by Blythe Baker
I wandered past Bliss’s room that evening before the party, and my heart sank. Her bed was made, and her desk was organized for the first time since I’d met her. The wall where she normally drew a portal was blank.
I tried to brush aside the sadness I felt at her absence, and at her lack of communication since ending up…well, wherever she was.
“I think your costume is adorable,” Aunt Candace said as I stopped in front of one of the mirrors in the foyer to check on the whole ensemble. The punch had been made and set out, the streamers had been wrapped around the pillars in the living room, and there was a mix of retro Halloween songs playing from my phone, which was hooked up to a set of speakers that belonged to Bliss.
I swept my eyeliner over my eyelid one last time, blinking a few times before checking my reflection again.
My own silver eyes stared back at me, surrounded by layers of orange and black and yellow face paint. In the end, I’d decided to go semi-realistic, and painted half of my face like a tiger’s.
“And the black leggings with the sock tail really makes it, I think,” Aunt Candace said.
I looked down at myself; long, plain black sleeve shirt, black tights with black socks, and an orange knee-high sock I’d picked up from the small department store in town and painted with black stripes.
“I think it looks ridiculous,” I said, moving my face back and forth, looking at every angle of my reflection.
“Nonsense,” Aunt Candace said. “You’ll be the prettiest tiger at the party.”
“Yeah, well, I may not be the only one, either,” I said. I hoped that Mrs. Bickford had decided to go with the peacock costume in the end. I turned and looked at Aunt Candace; she’d dressed up like a gypsy, with bells at her wrists and ankles, and a colorful skirt and scarf wrapped around her dark hair. “You look super cute, too.”
“Thanks,” she said. “This costume is – ”
Whatever it was, I didn’t get to find out, as the doorbell had rung.
Aunt Candace glanced at the clock up on the wall and sighed. “That’s probably Jim and Rebecca. Fashionably early as always…”
I smirked as we watched Mr. Terrance, who’d dressed up as an undead version of a butler, head toward the door and answer it.
Soon, more and more guests were beginning to arrive. They were strolling through the foyer with purpose, congregating in small groups. There were cries of recognition as people saw their friends, and laughter as they saw one another’s costumes.
I saw everything under the sun; vampires, werewolves, faeries, unicorns…and less exciting things like fish, dogs, and even a librarian.
I stayed near the wall where the punch table was. I told myself it was to monitor it and refill it so that Aunt Candace wouldn’t have to worry about anything else, but the truth was that I just really didn’t feel like mingling.
You know, I was happy to help her get everything set up, but I feel strange being here, I said to Athena who was really only a dozen or so feet from me in the coat room that Mr. Terrance was manning. Especially since Bliss isn’t here.
Remember why you wanted to come in the first place, Athena said. You were hoping to find out more information about Harriet Bennet, weren’t you?
I chewed on my tongue. Well, yes, but I have no idea where to even start, I said. I don’t recognize anyone here. I can’t exactly walk up to some random person and ask them if they knew Harriet Bennet.
At that same moment, Aunt Candace walked over to me, a broken punch glass in her hand.
“Oh, dear,” I said. “One down already?”
Aunt Candace sighed, setting it down on the punch table beside me. “I always buy extras so that if we break some, I won’t lose the whole set. They’re cheap. Nothing special, really.”
She turned and looked around the room.
“Not as many people this year as I would have thought,” she said.
“Mrs. Bickford said that she wondered if there are too many grieving people this year,” I said.
“She may be right, you know,” Aunt Candace said heavily. “She’s here, by the way. Wearing some kind of…feathered dress?”
“She’s a peacock,” I said.
“Ah,” Aunt Candace said, nodding. “That’s why she was wearing purple shoes…”
“This is a great party, though,” I said. “Thanks for letting me be a part of it.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m grateful for your help. With Bliss gone, I – ” her words cut off, and I felt my own heart lurch. She regained composure, smiling a tight, forced smile. “She always loves this party.”
“I know,” I said.
We stood in silence for a few minutes, watching the guests mingle. A few offered us friendly waves, which we returned.
“So I was able to speak with Mr. Blackburn,” Aunt Candace said after the long moments of silence between us.
“You did?” I asked.
She nodded, but I noticed her face had lost a lot of its color. “He wasn’t happy to see me, I’ll tell you that, but he remained very civil with me through our whole conversation.”
I swallowed hard, really starting to regret asking her to go down there in the first place.
“As I suspected, he saw right through me,” she said. “He was kind, though, and let me get out this whole made up speech that I’d practiced on the way over, about how I knew Harriet’s cousin who was too afraid to come and talk to him herself, and how I just wanted to help the family. Well, he just raised an eyebrow at me and asked if you’d sent me.”
I pursed my lips together. “I’m sorry, Aunt Candace…” I said.
She sighed. “Well, it wasn’t all bad. He wasn’t angry, but I could see there was a lot of hurt in his eyes when he thought about you.”
I looked up at her, a strange stirring in my heart. “Really?”
“Definitely,” she said. “He’s upset over the loss of his sister, but I can see that he regrets losing you, too.”
