Sand Witches in the Hamptons (9781101597385)

by Jerome, Celia

  “That you’d explain more.”

  His feather was yellow, or was it white they gave to cowards? “I think I’m going to be sick. Gotta go.”

  I put all three feathers under my pillow and went to sleep. For three days.

  I remember Harris coming back with a gallon of soup, a huge bottle of antibacterial soap, and meds from the drugstore.

  Matt came to spoon soup into me, and Aunt Jasmine helped me shower. Grandma Eve felt my forehead, declared I’d live, and poured herbal tea down me. Susan moved back in to help poor Harris, who had no idea what to do in a sickroom except drink beer. I think he worried he’d failed his bodyguard job. Susan consoled him.

  Mostly I slept. When I was awake, I dragged myself to the sofa downstairs to sleep through old movies on the TV. Harris and Little Red came to some kind of conciliation, because I didn’t see blood anywhere. Harris had the can opener, so he became a good guy.

  My father kept calling, worried. He didn’t exactly sense any immediate disasters for me, only a possible visit to Stony Brook, the nearest big hospital, nearly two hours away.

  “Dad,” I groaned. “I’m not that sick. And I’m not going to Stony Brook. It’s just the flu, so chill. I heard stress isn’t good for your health.”

  “I know. I keep getting a pain in my back.”

  “Give me a couple of days, Dad. I’m working on it.”

  “The stress?”

  “No, the back thing. You know, the backstabbing, the calling back, the knife in the back. It’s payback. If my head weren’t so heavy, I know I could figure it out. What’s precious to you, Dad?”

  “Why, you, baby girl. And Carinne, your mother. My health, especially after the bypass. My good name.”

  “A thing, Dad. Something you’d hate to give up. A real sacrifice.”

  “My golf clubs. Did I tell you I bought a set of the same ones Tiger Woods uses?”

  Sure, just what the Andanstans needed, after a silver tea set.

  * * *

  I asked Matt, too. He’d been reading on the chair near the sofa, watching me sleep, then half-carrying me back upstairs. He said I was the most precious thing in his life, and he wasn’t losing me to any minuscule mineral compounds. He never said how pathetic I looked or how cranky I was about the effing chicken soup or how he missed making love. Yup, my hero.

  I had other visitors. Harris didn’t like it, having to turn the alarm off for people he didn’t know, therefore didn’t trust. No one came in, half because Harris had a gun in his hand, half because they didn’t want to enter a germ-infested house. Everyone called out good wishes from the porch. They brought flowers and honey and a pumpkin with a smiley face carved into it and a balloon that said Get Well. And more soup. Even Moses was sick of it by now.

  I almost wept at the signs of friendship, I was so weak. “Everyone is so kind,” I told Matt when he came after work that day.

  “Yeah, you’re no good to them like this.”

  So I got better.

  * * *

  The good news was I lost five pounds. The bad news was I looked like a prisoner of war. I went to Janie’s and begged. She warned about root damage and brittle ends, but got rid of the pink hair anyway, I looked so pitiful. Now I had my own streaky blonde hair back, and felt almost like myself again.

  More good news: Carinne and Jimmie were also recovering. Carinne called to say thank you for the feathers I’d sent over with Lou, but I sensed neither of them was impressed. She said Jimmie had his in a jar on the mantel. She was using hers as a bookmark. No, she hadn’t tested it yet. She still felt tired and achy.

  I gave her another day.

  The bad news was it was Saturday, one week away from the beach ritual. Saturday was also the day when the psi-profiler thought Deni might get out to Paumanok Harbor if he had a job keeping him in the city. They hadn’t gotten an ID on him yet, but the mice and the threats were enough to slap a subpoena on the original server, who funneled messages—and porn—to overseas servers. The place got shut down, records got confiscated, pornographers got arrested. Sleazebag clients who sent money could be coerced into giving up more information. The FBI was happy, happy enough to search through closed juvenile records for an early sadist with DF initials. The worst news was that someone had hacked into the system and erased files. Russ got to work restoring them, without discussing it with the Feds.

