Curses Are for Cads

by Tamara Berry

  Fortunately, the clock’s chime seems also to recall Birdie to a sense of her surroundings—and, I assume, her duty. Like me, she’s going to have to do some serious legwork if she plans to convince these people that she’s the real deal. Under normal circumstances, I might try to band together with her, combining our forces for the sake of a happy ending for this family. Under these circumstances, I’m not going to risk it.

  Especially since she’s looking at me with a strange, almost calculating gleam in her eye. If she doesn’t have murder on the mind, then she has something else I won’t like—that much I know for sure.

  “I’ll just take this with me, shall I?” she says as she grabs the bottle of wine by the neck. “For safekeeping, you understand.”

  “Absolutely.” I get to my feet and walk her to the door. If that thing is poisoned, I don’t want the evidence anywhere near my room. I exercise no hesitation in ushering her into the hallway and shutting the door in her face. “I hope you sleep well, Birdie. I fear that you and I may have our work cut out for us tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yes,” she agrees, still with that speculative look in her eye. “I have the oddest feeling that our journey has only just begun.”

  Chapter 5

  Much to my dismay, I’m the last person down to breakfast.

  In the manner of all historic estates across the United Kingdom, our meal is served in a series of chafing dishes set on top of a sideboard that looks to be as old as the castle itself. The contents of those dishes, however, are mouthwateringly fresh. Eggs, ham, some kind of smoked red fish swimming in oil . . . Not since I treated my brother, Liam, to one of those all-you-can-eat pancake buffets have I seen so much breakfast food in one sitting.

  “Dear Ella, how naughty you are,” says a voice from the table. I don’t have to look to know it’s coming from Birdie White, if only because of that dear Ella. I don’t like it any more this morning than I did last night. “Having a lie-in while the rest of us spend the morning in toil. For shame.”

  I feel a sheepish blush mount to my cheeks. It is rather late for a working guest to be making an appearance on her first day, but that was Birdie’s doing. After leaving my room last night, what did she do but park herself at a reading nook at the end of the hallway to finish off her nightcap? Never has a woman consumed a bottle of wine so slowly or with such determination. I had to keep stealing peeks through the keyhole before I finally gave up and went to bed.

  “Has your morning been spent in toil?” I ask as I spoon a little of everything onto my plate. I’m not accustomed to being fed like this—or at all, really—so I intend to make the most of it. “How strange. I’ve always found spirits to be the least communicative in the morning. There’s something about a fresh new day that sends them into hiding.”

  Granted, the day isn’t the least bit fresh or new, with rain spattering on the windows and storm clouds rolling thickly over the horizon, but the sentiment remains true. Somewhere in this world—say, Malta—I’m sure the sun is shining.

  “Sid was kind enough to sit down for an aura reading with me,” Birdie says.

  My plate now full, I take a moment to examine the three people sitting at the long oak table. Birdie has improved on yesterday’s purple fringe by twisting it around her head instead of her body, complete with a long white feather stuck in the top. I have no idea where she managed to get her hands on a feather, but she looks like a Regency matron from a period drama and—I’m forced to admit—exactly the way a medium should. My own recycled black velvet dress from yesterday seems paltry by comparison, but I don’t have any other choice. Much to my dismay and not at all to my surprise, our bags didn’t materialize overnight.

  Sid also looks like a wakeful, elegant facsimile of her former self, but at least her smile is genuine. She’s pouring tea from a huge silver pot, the steam wisping up in enticing coils.

  “I don’t know how helpful the reading was in finding the missing heirlooms, but I enjoyed it,” she says, dimpling. “Apparently, Ms. White sees a man in my future. A tall, handsome one.”

  “Please, call me Birdie,” comes the instant reply. Birdie spears a fish from the plate in front of her and waves it across the table. “And don’t forget that I told you he’s rich, too. A man of substance in more ways than one—provided you make the push to capture him.”

  Sid laughs. “How could I possibly forget? The moment such a paragon crosses my path, I promise to do my utmost to catch him in my toils. I don’t suppose you know of any, do you, Madame Eleanor?”

