by Darci Hannah
Grandma Jenn concurred with a wry grin. “Yes, Silvia. I’m quite done as well. Can’t expect a lady my age to stand here forever. It ages a body.”
“Good man,” Dad whispered to Tate. “There’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.” He then grabbed Mom’s hand. “Come on, Jani. Fun’s over. I’m starving.”
Silvia threw up her hands in disgust and bellowed for her assistant. But Peter McClellan was nowhere to be seen. Having spied Hannah slinking down to the shore minutes before sunset gave me a pretty good idea where her faithful assistant had disappeared to. What they were up to was anyone’s guess.
Ten
“Come on,” Tate said, taking my hand. “They’ve ventured a little farther afield than the inn’s beach.” He pointed down the rocky shoreline in the direction of the Cherry Cove Lighthouse, an old abandoned structure belonging to my family. It sat on a modest bluff, rising forty feet above the water. My brother, Bret, having once claimed to have spied the ghost of the old lightkeeper on the beach below, believed it was haunted. Dad, harboring a fancy to start a winery, believed it would be the perfect site to age his secret batch of cherry wine. And now Hannah, after the humiliation of the morning, was heading there as well. Obviously her flavor-of-the-month, Peter McClellan, had something to do with it. Yet it was the fact that she hadn’t bothered to tell me what she was about that I found highly suspicious.
“Nothing like a walk along the shore at sunset,” Tate remarked and gave my hand a little squeeze. “There’s something about the way the sun reaches out across the darkening water one last time—as if it’s reluctant to give way to the night. It stirs my blood, I tell ya. It’s my favorite moment of the day. Used to be yours as well, if I remember correctly.” It was an intimate statement, yet before I could reply, he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about the Renaissance fair?”
I stopped walking, my throat suddenly unnaturally dry. “How … how did you hear about that?”
“I ran into Lance. He was having a bite to eat at Swenson’s this morning while Tay was at Hannah’s yoga class. He mentioned that you were all going to watch him joust in the big tournament on Sunday. I was just wondering when you were going to get around to asking me?”
Inwardly I cringed. Dangit! So much for trying to rebuild my relationship with Jack. And now Tate was going. What was I to do? I turned to Tate. “I’ve … been a little busy lately.”
“That Lumiere woman. She’s getting to you, isn’t she?” His strong, square-jawed face was wrought with disapproval.
“She is,” I admitted. “She’s driving me nuts with her demanding ways and snide, belittling remarks. If she was our only guest I could probably handle it, but she’s not. We’re fully booked at the inn, Dad’s working his hands to the bone at the orchard, and the bakery is doing better than ever. We sell out of baked goods every day, and our cherry products are flying off the shelves. The truth is, Tate, I’m not even sure if I’m going to the Renaissance fair myself.”
He stopped walking. “What? You have to go! Tay’s counting on you.” I wasn’t used to being reprimanded by Tate, and I didn’t like it now. He continued. “Look, I know jousting’s a weird way for a dude to make a living, but she really likes this guy. As her friends, it’s important we all support her.”
“True, but I’m busy.”
“Let Jani and Jenn handle it. They’ve always done so before.”
“I know. But they had Dad to help, and they’ve never had anyone like Silvia staying at the inn, as far as I know.”
“But it’s Sunday, Whit. Silvia won’t even be at the inn. She’ll be driving all over the peninsula with her traveling art show doing her big reveals. Besides, I’ve never been to a Renaissance fair. I’m intrigued.”
As Tate rambled on about the Renaissance fair, making a strong case as to why I had to go, I grew increasingly uncomfortable. Silvia wasn’t the real problem. It was Jack, but I could hardly tell Tate that. Not wishing to dwell on how catastrophic Sunday was going to be, I continued walking and changed the subject.
“What do you suppose they’re up to?”
Even with my troubled mind, I had to admit it was a spectacular evening. The last rays of light glittered across the darkening sky, throwing its fading colors on the underbelly of the cottony clouds. While shades of luminous purple and bright indigo rippled across water and sky, Tate replied, “Probably what anyone gets up to on a private beach at sunset, babe.”
