Charming Lily

by Fern Michaels

  Damn, he was boring himself to death. He hoped the world wouldn’t be bored when it was finally time to announce XML.

  His thoughts drifted back to Lily. He wondered what she was doing and where she was. They had become so attuned to each other this past year, he had to wonder if she suspected something might have happened to him. Would she look for him? Or, would she take the easy way out and believe he got cold feet? His stomach churned at the thought. What about Gracie, the other love of his life. Where was she? Was she roaming the highway looking for him? The thought was so devastating he wanted to throw up.

  The only thing left to him was to throw the whole mess out to the universe and wait for whatever would be. When he had been overwhelmed in the past, he had done it, and it worked for him. There was no reason to believe it wouldn’t work for him now. Besides, what did he have to lose? Not a goddamn thing. He bellowed at the top of his lungs. “It’s all yours! It’s out of my hands now.”

  He listened to the two pairs of running feet. “What the hell was that all about, Mr. Starr?” one of them barked.

  “I just threw it all out to the universe,” Matt said tightly.

  “What? You threw what where?”

  “This whole mess. I threw it out to the universe. Now all the forces in the world will come down on you. It works.”

  “That’s a crock.”

  “Mumbo-jumbo crap. Shut up now and go to sleep. I can’t believe a man like you believes in that spook stuff.” Matt was pleased to hear the man’s jittery voice. He ran with his ball.

  “That’s exactly why, you idiot.” He started spouting words that meant nothing. “I deal in energy fields and the high-tech world twenty-four hours a day. How do you think I got to where I am? When you throw it out to the universe, all kinds of shit begins to happen. You go back to where you were and wait for those things to happen. I’m going to go to sleep now. I have divested myself of your problems. You can deal with it from here on in.” To clarify his point, he rolled over and pretended to snore.

  “Do you believe that guy? He’s as nutty-sounding as all those tech guys. He is, isn’t he?”

  “Sounded to me like he knew what he was talking about. I’m sorry we got into this mess. It’s getting complicated. Clipping some guy for a few hundred was one thing. This ... He’s calling down the whole world on us.”

  “This guy is the next best thing to a rocket scientist. You know what they say about those guys. They’re all fruity. Are you telling me you’re really worried?” the second queried.

  “We’re gonna get caught and go to jail. I just know it. Then Mr. Smart-ass, who is going to take care of the store? Pop will spin in his grave. We swore to him before he died that we’d take care of the store. Well, huh, say something,” the first brother said.

  “Shut up. I mean it, shut up.”

  Matt smirked to himself as he continued to make gurgling, snoring sounds. Good, now they were at each other’s throats.

  Chapter Six

  Lily stood in front of the bathroom mirror staring at her reflection. She couldn’t understand how she could look the same and yet feel so totally different. Something was happening to her. Something she couldn’t explain. She really needed to do some positive thinking about talking to a shrink. She continued to stare at her own person as she thought about all the secrets she suddenly knew. Yesterday she hadn’t known any secrets. Today her head felt clogged with secrets of people she didn’t even know. How was that possible? She found herself starting to shake. Sensing her uneasiness, the dogs started to circle her feet. She needed to get away from the person in the mirror. She sat down on the edge of the bathtub, her head whirling with her thoughts. The dogs crowded closer, whimpering softly.

  The need to go home was so strong she bit down on her lip. Home? Which home? Where? Certainly not the green-and-yellow condo in sunny Florida. She had visited her parents there, but she had never actually lived in the lemon-lime two-bedroom apartment. She’d lived at Ozzie’s Survival Camp. At times it felt like home but it wasn’t. If anything it was a place to hide out from the world and from Matt Starr. This furnished apartment would never, no matter how many plants and knickknacks she bought, ever feel like home. It was nothing more than a stopping-off place.

  Everyone needed a home, a family. If you had that, you really didn’t need much else. A home and a family, the two most important things in the world. She didn’t have either, so what home did she feel like going to? Hot tears pricked at her eyelids. Maybe it was the house on North Union Street. Maybe her subconscious was trying to tell her that house was going to be her new home. A place to sit back and wait to see if Matt Starr would come looking for her like he did the first time.

