Murder Lifts the Spirits

by Margaret C. Morse

  She looked at me pityingly. "Don't you know that the most obvious suspects are people close to the victim? I don't need scientific procedures. I'll rely on my ability to read faces. I'll be watching and making a list of suspects." She stalked off.

  After Ira rejoined me, I explained her plan. He slipped his arm around my waist. "You don't have to play her game. We can present ourselves to the mask later."

  I leaned into him. "No, I'm sure she'd say my refusal was a sign of a guilty conscience." Anyway, I wanted to see how Cullen reacted in case he did supply any clues to his murder.

  I stopped at the door leading out of the barn. "I'm inexperienced in this ghost thing. Did anyone in your family return as a ghost?"

  He chuckled. "My Great-Aunt Jessie is the most recent."

  "What's so funny?"

  "My mother, who's so into personal freedom, insisted at once that Jessie be implanted permanently into a picture."

  "I understand." I knew ghosts' rights activists wanted laws to require a hearing before a spirit was implanted in an object, but they hadn't been successful. "I wouldn't want some deceased elderly ghost relative darting around the house and popping up at inopportune moments."

  Ira headed for the ranch house. "When you get a day pass, I'll have you over, and you can meet Aunt Jessie."

  I followed him. "One of my wizard friends invited me to see her mother who'd come back as a ghost. It was weird. The mother begged me to take her out. My friend had implanted her in the urn that contained her ashes. It was too heavy to carry anywhere."

  "Mom," said Ira, "has Aunt Jessie set up with a voice-controlled computer, which keeps her very entertained."

  There were too many of us to fit on the patio, so Ira and I stayed in the dining room toward the end of the line while Jake installed the mask. I shouldn't have dawdled with Ira because now I wouldn't be able to watch everyone appear before the mask. I didn't want to increase my unpopularity by cutting in at the front of the line.

  Dawn and Linc had apparently also dallied and shuffled along just ahead of us. We moved in jerks, long pauses, and then a few quick steps forward.

  Wyatt strolled down the line and stopped at us. "Some are doing deep meditation before the mask. Some are talking to it. Do what feels right to you."

  Nothing seemed right to me because I was self-conscious and feared some random reaction from the mask would confirm Adrian's suspicions of me. "Since my adopted parents weren't wizards, they never had a dead relative coming back as a ghost to live with them. The people I've talked to who have experienced it—some were thrilled, some were unhappily haunted."

  Linc scowled. "Jake should've set up a series of scientifically valid experiments, not just accepted Adrian's impulsive suggestion."

  Wyatt focused on Linc. "You have a good point. This is a rough setup to get an overview on how much Cullen perceives and reacts. Jake is arranging it so nobody is closer than ten feet to the mask. He wants neither the observer nor Cullen to be able to influence each other with magic. But Cullen can easily see residents and respond, if he's mentally focused enough."

  That distance seemed safe since wizards couldn't affect things with their magic more than five feet away. I wondered what Jake planned to do if someone tried a propel spell.

  Linc shook his head. "This event should have been more carefully arranged. One result I can predict is that people's interpretations of Cullen's reactions will simply represent their personal beliefs, not any scientific analysis of his responses."

  "You're right, Linc," said Wyatt. "This experiment hasn't been set up with scientific precision. Its purpose is to awaken Cullen's memories by showing him people he worked with every day. The trauma of coming back often disorients ghosts, and they need help to get their bearings. So from that perspective it makes sense."

  Linc's lips turned down in disapproval. "In the future I'd be glad to advise you of the protocols for setting up accurate experiments."

  Dawn backed up from Linc to stand closer to Ira and me. "Oh, let's just do it. I've never been around when a ghost was trying to come back to life or whatever you call it."

  "This will require careful observation and annotation." Linc adjusted his glasses. "People will imagine they see reactions."

  Ira squeezed my shoulder. "I agree with Dawn. Let's do it."

  After a ten-minute delay we finally surged forward enough that my group reached the patio and we could see the backyard.

  The mask floated five feet above the ground and close to the back fence, next to the Mother of Mercy's special place. Jake and Adrian, who was armed with a pen and pad, stood to the right of the shrine, ten feet from the mask.

