Touch of Shadow

by April Aasheim

  “I’m a grown woman, Alex. You don’t have to protect me like you did in high school.”

  “Remember, just because he buys you dinner, it doesn’t mean you owe him dessert.” He wagged his finger at me. “Speaking of dessert, the pies are about to come out and I think mom might be hanging out in the kitchen.” With that, he darted through the door.

  I had to admit I looked good in the skirt. My legs were still shapely, though paler than I remembered. But fun and free women didn’t worry about such things. I put on my black cashmere cardigan, leaving the top two buttons undone. And for a touch of whimsy, I wore hoop earrings that dangled past my chin.

  Fun and free.

  My heels clicked along the sidewalk, in time with my chattering teeth. The wind tore at my hair and skirt all the way to The Lake House. It wasn’t a glamorous vision, a la Marilyn Monroe over an air vent, but was more akin to a chipmunk stuck in a wind tunnel. I could have asked for a ride, or even driven Dad’s old pickup, but I wanted to leave the house as inconspicuously as I could. I didn’t want my family to gush, like I was sixteen going to prom.

  I hurried along, trying to look dignified while keeping my skirt down. The sun had already set, and the faux antique street lamps lining the sidewalk were now casting a charming glow over the sleepy town.

  Main Street was ablaze with the thrill of Halloween, much to the delight of the tourists. Reed Hollow was founded by renegade witches who escaped Salem, and we advertised it every chance we got. A good legend meant big dollars.

  I was so caught up in the festive décor that I nearly smacked into a sign protruding from a planter:

  Vote Elmer! He’s the glue that keeps this town together!

  In the next planter was another sign:

  If you don’t vote Gus, youre mind’s probably rust!

  Gus used the same signs every election, never bothering to correct the grammatical error in the word “youre.” These signs had become like background noise in our town, popping up every other October, as predictably as the changing leaves and cooling weather. No one paid much attention to the signs anymore, but today they stood out like scarecrows in a barren field.

  For the first time, I wondered about Gus. The signs for Elmer’s perennial opponent had been around as long as I could recall, but I’d never actually seen the man. Legend held that Gus was a recluse – an old man that wandered the woods with a flask. No one knew why he wanted to be mayor, and until now I never questioned it, either.

  Then I noticed a new sign, on the opposite side of the street, protruding from a hay bale. Even though I could read the words, I drew closer anyway, as my mind registered the meaning:

  Keep Big Business out of Reed Hollow. Vote for Garett.

  Garett? Isn’t he Ella’s stepson, and Nick’s brother? This was a brand-new sign, created by a professional sign maker. But the mayor only died two days ago!

  Honk! Honk!

  I spun around as the town police car pulled up beside me. Deputy Markus was a roly-poly slug of a man. In his mid-thirties, he had found his true calling policing Reed Hollow’s shopping district. He rolled down the window and tipped his cap. “Evening, Miss.”

  “If you’re looking for Alex, he’s working,” I said preemptively.

  Markus shook his head. “I wasn’t going to ask where your brother was today – I was going to ask where he was on Tuesday afternoon, about the time the mayor died. I heard Alex and the old kook were friends. Never made sense to me before. But now…”

  I stared the deputy down. “Are you suggesting that my peace-loving, freedom-marching, won’t-eat-anything-that-even-touched-meat brother, had something to do with Elmer’s death? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  Markus drew his arm back inside the car, as if afraid of my touch. I twitched my fingers, just to put some fear into him. If anyone had secrets they didn’t want exposed, it was likely him.

  “I – I wasn’t suggesting anything like that,” he stammered.

  “It certainly sounded like you were.”

  “I was just trying to say, well, any new information we can get would be helpful. The Senior Center already said Alex wasn’t around when it happened, but I didn’t think it would hurt to ask.”

  “I’ll let him know how much you value his opinion. Now, good evening, Deputy.”

  I left the car and quickened my step. How dare he even consider such a thing! Alex would never hurt a soul, let alone a friend. Still, the deputy’s words rattled my nerves. Even if Alex wasn’t a suspect – he just couldn’t be – it seemed Markus was suggesting foul play rather than natural causes.

