by Lisa Shea
It was rarely the recipe for marital bliss.
Alex’s lips turned down. Her voice grew petulant. “Marc, you prooooo-mised.”
He sighed. He went to the hutch. He took out a glass for himself, poured in some cabernet, and then popped a piece of cheese off the plate. Apparently he was a cheddar man.
He turned to look at me. His voice was resigned, but clear. “A thunderstorm came through; a lightning strike hit about a street over and set off some car alarms. Woke me right up.”
Alex chuckled and downed some of her wine. “I slept right through it!”
His gaze didn’t move from me. “11:58pm. I glanced at my phone. Tried to go back to sleep for a few minutes, but the jolt had kicked me awake. So I headed downstairs to make a sandwich. Kept the lights low.”
He nudged his head toward the kitchen. “Once I made the sandwich, I sat down at the counter to eat. The rain was falling outside, steadier now, and the house just settled into a silence.”
His lips pressed together. “And then I saw her.”
My pencil hung in there air.
His hands were steady on the table. “She was five foot four. About one-twenty pounds. Dressed in a brown dress with a white over-dress. Old fashioned style. Simple. Hair braided up beneath a white cap. I’d guess she was about sixteen or seventeen. Brown eyes.”
I blinked at him in surprise. Over the past few days I’d heard a wide range of descriptions for the spirits in peoples’ homes. Many times they were just creaks and moans. When they had form, they were usually wispy pillars or shadowy blobs. One woman told me in complete seriousness that she was haunted at night by a sheet with two eye holes cut in it.
Marc was the first witness to describe an actual person.
I asked, “What did she do?”
Marc took a drink of his wine. “Let me show you. It’ll be easier.”
I stood and followed him through the doorway into the kitchen. Alex came along behind us, glass in hand.
The kitchen was definitely influenced by Bryane Browninge’s 10-book series, 1001 BeWitched Herbs and Their Uses. The arrangement of hanging herbs drying in alphabetical order along the northern wall was a dead giveaway.
Marc moved over to sit at a stool before the counter. “I was sitting right here. She came in through that doorway, over there.”
All three heads turned to look at the doorway.
I half expected the young woman to come walking through it.
Nothing.
Marc’s voice remained even. “I don’t think she saw me. The low lights, the steady rain, but it was more than that. She sort of seemed lost.” He waved a hand in the air. “Not physically. She clearly knew her way around the house. But … emotionally, I guess. Like something traumatic had just happened to her.”
Alex lifted her glass to the ceiling. “We know what happened, Marc. Mom died.”
I said, “I’m so sorry. When did that happen?”
“April first.”
I blinked in surprise. “Your mom was Josephine Sanderson?”
Alex’s smile widened. “You knew her?”
I doubted if there was any human being in Salem who did not know Josephine Sanderson.
Josephine Sanderson was a legend. If Alex was a new age near-cult version of what witchhood was all about, Josephine had thoroughly embodied the historic roots. She grew her own herbs from seed. She wore simple, hand-crafted clothes created by local weavers. She visited senior citizens in their homes to bring them teas and creams, providing her services for free. She hosted weekend seminars for whoever wanted to attend, to train others in her traditional skills.
When the news of her passing had been shared on April 1st, most of us had hoped it was some sort of foolish mistake. But, sadly, it had been true.
I said, “She was an amazing woman. The whole area knew of her generosity.”
Alex took a drink of her wine. Her voice was tight. “Mother was always good in that sort of way. Giving all her money away to others.”
There was a trace of bitterness in her voice, and her free hand went to her Celtic knot necklace with its embedded emerald. I knew without a doubt that Josephine would not have approved of the BryaneTM BrowntagleTM. Josephine would have considered it money wasted – money better spent in creating more soothing creams for the elderly in our community.
I hadn’t realized that Josephine Sanderson had a child. Maybe there had been a rift between mother and daughter. By the look in Alex’s face, that rift hadn’t been fully healed before the mother’s passing.
Alex plunked down on the stool next to Marc. She took another long drink of her wine. Her voice gained petulance. “So we know why this spirit girl was all gloomy. Her beloved mentor was gone. Her guardian angel. Her guiding light. We’ve certainly heard it from enough other people these past two months.”
Marc’s face remained steady. “I don’t know what the young woman was unhappy about. I can only report on what I observed.”
I nodded. “All right. So you were sitting there, at the counter, with your sandwich. It was relatively dark, and it was raining. A young woman came into the doorway.”
He pointed a finger. “She came in slowly. She didn’t even look around – it was clear she was very familiar with the room. She went straight toward the fridge.”
Alex glanced up. “Hey, I didn’t think about that before. We had the memorial service card up on the fridge for a while. It had Mom’s photo on it. I wonder if she was looking for that.”
I looked over to the fridge.
There were a variety of magnets on it now. One was the Samantha-flying-across-the-moon emblem of BeWitch. Several were versions of pentacles or trees of life. At the very center was the postcard we’d sent out. The portrait of Sarah.
