Poison to Purge Melancholy (18 page)

I settled opposite her. “Did your brothers go, too?”

“Foot did. Horse is still sleeping. Rich is in the living room, reading his
JAMA
there so it won’t get contaminated by my alternative medicine ideas.” Her grin turned wicked. “I read the mainstream rags, too, but I always bring fringe journals to these gatherings.” She patted her magazine, which was cracked open to an article titled
The Effects of Magnetic Sleep Therapy on Aging Rats
. “I have my reputation as a witch doctor to maintain.”

As I was reaching for a piece of cornbread, she intercepted my hand, her fingers cold against mine. She surveyed the ring, saying, “Did you ask Santa for this or was it a surprise?”

“A complete shock,” I replied. “We hadn’t talked about marriage yet.”

“I suppose Hugh thought he couldn’t wait until next Christmas to propose.”

“He wouldn’t have to. Any other day of the year would do.” It came out impassioned. Embarrassed, I took my hand back, but then I told myself I’d better find out the truth now. “Why Christmas?”

Acey picked up her mug and walked over to the stove. From a side seam pocket in her caftan, she took a foil-wrapped tea bag. “I guess he thinks it’s romantic.”

“So’s Valentine’s Day. Why did you all know he was going to propose when he took me to midnight mass?”

“That’s his M.O.” She poured steamy water into her mug.

“He proposed to Tanya the same way?”

Acey brought her mug back to the table. The tag hanging over the side said it was green tea. The delicate fragrance reminded me of Asian restaurant teas, but the color of it wasn’t appetizing. “Men are creatures of habit. How many times have you heard the same old pick-up lines in bars? They find what works and stick to it.”

The sarcasm that tinged her “Merry Christmas” earlier was back. Thinking about Dr. Weisel? I hunted around for something compassionate to say.

She spoke first. “You don’t
look
like Tanya—except for your dark hair and eyes—and you seem a lot more down to earth than she ever was. Something about you, though, is like her. Maybe it’s just because you’re both Italian-American—”

“Tanya was Italian?”

“Half, I think.”

No matter. If she’d had one drop of Italian blood in her veins, she was a
paesan’
. That made it worse somehow.

“What I’m trying to say . . .” Acey wrapped her hands around her mug and I got a good look at a ring on the forefinger of her left hand—plain gold with a small red stone. I wondered if Weisel had given it to her. “My experience with men is that they all seem more concerned with what I can do for them—sex, cooking, cleaning—than with who I am as an individual.”

“All humans do that to some extent.” I wasn’t a seasoned veteran, lovelife-wise, but office politics were founded on the same principle.

“Not all humans.” She got up again, to dispose of her tea bag in the can under the sink. “Maybe Hugh doesn’t. I don’t know. I’ve never figured him out like our older brothers.” When she turned, the wicked grin was back. “I know exactly which buttons to push for them.”

I’d seen a version of that grin on Hugh’s lips during his occasional roguish moods—which I found extremely sexy—but I had this epiphany of Acey as the Lee family devil. If I’d been the much younger sister of four brothers, particularly ones as easy to torment as Rich and Foot, possibly I’d have developed a similar defense mechanism. Come to think of it, I had. When I worked in corporate America, no obnoxious co-worker had been immune to my voicemail pranks.

Acey crossed the kitchen to retrieve the sugar bowl, but no sooner was it in hand than her grin vanished, replaced by puzzlement. She was gazing through the window, toward the back of the yard. “Someone just went out the gate.”

“One of your brothers?”

“Too thin.” Setting her mug down on the stove, she opened the door and stepped outside, letting the cold air rush in. The snow on the porch had been swept, but the floorboards were still wet, so I stayed put.

Yet I spied something else on those floorboards, right at Acey’s feet. Something that looked like a playing card.

Scooping it up, she brought it inside, fetching her tea and sugar en route to the table, before setting the paper between us.

“Photocopy of the King of Spades,” I observed, trying to remember where I’d left the street map with the ace inside.

