“I thought time didn’t exist,” he answered.
“Linear time doesn’t exist,” she grouched. “Enough. What do you want to ask me this time?”
“I need to know more about goddesses.”
“Goddesses in general or those poor girls from 1989?”
“In general. You have a particular goddess you worship, right? From a specific group?”
“My coven has chosen the Celtic pantheon, though it more or less matches the Greek, Roman, and Norse ones. We worship all of the gods and goddesses from our group, each of us choosing one with whom we identify. Mine is Danu, mother goddess of water and war.”
“Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”
“Not at all,” Ann said. “I can handle her. But you do have to be careful who you choose, and remember that, by calling down your goddess, you are summoning all of her powers. Which is why we discourage novices from making the choice too early.” She sighed. “I know you don’t believe in this, so what’s your real question, Rafferty?”
He got to the point. “Do you think the 1989 ‘Goddesses’ might have had a special goddess they worshiped, a goddess named Morrigan?”
Ann suddenly looked interested.
“Is she one of yours?”
“She’s Celtic, yes, but she’s not someone to emulate.”
“Is it Morgan le Fay?”
“No, completely different derivation. The Morrigan comes from the Gaelic. Loosely translated as the Phantom Queen.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It also means ‘terror.’ She’s a powerful lady. I’d stay away from her.”
“What about Dagda?”
“Dagda is a god, not a goddess. Legend says he trysts with Morrigan on Samhain.”
“Hold on a minute,” Rafferty said, pulling out his phone to take notes.
“I have a particular interest in Dagda,” admitted Ann. “He is a good god. Either Danu’s father or her son.”
“That’s quite a wide range of possibility.”
“It’s all in the interpretation.” Ann shrugged. “This has something to do with those girls?”
“Maybe,” he said. “It was a random name written on an envelope—”
“Probably not random,” she said. “But not good, either.”
She thought about it before speaking again. “Some describe the Morrigan as a triple goddess in the usual sense: the maiden, the mother, and the crone. Others say she’s three sisters: Nemain, Macha, and Badb.”
Rafferty handed his cell to her. “Spell those for me, please.”
She typed in the names, handing it back to him.
“Pronounce them again?”
Ann spoke slowly, highlighting each syllable: Ne-main, Ma-cha. She stopped before she got to the last one.
“And this one?”
“Badb,” she said, looking as if she’d just realized something. “Which, in some parts of Ireland, is the same thing as this.” She typed it slowly, then turned the phone so he could see. B-E-A-N S-I-D-H-E.
He looked at it, trying to sound it out. “Bean what?”
“Banshee.”
I am a cipher. I carry no weight, no worth, no influence. I represent nothing. I do not exist.
—ROSE’S Book of Trees
“Paul and I are friends. We’re not sleeping together, if that’s what you’re wondering, Mrs. Whiting.”
“Yet that’s what everyone in Pride’s Crossing is thinking,” Emily said.
Callie watched Emily look around the boathouse. Paul’s research papers for his dissertation were spread all over the table. There were scattered photos of images found in the rock caves and some open reference books. On the computer screen was an article on the cave restoration that his adviser had written and Paul had contributed to for National Geographic.
“At least you’re still getting some work done,” Emily said to Paul. She turned to Callie, her face pinched. “And you still have a job and an apartment in Northampton?”
“Would you like me to leave, Mrs. Whiting? Is that what you came to say?”
After Callie had confessed and apologized to Paul, they’d started meeting for coffee every day at the Atomic Cafe in downtown Beverly, since Salem was becoming more and more problematic for Callie. There had been several incidents in Salem, and people were beginning to recognize her. One confrontation at the hospital had particularly unnerved her. On her way to visit Rose, Callie had been followed into the stairway by an older man, who’d stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“I knew it wasn’t true.” He had leaned in so close she’d felt his breath and seen his eyes filling up with tears. “I knew you’d come back to me.”
She’d let Rafferty know about the man.
She’d heard from Towner that Rafferty had been called on the carpet for his “bias” toward Rose, and the fact that Callie was living at their house was fanning the flames. Around town, more hateful graffiti about Rose kept appearing, one adding Callie’s name. Someone had thrown a rock through a window at the tearoom. Reporters were harassing her. She suspected it had been Ann who’d passed the word—she was the only one besides Rafferty, Towner, and Paul who knew her identity for certain—but Towner said no, that Ann wouldn’t do that. Callie wasn’t so sure.
A few days later, Towner had come to her. “I’m so sorry to have to do this, Callie, but I need you to find another place to stay.” Towner’s concerned expression reflected her words. “Rafferty’s always been worried about your well-being in Salem, and frankly I’m worried about his as well.”
“I understand. I’ll find another place.” The truth was, Callie had already been looking online for other places to stay. “You’ve gone way past the call of duty by putting me up.”
“Thank you,” Towner had said, adding, “please don’t stop coming for tea. I love seeing you. You’re like the daughter I never had. There’s just some trouble with you living here.”
Callie still visited Towner for tea, but far less often. She stopped going to the cemetery altogether. Now, when she visited Salem, it was almost always to see Rose. She drove around to the back side of the hospital and used a little-known entrance. She’d also begun looking at short-term sublets in Beverly not far from Pride’s Crossing.
When Paul had heard what was going on, he’d invited her to stay at his boathouse. “I’m leaving for Italy sometime in February,” he’d said. “Then you can have the place to yourself. Meanwhile, I’m happy to share.”
“Just as friends, right?”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.”
He’d turned away as soon as he said it, which probably meant he’d had something else in mind, so it was good she’d brought it up.
He’d generously given her his bed, and for the past three days she’d slept in it while he camped on the couch in the tower’s reading nook.
With the exception of the first night, it had gone smoothly.