Seances Are for Suckers

by Tamara Berry

  “That sounds promising,” I say. Maybe she’s finally been bitten by the hospitality bug. “What are we having, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Thomas’s laugh portends all kinds of doom—and that’s not my paranormal senses speaking. It’s my stomach. “I heard mention of something involving canned ham and aspic. But don’t worry—I’ll slip you a sandwich when the lady of the castle isn’t looking. You look like you could use it.”

  Visions of gelatinous meat products wobbling across the Hartford dining table send an unearthly shiver down my spine.

  “A blessing on you and all your future offspring,” I say in an appropriately mystical voice. “Make it two sandwiches, and I’ll bless your grandchildren too.”

  * * *

  The birds make an appearance after dinner.

  Their arrival couldn’t have been better planned. Spiritually speaking, white pigeons are a great way to get things moving, since they’re well-known as harbingers of doom. Many an urban legend tells the tale of a white bird landing on a doorstep to the delight of the family inside . . . only to find them devastated by a sudden death within the week.

  As there are more than a million pigeons in New York City alone, there’s not much science behind this correlation, but my audience doesn’t know that. Especially since the birds pour out of the chimney in a flurry of feathers and mayhem.

  “Take cover!” Cal cries as he leaps to his feet and shrugs out of his jacket—this time fabricated in a more ubiquitous gray. I think, at first, that he’s going to use the jacket to shoo the birds away, but he wraps it around Fern and presses her head against his shoulder to protect her from an incoming swoop.

  It’s an unquestionably gallant gesture, and a pang of what I suspect might be jealousy fills me at the sight of it. I value my independence as both a woman and a professional—and Cal is hardly the man I’d choose to protect me from anything, let alone a few harmless birds—but there’s no denying that the person I love most in the world can’t save me from a paper cut. Even Liam would run screaming from the room before anything approaching a protective instinct kicked in.

  Without a Cal of her own to shield her, Rachel dives under the nearest chair with a declaration of “I bloody hate birds!” Nicholas goes so far as to raise an eyebrow at me, but I don’t have time to reply in kind before Vivian starts laughing and clapping her hands like a delighted child.

  “It’s Xavier!” she cries. “You see, Eleanor? He’s playing more tricks on you. Look at them go!”

  I do watch them go, all four of the white birds covered in soot, none of them particularly pleased at having been cannoned out of a chimney and into a room full of screaming humans. Common sense warns me to tell everyone to calm down and open the windows to give the poor creatures a chance to escape, but that doesn’t fit in with my persona. Instead, I stand up as quickly as I can—the better to force the blood away from my face and fill my visage with a ghostly pallor.

  “This is no trick,” I say in a low voice. I stand perfectly still as one of the birds lands on the seat of my chair, its beady eyes staring up at me. Like Nicholas, the bird’s gaze is both mocking and inquisitive. “It’s death, destruction, and despair.”

  Cal’s jacket doesn’t protect Fern from the weight of my words, and she looks at me with wide, horrified eyes. At least, I think they’re wide and horrified. She came down to dinner in a silver ball gown and fake eyelashes so thick she can barely see through them. “What are you talking about?”

  Lifting a single finger, I point at the bird on the chair. “A white dove is a warning of imminent death. I repeat, this is no trick. It’s a message.”

  I have more to say on the subject, but my warning is interrupted by a loud crash as the well-oiled door of the parlor hits the wall. Thomas appears in the flannel and work boots I’m quickly coming to realize are his standard uniform. He’s also carrying a large net, which leads me to believe he’s come to save us.

  “Ah, Thomas.” Nicholas seems to share my pleasure at the sight of the man-of-all-work. “Your timing is impeccable. We appear to have an infestation.”

  “Not an infestation,” I correct him. “A premonition.”

  And then, because there’s something uncomfortably ordinary about the act of catching animals with nets, I go ahead and open the windows. From what I know of pigeons, they’re likely to find their way home just fine on their own.

