Deadly Rising

by Jeri Westerson

  “Something like that.”

  He shook his head and scratched at his hair. “Damn, Kylie. Everything is so different. And I didn’t lie. I do miss you.”

  “Sometimes…I miss you too, Jeff.”

  He cracked a smile, and there it was. The smile to melt many a surfer girl’s heart. And mine too, once. “Well, all right.”

  “I’m pretty happy here, Jeff. I’ve gotten to know a lot of the locals and they’ve been pretty generous.”

  “Yeah, they seem to know a lot about you, all right. I went to a bar last night, trying to drown my sorrows and complain a little. They seemed to know you up there.”

  “Up…where?”

  “In the town I’m staying at. Hansen something? They wanted to know all about you. They were real friendly. Bought me a few rounds.”

  Shit. “Who was real friendly?”

  “This biker gang. Said they were friends of yours. Doug was the guy’s name. You and bikers.”

  Double shit. “And…what did you tell them?”

  “So I might have had a little too much to drink. You know how I like to talk once I get a few beers in me. And a shot or two. I just told them about California and stuff. Nothing personal. You know. Only that I was your boyfriend.”

  I set down my coffee. “Jeff, it would be a real good idea to just pack your bags and go home.”

  “Babygirl, I thought…I thought we were doing okay.”

  “We’re all squared away, Jeff. I harbor no ill will. So you can just…go with a clear conscience.”

  “Wait. I didn’t come here to clear my conscience. I came to win you back.”

  “And that is not going to happen. So don’t waste your time. Who’s running the shop while you’re gone anyway?”

  “Marlene.”

  “Marlene?” Marlene was less of an employee and more of a hippie maiden aunt. She added great atmosphere to the place, but she couldn’t use the register, handle emergencies, or keep track of her key. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “This was an emergency!”

  The kitchen door opened and my heart sucked up into my throat. But instead of a kelpie or an angry Erasmus, Ed poked his head in. “Hey. I heard voices.”

  “Hi, Ed!” I scrambled around the table and grabbed him by the arm, holding myself close. “How are you?” I kissed his cheek.

  The puzzled look on his face could have been comical under other circumstances. “I’m…fine. What’s, uh, going on?”

  “Ed, this is an old friend from California. Jeff Chase.”

  “Another one? Is he staying here too?”

  He’d already met Erasmus. I’d had to tell him something.

  Jeff plainly saw how the cards lay and didn’t put out his hand to shake.

  “And this is Sheriff Ed Bradbury. He’s the sheriff here. Which…I already said.”

  “I see,” was all Jeff said.

  “And what’s your business here, Mr. Chase?” asked Ed in a formal tone.

  “What is this? An interrogation? I came to talk to Kylie. Talk her out of this crazy move and into coming back to me.”

  “Yeah, I suspected that’s who you were.” Ed turned to me. “Do you want me to get him out of here?”

  “Hey, whoa, whoa!” Jeff put his hands out. “I’m not doing anything illegal. You have no right—”

  “Has she asked you to leave?” He rested his hand on his belt…the one holding his holstered gun.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And did you leave?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then I call that harassment.” He grabbed Jeff’s arm. I was afraid a tussle would ensue.

  “No, Ed. It’s okay.”

  “Kylie, you don’t have to put up with him.” Ed’s nostrils flared like an angry bull’s. I knew I was in the middle of a pissing match, and though a little comeuppance might be nice, I wasn’t ordinarily the vindictive type.

  “We’re working it out. Look, why don’t you call me later. You said you wanted to cook for me. How about tonight?”

  He frowned but backed off. When he gazed at me, his face softened. “Tonight? Okay. I’ll call you.”

  “Okay.” I reached up and kissed him, but I could tell he was looking at Jeff. And boy, could I ever feel the anger reeling off my ex.

  Ed kept looking back, narrowing his eyes at Jeff as he walked out and finally closed the door behind him.

