by Sharon Pape
We had no trouble finding the room where Jim lay in repose. Although there were ushers standing by, all we had to do was follow the people ahead of us. We wended our way through the crowd that had spilled out of the Harkens’ room into the wide hallway, pausing to exchange whispered greetings with everyone we knew. Between Tilly and me, that covered a good eighty percent of those in attendance, which made our progress slow. Inside the visitation room, we made our way down the center aisle to Elise, who was standing beside the closed casket, with her two boys, stiff and straight in their suits. Elise looked calm and composed as she accepted condolences from the people ahead of us. She was as pretty as ever, her delicate features perfectly framed by the chin-length cut of her auburn hair. She had a quiet elegance about her even when she was in sweatpants.
When I finally came face to face with her, we hugged and held onto each other for a few extra beats. Noah and Zach were dry-eyed, but pale. When I hugged Zach he was very still, his jaw clenched fiercely, determined not to show emotion in front of his friends. My hug was no more than a brief, gentle pressure before I moved on. With Noah, I felt his breath catch in his chest as I hugged him. I knew if I didn’t walk away quickly, he would start crying in the safety of my arms. I’d been the boys’ babysitter for a long time and I still came “to keep Noah company,” as we put it, when no one else was at home. It was part of a beautiful circle that had started with Elise as my sitter when I was young. At that time, the twelve years between us was huge, but after I reached adulthood, those years meant nothing.
Following me, Tilly pulled Elise into a tight embrace, nearly smothering her in silk muumuu. No doubt fearing a similar fate, both boys stretched out their right hands well before she reached them. Thankfully, Tilly was astute enough to understand. As we moved away to make space for the next visitors, I took a quick survey of the room. Many of the pews were filled with people engaged in muted conversation. There was no way we could slide in and out of rows to listen for an interesting topic, without being obvious about it. Our best bet was to circulate among those assembled in the hallway. I was a little surprised to find that the number of people out there had increased during the ten minutes we’d been in the room. Stealthy Tilly gave me a wink and set off on her fact-finding mission. I started working the other half of the hall, meandering around the knots of people and checking my watch as if I was waiting for someone to arrive, in case anyone wondered what I was doing. Pretty much everyone was talking about Jim and the way he’d died. A few expressed concern for Elise, who now had the added burden of being a single parent. Then I heard Beverly Ruppert remark, in a whisper loud enough to turn nearby heads, that she knew for a fact not everything had been “peachy keen” lately in the Harkens’ household. Even if I hadn’t recognized her voice, she was the only adult I knew who would use a phrase like peachy keen.
“Really? How do you know that?” I inquired as I joined her circle. It took all of my willpower to say it like I couldn’t wait to hear all the sordid details and not like I wanted to flog her for spreading malicious gossip about Jim and his family.
Beverly turned to me with the look of the cat who’d nabbed the canary and was roasting it for lunch. “I happen to know a lot of people and I’m privy to a lot of secrets.”
“Not so fast,” said Connie Milhouse, “you can’t drop a bomb like that and not elaborate.” I was grateful she’d stepped in. I didn’t want the discussion to deteriorate into a verbal sniping match between Beverly and me. The three others in the group chimed in with similar comments. Under normal circumstances, I would have excused myself from such a distasteful discussion, but these were hardly normal circumstances. I was on a mission to find out whatever I could.
“Okay, okay,” Beverly said, acquiescing like a diva agreeing to an encore. “I have a friend whose cleaning lady also works for the Harkens.” She paused for what I assumed was dramatic effect. “And she overheard Jim and Elise arguing. They were trying to keep their voices down, but she caught a few key words that made her think the late Mr. Harkens may have been fooling around with another woman.”
Seeing the smug expression on her face, I finally lost it. Regardless of whether she had more to reveal, I couldn’t listen to her for another moment. “A few key words?” I repeated in a steely whisper. “He may have been fooling around? Seriously? Maybe you should be less interested in what’s going on in other households and more concerned with how people will talk about you when you’re gone.” I turned sharply on my heel and strode off, leaving Beverly with her mouth hanging open in shock. I was so distracted that I plowed headlong into Detective Duggan.
