I smiled as a lone tear slipped from my eye. “Tell her I’ll check in on Liza from time to time, would you?”
“She asked if you’d do her a small favor,” he said, his words almost sounding choked.
“Anything,” I murmured.
“She has a message for Chester.”
That warmth I had come to find familiar heightened, as though someone had thrown a log on the fire, making it leap with a sudden burst of heat. This warmth encompassed not just my physical being, but settled deep within my soul, and words—words of gratitude and direction—popped into my brain as though MZ had dropped them in a mail slot.
And everything was clear—so clear.
“Tell her of course I will.” I couldn’t say anything more, words escaped me, and as I stroked Bel’s tiny head, I felt the link I’d once felt to the afterlife again. It was weak and thready, but it was still there briefly, before it evaporated and slipped away.
“She’s gone over,” Win whispered low.
I smiled and nodded as more tears fell down my face. “I know…”
And then both Win and I sighed a happy sigh—together.
Two Weeks Later
I sat with Win on our newly installed front porch steps, enjoying the warmth of the sun on an unusually, unseasonably bright day in March, grateful my vision was still intact after the right hook I’d taken from Sal.
I’d been exonerated of all charges, especially since Forrest had heard Sal tell me he killed Madam Z. His statement to that effect was the final nail in Sal’s coffin and officially closed the case. Forrest was healing nicely, though he’d groused about the four stitches in his head while we shared a cup of that long-awaited coffee just yesterday.
I’d just come back from the doctor, who’d assured me my vision was still 20/20 and the fracture behind my eye was healing nicely. The sprain in my arm was almost one hundred percent, too.
I grabbed the bag from Target and pulled out a frame with a debonair man’s picture used for the insert. He had steely-blue eyes, hair the color of a starless Texas night and a chiseled jaw.
“New boyfriend?” Win asked.
“Nope. He’s you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He’s you. I’m tired of talking to the air, Win, and seeing as you won’t tell me anything about you and what you look like, I’ll just use this. Every time I talk to you, I’ll break out this picture frame, and this way I’ll have a face to go with all that snippy British sophistication.”
He laughed in my ear. “I’m not snippy.”
I held up the black frame with crisp edges, turning it around against the sun. “He’s cute, don’t you think? Very spy-like.”
Win scoffed. “I look nothing like that. Nothing.”
I clucked my tongue. “That’s too bad. He’s pretty cute. So show me a picture of what you really look like and let me decide if you look like him.”
“I told you, all in due time, Stevie.”
Yeah. He’d said that about how he was able to communicate with me, too. All in due time, Stevie. When the time is right, Stevie.
Truthfully, I didn’t really mind him not sharing his past. Sure, I was endlessly curious about how he’d died and what he looked like, but I could wait because I liked him. He made me laugh. We’d spent a lot of time together while I recuperated, and between him and Belfry, they’d helped me begin to shape this new life of mine.
I didn’t want to rock that boat just yet, so I’d let it rest. I hadn’t scoured the Internet for information about him or the prior owner of the house out of respect.
For the immediate future, I was learning things about myself I never knew. I’d begun to take a yoga class or two when realizing how out of shape I was after my encounter with Sal, taking it slow because of my sprained arm.
I took long walks by the shores of the Sound. I sat and watched the waves from my bedroom window almost every day now. I spent my nights watching Netflix or scouring the Internet for items Win wanted for the house while Belfry gave us his opinion about them whether we wanted it or not.
When everyone in town found out what happened with Sal, as easily as they’d scorned me for allegedly killing one of their own, the flip side of it was, they’d welcomed me back into the fold with open arms. Casseroles and apologies were what Ebenezer Falls was all about, and I had plenty of the former in my shiny French-door chef’s refrigerator delivered just yesterday.
I’d been invited to several functions, bake sales, house parties, and any number of different celebrations once I recuperated, and I intended to start throwing myself back into the world again very soon.
For now, I was content to just breathe easier knowing Belfry and I had a place to hang our hats and I wasn’t going to die if I wasn’t a witch.