by Bailey Cates
“And Valentine’s Day is coming up.”
Crap. I’d nearly forgotten. Since I didn’t watch much television, I didn’t get the constant reminders from the jewelry stores that gold and diamonds equaled love. I could only hope that Declan didn’t buy into that idea.
“What are you getting your beau?” Margie asked.
“I honestly have no idea. What are you doing for Redding?”
She grinned. “I’m letting him dump the kids at his mother’s and take me out to dinner.”
I pointed at her. “Good plan.”
“Oh, I’ll get him some silly card, too. But we don’t go in for gifts much anymore. Sheez—keeping up with birthdays and Christmas is enough.”
Jonathan came out of the fort and crawled onto her lap. She gave him a chunk of Healthwise muffin and told him to share with his sister. He climbed down and went back into the fort, dutifully minding his mother. Then he gave Mungo a piece before I could say anything.
Mungo swallowed and grinned.
“You’ve lived here your whole life, right?” I asked Margie.
“Sure have.”
“Do you know anything about Fagen Swamp?”
She settled back on the sofa cushion. “Holy crumb! I haven’t thought about that place for ages.”
“So you know it?”
“More than I should. I went to high school with Gart Fagen. He used to throw some wild-ass parties out there when his daddy wasn’t around.” Her eyes cut to her children. Bart had crawled into the fort and was systematically throwing the oversized Legos out the door.
“Why, Margie Coopersmith,” I said. “Are you telling me you attended ‘wild-ass’ parties? With drinking and such?”
She gave me a look. “How do you think I met Redding?”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“What was Gart like?”
“Kind of a jerk, actually. But why on earth do you want to know about him? He moved away years ago.”
So I told her about volunteering at Georgia Wild, the maroon bats, and all the rest, ending with Autumn’s murder.
Margie stared at me. “Killed? That’s terrible. Just awful.” She shook her head. “And all because of that stupid swamp.”
“Well, that might not be the case. Her death might not have anything to do with her work at all.” I drained the last of my tea and stood. “But it might. And I have a box of mailers for Georgia Wild to put together, so I’d better get going.”
Margie stood, too. “You keep safe, Katie.”
“Believe me, I’ll do my best.”
• • •
I heated up the last of Declan’s firehouse chili for my supper and fixed Mungo one of his favorite meals: shrimp fried rice with peas, carrots, and lots of soy sauce. Then I hauled in the mailers and spent the next few hours of my evening upstairs in the carriage house loft, slapping labels on Georgia Wild pleas for funding while an old Doris Day film droned in the background to keep me from going crazy from boredom. Even with that distraction, thoughts ping-ponged through my brain. Most of them were about Fagen Swamp. It was past time for me to see the place.
As the movie credits came up I reached for one of the last brochures to stuff into yet another mailing packet. My fingertips brushed against something solid, something definitely not paper. Pulling the brochure box toward me, I peered down and then reached inside. A small box had been nestled beneath the Georgia Wild literature—specifically a dark blue ring box, and darn if it didn’t have one of those chain jewelry store names embossed in gold on the top.
The ring inside was prettier than any I’d seen during the frequent advertising that had interrupted The Pajama Game. It was heavy and silvery, so my guess was platinum. The central diamond was small, but the metal surrounding it was an elaborately filigreed hexagram. It had an art deco flair to it, with two tiny diamonds on the sides surrounded by tiny platinum hearts.
Mungo jumped onto the settee and sniffed at the ring.
“What do you think?” I asked. “This was in Autumn’s office, so I assume it belonged to her. But why stuff it down in the bottom of a box like that?”
He didn’t have an answer to that, but I thought of what I’d done when my fiancé had broken off our engagement. The cheap ring had swirled down the toilet quite nicely. It was possible this had been Autumn’s wedding ring.
Closing my hand around the ring, I shut my eyes and concentrated. Mungo leaned against my arm, offering to help if he could. The ring felt warm in my hand, but I could have been imagining it. After what seemed like a long time but was probably only a minute or so, I began to feel that the piece of jewelry was quite old—decades at least, perhaps a century.
Opening my eyes, I ruffled the fur around my familiar’s neck. “Well, duh. Of course it’s old. Just look at it. Good goddess, I suck at divination.” With a sigh, I returned the old ring to its newfangled box and put it in the carton with the assembled and addressed mailers. I doubted that it had anything to do with Autumn’s murder, but I’d inadvertently removed it from a crime scene and needed to let Detective Quinn know about it. Besides, maybe it was worth some real money that could help out Georgia Wild.
I called Wren, but she didn’t know anything about the ring. Then I asked if she’d go with me to Fagen Swamp the next day and introduce me to Evanston Rickers. She reminded me that she planned to go to the bank in the morning. Impatient, I didn’t want to wait. Heck, now that I’d made the decision to go, I would have gone out there that night if it had been any kind of real option.
“What’s this Rickers guy like?” I asked.
“Kind of odd, but aren’t we all?” was Wren’s not-very-helpful response. “He’s a herpetologist from Oregon. He’s doing some kind of ground-truthing study in the swamp.”
“Herpetologist as in reptiles?”
