Chapter 2
Tennyson
Not only had Everly shopped until she dropped, but so had Ten and Ronan.
They were completely outfitted for the upcoming Memorial Day trip to Hampton Beach on the New Hampshire seacoast. Fitz and Jace had been in charge of lodgings and they’d rented a gorgeous house mere feet from the sand, so there wouldn’t be a repeat of the Old Orchard Beach disaster that Jude had booked at bargain prices.
With the details of the trip off Ten’s plate, he could focus on his day at West Side Magick.
His first client was due to arrive at any second.
The woman was a referral from one of his regulars, which usually made Ten’s day, but after the Autumn Miller situation, he didn’t really trust anyone’s referrals.
Knowing he couldn’t continue to worry over every reading, Ten took a deep breath.
Yes, he’d been traumatized when officers ripped him out of this very room to arrest him.
If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the ice-cold metal of the handcuffs against his wrists and the explosion of pain when his face was slammed against the wall.
Former Danvers Police Captain Dutch Vance had pleaded guilty to all charges and was serving a twenty-five year sentence in prison.
“Hey, Ten?” Carson poked his head into the reading room. “Natalie Fairchild is here for you.”
“Wonderful!” Ten hopped out of his seat, hoping the smile he’d plastered on his face wasn’t too bright or fake.
Carson escorted an older woman into the room. She was dressed in a black pantsuit with her stylish grey hair cut into a bob. Natalie looked to be around sixty years old.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Grimm,” Natalie said, holding out her hand.
“Please call me Tennyson.” Ten took her hand, noticing how warm and soft her skin was. “It’s great to meet you too. Have a seat.”
“All set?” Carson asked.
“We’re good as gold.” Ten grinned, genuinely, this time, as Carson shut the door behind him.
“I’ve heard so much about you from Susan McCarthy. You were able to reconnect her with her sister who’d passed when she was a teenager.”
Ten instantly remembered the reading. Susan and her twin sister, Stacy, had been in a car accident when they were sixteen years old.
Susan and her boyfriend had been in the back seat of a rust bucket Chevy, while Stacy sat in the front with her boyfriend, Dom.
They’d been speeding and drinking. Dom lost control of the car and it smashed into a tree.
Stacy died on impact. The boyfriends passed not long after.
Susan woke up in the hospital two days later to learn she’d been the only survivor.
It had been one of Ten’s hardest readings in recent memory.
“How can I help you today, Natalie?” Ten opened his gift and was hit with a wall of grief. Pain, betrayal, and devastating loss combined to almost knock Ten clean out of his chair.
Natalie reached into her tote bag and pulled out a worn pink blanket with fraying edges. Unshed tears shimmered in her dark eyes. “I lost my baby in 1972, and I want to connect with her.”
Doing some fast math, Ten realized the lost child would be fifty-four years old. He gave his head a shake. Natlie’s grief was as fresh now as it had been in the past.
“Are you all right, Tennyson?” Natalie asked, looking worried.
“I’m fine, Natalie, just trying to reckon how a woman of your age could possibly have a child who would be in their mid-fifties. Pardon me for saying so,” Ten trailed off as Natalie dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue from her bag.
“No pardon needed. I was fifteen years old when I got pregnant with Amanda.” Natalie paused and took a deep breath.
“I ran with a fast and loose crowd back in the day. My father was a high-powered attorney in New York City and my mother was a busy socialite. Neither had any time for me and I was left to my own devices, which led me down a rough road. I was terrified when I found out I was pregnant.”
Ten could feel Natalie’s fear loud and clear. In his mind’s eye, he could see her pacing outside of her father’s home office while he and her mother argued behind closed doors about what to do with their wayward daughter.
“I’d never seen my father as angry as he was the day I told him and my mother what happened.
I’d expected them to offer to help me in any way they could.
My parents never denied me anything. I assumed this situation would be no different.
We were churchgoing Catholics. I assumed the church would also help, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
” Natalie dabbed her eyes. “My father wanted to disown me and kick me out of the house to live on the street. My mother was able to calm him down enough to consider another option.”
Ten knew the second option hadn’t been much better than the first.
