Nightshade for Warning

by Bailey Cattrell

  Silly. I’m as much of a kid as Colby is.

  With a start, I realized I was shivering. The temperature had dropped ten degrees over the course of only a few minutes, so quickly it hadn’t registered at first. Disconcerted, I staggered to my feet and hugged myself for warmth. I turned in the direction Larken had gone—and stopped.

  A heavy white mist slithered through the bunch grass and wildflowers, crawling across the ground toward where I stood. Stunned, I watched it fill the floor of the willow grove, swirling around my ankles and then my knees.

  Tule fog?

  The phenomenon wasn’t uncommon in the valley. Not at all—except it only happened after it rained, and Poppyville hadn’t seen a drop of precipitation for over three weeks.

  Furthermore, we never saw tule fog in August. November, maybe. The winter months, certainly. But August?

  Never.

  It was known for its density and for being the leading reason for weather-related car accidents from fall to spring. And now it was up to my hips.

  “Larken!” I called. “Come back to the cabin!”

  She didn’t respond.

  By then, the mist was up to my chest, and I could barely see the remains of the cabin through the drooping branches of the willows. Overhead, the pink clouds of the sunset mocked me. Ducking my head, I took a deep breath of the humid air and hesitantly began to plod in the direction of the old homestead.

  The smell hit me like a cartoon anvil. Bubble gum.

  I stopped in my tracks, one hand on the trunk of the outermost willow. The tree was swaying. Then I realized I was swaying, hyperventilating as I dragged more of the sweet scent into my lungs.

  No. No, that can’t be. Not this time of year.

  Squinting into the bushes at the edge of the willow grove, I made out the source of the fragrance. The simple white blossoms of a mock orange studded a round bush that was a foot taller than me. From it emanated not the aroma of oranges as one might expect from the name, but the intense childhood smell of Bazooka gum. There were several kinds of Philadelphus, all fragrant in different ways, but this one happened to be my favorite.

  However, mock oranges bloomed in June. Now, in late August, the flowers should be long gone. Long, long gone, and with them, their candy scent.

  And tule fog is unheard of this time of year, a voice whispered in the back of my mind.

  It was as if this place somehow existed outside of time.

  I huffed and shook away the thought. That was impossible. I might have an over-the-top sense of smell, and sure, I sometimes felt what others were feeling. But the Sontag homestead as some Brigadoon-like place?

  Nah.

  Distracted by my whirling thoughts, I didn’t realize how far the fog had risen until I was completely engulfed. The blanket of sweet, enticing bubble gum smell intensified. It was mixed with hints of chlorophyll and sap and bright clear water soaking into rich loam.

  “Larken!” I yelled, stumbling toward the cabin again.

  My foot caught on a root, and I went sprawling. My knee, still sore from hitting the bumper of the Wrangler two days before, hit the ground first.

  Ouch.

  The native grasses helped cushion my fall, but when I scrambled to my feet, a sharp blade of needle grass sliced across my finger. Swearing under my breath, I squinted into the blinding gray mist. The soft pink sky above had disappeared. The air around me grew heavy and dim.

  A movement in the corner of my eye made me turn. “Larken! Over here.”

  The fog shifted. I waved my hand, and said again, “Over here!”

  A figure approached. Short and sturdy.

  No, wait a second. It was tall and willowy.

  Languid.

  With a panicked pang, I realized it wasn’t Larken at all. It wasn’t a figure at all.

  It was just the fog. A trick of the light, or lack of light. That wasn’t a torso, and those weren’t arms, simply tendrils of water vapor curling and swirling in the breeze.

  Except there isn’t a breath of wind. And water vapor from where? The logical part of my brain clamored for answers. There’s been no rain. This fog can’t . . . well, it just can’t be.

  But it was.

  And that’s not a face.

  But it sure looked like one. Then it disappeared into the undulating gray haze.

  A quiet hissing began to rise around me. The fog whirled and eddied, flowing like a live thing, whispering wordlessly, reaching for me.

