Nightshade for Warning

by Bailey Cattrell

  She nodded. “The gift shop.”

  “Mm-hm. But also aromatherapy products, and I make custom perfumes.” I pointed. “Like that.”

  She looked confused. “But I didn’t ask—”

  I waved it away. “It suits you, and it’s a gift. Now, about your land . . .”

  Her lips pursed as she considered me, but she finally relented. “You’d better come on back.”

  She led me around the side of the house, which was landscaped like the front with rocks and cacti. A narrow paved driveway ran along the other side, ending at an old, wooden, single-car garage that backed up to the alley. She stopped and opened a gate in the fence. We stepped through.

  And I stopped still.

  The backyard was completely different from the front. There still wasn’t any lawn, and stone paths crisscrossed the forty-by-forty-foot area. In between them was a neat row of raised beds, each planted to overflowing with vegetables. The lettuce and spinach bed had a shade cloth protecting it, but the sun-loving plants stretched toward the sky on trellises and poles. Asian yard-long beans swung from a conical teepee, nudged by the breeze. Wide-leaved vines sprawled over the edges of their containers and crept across the pathways, studded with ripening butternut, acorn, and pumpkin squash. Root vegetables grew down into the earth while their chlorophyll-loving tops basked in the light.

  Nightshades were scattered throughout, the species separate enough so as not to interfere with one another’s pollination. Not deadly nightshade. Not Atropa belladonna, but those in the common Solanaceae family that were also considered nightshades: tomatoes and peppers, eggplants and potatoes, and, in a corner by the fence, a lone tomatillo boasted its husk-covered fruit.

  “This is amazing,” I breathed.

  Another smile threatened to creep onto Joyous’ face, but she tamed it in time. “I don’t trust the crap you buy in stores, so I grow my own.”

  I managed not to laugh. She might believe that, but she loved this garden. It was a soothing, nurtured, and nurturing space, but it didn’t have the hidden throb of energy that the Enchanted Garden did.

  Or that the land she was trying to sell possessed.

  Without asking, I marched over and sat down at the small table outside the back door. More slowly, she settled in opposite me. There would be no offers of coffee or lemonade coming. Joyous wasn’t as agitated as the previous day, but she still wasn’t comfortable.

  “My friend Larken might be making an offer on your land,” I said. “I don’t think she’s had a chance to yet, but she’s very interested.”

  I watched her closely to see if the name rang a bell. However, it didn’t appear that Max Lang had revealed the name of his prime suspect in Blake’s death.

  “Well, she’d better hurry up, then,” Joyous said.

  Hard to negotiate a real estate deal when you’re being held by the police for murder.

  She continued. “Polly tells me there are two other people who are very interested in development.”

  I cringed. “Development? Really? It’s a magical place, Joyous. You can’t let someone just go in there and raze the land to make it into a creepy little suburb of Poppyville.”

  “Frankly, I don’t care what they do with the place,” she said through gritted teeth.

  Sitting back in my chair, I regarded her with a frown. “Larken wants to have a farm there. Grow her own food like you do.” I waved my hand. “Sustainable, and without damaging the land.”

  “Whoever is willing to take it off my hands first, wins,” she said.

  “What about whoever is willing to pay more?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  I squinted. “Blake didn’t want to sell. Polly said you had it listed, and then he came back to Poppyville and found out and took it off the market. Were you actually trying to sell it out from under him?”

  “I would have given him the money,” she said, picking at a sliver working its way loose from the wooden table. “Blake only cared about that place when my dad was alive. He never came back here. Then he shows up to interview you, finds out I’m selling, and throws a fit. Accused me of fraud, said he wanted it for his heirs.” She snorted. “As if he’d ever settle down.”

  “Fraud?” I seized on the word. “My dad told me that your father arranged it so you owned it in common, right? So you would have had to forge your brother’s signature if it sold.”

  She shrugged again.

  “Joyous,” I said as gently as I could manage. “Why do you want to be rid of it so badly?”

  A squirrel ran across the yard. She watched it instead of looking at me.

  “Why is it fenced like Fort Knox?”

  Still no answer. Anxiety rose within her like a tide.

  “Joyous.”

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  “When I was there last night, the tule fog came.”

  I waited. Seconds ticked by.

  Finally, she turned her head and met my eyes. Her own were full of wonder. “You saw the fog?”

  Nodding, I said carefully. “Thick, white fog. In August, and with no rain for weeks. I was in the willow grove.”

  Her breath caught.

  “You’ve seen it, too,” I said.

  She started to shrug again, but it turned into a tentative nod.

  “And the, uh, presence? The ones who live there?”

  Her eyes filled and her throat worked.

  I sat quietly until she got herself under control again.

  “I always thought I was crazy,” she whispered.

  Shaking my head, I said, “Nope. Not crazy. In tune, for sure, though.” I paused, choosing my words. “It’s a friendly place, you know. They’re friendly. It was a strange experience, but I felt happiness and joy in the fog, too.”

