by Tamara Berry
It’s not a bad change. Just new. I’m not used to permanence.
I am, however, used to taking care of myself—a thing I intend to continue even without the inordinate ghost-exorcising fees to support me in the manner to which I’m accustomed.
“I’ll have you know that business has been booming lately.” I give a haughty toss of my head. “In fact, I helped Mr. Worthington tame his runaway pig today. They’re bound body and soul now.”
Nicholas laughs, the harsh lines of his face relaxing into their usual calm. “Regina? Impossible. That animal has been escaping her pen for years. Nothing short of chains will keep her in one place.”
“Nonsense. She needed a sedentary spell, that’s all.”
“You fixed the fence, didn’t you?”
When I don’t reply, Nicholas laughs again. He also glances at his watch and rises to his feet. I can read his elegant body language well enough to accept that however glad he is to see me, we’ll need to get going if I’m going to make it to the fête planning committee on time. Punctuality is bred into his uptight British soul.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you’ve just committed yourself to a lifetime of fence repair,” he says. “Everyone around here knows she eats through the posts.”
I halt in the middle of wrapping myself up in a warm woolen shawl. “She what?”
“Bites through them like they’re butter. My poor Eleanor.”
He leans forward and presses a kiss on my forehead, but I push him away. I’m not fooled by that romantic gesture. He’s mocking me. “You laugh now, but how will you feel when the whole village knows I’m a fraud?”
“My dear girl, I’ve been telling them that for months.” He adjusts the shawl, his hands lingering reverentially on my shoulders. “Maybe now they’ll finally start to believe me.”
Chapter 2
I’ve lived here long enough to know that any community event, from AA meetings to CPR classes, will be held at the large, imposing stone church in the village square.
My first few visits to those hallowed walls brought a quake to my knees, since I wasn’t sure how the church would react to a woman who makes a living as a traveling medium and then decides that practicing witchcraft offers better long-term stability. However, I’ve since come to look at that ancient Anglican structure as home.
Strange, I know. But my entire life is nothing if not a testament to the weird and wonderful.
“Ellie! How good to see you!” Annis, the vicar and one of my dearest friends, is standing in the church antechamber when we arrive. She wraps her arms around me in a hug and holds me in place much longer than a fête committee meeting necessitates.
I like it, though. There’s something about that short, round, sunny woman that makes me feel as if everything is going to be okay.
“And Nicholas.” Annis pulls away and makes to embrace the great Nicholas Hartford III with the same loving ebullience. “Don’t tell me you’re coming to help plan the festivities. The last time anyone saw you inside this place . . .”
Nicholas accepts Annis’s hug with complaisance but shakes his head at the rest of her greeting. “I’m here merely as convoy. My mother regrets that she’ll be unable to participate this year, so she’s sending Eleanor in her stead.”
Since Annis has known the Hartfords from her cradle, she’s not fooled by this formal speech. “Oh, dear. What did they do to force this on you, Ellie?”
I laugh. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’ve always believed myself to be a woman of fierce independence, but ever since I met this sorry lot, I find myself doing the exact opposite of what I intend.”
“Alas, it’s part of their charm. Come in, come in. Everyone is gathered in the basement. I’ll keep the doors open for five more minutes, and then we’ll get started.”
Although I’ve become inured to the fact that I’m now friends with a vicar, I haven’t yet grown accustomed to performing public displays of affection in front of one. I restrict myself to smiling up at Nicholas and saying good-bye.
He suffers no such qualms and leans down to press a kiss on my cheek, his telltale scent of bergamot wafting over me. “I’ll be back at nine to walk you home.”
It’s a sweet gesture—if slightly archaic—but I decline. “Thank you, but there’s no need. I have one or two things to do around the village afterward.”
One of Nicholas’s heavy brows comes up. “Fence repair, perhaps?”
“Very funny,” I mutter. And, because checking on Mr. Worthington’s pig is precisely what I intend to do, I point a warning finger at him. “For your insolence, I bring a pox down upon your household.”