  I should have been terrified. I knew that, but I wasn’t. Along with the verdant scents, a subtle joy rose in the air, wrapping itself around me. I felt happy and calm in the friendly fog.

  Ssssss . . . ussssss . . .

  The sound grew clearer, yet remained a bare hint of a whisper.

  Oooo . . . ussss . . .

  And then I made out an actual word.

  Joyoussssss.

  “No,” I said, my voice soft as thistledown. “I’m not Joyous.”

  The fog swirled faster.

  Feeling like a complete fool, I nonetheless continued. “Not Joyous. Ellie.” I swallowed. “Elliana.”

  Elliana . . .

  I’d heard my name on the wind before. I’d discounted it then, too. I shivered as cool humidity stroked my cheek, and I closed my eyes for a long moment.

  When I opened them again, the sky glowed pink overhead, and the fog was nearly gone. As I watched, what remained of it seemed to drain straight into the ground.

  “Ellie! Where have you been?” Larken came around the corner of the crumbling chimney.

  I’d come closer to the cabin than I’d known.

  “Whew!” I said. “That fog was something, wasn’t it?”

  Her head tipped to the side. “I thought I saw some mist along the ground. It didn’t last very long.”

  “Mist! You couldn’t even see—” Seeing her forehead wrinkled in puzzlement, I stopped, confused. “You didn’t see that crazy tule fog?”

  Looking at me like I was a candidate for a straitjacket, she slowly shook her head. “Tule?” she asked in a gentle voice. Didn’t want to upset the insane lady.

  Utterly gobsmacked, I stared at her. Finally, I managed to mutter, “Uh, never mind.”

  Had I imagined the whole thing? I didn’t think so. The memory of the fog against my skin, the whispers, the smell of bubble gum . . .

  Wait. The mock orange.

  I turned and ran back toward the stand of willows.

  “Ellie! It’s getting dark. And it looks like Polly is getting a little antsy,” Larken said as she followed on my heels.

  I skidded to a stop in front of the bush. It was still blooming. Inhaling deeply, I turned to her and said, “See? I’m not losing my mind.”

  “Okay.” She drew the word out, obviously skeptical.

  “The mock orange! It’s really here,” I exclaimed. “And it is blooming!”

  One side of her mouth pulled back as she turned her attention to the bush. “Sure is.” Her eyes cut toward me, then back. “Say, isn’t it kind of late for them to bloom?”

  “Yes! That’s my point!”

  She gave me another long look, then opted for a hopeful smile. “Smells good, though, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah, but . . .” I gave up.

  “Girls!” Polly’s voice drifted from where she stood just inside the gate. “Come on. Time to go.”

  Feeling like a ten-year-old being called inside after dinner, I trudged along behind my brother’s girlfriend, mind awhirl. When we reached the gate, I stopped and gazed back at the stand of willows.

  A small white doe stepped out from inside the circle of trees. My doe. We looked at each other for several seconds before she turned her tail toward me and went back into their shadows.

  “Did you see . . . ?” I started to ask, but Larken and P
olly were looking the other way, deep in discussion beside the real estate agent’s car.

  • • •

  THE blue hour of twilight had come and gone by the time Larken and I got back to the stables. She hadn’t said much in the car, but I was pretty sure that was because she was formulating what to say to my brother about wanting to buy the Sontag land.

  Colby was waiting in one of the camp chairs by the van. Gessie sat in another. Warm light spilled from the interior of the Westfalia and from the flames of two lanterns he’d set outside.

  My friend rose when we approached from the parking lot. “There you are! When I heard where you’d gone, I thought about taking Sutter out and meeting you there.” Sutter was her sturdy quarter horse gelding. “I’ve wanted to get inside that fence ever since Joyous put it up.”

  I climbed up on the back of the hayride wagon and perched on the edge. “It’s been like that for a while, then?” I hadn’t thought to ask Polly how long it had been fenced.

