Rituals

by Mary Anna Evans

  No argument on Earth would be sufficient to convince Faye that this “surprise” announcement had not been planned.

  Tumult ensued, despite repeated bangs of the gavel. Faye could see all six sitting council members scanning the crowd. The reason was obvious. They were recounting votes, trying to decipher whether or not the election would go their way, now that Ennis had shifted his family’s allegiance and upset the natural order of things. Ennis himself was being besieged by right-sitting citizens, anxious to welcome him into the fold. Those on the left were more reserved. Some sat in silence, while others huddled in small groups to talk political strategy.

  In an action that surely violated Robert’s Rules of Order, the councilor holding the gavel banged it three times and declared that the meeting would be adjourned with no further discussion.

  Myrna was alone, sidling slowly away from the crowd around Ennis. Somebody needed to go get her before she fell.

  Faye looked around for Dara, wondering why she hadn’t already rescued her aunt, until she realized that Dara and Willow were doing their performance. They had a lot riding on the results of this meeting, but the show must go on.

  Myrna’s peers didn’t look capable of whisking her out of harm’s way, so Faye took action. Slithering through gaps in the crowd, Faye reached the front of the room swiftly and took her friend by the arm. It was one of those situations where being small and determined paid off.

  Avery was right behind her. They ushered Myrna out, then Faye sat with her on a streetside bench while Avery went to get her truck. As far as Myrna was concerned, the two-block walk home might as well have been twenty miles.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Toni walked alone on the sidewalk of Main Street. Rosebower was in the process of eating itself alive, and she had left early because she couldn’t bear to watch. She didn’t know whether the evening’s events saddened her or sickened her. These were people who claimed to be in contact with spirits on a higher plane, yet they tore at each other like jackals.

  Toni was pretty sure that if she were able to speak to her dead parents, they would say, “Love one another while you’re all still alive.” They wouldn’t say, “Go after every cent you can grab while you can. We wish we had.”

  It was almost time to leave Rosebower, but she had one or two things to do before she went.

  ***

  Faye and Avery had positioned themselves on either side of Myrna. They each had a shoulder in one of her armpits, giving her enough support to walk up her own porch steps. The three women were having a repetitive conversation. Faye and Avery had both spoken several sentences that included the word “doctor.” Myrna had displayed an astonishing ability to find different ways to say, “No.”

  As they made their way across the broad porch, a light flicked on inside and Dara opened the door. Her face was oily slick, because only a heavy, greasy cleanser will remove stage makeup. The wet washcloth in her hand was already beige, black, and red, but Faye could see that she still had more cleansing to do.

  “Auntie, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m just tired. I’ll feel better with a cup of tea, and please dear, would you put a generous splash of Sister Mama’s home brew in it? I keep a bottle in the back of the pantry to serve to guests. You’ll know it when you see it. Her handwriting is on the label.”

  “You want a drink? With alcohol in it?”

  Myrna shook off her protectors, making her own way into the parlor so steadily that Faye knew Dara would never believe that her aunt was sick enough to be hauled to the doctor against her will.

  Lowering herself into a chair embroidered heavily with crewel work, Myrna slipped off her shoes and rested her swollen feet on a matching footstool. “Yes, alcohol. You can check my ID if you like, but I assure you that I’m of age.” Her breathing sounded much better, as if being at home calmed all her body’s systems.

  Dara knelt by Myrna’s chair and rubbed her aunt’s hands. Faye could see that they were swollen, too.

  “I’ll get you some tea and some home brew. How about some of your special candy?”

  Myrna gave a firm nod. “And don’t forget my bedtime dose of whatever it is that Sister Mama prescribed. Her herbs and roots help me. I can tell.”

  “Would you like some spiritual time with me afterward? I can move this comfy chair into the séance room for you.”

  “No.” Faye had never heard Myrna snap at Dara, but there was a distinct snappish tone to her “no.”

  “Whatever you say, Auntie.”

  “If Tilda has a message for me, she’ll come out and say it. There’s no need for the two of us to sit in an airless little room and wait for her to come. She’s here.” The swollen hands gestured to include the entire room, all of Rosebower, maybe all the world. “Those of you with spiritual gifts set too much store in the trappings of it all. Crystal balls are silly. They’re just lumps of rock.”

  Myrna closed her eyes as if to end the conversation, but she let a few more words escape. “Faye and Avery, I’m grateful for your help. Dara, I’ll be grateful for the tea and candy, but I’ll be way more grateful for Sister Mama’s handiwork. It’s hard, preparing for a career in politics. I may need to take up cigar smoking.” With a sigh, she settled into her rest.

  On her way to the kitchen, Dara beckoned for Avery and Faye to join her. “Politics?”

  Faye knew no other way to say it. “Rosebower imploded at the council meeting tonight. Myrna has decided that running for Tilda’s seat is the only way to save the town.”

  “I wish I’d been there to stop her. Working every night gets old sometimes.” She remembered the condition of her face and grabbed a paper towel. A few swipes across her face did a decent job of taking off another layer of greasepaint. “Oh, who am I kidding? Nobody can stop Auntie when she’s on a mission. She looks pretty good tonight, doesn’t she?” She directed the question at Avery. “Better than yesterday?”