The hurt bubbled within me, churning and mixing with the anger that I’d been harboring toward him. The scales tipped, and anger won over. “Well, it was all on him,” I said. “He didn’t have to lose me. He pushed me away.”
“I know,” Aunt Candace said. “And I think that he knows it.”
“So what did he say?” I asked. “Did he give you any information?”
“Very little,” Aunt Candace answered. “He said that it seemed that Harriet was strangled.”
As always, there was a tightening in my gut. “Strangled?” I asked.
“He said there were bruises around her neck, which are classic signs of strangulation,” Aunt Candace said. She shivered, her shoulders hiking up toward her ears. “I don’t even like saying that word, knowing that it actually happened to someone.”
“I know what you mean,” I said.
“There’s one other thing,” Aunt Candace said. She took a deep breath, looking at her bare feet and glittering golden anklets. “As much as I could see it pained him to say, he told me to tell you not to ask him for any further help, because you wouldn’t get any.”
It was as if I’d been struck in the stomach. “…did he now?” I asked.
The hope I’d felt just a few moments before deflated, like the wind being stolen from my lungs.
“I know he didn’t mean any of it,” Aunt Candace said quickly, laying a gentle hand on my arm. “I could see right through him. You should have seen his face, Marianne, he – ”
“No, he means it,” I said sadly. “He meant every word. He still grieves the loss of his sister. He still blames me for it. I don’t know if he will ever be able to get past that.”
“Even if he cares about you as much as he does?” she asked.
I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be having this conversation anymore. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he didn’t really care about me as much as I thought he did.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Aunt Candace said. “Anyone can see how he feels.”
The lum
p in my throat got bigger. I stared out over the room at all the guests who were happy and having a good time. Why couldn’t my life be normal like theirs? Why did I have to keep finding myself dragged into these ridiculous events with these Gifted people?
“Well, regardless, he still gave me just enough information to confirm my suspicions,” I said, not wanting to think about Cain and what I might have lost with him any longer. “Harriet Bennet was murdered.”
“Didn’t you suspect that from the beginning?” Aunt Candace said.
“Yes, but now I know how,” I said. “But that still doesn’t get me any closer to a culprit. If only I could find a way to talk with someone who knew her.”
My eyes drifted around the room again.
“There isn’t anyone here who’d be willing to talk to me, is there?” I asked.
Aunt Candace’s face flooded with color, and she looked away from me immediately. “Nope,” she said. “There’s no one here like that. Not at all.”
“Aunt Candace, you’re a bad liar,” I said.
Aunt Candace’s eyebrows drew together in a worried line. “Oh, honey, I don’t know if it’s wise. They just had the funeral, and I’m sure that everyone is still sensitive about it…”
“But if I can help the family get the peace they deserve, isn’t that the best thing for me to do?” I asked.
Aunt Candace sighed heavily. “You’re right. Alright. Her sister-in-law is here.”
“Can you introduce me?” I asked.
Aunt Candace clearly had no interest in it, but she nodded. “Come with me.”
We wound our way through the groups of people. Through the windows in the living room, I could see there was a wooden barrel out on the deck. There was a man dressed like a police officer with his head in the barrel, and the others around him were cheering him on enthusiastically.
“Hi, Bella? Could I borrow you for a moment?” Aunt Candace asked.
The woman she spoke to was tall, skinny, probably too much so, and wore more makeup than I’d seen since the eighties. She wore a simple white dress with a white sash around her shoulders. Marilyn Monroe, perhaps? Her short, curly blonde hair fit the bill, as did the fire engine red lipstick.
“Sure,” Bella said. “Excuse me ladies, I’ll be back in a few.” Her voice was deep and husky, like she’d smoked for too many years.
She followed Aunt Candace and me away from her group.
“Bella, this is my niece Marianne,” Aunt Candace said.
“Nice to meet you, sweetheart,” Bella said, holding out her hand to me. When I took hers in my own, she barely squeezed it before dropping it.
“Marianne was wondering if you’d be okay with answering some of her questions about Harriet,” Aunt Candace said, looking nervously between the two of us.
Bella’s heavily done eyes widened. “Harriet, huh? You a cop or something?”
“No, far from it,” I said. “I was just at the meeting when they found her…well, you know.”
Bella’s boney face seemed to soften. “I see. Sure, I can answer your questions. What’s up?”
Aunt Candace gently patted my arm as she walked around behind me and back toward the party, leaving the two of us alone. Well, as alone as we could be in that crowded room.
“Well…Aunt Candace said that you were Harriet’s sister-in-law,” I said.
“That’s correct,” said Bella in her deep voice.
“Were the two of you very close?” I asked.
“Harriet was a hard person to get close to,” Bella said. “She was always in her own head, always looking for the next big idea. Her schedule always changed, and she always seemed to have a million things going on at once. It was sort of infuriating, really.” She folded her arms across her chest, her nose wrinkling.
Ah, so she didn’t really like Harriet…I thought.
That’s good, Athena said.
I nearly jumped. I forgot you could hear me.
