Authors: Mary Anna Evans
by Antonia Caruso
I'm having some trouble getting motivated today. Someone unique lost her life last night.
Most of the charlatans of Rosebower trigger every last one of my crusader impulses, but I genuinely admired Tilda Armistead. Did I think she could work magic? Did I believe she could deliver messages from the dead?
Of course not.
If I believed that, I'd have been camped on her front lawn, begging her to put me in touch with the parents I loved so well. I did believe, however, in Tilda's honor. In all my efforts to dig up dirt on these people, I found no evidence that she ever cheated anybody. No one remembers a lie crossing her lips, not once.
Until lately, I had the time and opportunity to dig up all the dirt I pleased on Tilda Armistead and on everybody else in town. Until Dr. Faye Longchamp-Mantooth and her daughter arrived to straighten up Samuel's museum, I had free run of the place. Samuel Langley is putty in the hands of anybody who shows a little interest in the history of his goofy hometown.
Until the Longchamp-Mantooth ladies talked Samuel into closing the museum while they worked, I pored over decades of Rosebower's weekly newspaper. I never found a single advertisement touting Tilda Armistead's services. Nor her father's nor her grandparents' nor their parents'. The Armisteads never needed to debase themselves with tawdry ads in commercial publications. Everybody with an interest in Spiritualism knew who the Armisteads were, and they came here to see them.
It took me a while to notice one of the most telling things about Tilda. The woman was born in the early 1930s. She married in 1960, late for that day and age. She stayed married until her husband died twelve years later. To all accounts, the marriage was solid. Yet her name was always Armistead.
Tilda kept her maiden name. In 1960. How often do you think that happened?
I wish I'd known Tilda better. All I can do is guess, but I'm thinking that a woman who kept her own name in 1960 had a strong personality and an unshakeable family pride. The Armisteads founded Rosebower and, along with the folks in nearby Lily Dale, they had a hand in founding Spiritualism itself, back in the nineteenth century when it was so much easier to believe in ghosts.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the father of the ever-logical Sherlock Holmes himself, believed in the original fakers, the Fox sisters, who lived quite near here. Something about western New York makes people go irrational over ghosts or religious reform or seemingly unattainable things like woman's suffrage. Sometimes they talk to angels and dig up golden tablets. Maybe when people are snowed in for most of the winter, something inside them ferments.
Sir Arthur believed that the Fox sisters were genuine mediums who could communicate with spirits through unearthly knockings and rappings. He continued to believe, even after one of the girls confessed to fakery and proved that she could duplicate the ghostly noises by cracking her toes. (Cracking her toes! How would you like to be famous for a century or two because you could crack your toes really loudly?) The good sir refused to believe her confession. He also publicly believed in fairies.
Tilda Armistead was born into a family of people who had actually met Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as his doubting adversary, Harry Houdini. Her mother was born to a woman whose grandmother knew the feminist leaders who caused so much trouble at Seneca Falls. No wonder an heiress to such a heritage wished to keep her own name. Tilda was an Armistead through and through.
If Tilda had lived to see my book published, she would have never spoken to me afterward. In it, I will expose her family as dupes, used by the fakers in their midst who were only out for a quick buck. But until that day, I would have liked to have been her friend.
I don't feel much like writing today.
Ennis LeBecque didn't take well to public humiliation. Nobody likes humiliation, and the free-pumping testosterone of a twenty-year-old man made Ennis like it even less. Testosterone whispered things in his ear, violent things. It made him want to wipe the smug victory off the face of the girl who had embarrassed him in the diner. It made him want to hurt somebody. It made him want to see the victorious girl's pretty face again.
A brain that takes a daily bath in hormones is easily confused. Ennis wanted to punch Amande. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to show her who was boss. He wanted to buy her flowers. He wanted her bitchy-looking mother to be far, far away. Maybe it was the bitchy-looking mother that he wanted to punch. He liked girls, but he didn't like women.
