by Kim Hornsby
“Maybe she has your memories,” Eve said.
“Well, that would be weird,” I added like everything wasn’t weird. “Next time I see Caspian in this time period, I’m going to ask him about those nights in the garden to see if Rachel remembered nursing him or if she didn’t appear to know him.”
I decided an afternoon nap might be good for someone who felt like they’d been up for days and was leaving the den when Eve asked what Robert’s last name was. She was adding the last incident to the chart.
“Major Robert Vandervoort.” The name meant nothing to me but my mother who happened to be in the piano room called out.
“His last name is Vandervoort?”
“Why?” I stood waiting to hear something from my mother.
“It’s just that there’s a statue in Portland commemorating a Major Vandervoort and apparently, we’re related to him, that’s all.”
Now, I was wide awake. I marched back to Eve and announced we needed to phone the Smuggler’s Cove Museum. I wanted to find Joan and ask her how this weak-chinned weenie, who was kind enough to offer to marry the spinster Primrose, got a statue in his name. And find out how we could research if we were related to him. “I want answers,” I said.
I sat myself down in a chair and listened to Eve leave a message on Joan’s phone to call us ASAP. When she hung up, I’d concluded that Rachel must’ve gone on to marry Vandervoort. Even though I wasn’t fond of the idea, I wanted Rachel to find love again and maybe she found it with the Major. I didn’t really know Rachel and perhaps she was wild about this Major Vandervoort and found him as exciting as I found Caspian.
That lead me to a horrifying thought. I’d had sex with Caspian without even thinking about the possibility of that being the time a baby might be planted in her womb. Maybe Rachel had had sex with Caspian before but if she wasn’t ovulating… The thought left me feeling confused and guilty until I thought of something else. Am I my own great-great-great-great-grandmother?
In the den, I put that question to Eve who said that idea was weird on so many levels that she could barely comprehend it. She worked at the desk while I wondered out loud if Rachel was already pregnant before Caspian and I had been intimately involved in the garden. I hoped so. I didn’t want to change the course of time but had to believe that if I had already changed things, my mother and I would already no longer exist. Eve too.
There were gaps in what I knew to be Rachel’s relationship with Caspian. Some very important gaps. In determining a timeline with Eve, I realized Rachel and Caspian had probably met less than ten times if you considered the days she nursed him as one time. And the nights they spent together while his ship was in port, before I met him in the garden, as various times. I had a guess on the span of time they knew each other now because I’d asked the servant at the Primrose house who helped me sneak back to my room what month it was. I hadn’t asked outright but by saying, “It’s very pleasant outside, especially for the month of… ?”
The young woman supplied my answer as she helped me take off the robe. “May, Ma’am. Yes, it is.”
While Eve worked on the chart, I verified the dates. “If today’s time travel was May, and Caspian said it had been months since he’d been injured, I probably met him as Rachel in March. Then, it was a few months later, we were on the beach in the summer watching Stevens’ men smuggle the women. The next night was the Summer Ball and that was August because on the way home from the opera with my 1850’s mother, I heard my father talk about how we would journey to the coast for the ball in August.”
As I listened to Eve working on the chart I tried to figure out where I stood in this Rachel story. When I dropped into the timeline, I looked like her and presumably took over her body and mind until I left again. I had to think that Rachel was still cognizant of my actions or she would not have given herself to a man she didn’t even know in the garden at the beginning of their week of trysts.
I didn’t feel like two people inside my head when I ended up in the 1850’s. Just me.
I wondered if Rachel felt like someone else had invaded her body and mind.
Yikes.
Chapter 13
For the next week, I searched for Caspian around every corner with no success. I worried he wouldn’t be back until I solved the puzzle of how he was murdered. That was why I spent every afternoon on the beach with Hodor, trying to recreate the scene that last led me to the 1850’s.
Blackbird had not been back, not that I heard, although I had an APB out on a black crow that hangs out around windowsills and everyone, including my mother, was on the lookout.
