Megan grabbed Ashley’s hand and followed him, a scowl stamped on her pretty face.
* * *
As Lainey drove around a sharp curve, she almost ran into an older woman who was standing in the middle of the road. She slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting her.
The woman didn’t bother to turn to look at her. She just stood there, looking off into the distance. She appeared to be at least in her eighties, with white hair piled in a bun on top of her head. She wore a faded floral housedress and slippers.
Lainey climbed out of the car. The woman didn’t turn to look at her until Lainey had walked right up to her, and then she turned to stare at Lainey with startling, milky white eyes. She was clearly blind; she must have heard Lainey’s approach. How had she gotten here? She was human, alone, vulnerable.
“Excuse me. I’m—Kat.” Great. Now she was lying to old ladies.
“I can see that,” the woman said, seeming to focus on her, and Lainey could swear that the woman could really see, although that was impossible. “But what about the dark cloud?”
“The what?”
“You’re going to the wedding. Beware of the dark cloud. The wolf in sheep’s clothing. He wants to take the lambs deep, deep into the earth, where the river runs red.”
“Okay. Well, thank you, I certainly will, er, beware.” Why did this woman think that Lainey was going to the wedding?
The woman didn’t speak; she just kept staring at Lainey with her blind, marble-white gaze.
“I’m going to Imogen’s boarding house. Would you like a ride?” Lainey prayed the woman would say yes. She couldn’t just leave the woman out here by herself. She’d wander in front of a speeding car or get lost in the woods.
“Another day, another dollar,” the woman said, and walked towards Lainey’s car. Lainey followed her. The woman pulled open the passenger door, and climbed in.
How the heck did she do that when she was blind?
“I can see perfectly well,” the woman responded in a sharp tone.
“Of course, I’m sorry,” Lainey said, climbing into the driver’s seat, but then she realized that she hadn’t asked about the woman’s sight out loud.
With a shiver, she began driving. She was so spooked that she didn’t say anything else, and the woman hummed a tune to herself for the next half mile, until they reached Imogen’s boarding house.
The boarding house was at the end of a dirt road. It was a large, turn of the century clapboard farmhouse, complete with a rooster weathervane, chickens pecking in the dirt, and cows grazing in the grass behind a barbed wire fence. Out in the fields to the left of the house, a muscular wolf shifter was chopping firewood. The farm looked like a postcard from the 1900s, come to life. Lainey was enchanted.
She glanced at the older woman, who was sitting in her seat, staring out into nothingness.
“Are you going to come in?” she asked the woman.
“A stitch in time saves nine,” the woman said.
“Okay, then. I’ll be right back.” Lainey climbed out of the car and walked up the creaking steps of the farm house. The front door gaped open, so she walked in. The entry was decorated exactly as she’d expected, with needlepoint pictures on the wall, faded rugs, and traditional furniture. There was nobody in the parlor, but she heard voices, and followed them through the house until she reached a large country kitchen with a gas-burning stove and an old basin sink large enough to wash a golden retriever in.
An older woman in a blue dress was kneading bread on a butcher-block center island, and a woman in her twenties, with spiky razored hair that would look more in place in a big city, was shaping dough into rolls. The younger woman had half a dozen ear piercings, and eyeliner done in a cat-eye style.
“Why, you must be Katherine McNamara,” the woman in the blue dress said, smiling. “I’m Imogen, and this is my great-niece, Marigold.”
“’Sup,” Marigold said, with a definite New York accent. “Do you need help carrying in your bags?”
“No, thank you, but there’s a woman in my car who I think is kind of confused. She was standing in the middle of the road. I think she’s blind. Although it also seems as if she can see.”
Okay, this is a good introduction. They’re going to think I’m Looney Tunes.
But both women were staring at her with great interest.
“You think it was her?” Marigold asked her great-aunt.
“Oh, I hope so. I haven’t seen her in years.” Imogen was beaming hugely, which made her face break into a million wrinkles.
Two more women walked in, identical twins in their seventies. They were even dressed alike, in flowery dresses with Peter Pan collars.
