by Raven Snow
Chapter Five
Eric hadn’t been particularly surprised by the revelation. Of course, he likely already expected the Greensmiths to be complicit in his great grandfather’s murder.
“Maybe they were having a fling,” he suggested, even though his great grandfather had been married at the time.
Rowen didn’t like his theory, but the way Grammy and Lionel were standing together in the photograph certainly made it look that way. She didn’t suggest any ideas of her own. Now more than ever, she just wanted to get back to the house and talk with her family.
When they arrived back at the house, Eric thanked Rowen for the ride and lingered a bit like he was hoping to be invited back inside. No doubt he had some questions for her family as well. Rowen did her best to just say her goodbyes and hurry inside. If Aunt Lydia saw them through a window, they were doomed. In the end, she made it back inside alone, but not without him insisting they exchange phone numbers. Eric finally pulled his car from the driveway as she was stepping through the front door.
“Who was that?” asked Peony, catching Rowen off guard.
Apparently, Peony, Willow, and Rose had all been watching from the living room window. “He’s cute,” said Willow, approvingly.
“He has a nice car,” Rose said.
“Well, remember his face and the car,” said Rowen. “Stay away from both. He’s trouble, no matter how nice he seems.”
“Why?” asked Rose.
Rowen just shook her head. “I’ll explain later. Is the whole family home?”
Peony nodded. “I think so.”
“Good. Ask them to come into the den, will you? We need to have a family meeting.” Rowen tried to make a point of keeping a serious tone. Her cousins still got a chuckle out of the term ‘family meeting’. “I’m serious,” Rowen insisted. “I’ll get Grammy. Where is she?”
Her cousins indicated the herb garden out back. Rowen hurried there. If they managed to get the whole family in the den, they wouldn’t stay there long without a reason. But before she told them everything, she had to clear up some things with Grammy.
Grammy was indeed in the herb garden, harvesting from some of the plants she used for cooking. She glanced up when Rowen came rushing out the back door. “Whoa there. What’s the hurry?”
Rowen opened her mouth to ask a million different questions. Instead, none came out. She needed answers, but would she like the ones she got? She took a deep breath and just came out with it. “That man who visited earlier was the great grandson of that man they found in the chest—Lionel Richardson.”
“And you took him to the museum,” Grammy finished with a nod. “Yes, Lydia told me.”
“Well, he found something there.” Rowen studied the face of this stern but kind old woman who had raised her. “Grammy, how did you know that man?”
Grammy didn’t play dumb. She didn’t ask what Rowen was talking about or why she had reason to think they knew each other. Her jaw just set, like she had expected this to happen eventually. “He was a handsome man from out of town. We had something of a—” Grammy looked thoughtful. “Well, I suppose you would call it a fling.”
“Grammy!”
“Oh, don’t sound so scandalized. I was a young woman once too, you know?” Grammy went back to harvesting herbs as she continued. “I had needs.”
Rowen could do without hearing the finer details of her grandmother’s sex life. “He was a married man, though.”
“I didn’t know that at the time,” Grammy assured her. “I did find out, though. We broke it off after that. Now, is there a point to this interrogating?”
“It’s just…When they find out, it’s going to look bad. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
“Let them do their job. The family will be fine. It always has been.” Grammy left the herbs, went to Rowen, and hugged her. “I’m glad you’re back, dear— and I appreciate your concern.”
Rowen sagged in her grandmother’s arms. She thought of all the times those arms had comforted her as a child. She trusted her grandmother completely. Still, though, she was worried. “What should I tell the rest of the family?”
“Tell them the truth,” Grammy said without hesitation.
#
The truth went over about as well as could be expected. No one but Aunt Lydia really seemed to grasp the severity of the situation. Of course, Rowen was fairly certain Aunt Lydia just liked to be worried.
“That Eric boy seemed nice, though,” said Lydia, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Can’t you get him to drop the charges?”
Margo rolled her eyes. “You can’t drop the charges on murder.”
Rowen ignored them both and continued. “It would probably be best if everyone just kept to themselves until all of this dies down.” She shot a pointed look at Aunt Lydia. “Don’t let in relatives of the deceased and offer them lemonade. Don’t say anything to the police conversationally. Just try to be normal for a few weeks. Don’t give anyone a reason to suspect you.”
Terry snorted. He had been sitting beside his wife on the sofa. Now he flopped back against the cushions, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Problem?” asked Rowen with a sigh.
“I don’t know,” said Terry, meaning that yes, there was a problem. “You disappear for years, show up all of a sudden for work, and now you’re giving the family orders.”
“My family, yes.” Rowen didn’t much appreciate his attitude. “I’ve been part of it longer than you.”
“Hey—” began Margo.
“Settle down,” interrupted Aunt Nadine. “Everyone calm down. Rowen’s not wrong. This is a serious situation.” It would have been fine if she had stopped there, but she kept going. “On the other hand, none of us did anything. Innocent people don’t hole up in their homes. Guilty people do. Innocent people go out there and keep on living their lives.”
“We have a party to go to,” said Willow, indicating her sister. “Can we still go, or…?”