  The only tall, rich, handsome man I know is the one I’m dating, and he’s proving hard even for me to pin down. There wasn’t so much as a text from him on my phone this morning. Apparently, my imminent death at Birdie White’s hands isn’t a cause for his concern.

  “Alas, no,” I admit. “The village where I live is mostly retirees and schoolboys. Unless you have an interest in a police inspector embittered by a painful divorce, I’m fresh out of eligible gentlemen.”

  “A police inspector?” Birdie says, her expression one of sharp interest. It looks a lot like all her other expressions, which is to say exactly as though she’s been taken by surprise. She’s somehow managed to re-create the arch of her eyebrows this morning, but I note that her mole has slipped a good half inch to the right. “You’re friends with a police inspector?”

  I nod. “And the local vicar. I haven’t yet cracked the mayor, but I’m making inroads that direction. Sorry, Sid, but he’s happily married.”

  From the other side of the table, Ashley stifles a yawn. He’s in the same dressing gown from last night, his hair a little askew, so I can only assume that he’s no early riser, either.

  “I know for a fact that Sid has turned down marriage proposals from no fewer than three tall, wealthy men,” he says, and holds out his cup for his sister to refill. “Fitting, isn’t it? ‘All tragedies are finished by a death, all comedies are ended by a marriage.’ Given last night’s news, I think we can safely preclude the possibility of matrimony in our future.”

  Sid pours out the tea with a frown. “Byron, I think?”

  “Naturally. Who else would do for a morning like this one?”

  As was the case last night, Birdie pays little heed to the conversation taking place around her, but I find myself taking a keen interest. The shock of Harvey’s death seems to have abated, leaving a pair of siblings able to eat breakfast and quote torturous poetry as if nothing untoward has ever happened. This doesn’t necessarily make them bad people, but it does mean that however much they might have been upset by their father’s solicitor’s passing, his death didn’t touch anything deep within them.

  This idea is borne out when Ashley turns to me with another yawn. “Pass the milk, won’t you, Madame Eleanor?”

  I search in vain. The table is laden with butter and salt and tiny egg cups with even tinier egg spoons, but nothing resembling a pitcher is within my line of sight.

  “He means the powdered milk packets to your right.” Sid gestures at a porcelain holder filled with small blue envelopes. “It’s ghastly, I know, but it’s a tradition whenever we visit the castle. Father couldn’t always get fresh foodstuffs delivered in bad weather, but powered milk is eternal.”

  I hand over the items in question and watch with mild interest as Ashley tears open two packets and sprinkles the contents into his cup. It takes some careful stirring before the clumps dissolve in the liquid, but the end result is a thick, pale brew that I immediately recognize.

  “It looks chalky,” I say.

  “It tastes chalky, too,” Ashley admits as he lifts it to his lips. “But in a good way. You should try some.”

  I shake my head and try not to stare too hard at the contents of Ashley’s cup. His tea is the exact same color and viscosity as the liquid from my vision. All he needs to do is spill it on his shoes, and he’d be emulating Harvey’s death down to the last detail.

  “Is that the same kind of milk they serve on the train?” I ask, unable
to stop myself.

  “Probably.” Ashley shrugs. “It’s fairly popular hereabouts.”

  “Would Harvey have used it?”

  Ashley and Sid share a meaningful glance. “Yes, most likely,” Sid says with a slow, careful blink at me. “He grew up on Barra. Why do you ask?”

  I can hardly tell them that I’m trying to ascertain whether yesterday’s vision was the product of an overactive imagination or not, so I strive for neutrality. “I’m just getting a feel for his character—both his and your father’s,” I say. “It can be easier to make a connection when there are personal details to draw on. For example, would you say that your father—?”

  Birdie interrupts me with a sweep of her arm across the table, still brandishing her fish-speared fork.

  “I knew your father’s solicitor was going to die,” she announces in the gloomy tone I’m coming to recognize as her soothsaying voice. “I predicted it the moment I stepped onto that train, saw it as clearly as if it happened in front of my eyes. Didn’t I, dear Ella?”