  I nudged Ira. "The eyes of the mask are open. I wonder who caused that reaction. Adrian must have him or her down on her list as a suspect. Looks like she's appointed herself as the official recorder."

  The current attendee at the mask was Trevor, a twentysomething guy with a scrawny build and curly red hair. He stood on a white X painted on the patchy grass, ten feet from the mask. Trevor fingered the scar slashed across his left cheek. The mask moaned. Trevor flinched and pressed his arm over his face. Adrian scribbled furiously in her notebook.

  Three more students passed without response from Cullen. They stated their names and made comments, mostly about shared memories. Now that I was in front of the mask, I was disappointed that the eyes lacked expression. This blankness chilled me. "I wish you warmth," I said softly. A flash sparked and lodged in the mask's eyes. Pink flushed into its cheeks.

  "What did you do?" Adrian tugged me away.

  I yanked myself out of her grip. "Nothing. Jake said we could speak to the mask. There's no way I could send a word spell that far. I did not intentionally use magic. All that happened was that I felt the mask was cold and wished it the comfort of warmth."

  Wyatt cupped his hand on Adrian's shoulder. "Don't rush to judgment that Petra tried to do something wrong. As Cullen is trying to manifest, remember he's new to being a ghost and inhabiting a mask. There will be tentative gestures by him before he completely learns how to use the mask as his face. Adrian, why not take your turn now?"

  She marched up to the X. As I observed her from the patio, she was sideways to me. Her lips moved, and her hands gestured. It looked like she was doing American Sign Language. I assumed she knew Cullen would understand her and stared fascinated at her rapidly moving hands. Residents who'd already appeared before Cullen lingered on the patio, watching Adrian. I was curious about Cullen's reaction to her.

  "Search," came a whisper from the direction of the mask.

  I started because now the voice, even in that one word, sounded like Cullen.

  Dawn pulled at my sleeve. "It is Cullen!"

  Hearing Cullen's voice stirred up the crowd on the patio. They moved forward, crowding Ira and me. I trampled a red geranium. I explained to several residents what Cullen had said, and they exclaimed about what he meant.

  Wyatt lifted his hands. "Calm down, and back up. Let's give Cullen a break. Vidoc, please help the residents get back to routine." Vidoc efficiently directed residents off the patio and back to work on their magical issues.

  Four remained in the backyard—Adrian, Wyatt, myself, and Jake, who stood with his head bowed at the shrine to the Mother of Mercy.

  Adrian stomped over to me. "See? Cullen responded the most to me. He wants me to find his killer."

  Wyatt came over to us. "Adrian, this is not a contest between you and Petra. We're here to help Cullen. Promise you'll work with me to improve your relationship with her. Don't let this personality clash make you lose focus on Cullen."

  Her features softened. "I'll work with you. Not because I like her, but because I want to be there for Cullen. I know what it's like to be confused about your identity."

  Wyatt gestured for her to accompany him. "This afternoon I'll guide you and Petra through exercises to improve your relationship."

  After they went into the house, I brooded on the patio for a few moments. Excep
t for Jake, who remained close to the shrine for the Mother of Mercy, I was alone. Agreed, my relationship with Adrian needed work, but I already had way too many treatment issues. Brushing my hand over the basil leaves, I enjoyed the spicy scent. The way Adrian put her ideas into action, like having everyone walk by Cullen, was something I liked about her. What I found annoying was her assumption that Cullen's responses automatically meant he was nominating suspects. Who had she put down on her list of suspects? Trevor, me, plus whoever had made the mask's eyes open. She should have put herself on the list. She'd managed to turn Cullen's response of "Search" into an instruction for her to detect his murderer. Enough musing—I joined Linc in the dining room.

  Linc studied his phone. "This business with the mask was rushed together too quickly." He pursed his lips. "We haven't really made any progress in clarifying what causes the mask to change. Adrian created an intense, emotional atmosphere that may have obscured our observations. Our Master Wizards need to work out a scientific approach." He looked at Jake who was coming in from the backyard. "A Master Wizard like Jake who shouldn't have to include input from hotheads like Adrian."