“Of course, dears,” Aunt Nadine assured them with a smile. “You’re grown women now. You don’t have to ask my permission.”
“But they shouldn’t go!” Rowen groaned. She worked in the news. She knew better than any of them how badly people could spin this. It didn’t matter if they were innocent. What mattered was what people thought.
“We’ll get through this,” said Grammy, and that was the final say in the matter. The Greensmiths weren’t modifying their behavior at all.
Rowen had never been more certain that her family was doomed.
#
Everyone sat down to lunch after the family meeting. Rowen didn’t much feel like socializing, though. She made herself a peanut butter sandwich and excused herself to her room. The attic was dark and unpleasantly warm in the middle of the day. It made Rowen feel gloomier than ever. With a sigh, she sat down on the bed and finished her sandwich. She had a missed call from Ted, so she called him back and filled him in, adding a promise to send a written report his way that night. With that done, she flopped back on her bed. The day was only half over, but it felt like she had been awake for an eternity.
A power nap didn’t seem uncalled for. Rowen set an alarm on her phone for thirty minutes and closed her eyes. Even the lumpy attic bed felt heavenly right now. She would have lain there forever, if she could.
It was a matter of minutes before she was drifting off into unconsciousness. As she gradually fell asleep, she felt a presence again. ‘Help me,’ it seemed to be saying. ‘Please. Help me.’
#
Rowen dreamed that she was an entirely different woman. She was petite. She had a nice home. She liked to shop. She’d been to a yard sale earlier that day. It was the Greensmiths’ yard sale. She never missed it. Just now, her gaze was fixed on what she had bought. It was locked locked chest. There was obviously something inside of it, but no one knew what it was.
She had told the woman who sold it to her that she planned on using the chest as a piece of furniture. It
would make a decent coffee table, but that’s not what she really had planned. She had a saw in the closet. She’d used it to even out the legs on her dining room table a couple of years back, and she was pretty sure it would work for this.
After laying down some towels to catch wood dust, she sawed at the lid. There was likely an easier way to do this, but the saw seemed to be working, albeit slowly. She might have given up after her arms started getting tired, but something drove her on. Once she had started sawing at the lid, it was as if she was quite unable to stop.
There was something trapped in the box. She only realized this as it was rushing from the hole she had made. She had freed it, but it made no distinction between her and the person who had trapped it there. Ghostly hands were clamped tight around her neck, cutting off her breathing. She clawed at them, but there was nothing physical to claw at. She could only sink to her knees and try her best to scramble away. She didn’t get far.
Rowen woke up, gasping. She sat straight up in bed, her hands at her own throat. Dimly, she was aware that her phone alarm was going off. Her mind was reeling too much to really deal with that. She thought back to her dream and tried to process it. Had it really been a dream? She doubted it.
No, Rowen’s first instinct was that the dream had been more like a memory. Specifically, it had been poor, dead Rebecca’s memory.
Chapter Six
Rowen stood with her phone, deliberating for a long time. Finally, she gave in and called Eric.
He was surprised to hear from her so soon, but he was perfectly friendly about it. When she suggested getting dinner to talk about the case, he was happy to comply. He’d just been planning on getting fast food and eating it in his hotel room alone, he said. Having dinner with her would be much more enjoyable.
He was a flatterer, but Rowen didn’t call him out on it. She offered to meet him at the restaurant, but he insisted on picking her up from her house. It was a small town, he said. There was no point in the both of them wasting their gas. He had a point, she supposed. Anyway, it was Aunt Lydia’s car. She hated to just make plans with it like it was her own.
Rowen redid her hair and makeup while she waited. It wasn’t that she particularly cared what Eric thought, she told herself. She just had time to kill.
When she went downstairs, her cousins were dressed for their own night on the town. “I wish you wouldn’t go out right now,” Rowen complained.
“You’re one to talk,” laughed Willow. “Where are you off to all dressed up?”
“It’s work related,” Rowen assured them. As she said that, the Mercedes pulled up in their drive way. Right on time.
Willow and Peony both laughed. “Looks like a hot date to me,” Peony said.
Rowen rolled her eyes. “Grow up,” she told them as she headed out the door.
Eric had started to get out of the car, clearly intending to go knock on the front door. But Rowen had already marched out on her own, leaving him standing there awkwardly.
“Don’t keep her out all night!” called Willow from the door.
“Treat her right!” added Peony.
Rowen motioned Eric back into the car before he could do anything to make it worse, like go around to open the door for her. He seemed like the type who might. “Just ignore them,” she said, once she was seated in the passenger seat. “They think they’re funny, but it’s just childish and inappropriate.”
Eric offered her a smile. “I have brothers,” he said as he backed the car out. “I get it.”
“They’re cousins,” Rowen corrected. “I’m an only child.”
“But you grew up with them,” Eric guessed. “Seems like you’ve kind of assumed the big sister role.”
Rowen had never really thought about it that way. “After Margo, I was the oldest. She was always off doing her own thing, so I guess I did. Seems like they listened to me better back then.”
“You said you’d been gone for a while. Resentment might have something to do with it.” Eric glanced over at her with an apologetic smile. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You’re all adults now. It’s time to live your life.”