  Instead of turning their heads toward the woman claiming the power of clairvoyance, Sid and Ashley glance at me. It goes against every grain I have to give Birdie any spiritual authority, but she’s not wrong. She did predict his death.

  I mean, she may have also caused it in the first place, but I’m not about to throw around those kinds of accusations willy-nilly. I’m a professional. I’ll make sure I have proof first.

  “She did,” I admit. “Quite accurately, in fact.”

  Birdie lifts her head in lofty recognition of my praise. “It’s a terrible burden to hear Death knocking before he arrives, but it’s a burden I’ve carried my entire life. I wouldn’t know any other way.”

  “Well, really,” Sid breathes, her eyes wide.

  “How unfortunate,” Ashley adds, his lips and mustache pursing as one. “Couldn’t you have done anything to help him?”

  I almost wish I had my phone out so I could send Liam the look that Birdie levels on the young man. It’s so dark and so much like that terrifying puppet of our youth that there’s no way my brother would believe me without picture evidence.

  “One does not interfere with Death,” Birdie says coldly. “One merely—if one is lucky—bears mute witness.”

  Even I feel a bit of a tremor after a pronouncement like that one, so I can’t blame Ashley and Sid for not following through. Unfortunately, it means I have to do the heavy lifting.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say with genuine sympathy. Since shoveling scrambled eggs into my mouth during a conversation like this one seems a touch gauche, I set my fork down. “His death must have been a shock, coming as it did so soon on the heels of your father’s passing. Have you heard anything more from the authorities about what happened? Spoken with his family at all?”

  “He doesn’t have any family,” Ashley says.

  “We were his family,” Sid corrects him. “Or as close as he had to one, anyway.”

  “Poor Harvey,” Ashley murmurs. “He could have done so much better. ‘All happy families resemble each other; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ ”

  I’m ready for the quotation this time around. Ashley Stewart isn’t the only person around here who’s read a few books. Heavy Russian literature is the cornerstone of every angsty teen’s bookshelf. “Tolstoy,” I say. “Anna Karenina.”

  Ashley looks at me with burgeoning respect, but Sid merely continues unchecked. “Harvey was more like a brother to Father than a solicitor. They practically grew up together. It’s why I invited him to join us for this. He wasn’t too keen on the idea, but if anyone would have been able to reach out to Father, it was Harvey.”

  Birdie gives a low chuckle. “Who’s to say he won’t be just as valuable to us now?” She raises a hand to her temple in my signature move. “There are so many vibrations in this place, so much energy . . .”

  Once again, Sid and Ashley look to me for confirmation. This time, I decide not to support Birdie’s theatrics with my own. Is that what I look like when I do it? Talk about pretension. I feel nauseous watching such a display.

  “I haven’t felt much yet, but that’s not surprising considering the long journey up here.” I give up on the idea of eating and push my plate away. No good can come of sitting here and letting Birdie take center stage. “If it’s not too painful, would one of you mind telling me a little about what you’re hoping I can do for you? Nicholas gave me to understand that there’s a missing cache of family heirlooms, but he wasn’t very forthcoming about the details.”

  Sid smiles her understanding. “He never is. Not if he can help it, anyway.”

  This moment of amity is exactly what I was angling for. I might not be able to match Birdie White in terms of showmanship, but Sid likes me. She trusts me. That kind of honest connection is worth much more than a dozen plumes shoved into a makeshift turban.

  “In this instance, his reticence is my fault,” Sid says. Like me, she gives up on breakfast and clasps her hands together on the table. “It isn’t our family’s custom to discuss the heirlooms in the open. Or to discuss them at all, really. Even inviting you here for the purpose of finding them, putting their existence into words—”

  “Don’t do it, Sid.” Ashley raps his knuckles on the table in a show of superstition. “Think of Father. Think of Harvey.”

  For the first time since I embarked on this long, exhausting, and death-filled journey, I feel a surge of gratitude toward Nicholas. There’s more at work here than a box of valuables tucked away in a long-forgotten cupboard—more, even, than a crackpot of a medium presiding over the breakfast table with promises of doom. I knew he wouldn’t have sent me here unless it was worth my while.

