Murder for Tea

by Vered Ehsani

  “A child,” she affirmed. “Yet my father thought it prudent to marry me off to a stranger.” She shook her head in disgust. “That’s all women are in this world: chattel to be bought and traded.”

  Her arms fell to her side, hands fisted, as she stalked about the small open space of the barn.

  “Not all men are like your father,” I ventured to suggest.

  Pausing next to Nelly’s stall, Koki drew up to her full height, her chin high, and peered down at me. “There are a few exceptions, it is true. Sadly, I didn’t meet any during my childhood.”

  As I began to apologize on behalf of all human males, she interrupted me with an imperious wave of her hand. “Enough chatter. Try again.”

  Huffing, I slouched on the square bale of hay. “How is this supposed to assist me?” I complained, tugging at pieces of hay with restless fingers. “Isn’t there another way?”

  “Meditation is a calming exercise,” Koki lectured.

  “I am calm,” I protested, my voice shrill and sharp.

  Smirking, she replied, “I can see that.”

  Taking a deep breath, I repeated in a more controlled tone, “I’m perfectly calm. Absolutely. At least, I’m more so than I was this morning when Shelby painted the kitchen floor with a jar of mango jam.”

  Not impressed, Koki leaned against the half wall of Nelly’s stall, the smooth plains of her face veiled by shadows. “Let’s try one more time.”

  As I closed my eyes to yet again attempt the impossible — the calming of my mind — a large hand lunged for my throat and a woman screamed. I jerked away, my eyes blinking rapidly as I rolled backward and off the bale. Scrambling to my feet, I searched the barn for my assailant.

  Koki’s eyebrows quirked. “Is there a problem, Miss Knight?”

  “I saw… I heard…” The words tumbled over each other, an audible demonstration to my inability to construct a coherent sentence. My face flushed, my palms sweaty, I swiveled around, still certain I would discover someone lurking in the shadows. All that stared back at me were the horses and the ox.

  “Meditation can sometimes expose memories,” Koki said, her voice soft and, dare I say, almost sympathetic. “Memories we have hidden away.”

  “There’s nothing hidden here,” I snapped, wiping wisps of hair off my damp forehead. My stomach churned, and acid scalded my throat. I swallowed hard. “Someone, a man, just tried to…”

  I couldn’t complete the sentence as there was nothing sensible with which to do so. There was no one but Koki, me and a few bewildered animals. But the vision had been too solid to have been a ghost.

  My chest heaved with an incomprehensible mess of emotions, and I couldn’t discern the source of them. A memory? How was it possible for me to have a memory I couldn’t remember?

  “I’m just fatigued,” I blurted out. “Excessively so. With the shop, and the dead body, and Mr. Timmons’ situation, and… and this!” I glared at Koki, my throat constricting. “It’s all too much.”

  The she-demon’s expression was indecipherable as she observed me with dark, calculating eyes. Finally she nodded. “Of course. Shall we resume training tomorrow?”

  Before she could complete the sentence, I was already hurrying out the door and into the sharp light of day. Yet the shadows of that vision clung to me, sapping any vestige of meditation-induced calm.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “WHAT IF GRACE turns into a bat during dinner?” I hissed.

  Simon squeezed my hand while maintaining a bland and civil expression as he listened to my aunt recount the horrors she’d thus far endured since last we’d dined together.

  “And how the roof leaks, Mr. Timmons,” Mrs. Steward wailed, flapping a lavender-scented handkerchief before her face. Her cheeks and double chin wobbled with her consternation. “This abominable rain. They say this rainy season is unusually long as my miserable luck should dictate. I’ve never seen or heard the likes of it. How forcefully it falls. I fear the entire house will collapse around me one night while I sleep.”

  “Better around you than on you, my dear,” Mr. Steward muttered but only loud enough for everyone to hear except his wife.

  Less than a year ago, my uncle’s unwise business practices had plunged the family into bankruptcy, effectively exiling us from the civilized but expensive suburbs of London to the affordable wilds of British East Africa. Through a bit of work and the providential demise of a wealthy relative, coupled with a few modest but clever investments facilitated by Simon, Mr. Steward had managed to regain some of his fortune. However, he had yet to reclaim his position as head of the household, if he’d ever had it in the first place.

