Aunt Dimity Digs In ad-4

by Nancy Atherton

  My nanny seemed to know an awful lot about a woman she didn’t really know, yet she hadn’t said one word about ghosts. Six months seemed like plenty of time for the village telegraph to pick up on Mrs. Morrow’s unusual field of expertise. Had Francesca been out of the loop, or was she exercising discretion? I decided not to probe. If Mrs. Morrow had managed to keep one corner of her life hidden from the villagers’ prying eyes, more power to her.

  Francesca lifted her needles and resumed knitting. “I heard that the bishop sent Mrs. Kitchen away with a flea in her ear.” She smiled complacently. “I told you it was a lot of nonsense. The bishop’s thick as thieves with Adri—Dr. Culver.” Her smile became a scowl as she added, “He came here again today.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Dr. Culver. Claimed he was looking for his hat.” Francesca snorted. “He wasn’t even wearing that old hat of his when he was here the other night. It would’ve looked out of place with those nice gray slacks he’d changed into.”

  Adrian Culver’s persistence, it seemed, was beginning to pay off.

  Smiling inwardly, I told Francesca that I was off to the village again but that I’d be home in plenty of time for dinner. I bent low to kiss Will’s temple, planted a tender smooch on Rob’s plump cheek, and set out to find out just what Mrs. Morrow was up to.

  Briar Cottage was concealed from Saint George’s Lane by a thorn hedge so tall that I couldn’t see over it, and so dense that a half-starved rabbit would have had trouble squeezing through. The hinges on the tall wooden gate screeched raucously as I pushed it open. Silence followed, broken only by birdsong and the distant sound of Rainey talking Emma’s ear off in the vicarage garden. I stood for a moment, just inside the gate, taking a careful look at Mrs. Morrow’s house.

  Most houses in Finch had exchanged thatch for slate when they were modernized in the 1960s, but the roof of Briar Cottage was as shaggy as the day it had been woven. The overhanging thatch had been trimmed to accommodate a pair of upstairs windows that were, like their ground-floor counterparts, neatly curtained in starched calico.

  Briar Cottage was made of the same honey-colored stone as the rest of the buildings in Finch, but it was very small, not quite half the size of the schoolmaster’s house. Its walls were crooked and slightly bowed, as though it had begun settling onto its foundations before the Royalists rode through town and hadn’t finished settling yet. I found the little house strangely appealing.

  As I strode up the front walk, I reminded myself that whether Mrs. Morrow was a crook or a crank, she might still prove to be a valuable witness. It didn’t matter if she took pleasure in misleading innocents like Mr. Wetherhead. If she could corroborate his story—or better yet, add to it—I’d be one step closer to catching the Buntings’ Paddington-shaped burglar.

  I knocked on the front door, waited, then knocked again. I’d raised my hand for a third and final attempt when the door was flung open by a willowy woman with vivid green eyes.

  “But darling, I’ve told you a thousand times,” she cried, “no sex before the full moon!”

  14.

  It took no more than a few eye-blinking seconds for me to realize that the woman was neither hallucinating nor addressing her advice to me, but speaking into the thin, curved mouthpiece of a telephone headset.

  “No, no, and no!” she continued, motioning for me to come inside. “It doesn’t increase your power—it drains you dry! Put Keith on, will you?”

  I closed the door and waited politely for her to finish her conversation.

  “Miranda knows best, Keith darling. Try again next month and let me know how it turns out. Good-bye, duck. Give my best love to Wormwood. Keith’s cat,” she explained, removing the headset. “Hideous name for a poor old mog, don’t you think? I can just imagine what she calls him.” She held out her hand. “Miranda Morrow, at your service. Are you collecting for the church roof fund or have you come for a consultation? Or”—she waggled her eyebrows—“are you one of us?”

  “I, uh . . .” I was so busy gawking at my surroundings that Miranda’s questions scarcely registered.

  She followed my astonished gaze around the cramped, low-ceilinged room. “Not exactly Country Life, eh?”

  “N-no . . .” I agreed. It was more like Country Coven.

