Death by Séance

by Jo-Ann Carson

  What the hell? One minute she’s in a snit because she thinks I’m interested in her Peter Pan son, and now she’s getting all twisted because I’m not. “My heart belongs to another.” I said.

  “The ghost?”

  “Yeah, you can call him that.”

  “You prefer a ghost to my son?” The incredulity in her voice dripped venom.

  “I cannot explain love. Nor do I wish to try. The simple fact is that I am in love with Eric Eklund and, yes, he is over a thousand years old.” And on the transparent side.

  “And dead.”

  “Very.”

  Her mouth twisted as if she had swallowed a newt. She and walked around me, examining me as if I were a piece of meat. Actually, something worse, but I’m too much of a lady to say that. She smelled of Chanel. The real stuff.

  Finally, she arrived back at her original position in front of me. “You look normal.”

  I wish. “Yup that’s me. The witch next door.”

  “And my son is helping you learn our ways.”

  “I don’t ask him to.” I folded my arms. “I don’t want him to.” Especially since we shared that kiss. “He says I need the help.”

  “I hear you have an ancient grimoire.”

  “I do and I would gladly give it to you, but ...”

  She held up her hand. “They cannot be given.”

  I shrugged. “I’d gladly give away my witch powers as well.”

  Spark made a fighting-cat yowl that slid under my skin and made me shudder.

  “And my familiar for free.”

  “You can’t, my dear, and you know that.”

  “Yes, well, maybe someday I’ll meet someone powerful enough to take it all from me.”

  “And then you can be cozy as a muggle with a ghost?” Her brows rose and she shook her head.

  I shrugged. So much for being honest. No one understood my life. Heck, I didn’t understand it. “Look, I have work to do before I rush home and make dinner for my family.” It was only mac and cheese, but still, it takes time to make it perfect. “I’ll be as clear with you as I can. I like Dante.” And my traitorous female body parts liked him way too much, but I didn’t say that. “I appreciate the help he’s given me over the last few months, but I am not—am not—interested in him as anything other than a friend and an occasional mentor.”

  She tapped her expensive stilettoed foot. “Ha. I have never met a woman who could resist my son’s charms.”

  “Well, you’ve met one now.” Sort of.

  “I see why he’s so attracted to you. He wants something he can’t have. You know men hate that. It makes them …”

  “Go all testosterony. Yeah, I know. That’s not my intention. I speak my truth to you and to him. I am being completely honest.” As long as we don’t talk kisses.

  “I will counsel him to desist, but I’m not sure he’ll listen. Your magic and hard-to-get behavior pull him. You need to be clear.” Her eyes flashed that blazing green venom again, the angry-Momma-from-witch’s-hell look. Not attractive at all.

  I nodded.

  “If you do anything to encourage him, or hurt him, I will melt your insides.”

  I did want to lose some weight, but her plan sounded painful. Diet by witch. I didn’t doubt her ability. My chin may have quivered. “I got your message. No playing with Dante.”

  A silver wand appeared from a fold in her dress and rose in her right hand. “To demonstrate my intentions are serious, I curse you, Abby Jenkins, to hiccups for the next six hours.”

  I hiccupped as she turned and glided out the door. As she flew away, she said, “My name is Sofia … Ricci.”

  The name was too long to digest, so I hung on to the first part, “Sofia.”

  I hiccupped. And then I hiccupped again. And again. And again.

  My mind couldn’t function with the damn hiccups interrupting every thought and my stomach ached. I had to stop the damn things.

  I held my breath and counted to ten, exhaled slowly and hiccupped. I held my breath for twenty, exhaled and hiccupped. I drank water and hiccupped.

  I was trying a thirty count when Joy returned with Jane.

  “What’s wrong with you? Your face is all flushed.”

  “I’ve been holding my breath.” I hiccupped.

  “Oh, I have a great remedy for that.” She jumped at me and screamed “Ha!”

  I screamed and hiccupped.

  “Hmm. It usually works.”

  “Any other ...” Hiccup. “I’ve been cursed by that witch to six hours of this.”

