The Witch's Empathy

by Iris Kincaid

Erin returned to Mrs. Garland’s side. “You let me know when you’re coming for visits, and I’ll try to be here as often as I can as a go-between. And when you leave town, maybe Mrs. Garland wouldn’t mind if I stop by occasionally for a visit?”

  Mia nodded gratefully and Mrs. Garland did her best to try and squeeze Erin’s hand.

  “Okay, she wants you to sit down and tell her everything. Start with the diagnosis. She doesn’t know if the doctors have been straight with her. Is there any chance of improvement? Can she be put in a wheel chair and taken outside for some fresh air?”

  “I’ll look into it, Mom. I’ll find out first thing tomorrow,” Mia said dutifully.

  “So . . . Quentin. Got a picture of him?”

  Mia pulled out her phone, laughing and crying all at once.

  Erin had explained what she could do without using the word witch. The odd thing was that she had never been prouder or happier to be a witch.

  *****

  Back at home, Mia’s gleeful romantic prospects again turned Erin’s mind back to thoughts of Orlando. She could kick herself so hard for getting him into trouble.

  Radio was at it again. “You look very sad today. You know what would make you happier? Finding me a bite to eat. Those liver treats would work just fine. Or finding something soft to line my bed with. There’s a fleece sweater in the back of your closet that would be perfect. Oh, and then giving me a little tummy rub.”

  He was unashamedly self-absorbed.

  “How are any of those things going to keep me from feeling less sad?”

  “You like making people happy. I can tell. So, I’m letting you make me happy. I believe that’s known as a win-win.”

  “Okay, okay.” But what I really need to make me happy is to get Orlando in the clear. And to find the killer. How hard could that be? After all, I can read minds.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The thankless task of creating a memorial service for Regina Gorman fell to Principal Chaplin and Isabel Ferreira. They set themselves the task of gathering photos and mementos, hoping to put a display together that the reunion class would be able to attend before they all dispersed back to their homes. Truth be told, the memorial was likely to be so poorly attended that it would have to be teamed up with a weenie roast in order to get anyone there.

  As soon as Erin arrived, she pulled Isabel aside.

  “There’s this huge cloud of suspicion over our class and our reunion. Perhaps we should take it into her own hands to help solve the murder investigation,” Erin suggested.

  “Murder investigation! That’s the silliest thing I ever heard of. The woman got stinking drunk and fell into a pool. It was an accident. A terrible, tragic accident.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Erin said, as they began to flip through some very old photo albums. Holy smokes! Was this really Regina Gorman? In her early thirties, she could have passed for a Hollywood starlet. How could that lovely face have masked such impending evil?

  But there’s no telling what might be going on under the surface. That was quickly brought home to Erin when she brushed against Isabel’s hand as they passed the albums back and forth.

  “A drowning was too good for her. She should have been beaten to death with a stick,” Isabel’s thoughts read. But her exterior remained placid.

  Whoa! That was some serious animosity. Seriously violent animosity. Drowning is pretty bad. How could it be too good for anyone? What happened to Little Miss Isabel Sunshine? Beyond the normal insults, putdowns, and ego bashing that Mrs. Gorman had made it a practice to inflict on all her students, what else had she done to Isabel?

  Regina’s house was remarkably lavish for a public school teacher, no doubt due to her inheritance from Mr. Gorman. Wesley had been allowed to attend and search for photographs of his father. But the abundant evidence of luxury living put a permanent scowl on his face.

  Isabel was off making some funeral phone calls, so Erin joined Principal Chaplin in Regina’s study, where he was flipping through some old journals of hers.

  “I’m going to take a few of these to look at. It would be nice to be able to tell some anecdotes, some stories about what made Regina a person—her history, family, friends. Something humanizing. What she wanted when she was young. Her dreams. Something that says who she was before she became someone who was so, well, abrasive, I guess would be the kindest word.”