Keep her talking, maybe you can get more out of her, Athena said.
So I did. “So, your husband is her brother, then?” I asked.
“Was,” Bella said. “Charlie died almost three years ago.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, frowning.
Bella shrugged. “He was starting to get a little batty in his older years. I think that whole nuttiness runs in the family, if I’m honest.” She clicked her tongue. “I’m really not all that surprised that Harriet stepped on someone’s toes so bad that they decided to get revenge.”
My heart skipped. This was what I was looking for. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Like I said, she was hard to get close to. Even those in her family felt like they hardly knew her. Did you know she had a twin sister?”
“I don’t think so, no,” I said.
“Her name’s Susan. Still living. Those two were like two peas in a pod most of the time. But when they fought…well, it was like a world war was going on. They’d get everyone in the family involved, unnecessarily, and then they’d fight for weeks. I remember a time where they didn’t speak to each other for almost six months.”
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“You’d think,” Bella said. “That only happened a few months ago, too. They just seemed to be smoothing things over recently. Started talking more without screaming.”
“What were they fighting about so much?” I asked.
“What do all siblings fight about? Inheritance. My mother-in-law passed away about…oh, it’s got to be almost a year ago now. She went nuts and landed herself in a home after Charlie died. I think it really threw her, having a child die before she did. Anyway, what did Harriet want to talk about? The inheritance they’d receive. Their parents were pretty wealthy, having lived in Faerywood Falls on the same land as their grandparents, and great grandparents, etc. Anyway, they both wanted it for themselves. Harriet so she could do her next big thing with it, and Susan so she could help pay back some of her student debt. She went to school to be a doctor, and she and her husband have been basically drowning in debt, they’ve got four kids…you know how it goes. I think Susan should have gotten it; she seems the most sane out of any of them. But Harriet demanded more of it so she could start a new business. Boom, huge fight.”
I wonder if that’s enough of a motive to kill…?
I don’t know, Athena said. It sounds like the twin was the rational one. Do you really think she’d go so far as to kill Harriet over the money?
Money makes people do evil and terrible things, Athena, I said. I really wish it wasn’t the truth, but there’s a reason why money is said to be the root of all evil.
“So you think it was her sister, then?” I asked.
“Who killed her?” Bella said. “You weren’t at the funeral, were you?”
“No, I didn’t make it,” I said.
“Susan was a blubbering mess. She wouldn’t stop apologizing for their fights and for all their lost time. That was not the face of a murderer,” Bella said.
Yeah, but those sorts of acts of emotion have fooled me in the past…I thought.
“But what do I know?” Bella asked. “All I know is that Harriet made more enemies than friends. She’d just jump from one thing to the next, and that included relationships, both platonic and romantic.”
“Did someone break her heart?” I asked.
“Other way around, sweetheart,” Bella said, gesturing with her fingers, making an arching motion with them. “She went through boyfriends like underwear, and was never satisfied for very long. It seemed like every time I turned around, she was bringing someone new around for dinner, begging us to like him. Eventually, I told my husband I didn’t care who she saw. I’d smile at all of them, welcome them into our home like any gracious host would, all the while knowing they’d be gone soon enough, and not bothering to warn them about the fate they’d inevitably endure.”
“Wow, that seems pretty harsh,” I said.
Bella lifted her hand loosely, her palm upward in a
who cares gesture. “I was always right, and it irritated the snot out of my husband.” She ran her fingers through some of her blonde curls. “There was one that took it a little harder than the others, though,” Bella said. “His name was Derrick. I actually sort of liked him. Thought he might settle her down a little. I could’ve done with a little less drama in my life.”
“But she ended it with him, too?” I asked.
“Naturally,” Bella said, her eyes half-lidded. “After almost a year, which was easily her longest relationship. But he didn’t like being taken advantage of like that. He ended up slashing her tires and throwing bricks through the window of her florist’s shop…which she ended up selling anyway. That was priceless. She didn’t tell her business partner she’d sold it when she did, and when the partner walked into work one day, they told her that it didn’t belong to her anymore. The worst part was that Harriet didn’t really care. At all. Someone she’d worked with for years…she just tossed her aside like she was nothing more than an old, ratty towel.”
“From the sounds of it, Harriet didn’t really treat anyone very well,” I said.
“You got it, kid. She was one of those leeches, taking from everyone, using them up until she was done with them, and then she’d throw them away just like she’d throw away her jobs, wanting to move on to something more exciting, more profitable.” She pursed her lips. “It’s kind of sad, really…she never found happiness.”
So any of these people could have had reason enough to kill her…I thought. “So when did she break up with this Derrick guy?” I asked.
“Let’s see…she and Susan were still fighting, so maybe four or five months ago? It was this summer sometime,” Bella said.
“And what about closing down the florist’s business?” I asked.
“Oh, that was just before her mother died,” Bella said.
“Did she and her business partner ever make amends?” I asked.
Bella shook her head. “Not a chance. Harriet didn’t seem to care one way or another that she’d hurt Stella – that was her business partner – and just went about life like it never happened in the first place.”