  Deni could be here now, blending in with the pumpkin pickers and striped bass fishermen and general Hamptons tourists. We got so much traffic to the farm stand that Harris had Colin and Kenneth take shifts monitoring the cars.

  Matt wanted me to move back in with him, but I wasn’t ready. I had to get the house in order for my mother, figure out the precious part, and make sure my hair wasn’t going to fall out.

  By Sunday afternoon I was stir-crazy. I got Matt and Harris to take me to Rosehill, where I browbeat Carinne to experiment. We decided on lunch at one of the clam bars on the way to Montauk. Deni’d never look for me there, and the customers would be strangers.

  Lou insisted we take Colin with his superpower eyesight and Kenneth, the danger precog. Lou wanted to watch football Sunday at my mother’s house. Monte came, and Doc Lassiter, but Jimmie said he was too weak.

  We took three cars, bodyguards ahead and behind Matt’s SUV. Monte sat up front next to Matt. I sat in the back with Carinne, both of us with death grips on the feathers. Doc Lassiter had her other hand.

  Matt parked, but Carinne wouldn’t get out of the car. Matt and Kenneth did, one to get a feel for the atmosphere, one to order takeout we could eat at a secluded beach.

  “Can you see?” I asked Carinne, who had her eyes shut tight.

  “Fine.”

  “I mean see futures?”

  She opened her eyes and started counting off, starting with the teenagers on line ahead of Matt. “Ad executive, gas station attendant—Hess uniform. Teacher. Uh-oh.”

  Doc Lassiter put his hand on the back of her neck.

  “What do you see?”

  “A wheelchair. A car crash, I think. The girl next to her dies.” Her voice rose to an anguished wail that had Harris and Colin and Matt and Kenneth running to surround the car, obstructing her view. “Oh, God.”

  I wrapped my hand with the feather around hers. “It’s okay. You can’t do anything about it. Breathe. Do you want to draw?”

  She squeezed her eyes so tightly shut she couldn’t find the pad with a giant crayon. “No.”

  I signaled Doc to take his hand away. Carinne trembled, but said she thought she’d be all right, without seeing out the windows. “No voices this time.” She quietly wept for the girl who’d died.

  “But one lived. And you didn’t fall apart. The feather worked!”

  Monte took over, reaching back to stroke her hand. “Come on, ducks, be strong. Be like a battlefield nurse. You lose some, but you save a lot more.”

  Carinne nodded, ready to try again, but everyone’s phone, pager, beeper, whatever, started ringing at the same time.

  Someone had broken into my house!

  No way were Carinne and I waiting at the clam bar. We raced home, sirens and all, calling for backup and roadblocks and warning my grandmother and Susan’s family not to leave their houses.

  We sped up the dirt road, gravel flying, to see Lou and a woman with a little white dog outside, waving.

  I had a relapse.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I had to go to Stony Brook after all. Dad had that one almost right.

  My mother shouted, “Surprise!” and ran toward the cars, where we were all getting out.

  She ignored the men with weapons drawn and rushed to hug Carinne. “How could I stay away when my baby was sick?” Then she saw me.

  “Surprise, Mom. That’s Carinne, Dad’s daughter f
rom before you were married.”

  She clutched her chest and keeled over.

  Dad was almost right there too. “He said she’d have a heart attack,” I wailed over the approaching sirens.

  Mom shoved a helping hand away. “Not . . . my heart. Low . . . sugar.”

  “You’re diabetic? You should have told me!”

  She sniffed around the oxygen mask the EMTs put over her face. “Like you told me about Carinne?”

  Stony Brook insisted on keeping her for tests to be sure she had her insulin under control. They recommended rest and no stress.

  For her or me? I lost another three days.

  Matt got the Maltese to the Willinghams and took Little Red home with him. My poor dog wouldn’t know where he lived soon. But he’d be safe. I guess I was too, sleeping in a chair in Mom’s hospital room, except when my father called every hour. I shut the door so no one could hear the shouting, crying, blame-naming, and guilt-tossing. And that was before Mom got back from her tests.

  I got a crick in my neck, but no further toward a solution to the Andanstans’ demands, as Oey saw them. I did get an idea about Deni and Dad’s cockeyed premonitions. What if Deni drove a Mustang, instead of riding a mustang? I called it in to Lou, who added it to the file. I couldn’t imagine how many Mustangs were registered to a DF, but it might mean something.

