Yasmine Galenorn - Chintz 'n' China 04 Read online

  Without another word, Murray and I rose to our feet and left. As we reached the parking lot, I looked back at the building. I couldn’t get the image of the frightened old man fighting against the attendants out of my mind. I leaned against the side of Murray’s truck, swallowing the lump that was rising in my throat as I wondered if I was going to vomit.

  “Em, Em? Are you okay?” Murray draped an arm around my shoulder.

  “I just … that is not a good place for me to be.”

  “Take a deep breath, come on, that’s right—and another. Good.” Her voice soothed my frazzled nerves and after a moment, I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Brent was begging for Brigit’s forgiveness. Do you think he killed her?”

  Murray frowned. “Em, I know it seems like a good lead, but remember—Brent is over the edge. He’s lived in his own little world for half a century, and who knows what he’s dreamed up in there? For all we know, he’s confusing Brigit with a childhood pet or something. I wasn’t sure what I expected to get when I came here, but it’s obvious he’s not playing with a full deck.”

  I sighed. What she said made a lot of sense. How could we trust him? And yet, he painted castles and trees and calico cats, and he knew Brigit’s name, and he desperately wanted her forgiveness. For a crime committed? Or simply because he was a confused old man?

  “So where do we go from here?”

  Murray hopped in the truck and started her up. “I think I’ll check on Brigit O’Reilly. See if I can find a record of her leaving the city.”

  I climbed in and fastened my seat belt. “Good idea. I’ve got to make dinner—Joe’s coming for an hour or so. I hope they don’t make him work the next couple nights. I want him home for my birthday.”

  She gave me a quiet smile. “Home? So Joe is home when he’s at your house?”

  I couldn’t help but grin at her. “Yeah, I guess he is.” We headed back to Chiqetaw in better spirits, but my thoughts kept drifting back to Brent. Just what had he done, that he needed forgiveness?

  AS I WHIPPED together a quick meatloaf, the phone rang. It was Margaret, Joe’s aunt. “Hey Maggie,” I said. “Want to join us for dinner tonight?”

  Her cheerful voice rang out over the line. “No, my dear, I can’t make dinner, but perhaps I’ll drop by this evening if you don’t mind.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Margaret Files was a delightfully spry and surprisingly sharp old gal. She was also Joe’s only family in town; his brother lived back east, his father had long disappeared, and his mother lived in California with her latest boyfriend.

  I finished dinner just in time to hear the kids slam through the door. They rushed in, asking about Samantha, and I had to tell them that no—she wasn’t home yet. Dejected, they trudged upstairs to wash up for dinner. Kip looked so forlorn that my heart felt like it was cracking in pieces. So many sorrows, so much pain in the world. Randa set the table while Kip went out back to call for Sammy with a can of cat food. In the midst of all our bustle, Joe popped in and I wrapped my arms around him.

  “Mmm, I need this,” I said. “It’s been a long day, Files.” I filled him in on what we’d found out and showed him the paper. “I don’t know if this will help, but now Irena can’t use the excuse of not being able to get her brother to agree.”

  “I suppose,” he said, setting the paper on the desk and pulling me into a long, leisurely kiss, his tongue probing my mouth, questioning. “I wish I could stay the night,” he whispered. “I want to make love to you, to kiss your neck, your breasts, your thighs. I want to wrap you in my arms and slide inside you.”

  I caught my breath, flushing as desire grew like a flame from a lightning strike. Just then, Randa called from the kitchen and I gently disengaged myself.

  “Duty calls,” I said, wistfully.

  He slapped me on the butt. “Then make me some dinner, woman. We’ll find the time to satisfy our other hunger later.”

  I sliced the meatloaf and arranged it on the platter while Randa finished heating a jar of gravy in the microwave. Baked potatoes and diced beets finished the meal, along with the promise of a chocolate cream pie that I’d bought on the way home.