“No knock on the door,” Acey mused, “and I didn’t see anyone climb the hill to DOG Street—uh, that’s Duke of Gloucester for you nonlocals. The bearer didn’t want to be seen. So, was this dropped or left on purpose?”

“Left, I think.” I told her about the card I found yesterday.

She raised her brows. “Odd. Who’s it for, I wonder? Ma or Evelyn? Because why would someone follow any of the rest of us here? Though I suppose one of Foot’s psychos might—meaning his patients, not his ex-wives—oh, wait!” Frowning, Acey picked up the copy and LAGged it.

“What? You think it’s for Foot?”

“I was thinking of Kevie’s wife. She’s thin—that is, those parts of her free of collagen and silicone—”

“I found the ace before you arrived yesterday.”

“Oh, right. But why would—”

We heard voices in the yard and through the window I saw Miss Maggie, Hugh, and Beth Ann. I went over to the kitchen door and opened it for them, but only Miss Maggie and Beth Ann mounted the porch. Hugh went straight to his car.

“Have to go pick up the rest of ’em,” he called. The rat. He was leaving me to face his daughter alone for the first time with his ring on my finger.

Miss Maggie didn’t give things a chance to get awkward. Pulling off her scarf, she whispered, “Quick, while Hugh’s out. Beth Ann needs to tell you something.”

Beth Ann didn’t look like she needed to do anything but escape. Not an option—Miss Maggie had a vise grip on her hand.

“Come on,” Miss Maggie continued, beckoning both of us toward the dining room. “Beth Ann’s room.”

She wanted me to go into the main house? Was she nuts? “Why can’t you tell me here?”

“Go ahead,” Acey said, standing up. “I need to go get dressed anyway.”

But Miss Maggie waved her back down. “No, no. You finish your tea. We won’t be long and the bedroom’s a better place. Christmas secrets, you know.” She had an elfin beam on her face, but I was sure this had nothing to do with gifts. “Beth Ann, grab Pat’s hand. Time’s a-wasting.”

I expected the girl to balk at that order considering the profound scowl on her lips, but she offered a hand. Figuring I’d better not miss a bonding opportunity, I gave her mine—my right one so the ring wouldn’t draw attention. Miss Maggie pulled Beth Ann along and I followed.

We passed through the dining room, around the stairs—Rich glowered at us from the living room—down the hall, and into the back bedroom. Without incident.

Miss Maggie shut the door and slid out of her coat. Today’s sweatshirt was green with the caption “Rudolph at his beach house,” and sported a picture of the reindeer in a lighthouse, guiding ships into harbor with his nose beacon, a battery-operated red light that blinked on and off. I wondered if she’d kept her coat on in church. “Keep holding hands, you two,” she said. “Pat, any problems between the kitchen and here?”

I shook my head which made her nod. “My theory is, if you’re in contact with anyone in the Lee family, the ghost doesn’t bother you.”

“Miss Maggie!” My jaw dropped and I glanced, mortified, at Beth Ann beside me.

“I told her,” Miss Maggie said. “Had to. She saw the ghost last night.”

“What?!”

Beth Ann, who was trying to unzip her jacket one-handed, went red to the roots of her hair. “It was just a dream.”

“Tell Pat what you told me on the way to church.” Miss Maggie motioned us both to sit on the bed. “I want to hear it again anyway, so I can picture it in this room. Quick, before your dad gets back.”

That was all the warning Beth Ann needed. “I woke up when Aunt Acey came in last night. She didn’t turn on the light and after a minute, she went out again, onto the porch right outside our room. I think she was talking on her phone. Anyway, I felt someone sit on the bed and when I rolled over, there was this girl, looking at me. She seemed absolutely real, but then she . . . she faded away.”

“Tell Pat what she was wearing,” Miss Maggie prompted.

“A long skirt and white blouse, and a white triangle tied around her neck. With an apron and a white cap.”

“A girl?” No way, I thought. The spook kissed like a man.

“A teen,” Beth Ann amended. “She had freckles like me.”

My dream came back to me, in which Beth Ann had been wearing clothes like those she’d described. Since my REM sleep has been a tourist spot for Other Siders before, I wondered if I’d seen Beth Ann’s apparition.

