Ground

by Kirsten Weiss

  “The Bell and Thistle? The pub?”

  “They have such a lovely happy hour. Perhaps it was the Bell and Thistle's connection to the green fairy, absinthe, that led to the legend. They used to brew the stuff, you know. I believe the new owner is talking of opening a new absinthe distillery. Wouldn't that bring tourists to Doyle!”

  “Yes,” I said, disconcerted. My problems had started at a local fairy site. It wasn’t a coincidence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Bing Crosby warbled from the jukebox about White Christmases. Twinkle lights reflected in the mirrored shelf behind the bar. They glinted on the rows of bottles and made a halo around my reflected, acorn-colored hair.

  I braced my elbows on the ornate, wooden bar and made small talk, my flirting automatic. The door opened, and I turned, my thirsty hope surging.

  Brayden didn’t walk inside.

  Stupid. My hands tightened on my cocktail glass. Why would he show up? I hadn't invited him to join me at the Bell and Thistle, or even let him know I'd come. If I had invited him, he'd probably have declined.

  I speared an olive from my drink and hooked my stiletto heels on the rung of the barstool. I wasn't here for romance. The Bell and Thistle had a fairy connection, and that made this martini a work expense.

  A bead of sweat trickled down my back, and I adjusted the collar of my emerald v-neck sweater. The crush of tourists and locals had raised the temperature in the noisy pub, the fire in the corner unnecessary.

  Knit cap pulled low, Rasha Gertner, pushed past me to the bar. A red scarf wound around her throat, and she was bundled in gloves and a bulky sweater. How did she stand them in this heat?

  She motioned to the bartender, Rafe. “Another Irish coffee.” Her words slurred.

  Rafe, a sunburnt ski bum, nodded and ambled to the other end of the bar.

  “Hi, Rasha,” I said. “How have you been?”

  She swiveled toward me, her gaze an uncertain trail. “How have I been? I’m alone, just like you. Men are completely unreliable. You think you can trust them, but no, you can't.”

  Taking advantage of a drunk was wrong, but these were desperate times. “What happened?” I asked, squeezing sympathy into my voice.

  “Matt happened,” she said darkly.

  The door opened, and my heart leapt again. I glanced toward the door, and my hopes crashed and burned.

  Lenore, wrapped in a white parka, walked inside. She paused in the entry way and squinted at something on the wall.

  “You mean Matt’s murder?” I asked, tearing my gaze from my sister.

  “I mean his life,” she slurred. “Did you know he and Phoebe were having an affair?”

  “Well—”

  “And he put her… put her up to being his front on a real estate deal with my husband. Phoebe's name was on the deed, but the property belonged to Matt. And do you know why he did that?”

  No, but I was dying to find out. “N—”

  “To keep the property out of his divorce pro… pro… proceedings against Melanie.” She hiccupped. “Matt was suing Mel for half her income and assets. She would have had to pay him a monthly stipend, pay his rent, treat him like a kept man. And all the time, he had a share in the wellhouse property, and he was hiding it. And my husband knew.” She poked my shoulder for emphasis. “He knew about everything.”

  “Oh.” Absently, I rubbed my shoulder. Rasha had put some muscle behind that finger.

  She rubbed her parka sleeve across her reddened nose and sniffed. “Can you believe Eric told the police before he told me? How am I going to look Melanie in the eye? How could Eric have looked at her with a straight face and acted like everything was all right?”

  Lenore drifted to the bar. “Hi, Jayce, Rasha. It's good to see you.”

  “Is it?” Rasha snapped.

  The bartender slid her Irish coffee across the bar.

  Rasha snatched it up, slopping liquid across the counter, and lurched to her corner.

  “Bad timing?” Lenore asked, peeling off her parka to reveal a gray sweater so pale it was nearly white.

  “One of us is going to have to make sure she gets a ride home,” I said.

  “Don't sweat it,” the bartender said, his reddened face crinkling. “I'll take care of her. What can I get for you, Lenore?”

