A Visitation of Angels

by Carolyn Haines

  “Were you friends with Ruth?”

  She looked at me with great calm. “I was. We shared a common…situation. Ruth was afraid to be my friend, but it didn’t stop her. She helped me in the first weeks of Callie’s life. We loaned each other books and shared a love of the forest. I was a danger to her, because my sin was public.”

  The horror of Elizabeth’s life made me realize how very fortunate I’d been. My husband had been killed in France during the fighting, but Uncle Brett had stepped up as my protector. Elizabeth had no one. Her baby was more liability than benefit.

  “Who might have wanted to hurt Ruth?” I asked.

  She thought about it. “Ruth knew a lot of secrets. She didn’t gossip, but she knew the weakness of the flesh.” She stood up and went to stir her pot of stew.

  Reginald exchanged a look with me. “We need to talk with this McEachern man. Is he anything to you?” Reginald asked her. “If you were involved with him we need to know now.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Why has he been identified as the killer?”

  “It’s the land. Slater McEachern wanted it and tried to buy it, but she wouldn’t sell to him. People think he killed her so he could get it.” She looked down for a moment. “Women don’t really own land in Mission. I lied to buy mine because I thought my brother would show up. He didn’t have to be my husband, only a man. Ruth’s husband died and the land was hers, but the town was pressuring her to sell it. There were those who desperately wanted it.”

  “Why is that land so important?” Reginald continued to question Elizabeth as I got up and went to stand beside her at the window. She took the baby from me before she answered.

  “There’s a spring on the land.” Her smile was secretive. “Some people say it has healing properties.”

  “Healing properties?” My curiosity was instantly aroused, and I wondered if she’d tried the water herself.

  “That’s what Ruth told people.” She shrugged. “I’m not a big believer in miracle water.”

  Said the woman who claimed her child had been fathered by an archangel.

  She laughed at my expression. “Callie isn’t a miracle. Not exactly. She is my gift from the divine. She was given to me, along with the dreams. Now I must honor my obligation and speak the truth.”

  Reginald leaned in closer to her. “You need to be careful, Miss Maslow. There is talk in town already about you. The best thing you can do is keep your head down and let this pass. Raissa and I may be able to help your friend, but you, more than anyone other than McEachern, are in a dangerous position.”

  She went to the stove and stirred her stew for a long minute. A delicious smell wafted from the little black pot. “I would like nothing better than to live my life in solitary pursuit with my child. I have no interest in public attention. But I know what I must do.”

  “No divinity would require suicide,” Reginald said. He spoke softly, but it didn’t lessen the harsh impact of his words. “If you persist in speaking out on McEachern’s behalf, I fear you’ll be swept up in the mob rule. They will hurt you.”

  Elizabeth didn’t blink or avert her gaze. She held first Reginald, then me, in a steady look. “Then I must suffer what comes. The only way out of this that I see is for you to find the real murderer. That would save me, and my child.” She came to us and put a hand on our arms. A tingle went through me, and for a split second I saw a golden aura shot through with azure around her head. It was gone even before I could truly see it. “If I’m injured or killed, promise me you’ll take Callie away from here. They won’t harm a child. At least not immediately. You’ll have time to run with her. If they come for me, you must do that and send the sheriff from Victoria, which is the nearest big town. Promise me.”

  “Shouldn’t we simply call the sheriff from Victoria now?” Reginald asked.

  “He won’t come.” She walked to the window and looked out, her face a study in total acceptance of the choices before her. “Mission is a problem he ignores. Deputy Gomes doesn’t trouble him with matters here, and he lets Gomes and the town leaders handle things their way.”

  The reality of what we faced made my stomach roil, but I wasn’t ready to accept defeat without first trying.

  “Shouldn’t we all just leave now? Raissa’s uncle can speak with the governor. He might have more success saving McEachern than anything we can do.”

  “There’s no time now,” Elizabeth said. “Events have been set in motion. Just promise me you’ll take Callie and leave if they come for me.”

  “I promise.” Her courage sparked my own.

