Chapter 11 Dark Omens and Garden Walks #2
"And I shouldn't have said that about Deli Kathy," she shook her head, regret lining her words. "It was an unkind and useless comment. She has nice hair and she didn't deserve that."
He gave her an assessing, funny sort of look. "Well, she does use too much hairspray. I can smell it when ordering honey-smoked ham."
"You a ham guy?"
"I prefer it to turkey."
She nodded. She felt exhausted, like her bones needed to lay down.
"That wasn't the reaction of someone just having a bad day, Eloise. That was a panic attack."
She bristled. "Not really. Just, you scared me," she said, the denial tasted like that first bite of sour candy at the back of the mouth.
His look called her bluff. "What's going on?"
She shrugged. "Nothing. Just a really bad day," she smirked. She could gloss over this. Like usual. She had mastered the art of making a heavy load on her shoulders look light. Hadn't most women?
But he didn't take the bait and his intense look doubled down.
A sigh, a shuffle of feet, and then she was sitting, her back against cold gravestone.
He sat across from her and waited, the sounds of night whispering and a jar of moonlight sitting between them.
Casper found a spot with a particularly fluffy patch of grass to lay on only a few feet away.
She'd been holding onto this for over a year now. Maybe she shouldn't hold it alone anymore.
"I didn't even know that I was having panic attacks until," she swallowed thickly.
"I had one at my cafe in Florida. I was closing up and a man came in.
We'd forgotten to lock the door and he scared me.
He looked like someone, and," she shook her head remembering the absolute shock of fear that had taken hold of her when she thought it had been him.
"The man was a doctor, came in after a shift to get coffee, and he helped me through it.
Asked me how often I had that happen and told me what they were. "
"How long have you been having them?"
"Thirteen months." She knew to the time of day, the long shadows from the sun setting, exactly how long she had been having panic attacks. She remembered the doctor telling her she had something inside of her that she needed to get out in order to deal with them. "Can you keep a secret?"
"I do have to tell you that if you tell me you've killed someone, I am obligated by law to arrest you."
The soft humor in his voice made her heart rest.
"First of all," she held up a finger, "I'm flattered you think I'm capable of killing someone.
" His face took on a look of being taken aback.
"Second of all, good to know where your loyalty is," she gave him a pointed look and he smiled.
"But no, I did not kill anyone." She plucked a delicate stem of red clover and twirled it between her fingers.
"I had sort of a stalker in Florida." She kept her eyes on the purplish-white flower.
"I went on a few dates with him. Over a few months.
He wasn't," she poked the inside of her cheek with the tip of her tongue, words hiding there as she was speaking out loud for the first time about what happened.
"Well, he wasn't who he said he was. And when I broke it off he didn't take it well.
At first, it was small things like showing up at the cafe, leaving notes on my car, getting increasingly more threatening.
Then the notes showed up at my apartment.
And then one of my windows was left open with a note inside my kitchen.
" She looked up into the trees, still unable to face him.
Especially another police officer. He felt different.
But still...the memories of all of it, of that night and talking to stone-faced cops who looked bored with her horror.
"I woke up one night because I felt like I couldn't breathe.
And I actually couldn't. Because he was on top of me, choking me.
" She raised her hands to her throat, lightly touching there, where she had bruises for days.
Still had a memory of them. The light touch of her own hands made something roll through her.
She couldn't wear turtlenecks still. "They never found him.
And I couldn't prove it was him." She ran her fingers over the mason jar of milky light.
"It was over a year ago. I can't sleep inside because walls feel like a cage.
That's usually when the panic attacks happen.
I'm completely messed up and have been since. "
She finally lifted her head and the way he was looking at her in no way resembled how the cops a year ago had looked at her.
They'd been cold, indifferent, the way they asked questions it was like she was less of a victim and more of a tease, which they had more or less said.
But Taylor, sitting across from her on the cold ground of the graveyard was looking at her like he was trying to see the wounds the man had left behind, his eyes sharply tracking the ghost bruises on her neck, so that he could soothe them.
It was almost too much, like the most gentle and intimate touch she hadn't felt in far too long.
"What made you think of him?"
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the silver coin, a black willow leaf falling to her lap, and ran the pad of her thumb over the raised caribou then held it out to him. He took it, finally dropping his eyes from her face which felt like a reprieve.
"You found a Canadian coin?"
"It was left as a tip at the coffee shop. For me. That was how we met. He came into my cafe in Florida apologizing when he realized he had left Canadian coins as a tip."
"But today, someone left this at the cafe, for you specifically," he said and she could read the tone of his voice.
Disbelief. She was being crazy. Overreacting.
She needed to calm down and get a better security system.
She remembered everything the cops said to her.
She remembered wondering if they were right and she was being sensitive.
But then she remembered a man's hands had been around her throat, squeezing, his eyes hard and full of rage.
She didn't remember how she got out of it, only that she was running outside barefoot in a tank top and underwear, crying and holding a hand to her burning throat until a neighbor woman found her and pulled her inside.
She remembered thinking it was the most horror-filled moment of her life and the cops showed up acting like it was simply Tuesday.
And she was terrified of feeling that way again, of feeling silly, like a trifling woman with her outrageous emotions. She was scared of doubting herself again.
She couldn't bear that from him, too. His disbelief and off-handed way of telling her to shake off the thing that had changed something inside of her.
