6
When you are invited to partake in the rituals of supernatural creatures, it’s best to follow the lead of the closest human—if that human seems sane and somewhat likeable.
—Miss Manners’ Guide to Undead Etiquette
Using Jane’s computer, I sent a short e-mail to Penny reporting on my progress: “Fire’s lit. Update soon.”
The problem was that now that I had one of the Elements, I didn’t have a place to store it safely. My uncle Jack had built a canny little storage cabinet to keep the items “clean” once they’d been found and purified. The cabinet had arrived in Seamus’s shipment earlier that afternoon, along with what Penny called an “emergency witch kit”: an athame, incense burners, candles in various colors, tiny vials of herbal oils, a silver altar pentacle, and a carved wooden box (also Jack’s handiwork) that doubled as an altar.
But I didn’t have a safe location to store said cabinet. Considering its vulnerabilities to local angry wildlife, I didn’t think I could trust the house.
Jane’s shop had an old-fashioned heavy-duty safe. After I completed my “dance of joy” in her mother’s guest room, she offered to let me store my things there. Although I’d only known her a few days, I trusted Jane. She didn’t have to tell me her mother had the candle. She seemed content helping me complete a task that was important to me, because I would have been important to Mr. Wainwright.
Penny had highlighted purification rituals in Witchcraft for Total Morons for me, which I would have found insulting if not for the fact that it had so many helpful illustrations. After enclosing the candle in its compartment full of sea salt and securing the cabinet in Jane’s safe—along with Nana’s sketches—I went back to the Wainwright house and collapsed.
Jed’s windows were dark, and for that I was grateful. The man was an unpredictable, sexy storm cloud. I never knew if he was going to make pretty shapes or rain all over my parade.
I climbed into my bed and slept soundly for the first time in weeks, without benefit of herbal tea or soothing pharmaceuticals. I slept deep and dreamless for about an hour before my mobile rang. Grumbling murderous threats against humanity at large, I slapped my hand around on my nightstand until I closed my fingers around my phone.
“Jane, if this is you, I am not responsible for your father’s dental bills. I merely pointed out a problem. I never told your mother to take him to an all-night dentist,” I growled into the phone.
“Darling, how are you? Why are you threatening random callers? Is it that awful and primitive there?”
I bolted upright. “Stephen?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I have left messages.”
“You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.” I sighed. “I’m sorry I haven’t called, Stephen. I just didn’t expect the travel to be so hard on me,” I said, allowing a yawn to escape through and emphasize my “delicate” constitution. “Delicate” was a far more desirable quality in a girlfriend than “deceitful and forgets to call.”
“Well, you are a bit of a homebody,” he said. “So how are things there in the wilds of America? Do you need me to send you anything? Soap? Magazines? Cigarettes?”
“Stephen, I’m overseas, not in prison! And Boston is one of the largest cities in the country,” I reminded him. Of course, I wasn’t actually staying in Boston, but that was beside the point. “And it’s very pleasant, actually. Warm, nice people, interesting tea.”
“Interesting as in strangely prepared, or interesting as in that time your aunt Maisie gave me tea that made me see butterflies fluttering out of my own arse?”
I suppressed a giggle. Aunt Maisie had never warmed to Stephen, but she did love creative herbalism.
“The first one,” I said, remembering that Bostonians had probably never heard of sweet tea. “They steep it right in the cups, can you imagine?”
“Well?” he said expectantly.
“Well?”
“Don’t you miss me?”
“Of course I do,” I protested. “I’ve just been busy. That’s all. New apartment, new job, remembering to drive on the right side of the road.”
Again, I judiciously edited, because I didn’t think Stephen would be impressed by my finding long-lost vampire relatives or making friends with mercurial construction workers.
“Well, I miss you terribly,” he said. “Nothing is fun without you. There’s no one to put her ice-cold feet on the backs of my legs while I’m sleeping. No one keeps up a steady stream of trivia and interesting facts while I’m watching films. I actually had to resort to watching a DVD with the director’s commentary. It was demoralizing. And the bread! I’m wasting the heels of my bread loaves shamelessly without you around to toast them.”
A pleased, sweet warmth flooded my chest. Stephen was always noticing little things like that, which gave him considerable skill when it came to date planning. He knew exactly how far to push the gooshy romantic factor before it became too saccharine to tolerate.
“The heels make the best toast,” I told him, my tone soft and amused. “The outside crust forms a protective layer to hold more jam.”
“When are you coming home?” he asked.
“Soon,” I promised him. “It’s just a few months; it will be up before you know it.”