  Mrs. Steward prattled on, successfully ignoring any effort by the other members of the party to reassure her that life wasn’t the disaster she was portraying. In particular, Tiberius attempted to soothe his mother-in-law, his warm, gentle voice weaving around her energetic complaints.

  At last, she gasped, “The only benefit of having the roof disintegrate is that I might then need to move in with my daughter and darling Gracie. Oh, wouldn’t that be grand, Lilly? We could see each other every day, all day.”

  Mrs. Steward was too occupied with smooching her granddaughter to notice Tiberius blanch at the thought of having to live under the same roof as his in-laws. Thus alarmed, he stood and retreated to a corner where he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Despite Tiberius’ ability to transform into a giant bat, my Popobawa brother was too well mannered by far to express in public his reservations regarding Mrs. Steward’s proposal. Instead, he stared out the window, no doubt musing how best to dissuade her from even imagining they could live in the same house.

  Perhaps sensing my sympathetic stare, he turned his dark brown eyes to me and smiled, shaking his head. The color returned to his light brown skin as he chuckled softly.

  “Beatrice, this room is entirely too small to entertain effectively,” Mrs. Steward lectured after handing the squiggling baby back to Lilly.

  “We prefer the term ‘cozy’,” I replied, shifting my attention to my aunt.

  Mrs. Steward shook her head, her plump facial features jiggling at her distress. “We can barely fit in here.”

  While that wasn’t quite accurate, the room wasn’t as spacious as her front room or any of the quarters in the Hardinge house. The sofa set filled much of the space and only provided seats for the six of us.

  “Why couldn’t you come to our house for dinner, as I’d suggested?” she continued.

  “You know why,” Lilly said, glancing at me before turning to face her mother. “After all, you made a point of observing the guard posted outside the front door.”

  Mrs. Steward sniffed, refusing to look at anyone. “It is a dreadful stain upon the entire family, Lilly. There’s no doubt about it.”

  There wasn’t a doubt because she ensured we were all well informed on the matter. The humiliation imposed upon her from Simon’s arrest had been so extreme that she hadn’t entered town the entire time he was incarcerated in the constabulary.

  Mr. Timmons patted my knee as if knowing I was tempted to throw something at my aunt’s obstinate head. Gritting my teeth, I said, “Shall we eat?”

  As the cottage didn’t have enough space for a formal dining area, I provided everyone with a small side table. While Mrs. Steward commented on the difficulty of eating in such a primitive fashion, the men focused intently on the food, Lilly clutched a baby with one hand and her utensils in the other, and I, having lost my appetite, marveled that I’d ever thought hosting this dinner was anything approaching a good idea.

  And that was before a ghost and a monkey strolled into the room.

  “Bother,” I said when I noticed Shelby peering around the doorway. My outburst interrupted Mrs. Steward’s recitation of baby training rules.

  “It’s not a bother at all, Beatrice,” Mrs. Steward snapped as she stared at me. “With an attitude like that, it’s probably for the best that you don’t have any children yourself.”


  “Mother,” Lilly gasped, her gaze flicking around the room as she blushed, mortified once again at my aunt’s comments.

  Tiberius and Simon exchanged looks, one commiserating, the other darkly murderous. Mr. Steward looked as though he were attempting to submerge his face in his wine goblet.

  “Imagine how mortified Mrs. Beeton would be,” Mrs. Steward said, sniffing into her lavender-scented handkerchief. “Perhaps I should have given the book to you, Beatrice, instead of Lilly. It seems you are in greater need of its sagacity.”

  “I’m sure I could have benefited greatly from the Book of Household Management,” I said through a stiff smile as I pushed my plate of food away. Not for the first time, I wished I'd tossed the book overboard during our three-week passage to Africa. Then again, my aunt possessed a thorough knowledge of its contents, having memorized entire passages of the informative and somewhat obnoxious prose.