  I raised a brow. Lenore wasn't a bar person, and Rafe was only here for the winter season. How did the sexy bartender know my sister’s name?

  “I'll have a cider,” she said, barely audible over the music and the roar of the crowd. Dean Martin had replaced Bing.

  Rafe walked to the low refrigerator on the other side of the bar.

  “Come here often?” I asked her and arched a brow.

  “No.” She shrugged beneath her pale, turtleneck sweater and smiled. “You know how I feel about crowds.”

  Yeah, she hated them. I’d had to use a promise of a free dinner to lure Lenore from the house. So how did the bartender know her? He didn’t strike me as a big reader.

  She looked around the crowded pub. “How are we going to get a table?”

  “Don't worry. I always find one.” Confident (because you can’t do magic otherwise), I sent my will into the pub — a free table for us to eat at.

  Rafe returned with the cider. “Anything else I can get you?”

  “A menu,” I said.

  He handed us two. “Good luck finding a table.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Grabbing my metallic, sleeveless parka off the back of the high chair, I made my way through the crowd.

  A trio of college-aged skiers — tourists — rose as we approached and abandoned their round table.

  “You used magic,” Lenore said, accusing.

  I grabbed a chair and sat, extending my legs. “So? You use it all the time.”

  She sighed. “Not on people. Jayce, it’s—”

  “Reckless?”

  “Not very nice.”

  Guilt wormed inside me, and I ignored it. It was only a little magic, maneuvering us into the right place and right time. It wasn’t as if the students had needed the table anymore. “I’ll send a blessing to everyone in the pub. You won't believe what Rasha just told me.”

  “Rasha's drunk.” She scraped back a chair and sat, pushing empty beer glasses to one side of the table.

  “And in vino veritas.” I grinned. “I've found the Matt-Phoebe connection.”

  “I thought they were having an affair.”

  “It was more than that. Rasha told me Matt used Phoebe as a front to go in as a partner on the wellhouse property.”

  “Without her knowledge?”

  “I didn’t get that sense. If he and Phoebe were having a thing, she might have done it willingly, helping him keep his assets away from his wife.”

  “Why?” Lenore asked.

  “To keep his wife's lawyer from finding out about it. He was suing Melanie for half her income and didn't want her to know he had assets of his own.”

  Lenore frowned. “If he’s so broke, how did Matt have enough money to buy into the wellhouse property?”

  “Maybe he used his wife’s money. Or maybe he earned something off his blackmail. Wynter Swanstrom didn’t admit to paying off Matt, but he did say he’d caught Matt snooping through some unimportant documents. But if he was being blackmailed, he wouldn’t admit it to me. I have a feeling whatever Matt found bothered Wynter.”

  She tilted her head, skeptical. “He may have been bothered, but that doesn't mean he paid blackmail.”

  “No,” I said, thinking of Brayden. Matt hadn't asked him for money. He'd only held the knowledge over Brayden’s head and demanded favors. My dirty martini turned to dust on my tongue. Would favors be enough to kill over?

  “This gives Melanie an even bigger reason to have wanted her husband dead, and Phoebe too,” Lenore said. “I'm surprised the police haven't picked her up yet.”

  “Yes, but...” But what? Melanie seemed the most obvious suspect, but something didn't feel right. I shook it of
f. “I went to the Historical Association to ask about the wellhouse and their lawsuit against Eric.”

  “What did you learn?”

  A cheer erupted in the corner near the Christmas tree. It wobbled at a drunken angle, its ornaments bobbing and weaving.

  “Not much I didn't already know. Doc Toeller is named as, what do you call it? Plaintiff?” Karin was the legal eagle, not me. “The Historical Association can't stand Eric. But even if they'd found out Matt was Eric's secret partner, I can't see them bumping off Matt and Phoebe.”

  “Neither can I.” She frowned. “Though now that I think about it, developing a property from scratch is a big step up from flipping homes. Is this the first time Eric’s developed a property from scratch?”

  “I don't know.” It might not matter, but it was odd. “Did you know the wellhouse has a fairy legend attached to it?”

