by Willow Mason
After a detour home to drop off my back-breaking load of books, we hastened to the Oakleaf Glade memorial gardens. A high wrought-iron gate twisted into a repeating figure-eight design was pushed back, welcoming us inside. A sign warned that the gardens were open from eight to eight only and trespassers would be prosecuted.
“As though anyone would hang around a graveyard at night,” I said with a shudder. Even in the warm light of midday, some of the older stones and plaques made me feel uneasy. The children’s garden just about broke my heart with its whirling toys made in bright reds, yellows, and greens. I averted my eyes as we walked past.
“This is the oldest part,” Maisie said in a strange voice as we entered the centre of the gardens. “The entire history of Oakleaf Glade’s founding fathers can be found in this section.”
I read some older plaques, noticing familiar names popping up again and again. Spicer. Hunter. Berwick. Matthews.
“Oh, this is your grave,” I exclaimed, bending in close to read the faded stone. “What a pretty inscription.” When I glanced at her, Maisie held her hands over her eyes. “Don’t you want to see?”
“No, thanks. Keep moving. Or, better yet, put your magic to use so we can find out if the skeleton in your house is attached to a name in this garden.”
“Be careful,” Muffin said in a low voice before bouncing off in chase of a butterfly. Her kitten wiles weren’t equal to the powers of flight and she soon returned to my side.
“What am I being careful of?” I paused with a coating of dust in my palm, a shiver playing music up and down my spine.
“The dead have greater powers than most people give them credit for. You know I can’t see ghosts so I can’t save you from a malevolent one if it comes forth from a grave.”
“Maisie’ll get them, won’t you?”
But the ghost had disappeared, perhaps freaked out by her own grave.
“I’ll be careful.” With a soft breath, I blew a cloud of bright violet across the gardens. It floated in the breeze, playing a game with the leaves of a nearby tree before settling inside a gated section. I followed along at a sedate pace, checking in all directions for some imaginary foe.
“These are the Spicer family plots,” Muffin said in a sad voice, her eyes welling with tears. “The freshest one is Esmerelda.”
I picked up the kitten and held her close, picking my way through the gate and into the reserved space with care.
The cloud was fading but there was still enough of the vibrant colour to highlight the plaque affixed at the head of the grave.
“Esmerelda Jane Spicer,” I read out from the stone. “Forever Pixie.”
“Your magic must’ve got it wrong,” Muffin said with a sniff. “Perhaps you should study those books and try again. What were you focusing on?”
I shook my head, happy to take the blame for the pixie dust’s failure. “Unless Esmerelda wasn’t really who she claimed to be,” I said, trying for a lame joke and succeeding.
Muffin scowled and bounced away, chasing a field mouse through the long grass at the boundary edge. I knelt beside the stone and traced the carved edges with my fingertips. “And if you weren’t you, who were you?” I whispered, the idea taking hold in my mind.
“Needless to say,” Lucas said with no sign of irony, “if you come across anything inside the house you think might be related to this… um… discovery, please let us know.” He tucked his notebook away, smiling so his laugh lines creased his face. “Although, I hope for your sake, there isn’t.”
“For my sake?”
He shrugged and turned to gaze at the street. “You’ve already landed in the middle of a few rough patches and you only turned up in Oakleaf Glade a minute ago. If these weird things keep happening, it won’t give you a chance to get to know our good side.”
Lucas appeared so earnest I couldn’t help but return his smile. “Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”
He explained that he and Syd had contacted members of my family to press for more information about the discovery. A team had also used echolocation equipment to scan the old building for any further anomalies. “They found no more bones inside but nothing’s ever one hundred percent guaranteed unless you knock the place down.”
That might be too much of a strain even for a self-repairing house. “I’ll take my chances, thanks.” In the back of my mind, I also thought a call to Reggie to have him sniff the entire home over could be in order.
“Judging from the age of the remains, you shouldn’t have any worries even if the death came about from violent means,” he hastened to assure me. “I’ll leave the precise dating to the experts but if someone turns up on your doorstep with a walker… Maybe think twice before letting them in.”
Muffin didn’t appear nearly as amused as I was. She hissed at Lucas until he waved goodbye and walked out the gate.
“There’s no need to be rude,” I said, keeping the door open a slit as I watched Lucas bend over to pick up a piece of litter from the footpath. I must remember to plant something in future to encourage a repeat performance. “PC Bronson is just watching out for our welfare.”
“If he remembers who you are for long enough.”
“Wow. Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
“Yeah. The side where your family shows up out of the blue and people besmirch my old mistress.”
I fetched the biscuit tin from the pantry and pulled the grouchy kitten into my lap. “Nobody is pointing fingers at Esmerelda,” I said as I fed her a peach custard muffin. “It’s too early to know what went on.”
“Your magic pointed the finger.”
“And we both know how inexperienced I am at that.”
“I’m going to poke about upstairs and see what damage the police have done. Then I really need a nap.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes until the kitten had left the room. If I worked on Muffin’s timetable, I’d be asleep for twenty hours a day.
