Sweet Tea and Spirits

by Angie Fox

  “She acts like a Pinkerton detective!” Henrietta sputtered as I moved toward the last bedroom, down at the end of the hall. “This is highly improper.”

  “At least it’s a slow day,” Molly remarked.

  “Slow for what?” I asked over my shoulder as I reached the last room.

  Molly blinked, with wide, innocent eyes. “Visitors.”

  I turned the knob, only the door wouldn’t budge.

  “That’s Mother Mary’s room,” Molly supplied. “She likes to keep it private.”

  I twisted the handle again. The door was unlocked on the mortal plane, but it still wouldn’t open. It seemed Mother Mary held quite a bit of sway in this house. And she’d have to be powerful to lock me out like that.

  “Mother Mary,” I called, knocking.

  Henrietta’s head floated to my right. “If she didn’t let you in before, what makes you think she will now, just because you finally decided to knock?”

  “Henrietta—” I began.

  The ghost ignored me. “Anyway, she’s not there. If she was, you’d know.”

  “I really do need to talk to her,” I said. “Can you point me in the right direction? I won’t mention that I met you.”

  “It’s not easy to find Mother Mary if she doesn’t want to be found,” Henrietta drawled. “She doesn’t even like to show herself to us anymore.”

  Interesting. “Why does she avoid you?” I pressed.

  Molly closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. “She doesn’t avoid us, exactly. It’s hard to explain. But if a woman died here recently, Mother Mary should know. Come on,” Molly said, directing me away from her friend. “Mother Mary hides out sometimes. I know where. I’ll take you there and you can talk with her.”

  “Great.” I glanced back to Henrietta, who frowned and disappeared. “Just you and me.”

  “Just you,” Molly warned as she led me down the curved staircase, toward the empty foyer.

  Chapter 10

  The ghost descended the curved staircase, her translucent black skirts trailing behind her. I kept pace, even as my eye caught the polished floor at the bottom where I’d found Julia.

  I made a wide arc around the spot. The dark wood gleamed in the slanted morning light, as if nothing had happened.

  Molly continued without me, passing through the pink settee in the foyer, as well as the table behind it.

  “Thank you for helping. I know it wasn’t an easy decision,” I said, dodging furniture as I worked to catch up to her. I had a feeling she and Henrietta had seen more than they were willing to admit. If I could just get them to open up to me, I might be able to discover how to stop the disturbances in the museum, as well as what had happened to poor Julia. I trailed Molly to the far right side of the foyer. “I can be a friend if you’ll let me.”

  She stopped and turned to me, her back to the wall.

  Her brow knit, as if she were coming to a decision. “This will be the last time I speak to you.”

  This wasn’t the time to push, so I simply nodded.

  “Mother Mary is present whenever anyone enters her office,” Molly said. “There,” she added, pointing to the wall behind us.

  Oh boy. Frankie might have lent me some wicked powers, but I couldn’t exactly walk through walls. And there was nothing on the ghostly plane to indicate a door or other opening.

  “Can we persuade Mother Mary to come out here?” I suggested, eliciting an expression of horror from my reluctant guide.

  Molly swallowed hard. “If you must speak to her, then go inside and do, but please don’t involve me or Henrietta.” She gave one final glance toward the wall and her image began to fade.

  “Wait,” I said quickly, unable to stop her as her energy shrank down into the flickering gray orb I’d found in the basement. She dropped through the floor and disappeared entirely.

  Darn it. I’d scared them away.

  Molly had been friendly enough, curious even. But she didn’t know me and had no reason to trust me. Her help ended when I’d pressed her about Mother Mary. I sighed. There was nothing to do about it now.

  My only option was to find Mother Mary as Molly had suggested, despite the fact that her favorite haunt lay behind a plaster wall.

  “Frankie,” I called. He could see what was back there and maybe even draw the ghost out.

  Unfortunately for me, he didn’t appear.