  A tear splashed down her cheek. “My parents used to take us camping there as kids. Blake loved it.” She took a shaky breath. “But he never saw the fog. They didn’t, either. Only me. They laughed. They told me I wasn’t right in the head, that I was seeing things.” She gulped. “After a while, I came to believe it myself.”

  My heart ached for this woman. She was like me, able to see a little further, a little more than most people. My mother and gamma had assured me that my intuitive sense of smell and empathy was a gift. For a long time, I’d taken it for granted. But Joyous had been ridiculed and belittled, so she’d withdrawn into herself.

  No wonder she avoided people and never smiled.

  I plunged on. “I think the, uh, spirits? That are there in the willow grove? I think they might be naiads and dryads.”

  She stared at me like I was crazy now.

  In for a penny . . . “See, my gamma kept a journal, and in it I found something she recorded about them. The picture she drew beside the entry—it was of the fog, the willows, and the white deer.”

  Joyous had been hanging on my every word, but now she interrupted. “White deer?”

  “You never saw a white deer?”

  She shook her head.

  “Hmm. Yeah. That might just be mine, since I saw it near my house, too. Anyway, there in the trees, with the spring underneath, I think that place is protected by their presence—whatever you want to call them.” I paused, wondering if I should tell her the rest. I made a decision.

  “At first, I think they thought I was you. The voices in the fog called your name. Well, they were sort of voices.”

  She blanched. Swallowed. “Really?” she whispered.

  “I heard it.” I reached my hand out and touched her wrist with my fingertips. She stared at it but didn’t pull away. “That’s happened before, hasn’t it?”

  Her head jerked up. “When we were camping.” Her jaw worked. “And then it all happened again a couple years ago. I thought I’d imagined it all as a child, and I went back out there to prove to myself that I was normal
after all.” She blinked away tears. “But they came again, and called my name, and I knew I was really and truly insane. I fenced off the whole shebang right after that.”

  “There was no one you could tell,” I said.

  “No one.”

  “Including Blake.”

  Her look was enough answer.

  Standing, I put my hands on my hips. “Well, honey, you aren’t crazy. Not at all. You have a gift, like I do. That thing with the perfume? Let’s just say it’s a knack I have. And those spirits protecting your land out there? They’re good. You know that, right?”

  She looked torn.

  “They are. Trust me. And now you want to sell that land to a developer who is going to cut down those trees and suck out the water.” I looked at the sky, then back at her. “If you allow that, you would be destroying them.”

  Her chin came up, and, as our eyes locked, I realized a part of her knew that. The part that was scared of what she’d experienced. The part that thought it might make her believe she wasn’t nuts. We stared at each other for a long time.

  “You really did see them,” she said at last.

  I sat back down. “And heard them.”

  “Why?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Why you? Why no one else?”

  Now it was my turn to shrug. “I don’t know. But you should come to the Enchanted Garden behind my shop. It has the same kind of vibe.”

  “Enchanted Garden?” she snorted.

  My face reddened. “I only call it that because of the fairy tableaus I’ve placed throughout the place. You know, miniature gardens and furniture and winged figurines?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously. But it does have a vibe. You need to come see it. You’ll know right away what I mean.” I waved my hand. “Anyway, about the land. Are you positive you want to sell it?”

  She hesitated. “I’m not sure now.”

  Sorry, Larken. And yet, I was happy to hear it.

  “Will you tell me who else is interested in buying it?” I asked.

  Her head tipped to the side. “Why?”

  “Or just tell me whether any of the, uh, currently interested parties, as Polly likes to say, were interested before Blake came back and took the place off the market?”

  Joyous frowned and asked again, “Why?”

  Lord, she was stubborn. I felt time trickling away. Had Colby found a lawyer? For all I knew Max had officially arrested Larken by now.

  I unclenched my jaw and said, “Because if they wanted to buy your land, and then Blake came back to town and nixed any chance of a sale, then that could be a motive for murder.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Well, the police have, I bet. And I’m afraid you’re on that list, too. The detectives don’t know that you want to sell the land that’s been in your family for, what, five generations because you saw things there that others can’t. They’ll think you want the money.” I stopped myself from going further, but every antenna I had was aquiver, waiting for her reaction.

  “And that I killed my brother for it?” she said, flabbergasted. “I’d never do that!”

  “That plant poison they told you killed him? It’s atropine. It comes from deadly nightshade—belladonna—and there was nightshade in Blake’s tea. Someone gave it to him, and your land has belladonna growing wild all over it. I even found a plant that had been partially harvested. I need to know who’s been inside that fence.”

  I saw her lips form into the beginning of another “why,” but when she saw the look on my face, she thought better of it.

  “There are only two that I know of,” she said. “One is your ex-husband, and the other is Vaughn Newton.”

  My head silently exploded. “Harris?”

  And then I saw him in my mind’s eye, sitting at the table with “Vaughn” in the Roux Grill, and then again beside the pool at the Hotel California. From what I knew of my ex’s financials, he might be able to mortgage everything he owned to get the land, but there was no way he could afford to develop it.

  But what if he could sell the water? Or the water rights?

  I rubbed my hands over my face, then looked up. “Vaughn Newton?” The name tickled my memory.

