Aunt Dimity Digs In (15 page)

I shrugged. “A lot of people are searching for answers in unconventional places these days.”

“Does any of it work?” I asked, curious.

I laughed. “Well, if you’re not, then Mrs. Morrow certainly isn’t. Thanks, Dimity. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

I closed the journal, put it back on the shelf, and trotted up to the nursery. I hadn’t yet told my husband about Brother Florin. We hadn’t had the chance to talk in the car because Bill had bicycled home, and Francesca had been with us during lunch. I hoped to catch him before he went back to the office.

“Francesca?” I said as I entered the nursery. “Has Bill left yet?”

“Ten minutes ago.” Francesca was sitting in the rocker near Rob’s crib, knitting a blue bootie that made the products of my own clicking needles look more than ever like abstract art. “He told me to tell you that he’d catch up with you later.”

The nursery was scented with the irresistible perfume of baby shampoo and talcum powder. The boys, freshly bathed, were sleeping on their tummies in their cribs, their heads turned in the same direction, their fists curled in identical positions before their rosy faces. I walked over to stroke Will’s back. I wasn’t worried about waking him. The twins had inherited their father’s gift for sleeping soundly.

“Do you know Mrs. Morrow?” I asked Francesca.

Francesca looked up from the bootie. “Tall woman, lives next to the vicarage?”

“ That’s the one,” I said.

“I don’t know much about her,” Francesca admitted. “She loves cats, lives in London, hired Briar Cottage six months ago. Word has it that she’s writing a book. She’s no wedding ring, so there’s some who say the
Mrs.
is just for show. Doesn’t go to my church or Saint George’s—keeps herself to herself, by and large. Some say she’s got weird wiring.”

I straightened slowly and turned to face the rocker. “Pardon me?”

“She had the wiring in Briar Cottage redone when she moved in,” Francesca explained. “Had extra phone lines put in. But as I say, I don’t know much about her.” Francesca uttered the preposterous disclaimer without a trace of irony. I wondered, somewhat nervously, what she’d say if asked to describe her new employers.

My nanny seemed to know an awful lot about a woman she didn’t really know, yet she hadn’t said one word about ghosts. Six months seemed like plenty of time for the village telegraph to pick up on Mrs. Morrow’s unusual field of expertise. Had Francesca been out of the loop, or was she exercising discretion? I decided not to probe. If Mrs. Morrow had managed to keep one corner of her life hidden from the villagers’ prying eyes, more power to her.

Francesca lifted her needles and resumed knitting. “I heard that the bishop sent Mrs. Kitchen away with a flea in her ear.” She smiled complacently. “I told you it was a lot of nonsense. The bishop’s thick as thieves with Adri—Dr. Culver.” Her smile became a scowl as she added, “He came here again today.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Dr. Culver. Claimed he was looking for his hat.” Francesca snorted. “He wasn’t even wearing that old hat of his when he was here the other night. It would’ve looked out of place with those nice gray slacks he’d changed into.”

Adrian Culver’s persistence, it seemed, was beginning to pay off.

Smiling inwardly, I told Francesca that I was off to the village again but that I’d be home in plenty of time for dinner. I bent low to kiss Will’s temple, planted a tender smooch on Rob’s plump cheek, and set out to find out just what Mrs. Morrow was up to.

 

Briar Cottage was concealed from Saint George’s Lane by a thorn hedge so tall that I couldn’t see over it, and so dense that a half-starved rabbit would have had trouble squeezing through. The hinges on the tall wooden gate screeched raucously as I pushed it open. Silence followed, broken only by birdsong and the distant sound of Rainey talking Emma’s ear off in the vicarage garden. I stood for a moment, just inside the gate, taking a careful look at Mrs. Morrow’s house.

Most houses in Finch had exchanged thatch for slate when they were modernized in the 1960s, but the roof of Briar Cottage was as shaggy as the day it had been woven. The overhanging thatch had been trimmed to accommodate a pair of upstairs windows that were, like their ground-floor counterparts, neatly curtained in starched calico.