  We ate in silence, Kip staring at the door every few minutes. I was worried. If we didn’t find Sammy soon, I had the feeling I’d have more than one breakdown on my hands. While Joe served the pie, I made a pot of mint tea and carefully placed the chintz pot on the table, along with the honey. Randa poured while I fed the cats. I didn’t have the heart to ask Kip to attend to the task. He was taking Sammy’s absence hard, as was I, but he didn’t have the resources or experience to cope with it. Randa also seemed withdrawn.

  I took her hand when she offered me a cup of tea. “Randa, honey, is anything wrong?”

  She bit her lip, then hung her head. “I got a B today.”

  “B? In what?”

  Blushing, she said, “Math.”

  Math? My genius girl had gotten a B in mathematics, one of her best subjects? I frowned. “Well, honey, that’s a good grade, but I’m kind of surprised. You usually manage an A. Did something happen that you want to talk about?”

  With a quick shake of the head, she dove into her pie. “No,” she said, mumbling through a mouthful of whipped cream and chocolate custard. “I screwed up, okay?”

  I dropped the subject, not wanting to embarrass her in front of her brother and Joe. It wasn’t the end of the world, by any means, but a radical departure from the usual, and it raised warning flags in my head. I filed it away for later and turned to Joe.

  “Your aunt is coming to visit tonight. Will you be able to stay?”

  He shook his head and wiped his mouth on his napkin. “I wish I could, but I’ve got to get back to the station. And I may have to work tomorrow night, but I’ll definitely have your birthday off, so chin up, sweetie.” He shook the crumbs off his shirt and leaned down to give me a kiss. “Gotta run. Say hi and love to Aunt Margaret for me.”

  “I will,” I said, watching as he slipped into his jacket and headed out the backdoor after a quick good-bye to Kip and Randa. Somehow, my birthday seemed to be dropping further and further into a fugue of its own. I wondered if I should bother celebrating at all. With Sammy missing, and a possible murder next door that may have been committed by a man who had lost his grip on reality … with ghosts and Will o’ the Wisps hanging about, and the spirit of a woman who seemed caught forever in a freeze-frame of time… . Perhaps I should stick to honoring my ancestors the way Nanna had taught me and forget about a celebration.

  Outside the wind kicked up a fuss and a tree limb went crashing into the backyard, narrowly missing the shed. Oh yeah, this was shaping up to be a Halloween I wouldn’t forget.

  Eleven

  From Brigit’s Journal:

  I went to book passage home. I stood in the rain for an hour before the agency opened, and then, when I was almost ready to hand over my money, I couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not while there’s still a chance. Hope is such a bitter, cruel dream. I looked out of my tower and fell in love. But if I approach the castle … will I find there’s a place waiting for me within?

  Some secrets can be kept only so long before they become public knowledge. I can’t wait any longer for him to make a decision. My cousin is right. I’m a dreamer, a silly girl whose head is filled with old sonnets and poems. Tomorrow, I’ll book my trip, and I’ll go home to Mary Kathryn and make a new life. There’s nothing else for me to do.

  WHILE I WAS waiting for Joe’s aunt, Randa handed me her notebook. “Would you read this, Mom? We have to write a poem for English class and I tried, but …” She shrugged. My daughter was more fixated on the stars than on verbs, for all of her new obsession with writing poetry. An obsession which I fully believed to be Gunner’s influence.

  I took the notebook. “How’s Gunner, by the way?” I asked casually. “You haven’t mentioned him in a day or so.”

  “He’ll be back in schoo
l next week, the teacher says. His parents are still critical, and he’s staying with his aunt until they know what’s going to happen. He’s pretty shell-shocked.”

  “I would think so,” I murmured. I opened the notebook to the page she indicated and began to read.

  Once upon a golden morn, A lady fair of face was born.

  In a tower she did stay,

  Telling fortunes all the day.

  Until a knight came riding by, And a tear fell from her eye.

  Her heart it broke in two that day, She loved him dear from far away.

  But in her tower she did stay, Until she faded quite away.

  I glanced up at Randa. As far as I knew she’d never read Tennyson, but then again, perhaps I’d read him to her as a baby—I’d read everything and anything to my kids when they were little that I figured wouldn’t terrify them. I wondered if anything in Brigit’s journal had influenced her.