Keeping one ear out for her movements in the spare room, I booted up the laptop and typed in a search query for Esmerelda. It proved to be a more popular name than I would have given credit for—so much so I had to narrow the search using her elder sister Dimity’s name.
A reference to an old paper sat near the top of the results. It linked to a tragic scan of the original newspaper, crumpled and yellowed from sunlight. The birth notice was a third of the way down the page. Happy tidings from a bygone era.
Dimity Spicer. Esmerelda Spicer. Rose Spicer.
Not twins. Triplets.
Knowing Dimity was older than Esmerelda by seventeen minutes, I had a reasonable guess at where Rose sat in the birth order. The youngest. The youngest daughter of a youngest daughter.
Rose should have been a pixie.
Chapter Six
“In theory, if a pixie died and therefore qualified a sibling for the role, the older sister could take over the mantel,” Rosie said with a thoughtful stare. “But that’s only in theory. I’ve never heard of such a thing happening in practice.”
“And you don’t know for sure how those three came out.” Posey’s usually smiling face was clouded over with a worried frown. “Just because the paper printed their name that way, doesn’t mean that’s the order their mum popped them out.”
“But it explains everything, doesn’t it?” As I scanned the twins’ faces, I saw the connections I’d made weren’t reciprocated. “If Esmerelda stored her younger sister’s body in the—”
“Woah!” The twins lifted their hands in unison. Posey opened her mouth but closed it without speaking.
“You didn’t know your great aunt, so we’ll overlook the appalling accusation you just made.” Rosie’s lips twisted and she shook her head. “Esmerelda was the sweetest thing. She only ever used her magic to help others and benefit the community.”
“Sure. But a body was in the wall and Syd said it belonged to a pixie.”
“Just stop.” Posey’s eyes filled with tears and her voi
ce sounded strangled. “I know there’s been bad blood in your family, but this attack is completely unwarranted. Perhaps when you welcome your new baby brother or sister into the world, you’ll get an idea of how impossible what you’re saying is.”
“I don’t mean she killed her or anything.”
“That’s enough!” Rosie’s cheeks were flushing crimson. “We don’t know who the body belongs to or even if Esmerelda knew it was there. Until we’re in possession of those facts, rampant conjecture will only lead to harm.”
“Sorry.” My face flooded with hot blood as I realised how I must have sounded. “I’m creeped out knowing a pixie was trapped in the walls of my house. It’s hard to make a home with the bones of your ancestors trapped in an upstairs cupboard.”
Posey wrung her hands. “Everything about it is awful. We should turn our minds to happier subjects such as your mum getting married and having a baby.”
“Did somebody mention my name?” Ben called from the doorway. “If anyone is volunteering to be a wedding planner, I’ll take you up on the offer.”
“Come on in,” Posey said, beaming. “Both of us have been planning our dream weddings since we were little girls, so we have a ton of ideas between us.”
“Although,” Rosie said in a warning voice, “we can’t use up all our great ideas. There’s still a chance one or both of us might need them ourselves.”
Posey cackled with laughter. “When’s the last time you went on a date? The nineties?”
“I’ve still got some moves.” Rosie spun around the room in a one-sided tango. “Any man would be lucky to have me.”
“Any man would be lucky to have either of you,” I said, backing towards the door as I caught Ben’s eye. “Tell Mum I’ll drop by to see her later.”
“Take your time. She’s still trying to decide on a restaurant for dinner.”
Out of the three establishments open in town. Poor man. My mother could make a spur-of-the-moment decision about anything except food. Even when she narrowed down her dining options, the entire table would be on pause while she picked something from the menu.
From the twins’ house, I quickly walked to the Births, Deaths, and Marriages office. Instead of making vague accusations to the fairies, I should have started there. “I need three birth certificates,” I informed the uninterested assistant behind the counter. “For my great aunts.”
“Names and dates of birth?”
I read them off the screen on my phone and waited while the woman tapped the information into her computer. “They’ve not been born long enough,” she said after a moment’s scrutiny. “Come back when they reach one hundred years.”
“Excuse me?”
The receptionist opened a drawer and pulled out a pamphlet. “See here? You can only order another person’s birth certificate if it was issued a hundred years ago or longer.”
“But it’s for family.”
She rolled her eyes. “Everything’s for family, these days. The number of people I have through here, researching their deceased whanau as though it’s the secret to a happy life. Just let things be, that’s what I say. No need to drag all that old stuff up when there’s today to be lived.”
“Right.” I opened the pamphlet and pretended to read the pages while my mind worked through the problem. If only I’d brought Muffin along with me, she could have stolen the addresses to access the information like she’d done the last time I needed something.
On the other hand, hearing her old mistress being accused of sororicide probably wouldn’t be on her list of favourite things to do.
“I understand your rules but is there any way you can help to settle an old family argument?”
“Probably not.” The receptionist picked up a pencil and doodled a box on her calendar pad, then sighed and asked, “What do you want, then?”
“My great aunts were triplets. My uncle insists Dimity is the oldest and Esmerelda is the youngest, but my mother says that Rose is the one who was born last.”
