The Lost Girls of Devon

by Barbara O'Neal

  “In a way. He was very, very handsome and was not like anyone I’d ever met. We fell in lust more than love.”

  I felt my ears get hot. “TMI.”

  “Is it, though?” She bent over to pick up a fallen rose and stood up, shaking it off. “I suspect you might have fallen in lust once or twice by now, haven’t you?”

  I shuddered involuntarily—a weird reaction, even for me. My stomach twisted, and I flashed on—

  Hands on my head, holding me

  “Are you all right?” Poppy asked.

  “Just kind of dizzy,” I said, and I pressed my fingers to a little twitch under my right eye.

  “May I touch you, my love?”

  I looked up and knew somehow that I needed that. She pressed her hands to my skull. “Close your eyes for a moment, sweetheart,” she said, and I did, and my face felt hot, and my neck and my lower back, all the way to my feet. It was the strangest feeling, like almost buzzy but not quite, and I didn’t even want to move, just stand there and let her touch my head.

  Then I opened my eyes, and my grandmother’s big blue eyes were there, kind and clear. I took a breath. She smiled.

  Women started arriving. I thought it was going to be a bunch of older ladies, but it wasn’t. They were all ages—young and old and in between—and I thought they were from all walks of life too. An older lady so skinny she had to be rich carried her bones to the very front of the room and plopped herself down at the table up there. She had a scarf around her neck and sporty clothes. Surreptitiously, I shot her photo.

  All the tables were full by the time Poppy started. And they were so happy to be there, chatting with each other, giving each other hugs. I might have felt left out, being new, but everybody gave me hugs, especially when they found out I was Poppy’s granddaughter, and they didn’t seem to give me that annoying once-over that the hoodie usually brings on.

  Then it got kind of weird. Poppy talked about spring and the great Egg at Glastonbury Cathedral, and fertility and women, and of all things, menstrual blood, which just seems like a gross topic, and I didn’t want to listen.

  But then we got to the making of the spell, a charm to wear around your neck through the summer, to bring about what you want in your life. Each table held seeds of various kinds, and beads, and string, and little pouches made of fabric, and yarn and big needles, and little slips of paper.

  “To manifest the things you want this summer, take a few minutes and close your eyes,” Poppy said.

  I didn’t close my eyes at first. I looked around the room at everyone, all the women of so many ages and ways of dress. They rested their hands in their laps and closed their eyes. The room grew very still. I felt something settling in me.

  Poppy caught my eye and pulled a hand down in front of her face, nodding. Whatever. I followed directions, and with my eyes closed, I could feel a sense of something else around the room, a strange feeling that we were all holding hands, creating a circle.

  “Now, think about what you want. It can be anything, big or small. Just something true, something that you feel in your heart. What seed would you like to plant in your life? What would make you happier, more at ease?”

  I thought of Before, when I didn’t care about the girls at school and being part of the crowd and was just happy going out to my granddad’s farm and feeding the animals or spinning wool with him. But what do you call that feeling?

  Peaceful.

  “When you have in mind what you want, open your eyes and write it down. There’s no hurry. Take all the time you need. Maybe the first thing that bubbles up isn’t the one you’ll write down, and that’s fine. You can’t get this wrong.”

  I thought of Thad, my boyfriend before everything happened, and the way he kissed me so long and deep, and I thought maybe I wanted that, a boyfriend again, but one who wouldn’t betray me completely—

  No. Not that.

  Happiness. I want to be happy again and feel like a normal person. I am tired of feeling scared and sick to my stomach all the time.

  I want to let go.

  The words had weight. I felt them drop right into my gut and settle there. Immediately, I opened my eyes and wrote down, Let Go.

  “Good,” Poppy said. “When you have it, roll the paper into a tiny scroll and slip it inside the bag you’ve chosen.”