  “What?” Lenore leaned forward in her wooden chair. “That can't be coincidence.”

  A waitress wove through the crowd to our table. She scooped up the empty beer mugs and wiped it down. “Are you ready to order?”

  “I'll take a garden wrap and garlic-bacon-cheese fries,” I said.

  Lenore made a face at me.

  “It’s their special,” I said, defensive.

  She ordered the wild mushroom burger, and the waitress departed.

  I crossed my ankles beneath the table. “According to the legend, the man who built the wellhouse was cursed by the fairies and died. But women went to it afterward for the waters, which were supposed to take away their lovesickness.”

  “And of course the well water always worked, because time heals all wounds.”

  “Sure,” I said, “but it's weird, right?”

  “It's weird.”

  As weird as being at the Bell and Thistle, where my truck had been stolen, and a dead man dumped into its bed, and where there was a fairy connection. As weird as coming to the spot where Eric and his first wife had had their last drink together. As weird as my father dying in a car accident caused by Brayden’s mother. A ghost walked across my grave, and I quaked.

  “What's wrong?” she asked.

  “I was looking into Eric Gertner and found a newspaper article about the crash that killed his first wife all those years ago. They'd been drinking. She was driving. They left from this exact fairy pub and went off the road, hit a tree.”

  An odd expression crossed Lenore's face. “That's... interesting.”

  “It’s probably a coincidence,” I said, trying to convince myself. “We've only got three bars in Doyle. When it comes to picking a place to drink too much and crash your car, your odds are one in three.”

  “Go to the entryway and take a good look at the framed newspaper article.”

  “Why?”

  “Just go and look.”

  “I'll look later,” I said.

  “I think you should look now.”

  I relaxed in my chair, a strange reluctance stealing through my limbs. My muscles felt heavy, and the wooden chair was so comfortable. “If we go, someone might steal our table.”

  “I'll stay here. You check the paper.”

  “I don't want to.” I braced my elbow on the chair arm and rubbed my temple.

  “What's wrong with you?”

  The entryway was twenty feet away. A line had formed inside it, sweaty, annoyed people waiting for a table or a spot at the bar, and I didn't want to be anywhere near them. And I loved being around people. Crowds were what I got my energy from. I extended my aura, feeling for whatever magic was pinning me to my seat.

  And got nothing. What was going on with my magic?

  “Jayce?” She prompted.

  “There's no reason for me not to want to go,” I said, my voice thick as cold molasses. “But I don't want to. My body feels like it's welded to this chair. And those people by the door.” I shuddered. “I can't go there.”

  Twin lines appeared between her brows, and her gaze grew distant. “Jayce, I think you're being influenced.”

  So I’d been right. There was magic keeping me from seeing whatever Lenore had wanted me to see, and I hadn’t been able to detect it. Fists clenched, I lurched to my feet. The hell with that. No one turned me into a puppet.

  “Wait.” Lenore stretched her hand toward me.

  “No. Let me do this.” I pushed through the crowd. My heel caught in a gap between the wooden floorboards, and I stumbled.

  People brushed past me, knocking me backward, and I shuddered with revulsion at each touch. Was this how Lenore felt in crowds?

  I saw an opening between two burly men and walked into it. At the same moment, they shifted, closing on me.

  “Excuse me,” I pushed through, popping from between them like a champagne cork.

  They kept talking as if they didn't see me.

  Beads of sweat dampened my forehead. I squeezed between two tables.

  A woman edged her chair back, and one leg landed on my foot.

  I yelped with pain and ripped my boot from beneath her chair.

  She didn't turn, didn't notice.

  My heartbeat quickened. No one saw me. It was like I didn't exist. I was just a swirl of molecules, and so were they, and nothing mattered.

  I ran. Or tried to run. I was in a nightmare, my footsteps preternaturally slowed. Everywhere I turned, someone blocked me. I forced my way past laughing tourists and truckers in holiday sweaters.

