37 Birdie
BIRDIE
Jasper sits in the passenger seat of the Jeep, all brooding, and muscled, and very much alive. His intensity steals all my air. I press a hand to my chest, trying to take a full breath.
“Obviously, I’m not actually dead—”
“Stop,” I say over him.
He huffs in frustration. “But I just told you I died. We had a funeral for me. You have to have more questions—”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Birdie—”
“Hey, curiosity killed the cat, remember? And at this moment, I’m feeling a bit like a cat trapped in a car with a freaking boa constrictor, so just—stop.” I hold up both hands. “Stop pushing me, stop talking, and let me process this for a second.”
Only he doesn’t stop. He leans in, one hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I really have to know: Did you tell Howe you saw me this morning? Did you make any mention of me at all?”
I stiffen. Why is he so obsessed with this? What makes him think I—
On a gasp, I finally look at him, slapping his hand away.
“Oh god—is that why you really came to the Carousel?” Snatching the sunglasses off my face, I rattle them down to the cupholder so I can narrow my eyes at him more effectively.
“Mercy is the only one I talked to about you. She called you, didn’t she—”
“Answer the question, Birdie.”
Indignation rising, I glance all around his quiet farmstead. “Did you even need a ride home? Where’s your truck?”
“Answer the damn question!”
“No! Okay? No. I didn’t mention you to Howe in any way other than the abstract.
At no point did I give him a recounting of my morning, starting with waking up in Phoebe’s bed, and ending with you once again being a jerk, giving me a rude brush-off.
I’m sorry, but I just didn’t think any of that was my research adviser’s business. ”
He sighs with relief, sinking back into his seat. “Thank god.”
His worry has me tensing all over again. My heart starts to skip as I search his face. “And what if I did, huh? What was gonna happen to me if I talked to Howe about you?”
“Nothing was going to happen. I just needed to know.”
“Well, something was going to happen! Is it Howe? What? Would you have made him go sleep with the fishes?”
He snorts. “Sleep with the—”
It’s my turn to point a finger in his face. “Don’t laugh at me, Jasper Prescott! Don’t you dare. Not when I’m really trying here!” Angry tears sting my eyes.
“Birdie—”
“No! I kept an open mind with your ‘obey my commands’ and your weird hatred of ravens. I didn’t question it when you tried to downplay getting attacked in that alley.
You said it was a mugger, and I believed you.
Now you’re saying you’re playing dead? You’ve faked your own death.
Who does that? I mean, my god, was that mugger in on it?
Was it all staged? Did you perform that for me like a two-man play? ”
“No,” he says sharply. “That was all very real. You saved me.”
I shake my head.
“You did,” he says again. Reaching over, he places a hand on my arm. “I’m only alive because of you.”
I shift away from his touch. “Why do you need Ezra Howe to think you died last night? Please, just tell me before I drive this Jeep to the ferry terminal and leave forever. Screw my fellowship hours. Nothing is worth this stress.”
He tenses, his grey eyes going wide as he reaches out. “Birdie, please—you can’t leave.”
I cross my arms, holding his stare. “Then convince me to stay.”
Dropping his hand to his lap, he’s quiet for a moment. “What do you know of the Raven Hill Group?”
Okay, sharp right turn. “What? They’re a private philanthropy group. They fund art and culture projects. Why?”
“It’s a front.”
“What?”
“It’s a front, Birdie. They may fund projects here and there that celebrate New England art and culture. But they also run black market operations in stolen antiquities. The rarer, the better.”
My mind is freaking reeling. I went to one of their galas last year. Great shrimp cocktail. I even almost applied for one of their grants. It’s all a front? “Are you being serious right now?”
“Deadly serious.”
“You’re sure?”
He nods. “I’m positive.”
I fight the urge to scream as Jasper casually offers me the piece I was missing to this puzzle.
Howe’s motivations are clear. He wants to change the face of history, rewrite entire chapters on early American occult studies.
What was less clear is why an organization like the Raven Hill Group would offer him funding when he presented them with such flimsy evidence.
Now it makes sense. Howe might not be a treasure hunter, but apparently the Raven Hill Group holds no such scruples.
“This is all about the spell books,” I say aloud. “Howe told them his theory that they might be buried with the women’s bodies. They’d be super rare, likely one-of-a-kind . . . right?”
“Unique and irreplaceable,” Jasper replies. “Utterly priceless.”
I nod, blinking back the tears of frustration in my eyes. “So, where Howe sees a history-defining cultural artifact . . .”
“They see buried treasure,” he finishes for me.
Ugh, I feel sick. Thank god I didn’t follow through with getting Howe that journal. Glancing to Jasper, I offer him the truth. “The dig is going to get canceled.”
He sits up, grey eyes wide. “What?”
“In less than a week, the university’s ethics review board is going to pull the plug on him.
That’s what we talked about today. He didn’t get enough evidence corroborating his theory that the bodies were taken from the church and buried at Homewood.