  I drew his urn out of my bag. “Oh, Frankie,” I said, rubbing the thin copper, my fingers catching in the dent at the bottom. “This is important. I could really use your help.”

  I saw nothing, heard nothing except for the ticking of the mantel clock in the hall.

  Then I noticed something very interesting on the top of the wood quarter paneling next to me, very near the spot where Molly had hastily pointed. It appeared to be a simple cut in the wood. When I looked closer, I saw a worn spot at the top roughly the size of a human fingertip.

  I glanced behind me to make sure I was truly alone before pressing down on the section of paneling. A sharp click echoed through the foyer. The section I’d pushed dropped down and the wall in front of me shuddered. I stepped back as a narrow portion of wall swung in like a door.

  “My word,” I said under my breath. I hadn’t expected this in the home for widows and orphans.

  I stepped inside Mother Mary’s hidden enclave. It was wider than it was long, with a low ceiling and no windows. It felt more like a tomb than anything else.

  A heavy wood desk stood in front of me, carved at the base and definitely old. It existed on the ghostly plane the same as it did in my reality. It must be hers.

  I saw no sign of the ghost, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t here, watching.

  A fireplace took up a good portion of the wall behind the desk, and above that, a pen and ink drawing of the home as it stood in 1921, when the society took ownership. Frankly, I couldn’t tell much of a difference. It seemed this place didn’t change much.

  Stacks of paper crowded the desktop, both ghostly and of this world, intermingling in a way I’d never seen before. I detected a faint hint of lemon furniture polish and a noticeable absence of dust. This was not an abandoned office.

  An antique bronze lamp stood among the detritus, streaked with green patina and topped by a shade of pink glass made to look like flower petals. I saw it mirrored on the ghostly plane and wondered how Mother Mary liked sharing her private space.

  “Mother Mary?” I asked, careful to avoid touching any of her things. Just in case.

  “I’m here to sort out the trouble you’ve been having,” I said, taking the opportunity to get a closer look at the items on the desk. I saw invoices that bore Virginia’s signature. And on top of that, a congratulations card made out to Julia.

  So this was the society president’s private office.

  An old black rotary phone cut through a ghostly ledger book.

  “Your office is lovely,” I said, noticing a gorgeous wooden wardrobe that once stood in place of the dull, modern filing cabinets along the wall facing the front of the house. Next to it, on the ghostly plane, stood a beautiful three-paneled changing screen painted with birds and flowers. It reminded me of the painted fans from the Far East. “You must have done some missionary work,” I said, trying to draw her out.

  If I could make a positive impression, get on her good side, I’d most likely make allies of the widows who lived here. Mother Mary seemed to hold quite a sway, and I had a feeling I needed her to get to the bottom of this.

  On the opposite side of the desk stood a heavy round table. The four dining chairs surrounding it were no doubt newer, but the table stood on the ghostly plane as well. File folders scattered over the top, and I saw meeting notes marked Sweet Tea Luncheon. Several glass pitchers crowded the table, one decorated with a pink polka dot design, another in bubbled glass with a thick green handle, both etched to commemorate various years of tea-themed luncheons.

  A low creak echoed as my one and only exit began to slowly swing
closed.

  “Wait!” I rushed for the door, grabbing a glass pitcher and jamming it into the doorway. I made it in time, barely, and managed to wedge the door open. The heavy wall pressed in against the glass, but the pitcher held.

  I tested the door and found I was able to push it open farther.

  Thank goodness.

  Still, I had the distinct feeling that the ghost had tried to trap me here. Molly had said Mother Mary was present whenever anyone stepped inside her private sanctuary. Apparently she wasn’t ready to let me go so easily.

  “I’m staying,” I assured her, “at least for now.” I bent to make sure the 2016 Sweet Tea Luncheon commemorative pitcher was wedged in tight, glad the socialites had ordered thick, heavy glass.

