Just as she’d felt nervous arriving home tonight, for no apparent reason. She’d known something was wrong then.
She remembered a pitcher of tea that was chilling in the refrigerator. Aunt Bee’s herbal tea is starting to grow on me, she thought with a sudden nostalgic smile. Little had she known that one day she’d sit at her aunt’s table and willingly sip peppermint tea...without her.
“Aunt Bee, if you can hear me, I just want you to know how badly I feel about not seeing you for so long. I’ll find out what happened to you—the truth—and make whoever it was pay.” She said the words aloud, fervently...and then felt horribly foolish for doing so.
But just as she turned to pull a glass from the cupboard above, Diana felt the air stir, and she smelled something soft and floral. A sense of comfort swept over her as if someone put an arm around her shoulders. The sensation was warm and familiar—as if Aunt Belinda was right there in the room. Of course she wasn’t, Diana knew, but she did feel the essence of her aunt, the sense of her, here in the kitchen that held many memories of those three summers she’d spent here.
Oh, how many times she’d sat at that table during those summer visits while her aunt baked peach cobbler or patiently taught her how to cross-stitch, or showed her how to roll out a pie crust. She remembered the long walks they’d take through the cemetery—and the stories Aunt Belinda would make up about the people whose graves littered the fenced-in plot. There were exciting moments in the little dinghy she used for fishing, and the one time a walleye almost won the battle for its life by pulling Diana into Damariscotta Lake.
She felt better now, warm from the memories and maybe a bit less guilty about not seeing Aunt Belinda before she died. Taking her iced tea, she wandered from the kitchen down the hall to the den—the room in the house that seemed the most comforting to her. She sank onto the settee and sighed, thinking about all the work she would need to do to clear out this room before she could sell the house.
Then, she noticed the mahogany box of cards on the floor next to her foot.
She didn’t remember moving them there.
A strange prickle crawled up her spine, slowly, as she looked down at the small chest. She’d pushed them away, but now some of Ethan’s words from the other day came floating back to her. Cards don’t have psychic abilities...people do. Your Aunt Belinda had the ability, and she believed you did too.
Tightness banded her chest and she reached for the box before she realized what she was doing. Here, too, were memories—long suppressed ones, she now realized, but memories. Vague images, just out of reach of her consciousness, hinted of Aunt Belinda taking the cards, showing them to her one by one, talking about them, encouraging her to look at them and think about them.
Then, the wisp of memories evolved into angry words from her mother and a horrible argument with Aunt Belinda...and then there were no more memories of Aunt Belinda. The summer visits stopped abruptly the year she turned fourteen.
With a shake of her head, Diana tried to clear her thoughts. Wow, she thought, that was odd. It was almost as if I were reliving those times...times that I don’t ever remember having.
Perhaps there was some validity to those faint images—for after that last summer, Diana’s mother steered her toward more scientific pursuits: chemistry, mathematics, logic, even piano lessons, and Aunt Belinda’s name was never mentioned again until Diana was older, in her late teens, and asked about her. She was told that her aunt had moved away and didn’t want to see any family anymore. And then just after college, when Diana pressed Victoria for her aunt’s contact information, her mother told her that Aunt Bee had died.
How could she ever forgive her mother for that lie? She’d long forgiven her for the years of criticism and sly remarks, even though she still had to fight the insecurities. But this—such a blatant lie. Why would her mother do such a thing?
Pressing her lips tightly together to keep tears from coming, Diana forced her attention away from the Tarot cards. She gazed around the room, taking in the haphazard stacks of magazines and newspapers, the messy shelves of books, and dust-covered trinkets and statuettes that littered tables and cubbyholes. But her gaze was irrevocably drawn back to the mahogany box that shined russet in the soft light.
It beckoned to her, and this time she didn’t resist.
A tingling started in her fingertips when Diana lifted the lid and opened the smooth, cool silk wrappings to expose the cards. She stared down at the red, blue, and black pattern on the reverse of the deck. Now, how do I begin?
