Chapter 11 Dark Omens and Garden Walks
Jenson and Taylor grilled lemon and garlic chicken for the fusilli pasta that Ursula and Eloise made with fresh ricotta and herbs. The side salad that Bess put together had crisp apples and walnuts dressed in a raspberry vinaigrette, and for dessert vanilla bean affogatos.
They gathered around the island with their fragrant bowls of pasta. Luckily, Tilly had left them three bottles of her honey wine last week, which Eloise was grateful for with each sip.
Taylor was polite but distant, something else Eloise was grateful for.
She wasn't sure she could keep up her usual banter with the man, and her emotions were running too muddy for her to keep her heart in check.
He was a man who wanted his freedom and though she felt an attraction, had felt it spark when she was near him, she was more than happy to also keep her distance.
A woman learns a thing or two about protecting her heart and what signs to look for when a fence needed to be built.
She built one, because of the way his blue eyes sometimes caught on hers like a snag in soft fabric; a jolt of lightning and a flash of his sweet orange scent could make her heart trip.
Maybe dating someone would put more distance between them and she could be in a room with the detective without feeling his presence so keenly.
But tonight she was distracted.
She was quiet, still stepping into conversation on queue smiling and laughing, but there was a dullness to her words.
She'd gotten home to an empty house, her mind busy with worry.
Eloise spent the time cleaning as she moved from room to room restlessly, checking the windows and locks.
Casper was on edge as well, whimpering whenever she started chewing on her thumbnail, even trying to hold her down on the couch when she sat for a moment as her constant moving was making the hound anxious.
He wasn't the only creature frenzied by her worry.
Candles started flickering in every room she was in and gusts of stiffly cold air would brush against her warm skin.
Chamomile and rosehip tea did nothing to dull the edge of her nerves.
Even a fire lit by a consoling ghost, though it made Eloise smile, did not dispel the black willow omen.
She'd sent a text to Crystal, hoping she could keep her secret while finding out how safe the property of The Lost Souls was.
Ursula knew something was up, but when she asked Eloise brushed it off as being tired and having a headache.
Still, her friend knew her well, and Eloise would catch Ursula's eyes resting on her from time to time throughout the night, a look of worry in their green depths.
She made sure to give her smiles in reassurance that she knew her friend didn't believe.
"More oddities?" she heard Ursula ask.
Eloise came back to the conversation at hand, which she kept mentally leaving as her thoughts, the coin in her pocket, and the new black willow outside the window, were pulling her to darker places. Taylor was nodding, a grave look on his face.
"Kathy Redding is reported to only be able to walk or run backward."
"You're kidding," Ursula exclaimed then looked at Eloise.
"Sorry, who is Kathy Redding?" she asked as she reached for her second glass of honey wine.
"She's the woman in the deli that, you know," Ursula lifted a hand not wanting to fill in the blanks with words.
Eloise, on the other hand, had no qualms. "Oh, the one who hates us because she thinks we're devil-worshiping witches?"
"She doesn't hate us," she argued softly.
"She definitely doesn't enjoy us. And she pulls on her cross necklace every time I order turkey breast." She gave Ursula a pointed look as her finger ran the rim of her glass.
"Right, well, that's true," she conceded.
"And she told me I was too young to give up my soul to the black magic of The Lost Souls Witches," Bess added with a snort.
"See? Devil-worshiping witches," Eloise pointed to where Bess sat next to Ursula.
She was itchy and overwhelmed and for some reason, Ursula's desire to soften how unkind this woman is to them was getting under her already itchy skin.
"She's an unkind, gossipy housewife who is too liberal with her extra strength hairspray, too conservative with accepting people different than herself, and is too bored to live her own life so she decides to be judge and jury for anyone she doesn't understand. "
Silence was felt around the table. The house itself felt like it had raised its eyebrows.
Eloise's inner voice told her to back off; that voice that reminded her to be kind, rather than impudent. She had a storm inside her that could billow and ignite if she wasn't careful and years of cultivating that care were shoved to the side tonight. She sighed and shook her head.
