“Me either, kiddo. So did you know much about her? Like where she came from, stuff like that?”
Liza chuckled. “Are you sleuthing again, lady? Haven’t you had enough being roughed up? The last time looked like you’d been part of a gang initiation. Don’t you have enough to do with this place to keep you busy?”
I gave her a weary grin. “You know I can’t help myself, Liza. But this is a valued member of our community. I won’t sleep until they catch whoever did this. I can’t bear the idea that Sophia’s killer is on the loose, and if I can help in some way then I will.”
“Nobody knows better than me,” Liza said on a smile. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the details about Sophia since yesterday, and it’s the darnedest thing, but I don’t ever remember her saying where she was from. And we had lots of conversations, too. But now that I look back, I guess they were mostly about me and my struggle to get through school, or we talked about whatever I was studying at the time. Geez. This should teach me to be less self-absorbed, huh?”
“I’m positive Sophia didn’t feel that way, Liza. She loved her patrons and she loved chatting with them. So one more question before I let you go. Did she buy a postcard here recently?”
Liza bobbed her head, her eyes bright. “You know, she did. She bought the one of the steamboat out in the Sound. The dinner cruise one. Said Officer Nelson had made plans for them to go sometime soon. She looked so happy, and the way she said his name…” Liza took a deep breath and let her head hang between her shoulders. “Well, it was obvious she was crazy about him.”
I gulped and nodded. “Did she mention who the postcard was for? Where she might be sending it?”
Liza looked stricken. “No, and I didn’t ask. I wish now I had. I read in the paper today no one knows where her family is. It makes my stomach hurt to think she has no one to give her a proper burial, Stevie. No one to remember her. So I decided to organize a candlelight memorial tonight at nine. On the steps at the library. Spread the word, would you, please?”
“I will. I’ll be there, in fact. Do you need help organizing anything?”
“Nope, Boss. We’re all good. Carlito and I took care of everything.”
Carlito and Liza had been dating for a couple of months now, and together as a couple, they always made me smile.
As Liza rose, I asked, “Anything else you remember that might be important? Any conversations at all about Officer Nelson she might have divulged? I don’t want to be nosy—well, not in that way, anyway, but anything would help at this point. For Dana’s sake, you know?”
“I get it. I wish I had more. If I think of something, I’ll give you a holler. Do you need me to stay to keep Miss Watson in line or can you handle the Jam Princess on your own?”
“I got this. You go do what needs to be handled for Sophia’s memorial and I’ll see you tonight.”
Liza dropped a quick kiss on my cheek, ruffled Whiskey on the head and was gone, just as Merrily Watson breezed in.
I rose and held out my hand to her, but she just sniffed her disapproval and waved me away, leaving only the scent of her favorite perfume, White Diamonds, in her wake.
Still, I smiled courteously anyway. “Can I get you anything, Miss Watson? Water? A cup of tea?”
She dropped her enormous black purse on the table with a plunk and sat down in the chair right next to mine, her wrinkled lips making a thin red slash across her face. “You can get me that recipe and get it fast. Maui waits.”
The rumor in town was that Merrily had very little to do with actually making the jam, and everything to do with taking the credit for making it away from her sister Hester. Now that Hester, the town champion for six years running, had moved on to the Great Beyond, and she could no longer donate her prize winnings to whatever charity held her favor, Merrily wanted to win—and she had no intention of donating anything.
Which was likely why Hester had hidden the recipe before she’d died to begin with.
I began as I always do with a pushy client like Merrily, as I gazed into her small eyes lavished with miles of blue eyeshadow, and gave her my disclaimer. “I did mention we might not make contact, didn’t I, Miss Watson? Sometimes the dearly departed don’t always want to come out and play.”
Merrily snorted, her plump nostrils flaring. “‘Dearly’ my eye. She was a stubborn old coot who gave our prize winnin’s away like we were spittin’ it out in the toilet every mornin’ at our constitutional. But now we’re talkin’ Maui and money. The booty’s bigger. Now, you’re my last resort. So find my recipe or you’ll get no money from me, young lady!”
