3
If you happen across a supernatural creature you don’t understand, do not do anything to attract its attention until you’re sure it’s friendly. Unless you’re comfortable operating with fewer appendages; if that’s the case, carry on.
—When, What, Witch, Were, and Why?
The Five W’s of Safe Interactions with the Paranormal
With my internal clock still all wonky, I ended up sitting in bed reading over my notes on the artifacts. The problem was, I was looking for four everyday objects: a candle, a clay plaque, a knife, and a bell. Apart from being old, they probably wouldn’t catch much attention at your average yard sale. And all supernatural clues from my grandmother had stopped the moment I decided to go to the States. That was maddeningly unhelpful.
I pored over the sketches Nana had left me, trying to memorize the symbols that had been painstakingly etched into the candle to represent protection. My head drooped over the papers until the landline rang, a sharp, shrieking jangle next to my ear. I jerked awake, blinking blearily at my new alarm clock to see that the numbers on its face were indecently low. I may have muttered a few obscenities into the receiver when I pressed it to my ear.
“Well, that’s a fine greeting for your favorite aunt.”
I sat up in bed, wiping at my eyes. “Pen, what the hell are you doing calling me at three in the morning?”
“Ah!” Penny cried. “Sorry, love, forgot about the time difference.”
“I’m going to reach through the phone and strangle you, Penelope,” I growled.
Penny scoffed at the very idea, and rightly so. She had about thirty pounds and four inches on me.
“Any progress?” Penny asked.
“Well, I have food in the house but no angry marsupials. That’s progress.”
“I’m assuming that you’re just tired and not spouting gibberish to annoy me,” she retorted.
“No, no, it’s going well. I’ve found the shop. I’m going to visit tomorrow. And I’ve shopped for groceries and managed to evict a minor possum infestation from my rental house.”
“Have you called Stephen yet?” she asked.
“Oh, shit!” I gasped. “No. I sent him a text when I landed, but after that . . . everything’s a little hazy.”
“Well, you should call him. He’s been calling here, asking for your contact information at the hospital in Boston. You know I can’t lie for anything, Nola. Why didn’t you just tell him where you were going?”
“Because Stephen would think this is insane,” I grumbled, forcing myself out of bed and untangling myself from the seemingly endless amount of spiral phone cord keeping me tethered to the receiver. I hobbled across my darkened room toward the window, glancing out to the moonlit garden.
“Well, if he’s going to be a part of your life, he’s just going to have to accept that you’re—”
“What the hell is that?” I blurted as my eyes came to focus on a strange hulking figure at the edge of my yard. It had the basic shape of a man, only bent and twisted. The stark light of the full moon showed a broad, dark back. Its movements were halting and irregular, as if its long, rangy limbs weren’t working properly. It looked almost canine, like one of those werewolves from the old Universal Studios monster movies. It lumbered toward the treeline, sniffing and scratching.
“Don’t change the subject,” Penny admonished me.
“There’s something in my back garden.”
“Another marsupial?” Penny chuckled.
“It almost looks like a Yeti.” I stepped toward the cheap little nightstand I’d bought to retrieve my glasses, but the movement dragged the sheet with me and knocked a heavy pile of books and notes to the floor with a loud thunk. The shape shifted, its “face” obscured by angled moonlight.
It stepped toward the house. I scrambled away from the window, pressing against the wall. I could hear Penny’s voice from the receiver, shouting for me to answer her. I tried to remember if the doors downstairs had decent monster-proof locks, but at the moment, all I could see in my head was a series of increasingly grotesque potential Yeti/werewolf bite wounds. Should I try to warn Jed? How would I get to his part of the house without going outside?
I was snapped out of this mental runaway train by Penny calling my name. I pressed the receiver to my ear. “Yes?”
“I thought the Yeti was a Himalayan beastie,” Penny said as I slipped my glasses over my nose.
“Werewolf is another possibility,” I whispered, peeking from the window frame and forcing myself to look into the yard. Nothing. Whatever it was had gone. What the hell? I was sure there was something out there. This wasn’t some flash out of the corner of my eye. But what was it? As far as I knew, there were no wolfmen or Yetis in this part of the world. And what were the chances of one showing up in my back garden?
There was also the small matter of my reflection, frightful rat’s nest of dark hair included, which could very easily be mistaken for a furry beast.