  God, she was tired, and yet she’d slept for ten hours. Ten hours of nonstop dreams she couldn’t remember.

  “I think we need to go outside and get some fresh air. We’re going to do the town, we’ll check out Natchez Under-the-Hill, and from there we’ll see if Gracie can pick up some clues. You, Buzz, will follow and do your thing. You know Matt. We’re going to take one of his socks with us so you can pick up his scent if there is one. We’ll stop by the house to see if Mr. Sonner has any news on our Wish Keeper questions.

  “It’s been three days now. That can’t be good. I just don’t understand any of this.”

  In the kitchen, Lily stopped long enough to tell Dennis and Sadie where she was going and why. “What are you two going to do?”

  “I’m waiting for FedEx to deliver some discs and my PC. They promised delivery by ten. You girls don’t have a computer, so I thought this might make things a bit easier. Maybe, just maybe, Matt sent an e-mail to the office or to me personally. I’m grasping at straws, but straws are all we have right now. On another front, my sister Rosalie is sending me some highly sensitive discs Matt and I made as a backup. Matt had a special computer room that is climate-controlled built into her house. Sometimes Matt was paranoid and other times he was so far ahead of the pack you couldn’t see his dust. I’ve never known him not to have Plan B ready to go.”

  They look like they go together, Lily thought as she looked across the table at Sadie and Dennis. She felt sad knowing she was going to lose her best friend in the whole world. Now how in the world did she know she was going to lose her best friend? Intuition? The mooney, gooney look in Sadie’s eyes? The knowledge of her impending loss frightened her. She clutched at the pendant around her neck as though it was a lifeline. Her head jerked to the right and then to the left. For one heart-stopping moment she thought she was suffering a stroke as she was transported to another place, a dark place that smelled of stagnant water and rotten fish. A terrible smell, one she remembered from her dream. She called out asking for help. And then she was somewhere else with millions of stars wrapping her in a giant cocoon. The universe. She was nowhere yet she was somewhere. She heard words again. It’s all yours. It’s out of my hands now. Matt calling on the universe. She screamed his name. Again and again. She saw his hairy leg, the sneaker with the hole in the big toe, the thick marine cord with the knot tying him to . . .

  “Lily! Damn it, Lily, you’re scaring me,” Sadie screamed. “Wake up! Open your eyes. Shake your head. Do something for God’s sake. Dennis, do something!”

  Dennis reached for Lily’s arms and lowered her to the chair. His grip on her hands was strong and tight. Lily opened her eyes and shook her head. “How long was this one?” she whispered.

  “A minute, maybe less. What did you see? You saw something, didn’t you?”

  Lily looked at her friend’s ashen face and nodded. “This is going to sound . . . bizarre but I was . . . I was in the bayou, and then I was floating in space. I felt like I was in this . . . this special cocoon and was surrounded by stars. I was out there somewhere in the universe. I heard Matt shouting, ‘It’s all yours’ and ‘it’s out of my hands now.’ I saw his leg and shoe, the one with the hole in the toe. His leg is tied to something with marine cord, very thick and heavy. That’s it.” She pu
lled her trembling hands free of Dennis’s tight grasp and shoved them into the pockets of her sweatpants. She felt disoriented, frightened, and angry. Angry because she didn’t know what was happening to her.

  “Here,” Sadie said, shoving a cup of coffee into her hand. “Drink this,” she ordered, biting down on her knuckles as she stared at her friend.

  “I woke up this morning knowing all these secrets about people. It’s like I have this giant file folder in my head, and everyone in this town has a page. I don’t know the people. I can’t even think what the secrets are. I just know I know them. Do you think my brain is going to explode? I wonder if that’s the same thing as having a stroke. Something is happening to me, and I have no control over whatever it is. Look, I have to get some fresh air. We’ll talk about this later. I need to be by myself for a little while so I can think about all of this.”

  “Where are you going, Lily? We need to know. Make sure you take your cell phone with you.”