  “We have to find them, Ashley,” Sid says. She places her hand over his fist to prevent him from knocking on wood again. “It’s dangerous, obviously, but what other choice do we have? I can’t live like this any longer. I won’t.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And don’t forget what Nicholas said,” she adds in a low voice. “Madame Eleanor can keep us safe. She’ll know how to protect us.”

  I’m about to protest any and all such promises Nicholas might have made on my behalf, but Sid isn’t done yet.

  “She’s our only real hope.” As if in confirmation of this, Sid turns a pair of misty, hopeful eyes my way. “If Madame Eleanor can’t break this thing, then no one can. We have to trust her.”

  I open my mouth and close it again, unable to find the right words to bring Sid the comfort and confidence she seeks. Modesty isn’t a trait I normally wrestle with in moments like these, so it’s a new kind of struggle for me. I’ve always been more of a shrieking eel than a shrinking violet, slippery and vociferous about my psychic abilities, but something about this particular case has me feeling uneasy.

  For the first time in my life, I don’t want to stand up on a table and mystify the room with my capabilities. Perhaps it’s seeing what Birdie looks like when she’s trying so hard to be profound, but it feels like something more, something deeper.

  Something real? Winnie suggests.

  Sid speaks again before I have an opportunity to examine Winnie’s timely intervention. “If we don’t so something soon, we’re all in danger. It won’t stop until we’re dead. It never does.”

  This sounds like a piece of dramatic and utter nonsense to me, but Birdie stands abruptly. She pushes off the table as she does, which has the effect of sending dishes and forks clattering. My eggs slide off my plate and onto the delicate lace tablecloth with a splat.

  “Gloriana’s Curse,” Birdie says. “My God. This isn’t just some random treasure hunt you want our help with. You’ve brought us here to lay Gloriana’s Curse to rest.”

  Before anyone has a chance to respond to this enlightening piece of news, a crack of lightning flashes in the distance. The room plunges almost immediately into darkness—or as much darkness as can exist at ten o’clock in the morning. It’s hardly a cause for
panic, since the windows are large enough to let in the feeble gray light of day and my cell phone has a fully functioning flashlight mode, but from the way the rest of the people in the room react, you’d think we were trapped in an underground bunker with a serial killer.

  Ashley’s chair topples over as he jumps back from the table. Sid runs to the sideboard and frantically pulls open several drawers in search of candles. Birdie stands ominously in the same place as before, soaking in all the drama as a woman born to it.

  I start moving, too, but only to help a short, rounded woman bustling through the attached swinging door. She bears an ornate candelabra in one hand and a second pot of tea in the other. She’s dressed neatly but simply in a faded blue calico dress that looks, like McGee’s sweater, as though it’s been in use for hundreds of years.

  “It’s that blasted generator, Miss Stewart, and so I told McGee last week when he was here.” Her voice carries a light, pleasing burr native to these parts. She hands me the candelabra and flashes me a grateful smile. “It drips if you tilt it, so be careful of your fingers. ‘One more storm, and it’ll fizzle right out,’ I says to him. ‘And here the lot of us will be without hot water or the telly to while away the hours.’ Well, I was right, and now how am I to wash the dishes?”

  There’s something about the woman’s no-nonsense prattle that puts Sid and Ashley at ease. Ashley’s hand shakes as he rights his chair again, and Sid closes the drawers with more force than is strictly necessary, but they no longer look as though they’re facing their own mortality.

  “Oh, Elspeth. Don’t say it’s out for good?” Sid draws forward and accepts the fresh pot of tea. “Surely we can fix it?”

  Elspeth shakes her head resolutely. Her hair, a soft, mousy brown threaded liberally with gray, is pulled back in a bun that doesn’t seem to shift no matter how much she moves. “No one can fix that old heap. With aught luck, McGee’ll have ordered a new one, and we’ll be all right in a week or two.” She turns to me with a smile that looks particularly soft in the glow of the candles. “I haven’t found your luggage yet, either, but not for want of trying. You’re sure McGee didn’t load the bags back on the boat before he left?”