  I also take a moment to mutter a pigeon-cleansing spell. Since I don’t actually know any pigeon cleansing spells, it amounts to a low-voiced loop of “peas and carrots rhubarb; rhubarb carrots and peas,” which is the go-to for both fake mediums and movie extras when you need to mimic speech but don’t have anything to say. I make the motion of the cross and step back to wait for the birds to depart.

  It’s all very theatrical, and three of the birds gratify my vanity by leaving almost immediately. The fourth, however, is a cheeky little bastard. He remains on the chair I vacated, staring up at me with his wee beady eyes.

  “Why isn’t he leaving?” Rachel asks from the safety of her chair cover.

  “It’s filthy,” Fern says. “Get it out of here, Thomas. And do hurry.”

  “Let’s keep him as a pet,” Vivian suggests. She turns to Nicholas. “Don’t we have that old dovecote in the garden, darling? Surely we could install him out there.”

  At the mention of the dovecote, Thomas casts an inquiring and—dare I say it—suspicious look my way. At the mention of the garden, Nicholas does the same, though there’s more amusement than suspicion in his glance.

  “This bird is not a pet,” I say, my tone firmly ominous. “He’s a messenger sent from beyond.”

  Rachel peeks her head out from under the chair. “What for?”

  Allowing my gaze to wander the room, I linger a moment on each face. “I told you already. Death. Destruction. De—”

  “Despair,” Nicholas finishes for me. “Yes, yes, we understood the first time. Thomas, please extract the animal and dispose of him as you see fit. Rachel, stop acting like a child and get out from under that chair. And Fern—” He looks at his sister and sighs. “Get her a stiff drink or something, won’t you, Cal? They’re only birds. They’ve probably been nesting in that chimney for months.”

  Put like that, it’s all very reasonable and level-headed, which is the last thing I want right now. This family needs to be shaken out of its comfort zone, forced into a place with fewer avian intruders and more confessions.

  “You won’t catch it,” I say, mentally willing the bird to take flight and follow its more accommodating brethren. “It’s not of our world.”

  And then, before anyone can notice, I nudge the chair with my foot. As I hope, the movement is enough to jostle the bird into flight. Although he doesn’t fly in an exact straight line out the window, it’s close enough to count as a success.

  Like horseshoes and atom bombs, being a psychic offers a little leeway in that department.

  * * *

  “Prophetic birds, Madame Eleanor? Surely we can do better than that. A mystic apparition, at the very least.”

  I don’t need my hidden surveillance equipment to tell me that Nicholas has followed me up to the hallway outside my bedroom.

  “I can only work with what I’m given, Nick,” I reply somewhat tartly. I turn to find that he’s not the least bit breathless from the stairs, once again leaning on the artichoke wallpaper as though he’s been installed in place for hours. Did he fly up here? Or use the secret passage? “I thought it went rather well, all things considered. I would have chosen a more opportune time to release them—an early-morning fog or during a séance, perhaps—but I suppose tonight’s performance was sufficient.”

  For what might be the first time, a look of perplexity crosses Nicholas’s face. It’s evident as a slight frown, which makes the heavy lines of his face seem almost lugubrious. “You would have chosen a more opportune time?” he echoes. “Do you mean you would have kept the poor creatures wedged inside the chimne
y until you were good and ready?”

  “I don’t know that I would have chosen the chimney at all,” I say with complete honesty. I can’t help thinking how much more ominous the birds would have been without those sooty spots on their wings. “The logistics were under consideration, obviously, but a chimney is rather pedestrian for my tastes. Still. Any progress is good progress. I’ll overlook your interference this time.”

  He blinks. “My interference?”

  “Yes. That is what you sent me to the garden for, isn’t it? To find the dovecote? You could have just informed me of your plans like a normal human being, you know. Mystery is supposed to be my thing.”

  He blinks again. “You mean you didn’t plant those birds?”

  Understanding begins to dawn—and with it, an eerie suspicion that I’m being had. “Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t plant them?”

  He doesn’t bother to blink this time. Instead, all I get is a gray-eyed stare that could turn a lesser woman to ice. Unfortunately for him, I’m no lesser woman. If I could be turned away by something as trifling as stony silence, I wouldn’t have a job.

