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>“No,” Iris said, “your eyes are not deceiving you. Please.” She tapped the chair next to mine. “Come and sit down.”
“Well, then, I guess this is a day of miracles all around.” Ellen said, ignoring Iris’s request. “First of all,” she said, handing the flowers over to Iris, “I ran into the delivery boy on the way in, and these are for you. A rather more fandango combination than I will be sending out once my shop is open, but . . .” She stopped herself. “Expressive.” She turned quickly toward me and her eyes flashed wide. “I’ll bet you anything they are from that young buck she danced with at the wake.” She slapped at my hand and giggled like a schoolgirl. “Iris has a boyfriend,” she sang out. She winked at me, but then the smile fell from her face. “Sugar, what is wrong? Aren’t you feeling well this morning?” She reached out to touch me, but read something in my eyes. Her hand stopped a little short.
“Ellen,” Iris said.
Ellen ignored Iris’s tone and forced a smile back to her lips. The smile did not reach her eyes. “It is such a beautiful morning out there. You just need to get out of this house and . . .”
Iris and I looked at each other, neither of us sure of what to do. “Aunt Ellen,” I said, “you should listen . . .”
“No,” she said, shaking her head once and turning away. She had sensed that we had bad news. I could see she was shutting down, pulling away, trying somehow to keep the moment from happening.
Iris reached out and grabbed Ellen’s hand before she could make her escape. Ellen turned back to face her sister. “Detective Cook came by a little while ago. I’m afraid there’s been a mishap . . .”
“A mishap . . .” Ellen echoed, the color leaving her face as she pulled her hand away.
“I’m sorry, Ellie, but Tucker, he’s dead.”
Ellen’s knees started to give at the word.
“Maybe you should sit?” I asked, rising myself.
“No. No. No,” she said, shaking her head. “This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening again.” She pulled her arms in around herself. “Not again, not again,” she kept repeating. I was reaching to put my arms around her when the bouquet on the table caught my eye. The flowers had all withered away.
TWENTY-TWO
At Ellen’s insistence, Iris drove her to meet with Detective Cook. I stood in the kitchen, staring out after their car and trying to take it all in. The air in the house felt thick with tension, so after a few moments I went out to the garden. I found a place at the table and first rested my chin on my hands, then leaned back, placing my right hand as a protective barrier between Colin and the world around us. I couldn’t believe Tucker Perry was dead.
I tried Peter’s number for the third time, but it went straight to voicemail again. I hoped to catch him before he heard from someone else. I texted him, telling him to call me.
Adam had intimated that Tucker’s death seemed somehow similar to Peadar’s. I could only surmise that meant Tucker had been left with a hole punched through him. Tucker had without doubt made plenty of enemies over the years, but how many of them had access, natural or borrowed, to magic? And why was his murder made to look like the accidental harm I caused Peadar’s body? Was the intention to implicate me or just toy with me? Who might have connected the dots between me and the body left at the old powder magazine?
Ryder’s face, twisted in rage, rose up in my thoughts. I’d humiliated him and cost him an appendage. On top of that, he probably blamed me for what he’d done to Birdy. Could he be trying to seek revenge? I’d assumed he’d arrived in Savannah after Peadar’s death, but he’d been awfully proud about his ability to follow me around without attracting my notice. Maybe he’d been here early enough to witness what had happened at the powder magazine?
I needed to find out just when Claire had contacted Ryder. I reached for my phone and almost clicked on her number, but was derailed by the thought that Ryder had been granted the powers of a collector by a witch. A real witch. And there were so many witches who had been unhappy to see me chosen as anchor. If I were somehow Ryder’s true target, there was any number of witches, half of them from my own extended family, who might have sent a collector to do their dirty work for them. Maybe Claire had just been a puppet? Had she somehow been influenced to contact Ryder? Had her distrust of Emmet been fed by magical means? I hated myself for making Tucker’s death, Ellen’s tragedy, all about me, but I suspected due to the circumstances, it might actually be all about me.
My left hand sought out the locket my mother had given me, pulling it out from beneath my shirt. The feel of it caused my analytic mind to switch off and my emotions to take over. I knew I had to be strong for Ellen, but I was deeply afraid. I craved my mother’s comfort and wanted the reassurance of her scent, her embrace, but I hadn’t even heard from her since she’d spoken to me through a tourist’s borrowed mouth outside St. John’s. I loosed the locket’s clasp, wanting to take a little comfort in the baby pictures of myself and my sister.
The locket popped open, but to my surprise, it did not hold the same pictures I’d seen before. Maisie’s had been replaced with the photo of a man. Confident blue eyes beneath a shock of blond hair. Lean face with sensuous lips and a dimpled chin. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. The picture that had replaced my own I immediately recognized as a miniature version of the photo Ellen had given me of Erik’s grandmother, my own great-grandmother, Maria.