“Whoa there, Ms. Wilde,” Duggan said, putting his arms out to stop me. He was standing at the edge of the crowd with Officer Curtis and a man I’d never seen before.
“Oh sorry, sorry.” I said, slamming on my brakes. I wobbled for a moment, but caught my balance before I fell flat on my face. “It’s so crowded in here, it’s hard to navigate.”
“No harm done, though that woman you snapped at might not agree. That’s quite a hot temper you’ve got there.”
“And as you just saw, I walk away from situations that provoke it.” I gave myself a gold star for having recovered my composure so quickly. From his position beside the detective, Curtis broke into a boyish grin. It was one of those smiles that makes you want to smile back, but I shot down the impulse. I didn’t want Duggan to get the idea I was taking Jim’s death too lightly.
The stranger held out his hand. “Roger Westfield,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met.” He was tall and reedy with wavy brown hair that dipped onto his forehead and would have benefitted from a stylist’s attention. My guess was science teacher or CPA.
I took his hand and was about to introduce myself when Duggan cut in. “I was getting to it,” he muttered like a child who’s been reminded of his manners. “Kailyn Wilde, Dr. Roger Westfield, ME for Schuyler County.”
By then our handshake was going on for too long. “Nice to meet you Dr. Westfield,” I said quickly, withdrawing my hand before the moment became any more awkward. I couldn’t quite picture him cutting up bodies. But what did I know? My experience with medical examiners up until then was based purely on TV shows.
“Ms. Wilde and her aunt are the ones who discovered Harkens’ body,” Duggan was saying. “Your aunt didn’t come with you tonight?” he asked me, as if we were casual friends having a chat.
“She’s here, down the hall mingling,” I replied. “I need to be getting her home though. So, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
“We’ll see you around.” Duggan said.
Not if I see you first, I thought and clamped my jaw shut to keep the words from spilling out. I did a quick one-eighty, checked for other road blocks, and headed off in Tilly’s direction.
* * *
“I’m afraid I didn’t hear much that was worthwhile,” Tilly said once we were back in my car, “but I poked about in the auras of some people and found more dark stuff than I would have imagined. Gave me the willies.”
“Guilt?”
“Yeah, along with about a dozen different things that have nothing to do with Jim. It was all an impenetrable morass. I couldn’t see anything specific.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Besides, I can’t trust my reading of auras or anything else until I’ve fully recovered.”
To be fair, I don’t think Tilly was consciously trying to pile on the pressure, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it. I promised myself I’d go through the rest of my mother’s papers in the morning. I still had one important chore to attend to before I went to sleep.
I dropped Tilly at her house and pulled into my driveway a minute later. The moon was full and platinum bright above me as I walked to the front door and let myself inside. The perfect night for summoning my familiar. Although it had been a long day, I was energized by the prospect of performing the ritual. I changed into my old jeans and a T-shirt and spent the next two hours scrubbing down the house, although I kept it prett
y clean on a daily basis. Either Morgana and Bronwen had shown me by example that was the proper way to live, or I’d come by the clean-freak gene more organically. I’d often envied Tilly, who didn’t share our compulsion. Not that her home was dirty. But it wasn’t surprising to find her breakfast dishes still in the sink at bedtime or the odd hair ball rolling along the floor like tumbleweed, courtesy of her familiar, Isenbale, a huge Maine coon.
When my house was sparkling, I filled the deep soaker tub with warm salt water and immersed myself in it up to my neck. I felt all the tension flow from my body into the water and a delicious peace settle over me. I might have stayed there for hours if the water hadn’t started to cool and my pesky conscience hadn’t kept nagging at me to get on with the summoning. Putting it off until tomorrow would mean having to clean the house again from top to bottom and I certainly didn’t want to sign on for that. So I loofahed myself until my skin was a bright, tingling pink, then dressed in a clean cotton shift and lit a patchouli-infused candle. Candle in hand, I opened the front door of the house and peeked out to see if anyone was around. Fortunately it was late enough that my closest neighbors were asleep or watching TV. I flung the door wide and stood on the threshold to cast the spell.
