Curses Are for Cads

by Tamara Berry

  Yet another mystery appears to have solved itself for me.

  “Your grandsons?” I echo. “Let me guess. Twin boys? About eight years old and wearing eyepatches? Able to scale impossible cliffs?”

  Elspeth beams in a way that’s as old as time itself. “Aye, that’s them. Ferguson and Jaime. They got sent down from school again last week.”

  “Again?” I can’t help but laugh. “Is that a common thing with them?”

  Elspeth sighs, but she hasn’t lost any of the light in her eyes. “Dear me, yes. Every other week, it seems. My daughter and her husband are having a holiday in Spain, so Sid said I was more than welcome to bring them here. They’ve spent many a summer here, so it’s no matter. I made sure they’d be a help to me around the castle—and so they have been, fetching things for me and doing odd jobs.”

  Tell that to my luggage, I think. What I say, however, is, “Are you sure that’s safe? What with all this bother about the curse?”

  She catches my gaze and holds it. In that moment, I can see everything that’s in her thoughts—not through supernatural means, but because there’s no mistaking a rational woman’s logic.

  “It’s not my business to tell you how to get on,” Elspeth says carefully, “and I wouldn’t upset dear Sid for the world, but the sooner you can lay that nonsense to rest, the better it will be for everyone in this house.”

  “You don’t believe in it?”

  She doesn’t answer me right away—and when she finally does, it’s in a roundabout, noncommittal way that would do any fake medium proud. “There’s folks hereabouts that’ll tell you not to take a fishing boat out if you pass a minister on the way to the docks, and there’s them that will always sail sunwise around an island before they land. But my husband has been sailing these waters for longer than any living man, and he doesn’t hold by any of it.”

  “McGee is your husband?” I ask, delighted by this new development.

  “Aye, and before you ask, he’s never seen a mermaid nor a kelpie on his rounds, neither.”

  I’d like to grin my appreciation at such a picture, but this isn’t the moment for levity. Elspeth might not be aware of it, but in this short talk, she’s provided me with more information than the rest of the Stewarts combined.

  “If you don’t believe in the curse, then what do you make of Glenn’s death?” I ask. “You were the only one here when it happened, weren’t you? Do you believe it was an accident?”

  For the first time, Elspeth appears her age. It comes in a flash as the light from the mirror gleams brighter. I assume the beam is caused by the sun breaking through a cloud, but there’s no denying that the timing is good. She leans on her broom as though suddenly feeling her age, too.

  “I’m no doctor, Madame Eleanor.”

  “I know. But in your opinion? He drowned in the bathtub, didn’t he? Was there anything out of the ordinary about that evening, something about the circumstances that didn’t feel right to you?”

  She hesitates in a way that indicates wariness—not of confiding her thoughts in me, but of confiding them in anyone. “I called Dr. Fulstead to come out straightaway,” she says, both answering and not answering my real question. “He did all he could, but it was no use. Poor Glenn was already gone.”

  There are several follow-up questions I’d like to ask to this, but there’s no way for me to do so without rousing Elspeth’s suspicions. I’m not supposed to be here to investigate a death; I’m here to contact a ghost.

  “His spirit is caught between worlds,” I say in a belated attempt to return to my ostensible purpose. I doubt Elspeth buys it, but at least I can pretend I’m doing my job. “That’s common when a death is extraordinarily gruesome or caused by malicious means.”

  “Well, it wasn’t gruesome, if that’s what you’re asking. Right peaceful he looked, and to be honest, I’ve seen no sign of his spirit lingering on.” She straightens herself from the task of sweeping and glances around the room. Now that most of the glass has been cleaned up, the spilled wine looks like a patch of glistening blood.

  Even that doesn’t have the power to scare her.

  “Well, that’s much better, isn’t it? Thanks for your help, but I can take it from here. A good scrubbing’ll have this floor as good as new.” It’s a kind but firm dismissal, and I recognize my cue to leave. Still, I can’t go without asking one last question.

