The Chalice Thief

by K. J. Emrick

  “No, Carly, I did not! I needed to clear my head. I spent all that time with you when you first came back and I told you I was only going away for a few days, remember? I was never going to leave you. I would never—”

  “You could have died!” she screamed, her hand clenching the necklace tight.

  The silence that filled the room after that is deafening. More so, I supposed, because her words were true. Down there in Port Arthur I was held by a maniac with a gun and I certainly could have died, all because a ghost came to me and asked for my help. I felt compelled to do something, and in the end I stopped some bad people from doing bad things. Me and Kevin and James did it together, I should add. One of those bad people had been James’ own daughter. That holiday hadn’t been fun for anyone.

  Of course, only one of those people had been Carly’s mother.

  Oh. Snap.

  “Carly, is that what this is all about? You’re worried… you’re worried you might lose me, like you lost your dad?”

  In the few minutes I’d been in this room, Carly had been angry, and sad, and laughing, and angry again. I knew, when she first came to Lakeshore, that she was still a sad young woman sitting on her feelings. I knew it, I just didn’t know how to reach her. I didn’t know what to do other than give her time, and listen to anything she had to say.

  Well, my daughter had just said a mouthful.

  The moment dragged on and she still hadn’t answered my question. I suspected that I’d hit the proverbial nail right on the head. Her mother—me, that is—had been in more life-threatening scrapes than a mature woman of, ahem, forty-something years had a right to be. I’d made it through all of them, bless the Lord for small favors, but at the same time there were moments when it easily could’ve gone the other way.

  And now here I was again, poking my nose into a mystery when I could just stay put and take care of the Inn. Carly needed my help, but she didn’t want me to get hurt. Doubt she would ever forgive herself if that happened.

  “Come on,” I said to her. “Let’s go downstairs. I’ve some things to take care of with the staff. The loaner car decided to die on the way here, and dinner’s going to be a bit of a trick, among other things. Let me talk to Janus at the front desk for just two ticks, and then you and me can go take a walk out back. The lake’s beautiful at sunset.”

  “Mom,” she said to me in a very serious way. “Sunset’s a few hours off yet.”

  “Exactly. I figure we’ll need that long to talk. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  She almost smiled again. “Fine. I… I’d like that, I think.”

  It’s a start. I’ll take it.

  Downstairs again, Carly just two steps behind me, I noticed the man standing at the front desk. Hard not to notice him, really. Janus was checking him in, under the reservation I’d called in for him earlier. I hadn’t expected him to be here ‘til later. Then again, just yesterday I hadn’t been sure I’d ever see him in my life again.

  Somehow, he sensed me watching him from halfway up and halfway down the stairs.

  James Callahan looked up at me, and his smile was everything I remember. “Hey, Dell. Miss me?”

  Chapter 7

  As opening lines go, I had to admit… that was a pretty good one.

  He’d only been gone for a few weeks now, so I wouldn’t expect him to have changed… well, at all really, but I still took the time to examine him like we were meeting for the first time. James is a very good looking man. I don’t mean to say he’s good looking for his age. I mean to say he’s one of those men who seems to never age. He looks good for any age. Tall. Slender. A face that could grace any menswear magazine and sell out every copy. Laugh lines have set in around his liquid blue eye. His sandy blonde hair had just the barest touch of gray at his temples now. Those are the only indications that his body knows it’s supposed to be getting older.

  In his usual khakis and button-up shirt I’m sure he’d just stepped out of whatever taxi brought him here from the airport in Hobart. The leather satchel at his feet told me something else. He didn’t bring much more than a single change of clothing.

  He didn’t plan on staying.

  Carly cleared her throat behind me, and I realized I’ve been staring. So’s James, to be fair, although I have a feeling he would never admit it. Ahem. Anyway. “Uh, hi James. You made it in okay?”

  Janus handed a set of keys across. “Just getting him checked in, Miss Dell.”

