“Lucky girl.” He chuckled, and then the smile fell off his face. He stared down at a long, twisted burn mark on the scarred picnic table. “Is this really happening? Is Jo really dead? Like, forever?”
I walked around the picnic table, sat next to him, and looked at the waterfall. It wasn’t much of a waterfall, more of a river coming down a hill. The sound was more impressive than the visual. If I closed my eyes, the whoosh rose up around me and blotted out the rest of the world. It was like being at the bottom of the ocean, except with the occasional bird call cutting through the white noise.
“She’s gone,” Nash said. “Jo is gone.” He took in a raspy breath. “And the worst part is, I feel nothing.”
I leaned toward him and put my arm around his shoulder. He was even bonier than he looked, his scapula sharp under the thin concert T-shirt.
“That’s just shock,” I said. “The grief will set in eventually.” I patted his bony shoulder. “Nash, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“What loss?” He turned to me, his cheeks dry and his eyes bright. He didn’t look the least bit upset.
I slowly took my arm back. “Nash, are you feeling okay?”
He grinned. “That’s my line. I’m supposed to ask if you’re feeling okay. Like I used to do when we were kids, and I’d make girls cry just by showing them a bit of concern.”
“Making teenaged girls cry is like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“Zed, are you okay?”
“I’m a little upset over Josephine Pressman’s death. Aren’t you?”
“That’s the funny thing,” he said. “I’m not upset. I was more upset about paying ten seventy-five for those cans of soda.” He smacked his lips. “And now I’m upset we already drank them on the first leg of the trail. The sound of that waterfall is making me thirsty.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you were in love with Jo. A person doesn’t travel across the country and pay for an expensive suite at a luxury resort to see a woman he doesn’t care about.”
“I don’t understand it either, but ever since we had the wine, things were different.”
“How?” I waved my hands. “I mean when? When did you have wine with her?”
“The day before yesterday. We went for a walk to talk things over, and that was when I realized I wasn’t in love with her.”
“You mean that you were just friends?”
“Not even.” He stared at the waterfall, which continued its relaxing whooshing. “More like the total neutrality you’d have for a stranger. I didn’t feel love or hate or passion or even friendship.” He turned to look me in the eyes. “I know I told you Jo and I were still friends, and that’s what I said to the detective, but to be honest with you, Zed, I didn’t even feel friendship toward her. We sat right here, and we talked, and then I felt nothing. After I heard she was dead, I was sad, but only about as sad as you’d get finding out some random person you don’t know died.” He looked down at the scarred picnic table again. “You know how some people believe in love potions?”
“Uh, sure.” Where was he going with this?
“Don’t call the cuckoo police to come lock me up or anything, but we brought a bottle of wine here when we came to talk.” He paused, frowning as he picked at the burn marks on the wooden table. “I think Jo put some kind of anti-love potion in my wine.”
I didn’t have to pretend I was taking his theory seriously. If magic was real, that meant love potions and even anti-love potions might be real.
“She drugged you? Did you see her put something in your drink?”
“No, but I know that wine. I know the taste of it. That’s my favorite wine, which is why I bought it that night.”
“Didn’t you buy two bottles?”
He flicked his gaze up to meet mine. “How’d you know I bought two bottles?”
“The detective,” I said. “I was listening in when that Bentley guy was talking to someone.” Close enough.
“The store had a two-for-one special. Given the price of things here at the resort, I figured I should get my bargains when I could.”
“Sounds reasonable.” I waved for him to continue.
“We left one bottle in her apartment and brought the other up here. I thought we could drink it straight from the bottle, like old times in New York, but she brought along these plastic wine glasses, and she was dead serious about using them, too. But then, as soon as I had my first sip, I knew something was off.”
“But you drank it anyway?”
Nash shrugged. “I thought she wanted to have a good time. I thought whatever she put in there was recreational, if you know what I mean.”
“What happened?”