"Sorry, I'm...", she swallowed and gave everyone a brave smile. "I need to go take a walk, I think." She stood and Ursula's eyes asked if she needed her which she answered with a shake of her head and winked, their telltale sign that they just needed a minute to themselves.
She pulled on her navy blue spring trench coat and a wide-brim black hat over her wavy hair, then called for Casper giving everyone an apologetic wave as they left the warm kitchen to take in the brisk spring evening.
She picked up a jar of moonlight, her hand wrapping around the thin wire handle, letting it swing idly as she and Casper walked.
The hound seemed to sense her need to go slowly as he matched his pace to hers.
The air, while chilly, had threads of warmth that she could just barely feel, but most certainly smelled as she tilted her head up to take in the scent of winter giving way to spring and she marveled at the courage there.
Winter had to be bold enough to melt and let go of its icy barings giving over the reigns for such a tenacious season to take over with its bright growth.
She felt that. She was winter, had been winter, for years; holding herself in, bracing her bones, and telling herself the lie that she didn't need verdant growth to live.
But as she walked through the winding woods with moonlight in her hand, and the stars looking down at her in sadness, she knew that wasn't living.
They were now in the open space of the graveyard, a place that she had come to love over the last few months. Though before, the ground had been solid and snowed over, now the ground beneath her boots was softening, little sprigs of flowers popping out in bright hellos.
She wondered if the plants that had been sleeping all winter had to talk themselves into trying to breathe above ground.
Or was it all just a gamble, and they unfurled themselves sleepily and without pause because anything could happen, and why not?
Why not wake up fully and with hope, instead of tentatively and with trepidation?
She forgot what that felt like.
Casper stopped, his spine going taught and his ears perked.
She laid her hand on him gently and looked around, hearing something and realizing that she had left her phone at the house.
Given the heavy secret that lay in her pocket and her current mental and emotional state, she should have brought it.
She thought about calling out, but then a memory grabbed hold of her voice, paralyzing her words and her thoughts. It grabbed her whole body, turning her to concrete, a pretty graveyard statue.
She was chanting in her mind, watching Casper act as a statue next to her and when he let out a sharp bark she jumped at the same time that a figure broke through the line of trees, breaking the concrete in her bones and she turned to run, her legs knowing what to do without her mind working in her paralyzed fear.
He was coming for her. Here. He was here.
Her feet ate the ground and she was breathing heavily.
The coin in her pocket burned, and the smell of old coins rubbing together filled her nostrils. She wasn't here in the graveyard; she was somewhere else, somewhere warmer and muggy and hands were around her throat.
When a hand reached out to grab her upper arm she cried out and missed a step, her body about to crumple to the ground when arms held her suspended in the air and then into a hard, warm body.
She was crying. Softly, but not silently and she was not above begging for mercy.
She hadn't that night in her memory, a tangled combination of fear and anger and his hands silencing her need to breathe, to live.
But then she smelled the sweetness of oranges and smoked hickory. She opened her eyes to stare into Detective Taylor White's face, his eyes razor-sharp and homed in on her.
"Eloise, breathe," he commanded, the sound of his voice firm, and yet gentle.
"Breathe," he said again. "I need you to take one deep breath, hold it and then let it out.
Then do it again," he instructed her. She followed his instructions, closing her eyes as she focused on her breathing as he talked her through it.
She felt his strong heartbeat against her arms that were pinned between their bodies. It was steady and commanding.
His scent flooded her, filling her with his calm and she let herself siphon that from him, greedily sucking it in, a vampire feeding on peace, steadiness.
Her chest unclenched and she felt her body slowly come back to itself.
She told her shoulders to relax and they did.
She told her breath to stay slow and steady and that too listened.
She knew in that moment that he was good at his job, the kind of cop that cared about taking care of people and there was an immense comfort in finding that out about him.
After a few moments, she opened her eyes and nodded her head. When he wiped away an errant tear from her cheek she laughed with embarrassment as she stepped back from his warm touch.
"I'm sorry. I just, I'm not myself right now."
He watched her, his head tipped, his face open.