I stopped walking. “We shouldn’t be following them.”
“Normally, I’d agree. But we’re talking about Hannah here. Something’s not adding up. She could meet McClellan anywhere … why the old lighthouse at this hour? And why all the black?”
“I thought men found black attractive on a woman.”
“Black dress, maybe. Black yoga pants, definitely. But from what I could tell she wasn’t wearing either of those things. She looked … baggy.”
That was a puzzle. Hannah seldom looked baggy. However, a short while later our questions were answered when we rounded a rocky outcrop and landed on the lonely stretch of beach beneath the lighthouse. It was the same rocky beach where Bret had seen the ghost of the old lightkeeper. The thought sent a chill up my spine, or perhaps it was the three figures dressed in black huddled around a flickering fire. The one in the middle was wearing a hooded robe. The youngest of the three had what looked to be a joint pinched between his fingers.
“What the devil is going on here?” I cried, louder than anyone had been expecting.
Erik, eyes closed and blowing smoke from his mouth like a chimney, choked at the sound of my voice and flicked the burning joint into the rocks, hoping, no doubt, that I hadn’t seen it. But I had. Tate had too, and he was flaming mad. Peter, witnessing the act as well, threw back his hood and cried, “Dude. Uncool!” as he scrambled after it.
The state of nirvana Hannah had nearly reached faded the moment her eyes met mine. “Geez, Whit, what the heck are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question. All of you!”
“Look,” she said, “before you get all judgey on us, you should know that this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Really? Because it looks an awful lot to me like you two are corrupting a minor.”
“Minor?” Peter looked at Erik. “Dude, how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
He grinned. “Not a minor.” Peter then looked at Tate and gave a little nod in greeting. “Yo. Vander Hagen.”
Tate darkened, clenched his jaw, and growled, “McClellan.”
“And he is a minor,” I continued undeterred, vividly recalling an earlier incident involving Erik and his underage proclivities. It didn’t help that the boy was easily lured to the dark side. But we’d been making such great strides. Peter, straddling the chasm between hippie and hot Jesus, was what he was … but Hannah? She liked her fun, but smoking pot had never been a part of it. I glared at them both. “Recreational pot is still illegal in this state,” I informed them.
“But this,” Peter said, holding up the recently discarded joint, “isn’t recreational.”
“Oh, really? Because it looks pretty recreational to me.”
“Whoa. Chillax, Whitney. It’s medicinal,” he admonished, resting his gentle, dark-eyed gaze on me. “We’re cleansing.”
“Cleansing?” I shouted. “What the heck could you possibly be cleansing with that?”
“All the toxic vibes Silvia lays on us,” Peter calmly explained. “You of all people should know. Silvia is an emotional vampire who sucks the life from our souls with her foul spirit. Hannah is her latest victim. I’m surprised you haven’t come to me sooner.”
“It’s true,” Hannah was quick to say, having obviously smoked some of Peter’s magical cleansing weed herself. “Peter’s not only an artist, Whit, he’s a shaman.” This she whispered with eyes wide and glossy as lake stones. A
s if this statement wasn’t wacky enough, she attempted to back it by thrusting her hand under Peter’s black robe. I was aghast. Tate looked intrigued. A moment later we were both appalled when Hannah pulled out a six-inch doll.
“What the …? Whoa!” Tate said, inspecting it a little closer. “Dude,” he admonished. “That’s seriously messed up. Why are you carrying around a pocket sized Lumiere … with vampire fangs?”
“Holy cobbler!” I said, realizing Tate was right. The likeness to the portrait painter was unsettling—from the stylish cut of the white pixy hair down to the tiny, bedazzled shoes. The facial expression was hair-raisingly creepy, so dead-on but with fangs. There was no doubt in my mind that Peter had created a voodoo doll of his employer. The thought was bone-chilling.