  Mine was a tiny blue-flowered bag that made me think of the bluebells. Poppy led us through the rest of the steps—finding a seed to represent the idea, adding herbs and flowers as we wished, both for scent and for additional power, and then sewing the bag closed with yarn and adding them to a leather string that would hang around our necks.

  I loved it. It was like doing crafts at camp, only this was like Kitchen Witch camp. My bag contained a poppy seed in honor of my grandmother teaching the spell, and rose petals for sweetness and England.

  And I totally love it that my grandmother is an actual witch who uses real spells. What else can she teach me?

  For today, I was just happy to slip the little bag necklace on and let it fall beneath my hoodie, an incantation to bring happiness by letting go.

  And in the back of my mind, I saw the good witch in my story bustling around in her white dress, trying to fix what has gone wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Zoe

  A text from Isabel had awakened me.

  Can I go to a workshop about the Hare Moon with Poppy?

  I closed my eyes, aching, and let it all move through me, then picked up my phone and texted back:

  Yes. When will you be back?

  Not sure. Few hours? Follow me on Find my Friends if you get worried. Srsly, I don’t mind.

  K, Be safe.

  She sent me a red heart.

  There would be no more sleeping after that, so I got up and showered. Lillian was downstairs when I got there. I kissed her head, looking for clues to her condition. She was crisply dressed in her going-to-church clothes, a pair of slacks and a silk blouse the color of cantaloupe. Her hair was done, her lipstick perfect. “Good morning, Gran.”

  “Good morning, my dear.”

  I poured coffee from the silver pot on the table. “You look lovely.”

  “Church this morning.” She attended the local Church of England chapel, ordinary and civilized. Usually I went with her just because she liked it. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No need,” she said firmly. “My friend Gina is going to pick me up, and we shall have lunch afterward.”

  “Sure?” I peered at her for clues, but she seemed back to her perfectly normal self. How could I judge?

  “Perfectly.”

  “I’m planning to meet Cooper at Diana’s business to see what we might find, but I should be back in a couple of hours.”

  “That’s fine, dear. I’m really quite good this morning. You needn’t worry.”

  “You can call me anytime, you know. I’ll drop what I’m doing.”

  “I appreciate that. And good idea about Diana.” She slathered jam on her toast an inch thick. “I hope you find something.”

  “Me too. I mean, part of me wants that, but part of me wants her to just come back.”

  “I’m sure she would if she could, my dear.” She delicately wiped her fingers on a cloth napkin. “Did you notice anything in particular at the gathering at the pub?”

  We hadn’t discussed it then, and I was surprised that it came up now, but maybe she’d just forgotten to ask me about it before, considering. “I’m not sure there was much information, really,” I said, sitting back down. “There were a lot of people there, and the inspector gave us the basics, but they’re flummoxed.”

  “People don’t just disappear,” she said. Her fine white brows, precisely penciled back into visibility, pulled into a frown. “Humor me, dear. Who was there, specifically?”

  When she was like this, it was hard to remember that she wasn’t always so sharp and clear. Maybe I was exaggerating her mental decline. “Okay,” I said. “Let me think. The usua
l suspects at the bar, same drinkers that are always there. A couple of people from the yacht club.”

  “Go on.”

  “Uh, a bunch of young women with tattoos—one of them I think is Diana’s assistant.”

  “Cora.”

  “Yes. She and her friends. A bunch of people I don’t know. Cooper, of course. Diana’s mother.”

  Lillian shook her head. “That woman.”

  “I know. She asked about bank accounts.”

  “What did they say about Diana’s boyfriend? She spoke of him, but only in general. I don’t know much about him.”

  “No one does, it seems. I only know his first name. Henry.”

  Lillian tapped the side of a spoon against the table meditatively. “And no strangers? Oh, but you wouldn’t know that, would you.”

  It stung, but I had to admit it was true. “No.”

  She shook her head. “There’s something going on. I can feel it. Were there any drug types in the bar?”

  I laughed. “Drug types?”

  “Don’t. You know what I mean.”