  A three-legged cauldron stood upon the hearth, beneath a chunky wood-beam mantelpiece littered with tarot cards, dousing twigs, faceted crystals, and small piles of polished stones. Astral charts were pinned to the walls, cabalistic symbols chalked on the faded redbrick floor, and bunches of dried herbs, hanging upside down from the rafters, filled the room with a pungent fragrance.

  Between the curtained windows a black velvet-covered table held a crystal ball as big as my head. A blackened twiggy broomstick had been mounted in a rack over the front door. I wasn’t remotely surprised when a black cat with luminous yellow eyes came over to rub his head against my ankles. As I bent to scratch his chin, however, I caught sight of a table tucked into a nook beneath the staircase.

  “Wow,” I said, recalling Francesca’s comment on weird wiring. “That’s a pretty fancy setup you’ve got there.”

  Miranda smiled benignly on an array of compact electronic equipment that made Houston Mission Control look like a sideshow. “Couldn’t do my job without it,” she said simply. “I’m taking calls this afternoon, but I spent all morning answering my E-mail.”

  “What, exactly, is your job?” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Miranda seemed amused by my diplomacy. “I’ll give you three guesses,” she said. “Nuclear physicist, milk-maid, or . . . witch.”

  I ducked my head, embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to be called by that name.”

  “Some women are sensitive about it,” she said, nodding her approval. “I’m not. Witch, sorceress, psychic, healer, crone—I don’t care what people call me, so long as they call.”

  “So you’re a . . . a telephone witch?” I asked, wondering how the vicar would react to his neighbor’s extremely nonconformist beliefs.

  “I’m writing a book at the moment,” she replied, “but it wouldn’t do to abandon the faithful while I enjoy the quiet pleasures of my rural hideaway. They’re helpless without me.” She placed the headset on the table beneath the stairs. “Now, are you going to introduce yourself, or are you hoping that I’ll read your mind?” She raised a hand to forestall my answer. “Wait. . . . Wait. . . . I’m getting an impression. . . . It’s stronger now. . . . Yes. . . . I can see it clearly.Your name is . . . Lori Shepherd!”

  I folded my arms and gave her a sidelong look. “I take it you’ve spoken with Mr. Wetherhead?”

  “He came knocking at my door the minute you’d driven off,” she said, laughing. “Care to sit down?”

  I gestured to the headset on the table. “Your phone calls?”

  “ They can leave messages,” she said. “Come. . . .”

  Tucked in among the arcane paraphernalia, and placed at an angle to the fireplace, was a fat little sofa draped with a dozen paisley shawls. I sank onto—and into—the sofa while Miranda stooped to light a row of candles in the fireplace.

  She looked more like a farmer’s daughter than a witch. Compared to the other villagers I’d met so far, she was a stripling youth—in her mid-thirties, I guessed, not much older than me. Her face had a fresh, natural bloom and a sprinkling of faded freckles. She was barefoot and wore a loose-fitting blue chambray dress that swirled about her ankles. Her reddish-blond hair hung in long sun-streaked tresses to her waist.

  “A summer fire,” she explained when the candles were lit. “Lovely flames without inordinate heat.” She closed her eyes and stretched her hands toward the candles, palms upward, as though in silent prayer. “Don’t worry,” she murmured from the corner of her mouth, “I’m not casting a spell. I’m simply giving thanks for the gift of light. I try not to take things for granted.”

  She lowered her hands, dropped into a well-worn armchair, and stretched
her long legs across a burgundy-fringed ottoman. “I’m sure you’re wondering why in the world I chose to live so near a vicarage.”

  “It does seem a tiny bit . . . aggressive,” I acknowledged.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” said Miranda. “I hired Briar Cottage sight unseen, and never thought to ask who my neighbors were. That’s why I don’t give tea parties. I don’t want the vicar to think I’m poaching on his patch.” She leaned her chin on her hand. “Besides, not everyone is as tolerant of my religion as dear old Mr. Wetherhead—though it appears to be gaining in popularity. I may hang out my pentangle yet.”

  “Speaking of Mr. Wetherhead,” I said, trying not to let myself be sidetracked, “I was hoping you’d tell me a little more about Brother Florin.”

  “Good gods,” she said, sitting up. “Have you seen him, too?”

