by Sharon Pape
From here and now to there and then.
Attract no harm nor change allow.
Safe passage guarantee to souls,
As well as lesser mindless things
I landed in a heap in my storeroom, gasping for air. My right knee and elbow had taken the brunt of my graceless entry, but they would heal. I’d chosen the storeroom, because no one was likely to be in there when I appeared out of thin air. It was bad enough that there was now a man with a black heart who knew I was no ordinary woman.
I pulled myself up from the floor on rubber Gumby legs. I didn’t dare leave the storeroom, until my legs had steadied and I regained some of my composure. Otherwise Tilly would want to know what happened, and if I told her, she might insist I stop the investigation. I wasn’t going to do that. Not even for my aunt’s peace of mind. I decided to give her an expurgated version of the attack.
I found her sitting in the chair near the counter with Sashkatu in her lap. They both had their eyes closed. She was petting, he was purring. Seeing them in such a serene and loving pose, I came unglued. After my knees had stopped wobbling, I’d thought I was fine, but the attack must have left a deeper emotional wound. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I was headed back to the storeroom to wait out the deluge, when Tilly opened her eyes.
She stood up immediately, forgetting she had a cat in her lap. Sashki landed on his feet, none the worse for his rude awakening, but he stalked off in the direction of his window ledge, too miffed to bother greeting me.
“My dear girl,” Tilly said, “what’s happened?” With the flair of a master magician, she pulled a tissue from a hidden pocket in her muumuu and held it out to me. Knowing my aunt, she probably had a muffin or a scone hidden somewhere in its folds as well. She liked to be prepared for any emergency.
I blotted my eyes with the tissue and blew my nose. “I’m fine,” I assured her, “I just had a scuffle with a guy who tried to steal my purse.”
Tilly raised a critical eyebrow. She wasn’t buying it. Why did I think she would? She’d known me all my life, and except for my entrance into the world, I’d never been much of a crier. “How about the whole, unabridged version?” she said.
I didn’t have the energy to fight her intuition. I broke down and told her everything. I wouldn’t have lasted long in the spy business. When I was done, she gathered me into her arms, the muumuu enveloping both of us.
“The good news,” I said, taking a step back, “is that I was able to teleport away before anything worse happened.”
“The bad news,” my aunt countered, “is that you’re not going to stop the investigation, are you?”
I looked her in the eye. “Since when does a Wilde crumble before a threat?”
“Maybe a Wilde shouldn’t act alone. This thug wouldn’t have attacked you if you were with someone else.”
“Travis can’t always be with me, Aunt Tilly. He has to earn a living too.”
“Who’s talking about Travis? I could have been with you.” I didn’t see that one coming.
“And who would have been here to keep my shop open?” It was a lame attempt to win an unwinnable argument.
“You would have closed for half a day.” I had nowhere to go from there. Tilly’s phone rang, like a bell ending the round in a boxing match. The judges would have given her that one. She fumbled around in her muumuu, looking for the pocket with the phone. The conversation itself took a matter of seconds. “That was Merlin,” she said with a sigh. “My vacation is over.” She put her hand on my forearm, “We’ll continue this discussion later. In the meantime, try to stay out of trouble.” I promised I would, but it wasn’t as if I’d been looking for trouble, when it had come from behind to accost me.
Chapter 22
Travis had been on assignment in D.C., covering a state visit by China’s president. Although we talked every night, I decided not to tell him about my little misadventure until he returned. He didn’t need to be distracted by my all’s-well-that-ends-well tale, which is how I decided to characterize it. I was fine. I handled the matter and I seriously doubted my attacker would ever come near me again.
“When are you coming home?” I asked. I was missing him like crazy. A little over a year ago, I hadn’t even known he existed.
“Hormones,” is all Elise had to say when I’d made this observation to her.
“I know, but they’re just a fancy cocktail of chemicals!”
She’d laughed. “With the power to control you like you were some mindless drone. Romantic isn’t it?”
“You’ve been on my mind all week,” Travis said, plucking those hormones like the strings of a harp. “I’m flying home tonight. I could come straight to you, but it will be late.”
“I’ll cast a little spell to unlock the door for you, in case I fall asleep. Just stand on the doormat and say your name. But keep an eye out for my attack cats.”
“Maybe I’ll stop at a pet store and pick up some catnip.”
“I wouldn’t do that, unless you want to deal with a bunch of hyped up kitties.”
Determined to wait up for Travis, I put on the late show that came on after the eleven o’clock news. One minute I was lying on the sofa listening to the comedian’s monologue and the next, I was waking to the feel of Travis’s lips on my cheek.
“I guess I didn’t make it,” I murmured, pushing myself upright. Travis sat down and put his arm around me to keep me propped up against him.
“Hard day?” he asked.
“Sort of. But you must be exhausted.”
“Not really. The flight was short and my car knows the way here. It practically drives itself. If I ever get a new girlfriend, I’ll probably have to buy a new car.”
“A new girlfriend?” I repeated, coming fully awake.
Travis grinned. “That worked better than caffeine—apparently I now have my own magick words.”
“I wouldn’t use them too often if I were you. Magick can backfire when used indiscriminately. Are you hungry? Can I make you something?”