  I bowed my head against the wind, recalling what Alex had said of his friendship with Elmer. He taught the man to use a computer, had lunch with him sometimes, and took nature walks. He even took him to Dr. Friendly’s office once, but he didn’t mention why.

  Was any of that connected to the mayor’s untimely death?

  Fifteen

  My stomach wrenched as I turned off Main Street, towards the lake. October has a way of making your imagination work overtime with thoughts of phantoms and ghosts, both real and imagined. The veil was thinning, and you could almost hear the spirits whispering in your ears. It brought out my most primal anxieties and fears, and I reminded myself that fear only had power over me if I let it.

  The road leading to The Lake House restaurant was lonely and dark, though an occasional set of passing headlights lit up the evening. The earth was moist, and my heels sank into the dirt as I walked. I could smell the lake before I could see it – the scent of clear water mixed with the scents of algae and fish. When it came into view, I paused to take it in. The water rippled serenely beneath the light of the silver moon, and in that moment I was overcome with the magic of nature.

  I resumed walking, and the rustic lodge appeared, nestled in the trees. Nick stood at the head of the cobblestone path, grinning as I picked my way forward, my heels catching between the stones. A well-fed duck nesting on the shore heard my approach. He honked, alerting his companions, and together they raised their necks and waddled after me. “My stars!” I said, trying to outpace them while keeping my balance.

  Nick reached for my hand, pulling me up the steps to safety. Then he unfolded a paper towel and shook it, sending out a wave of breadcrumbs. The ducks abandoned me and began fighting over the new offerings, with shrill honks and fierce wings.

  “Let’s get while the getting’s good,” Nick said, escorting me inside. “I’m all out of breadcrumbs.” Once inside, he pushed the heavy door closed and grinned. “Didn’t there used to be only one duck?”

  “Word must have gotten out about how fabulous the bread crumbs are here,” I said.

  It was cozy inside, complete with a roaring fireplace and a man playing piano in a corner. Dueling aromas competed with one another, jousting with whiffs of pine and apples, counter-attacking with the rich smells of sourdough bread and beef stew. Though every table was occupied, the conversations were quiet and intimate as couples stared at one another through the candlelight. Windows were inset in every wall, giving us a view of the poetic landscape, with the lake on one side and the forest on the other. It felt so remote out here, yet it was only a half-mile from downtown.

  A pretty hostess escorted us to our window table, her eyes lingering a moment too long on Nick before leaving. I couldn’t blame her. He was so handsome and so at ease with who he was, making him hard to miss.

  Nick slid into his chair and set his menu off to the side. He took mine, as well, adding it to the stack. “Sorry. I need to look at you a moment,” he said.

  “My hair’s a mess, isn’t it?” I asked, trying to pat it down. “I knew I should have driven.”

  He took a sip of his water, then regarded me with a smile. “I just wanted to see your eyes again. They’re as blue as the Sea of Cortez.”

  “Have you been there?” I asked, trying hard not to blush.

  “I spent some time in Mexico. I enjoyed the laid-back lifestyle. You and I coul
d have a lot of fun there.” He laced his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. There was a new twinkle in his eyes, slightly unnerving me.

  I’d always been awkward under male admiration. I rearranged my cutlery and fiddled with the napkin on my lap.

  “I apologize for making you blush,” Nick said. He was framed by the silver moon hovering over the lake. “I’m just very direct. Too direct, Garett tells me.”

  “Normally, I find directness an admirable quality. I’m just not used to getting compliments from people outside my own family, these days.” I picked up my menu again.

  “What?” Nick slammed both hands on the table and the candle quivered in response. “You should be getting complimented all the time. And I know I’m a bit forward, but life is short. There’s no time for games. Your eyes are beautiful and I want you to know that.”

  “I love the sentiment,” I agreed. “Life is short. You have beautiful eyes, too.” I lifted my water, as if it were the finest champagne, and we clinked glasses.