“It’s not fair to put our lives on hold for that long, Nola. I’m holding off on this move for you, you know.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” I reminded him. “You could pick a flat, move in, and get settled. I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”
“I don’t want to make those decisions without you there. What if I pick the wrong place? I don’t know why this fellowship was necessary.” He sniffed. “You could have earned the same credentials here at home if you’d only looked. Every time we get close to moving in together, you find some way to sabotage it. Or your family does. I’m starting to think you’re happy living in that backward little town.”
“Well, it’s not without its charms,” I insisted. “Once you get past the driving issue and the strange tea. I told you, the people are quite nice here.”
“I was talking about Kilcairy.”
“Well, why wouldn’t I want to live there? My whole family is there.”
“Yes, your family,” he said in a tone he might have used if he were saying, “Yes, toe fungus.” It was difficult for Stephen to understand how large families worked. He saw his own parents for holidays and the occasional fly-by dinners, and that was the extent of their relationship. He had no siblings, no uncles or aunts or cousins, and his grandparents died when he was in primary school. It was easy to understand why my family overwhelmed him. Although it didn’t hurt my feelings any less.
“Stephen, I need to get off the phone. It’s late here, and I need to get some sleep. I have work tomorrow.”
“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll call you in a few days. I love you.”
“Me, too.” I rolled over, tucking my pillow over my chin, feeling vaguely sick to my stomach. How had the conversation gone from sweet to sour so quickly? How could Stephen seem to know me so well one minute and then not at all the next? How was I going to fix this? I couldn’t go running back home, abandoning a sacred duty because my boyfriend was peeved.
Stephen was just going to have to deal with it.
* * *
I awoke to the sounds of pounding and hammering on the walls outside my bedroom. I started awake, rolled out of bed, and landed on my face. “Oh, what in the—” After stumbling to my feet, I shoved the window sash up and shoved my head outside. Men on ladders seemed to be ripping off the wooden siding in places, while others were climbing on the roof and tossing damaged shingles into the yard, where yet another man scooped them up and threw them onto an open-top wagon. At the edge of the yard, I could see a woman (who I later learned was the much-beloved Iris Scanlon) directing the delivery of several hydrangeas and rosebushes.
Jed was on the ladder just a few feet from my window, yanking a rotten shingle away from its moorings. And, of course, he was shirtless, his tanned skin glistening as he moved under the morning sun.
So far, this was a mixed bag in terms of a wake-up call.
“What in bleeding hell is going on?” I called to him.
He grinned brightly . . . or perhaps he was amused by my bed hair. “Mornin’! I don’t know what you said to Mr. Cheney, but he had Sam hire four new daytime guys to come out and put a rush job on the renovations. He said, and I quote, ‘Fix everythin’ up. Make it nice for her. No detail is too small. And don’t skimp on the flowers in the front flower beds.’ Also, there’s an exterminator coming out this afternoon. And if you don’t mind, I’m gonna come in tomorrow and paint the downstairs rooms. Dick said you can stay with him for a few days if the fumes bother you.”
“Huh.” It was a brilliant, eloquent response, I know. Dick had explained the night before that Mr. Wainwright had sold his family home sometime in the 1970s and, for convenience’s sake, moved into the apartment above his shop. The new owners had divided it into apartments and neglected the house terribly before selling out to Dick the year before. Because of what Dick would only call “Jane problems,” he hadn’t had time to fix it up before now. Why the sudden rush after meeting me? And what did he mean, I could stay with him and Andrea if the paint fumes were too much? I barely knew these people. Why would I impose on them in that way?
If I’d had the energy, I would have whacked my head against the window frame.
“You know he’s married, right?” Jed said.
“No—I mean, yes. I’ve met his wife. I just guess I’ve made a good impression on him, is all,” I said, frowning while I recalled his inappropriately friendly greeting at the shop.
First, the hugs and face squeezing, and now this? What was with Dick Cheney? Had I developed my very own vampire stalker? I wondered if it was a good idea to stay in this house. Dick had keys. As my landlord, he had to give me notice before he entered, but I doubted fair rental laws would do much to protect me from an obsessive vampire. I would have to talk to Jane about this.
And if I ever woke up to find him watching me sleep, like that creepy Edward What’s-his-name, I would not be responsible for my actions.
“Did you meet him wearing just a towel, too?” Jed asked sourly, yanking me out of my reverie. When I shot him a filthy look, he appeared vaguely contrite and added, “Well, you got me job security for the next few months, so thanks for that. You go on back inside; we’ll be done with the loudest work by the end of tomorrow.”