“I grabbed dinner before the flight, so unless you have some fabulous Tilly dessert with which to tempt me, all I need is you.” And, in spite of his denial, a decent night’s sleep.
I was up at seven to feed the feline masses who had clocks for stomachs and not a stitch of compassion for their indentured help. Travis slept until after nine. When he couldn’t find me in the house, he walked across the street to the back door of my shop and knocked.
“You should install a doorbell,” he said when I let him in.
“Tilly and I are the only ones who come in the back way and we both have keys.”
“I think I should have a key. For the house too.”
“Done.” I liked hearing him talk long term. He followed me up to the front of the shop where we took our usual seats, I on the counter, he in the chair. If I intended to tell him about the attack, I should get to it before customers arrived.
“A strange thing happened yesterday,” I began. Travis sat up straighter, instantly on alert. I’ve been told I often minimize bad things. In fact Travis was one of the people who’d told me that, so it was no surprise when he interpreted strange to mean nearly fatal or death-defying. I started at the beginning, summarizing my meeting with the bartenders and Humphrey, hitting all the salient points.
“When do you get to the strange part?” he asked. A lot of people might have given my tale short shrift, until I got there, but not Travis. If I quizzed him on everything I’d just told him, he would know it cold. Remembering was his stock-in-trade.
“Strange part coming up now.” I recounted the attack from beginning to end. There was no point in leaving anything out. He had a journalist’s mind and a journalist’s ear. Not much got by him. He listened without interrupting me, his expression growing darker and more troubled as I drew toward the end. When I reached the part where I teleporte
d out of the attacker’s grasp, the tension didn’t drain from his face like I thought it would.
He didn’t give me a high five or a thumbs-up. There was no victory cheer in his voice. “You were lucky. It could have gone very differently.”
“But it didn’t, because I have certain abilities to call on.”
“What if he knocked you unconscious or used chloroform, and then kidnapped you? Or killed you outright by slashing your carotid artery?” His sobering words took me down a peg or ten. Served me right for being arrogant.
“You’re right. I am lucky to be alive.”
“Look Kailyn, I’m not trying to undermine your confidence and courage. But I don’t want you to be so sure of yourself that you’re not sensibly scared when things like that happen.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. When I couldn’t remember the spell I needed, I was scared enough for both of us and my aunt Tilly.” Judging by his deepening frown, I might have overdone the honesty. He looked like he had more to say, but was restraining himself.
Since I had no interest in coaxing it out of him, I nudged the conversation in a less personal direction. “I’m sure the guy was hired to scare me off the case. We just need to figure out who paid him.”
“The same person who’s been playing avenging angel by killing Genna and trying to kill Tony. They may have more people on their hit list and they don’t want to be stopped before their work is done. It could be any one of our suspects. He ticked off the names on his fingers, “Lillian Desmond, Charlie Desmond, Conrad Williams or Ashley Rennet.”
“Don’t forget Scott,” I added, “or at least his ghost.” Travis compressed his lips like a kid refusing to eat his broccoli. He’d learned to accept the existence of magick and ghosts and individuals like me, who straddled the real and supernatural realms. He might have convinced himself that the magick was an elaborate trick, the ghosts merely holograms, but there was no explaining me away or the impossible things he’d seen me do. But an avenging ghost was clearly more than he could stand.
“You don’t think Scott’s ghost came back for revenge, do you?” The look on his face begged me not to tell him that.
“No, to the best of my knowledge, ghosts cannot kill the living—except maybe by causing a heart attack. A ghost might enjoy scaring the people who did him wrong, but that’s about it.”
“Speaking of which,” Travis said, “have you found a common thread between the people who have seen him?”
“Nothing definitive. Everyone he’s visited was at the lake the night he drowned, except for me. So that can’t be the link.”
“Wait a minute. Scott may be visiting the others to scare them, but what if he didn’t come to scare you? What if he came to see you? Pay you a visit?”
I started to laugh, but cut myself short as the memory of his visit replayed in my mind. “I was so freaked out that night and so thrilled it was you at the door, I forgot to tell you this—Scott looked straight at me and held up his hand. Not like he was waving. More like he was telling me to stop.”
Travis’s brows inched together. “‘Stop’ as in stop the investigation?”
“I can’t imagine what else it could have meant.”
“But if this is his ghost, why wouldn’t he want you to figure out who was responsible for his death?”
I shook my head. “One more question to add to all the others that still need answers.”
“If you’re right about his gesture, he dropped by to give you a message and that does set you apart from the others who saw him. Being at the lake is the common thread.”
“Not so fast,” I said. “I got an email this morning from another person who saw Scott. I have to talk to her, before I make that commit—” The door flew open, and Beverly stumbled in and collapsed on the floor, gasping for air.
I jumped down from the counter and Travis launched himself out of the chair. We reached Beverly as she was trying to stand up. “Are you okay?” he asked once we’d helped her to her feet.
“Now I am, thanks to you.” She gave him a smile that nearly triggered my gag reflex. But her breathing was still ragged and she was trembling.
“Was someone chasing you?” I asked, thinking of the man who accosted me.