  “I’m going to the bank first. I want to transfer the money Matt put into my account to my brokerage account. I can do a wire transfer. I’m not comfortable keeping that kind of money in a savings account. I still don’t know why Matt did that. See, this is what I mean. I had no intention of going to the bank this morning. I haven’t thought about that account since we discussed it last. Now all of a sudden it’s paramount I do this. I’ll be back by noon. Here’s your FedEx guy. I can see his truck. Lunch is on me today. But only if the bogeymen don’t get me,” she said, leering at Sadie’s ashen face. “I’m okay, Sadie. Once these spells are over, it’s all back to normal. We need some food for dinner. If you shop, I’ll cook.” She was babbling. It occurred to her to wonder if she was making sense. Obviously she was, since no one was questioning her.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  A light drizzle of rain was falling when Lily herded the dogs to her 4-by-4 and helped them into the backseat. She walked around the back end of the truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. She let out a mighty sigh. Maybe she needed to throw something out to the universe. If she was lucky, what she threw out would collide with what Matt threw out and then . . . voilà, the problems of the world would be solved. The thought was so silly, she found herself gritting her teeth in frustration.

  Her first stop was Deposit Guaranty National Bank, where she conducted her business in under fifteen minutes. When she climbed back into the truck the dogs greeted her with wet licks to her neck.

  “We’re going to Natchez Under-the-Hill. I took Matt there the last time he was here, Gracie. You might still be able to pick up his scent. It’s really nice, and you can see the steamboat, The Isle of Capri, sitting in the water. Sadie doesn’t much care for it, but I don’t know why. Tourists used to come here to Natchez to see the stately mansions on top of the hill. Somehow, though, those same tourists could never resist the legends or the magic of the name: Natchez Under-the-Hill. It used to be infamous. There are a few shops, some restaurants, and, guess what, they have Miss Floozie contests all the time. I wanted to enter one, and Matt said no. Silver Street used to be the place to be late at night if you wanted to party. Matt doesn’t like to party. He said he did Bourbon Street in New Orleans with Dennis one year, and that was enough to last him a lifetime.” The dogs cocked their heads and listened intently as Lily’s jittery voice returned to normal. When she parked the truck, they waited patiently for her to secure their leashes before they bounded out of the truck.

  “Take a whiff of Matt’s sock. You, too, Buzz. Good. Now let’s see what we can find. We’re going to walk up one side and down the other. Then we’ll go back to the house and you can run in the yard.”

  It was raining harder, and the wind was starting to kick up. Lily yanked at the hood on her jacket. She stepped into an empty doorway of John Martin’s restaurant. There were very few people around, which surprised her. Maybe it was the rain. If she undid the dog’s leashes and let them roam up and down the street, what would they find? It was a stupid idea, and one she rejected the minute it popped into her head. Maybe she should go into one of the shops and buy an umbrella. Bad idea. Holding an umbrella and two dog leashes would not work. She turned around when Gracie started to paw the door behind her. She whimpered, a heartbreaking sound, as she sniffed at the brass plate at the bottom of the door. Buzz growled.

  “The store’s closed because,” she said peering at the sign, “of a death in the family. What’s wrong, Gracie?” She cupped her hands around her eyes to peer into the dim store. Stunned at what she was seeing, she could only gasp. The inside of the store was what she’d seen in one of her spells. What did it mean? She stepped forward again and stared through the plate glass. A tidy store with shelves of computers, televisions, printers, copy machines, and VCRs. Was she dreaming? “It’s okay, Gracie. We’re going to figure this out, but not here.” Off in the distance she heard an ominous roll of thunder at the same moment she felt a light touch to her arm. She whirled around.

  “Mr. Sonner. I was just going to go out to the house to see if you spoke to your father.”