Mumbling indignantly, I backed into my room, searching for my robe. There was a scraping noise against the outside wall and a series of metallic clangs. Suddenly, a disembodied tanned hand slipped through the open window and dropped a small sprig with a fist-sized cluster of hydrangea blossoms onto the sill, then disappeared. I laughed, retrieved the offering from the sunny sill, and pressed my face into the velvety blue petals.
* * *
Construction time estimates being what they were, the job went on for weeks. I would wake up in the early morning to the sounds of men scraping off the outer layer of the house. Before leaving for Jane’s shop, I’d make breakfast and coffee, which I magnanimously offered the work crew, since they were decent enough not to look into my windows while I was in the house. Then again, Jed did imply that Dick had threatened the crew within an inch of their “miserable mortal lives” if they were anything less than courtly.
After a week or so, I established a sort of schedule. Each day, I would spend the afternoon searching through Jane’s shop and sales records, looking for any sign of the Elements, under the watchful eye of Zeb Lavelle, Jane’s best friend since childhood. Jane made this concession after a few nights of my research being interrupted by customers who thought I worked at the shop. Using the store’s off hours allowed me to concentrate on my task, and I didn’t mind Zeb serving as my babysitter. He was a kindergarten teacher, after all, and seemed fit for the task. When he wasn’t reading comics or sorting through school-supply catalogues, he offered me random, sometimes sensible tips on how to survive interactions with supernatural forces. His first and foremost tip: walk softly and carry an econo-sized can of vampire pepper spray.
Whether that pepper spray was used against loved ones and acquaintances was a matter of discretion, he told me.
Strangely enough, Jane happened to have a large rolling whiteboard, like the sort used on Law & Order, in the stockroom. I used to it record any potentially germane receipts, addresses, or notations I found in Gilbert Wainwright’s records. Well, officially, I didn’t find any of those things, but Iris was impressed with the way I divided the board into four sections and created a graph for cross-referencing. Iris was a girl who appreciated the obsessive need for order.
By turns, Dick, Andrea, Jane, and sometimes Jane’s husband, Gabriel, or Zeb’s wife, Jolene, would rotate into the shop to inquire about my day’s progress. Zeb was sunny and adorable, like a man-sized Labrador puppy. Jolene, on the other hand, was intensely beautiful and seemed surrounded by this odd crackling energy, as if she was always on the verge of becoming something else. When I turned my powers to that mystery, all I could discern in her was an all-consuming, gnawing hunger.
They were an odd and motley crew of humans, vampires, and whatever Jolene was, but all very nice people. And they didn’t seem fazed by the odd and urgent circumstances of my situation. Apparently, they had considerable experience with the odd and urgent. They simply divided the store by sections, rolled up their sleeves, and helped me sort through the stock.
I discovered an unexpected joy in spending time with Jane and Andrea. It was a bit like spending time with Penny, only they had less tact and restraint, if that was possible. They had an unnatural obsession with seeing me do magic and wouldn’t accept my “wonky powers” excuse or the fact that I didn’t want to do damage to the shop. I was considering pulling a rabbit out of a hat just to get them off of my back.
Both women were slightly left of center, looking at the world from a skewed but extremely funny perspective. They didn’t fall into hysterics when there were obstacles or emergencies. They cracked a joke, made a plan, and moved on. And after Jane dropped by my house to deliver a casserole from her mother—ogling Jed shamelessly, I might add—teasing me about my comely shirtless neighbor became a regular source of humor for them.
They loved fiercely, from their spouses to their friends, and yes, even Jamie, the irritatingly beautiful teenage boy Jane had been forced to turn the previous year. Once you were accepted into the “pack,” you were in for life, and woe betide the fool who crossed you. Zeb told me it was a bit like the Mafia, only with snarky insults instead of cement shoes.
Now that I’d found one of the Elements, a bit of the pressure I was under eased. I was far more aware of my surroundings, the sultry heat of late afternoons, the sunshine. Clothes that I had previously worn once, on holiday in Spain—tank tops, sundresses, light sweaters, and sandals—were now the main staple of my wardrobe. My skin, previously an insistent milky white, was now lightly tanned. I made sure to get some out-of-doors time each day to recharge my internal batteries with vitamin D. But I missed the wind. While I enjoyed the novelty of the heat, I missed the constant stirring of air, the whisper of the sea.