  “I’ll get Azalea.” She left.

  I googled “cures for hiccups.” There were a lot.

  1) Drink a glass of water through a straw while you plug your ears with your fingers. That sounded rather dramatic. I felt like an idiot, but I did it. Hiccup.

  2) Use two straws. One inside a glass of water and one outside. Take big gulps. I tried it. Talk about uncomfortable! Hiccup.

  3) Drink a glass of water without your hands. That might have worked, but the glass toppled over and I got soaked with water. Hiccup.

  4) Drink upside down. I straddled my client chair and leaned back so I could try this one. I landed on my head. Hiccup.

  5) Eat something sweet. Hmm. I ate a handful of marshmallows. Hiccup.

  6) Bite into a lemon. Sweet sounded better to me. I didn’t have a lemon in the office.

  7) Drink a teaspoon of vinegar every ten seconds until your hiccups stop. Vinegar. Yuck!

  Hiccup. Next.

  8) Peanut butter

  9) Salt.

  10) Breathe in a figure eight.

  11) Get tickled.

  I stopped reading and hiccupped. They weren’t getting better. My esophagus wasn’t happy. My lungs weren’t happy. My tummy wasn’t happy. I growled.

  Spark laughed each time I tried a solution. Why did I have to have the meanest familiar on the block?

  I swear the sign on my forehead that reads, “Send me all things that go bump in the night,” had a new addendum, “and leave me with a laughing lynx.”

  Hiccup. I had to stop this curse. My grimoire was at home and I wasn’t sure I wanted to wade through its deep magic just yet. I sent a text to Dante. Something I had vowed to myself and Eric never to do, but I needed a Band-Aid fix. “Help, your mother cursed me,” I wrote.

  Azalea strolled in, which made me feel better.

  “You’re hiccupping.”

  Hiccup. I threw my arms in the air.

  “Have you tried water?”

  I hit my forehead with the palm of my hand. “I’ve been cursed by an evil witch.”

  “To hiccup?” Her right brow wrinkled. “Evil witches use darker curses, my dear.”

  “Nonetheless, she cursed me.” Hiccup.

  “What did you do this time?”

  This time? I wasn’t in the habit of annoying witches or any other supernaturals, but she did have a point. I had a bit of a track record. “She’s Dante’s mother,” I said.

  “Ah, that explains a lot.” She walked up to me and looked deep into my eyes. “How long?”

  “How long as she been his mother?” Hiccup. It’s really hard to concentrate when your whole body convulses every few minutes.

  “No, dear.” She took my hand in hers and squeezed. “Did she say how long the curse would last?”

  “Six hours.”

  Joy entered the room. “I phoned the nurse’s help line. After three hours you need to go to the hospital.”

  “I can’t do this for three hours.”

  “What did you do to the witch?” Azalea asked.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  Spark snickered.

  “She’s Dante’s mother.”

  Joy said, “The mother of a man-witch!” She gave a dry laugh. “Some mothers just can’t let go of their sons.”

  “But I’m not in a relationship with Dante.”

  “But she’s jealous of you.”

  I shrugged and hiccupped. “Something like
that.”

  Dante strode into the room.

  “I put wards on the teahouse so you couldn’t enter,” I said. I was proud of my protection spell, which I had found in my grimoire and finessed to fit the situation.

  “Please,” he said, in his seductive, low voice.

  Spark sat up. Joy grinned. “I’m out of here,” she said. Azalea followed her silently.

  “I worked on that protection spell for … hiccup … three days.”

  His chocolate-brown eyes melted. “Carina, you are good, but not that good. I am stronger than you and you are my student. You cannot keep me out. It’s partly for your protection.”

  Hiccup. Wait a minute. Wait a darn bewitching minute. “You put your own spell on the house.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Exactly that. Damn you to Samhain hell.” My cheeks heated and I hiccupped.

  “Forget about that for now. What did my mother do? Exactly.”

  My eyes welled with tears. I did not want to be dealing with Dante. I did not want him to rescue me. Again. I did not want to be hexed by the mother of all mother-witches. And I did not want to be a witch. “I want to be normal.”

