Apparently satisfied with his samples, the medical examiner followed Bill over to where the skull rested in the grass.
“Well,” I said, rubbing my legs and watching Tink. “Do you want to go home now? I can come out in the morning and get our stuff.”
Tink and Nell exchanged a look Chris caught. Reaching out, she took Tink’s hand in hers. “Don’t worry about the other campers. I bet T.P.’s going to be a hero before this story is finished making the rounds,” she said with a smile. “Why don’t you still stay the night, Tink? All the excitement’s over.”
Tink’s eyes darted back to Nell.
“Come on,” Nell said with a playful jab. “Mom’s brought marshmallows, and we can make s’mores.”
“Ophelia?” Tink asked with hesitation.
I glanced at Chris. I appreciated her kindness to Tink and decided I should make more of an effort to know her better.
“Sure,” I replied with a grin. “Whatever you want to do, sweetie. Only wash the dog first. I’m not sleeping with a smelly puppy.”
The girls ran off to wash the stinky puppy.
Chris was wrong about the excitement being over. Later that evening, after a relaxing evening roasting marshmallows and making s’mores around the campfire, and right before the witching hour, Tink’s nightmare screams echoed through the campground.
Eleven
Tink and I were up at dawn to break camp. I wanted her out of there before the campground came to life. She didn’t need to endure the stares of the other campers. As we pulled down the tent, a much easier job than erecting it, we tried to be as quiet as possible. Nell’s family still slept in their tent, and I didn’t want to wake them. I decided I’d give Nell’s parents a call later that evening and make my apologies for our hasty departure. Tink’s nightmares should be easy to explain, right? She was a sensitive fourteen-year-old, and who wouldn’t be freaked over her dog bringing home a human skull?
Before pulling onto the blacktop leading back to Summerset, I cast a worried glance at Tink. She sat slumped in the passenger seat with her baseball cap pulled low on her forehead.
Focusing my attention back on the road, I thought about how to frame my question. I didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was, yet I needed to know the details of her nightmare.
“Want to tell me about the dream?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
She turned toward the window and watched the early morning landscape fly by.
The sun was higher in the hazy sky now, indicating the day would be a hot one. Low trailing fingers of fog reached across the green pastures and settled in the gullies. Outside the car window, I heard the calling of the crows as they circled on the horizon.
A peaceful summer morning.
I sensed the opposite in Tink. Distress resonated around her like an energy field.
“Well?” I insisted.
With a sigh, she tipped her head back against the head rest and pulled a tan leg underneath her. “It was sort of the same dream as before. I was walking down the path in the woods when I noticed a terrible odor—”
I cut her off. “The same way T.P. smelled?”
“Yeah,” she replied hesitantly.
“What happened next?” I prodded.
She shuddered, obviously recalling the dream. “The corpses came out of the woods, just like before, only this time some of them were missing parts of their bodies.” Tink shuddered again.
I sensed her reluctance to continue. Reaching out, I laid a hand on her bare knee. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.”
“No, it’s better if I tell you about the dream. Maybe you can figure out why I’m having them.” She sat up tall in her seat and I felt her eyes on me. “As some of the spirits reached out to me, I saw they had no hands. Just raw stumps. And the expression on their faces was awful.”
“In what way?”
“Like they couldn’t figure out what happened to their hands.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tink’s face twist into a frown. “Like they expected me to explain it to them. Dumb, huh?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not dumb, but I don’t get it.”
“Do you think it was a dream or a vision?”
The same question that she’d asked me before, and I caught the hopeful note in her voice. I knew she wanted reassurance that the dream was nothing more than a nightmare triggered by T.P.’s little present. However, the more often these dreams occurred, the more convinced I became that someone or something was trying to tap into Tink’s skills as a medium.
“I’m sorry, Tink, but I think your dreams are probably some kind of vision,” I said as gently as possible.
“You or Abby aren’t sensing anything?” she asked, picking at the seat upholstery.
