A taste of Abby going back in time...
“That’s a start.” She studied the cards before her. Stroking each picture lightly, her eyes slowly rolled closed. “Fit me into 1700s’ Boston,” she said in an alto-timbered voice. “Put me where I can find out something for Brooke. Send me back…send me…”
Now she was falling, falling into a dark place, where the air suddenly seemed warm and heavy, no longer cold and thin. Where gentle crackles and hisses swirled all around her, and her body floated up above the real Abby sitting in the car’s front seat––like an astral projection. She watched the normal Abby below her, not doing anything special, just rocking back and forth gently, as if praying. Then, without warning, her spiritual body drifted away to a place where she was suddenly jerked this way and that then catapulted toward pitch-blackness, with only a hint of flashing colored lights in the distance.
The forces propelling her grew stronger and stronger, until just as abruptly, she was let go, and with one explosive whoosh sound, she landed on her feet somewhere––hard.
Through the cigar-smoky haze, Abby found herself standing in an old, eighteenth century establishment. According to a placard over the fireplace, it was named the Green Dragon Tavern. That instantly sparked a fact tidbit she had learned from her college days. I’m in Boston, and this is the Headquarters of the American Revolution!
More facts cascaded through her mind now, about how the very room she was in had served as a meeting place for Masons and general customers. But below her was another room. The important basement one. Wow. Is Samuel Adams leading a meeting right now?
She continued to scope things out. Dark olive green surrounded her––on the walls behind paintings and on the moldings bordering each doorway. Also around her were plenty of square, wooden tables, dimly lit by tall, thin candles, secured in their clunky holders. And as the loud, boisterous men, dressed in buckskin breeches, vests, and flowing shirts, lifted up their pewter mugs to blast out raucous jokes and drunken statements, her ear drums felt as if they would surely burst in a matter of seconds.
No snuffboxes or powdered wigs for this unruly crowd of undoubtedly hard-working, musket-touting Bostonians. Several of the customers flitted here and there with an exhausted-looking tavern wench, who rushed about, trying to serve demanding men guzzling as many drinks as they could get down their gullets. With her cotton head cap slightly off kilter, her hair tendrils framing her face and wet from sweat, she made Abby think about how far women had come. Or had they? She flashed on a college friend waiting on tables, who, except for the colonialist outfit, had shown the exact same exhaustion.
“Robbie!” a pot-bellied man in a sleeveless leather jacket cried, his voice gruff, his appearance even gruffer. “Where in the world have you been? I have spent half the morning waiting on you, lad. You do understand that owing to the seriousness of the meeting about to happen here, I shall need you all the more. Go now, put on an apron and give a hand to poor Brendan over there.”
Robbie? He was speaking to me? She looked down at her breeches, her long shirt, cinched around her waist by a thin belt, and her own vest. Yes, in the 1700s, a man would definitely fit in more places than a woman would. But how old was she––he? She glanced over toward the so-named young man, Brendan, snatching plates off of tables. He did not look happy.
Abby scoured around for an apron, then noticed a couple of them on hooks next to a long wooden bar. She grabbed one, hastily tied it around her waist, and made her way over to this Brendan guy, the one with a pissed-off expression splattered all over his face.
She took no more than two steps before someone grabbed her arm. “Hey, young laddie! When is my squash pie coming? I’m starving!”
So, I'm young as well. She extracted herself from him. “I shall check on it straight away, sir.”
“You do that,” he muttered, and after slugging down several more gulps from his large pewter mug, fell backward onto the floor.
Continuing on to Brendan, she noticed nobody helped the man groaning on the ground. Instead, one man casually stepped over him on his way to the bar. Apparently, with such a high intake of whiskey and ale, no one was in the mood to care. Is this just a daily occurrence? She hurried over to a snarling Brendan.
“Finally, you are here,” he snapped. “Time to get off your high arse and help me like you should have done earlier.”
I think I made a new friend.
It takes a small village…the Gang of Five’s meeting
The pizza dinner that night was a free-for-all. Henry, Brooke, Larry, Tony, and Abby couldn’t shut up for one second as they each tried to tell everyone the facts they had unearthed. Brooke likened their words to the twelve-tone music Henry had once forced her to hear at New York City’s Lincoln Center. In both cases, there was a mix-master of chaotic noise.