Women were selfish, like his mother. They were controlling, like his Great-aunt Sister Mama. Girls were probably just as cruel, at their core, but they could still be pushed around. Powerless people made Ennis feel better about himself. Of course, the girl in the diner hadn't seemed powerless, but maybe that was because her mother was there. Ennis had a notion that he could show her who was boss, if he could just get her alone.
In the meantime, he would hoe Sister Mama's garden and pick the day's harvest of herbs. He would wash and chop and simmer the roots and leaves, following Sister Mama's recipes to the letter, then Sister Mama would tell him he'd done it all wrong. The woman couldn't even talk, but she could still push him around with grunts and gestures and judicious use of the stink-eye.
Ennis had ambitions, and being the unpaid servant of a hoodoo practitioner was not one of them. He had doubled Sister Mama's online business, and she was still paying him with room, board, and a tiny allowance. He was nearly done here. His exit strategy was in full swing. Sister Mama could find somebody else to feed her strained peaches for the short time that remained to her.
He should be focusing on his plans to get the hell out of Rosebower, but he couldn't keep his mind off the girl. What would she look like when he'd wiped the smug smile off her face?
***
Faye's heart sank when Myrna opened her front door. Her friend looked terrible. Myrna's breathing was ragged and the fact that she was weeping uncontrollably didn't help. Sociable to the end, she didn't let these physical constraints keep her from answering her own door, despite the fact that there were several people in the house who could have done it for her.
She led Faye and Amande into the dining room, where the long table, so like Tilda's, was set for tea. A white-haired man hovered at Myrna's elbow, and she introduced him as Elder Johnson, saying that he had been sent by the church to sit with her, though not in grief. According to Spiritualist beliefs, Tilda was not gone. Elder Johnson was here to support Myrna until she established contact with her late sister.
Faye wondered what would happen if Tilda's spirit showed up and told somebody she'd been murdered. If this happened, Faye would be forced to believe in ghosts. Unless, of course, the person contacted by Tilda was also the murderer, the only resident of Rosebower who could know that detail.
Two people in their mid-forties sat across the table from Myrna. They were striking, in a calculated way. The woman had waist-length hair in a very attractive shade of red that was almost natural. She was tall and fair, with long arms, long fingers, and a long neck. Faye thought she looked like medieval royalty.
Amande must have agreed, because she leaned toward her mother and whispered, “It's the Queen of Hearts.” A glance at the woman's elaborate dress, low-necked and cinched at the waist to accentuate her full hips, confirmed that Amande's observation was dead-on. It also made Faye want to laugh, which would have been inopportune in a house of mourning.
The man beside the Queen of Hearts was as eye-catching, though not nearly so tall. His shoulder-length white-blond hair matched his blond brows and lashes, so Faye supposed that his dramatic coloring was more God-given than the Queen's.
“He looks like Dad, only not,” Amande breathed into her ear, barely audible.
She was right again. Like Joe, he had green eyes, and his strong features were made even more masculine when framed by long hair. Also like Joe, his coloring would turn heads from twenty paces, but while Joe's skin was bronze and his hair was almost black, this man was arrestingly pale. His torso was also notably narrow in comparison to Joe's broad shoulders and barrel chest. Faye gave him a few seconds of study and decided that his androgynous good looks did nothing for her, but she could tell that Amande thought otherwise.
The Queen of Hearts was speaking. “A doctor, Auntie. Let me take you to a doctor.”
“Oh, no, no. There hasn't been a doctor in Rosebower for years, not since Samuel's cousin Oscar passed to the other side. I just need some rest and,” she paused for breath, “perhaps a time of prayer with Elder Johnson.”
The Queen seemed accustomed to steamrolling right over Myrna. “There's a twenty-four-hour clinic twenty miles down the road.” She reached across the table and took Myrna's hand between both of hers. She rubbed it reassuringly for a moment, then resumed steamrolling. “We can be back by dark. Come.” She stood, presuming that Myrna would rise with her.
