“Why, yes,” Helena replies. “We’ve had him many years now. None of the other inspectors seemed to mind …”
“And look: it’s molting on the carpet! That’s an additional sanitation issue, Mrs. Harbinger.”
“He,” Helena replies politely. “The bird is male. It’s normal for him to molt when he’s anxious.”
“Well, a parrot flying loose in a bed-and-breakfast is not normal. You can get away with this sort of thing in Europe, I suppose, but here in America we have standards which must be adhered to if you wish to remain in business.”
“He is toilet-trained,” Helena says, and the inspector snorts by way of reply. “Truly, Ms. Smith. Hieronymus is meticulous in his personal hygiene.”
“Please, Mrs. Harbinger. Don’t be absurd.”
I glance at Uncle Hy, who is giving the inspector a gimlet stare.
No doubt he’d like nothing better than to peck her eyes out; too bad he hasn’t the beak for it.
Helena puts her finger to her lips, urging him not to mock her, and in response he turns claw so that he’s facing his lectern. As he flips a razor-thin page Rose Smith’s eyes widen, and she clutches the clipboard to her chest.
“As I said, he is a very intelligent bird,” Helena says mildly.
“Ahem. I have yet to inspect the breakfast room.” Rose Smith turns and exits the parlor and we all follow her into the dining room. During covention time we have that grand old mahogany table to feast on, but the rest of the year the room is filled with small tables for two or four people and topped with white tablecloths, condiment trays, and fresh flowers.
Fruit bowls and Tupperware cereal bins line the sideboard, and the inspector pokes through the oranges and bananas to ensure the produce at the bottom isn’t furred over with mold. Then, with an air very nearly bordering on triumphant, she points to the flip-top spout on the granola bin. Vega gasps. The lid is open! One of the guests must have neglected to close it, and my niece overlooked it when clearing up after breakfast. The Harbinger girls hold their breath as the inspector writes on her clipboard.
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you have failed this inspection.”
We all start talking at once:
“You’re closing us down over a lousy granola bin?”
“Look, we’ve told you the parrot is toilet-trained!”
Rose Smith holds up a hand to silence us. “Did you happen to read in the papers late last month that a dead mouse was found in a cereal bin by a guest at an establishment down in Cape May?”
We can only stare at her, mouths agape.
“Now.” The inspector tears the pink sheet off the bottom of the inspection form and hands it to Helena. “One of my colleagues will arrive in one week to perform a complete inspection for a second time. If you pass that inspection you will be permitted to reopen.”
None of us are panicking yet, for this is all fully reversible: with a few simple words the marks will shift on that inspection sheet, and Rose Smith will say You run a very fine establishment, Mrs. Harbinger. Congratulations on another stellar inspection report, all the while blinking like a barn owl. Vega is raising her forefinger to do just that when Helena holds up a hand in gentle restraint. Her granddaughter looks at Helena incredulously as Rose Smith strides from the room, but she does not argue. Nor do I, as I’m too stunned even to open my mouth.
“We can reopen in a week,” Helena says to Vega once Rose Smith has left the house. “And anyway, dear, it’s high time you had a holiday.”
A Spot of Black Magic
18.
She was shunned, and at the same time cringed to. People feared to fear her.
—Mary Wilkins Freeman, “The Witch’s Daughter”
ALL THE local coven members gather at Harbinger House exactly one month after Lucretia’s accusation. The meeting is preceded by a potluck lunch, during which everyone converses about the weather and other innocuous topics intended to conceal their uneasiness at our postprandial business. None of us mention our unexpected visitor, though I’m so angry I can’t look Lucretia in the eye. Uncle Hy is absent, as he has been sulking in the attic for three days straight. No one discusses plans for the summer covention, which strikes me as rather odd, and when I bring it up someone hastily changes the subject.
By the time we’ve proceeded into the drawing room and Helena has called the meeting to order, the collective dread is very nearly palpable.
Dymphna begins by asking us if we have all read the letters. We have. I rise and ask permission to present our view of the facts, namely:
One, that Belva Mettle was far from an impartial observer and was in fact in love with Henry Dryden and would have seized upon any indication, however scant or imaginary, that Helena was less than an ideal wife; and
Two, that the unnatural substance found in Henry’s coffee thermos is by no means conclusive proof of malicious intent.
I take it upon myself to state my sister’s case to all assembled. On the first point, I show the room the photocopy of Belva’s picture in the Blackabbey Gazette. Judging by their expressions, most of them seem to agree this picture goes quite a way in discrediting hapless Henry’s secretary.
Now for the coffee. “The substance found in that thermos is necessary to decaffeinate the coffee, and though it is certainly toxic at the levels found in the thermos, we believe the fault lies with the coffee manufacturer.” I cast a smug glance Lucretia’s way. “It is reasonable for us to suppose that the coffee beans Helena used were improperly processed. Of course, there is no way to prove or disprove this sixty years on.”
“Was anyone else in your household afflicted?” someone asks.
“Henry was the only one who drank decaffeinated coffee.” As Helena speaks the afternoon light glints off the glass mourning locket round her neck. “I threw out the can after he died.”