“Excellent. Should I expect something along the lines of chickenpox, or are you going full smallpox?”
“Chicken, of course. I’m not a monster.”
This kind of exchange is one we often share. Nicholas believes in magic, mediums, and mysticism even less than I do—in fact, it’s what drew him to me in the first place. Although my worldview has shifted since our initial meeting, and while I’ve come to learn that there are many things about our universe that defy rational explanation, he remains steadfastly disbelieving.
Considering what he went through this past winter, I can understand the chip-sized burden he carries on his shoulders. It took me a long time to come to terms with the loss of my sister and believe in the miraculous again. I’m not going to rush him.
Unfortunately, our playful exchange is witnessed by one of the more respectable families in the village. Standing a few feet away are Mr. and Dr. MacDougal, the local schoolmaster and family physician, respectively, along with their preteen daughter. They take one look at me cursing Nicholas’s entire household and give us a wide berth as they enter the church doors. Annis flashes me an amused look and goes to greet them with her calm, friendly air, but the damage has already been done.
“Now look what you made me do,” I say irritably. “All my credibility is gone, and the meeting hasn’t even started yet.”
“Don’t be absurd. You never had any credibility to begin with.”
Though true, it’s not very gentlemanly of him to say so, so I send him off with a glare. He makes no mention of when he’ll see me again, but it doesn’t bother me—at least, not much. Our arrangement is that we have no arrangement. I’m living in his home village because I like the setting and the people. He comes and goes as his work and family demands dictate. We’re nothing more than ships passing in the night. Ships that occasionally share waters, yes, but all attempts at defining our romantic entanglement stop there.
It has to. Women in my profession can’t afford stability. An air of mystique is our most valuable asset.
Familiar with the church’s layout, I make my way past the rows of heavy wooden pews toward the basement. Like many of the structures around here, the lower level is the most modern one, updated from the dark, dank hold of centuries past to display fluorescent lighting and high-traffic beige carpet. The scent of percolating coffee assails my nose as I walk in to find about a dozen local residents settling into a ring of folding chairs. Some of the women have brought knitting with them; others sit chatting as they wait for the meeting to start.
After grabbing a paper cup of coffee and stirring enough sugar and cream in to dilute the burned taste, I decide to sit between the gently snoring General von Cleve, who can be trusted not to recognize me even though we’ve met several times before, and Mrs. Brennigan, a fifty-something woman with brindled hair who’s one of my regulars.
“Oh, Madame Eleanor!” she cries, shifting her chair over to make room for me. She bears the lightly floral scent of my lavender water. She’s also glowing with the kind of vitality that can only come from regular visits to the marriage bed. I hate to boast of my own success, but there’s no denying she looks, well, happy. “I had no idea you were interested in village affairs. Isn’t this a little . . . tame for someone like you?”
I plaster on an appropriately mystical smile. “I’m i
nterested in all things ritualistic. Local traditions and customs are fascinating to a woman like me, especially since so many of them can be traced back to the early pagan rituals.”
She blinks.
“Springtime is an especially potent time of year. Renewal and rebirth—they’re everywhere around us. Can’t you feel it?”
“Not really, no,” she says baldly. “We’ve been doing this fête every year for two decades, so the only thing I feel about it anymore is bored.”
“Hear, hear!” mutters the general under his breath. He still bears the hallmarks of a man sound asleep, but one of his rheumy eyes opens long enough to wink at me. Huh. Maybe he does know who I am, after all.
“Then it’s a good thing we have Eleanor to help us spice things up a bit this year, isn’t it?” Annis asks from directly behind us.
I turn, flustered. “Oh, I’m not here to—”
“There’s nothing wrong with our customs,” Dr. MacDougal says from the other side of the room. She’s an austere woman in her early forties, sharp eyed and sharp tongued, but somehow attractive in spite of it. Maybe even because of it. It’s difficult to imagine her handing out lollipops and soothing children over their scraped knees, but I bet she’s a killer at vaccinations. “In fact, I’d like to know under whose authority she was invited. I understood the fête planning committee was for local residents only.”