Apparently, Hannah disagreed. “He’s sooo gifted,” she remarked, and let out a little sigh.
I was about to ask just how much of the medicinal herb she’d smoked but realized the question was unnecessary. She’d obviously smoked enough to be loopy as a loon. I felt betrayed, saddened even. I was so seething mad at them all. “I hate to inform you, but Silvia Lumiere is not a vampire.”
“Not a blood-sucker,” Peter clarified. “A soul-sucker. There’s a difference.”
“If you smoke enough pot I’m sure there is,” I agreed. “However, rational people know that vampires, soul-sucking or otherwise, do not exist. This”—I held up the creepy doll—“is just an excuse to smoke pot.”
“No.” Peter stood, his calm, hippie demeanor fading like the setting sun. “She is, Whitney. She’s a soul-sucker, feeding off the hopes and dreams of the young and beautiful. Look at yourself. You’re a beautiful woman in the prime of your life. You run a business. You’re successful, and yet she pecks away at your psyche, suckling off your confidence bit by bit with her foul elitism. Look what she did to Hannah today. And need I remind you how she torments yon strapping young dude?” He gestured to Erik. “Don’t you think it odd that she treats your mother with respect and your grandmother like an old friend but treats you like dirt? Youth is the fuel that feeds her craven soul.”
“Holy mother of evil,” Tate uttered, and crossed himself.
I wasn’t buying it. “What about Bob Bonaire?” I challenged. “He’s neither young nor beautiful by any standards, and yet she torments him as well.”
“That’s different,” he said with a wave of his hand. “That’s her little game. She’s a cheap-ass food snob who believes that if she makes enough noise she won’t have to pay her bill.” He flashed a malicious grin. “Apparently, it works.”
“I’ll grant you, she’s not a pleasant woman. But if you truly believe she’s a vampire, why are you still with her?”
“I’ve no choice,” he said. “We made a deal before I realized what she was. She found me fresh out of art school. I was flat broke and suffocating under the burden of crippling debt. Silvia offered to pay off all my student loans if I came to work for her. Crippling debt’s a vampire as well, Whitney, only debt is a hell of a hard vampire to slay. Silvia, I can manage.” He grinned a little unsteadily and held up the smoldering joint. “You might say I’ve chosen the lesser of two evils. Here.” He held out his medicinal vampire slayer. “Join us. Both of you. Take a hit and cleanse your wounded souls. It’s either this or risk being overcome by the desire to murder the old bitch.” His pointed stare, as if looking into my own soul, made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
Tate, utterly creeped out as well, shook his head.
“Look, you two are old enough to make your own decisions,” I told Hannah and Peter. “Do whatever you like, but I’ll be damned if you subject Erik to your ridiculous cleansing ritual of pot and voodoo. He’s coming with us.”
I left Tate to deal with Erik and stormed back down the beach toward the inn, my fists balled in anger, my mind swirling with the desire to strangle the soul-sucking vampire myself. I didn’t believe in vampires, but I had to admit that there was a thread of truth to what Peter had said. Silvia was a merciless tyrant to the young and promising in Cherry Cove, and she was driving my friends and employees to corruption. The “greater good” had just met its match, because I was determined to put a stop to it, one way or another.
Eleven
Sunday morning I was awakened by the buzzing of my iPhone. I thought it was my alarm and instantly filled with dread. The Renaissance fair! Holy hand grenades, what had I gotten myself into? Tate didn’t know Jack was coming; Jack didn’t know Tate was coming; and I was too much of a chicken to be honest with either of them. Then there was Hannah. She was still miffed at me for nearly everything that had transpired Friday. All I’d received from her since was a text telling me that I was to pick her up, and, yes, she was still planning on bringing Peter—which added a whole new level of uncomfortable to the mix. Never mind that the entire voodoo vampire cleansing fiasco beneath the old lighthouse had shaken me to the core, or the fact that since the goat yoga debacle Silvia had launched into full-blown diva mode, sparing no one. Tate was unshakable in his conviction that we were still dating; Erik was still employed but avoiding me; and Jack, popping into the bakery the last several mornings, was positively flirtatious. I was romancing a nervous breakdown and felt that a day at the Renaissance fair might throw me over the edge. But what choice did I have? It was too late to back out now.
