said. “Maybe he didn’t actually have it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if someone else has it? What if they visited him and explained that if he used it, it would heal him for six months? Then, perhaps, that person moved along.”

  That made sense. “They give him this shot of short-term healing and they moved on to other victims.”

  “But that idea leads us to the fact that we face a completely different style of Easter egg hunt than we are used to,” Clarence said. “If someone is using it, but it affects other people, following reports of the cures means we will always be a step behind him. A six-month step. We need a fresh approach.”

  “I heard that woman say that Ralph was her father,” Edgar said, pointing to a short woman who looked far more mystified than distraught.

  “S
he could at least help us get some background.”

  I went over and offered my condolences. “How did you know Daddy?” she asked.

  “I only met him recently,” I said. “I barely knew him, but when I heard...”

  “It was all so very odd,” she said. “I’d already grieved for him... When he was first diagnosed, the doctor said his condition was terminal and that there was no chance. He was so sick that dying seemed like it might be a blessing. And then suddenly he was so healthy! It was like he’d go on forever. And now this.” She dabbed a cloth at her eyes. “He did warn me, of course, but still...”

  “Did you help him plan this service?”

  She laughed. “Not at all. I didn’t have an inkling he intended to do this. Not really. I don’t think anyone did. Then yesterday, he called his friends and neighbors, all the people he wanted here, and told us when to arrive. We all got here and found the door wide open, the place set up as you see it, and he was dead. Cold to the touch.”

  “Didn’t anyone call the police?”

  “Oh, yes I called 911. Fortunately, one of the people here was Charlie, Daddy’s lawyer. I guess he must’ve known more than any of us, but of course, he wasn’t allowed to say anything to anyone. When the police came he showed them a letter from the doctor saying Daddy knew he was dying and he cited religious reasons that they shouldn’t touch the body until after this wake. The Medical Examiner came briefly, confirmed death from cancer, and then left.” She smiled. “He did have some cake first. The chocolate mint.”

  “I see.”

  “Then he, Charlie, the lawyer, called us all together and read the will. It wasn’t long.”

  “Isn’t that a bit... odd?”

  She shook her head, smiling. “Odd was typical of him. Daddy was a bit of an eccentric. Well, he was lot eccentric. My entire life I’ve heard the strangest ideas from him. He believed in all sorts of things that reasonable people just don’t accept.”

  “Like what?”

  She ticked them off on her fingers: “UFOs, alien visitations... the usual stuff. But mainly, especially the last few years, he’s focused on magic, especially alchemy and magical objects.”

  “Objects? Did he have some?”

  “Nothing real.” Then she made a face and leaned toward me. “I guess there’s no harm in telling you that, when he went into remission, when he was healed of his cancer, he told me it was because he finally found a real one. He said a magical object made him well. I didn’t believe him at first and thought he was just in remission. Then the doctor said the cancer was totally gone and he didn’t have a clue how that happened, as far gone as it was.”

  “Did he show it to you?”

  “No. I don’t think he kept it. Someone showed it to him or something.”

  “Very interesting. What did he do when he heard the news that he wasn’t sick anymore? Did he celebrate?”

  “A little, but he wasn’t at all surprised. He said the magical object was the reason, but he didn’t want me to mention it to anyone. It doesn’t matter now though. After he got the clean bill of health he started having meetings with his lawyer. It turns out that he also raised his life insurance premiums to their maximum. He even passed the title for the house to me a month ago. His idea was that he didn’t want me to have to pay inheritance tax on it. That was when I started worrying that he was hiding something from me, but he wouldn’t say anything.”

  “So this was a shock.”

  “I had no clue until yesterday when he called and said he was holding a wake for himself to wrap up loose ends.” She looked pale. “At first I thought it was some idea of his about wanting to attend his own wake. I thought, dear old daddy is being a little off kilter again. It was endearing. But then... well, here we are.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Tell, me, do you think it’s really possible that he knew when he was going to die all along? Do you think a person could be so certain that he could plan a wake like this?”

  I didn’t know what to say to the poor woman. “Perhaps anything is possible.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t use to think so.”

  “By any chance, did your father mention how he came across this magical object?”

  “He said he got a treatment from a traveling doctor, some sort of specialist.”

  “And do you know what happened to it?”

  “Oh, I think the doctor healed him with it and then took it with him. I don’t remember Daddy saying he’d kept it, just that he’d finally found a magical object and it was everything he needed. Why?”

  “If you had any idea where it is... I can think of people who might need the help of something like that?”

