Intermezzo: Spirit Matters

by Patrice Greenwood

  They would not have that option in December, as we had decided to institute a two-hour limit for reservations during the busy holiday season. Generous, I thought—two hours was plenty of time to consume a complete afternoon tea and indulge in deep conversation—but I knew there would be a few complaints. Some people resented change of any kind. Alas, we had bills to pay, and thus change was, in this case, inevitable.

  I traded nods with Dee, on watch in the gift shop, and headed upstairs. On the landing, my cell phone buzzed in my hand. I checked it and found a reply from Willow:

  I told her no.

  I thumbed in an answer:

  She found someone else. Wants seance tomorrow night. What should I do?

  Let me make some inquiries. Hang tight.

  Wondering what she would be inquiring about, and of whom, I went into my office and checked my messages on the house phone system. Nothing of interest. I was tempted to send Tony a text, but I knew he was angry with me, so it wouldn’t help. I’d just have to let him cool down.

  Like the biscochitos.

  Sighing, I sent an email to my contact at the State Historical Archives, requesting information about Reynaldo Hidalgo, then busied myself with the dreaded message-slip stack. When I’d dealt with six of them, I got up to reward myself with a fresh pot of tea.

  “Is Julio making biscochitos?” Kris called from her office as I collected the teapot.

  “Yes. For a photo shoot tomorrow. They’re off limits.”

  “Dang. It’s giving me the munchies.”

  “You’re not alone.”

  We were used to tempting aromas wafting up the stairwell, but there was nothing more mouth-watering than the smell of fresh biscochitos. I made tea, drank some, was still unsatisfied, and decided it was time to check whether the cookies were cool enough to store.

  I found Mick clocking out. Clean china sat gently steaming in the drying rack. The biscochitos lay innocently on their sheet, still emitting a hint of their silent siren’s call.

  Dee came in, removing her white apron.

  “Last party gone?” I asked her.

  She nodded, dropping the apron in the laundry hamper. “I locked the front.” She looked toward the cookies, her neck elongating a little and her nostrils delicately flaring.

  “Thanks,” I said, and handed her and her brother a still-warm biscochito apiece.

  “Mmm! Thank you, Ellen!” Dee said, and bit into hers.

  Mick broke into a grin. “Thanks, boss. The smell’s been driving me crazy.”

  I saw them out and locked the back door, then returned to the kitchen and permitted myself one biscochito, letting small bites melt in my mouth while I put the rest away in a container. I kept one out for Kris, and carried it up to her along with the day’s receipts.

  She accepted the napkin-wrapped cookie and stared at it while I laid the bank bag on her desk. Then she burst into tears.

  “Oh, Kris.” I sat in her guest chair, watching her rub at her eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” she said soggily. “It’s ... I can’t explain.”

  “You don’t have to.” I smiled gently. “I’ll be at my desk if you need to talk.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  I glanced back from the doorway in time to see her take a bite of biscochito. She’d be all right.

  Back at my desk with a fresh cup of tea, I checked my phone and found a text from Willow.

  You should be OK. Best if I not be there but I can bring you some protection if you wish.

  Protection? What, a spirit bodyguard or something?

  What kind of protection?

  Just some energy safeguards. OK if I stop by this evening?

  I hesitated. “Protection” sounded like something out of a horror movie, something that was bound to fail. I shook off the thought.

  Sure.

  Be there around 7.

  I glanced at the clock: 6:15. Not enough time for dinner, but then I wasn’t really hungry after my big lunch, not to mention the biscochito. I left the phone on my desk and went to the doorway into Kris’s office.

  She was staring at her computer, one hand on the mouse. I knocked on the door frame and she looked up. “It’s after six. We’re closed.”

  Looking faintly surprised, she nodded and shut down the computer. “Bank’s closed too. Should I put the deposit in night drop?”

  “No, I’ll take it tomorrow. I have an errand to run.”

  Kris nodded and got up, handing me the bank bag, which I put on my desk. I saw her out, and at the back door she surprised me by grabbing me in a fierce hug.

  “Thanks, Ellen,” she said roughly, then went out. I locked the door and watched her drive away.

  The dining parlor, to my left, stood in darkness. Faint light came through the lace curtains and shone softly on the crystals of the chandelier. On impulse, I stepped in.

  A small gust of wind whuffed against the French doors. I hesitated while the shadows of the trees outside danced across the windows. I glanced up at the chandelier, but it was still.

  This was the room where Captain Dusenberry had most often moved things. Specifically, the chandelier drops, and he liked to turn on the lights. He’d turned them on elsewhere in the tearoom, it was true, and he was partial to some of the classical music CDs in the stereo system.

  But it was the chandelier drops that were his trademark. I smiled wryly.

  “Captain, I hope this séance isn’t going to bother you.”

  I waited silently, watching the chandelier, but it remained still.

  I hadn’t actually asked a question. Maybe I should do that. Ask him to do “one for yes, two for no” again. Something in me was reluctant. Fear of disappointment? Did I prefer uncertainty to knowing for sure that the Captain was a hoax?