  Our waitress dropped off a basket of bread and took our order. Nick popped a piece of bread into his mouth, then leaned across the table. He pushed the candle to the side, just as he had during our speed dating round. “Wanna really live in the moment?” he asked. “We can leave now and go swimming. It’ll be cold, but fun.”

  I laughed. “Let’s enjoy this moment first, as it is.”

  “Hear, hear!” he said, tapping his fork on the rim of his glass.

  By the time our dinner arrived, I learned that Nick had left Reed Hollow for brief stints, living in Mexico, Arizona, Northern California, and the Pacific Northwest. “I took odd jobs, wherever the spirit led me. Finally got permanent employment with an environmental agency. I helped with land surveys and replanting. It was the perfect job for someone like me, who feels the call of the wild.”

  “So what brought you back to Reed Hollow?” I asked, trying to keep my steak from sliding across my plate as I cut it.

  “My brother, Garett, needed me. He’s been running the Senior Center, and developing some other businesses at the same time. And our stepmom Ella is getting older now, and though she won’t ask anyone for help, she needs it. So when Garett asked me, I couldn’t say no. Family is everything – even when they drive you crazy.”

  I thought of my own brother, and how I’d come back to help with The Aunt-Tea-Query after our parents passed. Once again, I felt a connection with Nick. “And now your brother’s running for mayor,” I said. “I saw his sign today.”

  Nick chuckled, plunging his fork into his mashed potatoes. “I think Garett decided to run only after Elmer passed away. I know he’s not a fan of Gus, and if he doesn’t run, the old kook will win by default. Garett wants to keep Reed Hollow undeveloped, while Gus will sell us out to big business.”

  Nick pressed his lips taut as he poked around in his mashed potatoes, considering whether he should say more. “My brother has a competitive streak. He’ll do anything to win.”

  We finished eating quietly, both now lost in our own thoughts. My mind returned to Nick’s words: He’ll do anything to win.

  “Dessert?” the waitress asked as she cleared away our plates.

  “The Chocolate Bomb and two forks?” Nick asked me, grinning, his mood suddenly shifting again. “If I can’t convince you to go swimming with me in the moonlight, maybe we can indulge in other ways. You in?”

  The legendary Chocolate Bomb Cake. It was big enough for six, and had the distinction of being the highest-calorie dessert in the county. I’d only experienced it once, on my parents’ tenth anniversary, many years ago. The memory made me salivate. “I’m in.”

  As we sank our forks into decadent layers of chocolate, mousse, and raspberry filling, our hands brushed. There was no accompanying jolt. It was like Nick was one of the few people I wasn’t allergic to.

  But there was something else – something subtle that I almost didn’t notice. In the window behind Nick, two eyes stared at me from the bottom corner. At first, I thought it was a duck.

  Except the eyes were red.

  I dropped my fork as the hobgoblin’s eyes met mine.

  “You okay, Baylee?” Nick asked, handing me my water. “You look pale.”

  I blinked and slowly lifted my finger, not wanting to scare it away before someone saw it.

  But before Nick could spin around, the creature bared its sharp teeth, and then dropped out of sight.

  Sixteen

  “Baylee Bonds, it’s so good to see you again.” Dr. Friendly shone a small flashlight into my eyes.

  “It’s Scott now. I’m fine, really,” I said to both the doctor and Nick, who sat in the office chair beside me. I remembered very little since seeing the hobgoblin’s menacing face in the window. It was all a blur, but I did recall Nick saying that I was burning up.

  The doctor ignored me, rapping on my knees and listening to my heartbeat. “Your blood pressure’s up, and you’re running a mild fever. But everything else seems to be in working order. What’s your birthdate again?” he asked, looking at my chart. “Oh, right… well, these sorts of things start happening when a person reaches a certain age. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

  “What sorts of things?” I asked, wishing Nick wasn’t in the room.

  “Oh, you know. Brain things.” Dr. Friendly excused himself, claiming he’d return with release forms.

