by Sharon Pape
“I have one more question, if that’s okay?” It had bothered me since I saw her at the dinner. Ashley shrugged, and I took it as permission. “Why did you come back for the reunion?”
Her words were measured, her expression untroubled. “To prove to myself and everyone else that I was healed, whole again. That I could lose the love of my life and continue to live and be happy. For a long time after Scott died, I didn’t think it would ever be possible.”
Travis got to his feet and thanked Ashley for her time and her candor. I added my thanks and wished her continued success with her bakery. We were setting the rocking chairs back where they belonged, when a black SUV with dark tinted windows flew up over the curb and plowed into a group of people who were standing on the grass in front of the B&B.
Chapter 6
The driver immediately slammed the SUV into reverse and when the tires bit into the pavement and found traction, he tore off down the block. Travis, Ashley and I ran across the lawn to see if anyone was hurt. A man was on the ground, two of the others were kneeling beside him. A woman was standing, calling 911. As I got closer, I realized these were the two couples who had been in my shop the day before. The guy on the ground was Tony. Courtney and Chris were the ones at his side. Tessa was on the phone, her voice shaking. “I…I don‘t remember the address. W–wait a second…” I held out my hand, and she passed the phone to me. I gave the 911 operator the address of the Newcomb B&B and told her to hurry.
Shirley Newcomb came out of her house to see what all the commotion was about. “Oh my, oh dear,” she mumbled as she took in the scene. “Is that poor man alive? There’s a lot of blood.” Sweat was beading on her upper lip and she was starting to hyperventilate. I told her the police and ambulance were on their way, and as if on cue, their sirens ripped through the air.
I wound my arm around hers in case she became faint. “You’ll see, everything will be fine.” It wasn’t a lie, at least not yet. I walked her back inside, promising to keep her informed. She could have used Tilly’s calming tea. I ought to carry a packet of the leaves in my purse.
With Mrs. Newcomb seated in the house, I rejoined the others who were sitting or standing around Tony. I hunkered down beside him to check for a pulse, but when I touched his neck, he opened his eyes. That had to be a good sign. I smiled at him. He needed to believe he’d be okay.
“You were always an attention hog in school,” I teased him. “Apparently you haven’t changed a bit.” He was one of those kids who made teachers tear their hair out, yet he was bright and good-natured—likeable in spite of himself. He tried to smile back at me, but he only managed a grimace.
There had to be something I could do to help him. I could try a healing spell. They worked up to a point. They couldn’t bring people back from the brink of death. To save a life that was beyond prayer and medical help, you had to turn to black magick. My mother and grandmother had taught me, in no uncertain terms, that if they were ever in such dire straits, I was to let them go. As it happened, the accident that took their lives killed them instantly. But a simple healing spell is white magick at its best. It draws and focuses the positive energy in the universe to help an individual human or beast. With all the people around me, I had to cast the spell silently:
White light gather round this man,
Darkness keep at bay.
Ease his pain and give him heart
For whate’er comes today.
I completed the third repetition as the police car arrived with Hobart at the wheel. He swung the car around to block the street to traffic at one end and raced over to us. He dropped to his knees next to me. I told him the little we knew and introduced him to Courtney who was on the other side of her husband, trying to hold it together.
The ambulance was a minute behind Hobart. It pulled to the curb with a screech of its brakes. One of the EMTs jumped out of the cab with a medical bag. The other offloaded a gurney from the rear. In minutes they had Tony hooked up to an IV and loaded into the ambulance for the ride to the hospital in Watkins Glen. Courtney went with them. Travis and I followed in our car as did Tessa and Chris in theirs. Ashley stayed back with Shirley Newcomb to try to keep her calm.
“That was no accident,” I said once Travis and I were underway. “I’ll bet Tony was at the lake that night just like Genna.” Ahead of us, the ambulance raced through an intersection on a red light.
“Only a fool would bet against you. If Gillespie has half a brain, she’ll order the rest of the reunion attendees to get out of town before this place turns into a killing field.” He reached for my hand and squeezed it hard. “I’m glad you weren’t at the lake.”
“Me too.” Without me, my aunt Tilly would be adrift in the world with no family—unless you counted Merlin. But Merlin was a lot of work and that would only worsen with the years. What was I thinking? I shut down that train of thought. It fed on negativity, and for Tony’s sake we all needed to focus on the positive. I sent another email from my phone, warning the alums to take extra precautions.
When we reached the hospital, Tony was being wheeled into the operating room. Courtney filled us in. She seemed to be coping better now that he was under medical care. According to the doctors, he’d suffered a ruptured spleen, some bruising to other organs, several broken ribs, and a broken leg. He was lucky, they’d said. A matter of inches one way or the other and he would not have survived.
We stayed with Courtney and her friends until the surgeon came into the waiting room. This was the part I hated. The seconds before the doctor opened his mouth, the seconds during which the future hangs in the balance.