I laughed, wiping at my eyes. “False alarm. No werewolves in sight.”
“If you don’t stop talking nonsense, I’m coming over there,” Penny warned.
I let out a shaky laugh, my shoulders sagging as the tension in my chest eased. “It’s fine, Pen, I swear. I’m just jet-lagged and a little loopy. I didn’t have my glasses on, and the moonlight is playing tricks on me. It was probably a dog or a bear or something. Do they have bears in Kentucky?”
“I don’t know. All the more reason for you to be careful. I don’t like the idea of you being over there by yourself. Rumor has it that several Kerrigan cousins have made plans to ‘sightsee’ in the States. That means they’re up to something. Da wanted me to call to say we could spare Richard, James, and myself if you thought we could be of help.”
“You know why it had to be this way. Nana Fee only wanted one of us tramping all over the countryside, digging up family dirt. Four strangers with funny accents in a town this small would definitely cause a stir. And your sudden disappearance from the village would attract attention there.”
“It’s too much for one person to deal with, no matter how strong you think you are.”
“Well, I’m not disagreeing with you. But the word is ‘badass,’ not ‘strong.’ ”
“All right, then, Miss Steven Seagal, what are you not telling me?” she demanded.
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve got that weird excited tension in your voice. And it’s not because you’ve located the shop or managed to find your Nutella. I know you, Nola. You’re crap at keeping secrets. Confess.”
“My gorgeous new neighbor has an aversion to wearing shirts. And for reasons beyond my control, he may or may not have seen me wearing nothing but a towel . . . at close range. But that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”
“You tramp!” Penny cackled. “You’re not getting away that easy!”
“That’s. All. I. Have. To. Say.”
Huffing at my “mule-headedness,” Penny updated me on some of our patients, and I gave notes on their treatment, and for a moment, we sounded like any other medical team in the Western world. Gifted though we were, there were limitations to what we could do. Magic was not the answer to every problem or ailment, which was where my training came in handy. Nana and the others graciously tolerated my little eccentricities when I insisted on using modern techniques and equipment. So in return, if herbal teas would resolve issues such as indigestion, irregularity, and irritability, I prescribed them happily. Treatment at the clinic was a mix of magic and medicine, and our patients had come to expect a little of both.
My relatives were bolder in their practice of magical healing. Penny, for example, was a dab hand at what she called “replenishing spells.” She could spend just a few minutes talking with a patient who had been run down by a chronic illness or a bout of flu, and that person would walk away feeling as if he or she had spent two weeks at a health spa. She got incredibly offended when I suggested that the soothing, musical lilt of her voice sent the patients into a posthypnotic state that led them to believe they were relaxed and refreshed. If I teased too hard, she’d threaten to perm me again.
The clinic was what brought the family together, when none of the McGavocks were sure how to handle the scandal of my mother’s birth. Nana was the strongest witch in the family, the best healer in a bloodline that had always had healers in spades. Nana had organized the renovation of an old shearing barn into a sterile facility. She’d arranged for the beds, the medicinal herb garden out back, and the donation of supplies.
Instead of waiting for a situation to become so dire that they showed up at the McGavock farm at midnight, our neighbors could come to the clinic during office hours. At any given time, there were at least three McGavocks on hand to provide care, although I was the only licensed medical professional in the bunch—a fact we didn’t quite broadcast to the agencies that governed health facilities. It was rare that they approved a form containing the phrase “we heal our patients with herbs and energy manipulation.”
As a nurse practitioner, I loved working with my neighbors. I liked the fussy seniors with their imagined ailments, who were in reality visiting us after confession failed to provide them with the social contact they craved. I liked solving the real problems, soothing colicky infants and arthritic hands, and, yes, wiping up plain old colds. I loved knowing I was part of something. Even if I didn’t fully accept my extra gifts, I liked knowing that I was drawing from the same source that had been easing the suffering in Kilcairy for ages in exchange for pennies and, occasionally, chickens and sheep.
Plainly put, the clinic was what sent me to Half-Moon Hollow. According to family legend, if I didn’t find the four artifacts Nana had left to Gilbert Wainwright by the summer solstice, we would lose our magic. Even with my medical education behind us, the family would close the clinic. For years, the McGavock healers had been doing the near-impossible. My relatives wouldn’t feel right continuing to operate without meeting those high expectations. Without affordable medical care nearby, our patients would put off the ninety-minute drive to the nearest doctor’s office until minor problems became emergencies. Perfectly treatable illnesses would become big problems.