Being excluded from public events isn’t a new thing for someone like me. I might not bear a scarlet letter in the middle of my chest or ride a horse through town wearing nothing but my long, dark hair, but I do have a tendency to flaunt convention. It’s understandable that a few backs get put up along the way.
Before I’m able to defend myself, however, the youngest MacDougal turns on her parent.
“Oh, don’t be so fusty,” the girl says. Like her mother, she’s thin and sharp and, to be honest, a little intimidating for a twelve-year-old. However, that’s where the similarities end. She’s covered from head to toe in freckles, her hair an orangey red that resembles a flame whipped into a froth. She turns to me with a crooked, toothy smile and says, “I think what she’s doing in this village is smashing. She actually cares about making people happy.”
To be fair, I mostly care about making a living using the only real skill set I have in this world, but I appreciate the gesture.
“Lenora Marie . . .” her mother begins.
Her father clears his throat and adds, “Don’t speak to your mother like that.”
Mrs. Brennigan, bless her, rises to my defense with a staunch, “But it’s true. She does care. She’s done more for me in the past few months than the rest of you have done in years.”
Unfortunately, she’s no match for a stout, beetle-browed woman two seats down waving her knitting needle at me like it’s a lance. “I think she’s giving me the evil eye. Does it look like she’s giving me the evil eye?”
Behind me, Annis clears her throat in a gentle, unobtrusive way. It’s a testament to her role as theological guide to this community that the room falls silent and stays that way for a full ten seconds until she’s ready to say her piece.
“I understand that Madame Eleanor’s spiritual leanings are somewhat contradictory to the tenets that you and I hold dear.” She places a hand on my shoulder. I can’t decide whether it’s to comfort me or hold me in check, but it serves to do both. “But I believe—as I’m sure you do—that people of all faiths and backgrounds are welcome in our village. What better way to make her feel welcome than to allow her to contribute her share to our continued success?”
It’s a lovely speech, and I’m appropriately misty eyed at a woman of such moral superiority leaping to my defense. It might have even worked on the crowd, too, except the woman who accused me of giving her the evil eye slumps in her chair at that moment, a hand clutched against her chest.
“Sarah?” The woman seated on her right is Penny Dautry, a local villager and baking wizard. She dives for Sarah’s purse, her hands shaking as she searches for something inside it. “Sarah, where are your pills? Did you remember to bring them?”
“It’s her heart,” the general mutters. “The doctor. Let the doctor see to her.”
Dr. MacDougal rises nobly to the call, getting up from her chair and going to the woman’s side with a competence I can’t help but admire. As she lays the woman’s body out on the ground and begins talking to her in a low, capable voice, I can even forgive her for saying I’m not a resident here. She’s that good.
I’ve never seen a heart attack in person before, but I never believed them to be as violent as the one that takes hold of Sarah. In fact, after one glance at the wrenching spasm that upends the contents of her stomach, I take it upon myself to clear the room.
“Let’s go upstairs and give them some space,” I say, not wholly for the doctor’s benefit.
“Yes, let’s,” Annis agrees. More to the point, she begins corralling her parish in a herd and pushing them toward the door. “You can wait in the pews while I call an ambulance. I’m sure Dr. MacDougal has things in hand down here.”
I don’t know how true that is, but the doctor pays us no heed as we file out of the room. Of everyone, Lenora seems the most upset, which is understandable given her age and the fact that her parents are the ones who have gone to the rescue. As she files through with the rest of the group, her face ashen, I sling an arm over her shoulder.
“It’s a good thing your mother was here,” I say in a tone that carries nothing but friendly cheerfulness. “If I were to have a medical emergency, she’s exactly who I’d want to be sitting next to.”
“You’d better not,” Lenora says in all seriousness. “I doubt she’d bother to save you.”
