Seances Are for Suckers

by Tamara Berry

  The bible page. Of course. What was it Rachel had said? That the date was written in an unmatched hand that didn’t coincide with his actual birth? Thomas and Fern must have found that passage as children, recorded the location for posterity.

  Like an adventure, like it was fun.

  Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s very fun anymore. At least, it’s not for me.

  Nicholas shakes his head. “There wasn’t time. He found that page before she arrived.” He pauses and looks first at Fern and then at me. The glance at Fern I understand; the one at me much less so. He doesn’t seem at all like a man who’s bent on my death. I feel as though he wants me to do something, say something. But what? I’m tied to a chair, my arms behind my back, my mouth stuffed closed. Other than blinking rapidly, I’ve got nothing.

  “Was it really necessary to kill him over it, my dear?” he adds.

  “Don’t talk to me like that,” Fern snaps. She waves the gun until he takes a step back from my chair. “I did what I had to do. He was already asking too many questions. Once he knew where the tunnels were, he was going to demand a bigger cut.”

  “You could have given it to him.”

  “Don’t you dare.” She turns to her brother, the gun now much closer to his head than to mine. “You have no idea how hard I had to work to get everything set up and running smoothly. How hard it was to convince Thomas to help run the bones on his weekends off, how many nights I’ve spent in that man’s bed so my supply of cemeteries doesn’t run low. He’ll buy any property I tell him to, but it comes at a price.” Her mouth puckers, as if the taste of Cal’s kisses linger. “Oh, it comes at a price.”

  Poor Cal. Despite my precarious position at the mercy of this sorry lot, I can’t help feeling a pang for the guy. He was always so nice, offering me biscuits and—

  I tilt my head, unsure if I’m hearing things and unwilling to indulge optimism that far. But then I receive another one of Nicholas’s hard looks, and optimism starts to demand attention. Either the rain is picking up in earnest or something is happening outside.

  “What is that?” Fern asks, sending her brother a wild look. “What’s that sound?”

  “It’s the witch,” he says and points at me. “She’s summoning something.”

  Oh, it’s the witch, alright. And she’s not just summoning something. She’s fighting back. As long as Fern holds the gun, there’s nothing that either of the men—Nicholas or Thomas—can do to save me.

  But I can save myself. I can wield the one weapon that has always served me well.

  I begin with my favorite rotation of “rhubarb carrots and peas.” With the gag in my mouth, it’s not as though I can form an actual curse, and the mutterings are ominous enough to do the trick. I also roll my eyes back in my head and start thumping and banging the chair all over the boat’s cabin. I don’t love the idea of taking my gaze away from Fern and that unstable-looking pistol, but I realize by now that Nicholas is planning something. He knows full well that I’m no witch . . . and that the only thing I can summon is a headache.

  “What’s she doing?” Fern cries out. Her words are barely audible over the roaring sound picking up outside. “What’s coming?”

  “Fern, give me the gun,” Nicholas says. In contrast to her increasingly shrill panic, his own voice is hard, cold. “We have to turn the boat around. There’s no telling what she’ll do otherwise.”

  “You just want to stop me. You always want to have things your way.”

  The cabin door slams open, eerily like that first night at Castle Hartford, when Thomas announced that it was time for dinner. Because I’m thinking of that evening—and of all that’s happened since then—I’m not surprised to see him step through the doorway, rain-slicked but otherwise exactly the same.

  Fern, however, gasps and whirls. Already shaken so far out of her comfort zone, the appearance of a dark form causes her hand to lift and the gun to line up with his body. Nicholas dives to stop her, but it’s no use. He can no more prevent a bullet from leaving that gun than I can save my sister from a lifetime of inertia.

  We’re both just ordinary human beings. And we’re both too late.

  Thomas crumples to the ground in a solid heap. He makes no noise other than a grunt and a moan before descending into silence, a dark pool of blood forming under his body and mixing with the water to create rivulets that drain into the cabin.