“Haven’t seen who in years?” they asked Imogen, both speaking at the same time.
“Alma, Emma, this is our guest Katherine. I think she’s got the Cypress Woods Witch in her car. Tell me, did she babble a lot of nonsense and then say something that sounded like an omen?” Imogen asked, wiping her floury hands on her apron.
“Well, yes, actually. How did—”
But Lainey was speaking to an empty room as they all dashed outside. She followed them, breaking into a jog.
The woman was standing beside Lainey’s car, staring off into the distance. Lainey was startled to see that the milky white of her eyes had vanished, and now her eyes were a perfectly normal blue.
“Oh, drat, she’s gone,” said Imogen.
“What? She’s right here,” Lainey protested, pointing at her.
“I was so hoping to hear one of her predictions,” Alma grumbled.
“She’s. Right. Here.” Lainey said very slowly, as if speaking to a child. Was insanity catching? Should she be wearing some kind of hazmat gear?
“Yes, yes, Myrtle is right here, but the spirit of the Cypress Woods Witch has left her,” Imogen said impatiently.
“I’ll call the nursing home,” Emma sighed. “They really need better security there.”
“It wouldn’t help,” Imogen pronounced firmly, as they walked back to the house, with Myrtle following them. “When the Cypress Woods Witch has a revelation, she can walk through walls, and she’ll keep walking until she finds the person meant to receive it.”
“I imagine it’s tea time,” the now-normal Myrtle said to Imogen.
“Come on in out of the sun, dear, and we’ll make you some tea,” Imogen said.
They went to the parlor and sat down at a round table with a white tablecloth that was embroidered around the edges with blue flowers, while Imogen went to the kitchen to make tea. Marigold sat next to Lainey, and Myrtle folded and refolded her napkin into the shape of a swan, and then Imogen came in with a tray holding a teakettle and cups for everybody, with a pitcher of milk and a porcelain bowl of sugar cubes.
“Welcome to Blue Moon County,” Marigold said to Lainey as everyone poured themselves tea in gold-rimmed cups. “Don’t let this scare you off. Most of the time it’s pretty normal around here.”
Alma and Emma snickered into their teacups, and Marigold scowled at them, but they ignored her.
“Milk and sugar,” Myrtle said.
Imogen sighed. “Yes, she’s back to just being Myrtle. That’s all she ever says when she’s Myrtle.”
“I imagine it’s tea time,” Myrtle said, looking into the depths of her tea, which Imogen had poured into a delicate, gold-rimmed tea cup.
The wolf shifter who’d been chopping wood outside came in a minute later, carrying Lainey’s suitcase. “Howdy, I’m Henry. I’ll just put your bags up in your room.” He glanced over at Myrtle. “Hello, Miss Myrtle, haven’t seen you in a while.”
She looked up at him. “I imagine it’s tea time,” she said.
Marigold folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, she did have a vision,” she informed him loftily.
“Sure, she did.” Henry raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Marigold stuck her tongue at him as he left the room.
“My fiancé. He thinks the whole Cypress Woods Witch thing is a myth. He doesn’t h
ave much imagination – except in certain areas.” Marigold grinned wickedly.
A few minutes later, Lainey heard a car pull up. A harried-looking, balding man in a gray suit rushed in, just as they were finishing their tea.
The man shook his head. “Thanks for calling me, Imogen. I don’t know how she does it. Come along, Myrtle, you’ll be late for bingo.” He held out his arm and Myrtle took it.
“Milk and sugar,” she said, letting the man lead her out of the house.
As soon as she was gone, Imogen turned back to Lainey, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “My, my, this is an exciting week for us. Whenever she comes around, something dire happens. Let’s have it, what did she say?”
“Aunt Imogen, please,” Marigold said. “Can we at least let our guest get settled in before we start attacking her with questions? I think your need for gossip can wait five minutes.”
“It most certainly cannot!” Imogen looked shocked at the very notion. She turned to Lainey. “What did she say?”