I glanced at her. Should I tell her about the rune reading? I saw the lines of worry on her normally smooth forehead and decided not to. If I told her, it might only add to her unease.
“No. Neither Abby or I have picked up anything unusual.”
Tink noticed the delay in my reply, and I felt the weight of her stare. “You sure?” she asked skeptically.
“Of course I am,” I replied with a bravado I didn’t feel.
“You’re not hiding anything from me?”
I shook my head emphatically. “No. If I knew what was going on, I’d tell you.”
“Even if you thought not telling me was for my own good?” she persisted.
This kid was really putting me on the spot. The rune reading had been ambiguous at best, and until I knew I’d interpreted them correctly, I intended to keep my mouth shut.
“Look,” I said in an effort to change the subject, “when we get home, I’ll call Abby. Maybe she and Aunt Dot can come over. We’ll have lunch or something—”
Tink’s snort stopped me. “You’ll have to cook.”
“Okay, so I have to cook,” I replied with a wave of my hand. “I can surely come up with something. And while Abby and I are talking, it’s going to be your job to keep Aunt Dot busy.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know…take her out in the backyard and search for fairies.”
Tink nodded. “I can do that.” She paused. “You don’t think Aunt Dot could help?”
“Oh boy, I don’t think we want to go there.” I gripped the steering wheel tighter at the thought of getting Aunt Dot involved in this mess. She might see it as an opportunity to pull us into Buchanan’s murder investigation.
I had no intention of allowing that to happen.
True to her word, Tink kept Aunt Dot busy while I talked to Abby. The fairy-seekers made a lazy circle around the edge of the backyard. Aunt Dot clung tightly to Tink’s arm as she walked over the uneven ground. And with her other hand, she waved her gnarled cane as she pointed to the trees and flowers ringing our yard. Tink would nod her head wisely, as if everything Aunt Dot told her made perfect sense. T.P. followed close on their heels, and for once he wasn’t running madly through the grass. It was almost as if he were listening to Aunt Dot, too.
Abby sat on the patio in one of the lawn chairs and kept one eye on them, while I stood in front of the barbecue, grilling steaks. Lady lay curled up at her feet.
“What’s wrong with Queenie?” Abby asked, pointing to where the cat sat a short distance away and stared at me with pure contempt.
“She’s mad,” I said, flipping one of the steaks. “We’ve been gone so much, and Her Majesty hasn’t been receiving the attention she thinks she so richly deserves.”
As if to prove me wrong, Queenie rose and sauntered over to Abby. With a leap, she settled herself on Abby’s lap and began to purr, rubbing her face against Abby’s. And as she did, the cat’s expression seemed to say, I like your grandmother best.
Shaking my head, I picked up the conversation we’d been having. “You agree? You think the spirits are reaching out to Tink. They want her help.”
“Yes,” Abby replied as she stroked Queenie.
“Why aren’t we sensing anything?”
“This has to do with spirits, and we’re not mediums,” Abby said in an even tone.
“But we’re psychics. Shouldn’t we know what this is all about?”
Abby sighed. “You’d think so. There could be various reasons why nothing has been revealed to us. Maybe it’s not our portion, maybe it’s Tink’s destiny to—”
“Hold on,” I exclaimed, stopping her. “Tink’s just a kid. She can’t handle—”
“Ophelia, Tink may be young, but she is a medium. You can’t protect her from her gift,” Abby said gently. “All you can do is teach her how to use that talent.”
“How do you suggest we do that, since, as you pointed out, we aren’t mediums?”
“We can guide her…” Abby’s voice trailed away as she focused on Aunt Dot and Tink. “We could ask the spirits what they want.”
I shivered in spite of the heat. “No, we’re not having a séance.”
“We’d be there to protect her. To shield her.”