“We talked for a while, and my head felt funny. The waterfall got louder and louder. And then, it felt like all my feelings for her were playing through an amp, and then the volume got turned way down until it was off. No signal. I figured it was just the booze, but then yesterday morning, I woke up and I couldn’t remember why I was there.”
“Like your memory got wiped?”
“Nah. It just took me a minute to figure out where I was, because I didn’t feel that ache in my heart. My feelings for Jo were just gone.”
I stared at him. He pushed his thinning hair back on his temples, looking all of his thirty-something years and then some.
“Zed, don’t tell anyone how crazy I am.” He glanced around the tree canopy above us, wild-eyed. I followed his gaze. A flash of blue caught my eye. A blue jay was watching us from above.
I pointed my finger at the blue jay and mouthed I see you watching us, Mom. The blue jay let out a strangely metallic warble.
Nash continued talking. “I know there’s no such thing as love potions or anti-love potions. But I saw Jo getting a glass vial from that little person, and I started thinking about how much he looked like a gnome, and I guess my imagination got away from me. Anti-love potions. Whoever heard of such a thing? Curse my creativity, right? It’s a blessing, but… you know.”
“Wait. You saw Jo get a glass vial of something from a little person? Was this man nearsighted, with a big nose? About seventy? Pretty much bald?”
Nash held up both hands. “I mean no disrespect to little people, but that guy could be in a Lord of the Rings movie with no makeup needed.”
“I understand. And I think I know who you mean.”
“Maybe it was a new kind of party drug,” Nash said. “I hear some of the new stuff can be subtle and mind opening.”
“I thought you didn’t do drugs.”
He looked sheepish. “I’m a musician, Zed. The occasional bit of untested chemical compound has slipped past these sexy lips.” He made a pouty mouth, doing his classic Mick Jagger impression. “These sexy, sexy lips,” he said.
“Those sexy lips have been known to spew a whole lot of bullcrap,” I said.
He gave me a mock wounded expression. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the blue jay flit over to a closer branch. All the better to listen.
I would deal with my mother and her bird spies later. I gave my old friend a serious look and asked, “Is any of what you told me true?” I subtly cast my bluffing spell, which would increase my charisma along with his gullibility. “You want to tell me the whole truth, Nash. Everything. You want to be honest.”
He swallowed audibly. “It’s all true. Everything I’ve told you today.”
I believed him. And, since I had him on a spell anyway, I asked him another important question.
“Who were the people Jo owed money to?”
He glanced over at the waterfall, then back at me. “Mr. Visa and Mrs. MasterCard.”
“No. I mean the people in New York she was scared of. The bad guys. Mafia types?”
He sighed. “There weren’t any bad guys. She made that up to get her father to rustle up some cash for her.” He looked down at his cigarette, which was entirely ash now, since he’d forgotten to take more puffs after the initial ones. “Why didn’t I tell the detective that?”
He was talking to himself more than to me. “She felt so guilty about what happened to her dad. I guess we both wanted to believe the bad guys were real, so we could blame someone else.” He took out a second cigarette and lit it. The flame seemed brighter now than before, the forest around us darker. “I never met Perry, but I hear he was a good man.”
“He was a good man,” I said. “He deserved better than what happened to him.”
“What did happen to him?”
I lied and said I didn’t know.
We talked about Perry Pressman for a few minutes while Nash smoked.
The mist from the waterfall made the air chilly. I shivered as I got a stereo-vision memory of the night Perry was put out of his misery. I experienced the memory from the vantage point of where I’d been floating, outside of my body, and I saw it through Jo’s eyes as well. The sight from either angle was horrific.
Whether she understood what happened consciously or not, Jo must have been in terrible pain. She must have felt so guilty about lying to her father about criminals chasing after her for debts.
No wonder she’d been in therapy.
If she really had purchased an anti-love potion from the gnome, it must have been for Nash’s protection. To get him as far away from her as possible, where he couldn’t be hurt. But was that what had happened?
