Rise & Fall

by Wendy Meadows

  “I know what I said, Dot,” fumed Cassy. “But that’s not the point. It’s taking advantage of customers and I don’t like that.”

  “Who are we to tell people what they can buy or not? Or even sell for that matter. If they want to buy what you claim is just water, then so be it. I buy useless stuff all the time. I even buy bottled water when I can get it from the tap. You do too. And here’s the other thing…” Dot came to Cassy’s side and held on to the mop handle in her hand to get her attention. “Do you really believe that most people are getting the most out of everything we sell in here?”

  The question took Cassy aback. Furiously she scrambled for an answer and was about to give Dot a piece of her mind when it became clear what her oldest friend was talking about.

  “You mean that I sell magic ingredients, or rather the ingredients for magic without actually selling the magic itself?”

  Dot nodded. Cassy let the mop fall from her hands. It clattered to the floor and Cassy looked around to see if she’d disturbed any of the customers but saw that she had none. “But you and I know that it’s real. I can whip up a bland of this and that; cinnamon, cardamom, turkey gizzard and beeswax—a few incantations by moonlight and boom; unsightly top-lip hair gone. Sure some people come here for fun or because they’re experimenting or are curious, but it’s the real deal.”

  Dot squirmed at ‘turkey gizzard’ but urged Cassy on.

  “There’s soul to this place, Dorothy. I put everything into it and it makes me so mad that people can just come in and peddle—” Cassy searched for the right word, “Quackery!” It wasn’t the right word but it would do.

  “Innocent until proven guilty, Cass, isn’t that what they say?”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  Something changed in Dot’s face and instantaneously Cassy knew what was coming next. Dot took the mop from Cassy and leaned on it like a staff.

  “You need to relax, Cassandra Dean. The last few weeks have been a bit hectic to say the least. What with your sister staying for a week, this new shop and the rest.”

  “I know what’s coming, Dot. Don’t say it.”

  Regardless, Dot continued. “Do you know what you need?”

  Cassy knew exactly what she needed and it came in a glass bottle and you mixed it with diet coke, and you drank it cuddled up in bed with a good book.

  “No, do enlighten me, Dot. What do I need?”

  “You need someone you can talk to. Someone to share your inner-most thoughts.”

  “A companion?”

  “That’s right. Not the word I would use, but essentially, yes.”

  “Don’t I have you two for that?” asked Cassy. She turned her attention to the cash register where Patty stood. On being sighted, the girl seemed to shrink away as if she’d been caught doing something. Then Herzog came bouncing up to her and rubbed his flank against her shins. He went completely malleable as she picked him up which made it difficult for Cassy to hold onto him. It was a trick he used much to Cassy’s constant annoyance. On top of that he’d completely rejected the toy she’d given him, adding to her distrust of the sisters. “Sorry, you three.” Herzog purred contentedly on her shoulder.

  “Well we were thinking,” said Dot. “That is, Patty and I—”

  “Don’t get me involved in this,” came Patty’s voice from across the room.

  “What I’m saying is that I’ve arranged a meeting for you.”

  The way Dot said ‘meeting’ implied heavily that it was in fact a blind date. Ever since she had first met the silver-haired and decidedly eccentric woman Cassy had been supplied with a constant stream of potential suitors. Quite how Dot was able to source them was beyond Cassy. No doubt she had a network of similar scatter-brained, silver-haired old ladies trying to hand off their grandchildren. In all, Cassy suspected that it was a very elaborate system.

  “A meeting, huh? What sad sack loser is it this time?” Thoughts of the Sisters had already begun to leave her. Maybe a little ‘meeting’ would do her some good after all.

  “Not a loser, as you say. A very interesting person, I’ve been reliably informed. He’s a carpenter of sorts.”

  Cassy raised an eyebrow. “Of sorts?”

  “Works in the Framery. Makes frames for pictures. You know, frames.”

  “Yeah, I get the idea,” said Cassy. There were possibly a hundred other things she could be getting on with but right now an awkward conversation over a meal seemed like an easy option. “Go on. Call him. I’ll check my calendar if I’ve got a day free.”