Just as my thoughts were spiraling out of control, I happened to look at my phone. It was five in the morning. Not my alarm. I wasn’t baking this morning, having stayed up late into the night preparing the dough for the cherry scones ahead of time. They were already rolled out, cut into triangles, and placed on parchment covered baking sheets. Gran said she’d come in early and bake them for me. Obviously she had a question.
The moment I answered my phone, she blurted, “Whitney, are you all right, dear?”
It was an unusual greeting, but Grandma Jenn was a bit of an eccentric. “I am, Gran.” I stifled a yawn. “Just tired. The scones are in the walk-in. Is there a problem?”
“You might say that. Are you in your room?” Her voice was a near-whisper as she spoke. When I told her that I was she said, “Good. Throw on some clothes and meet me at the front desk.” Without elaborating further, she ended the call.
Since I was dead tired I gave a thought to calling her back but decided against it. Gran sounded agitated, which wasn’t like her. Resigned to another day of sleeplessness and frustration, I threw on a pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt and proceeded down the hallway that connected the family wing to the main office behind the front desk. I had no sooner walked through the office door than I saw Gran. Although the lobby was dark her face appeared ashen beneath the soft lights over the reservation computer.
“I don’t blame you, dear, but we can’t just leave her like this.”
I had no idea what she was mumbling on about, so I just stared at her.
“Silvia,” she stated, gesturing to the darkened foyer as if I should have known. At first glance I didn’t see anything out of place. She then pointed to the wide, sweeping steps that rose to the second floor. I came around the desk. The moment I did I saw the body, tangled in layers of pink satin and white faux fur, sprawled indignantly on the floor. The short puff of silver-white hair could only have belonged to Silvia Lumiere.
My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, dear heavens! Is she …?”
“As a doornail, I’m afraid.” Gran’s face was awash in a look of pity. “Death is ghastly in all its forms. I only wish I felt something other than relief. What a terrible thing to have admitted out loud. Well, we’ll have to call Jack, of course, but first it might be best if we remove the scone.”
I had a paralyzing fear of dead bodies. It was a real thing, a gripping panic. It didn’t help that while Gran talked in her steady, levelheaded way, my own head was spinning. Dear God! A DEAD BODY! On the floor of the Cherry Orchard Inn! My mind ground to a stupefied halt, the words “we’re
not supposed to have dead bodies here” looping in my thoughts like a broken record.
“Dear?”
“What?” I shot back, nervously wringing my hands.
“Latex gloves. Grab two pairs from behind the desk. And hurry. We don’t have much time. The sun rises early this time of year. It would never do if one of the guests saw us.”
“What? No-no-no. I’m not going near that thing! That thing is DEAD.”
“Whitney,” she hissed. “This is no time for a weak stomach. Especially since this is your doing.”
“Wha … Wha … What?” It suddenly dawned on me what Grandma Jenn was saying, and, quite frankly, I found it a little insulting. “Wait. You think I had something to do with this?”
“Look, my love, I think the world of you. You’re my favorite grandchild, don’t tell your brother, and when not sleep-deprived and driven mad by some uppity artist, you’re capable of so many great things. That’s why I’m not about to stand by and watch you spend the best years of your life rotting away in some prison cell, all because some wretched old fool goaded you into choking them with a scone and pushing them down a flight of stairs.”
I stared at her, mouth agape. “But I didn’t … What?” I was still struggling to comprehend what she was saying.
“A scone, dear. You’ve been making so many of them lately, it’s no wonder.”
“But … I didn’t choke her with a scone,” I said, hoping I was correct. A terrible thought flashed through my mind. What if I had? In my sleep? Was that a thing? I banished the thought as soon as it came and braved another glance at the body on the floor. “Is that even possible?”