  “How could I?” I said nonchalantly. “You invented him.” I expected a staunch denial or a careful equivocation. Instead, I got a cheerfully guilty chuckle.

  Miranda leaned back in her chair, nodding happily. “It was naughty of me,” she confessed, “but Mr. Wetherhead wanted a ghost so badly that I couldn’t resist the temptation to give him one. Apart from that, I didn’t want him blabbing about what he’d seen. I don’t think Finch is quite ready to deal with a coven in its midsts, do you?”

  I was so far at sea that I could hear whales singing. “Coven?” I repeated, bewildered. “What coven?”

  The merriment faded from Miranda’s green eyes. She stared at me for several long seconds, then lowered her lashes as the black cat leapt onto the arm of her chair and insinuated himself into her lap. His purr filled the room as she tickled the top of his head with her fingertips.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I may have taken something for granted after all. I assumed that you went along with the Brother Florin story in order to conceal your activities on Sunday night.”

  “ The only activities I was engaged in on Sunday night involved lullabies and dirty diapers.” I informed her. “Are you telling me you’re not the only witch in Finch?”

  Miranda got to her feet, with the purring cat draped limply over her shoulder. She paced to the crystal ball and back, taking care to move between the hanging herbs, then stared down at the candles, deep in thought. Finally, she lowered the black cat onto the tapestry chair and beckoned me to follow her upstairs.

  Miranda Morrow’s bedroom filled the space beneath the rafters. It was as spartan as the parlor was gothic. A bed without a headboard, a deal table with an oil lantern, an old oak wardrobe, and a plain wooden bench were the only furnishings. The calico curtains provided a spot of color, but the windows were set so low in the walls that the sills were nearly level with the floor.

  Miranda ducked below an exposed tie-beam and sat cross-legged before a window in the back wall. “I’ll tell you what I saw on Sunday night,” she said, motioning for me to sit beside her, “and let you be the judge.”

  I lowered myself to the floor as she pulled the curtain aside. The window overlooked the back end of the vicarage garden and the rolling meadow beyond, though the river was hidden from view.

  “I can’t be absolutely certain,” Miranda began. “It’s a long way off and the mist was very dense.” Miranda rested her hands on the windowsill. “I always come up here when there’s a full moon, to say my prayers and meditate.” She pointed to the line of trees that marked the river’s course on the far side of the meadow. “She rose just there on Sunday night. She was exquisite, once she got above the mist, perfectly pure and silvery white, so bright that she cast shadows. I closed my eyes, to commune with her, and when I opened them again, there was a flash of light, as though someone had turned a torch toward my cottage. That’s when I saw the two women.” Miranda tapped a finger on the sill. “At least, I assume they were women.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because they were worshiping the moon,” Miranda replied, as though it were self-evident. “Men don’t go in for moon worship, as a rule. They can’t seem to get the hang of cycles.”

  “What . . . form did the worship take?” I inquired awkwardly. My experience with witches had, until now, been limited to items printed in the gutter press, and I was anxious not to give offense.

  Miranda sniffed. “The usual amateur nonsense. Not my style at all. They jumped up and down, bowed to each other, raised their arms in supplication—they were probably chanting, as well, but I couldn’t hear them from here.”

  I tried to picture Sally Pyne and Christine Peacock hopping up and down in the vicarage meadow at midnight. Had they been jumping for joy because they’d gotten hold of the Gladwell pamphlet?

  I turned to Miranda. “Did either of them approach the vicarage before the, um, ceremony?”

  Miranda sighed. “One did, the one Mr. Wetherhead mistook for Brother Florin. It was the ringleader showing off, I expect—thumbing her nose at Christianity. Childish, of course, but try convincing a woman in a hood that she should seek harmony, not conflict. At any rate, she circled the vicarage twice, then . . .” Miranda paused.

  “ Then what?” I coaxed.

  “I’m not quite sure what happened next,” she replied. “As I said, there was an awful lot of mist about. The ringleader probably heard a noise and scarpered off to join her chum in the meadow.” A tolerant smile took the sting out of her words. “I didn’t want to give them away. That’s why I invented Brother Florin.”