  “If I needed to get to Barra, is there a way to contact your husband and have him make a special trip? If I needed some supplies, I mean? Or does he really only come once a week?”

  She eyes me as though seeing straight through to my real meaning. “Is this about your luggage?”

  It’s not, but it’s as convenient an excuse as any. What I’d really like to do is visit the medical authorities on the island, to ask questions of this Dr. Fulstead without anyone on Airgead Island being the wiser.

  Lying isn’t necessary, however, when she offers me an easy—yet impossible—solution. “If you want to head out this evening, Otis is the man to ask,” she says. “Next to my man, he’s the best sailor in these parts. He could run you up and back within the hour.”

  I have no doubt that he could. Since he would also see right through my pretense of hitting up the local shops, I don’t plan to take up Elspeth’s suggestion. The less that man knows of my suspicions, the better.

  “Good to know, thanks,” I say.

  Since I’ve gotten all I can out of Elspeth without giving myself away, I take my polite leave. I pass the mirror as I go, my view into the wine cellar as clear as if I were still standing inside. If Elspeth had been paying attention, I’m sure she would see me watching her. As her attention is fixed on the now-empty cubby, however, she doesn’t notice.

  I, on the other hand, notice plenty.

  With a sigh and a shake of her head, Elspeth falls to her knees and reaches her hand inside the hole. I hold my breath, half expecting her to pull out another black box or a pouch of gold coins that we somehow missed, but all she does is feel around before returning empty-handed.

  Her face is averted, so I have no way of knowing what her expression is at that exact moment, but I’d have given much to find out. Is she sad not to have found sudden riches? Worried that the rest of the gold is still out there somewhere?

  Or relieved that there isn’t enough evidence in that cubby for a conviction?

  * * *

  The evening is ideal for conjuring ghosts.

  The electricity is still on the blink, casting every corner into shadowy relief. The wind is howling against the sea-battered stones of the castle with such force that it rattles the windowpanes. And the mood is one of fear and trepidation, the curse hanging ominously overhead.

  In all my years of ghost hunting, I couldn’t have chosen a more ideal time to fabricate a specter. As I enter the gilded drawing room, which looks even more decadent with the candles flickering in the chandelier, I’m prepared to mystify and awe doing just that. There might even be a spring in my step—I’m feeling that good about the entertainment I have planned.

  “Are you wearing the curtain rings from your bedroom as jewelry?” Ashley demands before I make it more than two steps inside the room. He pulls himself away from the window, where he’d been staring poetically out to sea, to peer closer at my face. “And is that ash around your eyes?”

  I halt, all my excitement deflating like a helium balloon three days out. It’s easy for Ashley, in a rich, plum-colored sweater and polka-dot ascot, to point out the deficiencies of my wardrobe, but what else could I do? Embellishing my tired velvet dress with rows of jangling bracelets up my arms and dabbing a little residue from the fireplace on my eyelids was supposed to make me look resourceful, not ridiculous.

  “I, uh . . .” I cast around in my mind for an explanation. The truth is that I spent the rest of my afternoon unsuccessfully tracking down Ferguson and Jaime. Wherever it is they hide themselves—and the suitcases they steal—it’s not an easily accessible location. I have
the horridest suspicion it’s at the bottom of that cliff. “Until my luggage is found, I’m afraid I don’t have many—”

  BOOM!

  There’s no need for me to continue my feeble explanation—a thing I’m grateful for until the boom sounds again, this time accompanied by a tinkling shatter of glass.

  BOOM! CRASH!

  Ashley and I lock eyes. My instinct is to rush into the next room, from which the sounds seem to be emanating, but he flings up a hand to hold me back. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” he warns.

  “In where?” I ask. “Isn’t that a library of some kind?”

  He nods. “It is—or rather was—Father’s study. He loved sitting in there. ‘Study is the bane of boyhood, the oil of youth—’ ”

  It’s my turn to fling a hand. “Yes, yes. I’m sure there are dozens of sayings related to the subject, and that you know them all by heart, but we should go see what that is. It sounds dangerous.”