“He should make a full recovery,” he said. The relief in the room was palpable, the heaviness in the air dissipating like fog in the sunlight. “We’ll keep him here a couple of days for observation.” Courtney would be able to see him when he came out of recovery.
Travis and I caught up with the surgeon in the hall. Travis introduced himself, so the man wouldn’t think we were two crackpots suffering from paranoia. Luckily he’d seen Travis on the news. We explained what was going on and suggested he request police protection for Tony during his hospital stay.
Back in the waiting room, we asked Chris if he was at the lake on prom night. He was happy to say he was down with a stomach bug and missed the whole weekend. What had seemed like miserable luck back then, was now cause for relief. Time changes everything.
Travis had been planning to go home with me, until he received a text from his boss to anchor the news that night and run with the details of a possible serial killer. He couldn’t say no. The words serial killer had the potential to rocket the story across the country. The fact that there was a possible link to a high school prom made it all the more troubling, fascinating, frightening and relevant.
I had to get back to New Camel and open my shop for at least a few hours. I needed a dose of normal, or what passed for normal in my life. Besides, working would be cathartic, and money was always helpful when the bills came in. Rather than have Travis drive back and forth, wasting an hour and a half on the road, I decided to try the new car service that had finally come to the Glen.
Since I’d left Sashkatu at home when we went to interview Ashley, I had the driver drop me off there. I went looking for my crotchety old fellow, but he was nowhere to be found—common enough when he was in a snit. I’d committed the unforgiveable sin of leaving him home with the riffraff.
“I’m going to the shop,” I called with my hand on the doorknob. I counted to ten and opened the door. “Bye.” I was pulling it closed when he slinked through the narrowing space. “Nice of you to join me,” I said as we crossed the porch. “One day you’ll lose the tip of that tail if you cut it any closer.”
Inside Abracadabra he climbed his stairs to the window ledge in the sun and dozed off. I flipped the closed sign to open and sat down at my computer to wait for customers. My original email blast aski
ng for information about Genna’s murder had garnered a few dozen responses. I’d already skimmed through them on my phone in the hospital. There wasn’t any substantive information from any of the alums, but they all wished me luck in finding the killer. Either no one had information or no one wanted to get involved.
The email I’d sent that morning, elicited even more replies. No surprise—I’d upped the ante with a killer on the rampage, who appeared to be targeting reunion attendees. They wanted all the information I could supply. They probably didn’t see the irony of it.
I pushed back from my desk and was coming around the counter to do a little dusting, when Morgana’s energy cloud popped out of the ether, inches from my nose. I jumped back a good two feet. I loved my mother, but I drew the line at inhaling her.
“There you are,” Morgana said, seemingly unfazed by our close call. Maybe she knew such a thing wasn’t possible. Bronwen appeared beside her. Both their clouds were white and fluffy—no heavy agenda on their minds.
“It’s been hard to pin you down,” my grandmother said. “We wanted to assure ourselves that you were all right.” I did a slow three sixty so they could see for themselves that I was intact. “We heard what happened to Genna.”
Not for the first time, I wondered if there was a celestial news crawl or a grapevine that carried alerts from Earth. But I knew better than to ask. They’d made it clear from their first visits that they were forbidden to discuss their circumstances with those still hooked up to flesh and bone.
“Another alum was nearly killed today,” I said in case that news hadn’t yet reached them.
“You see,” my mother said, “aren’t you glad I didn’t let you go to the lake after the prom?”
“You didn’t even know about the lake, until the next day when Scott’s death was on the news. I made that decision myself.”
“She’s right,” Bronwen said. “You still try to take credit for things you didn’t do. Even after that intensive course on the value of being humble.”
“You’re just as bad as I am,” Morgana bristled, streaks of garnet spinning through her cloud.
“When did I claim a deed that wasn’t mine?”
“Ladies,” I said. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. Can you fight on your own time?” I’d thought they were doing better at not sniping as much, or maybe it just seemed that way since I hadn’t seen much of them lately.
“You’re right,” my mother said and my grandmother’s cloud bobbed in what I took to be a nod. “We wanted you to know that we don’t drop by as often, because it’s not as easy as it once was.” She lowered her voice and looked around like a spy worried about being overheard. “It seems we’ve been taking too long to move on to the next—.” She was gone in mid sentence. It wasn’t the gentle way she usually winked out. It was like she was yanked away by an unseen hand or the crook at an old vaudeville show. Bronwen’s cloud had turned a squeamish green.
“What just happened?” I asked.
Bronwen’s voice trembled. “I’m afraid she crossed the line. I warned her before we came. I should leave before I’m charged with aiding and abetting.” She disappeared, her last words still hanging in the air.
My insides were tumbling around as if they’d come untethered. My mother had just been trying to explain their absence. Maybe she would have to take remedial courses or start at the beginning again, like being left back a grade. The chimes over the door erupted, startling me.
Mimsy Wethers sashayed in, wearing a low-cut sundress with a pushup bra that was one wrong bounce away from a wardrobe malfunction. Some things never change. We weren’t friends in high school, we hung out in different circles, our orbits hardly ever intersecting. I’d noticed her at the dinner the other night, but managed to avoid her.