  The moment Fern realizes what she’s done, she lets out a scream and drops the gun, falling to her knees in front of Thomas. It says a lot about her state of mind that she doesn’t seem to notice or care about the mess that her silk pantsuit has become. She does, however, have enough presence of mind to start building a defense against herself, her voice keening as she cries, “She made me do it! Look what she made me do!”

  “Stand aside, Fern.” Nicholas crouches next to her and pockets the gun. He also begins assessing his friend’s injuries, his movements neat and assured. To look at him, you’d think he was accustomed to heroic measures and makeshift first aid, but that’s only until you catch a glimpse of his face, bleak with determination—and something more.

  He is capable of real emotion, of real pain. But only when he kisses me. Only when he’s struggling to save his childhood friend.

  I want so much to reach out to him—to help in some way—but I’m still bound to the chair and unable to move. Nicholas can’t attend to Thomas and to me at the same time, especially not while Fern remains keening on the floor.

  It seems as good a time as any to call on Winnie again. After all, what’s the point of having a powerful supernatural connection unless you can use it when you need it most?

  “Get us out of this, sister dear,” I mutter into my gag. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

  Almost immediately, a bright light from above hits the boat, casting our horrific tableau into brilliant illumination. The effect is surreal, and despite my better instincts, I make a note of it. I can use that—maybe not from a helicopter coming to aid a boat in distress, but a spotlight in a dark room, a moment of clarity amidst all the confusion.

  Yes, that could be very effective, indeed . . .

  “What is that?” Fern cries. She bolts to her feet again and makes as if to plunge through the door. Nicholas jumps up and stops her, his arms holding her tightly around the shoulders. I can’t tell if it’s an embrace or a restraint, but I suspect it’s a little of both. “Nicholas, she’s called something! I heard her do it. Something is coming to get us!”

  “Yes, yes, she has,” Nicholas says in a low, soothing voice. “She’s called Cal. He’s coming to get us out of here.”

  “But she’s tied up. She’s gagged. How—?”

  Nicholas looks over Fern’s shoulder at me, his eyes difficult to read. Underneath all the pain, there’s something else, something warm. “I don’t know, Fern. But I’m coming to learn that when it comes to the things Madame Eleanor is capable of, it’s usually best not to ask.”

  Chapter 27

  “Miss—Ma’am—Madame.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, just call me Eleanor,” I tell the inspector. “I think we’ve gone past formalities by now, don’t you?”

  He flips through his notebook, which now bears what looks like a picture of a peacock instead of a donkey. “Eleanor,” he says, my name rolling on his tongue as though it tastes unpleasant. “You’re asking me to believe that your comatose sister on the other side of the world showed you where the tunnel was?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Which she did through the guise of a cat?”

  “Yes.”

  “A cat that you stole from Thomas’s home with the intent of using it as part of a fake séance designed to extract his confession?”

  “Um.” When he puts it that way, it does sound rather far-fetched. “It’s been a strange week.”

  He clucks his tongue and shakes his head, but the notebook snaps closed, so I count it as a good sign. “Lucky for you, we were able to talk with Th
omas as soon as he awoke from surgery. Both he and the other witness reports corroborate your tale. I doubt even this family could invent something that outlandish.”

  Inspector Piper rises to his feet, his hand beating an impatient tattoo on his leg. For the first time since I’ve met him, his fingers don’t appear to have nicotine stains.

  “How’s the quitting going?” I ask as I, too, get to my feet. We’re holding this interview in the parlor at Castle Hartford, which seems like a fitting end to an ill-fitting story. “Have you started to climb the walls yet?”

  He casts me a shrewd look but accepts my clairvoyance with a shrug. “A little. It’s only been a few hours.”

  “Hmm. As soon as the new moon hits, I’d be happy to say a little chant to help you along. All I need is some mint, an amethyst—”

  He steps back, hands up and his mouth twisted in a panicked grimace. “I’ll stick to the old-fashioned method, thank you. You’ve done more than enough around here as it is.”