  “It’s tonight at the Four Seasons. He already booked the table because I told him that you’d already accepted.”

  “Dot!”

  “Don’t worry, Hon. I already checked your busy, busy schedule and it ain’t that busy-busy. Shall I call to confirm?”

  Chapter Three

  It was good that Cassy was hungry, otherwise she might have canceled at the last moment leaving Lionel Shrute, her blind date, to eat both meals. As she went up the short flight of steps to the entrance of the Four Seasons Hotel Cassy had her hand on her phone, one quick call from bailing on the poor guy. Her stomach had complained, however, and the date was on.

  It was a rarity for Cassy to get dressed up for any occasion, but there was something about the Four Seasons that compelled her to do it. Gone were the usual jeans and badly fitting woolen sweater, or the shapeless flower print dress. Instead she’d made an effort, or rather, Patty had. It was unquestionably Dot’s duty to supply her with potential paramours, but styling fell to the Spicery’s youngest member. Just why Patty had a dress that fitted a middle-aged woman who kinda looked after her figure was a mystery to Cassy. All she knew was that it worked. Cassy couldn’t have been more pleased with the delicate but not too revealing sheer blue dress that hung like it had been fitted just for her.

  Add to that a silk scarf and a pair of heels that still fit snugly after years of neglect, and Cassy was ready to go.

  They’d arranged to meet at the Four Seasons’ lounge and from there they planned to head to the restaurant. As she looked over the occupants of the lounge, Cassy tried to determine which of the lonely looking men sat scattered about the room was intended for her. It reminded her of the claw games at the fair as a child. She was hoping to get the plastic tiara at the back, but she’d probably wind up getting the broken Snoopy watch wedged down the side.

  The Snoopy watch in this case was a twitchy tall guy in a pinstripe suit who nervously looked between his watch and the window he was sitting next to. He looked like he was waiting for a date. It was a relief when a woman, presumably his mother judging by the way she nearly crushed him in her embrace, arrived and he left with her. The pack had been reduced but still contained a motley bunch of potential suitors. There was the bar-prop who in turn was propped up by the stalk of celery jutting from his depleted Bloody Mary. At the opposite end of the bar was a man who Cassy would charitably call large. A sub loaded with mayo, chicken and as a token to healthy eating, salad leaves, arrived before him and his fingers played over it as if he was composing a letter. Those fingers looked too inelegant, too untouched by trade to be those of a carpenter. This observation came as something of a relief to Cassy whose attention was now drawn to a man she had not until then seen. He sat right at the back of the lounge away from the others at a booth for two.

  He was cleaning his glasses with a napkin as Cassy approached and was surprised to see her so close when he put them back on.

  “Lionel, I presume?”

  He was no tiara with genuine plastic pink gems and diamonds, but he would do.

  The restaurant itself was busy, with only a few tables to spare, though Cassy assumed that they had been reserved. Word on the street was that the food here was by all accounts very good, especially for somewhere out in the sticks like Havenholm.

  When the waiter came to take their orders, Cassy allowed Lionel to choose for her. She liked to give the men in this situation the chance to appear like the
y knew what they were doing. She would have preferred the fish with white wine, but beef wellington with red was just fine.

  “So you’re a framer. Is that what they call it?” Cassy was already halfway through her first glass and the first course hadn’t arrived yet. She made a conscious decision to slow down.

  “Well I would call myself a carpenter, though there’s no formal job description as such.”

  Lionel spoke in halting syllables that made his speech hard to listen to. Cassy found herself having to put in twice the effort to pay attention to what he was saying. Suddenly her decision to take it easy on the wine didn’t seem as appealing. He continued to talk in his odd stop-start fashion for the rest of the meal. It should have been easy for Cassy to get a word in, but he had momentum behind his words and would just keep going for long stretches. If he’d been talking about anything other than the sizes of frames, then Cassy might have been happy to let him keep going. As it was, she entered a boredom-induced trance. The halting rhythm of his words began rocking her to sleep. Thankfully the beef wellington arrived and was a thing of beauty. Lionel had the same and it kept his mouth occupied, for which Cassy was thankful. She took the opportunity to move the conversation on to something that she wanted to talk about. Perhaps alternative medicine, for example, for no reason in particular. Somehow the talk came back to wood and the correct tacks to use when hanging paintings.

