The director treated us to a full-throated laugh. “Actually, it’s surprisingly easy.” He quickstepped down the last few stairs, Van on his heels. As they approached the door, Niklas paused in front of Bianca. The corner of his lips lifted in a wry half smile. “You, too?”
“I’m afraid so,” she said. They gave the impression they knew each other rather well, and Jaida and I exchanged a quizzical glance.
“Well, you all have fun, hear?” Niklas said to the group. “But we’re going to wash our hands of this shindig and see what kind of rocking nightlife we can find in Savannah on a Tuesday night. I doubt it’ll be much, but with Grayson here as my wingman, it shouldn’t be too bad.” He winked at Bianca, waved dismissively at the rest of us, and left through the still-open door. Van’s smile faltered before he ducked his head and tagged along behind.
Althea sniffed her distain before leading us through the main hallway. Waist-high wainscoting ran around the perimeter, and we craned our necks to take in the high ceilings and eggshell walls. The floor was whitewashed wood, as was the towering fireplace mantel. The carved moldings along the edges of the ceiling were a darker ecru. The furnishings were understated and appeared, frankly, uncomfortable, the hall not a place for lingering but transition. The dark wood settee and chairs looked even darker against all the white backgrounds.
And everywhere, passionflowers punctuated the decor, singly and in groups, in small and large vases.
“The séance will take place in the dining room,” Althea said, and we trailed behind her like so many baby ducks. Her expensive perfume wafted behind her. She missed her step once, smoothly catching herself on the back of a Queen Anne chair. It was a subtle move, though possibly well practiced, and I wondered whether it was the stilettos or the wine.
We shuffled into the dining room. The table was an impressive slab that sat fourteen people easily. Four of the chairs had been moved to the edge of the room so that ten remained, four on each side and one at each end of the table. The space was large, the walls high, but not so high as the main hallway, and they were mostly covered in tapestries. I recognized some of the scenes from mythology: Diana and the stag, Zeus visiting Leda as a swan, and right over Althea’s shoulder, Narcissus gazed adoringly at his reflection in the water. The air smelled of lemony furniture polish, a whiff of patchouli incense, and the delicious scent of golden beeswax that somehow negated Althea’s strong perfume without overpowering it.
The honeyed atmosphere was because of the candles. More than a hundred of them, already lit, the flames wavering as we passed by. I exchanged approving looks with my coven mates and inhaled a deep, appreciative breath. As it sighed out, I saw Steve standing under Leda and the Swan, his usual casual attire replaced by slacks and a sports coat similar to Ben’s. His lips curved up in a small welcoming smile.
I was oddly glad to see him and realized with surprise that I was a tad nervous about what might happen. A glance sideways, however, revealed Declan watching Steve with narrowed eyes, his lips firmly pressed together. Steve refused to look at Declan altogether. I stifled a sigh.
Ursula stood behind the chair at the head of the table. She wore a simple shirtwaist dress, loose and comfortable-looking and the same color as her eyes. Her right ear sported a large silver cuff beneath her spiked hair, and she had added some understated gloss to her lips. She seemed to assess each of us as we filed in the door, often looking off to the side as if listening to someone.
The fine linen cloth that covered the table was a dark blue that set off the color of Ursula’s eyes. I wondered if it was part of the house furnishings or if she carried it as a prop because of the numinous effect it gave her gaze. Declan bent down as if to retrieve something from the floor and took a good hard look under the tablecloth—and under the table. If the psychic noticed it, she didn’t give any indication.
Once we were all inside, Althea waved her arm toward the back of the room and said, “There’s plenty of wine and cheese to sample. Help yourselves.”
Ben moved toward the sideboard, no doubt thinking a bit of the grape might help calm his own jitters. I joined him and snagged a nugget of deeply golden cheese off the board. Popping it in my mouth, I nearly swooned. It was rich and chewy, the texture similar to Parmesan, but the flavor was a complex combination of nuts, fruits, and, of all things, butterscotch.