  “I just came down to Under-the-Hill to talk to one of the shop owners who wants some work done. By the way, I spoke to my father last night. You need to understand, this is all folklore. My father said he vaguely remembers something about Wish Keepers, but said it was a woman thing. He said every clan had a Wish Keeper. It was usually the oldest female member of the family. The title was passed down from generation to generation. Always to the oldest and then to their oldest. All the family members told the Wish Keeper their secrets and their wishes and she held them safe. Supposedly she marked them down on a scroll of sorts. This, too, was passed on, along with an amulet on a string. The Wish Keeper wore it around her neck. He said there were those who said it was a silly bit of nonsense, and then there were those who swore by the Wish Keeper. One other thing my father said was that the Wish Keeper would go into a trance from time to time and see things. The past, the present, and the future. He scoffed at that, but he said his grandmother told him about such things, and while he doesn’t believe in that kind of rubbish, he couldn’t understand why his grandmother would lie to him. That’s it in a nutshell. I almost forgot. He drew a picture of the Wish Keeper. Understand now, his hand trembles, and his eyesight isn’t what it used to be. If it doesn’t look like anything you recognize you might try looking it up in the library under old Natchez folklore. I hope this helps you. I really don’t know anyone else who might be of help.”

  Lily held out her hand for the slip of paper that had been torn out of a notebook. “I appreciate your help. Did you ask your father if he knew who Mary Margaret was?”

  “I did. I walked to the back of the property to see those old stones, and I told him what they looked like. He didn’t know a Mary Margaret. Since he claims to have known everyone in town, I have to assume she was before his time. He did ask me a rather strange question, though. He wanted to know if you mixed up wish keepers with sin eaters? A sin eater is someone who is hired at an early age to absorb the sins of anyone dying. Usually each family had one. When a person died, the family held a wake and surrounded the room with food, all favorites of the deceased. The sin eater then ate the food and in doing so, absorbed all the deceased’s sins, and that person went to heaven. When the sin eater died, there was no one to absorb all those sins, and he or she went straight to hell, taking everyone’s sins along. Not an enviable job in my opinion.”

  “That sounds awful. I never heard that story before. I’m sure the wish keeper is quite different from a sin eater. It was nice of you to take the time to do this for me, Mr. Sonner. I’ll see you in a day or so. It looks like this is going to be one of those all-day rains, doesn’t it?”

  “It surely does. Paint and varnish don’t dry well when the weather is like this. You take care now.”

  “Mr. Sonner, just a minute. Do you know who owns this store?”

  “Calumet Laroux did own it, but he passed away
six or seven months ago. His three sons decided to keep the store. It’s a nice little store, but sometimes I have to wonder how it supports three salaries. Of course none of the boys are married, so that might explain a few things. They inherited the family house, one of those old mansions on the hill, and they live there with Cal’s old housekeeper. I think old Cal was well-off. His ancestors made tons of money when cotton was king way back when. The Laroux house is on the Pilgrimage tour in the spring and fall. It’s worth going to see. The whole house is full of priceless antiques, as are most of the houses on the tour. This particular store is Natchez’s answer to Radio Shack but with more inventory.”

  Lily smiled. “I was just curious because it’s closed, and there’s a notice on the door about a death in the family.”

  “You don’t say. Now I wonder who that might be. Maybe a relative of old Cal’s from up North. He had some cousins that lived in Syracuse. Saw them at the funeral parlor when old Cal passed on. I took my father so he could pay his respects. That’s how I came by the information I just gave you. I imagine they’ll be opening up the first of next week.”

  “I’ll see you in a few days, Mr. Sonner. Thanks again for your help.” Gracie continued to whine at the door. Buzz hugged her legs. “Shhh, it’s okay, Gracie. We’ll leave as soon as the rain lets up.” She bent down to hug Buzz, who hated thunder and lightning.

  The moment the rain eased a bit, Lily ran for the truck, the dogs at her side. Gasping with the hard run, she shrugged out of her wet sweat jacket and tossed it into the cargo hold. It wasn’t until she fumbled in her pocket for the car keys that she realized she hadn’t looked at the slip of paper Sonner had given her.

  Lily’s jaw dropped when she stared down at the drawing showing the likeness to the pendant hanging around her neck. A chill washed over her. What did all this mean? She was tempted to rip the pendant from her neck, but she didn’t. Somewhere deep inside she knew she was meant to wear it, to keep it safe. She didn’t know where the thought came from, it was just there.