I would not let this happen to my neighbors or my family. These were the people who took me in when I arrived at the village gate, parentless and wary. They didn’t care that my mother had caused no end of trouble in her short tenure there years before. I was one of their own.
Hearing Penny’s voice brought on a wave of homesickness so fierce it made my teeth ache. I gave a brief update of my activities so far and promised I would e-mail a follow-up as soon as I met with Jane Jameson. After swearing that I would call if I needed help, I hung up. I opened my phone to dial Stephen’s number but stopped myself. “Not the right time,” I muttered. “Call when you get enough sleep to stop hallucinating mythical creatures . . . and you stop talking to yourself.”
I rose again, staring out the window. I was awake now, awake enough to stock my kitchen, unpack my clothes, and start my life here. And before the next sunset, I would pay Jane Jameson’s shop a visit.
* * *
In the light of late afternoon, I could see that Specialty Books was indeed located in a run-down neighborhood that seemed to be bouncing back slowly toward respectability. There was a consignment shop next door to the bookstore and a medical clinic down the street. The buildings looked as if they were being gradually rehabbed out of a state of ruin. It was difficult for me to understand—having lived for years in a country where the age of buildings was measured in centuries rather than decades—how Americans let their buildings fall to crap so quickly. Then again, considering Kentucky’s heat and brain-softening humidity in flipping May, maybe the buildings simply melted.
I sat across the street from the shop in my newly acquired heap of a car, purchased with Iris Scanlon’s help at Bardlow’s Used Cars. The twenty-year-old Nissan featured four tires and a motor. There were no other features. It was a hunk of junk, but at seven hundred dollars, I couldn’t afford to pass on the deal. Poor Miranda couldn’t be saddled with driving me every time I needed to go into town.
Beyond purchasing transportation, I had not had a productive day. I woke up late, remembering that I needed to call Stephen, who was not pleased to be an “afterthought” in my travel agenda. But he was back to his same sweet self in a few moments, asking how I was sleeping, if I’d taken my vitamins, if my caseload was rewarding. He was always concerned about me pushing myself too hard, and the way he cared warmed my heart as it always did. Of course, our conversation was riddled with none-too-subtle hints that I should abandon this silly fellowship, come home, and discuss his proposal to move to Dublin. I pretended I was still travel-addled to avoid the topic. He ended the conversation with “Be sure to get enough rest.” Which, in terms of a loved-up phone signoff, was extremely lacking, but still, he worried about me. And that was nice of him.
I wasn’t sure what to do about this ambivalence I’d felt about calling Stephen since arriving in the Hollow. And even more shocking was that I’d barely devoted any time or thought to Stephen in the last few days. There was no bone-deep, visceral ache to keep me from sleeping without him or concentrating on the task at hand. And that was disturbing. I liked that “head over heels” feeling. Losing it felt like going through emotional withdrawal.
With guilt-inducing speed, my mind flashed to Jed, who was proving to be a considerate neighbor. He’d swept off my side of the porch and placed one of his rickety rocking chairs next to my front door. Apparently, he’d been given permission to fix my back patio, too, because this morning, he began breaking up the old one with a sledgehammer just as the sun came up. And he looked like Hephaestus’s well-built, better-looking brother while doing it. That was not right.
Since I was most definitely awake and alert, I took a cup of tea out to him after changing into some shorts and completing several rounds of anti-morning-breath tactics. He seemed a little chagrined to see me, his face flushing an adorable pink as I approached with my carefully balanced tea mugs. “Mornin’,” I called.
“Mornin’.” He cleared his throat, wiping his forehead with a red bandana. “I, uh, should probably apologize for the other night. As pleasant as it was to have my hands full of naked new neighbor, my mama wouldn’t have approved of the way I behaved. My only defense is that I’m not used to ladies introducin’ themselves by climbin’ me like a jungle gym . . . Well, that’s not true; it does happen on occasion. But that’s why I stay away from bachelorette parties nowadays.”
“Are you blaming this on me? You groped my ass while I was terrified.”
The worry clouding his expression faded away, shifting from tense to playfully indignant.
“It was a comforting grope,” he protested.
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as a comforting grope.”
Jed’s lips twitched. “Clearly, you’ve never met a man who did it well.”