  I moved back so Jake could get around us. His sagging features worried me because he'd have to be strong to guide us through this ordeal.

  "Good points, Linc," I said. Actually, I didn't like it that he was putting demands on Jake. "We all want to understand what's going on, but let's not put too much pressure on ourselves. Let's take time to regroup." I called to Jake who was halfway across the dining room. "Hey, Jake, I didn't see who made the mask's eyes open. Who was it?"

  Jake turned his head but not his body. "That would have been me." He left the dining room.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Midafternoon in one of the cubicles in the barn, Wyatt followed through on his plan to partner me up with Adrian. He dropped a rag doll on the counter at the rear of the cubicle. The doll had red yarn hair woven into two chunky braids. She wore a blue gingham dress tied with a white ribbon. A pale pink cloth covered her stubby arms and legs.

  "Adrian," Wyatt said, "create what you want to see with the rag doll. Petra will work with it after you finish. Petra, I want you to complement what Adrian does." He went across to the cubicle where Trevor was mixing paints.

  Adrian moved her lips then made gestures over the rag doll. I assumed that she was using American Sign Language again to work her spell. She normally whispered magic words and made fluttering gestures, so I wondered why she'd changed her method. Once her hands stilled, the doll's braids unraveled, and the red yarn hair stuck up straight from the head. Adrian touched her own hair and made a scissors gesture with two fingers. Chunks of the yarn hair fell off, leaving the doll with a short haircut like Adrian's.

  Adrian tugged off the dress. After a rummage in the drawers below the counter, she found a square of denim, which she dropped on the doll. Using her sign-language gestures again, she held her hands over the denim. It wrapped around the doll's waist and formed suspender overalls.

  From a scrap of white cloth, Adrian created a T-shirt emblazoned with Bad Boy. I blinked at the doll. She had changed it from Raggedy Ann to Raggedy Andy.

  Adrian karate chopped onto the doll's neck and decapitated him. She shoved the pieces to me.

  The air tingled with her violence. The confined space of the cubicle held in her emotional intensity. I pushed the two pieces together because I found the headless body pathetic.

  What did I have inside me to put the doll together? The spilled-out stuffing smelled of fresh straw. I fingered the threads at the neck of the doll's cloth body. I plucked out a strand of my hair and laid it close to the stump of the doll's neck on the front. I whispered the spell words, "Thread in, thread out," and passed my hand over the doll. As if a needle were attached to it, the hair wove together the neck stump and head. When the doll was whole, I pushed it back to Adrian.

  Trevor burst into our cubicle. The jagged curls of his red hair gave him a fiery appearance. His eyes blazed at Adrian. "You'll be sorry you messed with me. I don't know how you did it, but you used magic on the mask to have it react when I appeared. I've heard you kept a list of people the mask responded to. Supposedly being on the list makes me a suspect in Cullen's death. For some twisted reason you're out to get me." He stomped out of the barn, pursued by Wyatt.

  Trevor's remarks didn't make sense because Adrian had been too far from the mask to affect it with a spell. She didn't say anything to me about his angry remarks but traced her finger around the doll. With his stitched neck, he had a Frankenstein aspect.

  "You didn't change him back to a girl." She glanced at me, not glaring for a change.

  "I didn't want to tick you off. Anyway, I like guys." I was surprised Adrian didn't seem agitated by Trevor's outburst. "Do you want to talk about what Trevor said?" When she shook her head, I made a note to probe that issue later. I thought her interchange with Cullen might be a good topic. "If you don't mind me asking, I'm curious why you used what looked like American Sign Language when you appeared before Cullen's mask?"

  She took a calming deep breath. "Cullen and I both have siblings who are hearing impaired, so we know ASL. I thought it would help me discipline my thoughts and be a shared memory between us."

  "Adrian, now you don't seem so angry. Why did you start off by decapitating the doll?"

  "If you knew my story, you'd figure it out."

  At the ranch a person's story meant the deeply embarrassing and dangerous incident that forced them to accept treatment.

  "From what I've heard," I said, "you like a man's form, so why decapitate the doll when you'd turned him into a boy?"