  “At least a couple of years,” she said, and gestured Larken toward the camp chair she’d been sitting in. “I’ve got to get going, hon. You sit here.” She moved to stand by one of the lamps. Her gray hair caught the yellow light. It gave the impression of a nimbus around her head.

  “But you’ve been on that land before it was fenced, right?” I asked. “On your trail rides?”

  She nodded. “I have some standard rides I take clients on, but sometimes people want to explore a little more. I’m fine with that. Most of my rides are out in Clary State Park, anyway.” She gave a kind of facial shrug. “Hard not to wander across to that edge of the Sontag place every once in a while. We never did any harm, though.”

  “So that’s not why Joyous put up the fence?”

  “To keep me out?” Gessie blew a raspberry. “Nah.”

  I looked at her curiously. “So why do you want to get in if you’ve already been there?”

  She grinned. “Gotta wonder why she did it, is all. I mean, what big secret’s on that land? Might be gold in them thar hills.”

  Colby laughed, but it sounded a little strained.

  Larken had taken a seat in the open side doorway of the van, but hadn’t spoken. I looked between them and opened my mouth to speak. Then I closed it again. The best thing I could do right then was butt out.

  “I don’t think there’s any gold,” Colby said. “At least there wasn’t any record of any kind of mine or claim at the courthouse.”

  I snapped my fingers. “That’s right. You went over there today. Did you find out anything useful?”

  He looked rueful. “Not useful. Interesting, though. They have some really old records there. A few go back a century and a half. They belong in a museum, not some file cabinet in the basement.”

  Gessie and I exchanged a meaningful look.

  My brother caught it. “What?”

  “For the last six months we’ve have been trying to get the owners of the Hotel California to reopen the museum that used to be beneath the lobby,” Gessie said. “They live out of state and don’t seem to think the history of our little town here is very important.” She winked at me. “I think we might be wearing them down, though.”

  “And by ‘we’ she means Cynthia,” I said, then explained. “Our women’s business group is totally behind the idea, but that museum is definitely Cynthia’s baby. There is some fascinating stuff there. It’s all packed away right now, though.”

  “Well, if you manage to reopen it, you should see if you can get at least a few of those old documents from the county clerk.” He leaned forward. “Do you know that Miss Poppy was the original owner of that parcel of the Sontag land? All the rest of it, that big section that the family donated to augment Clary State Park, was homesteaded later. But those thirty acres belonged to her.”

  Gessie whistled. “No kidding.”

  He pointed at her. “Not only that, but she gave the land to Blake’s great-great-grandfather.”

  I frowned. “Why would she do that?”

  He shrugged. “No idea.”

  “So it wasn’t the original homestead like we thought.” Sliding down off the wagon, I said, “It would be a travesty if they cut up the property that used to belong to our town’s namesake into half-acre lots and built a bunch of cracker-box houses on it.” I shuddered. “Ugh.”

  Larken was nodding, a thoughtful look on her face. I’d liked the idea of her buying that land before, but now I wanted to get out the pom-poms and cheer her on.

  “The water rights are a big deal, too,” Colby said. “Especially with the drought. I’d have to do more research, but in chatting with the clerk it sounds like the owner might be able to tap into the aquifer under that parcel and sell the water to another county. It would take some doing to get approved, but it’s possible.”

  I gaped. “Oh no. That’s even worse than putting houses there!”

  Gessie kicked at one of the wagon wheels. When she looked up, her eyes were bitter. “Who’s to say someone couldn’t buy the place and do both?”

  • • •

  DASH met me at the gate to the Enchanted Garden. Night-blooming nicotiana sweetened the air around us as I followed him down the path. Nabby watched us from his red velvet bed in the window of Scents & Nonsense, the faint light from the display cases behind him blurring the outline of his soft gray fur.

  Sinking down to the moss beneath the stained-glass birdbath, I scritched behind the corgi’s foxy ears. He panted hot breath, his eyes half-closed in bliss. They squeezed shut when I dug my fingers into the lighter- colored ruff along his shoulders. The fairy saddle, so they said, where the wee ones sat upon their corgi steeds. Finally, he rolled onto his back, and I folded my arms behind my head and reclined beside him to gaze up at the sky.