I really wished this wasn’t working on me. Smiling at lines this lame was demoralizing. “You know, you’re not nearly as attractive as you think you are.”
He snorted. “Well, that can’t possibly be true.”
It was just quick, cheeky conversation over tea, after which Jed went back to work, and I went upstairs to organize my meager belongings. But it had left me confused and twitchy. I was not a cheater. I was not the sort of woman who flirted with other men while her boyfriend waited at home. I was going to have to find a way to interact with Jed that didn’t involve cheekiness. Or shirtlessness.
And so I’d walked up and down this generally abandoned street all afternoon, working off excess energy and gauging what I might be able to see through the front windows of Specialty Books. (Thanks to thick metal sunproof shades, nothing.) Whether the shop could be accessed from the back door during daytime hours, when there were no vampires lurking about. (No.) And if there was a position available at the consignment shop next door. (Also, no.)
Eventually, I’d returned to my car to wait for Jane Jameson and her staff to arrive. Like clockwork, as soon as the sun set over the horizon, a large black SUV pulled into the spot directly in front of the shop. Two women piled out, one a redhead, one a brunette, chatting animatedly as the brunette unlocked the heavy front door.
I waited, watching through the front windows as they moved about inside. A half hour passed, and I ambled casually across the street as if I hadn’t stalked the place for most of the day. I wiped my sweating palms across my dark jeans and straightened the casual green top I’d chosen. Why was I so nervous all of a sudden? It wasn’t as if I’d done anything wrong—yet. And it wasn’t as if I needed the approval of a vampire shopkeeper, even though she could prove to be a great help or hindrance in accomplishing the task at hand.
I wasn’t sure what I would say to Jane Jameson when I met her. It depended on what I found in her shop and the impression I got from her. If she seemed untrustworthy, I would pretend to be selling calendars for an orphans fund and run as if the devil was chasing me. If I got a good feeling from her, well, I hadn’t worked that out just yet.
“Please stop giving yourself pep talks, Nola,” I grumbled to myself. “Or your next stop will be a narrow window ledge.”
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door, the tinkling of a little bell overhead announcing my arrival. This was my grandfather’s shop? It looked so modern and . . . well, girlie.
The view from outside hadn’t done the place justice. Specialty Books’ decor was playful and whimsical, not at all what you would expect from a vampire-owned shop. The walls were painted a cheerful blue, with a sprinkle of twinkling silver stars. There were comfy purple chairs and café tables arranged around the room in little conversation groups. Little pewter fairies danced on the shelves around rings of marble eggs and geodes.
A large cabinet to the left of the register displayed a huge collection of ritual candles. Although they weren’t the sort of candle I needed, I picked up a pink pillar marked “Romantic Love” and sniffed the wax. Rosemary and marjoram, not your usual rose-scented mix. I could appreciate that. Candle magic was one of the more approachable arenas of magic for a “dabbler.” While most people were uncomfortable with rituals and poppets, they didn’t see any harm in lighting a candle. You just chose a color based on your needs—red for passion, green for monetary gain or fertility—inscribed the candles according to what you wanted, and lit them up. But you had to be careful what you asked for. Spell-based love was notoriously fickle. Casting for financial gain often resulted in quick money fixes but long-term crises. As with most areas of the Craft, I didn’t bother with it. But I liked the smell of Nana’s homemade candles, made with herbs and oils from her garden, and sometimes burned them just for the pleasure of the scent.
Most witches consecrated their own candles with special oils, herbal mixes designed for their particular purpose. But if you were dealing with novices, which this shop likely would, it made sense to sell candles made of prescented wax. And the candles seemed to be of high quality, good strong scents without being overpowering. Even if Jane Jameson wasn’t a practitioner, she seemed to appreciate what her customers would want and tried to give them a little more than was expected. That made me smile.
Beyond the candles, the leaded glass and maple cupboard that held the cash register displayed a collection of ritual knives. My heart seemed to stutter a bit. Ritual knives? Athames, right up front? My hands shook slightly as I looked over the display. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? I couldn’t just walk into my grandfather’s shop and find the first two items on my little shopping list.
I looked over the neatly arranged knives and candles. I’d only seen sketches of the athame in question—silver, with a black enamel handle, inlaid in perfect silver spirals, a large cloudy blue gemstone set in the center of the handle. The candle was thick, white, and round, standing nearly a foot tall, inscribed over and over with a distinctive double version of the Celtic knot.