Still, I felt at home. Most people were friendly, if slightly baffled by my accent. I found myself having to repeat things, not because they didn’t understand me but because they wanted to hear me say certain phrases with my inability to properly pronounce Rs. And the more time I spent around vampires, the more I could focus on fine-tuning which parts of my brain interacted with living tissue in other people. With Dick or Jane, I could feel parts of my mind reaching out to their energetic bodies, seeking out injuries and illness. When I felt my mind “pinging” off empty space, I found I was able to turn off the reaching. It made going to Walmart on crowded Saturday mornings a lot less painful.
Jed was an unabashed morning person, singing off-key country songs and letting the sunlight soak into his skin as he worked. He continued his cheerful, ladder-bound flirtations at my bedroom window each morning, usually teasing me about my “epic” case of bedhead or asking me about my agenda for the day. I would have taken offense, if not for the sprigs of hydrangea that found their way onto my windowsill, wrapped in a damp napkin and foil and tied with a white ribbon. I kept the bouquets on my nightstand, in a sweet blue pressed-glass bud vase I’d found in a thrift store down the street from Specialty Books. By the third bouquet, I was beginning to worry for our poor hydrangea bushes and their impending baldness. But they were still lush with blooms. I did notice that our neighbors’ bushes were looking a little patchy.
It’s the thought that counts.
Late nights were blissful experiments in prolonged sleep. I was so used to being on call, just in case some medical emergency came up, I hadn’t realized I was down to four or five hours of sleep per night. Here, I outfitted my bed in thin summer-weight quilts and lush cotton sheets. I built myself a veritable fort out of pillows, fluffing them into the most comfortable configuration possible before entering a semicomatose state.
It was odd, living for myself for the first time. For years, I’d taken care of Nana and run the clinic. I never realized how much energy I expended diagnosing people—intentionally or otherwise—and the additional stress of keeping the clinic running. In her e-mails, Penny kept me updated on patients and assured me that everyone was fine, the clinic was running smoothly, and it was her turn to take care of things for a while. Still, it pricked my conscience not to be there helping her.
At this point, who knew when I’d be returning? After another week of searching, I’d found nary a clue to the other three Elements. I’d composed a list of pawn shops and noted which were closest to the bookstore. I’d contacted the list of buyers Jane described as Gilbert Wainwright’s “whales,” but they seemed interested primarily in books. We hadn’t managed to find the ledgers that listed any specific items sold, although it seemed unlikely that Mr. Wainwright would not have kept a record of such sales. The early success of finding the candle had made me cocky, I suppose. Now my lack of progress was a bit unsettling.
Dick’s strange attentions were another sore point. I’d tried to talk to Jane about the renovations to my house and whether Dick’s intentions were honorable. But she only assured me that I was perfectly safe, but she’d promised Dick that she’d let him talk to me himself. I found this to be cryptic and unhelpful.
If I were home, I would have taken a walk down to the cliffs to clear my head with cold sea air and blessed quiet. In the Hollow, I had only the somewhat decrepit area surrounding the shop. So I wandered the streets in the late-afternoon sun, worrying over my problems like a surreal jigsaw puzzle.
What was I doing wrong? Did the magical world smell the stink of desperation on me? Generations before me had found the Elements. But they’d searched as pilgrims, with open, curious hearts. Was I so slow to progress because I was too businesslike in the approach? Or should I be even less sentimental? Approach the issue like one of those crime procedural programs with spreadsheets and forensics and such?
Early one evening, after I cleared the block, I turned right and slowed my pace. The light was warm and pleasant. And the fresh, book-dust-free outdoors was a definite plus. I couldn’t say I was comfortable with the neighborhood, all darkened storefronts and abandoned streets, but I was wearing sturdy shoes and jeans. I could outrun a bloody cheetah if startled properly.
It was interesting to see how the dividing line of commercial success ended at Paxton Avenue. On the opposite side of the intersection, I could see a prosperous town square, with restaurants and quaint little shops. But in this area, there was little bustling besides Jane’s shop. The consignment shop on Prescott was flanked by a defunct comic-book store and an empty barber shop. The one business with lights blazing was a corner store that looked as if it had once been an eyewear shop. It now displayed a sign advertising “Half-Moon Hollow Community Walk-In Clinic. Services Free.”
I walked closer to the door, where a small yellowed sign read, “Help Wanted,” in bold red letters. I pushed the door open to find . . . complete feckin’ chaos. I was bombarded by the sensations of nausea and chills rolling off of the crowded waiting room. There were women lined up five deep at the registration desk, with no nurse to check them in. Children sat slumped against chairs lining the walls, listless and pale, scratching halfheartedly at reddish spots on their arms and legs. One boy had stuffed his head into the wastebasket and was puking for all he was worth. It took me a minute of deep breathing to keep myself from rushing to the wastebasket and tossing my own breakfast.