“You got it. Snakes specifically in this case.”
Snakes. Ugh. “What’s ‘ground truthing’?”
“Taking an actual count of species—flora or fauna—in any given area as opposed to taking a sampling and using that to extrapolate a figure. Probably more than you need to know.”
“Sounds very scientific.”
“I told you he was a scientist and not some kind of nut,” she said.
As we rang off, I considered my options. Bianca often had free time during the day, so I called her next.
“Sure, I’ll go with you, Katie. What time?”
“How about nine tomorrow morning?” That would give me time to get most of the baking done for the day and help Lucy and Ben through the morning rush . . . if there was one.
“Sounds good. I’m meeting Cookie for breakfast at Clary’s Cafe. Can she come, too?”
“Why not meet at the Honeybee?” I asked. Was the youngest member of the spellbook club working that hard to avoid me?
Bianca was silent for a few moments, then said, “Okay, confession time. I joined Savannah Singles. You know, that online dating site? I’ve hardly gone out at all since my divorce, and I’m sick and tired of being alone. Cookie’s been helping me weed through the possibilities. I want to be careful who I respond to.”
“Good for you,” I said. “But I don’t know why you kept it a secret from the rest of us. We all want you to be happy.”
“It’s kind of embarrassing. It turns out there are a lot of weirdos out there, especially when you say right in your profile that you’re Wiccan. However, I don’t want a repeat of what happened in my marriage, so I’m not removing it.”
Bianca’s husband had left her in a blazing huff when he found out she was practicing the Craft. Too bad for him.
“So I’d like to wait until I at least have a prospect or two before I tell the others,” she said.
“Gotcha. Well, I’m glad you’re being careful—and heaven knows Cookie is good at evaluating men.”
“She’s nixed every single one so far.” She sounded discouraged.
“Be patient,” I said. “Someone perfect will show up when they’re supposed to.”
She sighed. “I guess so. See you in the morning.”
I hung up and the phone rang in my hand. I checked the caller ID: Mary Jane Lightfoot.
I debated briefly, then gave in to the incessant ring. “Hello, Mama.”
“I suppose you were out with your little club last night, lighting a candle for Brigit,” she said by way of greeting. My mother’s words were clipped. Sarcastic.
My heart sank. I shouldn’t have answered.
“Actually, everyone came over here,” I said with forced cheer. “We celebrated in my backyard. I just got a new freestanding fireplace.”
“I bet the neighbors love that.”
I’d so enjoyed honoring Brigit with the spellbook club. Now that memory faded with every word my mother said.
So I pushed back. “I made bannock cakes with raisins and orange rind, and Jaida made a candle just for the ritual.”
My mother’s sigh was loud and long. “And Lucy insisted on champagne, I suppose.”
“Well, yeah.”
She made a very unladylike snorting sound. “You can thank my mother for that. Lucy got it from her.”
I gripped the phone tighter. This was the first time Mama had brought up Nonna Sheffield in reference to magic. “She did?”
“You don’t think it’s something new, do you? Good heavens, Katie. None of this nonsense you’re playing with is original. I don’t know why you’re so fascinated by it all.”
Already stretched thin from fatigue and a couple of really lousy days, my patience snapped. “Are you ever going to forgive me for being your daughter?”
“What?”
“You heard me. I inherited my affinity for magic from you and Daddy, but you seem to blame me. I’m sorry you turned your back on this gift, on the honor of being more tuned in than others to the web of reality, on your own abilities, but I’m not going to do that. It’s not nonsense, and I’m not playing with it.”
She didn’t say anything, and I thought I’d stepped over the line. Still, we’d been dancing around this very conversation for months now, and I was too frustrated to stop.
“I love you. I miss having you in my life, but if you can’t forgive me for simply being who I am, then I don’t know what else we have to say to each other.”
I heard her take a shaky breath, and then a little sniffle.
“Mama?”
“It’s not you that I can’t forgive, Katie.” Her voice wavered. “It’s me.”
I was stunned. “But Mama—why?”
“I knew when I was pregnant with you that you’d inherit what you call a gift. And I should have known it would be even stronger because of your father. We used to practice together, you know, and I was aware of how powerful he was. Is.” She cleared her throat and repeated, “I should have known.”
“You act like it’s a curse.”
“Maybe it is. It can certainly be dangerous.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that. In my short time practicing, I’d been magically attacked as well as physically attacked. And then there was that whole lightwitch thing, whatever that was about. It probably would not be a good idea to tell Mama about that right now.
“Listen,” I went on. “I’m not sorry, and you shouldn’t be, either. I guess I can understand how you were worried when I was a child that I might do something irresponsible. So you didn’t tell me. But don’t you see? I did something anyway, only I didn’t know it. I didn’t understand what had happened.”
“Oh, no, Katie. What did you do?”
“I’m sure there were lots of things, but a big one was when I was in the fourth grade. The kids were teasing me about being an Indian princess.”
“Well, you are, in a way.”
Yes and no. Daddy was descended from a long line of Shawnee medicine men, and somehow his Indian heritage had come to the attention of my classmates. I remembered that my best friend back then, Monty Nye, had thought it was cool when he found out. He’d probably told the others.