My buoyant little bubble of hope popped and deflated as I scanned the items in the cabinet. The shop had a fine collection, but none of them matched the descriptions I’d been given.
Sighing, I wandered a bit around the neatly arranged bookshelves, running my fingers over the spines of the books. Jane Jameson had scattered large black-and-white framed photos on the walls, smiling people, happy to be together. Was this her family? There was a wedding picture of the tall brunette and a handsome dark-haired man, though they looked to be dressed like something out of a BBC Jane Austen production. A holiday picture involving some hideous sweaters. I recognized Mr. Wainwright in a few of the shots—much older than he was in Nana’s photos, wizened to the point of being rather adorable, with a fringe of frazzled white hair and bifocals perched on top of his head. His face nearly crackled with laugh lines. He looked so happy, grinning broadly at the camera, particularly in the photos with the others. In one shot, near the register, the brunette had her arm slung around Mr. Wainwright’s shoulders, both laughing at something behind the camera.
I didn’t know how to feel about this. I’d pictured Mr. Wainwright as this lonely little hermit, living above his shop. And somehow, that’s what I wanted. He’d left my Nana Fee alone all those years. Some part of me was unsure that I wanted him to be this happy. I’d never understood why Nana Fee never married Jimmy O’Shea, a charming bachelor who lived down the lane. He had been courting Nana Fee since they were in school. But she’d refused him, so many times. His failed proposals were the stuff of legend in Kilcairy.
The single most depressing thought I had was that Nana Fee had truly loved Mr. Wainwright. And all the while, he’d moved on. Had he ever thought of her after he returned to America? My Nana Fee was a good woman. She’d deserved second thoughts.
Not to mention that Mr. Wainwright seemed to have replaced me with taller, prettier granddaughter models, which was causing no small amount of latent jealousy.
Abandonment issues aside, I was comfortable here. There was a good energy in this building, as much as I hated to admit it. The rental may have been Mr. Wainwright’s house, but this was his home.
Stepping closer to one of the shelves, I noticed a title. Miss Manners’ Guide to Undead Etiquette? Chuckling, I continued down the shelf.
From Fangs to Fairy Folk: Unusual Creatures of Midwestern North America.
Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking: A Beginner’s Guide to Otherworldly Travel.
When, What, Witch, Were, and Why? The Five W’s of Safe Interactions with the Paranormal.
I picked up a trade paperback, arching an eyebrow. “Tuesdays with Morrie?”
From the back of the store, I could feel a little mental tickle, a nudge at the back of my brain. Holy shit! A mind-reader? I wasn’t prepared to deal with a mind-reader now! I stopped in my tracks, closing my eyes and sliding down what Nana would have called my “mental shield,” picturing a rather large Jell-O mold forming around my head, protecting my brain from intruders.
Yes, it sounded silly. It’s my brain, and I’ll protect it however I want.
The tickle turned into an all-out poke. The slim brunette from the photos stepped out of some nook in the back, followed by an irritated-looking redhead. The brunette gave me a warm, if perplexed, smile. She was wearing jeans and a beautiful red silk blouse. The redhead, cool and elegant and far more wrinkle-free than anyone had a right to be at this time of night, was also featured heavily in the photo display. She was more subtly attired in a candy-floss-pink blouse and gray silk slacks.
“Can I help you find anything?” the brunette asked, her eyes narrowing at me slightly. She blinked a few times and shook her head, as if she had water in her ear.
“Just looking around,” I said, holding up the paperback.
“This one again?” The brunette groaned, taking Tuesdays with Morrie back to the section marked “Fiction” and reshelving it. “I swear to you, Andrea, this book is possessed. It’s like the stories about those porcelain dolls that move around while you sleep.”
Andrea, the gorgeous redhead, rolled her eyes. “I’m ninety percent sure Dick moves that book every time he comes into the store, just to mess with you.” She turned to me. “Jane has issues with dolls . . . and puppets . . . and clowns. We keep a list in the back, if you’re interested.”
Despite myself, I found myself snickering. I cleared my throat. “You have an interesting selection here. You stock ritual items?” I nodded toward the display cupboard.
The redhead frowned a bit. “Some. We’re primarily a bookshop, but the previous owner had quite a collection, and we keep the athames and candles around as sort of a tip of the hat.”