The woman’s bland face stared at me. “And this is something that keeps you up nights, is it?”
“It would just be nice to settle it once and for all.” I leaned over the counter and lowered my voice to a whisper, though there was nobody else in the room. “Especially, if I’m right.”
She gave another sigh but tapped on her computer. “Okay. Usually, a birth certificate doesn’t register the time, just the date, but in the cases of multiple births it’s standard.”
“Oh, good. Why?”
The receptionist wrinkled her nose. “Birth order used to matter a lot more than it does now. Back in the day, entire estates would be left solely to the eldest, and you didn’t want to waste money determining who that was.”
“And am I right?”
The woman leaned forward to glean the information, then beamed. “One of you is right but, as I already stated, I’m not allowed to pass that information to you. Not until the birth has been registered over one hundred years.”
And that was the last answer I was going to get.
I dropped into the local bakery, bringing a smile to the server’s face. “The usual?”
The usual was half a dozen muffins and had already been served to me once that day. Given the lady behind the counter was human, I didn’t want to know what she thought I got up to with so many baked treats.
I patted my belly, realising I disposed of my fair share of the muffins. Especially, when they came with hokey pokey crumbled over the top.
The curve of my abdomen reminded me of my mother, and how she’d soon be swelling out until she couldn’t see her toes. “Do you have any gingerbread men or something like that?”
“Sure. How many?”
I got a dozen just to be safe. When I’d been sick with vertigo a few years back, nibbling on gingerbread men had been the only way to eat while staving off the accompanying nausea. Hopefully, my mother’s metabolism embraced the same spices.
Since I was already there, I also picked up a few fairy cupcakes for my favourite fairies. Although I doubted the bakery came close to the fresh baking prowess of the twins, it was the thought that counted.
Just before I returned to Rosie and Posey’s house, I steeled my spine, ready to ask my mother some difficult questions. Unfortunately, the steel had somehow performed a feat of alchemy and transformed into jelly by the time I visited her in the sleepout. The image of her lying on her back while Ben rubbed her feet wasn’t conducive to hardnosed questioning.
“Tavern Café,” I told her when she complained there were too many choices for dinner, and it was giving her a headache. “Brody works there and the food’s delicious.”
“Ah, yes. Your mysterious cousin Brody, who I’ve never heard of.”
“Hardly mysterious.” I checked my watch and grimaced. “And you’d probably have met him by now if we hadn’t made our gruesome discovery.”
In fact, even if his job interview had run over, he should be home, finding out all about the morning’s events from someone other than me.
“I’ll make a reservation and come by again to pick you up at five-thirty.”
My mother cocked an eyebrow. “Does your car still go?”
“The restaurant is within walking distance but yes, if we need it my car is fully operational.”
“Good, because ours sounds like it’s on its last legs.” Mum batted Ben on the shoulder. “You should call up a mechanic in case we need to leave town in a hurry.”
“Brody can probably help you out for free,” I said, remembering how he’d fixed my old Nissan Pulsar when I first arrived in town. “And you can quiz him on his family history while he’s doing it.”
The segue, speaking of family history, was all set up to go but when I opened my mouth, Maisie appeared in the back yard. Thank goodness she had the decency to just wave instead of frightening the life out of me.
“Gotta go.” I leaned over and planted a big kiss on my mother’s cheek. “Be ready at five.”
; “You’re not coming until five-thirty,” she said with a grin, rearranging herself on the bed.
“And I know you. If you aim to get ready then, we’ll be waiting to leave here until seven.” I turned to Ben and winked. “You should remember to tell your new wedding planners about Mum’s tendency for lateness.”
“Here comes the bride. Eventually.”
I left as Mum aimed a friendly kick at Ben’s side. “What’s going on?” I asked Maisie as she floated above me with a worried expression. “Have you found out something about the skeleton?”
“No, but you should get home. A strange man is stomping around the house, yelling for the owner to come out.”
I pulled a face. “Doesn’t sound like the type of thing I’d like to get home for.”
“The last words I heard were, ‘If you don’t come outside, I’ll get an axe and chop my way in!’”
After a shocked second to digest the news, I began to run.
Chapter Seven
Lucas pulled up outside just as I reached home, winded and unable to explain any more than I’d done over the phone.
Luckily—or unluckily, since I aimed to live a peaceful life—a man’s voice was shouting from behind the house. With a gesture to warn me off following him, Lucas drew a baton and stalked along the side of the property, pressing close against the wall.
“Get out here,” the man shouted. “Either you show yourself or I’ll break the door down and drag you outside.”
“What on earth does he think I’ve done to him?” I whispered to Maisie, equal parts afraid and baffled. Sure, there’d been a few sketchy incidents since I’d arrived in town, but I thought they were all done and dusted.
“If you think you’re dragging my sister into whatever mess you’ve got yourself into, you’ve got another think coming!”
A cold chill settled on my scalp, running along my shoulders and numbing my arms. I recognised that voice. Or, at least, I thought I did. It was hard to tell since I’d never heard him screaming at the top of his lungs before.