  “Sorry I brought you here,” Nick said, rolling his chair up to the examination table. “But you were so spaced out, it kinda scared me.”

  “Some first date,” I said, trying to smile. “I think my imagination is just on hyper drive lately. First, Elmer dies. Then Ella is talking about veils and bad omens, and…”

  And then there are the hobgoblins, that no one sees but me.

  “My stepmom has a way of getting inside your head. She used to scare the bejeezus out of us when we were kids and she wanted us to behave. Always claiming there were monsters lurking, and they’d eat us if we disobeyed.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  Nick’s phone rang. “It’s Garett,” he whispered. “He only calls when he needs something. I’ll be right back.”

  As Nick stepped out the office door, Dr. Friendly stepped back in. “Sorry, it took a minute. I couldn’t seem to find any of my pens. It’s like the goblins are getting them.”

  “Am I free to go?” I asked, trying not to react to his words as I reached for my purse.

  “Almost.” The doctor put on his reading glasses and studied me. “Last time we chatted, we spoke about your hallucinations and your insomnia. Baylee, have you been taking the pills I prescribed?”

  During my last visit, Dr. Friendly had asked me if I’d been seeing things. I had stupidly admitted that I had. I was a psychic, after all. I’d spent my entire life either seeing things or trying to stop myself from seeing things. But science-minded people like Dr. Friendly, nice as they were, tended to think of psychic phenomena as constructs of a broken mind.

  “With all due respect, Dr. Friendly, I am a grown-up.”

  “In my many years I’ve found that grown-ups don’t listen nearly as well as children. Now, have you been taking your pills?”

  “Sporadically. But I don’t think that’s the cause. I’ve just been really tired.”

  His fuzzy brows crinkled up like two nervous sea urchins.

  I changed the subject before he could articulate his thoughts. Dr. Friendly was a nice man, and fortunately, easily distractible. “How’s business,” I asked, pulling out my credit card to pay him.

  “Business?” He flipped over a sheet of paper on his clipboard. “Same as always. People are born, and people die, and people have things happen in between.”

  “I suppose so. The mayor died and no one seems to notice, except for a few people vying for his job.”

  “Elmer was a friend,” the doctor said sympathetically. “He was a foolish man, in these last few years. I told him he couldn’t expect to marry a woman half his age and be able to k
eep up. He even had the nerve to ask me for some little blue pills, and was a bit upset when I said no. Men get weird when their equipment doesn’t function like it used to.”

  His voice trailed off as he tapped the end of his pen against the clipboard. “At least he didn’t die like Clara did.”

  “Clara Mills died? The woman who gets her palms read at our tea house?”

  “You didn’t hear? They found her sitting at her husband’s grave with her eyes wide open, dead as a doornail. Her heart must have failed when she was on her weekly visit. I’d say, ‘At least they’re together now,’ but their tombstones are on opposite sides of the cemetery.” He shrugged, as if to say it was neither here nor there.

  Sweet old Clara died! How was I going to tell Kela?

  Nick returned with two Styrofoam cups. I could smell the rich, life-giving caffeine within. I smiled gratefully as he handed one over. It was deep caramel color, with just the perfect amount of cream. “What did I miss?” he asked.

  “She’s fine. But I suggest you take her home and put her to bed,” the doctor advised. “And not your bed either. She needs lots of rest, understand?”

  “Got it,” Nick said, escorting me out the door as my face turned apple-red.

  “I’ll walk you home,” Nick offered as we left the office. “Your home, as the doctor requested. Though I’m not sure why he was worried. I’m staying with my aged stepmother, not exactly the most romantic venue.”

  “And I live with my older brother and my gorgeous, young, single cousin. I think my story is even more depressing.”

  Fog curled around our feet as we walked. The shops were all now closed, and the only people roaming the streets were locals stumbling home from the bars. There was no wind now, and the dangling ghosts and skeletons hung eerily still, like dead men left on the scaffold. The further we went along Main Street, the quieter and stiller the world became. It was romantic, in a Sleepy Hollow kind of way.