Lainey appreciated Marigold’s attempt to spare her, but she didn’t mind sharing the strange woman’s words. “It was weird. Something about how I’m going to the wedding, and watch out for the dark cloud and a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“Oh, dear. I wonder if we should tell Ginger. Maybe this has something to do with the tiara disappearing.”
“No! That warning could mean anything. I am not having my best friend freaked out right before her wedding,” Marigold said indignantly. “Dark cloud? Could mean it’s going to rain on the wedding day, in which case, the ceremony can be held indoors right there in the Beaudreau mansion. Wolf in sheep’s clothing? Could be a shifter wearing sheepskin. So, we are not going to tell anyone. Are we?”
“Of course not, dear,” Imogen said, looking smug. She hurried out of the room, heading in the direction of the kitchen.
“Why do I get the impression she’s scampering off to tell everyone in Blue Moon County?” Lainey asked.
“Because you’re very perceptive. My great-aunt is best friends with the gossip columnist at The Tattler. Everybody in town is going to know about this by nightfall,” Marigold sighed.
“I’m not going to the wedding,” Lainey added. “Why did the witch say that?”
“Actually, you are,” Marigold said, standing up. “You are going to the wedding. Here, let me show you where your room is.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
But Marigold had already headed toward the stairs. Lainey rushed to keep up with her. They entered a bedroom with a cherry wood sleigh bed, a Victorian-era nightstand with an oil lamp sitting on a doily, and hand-painted folk art pictures of cows and chickens.
Lainey’s suitcase was on the floor next to the bed.
“All right, let’s go get you some lunch, and then we need to make sure that you’ve got something to wear at the wedding. If you don’t have anything, there’s a store in town we can go to, or Ginger could lend you something. She’s about your size.”
“Why would I be going to the wedding?” Now Lainey was following Marigold down the hallway, down the stairs, and back to the kitchen. Marigold, like her great-aunt, apparently moved really fast when she was excited about something.
“You’ve got to go, of course. Because he’ll be there.”
“Who will be there?” And is “Blue Moon Junction” a code name for “giant nut house”?
“He will be. Your fated mate,” Marigold said, as if she were perfectly sane and Lainey was the crazy one.
Imogen was talking on an old-fashioned black wall phone with an actual phone cord, but when they came in, she started and looked guilty.
“I’ve got to go. Remember, Bea, not a word,” she said in a loud whisper.
There was a pause as she listened to a squawking voice on the other end. Then she said loudly, “I SAID, I’ve got to go, and remember, not a word!” She banged the phone down.
Marigold rolled her eyes. “Beatrice, the gossip columnist, wears a hearing aid. This is great. Just great. Now everyone’s going to know.”
She turned to her aunt, put her hands on her hips, and frowned. “You promised, Aunt Imogen. Not that I expected you to keep your word.”
“Promised what? Oh dear, it’s time to gather the eggs.” Imogen left the kitchen, looking mildly guilty.
“No it isn’t, we gathered them this morning,” Marigold said to the slamming door. “Who gathers eggs in the afternoon? Nobody, that’s who.”
“She’s long gone,” Lainey pointed out. “Probably off to call everybody else in town.”
“I know. I’m just venting. We’ve got chicken salad sandwiches in the refrigerator. Let’s go sit on the back porch and talk about what you’re going to wear to the wedding. Chop chop. Time’s a-wasting. We’ve got to figure out your hair, your jewelry, your makeup…”
“I wasn’t even invited. And I don’t have a fated mate.” Her mother had told her in no uncertain terms that the whole concept of fated mates was a myth, an old wives tale that no respectable, modern shifter would give any credence to. Only ignorant, backwoods shifters even talked about fated mates any more, her mother had insisted.
Blue Moon Junction’s one claim to fame was that they had a month-long festival which lasted for all of October, where single shifters from all over the East Coast gathered, supposedly in hopes of finding their fated mates. Lainey had mentioned it to her mother once, pointing out a magazine story about all the shifters who met their mates at the festival, but her mother had turned up her sculpted nose at the notion. “It’s infatuation, not fate,” she’d said scornfully. “All those shifters, acting like animals. Disgusting.”