  At the depth of her despair, things took a turn for the worst.

  She’d correctly assumed that the table next to them had been reserved. It was, after all, a Friday night and business was booming. The one thing she couldn’t have possibly anticipated was just who was going to be dining there, not just in her eye-line, but within earshot too.

  Deputy James Jones, Jim to his friends, including Cassy, was out of uniform, which was a rarity. It seemed to Cassy that she only ever saw him when he was on duty and he had become somehow permanently linked to the pale beige jacket and brown tie, at least in her mind. They’d been on a couple of dates before, and not all of them engineered from behind the scenes by Dot. Things had gone well, or so Cassy had believed, but the truth was that she was sitting with Lionel and Jim now had a beautiful woman on his arm.

  The couple was led to their table by a waiter who came in between the couple and Cassy. She took this brief moment of occlusion to shift her seat along so that she was facing away from Jim. She had to plausibly deny that she’d spotted him. Lionel took this as if Cassy was keen to get closer to him so he too hopped his chair around the table. Now they were within touching distance, which Cassy thought was too much for a first date.

  The waiter moved away and immediately Cassy was compelled to look over her shoulder. The woman Jim was with could only be described as beautiful. It didn’t matter that she had short red hair, or pale white skin; a lithe, athletic body and high cheek bones that framed a wide smile. The only real thing that concerned Cassy was that the Deputy was so entranced by his date that he didn’t even notice Cassy at all. She’d done her awkward best to be noticed by pretending to avoid him then looking straight at him anyway.

  There was only one thing for it.

  “There goes the wine,” exclaimed Lionel, rising from his seat. He grabbed a napkin to dam up the flow of Merlot before it dripped onto the floor.

  “Clumsy me,” said Cassy. “I’m so sorry—Oh! Hi, James.”

  “Cassandra!” James’ elated smile swiftly changed to something less exuberant when he clocked his date looking puzzled. “Eloise, this is an old friend, Cassy. She works in a local shop.”

  Eloise, the stunning redhead offered her porcelain hand, not so much for Cassy to shake but to hold like a delicate flower.

  “Enchanted,” she said in a whisper, which Cassy had to believe was her normal speaking voice.

  “Same, I’m sure.” Already Cassy was regretting making James notice her. There was no way for this conversation to go. Each couple would exchange pleasantries then return to their respective tables to dine in their little self-contained bubble. Before Cassy could make much more of a fool of herself the waiter returned with another glass of wine ‘compliments of the house.’ It was her cue to return to the intricate details of the correct procedure for mounting back panels.

  Throughout the night, Cassy couldn’t help stealing glimpses of the table behind her. Jim was having a good time it seemed, though Eloise appeared to be as engaging as Lionel was judging by the deputy’s over-eager nods and vocalized shrugs.

  Dessert couldn’t come soon enough.

  The lure of a triple stacked chocolate black forest gateau was the only thing keeping Cassy going at this point. That and the burning desire to see what Jim could possibly see in the short-haired pixie.

  “So what about that Hocus Pocus place?” said Eloise, piquing Cassy’s interest. “Have you been there yet?”

  As Cassy leaned back to eavesdrop she found that Eloise was actually talking to her and she nearly fell off her chair. James must have mentioned what Cassy did for a living, prompting this question. Given the excuse, Cassy swiveled away from her date to talk to the woman on the neighboring table.

  “I actually bought a stuffed toy from there,” she said. “But it’s not really my thing. A little hokey for my taste. I mean, have you seen them? The three sisters?”