  Jeff leaned dejectedly against the table. “You’re seeing someone.”

  “Yes. If you’d bothered to ask…”

  “Okay.” He smacked his thighs and got up. “I guess I made a real idiot of myself then.”

  “It’s just…” I hugged my arms. “I think it’s a really good idea that you go home…before Marlene bankrupts you.”

  “Sure. I guess so. Well…there’s nothing left to say except…” He put his hand out to me. “Have a nice life, Kylie. I hope…it all works out.”

  “Me too,” I said quietly. We shook on it.

  He walked to the door without saying anything more. He had pulled it open and just about closed it behind him when he stopped. “You know…if it doesn’t work out, the business I mean…you can come back. No strings attached, okay? Just…if you need a place to crash. ’Cause I know you probably sunk your last dime into this shop.”

  “Thanks, Jeff. That’s…that’s really nice of you.”

  He nodded. “Sometimes I can be a dick. But most of the time…I’m a nice guy.”

  “I remember.”

  He smiled, nodded, and finally left. Once the shop was silent again, Erasmus abruptly appeared behind me. I gasped.

  “You should have let me eviscerate him.”

  “Wow. Thanks for the offer. But no.”

  He opened his mouth to say something when the bell over the door jangled again. Hoping for a customer, I was bound to be disappointed. Ruth Russell in the flesh. Erasmus stood behind me, glaring at her.

  No greeting. No “nice day for it.” She got right to the point.

  “You keep telling people we’re related. I want you to stop.”

  I rubbed my palms into my eyes. I really wasn’t awake enough for any of this. “If I did so, it’s because there is a possibility…”

  “No, there isn’t. I don’t know what you’re playing at, young lady, but you aren’t going to get away with it.”

  “Excuse me? You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I have to kowtow to you. Now, other people in this village may feel the need to be under your thumb, but I am not one of them.”

  She pruned her lips and lowered her brows. “The Stranges have nothing to do with my family.”

  “That’s not what your archives say.”

  “Which you looked at without my permission.”

  “Yes, you’re right. And I apologize for that. But to be fair, if I had asked to see them, would you have let me?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Well, there you go. If you had been more neighborly…”

  “They are my family archives. I don’t have to let anyone look at them.”

  “And is that really fair? I mean, shouldn’t those be in a library or a museum? They’re founder history, after all.”

  She stepped close and pointed a finger in my face. I wanted to bite it just to see what she would do. “You are an outsider. You don’t get to tell people whose families have lived in this village since the seventeenth century what to do. And you don’t get to rummage through my family papers, and you most certainly do not get to tell people we are related when it is patently untrue.”

  Erasmus was suddenly beside her. “You’re a Howland, aren’t you?”

  We both seemed to have forgotten the demon’s presence. “Who are you?” she asked sharply.

  “Someone…who knew the Howlands. And the Stranges. I can attest to their being present in the years of the founding. And further, to you having a common ancestor.”

  “W
hat do you mean you knew the Howlands? I don’t recognize you.”

  “Don’t you?” He stood his ground and raised his chin.

  Ruth looked him up and down and suddenly her eyes bulged. Her hand flew to her throat. “I have to go,” she said curtly, marching out the door before I could ask anything further.

  “What happened here?” I said to the empty space she had left. Then I glared at Erasmus. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. I merely reminded her of her own history.”

  “Wait a second. Does she have that engraving in her collection too? The one where Constance Howland is being chased to her doom by…you?”

  “I don’t believe so. But perhaps something similar.”

  “Wow. You get around.”

  “I must follow the book.”

  “Well…” I grabbed my coat. “Do me a favor and hang with the Booke and watch the shop.”

  “What?”

  I shrugged on the coat and opened the door. “I have to do some research. Will you watch the shop?”

  He looked around incredulously. “Absolutely not!”

  “Come on, Erasmus. I need someone to keep the doors open till Jolene gets here at three thirty. Can’t you do me a solid?”