  Erin’s gaze fell on a list of cell phone numbers, with names and notes attached. It had the word Confiscated at the top. On closer examination, she realized that Regina had a hard and fast no cell phone policy in her classroom and was in the habit of confiscating any phone whose owner was careless enough to get caught.

  It was the notes that were attached to the numbers that were particularly disturbing. Regina had browsed through their phones, their messages, their photos, and if she found anything that displeased her, she made a note to lower their final grades.

  “Did you know about this?” Erin asked Mr. Chaplin.

  “I knew that she confiscated cell phones. And I didn’t mind that. There are plenty of students who will never look up at the teacher or hear a word that happens in the classroom when they’re buried in their phones. But her spying on them . . . grading them down. I . . . I wish I had known. I was never fond of her grading policy of no As, but at least it represented the stretching for a high, unattainable ideal.”

  “It also wrecked a lot of people’s GPAs,” Erin reminded him. “That’s a serious matter when it comes to college applications.”

  “I was well aware of that. And I try to undo a lot of the damage that she might have caused. I sent a personal letter to the president and the admissions officers of all the competitive colleges our seniors wanted to get into, where Mrs. Gorman’s grade might have ruined their chances.

  “And I explained in those letters that no student graduates from Oyster Cove High could ever have a 4.0, no matter how gifted, because her class was required and she didn’t give As. But the rest of their academic record speaks for itself and is the best indicator that they were deserving of an A in Mrs. Gorman’s class. I vouched for the 4.0 students, and most of them got in. Of course, I never wanted Regina . . . Mrs. Gorman . . . to ever know that I was going behind her back.”

  “Why did you pick her for principal instead of Vice Principal Metcalf? Wasn’t he the logical choice?”

  “Mr. Metcalf has been a very reliable partner these last several years. But he can be a bit . . . indecisive. He knows how to maintain the status quo, but he has no vision for change and growth. He’s not a leader by nature. Regina, while controversial, had a very firm hand and the highest of scholastic ideals. Obviously, she was not at her best on that final evening.”

  Erin heard a familiar voice coming from the downstairs area. “Ooh, I hear Ms. Kipling. I’m going to go down and say hi.”

  She left Mr. Chaplin shuffling through a mountain of records and paperwork. Nora Kipling had to pick up a few mementos herself.

  “Salve magister.” That meant ‘Greetings, teacher.’

  “Erin, what a nice surprise. I mean, under the circumstances. I certainly didn’t expect to find any students here.”

  “But what are you doing here?”

  “Regina and I knew one another for over thirty years. I can’t say that we were ever friends. And not for the reason that she alluded to. We did find ourselves competing for the affection of the same man, I’m mortified to say. But then when he chose and married her, well, I was so disillusioned by his tastes that I immediately got over it.”

  Nora and Erin shared a little chuckle.

  “You know they’re going to have to give out free hot dogs and a bonfire to get people to attend this woman’s memorial?” Erin asked.

  “It’s true that she did very little to endear herself to others,” Nora said.

  “And yet . . . and yet if she was killed, it doesn’t matter whether she was a good person. Or likable. It was wrong, and the killer has got to be found and held accountable,
” Erin said.

  Lilith Hazelwood was hovering nearby.

  “I like the sound of this woman, this Regina Gorman. A woman who put herself first, was impervious to emotional claptrap, and who was cut down in the prime of her life. Just like me. Go right ahead, Erin Sweeney. Avenge this woman. It will strengthen your skills and make you all the more useful to me.”

  *****

  Isabel had organized a fancy late afternoon tea for a small group of ladies at The Grand Hotel. And then she had to bail out on them because she was so busy with funeral and memorial arrangements. Normally, Erin would have needed Isabel as her safety blanket. But the other three women were okay—it was the same group of women to whom she had first announced her kidney transplant on the evening of the pool party.