Finally, Larry placed two fingers in his mouth and blasted out a high-pitched whistle.
Dead silence. Except for June’s questioning meow.
“Okay. One at a time,” Larry commanded. “And raise your hand if you want to be heard.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Brooke snapped.
“Especially you, Brooksy. Now, who wants to speak first?”
Everyone shot up his or her hand at the exact same nanosecond.
Sighing, Larry shook his head. Meanwhile, Abby ripped up little pieces of paper, wrote numbers on each one, crumbled them up, and mixed them together in an empty bowl.
“Let’s do it like they do in first grade.” Abby handed out one crumbled paper ball to each person. “Let’s see who has number one.”
Brooke held up her wrinkled paper, triumphantly. “I do, I do. I go first!” she called out.
“See? First grade,” Abby said.
Everyone laughed.
“Okay. Here’s what I found,” Brooke said. “I have a document from the Sheffield Company that includes a few names and initials of their customers. Also, we’ve got an old journal page that gives out names, possible events, and now I’ve got some possible DNA proof that evil can run in families.”
Larry raised his hand. “I’m number two. According to Henry, the Whitman family, who has a history of some pretty shady business practices, now has a lawyer––Ruth Novak’s ex-husband, by the way––who also practices some under-the-table dealings. Turns out, after Cathy and Wynnie were murdered, their dear brother, Michael, made out with millions. Almost instantly. To me, that smells.”
Tony slowly raised his hand. “I’m next. What about Collin? Have we forgotten about him? I know he passed a polygraph, but I found out from an interview with the Whitman maids that he used to be there at their mansion all the time, in his––” He pulled out a small note paid and read his notes out loud. “His fancy suits and expensive shoes. That’s a far cry from the groundskeeper position he has now. I say he had a definite motive for murder, even if he doesn’t come from a––” He added the next two words in air-quotes, ‘evil family.’”
Henry raised his hand halfway. “Since Larry took over my little speech…” He shot a fake dirty look at the detective. “I’m now going to add something about Michael Whitman. He not only got a large inheritance. He left their home years before. In fact, in his high school yearbook, when asked what his goal was in life, he actually wrote, ‘To leave home and my family as soon as possible.’ To me, he wasn’t so thrilled with any of them. And boy, one look at his photograph back then, and you could see the anger written all over his face.”
After some general mutterings, everyone turned to Abby.
“Okay, my turn,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about all of this. A lot. I keep coming back to one thing, besides the evil family, I mean. And that is, what’s the significance of the journal? How can we connect that with our modern life?”
As everyone sat still, even Junie paused during mid fur-washing lick to gaze up at the clairvoyant.
Brooke shot up her hand. “Ooh-ooh! I know!”
“She’s definitely in first grade,”
Larry said.
* *
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* * *
[1] Feeding you a line: a false story
[2] Applesauce: bunk, nonsense
[3] Know your onions: to know what’s up or what’s going on
[4] Bee’s knees: an extraordinary person, thing, idea; the ultimate
[5] Big cheese: big shot, important or influential person, the boss
[6] Fiddlesticks: nonsense, rubbish
[7] Caper: a criminal act, or robbery
[8] Double-cross: cheat, stab in the back
[9] Dumb Dora: a stupid female
[10] Flattie: a detective
[11] Houdini: to be on time for a date
[12] Zozzled: drunk
[13] Chin music: a punch on the jaw
[14] Baloney: nonsense
[15] Frog’s eyebrows: something nice or fine
[16] Gink: boy or man who seems odd or foolish
[17] Windsucker: a person given to boasting
[18] Beeswax: business
[19] Bum’s rush: to be kicked out
[20] Cat’s meow: something splendid
[21] Whoopee: to have a good time
[22] You slay me: that’s hilarious
[23] Dumkuff: nutty or batty
[24] Feathers: small talk, light conversation
[25] Get a wiggle on: to get going, get a move on
[26] Blue serge: sweetheart
[27] Torpedoes: hired guns
[28] Hard-boiled: tough strong guy
[29] Oilcan: an imposter
Endangered Spells (Witches Academy Series Book 6) Page 19