Using my nail, I carefully peeled out the man’s photo. It came out of the locket with minimal effort, but nearly fluttered past my hand to the ground. I reached out and snatched it up. The man bore a certain undeniable resemblance to Erik, although I remembered my uncle, my father, as being more robust, more virile than the young man in the all-too-small oval. Carefully, I turned it over in my palm. The ink on the back had blurred and faded with age, and the script was painfully cramped and foreign-looking, but I could still make out a word, a name: Careu. I returned the picture and closed the locket. Grabbing my phone, I did a quick search on the name. The results came back with a definition in Romanian (“square”), and several options for health care, but nothing that provided any insight.
The skin on the back of my neck began to tingle. Sensing that someone was watching me, I turned, expecting to find Emmet. “Your mother has requested that you come with me.” The words came from my mother’s driver, the man I’d only seen for a few moments a couple of weeks ago. Now he stood on the other side of the gate that opened onto our garden. This time, maybe because it was the first chance I’d had to observe him in full sunlight, I realized something was off. His complexion was gray and waxy in appearance, and the muscles in his jaw didn’t seem to move enough to produce the words he said. It seemed almost as if someone was projecting words through him. The out-of-sync way his lips moved, combined with the synchronicity of his arrival and my thoughts about my mother, prickled my intuition.
I had been waiting, day after day, for word from my mother. I had heard nothing from her since the cathedral, and now her driver was showing up right after news had broken about Tucker’s death. As badly as I wanted to see my mother, I didn’t feel right about the situation. I didn’t like her driver’s vibe. I didn’t like the way she’d implied that my aunts had made her desert Maisie and me but refused to divulge any details. Iris and Ellen and, to a lesser degree, Oliver, had taken care of me my entire life. When it came right down to it, I didn’t know my mother. Besides, I’d grown wary of getting into limos alone after the last spin around town I’d taken in one.
“I tell you what; I need a few minutes to get ready. You give me the address, and I’ll meet her there.” He stayed where he was by the gate, not stirring. My phone began to ring. No number showed, but I answered anyway. I could use this as an opportunity to create a cover story for why I couldn’t go with the driver.
“Please get in the car with Parsons before the family comes home,” my mother’s voice commanded. “You aren’t safe there, darling girl. Let Parsons bring you to me. Please come.” The phone clicked off at the same moment the driver reached over and unlatched the gate.
An unexpected arrival. An ambiguous threat implying that the people who had raised me might want to harm me. Neither of those things felt right. On top of it all, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this Parsons was being held up by invisible strings, and should they be cut, he’d fall immobile to the ground. I wondered if my mother herself was the puppeteer, using Parsons much as she had controlled the tourist outside the cathedral. Still, my need to see my mother and get some answers trumped my inhibitions, so I did as she told me.
The drive led us out of Savannah proper, and I squirmed as we passed the old powder magazine on Ogeechee, the memory of my last visit there making it impossible for me to take an easy breath until we entered Richmond Hill, where Ogeechee changes into the Ocean Highway. Richmond Hill came and went. We passed a small graveyard to my right, and shortly afterward, we turned off the highway and entered into a maze of country roads, more of them gravel than not.
I felt a bit claustrophobic behind the tinted glass. I pressed the window button and was relieved that it opened, relieved that at least something in this world remained under my control. Dusty, dry air hit me. Outside the limo’s arctic twilight, a fine early fall day was taking place. The blue sky and warm air worked together to help unwind some of my tension. I hung my hand out the window, enjoying the feeling of the air rushing around me. It reminded me of Iris, and how she could use the air currents to fly. I was more than a little disappointed that that particular trick didn’t seem to be in my repertoire. If I could let myself be taken and carried by the wind, I’d probably never come down. I couldn’t understand how Iris could have voluntarily put that ability on hold during her entire marriage to Connor. He had been weak but extremely prideful, and Iris had managed his resentments by dumbing down her abilities.
One thought of Connor led to another, and my blood began to boil as I considered the way he’d planned to let Ginny’s house burn down around me. Even though the son of a bitch had believed himself to be my father, he’d been ready to kill me to get his hands on a little more power. I trusted that Oliver would dispose of the spirit trap in a way that would free us from Connor for good. I looked down and realized that blue sparks had begun to form on my fingertips, my magic ready to strike out and protect me from a danger that was no longer there. I closed my eyes and leaned my face into the breeze, letting it calm me. The car hit a rough patch in the road, jarring me back to attentiveness. That’s when I realized that I could be heading into another, very similar confrontation right now. As badly as I wanted to trust my mother, experience had shown me the importance of remaining vigilant. I wanted to believe she wouldn’t expose me to danger, but only a little over three months ago, my own sister had turned me over to a boo hag for sacrifice. If it weren’t for the betrayals I’d suffered at the hands of my uncle and my sister, I would never have entertained my mother’s insinuation against my aunts and uncle. Maisie and Connor had both betrayed me, though, so I needed to hear my mother out. I was running a little low on trust all the way round right now.