We are animals, Lainey had thought to herself, but she knew how much her mother prided herself on being an assimilated, civilized shifter, one who acted like a human and never an animal.
She turned her attention back to Marigold. “Explain to me what all that Cypress Woods Witch stuff was about.”
“Well, basically, Myrtle is super old, supposedly a hundred and twenty, and she’s always had the sight. She used to live by herself in an area of Blue Moon County known as the Cypress Woods, and she’d wander into town, her eyes looking all milky, and make some kind of obscure prediction, and it would always come true. Supposedly. Then she’d go back to the woods. Eventually, when she got old, she got Alzheimer’s, and now she lives in a nursing home. But apparently she still gets visited by the spirit from time to time, and her predictions still come true. Supposedly.”
Marigold never stopped moving as she talked. She pulled a plate of sandwiches out of the refrigerator and handed it to Lainey, along with a plate of cookies.
Next, she pulled out a big pitcher filled with something amber, which smelled alcoholic and delicious. “I’ll be in charge of the drinks,” she said. “That’s important.”
Marigold buzzed with energy, zipping around the kitchen, gathering up glasses, dumping ice cubes in them. The next thing Lainey knew, she was following her outside onto the back porch, which ran the entire length of the house. Marigold set down the pitcher on a table made of a cable spool, and poured a drink into each of the two glasses.
There was a row of planter boxes full of herbs on the porch railing. Marigold picked some mint leaves and dropped them into the glasses. Then she sat down on the porch swing.
“Mint julep,” she said. “Drink up.”
“Not until you tell me what all this fated mate stuff is about.” Lainey settled on to the porch swing, set her purse on the table, and glowered at Marigold. This was really rattling her nerves.
“I would, but you’d think that I’m crazy.” Marigold took a sip of her mint julep.
“Too late,” Lainey muttered.
“Do you know what I do for a living?” Marigold continued, ignoring her.
“What you do for a living?” Lainey echoed, startled by the change of subject. “I don’t know…I’m hoping it doesn’t involve handling sharp objects or anything that could start a fire.”
M
arigold ignored the snipe. “I’m a love psychic. I help people find the one that they’re meant to be with. When I saw you walk into our kitchen, I immediately knew that your fated mate would be at Ginger’s wedding, so you need to be there, too. This is my new mission in life. You’re my new BFF, and we’re going to find you that man. Or shifter, as the case may be. Drink up.”
Lainey found herself really, really needing a drink. She took a healthy swig of her mint julep.
“Wow,” she said, momentarily distracted from the certifiably wacko woman sitting next to her. “This is liquid heaven.” She took another sip and savored the sweet, smoky taste of bourbon, sugar and mint swirling on her tongue.
“So, I’m working out ways that we could get you invited to Ginger’s wedding. The reception is no problem, but that’s not where you need to be. My psychic vision is a little muddy on the exact details, but it’s definitely telling me that I need to find a way to get you into the wedding reception, which is a little challenging, since of course the guest list is already full, but I will find a way. What are you doing?”
Not running for the door, like a sane person would, Lainey thought. She’d pulled a pad of paper from her purse and was doodling on it.
“Nervous habit,” she said.
Marigold peered at it. “Nice. Is that a sketch of me? I like it.”
Lainey shrugged. “Thanks. I kind of do it without thinking.” She’d been a doodler since she was a little girl. Every time her parents started lecturing her about how none of the popular girls at her school ate a second helping of dinner, she’d find herself doodling on the tablecloth, the wall, her own arm…a habit that her parents hated almost as much as her habit of asking for seconds.
When she’d decided to quit working for her parent’s company as a bookkeeper, she’d managed to snare a job as an art teacher. Granted, it was at a reform school where she went to work every day expecting to be shanked, but still. She was an art teacher. That’s what counted.
“So,” Marigold continued. “Wardrobe. Something pretty, flattering, but not too sexy because it’s a wedding. Still, we need a little cleavage. We definitely want to highlight that rack.”
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