  Her back to me, she stood with her arms crossed over her chest in an odd way, her hands clasped on her shoulders. "You only know the outside of my story. If you'd ever really talked with me instead of spending all your free time with Ira, you'd know why."

  Somehow I'd made her angry again. Her turbulence wore me down. "I hate myself for being here." I blurted that out, although it wasn't on topic.

  She glanced over her shoulder. "I've always hated my body."

  "I never got why you refused to return to your woman's shape when the council investigated you. It made so much trouble."

  She gripped her shoulders more tightly. "The only time I ever like myself is when I shapeshift into a man's form. It feels right." She released her shoulders and let her hands flop. "They forced me to come back."

  "They drugged you to get you to cooperate?" I guessed.

  She turned and faced me. "They broke me. They made me return."

  "Do you ever stop being mad?"

  "I have righteous anger because of Cullen's murder. My fury is logical. Before, I was bitter and frustrated at everything. My anger had no purpose. That's when Hailey came to me."

  She had to mean Hailey Silverstone, the executive director of REM. Hailey had been on the porch the night of Cullen's death, but I hadn't seen her since then. "I haven't really met her. I know she does counseling and administration for REM like Jake does for the ranch."

  When Adrian's eyes half closed, her features softened. She looked dreamy. "I emailed her what they did to me. She came. She does whatever needs to be done. She likes challenges."

  Hailey Silverstone's intervention explained why Adrian was such a big REM fan. I'd always thought she was an odd match for a touchy-feely group. "What's she like?"

  "I can't talk about her. It's too personal."

  Adrian was so prickly. I decided to change the subject and try for the dirt on Trevor. "What's the deal with Trevor? Are you worried about his threat?"

  "I'm sure Trevor has already told his buddies—and the police—every negative thing he knows or thinks about me."

  "How bad could he make you look?"

  Adrian scraped her fingernail on Raggedy Andy's neck. Please don't cut off his head again.

  She got in my face. "Why are you asking these questions?"

  "I'm curious. Look, you criticized me for being too wrapped up in
Ira. Now you're mad when I show an interest in you. Just assume I'm nosy." Her changeable temperament made me consider her as a suspect in Cullen's murder. She could have killed him in a hot rage and now be covering up by acting like she cared about him.

  She seemed to accept my defense of curiosity, for the scowl faded from her face. "When I came here, one of the rules for me was that I give up shapeshifting until they felt I had made enough progress in the program to control my return. A couple of weeks ago, Cullen caught me right after I'd shapeshifted into a man's form. I thought I was alone. Cullen threatened to tell, but we worked it out. I promised to ask Hailey for help and not do any more secret shapeshifts if he didn't report me to staff."

  "How does Trevor fit in?"

  "Cullen didn't tell staff, but he blabbed to all his A-list friends, including Trevor."

  "So if Trevor thinks you set him up by having the mask react, he could pay you back by blabbing to everyone about your issue with Cullen." It was hard to keep track of the twists and turns of my fellow residents' interactions. "Last night you acted like Cullen was your best friend."

  "Didn't Ira tell you Cullen and I had a reconciliation at REM?"

  "Ira doesn't gossip much."

  Jake walked up to the counter and studied the stitched-up doll. "Is this a good or bad sign?"

  Adrian and I exchanged a level look. Her shoulders raised in a tiny shrug.

  "It could go either way," I said.

  Adrian nodded. "It could have been worse."

  Jake smiled. "I like to get these positive reports. Right now, I'm bringing around another new staff member from REM."

  The barn door opened. A woman stood on the threshold. The sun shone on blonde hair worn in a straight, well-disciplined bob to her neck. Her hair glowed like a halo. She stepped into the barn and paused, a faint smile directed at Jake. I recognized Hailey Silverstone from her TV appearances as director of REM and her work with groups at the ranch.

  Adrian stretched out her arms and darted to Hailey. Instead of the hug I expected, Hailey held out both hands. She had decorated her burgundy sheath with a gold scarf draped in complicated swirls that fluffed out around her neck. A hug might muss such a careful arrangement. Jake waved Hailey over.