Jane stared at me, blinking as if she was having trouble concentrating.
“That’s very sweet,” I said, ignoring her blatant perusal and pointing to the little ownership plaque by the register. “So I take it you’re Jane Jameson, proprietor?”
Andrea sighed. In a lifeless, resigned tone, she said, “I will never be as smart as Jane Jameson-Nightengale.”
“I’m sorry?”
“She lost a bet,” Jane said, grinning evilly at her companion. “Every time she hears my full name, she has to say that. Do not try to out-trivia me, Andrea. You have no one to blame but yourself. Which reminds me, I need to have that plaque updated.”
“I could have sworn Nicholas Nickleby’s sister was named Sarah,” Andrea muttered.
“Her name was Kate,” I said, just as Jane did.
“Oh, hell, there’s two of you,” Andrea groaned, marching behind the counter. “I’m making myself a bloodychino.”
“Bloodychino?” I asked, turning toward Jane, who was giving me a speculative look.
“Hmm? Oh, yes, Andrea has figured out how to make coffee drinks more palatable for vampires.”
I lifted my brows. Andrea was fair-skinned, but she didn’t strike me as the vampire type. She was so put-together and polished. It was as if someone had vampirized a Kennedy, which was a terrifying thought. Was everyone who worked in this shop a vampire?
Upon closer inspection, Jane had that quiet, sturdy sort of beauty, with flyaway hair over bright hazel eyes and a wide, mischievous smile. She also had ink smeared across her cheek and a pencil holding up a rather haphazard bun. And she looked absolutely content about it. She was staring at me, and when I made eye contact, she seemed to give herself a little shake.
“Sorry. I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Nola Leary,” I said. “I’m new in town. I heard this was the place to go for a good book.”
Jane seemed to study me, scanning me from head to toe. Whatever she found seemed to bother her, given the way she kept squinting and working her jaw, as if to pop her ears. “Well, good obscure books, anyway.”
Given Jane’s scanning, I decided to hold off on any pointed questions about my grandfather. I ordered a coffee, bought a werewolf romance set in Alaska, and made myself comfortable. I sat at the bar and chatted with Andrea while customers filtered in. A book club met in the little circle of chairs near the back. Jane served coffee and sinfully good chocolate biscuits while they had a spirited discussion of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.
I spent a good deal of time just looking around the shop. What had it looked like when my grandfather was alive? How had he run the store? Did this work make him happy? For the first time since I’d learned his name, I wished so much that Gilbert Wainwright was still alive. I wished that Nana Fee hadn’t been so stubborn about contacting him. I wished that she’d chosen a slightly more convenient baby daddy to bequeath our family legacy to.
Every time I looked at Jane, she was studying me, a little line of concentration marring her smooth white forehead. After about two hours of this studying/staring cycle, I decided I’d pushed the limits of normal customer loitering and hopped off my bar stool. Jane caught up to me before I reached the door, smiling brightly at the book club as she pulled me toward the shop’s office.
I resisted, I pulled, but, well, she had all that vampire strength on her side. The office was small but tidy, with pale-yellow walls and a low shelf that ran the length of the room. Instead of books, the shelf displayed framed photos, running the gamut from old black-and-white shots to color photos of Jane with the man from the wedding photo. Jane wasn’t hurting me, but her grip was awfully firm as she sat me down in her desk chair. I tried to push to my feet, but she shoved me back down, then pulled a bottle of synthetic blood out of the little fridge behind her mahogany desk. She stared me down while we waited for the bottle to finish heating in the mini-microwave.
Although her habit of mental poking was somewhat annoying, it was rather nice sitting there with Jane. She had no biological functions, therefore no ailments. Other than a constant, niggling thirst that manifested as a dry, buzzing sensation in the throat, I didn’t feel anything from her. I seriously doubted she had any “I fell off my boyfriend” injuries I would have to diagnose.
“OK, why don’t you just go ahead and tell me what it is you’re trying to do. It will save us both some time and Tasering,” she said casually.
“Beg pardon?”
She sat in her chair, her expression wary. “I’ll tolerate a lot, lady, but I won’t put up with people who try to pull one over on me. It’s been done one too many times. Now, why are you so interested in Mr. Wainwright and his former shop? I can’t get much from you; all I see is rolling green hills and old pictures of Mr. Wainwright. And an old lady with an Irish accent in a purple bathrobe. And then I just get a bunch of static, which is really annoying, by the way. It’s like having nonstop radio feedback in my head.”