She gave my shop a quick once-over and headed straight toward me. We did the kissy cheek thing and I was nearly knocked out by the heavy perfume she must have bathed in. “Nice to see you Mimsy,” I said. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“I have to talk to you,” she said in the throaty whisper she once reserved for the boys. I offered her the chair and I leaned against the counter. “Can I trust you to be discreet?” she asked. I assured her she could, expecting her to request a spell to make someone fall in love with her, or to get rid of another woman, or to turn somebody into a frog. I was stunned when she blurted out, “I’m being haunted.”
“Why do you think you’re being haunted?”
“Because I keep seeing Scott Desmond.”
“In your dreams?”
“No,” she snapped. “I can tell the difference between a dream and reality. I wouldn’t have bothered to come in here if it was just a dream.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Sorry, I’m a bit on edge.”
“When did this start?” My mind had instantly gone to the anonymous man who claimed to have seen Scott.
“A few days before I came down for the reunion.”
“Down from where?” Did she think I was psychic? Maybe she was mixing me up with my aunt.
“Rochester. It’s like two hours from here. Why?”
“If I hear similar stories from other alums, I’ll be able to look for a pattern.” That wasn’t quite why I wanted to know, but it should serve to answer Mimsy’s question. “Have you seen Scott since you’ve been in New Camel?”
“This morning. That’s why I’m here. I really can’t take it anymore.” Her voice was high and shrill, on the edge of hysteria. “He’s not only haunting me, now he’s stalking me.”
“Where did you see him this morning?”
“I was in the hotel lobby and I saw him getting into the elevator.”
“Did you follow him?”
“Are you out of your mind? Of course not. Lord only knows what he might have done to me.”
“I understand how frightening it must be to see someone who’s dead,” I said, “but it’s been ten years since Scott died. Is it possible the person you’ve been seeing is just someone who looks like Scott?”
“No, uh uh,” she said. “I had a huge crush on Scott for years. The person I saw was definitely Scott Desmond!”
“It is a bit strange for a ghost to suddenly start haunting a person or a place so long after their death.” Not that I was an expert on ghosts. Morgana and Bronwen were my first and they didn’t look anything like themselves. I wondered if departed souls could choose to look like they did in life, instead of like energy clouds.
“Well then how do you explain what I saw!” Mimsy challenged me.
“I don’t know. Did he try to communicate with you?”
“No, but he had this smile—like the cat that ate the canary. I think he enjoys freaking me out.”
“Did he appear or vanish while you were watching him?”
She took a moment to think about it, then shook her head. “Look, I didn’t come here to play twenty questions with you. I just need a spell or something to make him go away.”
“I can give you a spell, but it won’t work unless you fully believe it can.”
“I’ll believe whatever I need to believe. Can we please get on with it?” I found her a pad and pencil. “I have to write it down?” she said as if I’d asked her to clean the bathroom.
“Only if you want it to work.”
“Fine!”
I recited the spell slowly enough for her to take it down without errors.
Between this plane and the next,
Close the door and don’t permit
Passage of a soul unkind
Come to steal my peace of mind.
“Repeat it three times,” I said. “If it doesn’t work, you can try repeating it a total of ten times.”
She looked up from writing. “And if that doesn’t work?”
“Then it’s not going to.”
She gasped. “I’ve got to
have a plan B.”
“You said he seems to enjoy scaring you. Use that to your advantage. When you see him, don’t display any emotion. Better yet, pretend you don’t see him. Hopefully he’ll give up.”
“Thanks, but I could have figured that out for myself.” She slipped the spell into her purse and rose from the chair.
I jumped down from the counter to ring up her purchase.
Mimsy balked when she saw the price. “You can’t be serious. You want fifty bucks for a few words that may not work?”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ll meet the price you’re given at any other magick shop.”
“Where on earth am I going to find another magick shop?” she demanded.
“Precisely.”
Chapter 7
“You’ve had a busy day,” Elise said after I told her about Tony’s close call with the SUV, the anonymous caller, and Mimsy’s claim she was being haunted. Elise had popped into my shop with a free half hour before she had to pick up her younger son Noah from a track meet. I usually kept her abreast of things by quick phone calls. We both led busy lives. When I was a kid, she was my babysitter, and as a teen, I babysat her two boys. Once I reached adulthood, we reconnected and quickly became best friends.
“I don’t suppose I can help in any way?” she asked with a hopeful gleam in her eyes. “Maybe a bit part in one of your investigative adventures?” She’d helped me with cases in the past and been instantly hooked. But she was a single mother, so I drew the line at involving her in anything dangerous.
“I’ll keep you in mind,” I said, “but it has to be something with no chance of blowback.”
“I get it and I agree. I’m a mom first and foremost. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I wouldn’t mind a mystery to tweak my brain and a little adrenalin rush to blast me out of my rut.”