  “To be sure, you could,” she exclaimed, fluttering her handkerchief in my direction.

  I waited for her to expound on the merits of being a Household General, a lofty term that Mrs. Beeton, the author of the book, employed to describe housewives. Fortunately, whatever she might have added was inaudible to me as my attention had shifted to Gideon.

  “Beatrice, look what Shelby can do,” the ghost whispered, his translucent form visible to all but my aunt and uncle. The baby Vervet monkey stared up at her proud trainer. “I’m teaching her how to open doors.”

  “Oh, dear,” Lilly said and handed Grace to Mrs. Steward. Thus distracted, my aunt remained oblivious to the presence of a baby of a different species.

  Mr. Steward set down his goblet, splashing wine over his side table, and peered over his wire-frame glasses. “Is that a—?”

  “I forgot the gravy,” I announced as I leaped off the sofa and scooped up the primate before she could perform whatever mischief Gideon had instructed her to do.

  “We don’t need gravy,” Mrs. Steward huffed.

  “No,” I muttered into Shelby’s furry head, “but we do need a circus manager.”

  Closing the kitchen door firmly behind me, I leaned against it and closed my eyes. A little paw patted my chin as Shelby mewed. Sliding down to the rock tiles, I began to sob.

  “What a way to ruin…” Gideon spoke above me before gasping. “Beatrice, what’s wrong? I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner. Well, I did, but I didn’t think it would distress you so terribly.”

  I shook my head and sniffled into my sleeve. Shelby wrapped her arms around my neck and pushed her little face against my cheek.

  “It’s n-n-nothing,” I stuttered, leaning my forehead against my bent knees.

  Although my eyes remained closed, I could sense Gideon next to me. In my mind’s eye, I saw his light brown eyes peering at me, a concerned wrinkle between his fair eyebrows.

  “I don’t blame you for crying,” he said, his soft voice next to my tattered right ear. “Any occasion in which you must host that objectionable aunt of yours—”

  At the mention of Mrs. Steward, I remembered her words: It’s probably for the best that you don’t have any children yourself.

  I began to wail.

  My dramatic and uncharacteristic descent into female hysterics must have alarmed Gideon greatly, for he said, “I’m fetching your oaf of a husband right now.”

  “No,” I gasped and reached to grab his arm. Of course, my hand swept through him. “Don’t go. Don’t say anything to anyone.” I brushed tears off my face.

  “Why in heavens not?” he demanded as he sat back down beside me.

  “Because,” I said, my voice hitching with each syllable. I breathed in deeply and held it for a moment, hoping that would calm the hiccups that threatened to derail my attempts at speech. My mouth was too wobbly to even pretend to smile, so I shook my head in a firm manner. “Because I… It’s fine. It’s nothing.”

  Gideon didn’t look in the least convinced for he knew me well enough to realize this wasn’t acceptable behavior for Beatrice Knight Timmons. Nonetheless, he accepted my request and didn’t rush out to summon another witness to my nervous breakdown.

  We sat in silence, the muted babble of conversation floating through the closed door. Shelby fell asleep, her head pressed against my chest. Her little snores wheezed out of her wrinkled snout.

  With a lopsided grin, Gideon turned to me and asked, “Where is that scalawag Jonas when we need a cup of tea, eh?”

  “Indeed,” I said as I pondered a question that was more pertinent to the circumstance: what was wrong with me?

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’M GLAD I awake before my parents are murdered.

  Inside the dream, the clacking of hooves and the rattling of wooden wheels over a rough road echo around me. There’s the murmuring of voices in the night, calm and loving.

  I inhale deeply, savoring Mother’s rose-scented perfume and her husband’s cologne.

  “You’re alive,” I whisper even as I know that’s not true.

  I’m in the carriage with them, during the last ride they will ever have. The fragments of memory swirl before me, distorted by the shadows of dark emotions.

  “Mother,” I whisper. “Father?”

  Mr. Anderson, the man I used to call Father, says nothing, as if he can’t see or hear me. The only light is from a nearly full moon and the smattering of stars bright enough to compete in the night sky.