  Reginald said nothing, but he didn’t disagree. At last he spoke. “That’s presuming we’re not standing on the gallows beside you.”

  Chapter 3

  By the time we finished eating a pleasant supper of stew and cornbread in Elizabeth’s kitchen, the sun was sinking and the air cooling. We hadn’t talked about the details of why we were in Mission—Elizabeth stayed on her feet, cooking, serving, tending the baby. When I finished drying the dishes after she’d washed, she turned to me. “I like to take a walk at this time of day. Would you and Reginald mind walking with me?”

  “We still need to go over exactly what you saw. In your dream,” I reminded her. I enjoyed her company, but I had a demanding itch to get out of Mission as quickly as we could. I wasn’t afraid, exactly. It was more the sensation of impending doom—something tragic just on the horizon waiting to roll over us like the tornadoes famous for sweeping across the Cumberland Plateau. Like any sensible soul, I wanted to run from it.

  “There’s a place in the woods. It’s cooler there. We can talk then.”

  Reginald shrugged, and we both stood up to follow Elizabeth out the front door. Little Callie hugged Elizabeth’s neck and looked over her shoulder, seeming to watch us as we followed in tandem. The child hadn’t uttered a single cry or demand since we’d arrived. Elizabeth had taken her out of the room to feed and change her, but not because the baby had demanded food or attention. She was eerily self-contained for an infant.

  Elizabeth moved gracefully down a narrow path that skirted a chicken yard filled with the soothing clucking of hens, an enclosure that once was a pigpen, and a paddock attached to the barn that held a buckskin mare. I caught the outline of a fine carriage sheltered in the barn aisle. The carriage was an incongruity on the hardscrabble farm.

  Elizabeth glanced in the barn. “I had a fine driving team for the carriage and some cows and pigs when I first came here. I played the role of the wife with a prosperous husband on the way. I would never have been allowed to buy land and stay here otherwise, and I had to stay. At least for a while.”

  “Why do you stay?” I asked.

  She ignored my question and continued to talk. “In the past six months, I’ve found people to care for the animals, and they’ve gone to new homes. There’s only Mariah left—” Elizabeth gestured to the mare, “—and I’ll take her with me when I leave here.”

  Reginald and I exchanged a look. She’d been working on her plans for a while.

  The minute we left a fallow garden behind and stepped into the woods, I felt an immense burden lifted from me. I inhaled deeply, air sweet and pure and filled with golden light that filtered through the canopy of the trees. The temperature dropped at least ten degrees, and even Reginald relaxed.

  In the center of the clearing was a mighty white oak, the limbs spread wide and the leaves dancing on a breeze. Looking up at the tree, I felt the promise of fall, though there was no indication of the changing of the seasons. It was still hot as blazes. Yet fall was close. The tree seemed to whisper the upcoming change to me.

  We were being watched, but this time I knew it was not by citizens of Mission. These were spirits of the long departed: Indians, settlers, trappers, explorers who’d crossed the Cumberland Plateau in the service of Hernando de Soto and others. Their shadows stood behind trees or in the dim swirl of light pooling beneath the branches. These ghosts were harmless,
sad remnants of a long-ago past. Something held them here, but I had no sense they were ready to depart. They were biding their time. But I hadn’t come to help them, nor did they want my help. I stepped up my pace to stay with Reginald and Elizabeth. Living with Uncle Brett and the luxury of a motor car at my disposal at all times, I’d grown a bit soft. Elizabeth strode down the trail carrying a baby without effort.

  Even in a motor car, the journey to Mission had been long and difficult. I couldn’t imagine traveling in a wagon with all my worldly goods and perhaps a few children. The early pioneers had been of stalwart stock.

  I nudged Reginald as Elizabeth prepared a blanket on the ground for Callie. The placid infant didn’t protest as Elizabeth put her down.