I’m not sure whether to be insulted or not, but there’s nothing malicious about the frank way she looks up at me.
“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”
I glance over Lenora’s head to where Dr. MacDougal has started chest compressions. The girl shifts as if to turn with me, but I keep my grip firm on her shoulder. There are some things a child should never have to see for herself.
“She’s going to be fine,” I lie. “I’m sure it’s just something she ate.”
* * *
“It was something she ate.”
I pause in the middle of bringing the cup of tea to my lips.
“Not here, of course.” Vivian Hartford waits until I take a sip of the tepid liquid before speaking again. I’m well onto the tricks Nicholas’s mother likes to play by now, so I know that the cold tea and stale cake are meant to dissuade guests from visiting during mealtimes. “It’s just what they’re saying in the village. That Sarah Blackthorne was poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Even though the tea tastes perfectly normal, I set the dainty pink cup back on its saucer. “What kind of poison?”
“Rat killer? Arsenic? I don’t know. What sort of poison do people use to commit murder in this day and age?” Vivian blinks at me, an expectant air in every line of her bearing. Although the older woman delights in being an oddity, and is wearing some kind of bizarre tennis dress and bolero jacket combination to prove it, I like her. And not just because she believes I know all the tricks to modern-day homicide.
“I think prescription narcotics are probably the best way to go,” I say after some consideration. “I mean, it would be easier to frame as an overdose that way, don’t you think?”
She purses her lips. “Well, yes, but it’s not always easy to get your hands on that type of thing.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s easier to get Vicodin than it is arsenic. But then, I’m just spitballing here.”
Our conversation is interrupted by a low, cool voice from the hall. “I’m not going to ask,” Nicholas says as he moves smoothly into the parlor. It’s the room most often used at Castle Hartford, a truth borne out by the shabby blankets cast over chairs and half-read books left open on their creases. It’s easy to be fooled by such bourgeois comforts, but there’s a real Aubuss
on carpet underfoot and I’m pretty sure the vases flanking the fireplace are from the Ming dynasty.
Perfectly at ease in these elegant surroundings, Nicholas leans down and kisses first my cheek, then his mother’s. “Actually, I am going to ask. Mrs. Blackthorne?”
Vivian makes a tsking sound before pouring a healthy dollop of brandy into her tea. “Yes, the poor thing. Not that I cared much for her—not since that time I caught her drowning a litter of kittens down by the bridge—but they say it was a rather gruesome way to go. Was it, dear?”
This question is put to me, but I find myself unable to answer. For one, I was well out of the way by the time she passed, sitting upstairs with the rest of the parishioners. For another, I’m still caught up on the kittens.
“Didn’t you stop her?” I ask, thinking of my own surly Beast. I like to think she’d fight hard before she’d let anyone—human or otherwise—thrust her into the great beyond before she’s good and ready. “Surely there’s an animal shelter that would have taken all those kittens in.”
“Well, of course I did. Why do you think I asked you to go to the fête committee in my place? She and I haven’t been able to share a room ever since.” Vivian’s eyes narrow, revealing a side to herself I’ve never seen before. “She had the gall to call me a busybody and lodge a complaint with the city council. I’d have poisoned her myself if I’d thought about it. And none of that Vicodin nonsense, either. Something slow, I think. And painful.”
“If I might make a suggestion, I’d keep the death threats to a minimum until the coroner comes back with his results.” Nicholas’s tone is both mild and mocking—a combination he has perfected.
“Nonsense.” Vivian brushes him off with a wave of her hand. “I can name you at least half a dozen other people who would have been glad to bump her off. Do you think I ought to write them down? It might help the police with their investigation. You’re friends with Inspector Piper, Eleanor. What do you think?”
I sit back in my chair, taking everything in with a slightly bewildered air. I should know by now that nothing that takes place in this village is as straightforward as it seems. The problem with people who have lived in the same small town for years, sharing births and deaths and mundane daily activities, is that they have a tangled history it would take a professional taxonomer to organize.