My mother’s mood had softened recently, and we’d called a truce. Ron wasn’t taking her calls and she’d given up on him. She’d found a new man in true Rachel fashion.
We heard she’d found someone in town that tickled her fancy. How my mother had found a man when she rarely left the house and thought the town was full of hicks and farmers, was beyond me until she announced at dinner one night, she’d had coffee in town with the mayor.
“The mayor of what?” I’d asked, my dinner wrap headed for my mouth.
“Smuggler’s Cove.” Rachel sounded pleased with herself.
I wanted to question her but continued eating like I wasn’t impressed. Or curious. It was always best to not question my mother because bragging was her middle name and that always made me grind my teeth.
The night she asked Vern Spitz to come in and meet the gang after he’d taken her for dinner down the coast to a Steak House, Eve and I tried our best to act as weird and unapproachable as possible, but he wasn’t deterred.
Carlos and Jimmy were gone on a private investigator assignment in Olympia, Washington. Jimmy did this type of work and had been secured to spy on a cheating husband for a woman who paid “handsomely,” Jimmy had said. He’d needed help with this one and asked Carlos to go with him. There was tech equipment involved so Carlos jumped at the chance.
It was just Eve and I home that night. And any ghosts who might have wanted to drop in when Vern came through the door with his booming voice and deep, rumbling laughter.
“Early sixties, shorter than Aunt Rachel, full head of Grecian Formula black hair and a paunch,” Eve whispered to me probably peeking out the door to the hall. “Wait, not Grecian Formula, but a toupee.”
This man did not sound like my mother’s usual prey, so I had to think that he had money. Being mayor of a podunk town on the Oregon coast would not be enough to get my dear Mama to dinner. He probably owned a ranch or most of the town or was heir to something big that was weeks away from coming down the chute.
“Here’s where they are,” my mother announced, her voice getting closer. “My daughter and niece. I’m afraid their significant others and our employee Carlos aren’t here tonight.”
Wait. My mother was part of my business and Carlos worked for her? I did not think so and was about to tell Mayor Spitz that my mother lied when she beat me to a zinger. “My daughter Bryndle is in love with the ghost of this house. Imagine that.” She spit out a fake laugh and I stood to defend myself.
“I’d deny it, but she’s right,” I said extending my hand to shake. “Who wouldn’t be? He’s a sea captain from the 1850’s who looks like the cover of GQ magazine. Tall, piercing eyes, buffed, full head of black hair.” I didn’t want to make Vern feel badly about himself, but I did want my mother to know I knew what her date looked like and was wise to her shenanigans. She had something up her sleeve and I wanted to know what.
I’d never been the expert at reading my mother and tonight was no exception. I got nothing. Including a handshake. I stood there with my hand out for Vern until Eve took it and set my arm back down to my side.
“He wasn’t looking at you,” Eve whispered.
“Bryndle is blind as a bat.” My mother said, “so you might wonder how she knows what her imaginary boyfriend looks like,” Rachel said.
“Air quotes on imaginary,” Eve whispered.
“Nice
to meet you, Vern.” I extended my hand again, like a normal person, and when the mayor took it, I had my answer on what my mother was up to. He was stinking rich. Filthy rich. Loaded. His bank account runneth over. I cut to the chase.
“How did you make all that money, Vern?” I asked, sitting back down in my chair and settling in for the story. “Oh, did my ole mom tell you I’m a psychic?”
Vern cleared his throat and then laughed, possibly prompted by Rachel. “The stock market. Do you dabble in it, as a psychic?”
“No,” I answered truthfully. “That wouldn’t be fair now would it? My mother tried to get me to make some predictions when I was younger, but I had to inform her that was unethical.” That part was true.
Eve started to giggle and caught herself.
“Now Bryndle, don’t tell tall tales. I already told Vern that you have a high imagination. Let’s get an aperitif, shall we, Vern?”
I listened to them head off to the dining room where apparently my mother had set up aperitifs that I knew nothing about. I had the distinct impression that she was trying to impress Vern with libations, and I wondered what he thought of her beyond the lust I felt from his handshake.