  Harris and the others ran the plates of every Mustang that drove into Paumanok Harbor. They had the whole police force and all the shopkeepers looking at strangers, comparing young, black-haired men to the sketch I’d done. No one spotted anything while I was at the hospital. No one came up with anything precious that we could part with.

  Lou and Grandma Eve picked us up. My mother wasn’t talking to me or my grandmother, but she chatted with Lou the whole long ride home. Dogs, Florida, the food at the hospital, her new TV show. When we got home, she sniffed her nose at her sister, who’d cleaned the house, curled her lip at Susan, who’d brought food, dropped her purse on Cousin Lily’s foot, who’d brought armloads of get well cards and flowers. Then she demanded the return of her dogs, as if we’d stolen them along with her pride and her trust. No matter that the dogs would be safer at Aunt Jasmine’s or be unhappy that they couldn’t climb up the stairs to Mom’s bedroom, she wanted her dogs, the only loyal creatures on Earth. After labeling the rest of us as traitors, she let Lou help her up the stairs, where she slammed her door.

  Oh, boy.

  I wanted to go to Matt’s, needing to know that someone still believed in me. We’d talked while I was at the hospital, but it wasn’t the same. He had a waiting room of sick dogs and cats, though, and I had the whole town counting on me. Besides, I couldn’t leave, not when my mother needed me. I couldn’t sit in the house, either, pretending I was welcome here. I didn’t even have my own dog for company. I had Lou.

  “Nice lady, your mother.”

  Fine. He could stay with her while I went to see if anyone came up with a way to placate the sand guys. It would be easier than placating my mother.

  The beach was my first destination, to consult with Oey. I figured I was safe for two days, until the weekend. Deni would be back at work now.

  Lou had the police chief send extra police guards with me: Big Eddie and Baitfish Barry. He had others positioned along the road to the farm stand, to keep Mom and her dogs and her house safe.

  Barry let out a sharp breath when he saw how narrow the beach was. Not a minnow in range of his fish-finder, either. I saw no sandmen, no nest, no para fish, not even when I rubbed the feather like you would a magic lantern. No genie popped up. No inspiration, either, only the same sick feeling that everything was going to hell in a hand cart and I had no brakes. This was worse than the flu.

  I really needed Matt. The cops and the DUE agent had enough couth to wait outside so that Matt and I could have a quick hug between a cat with a cough and a dog with diarrhea.

  I whined, too, I admit, about how my mother would never forgive me, and I hadn’t even been born yet when the crime got committed!

  Matt promised to talk to her. I’d forgotten they were old friends, that she’d been instrumental in getting him to set up an office in Paumanok Harbor. He couldn’t wait to see if some of her dog-whispering skills could rub off on him now that he had an aura of esper ability. His admiration and affection ought to soothe Mom. It sure worked for me.

  He’d help with my errands as soon as he got done at the clinic, then we’d go relieve Lou. Matt would sleep on the couch if he had to. He was not leaving me alone. We’d been apart too long.

  I felt wanted again, and stronger. I had a wonderful man’s affection, and a feather in my cap. Literally. Yankee Doodle, that’s me.

  * * *

  Everyone in the village was relieved to see that I was recovered from the bug and my mother was out of the hospital. Time was running out, with the sand. Now if I only had a rabbit to pull out of my hat the way they expected.

  We went to the library first. This time Mrs. Terwilliger handed me Mothers and Daughters and cookbooks for diabetics. I assumed the cookbooks were for my mother.

  Mrs. T related how a young woman came into the library Sunday and asked for my books because she heard I lived here. She couldn’t afford the thirty dollars for a temporary library card so she could take them out, though, so Mrs. Terwilliger found her a damaged copy from the paperback trade rack. The girl said she hoped to stay in the Harbor a while, if she could find a job. Then she’d get a library card, first thing.

  The librarian wanted to know if Dr. Matt was still looking for office help. She’d get a résumé from the young woman when she brought the book back, as promised.