  A foot tripped me, and I staggered into the white plaster wall. Feeling my way along it, I slithered to the entryway. I pushed through a rowdy bachelorette party to the newspaper article, hanging in its frame.

  The article was from nineteen-sixty-six. Its photo looked older, the men in three-piece suits and the women in long skirts and stiff hats. I checked the date — 1920, the year Prohibition began. (I know my drinking history).

  Someone bammed into me, flattening me against the wall. I peeled myself free and kept reading.

  The article was a gleeful account about how the town boundaries had shifted in 1920. One of Doyle's town fathers had owned the Bell and Thistle, which later became a part of Arcadia township.

  But Prohibition had given the owner an incentive to return the Bell and Thistle to Doyle. After intensive negotiations (the author hinted at a payoff), the Bell and Thistle property lines were reincorporated into Doyle, where the police were “more tolerant.”

  But Doyle hadn't been exempt from Prohibition. The town father in question had connections with the cops, who looked the other way when it came to the Bell and Thistle.

  Interesting but unenlightening. Why had Lenore insisted I read it? And why had it been so difficult for me to do so? A draft chilled my flesh.

  I studied the article’s photo – men and women in clunky shoes and swank hats. If I stared at the faces long enough, I could almost imagine they were people I knew. All except one — one of the women's faces was blurred, obscured by what looked like a burn mark.

  I turned away and leaned one shoulder against the wall. My reflection wavered in the glass door, and I took a moment to catch my breath. Dispassionately, I studied my profile. The high heels made my butt look all kinds of awesome, but my ankle ached from my near fall a few minutes ago. There were other aches too. Were the heels worth it?

  Cripes. I was turning into Karin.

  Shaking my head, I returned to our table. People smiled (or leered) and parted to make way.

  Lenore stared at her cider and rubbed her hands.

  “I made it back alive,” I said.

  She looked up as I dropped into my chair. “And?”

  “You're right. Something was trying to stop me from seeing that article.” I rotated my ankles. Had my shoes gotten tighter in the cold and damp?

  “But you got through.”

  “Yeah, though I don't see what the big deal was. It's just an old article about an old story.”

  “You didn't notice anything odd about the photo?”

  “It was a little damaged, but it’s an old articl
e.”

  Her gaze sharpened. “Not just damaged. A face is burned out, and there's magic on that article.”

  My stomach cratered. “I didn't feel anything.” Why wasn’t I feeling the magic? I’d missed someone in Ground – twice – and now this?

  “Maybe that’s because it's not like our magic. It's… different.”

  “You think it's unseelie magic?” I sucked in my breath. “So why can you sense it, and I can't?”

  “I'm not sure,” she said. “Maybe it's because of all the journeying I do. I'm used to encountering different spirits, and they all have their own flavor of magic. But something’s here, in this bar, and there's something about that article that's not right. I went to the library to find the original, and—”

  The waitress appeared with our food. “One mushroom burger.” She slid it in front of Lenore. “And one garden wrap and monster fries.” She set the plate in front of me. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “I'll have another,” I said, nodding to my empty glass and fishing out the last of my olives.

  Lenore raised her empty bottle of cider. “One more, please.”

  The waitress nodded and bustled away, returning a few minutes later with my fresh drink.

  “So what did you find at the library?” I asked.

  “They keep everything on microfiche now. The microfiche for that page of the paper is damaged. It looks like it's burned, just like that photo. But none of the other microfiches beside it were damaged.”

  “Which they should have been?”

  And then Brayden walked into the bar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  My heart stopped. And then it jackhammered, making up for lost time.

  Brayden. His head brushed against a strand of twinkle lights above the entry. They glinted off his unruly black hair. He wore a navy coat unbuttoned over my favorite fisherman's sweater and jeans.

  A man walked in behind him — Finn Davidson, one of his fellow paramedics. He'd been at the realty with Brayden after I'd discovered Phoebe's body. Young, red haired, and smiling, he looked around, spotted us, waved.

  I couldn't move.

  The paramedic said something to Brayden and pointed.