But Myrna kept shaking her head and saying, “No, no, no, no, I can't. Dara, I just can't. I need to be here. I needâ¦I just can't.”
Apparently, Myrna had her own case of agoraphobia, and it was almost as bad as Tilda's had been. Dara sat back down. Even the Queen could see that her aunt wasn't going anywhere.
“Allow me,” said Elder Johnson.
Bowing his head in prayer, he paused a moment, then placed a hand on each of Myrna's temples. Her breathing slowed. Moving his hands to her shoulders, he watched her closely. After a time, he seemed to see something that Faye didn't, because he moved his hands to encircle Myrna's wrists.
Faye knew that Spiritualists practiced “the laying on of hands” as a healing ceremony, and she knew that it wasn't unique to Spiritualism. When her mother and grandmother lay dying, the minister of their Holiness church had visited their bedsides often. Faye had never believed he had supernatural healing skills, but he'd given them comfort and she was grateful.
The relaxation creeping over Myrna's face made Faye wonder whether she should ask Elder Johnson if he could do something about her own sore neck. Still, the bereaved woman's color was terrible. Somebody needed to get Myrna to a doctor, even if it meant drugging her first.
At Faye's left elbow sat the very outgoing Amande, who had already introduced herself to the white-haired man on her other side.
“Mom, this is Willow. Dara is his wife, and she isâ¦wasâ¦Tilda's daughter.”
“Is. The word is âis.' Death is not the barrier you perceive it to be.”
Faye watched her daughter stare at Willow, goggle-eyed, as he intoned these words of wisdom. The man was working the easiest audience he'd ever have.
Willow seemed to be finished talking, so Amande turned her eyes on Myrna. She looked as relieved as Faye by the woman's improved appearance. Leaning toward Faye but still watching Myrna, she murmured, “Maybe she'd feel better if somebody gave her a piece of that awful candy.”
Myrna didn't hear her, but Willow's younger ears did. Amande looked mortified when he proved it by saying, “I think you're right. Dara and I brought her aunt some of that candy she likes, and this might be just the time to give it to her.” He reached into a bag on the floor by his feet and pulled out a box identical to the one Myrna had passed around on the night of the fire.
He offered Amande a piece, then grinned at her confusion. “You don't have to take any. Some people like licorice and some don't, but Dara's aunt sure does. And we do.” He offered the candy around the table, but Dara was the only person who accepted. Then he pulled out a piece for himself, took a huge bite, and placed the box on the table where Myrna could see it. Within twenty seconds, she was chewing on a piece and trying to get everyone present to join her. Since they had all tasted the stuff, everyone refused except Willow and Dara, but her duty as a hostess had been fulfilled. Every time Myrna bit into a piece of the candy, the odor of licorice filled the room.
Now Myrna was relaxed and happy, but her face was still grayer than her hair. Faye could tell that Dara was marshaling another argument in favor of a trip to the doctor, but her maneuvering was interrupted by a knock at the door. Dara leapt to her feet and answered it, preventing Myrna from burning the energy to get up and do so herself. Dara returned with Ennis.
Faye could see that the young man had not expected to see his lunchtime nemesis and her mother. He refused to look directly at them, but Faye saw him peek twice out of the corner of his eye.
Good. Let him think that people everywhere were looking out for his aunt.
He addressed Elder Johnson. “I told Sister Mama what you said about Miss Myrna, and she sent this.” He held out an unlabeled brown glass vial with an eyedropper lid.
The elder didn't take it at first, scrutinizing Ennis for a long minute. Maybe he'd heard the gossip about Ennis and his treatment of his aunt. “You told her everything I said? Quick shallow breathing? Racing heart? Cyanosis of her nails?”
