by Leslie Leigh
When they got back to the house, the men proudly showed them their new things, as pleased as kids at Christmas. Brian had bought himself heavy socks and a pair of hiking boots. Then, he handed Melissa a large bag.
“I hope I got this right, and that they’re to your liking,” he said. “I realize this is usually the kind of thing that people pick out for themselves, but….”
Melissa looked in the bag. “And I was so jealous when I saw yours!” she said. It was two pairs of heavy socks and a pair of hiking boots to match Brian’s. She looked at the size, and kissed him. “You did good!” she said.
“Well, I hope so. If they don’t fit, we can take them back. What do you have there?” he asked, indicating the leather-bound book.
“Some interesting reading for me for the next couple of days—with some interesting portions on foxglove.”
He raised his eyebrows, but he said nothing.
On the way back to the cabin that afternoon, he asked, “So what’s this book about foxglove?”
“I’ll tell you the whole story when we get back to the cabin,” she said. “Complete with exhibits.”
Chapter 12
“Exhibit A,” she said, handing him the 3x5 card. “Men’s tonic.”
When he saw the ingredients and dosage, his eyes bugged out of his head.
“This is what Mrs. Hodges had been giving Mr. Hodges for the last six months. Six months ago, his doctor told him his heart was enlarging and he needed to be careful. So when she found this ‘tonic,’ she started giving it to him. The thing is, it is actually a simple tonic; however, like Lloyd Johnston and Anthony White, he was already on digoxin, so it poisoned him instead.”
“So, nobody’s really at fault?”
“That’s what I plan to figure out over the next couple of days.”
“How so?”
“Too many inconsistencies in Cheri’s story. Just let me sort it all out; then, I’ll tell you once I’ve put it together in my mind.”
“And what’s the book that you have? That looks like some serious reading material, emphasis on the serious.”
“I’ve barely opened it, but I think this is going to tell us a lot. It’s a witch’s Book of Shadows, which is partly a journal and partly a tome of magic experiments and spells. I’m truly surprised Cheri let me take it, which is why I’m going to put it all together in my mind. She didn’t seem particularly upset when I told her that her mother had found the tonic recipe in it. She just laughed it off. When I asked to take it for a couple of days, I used my interest as an herbalist as an excuse, she laughed again and said she wasn’t sure what I would find interesting in the occult ramblings of a twelve-year-old.”
“And why are you interested?” he asked.
“Because after a brief peek, I don’t think this was put together by a twelve-year-old.”
“Oh.”
“As I say, I’ll let you know more after I’ve had a chance to look at it and to put things together in my mind.”
“She also let you have the recipe?”
“Not really; I slipped it into my pocket.”
Brian put his hand to his forehead. “It’s now inadmissible as evidence,” he said.
“I understand,” she said, “although I wasn’t thinking about that when I did it. Cheri came in the door, and I didn’t want her to snatch it, so I stuck it in my pocket. Besides, it wasn’t like an illegal search or anything. Her mother trotted it out and handed it to me.”
“That’s better then,” he said.
“Although the witnesses would kind of lack credibility—my mother and an extremely forgetful woman.”
“Truth,” he said, “but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Would you like to take a walk?” he asked.
“Oh, I’d love to,” she said. “Let me try on my new socks and boots. That was really, really thoughtful, Brian. I love you for so many reasons,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows and grinned, and this time, she took a hold of him and kissed him soundly.
# # #
After a long walk and a dinner of salad and pasta, Brian put on some Kenny G and picked out a book, and Melissa settled in to look at the Book of Shadows.
She really wished she could look at it with Flora. Flora had more of an in depth understanding of paganism and the occult. Melissa recognized a lot of it, but she felt that she probably missed a lot of the significance of what was there.
This was most likely the work of an adolescent, however, not a twelve year-old unless it was a very precocious one. It had the look of later adolescence, especially with some of the themes addressed, as well as more mature handwriting and drawing. It also seemed far too extensive to be the work of a beginner. Although some of it had obviously been copied from other sources, a good bit of it was the writer’s own work and experiences.
About halfway through the book, Melissa came to a page with a hand-drawn illustration of foxglove blossoms. The page was yellowed except for the place where something the size of a 3x5 card had been removed.
Had Cheri’s mother looked through the book carefully enough that she came upon this page and recognized it on her own and removed the recipe? Or was it more likely the card had fallen loose at some point and fell out when her mother opened it? Or had it been replaced in the book as a bookmark with the intent of re-gluing the card?
Melissa stopped reading and stared off into space while she sifted through the pieces in her mind. Her own mother had told her more than once that Mr. Hodges was not ill, nor under a doctor’s care. She had to have gotten that information from Cheri, and, in fact, Melissa was pretty sure that Cheri had told her that herself.
Someone might want to dismiss Mrs. Hodges’ story as another delusion, except that was not something that would be easily made up, especially including the names of medications and conditions like the enlarged heart.
Another question. Had Mrs. Hodges been terribly verbally abused by her husband, and, by extension, had Cheri also been? And if Mrs. Hodges hadn’t been abused, then had Cheri also not been?