“The teasing started to turn kind of ugly,” I continued. “It scared me, and I told them to leave me alone.”
“So?”
“I told them,” I said, infusing the word with my Voice.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, no.”
“Those kids obeyed, too. None of them were ever my friends after that. They totally ignored me, all the way through high school.”
“I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me. “No, no. I’m not asking for you to be sorry. Not now. It’s all in the past, and I’ve forgiven both you and Daddy for not telling me who—or what—I was. But now I know. And now I have other people around me who understand and accept me. I’m not an outsider anymore, Mama. Not here.” I closed my eyes. “So could you try to forgive yourself, if that’s really the problem between us? Please?”
There was a long moment of silence; then she said, “Yes. I’ll try.”
“Okay, then.”
“Katie?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
Smiling, I opened my eyes to find Mungo watching me. “Good night,” she said. “And Happy Imbolc, honey, even if it is a day late.”
• • •
Before heading off to bed, I texted Declan since he hadn’t called to say good night. When he didn’t respond right away, I knew he was probably out on a call. Pushing away the pang of worry that always struck when I realized my firefighter boyfriend could be in a dangerous situation—right then, not just in theory, I went into the kitchen and started up the laptop. Searching for Evanston Rickers netted me a profile on the University of Oregon Web site. A picture of him standing in the front of a lecture hall showed a man in his late forties to early fifties with dark hair and a short beard. He was a tenured professor of zoology with a special interest in the study of snakes and other reptiles. Currently he was listed as being on sabbatical.
So he was a visitor to Georgia, not a native of the area. That made me think he had less of a vested interest in the swamp than I had come to assume.
While I was at it, I did a search for Logan Seward. He had a Web site of his own. It was simple, lauding his legal credentials and community involvement without being terribly specific about either one. There was no mention of any association with the Dawes Corporation or Heinrich Dawes in particular. His contact information gave a phone number and e-mail address but no physical address.
The studio portrait of him, however, told me enough. He was the man who had been coming up when I was going down the back stairwell to Steve’s office.
Curiouser and curiouser.
My phone buzzed then, alerting me to a text. It was from Declan: Car wreck, everyone okay. Can’t call but thinking of you.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I texted back. Thinking of you, too. Be safe. See you tomorrow.
The phone vibrated again as I was drifting off, one hand resting on Mungo’s back.
Count on it, darlin’.
Chapter 12
Bianca swept into the Honeybee right at nine the next morning, her cashmere skirt coat swirling around tall leather boots. Cookie followed on her heels. She’d replaced her usual form-fitting garb with a bulky sweater worn over skinny jeans. Her blue-streaked hair was piled into a clip at the nape of her neck. Bright-eyed and pink-cheeked, they greeted Lucy and Ben before Bianca called to where I was removing warm shortcakes to a cooling rack. “Are you ready, Katie?”
“Will be in two shakes,” I said, untying my green gingham apron and hanging it on the wall with the rest of our collection. Hurrying into the office, I fluffed up my short hair and changed out my neon
green sneakers for hiking boots. I’d donned jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt that morning in anticipation of our swamp visit, and I now grabbed my jacket and bag before joining my friends who were still standing by the front door.
Mungo had acquiesced when I’d asked him to stay home today, settling onto the small settee in front of the television where he was no doubt watching soap operas with the occasional break to nibble on the selection of egg salad, macaroni and cheese, and leftover chili that I’d arranged for his dining pleasure.
God. That dog.
It turned out I could have brought him along. Puck poked his smooth head out of Bianca’s coat as soon as we hit the street, black nose twitching at the air.
“Hi, little guy,” I said to him, then to Bianca, “Do you know how to get there?”
“Her GPS will,” Cookie said.
Of course she’d have GPS in her Jaguar, but I didn’t really care for the implied duh in Cookie’s tone. Bianca looked at her with a puzzled expression as she pushed the keyless entry button on her keychain. Once I’d climbed into the back of the cherry red sports car, though, I couldn’t have cared less. Just sitting on that heated leather seat made me feel like royalty.
I settled back and fastened my seat belt as we headed toward Tybee Island on Bay Street. The road changed names twice before becoming the Island Expressway.
“Any luck with the online dating?” I asked.
Bianca sighed. “There was one guy I really liked. Nice-looking, decent job, a couple of years older than me. But Cookie said no.”
“You could tell from his profile that he’s looking for someone with money. You must be very careful about that, Bianca.”
“Any news on your job interview?”
“I’ll find out in a couple of days.”
“What was it again?”
“Data entry,” Cookie said, staring straight ahead.
“Where?”
“Candler Hospital.”
“Good benefits, huh?”
“I guess.”
The conversation was starting to feel like wading through molasses, so I let it drop. On the other side of Wilmington Island, the pleasant voice giving driving directions from the dashboard instructed Bianca to turn right onto a narrow paved road that curved through grassy marshland. As the road narrowed, the cattails grew taller and more frequent along with swathes of giant cutgrass. The number of trees increased. I recognized black gum and cypress.