“Ha,” I said, shutting the grill lid. “Remember last time we had a séance? A ghost haunted my house for two weeks. That’s all I need—a bunch of them taking up residence now. Especially ones that reek of rotting flesh. I might not be able to see them, and I sure as heck don’t want to smell them.”
Abby’s face lost some of its color at my statement. “I see what you mean.” She thought for a moment. “We could hold it in my summerhouse.”
For fifty years Abby’s summerhouse had been her private place of magick. It would be tough for any ghost to overcome all that accumulated energy.
“I don’t know,” I said with hesitation. “I still don’t like the idea of putting Tink through that.”
“They won’t leave her alone, you know.” Abby studied Tink carefully as she escorted Aunt Dot around the yard. “Is it better for her to be tormented by nightmares?”
Good point. “No.”
Abby shooed Queenie off her lap and joined me at the grill. “We don’t need to hold a séance right this minute, but we do need to consider all our options,” she said as she put her arm around my shoulder.
“I know.” A feeling of hopelessness nagged at me. “I don’t want to keep going over this, but I can’t get past why we’re not picking up on the problem. We both love Tink—we should be able to sense the reason these spirits are zeroing in on her.”
“It’s not so unusual,” she said with a squeeze meant to reassure. “There have been times in your life when you were in danger and I didn’t realize it. You were the original target when Brian was killed, but I missed it.”
“Why is that?” I asked, my forehead creasing in a frown as I opened the lid of the grill.
“It’s the way it works sometimes,” Abby replied with a shrug. “We’re not supposed to be ‘all-knowing.’”
“Well—”
Before I could continue, Abby looked up at the sky and shook her head. “Don’t fight it, my dear. Accept it. The only thing you can do is use your gift to try and pierce the veil that surrounds her.”
“I’ve already done a rune reading. At first I thought it meant the course was set, but now, the more I think about it, I think the reading pertained to the adoption.”
“You didn’t ask about the adoption.”
“I know,” I replied with confidence, “but I’m sure that’s what the runes were showing me.”
“Are you?” She lifted an eyebrow.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you seeing what’s truly there, or just what you want to see?” Abby dropped her arm from my shoulder.
I pursed my lips in a stubborn line. “I’m seeing what’s there.”
The doubt was apparent on Abby’s face.
“I am,” I replied defensively as I slid my attention to the steaks on the grill.
A nudge stopped any further conversation. Aunt Dot and Tink were making their way to the patio.
“This girl’s got talent,” Aunt Dot said, hugging Tink to her side. “The fairies like her. It won’t be long until she sees them, too.”
I exchanged a look with Abby.
Great, first ghosts and now fairies. Boy, was my house going to be crowded.
Placing the steaks on the meat platter, I handed them to Tink. “That’s interesting, Aunt Dot. Food’s ready, so let’s eat,” I said.
I had enough on my mind without listening to any more of Aunt Dot’s theories about Tink’s talents.
Abby understood. As we all took our places around the patio table, she chose a new topic.
“How was the speed dating?” she asked.
In all the excitement, I’d forgotten about Christopher. I hadn’t been online since before we left for the campground, so if he’d tried to reach me, I’d missed his message. Dang.
“I don’t have time to date,” I replied, covering up my disappointment.
“Then why did you go?” Abby persisted.
I cut my steak. “Because Darci wouldn’t take no for an answer, and—”
“She met a doctor,” Tink teased.
Abby cocked her head and eyed me with interest. “Really?”
“Yeah, so?” I gave a nonchalant shrug.
“Well, if he asks, I definitely think you should go out with him,” Abby announced.
“Why?”
“It will do you good.” She gave a quick nod. “Stepping back from a situation and having a little fun can often help you see things more clearly.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but Aunt Dot didn’t give me a chance.
“Did you read the Sunday paper?” Her voice quivered.
“No, why?”
“Mr. Buchanan’s funeral is tomorrow afternoon.”
Tink’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. Without a word, she laid it on her plate.