Concentrate. Breathe slowly, open your mind.
Think of the problem you wish to resolve.
The advice came from the depths of her memory, long buried.
She reached for the deck, ready to make the cut. Drawing a deep breath, she closed her eyes and concentrated.
Brrrring!
The jarring ring of the old telephone startled her and her hand jerked, sending the cards slipping onto the floor.
Diana scrambled to her feet, heart pounding wildly in her chest, feeling disoriented, as if she’d just awakened from a deep sleep. She rushed for the phone, desperate to stop the shrill, discordant sound.
Brrrring!
“Hello.”
Silence.
“Hello?” she said again, more firmly. “Hello?”
Again, there was nothing.
Diana slammed the receiver back down onto its cradle, her heart lodged in her throat. She darted a glance around the room, then rushed to the windows, staying out of sight of anyone who might be lurking in the darkness, but peering out into the moonlit night.
Her nose brushed up against the heavy velvet curtain, and her breath rasped loudly in the silence.
There was nothing to see out there, of course, but that didn’t make her feel any better. She slid back from the window, wondering if Aunt Bee had kept any of Uncle Tracer’s hunting rifles. Even if they weren’t loaded, she’d feel better with one in her hands.
Slipping away from the wall, she bolted out of the room, taking care to stay out of view of the windows, and went upstairs to the cabinet where the guns used to be stored. The cabinet wasn’t locked, and she found three rifles within, selecting the one that looked the most manageable.
After loading it with some old Winchester bullets she located in a faded cardboard box in the bottom of the cabinet, she hurried back downstairs. It was unlikely she would get any sleep tonight, but she could at least curl up on the settee with the gun.
But then, at the bottom of the stairs, she remembered the cards, remembered what she’d been about to do...and she stopped cold.
What was I thinking? What was I doing?
Her jitters from the phone call lessened to be replaced by clammy palms and a sharp twinge in her stomach. The phone call could have been anything—a wrong number, a bad connection...but the cards...she swallowed, nervousness creating pain in her temples. They had spilled all over the floor when she leapt to answer the phone.
What if the High Priestess shows up again?
Diana shuddered. Then, the nausea came, starting like a lull in the base of her belly, easy, soft, subtle. It was followed by a distant throb in her temples and one sharp pain behind her left eye.
I’ve got to stop this. I’m making myself sick. They’re just cards.
She forced herself to return to the den. Shouldering the rifle like a militiaman, she took a step then another, and another, reluctantly moving toward the room.
If she wasn’t afraid of an intruder, she told herself, why was she so frightened of a deck of cards? If it didn’t bother her to stay in the house where her aunt had likely—possibly—been murdered, why couldn’t she walk in to look at a pile of cards?
Pausing in the doorway, Diana peered warily at the ottoman and the shine of the cards scattered all over the floor. Her stomach twisted and the tom-tom in her temples became stronger.
She walked closer, staring at the pile, certain that if she saw The High Priestess from far enough
away, she could change her mind and walk out of the room. As she drew nearer, Diana saw that only two cards had landed face-up. And neither of them were The High Priestess.
The clutch of dread that had hold of her middle eased as she picked her way gingerly among the cards. She checked the safety on the gun, leaned it against the settee, then stooped to gather up the pile.
She pulled all but the face-up cards into a neat deck, then reached for those last two. Neither of them were familiar to her: Wheel of Fortune, one was labeled. The other had no title, but bore the Roman numeral two at the top.
Diana looked at them for a moment, her curiosity getting the better of her, and noticed that the pounding in her forehead had begun to ease.
Wheel of Fortune was labeled with the Roman numeral ten, indicating that it was the tenth card of the Major Arcana. The Wheel itself hung suspended in what appeared to be the heavens, for it was surrounded by clouds and all types of creatures. Each creature seemed to be reading a book.