“Come to me, my canine friend,
with a love that will not end.
Paws and tail and deep brown eyes,
loyal and gentle, sweet and wise.”
There was no hard and fast rule about how long it would take for the spell to work, so I sat down on the floor in the doorway to begin my vigil. Ten minutes passed, fifteen, twenty. I kept thinking I should have bought a fly swatter to keep the flying insects out of the house. After an hour, I was scratching at mosquito bites and too exhausted to keep my eyes open. I could lie down for a while on the doorsill and run the risk of someone finding me still there in the morning, bitten to a pulp, or I could lock up the house and crawl into bed. Bed won out. If my familiar was coming tonight, I hoped he, or she, had a bark loud enough to wake me.
* * *
As it happened, I slept undisturbed, the five cats arrayed around me. Sashkatu had sole claim to the pillow next to me, which is where he’d always slept when Morgana was alive. Since I’d started using the master bedroom, he seemed content enough to remain there with me. My first night in that bed, one of the other cats tried to usurp his spot and received a good boxing for his efforts. Sashkatu might be old, but he was still feisty enough to defend his territory.
I opened my eyes to daylight and looked around me. The cats were pretty much where they’d been when I’d fallen asleep, which was unusual. With the exception of Sashki, most nights they played their own version of musical chairs. Perhaps my exhaustion had been contagious. I lay there an extra minute or two, listening for a bark, a plaintive cry, the scratching of nails on the door. Nothing. Apparently this was going to take longer than I’d anticipated.
* * *
The funeral began at ten o’clock sharp, the attendance half of what it had been for the wake. Tilly and I were among the few friends who accompanied the family to the cemetery, where the graveside service was mercifully short. Elise maintained her poise, but the facade was showing strain. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her pallor almost ghostly. She had her arms around her children, and her sister and brother had their arms around her. I sent thoughts of solace to comfort them all. I hadn’t expected to learn anything more than I had at the wake and I was right. Funerals tend to be more somber, people not as given to chat or gossip when so starkly reminded of their own mortality.
By the time Sashki and I opened the shop, it was noon. If my familiar had arrived while I was gone, I hoped he or she would be savvy enough to find me and patient enough to wait for me. Of course, a familiar who wasn’t would probably be lacking some other critical skills as well. In spite of that wisdom, I found myself looking out the window every five minutes. I took another bag of my mother’s papers out of the closet and sat down at the counter, determined to keep busy and find the spell that might help Tilly. I was interrupted a few times by local customers, but by midafternoon I’d made my way through the rest of the bags. Unfortunately I had nothing to show for my efforts, unless you counted the recipe for my mother’s quiche, which I’d been hunting for in the kitchen, of all places, and the phone number of our plumber.
I tugged the door to the coat closet open without leaving my chair. Emboldened by my success, I sent the bags back to the closet the same way. Halfway there they bumped into each other and the next thing I knew, a hurricane of papers was flying around the shop. I’d have to clean things up by good, old manual labor. It took me fifteen minutes to collect all the papers and stuff them into the bags, then deposit them in the closet. I was walking back to my desk, when a resounding crash made the floor beneath my feet vibrate. Startled from sleep, Sashkatu sprang up and lost his footing on the tufting of his cushion. I managed to catch him as he plunged toward the floor, for which I was treated to half a dozen frantic scratches.
As the worst of the noise faded away, I heard the continuing crinkle of breaking glass. There was only one place it could be coming from—the storeroom. But what could have knocked over the heavy shelving units in there? It occurred to me that I should be armed with a weapon of some sort, because intruders were seldom law-abiding citizens, and I clearly couldn’t rely on my telekinetic skills alone. The most lethal thing in the shop was the broom and it was in the storeroom with my uninvited guest. I debated calling 911, but I’d had enough of the police for a while.