  Still, I saw no sign of any ghost, no death spot. Then I spotted one place I still needed to look—on the wall past the crowded table stood a simple door caked with years of paint so that I could barely see the keyhole below the stained bronze knob. A chair had been wedged in front of it, as if keeping something out, or quite possibly barricading it in.

  Either way, I had to see what lay inside.

  I removed the chair and turned the handle, opening a dark, empty closet.

  Strange. It was clear the society could have used more storage. But when I stepped inside, I knew why no one ventured in here.

  It wasn’t just the chill in the air or the bare wood and nails that made up the walls and ceiling. It was the utter shock of stepping into a place where I so obviously didn’t belong.

  I felt it clearly, and would have even without Frankie’s powers to guide me.

  I was definitely intruding.

  “This is your place, isn’t it, Mother Mary?” I said quietly, scanning for anything on the other side that would give me an idea of what this space was for, or why it was special to the ghost.

  A ghostly steamer trunk stood by itself at the back of the empty closet. I closed in on the gray glowing remnant of an age long gone and reached for the lid. It felt like touching a chilly, wet, live wire.

  It opened with a harsh creak.

  I yanked my hand back and shook it as I peered inside.

  The aged paper lining cracked and broke along the seams of the old chest. It stood empty save for a pile of ashes, not unlike the ones I’d dumped out of Frankie’s urn.

  “Stars!” I stepped back. Could those be her…remains?

  I crouched closer. If I wasn’t mistaken, the ashes in the trunk resided on the other side. They appeared light, almost white, and as I bent to examine them further, they swirled and took flight, as if carried on an invisible wind.

  I scurried back as they crackled in the air.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” I whispered.

  The closet door began to close.

  This time I let it, fighting every instinct I had to bolt out into the light. Mother Mary was showing me something. Heck, I’d come here to find her. I couldn’t leave now.

  I watched the old door close with a deafening click.

  Then I waited in the darkness for her to appear.

  “Mother Mary?” I asked, barely able to draw a breath.

  She remained silent, but I could tell I wasn’t alone in this room. She could appear any second. She could reach out to me. Touch me. Hurt me, if she wanted to.

  I dug into my bag and found my flashlight. The beam of light sliced through the darkness, catching the ashes as they swirled back down into the old trunk.

  “Talk to me,” I whispered. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

  I didn’t particularly like small places, either. This felt wrong and tight, and every second I spent here made me wonder if I was going to get out, if the door would open.

  If I was well and truly trapped.

  My courage deserted me and I grabbed for the door, twisting the handle. Shoved.

  The door didn’t budge.

  Ohmygosh.

  I kicked it, twisted the handle until my wrist ached, and launched my weight against it. I would not be trapped. I would not be clawing and desperate. I would not for one more second live like this. I heaved my shoulder at the door and it burst open, propelling me out into the haunted office, off balance, but free. Alive.

  I braced my hands against the sturdy table, the glass pitchers clinking against each other as they shook.

  Sweet heavens. I glanced back at the darkened maw of the closet. “What was that?”

  A faint draft of air brushed past my ear and toward the desk at the center of the room, ruffling papers and stirring up the ashes in the fireplace.

  “I’m trying to understand.” I ventured closer, nearing the thin, dead ash sparkling in the air. If she wanted to show me something on the desk, she was going to need to get out some traffic cones and a lighted sign. This thing was a mess. “You might need to be more obvious.”

  Julia’s leather day planner, with her name etched in gold, sprawled on top of meeting notes that bore Virginia’s loopy scrawl. I opened the main desk drawer, crowded with pens, Post-it notes, and various other office supplies.

  The file drawer on the left hung partly open, and when I pulled it out all the way, I was surprised to find it empty. Had Julia been clearing out Virginia’s things?

  Virginia had lost the election, but surely the files in this office—and the resulting mess—belonged to the society. Perhaps she’d taken some papers to archive. This place could certainly use a clean sweep.

  The closet door creaked closed and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t want to look at it anymore.

  I opened the file drawer on the right. It, too, lay empty. Save for a single sheet of paper.