Diana looked more closely at the picture of the Wheel. There were two concentric circles drawn on it, and lines cut the two innermost circles into six pie-shaped pieces. Symbols that she thought might be those of astrological signs ringed the outermost portion of the Wheel.
Placing it on the ottoman, she turned her attention to the second card. A blindfolded figure sat on a beach, holding two swords crossed over his or her chest. The swords were long, creating a v-shape and bisecting the drawing at the horizon line between water and sky. Two of Swords, she thought. A very simple image. Yes, it was a picture with little detail, but the impression it gave her was a powerful one. The person on the beach, blind to anyone approaching, held the swords in such a way that seemed to ward off any encroachment upon the ocean with those two sturdy weapons.
She returned her attention to Wheel of Fortune as she rested Two of Swords next to it on the ottoman.
I wonder what they mean.
The thought came from nowhere...and just as suddenly as it popped into her head, Diana pushed it out again. She pulled herself to her feet, determined not to indulge the fantasy any longer.
“Enough of this nonsense. I’m going to bed,” she said aloud, now unwilling to stay in this room which had early offered a bastion of comfort. With one last look down at the two lone cards on the ottoman, she grabbed the gun and walked quickly from the room—refusing to look back or to even handle the deck again.
What if she turned up The High Priestess again?
She’d put them away tomorrow.
Drained, she didn’t think twice about slipping between the covers of Belinda’s bed. The rifle was within easy reach, leaning against the wall. The headache that had threatened was gone, as was the nausea. A shiver wavered across her shoulders. Both maladies had hovered at her physical consciousness until she began to examine the cards...and then, coincidentally, they disappeared.
Absurd. Psychosomatic symptoms.
She rolled to the side and closed her eyes.
Wheel of Fortune.
Two of Swords.
* * *
Diana woke the next morning to the sound of a motor rumbling very near her bedroom window. It came closer, then backed away; closer, then away. It sounded like someone was mowing the lawn.
She sat up in bed, and her gaze went automatically to the digital clock. Nine-thirty. She spewed out a long breath. Her sleep habits had really gotten screwed up in just a few days. She was getting lazy.
Her heels made little annoyed thumps as she strode down the hall to the front door. As she passed by the den, Diana couldn’t control a glance toward the ottoman. The two cards were still there, just as she had left them, looking innocent and unimportant. I’ll deal with that later.
By now, she’d reached the front door. She whipped the chain lock open and snapped the deadbolt back, then turned the knob and pulled the door open.
Heedless of the fact that she wore nothing but a modest nightshirt and no shoes, Diana walked out onto the porch and followed it around the back, where the sound of the mower was louder.
As she came around the corner, she stopped. Her breath caught, and she just stared for a moment. Aunt Belinda sure had good taste in gardeners.
From behind the man pushing the mower, all Diana could see was a broad-shouldered back, well-toned with muscle and glazed with a light sheen of sweat. It narrowed to a slim-hipped waist, covered with a loose pair of shorts that looked like chopped off sweatpants. Regardless of the fact that they were loose, they covered a very pleasing, well-defined rear end. His legs were long, lean, and muscled from thigh to calf.
Wow. Maybe I won’t lodge a complaint after all.
He turned a corner then, and was suddenly facing her. Somehow, although a jolt of awareness shot through her, Diana wasn’t really surprised that it was Ethan Tannock. He looked just as good from the front, she thought wryly as she started across the grass toward him.
He looked up and gave an obvious start at seeing her. His face settled into a remote expression as he released the mower, and it puttered into silence. “Good morning.” He slung his hands at his hips, turning toward her with a hint of defiance.
“Good morning. What are you doing?” Diana allowed irritation into her voice. As she came closer, she felt his gaze sweep over her lightly clad figure. Self-conscious, she tried to be inconspicuous as she tugged the hem of her nightshirt down, stretching it to mid-thigh. Shorts and a tank top are more revealing than my nightshirt. And my hair must look like a disaster.
“Mowing the lawn,” Ethan replied, taking a leisurely look. It had taken her long enough to wake up. He’d been working for two hours, trimming and clipping.