  I felt in my bones that he wasn’t. He had played the piano to me—music that he knew I’d understand. I had told Willow that he’d turned on the stereo, but I couldn’t recall ever discussing music with her.

  But if she was part of some more elaborate scheme...if there were others in on it...

  I shook my head. That was getting truly paranoid.

  I went upstairs and changed out of my work clothes, then made a pot of herbal tea. I was just finishing the first cup when the back doorbell rang.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said as I let Willow in. “I feel kind of silly for bothering you.”

  “Oh, no, no,” she said, smiling as she took off her coat. “Trust your instincts, Ellen.”

  She reached into a coat pocket and removed a small pouch made of black velvet. “I would offer to be present at the séance, except that I already told Kris I wouldn’t do it.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I didn’t mean to impose on you. I really just wanted some advice.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “My advice is to stay as calm as possible. Are you going to be there?”

  “I think I’d better.”

  She nodded. “Then wear this.”

  She took a small pendant on a silver chain out of the pouch and offered it to me. It gave off a violet glint, and I saw that it was a dark crystal about an inch long, in a silver mounting.

  “Amethyst?” I asked.

  “Yes. Wear that while your, um, guests are in the house.” She reached into the pouch again, this time extracting a little plastic bag filled with something white. “I assume Kris plans to use the study?”

  It took me a second to recall that she meant the dining parlor, which had been the captain’s study. Willow had called it that when we’d first met.

  “Yes.”

  Willow turned to the room, opened the bag, and took out a pinch of the contents. “Sea salt,” she said, noting my gaze.

  I followed her into the dining parlor and around it as she trickled the salt against the baseboards. At each of the doors she reached up and put a pinch atop the frame. At the door that led into the main parlor she paused, looking thoughtful. “May I open this?”

  I realized I was holding m
y breath. Just beyond that door was the Rose alcove, where the seventh chamber—Gabriel’s chamber—had been set up for the Halloween party. It was all gone, now—the cloth drapes had been removed and everything restored to its normal configuration. Willow could not have known about the party details.

  Could she?

  I nodded. Willow opened the door and stood before the empty frame, looking into the parlor. She was calm and watchful. I got the impression she was thinking intently.

  Someone could have told her about the party. Kris, or Dee, or any of my staff who were there. Or any of the guests. But who would do that, and why?

  I firmly invited my inner skeptic to have a seat and be quiet.

  At last Willow poured salt along the threshold, then all along the top of the door as well. She gently closed it, added salt along the sills of the room’s two windows, then sealed up the bag and returned it to the pouch.

  “That’s just to cleanse the room of any lingering darkness,” Willow said. “It won’t bother the captain. Is it all right if I place these in the corners?”

  She held out her palm, showing me four smooth, polished, dark stones: irregular in shape, each about half an inch long.

  “Apache tears,” I said, reaching out to touch one. Willow didn’t pull them away. “I used to have one of those when I was a kid.”

  “Obsidian is a good stone for warding.”

  I nodded. Warding sounded good, though I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant.

  I followed her again as she placed one stone on the floor in each corner of the room. They disappeared in the shadows of the baseboards.

  “These aren’t going to disrupt what Kris and her friends are doing. If they summon something dark and powerful, it’ll still come, but these should keep stray energies from being drawn to the circle.”

  I nodded as if I knew what she was talking about.

  “Don’t worry,” Willow said with a smile. “Kris doesn’t strike me as the sort who would dabble in darkness.”

  “She said she wouldn’t.”

  “Does she speak for all her friends?”

  I cleared my throat. “She said there wouldn’t be any dark magic. I trust her.”

  Willow nodded, then looked slowly around the room. Finally she glanced up at the chandelier, and gave one more nod.

  “Good. Please let me know how it goes.” She went back to the hall and took down her coat.

  “Thank you, Willow,” I said, following. “What do I owe you?”

  “I don’t charge for this,” she said with a gentle smile. She handed me the bag of salt. “In case someone sweeps in there before the séance. Just sprinkle it the way I did, if you need to.”

  “OK.”

  She shrugged into her coat and headed for the back door. “Oh, and I checked up on Hidalgo Plaza’s background. No hauntings reported in the last several decades. If there were any restless spirits there, they’ve probably moved on. So you should be safe going back there to look into Maria’s family history.”

  Possibly safer than I’d be in my own house that evening.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Good luck! Call if you think of anything else you need from me.”

  “OK.”

  She paused to give me another warm smile. “You’ll be fine. Nothing dark can influence you unless you give it permission.”

  I tried for a smile. “Well, I certainly won’t do that!”

  Willow nodded. “Good. Remember that.”

  When she was gone, I carried the salt and the amethyst up to my office and locked them in the top drawer of my desk along with the bank bag. I checked my messages. Nothing from Tony.

  Well, in a way, that was good, because I had no idea how I would explain the séance to him. He’d be angry if he found out about it, because he would think it was stupid, and would hate the idea that people he respected took it seriously. And maybe, just a little, because the unknown intimidated him.

  I missed him. I knew he needed to cool down, but it was hard waiting.

  A quiet evening would be good for me, I told myself as I crossed the hall to my suite. Some tomato soup, a good book, maybe a bath before bed.