“Welcome, everyone,” Ursula said. “Thank you for your generosity, Althea, but I really must advise against drinking alcohol until after we’ve completed the séance.”
The actress gave her a dirty look.
Ursula calmly ignored her. “It can interfere with the high vibrational energy required to communicate with the spirit world.” She smiled. “However, wine can be marvelously grounding afterward, so do feel free to imbibe after we’re finished.”
Her employer approached and sat down in the chair to Ursula’s right. She patted the chair next her, then crooked her finger at Steve.
“Althea,” Ursula said. “Since you have experience contacting the other side, I was hoping you would anchor the table at the other end.”
“Not sit by you?” Althea asked.
Ursula simply smiled.
“Well, okay. Come on, Stevie.”
Oh, Lord.
She stood and put her hand on his arm, and he steadied her with his other hand. She wrinkled her nose, all cutesy, and batted her big fake eyelashes. I looked away. Declan leaned down and said into my ear, “I wonder what she was like before she was a big star?”
Lucy leaned in on my other side. “She seems awfully unhappy and insecure, doesn’t she?”
I opened my mouth to scoff, then closed it. Instead, I put my arm around my aunt’s shoulders and squeezed. “Trust you to look past appearances.”
“Come sit here, Katie, so you will be available to speak to Simon should he grace us with a visit,” Ursula said, indicating the seat to her left.
Now I got the dirty look from Althea.
Ursula arranged the rest of us around the table to her satisfaction. Declan sat next to me, and next to him was Jaida and then “Stevie” on Althea’s right. On her left, going back toward the head of the table, sat Bianca, then Ben, Lucy, and, finally, Mimsey directly across from me.
“Has anyone heard how Owen is doing?” I asked.
Ben said, “I checked after the relief guys arrived for the night, and he’s still in the hospital under observation.”
“But he’s going to be okay,” Lucy said.
“It sounds like they plan to release him tomorrow morning,” my uncle confirmed.
I sat back, relieved.
Ursula’s skirt swirled as she rose and moved to close the double doors to the hallway. She twisted the round light switch on the wall, and the chandelier above us darkened. The sudden contrast made the candle flames seem to grow brighter. They cast dancing shadows over the walls and up to the ceiling.
With calm, measured steps, Ursula returned to her seat at the head of the table. Her eyes smiled at me before her attention flicked to Althea, who was saying something to Steve. I couldn’t make out the words, but her tone was edged with complaint. She took a big swig out of her wine goblet and turned her attention back to the rest of us.
Without warning, the loud chirps of crickets filled the room. We all looked around in surprise, and then the sound abruptly ceased. Ben ducked his head over the cell phone in his hand.
“Er, sorry,” he said.
“That’s okay,” Ursula said. “It’s the perfect reminder that we all need to turn off our cell phones.”
Ben flashed a white-toothed smile at Ursula and nodded before returning the phone to the inside pocket of his sports coat.
Declan retrieved his cell and began pushing buttons. Out of habit, the members of the spellbook club had already turned ours off the same way we did before casting together. Steve, no doubt, had done the same, and Althea would
already be aware of her personal psychic’s preferences.
Including not drinking wine before a séance, which apparently she didn’t feel was all that important.
Mimsey leaned toward me. “It feels like we should cast a circle,” she whispered. “To keep everyone safe.”
Ursula’s eyebrow arched; she’d heard.
I reached across the table and patted the older woman’s hand. “I’m sure it will be all right.”
Ursula murmured to me, “You’re a witch? Suddenly a few things make more sense. Are these friends of yours . . . ?”
I gave a little nod, glancing around to make sure no one was paying attention to our conversation. No one except Althea down at the other end of the table appeared to be, but she was too far away to hear our low tones. “Are you okay with that?”
Her smile was wide and genuine, but she spoke so quietly I had to scoot my chair closer in order to catch the words. “Absolutely. I wanted extra power in order to reach Simon tonight, and a coven of witches is just the ticket.” She laughed, the notes falling like crystals into the air. Heads turned.