  The black cat bumped my elbow with his head, and I let him curl up in my lap. I stroked his gleaming fur and gazed out at the meadow, wondering if the hooded witches had, like the hooded Brother Florin, sprung from Miranda Morrow’s fertile imagination.

  “If you’re so concerned about protecting those two women,” I said slowly, “why are you telling me about them?”

  A strange light seemed to flicker in the depths of Miranda’s vivid green eyes. “I read auras,” she said simply. “Yours tells me that you didn’t come here to uncover a coven.” Her green eyes narrowed. “You’ve got quite a different agenda altogether.”

  “Witches in Finch?” Bill exclaimed.

  “Keep your voice down,” I urged. “Francesca might hear.”

  I leaned back against the pile of pillows at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom, facing Bill, who reclined against his own pillows piled against the headboard. Will was curled up on Bill’s chest, and Rob was snoozing soundly next to me. I’d spent so much of the day away from my boys that I couldn’t bear to part with them at bedtime.

  “Witches in Finch,” Bill repeated.

  “And a ghost who looks like Paddington Bear,” I reminded him. “Let’s not forget about Brother Florin.”

  Bill nodded absently.

  “ That was supposed to be a joke,” I pointed out. “We know that Miranda Morrow invented Brother Florin. I’m willing to bet a bucket of lemon bars that our local coven doesn’t exist, either. Although someone was in that meadow. . . .”

  “Hmmm?” said Bill.

  “The meadow takes a sudden dip as it rolls down to the river,” I explained, using a pillow to illustrate my words. “When you’re standing at the bottom of it, you can barely see the vicarage. The dry grass was crushed and snapped in a circle at the bottom of the dip. I checked on it after I’d finished speaking with Miranda. Someone was there, all right, and I think I know who.”

  “Hmmm . . .” Bill stared into the middle distance and gave a vague nod.

  “Look . . .” I finger-walked both hands along the bottom of the ridge I’d made in the pillow. “Sally Pyne and Christine Peacock walk along the river until they come to the dip in the meadow. Then one of them tiptoes over to the vicarage to reconnoiter.” My right hand fingertip-toed to the top of the dip. “She circled the vicarage twice, to check for signs of life; then she snuck in through the French doors, snatched the pamphlet, and scooted back to the dip.” My finger-figures hopped about in triumph. “Chris and Sally stole the Gladwell pamphlet to make sure that the pub and the tearoom w
ould profit from Adrian’s museum. I’m sure of it.”

  “Hmmm,” Bill said.

  I folded my hands, having become aware of a curious one-sidedness to our conversation. “Hard day at the office?” I inquired politely.

  “No . . .” Bill frowned in concentration. “I’m trying to remember something Chris Peacock told me, the night I was poisoning myself with Dick’s mead. It had something to do with the meadow. I wouldn’t have thought of it if you hadn’t put the two together just now.”

  My heart leapt. “What did she say? Did she tell you she was there on Sunday night?”

  Bill stroked the mustache space above his upper lip, a habit he’d established in his hirsute youth. “Chris didn’t want Peggy Kitchen to hear,” he said slowly, “so she took me aside and . . .” He shook his head, discouraged. “I’m sorry. It’s gone. All I can remember is that she was agitated about something that happened in the meadow. The mead seems to have erased her actual words.”

  “Did she mention Sally Pyne?” I suggested.

  “I don’t know.” Bill gently rubbed Will’s back. “Miranda Morrow may be right about the coven, though. Christine Peacock’s a bit of a nutcase when it comes to the supernatural. It’s not hard to imagine her taking up the broomstick. Why don’t you stop by the pub tomorrow and talk to her?”

  “I intend to. I still have half a batch of lemon bars left and”—I smiled slyly—“Dick Peacock just happens to be judging the pastry competition at the Harvest Festival.”

  15.

  “Shepherd! Rise and shine! Got news for you!”

  I squinted at the bedside clock. It was midnight back in Boston—two hours past Stan’s usual bedtime and a half hour before the twins’ first feeding. “Stan? Wh-what are you doing up so late?”

  “Provost’s dinner. Gave me gas. The provost, I mean. The food was pretty tasty. You want my news or don’t you?”

  Bill moaned and buried his head in the pillows, so I carried the phone into the walk-in closet, flicked on the light, and shut the door.