Marc nodded toward the picture. “She saw that and she froze. Absolutely froze, as if she were in shock. Then she moved very slowly toward it. She got her face really close, as if she were studying it. And then I thought I heard her say something.
This was new. Alex hadn’t said anything about any words.
Apparently Alex was surprised, too. She spun on Marc. “Hey, you didn’t say the thing spoke!”
He gave a small shrug. “I didn’t want to make a big deal about this, remember? Maybe I was just sleepy. Maybe the stress of the past two months had been getting to me. It’d been a long day.”
I asked, “What did she say?”
He pursed his lips. It seemed almost as if he were reluctant to say. Maybe, in his mind, seeing things was a normal part of life. One sees shapes in clouds. One sees figures in shadows. But hearing things? That’s altogether different.
At last he nodded. “It was soft, but it was clear. I’m sure she said Sarah.”
I stared at him. “Sarah.”
He put his hand flat on the counter. “Sarah.”
Alex finished off her wine. “Sarah. So who is this Sarah?”
I pointed at the portrait. “Sarah is the name of the girl on that postcard.”
Alex gave a nervous chuckle. “So, see, that shows that Marc was just tired,” she stated. “He’d probably met Sarah around town somewhere. Maybe at the farmer’s market or something. So then when he hallucinates this woman, and he sees the image, of course he thinks of the word Sarah.”
I counted to five. It seemed that Alex was suddenly less than thrilled that Marc had seen a spirit in their home. Maybe it was because she now thought of the spirit as a friend of her deceased mother’s – a mother that apparently she wasn’t close to. Or maybe the reality that Marc had seen a supernatural being and she hadn’t was wriggling its way into her envious soul.
When I was sure I could speak calmly and evenly, I turned to Alex. “Alex, I really think that Marc did see a spirit. Because nobody – and I mean nobody – outside of me, Gertie, Prudence, and Cassandra know about Sarah’s true identity. And Serena, I suppose, who drew the portrait. But, in any case, there is no way that Marc could have just guessed Sarah’s name out of the blue.”
I gave a small smile. “I have to guess that they died over three hundred years ago.”
Marc’s eyes widened, and he turned to me.
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
“Sarah’s a spirit. And you’re looking for her family.”
Chapter Ten
I was back at Gertie’s library watching Gertie teach Sarah the basics of chess.
Gertie nodded in encouragement. “That’s just right, Sarah. You’re putting pressure on my rook. Now, think about how you could use that knight.”
Serena held her sketch pad up to me. “How is this looking? Did I get the eyes right?”
I looked from her paper over to the young face.
Sarah was actually smiling. Her eyes were twinkling with joy as she examined the board from various angles.
I murmured to Serena, “Give her more of a playful look. She’s in a good mood tonight.”
Serena nodded and began tweaking.
I turned to Gertie. “Are you sure Sarah’s ready for chess?”
Gertie laughed out loud. “You’re treating Sarah like she’s a small child. But you forget – she’s been around for three hundred years. She might be forever in the body of a child, but she’s older than any of us.”
Sarah was looking at the board from Gertie’s side. “I never got to learn chess, though. And there aren’t any books on chess in this library.”
I repeated her words back to the room.
Cassandra turned her laptop around and pointed at the keys. “All right, young lady. See this thing on the screen? It’s a web browser.”
Sarah made her move and climbed over to the chair. Gertie smiled with pride as she surveyed the results.
Sarah asked, “OK, I just see a blank white rectangle. Is it some sort of a game?”
Cassandra listened to me and then pointed. “That is your gateway to the entire universe. It’s just waiting to know what you want to learn about. So type in chess.”
Sarah looked as if she thought we were playing a practical joke on her. But at last she pressed down the letters in order.
C. H. E. S. S.
Cassandra pointed at the enter key. “That’s the key that tells the computer to go do it.”
The enter key depressed.
The screen filled with results about chess. Links to players’ guides from beginning to advanced. Links to videos of famous matches. In-depth information about the history of chess.
Sarah’s eyes went as wide as wagon wheels and her mouth dropped open.
Cassandra stood. “I’ll leave it here for you, Sarah. I’m exhausted and need to get home. There was this one woman today who talked at me for nearly five hours straight. I swear, she thought every single household appliance was enchanted in some way or another. I think she’d seen Beauty and the Beast one too many times.”
Sarah wasn’t listening. She was watching a video of a Russian matching up against a Hungarian. She was wholly enraptured.
Gertie tipped over her king and looked up at me. “What’s your plan, Amber? Are you really going back to Alex and Marc’s house tonight? It’s pretty late now.”
I nodded. “Just as soon as Serena is done with her new sketch. I’m hoping if we have two sketches on the fridge that we can get the spirit to stay a little longer. Maybe enough so I can talk with her for a minute or two. Try to find out who she is.”
Serena presented her pad with a flourish. “Voila! It is complete!”
Serena was a true wizard. She’d captured Sarah perfectly. It was hard for me to remember that Serena couldn’t actually see the girl – that she was solely going by my descriptions and corrections.