“Shh,” I said, my eyes cutting subtly toward Althea.
The actress took a drink of wine, her eyes never leaving my face. Despite her apparent curiosity, however, I was relieved to note she didn’t seem to be aware of what we were talking about. Her interest struck me as proprietary, given how she’d referred to Ursula as “my psychic,” perhaps with a little jealousy in the mix.
Mimsey was leaning over to hear Ursula, too. Now the psychic whispered to her, “Don’t worry. I’ll invoke something very similar to your protective circle. My guides will guard us as well as serve as conduits to the other side.”
Mimsey sat back with a satisfied nod.
Ursula clapped her hands twice, and the low undercurrent of whispers around the table quieted. “It’s time to begin. It’s not imperative, but if you’re comfortable with the idea, please take the hand of the person next to you. If you don’t want to, for whatever reason, don’t feel obligated and no one will judge you.” She looked each person seated at the table in the eye, conveying the order they were not to judge.
Declan’s fingers already gripped mine, and I held my other hand out to Ursula, who took it with a smile. No one else seemed to have a problem with holding hands except Althea, who seemed more than fine with holding Steve’s hand but refused to offer her other hand to Bianca, who sat on her other side.
Did I judge her for it?
Yep.
Bianca merely pressed her lips together for a moment, then shrugged and held her hand out to Ben, who readily enveloped it in his own.
Ursula looked around at each of us before nodding to no one in particular, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the high back of the chair. “I respectfully ask my spirit guides to honor us with their presence this evening, to surround this gathering and protect us all from harm and undue influence.” She waited. We all waited. I could sense the heightened awareness as the entire group strove to hear or see something from beyond.
She began to sway, and her eyelids fluttered. “Now, settle down, everyone.”
Was she talking to us?
The atmosphere in the room seemed to thicken, the smell of beeswax sharpening in my nostrils. The slightest of breezes moved through my hair and made the shadows cast by the candle flames cavort crazily across the walls, ceiling—and us.
Ursula’s eyes opened, and a grimace quirked up one corner of her mouth. “I was afraid of this.”
“What’s wrong?” Declan asked with obvious skepticism. Althea immediately made a loud shushing sound.
Ursula waved away her employer’s concern, however, not noticing how furious her gesture made the actress. “This house is inhabited by many ghosts, both those who have not completely passed the veil for whatever reason and those who have come back to protect or communicate with those still living. I’ve known of them since we began staying here, but didn’t feel it was my place to remedy the situation, instead asking my own guides to—well, run interference, if you will. But so many of you have strong psychic powers, and the spirits are clamoring to be heard.”
“You never told me about all these extra spirits,” Althea protested. “And you’ve read for me here twice.”
“They weren’t relevant to our work,” Ursula answered patiently. “Now they are.”
“Are they here for us?” my aunt asked, and I knew she was hoping to talk to my nonna.
Ursula shook her head. “No. These spirits are attached to this property, either to the house itself or to the land before it was built.”
Lucy quickly wiped the disappointment from her face.
“Now,” the psychic continued. “I’m going to ask them to let us go on with our work tonight without interruption.” She bowed her head, and while her eyes remained open, they went vacant as she stared at the expanse of tablecloth. Her fingers tightened over mine. It felt like a signal. I closed my own eyes and concentrated on funneling power through our locked hands. Ursula jerked slightly as if shocked; then she seemed to lean into what I was offering. Additional power from the others around the table joined ours, and I recognized the signatures of the other members of the spellbook club.
And Steve. We’d worked together only a few times, but they had been significant, and I knew the feel of his power the same way that I knew his smile.
Another vibration was familiar yet not, tentative and inconsistent. I made a note of it and moved on, narrowing my focus to Ursula and the task at hand.
The impression of winging entities, vaguely human, flitted through my mind. At least a dozen of them. Others, a much smaller group of three, joined our effort. One of the smaller group felt very inhuman, though I couldn’t have said how. Lighter. Brighter.
These are her guides. I reached out to the one that felt so strange. Who are you? What are you?