“My father sent me to St. Agnes House here in Salem to have my baby. He didn’t want anyone he knew or had business relationships with to see or hear about my shame.
Once the child was born, my plan was to get a job and raise the baby on my own.
One of the perks of St. Agnes House was that they taught nursing skills, which helped girls get jobs.
My plan was to continue with that education.
I was excited to become a mother, only that chance was stolen from me. ”
“Stolen how?” Ten asked.
“When I went into labor, I was rushed into the delivery room at the home. I’d never been in so much agony in my life.
The doctor gave me a shot of something to help with the pain and the next thing I knew I woke up alone, hours later, without my child.
One of the nuns told me my baby had died a little while after she was born.
I wanted to hold her and tell her how much I loved her, but the sister said her remains had already been sent to the funeral home.
All I was left with was the blanket she’d been wrapped in for the hour she lay dying.
Two days after that, I stood alone at Angel of Mercy cemetery while my child’s tiny wooden casket was lowered into unhallowed ground.
Since the baby had never been baptized, she couldn’t be buried in holy ground.
” Natalie sunk her head into her hands and began to cry.
Being raised Baptist, Ten knew all lost babies in his faith were buried in blessed ground.
Baptism was a choice every child made for themselves later in life.
All Calvary Baptist babies went to heaven.
There was none of that Limbo bullshit Catholics liked to harp on.
“Natalie, I’m so sorry for your loss.” Ten felt as if his heart had been ripped out and stomped on with spiked baseball cleats.
“Let me see if I can reach out and find Amanda. May I hold her blanket?”
“Yes.” Natalie pushed the pink blanket across the table to Tennyson. He hesitated before picking it up, offering a quick prayer that the little girl’s soul was in the room with them.
“Amanda, are you here?” Ten asked, his voice soft.
He’d done dozens of readings for parents of lost children over the years, but none with a story like this.
He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Natalie to have woken up to find her child was gone.
“Amanda, my name is Tennyson, and this is your mother, Natalie, can you speak with us for a moment?”
“Why isn’t she responding?” Natalie sounded panicked.
“I’m not sure.” The truth of the matter was that Ten was absolutely sure why Amanda’s spirit wasn’t responding to him. What he truly wasn’t sure about was whether or not to tell Natalie what he knew was going on.
“Has this ever happened to you before?” Natalie sounded almost frantic.
“Yes. I’ve had this gift since I was thirteen years old and this has happened twice before.” Ten paused, trying to find the right words. “Before I tell you what I think is happening, I’d like to speak to a colleague.” Ten got out of his seat and had his door on the handle when Natalie spoke again.
“Really, what kind of a business are you running here? I was told you were the best in the business and now you’re hitting me with this bullshit about needing to bring in another psychic.
Why? So that you can double my bill for this session?
” Natalie’s easy smile was gone. In its place was anger mixed with contempt.
Ten turned back to Natalie. “I didn’t want to tell you what I believe the problem is until I got a second opinion. This news could be life altering and I want to make sure I’m right before I upend your entire life.”
Natalie shot Ten a confused look. “What could you possibly tell me that would upend my life. I’m sixty-nine years old. I’m sure as hell not pregnant.”
Ten barked a quick laugh. “No, you’re definitely not pregnant.
” Taking a deep breath, Ten decided the best course of action was to just tell Natalie what he was thinking.
“The only times I haven’t been able to reach a spirit with family present and an object that belonged to the deceased was when the spirit was still attached to the body. ”
“Still attached to the body?” Natalie asked.
“I haven’t been to Sunday school in over fifty years, but I’m pretty sure that the only time a spirit is still with their body is when that body is alive.
” Natalie gasped, seeming to finally understand what Ten had been trying, and failing, to tell her.
“No, that’s not possible. I saw the casket lowered into the ground.
Amanda is dead. Doctor Savini told me my child died. ”
“Let me grab my colleague.” Ten sprinted from the room before Natalie could stop him a second time. Thankfully, Cope was standing at the cash register talking with Carson. “I need your help.”
“Which one of us?” Carson asked.
“Both, if possible. I’m having a bit of trouble with this reading.”
Cope offered Ten a sympathetic look. “We both understand how hard it’s been for you being back here these last two weeks.”