  Eloise considered it for a moment. “I like it. I’m into all that mystical stuff. It’s like I can see auras.” Her every sentence was afflicted with an upward raised tone at the end making everything seem like she was seeking confirmation or assurance. Cassy maintained a grin. Somehow. “I like to think that I’m in tune with my spiritual side and they have some great deals there if you’re into it.”

  “It’s cheap, I’ll give them that,” Cassy managed to say.

  “I bought these healing stones in the cutest little box.”

  Cassy wasn’t sure if she’d bailed on her first conversation for a better one. Momentarily she longed to be told about the correct adhesives to use when mounting card. As her interest wandered, she saw James fumbling for his phone. His expression went from contentment to concern as soon as he read his messages. Worried, Cassy watched him while doing the bare minimum to engage with Eloise. She was talking about energy drinks or something now.

  “What is it, Jim?” asked Cassy. He stood, brow furrowed as he squinted at his phone. “Something up?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” he said even as he made moves to leave. Cassy pressed on, sure that he’d been called by Sheriff Noyce while off duty. This could only mean that something was going down.

  “Jim,” she said with a lightly scolding tone. “You can’t pull one over on me.”

  He hesitated, unsure if he should make his excuse and leave. “I’ve got to go. Will you make sure Eloise gets home?” He turned to his date and made his apologies then trotted off, leaving her bewildered. Clearly she’d never been ditched before and sat there in dumb silence for a minute.

  “Lionel, here is a carpenter. Good with his hands,” said Cassy.

  “What?” asked Eloise, still a little confused.

  “And Eloise is into magic and stuff.” Cassy said to Lionel. “You two should hit it off pretty well I should imagine.”

  Cassy promptly followed James out of the dining room certain that they would find a way to salvage their date night.

  By the time Cassy made it outside, James was already gone, the squeal of his tires receding into the twilight. She dashed to her car, or rather Dot’s old thing, as her own was still in the shop. She’d promised Dot she’d care of her car, though it would take a head-on collision to make it noticeably worse.

  She smacked the driver’s door with her hip—the only way to open the thing—and slipped inside. Improbably the engine started on first turn of the key and Cassy praised the heavens, then slammed the manual stick into gear and floored the gas. Slowly it crept up to a respectable speed. The twin red lights that indicated Jim’s car turned a corner into the dark but Cassy managed to catch up with only a
little reckless driving.

  He was headed east beyond the lake. On the drive there, Cassy’s speculation went wild. What could have happened to cause him to ditch his date, who Cassy had to admit was very attractive? It wasn’t normal procedure to call an off-duty officer so something extraordinary must have happened.

  It wasn’t long before James slowed then turned onto a narrow path as they approached the edge of the forest on the lake’s easterly shore. The suspension on Dot’s car wasn’t pleased with going off-road and made Cassy pay for it. Several times Cassy felt like she was going to be jettisoned out of her seat and through the roof as she drove over the uneven surface.

  Up ahead, there were already two patrol cars with their lights flashing mutely, their gyrations alternately filling the forest with red and blue light. Cassy watched from her car as James got out and she realized in that moment that if she hadn’t been so jealous of him dating that redhead she might not have followed him there. She’d tried to convince herself that it had been the off-duty message that had her intrigued, but she had to face facts. She was smitten, and that was putting it mildly. James looked back at her, nodded his acknowledgment and went to meet Sheriff Noyce who emerged from the dark.

  While Noyce filled James in on the details, Cassy tried to come up with a convincing reason for why she was there, then decided against it, or rather that she couldn’t. If she was asked, she’d wing it.

  With that in mind, she got out and approached what was surely a crime scene. The cars were stationed around one of the old hunting towers. They were rickety things built years ago by hunters to lay in wait for the pigeons that lived in the forest. For Cassy it always seemed like stacking the deck too far in the hunter’s favor to reach the treetops. The tower of wood and metal dated back to the first half of the 20th century and still stood mostly intact. Why it hadn’t been pulled down before then Cassy could only speculate, it wasn’t as if anyone hunted around here anymore.