  He’s not wrong. I think of the crew called to the castle, ready to pull bodies out of the tunnel so they can be identified and returned to their families, and wince. I also think of Thomas, handcuffed to a hospital bed, and Fern, handcuffed to her prison cell. No one’s life is going to be the same after this—least of all mine.

  “Does this mean I’m finally free to leave the country?” I ask.

  “Yes, Madame Eleanor. I’m happy to say that England has officially seen enough of you—and your spells.”

  At the mention of my spells, my eyes fly open, and I cast a hurried glance at the clock on the wall. I have yet to go to bed after the events of the previous night, but I doubt I’ll be able to sleep for a while. Besides, I’m not even sure if anyone has found the key to the yellow bedchamber. I could slip in through Rachel’s headboard, but I’m feeling understandably wary of that particular entry point.

  “What is it?” Inspector Piper asks.

  “The sun is almost touching the top of the evergreens,” I say. And at his look of perplexity, I add, “Eleven o’clock. Mrs. Brennigan.”

  He opens his mouth and closes it again. Since I’m not keen on directly defying police orders, I don’t wait for him to issue the command. Turning on my heel, I fly out of the room and prepare for one last trip through the cow fields toward the village.

  “Mind if I join you?” a cool voice asks as I reach the foyer. I skid to a halt and turn to find Nicholas leaning against the wall, Winnie’s cream-colored shawl in hand.

  Without waiting for me to answer, he draws forward and wraps the shawl around my shoulders. His hands linger where they land, his touch warm and heavy, which is my excuse for why it takes a moment to understand the implication.

  “The key,” I gasp, whirling on him. “It was you. You told your mother to lock me out and then stole the key.”

  His hands remain on my shoulders, holding me in place before him. The long night shows on his face but not in his bearing, which remains as erect as always. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I hated to deceive you, but I couldn’t let you sleep in there. Not while I was still uncertain how Xavier was getting in.”

  “But—”

  For the first time since the night’s proceedings, a slight smile moves across his face. Even though it doesn’t last, I can tell it’s the real one—the heart-wrenching one. “It was the least I could do after I forced you to stay,” he says.

  “Oh, please. You didn’t force me.”

  “Persuaded you.”

  “You didn’t persuade me, either.”

  He tilts his head, his examining eyes intense. “Why did you remain here, then?”

  “To recoup my losses on all that broken equipment, of course,” I reply primly. “I wasn’t about to leave before I could charge you at least twenty grand for my services.”

  My reward for that is to have Nicholas pounce on me with a kiss so severe it takes me a good thirty seconds to get over the shock of it. As before, his lips move with careful intensity, each expert flick of his tongue designed to break me down and open me up. As before, I retaliate with my own version of a good snog—arms wrapped around his neck, my hands buried in his hair, a leg hitched so he’s forced to grab me or we’ll risk toppling over into the suit of armor watching over our embrace.

  “No biting this time,” he murmurs against my mouth, his breath mingling with mine.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” I reply and tug his lower lip between my teeth.

  From the way he reacts, by sweeping me into his arms and doing a fair bit of nibbling of his own, I’m guessing not many women have stood up to him like that before.

  “See how much more fun that is when you actually let yourself go?” I ask a good two minutes later, my breath short and my borrowed sweater decidedly askew. Even Nicholas looks less than his pristine self, his hair standing on end and a dazed look in his eyes. “I know a spell or two for that, in case you’re interested.”

  “Oh, I’m interested, Eleanor. I’ve been interested since the moment I met you.”

  As he punctuates these words by straightening the shawl on my shoulders and offering me his arm, I’m not able to swoon properly. I do, however, draw comfort from his strength as he leads me out the front door and in the direction of the shortcut to the village. I’d been too afraid to appreciate that strength properly before, but I’m starting to realize how nice the feeling is.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to lean on anyone.