The idea fit, and I desperately wanted to understand the dead girl’s actions, but it didn’t quite sound like the Jo I knew, the Jo who made me kiss Archer Caine and then, hours later, nibble on Chet Moore’s finger. That girl was more focused on getting what she wanted.
Chapter 28
On the way back from the waterfall, as we passed through the castle’s gardens, I spotted the diminutive Griebel Gorman. How appropriate. A gnome in the garden.
Nash didn’t see him, because my old pal was looking down, kicking a pinecone, and talking excitedly about the new songs he’d been working on. His big breakthrough was just around the corner, he could feel it. I told Nash it had been great to catch up with him, and that he should go ahead into the castle without me. “I’d like to sit in the rose garden and work on my tan,” I said.
He laughed, exactly how I knew he would.
“Silly redhead,” he said. “Tanning is for people with melanin.”
“I have melanin.”
“Only in your freckles.” He leaned down to pick up the pinecone he’d kicked all the way from the waterfall, and handed it to me as a gift. “Here. To remember our walk today.”
I accepted the pinecone. “Nash, I’ve missed your thoughtful gifts.”
We joked around for another minute, about the pine cones and pebbles he used to give me, most of them sourced from my own back yard. The whole time, I kept one eye on the gnome. Griebel Gorman was dressed in a grounds keeper’s uniform of gray coveralls, and appeared to be fixing the irrigation system. Clearly he wasn’t all that terrified of Chet Moore if he’d stuck around Castle Wyvern after the altercation a few hours earlier.
I said goodbye to Nash, promising I’d stay in touch. The blue jay who’d been watching us by the waterfall continued to keep an eye on us from its perch in an ornamental oak tree.
Once Nash had gone inside and I was alone with the blue jay, who I assumed was my mother’s spy, I pointed in the direction of the gnome and gave the bird a meaningful look. The bird nodded and flitted to a lower branch. If my mother had listened in on the conversation at the waterfall, she’d understand why I wanted to ask Griebel some follow-up questions. I would, of course, tell both Bentley and the agents at the DWM my new discovery about Jo’s dealings with the groundskeeper, but I wanted to try talking to the guy first. He was friends with my aunt, so he couldn’t be entirely bad.
“Hello there,” I said in a friendly tone. I walked toward him but stopped outside spitting radius.
The short man jerked his head up and hastily pulled his glasses over his beady eyes. “Riddle witch,” he said. “The niece. Zara.”
I held up both hands. “Easy now. I just want to talk. I don’t mean you any harm.”
He looked around the sunny, manicured gardens. His gaze didn’t linger on the blue jay. He glanced back at the castle. The tallest spire, the bell tower, loomed high overhead, casting a dark, crisp shadow across the grounds. We were alone in the garden but in view of several large picture windows. I could see castle visitors dining and enjoying the garden views from the other side of the glass. The back of my neck tingled with a sense of danger, yet I felt confident he wouldn’t attack me in full view of so many witnesses. But just in case he did spit acid at me, I’d already noted the location of a garden sprayer.
Griebel Gorman licked his lips in a way that felt threatening, given the nature of his saliva. “What do you want, witch?”
“Just a chat,” I said, slowly lowering my hands. A whiff of something earthy yet foul hit my nostrils. “What’s that smell?”
“Manure. The finest horse droppings money can buy.” He thumbed in the direction of an old-fashioned wagon containing no small amount of brown matter. It sat in the shadow cast by the bell tower, so I hadn’t noticed it before.
“And is that your only job around here? Mucking around in horse manure?”
His small, deep-set eyes twinkled. “I do other things.”
“I bet you do.” I struck a more casual pose. “If you have time, I’d love to chat with you about love potion. I hear you’re the man who can supply such things.”
“Yeah?” He pressed a finger to the side of his large nose and blew out the other side onto the ground. “Who told you that?”