“I did. She wanted to come herself, but she looks almost as bad as Miss Myrna. I told her to stay put, because I could most certainly bring a bottle over here and tell you that the dose is ten drops every three hours. Sister Mama said you should put them in a cup of hot water with a spoon of sugar and make her drink it down fast.” He turned his head toward the ailing woman. “Miss Myrna, she said you can put it in your tea if you want to. She also wanted me to tell you that the sugar don't do nothing, so you can leave it out, but she knows how you like your sweets.”
There was a teacup on the table in front of Myrna. In fact, at some point in the proceedings, someone had put full cups in front of Faye and Amande. Either Myrna had summoned the strength, based on eighty years of hospitable urges, or Dara had done it to keep her aunt still.
Myrna seemed perked up by the very idea that Sister Mama was taking care of things. Without asking Ennis what was in the bottleâand would he have known?âshe counted ten drops into her teacup. Then she polished off the contents in a single draft.
Dara's eyes were glued to Myrna, but Willow was smiling at the horrified looks on Amande's and Faye's faces.
“What was
in
that stuff?” Amande asked him, quietly, so Myrna wouldn't hear.
“Tinctures of about twelve different roots and herbs, I imagine, probably dissolved in 150-proof home brew,” Willow said. His easy laugh made his white hair swing. Faye could see Amande's eyes following it as he talked. “I couldn't begin to tell you which roots she prescribed in this particular situation. Sister Mama has a huge garden and several huger greenhouses and she has the accumulated skills of every gardener since Adam. If, over the past fifty years, Sister Mama decided that she needed to grow a plant that was native to Tasmania or Finland or Ecuador, she figured out how. There could be anything in that bottle, but I'll lay odds that it does Miss Myrna some good. Sister Mama has a lifetime of miracles to her credit.”
The conversation circled around meaningless chit-chat, but the chit-chatters' hearts weren't in it. Their eyes flicked toward Myrna, time and again, but the weary woman didn't seem to notice. To pass the time, Dara told a funny story about how her foot once fell asleep while she was onstage. “I was flinging the tarot cards around, jiggling my leg the whole time.”
“I couldn't figure out why you were stalling,” Willow said. “I started making up stuff to say while I waited for you to stand up.”
“Be glad I stalled. Otherwise, I'd have fallen on my face, and you'd have had to scrape me off the stage.”
Faye nursed her zero-proof tea for a quarter-hour, watching Dara sparkle for her very small audience. During that time, Myrna's color did improve and Ennis disappeared. She guessed that Sister Mama had told him to come home promptly and report on her patient's condition, though how she was communicating so well with her nephew was anybody's guess. Maybe they'd developed a sign language system, or maybe her speech got better when she wasn't angry.
Faye had spent that quarter-hour honing her own observation skills. She could see Tilda in her daughter's lean form, although Dara must have gotten those hips and that flamboyant personality somewhere else. Her faultless posture, so like her mother's, was a form of physical dignity. Faye could also hear a crisp intelligence in Dara's words that harked back to Tilda.
Faye suspected that Myrna too had inherited the family smarts but, for whatever reason, she chose to hide them. She more than made up for those hidden brains with social acuity. It would be a mistake to underestimate either woman.
Different as they were, Myrna and Dara were blood relatives. Though their approaches to life were different, Faye could see that kinship. After Elder Johnson left, Dara got up and sat in his chair, pulling it close to her aunt. The two women shared an emotional effervescence that bore no resemblance to Tilda's reserve. It was touching to watch them together.
They hugged. They forced tea on everyone present. They gossiped. My, how they gossiped.
“Do you think Ennis could've gotten out of here any faster, Auntie? He knows the whole town has heard about this little girl taking him down a notch or two.”
The Armistead womenâFaye had already ascertained that Dara clung to the family name as tightly as her motherâhad grinned at Amande over her lunchtime victory, and Faye had watched the girl relax into friendship with them both. Willow had sat quietly through the Armistead women's goofy jokes, sipping his tea and watching his wife's every move. Faye had rarely seen a man so smitten after years of marriage.