  “Good, good,” I said, wondering why I couldn’t come up with some witty one-liner to make him see everything he’d been missing after he left me for the allure of big city news reporting. “Glad you’re, uh, here. At the Inn. Here in Lakeshore, I mean. Glad you’re here.”

  “Oh brother,” I heard Carly mutter.

  Couldn’t exactly argue with her.

  I grabbed her hand and kept my smile in place as I rushed us down the rest of the way and past James. “Well, we’ll see you later, I suppose, if you’ll be around.”

  There were times when I really wished I could just stuff my feet in my mouth to keep from talking.

  On the way out, I asked Janus for the book I’d left with him earlier and then dashed out before I could say anything else immensely stupid. My friend Jess floated out from the wall under Lieutenant Governor David Collins’s portrait as we were going. Her hair and her clothes wavered back and forth, between blonde and black, a t-shirt and a dress, as her expression shifted from friendly support to gentle rebuke and back again. Guess she knows James is back.

  Obviously, she saw that sterling performance of mine just now, too.

  When my back was to the room, including my daughter, I stuck my tongue out at Jess. She could give me advice on men later. Sure she had a lot more experience with that sort of thing than I did, but I had one big advantage over her. I’m not dead.

  At the front door that thought makes me turn back and watch as James walked himself up the stairs. If I’m not dead maybe I shouldn’t act like I am.

  My eyes followed his, um, backside as far as they could before he disappeared above the level of the first-floor rooms. My thoughts were tangled, and I didn’t seem to be minding it at all.

  “Mom?” Carly asked.

  I came back to myself quickly. This was supposed to be about Carly. “Sorry, honey. I was just wondering what happened to the woman who thought she could be an island.”

  “Um, she sank?” my daughter guessed, taking it as a riddle I hadn’t meant to ask.

  Although I had to say, she was right.

  We went down the walk that led into the trees, meandering its way to the shore of Pine Lake. There were flowers still along the path, a testament to George’s handyman skills that he kept them growing and vibrant right into Fall. Gave the guests a pretty backdrop to remember their stay here with us. Carly walked right by them, not noticing them at all.

  I have park benches along the shore down here. Usually there’s a guest or two enjoying the view. Janus told me we had two more checkouts and another cancellation today though, so I guess it’s going to be just me and Carly. The waves on the lake moved in an endless rhythm, and birds soared over the surface.

  “It’s nice out here,” Carly said as we sat on the closest bench. “I don’t spend a lot of time outside just, you know, enjoying nature.”

  “Preferred the tavern, did you?”

  She shrugged. “I preferred to be in town. Anywhere with stuff to do. Not much of that in this town.”

  “Not for someone used to big city life, no I suppose not.” I’d never found it dull myself, but I could see where Carly was coming from. I might even understand why she wants to leave again. Maybe. “So is that where you first met Drew?”

  That telltale smile crossed her lips again. “Yeah. We struck up a conversation that very first day. It was easy, you know? Being with him was simple and fun. Most nights we just talked. We’d watch the telly. We’d just…” She rolled her wrist as she tried to come up with the way to phrase what she was thinking. “
We’d just be together. Does that make any kind of sense at all?”

  “Yes. I think if a woman’s lucky, they find someone like that once in their entire lifetime.”

  She made sure to keep her eyes on the water as she asked, “Was that how it was between you and Dad?”

  “That was it exactly. Me and your Dad were soulmates to be sure. He was the other half of me, and I know he felt the same way about me.”

  For a time, she didn’t say anything else. The waves moved, and the world turned under us, and I remembered the times I had with Richard before he was taken away from me. The love we had was beyond special. It was that once in a lifetime romance that silly teenagers dream of but rarely find. For me and Richard, it had been as real as breathing.