An impression of a word, not even the word itself came to me.
Angel.
And then from that entity: Employ your power, Katie Lightfoot.
Chapter 12
I joined the others and pushed the house spirits away. Not far away, though. Out of the room, but, I suspected, not even out of the building.
Ursula opened her eyes. “Okay. We’ve established a perimeter within which we can work.”
Much like the spellbook club would have cast a protective circle. Nice. In our work, we even invoked the help of the archangels. Not that I’d had a chance to actually communicate with any of them. Was that really Ursula’s personal angel? Or something else? Could I have imagined it? I shook my head.
“Now I’m going to attempt to summon Simon,” the psychic said. “Again, I’ll need your help.”
We looked around at one another, and I sensed Declan’s apprehension.
“We’re going to focus our attention on the Simon that each of us knew,” Ursula went on. “That means we will each be focusing on something a little different because no one is the same person to everyone.”
“What if we didn’t know him at all?” Jaida asked.
Ursula answered, “Then focus on the Simon you’ve heard of, or, if you have experience with focusing in a group, you can employ whatever technique you use then.”
Jaida blinked. She flashed a glance at me, and I gave her a barely perceptible nod. Yes, Ursula knew we were witches and therefore assumed we’d worked together in the past. Jaida’s lips parted briefly, but she quickly recovered.
“Does everyone have an idea—an image, an impression, even something you’ve heard about Simon Knapp that you can tap into?”
Murmurs of agreement all around, some more enthusiastic than others.
“Okay. Now close your eyes to better concentrate.”
One of Declan’s eyebrows lifted, and I doubted he’d follow her directions. Not that it mattered. He might think she was trying to
pull one over on us, but after linking with her posse of spirit guides, I was convinced Ursula was the real deal. Closing our eyes would only help.
“Now, with that idea of Simon in mind, I want you to repeat after me,” she said. Her voice took on a dreamy intonation. “We respectfully call upon you, Simon Knapp, to grace us with your presence tonight.”
Dutifully, we repeated her words. She said them again, and again we repeated, “We respectfully call upon you, Simon Knapp, to grace us with your presence.”
Over and over, until it was no longer a call and repeat but all of us chanting together. An objective part of me realized we sounded like a roomful of idiots. I peeked at Declan, whose eyes were wide open and darting around the room and at the participants. His lips moved, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t vocalizing. Steve, too, opened his eyes, noticed Declan, then looked at me. Understanding passed between us at the same time I felt the intention that was riding on our words grow stronger. No longer did I care if we looked crazy.
Whatever we were doing was working.
Suddenly Ursula grew quiet, and our final call to Simon trailed off at the end. The room grew weirdly silent after the myriad voices mingling together, saying the same words again and again. Into that quiet, Ursula said, “Hello? Simon?”
We all waited. A breeze shifted through the room again, and the candles flickered.
She nodded. “Yes. Simon is here.”
I felt Declan tense beside me. I squeezed his fingers and realized I wasn’t exactly breathing normally, either. Excitement and curiosity trilled through me. I inhaled deeply and then let the air out.
Ursula’s eyes were still mostly closed, but I could see them glitter through her long lashes. Her face was calm, her expression alert and expectant. ”Simon wants to know why we summoned him.”
“Seriously?” I muttered, then cleared my throat when no one else answered. “Um, hi there, Simon. Katie Lightfoot here. Remember me?”
Ursula’s face remained impassive.
“I’m sorry I only got to meet you the one time, you know, before you got killed and all,” I babbled. “Kind of funny that I’m even here, trying to get ahold of you, I suppose. Maybe you’re wondering about that.” My words tumbled over one another, and I felt awkward with a capital A. Who was I to ask Simon who murdered him, anyway? I couldn’t very well refer to Ursula’s prediction in front of everyone. I stared hard at the psychic, trying to let her know I needed her help, but she seemed completely unaware of my presence.
Some Enchanted clair : A Magical Bakery Mystery (9780698140561) Page 12