“Isn’t she just precious, Stevie?” Win cooed in my ear. “She’s like Yorkshire pudding and a pint at the pub all rolled into one. Let’s bottle her and make a dozen Merrily Watsons.”
I fought the impulse to bark a laugh before I focused on Merrily’s weathered face, her wrinkles deepening as her disdain for me grew. “As I already told you, Miss Watson, I donate my fees to a charity. I won’t make a dime from this reading, but I’ll do my best.”
“See that you do,” she demanded, tucking her purse close to her ample chest and smoothing her wispy gray-and-silver pin curls away from her face.
Win and I had decided when we reopened Madam Z’s to donate all of the fees from readings, and keep only what we needed to keep the lights on and pay Liza. With business so brisk these days, we’d done a lot of donating, and while I despised being taken advantage of, I didn’t care if Merrily left without paying me.
In fact, I didn’t even care if Win could contact Hester. I almost hoped he couldn’t.
“All right then. Lights, please,” I murmured, and instantly, the lights in the store dimmed via a voice-activated system Win had installed.
As the candles burned brighter, their flames licking the sides of the glass globes I’d set them in, the scent of rosemary and pears drifted to my nose, soothing my mind and relaxing my already tired muscles.
“Ready when you are, Dove,” Win said.
Offering my hand to Miss Watson, I encouraged her to take it and said, “Hester, are you with us? Hester Watson, are you here?”
Win cleared his throat in my ear and said, “Oh, she’s here. As you Americans say, with both guns blazin’.”
I squeezed Merrily’s hand and murmured with a smile, “She’s with us, Miss Watson.”
She wrinkled her nose and made a face as she looked around the room, her eyes taking in every corner. “How do you know?”
“I can feel her, of course. Feel her presence.” Which wasn’t actually a lie. I did feel her presence, something that made my stomach experience a butterfly or two of a familiar thrill. But I kept my excitement on the inside and savored the moment instead, so I wouldn’t come off like some novice.
“Well, you tell her presence I wanna know where that dagnab recipe is! I have to prepare for this stupid contest. Cain’t make jam without a recipe. Won’t get me to Maui either.”
“Why not just tell her yourself, Merrily? Talk to her as if she was sitting right in front of you, and if she responds, I’ll tell you what she says.”
Merrily looked at me, her expression full of skepticism. “You mean just talk to dead air like some silly fool who’s lost her marbles? That’s ridiculous! You’re a medium, for goodness sake. That means you’re supposed to be in the middle of all this nonsense. You do the talking. Isn’t that what I’m paying you for?”
I bit the inside of my cheek and held my tongue. “Okay, so you know we’re on the up and up, why don’t you ask Hester to tell me something no one else knows? A secret, like maybe your favorite color or your favorite television show. Nothing too personal, mind you.” I always, always prefaced with “nothing too personal” because I knew the afterlife and their love of the mischievous.
Win gasped with a sharp suddenness in my ear. “Hester! I absolutely will not tell Stevie that secret! In fact, you shouldn’t even be telling me that secret. Oh, Hester Watson. For shame! For shame!”
I heard a faint cackling giggle echo before it faded into the ether. Hester was obviously enjoying her afterlife stab at Merrily.
“Fine!” Merrily harrumphed with an exasperated sigh. “Tell her to tell ya what my first suitor’s name was.”
“Hester? Did you hear Merrily? She wants you to tell me what her first suitor’s name was.”
Win cleared his throat. “Hester asked if you want to know the name of the suitor Merrily tells everyone, including her husband, was her first—or the truth?”
I fidgeted in my chair as Merrily gripped my hand, her lips pursed. Things were getting a little heated, but I hoped to keep it under control. “Um, Miss Watson? Hester asked if you want the real name of your first suitor, or the one you tell everyone was your first, including your husband?”
Merrily hissed her disapproval, her small eyes scrunching above her cheeks in outrage. “You tell Hester she’d better watch herself, or I’ll tell all of Eb Falls how she was shuckin’ Leeman Weiss’s corn stalk in his barn last year!”