I turned towards Eve. “Did you pick your nose or stare him down, or do anything to make my mother mad?”
“I’m afraid of your mother,” Eve answered. “No, I simply withheld my smile. He seemed nice enough though. Snappy dresser.”
I’d imagined him in a plaid sport coat.
I hoped that Jacqueline would join them in the dining room for aperitifs but according to my mother later, they had a lovely drink and Vern called it a night. “He is actually a nice guy,” Momsy said. “And an Alive,” she added for my benefit.
“And rich,” I muttered under my breath, letting my mother know I was on to her plan to make the mayor her next husband. At least I suspected that was her plan. My mother only dated two kinds of men: hunky, gorgeous ones that she was wildly attracted to and rich older men she tried to marry.
I wondered if it was a good or bad thing that the mayor knew us now. So much freaky stuff went on around here, I was leaning towards bad.
Over the next week without any sign of Caspian, I vowed that if and when he ever came back, I would not lust after him. That could be done in the 1850’s seeing I wasn’t related to him there. Here, I was his great times four granddaughter and the thought of that made me queasy on good days and worse than nauseous on bad days. The only good news on this end would be if Rachel had several children and only one of them was Caspian’s. But that theory was squashed when Joan Hightower did some research to find that Rachel and Major Robert Vandervoort married and only had the one child. I knew that child was Caspian’s.
I hadn’t been able to time travel lately even though I tried every day. Sometimes twice and thrice a day. I wondered if it was because I’d already experienced every moment Rachel had with Caspian, but then remembered I hadn’t been part of all the nights in the garden. Nor had I been part of the time Rachel told him she was pregnant. With a sense of sadness and loss I realized it wasn’t a given that I would be part of every moment Rachel spend with Caspian.
I’d been fully present for the days of nursing a wounded Caspian and then had jumped to the Smuggle Night, then meeting him in the garden in Portland after they’d already been intimate. Thing was, if I showed up back there and she was in the middle of saying “I’m pregnant,” it was going to be very awkward for me telling the man I love that we’re going to have a baby that would go on to be my ancestor. That wasn’t something I could explain to the version of Caspian in 1850.
There was another thought that terrified me. Maybe I was done with time traveling and would never see Caspian again.
Either in the past or the present.
Chapter 14
Vern Spitz became a regular visitor to the house, and I’d lost interest in acting weird around him. He didn’t seem deterred by my immature behavior and I gave up trying to ruin my mother’s path to wealth through the mayor of the town. He seemed like a nice guy and when Carlos and Jimmy came back from their successful PI work exposing a senator’s cheating ways, they liked Mayor Spitz too. We had fallen into calling him Mayor, something that always made him laugh. “More lasagna, Mayor?” “Nice to see you, Mayor,” “Have you seen a ghost yet, Mayor?”
He hadn’t seen any ghosts but had lost his car keys one night only to find them dangling from the chandelier the next morning in the den. “Probably Jacqueline,” we told him. Vern was a believer so we just existed around his booming personality, knowing he’d be gone soon if Rachel found someone better. Or richer.
Our household existed happily for weeks with Eve working alongside me in the business, Jimmy cooking for us, Carlos ordering new tech equipment to determine paranormal levels and gaming in his off hours and my mother tripping along happily in love. Or at least some semblance of what she considered love, if you considered fondness for someone’s money a good base for being in love. I stayed out of her way and she stayed out of mine in those weeks with Vern Spitz. She’d stopped teasing me about Caspian and that worried me. Did she believe I’d never see him again? I’d said a little prayer to whoever was listening that if I could have Caspian back, I didn’t even need to see in his presence. I just wanted him back.
It hadn’t worked yet. I was still blind as a bat and Caspianless.
Every day I tried to reach him psychically and every day I was unsuccessful. I’d tried scrying in mirrors, bowls of water and puddles, finding him in my dreams, searching for him on the beach and every morning, I woke and opened my eyes, hoping for sight to tell me Caspian was close.