  “Just what part of ‘absolutely not’ don’t you understand?”

  “I know you’re allergic to the tea, but can’t you help anyway?” I couldn’t help myself. I chuckled at it and, of course, he got indignant.

  “I have no intention of becoming a shopkeeper for you or anyone else. Book or no book.”

  “All right, all right. Stupid demon,” I muttered. I turned the sign to “closed” and locked the door with him inside.

  I got into my Jeep and slammed the door. I don’t know why I was startled again when he appeared sitting in the passenger seat. “I’m going with you.”

  “I don’t need you to go with me.”

  “You might encounter the kelpie.”

  “I won’t. I promise not to go near any ponds.”

  “Nevertheless. I am going with you.”

  Starting the car, I sighed. “Suit yourself.”

  I pulled out and headed for the highway. Erasmus said nothing, just sat with his hands on his thighs. He had buckled himself in as per the last time I instructed him. It was strange having him sit there but oddly comforting too.

  I drove along the highway until I saw the library sign hidden behind a large sweeping pine. I made a U-turn into the parking lot.

  It was a hundred-year-old stone building, with concrete lions at either side of the steps. Forest surrounded the library grounds, as it seemed to do for most of the area. As I approached the stone lions, Erasmus put his hand on my arm to stop me.

  “What is this place? A temple?”

  “No. Well, of a sort, I guess. It’s a library.”

  “A library?” He studied its Grecian pillars and pediment. “Are you certain?”

  “Very. Come on.”

  “If it is a temple, I will not be allowed to…”

  “It’s not a temple. Just chill, Erasmus.”

  “I feel neither heat nor cold.”

  I eyed him as we climbed the steps. I wanted to ask. He’d seemed mighty warm to me that one time when we were…

  Don’t think about that, Kylie. Not when I was planning on another date with Ed.

  “How…how is it not to feel those things?”

  He gave me another one of his you-are-so-stupid looks. “I don’t know. I have no point of reference.”

  “Oh. I guess not.” I pushed open the double doors. As I walked over the marble floors, I couldn’t help but look up into the high vaulted ceilings, the rococo, and the many rows of dark shelves.

  He stopped and looked around him, marveling at the sight. “How is it you have access to this?”

  “It’s a public library.” Quieter, I got up close to him. “You see, in this country, we give access to all, this free knowledge of the ages. Pretty good for humans, huh?”

  “Yes, indeed,” he breathed. I had a feeling he hadn’t meant to compliment me or my race.

  I went straight to the information desk. The librarian looked up with a smile. “May I help you?”

  “Yes. I was looking for genealogy information. Particularly as it pertains to the founders of Moody Bog.”

  “Unfortunately, most of it is in private archives, but the Waters collection has an awful lot in it.”

  “Waters?”

  “Karl Waters donated it some years ago. It’s such a shame what happened to him.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered.

  The librarian got a map of the library and wrote down the call numbers. “Just go to this room and ask for the collection. You can’t check any of it out, but you’re free to look at it for as long as you want. Some are actual eighteenth-century papers but the majority are photographs of documents.”

  “Thanks. Um, is it possible somehow to look up someone who died but who used to live around here? An address?”

  “You could try the census. We have them on microfiche.”

  “Wow, really? I’m not quite sure what year he died.”

  “Do you know what year he was alive, then? I’ll warn you that the most recent census that will give us any real data, like an address, is from 1940. That one is digital.”

  “I think he was born around 1928. So if he was born in Moody Bog, I suppose he’d be living here in 1940.”

  She glanced once at the silent and stoic Erasmus and tapped her keyboard. “And his name?”

  “Robert Stephen Strange.”

  “‘Strange’ as in ‘peculiar’?”

  “You got it.”

  She typed. Erasmus watched her, rapt. He had no idea about twenty-first-century conveniences, like the internet and databases. He was definitely a man out of his time.