  “Xavier,” I say with a sigh. I should have known. After that haphazard stunt in my room last night, angrily flapping birds are the next logical step. Sophisticated, this ghost is not.

  “You mean the human alternately known as Xavier,” Nicholas counters.

  “Cart-o-mancy, cart-a-mancy,” I say, adopting the singsong tone people use when discussing the correct pronunciation of tomatoes, potatoes, and other foods I’d give my left kidney for right about now. I find it works just as well for fortune-telling terminology. “Who has a dovecote around here?”

  “We do.”

  “Yes, thank you. I noticed it in the, ah, garden. Who has an active dovecote around here?”

  “We do,” he repeats, more firmly this time.

  “Um.” I examine him closely, looking for evidence that he might be lying or trying to lead me astray. I’m starting to feel that both of these things are a distinct possibility, even though he’s the one who asked me to come out here. A man who would hire a medium knowing she’s a fake as a means to eliminate a ghost he also knows is fake isn’t a man who’s at peace in his soul. That’s a fact.

  Not to mention, there’s that whole primogeniture thing Rachel mentioned earlier. If what she said is true, then the only thing that stands between Nicholas Hartford III and this gorgeous, decaying castle is a vivacious older woman who’s partial to athletic clothing and terrible food. I’m not sure how Xavier fits into the picture yet, but I don’t doubt he’s in there somewhere. Maybe Nicholas wants me to lend credence to the idea that his mother is unfit to make sound business decisions? Perhaps I’m being used as a means to convince her to hand over the reins?

  No answers are immediately forthcoming, and if I’d hoped to find anything in that stern, handsome face, I’m bound for disappointment. Nicholas doesn’t even bear the heavy look of bemusement anymore. He’s back on solid ground and clearly enjoying his position there.

  “I didn’t get to examine the dovecote as closely as I wanted, but it seemed pretty empty when I visited earlier today,” I say in my defense. “Someone must have extracted the birds before I got there.”

  “The question is, who?” he asks.

  Thomas. He was there, ready with the rake to save me. He was there, smelling of earthy things and outdoor pursuits. He was also keen on pulling me away from the garden and distracting me with secret smuggling tunnels.

  But I don’t say anything. Not yet. Like any good investigator—paranormal or otherwise—I don’t intend to start making accusations until I have proof. Or, at the very least, a motive. Other than full access to the pantry and the right to restock it at will, I can’t imagine what Thomas would have to gain from running the family out of the home with a fake specter.

  “I see it’s begun already,” Nicholas says after only a brief pause.

  “What’s begun?” I ask, wary.

  “The suspicions. The secrets. I’m not going to lie—I’ve been looking forward to this part.” He pushes himself off the wall, hands deep in his pockets. “But since neither Rachel nor Fern has ever handled livestock with anything but a fork, and I can’t see Cal running after live fowl, I’m guessing the person we’re tacitly avoiding accusing is Thomas. Either that, or it’s me.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but he interrupts with a mild “I have an alibi, if it helps. I was in London on business for most of the day.”

  Ah, yes. The educational materials. “I thought you liked Cal for the ghost. Does this mean Thomas falls under your suspicions now?”

  “Until these antics stop and we can all get back to our regularly scheduled lives, I suspect everyone.” He grows silent for a moment before adding, “Except you, of course.”

  I don’t care for the way he says that, as if I, too, am on his list of potential saboteurs. So far, I’ve done nothing but what he asked—and, given how little I have to go on, I think I’ve done it rather well.

  I’m about to say as much aloud, but he forestalls that, too.

  “Good night, Eleanor, and thank you for a most intriguing day,” he says and begins to saunter away. “I’m curious to see what the morrow will bring.”

  Despite myself, I nod at his retreating back. Given everything that’s happened so far, I’m rather curious on that subject myself.

  Chapter 10

  “How much are these people paying you, again?”