I glanced down at the snot that was now glistening on the pea gravel beneath his work boots. The visual of that, combined with the scent of horse manure, turned my stomach. Then I had a more troubling thought. If his saliva was so toxic, could his snot be another weapon? I stared at the ground. Had the snot moved? My pulse quickened.
He repeated his question. “Who told you?”
The snot hadn’t moved. I could relax, but not too much.
“Josephine Pressman told me,” I said. “You supplied her with a vial of something that made her ex-boyfriend lose interest in her.”
“So? What’s the harm in that?”
I smiled inwardly. I’d been right. And now I was one step closer to solving the puzzle and sending another satisfied ghost customer on their way.
“No harm,” I said. “You probably did the poor boy a favor.” I took a step back, no longer worrying about the mucus, and pretended to be fascinated by a plump rose blossom. “Since it worked so well, I was just wondering, what other kinds of potions do you make?”
“What did the girl tell you?”
I kept touching the soft rose petals as I turned my head and looked him straight in the eyes. “Mr. Gorman, if you know about my specialty, then you should already be aware that I know everything. I have all of Jo’s memories. Every last one.”
He lifted his chin and stared up at me belligerently. His enormous nostrils flared, revealing multiple boogers. Were those also weapons?
“You’re bluffing,” he said.
“There were two bottles of wine,” I said. “Jo brought one bottle to the waterfall, and she shared it with her ex-boyfriend. She drugged him with a potion you gave her. It was a potion that made him fall out of love with her.”
He wiggled his nose but didn’t look away from me. His expression told me I was right so far.
“Then she used the other bottle of wine for something else,” I said. “Another potion from you.”
He said nothing.
“Only something went wrong, and the poor girl paid with her life.”
“Yeah?” His face twitched. Something I’d said made him uncomfortable. The breeze changed direction, and the manure scent emanating from the nearby wagon all but disappeared.
“And she blamed you,” I said. “You should know that Jo Pressman cursed your name with her dying breath.”
His tiny eyes widened behind the thick eyeglasses. “She did? Oh
no.” The corners of his eyes glistened with tears. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”
Inwardly, I fist pumped. I’d been bluffing, but I’d hit upon something. The gnome wasn’t entirely evil. He felt bad about what happened to Jo. He hadn’t meant for her to get hurt. Was he an ally? Deadly boogers and all?
In a soft, soothing tone, I said, “You can help me put her spirit at peace, Mr. Gorman.”
His lower lip quivered. “B-b-but I can’t talk to you. I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“You can trust me.” I used silent Witch Tongue to weave my bluffing spell around my words. Would it work on gnomes? It couldn’t hurt to try. “Zinnia’s my mentor, and you trust Zinnia, don’t you? She’s your friend.”
He nodded, lower lip still quivering. “Zinnia Riddle is my friend. She’s one of the good ones.”
“Then you can tell me,” I said, stepping forward slowly. “You can tell me what was in the other bottle of wine. Was it another of your potions?”
He stammered, “D-d-did she really curse my name? My full name?”
“Mr. Gorman, how much potion did you sell Jo Pressman? Was all of it for falling out of love?”
He held up a finger for me to wait. He looked down and dug around in the central pocket of his groundskeeper overalls. He pulled out what appeared to be a spiky seed—like the pinecone from Nash that was now in my back pocket, except smaller. He handed the seed to me.
The blue jay who’d been watching us flitted down to land on my shoulder. Mr. Gorman didn’t react to the bird, which should have been a clue to me that I was in danger. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have known what was coming next.
I extended my hand and let him drop the spiky seed on my palm. It was impossibly heavy, at least a pound. But how could that be?
The gnome used his own hands to make the gesture of cupping one hand over the other. He nodded for me to do the same.
I did.
The little man smiled, and then clapped his hands three times.
Pain shot through me as black spots appeared on the top of my hand. The spots grew from my hand, extending out as spikes. The tiny seed cupped within my palms had expanded rapidly and magically, sprouting out through the flesh and bones of my hands. Now both of my hands were locked together, and in searing pain.
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