  As the screen filled with information, the librarian clicked, opening window after window. She scrolled and then slowed. “Robert Stephen Strange,” she read aloud. “Married to Josephine Strange?”

  “Yeah. That’s it.” I leaned in, peering over her shoulder. I felt Erasmus’s warmth as he drew closer behind me.

  “One son, Rupert…”

  “That’s my dad.”

  I felt Erasmus looking at me. I wondered what he was thinking. It must have been a huge curiosity to him, these human emotions. “Looks like the address listed here is at the very edge of Moody Bog, pretty close to Hansen Mills. 1428 Alderbrook Lane.”

  I released a held breath from my lips. I’d almost thought it was just a dream, the memory was so sparse, but here it was in black and white. My grandfather had lived in Maine. And not just Maine, but in Moody Bog. How was it possible that I’d ended up here? Had there been some sort of subliminal message in my brain when I saw the real estate listing? Or was there something else at work? Why had my father left? Had he hoped to escape our family curse? After all, I was now tied to the Howlands and the Booke. I’d have to find the genealogy to see if we truly were related, but I was now in residence in a Howland house and inexorably tied to the Booke’s curse. Maybe it was the Powers That Be playing a joke. If so, I wasn’t laughing.

  Erasmus pointed to the screen. “And you found out all that through this portal?”

  The librarian stared at him.

  I grabbed the library map and took Erasmus by the shoulders. “He’s such a clown,” I said, pushing him away toward the other room where we needed to be.

  He shook his head and kept looking back. “What sort of magic is that? It is unfamiliar to me.”

  “I’m not surprised. Because it isn’t magic at all. It’s science. The ingenuity of human beings.”

  “That cannot be. You are little better than cattle…”

  “You know, another crack like that and I’ll let you walk home.”

  “I don’t need to walk. I didn’t need to use your conveyance at all. I’m surprised you don’t recall that.”

  “I
do recall it. I’m just being snarky. Look, you need to be quiet. We’re going to see some old-fashioned paper archives. I think. And then you can help me.”

  I found the Dutch doors and knocked on the closed lower one. The top door stood wide open and I could see stacks beyond it.

  A bespectacled man approached from the other side and looked us up and down. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m trying to locate some ancestors. I think I might be related to the founders.”

  “Founders, eh? Ay-yuh. Not a day goes by where someone don’t come up here thinking they’re a founder descendant.”

  “Well, chalk up another one. Can I see what you might have for 1720?”

  “Going for it, then? Okay. Be back in a moment.”

  He disappeared and Erasmus stepped over to examine the digital thermostat.

  “What is this contrivance?”

  “It regulates the temperature in the room. Makes it warm or cool, depending on what one needs.”

  “This device? Without magic?”

  “Well, it controls the furnace or air conditioner elsewhere in the building. Mechanical devices. Electricity. You set this arrow up or down depending on the temperature you want. See?”

  He got up close, his nose nearly touching the digital screen. “Remarkable.”

  High praise indeed. The archive man returned and handed me a box.

  “Do I need gloves?”

  “Just be careful. And don’t leave this room.”

  I found an empty table and opened the box. “Okay, Erasmus. You know what we’re looking for.”

  He seemed on firmer ground with parchment and sat on one of the wooden chairs to carefully go through the pages.

  Absorbed in searching, I felt the slight prickle of someone watching me. When I looked up, I just barely caught Erasmus looking away. He cleared his throat. “Kylie…there’s something…I need to say…”

  “Aha!” I whispered. Proudly, I tossed a photograph in front of him, his pensive face forgotten. It looked to be a reproduction from a page of a family Bible. In faded ink, there it was. The link between Hosea Strange and the Howlands. A cousin of the main line that led to Ruth had married my relative. The Bible had obviously belonged to the Strange family. I wondered where it was. With a pang of regret, I realized I had never seen it before.