  The neat, crisp writing read candlesticks, doorknob, necklace.

  I read it out loud, having no idea how to begin investigating a necklace I’d never seen, a doorknob in a house full of them.

  “Perhaps I can start with the candlesticks.” I placed the list on the desk. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” I asked, hoping the ghost was listening.

  I couldn’t figure out Mother Mary at all. “I’ll ask Julia’s husband what he might know,” I said, searching for any sign of the nun. That was when I spotted Julia’s keys on a hook near the door. She must have left unexpectedly, to leave her keys behind.

  Her election had set off the ghosts, and I had to think it had something to do with her death. A talk with her husband would be wise. “I should take her car back to her house anyway,” I murmured to myself. It had been unsettling to see it out in the lot when I’d arrived, and I had to think it would be more so for those who cared for her.

  I ran a hand over Mother Mary’s old desk. “You don’t want to talk. I get it.”

  A low grating sound came from the desk, and I watched as the old rotary phone began to dial.

  Six. Eight. Four.

  Seven. Two. Two.

  I watched in horror as it dialed the rest of my number. And when the rotary dial spun back into place, I lurched when the phone in my bag started to ring.

  Hand shaking, mouth dry, I pulled out the phone, the screen displaying the number for the Sugarland Heritage Society, as it had the night before Julia’s murder.

  I hit the answer button and brought the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  Static crackled over the line. I heard labored breathing, then a woman’s harsh voice. “You’re next.”

  Chapter 11

  Is this Mother Mary?” I demanded, staring at the phone on the desk. It remained motionless in its cradle. The static cut off and the line went dead.

  I heard the creak of glass against wood. Then I saw the pitcher I’d wedged in the only exit begin to shimmy and pull away.

  “Oh no.” I was not getting trapped in here.

  I launched myself toward the door, kicking the glass pitcher in my haste, sending it spinning into the foyer as I slipped through the hidden doorway and out of the ghost’s creepy, awful haven.

  The wall slammed shut behind me. I forced myself to stop running
as I neared the bottom of the stairs. I wasn’t trapped anymore. The front door was right there.

  If it opened.

  No, I couldn’t think like that.

  I forced a calming breath. Then another. I wasn’t going to find any answers running.

  “Please,” I said, to any soul who was listening. “Tell me what happened.”

  Weak light slanted through the windows into the shadowy foyer. Deafening silence surrounded me, but I could almost feel someone watching. “I want to help,” I promised.

  A hollow sound, like a marble rolling over a table, sounded weakly at the top of the stairs.

  Just when I was about to go up and see what it was, a single bead dropped from the top step. It bounced down each step, with an unnatural slowness, until it landed dead at my feet, in the same spot Julia had lain.

  Cold air prickled my skin, frigid in its intensity.

  On the floor lay a perfect Tahitian pearl. “Is this for me?” I asked, doing my best to remain casual as I reached down for it, gasping as it dissolved into nothingness right in front of my eyes.

  The front door creaked open and I shivered as a wet, ghostly touch grazed my ear.

  “Go,” whispered the same raspy voice from the phone.

  I was out of the house in seconds, shivering in the warm Southern air as the door slammed closed behind me.

  “Oh my gosh!” I needed a shower, I needed to run, I needed to stop touching ghosts, talking to ghosts, or even thinking about ghosts.

  My legs felt shaky as I nearly ran straight through the ghostly flowerpot on the porch.

  Why the ghost had targeted me, why she felt like she had to warn me, I had no idea. And what was with the pearl? And the touching? I rubbed my ear, as if I could scrub it away. It felt like she reached straight through me.

  I stumbled down the porch steps toward my car. I’d left Julia’s keys in the office, but I wasn’t about to go back and get them.

  Meanwhile Frankie leaned against the driver’s side of my Cadillac, smoking a cigarette without a care in the world.

  He had his legs back and his chest was whole again. He looked great, which was horribly unfair. And completely unnatural. He’d never regained his energy so fast before.