Lucretia clears her throat. “Forgive me for interrupting, Helena, but why would you do that? I am aware that you did not open your B and B for many years afterward, but surely you, being the consummate hostess, would always have decaf coffee on hand for your dinner guests.”
“I’m not sure I can answer that question to your satisfaction, Lucretia. The coffee was old. I threw it out.”
Dymphna breaks the awkward silence. “We have conferred among ourselves—”
“ ‘We’?” I ask. “Who is ‘we’?”
“The elders of the coven,” Dymphna replies patiently. “Mind you, we have no intention of reprimanding you in any way, Helena, especially considering the lack of conclusive evidence. I agree with Evelyn that it would be virtually impossible to prove anything so long after the fact. Having said that, though, we thought perhaps it would be best for everyone if you were to … well … if you were to take a break from your leadership role. Only for the time being.”
Helena says nothing, and that makes me all the angrier. “What!?”
“Please let me finish, Evelyn. This would be a temporary leave—”
“But she hasn’t proven anything!” I shout, and everyone knows I am speaking of Lucretia. “Don’t you see what this means? This means that any of us, for any motive whatever, can accuse another member of anything, absolutely anything, no matter if there’s no evidence to support it. We can all go on taking our turns ruining each other’s reputations until there’s no coven left!”
Dymphna sighs. “Evelyn, dear—don’t you think you’re being a tad melodramatic?”
“Lucretia has accused our sister of murder,” Morven replies in her reasonable way. “It seems to me that the situation is inherently melodramatic.” Most of the others nod in sympathy.
“Listen to me, Dymphna. You can’t say you’re not reprimanding Helena in one breath and in the next tell her she’s got to retire as coven leader. You are reprimanding her. You all know as well as I do that Helena is not the retiring type.”
“Be that as it may,” Helena says, “I can’t blame Dymphna for suggesting a leave, and in the end perhaps it will be the best thing for
me. I won’t argue the point.”
The room erupts in anxious questions, mostly from our side:
“How could you have made this decision before this meeting?”
“When will she be reinstated?”
“Does this mean we’ll no longer gather at Harbinger House?”
“Belva was a dabbler! Doesn’t that mean anything to you people?!”
Dymphna holds up a hand, and the room goes silent. Clear enough who the elders chose to replace my sister! “Any other special meetings will occur at the Peacocks’ house, for now. But I hope there will be no need to choose a new hostess for the next covention,” she says. “I expect we will have settled this matter well before the summer solstice.”
“Settle it? Settle it how? You’ve already admitted there’s no telling what happened to that coffee!”
“In the coming weeks we will discuss other avenues,” Dymphna says, and the room reacts with a stunned and fearful silence.
Morven’s eyes widen and her little red mouth forms a perfect O. “Oh, no,” she says. “Oh, dear.”
ONCE THE others have gone, the washing-up does itself as we all sit round the kitchen table with our heads in our hands. All but Helena, that is; she sips her tea with all her usual composure, staring into the middle distance.
“We’ll put a pox on her,” I grumble as I pour a glug of whisky into my tea, and Morven says, “Now, really, Eve. That isn’t helpful.”
When the invisible hands have completed their work there’s only one item left on the counter: a harvest-mustard casserole dish, the sort of sturdy, ugly thing you would’ve got for free with any five-dollar purchase at the local Shop ’n Save in 1964.
“That’s odd,” says Vega. “Somebody’s forgotten their casserole dish.”
“Who brought a casserole?”
“What? There wasn’t any casserole.”
We all trade looks and eye the dish with suspicion. Vega gets up from the table and lays her fingertips lightly on the ceramic handle. “It’s Lucretia’s.”
GIVEN THAT back in the day the hoi polloi blamed any childhood misfortune on the ire of the local crone, I am not at all comfortable in the presence of ordinary kiddies. I may enjoy watching them from a safe distance, but I try my best to avoid them at close range. Ordinary children are very much like wild dogs: when you are afraid, they will sniff it on you and behave accordingly. So you can just imagine how much gumption I have to muster to walk inside the toy shop on a Sunday afternoon.
The place is crawling with blue-eyed monkeys, the aisles littered with discarded playthings. “Morven—Evelyn—what a pleasant surprise.” Lucretia, naturally, says this with all the sincerity of a game show host.
I plonk the dish on the counter. “Why did you leave your casserole dish in our kitchen?”
“What do you mean? I left it quite by mistake.”
“That is utter bullshit, Lucretia. You brought cookies to the meeting. Why would you bring cookies in a casserole dish?”
“I would appreciate it if you would mind your language in my store,” Lucretia replies placidly. “These children are very impressionable.”
“Answer the question, Lucretia.”
“You’re telling me I left that casserole dish at your house yesterday as a sign of”—she remembers herself then and leans in so none of the browsing parents can hear her next words—“a sign of … maleficium?”
I fold my arms and give her the stink-eye. “That’s right.”
“Well! I won’t dignify such a preposterous accusation. I can’t say I’m surprised, though. You Harbingers have always been known for your arrogance.”
“Better arrogant than spiteful!”
“Now, really, Lucretia,” my sister says. “You can hardly speak as though we’ve been thumbing our noses at you for the last century when you only moved to town ten years ago.”