  “Do you sense the spirits?” I asked my partner quietly. Reginald had a great gift for reading people. He could often see into a person’s heart with keen understanding of his motives. But he wanted to be able to see spirits, as I did. When I knew spirits were near, I let him know so he could practice feeling the sensations of their presence. Sometimes it was like a breeze tickling my skin. Sometimes it was a warmth or a sensation of color or a vibration or even a smell. More often, I could see them, some more fully formed than others. And then there were the times that my heart squeezed tight from the malevolence that radiated off an angry or evil spirit. I’d met a few of those too.

  Reginald stepped away from me, allowing the sensations to encompass only him. He closed his eyes. “There’s peace here. Whoever is in the woods has accepted their fate. It’s almost like nostalgia holds them here.”

  “Very good.” I couldn’t help but beam at him as if he were a star pupil. He was not a true sensitive, but he had abilities he could hone. He might never see spirits in the way I did, but he could certainly learn a more acute awareness. He was improving with each case.

  Callie kicked her arms and legs and gurgled, and Elizabeth picked her up. “Excuse me.” She stepped into the woods to feed Callie in privacy, and Reginald and I drank in the comforting solitude.

  * * *

  “Now I’ll tell you everything,” Elizabeth said, having returned to the clearing and put Callie down for a nap. “This is the best place to hear my story.”

  “Just start from the beginning. When did you first meet Slater McEachern?” I needed to get it clear in my mind. I still was uncertain why she’d called Pluto’s Snitch to help her. She wasn’t haunted, as far as I could tell. There was no danger to her from supernatural elements. The danger she faced was from very human sources—the people of Mission.

  She took a seat on a stump and began. “I came to Mission months ago, leading people to believe my husband would be joining me, as I told you. The homestead had been abandoned, and the bank was relieved for me to take over, cash in hand. No one asked too many questions.”

  “Where did you come from?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. It only matters that I was directed here. I settled in, making some cash from selling jams and soaps and sewing. For the first months, everything was good. I was accepted. And then I got pregnant, had my baby, and the dreams began. I didn’t tell anyone or say anything. I was uncertain if what I dreamt was real and true, so I began to test it.”

  “How?” Reginald asked.

  “The day after Callie was born, Ruth Whelan stopped by with some fresh bread and jam for me. She had a cut on her face.” She touched her cheekbone. “Here. She said she’d tripped and hit her face on a cabinet door.” She cleared her throat. “That night I dreamed what really happened. A man struck her. Punched her, really. His ring cut her face. A ring with a lion embossed in the gold.”

  “Who owns such a ring?” Reginald asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it on the hand of a Mission man. This is a plain community. Neither the men or women here wear fancy jewelry. Displays of wealth, for most people, are frowned upon.” She paused, then continued. “But I know what I saw was true, because the next time I saw Ruth, I told her I knew a man had hurt her and I described the ring. She went very white and almost fainted and told me to keep my mouth shut and to stay out of her business. She accused me of spying on her. Why would she think I was spying unless what I described was what really took place the night she hurt her face?”

  She had a point there.

  “It happened again a few days later. I dreamed that little Hildy Morse was lost in the woods. I could see her in the trees. She was so scared and upset. She’d wandered away from home and gotten turned around. A young woman found her and led her back to the path. She warned Hildy not to tell it was her. And Hildy didn’t. Her folks were so relieved to find her they never questioned her. But I saw her playing beneath an old oak tree after church one day and I asked her. She started to cry and begged me not to tell on her ‘friend.’”

  “Why wouldn’t the woman want credit for helping a lost child?” Reginald asked.

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Depends on what she was doing in the woods, doesn’t it? The people of Mission judge harshly for the sins of the flesh.”

  “And you didn’t see the young woman’s face?”

  She shook her head. “Only her hands. It was if I were inside her, looking out. I saw what she saw, felt what she felt. She was concerned for little Hildy, but she was also worried that Hildy would tell on her. It was very unsettling, to say the least. After one of those dreams, I wake up and I’m panting and sweating and I can hardly breathe. I honestly feel like I’m dying and I can’t control anything.” Just talking about it had made her forehead bead with sweat. As if the baby also felt her distress, little Callie began to pump her arms and legs and warble. It wasn’t like a sound I’d heard any other baby make. Elizabeth picked her up immediately and soothed her.