“Aunt Dot, let’s not talk about funerals while we’re eating,” I said with a nod toward Tink. Aunt Dot knew of Tink’s reaction to Buchanan’s murder, and after the nightmares last night, I didn’t want her upset again.
“Don’t see why not.” Her lip came out in a pout. “Death’s a part of life, girl.”
“Yes, but…” I jerked my head again, trying to get Aunt Dot to pick up the hint.
Finally understanding, she waved her fork, dismissing my concern. “Oh that. I’ve got a plan,” she said in a way that reminded me of Darci—a way that usually boded ill for me.
Ignore her, ignore her, said a voice inside my head. Change the subject.
But before I had a chance, Tink folded her hands in her lap and focused on Aunt Dot. “What plan?”
Aunt Dot turned toward Tink, her eyes wide with excitement. “On Law and Order the cops always stake out the funeral. So all we need to do…”
Abby and I both winced.
“…is go to the funeral,” she announced with satisfaction.
Twelve
As I walked into the viewing room at the funeral home in Aiken, the overpowering smell of carnations assaulted my senses. Mr. Buchanan’s casket had to be surrounded by at least thirty different floral arrangements. And the spray on top of the open casket was elaborate, to say the least. It contained roses, carnations, lilies, and mementos of his life. I spied several fishing lures attached to the ribbon that said Beloved Husband in scrolled gold letters. A beat-up hat with more hooks and fishing flies fastened to the crumpled crown lay propped up against the coffin’s lid. Evidently, Mr. Buchanan liked to fish.
The first two rows were empty—waiting for the family to join the group. With a hand firmly on Aunt Dot’s arm, I hurried her to the back row. The last thing I wanted was for her to peer down at the deceased Mr. Buchanan as if she could detect a clue to his murder. If we had to be there, we could at least be as unobtrusive as possible.
She’d selected her
purple pantsuit to wear today. Her purse was gripped tightly in one hand, and I eyed it with skepticism. It had taken a lot of persuasion to convince her that including a camera to snap pictures of the mourners would be inappropriate, but I wasn’t so sure she’d listened. Oh well, Abby could sit next to her, and if a camera popped out, she could wrestle it away from her.
Abby looked classy in her black suit and her pale rose-colored blouse, but I knew by her expression that there were a million places she’d rather be.
Tink was the one who really concerned me. I hadn’t wanted her to come. I suggested that she spend the day with Nell, but she insisted that she be here. When Abby weighed in on Tink’s side, I caved in. I still questioned the wisdom of allowing a fourteen-year-old medium inside a funeral home, but Abby thought that leaving Tink out would only add to the guilt she still felt.
After taking the chair next to Tink, I squirmed uncomfortably. The tag at the collar of my white shirt seemed to make the back of my neck itch. Or maybe it wasn’t the tag that was making me twitch. Maybe it was the idea of horning in on a complete stranger’s funeral.
I cast a side glance at Tink. Abby held her hand tightly, and I knew she was adding her energy to Tink’s to prevent any unwelcome messages from beyond to filter through.
I shifted my attention to the crowd filing past Mr. Buchanan’s casket. I’d been so intent on getting Aunt Dot as far from the body as possible that I hadn’t noticed the young man who was standing at the foot of the coffin with his hands solemnly folded in front of him. It was the same young man who had picked Buchanan up at the airport. Couldn’t be a son, I thought. If he was a Buchanan, he’d be with the family gathered in another room as they waited for the service to start.
His role in Buchanan’s life became apparent when I saw him hand one of the funeral programs to someone as they moved away from the casket. He worked here.
He caught me staring at him, and a flicker of surprise showed in his pale blue eyes. He bobbed his head slightly in recognition.
Kid’s got a good memory, I thought.
Returning my concentration to the crowd filing into the room, I scanned each face, searching for a sign of remorse, a fleeting expression of guilt, anything unusual in their demeanor that might indicate they were hiding something.
The Witch Is Dead Page 9