  We wait until we’re out of sight of the castle before we start talking, bound by an unspoken need to be free of that place’s overwhelming influence before we begin to unpack the night’s events. As soon as the top of the tallest turret disappears from view, I withdraw my arm from his and slow my steps.

  “How’s Rachel holding up?” I ask.

  If he’s displeased with my primary point of interest, it doesn’t show. He mostly sounds relieved. “As well as can be expected, given the circumstances. She’s never been . . . close to Fern, so it’s less of a shock than it could have been. When I left her, she was getting ready to go to bed in my mother’s room.”

  “Good. Sleep will help.”

  “You gave her something?”

  I wave a hand. “It was basically diluted chamomile and lavender. The effects were more placebo than anything else.”

  He nods. “Thank you.”

  “She deserves better, poor thing.”

  “I don’t mean thank you for Rachel. I mean thank you for helping me. Thank you for solving this thing.”

  I halt my steps, uncomfortable with the role he’s assigning me in all this. Until I woke up on Thomas’s boat to find Fern holding a gun on me, I’d solved nothing. In fact, if I’d have run into Inspector Piper at any point after I’d left the room with Rachel, I would have gladly handed Nicholas over to him with a demand that he be locked up for the rest of his life.

  “I only spoke with Inspector Piper briefly, but it sounds as though the Xavier activities Rachel isn’t claiming were done by Thomas. Apparently, he’d started having doubts a few months back. The scheme was supposed to stay small, confined to minor pranks, but it started getting out of hand. He was trying to scare Fern into giving it up.”

  I nod, easily able to accept this version of events. “The pulled-up stair, banging around the yellow bedchamber, the pigeons. . . They would have been easy enough for him to do, since he could come and go without anyone questioning him.”

  “Moving Walter Powell’s body, too.”

  I look up, startled, but am instantly soothed by the reassuring glance Nicholas casts down on me.

  “Fern admitted to killing him, I know, but she’s never been great at cleaning up after herself. Thomas came across him lying there and assumed it was his stair that caused it. Hiding the body was the only thing he could do—though he wasn’t able to finish the job before we arrived.”

  “That makes sense,” I agree, thinking of those first displaced bones under the stair. They must have been dislodged a
s Thomas struggled to get Walter Powell safely inside the tunnel. “He would have been coming downstairs from smashing the equipment.”

  “No, that was Fern.”

  “What? How do you know? Did she confess?”

  He extracts a frayed cord from his pocket. I recognize it as the one he confiscated from the kitchen catch-all. “There’s fingernail polish scraped off along this side.” He extends it for me to see. “Red fingernail polish.”

  “So? Lots of people have red fingernail polish.” I hold out my own hand, where the deep red of my trade is shellacked and shining. “Including me.”

  “I know. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

  “You villain!” I shout, half laughing. “You thought I smashed my own equipment?”

  “I wasn’t sure what to think.”

  “You were the one hiding in my room that first night. Rachel admitted it.”

  “For your protection, merely. I snuck in and sat on the chair in the corner for hours. I couldn’t let you be attacked after I brought you all this way.”

  “You also kept sending me on fruitless errands to the garden and the church.”

  “Annis asked me to. She wanted to meet you.” He casts me a level stare. “And perhaps you should dismount from that particular horse before you fall off, my dear. You thought I was part of Thomas’s and Fern’s schemes.”

  I flush guiltily, unable to meet his eye. I did think it, and for much longer than I’ve been willing to admit, even to myself.

  “To be fair, I thought Cal was part of it, too,” I mumble.

  His crack of laughter does much to bring forgiveness. He takes me by the arm again, and we begin our stately progress across Hartford lands—a cool, crisp gentleman who just discovered his sister is a murderer, and the fraud of a psychic who helped him do it.

  “If Thomas wasn’t smashing my equipment that night, then he was probably leaving the note in my room,” I say, mostly to myself. “The one with your childhood rhyme.”