  “Better than an hour ago. Lots better. You do realize that she’s sicker than she thinks she is,” Avery said.

  “I’m sleeping here tonight. Willow will be here tomorrow night. One of us needs to stay at our house to walk the dogs and do all the chores that old houses need you to do, but we can swap off. Auntie will only be alone for a couple of hours a day, while we’re performing. As for a career in politics…let’s see how she feels between now and the next council meeting. In the meantime, I’m glad you’re both here. I was planning to ask for a favor.”

  Faye couldn’t imagine what kind of favor would involve both her and Avery, but she said only, “What kind of favor are you talking about?”

  “I’d like to talk to my mother.”

  So would I, Faye thought, but she’s just as dead as yours. All she said out loud was, “I’m sure that would be a comfort to you.”

  “I’d hoped that she would come to me on her own, but it’s been days. I want to hold a séance and ask her to come.”

  Of course she wanted to hold a séance. Now that Faye thought about it, she was surprised that Dara hadn’t already done it. She was born to the Spiritualist faith. Talking to dead people would be a natural way for her to deal with grief.

  “I can hardly sleep. I should have made peace with her years ago. I should have held my tongue. I should never have said anything to her, except, ‘I love you, Mother.’ I should—” she swallowed. “I want to tell her I’m sorry. I want to establish the kind of communion that we should have had in life. I never thought she’d be gone.”

  Surely Dara wasn’t serious. Her mother had been over eighty. Believing that she’d never be gone had been the very definition of denial.

  “I will attempt to contact my mother tomorrow morning. I’d like you and your daughter to attend.”

  Faye hadn’t seen that one coming. Instead of blurting out “Why?” she asked, “Morning? Don’t you have to do séances in the dark?”


  “That’s why Auntie’s séance room has no windows. It’s always dark in there.”

  Dara’s brittle and off-kilter tone and her loopy smile reminded Faye of Billie Burke’s rendition of Glinda the Good in The Wizard of Oz. As Faye grappled for a response, Dara kept talking in that strange, dissociated voice.

  “You have to come. You were the last to see her alive. Your daughter and Auntie are just as important, as they shared spiritual time with her so close to her passing.”

  “So it would be just the three of us?”

  “No, we need someone else to reach my mother, someone with rare power. She was so independent and autonomous. She will not necessarily come readily.”

  “Willow?”

  “He will be there to assist. I’ll need him to interpret and take notes, but he won’t sit among us. We need someone else, someone strong. Sister Mama, I think. She has a powerful spiritual connection and she was close to Mother. We still need one more.”

  “Won’t that little room be crowded?”

  “It will hold six at the table, plus an assistant. I’ve seen it many times. And we obviously can’t have five at the table.”

  Her reasoning wasn’t clear to Faye. “Obviously?”

  “Jesus had five wounds. This is why the pentagram is such a powerful symbol. There can be any number of participants at a séance, except five.”

  Faye choked on the words, “If you say so,” because she could already hear the sarcastic dismissal of Dara’s religion that would be in the tone of her voice. Instead, she said, “My husband will be here. He could come.”

  Dara wasn’t listening. “You, Avery. You will come,” she declared in a voice that didn’t invite discussion. Her persona had morphed from ditzy Glinda the Good to the commanding presence that dominated a stage every single night. “There’s a reason you’re still in Rosebower, though you never say what it is. If this fire had been routine, you’d be gone. You’re still here because you have questions. Whatever they are, I want to see them answered as much as you do. My mother knows the answers. You’ll be the sixth person at the table.”

  When the decision was reached, Dara’s mood shifted again. The stage persona dropped away. She reverted to a middle-aged woman wiping cleanser off her face while she worried about a loved one. “I’m very grateful to you both for bringing Auntie home.”

  A moment later, Faye found herself standing with Avery on the front porch, having been hustled out the front door almost by magic.

  Faye pulled her phone out of the pocket and checked the time. “It’s nine-thirty. Let’s say we got here at nine-fifteen. Dara looked like she’d just gotten home from work, didn’t she?”

  “Yep. And she couldn’t have staged that face-washing routine for our benefit, because she didn’t know we were coming. Unless they ended the show early on the night of the fire—and wouldn’t it be stupid to create a whole room full of witnesses who knew she and her husband left work early enough to kill her mother?—I’d say that Dara and Willow are in the clear.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you just saying ‘Maybe,’ because you don’t like them?”

  “Maybe.”

  Avery pulled her keys out of her purse. “Where are you planning to wait for Amande to pick you up? The diner? Would you like a ride?”

  “It’s only a few blocks. I can be there before you get your truck out of that tight parallel parking spot.”

  Avery jingled the keys in her hand. “Let me ask you something. How well do you know Toni Caruso?”

  “As well as I know anybody in Rosebower, including you. I met her less than a week ago. I like her. She’s one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, but it’s not like we’ve had a bunch of heart-to-heart talks. Why?”