  As if in agreement, a shout sounds, furious and low. Instead of taking alarm, Ashley merely pokes a finger into his ear and twists. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  My interest is seriously piqued by this time, but I’m torn between whatever mayhem is causing all that noise in the next room and the fact that I’m finally alone with Ashley—and that he seems to be in a receptive mood. I hesitate.

  “What exactly is happening over there?” I ask.

  “Birdie is giving Otis a reading. It’s not going well, if you can’t tell from the noise. I left once she started talking to his dead wife.”

  In that moment, I make my decision. Lowering myself into the nearest chair, I turn my attention to Ashley, ignoring the sounds of the altercation reaching its pitch. “Then it would be rude of me to interrupt. I’m sure Birdie has a handle on things.”

  Ashley grins. It’s the first time he’s let his erudite façade slip, and it makes him infinitely more attractive. Not physically attractive, but literally. I’m much more drawn to him now than I have been since my arrival. He looks young and boyish in a way that reminds me strongly of my own brother.

  “Scared, Madame Eleanor?”

  BOOM! CRASH! THUMP! That last one sounds like a book hitting the wall not too far from where I sit.

  “Terrified,” I admit. “What on earth made Otis agree to sit down with her?”

  “I don’t think he’s in there willingly. When I slipped out, she was getting ready to bar the only exit with a chair. She’s a braver woman than I. There aren’t many people willing to tackle Otis in one of his black rages. I’m certainly not.”

  “ ‘There was a laughing devil in his sneer,’ ” I quote from The Corsair, unable to help myself. Doing so only opens the door to Ashley spouting more poems at me, but it’s an apt line. Otis is a quintessential Byronic hero if ever I’ve met one. “Will he hurt her?”

  Ashley shrugs and turns his face away. As an answer, it’s not very helpful, but I accept it. Birdie is a grown woman who ostensibly knows what she’s doing. If she wants to poke at a man’s raw, gaping wound like that, then she’s going to have to accept the consequences.

  THUMP!

  And the books thrown at her head.

  “Does he get those rages often?” I ask. Since I’m supposed to be the woman with all the answers, I add, “His aura is muddled, so I can’t get a good read on him. It often happens that way when someone suffers a severe emotional trauma. The man he used to be and the man he is now are at odds with one another.”

  Ashley’s head tilts toward me. I recognize the gesture the same way a fisherman knows when his catch is nibbling on the line. He’s not hooked yet, but with a little deft handling, he will be.

  “You’re also muddled, but not to the same degree. Your mother’s death . . .” I shake my head when his expression doesn’t do more than flicker. “No, not that. Your trauma came later and much more subtly.”

  “You can see that?”

  No, but I can see that he’s warming to the topic—and to me. There’s a tense expectation about the way he’s holding himself, as if he wants to let himself be drawn into my sphere but hasn’t yet decided whether or not it’s safe.

  “A man like Otis wears his darkness for all to see. A man like you, on the other hand, keeps it locked tight inside.” It’s time to clinch this thing. Drawing on yet another Byron quote, my supply of which is rapidly reaching its limits, I adopt a sad smile and add, “‘Those that know the most must mourn the deepest.’ ”

  It works. By this time, Ashley is facing me, his mustache twitching with interest. “You’re not at all like Birdie, are you?”

  A shout and a thud cause us both to jump. With a guilty flush at my cowardice in avoiding that room—and at the sad realization that Birdie and I are much more similar than Ashley will ever understand—I shake my head. “She’s a very powerful medium, and having her here can only strengthen my own ability to seek answers, but no. She’s a woman of action, of purpose. You and I, on the other hand, like to take our time with things. We’re thinkers. Philosophers.”

  He nods, clearly pleased at this portrait of himself. I might also add that he’s incredibly vain and far too willing to foist his burdens onto someone else’s shoulders, but I don’t. Vain, burden-foisting men rarely like to have those attributes pointed out to them.

  “It’s not easy, is it?” I ask with a cluck of sympathy. “Feeling so much and hiding it all away?”

  He nods again, his eyes taking on the glaze of a man in rapt contemplation of himself.