  An abrupt swaying movement of the carriage jostles us from side to side as wooden wheels rattle over a section of rough road. The horse snorts, its metal shoes clattering against small stones and hard-packed earth. Croaking of frogs from the lake fill the remaining silent spaces.

  Mother glances down at me and wraps an arm around my shivering shoulders. “Go to sleep, Beatrice.”

  “But I’m not tired,” I protest, my voice that of a child.

  “We shouldn’t have brought her along, Penelope,” Mr. Anderson mutters. The dream distorts his voice, each word drawn out into a warped version of itself.

  “I’m not really here,” I say, clutching my small hands together.

  The scent of a wet dog drifts into the carriage. My nose wrinkles against the assault even as my eyes widen and my heart rate quickens.

  “Turn around,” I whine, my voice constricted with the fear of inevitability.

  The wet dog stench intensifies.

  I lean toward the narrow window in the carriage wall through which I can see the driver sitting on the bench, reins held loosely in one hand. The man’s head angles slightly to one side, and a long ponytail flicks across his shoulders.

  “Don’t,” I implore him.

  The dwarf smiles.

  Another set of hooves gallops behind us and rapidly approaches. I turn to peer through the back window. A large, hairy man sits atop a horse that breathes out fire. The wind buffeting the carriage carries his scent to me: wet dog and a hint of the wild.

  The carriage jerks to one side, veering off the road and into the lake.

  Screams fill the carriage.

  “The door’s jammed,” Mr. Anderson shouts.

  The scent of wet dog slips around me accompanied by screams, horses neighing, metal grinding, and glass shattering.

  Cold, murky water swirls overhead as a large, hairy hand descends over my throat.

  My entire being convulses as arms wrap around me… and I awake.

  “It’s just a bad dream,” Simon murmured into my ear, his voice heavy and slow.

  A few breaths later, he was asleep again. My every muscle remained tense and unyielding in his embrace.

  “Meditation can sometimes stir up memories that we have hidden away.”

  Koki’s words clawed at my thoughts and forced a bitter truth into my consciousness: according to the dream that was in fact a memory, the people who’d killed my parents had also intended for me to die as well. And the hand that had attempted to choke the life out of me belonged to none other than my former mentor and employer, the Director of the Society
for Paranormals, Prof. Runal.

  Chapter Fifteen

  RELIVING THE MEMORY of my childhood brush with death left me exhausted the next day. It was no wonder, I mused, that I’d been such an odd child. I’d had to hide my witchy powers (and professing to be normal when I wasn’t was no small feat). I’d also suffered from a werewolf bite and, according to the memory in the dream, I’d barely escaped being murdered. Merely pondering those challenges made me pity myself and marvel I’d survived to enjoy adulthood.

  Given my fatigued state, I was therefore doubly grateful Constable Hunt hadn’t taken any action to close the shop; perhaps he had no intention of doing so. Either that, or Chief Constable Dougal managed to convince the enthusiastic constable they had all the information they needed from the crime scene. At any rate, the business of interacting with customers while trying not to roll my eyes at their often imbecilic requests provided me an adequate distraction from these thoughts. It also reinforced my belief there was indeed such a thing as a stupid question.

  Fortunately, my current customer was not of the foolish sort. Mrs. Mayence Bent was an impressive woman, unintimidated by the wildness of the land and the people living on it. She hadn’t so much as lifted an eyebrow upon observing Shelby’s furry head sticking out of the leather pouch I’d slung over my shoulder. Indeed, Mrs. Bent was herself a force of nature, as to be expected from anyone who had the vision and temerity to open a hotel in a colonial outpost. The Stanley Hotel was one of the founding institutions of the small town of Nairobi, and it pleased me to no end that its owner was purchasing her tea supplies from me.

  I indicated to Wanjiru to put the ‘Closed’ sign on the door as I tallied Mrs. Bent’s purchases: a sachet of the Earl of Grey’s and another sachet of my special blend of tea leaves which included a dash of cinnamon.

  “Have you considered joining our East African Ladies League?” she asked, her accent clipped, her every mannerism suggestive of an English finishing school for girls.