I took the portrait and rolled it up. “Thank you so much, Serena. You guys have a good night. I’m off to see what I can find out.”
Sarah found the pause button and she turned to us. “Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much for helping me.”
I smiled at her. “We’ll let you know if we learn anything. It could take us a while, but we’ll get there.”
She gave a low laugh. “I’ve been waiting three hundred years. A few more weeks is the blink of an eye.”
* * *
The rolled-up parchment was too tall to fit into my purse, so it swung in my free hand as I walked toward Alex’s house. It was late, nearly 10pm, and I yawned. I’d been up quite early this morning when I started up my interviews and normally by now I’d be happily curling up in bed. But this visit was far more important. If the kitchen spirit really did know Sarah, maybe she was a sister or even her mother. Either way, the spirit could provide more information on the family.
And it seemed she tended to come out at night.
Alex’s house was fairly typical for Salem. Squarish, brown, with black shutters on the window and shrubberies out front.
Alex and a man were standing on the front stoop. They had their arms around each other and were playfully kissing.
The man wasn’t Marc.
Alex glanced over, saw me, and stepped back with a deep blush. She ran fingers through her hair to straighten it out as I came up the path.
I could see now who her canoodling partner was. I gave him a noncommittal nod. “Roger.”
His nervous laugh was high. “Hey there, Amber.”
Being a bookstore owner was like being a therapist. One learned all sorts of secrets about one’s clients, and it was an unwritten rule that those secrets should never be revealed. In Roger’s case, he had a steady, regular diet of books on spells. That in and of itself wouldn’t stand out in any way in Salem, but his tastes ran more eclectic than most. He had me bring in specialized books on how to seduce married women. How to break up relationships. How to cause emotional distress. It wasn’t quite the black magic that some in our town worried about – nothing about mixtures of deadly herbs. Still, there would be plenty who would find his focus questionable.
The way Alex stared at him with glowing eyes, it was clear how she felt about him.
He was certainly handsome in his own way. His thick, curly dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and tied with a ribbon. He wore a lacy white shirt which almost looked Victorian along with dark pants. He wore a single earring of a silver wolf.
Alex pushed open the door. “Come on. Let’s go in. I was just running out to get … ummm … supplies … when I happened to run into Roger. He wanted to come along, of course. It’s all very exciting.”
“Exciting,” I agreed.
We went in.
Alex called out, “Marc? I ran into someone along the way.”
He came out from the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. “You have Amber with you? Good. Because I wanted to talk with her about –”
He pulled up short when he saw Roger.
Alex gave a nervous titter. “Now don’t be mad, Marc. I just happened to tell Roger about the spirit. And of course he wanted to see it for himself! So I said he could come along.”
Marc’s lips pressed into a thin line. “We said we weren’t going to talk about this to anyone.”
“Well, Roger isn’t just anyone,” purred Alex. “He’s my good friend! And it’s not as if we can use an obliviate spell on him to wipe his memory now. So he might as well watch with us.”
Apparently Marc was less than pleased with this idea. He turned his back and stalked into the kitchen.
Alex nervously laughed. “He’ll be all right. He just gets this way. Amber, you go on in and help him get set up. Roger and I will grab the glasses and wine.”
Her face pinched, and she leaned closer to me. “And there’s no need to talk about, well, you know, what you saw before, all right? Roger and I were just playing around. It’s nothing serious.”
She and Roger moved off into the living room, whispering to each other.
Tension cranked my innards. I generally made it a rule not to lie. It went against eve
rything I held dear. If Marc asked me point-blank what I had seen, I would be honest. But it also rarely helped to volunteer information which would hurt someone.
I walked over into the kitchen.
The rich smell of coffee washed over me, and I breathed it in. “Wow, that smells good.”
He chuckled and turned. “Something you learned on long stakeouts. A mug of high-quality coffee can do wonders. Make the time almost meditative.”
“Stakeout? So you’re a police officer?”
His face shadowed. “Detective. And technically I’m on leave. When Josephine died … well, the estate needed settling, and Alex took it rough.”
I settled onto a stool. “That must have been a challenge.” I glanced back toward the living room. “I admit, I didn’t even know Josephine had a child. I guess things weren’t … warm … between them.”
He snorted and drew out two mugs. “Not warm. That’s an understatement. Josephine would give her last dollar to clothe a homeless person – and she took that social obligation seriously. She just couldn’t understand how Alex could waste money on name-branded jewelry and designer herbs when a World War II vet right around the corner was going hungry at night. The few times Josephine and Alex got together, it always turned into a fight.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged and poured the coffee. “You want cream? Sugar?”
I shook my head. “I’ll take it black, the way nature intended it.”
He smiled.
It was as if the entire landscape of his face changed.
His eyes, which had seemed shadowed and brooding before, were now dark brown and warm. The sharp planes of his cheeks eased into gentle strength. His lips were no longer thin and tight. They were soft –
Alex bundled into the room carrying a chair from the dining room. “There’s only three stools, so I figured Roger and I could sit on the chairs instead. Besides, if she doesn’t show up until midnight, it’d be rough on my tush.”