  “Gran, everyone is a drug type these days.” I thought of the group in a back booth. “There was a group of younger guys, and I thought they’d be the pirates if the bar was in a movie.”

  “Good.” She pointed a gnarled finger at me. “That’s the sort of observation I’m looking for. Why pirates?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “Come, now. You know. Dig a little.”

  “Okay.” I thought back to the bar, to the low light. “They were a little furtive, too skinny. Not English, I don’t think.”

  “Ah.” She waved a hand. “The Romanian boys. They come in to work the tourist trade. They’re harmless.” She tapped on the table a little more aggressively. “And was Poppy there?”

  “Yes.” I met her eyes. “We didn’t speak.”

  She raised an eyebrow but did not comment.

  I took a breath. “You think Diana’s dead, don’t you?”

  She carefully touched her lips with her cloth napkin. “I’m afraid it’s difficult to come to another conclusion. It’s been nearly two weeks now.”

  I wanted to protest, as I had with Cooper, but it was starting to feel foolish. “But who could possibly want her dead? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t foul play at all, my dear. Perhaps she simply fell from a cliff and was washed out to sea.”

  I gave her a skeptical look. “It’s not like she’d ever be close enough to a cliff to fall off. She was afraid of heights.”

  “Perhaps she discovered something she shouldn’t have.”

  “Like what, though? What kind of crimes are going on around here?”

  “That’s what you need to find out.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “If you were writing the story, what would be the answer?”

  For a moment, she narrowed her eyes, chewing her toast with the exaggerated completeness of a cat. “Piracy of some sort, I suppose. The coast, the coves. It’s been a pirate’s world here for centuries.”

  “Okay. So pirates might bring in what? Drugs, like OxyContin and heroin? Guns, maybe?”

  “Anything valuable or expensive. Drugs, perhaps, and cigarettes. But also electronics of various sorts.”

  “Electronics? Like what?”

  “Untraceable phones, tablets, that sort of thing.”

  “Untraceable phones? I would never have thought of that in a million years.”

  “You don’t spend your days researching mystery novels, do you?”

  I laughed, as she meant me to do. A woman capable of this conversation and the underlying intelligence and skill beneath it was hardly in mental decline. Maybe she’d just been tired yesterday.

  Or maybe I was in denial. Emotion filled my throat, and I shook it off. “I do not.”

  “Well, then. I read all the newspapers, you know. Make copies of anything that might prove a good plot twist.”

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can find out about smuggling, then.” I paused. “How would I do that?”

  “Ask the constable. See if there have been any indications or arrests that might shed some light on the possibilities.”

  “Oh, well, that’s simple.”

  “Most things are far simpler than we believe,” she said.

  I tried to keep that in mind as I walked down to the village, then up the hill on the other side to Diana’s professional kitchen. I felt the hills in the backs of my thighs and my rear end. Good toning.

  The heavy rain the night before had cleansed every bit of anything from the air, leaving behind the kind of day that graced every postcard in town—dazzling bright-blue skies, diamond-tipped bay with sailboats heading out to the horizon, every green thing filled to bursting with all the water it could drink. In the air was a scent of salt and sweetness, and as I came around the pink-plastered building, I discovered an old wisteria vine blooming profusely, its tentacles holding hard to the timbers between the first and second floors. The perfume hung almost visibly in the air, giving it a pale-pink cast.

  Cooper’s Range Rover was parked beside the building. I went inside through the back door, calling out, “Hello?”

  “Hey! I’m Cora.” The woman I’d seen at the pub gestured me inside. She had short blue-streaked hair and tattoos that wound their way up her arms. “You must be Zoe. Diana talks about you.” A quick frown between her brows. “Talked.”

  “Hi.” I took her hand and clasped it for a second longer than I needed to, just to convey my sense of unity. “Nice to meet you. You’re her assistant, right?”

  She nodded. Glanced away. “I’ll—uh—leave you to it. Sage, I’ll see you around.”