  “So you actually think this story of his about a magical object might be real?”

  “I’m not sure, but apparently your daddy thought so.”

  She gave me an indulgent smile. “That’s true. But then my daddy also thought he had been captured, taken to Venus, brainwashed and then returned to Earth as part of an alien invasion.”

  I choked. “Okay, I see your point,” I said. “Well, thank you for your time.”

  She looked around the room. “I suppose I should mingle, or whatever people do at wakes when the deceased hasn’t even been to the morgue yet,” the woman said. “Daddy’s beliefs always did create some unique social situations.”

  I turned to Clarence and Edgar and filled them in.

  “So we have nothing?” Clarence asked.

  I laughed. “Hardly that. We know we are looking for a miracle-working doctor.”

  “Who heals with magical objects,” Edgar said.

  “That are probably cursed,” Clarence said.

  I laughed. “You think?”

  Edgar grinned. “If this magical doctor can heal a terminal patient, I wonder what he could do for someone rather past that point?”

  “I don’t think we want to go there, do we?” Clarence asked.

  Edgar stared at him. “And why not?”

  I sighed. “Edgar, we have far too many unknowns as it is, and it isn’t like you would even know what life to be restored to. You might not like it at all.”

  “That’s true,” Clarence said.

  Edgar didn’t seem convinced. “That’s pure supposition on your part,” he said. “If you were dead, and displeased about it, you might be more interested in considering the possibilities.”

  He had a point. “It is speculation and supposition,” I agreed, “but given all the weird things we’ve encountered when poking into the... paranormal, attempting to use it that way, to bring back the dead, if that’s what we’d be doing, would be a pretty risky gamble.

  “As opposed to remaining a ghost, which we aren’t even certain I am, and chasing cursed objects around the world?”

  Clarence laughed. “He has a point. And, after all, it’s his... life, if that’s the right term. Fair enough, Edgar. If we find this doctor, we can ask about that.”

  We were getting ahead of ourselves again. “Why don’t we see if we can find this magic traveling doctor and put the question aside until we know if it’s even a possibility?”

  “Good idea,” Clarence said.

  “Do you think we will ever know that?” Edgar asked. Then he put up a hand. “But fine, we can table my concerns for the moment.”

  I was sure I hadn’t heard the last of this quest. He’d emphasized the last part fairly strongly.

  Chapter Five

  When we arrived back to the shop in Destiny’s Point, Clarence got out his computer and went to the website where he’d first found the mention of the miracle cures.

  “Why go there?” I asked. “If this healer is a traveling doctor, as Ralph Logan’s daughter thinks, then it has nothing to do with an online miracle cure store.”

  “True, but whoever does this site is doing a good job of collecting data and noting the healings. We can use that to find a pattern,” Clarence said. “I want to see if there is a route this person is following.”

&nbs
p; I unfolded a map of the area. “That’s very clever,” I said.

  “He saw that technique on one of the cop shows on television,” Edgar said. “Give credit where it is due, Clarence.”

  Clarence glared at him without answering. “It still counts as clever, Edgar. Adapt, adopt, improve.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll read you the names of towns and dates,” Clarence said.

  “And the names of the persons healed and the dates,” I suggested. Soon we were busily making a list and mapping the locations. When we finished we’d order them by date.

  “What do you think you’d do if you knew that you were going to die soon?” Clarence asked me. “If someone gave you an extra six months and it was a sure thing, what would you do?”

  I had to be honest. “I’m not sure.”

  “I’d drink tea,” Edgar said. “Lots of tea.”

  Clarence ignored him. “Do you ever think about it?”

  I hesitated. The truth was that I didn’t want to talk about it, but it was an honest question and deserved an answer. “Ever since my Uncle Mason died, from time to time I have thoughts about death. I don’t know how clearly he saw his own death coming, but he certainly managed to make some provisions for that happening.”

  “I guess he did.” Clarence sounded sad.

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “I imagine that you miss him even more than I do. You were with him on a daily basis for some time. After I moved away, I only saw him on occasion. I still loved him, of course.”

  “I was with him, but he didn’t share much that was personal.”

  “Really?”

  “I thought he did. He told me about you and we talked about daily life, but obviously I didn’t know anything about him being an Antique Dealer. I didn’t know about the closet in the back of the store. I didn’t know that he and Enid had been lovers.” He took a breath. “Thinking back, it seems like most of what I know about Mason I learned after his death and from other people.”

  “From what little I do know, my guess is that Uncle Mason cared about you a great deal.”