Tiger's Eye (9 page)

“How about installing a V-8 engine in a scooter?”

Wait, what? “How do you know about V-8 engines?”

Birdie sighed. “The point is, Anastasia, you never cast a spell on your own familiar. When you do, you are combining forces, giving the spell entirely too much power, and the results—as you now know—are disastrous.”

“Okay, got it. No more spell casting on Thor. But no one got hurt and most of the dogs are accounted for. Most found their way home.”

Fiona stood and moved to the oven where she checked on Thor’s lunch. “That is not the way it works. Most likely, you will need to perform a clean-up spell. I’ll check into that. In the meantime, I don’t suspect Keesha was a product of your spell, but I can’t be certain.” She twisted the oven dial to off and pulled the bowl out, testing the temperature with her finger.

“What did you find out?” I pushed away from the table and filled a bowl with water.

Fiona placed the food on a mat near the back door and I set the water next to it. I made sure the door leading up the back stairs was shut tight.

“Go ahead and get Thor and then we’ll talk.”

I opened up the doors at each end of the hallway and whistled. Thor came rumbling through and headed right for his dish. He dug in with enthusiasm, lifting his head and smacking his lips every so often. He ate Fiona’s meals absurdly slow; like a foodie at the opening of a new, hot restaurant, he intended to savor and analyze every morsel.

Birdie, Fiona, and I settled around the apothecary table just as Lolly entered from the dining room wearing a wedding dress and yellowed veil. Her two sisters stiffened.

“How are you, dear?” Fiona asked.

Lolly smiled shyly at her. “Happy as I’ll ever be.” She had more makeup on than usual, and the manner in which it was applied made me wonder if she was about to audition for a silent film.

She said hello to Birdie, who smiled back, and proceeded to the pie safe where the dried herbs were stashed. She fumbled around in there for a minute or so, removing jars and shelves until she emerged with a bouquet of crinkled white roses fastened with a brittle gold ribbon.

Lolly held the flowers in her hand briefly, then bent to sniff them, murmuring to the buds. As she did, the petals perked up and the ribbon that held them together gained some luster.

In fact, so did Lolly.

She smiled first at Birdie, then Fiona, before she looked at me. That’s when her smile faltered and a cloud passed over her face.

Fiona jumped up in front of me and said, “Lolly, since I did your makeup, why doesn’t Birdie help fix your hair?”

Lolly nodded and gushed, “That would be lovely! My two sisters standing at my side on this most precious day.” She hummed a melody unfamiliar to me as she drifted up the back stairwell, Birdie close behind.

What. The. Hell. Lolly’s cheese had slid off her pizza long before I could remember, but this was more than just a loose bolt. This was downright creepy.

Fiona got up to refill her iced tea and said, “Now, where were we?”

“No, no.” I shook my forefinger. “First, what was that?”

“What?”

“Lolly. What’s wrong with her? That isn’t the usual mind slippage.”

“It’s June nineteenth, dear. It’s Lolly’s wedding day.”

My jaw dropped. “She’s getting married?”

Fiona chuckled. “No, of course not. This was the day she was to be wed to her sweet Jack forty-nine years ago.”

I racked my brain, but for the life of me I could not remember learning that Lolly had ever been engaged.

Fiona tilted her head. “You know, I don’t suppose we ever told you about him.”

I shook my head. “I don’t suppose you did.”

Fiona launched into the story as I let Thor outside.

Apparently Jack Moriarty had been quite the catch. “He had piercing blue eyes and sunny hair. He was lean and tall and very funny. He had us all in stitches all the time. Mother and Daddy adored him,” Fiona said.

“He grew up here? In Amethyst?”

Fiona nodded. “Lolly and Jack were like two peas in a pod right from the start. They played together, helped each other with their homework, stood up for each other on the playground, that sort of thing. As they got older, their fondness blossomed into love. They could finish each other’s sentences, read each other’s thoughts. It was amazing how connected they were.”

Fiona sighed and peered out the window as if the secrets of the past were just beyond the pane.

I waited for her to continue.

“Jack asked Lolly to marry him when he graduated high school, but Mother wanted them to wait. She had plans for us all to continue our…studies.” She stumbled over that last word. “So after a few years, Jack had gone into his father’s brewery business and he was doing quite well for himself. Lolly was all grown up and our parents gave them their blessing.” Fiona took a long pull of her cold tea. “The wedding was to be right here, in the back garden, and nearly the entire town was invited. I had never seen my big sister so happy.”

Fiona paused.

“What happened?” I asked, gently.

She looked at me. “He never arrived.”

I sucked in my breath. “Oh. How awful. Poor Lolly.”

Fiona rose and took her glass to the sink. The ice rattled around the drain as she dumped it out. “To this day, we don’t know what happened to him.” She turned toward me. “And we tried
everything
.”

I nodded, knowing she meant magic. How awful it must be to find someone you connect with so deeply only to lose him without a trace. How horrible it must be just not
knowing
his fate.

I knew that feeling. I lived that feeling for half of my life when my mother disappeared.

How odd, I thought, to have this raw, open wound in common with Lolly.

Except I knew now what had happened with my mother and where she was. Lolly didn’t have that luxury.

I asked, “So the dress, the bouquet?”

Fiona nodded. “We prepare for the occasion every year, just us three, in private.”

“And Lolly?”

My great-aunt thought for a moment. “Your aunt Lolly has always been a bit scatterbrained. Mother used to say she was ‘away with the fairies.’ When Jack never showed up, Lolly did not believe it was by choice but rather some other…force that kept him away.” She twirled a lock of hair that had sprung free from a bobby pin. She looked at me as she explained, “She waited for him. Hours turned into days, days grew into weeks, and before we knew it a year had passed. And, well,” Fiona sighed, “she simply wasn’t ever quite the same.”