“Not someone, something! Your crazy cousin was walking this…this…giant squirrel creature. The thing was trying to get at me and pulled the leash right out of his hand. I had to run for my life. That’s why I dodged into the first shop I came to. Whatever you do, don’t let him in here. He could be rabid!”
“The marmot or Merlin?” I asked evenly. Travis tried not to laugh, but he finally lost it.
Beverly lifted her chin with indignation. “Laugh all you want, but I bet my life it’s not legal to keep a beast like that as a pet in this state, and I intend to find out!” The situation went from funny to grim in five seconds flat. Merlin would never agree to give up Froliquet. An image of them sitting together in a jail cell popped into my head.
“I’m sorry, Beverly,” I said with as much sincerity as I could muster.
Travis followed my lead. “My apologies as well. I have no idea why it struck me as funny, but that was totally inappropriate.”
I saw the calculated look flash in her eyes and realized she was about to ask about compensation for her ordeal. I peered out the window past Sashkatu, who was absorbed in cleaning his paws. “Oh no, here they come! Merlin’s gaining on the marmot,” I called it out like a play by play of a sporting event. “He’s about to catch her…oh no, she zigged when he zagged. She’s running him around in circles. He stumbled. Is he going down? No, he’s still on his feet—what a save. Now he’s herding her this way!”
Travis grabbed Beverly’s arm, hooking into my improv and running with it. “Quick—come with me. I’ll get you out the back way.” For a moment she seemed torn between standing her ground and wanting to flee. I helped her make the right decision by throwing open the front door. Beverly didn’t even look over her shoulder as Travis rushed her out the back door.
For the rest of the morning, whenever we happened to glance at each other, we burst into laughter at what would come to be known, among family and friends, as Beverly and the Attack of the Giant Squirrel.
Chapter 23
We should have known that Beverly would follow through with her threat to report Merlin and Froliquet to the police. But we had a lot more pressing matters on our minds, not the least of which was earning a living. We were in the thick of the summer season, with bus tours filling our calendars and tourists filling our shops. We had little time to restock merchandise, and none to waste worrying about when Beverly’s theatrics might come home to roost.
Tilly was baking for so many hours a day that her feet were perpetually swollen and couldn’t be stuffed into even her most comfortable stretched out slippers. Merlin and I tried every herbal poultice we could think of. He massaged her feet until his fingers were numb. I wrote a spell that worked for five minutes, but then her feet ballooned up again. It was Merlin who finally came up with a solution.
“Mayhap we need more power behind the spell to make it last longer.” We were in Tilly’s shop where she was seated with her feet up on another chair. I ran back to Abracadabra to fetch Sashkatu. He wasn’t happy to be plucked off his sundrenched windowsill mid nap, but I rarely made such demands of him. Besides this was for Tilly, whom he loved dearly. When he realized she was ailing, he dropped the put-upon attitude. With everyone on board, Merlin, Froliquet, Sashki and I formed a circle of sorts around my aunt. Those of us who spoke English repeated the spell seven times for good measure.
Heal the feet of she who ails.
Be gone the pain and swelling.
Let her finish all her work
Just like a girl of twenty.
Like time-lapse photography, Tilly’s feet returned to their normal size right before our eyes. Five minutes passed an
d they remained unchanged. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and thirty. No one dared call the fortified spell a success yet.
“Hold it,” I said. “Tilly needs to be standing. Otherwise how can we tell if the spell is really working?”
“Oh dear,” Tilly mumbled, “we should all be ashamed of ourselves.”
She set her bare feet on the floor and stood up. The vigil of her feet began again. When the results were in, Tilly could stand for two hours at a time before the swelling returned. Although that was far from perfect, she could manage to do her baking between periods of rest. The hope was that with practice she might only need the rest of us to provide a booster shot of the spell once a day.
With Tilly literally back on her feet, I returned to my storeroom. I was rushing to fill bottles with poison ivy remedy when the bells over the front door jingled. I screwed the cap on the last bottle and went to greet my customer. I found Paul Curtis poking his head down the aisles, looking for me. “Hi Paul,” I said, giving him a start. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
He broke into an easy smile. Since he’d started dating Abigail Riggs, things had finally become less awkward between us. If Travis hadn’t come into my life at the same time Paul got up his nerve to ask me out, I might have been the one dating him. He was a nice guy, but I’d known him most of my life. He never had a chance once Travis showed up on my doorstep.
“Hi. I stopped by to give you a heads up.”
“About what?”
“Beverly Ruppert filed a complaint against your cousin Merlin. She didn’t know his last name. It seems he has a new pet that chased her down the street?” His voice rose in a question as if he knew Beverly might have exaggerated the incident. “Does Merlin have a new pet?”
The answer was an easy yes, but it would lead inexorably to a reading of the town code with regard to harboring animals. I’d read the code a few times over the years, whenever I thought about getting a more exotic pet than a cat, dog or canary. I was fairly certain that marmots were not on the list of animals permitted to dwell in New Camel residences. Even if the police tried to look the other way, marmots chasing people down the street was a hard no. “He has a wonderful new pet,” I said wishing that could be the end of the conversation.