When Mrs. Hodges had been telling her the story about Mike coming home, depressed, to a screaming two-year old, Melissa had felt for sure that the woman was going to reveal that the problem had set father and daughter at odds from which they never recovered.
If Cheri called her mother almost every day, and her mother was fairly lucid most of the time, wouldn’t Mrs. Hodges have told Cheri about her father’s ailment, about his new meds, about her new tonic for him, and where she had found it? What else could they talk about every day? It had to be the details of everyday life.
How could she find out what was really going on?
Chapter 13
The small shop was festooned with sheer fabric drapes of various designs and symbols and smelled deeply of Nag Champa. An older woman, with her hair colored—what Melissa could only think of as deep autumn red—was placing things on racks and looked up with a smile as Melissa entered.
Other voices, muted and distant, came from behind a sheer indigo-colored curtain with a smattering of gold metallic stars.
“You’ve come to the right place,” the autumn-haired woman said, surprising Melissa who had not yet formed a question. It made her heart skip a beat.
“I have,” Melissa agreed, feeling that the woman’s statement quickly cut through the necessity for small talk. Melissa held out the Book of Shadows to her.
The woman looked at her knowingly, but put up her finger to show Melissa she needed a moment. She retrieved a silk scarf from a shelf and held it between her hands to take the book from her.
“I’m Noreen, by the way,” she said.
“Melissa.”
“Ah, the Bee,” she said, now eyeing Melissa more carefully.
Melissa knew her name was Greek for “bee,” and she’d always liked that aspect. Despite her initials being MM, she had named her market Melissa B.’s because of it.
The woman explained, as she set the heavy boo
k down onto the glass counter, “I like to look at a book like this first without any energetic contact…thus the silk scarf. Once I’ve made certain determinations, if I feel comfortable, I will touch it directly.”
Melissa nodded. Knowing well how energies work and how pervasive they could be, she could understand the woman’s hesitation. As an empath, Melissa felt people’s energies very keenly. She hadn’t picked up anything from the book, though.
The woman paged through about a third of the book before dropping the protective scarf. “My partner, Francesca, who is giving a reading in the other room, taught a Teen Wicca class for several years, but that was at least a couple of decades ago. I recognize some of the initial work in the book as those things taught and suggested by Francesca, but this book goes way beyond the scope of anything she taught to those girls.”
“I’d like to ascertain what you know about this in particular,” Melissa said, opening the book to the foxglove page where she had stuck the card. “It would be good if you didn’t touch the card to leave fingerprints.”
“Of course,” Noreen said, using the scarf again to handle the card. Then, she paged backward and forward in that portion of the book.
“I do recognize this,” Noreen said. “This was from an advanced class in folklore and herbalism that Francesca taught to older girls. I am puzzled by the title of the card as ‘Men’s Tonic,’ though, because Francesca would not have been in the habit of giving specific formulas for herbs involving volatile poisons.”
Just then, two women emerged from the indigo curtain, talking. It was easy to tell which one was Francesca. The first woman was dressed in street clothes while Francesca, whose hair was a fiery red, was in a caftan.
The two women spoke for a few more minutes, and then said their goodbyes. Francesca turned toward Noreen.
“This book was done by one of your old students, Francesca,” Noreen said.
“I’m an herbalist myself,” Melissa said, “and I’d like to ask you some questions about it,” she said.
Francesca didn’t bother with the silk shielding; she simply picked up the book and showed Melissa back to her “sacred work space” as she referred to it.
She offered Melissa a chair and lit a candle as well as a braid of sweetgrass, which she wafted about the room and over the book.
“You are an herbalist,” Francesca said, “but the reason you’ve come has little to do with your actual profession.”
“That is correct,” Melissa replied.
“This book belongs to Cheri Hodges,” Francesca said, “or her name was Hodges; I don’t know whether it still is.”
“To be honest, neither do I, but you are correct about its ownership.”
“I remember her quite well because her interest was keen, beyond the interest of the other girls her age. She was quite astute about everything.”
“May I show you something in particular that I would like your take on?” Melissa asked. The woman indicated for her to go ahead, and Melissa flipped to the foxglove page.
“What can you tell me about this page?”
Francesca glanced at the page, then at Melissa, and back to the page.
“I always had a lesson in how the same substances that poisons can heal, and vice versa. I wouldn’t have given a specific formula nor would I have called it a ‘Men’s Tonic,’ but it wouldn’t have been difficult for someone like Cheri to extrapolate the information. Since you are an herbalist, you are aware that it can, indeed, be used for a tonic.”
“Yes,” Melissa said.
“Something happened to a man in Cheri’s life,” Francesca pronounced, “and you suspect foxglove poisoning.”
“We’re having a post-mortem assay done to detect digoxin in his system, specifically foxglove.”
“Her father?”
“Yes.”
“Would you consider letting me do a Tarot reading for you on the matter?”
Melissa paused. She was familiar with Tarot, and although it wasn’t something she practiced herself, she knew Flora did. She also knew that, the vibrations between the reader, the client, and the cards all worked together to show the inner workings or as archetypes of the mind.