“Her heart was broken,” I said hoarsely.

Fiona smiled. “No, my dear. That’s just it. Her heart refused to break. So her mind bore the burden of the wound.”

I was still processing that when Lolly and Birdie came down the stairs. Fiona rose to block me from the bride’s view.

“Almost ready,” Birdie said. Fiona nodded and said, “Be right there.”

I watched the eldest Geraghty Girl float out the back door in a worn wedding gown, her youngest sister escorting her train and I thought it was the saddest thing I had ever witnessed.

“Stacy, dear, I need to go, but you can take this with you.” She opened up the kitchen catchall drawer and pulled out a notebook. “I wrote down everything from my session
with Keesha. Hopefully it’s enough to help you find the poor girl’s family. She’s quite distressed.”

She pulled out two small bouquets of lavender from the refrigerator and fluffed the herbs. “You call me if you have any questions, all right, dear?” She kissed me and hustled out the back door, allowing it to bang shut.

I watched through the screen as Fiona handed the second bouquet to Birdie before filing in line behind her.

The picture was surreal. The three of them stood there waiting for a wedding that was supposed to take place nearly half a century ago—a wedding they prepared for every year despite knowing it would not happen. It made my heart ache for Aunt Lolly.

I vowed in that moment that no matter what, I would find out what happened to Jack.

For the briefest moment, Birdie met my eyes.

Chapter 11

“Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.”

—Emily Dickinson

The parlor was empty as I made my way to the entrance door. Outside, Thor was rolling around on the front lawn, kicking his legs in the air and barking at nothing.

Ah, to be a dog.

“Come on, Thor.”

We hopped back in the car and I swung around to my driveway and parked there. I gathered the notebook, the dog, and my bag and we headed inside. Thor immediately curled up on the sofa and I turned the portable air-conditioner on high, grabbed a pair of white shorts and a red tank top, and hit the shower.

It was after one when I finished getting dressed. I twisted my damp hair into a clip, grabbed my amethyst necklace, and tossed the dirty lake towels, my suit, and cover-up in the wash. I was still full from breakfast and Thor was satiated for the time being so I slathered on
some sunscreen, slipped into flip-flops, grabbed Fiona’s notebook, and headed outside.

Partial shade covered the wicker settee on the porch. Only my legs, which were propped on the railing, were exposed to the sunlight as I opened the cover.

Fiona’s normal handwriting was a work of art, the letters beautifully curved and so eloquently designed it looked like a computer font designed specifically for wedding invitations.

A chicken on meth could have scratched out her “session” script. It was hastily scribbled with no paragraphs, no punctuation, and no spaces. Just words incoherently lumped together.

I was able to decipher these on the first page:

Keesha
Pretty
Girl
Smart
Help
Teach
Show

I thought for a minute. Show. Teach. Was she an acting dog? I didn’t own a television so I wasn’t up on the latest programs. Perhaps for a children’s show where she would teach the kids…what?

Or was she perhaps a show dog? An agility performance dog? I wasn’t aware of any competitive dog shows in the area, but I made a note to look into that possibility.

On the next page, I found:

Fun
Car
Lady

There was a lady she had known. Her owner? A vet? Trainer? Groomer?

The third page said only:

Bad
Man
Sad

The final page was a jumble of words branching out around one:

Thor

It wasn’t his name so much that disturbed me as the words around it:
Good, Boy, Nice, Like, Play, Friend, Brave.

Uh-oh.

I shut the notebook and leaned my head back. I didn’t realize Fiona’s ability was stilted. I thought I would be reading this dog’s whole life story, not just random thoughts. But maybe Fiona knew the whole story and she just scribbled these notes down. I walked around to the side of the cottage where I could see the back garden.

They were still in formation. Waiting for a phantom groom.

Through the open window, Thor yawned loudly as he jumped off the couch. He nudged the door open with his snout, lumbered onto the porch, and stretched deeply.

I sat back on the settee and he greeted me by sniffing the back of my neck like it was a turkey leg. Truth be told, it was a bit refreshing in this heat.

I twisted to face him and said, “Please do not encourage Keesha. She seems to have a crush on you.”

The reasonable side of me was well aware that responsible pet owners spayed and neutered their animals, but Thor, as my familiar, was different. And since he’d come to me with all his parts fully functional, I thought it best not to alter the original design.

Besides, what if all his magic was stored in the luggage compartment?

We were nose to nose and he gave me his most meaningful look and sneezed in my face, covering me with dirt and sand.

I popped up. “Agh! That’s disgusting.”

I dashed inside to rinse off the mucus and put the notebook on my desk. When I came back outside, Thor’s tail was thumping against the porch boards and Leo was walking up the driveway. He was wearing the same faded jeans he had on earlier, accompanied by a white polo shirt with an Amethyst PD logo in the corner. Standard cop shades hid his eyes.

“Hey, Chief,” I said.

As soon as my voice hit the wind, I heard the high-pitched yap of my nemesis.

“Geez, you brought Cujo?”

Thor’s ears perked up at the noise and he sidled over to me, leaned against my hip. He cocked his head, trying to decipher where the sound was coming from.

Leo said, “He’s in the car with the air-conditioner running, so don’t worry. Thought it best not to take a chance with your bodyguard on duty.”

“Not to mention it could get confusing with them sharing a name. I mean, how would we tell them apart?”

“I changed his name, smart-ass.”

“To what? Odin? Zeus? Hercules?”

“Scrappy.”

I made a face.

“What? It was your suggestion. Besides, he is scrappy.”

I held up my hands. “Hey, it’s none of my business. I can’t believe you didn’t find his family, though. Someone must be wondering where he is. He looked well taken care of.”