Before I had the chance to speak, Win cut me off. “Hester says her sister better stuff a sock in it before she tells Merrily’s dearly departed husband, Conroy, she lied to him about their wedding night. He wasn’t the first to poke that pig.”
My eyes flew open wide as I squirmed and Whiskey moaned at my feet. “Now, Hester. That’s not nice!”
“Oh, what’s the old bat sayin’ now?” Merrily asked, her eyes pinning me with her glare, made even more frightening by the flames of the candles dancing wildly in their holders.
I ignored Merrily’s antagonistic question and chose to address Hester directly, hoping to soothe her ruffled feathers. “Hester? We’re all friends here. Let’s play nice, yes? We just have a quick question and we’ll be out of your hair, so to speak. Merrily’s entering the Ebenezer Falls end-of-summer jam contest—in your honor, I might add. Isn’t that lovely? All she’d like to know is where you’ve hidden the recipe for your blueberry jam, so she can whip up a batch or two and take one home for the team. Can you help us, please?”
Win coughed…then he coughed again. “Oh. Oh no, Hester. I can’t possibly repeat that. It’s not polite.” Then he gasped in horror in that wheezing, squealing way that always made me laugh. “Tsk-tsk, Hester, where are you manners? She was your sister, for bloody sake!”
Oh, boy. I wasn’t even going to ask. I went right to deflect.
I cocked my ear and pretended to listen to Hester, hoping Win could find a way to appease her while I stalled Merrily. “What’s that? What did you say, Hester?”
“She says Merrily can stuff her blueberries into her big, fat, wrinkly bleep-bleep and then bleep them right back out of her sagging bleep-bleep-bleep, because she absolutely won’t tell her where she hid the recipe.”
Merrily was growing more agitated by the second. She banged a hand on the table and demanded, “What is that bag o’ wind spoutin’?”
I blanched just before the table began to rock, the legs lifting and slamming back to the ground.
Merrily jumped up, holding her bag close to her chest as she began to back away from the table, her eyes darting about the room with fear in them. She’d gone from bully to baby lamb in just seconds. “Is that her? Are you here, Hester?”
I leaned forward on the table to hold it down, riding it like a mechanical bull as it bucked beneath me. “Hester! Stop that this instant! This is no way to behave! Now you cut it out! This is a brand new table and what you’re doing in your fit of childish rage amounts to nothing more than a temper tantrum!”
The table stopped for a moment and I thought maybe Hester was going to let things lie—but it was only a small moment, before the heavy table of Séance Command Central began to turn, first with one slow creak then a quicker, sharper motion, knocking the candles to the floor.
“Hester! Stooop!” I yelled, clinging to the edge of the table, my head spinning and my stomach heaving.
Whiskey barked beneath me, jumping as high as a St. Bernard who weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds can in a futile attempt to save me. He nipped at my long caftan and my feet, growling and snarfing.
But clearly this jam recipe was a bigger bone of contention between the Watson sisters than I’d first thought, because Hester decided to make the table levitate—straight upward toward the ceiling with the speed of light.
Which meant I’d be mashed against the ceiling if I didn’t roll now.
“Stevie!” Win bellowed an instruction. “Tuck and roll, Dove! Tuck and roll!”
Just as I was about to tip over the edge, my eyes shut tight, I heard a voice, a soft, melodic voice, call out in crystal-clear admonishment, “Hester Watson, how could you treat your sister this way?”
My eyes popped open seconds before the table crashed to the ground with me on top of it, sprawled out on my stomach spread-eagle style, like I’d been nailed to a cross.
“Ahhhhh!” I screamed as I lost my grip on the edge of the table and my head flew back on impact, only to smash back against the hardwood surface. “Ow!”
“Dove? Dove, are you all right?”
Blood spewed from my nose as I slid off the table and fell to my slippered feet, almost losing my balance. But I wasn’t thinking about anything but the voice I’d heard reprimanding Hester.
“Did you hear her, Win?” I asked, forgetting Merrily, who stood in the corner, her handbag still clutched to her chest, her eyes wild with fear.