“If nothing else,” Melissa said, “it might help me to sort things out. There are so many variables and what ifs here that it might be nice to cut through some of what’s irrelevant and point me in one direction.”
“Since she was my student, I feel some responsibility in this, so perhaps our energies connecting on this can give you some guidance. This is a serious matter, so I want to approach it with ritual,” Francesca continued. “I’m going to cleanse and cense the room, the book, and the cards before we begin. I have water in the kettle on the stove in the back, and I’ll make some dreaming tea for us. That will help to better visualize what the cards are giving us.”
She extinguished the candle, saged the room, lit incense and a new candle, and poured the tea. Then, she sat behind the table again, directly across from Melissa.
“I want you to take the cards and shuffle them several times, until you feel it’s enough.”
Melissa did as she asked, and as she returned them to Francesca, Francesca touched Melissa’s hands, sending a frisson of energy and anticipation through Melissa. Francesca spread the cards across the table.
“Start drawing cards, whichever cards stand out to you, and hand them to me without looking at them. I will put the Major Arcana cards aside until there are three. Then, we’ll do the same until we get four Minor Arcana cards.
“I’m using a specialized deck for working with ancestors—as the father has now become an ancestor.”
They proceeded with the drawing process until Melissa had selected three Major and four Minor cards. Francesca turned over the Majors first.
“You have drawn the Hierophant, Temperance, and the High Priestess—all which have a well-established relationship among themselves. The Hierophant represents me, the High Priestess represents Cheri, and you are Temperance.
“The Hierophant is the teacher and diviner—the one who goes beyond the veil and delivers knowledge and wisdom. The High Priestess is a neophyte. This makes sense because Cheri was my student.
“If you look at the images, the Hierophant wears white while the Priestess wears black, indicating achievement of full revelation on the part of the teacher, while the Priestess’s achievement is only partially revealed. We are seeing this because Cheri only pursued her training for a short time. She pursued it intensely, but, for whatever reason, let it fall to the wayside.
“As Temperance, Melissa, you are a conservator of the earth. I’m getting that your profession goes beyond simple herbalism.”
“Yes,” Melissa said, “I own a whole foods market, and I practice healing.”
“Ah. So you understand that the Earth has the ability to renew herself infinitely, but that her resources are finite.”
Francesca was quiet for a moment as if sensing. “This is not your first time attempting to unravel this kind of mystery, I see, but since it’s not your chosen profession, you have been asking why you should care. It is difficult for you to come into contact with the more sordid side of humanity. But I see you very much as one who will continue to take a stand against the abuse of your fellow travelers in this realm. It’s not only about health; it’s about justice.
“You also share the qualities of the Star Woman. You take risks in becoming a conduit of information, but you must learn to trust yourself, your judgment, and that by allowing the Universe to flow through you, your intuition and abilities will enable you a great return for your investment.
“Despite the seeming chaos of the last few months, you are about to enter a period of deep quiet and refreshment. You will still be outwardly active, but you will find joy in every step.”
“Wow,” Melissa said. “I wasn’t expecting to find out things about myself, as well.”
“In this particular spread, the Majors show us the principal players and their roles. The Min
ors will show us the details.”
Francesca slid the Major cards to Melissa’s left and placed the Minor cards in the center. She knit her brow as she looked at them. “I believe this will tell us a lot. The first of the Stave or Wands cards, the King, is upright. The other three cards are reversed, the Six of Pentacles or Sacred Circles, the Ten of Cups, and the Five of Staves.”
“In this deck, the suit of Staves represents Egypt, and the King is Osiris. Osiris was deceived, killed, and dismembered by his brother, put back together by his sister, and became the Lord of the Underworld, the Judge, He Who Weighs Souls. It’s interesting that you mentioned the assay for the foxglove because this card has to do with measuring and assaying, as well as with lawyers and courtrooms.”
Melissa’s eyebrows went up. Well, that was telling, she thought. So this might actually end up in court after all.
“With Pentacles, or Coins as they are called in some decks, the Six normally is about reciprocation, receiving hidden wealth and passing it on. But when it’s reversed like this, it’s about revenge and ill-gotten gains.”
Francesca refrained from making any interpretations of that statement. Melissa was glad she was leaving her to draw her own conclusions.
“The Ten of Cups is usually the happiest card in the deck, but reversed it’s about unhappy homes, bitter relatives, and rifts in relationships.”
Rifts in which relationships? Melissa wondered. So far this was spot on in every aspect. There was just one card left. Will it give me somewhere to go with this?
“In this image,” Francesca said, indicating the final card, “we see a newly-built pyramid in the background, which we know is a fresh tomb. An upright Five represents a unified front against a perceived enemy, but reversed. So, it’s about ego conflict, lack of harmony, and a gender struggle between individuals. Ultimately, it’s about failure in understanding.”
A gender struggle between individuals.That would have to be husband and wife or father and daughter. What had her mother said about Cheri having a problem with men?