  “Especially when your father was the exact opposite.” Since Birdie has proven to be all-seeing in practically every instance so far, I steal some of her wisdom. “He had more power than was good for him. More money than was good for him, too. A man like that can only value the things he can see and touch. Your home is filled to the brim with expensive goods, but words, poetry, beauty . . .”

  As I hope, Ashley is all the way caught by now. He nods at each word, his body leaning closer and closer toward mine.

  “He never understood my work,” he says eagerly. “He never even tried. All those years I spent writing, all that time I dedicated to my art—did he ever ask to read it? Even once?”

  I don’t say anything, hopeful that we’re only starting to scratch the surface of Ashley’s strained relationship with his father. I don’t think he’s about to confess to murder, but stranger things have happened. With an encouraging nod, I gesture for him to continue.

  And immediately regret it.

  “Will you read it?” He whisks a hand into his back pocket and extracts a leather-bound volume that’s far too thick for my peace of mind. “You seem to understand literature—better than anyone else under this roof, at all events. You could take it to bed with you tonight. I think you’ll enjoy it. Look at this passage I wrote about my father: ‘Oh, noble brow, heavy under the weight of familial ignominy . . .’ ”

  It’s all I can do not to run screaming into the next room. I’d rather take my chances with an angry pirate exacting vengeance for his deceased wife than listen to Ashley quote his poetry at me.

  “Thank you for the offer, but—”

  “I have a room full of these,” he adds with a sad sigh. “I gave a signed copy to Harvey, but no one else seems to want one.”

  Mention of the solicitor’s name has me rethinking my stance. “Harvey was a poetry lover?”

  Ashley’s answer is as evasive as his gaze. “He handled all the publication details for me, so it was the least I could do. Percy Shelley paid to have his first book published, you know. Lots of the Romantics did back in the day.”

  I do know that, actually. I also know that Ashley is unwittingly reinforcing everything Otis told me about his scholarly ambitions and the precious university his father poured a small fortune into. I have no idea how much it costs to have one’s work published in a volume as beautifully bound and gilded as the book Ashley is holding out to me, but I can’t imagine it’s cheap. If Harvey was privy to the publication details, then he was a
ware of the financial details, too.

  That kind of knowledge can be dangerous when there’s a missing fortune on the line.

  “Thank you.” I accept the book with more eagerness than I would have a few minutes earlier. It won’t fit as neatly into my brassiere as the coin did, but I can still add it to my growing pile of clues. I’m not sure yet what everything in the pile means, but there’s no denying that this family is a complex—and unhappy—one.

  “And you’ll tell me what you think?” Ashley asks with what appears to be genuine earnestness. “Honestly?”

  It’s a heavy price to pay, but I agree with a nod. I open my mouth to add a lie about what a slow reader I am, but we’re interrupted by a splintering sound that’s so loud, it’s no longer possible for us to pretend that Birdie has a handle on things in the next room.

  “Oh, dear,” Ashley murmurs. “That can’t be good. We should probably check on them.”

  I couldn’t agree more. And since it turns out Ashley isn’t the sort to run headlong into danger if there’s literally anyone else to do it for him, I’m forced to lead the way.

  This I do quickly and with the full expectation of finding the library to be in a state equal to that of the wine cellar. Imagine my surprise when, instead of bookshelves strewn about and couches upended on their sides, I walk in to see Birdie sitting at a desk in the darkness, a single broken lamp tipped on its side next to her.

  “What on earth—?” I step into the room and cast a quick glance around, searching for a sign of Otis or something else that would have been capable of making all that noise. A rhinoceros, for example.

  Neither of these things is in evidence. Instead, Birdie pivots her chair toward me to reveal a serene smile and her carefully arched brows. “Ah, there you are, dear Ella. I was wondering what could be keeping you when so much paranormal activity was afoot.”

  “I didn’t realize you required assistance,” I reply somewhat drily. That dear Ella tells me that her speech is meant more for Ashley’s ears than mine. “You should have called out if you wanted me.”