Chapter 23 #2
Eloise looked at her. "The freakish height thing?" Ursula nodded. "Mmm yeah, I can see it. There's something about him," she murmured and both women fell quiet as the starkness of the room, its barren silence and lack of color washed over them.
Ursula's head turned to the window and she frowned. "Is that Tilly?" Ursula asked seeing their friend with half black hair and half emerald green.
"Holy crap. Yep. And looks like she's giving Tom Gumby Farrell a piece of her mind."
Both women watched with awed expressions as their short friend who was generally docile and sweet tempered wagged a finger at the chief, who was considerably taller than her.
"She's half his size. Less than," Ursula said.
Eloise nodded, her eyebrows raised and voice impressed. "Yeah, she'd have to climb a ladder and have to face her fear of heights to be eye-to-eye with that man."
Ursula snorted.
"I missed your snort-laugh."
Ursula laid her head on Eloise's shoulder and smiled. "Wouldn't want to be in a police station being questioned about hexing a woman by having her surrounded by birds with anyone else."
Tilly looked up at the man standing in front of her and while she was steaming mad, he was cooler than a river in spring. Her hand was on her hip and she was pointing at him as he watched her. Intently. His eyes were a startling green. Almost the color of her self-hexed hair.
"Those two are kind and generous. They went over to talk to Carol Weatherby about our friend group and give her an exclusive interview, not to terrorize the woman with crows. That's horrible!"
"Starlings," he said without inflection.
"What?"
"The birds were starlings, not crows."
"Right, well," she was flustered and waved a hand.
"Eloise is becoming one of Salem's favorite people with her magic coffee.
" She stopped, eyes wide and cheeks getting warm as she realized what she said.
"Not, magic magic. Like, it tastes so good it must be magic.
But it's not," she said emphasizing with her finger.
"Because she would never do that. It's just regular coffee that is freakishly good. "
He nodded.
"I like your hair."
She paused, thrown off again. "What?"
He tipped his head, but still no expression touched his face. "Your hair. It's different. I like it."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked raising her finger-pointing hand to her hair, running over it self-consciously.
He shrugged. "It means I like your hair."
He was a man of few words. And emotions. For such a tall, good-looking man, he didn't put much out there. But then, he was a little more harsh and intense than he was handsome.
"Oh. Thank you?"
He nodded once in response.
"Um. So. Just, they didn't do anything nefarious," she finally said, her tone less heated.
"I will take that into consideration."
"You have no evidence," she added with raised black brows and her finger-pointing back.
His eyes squinted the slightest, and she noticed that they had crows feet at the corners, which was rugged and charming. She needed to stop noticing nice things about this man who might be charging her innocent friends with...something.
"Wait, what can you even charge them with? Is hexing people breaking a law?"
"Would that surprise you about Salem?" His mouth moved the slightest.
She paused and tilted her head.
"Was that a joke, Chief?" she asked, not willing to admit she'd wanted to laugh.
"I cannot discuss anything with you miss," he lifted a hand slightly to her in question.
"Nguyen," she replied, another wave of calm coming over her.
"Miss Nguyen," he repeated, like he was tasting the name and it made something spark inside of her. Her last name in his deep voice was alluring. "I promise you, we will do our due diligence."
"I just fear," she stopped, suddenly realizing that she was about to admit to being afraid that he was biased against them. Which would not make them friends.
He tilted his head. "What do you fear, Miss Nguyen?"
Why did his saying her name like that sound so good? And why did she get a handsome teacher feeling with him? Why was she thinking about this right now?
"Nothing. But I'd like to stay here for them until you release them. Because they are innocent," she said again raising her chin.
A slight squint again, and he nodded his response and pointed to a row of chairs against the white wall.
"And I'd charge them with harassment and intention to harm," he said. "Not hexing anyone." Then he was walking back down the hallway leaving that with her as she frowned after his retreating form.
The chief reentered the room and took his seat across from them again.
"I've got a kid who has missing teeth and has to stay in a locked facility to keep him from drinking gin. I've got a pink kid."
"Oh yeah. Tickle-me-pink Kyle," Eloise said and then bit the inside of her cheek when Ursula kicked her.
The chief gave her a steady look before he continued.
"There's Kathy Redding who can only walk or run backwards, Rob Sandis getting lock jaw because he cannot stop yawning, I have a police officer who can only speak in Ukrainian and now Carol Weatherby who has been writing less than kind articles about you and your friends. "
"What exactly happened to her?" Eloise asked.
"She was walking home from work when a flock of birds started following her and then got aggressive, chasing her into her house where she had to board up windows and doors when they started breaking the glass trying to get in."
"Yikes. That is really scary," she replied and then made a grunt when Ursula kicked her again.
"Ouch," she murmured. "I'm trying to convey that we would never do anything like that and Alfred Hitchcock The Birds crap is creepy as hell," she said to Ursula who shook her head, still keeping her mouth shut.
"Here's where we are at," the chief said placing both hands on the table.
" I am not charging you with anything." Their faces showed relief and his stoic face took on the slightest edge when he added, "Yet.
But do not leave town. I or another officer may bring you in for questioning and if we are able to link either of you or your friends to any of the things going on in town, you will hear from us.
We already have you at Carol Weatherby's house.
" When Eloise opened her mouth to say something he lifted a hand to stop her.
"Which I know you said you were there to offer her a story and you're the ones who called it in.
But you wouldn't believe how many people commit a crime and are the ones to report it. "
Eloise wisely kept her mouth closed this time.
"I'm going to finish the paperwork, and then you are free to go. For now."
That evening Ursula, Eloise and Bess decided to uninvite the stress of the day by dancing in the kitchen while making maple blondies with brown butter pecans, and spring salads with berries and bright poppyseed dressing.
The house joined in their ritual by dimming lights and flickering black and green candles in every room.
Windows creakily opened a few inches as a spring shower danced gently across Salem.
That smell of rain-soaked earth wafted through the house waltzing with vanilla and sage.
They put on You've Got Mail, and curled up under checkered blankets wearing their most comfortable pajamas. Every now and then the movie was paused so they could chat about nothing which was everything.
Lady Macbeth had taken to sleeping on top of Casper where he typically lay next to the couch. The raccoon lay curled up in the grey hound with her hands reaching up into the red bowl on the couch to sneak popcorn.
Bess didn't come out and talk about the bullying at school, and they knew better than to push it, but when she got choked up when asked about a few of her friends they hadn't seen around in a while, something shifted in the living room.
And then Bess's mouth lifted in a soft smile as one of the souls had sat next to her on the large velvet chaise, offering a rush of comfort that couldn't be explained, only accepted.
Happy violets popped out of the planter next to the fireplace, their purple and yellow faces mixing with the earthy ferns.
Eloise smelled the comfort of childhood; old Disney VHS tapes being opened before popped into a VCR and cinnamon sugar toast.
Whatever was going on outside in this strange town, inside this house was a place of comfort and rest.
There was a gorgeous settled feeling that overcame these women when they came together.
The world may be a place of war and unrealistic expectations, but here?
Here was where they could sigh all of that away and just be.
And Bess reveled, for an unlikely teenage moment, in how lucky she was to have this now, at her vulnerable age.
She could never settle for less than the kinds of relationships that invited her to breathe and become who she was meant to be; nothing more and nothing outrageously less.
That evening, as they laughed with characters in a movie and felt the living room fill with the lost souls, a creeping evil in town slithered through the air. It felt the magic happening inside of that house and tilted its head at the audacity of it.
The truth about evil is that it was born of goodness and then taken into someone's hands who would use and twist it for themselves.