“Who, Hester?” he asked.
And then I looked across the room by my precious snow globes, which had suffered more than one accident with an angry ghost, and I saw from whom the voice had come.
Filmy and billowing, almost like a flag on a breezy day, a figure with masses of long dark hair and a pretty heart-shaped face hovered behind Merrily Watson.
She smiled at me then, smiled and waved before wrapping her arm around another hunched figure and disappearing into the wall.
“Was that—?” Win didn’t finish his question because I nodded in confirmation.
“Yeah. That was Sophia Fleming.”
Chapter 7
“Fire in the hole!” Win shouted, startling me out of my half-elated, half-bewildered state. “Get the fire extinguisher, Stevie, before this whole place is a bonfire!”
I made a run for the back room, where we had our kitchenette and coffeepot, and grabbed the extinguisher off the wall, racing back out to locate the candle that had managed to fall out of its holder and set the edge of the bamboo rug on fire. Spraying it until it was extinguished, I stomped on the rug as I went, while Whiskey ran in circles, barking excitedly.
When I’d finally stamped out the flames, and the smoke was the only thing lingering in the air, I looked to where Merrily had been standing—to find she’d flown the coop.
Letting my head drop to my chest, I noted some drops of blood splash onto the floor. My fingers went to my aching nose, swelling beneath my fingertips.
“Boss? Pinch the bridge of your nose and let’s get you something to ice that honker of yours. If it gets any bigger, we’re gonna have to get it its own license and register it with the DMV,” Bel twittered, buzzing in the air before landing on my neck.
I nodded, still too dazed to respond as I made my way to our back room and went to the fridge to see what I could dig out to put on my nose. I’d forgotten to pick up ice, so a box of corn dogs would have to do. Grabbing one still in the wrapper, I held it to my tender nose and winced when I caught a reflection of myself in our toaster oven.
Rinsing a paper towel under the faucet, I dabbed at the drying blood, my nose almost twice the size it had been when I’d hastily thrown on some mascara and lip gloss this morning.
“Stevie, that doesn’t look good. It might be wise to take yourself off to the doctor. It could be broken.”
I flapped a hand at Win and shook my head, resituating the corn dog on my nose. “It’s not broken. That’s not even a blip on my radar compared to what just happened. I saw, Sophia, Win. Saw her! I’d
jump up and down, maybe even twerk, but my head hurts too much. What’s happening to me, Win?”
“If you don’t know, I surely don’t. I have to believe your will is far stronger than Adam Westfield could ever hope to be. But I’m pleased as the vicar with a full congregation on a Sunday morning for you, Dove. It tickles me no end you might be having a breakthrough. You miss your powers far more than you let on. I know it pains you, despite your brave front.”
What Win said was the truth. I did miss my powers. I missed them so much sometimes my teeth ached from the missing. But I’d found out I didn’t need them to fulfill me the way I’d once thought. The deep void in my life was full of other things that made me happy. Like Win, and Bel, and Whiskey, and being Madam Zoltar 2.0.
I don’t know that I realized it until just this second, but actually seeing Sophia, knowing she was on the other side, didn’t make me hope I’d see more ghosts in the future. It rooted me in the here and now.
Right now, I had seen Sophia. Living in the moment was all I had to offer. I wouldn’t pin my hopes on my powers returning because I couldn’t live my life on the premise of what-if.
Still, I nodded while my nose throbbed. “I do miss them sometimes. But mostly, I’m content with what I have.”
Win’s aura, warm and reassuring, circled me, stronger than ever. “You’re an amazing lass, Dove.”
“Do you see her anywhere?”
“I’m sorry, m’love. She’s gone,” Win replied.
“Do you think she was trying to tell me something, Win?” I wondered out loud, my heart clenching at the thought that Sophia was lost somewhere on the other side, needing help. But she didn’t look at all like she was lost. In fact, she’d been the one helping.
“How is it possible she’s not on Plane Limbo with me, Dove? I thought if she’d crossed, she couldn’t appear to a medium?”
The Old Witcheroo Page 7