  “Honey, have you ever heard of a poem called The Lady of Shalott?”

  She scrunched her face up, thinking. “Nope, don’t think so.”

  “How about a poet named Tennyson?”

  Again the concentrated frown and a shake of the head. “Why?”

  I sighed. Too many parallels, too many connections for comfort. I felt like we were swimming in a vast pool of oddities that just kept pouring in, and I knew they were all related but couldn’t see the stone for the ripples.

  “Nothing,” I said. “It’s very good, sweetie. What made you think of it?”

  She shifted from one foot to another. “I’ve been having weird dreams about a woman locked in a tower who is dying of a broken heart. Do you think it has anything to do with the skeleton in the tree? That’s kind of like a tower and it was a lady who died there, right?”

  Bingo. She’d put her finger on it, but I didn’t want to scare her. If I could put a logical spin on it, she might accept it for what it was, at face value, without worrying too much.

  “Hey, it probably does but not for the reasons you might be thinking. Look at the facts—your friend Gunner’s parents are seriously burned in a fire. Not only do we have an infestation of nasty faeries next door, but we also find a skeleton hidden in a tree over there. Toss in with that the fact that Sammy’s missing, and that at school, you’re in a much harder class than last year … honey, that adds up to a lot of stress. I’m not surprised you’re having nightmares and writing poetry like this. Your mind just puts everything in a jar, shakes it all up, and out come the dreams.”

  She chewed on this for a bit then nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I’m going to check the sky to see if it’s clear enough to stargaze for awhile. Maybe while I’m up there, I’ll see Sammy.”

  “Bundle up before you go out on the roof,” I called as she headed for the stairs. She tossed me a quick wave as I glanced around the living room. The place was cluttered, but not dirty, and I began tidying up, trying to distract myself. I was actually glad that I’d be back in the shop come Monday—I was sick of shadows and half-veiled glimpses of the Otherworld.

  Usually, the supernatural came in with a bang and I was able to resolve the issue without too much stumbling around, but this time was different. As I’d told Randa, with skeletons and a haunted lot next door, and the Will o’ the Wisps, and odd dreams, and questions about a possible murder from the past, no wonder I felt disoriented.

  Actually, though, when I thought about it, it made perfect sense that Brigit was wandering the earth again. Not only had we disturbed her resting place, but the energies of the season were beginning to turn. Halloween night lifted the veil between the worlds for a brief time, and spirits walked the earth, looking to communicate with those they had left behind. Especially those souls who had died unexpected or violent deaths. Most people went through their days never realizing how many ghosts brushed by them, sharing their space. The traffic increased at this time of year, and those who were psychic, who could “sense” things, often felt discombobulated.

  As I plumped the sofa pillows and straightened magazines, Kip came trudging down the stairs. He settled himself on the floor, crossed his legs and stared at me, his eyes full of hurt. I knew what he was thinking and I sat down beside him, taking his hands.

  “We’ll find her, kiddo. She’s out there, I can sense it. I just can’t seem to pinpoint where she is. But Samantha is alive.” I stared into his eyes, willing him to believe me.

  He swallowed. “I know you’re right, but I still …” A brief pause and I suddenly understood what the problem was.

  “You’re scared I’m wrong, but you don’t want to make me mad or hurt my feelings by saying so?” The flicker in his eyes told me I had nailed it. “It’s okay, kiddo, you can go ahead and say it. It’s okay.”

  With a sniffle, he wiped his nose. “I thought you might get upset ’cause it sounds like I don’t believe you.”

  I slipped my arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “You know, I always want you to be able to tell me what you’re thinking. I know it’s hard to believe she’s still alive when we don’t know where she is, and I know how scared you are. I’m scared, too. But, kiddo, we have to keep our hopes up. I really do believe she’s out there, you know. I don’t know why she can’t make it home right now, but there’s something blocking her way.”

  He leaned his head against my arm. “Okay, but I wish whatever it was would go away and leave her alone.”