  Clear as could be, with no hint of fog or the rain that should have preceded it. The stars that glittered across the black sea of night made me think of the fairy daisies scattered across the meadow behind my house.

  And the white doe.

  Had it been the same one? Could there possibly be more than one?

  Joyoussss.

  Had that been my imagination? I didn’t think so, but the episode in the willows was so otherworldly, I could have been caught up in the moment.

  But I didn’t think I had. The vibrant energy of that place, the impression there was something going on right in front of me that was contained in the same space but somehow in another aspect of reality that I didn’t have full access to, was familiar because I so often felt it in this very garden.

  “The fog called her name,” I said out loud. “Or if not the fog, something did. I swear it really happened, Dash.”

  He snuffled and adjusted his head on the moss. The hoo . . . hoo . . . hoo of a great horned owl echoed from the direction of the river. The oak leaves sighed. A colony of bats fluttered overhead. The hollow gourd bird feeder knocked against its post three times.

  Thock.

  Thock.

  Thock.

  From very far away I thought I heard a high-pitched giggle.

  Clouds scudded across the sky, winking out the stars as if blowing out candle flames.

  I sat up, and looked at my dog. A gentle snore escaped his slightly open mouth, and his paws twitched as he ran through his dreams.

  Larken hadn’t seen the fog in the willows, not like I had. A woman, a wildcrafter, who was so in touch with nature, she hadn’t thought the late-blooming mock orange was more than an anomaly. She hadn’t seen what was in the fog, or heard the voiceless naming of Blake’s sister.

  But I had. Whether I wanted to deny it or not, I really had.

  My bet was that Joyous had heard the voices, too. And who knew what else she’d witnessed there. Because whatever they were, they weren’t my . . . spirits? I just happened to be constitutionally tuned in to them. Still, I recognized they weren’t
looking for me.

  They were looking for her.

  Recently or perhaps a long time ago, she had sensed them. It had scared the bejesus out of her. Now the land was fenced off like a military base, and she was doing everything she could to pawn the land off on someone else. She wanted to be rid of it so badly she’d probably be willing give it away if she had to.

  Would she also be willing to murder her own brother if he was against selling it? Because according to Tanner Spence and Polly the real estate agent, Blake had wanted to keep that land in the family.

  I sighed and pushed myself to my feet. Dash peered up at me though one slitted eyelid but decided whatever I was doing didn’t require his assistance at the moment. I left him under the birdbath and went to unlock the sliding door to the shop.

  Inside, I retrieved a bottle of hyacinth oil to put into my home diffuser that night. I had a feeling I was going to need a little extra nudge into sleep. As I passed the phone, I saw two voice mails had been left after Maggie closed at six o’clock. I pushed the button and listened. The first one was a sales pitch for a new kind of credit card processing service. Usually that kind of thing came in e-mail. I deleted it and waited for the second message. The sound of wind over the mouth of a bottle wasn’t as loud as last time, but it told me who’d called before I heard his voice.

  “Hey, Elliana. It’s Ritter. Tried your cell, but no answer. Took a chance you might be working late. Sat phone’s working a lot better now, but still expensive as sin, so I have to be careful. Tell you what—I’ll call your cell tomorrow at, let’s see, eight o’clock in the morning.” A voice in the background then, and the rustle of clothing. “Okay. Gotta go. Talk to you later. Bye.”

  I stood there for almost a minute, staring down at the bottle of oil nestled in my palm. There hadn’t been any static to make me wonder what he was saying this time. Or what he wasn’t saying. He’d sounded almost businesslike.

  Maybe he was in a roomful of colleagues, I argued with myself. A bunch of scientists that don’t want to hear about his personal life. That he’s making a six-dollar-a-minute call in the first place is something, right?

  I knew one thing, though: It had been a woman’s voice that summoned him off the phone.