  There was prom queen Kira Davenport, preoccupied with whether her marriage was going to last, the long-unemployed Megan Fisher, who was facing eviction and life as a bag lady or living with her critical and difficult mother—it was a close call—and Jenna Hayes, who had long been resisting prescription antidepressants and therapy but was unable to shake the cloud of depression she been under for several years.

  As for Erin herself, she could feel herself undergoing a major transition. She was starting to hear a soft low jumbled buzz of thoughts which seemed to be coming at her from all directions. This was what Delphine had foretold, that soon she’d be able to read minds without involving touch, that she wouldn’t be able to filter them or know exactly what thought was coming from which person. But it was most disorienting. Still, aside from their group, the tea room was deserted because of the late hour, and Erin didn’t have much trouble figuring out whom to assign these specific incoming thoughts to.

  It was a subdued and sober group. Erin wished that she could cheer them up and let them know that like herself, it was possible to get a new chance at life and happiness, even twenty years out of the starting gate.

  “So, Kira, I think Isabel said that your twins do some modeling,” Erin began.

  “They do. They’ve been working for almost eight years now. I think they might even have what it takes to get an acting job. My husband thinks that modeling spoils them, but how can it spoil them? They’re working! And they’re earning money for their future.”

  “Which is more than he and I have been able to do for them. There’s no way that we’ll be able to help them out with college on our salaries. The kids need to earn that money for themselves, right now, so it can be set aside. Because when they really need us, all they’re likely to have is two divorced parents who have to be kept apart from one another at graduation ceremonies and weddings and christenings.”

  “Are your kids looking forward to the camping trip?”

  “They are. Although I don’t know . . . I’m not really the roughing it type. And my husband doesn’t seem to be enjoying anything about this trip.”

  “Maybe the bowling party?” Erin said hopefully.

  “At least she has a husband. I don’t have anyone to talk to. No one to share the bills and responsibilities of life with. No one would notice if I didn’t leave my apartment for two weeks.”

  That thought had to be coming from Jenna. Erin hoped that the camping trip would cheer her up. Maybe Erin could talk to her about antidepressants and therapy. Jenna might be open to listening to someone who had been through their own physical struggles for such a long time.

  “I think that I would almost rather live on the streets or live in some abandoned garage and be a bag lady rather than move back in with my mother. That would make me an absolute failure, and she’d never let me forget it.”

  This was a seriously troubled tea party. Again, Erin was reminded that the rosy image she had projected on the lives of her classmates was not only diminishing, but it may have been very misguided in the first place. Who knows what was going on in the lives of these women when they were the young girls she knew at school? She saw the surface and envied the surface, but she might have seen something quite different if she could have read their minds back then.

  Taking a page from . . . herself, Erin thought perhaps the only way to make these women feel better was to help contrast their lives with someone’s who had been far worse.

  “So . . . Regina Gorman,” she said to get the ball rolling.

  It was enough. The commentary started rolling in, and this time, it was pretty difficult to figure out who was bashing Regina. She had alienated pretty much the entire teenaged population.

  “Austin Tanner will be so pleased now that his daughter won’t have to put up with Regina. Gosh, I guess that’s kinda mean.”

  “That’s what happens when you celebrate your promotions too hard. What she really, really deserved was to be fired. But if that wasn’t going to happen, I guess this was the next-best thing. I’m awful.”

  “Should I go to the memorial? I don’t think I can fake being sad. And I really couldn’t care less. Am I a terrible person?”

  Erin wanted to put them at ease. “I don’t think we need to feel terrible for not feeling terrible. And you don’t have to feel bad if you don’t want to go to her memorial-slash-weenie roast. Although, I’d encourage you to go for the weenies. And to support Isabel.

  “You know what they should do? Normally, people go up and say wonderful things about the deceased. I think that they should turn the weenie roast into a real, like, celebrity roast, where people come up and tell it like it is about Regina Gorman, without anyone worrying about being tasteless or mean. Just telling it like it is.”

  This was a tantalizing possibility that had the others giggling.

  “Should we practice right now?” Kira wondered.