  “So then,” Carly said into my most private thoughts, “what about you and James?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Mom. I saw the way you and him were before you went down to Port Arthur. You two were all googly eyed with each other. Then you went on that holiday of yours and the two of you came back, I don’t know, broken. So I’m asking. If you had already found your one and only in Dad, what was it that you and James had?”

  Oddly enough, the answer to that came easy to me. “Sometimes, daughter of mine, a woman is lucky enough to find something that special twice.”

  “Brilliant, Mom, but I don’t want to have to find it twice. I love Drew. Can’t you see that?”

  “I don’t think anyone’s going to doubt it.” Considering the stink she’d made so far over this, I was positive her feelings were very well known. “But honey, they have video of him. Your brother’s been a fine senior sergeant for our town. He doesn’t arrest people without cause.”

  “Did you see this video of Drew?” she demanded, her fists on her knees. “Well? Did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. Your brother was busy when I went to see him.”

  She shook her head, and stared down at the ground so hard I half expected the grass to burst into flames. “Mom. Everything I’ve heard you’ve done, all that stuff we talked about up in my room, about how you risked your life for strangers who needed your help. Now it’s your own daughter asking you and the best you can say is that everyone was too busy?”

  I didn’t like her tone, or her implication… but I took her meaning. “I haven’t given up on him. Or you either, mind you. That’s why I got this.”

  I hefted Ada’s book up into my lap. The spine creaked as I opened its thick cover and leafed through the sections on the history of Tasmania until I found the one that Ada was reading to me. “See here? This is the untold story of the Van Diemen’s Land Chalice. Everything we need to know, start to finish.”

  “Untold,” Carly scoffed. “You used to tell that story to me and Kevin back when we were just little nips going off to bed.”

  “Yes, I did, but back then that’s all I thought it was. A story.” I balanced the book on my knees, and skimmed through the paragraphs neatly arranged around old black and white photos of the First Fleet and the landscape of Tasmania long before things like paved highways and shopping malls had changed it forever. “I mean, it’s a bit farfetched, don’t you think?”

  Carly blinked at me, her jaw slowly dropping open. “You don’t believe Alfonse really had the Chalice in the first place, do ya?”

  She was right. No matter how many times I thought it through or what angle I came at this mystery from, that possibility still popped into my mind. What if Alfonse just wanted the publicity? What if the cup he had was a fake? That new album of his surely wouldn’t be hurt by having his name in the papers again. Even if it cost the town in the process.

  Alfonse was a friend, I reminded myself.

  Friends do bad things too, myself reminded me.

  Down closer to the water, a figure shimmered into view, leaning up against one of the pine trees. Lachlan Haliburton liked to spend time down here. It made sense, I suppose, considering he was killed and buried right over… um… there. The spot’s marked with a little metal plaque on a wooden post now, adding to the history of the Inn and finally giving him a proper resting place.

  I thought, when I had George put the sign there, that it would give Lachlan enough peace to finally leave. Too bad for me he liked it right where he is.

  Ignoring Lachlan, I flip the next page. There was a really long section on the Chalice. Hard to believe more people in the country don’t know about it. “This is what I wanted you to see,” I told Carly, pointing to the few sentences at the top of the page. “There’s people that believe if the missing Chalice were ever found, it would give ownership of Tasmania to whoever held it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Carly said, leaning over my arm to read.

  “It means if someone had the Chalice, they’d be able to lay claim to Tasmania, based on the promises of the British government through the early governors. So, for instance, if the Chalice were in the hands of the indigenous peoples, well then they’d have a claim to this part of Australia. If someone really felt bad about the plight of the Aboriginal people, they might try to steal the Chalice from Alfonse and make sure it got into the hands of the Palawa.”

  “Mom, everyone feels bad about how the indigenous people were treated.” Carly threw her hands up in the air. “It was wrong, it was stupid, it was… well, it was bad. Nobody should be treated that way. No one. Everyone admits it was wrong but do you really think anyone would try taking Tasmania away from Australia just to right an old wrong?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s people all across Australia who want to see some sort of compensation paid to the descendants of the indigenous people. Reparations in money or land. Plus, there’s one person in particular who I know would gladly give Tasmania back. She’s right here in town, in fact, over at Rosie’s.”