“I know, right? It’s like no one ever moves out of that house. It’s not my fault I grew up and moved on.” With a start, Rowen realized how familiar she was getting with Eric. She groaned inwardly. Couldn’t she even take her own advice? “What are you in the mood for?” she asked, changing the subject. The sooner they got to where they were going, the sooner they could get down to business.
“I’m not picky,” said Eric. “Whatever is good around here. You know the area better than I do.”
Rowen directed him to the diner that had been her favorite growing up. It wasn’t too formal. The food was cheap but good. They took a booth in the back.
The waitress looked a bit on edge as she took their order. Rowen recognized her. Her name was Cindy, and they had gone to high school together. Even so, she kept her head down and banter at a minimum. If Eric noticed her odd behavior, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he prompted Rowen to go ahead and speak her mind. “I assume there’s something you wanted to talk about?”
Rowen nodded. She folded her hands on the table and tried to think of how best to word what she needed to know. “Are you close to your family? I don’t mean to pry, but…actually, I guess I do mean to pry.”
Eric considered the question. He shrugged. “I guess. We’re sort of scattered now. A lot of us travel a bunch. We keep in touch.”
“Did they ever tell you any stories about your great grandfather?” she asked.
Eric’s pleasant expression faltered a bit when she asked him that. His eyes searched hers, as if he suspected there was something she knew now that he didn’t. “They gave me that picture of him when they knew I was coming down here. I guess they’ve told me some anecdotes about him in the past. It’s all pretty normal stuff. I can’t think of anything that…Was there something you were wondering?”
“Was he—” Rowen didn’t want to sound rude, but she supposed there was no way around it. “Was he a particularly violent man?”
Eric raised his eyebrows. “Well, it looks like he cheated on his wife. So we know he wasn’t exactly a saint. We never found any bodies hidden away in an old wardrobe of his or anything.”
Rowen couldn’t help but crack a somewhat morbid smile at that. “Fair enough.”
“What are you getting at here?” asked Eric. “What did you find out?”
Geez. How was she supposed to explain this one? ‘A ghost showed me in a vision that your great grandfather’s ghost killed Rebecca?’ “I just have reason to suspect he was a violent man.”
“Why? Did your grandmother say anything?”
“Not exactly.” There was no way around it. “How much do you know about my family?”
“Very little,” Eric admitted. “You’re an old family.” He nodded to Cindy, who was eyeing them nervously from across the diner. “You make some of the townsfolk nervous.”
“We make them nervous because, well, talk is that we’re witches.” Rowen hadn’t talked about this in the city. She hated to. People looked at her like she was crazy.
“Witches?” Eric repeated. “Like Wiccan? Like it’s your religion or something?”
“It’s not religious. We just…” Rowen looked down at the table and started fiddling with her straw wrapper. “Magic runs in the family the same way weird things run in Lainswich.”
There was some nervous laughter from Eric. Clearly, he didn’t know what to make of her but suspected she might be crazy.
“I’m serious.” Rowen groaned. How could she make him believe? “Here, give me your hand.”
Eric looked dubious but did as she asked. Rowen cupped his right hand in both of her own. He had nice hands—large and strong but with well-manicured nails. “Are you going to read my palm?” he asked.
“I’m going to read your energy,” said Rowen. “Hush,” she added, before he could make fun of that, too. She took a deep breath,
closed her eyes, and cleared her mind.
“Who had the chicken sandwich?” asked Cindy, sounding more nervous than ever.
“Oh, me,” said Eric, grinning as if all of this nonsense was just the most amusing thing in the world.
With their food served, Rowen went back to what she was doing. It was a little more difficult to slip into the correct mindset. She tried not to show it, but she was beyond embarrassed. Still, she managed. She could feel Eric’s energy, and it told her a story. “Family means a lot to you.”
“Good guess,” said Eric, sarcastically.
Rowen ignored him. She was used to that. People didn’t like to believe in magic. They felt like believing in it made them look stupid, and people hate to look stupid. “You’re jealous of them, though. Your brothers are more successful than you. Your parents think more of them, even though you’re the oldest.”
Eric said nothing this time, though his hand became a little tense in her own.
Rowen pressed on. “You’re not thrilled to be here. Your parents wanted someone from your family to be here, but everyone was busy. You feel like they sent you because they don’t think your time is valuable.”
Eric pulled his hand away. “You’ve got a talent for reading people. I’ll give you that. Did you ‘mystically’ see anything else?”
“I remind you of a girl you dated in college. You think I have a pretty face.” Rowen picked up a fry from her plate and took a bite. “Thank you. You’re not so bad, yourself.”
Eric stared at her, his chicken sandwich forgotten. “And all this ties into my great grandfather how?”
Enough beating around the bush. It was time to just get her theory out there. “I think his ghost killed that girl.”
Even after Rowen’s little display of her abilities, Eric still looked to be having some trouble accepting what she had just said. That was understandable. “Okay,” he said, at last. “Assuming I believe in ghosts—which I don’t—why would my great grandfather kill some random woman?”