  Then I had it. Polly had called someone “Mr. Newton” on the phone when she’d gotten out of her Miata to unlock the gate for Larken and me.

  Joyous had been watching my face. Now she nodded ruefully. “I can tell you that even if I do sell, it won’t be to either of them now. I’d much rather your friend have it.”

  “Um, there’s something you should probably hear from me first.”

  “What?” The word held dread.

  “You know that suspect in your brother’s murder that Detective Lang told you about?”

  She nodded once, very slowly.

  “Well, she’s the suspect. My friend. Larken.” I held my hand up. “She didn’t do it. I know she didn’t do it. She barely knew the guy, but they had a little tiff in the restaurant, and the police are under a lot of pressure to solve Blake’s case, so they’re using her as a scapegoat.”

  Joyous stared at me. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not, but really, you have to believe me.” I grimaced as I heard the words. I, for one, immediately stopped believing someone the second they said I should.

  Her eyes narrowed. Then suddenly she stood up. “Okay. I believe you.”

  I barely stopped myself from blurting out a “why?” of my own.

  “Wait here,” she said, and turned toward the screen door that led into the house.

  Alarm Klaxons went off in my head. What was she going to do?

  “Joyous,” I said, scrambling to my feet.

  “On second thought, come inside. It might be too windy to show you out here.” She turned and went inside.

  Puzzled, I followed her through a kitchen with periwinkle walls, white cupboards, and old-school linoleum cracking in one corner. We ended up in the pale and serene living room Astrid and I had been in the day before, just as redolent of lemon. I breathed it in, my curiosity warring with impatience and my worry about Larken.

  “Wait here,” Joyous said, and went through a hallway and to the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

  I perched on the tan sofa and hoped my new friend didn’t turn out to be as crazy as she’d always thought she was. And that if she was, she didn’t own a gun.

  A minute later, I heard her on the stairs again. She came into the room holding a shoebox. She sank down on the cushion next to me, opened it, and spread the contents out onto the coffee table.

  “I’m choosing to believe you about your friend’s innocence because you’ve convinced me what I saw out by the old homestead was real. And because you can, er, sense things, too.”

  “Okay,” I said, drawing the word out as I tried to make out some of the writing on the pile of papers in front of me.

  “I think it might be hereditary.”

  “What is?” I asked, confused.

  “This gift you referred to.” She leaned forward and selected a small bundle of folded sheets wrapped with a ribbon. “Ellie, you and I are cousins.”

  CHAPTER 19

  I GAPED. “We’re what?”

  Joyous smiled for the second time that day, maybe that year. I, on the other hand, was too dazed by her statement to do anything but stare at her with my mouth hanging open.

  “Apparently we have the same great-great-great-grandfather. Zebulon Hammond.”

  One of the original founders of the town. Any native of Poppyville worth their salt knew their names.

  She went on. “And from what I can figure out, that makes us fifth cousins.”

  “But . . . but . . . ,” I stammered. “But Zebulon . . . my gamma said . . .”
I swallowed. “He married Caroline Pickle.” Gamma had thoroughly schooled me in her family history when I was a child.

  “In 1850.”

  “Then how could he be related to you?”

  The smile turned into a laugh. It was a nice laugh, really. I would have appreciated it more if I hadn’t been reeling. “The usual way. He had a relationship with someone else.”

  Leaning forward, she handed me the packet of letters. “It’s all in here. Before he married Caroline, he was, er, involved with another woman. She wouldn’t marry him, though, and gave their son to a young couple, the Sontags, to raise.”

  Hands trembling, I untied the ribbon on the packet of what I now saw were letters, and unfolded the first sheet of paper.

  Dearest Pauline,

  Though we are not far apart, in truth and candor I think of you every second and must needs communicate my feelings. Your golden hair and sky blue eyes and gaily ringing laugh haunt my waking hours. Please tell me, dearest, that I may call after business hours tonight.

  I await your answer.

  Your admiring,

  Zebulon Hammond

  I stared at the spidery script. Stilted, old-fashioned, even a little goofy, but the sentiment was clear. I looked at the names again.

  “Hang on,” I said. “Pauline? Evening business hours?” I looked up at Joyous. “My great-great-great-grandfather dated Poppy Thierry? The town madam?”

  She nodded, her eyes dancing. “Not just dated. Miss Poppy was my great-great-great-grandmother. Here, let me show you the rest.”

  One by one, she laid out the letters so that they demonstrated the timeline she described: Zebulon and Pauline’s love affair followed by its dissolution, the letter that informed Zebulon that Poppy had given birth to a baby boy after he’d already married Caroline Pickle, and the details of her subsequent foster arrangement with the Sontags.

  “She named her son Horace,” Joyous said. “That’s the name of my great-great-grandfather.”

  I flopped back against the arm of the sofa, nearly gasping from the sudden influx of new information.

  “So see how we’re cousins?” she said. “Blake was your cousin, too.” Her eyes clouded. “I wish I’d had a chance to tell him.” A heavy sigh. “I wish I could have told him a lot of things. He didn’t want to have anything to do with his weird sister, though. And he was furious that I was selling the land.”