“She didn’t sit quite straight,” Beth Ann went on, “like something was wrong with her spine. But I
must
have imagined her. I mean, I wasn’t scared. If she’d been a—”

“One way to find out.” I let go of Beth Ann’s hand and waited. Nothing happened. Not that I expected anything—I’d been in this room with Horse last night, not touching him, and no spirits bothered me. Except Tanya, that is.

With a deep breath I said, “One other way to find out.” I closed my eyes.

I heard Miss Maggie say, “Pat, be careful,” but the sound grew muffled, as if by the last word, she spoke into a pillow.

Still, no visions of dead people danced in my head. Remembering that the last time I did this, it helped to have an antenna of sorts, I said, “Beth Ann, give me both your hands.” My own voice sounded far away, but I felt her hands take mine in a grip so tight, you’d think one of us was in danger of drowning.

My clothes suddenly reeked of wood smoke and body odor and cooking smells. I felt like I needed another shower. The room grew cold. The bedspread I sat on became a scratchy wool blanket. My eyes seemed to adjust to the dark. A faint glow came from the direction of the parlor—there was an open doorway in that wall. And I heard voices.

“The softer sex, did during the revolution, display
virtues, honorary as they were useful . . .”

—from an article in the
Massachusetts Centinel
, 1784

December 24, 1783—Polly’s Room

“Mrs. Carson!” Dr. Riddick
had burst into our house and pounded upon the door to Mother’s room. “Mrs. Carson, please, I must speak to you.”

I heard Mother hasten from her chair by the hearth where she’d been trimming her shortgown in some few ribbons as decoration for the Christmas devotion on the morrow. “Hush, Doctor,” she said as she entered the hall. “You’ll wake Polly.”

This he could not do, for though I’d been abed for an hour, sleep would not come, not with my brother yet running abroad. Mr. Walker had told Mother that he and our other lodgers—Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Parker—wished to take Tom for his first taste of Mrs. Vobe’s rum punch, but Tom had told me their true purpose. I comforted myself that he was safe with Mr. Dunbar, yet I worried for the latter as well. I blushed to think how greatly I’d come to anticipate each singing lesson.

Wondering if the doctor’s tidings concerned Tom, I tiptoed to my door, listening, then entered the dark hall. Mother had led Dr. Riddick to the dining room, as she called it, though we cooked there as well. I felt my way along the wall until their words were clear. They lit no candle, though their forms blocked some of the moonlight coming through the windows to the hall.

“I bring dire news, Madame,” the doctor was saying. “John Brennan is dead.”

I stifled my gasp lest I should be discovered, yet I was not grieved by the news. In the years that Mr. Brennan had been our lodger, I’d loathed the man. At first I feared he would supplant Father, for he was too bold toward Mother and, in my youthful naïveté, I thought her too taken with his charm. I saw now ’twas him that was taken—so she’d persuaded him that keeping a private room might serve him well. “’Tis a man’s world,” she often told me, “yet we are their weakness, Polly. If you would better your station, you must learn to beguile.” I felt, though, that I should never acquire the art.

Now Mother was saying, “Poor man. ’Tis a blessing, I suppose, yet his infirmity did not seem so grave—”

“He did not die of illness, Madame. He was shot.”

This time I could not stifle my surprise, though neither could Mother, and so I was not heard.

“As you know, Mrs. Carson,” Dr. Riddick continued, “I have taken great interest in his recent derangement. Indeed, when my time has been my own, I have followed him about to observe his state of lunacy more closely. I was about the business this evening, and trailed Brennan to Captain Underwood’s house—”

“Captain Underwood?” Mother exclaimed.

“Yes. Brennan went there often, thrice in the last week alone, to appeal to the captain for alms. He was given them at the door, but never admitted. This night some revelers were there performing on the steps. Brennan somehow got between their action and when they discharged their flintlocks, he fell, shot in the chest.”

Revelers!
I thought, and prayed God not Tom’s troupe.

“An accident, then?” Mother said.