  Carly’s brow furrowed. “So, you think someone stole the Chalice as… what, a protest? A way of giving the Palawa a claim to their ancestral lands?”

  “Yes,” I told her. “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “Well what are we waiting for, then?” Carly said as she jumped up off the bench. “Let’s go talk to her! If we can show she’s a suspect then it will help Drew, won’t it?”

  “Yes, it would, but honey I was already over there and I don’t think…”

  My voice trailed off. I was scanning the page in front of me again as I talked to Carly, and there I saw a picture, a reprint of an old black and white photo. It had been there when Ada had read these pages to me but only now did I realize what I was seeing.

  It was an old woman, in traditional aboriginal clothing, with long silver hair and brown skin wrinkled and creased from decades of exposure under the sun. She was handsome, in the way that old women sometimes became in their twilight years. Under the picture, in the caption, was her name. Mahinna.

  This was the face that Lachlan had been showing me.

  Gripping my unicorn necklace tight, I looked over to where Lachlan was still leaning a shoulder to that tree. I was suddenly irrationally angry with him that he couldn’t understand he wasn’t really here, and there was no way that tree was actually holding him up. I was even more angry at him that he knew about this woman in the book, all this time. I was mad because once again, the ghosts in my life know more than I do.

  “Come on,” I said to Carly, standing up with her and taking her hand as I started away up the path, back toward the Inn. “We’ve got to talk to your brother. We’re not going to figure anything out here.”

  Lachlan floated around in front of me, wearing his own face, an apology written in his frown. With the back of my hand, I swatted at his spirit, tearing it to so much wispy vapor.

  “What was that?” Carly asked.

  “Just an insect,” I told her. “It was bothering me. It’s gone now.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on Lachlan. He’s dead, after all. Only so much a bloke can do from that starting point, if I’m being fair. Still, I’ve seen him and Jess both knock on walls to spook the guests. C
ouldn’t one of them learn Morse code?

  Dot-dot-dot-dash-dash, Nala the midwife had relatives who lived here before the First Fleet arrived.

  Something like that. Is that too much to ask?

  My mobile rang as Carly and I were walking up Main Street, but when I checked it and saw Unknown Caller again, I hit the reject button. No more ghostly messages. No more half-hints and puzzle pieces with their edges trimmed off. I’m going to figure this mystery out on my own from here. Me and Carly, together.

  “Remind me again,” Carly asked, “why we couldn’t take the loaner car from the Inn?”

  “Because it’s dead,” I told her, again. Good thing cars don’t have ghosts.

  “We couldn’t take a cab?”

  “You’re thinking of the big city,” I reminded my daughter. “We’d literally have to call a cab in from Hobart or Geeveston, and then wait an hour for it to get here. We don’t have cars just driving up to us and offering… a ride…”

  I didn’t get any further than that when a car drove up alongside us at the curb, and stopped.

  James leaned across the seat to roll down the window. “You ladies need a ride, do ya?”

  Carly smiled at me with a little triumphant grin.

  “Fine, then,” I said, knowing better than to argue with a good thing. “Next time, why don’t you ask for a thousand dollars while you’re at it?”

  “Next time, I will,” she promised.

  My daughter made sure to get in the backseat and close the door behind her, leaving me with the option of making it obvious I didn’t want to sit up front with James, or else sitting next to a man who broke up with me less than a month ago and pretending I was over it.

  Being a grownup, I sat in the front, and then kept my eyes studiously facing out the windshield. Just because I’m being a grownup doesn’t mean I want to look at his face.

  His amazingly handsome face.

  Ahem.

  “Where to?” he asked, and I swear I could hear the smile in his voice.