  “Do you dream every night?” Reginald asked.

  “No.”

  “When do you dream? Is there something that triggers it? Had you seen Hildy or Ruth the day you dreamed about them?” Reginald had an ability to cut to the logical heart of a situation.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No. Not that I recall. Since Callie was born, I stay to myself as much as possible. I have money hidden away, enough to care for me and Callie’s needs. If I thought the dreams were triggered by seeing people, I’d never go into town.” She hesitated. “It’s hard for me. I’m afraid that I’ll die in the middle of the dream.” She kissed Callie’s head. “What would happen to my child? That terrifies me. I’d like to stop dreaming, and maybe if I can help Slater McEachern, I will. I think I have to help him—that this is what the dreams have been about. I had to learn to trust them so I’d be brave enough to believe in them and take a stand. Once that is done, I can leave here forever.”

  Nothing Reginald or I said to her would stop her from trying to save a man she claimed to have no real bond with. I knew the power of her compulsion. She reminded me of the stories my mother had told me about Joan of Arc, another mystic who believed her mission was more important than her life. For her troubles she’d been burned at the stake.

  “Can you tell us about the dream where Ruth is killed?” I asked.

  She looked away, deep into the forest as if she saw something there. Maybe she did. I was keenly aware of our ghostly audience, but I knew they meant us no harm. Looking closer, I caught a glimpse of Union and Confederate soldiers, standing together, the false hatred of the war long forgotten in death.

  “It’s terrifying to talk about because I kind of relive it. Let me prepare.” She shifted on the stump, closed her eyes, and inhaled, exhaling slowly. She repeated the process several times before she nodded. “I’m ready.”

  “Tell us,” Reginald encouraged.

  “When the dream begins, I’m in the woods and it’s very dark. I use my hands to brace against the rough bark of the tree trunks. The blackjack oak, the maple, the pine. I know the way. I’ve been here many times. My eyes have adjusted, and I make my way toward a cabin with a light burning in the front window. I’m careful to be quiet, to make sure no one is about.” Her voice low
ered in register, taking on a more masculine tone. “Be quiet! Be quiet! Surprise is important. I knock on the oiled wood of the door. It’s a solid knock. Not timid. I’ll be welcomed—I know this.”

  I looked at Reginald. Elizabeth was slipping deeper and deeper into the memory. Her body was gently swaying back and forth, and her right hand made the movement of knocking. She seemed unaware of her actions.

  “I hear her footsteps coming to the door. Ruth. She cracks the door, surprised to see me, but she opens up for me to step inside. I’ve disturbed her evening and she holds her knitting in one hand. At first she is glad to see me, but that changes when she realizes something is wrong. She is wary of me, as if she intuits my intentions. She backs away from me, saying she’s tired. She wants me to leave. I move closer. She retreats. Her hands clutch her knitting and her fingers curl around one of the large needles. She knows. It’s in her pale blue eyes, the realization that she is going to die. And that I will enjoy killing her.

  She offers coffee, putting the kitchen table between us. Yes, coffee is good, I tell her. On the drain board near the sink I find what I need. When she turns to the stove to put the kettle on, I pick up the heavy meat cleaver she uses to dismember chickens. I’ve sat in her kitchen and watched her work many times before. Before she can turn around, I lift the blade high and wait. She faces me, sees it ready to strike. Her eyes go wide with shock but she doesn’t try to flee or scream. The blade cleaves into her skull like splitting a ripe melon.”

  Elizabeth made a savage chopping motion with her right hand, as if she held the cleaver.

  “I pull it free of the bone as she crumbles.” She twisted her hand as if she were dislodging the blade from Ruth’s head.

  “I slash at her neck and shoulder again and again. The thud of the blade in the flesh is good, satisfying. Blood and brains have sprayed around the kitchen.” She makes a motion as if to wipe the cleaver’s blade on a towel or cloth. “Ruth Whelan will no longer be a bother to me.”