  His head tilted and he reached out to touch me, but I stepped back. “Have you tried water?” he said.

  I took the last glass sitting on my desk and threw it at him. “Maybe it will work better if it’s covering you?”

  He chuckled as he stilled the water midair and let it fall to the floor. Hex him. His dimple that comes out when he laughs, the one that makes him look innocent and decadent at the same time, emerged. Damn him and his Casanova soul. Hiccup.

  “I take it you tried water.” Lines radiated from his eyes, which would make a woman look old, but made him look perfectly aged, like a fine wine ready for tasting.

  “Apparently, I’m not good enough for you and for some crazy reason she thinks we’re an item.”

  “You are and we are, mia Carina.”

  “We are not!”

  “Fight it all you want, but I know that your heart quickens when I approach you, and your womanly smell …” His smile widened. “Enhances.”

  “Stuff it.” Hiccup. It’s really hard to tell someone off when all you can do is hiccup.

  “They sound painful.”

  “Getting to be.”

  “I still don’t understand why she cursed you. If I knew why, I would have a better idea how to stop the curse.”

  “She wants me to stay away from you and, to show me how serious she is about her demands, she gave me this curse.” Hiccup. “Basically, she wanted to scare the wind out of me.” Hiccup. Humor doesn’t work well with hiccups either. Hiccup.

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmmm?” Hiccup. “Hmmm? That doesn’t sound so good.”

  “She’s Italian.”

  Hiccup.

  He shrugged. “She can’t help it. She’s possessive of me. If she had her way I would live at home forever.”

  “Don’t tell me you live with your mother.” Hiccup.

  He shrugged. “She does my laundry. I come and go when I want. And the food is amazing.”

  “You live with your mother?” Hiccup. “How old are you?”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “I can’t do this for six hours, Dante.” Hiccup.

  He held up his index finger and pulled out his phone. After punching in a few numbers, he started to talk in Italian. His voice started soft but became more animated. Between sentences he looked up at me. “No, Mama.”

  Hiccup.

  The Italian banter continued. I hiccupped and considered other options. Five minutes later he stopped talking.

  “She won’t revoke the curse. She says she couldn’t, even if she wanted to, and she doesn’t want to. I didn’t take out the trash yesterday and she’s been in a snit all morning.”

  I gave him the stink eye.

  “I got her to promise to leave you alone after this.”

  I hated him. I hated her. Heck, I hated the world. Hiccup.

  “I have an idea, though,” he said. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. “Abby Jenkins …”

  Chapter 11

  The Medium

  “If the apocalypse comes, beep me.”

  Buffy the Vampire Slayer

  I woke up the next morning in my own bed. I looked beneath the covers and found myself wearing a fancy nighty I had never set my eyes on. Hmm. Carefully, I stretched my feet, then my legs and my arms. I rolled my head from side to side. Everything worked, and best of all, I had stopped hiccupping.

  As I grabbed my phone from my bedside table I noticed Eric sitting in the corner staring at me. “Morning.” I said.

  “You slept right through the night.”

  I nodded.

  “As if you had a spell put on you.”

  I shrugged. Where should I start? “It’s a long story and not a very interesting one. Tell me about your adventure.”

  “I’ve never seen you in that nightgown.”

  I sat up and checked out my black silk negligée with Venetian lace. It fit my ample curves like a second skin. Soft and sleek, it not only looked good, it made me feel caressed by luxury. “Hmm,” I said.

  As Eric knows, I sleep in flannel pjs and the tops and bottoms rarely match. The silk felt wonderfully decadent. My cheeks burned as I imagined Dante putting it on me. I hoped he used his magic wand. I should never trust a man-witch. How many times had I told myself that?

  I looked around the room for clues. My clothes were neatly folded and piled on my reading chair. Another thing I never did.

  I cleared my throat. “I promise to tell you later.” As in never. “Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been looking for Nelson. It took a long time to catch up to him, but I found him in Tuktoyaktuc.”