“Why are you doing this, Lucretia? It’s not as if you could inherit the coven.”
“This has nothing to do with me,” Lucretia replies loftily. “But if you’d rather paint me as some sort of self-interested schemer so you can avoid dealing with this like adults, then who am I to stop you?”
“You are scheming, and you’re only insulting our intelligence by denying it. Don’t think we don’t know who sent that bloody health inspector over to the house last week, two months early!”
Lucretia seems taken aback for only a moment; then she remembers something, and her eyes gleam in triumph. “Two can play at your game, Evelyn. Don’t you dare deny you were snooping around my office last week.”
“What tosh!”
In silence and out of nowhere, Lucretia produces a Ziploc bag that contains only a strand of long black hair. She opens the baggie and pointedly draws out the hair, and it dangles from her thumb and forefinger for a moment before she lets it fall onto the counter.
I put a hand to my snow-white coif and flash her a look of satisfaction. “Oh, Lucretia, you are silly. I can only wish that hair came off my head.” I smell something funny then, and when I look down I notice a towheaded kindergartener—half-sucked lolly in his fat little fist—gazing up at me with an expression of fascinated disgust. “What are you looking at, arsebite?”
“Eve!” Morven hisses. “For heaven’s sake, keep your mouth shut!”
His eyes as wide as his face, the little boy is too shocked even to call me a nasty old fogy. After a frightened pause he runs to the door and out onto the mews as the bell above the jamb gives an agitated tinkle.
“Out,” says Lucretia. “Out of my store, if you please.”
“We don’t please, you troll—you scurrilous bovine—you treacherous fink!”
“I shall have to call the police,” Lucretia says to the room, flashing a stiff smile of apology at her customers as she reaches for the cordless telephone; but for their part, they are gazing at us in bafflement, their mouths twitching with suppressed laughter. Won’t they be telling their husbands all about this geriatric catfight at the dinner table tonight!
Morven grabs me by the elbow. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispers. “I think this hole is deep as it will go.”
* * *
THAT EVENING I return to the mews in much better form. While I’m waiting for Justin to finish up his work, I start poking through a cardboard box of unsorted knickknacks on the front counter.
“We got that box from a guy who just moved into a house on Pearl Street,” he says as he fills out a deposit slip. “Found it in the attic. I gave him ten bucks for it.”
There are strange things in this box, valuable for their very strangeness. I draw out a set of tiny tribal figurines carved out of ivory, each of them with an exaggerated nose or lips or bosom; a mortar of pale pink marble with runic carvings on each side; and a pile of jewelry, turquoise and crystals peeking through a tangle of silver chains. A peculiar stone attached to a blue silken cord catches my eye, and as I untangle it from the rest I realize I have seen it before. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”
“What?”
“It’s Belva’s necklace!”
“Who’s Belva?”
I remember myself. “Oh, just this lady I used to run errands for sometimes. She passed away.”
“Maybe it was her house he moved into.”
“Hmm, maybe.” I hold the hag knot up to the light. Yep, it’s definitely one and the same. He tells me I can keep it.
THERE’S A light on in the kitchen when I get back from Justin’s, though it’s well past midnight. I find Helena alone at the table, staring into a cup of hot cocoa. At first I think, Oh goody! since Helena makes the world’s most delicious drinking chocolate (she never uses powder, only a square of pure chocolate melted into a cup of steaming milk). And then I notice her face.
After Mother went away the others in the coven whispered how it was a good thing Helena never took after her. The house was always in perfect order, and all the children in it were happy, well fed, and properly tutored in magic. But the look on my sister’s fa
ce … it’s the same look I sometimes found on my mother in an unguarded moment. Eyes empty, jaw clamped—it frightened me almost as much as a child as it does now.
Helena starts, and not only because she wasn’t expecting me. I have a queer feeling in my chest, but I pretend nothing is different. “I know, I know,” I sigh as I sink into a chair beside her. “I look like a trollop.”
She gives me a wry little smile. “Would you like some cocoa?” A steaming mug appears at my elbow, the spoon stirring itself.
I pick up the mug, hesitate, and put it down again. “I just want to say that … no matter what happened in the past, or what happens from here on in, I want you to know we’re all behind you. No matter what.”
She gives me a fond look, more amused than touched. “Thank you, Eve.” I pause, hoping she’ll tell me how she’s feeling and how I can help, but all she says is “Everything will work out. You’ll see.”
I slip my hand into my pocketbook, find the hag knot, and run my thumb along the smooth cold stone. Should I tell her I’ve found it? For what good? Belva Mettle has already given her quite enough trouble for one lifetime.
I’m not sure why I want to keep it; I guess I have a hazy notion that it will someday be of use. So I leave the hag knot at the bottom of my bag and promptly forget all about it.
Effing the Ineffable
19.
France, 1944
… the very diablerie of the woman, whilst it horrified and repelled, attracted in even a greater degree. A person with the experience of two thousand years at her back, with the command of such tremendous powers, and the knowledge of a mystery that could hold off death, was certainly worth falling in love with, if ever woman was.
—H. Rider Haggard, She
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