It was after eight P.M. Every single child in this room had chicken pox. Everybody was talking at once, demanding answers, demanding that someone come out and help them. And no one seemed to be in charge.
Finally, a situation I was prepared for.
“Right.” I rolled up my sleeves and slipped in past the door marked “Staff Only.”
Down the hall, I could hear an older man’s voice as he told a Mrs. Loomis to keep Tyler hydrated and covered in calamine lotion and to give him a cool bath if his fever spiked. I assumed this was the doctor, so at least we had that going for us. I rummaged through the mess of papers until I found a sign-in sheet. At the sight of someone who seemed to know what was happening, the would-be patients and their mothers surged forward, surrounding me like something out of an itchy zombie movie.
“Excuse me,” I called over the din of questions and complaints. “Excuse me, if everybody would please just—” No one was listening to me. They were too busy attempting to storm the registration desk. Finally, I yelled, “Oy!” over the noise. “Oy! If everybody would just shut it for a moment and line up like good boys and girls, we will be able to get everybody signed up to see the doctor as quickly as possible. Now, if you haven’t filled out an intake form, I suggest you do so right now.”
For a moment, everybody just stared at me as if I were speaking Greek.
And then one mother handed her son off to a woman I assumed was his grandmother, marched over to a desk behind me, and found some clipboards. Two more mothers searched through their enormous purses until they found ink pens and distributed them to the others. Eventually, a single-file line was formed, and I managed to determine which kids were worst off. Every time a patient emerged from the doctor’s office, I sent another kid down the hall.
This was a different, more frustrating experience than working in my clinic. Despite cousin Ralph’s illegal efforts, I wasn’t licensed in the state of Kentucky and couldn’t practice there. I wasn’t covered by the clinic’s malpractice insurance. So I could not ethically make any sort of judgment calls regarding patients. I couldn’t so much as slap a Band-Aid on a boo-boo. I could, however, place my hands over some of the lesser cases’ foreheads when their parents registered them, and if their fevers happened to drop before they went back to the exam room, what a wonderful coincidence that would be.
Eventually, the waiting-room crowd dwindled to a half-dozen children. A frazzled-looking elderly man in a white coat wandered behind the registration desk. Well, his coat was white once upon a time. There was a distinct orangey splash across the breast pocket, almost obscuring the swirly embroidery that read, “R. Hackett, MD.”
The good doctor was what Penny would have called a silver fox, or he would have been, if he’d had a full head of hair. He had a perfectly trimmed salt-and-pepper Van Dyke and a head as bald as an egg. He was wrinkled and wizened but cute as a button, with steely-gray eyes and a tanned face with distinct laugh lines.
Dr. Hackett’s eyes narrowed when he saw me sitting behind the desk, sorting the various reports into piles. “Who the hell are you?”
Maybe those weren’t laugh lines.
“Nola,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Leary. I am a nurse practitioner, and I run a small family clinic in my hometown. I’m here on an extended visit. But I know how to move people through a waiting room. You were drowning. I threw you a lifeline. You’re welcome.”
Dr. Hackett cast a glance around the desk and scowled. “Did you move things?”
“Yes,” I said, looking around at the neat stacks of files and papers. “Lots of them.”
He frowned at me. “Are you mentally unstable, a drug user, a gossip, or looking for a senior-citizen sugar daddy to keep you in spray tanning and designer purses?”
“No, to all of those,” I said, shaking my head.
“We haven’t been open this late in ten years, but one of the local day cares had a chicken-pox outbreak like a biblical plague. I’ve been on my feet for sixteen hours, and I’m too damn old for that, let me tell you. We normally open at eight A.M. and close at five P.M. Does that work for you?”
“Uh, sure.”
“I’ll pay you. It won’t be much. We’re funded through donations from different civic groups, but the budget does provide a small stipend for clerical support. In the future, try not to move things without asking first,” he griped, and called for his next patient.
Did he just hire me? Did I even want to work here? Would I treat patients, or would I stick to administrative work? What would my hours be? Would it interfere with my search for the Elements? Exactly how much was not much in terms of payment?
“Don’t you want to see some references?” I asked as he moved down the hall. “Some identification? Anything?”
“We’ll get to it later,” he said, waving me off.
I sat back in the half-padded office chair, which was apparently mine now.
“First, Jane falls into her job at the bookshop, and now, this,” I muttered. “Doesn’t anyone do job interviews in this town?”