They won’t let him go tearing down every tree, searching for something that may not even be there. ”
“But the zoning permits—”
“Don’t matter,” I assure him. “There’s only one thing that could move his project forward and he doesn’t have it. I’m telling you now, he won’t get it.”
“What does he need?”
“A journal. Robert Dent’s journal, husband of Alice Dent. Howe has a few photocopied pages from it, but he needs the whole thing.”
Jasper considers for a moment. “Okay . . . well, what makes you so sure he won’t get it? If it’s down in the archive—”
“It’s not. Trust me, Howe looked.”
“Then where is it?”
I glance to the stack of old books piled in his lap.
Slowly, he lowers his gaze too. After a moment, he sighs. “Shit. Mercy? Really?”
“It was her father who had the photocopies of the journal pages. William Bartlett? Howe is just putting two and two together and praying he gets four.”
“And he sent you,” Jasper presses. “He’s using you to get to Mercy?”
I fight a flinch. “Well, ‘get to her’ sounds rather ominous. I was going to ask her, Jasper.”
His eyes narrow in distrust. “You mean use her.”
“No, ask her,” I say again.
He scoffs, turning away.
“Hey, this is just how research works. Sometimes, in order to tell a story, we can’t rely on the books and artifacts already safely cataloged in museums and archives.
Sometimes, we have to stride out and seek answers for ourselves.
That’s all I was doing. It was going to be in Mercy’s power to tell me no.
And if she did say no, that was going to be the end. I told Howe I would only ask her once.”
He sits back, clearly thinking it all through. “So, if you do nothing, Howe’s project ends next week?”
“Pretty much. If he values his career, he won’t go against the ethics review board. He’ll have no choice but to stop.”
We’re both quiet for a minute.
The land around Prescott House looks so different in the light of day.
I can see better the big white barn and the other scattered outbuildings.
Half the east yard is a sprawling herb and flower garden, which makes sense seeing how many botanicals must go into the teas and soaps.
Gazing out the windshield of the Jeep, I follow the flow of the grassy hill towards the vegetable patches.
A cemetery is nestled just beyond. On instinct, I open the door and climb out.
“Where are you going?” Jasper calls after me.
This is all so crazy. They had a funeral for Jasper today. A fake funeral. I just have to see it. Leaving the Jeep door open, I start walking through the long, swaying grass.
“Birdie!” Jasper follows. “You don’t have to do this now.”
Yes, I do.
I keep walking, heading for the vegetable patches.
The plants are all fat and happy, growing in the warmth of the sun.
The grass brushes against the pant leg of my jeans and the sun kisses my bare shoulders.
It’s a perfect summer day. But inside, I feel cold.
An ominous feeling circles above me in the sky.
I felt it once before, this morning actually.
I glance up to see a pair of black specks slowly circling. “The ravens—”
“I know.” Surprising me, Jasper strides up to my side and takes my hand, weaving our fingers together. “They won’t harm you. But keep your voice low. I’m not sure how well they can hear.”
Holding tight to Jasper’s hand, I pass the end of the split rail fence and stop.
There, laid out in neat little rows, rest all the Prescotts of the past. The headstones come in all shapes and sizes.
Some are discreet rectangles, little more than a name stamped with dates for life and death.
Others are gaudy Victorian things with cherubs and finials, engraved lunettes.
At the end of the second row nearest to us, there’s a fresh patch of churned earth. I step around the front row of graves, Jasper at my side. We stop and I see a simple stone engraved in black lettering: JASPER LYONS PRESCOTT.
I look to the man at my side, taking in his strong jaw and dark hair, his sad, grey eyes. “Why do you need Howe and the Raven Hill Group to think you’re dead?”
“It’s complicated.” His own gaze is still locked on the stone bearing his name. “If I tell you . . . there’s no untelling you again. You have to be ready for this truth.”
“I’m ready,” I whisper. “Please, I have to know.”
Slowly he turns to me. “The Raven Hill Group set this all in motion. They sent the one who attacked me last night. They want me to stop fighting the dig project. They want the grimoires.”
“And you can’t let them have them?”
“No.”
“How does you playing dead stop them?”
He lowers his voice, glancing up at the high, circling ravens. “Playing dead buys me more time to thwart their plans. They wanted me gone, so I am. But from the shadows I mean to stop them. Birdie, those books falling into the wrong hands could be calamitous.”
I fight another shiver. “Calamitous? What do you think is in them? Puritan-era nuclear codes?”
A smile flits across his mouth. “Maybe. Or maybe something even worse.”
Slipping my hand from his, I take a slow step back. “Are you saying . . . I mean, just so we’re crystal clear . . .”
He holds my gaze and nods. “It’s okay. You can say it.”
My heart flips. “I—Jasper, do you think the spell books are real? Do you think someone from the Raven Hill Group intends to use them to do actual witchcraft?”
“I don’t think,” he replies. “I know.”
“How do you know?”
He stands tall, his shadow stretching over the mound of churned earth that now marks an empty grave bearing his name. “Because I’m a witch.”