  I hadn’t seen him behind a partial wall. “Wait, if you would. D’you know her password?”

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah yeah.” She dove back and bent over the keyboard, all lean and bendy. I rubbed the inside of my arm, wondering what I’d tattoo there if I ever became the arty person I’d once imagined.

  “Thanks,” Cooper said.

  She whirled again. Whirled back. Pulled a large notebook off the shelf, set it down on the desk. Paused, hands in her back pockets, and looked up at him. “Hope you’re okay,” she said.

  He nodded, gave her a polite and careful smile. “Thanks.”

  With a swift, biting awareness, I realized that they had something, or maybe had had something. It made perfect sense. She was long and lean and smart. Just his type, but young—maybe ten or so years younger than we were. It pinched. Her discomfort was vivid, but I had questions I knew she might be able to answer. “Cora, can you answer some questions before you go?”

  “If I can, sure.” She tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “Was she working that night?”

  “I dunno. The police asked me the same thing. I was in London that weekend. She gave it to me off, so I guess it was slow. She made some picnic meals, because there’s a record of that, but she didn’t write down where she delivered them.”

  I frowned. “So she made a record of who got what?”

  “Of course. We had to keep track for billing. It should all be in the spreadsheet.”

  Cooper asked, “Did she ever make picnics and give them away or something?”

  She raised her shoulders. “I mean, yes, sometimes, for the oldies in town.” She nodded at me. “Your gran, for one. Mr. Hockstead, some of her other old clients.” She blinked hard. “She liked caring for people, you know. She didn’t like them to be alone, so she took them meals.”

  My throat tightened, and I looked away. “So maybe that’s what she did that night? Took food to her old clients?”

  “Possibly. That would be my guess.”

  I nodded. “She did go to Woodhurst. My gran saw her. But no one saw her after.”

  “Cora, do you have a list of the people she visited like that?” Cooper asked.

  “Not really, but I might be able to come up with one. Should I do that?”

  “Yeah.”

&nb
sp; “Well,” she said, pointing at the door, giving Cooper one more longing look, “I’ve got somebody waiting. I’ll email it to you.”

  “Thanks. That would be great.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll see you. Call me if you need anything else.”

  “I will.” He touched her shoulder. “Thanks, Cora.”

  She paused another moment, her face a painting of naked longing, and then dashed out.

  I met his eyes. I didn’t even have to add a question or a raised eyebrow. He knew that I knew, and bent his head. “She was there right after Alice died. I shouldn’t have. She’s not even twenty-five.”

  “I dated a cowboy for a few months after my divorce,” I said, looking around the room, then gave him a half smile.

  “A cowboy?” The word was funny in his accent, so proper. “Did he have a big buckle?”

  “I guess that depends,” I said, “on what you’re comparing it to.”

  He laughed, and I just barely avoided preening. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s see what we can figure out.”

  I sat down in the chair, and he stood behind me. “I feel reluctant to look at her email. It’s so personal, and I feel like I’m digging through too much of her life as it is.”

  “You know she’d do the same for you.”

  I rubbed the burn in my chest. “I wish I could talk to her about her disappearance. Isn’t that weird?”

  “Not at all.”

  I opened the books, and we scanned the entries together. She had quite a number of weddings coming up, which wrecked me. If she didn’t surface sometime soon, the couples would all need to be notified, or maybe Cora would manage the orders that were already in.

  We figured out her codes for birthdays, for picnics, for boxed lunches, for canapés, but not always for what event or for whom. Many of the boxed lunches were billed to a single payee, Perse Inc. “I wonder if that’s a travel company, or what?” I asked.

  He pulled out a chair and sat down beside me. It was tight quarters, but there was space on the desk for the book to open next to the computer. He ran his fingers over the entries, which seemed to be very similar to the entries in the ledger at her home desk.

  “It’s not here,” I said. “Google it.”