  “On earth.”

  “Yup.”

  “In northern Canada?”

  He nodded. “His mother was Inuit and he likes hanging out with his family. They don’t seem to mind ghosts, so I stayed around and we chatted. The lines between life and death seem less defined in their culture.”

  “So, what’s his story?”

  “‘Later,’ as you like to say.” His arctic-blue eyes narrowed and glanced down at my breasts, barely covered by black silk. He folded his arms across his broad chest and frowned. “You need to get dressed. Joy says you have a meeting at the teahouse with Ophelia in half an hour.”

  Spark slinked out from under the bed snickering.

  ***

  Ophelia Maserati did not look like a car. That was my first thought. Who names themselves after a pile of metal?

  Sitting in the first tea room, she appeared ready to command a league of suitors in Scarlet O’Hara style with a bat of her false eyelashes. A cotton shawl, intricately woven with cafe au lait, ivory and chocolate-brown fibres, covered her shoulders. She wore distressed jeans and expensive leather flats. With such a manicured bohemian look she could be featured on the front of a Hipster fashion blog. Her blonde hair fell in loose waves down her back. Not looking at all like the usual middle-aged women customers of the teahouse, she stood out, but her pouty lips made me think Ophelia stood out everywhere. On purpose.

  I sat down opposite her with Spark curled at my feet. Eric stood by my side, his negligée-scowl still firmly in place.

  “Do you always travel with that thing?”

  “Thing?” I looked around me. Could she see Eric?

  “The ball of fur at your feet.”

  I laughed. I honestly don’t even think about her anymore. Spark is always there. They tell me she magnifies my personal charm, but mostly I find she keeps my feet warm. Spark raised her head and hissed. That was a first. I laughed harder. “I guess she doesn’t like you either.”

  “Whatever.” As she shook her head, the highlights, lowlights and main lights of her mane fluttered.

  I was totally out of my depth. This woman rang all the wrong bells with me and I had no idea how to communi
cate with her. “Why were you at the séance?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  I exhaled noisily. “I’m trying to understand what happened the night of Kumar’s murder.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered, as if they were hinged spiders with a mind of their own. Her artificiality grated my nerves. Okay, the fact that Eric was checking her out didn’t help.

  “I had a late date with Kumar,” she said.

  “You were seeing Kumar?”

  She looked me up and down.

  I waited. In the movies, detectives always used silence.

  After a long minute she responded, “I’m sure you’ve heard stories about Kumar.”

  “Tell me yours.”

  She leaned in as if we were good friends. “He gets around.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “He’s not loyal to any one woman.”

  Joy had said he had fallen heavily for Ming and for the first time in his adult life, he was committed.

  “And he’s awesome in bed.”

  Was awesome. But I didn’t correct her. “So, you’ve been seeing him for a while?”

  She leaned back. “Off and on since I came to the cove.”

  “And the séance was part of a date?” Not my kind of foreplay.

  She laughed. “What that man could do with his tongue.”

  Okay. That was too much information. Way too much. “He wanted you to meet him there?”

  “And his hips. What he could do with his …”

  My cheeks burned. I looked up at Eric. He rolled his eyes, which is quite the sight on a ghost. I bit my lower lip so I wouldn’t laugh out loud. “Ophelia, please, if you cared at all for Kumar, skip the salacious details. They don’t interest me. Tell me about the night of the séance.”

  “I made you blush,” she said, smiling like a cat who had just devoured a plateful of tuna. “You really should get out more. There are single men in town, you know. You don’t have to hide in this dusty old place haunted by make-believe ghosts.”

  I yawned. Eric blew air at her head. She jolted. “What? What?”

  “Please, tell me about Kumar,” I said.

  She swivelled her head like an owl, whipping it one way then another, looking for the source of the wind. “Oh, oh, okay. We had an on-again, off-again thing that worked for both of us. For the last month, it’s been off and he’s been spending his nights with Ming. To be honest I was surprised when he texted me the morning of the séance and said he wanted to hook up later. He said he missed me.”