  “I noticed you sitting with her tonight. I was a little surprised to see her show her face, when you consider the rumors flying around town about her.”

  “Rumors?”

  “You haven’t heard about her getting kicked out of the diner yesterday?”

  “Kicked out? For what? Did somebody find out about her book?” They had reached Avery’s truck. Rather than unlock it, Avery leaned against the driver’s door and considered her answer to Faye’s questions.

  “I don’t know about any book, but the whole town knows she’s a magician who is on record as saying that Spiritualism is a pile of horse crap.” At Faye’s raised eyebrow, she said, “Well, she probably didn’t use quite those words, but she has been informed that she is not welcome at the diner, and she’s probably not welcome in any business owned by a true believer in life on the other side. I’m guessing that this is why she disappeared after the meeting, rather than coming with you to help Myrna. Nevertheless, people who disappear at strange times make me suspicious.”

  Faye had been too caught up in helping Myrna to wonder where Toni went. “So the old geezers hate her, and the New Age upstarts hate her, too?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Is that why you were asking me about her?”

  “I asked because I’m very curious about what she was doing on the night that Tilda Armistead died. She’s like you, in some ways. She doesn’t fit into the usual Rosebower patterns. She’s a wild card.”

  Faye remembered Toni’s hands, making cards appear and vanish for Amande’s amusement. Toni’s profession made her naturally secretive. This didn’t make a killer. “I can’t imagine Toni hurting Tilda, but that’s no help to you, because I can’t imagine anybody wanting to hurt someone so gentle. Yet somebody did. I do know where Toni was on Monday night, though.”

  “She wasn’t with you, because I know where you were.”

  “No, she wasn’t with me. She told me she watched Willow and Dara perform that night.”

  “It’s better than nothing, but I’m not sure I can get any witnesses, since the audience is generally full of tourists who would be long gone by now. If she paid for her ticket with a credit card, there would be a paper trail.”

  “Even if you prove she bought a ticket, that’s no guarantee she actually went to the show.”

  “No,” Avery said, “but it’s a start.” She gave Faye a short goodbye wave. “Go. I know your daughter drove to the airport to pick up your husband, just so you could stay here and watch Rosebower be dysfunctional. You want to be at the diner when they get there. Go tell him hello, and leave the investigating to professionals…um…to one professional. Me. I can handle it, Faye.”

  ***

  Joe and Amande arrived at the diner before Faye had finished her apple pie. Dwight was a man of his word. The pie had been free, and so had the cup of decaf that came with it. This was good because when she saw Amande pull into a parking slot, she was out the door without a thought for paying the bill.

  It had been hard, being without Joe. Faye could take care of herself and she could take care of her kids. What she needed in a partner was a man who shared the load. She buried her face in Joe’s thick coarse hair.

  He said, “I planned this trip right. Here I am on Friday night, with a weekend to play before we have to work.”

  She went on sniffing his hair while she said, “Sorry, dear. We’re working tomorrow. You need to talk some sense into our client. Amande and I have letters to transcribe. Oh, and Amande and I need to be here early, because our assistance is needed at a séance.”

  His big hands gripped her shoulders as he placed a kiss on the top of her head. “I knew you were going to say something like that.”

  Working notes for Pulling the Wool Over Our Eyes:

  An Unauthorized History of Spiritualism in Rosebower, New York

  by Antonia Caruso

  I need to rethink this book. Maybe I’ve gathered enough data to write a credible narrative. Maybe I haven’t. Maybe it’s not safe for me to be here any longer.

  Even if this is true, I’m not willing to give up my book,
but it may need restructuring. Maybe I only have enough background on Rosebower to fill a single chapter, but I could find other longstanding deceptions to debunk. There is no shortage of them. I can still write a book that will show the world’s fakers to be the cheats that they are. It might not be the book I came here to write, but it will do its job.

  If I leave, and I suppose I shall, I have a few things to do before I go. I want badly to get my hands on the letters that passed between Virginia Armistead and her sultan friend. Faye Longchamp-Mantooth is not going to give me access to them until they’re accessible to the public and other scholars. I will need to file an advance request with Samuel so I can have access when that time comes. Because I think he is no more capable of running a research facility than a toy poodle, I will also ask Faye to let me know when the museum is open for business. I think she’ll do that, as a matter of professional courtesy. If not, I shall badger Samuel until he gives me the right answer.

  The other two things I need to do while I’m in Rosebower can be accomplished at the same time. The first one is simple. They’re both simple, actually.

  First, I want video of Dara and Willow as they perform. I will never crack their code without watching the tricks over and over again, back to back. Hidden cameras are awkward and they carry a risk of discovery. Until now, I haven’t wanted to take that risk, but I’ve already been exposed as a magician and I’m leaving town. What do I have to lose? The only risk I will incur by taping tomorrow night’s performance is being publicly embarrassed. I’m fifty-six years old. I will survive a little embarrassment.

  I own a concealed camera that looks like a wristwatch. (You may be asking why I own such a thing. Well, a magician wants to keep up with her competition, and if an illusion is good, even the best practitioner may have trouble figuring it out on the first viewing. I only steal from the best.)