My thoughts drove me crazy. One in particular. Was Caspian avoiding me because he’d realized that it was not cool to be dating your great granddaughter times four? He’d said he couldn’t control his comings and goings. In the past, he’d said he simply arrived and went looking for me. Was he lurking around the house, avoiding me because he knew we couldn’t be together as Bryndle and Caspian?
Blackbird hadn’t been seen either, Moonraker was nowhere to be found, even Jacqueline hadn’t moved any furniture or rattled any doorknobs since the incident with Vern’s keys. With Cove House in a Paranormal void, we turned to other houses to find ghosts.
I’d finally decided to come out of the closet to announce to my public that I was having problems with my eyesight and vision came and went, mostly went. It was time to expose myself to my fans. For the occasion, I dressed in a dark purple long dress and had Eve do the tips of my shoulder-length hair purple to match the dress. My makeup was understated for Moody, and we did not use the makeup I’d bought and worn lately to cover up Frankenscar on camera.
I stood on the third-floor landing with the staircase behind me, telling my fans about the accident I hadn’t been able to talk about. I didn’t want to cry during this address and tried to stick to the facts, not tell everyone how the tragedy made me feel.
“I was spared, as you know, only because I wore my seat belt. Harry didn’t have his on.” I really didn’t want to get into details, but I’d been very vocal about wearing seat belts in the past and wanted to continue to speak out for those things.
“Aside from a facial scar and my eyesight, I healed from my physical wounds. My eyesight has come and gone in the last months but at the time of this taping,” I said, “I haven’t seen anything in weeks. Well, that’s not entirely true. I haven’t seen out of my eyes in a year, not since the accident that gave me this scar on my face.” I turned to let the lighting illuminate Frankenscar. “When I have seen in the last months, it has been psychic sight. I’d look at my hand, for instance, see it perfectly, but not through my eyes. If I closed my eyes, I could still see my hand clearly. Rest assured, I’ve been to the best doctors and tried everything medically possible to get my eyesight back but it’s just not possible. Luckily, I still have my psychic sight,” I added, wiggling my eyebrows playfully. “If you go back and watch the shows of the last few months, you’ll
see evidence of me not knowing where to look into the camera. I didn’t want to lie to everyone, but also didn’t feel ready to admit, I’m blind. I kept thinking if I didn’t admit it, I wasn’t really blind.” I took a deep breath. “The episode where I kick the soccer ball, was one of those times when I was able to sense everything and see psychically just as if my eyes were working fine.”
We uploaded the footage the next night at eight p.m. after Eve had been teasing big news on our social media sites all day. The news hit regular news outlets with headlines like “Local Psychic was Blind and Nobody Knew,” and “Paranormal Investigator Admits to Losing Sight.”
My fans were supportive and immediately wanted to help me by offering strange remedies for eyesight loss. It was even suggested I eat more carrots. Eve handled all my correspondence and only told me about the more ridiculous emails and comments. I wasn’t tempted to read about my recent declaration on the internet.
Over the next four weeks, we traveled to Tacoma to rid a bar of the ghost of a musician who’d been electrocuted on stage decades ago, we did a reading for a woman inhabited by the ghost of her grandmother in Bremerton and we even cleared a museum of a group of loggers who’d perished in the building of the structure when the whole thing collapsed over a century ago. I no longer had to pretend to see on camera. I just looked off into the blackness and did my thing. That part was a bit of a relief, but I greatly missed being able to see. Hodor was a champ, sticking to my side in those months and even went on investigations with us. He had his own following now—an offshoot of my fan club.
All cases we worked in that time provided us with wonderful footage to upload to YouTube and take us into rerun season. Carlos took care of all the tech stuff on our show and channel, Eve tweeted, posted and answered fan mail, Jimmy made elaborate meals when he wasn’t helping Eve, my mother did whatever she did to fill up her days and I sat around like a lump with too much thinking time.