When she pulled the nightshirt down, it did nothing but tighten over her chest. Moratorium or no, he wasn’t about to deny himself the pleasure of looking at the lovely apple-sized breasts she was conveniently displaying. “Did I wake you?” He smirked at her consternation and irritation, then used his forefinger to wipe a trickle of sweat from his forehead. Served her right.
“As a matter of fact, you did,” she replied. She must have realized that drawing the edge of the t-shirt down did nothing to preserve her modesty because she let go of the hem.
“I’m sorry,” he told her with just the faintest sincerity in his voice. After all, he was doing this for Belinda—and to further the cause of science. He didn’t have to like the woman, although it sure as hell wasn’t a hardship to look at her, dressed as she was, all rumpled and heavy-lidded from sleep. His fingers itched to touch those thick, full curls that danced in a riot about her head, leaving her long, slender neck bare.
“I thought you’d be an early riser, ” he added, but with more sincerity this time. He couldn’t help a small grin as she glared at him. “I’m upholding my end of the bargain your aunt and I have had for years—and I’ll do so until you can make other arrangements for having the yard work done.”
“Bargain?”
“Yeah. She never would accept any payment from me for all the time I spent working with her, so we had an agreement that I would take care of her lawn work in the summer, and make sure the plowing was done in the winter.”
“Work you did with her? You paid her?” The consternation on her face would have been more gratifying if he hadn’t seen the wheels turning in her mind—considering whether she should believe him or not. She really does think I’m a shyster.
Despite the anger rising in him, he kept his voice even and well modulated. “Yes, I compensated her—or tried to, anyway—for the para-psychological experiments she participated in for over five years. You see, Diana, regardless of what your lawyerly, ambulance-chasing brain might think, I don’t need her money. I get paid very well by Princeton University to do my ‘ghost busting’, as you call it. Go ahead—check me out. It’ll be easy enough. I’m on their website.” He flashed her an arrogant smile, one that was sugarcoated with niceness, but had the underlying steel of his outrage at her accusations. “Under Staff. Picture and all—although they haven�
�t updated it since I shaved.”
“I certainly will check it out.” Her voice was frosty, although he saw the waver of uncertainty in her eyes.
He wondered if she’d apologize when she found out how wrong she’d been. Unlikely, he thought, taking in the cool facade of her beautiful but stony face and defiant stance. Why would someone like her bother to eat crow?
Diana took a step backward, obviously trying to find a way to excuse herself politely. “Well I do appreciate your taking the time to come over here and do this. I have to run into town, so I may be gone when you get finished. But—uh—could I get you something to drink before I go?”
Ethan could feel her discomfort, and although he’d have liked to continue teasing her, he decided against it. If he wanted to spend enough time observing her to make it worthwhile—and to eventually get her permission to be a full-fledged participant, he couldn’t afford to have her too angry with him. Perhaps it was time to call a truce. “I don’t mind doing it because I know you probably have your hands full. I probably won’t be much more than another hour—I have to run the mulcher over it. Then, if you don’t care, I’ll jump in the lake to cool off.”
“No, that’s not a problem,” Diana told him. “If you’d like to stop in for something cold to drink before you leave, that would be fine. Just holler when you come in if I’m still here.”
He felt one eyebrow lift. She was inviting him to just walk in the house?
“Thanks. That’d be great. I’ll take you up on it.” And now, you little rumpled sleepyhead, you’d better get in the house and get some clothes on before I forget I don’t like you.
But the problem was...he was beginning to wish he did.
* * *
As it turned out, Diana didn’t make it into town before Ethan finished the lawn. She was on the phone with Mickey when she heard Ethan’s “helloooo!” reverberate through the house.
“Who’s that?” her sharp-eared assistant asked.
“Just one of the neighbors. He just finished mowing the lawn,” Diana explained. Then, cupping her hand over the receiver, she called, “Come on in—I’m in the kitchen.”
Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology Page 10