  “Me, too, hon. Me, too.” The phone rang and, with a quick kiss on his head, I jumped up to answer it. Surprise of surprises, it was White Deer.

  “Boy am I glad to hear your voice,” I said. “Has Murray told you what’s been going on?”

  “Yes, she did. Interesting,” White Deer said, and I could tell she was being her usual reticent self.

  “I hate to ask this, but is there any way you could help with Samantha? We’re worried sick about her.” I could hear the edge of exhaustion in my voice and realized that I was starting to run on fumes. The past few days had been a blur of energy and chaos, and all the mayhem was draining my reserves.

  She was silent for a moment, then said, “What about if I come over later tonight? We’ll talk then.”

  “Thank you—thank you. I’ve been so frazzled lately,” I said. “There’s just been so much going on here. What with ghosts and faerie lights and now this skeleton business, I feel like I’m being slammed around in a tidal wave of energy.”

  “I can be there around eleven. If that’s not too late for you, I’ll drop over then. Meanwhile, you look around and see if you can find any fur you might have from Samantha—stray hairs in a brush.”

  “Will do,” I said, not even asking why. I trusted White Deer implicitly. “Eleven’s fine, I’m not sleeping that well anyway.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then. And Emerald,” she paused. “Samantha will come home, but I sense there’s a long bridge that she has to navigate first. I think …” She paused and I could feel her tuning into something that I couldn’t quite touch. “I don’t know how to explain this but there was some sort of crossover. I’m not sure of what I mean by that, but it’s as if something came through and exchanged places with her. Whatever that is, it has to return to the spirit world before Sammy can come home.”

  I hung up, thinking about what White Deer had said. Something had taken Samantha’s place in this world, something from the spirit world. Brigit’s ghost cat—that had to be what she was sensing! Somehow, the cats had managed to trade places, but the ghost cat had retained its ghostly status in our world, while Samantha was still alive and trapped in the spirit world. We had to forge a link that would allow them to each return to their respective homes. But would it work?

  I glanced at the clock—half an hour until Margaret arrived. Long enough for a little research. Taking the stairs two at a time, I raced to my room and pulled out Nanna’s trunk. My grandmother had taught me, from the time I was little, how to work the charms and spells she learned from her grandmother. When she died she’d left me her special trun
k. Hand-carved from ironwood, it was filled with her charms and the core of her folk wisdom.

  In the bottom of the trunk, within a secret compartment, rested the five-hundred-year-old seax dagger that had become my own. I seldom used it but every month under the full moon, I gently polished the blade, then smudged it with white sage, an herb whose smoke purified and sanctified everything that it touched. The dagger had served me well during the few times I’d had call to bring it out, even to the point of getting rid of astral nasties on occasion.

  However, the real treasure in the trunk—the one I’d taken care to preserve and would one day pass down to one of my children—was Nanna’s journal. The leather-bound pages were filled with handwritten charms, some in her native German, some in English. A compendium of knowledge she’d learned from her grandmother.

  I could make out some of the German words, and was planning to take a class in German so I could read her entries and notes as well. In fact, I thought, I should do that this winter. I jotted a reminder to myself on the notepad sitting on my nightstand.

  Sifting through the pages, I looked for anything that might be useful in our situation. I had just hit a page with a charm on it designed to call lost loves home when I felt a presence near me. I glanced up and there was Nanna, sitting on the bed.

  “Nanna!” I dropped the book and turned to her, overjoyed. My grandmother had become a regular visitor since she died. In fact I saw more of her now than I had in the years right before her death when my ex, Roy, refused to visit my family. She offered comfort, and now and then helped me out of a mess that I couldn’t handle on my own. Now, she sat there bold as life, holding Samantha in her ghostly arms.

  I reached out for Sammy, but my hands passed through the vision and my heart quivered. Could I be wrong? Was Sammy dead? But then the cat looked at me and I heard, rather than felt, her mournful meow. That was no spirit, but the wail of one very lost kitten who wanted to come home.