  I don’t care for Liam’s tone, which falls on the wary side of disdain. “You’re the one who’s always accusing me of robbing people. I thought you’d be pleased that I’m actually earning my fee for once.”

  “I just don’t understand, that’s all,” he says. “Why doesn’t this Nicholas guy hire a private investigator like a normal person? Or, even better, kick everyone out of his house and go on his merry way?”

  “Technically, it’s not his house.” I pause. “Yet.”

  “That still doesn’t explain the private investigator part.”

  I sigh and switch the phone to my other ear. I need my hands free to continue setting up separate trip wires over the window, door, and fireplace in my room. Each one is attached to an independent alarm that will get sent to my phone in the event of unauthorized entry. Anyone coming in through one of those portals tonight will find that I’m not so easily scared off.

  Anyone coming in through a different, secret entry point is okay with me, too. That will only confirm my belief that there’s a passage leading somewhere into this room. I suspect there might be some kind of crawlspace under the bed, but I can’t move the massive thing by myself. I tried, but it looks to be Elizabethan and weighs about two tons.

  “He doesn’t want his family to know they’re being investigated,” I explain.

  “They know you’re there investigating.”

  “Yes, but I’m looking for a ghost, not a person.”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “Yes, but they don’t know that.”

  “They—” he begins again before cutting himself off with a muttered curse. “Never mind. I don’t know why I bother.”

  “I don’t, either.” I finish setting up my alarm system and step back to admire it. The wires are made of high-tensile steel so thin you can barely see it with the naked eye. Once I flip the lights out for the night, no one will be able to tell they’re there. “And it’s not nearly as bad as you’re making it out to be. I’ll admit, this job’s a bit trickier than my usual work, since I can’t purge the ghost until I find out who it is, but I like it. It’s fun.”

  Liam’s voice is incredulous. “Nocturnal visits from strangers and birds pouring out of chimneys is fun?”

  “No one got hurt.”

  “So far.” He pauses again. “Did you finish booby-trapping your room?”

  I try one last time to shimmy underneath the bed, the phone still tucked under my ear, but there’s barely enough room there for dust bunnies
, let alone a human woman. “Yep,” I say and give up. If I can’t get under the bed, then I think it’s safe to assume no one else is sneaking in that way. “I’m snug and secure in here now. There will be no strange ghosts—or men—molesting me in my sleep.”

  A sigh that sounds about a thousand years old hits my ear. “I don’t like it. I looked a little into this Nicholas Hartford guy—did I tell you that?”

  “Nooo.” I don’t want to ask, want even less to give my brother a chance to show off, but anything that might be pertinent to my ghost search seems worth looking into. “What did you find?”

  “He’s a gazillionaire. Like, a legitimate Scrooge McDuck, rolling around in his pit of money.”

  “There are no pits of money around here. I checked.”

  Despite himself, Liam snorts a laugh. “I mean it, Ellie. By all accounts, he’s a pretty big deal. He runs like three textbook companies and also sells lab equipment to private schools.”

  “Everyone has to make a living,” I say.

  “To the tune of ten million a year?”

  “Some of us live better than others.”

  Liam sighs. “Just be careful, is all I’m saying. People can do terrible things when that kind of money is on the line.”

  But that kind of money isn’t on the line, I want to say. Nothing about the Hartford ghost has been the least bit malevolent. No one’s life has been put at risk; no one is making threats. If I had to make a firm guess right now, I’d say this house is being haunted by a bored, unhappy teenager—Nicholas’s concerns about Cal and Thomas notwithstanding.

  “I promise to leave the moment I feel I can’t handle things,” I say. “Though you could do me a favor and use those Google-fu skills to discover anything you can about a real estate developer named Cal Whitkin.”

  “What am I, your personal assistant?” Liam grumbles, but I know he’ll be good for it. “Why? What’s the matter with him?”

  “Poor volume control and terrible taste in clothing,” I instantly reply. On a more sober note, I add, “Nicholas also seems to think his real estate plans might include the acquisition of the Hartford family lands—at a discounted ghost rate, of course.”