I headed for the storeroom as quietly as possible and listened at the door. When I didn’t hear anything more, I cracked it open enough to peek inside. Like so many giant dominoes, the four steel units had toppled onto one another, throwing dozens upon dozens of glass jars to shatter on the cement floor, their contents merging into a muddy sludge that was oozing toward me. Standing in the middle of all the chaos, was an elderly man with disheveled white hair and a scraggly beard. He was thin and frail-looking, dressed in a dingy white shirt and baggy pants held up by a drawstring waist, all of which made him look like a scarecrow. Then I noticed that blood was trickling from the bottoms of his bare feet onto the jagged glass that surrounded him. He’d been staring at the floor as if wondering how he could navigate his way to the door without slicing himself to ribbons.
“Ah, Mistress,” he said when he saw me, “would you kindly tell me what place this be?”
Mistress? Had this guy taken a wrong turn on his way to a Renaissance Faire? He was doing a pretty good job with the British accent, but where was the rest of his costume? And why was he here? Had he broken in during the night? Then why hadn’t the alarm been triggered? The questions were quickly piling up, and I needed to start getting some answers. I considered grabbing the broom and sweeping a path to him, but decided to leave the glass between us as a deterrent for now. Not that he seemed at all dangerous. In fact, he looked more confused about the situation than I was.
“Let’s start off with you telling me who you are,” I said in my best no-nonsense tone.
His unruly gray brows pinched together in a frown. “Do you truly not know?”
“Truly,” I replied, making no effort to mask the sarcasm.
“Mayhap it is my garb that is confounding.” He leaned from the waist in a graceful bow. “Dear girl, I am Merlin, of course.”
Chapter 6
I couldn’t say anything for a minute. I opened my mouth, then closed it, speechless. Did this man really expect me to believe he was the legendary wizard? He looked more like a Don Quixote wannabe. On the other hand, he had managed to get through my locks and security system. “Nice to meet you, Merlin,” I said, playing along. “How did you get in here?”
“I find myself as puzzled as you, my lady. One moment I was off to the woods to pick mushrooms for my dinner and the next I found myself in this room. I assure you that I never travel far from home clad in such slovenly attire,” he added in dismay.
Terrific, it appeared that nei
ther of us knew anything. “Do you know what caused my storage units to fall?” I asked, thinking he looked far too old and frail to have knocked down more than a couple of jars.
“I cannot be certain,” he said, “but I believe them to have been a casualty of the same energy wave that brought me here.”
An energy wave? Now he sounded like a refugee from Star Trek. It occurred to me that he might have been conked on the head when the steel shelving fell. But from where I stood, I couldn’t see any blood in the rat’s nest of his hair, and I knew from experience that scalp wounds bleed like crazy. I considered my options. I could drive him to the nearest hospital or better still, call for an ambulance. They would take him off my hands and check him out physically as well as mentally. So why was I hesitating? In spite of the implausibility of what he’d said, something about him must have struck me as genuine. After all, implausibility doesn’t hold as much sway with me as it might your average person. My entire family could be considered a study in the implausible.
While I was arguing with myself, Merlin had begun to shiver. I decided to take him back home and make him a cup of hot tea. I needed to look at his feet anyway to assess how badly he was hurt. I could clean and bandage simple cuts, but for something worse I’d have to get him to an ER. “I’m going to clear a path for you,” I told him, gingerly picking my way through the glass shards to the nearest corner of the room where I kept the broom and cleaning supplies. I swept the glass to the side as I made my way to him, explaining why I wanted to take him to my house.
“What is an ER?” he asked warily.
“It’s the part of a hospital where people go when they’re injured.”
“No,” he said tightly, his jaw clenched and the veins at his temples standing out against his pale skin. “No hospital!”
Maybe he had escaped a psychiatric facility after all. “I mean a regular hospital where they can take care of your feet,” I added.