  I’d ask Matt. He might need a temp for when Marta had to take a kid to the doctor or one of them got sick. Right now, I needed to ask Mrs. Terwilliger what she thought was precious.

  “Why, books, of course, but they don’t do well underwater, naturally. The beach is bad enough, when sand gets under the plastic slipcover and gets in the spine. A library card is perhaps more priceless than any individual book. Read a book, open a mind, I always say. And it’s free. I’d issue one to your sand people, but they have to be able to write their names. We can forgo the proof of residency, since everyone knows where they live, but not that.”

  I appreciated that she readily accepted how I’d seen creatures no one else could see, creatures that couldn’t possibly be of our universe. They existed on my word and in Professor Harmon’s memory, and they stole our sand. That was enough for her and the other esper villagers.

  I got that same trust and the same good wishes at the deli and the grocery store. And the same question about Matt’s office help. No one was hiring this time of year, but they felt sorry for the young woman who’d come by on Sunday, so conscientiously asking in every business establishment.

  I remembered the girl’s voice I’d heard when Deni pretended to be a female fan. This girl had brown hair, though, not the black Mrs. Abbottini had seen on her mugger. She had glasses that Mrs. Abbottini never mentioned. According to Joanne, she did not drive a Mustang, either, but an old rattletrap van. Joanne thought she was sleeping in it. I felt sorry for this kid, but I had more important business right now.

  Vincent the barber deemed his family, his skill, his customers, and his community as precious to him. The little bastards were already claiming the Harbor’s most valuable commodity though, shovelful by shovel. He’d sacrifice his fancy German Jaguar scissors if I thought that could help.

  Walter at the drugstore didn’t hand any of us freebies in a bag, to my companions’ regrets. I still had some at Matt’s house, if I ever got there again. Walter did offer a portrait of his great-grandmother, a truth-seer in her day. The portrait still saw. The eyes followed viewers around, and Walter vowed the mouth puckered up in disapproval or gave a slight smile, depending on if a lie was heard. Walter knew the thi
ng was a masterpiece of mentalism, but he’d be glad to get it out of his house.

  I doubted the Andanstans wanted a dead divinator either, but I took it because the painting held great magic.

  Mr. Whitside at the bank asked if I thought the sandmen would take gold coins with presidents on them. No one else seemed to want them. They were wondrously shiny, so I put one in my pocket.

  So it went, all through town, encouragement, but not a lot of great possibilities. I had a dragon’s hoard of treasure, some sentimental, some with appraisal slips. Some making no sense at all, like the free bowling passes. It was the thought that counted.

  We went to Rosehill to see what Jimmie thought, now that he felt better.

  He took me aside while Lily offered coffee and apple pie. I worried about how pale he looked, how he turned down the pie.

  He’d been thinking, he told me. (And drinking, Carinne told me.) He knew what the Andanstans wanted. They’d saved lives. They should have one back. His.

  “No!”

  “Yes, my dear. You said it yourself. I am precious to you, which I truly do appreciate. But that’s about all. Rosehill can get along without me now that Monte shows some signs of humanity. You have all my notes so the book can get done without me, too. And I am old, old and tired, without much to look forward to. What better way to go than saving this lovely place that did so much for me in my dotage? Saving it so my new friends can stay and enjoy the beauties of their surroundings? I found the best bottle of Scotch in the wine cellars here, which I intend to enjoy every last drop of, then walk into the water. It’s cold this time of year, you know. It won’t take long. I doubt I’ll feel a thing, full of spirits almost as old as I am. With luck, the Andanstans will take me back with them and I’ll get to see their world again. If not, I have seen it before, which is a memory I shall cherish. That and the friendship of you and dear Carinne.”

  “No! We need you! And Oey will not let them take you. She thinks you belong to her, she thinks all of us do. I need your help with the book and I need you to stay until it’s done, to get the recognition you deserve. I need you to tell stories to the triplets. We’ll find another way to save the Harbor. I know we will, if we just keep trying. Promise me you will not do this crazy thing. I’ll . . . I’ll pour out your liquor, see if I don’t.” I held his hand, devastated at how frail it felt, how trembly. “Please. I need you.”