  I took my cell phone with me, just in case.

  4

  I slept poorly and woke early, smelling scones. Julio was back at it in the kitchen. I dressed and went down, finding him crushing candy canes with our largest rolling pin.

  “Morning, boss,” he called cheerily.

  “Good morning. May I bum a cup of coffee?”

  He paused and looked up at me. “You feeling OK?”

  “Just had a rough night.”

  “Sure,” he said, with a nod toward the coffee maker.

  I helped myself and sipped black coffee while I watched him reduce the candy canes to red and white confetti. When a timer went off, he glanced at me.

  “I’ll get it,” I said. “Got enough extras for me to have one?”

  “Of course,” he said as I slid off my stool and headed for the oven, “but those are plain ones.”

  “Plain is fine.”

  I pulled out a tray of hot, golden scones, put in a tray of unbaked ones that sat waiting on the counter, and reset the timer. I put one scone on a plate and added a dollop each of lemon curd and clotted cream from the fridge.

  “Is that breakfast?” Julio said.

  “Might have a candy cane for dessert,” I said. “Or a biscochito,” I added airily.

  Julio frowned at me sidelong and ignored the bait. “There are oranges in the pantry. Help yourself to one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where are you taking these photos?”

  “Good question.” I looked around the kitchen, tempted to do it there, but I knew Gina wouldn’t like the utilitarian background. “Maybe in one of the alcoves. I’ll have to check what’s free at one o’clock.”

  Julio nodded, then glanced toward the wall clock. I decided to get out of his way. I finished my coffee, put the mug in the dish-washing station, and carried my scone to the butler’s pantry, where I started a pot of tea. While it was steeping I went up to the gift shop to check the reservations for the day.

  One o’clock was fairly busy, but two adjacent alcoves were available: Dahlia and Violet. Tucked away behind the gift shop, they were our most private alcoves, and among the smallest. Those in the main parlor were requested much more frequently, although Violet was also beginning to develop a steady stream of requests.

  I marked Dahlia and Violet as unavailable from one o’clock on, then carried my tea and scone to Violet. The hearth was cold, so I laid a small fire and lit it before settling back to have breakfast.

  Gazing up at Julio’s portrait of Vi as I sipped, I thought about the day ahead. I’d have to be here from noon onward, to deal with the photo shoot, but I’d be able to go out for an hour in the morning. That would be enough time to deal with the bank deposit, and also pay a visit to that little door marked “Office” in Hidalgo Plaza.

  That thought made me a little nervous. I hadn’t met any of the Hidalgos, but they were still a prominent family in Santa Fe. They might think my inquiry beneath their notice. I had to try, though. Captain Dusenberry was counting on me. Heaven knew he’d waited long enough.

  Looking at Vi’s radiant face in the painting above the mantel, I wondered if she, too, had unfinished business.

  In the distance, I heard the back door open and close. Staff were beginning to arrive. Time to get on with my day.

  I finished my tea and carried the tray to the pantry, where Iz firmly relieved me of it. “Kris was looking for you,” she said.

  “Oh, she’s here? Thanks.”

  It wasn’t yet nine. Kris was early.

  I went up and found her at her desk, eyes rather bright as she stared at the screen. She looked more herself today, in a long-sleeved black dress and her customary Goth-toned-down-for-work makeup. Still no jewelry.

  “Good morning,” I said from the doorway. “Do you want tea?”

 
“Morning. Sure,” she said, intent on her computer.

  I brewed us a fresh pot and poured a cup for Kris, leaving it at her elbow.

  “I’m going out for a bit. I’ll be back by noon.”

  She nodded, still typing. She seemed pretty normal except for an underlying buzz of energy. Anticipation, I guessed. Whatever happened with the séance, I hoped it would at least give her some closure.

  I collected the bank bag, my phone (no messages), and my purse, and headed downstairs. In the hall I passed Iz, burdened with firewood for the parlors. In the kitchen, Julio was taking a tray of scones—peppermint, this time—out of the oven.

  “I wasn’t sure whether to put the candy on before the bake or right at the end,” he said, lifting a pair of scones with a spatula and sliding them onto a small plate. “Tried it both ways. Which do you like better?”

  He set the plate next to another with two similar scones, except that the candy was more melted on them. On the ones he’d just baked, the bits of peppermint still had edges.

  “I think I like these better,” I said, gesturing to the fresher ones.

  “Me, too. Thanks. Do you need more than a dozen?”

  “Probably not.”

  He nodded. “I’ll box them and mark them once they’re cool.”

  “Can you stay for the photo shoot?” I asked. “We might need some garnishing. You’re more creative at that than I am.”

  “OK,” he said, “but can I leave early tomorrow, then? Got a date.”

  “Yes, that’s fair. Congratulations! I hope you’re going someplace fun.”

  He laughed softly. “I’m taking my sister to a concert.”

  “That sounds fun,” I said brightly.

  Something in his expression told me he wasn’t expecting it to be all that fun, so I refrained from asking for details.

  “I’m off to the bank. Need me to pick up anything?”