Briar Cottage was made of the same honey-colored stone as the rest of the buildings in Finch, but it was very small, not quite half the size of the schoolmaster’s house. Its walls were crooked and slightly bowed, as though it had begun settling onto its foundations before the Royalists rode through town and hadn’t finished settling yet. I found the little house strangely appealing.

As I strode up the front walk, I reminded myself that whether Mrs. Morrow was a crook or a crank, she might still prove to be a valuable witness. It didn’t matter if she took pleasure in misleading innocents like Mr. Wetherhead. If she could corroborate his story—or better yet, add to it—I’d be one step closer to catching the Buntings’ Paddington-shaped burglar.

I knocked on the front door, waited, then knocked again. I’d raised my hand for a third and final attempt when the door was flung open by a willowy woman with vivid green eyes.

“But darling, I’ve told you a thousand times,” she cried,
“no sex before the full moon!”

14.

It took no more than a few eye-blinking seconds for me to realize that the woman was neither hallucinating nor addressing her advice to me, but speaking into the thin, curved mouthpiece of a telephone headset.

“No, no, and no!” she continued, motioning for me to come inside. “It doesn’t
increase
your power—it drains you dry! Put Keith on, will you?”

I closed the door and waited politely for her to finish her conversation.

“Miranda knows best, Keith darling. Try again next month and let me know how it turns out. Good-bye, duck. Give my best love to Wormwood. Keith’s cat,” she explained, removing the headset. “Hideous name for a poor old mog, don’t you think? I can just imagine what
she
calls
him.
” She held out her hand. “Miranda Morrow, at your service. Are you collecting for the church roof fund or have you come for a consultation? Or”—she waggled her eyebrows—“are you one of us?”

“I, uh . . .” I was so busy gawking at my surroundings that Miranda’s questions scarcely registered.

She followed my astonished gaze around the cramped, low-ceilinged room. “Not exactly
Country Life
, eh?”

“N-no . . .” I agreed. It was more like
Country Coven.

A three-legged cauldron stood upon the hearth, beneath a chunky wood-beam mantelpiece littered with tarot cards, dousing twigs, faceted crystals, and small piles of polished stones. Astral charts were pinned to the walls, cabalistic symbols chalked on the faded redbrick floor, and bunches of dried herbs, hanging upside down from the rafters, filled the room with a pungent fragrance.

Between the curtained windows a black velvet-covered table held a crystal ball as big as my head. A blackened twiggy broomstick had been mounted in a rack over the front door. I wasn’t remotely surprised when a black cat with luminous yellow eyes came over to rub his head against my ankles. As I bent to scratch his chin, however, I caught sight of a table tucked into a nook beneath the staircase.

“Wow,” I said, recalling Francesca’s comment on weird wiring. “That’s a pretty fancy setup you’ve got there.”

Miranda smiled benignly on an array of compact electronic equipment that made Houston Mission Control look like a sideshow. “Couldn’t do my job without it,” she said simply. “I’m taking calls this afternoon, but I spent all morning answering my E-mail.”

“What, exactly, is your job?” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Miranda seemed amused by my diplomacy. “I’ll give you three guesses,” she said. “Nuclear physicist, milk-maid, or . . . witch.”

I ducked my head, embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to be called by that name.”

“Some women are sensitive about it,” she said, nodding her approval. “I’m not. Witch, sorceress, psychic, healer, crone—I don’t care what people call me, so long as they call.”

“So you’re a . . . a telephone witch?” I asked, wondering how the vicar would react to his neighbor’s extremely nonconformist beliefs.

“I’m writing a book at the moment,” she replied, “but it wouldn’t do to abandon the faithful while I enjoy the quiet pleasures of my rural hideaway. They’re helpless without me.” She placed the headset on the table beneath the stairs. “Now, are you going to introduce yourself, or are you hoping that I’ll read your mind?” She raised a hand to forestall my answer. “Wait. . . . Wait. . . . I’m getting an impression. . . . It’s stronger now. . . . Yes. . . . I can see it clearly.Your name is . . .
Lori Shepherd!
”

I folded my arms and gave her a sidelong look. “I take it you’ve spoken with Mr. Wetherhead?”