  “Definitely,” Megan said. “That woman was the bane of my existence. She actually talked a boy out of asking me out.”

  “She didn’t!” Jenna said.

  They probably weren’t going to sell anyone on the idea of a roast for the drowned, possibly murdered, absolutely despicable former history teacher. But it made for a sinfully entertaining afternoon’s tea.

  Erin had gone to the restroom and was returning to the table as the event was winding down. The other women were gathering their purses. She still couldn’t always make out the clutter of jumbling thoughts that was going on in their minds. Yes, she was gonna have to fine-tune this ability as soon as possible. It was terribly confusing.

  But then one thought came through, crystal-clear—As soon as this reunion is over, it’s going to be time to end it all. I just don’t want it to be painful. Pills would probably be easiest. Or maybe I will just stick my head in the oven. By this time next week, all this torture will be all over.

  How terrible! It had to be Jenna, right? But Megan’s dark fears about financial insecurity were creeping back. At least Erin could rule out Kira. The former prom queen handling her kids’ modeling careers would never think of doing something so sad and desperate—would she? Erin needed to figure out the author of this suicide plan, and she didn’t have a lot of time to do it.

  *****

  You’re either a bowler or you’re not. It’s something that everyone can do, in theory. And it’s something that everyone probably has done in practice. But if you let years, and even decades lapse between bowling outings, your wrists are generally going to be so weak and undisciplined that you will have the playing ability of an eight-year-old.

  “They say that bowling alleys are making a comeback,” one alum noted.

  “Who says that? The Bowling Alley Owners’ Association?” his friend responded.

  It didn’t take long for Erin’s class to come to the painful, humbling realization that they all sucked. There were so many gutter balls that a few of them decided to turn the tragic gutters into a drinking game—one shot for every complete miss.

  Even those who didn’t participate in the drinking game were infected by the spirit of it. It lightened the mood and took the pressure off doing things well, especially since the gutter balls got even bigger cheers than the strikes.

&nbs
p; Admittedly, the strikes were few and far between. Principal Chaplin and Vice Principal Metcalf were actually the stars of the evening there. They were an older generation who came of age on pool, poker, and bowling. Neither of them had a clue about video games, but here they were in their element, and it’s always fun to watch your adult authority figures let down their hair.

  It was also kind of a hoot to watch Mr. Metcalf perform a happy dance every time he got a strike. Clearly, he was under the assumption that Regina Gorman’s misfortune would lead to his good fortune. Principal Metcalf—it certainly had a ring to it.

  Now that the opening party was out of the way, it was a much more relaxed and sociable atmosphere. And as to be expected, Regina Gorman was a hot topic of conversation.

  Austin Tanner was still a little bit bitter. “I wish I hadn’t had my entire future riding on my grade from Gorman’s class. But I was just teetering right at the C- average. I guess that’s my fault. All my energy and heart went into football, not my classes.

  “I should have been able to get a full-ride football scholarship. But not when my GPA fell to the D level. To this very day, I can’t believe that Regina Gorman changed the course of my life. I know it’s a longshot, but I could’ve made it to the NFL. Who knows?”

  Latin teacher Nora Kipling had come for the evening, much to the delight of her former students. “I’m so sorry, Austin. I fought with Mrs. Gorman so hard on her grading. I know for some kids, it didn’t really matter. It was just an irritating annoyance to get a grade lower than they deserved. But for some, it did completely change the opportunities that presented themselves. I hope that you’ve made peace with those losses.”

  “The past can’t be undone. But apparently, it can be punished. Don’t worry, Ms. Kipling. I guess I just got about the closest thing to closure that I could’ve asked for.”

  At this point, no one was even pretending that Regina’s death was a sad occasion.

  Erin had spotted Orlando soon after she walked in. He was sitting in the café area with his friend Leo Price, and they were feasting on chicken wings and barbecue sauce, which was a little too messy to mingle with bowling. He waved her over.