But when Taylor opened his mouth the words that came out were a world away from those cops.
"I want you to tell me everything about this man.
Every single thing. No detail is too small.
Down to his smell. If you don't want to make a report that's fine, but I suggest we do at some point and then I can reach out to the cops who handled your case in Florida and get anything they have sent to me. "
"I don't think they'll have much to send you. They didn't take it very seriously," she barely got the words out, looking down at the black willow leaf in her lap, feeling small.
"Hey," he said and she looked up. Fury crossed his eyes, it was a flash and then it was gone.
But she tasted it. Kindling just as it catches fire mixed with the sting of bourbon flared across her senses.
She didn't feel fear of the man across from her, but she understood that anyone who made Detective Taylor White angry like this should.
"If he is here, we will find him." She nodded.
"Did you say that you're sleeping outside?" His voice was cautious but tinted with danger she could taste.
"Yes, I sleep under the peach tree."
His silent stare made her smile. And her smile made his eyes narrow further. "Is this a magical, protective peach tree?"
"Actually, Crystal told me that the entire property has a protective spell around it, so, kind of."
When Crystal had answered her text as they were making dinner, there had been a moment of relief, though short-lived.
He considered that before he nodded muttering about spells and hexes as he stood and offered her his hand to help her up. It was the kind of hand that knew hard work but also how to be gentle. Once they were both standing his voice low and firm said, "I think you should tell Ursula about this."
She shook her head. "She'd worry and it would become a thing. And I'm not very good at talking about it."
She wasn't good at talking about the things that made her feel like she was vulnerable, defeated.
Ursula knew that well.
His eyes told her what he was going to say before the words left his mouth. "She loves you, and it already is a thing."
"I'll think about it," is where she landed.
Casper nudged her in the hip and let out a whine.
"What is it, boy?"
A chilled air swooped around their shoulders, like small hands grasping for their attention.
She knew it to be one of the souls. She watched Taylor look down at his shoulder in question but then his attention was drawn toward the graves as Casper was hunched and pointing to where they sat.
A feeling overwhelmed the air, where it was still and chill before now there was a gusting presence that brought a chilling warmth, the kind that brings a body fever.
"What is that? Do you feel that?" Taylor's voice was pitched low, careful, and steady.
"Yes," she whispered looking around. She couldn't see anything, but she could feel something. Or someone.
"Is this," he started and shook his head. "Are the ghosts, the souls, here?"
"Yes, but this isn't them," she replied. Then Casper barked once, twice as a pop pop pop sounded, almost whimsical like popping bubbles in a cartoon. Dark red flowers pushed through the ground forming a wandering line from each grave to the next.
"Are those flowers?"
She nodded silently and bent to one knee, careful not to get too close lest they be dangerous, but then she frowned. "I think they're snapdragons," she said looking up at him. "Harmless, but we should bring a few to Ursula."
He pulled out a pocket knife and cut through a stem carefully but when she reached for it he pulled it out of her grasp.
"Just in case you're wrong, I don't want you touching it."
She rolled her eyes. "But you're holding it."
"I'm an officer of the law."
"Oh, does that title come with invincibility now? Or is that just a Salem PD thing?"
He threw her a stern look as he pointed for her to follow him back to the house.
Casper kept his shoulder nearly pressed to her hip as they walked and at one point Taylor reached out to tug her gently closer to him when the path narrowed.
She smelled his scent and found comfort in it, even as it was mixed with that earlier spark of kindled anger.
"Thank you for not treating me like," she frowned.
"A silly woman who worries too much?" he hedged in question, stopping to look down at her.
"I know about strong women who go through something to make them feel like smaller versions of themselves.
" A ghost of something passed over his eyes and she wondered if he meant more than his experience on the job.
"You're not silly and what you went through is unfathomable and I'm sorry you were made to feel anything other than taken care of. "
He reached down brushing his thumb over the apple swell of her cheek and she held her breath.
Warmth spread from her cheek down the delicate column of her throat and shoulders; a shroud of comfort and something dangerously close to passion. The way he was looking at her was like...
And then he stepped back. Dejavu; him breaking a spell between them.
She knew she couldn't get used to him like this, and whatever this was, she would either need to dismiss it completely and give it no thought, or she needed to sit with it so that she could understand it before letting it go.
But it would be difficult if Taylor White continued looking at her that way, leaving behind little sparks like fireflies. So she would also have to learn to break the spell.
They walked into the kitchen to find Jenson and Ursula putting away leftovers.
"Oh, where did you find that?" Ursula asked, her dark head tilted and eyes on the flowers in Taylor's hand.
Eloise noticed her friend's curious smile slip into something very guarded when she recognized what Taylor was holding.
"That's a snapdragon, right?" Eloise asked.
Ursula nodded slowly.
The confirmation had Eloise reaching for it, only for Taylor to pull the dark flower out of her reach making her groan.
"It's not poisonous," she said and he ignored her. "Ursula?" Her friend's eyes lifted to meet her own and she felt her heart speed up. "What is it?"
"It's a black prince snapdragon. Very beautiful. But," she shook her head and frowned. "Did you find it in my garden?"
"No. At the graveyard. They popped up around each grave."
Ursula's confusion turned to fear and Eloise walked to her, wrapping her hands around her shoulders. "What is it?" she asked again.
"It's not a common variety. It means revenge."
Eloise looked to Taylor as Ursula looked to Jenson.