“He came knocking at my door the minute you’d driven off,” she said, laughing. “Care to sit down?”

I gestured to the headset on the table. “Your phone calls?”

“ They can leave messages,” she said. “Come. . . .”

Tucked in among the arcane paraphernalia, and placed at an angle to the fireplace, was a fat little sofa draped with a dozen paisley shawls. I sank onto—and into—the sofa while Miranda stooped to light a row of candles in the fireplace.

She looked more like a farmer’s daughter than a witch. Compared to the other villagers I’d met so far, she was a stripling youth—in her mid-thirties, I guessed, not much older than me. Her face had a fresh, natural bloom and a sprinkling of faded freckles. She was barefoot and wore a loose-fitting blue chambray dress that swirled about her ankles. Her reddish-blond hair hung in long sun-streaked tresses to her waist.

“A summer fire,” she explained when the candles were lit. “Lovely flames without inordinate heat.” She closed her eyes and stretched her hands toward the candles, palms upward, as though in silent prayer. “Don’t worry,” she murmured from the corner of her mouth, “I’m not casting a spell. I’m simply giving thanks for the gift of light. I try not to take things for granted.”

She lowered her hands, dropped into a well-worn armchair, and stretched her long legs across a burgundy-fringed ottoman. “I’m sure you’re wondering why in the world I chose to live so near a vicarage.”

“It does seem a tiny bit . . . aggressive,” I acknowledged.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” said Miranda. “I hired Briar Cottage sight unseen, and never thought to ask who my neighbors were. That’s why I don’t give tea parties. I don’t want the vicar to think I’m poaching on his patch.” She leaned her chin on her hand. “Besides, not everyone is as tolerant of my religion as dear old Mr. Wetherhead—though it appears to be gaining in popularity. I may hang out my pentangle yet.”

“Speaking of Mr. Wetherhead,” I said, trying not to let myself be sidetracked, “I was hoping you’d tell me a little more about Brother Florin.”

“Good gods,” she said, sitting up. “Have you seen him, too?”

“How could I?” I said nonchalantly. “You invented him.” I expected a staunch denial or a careful equivocation. Instead, I got a cheerfully guilty chuckle.

Miranda leaned back in her chair, nodding happily. “It was naughty of me,” she confessed, “but Mr. Wetherhead wanted a ghost so
badly
that I couldn’t resist the temptation to give him one. Apart from that, I didn’t want him blabbing about what he’d seen. I don’t think Finch is quite ready to deal with a coven in its midsts, do you?”

I was so far at sea that I could hear whales singing. “Coven?” I repeated, bewildered. “What coven?”

The merriment faded from Miranda’s green eyes. She stared at me for several long seconds, then lowered her lashes as the black cat leapt onto the arm of her chair and insinuated himself into her lap. His purr filled the room as she tickled the top of his head with her fingertips.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I may have taken something for granted after all. I assumed that you went along with the Brother Florin story in order to conceal your activities on Sunday night.”

“ The only activities I was engaged in on Sunday night involved lullabies and dirty diapers.” I informed her. “Are you telling me you’re not the only witch in Finch?”

Miranda got to her feet, with the purring cat draped limply over her shoulder. She paced to the crystal ball and back, taking care to move between the hanging herbs, then stared down at the candles, deep in thought. Finally, she lowered the black cat onto the tapestry chair and beckoned me to follow her upstairs.

Miranda Morrow’s bedroom filled the space beneath the rafters. It was as spartan as the parlor was gothic. A bed without a headboard, a deal table with an oil lantern, an old oak wardrobe, and a plain wooden bench were the only furnishings. The calico curtains provided a spot of color, but the windows were set so low in the walls that the sills were nearly level with the floor.

Miranda ducked below an exposed tie-beam and sat cross-legged before a window in the back wall. “I’ll tell you what I saw on Sunday night,” she said, motioning for me to sit beside her, “and let you be the judge.”

I lowered myself to the floor as she pulled the curtain aside. The window overlooked the back end of the vicarage garden and the rolling meadow beyond, though the river was hidden from view.