I stared at her. So that explained the mental poking. Some vampires had special talents beyond their strength and speed, such as mind-reading, finding lost objects, or just being very good at board games. She said she hadn’t seen much, but how could I know that? What should I tell her? I’d hoped to fly under the radar here in the Hollow, but having Jane’s input could help me track down the Elements. But could I trust her? These items were valuable, if for no other reason than that they were incredibly old. What if she started looking for them on her own and cut me out? Mr. Wainwright had trusted her, but I didn’t know her. And what was with the radio feedback noise? Was that because of Penny’s misfired binding spell?
“OK, whatever you’re thinking about, please stop,” she said, wincing. “We just went from radio static to that ear-splitting tone the Emergency Broadcast System uses.”
During this internal rant, I’d forgotten about my mental Jell-O shield. I stared at her for a long moment, picturing the Jell-O solidifying around my head. The moment I felt it snap into place, Jane’s tense face relaxed.
“OK, that’s better. Whatever you did, just keep that in place, would you? You might as well tell me about whatever you’re looking for. I’d like to help.” Leaning her elbows on her desk, she asked, “Now, how do you know Mr. Wainwright?”
“He’s a distant relation.”
“I’ve met all of Mr. Wainwright’s relations,” Jane said stiffly. “He was the last living person in his family line. Now, try again.”
“He visited Ireland about fifty years ago. He didn’t know about his daughter, my mother. He wouldn’t have known about me.”
I felt another little mental nudge. Apparently, Jane was double-checking my story. I gave her an exasperated frown. She started when she realized I could feel it and returned a sheepish grin. “Force of habit.” She scanned a row of framed photos on a shelf behind her desk, before selecting one. “Mr. Wainwright was in Ireland researching a family of were-deer. Was your grandma named Bridget?”
I shook my head and explained that although he’d been seeking were-creatures, Mr. Wainwright had been just as happy to discover my grandmother, a hereditary witch who healed the leg he’d shattered in a motorcycle accident near the family farm.
Mr. Wainwright saw enough to know that Nana Fee wasn’t just a particularly skilled nurse. While she cared for him, she explained about the McGavock family’s magical talent for healing and how we’d used it for generations. According to the journal, they talked about magical theory and books and films until the wee hours of the morning. And at some point, I’m assuming they did things that I’d rather not picture my grandmother doing, because nine months later, long after Mr. Wainwright had packed up and moved to seek a herd of were-deer rumored to be living near the shore, my mother was born.
I pulled Nana Fee’s photos from my purse and slid them across her desk. Jane’s eyes widened slightly, then she looked me over. She picked up one of the snugglier shots, her eyebrows raised. “Mr. Wainwright, you dog.”
“My mother was the result of their . . .”
“Let’s say ‘union,’ for both of our sakes,” Jane suggested, holding up her hands in a defensive pose.
“All right, then. Nana Fee never contacted him to let him know about the baby. They weren’t in love. She didn’t want to hold him back from whomever he might meet that he would love.”
“What about her?”
I shook my head. “Nana Fee never revealed her lover’s name until just before she died, not even when my great-grandfather and great-uncles pressed and threatened and outright begged. She moved into the empty herder’s cottage on the edge of the farm proper and went about making a life for her new baby. No simple feat for an unmarried twenty-year-old. But Nana was gifted, and frankly, I think the villagers were too afraid of losing her services as a healer to shun her completely. Likewise, her family loved her too much to send her away. She never married. She had her daughter, and she was happy with her choice.”
Jane stared at me for a long while. “I want to believe you. The idea of Mr. Wainwright having a child and a grandchild makes me very happy. And I don’t think you have any bad intentions here. But you need to understand that we’ve been burned before by someone claiming a connection to Mr. Wainwright. Do you mind if I ask what brings you here now, after all these years?”
I gave an equal measure of considerate staring. “That’s a really long story, and I’d like to wait until your shop is cleared out.”
Nodding, Jane blew out a breath and sank back into her chair. “Well, hell, I wish Mr. Wainwright had stayed around now.”
I frowned. “I wish that he’d lived, too. I would have liked to meet him.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” she muttered.