Chapter 2
March
As he did at this time every year, Charles Forrester called a meeting and waited while his team, including Officers Monkton and Reynolds, gathered around the big evidence table.
November through February was the slow time for his team.
There were still odd occurrences that were investigated in the six towns along the Fate River, and those occurrences might have had a touch of the strange.
The uncanny didn’t stop flowing through the world, after all.
But Destiny Park was closed during those months—at least to visitors from the human towns—so the more serious, and frightening, encounters with the strange didn’t happen over the winter. Now?
“We’re past the spring equinox,” Charles said. “The Penwych patrol boat reported seeing the Isle of Wyrd’s ferry. Destiny Park and the pavilion open for visitors on the last week in March.”
“So weird shit will start happening again,” Castelletti said.
“It didn’t stop happening this year,” Kuhn said.
Charles glanced at Beth Fahey, who looked pale and didn’t offer an opinion.
He focused on the men. “Albert Palmer has been trying to stir up people for months, blaming the Arcana for his son’s death.
As soon as the ferry starts running again, I think he’ll try to ramp up his efforts to get people to see the Arcana as an enemy to be eliminated—or isolated. ”
“Can the Arcana be isolated?” Fahey asked.
“It’s doubtful,” Charles replied. “People think the only way on or off the island is by boat. That’s true for us.
” Unless a person is very unlucky. “It’s not true for the Arcana.
They don’t need the visitors who come for entertainment or come to stay at the hotel.
And people who go to Wyrd for other reasons will find a way to cross the river and make a bargain with the Arcana.
” He looked at each member of his team. “I think Albert Palmer is building up to something. Maybe a confrontation between his supporters and the visitors waiting at the pier for the ferry. We don’t want Palmer’s actions to embroil the whole town in an unfortunate incident, so stay alert and keep me informed of any information that might be passed along from other precincts. ”
He waited until Monkton and Reynolds left to resume their patrol and Kuhn and Castelletti returned to their desks. Then he said, “Fahey,” and went into his office.
She followed.
“Rough night?” he asked. Fahey had been working for him for several months now.
She was good at the job, but she was having a hard time fitting in.
He didn’t think she was a loner by nature; she just couldn’t quite manage a social life.
She tried, but something always seemed to get in the way.
“Don’t think giving me an answer is optional. ”
She stared at his desk. Finally, she said, “My parents disappeared when I was young, and I ended up staying with Bonnie Wilson, who was the neighbor next door. Someone paid her to look after me, so she wasn’t letting me live with her out of the goodness of her heart.
I stayed with Bonnie until I turned eighteen and graduated from high school.
When I left, the money for my room and board stopped.
I received a lump sum from that unknown source, which I spent on my education and a place to live while I was in college and attending the police academy.
“Bonnie has been a gambling addict for as long as I’ve known her. Even now, whenever she’s pinched for money and owes the casinos, she’ll call and use her combination of verbal abuse and threats to try to get me to send her money.”
“Do you send her money?” Charles asked.
Beth shook her head. “I tell her I don’t have any money, which is true. I have some savings as an emergency fund, but nothing close to what she wants.”
Charles rested a hip on the corner of his desk. “You stayed with this woman all the years you were growing up? What about child protection services? Someone must have known your parents were missing.”
Beth shook her head again. “Teachers seemed to think that Bonnie was an unofficial foster parent or a relative who had an arrangement with my parents. No one asked questions. I didn’t truly appreciate how odd that was until I went to the police academy.”
“She called last night? Wanting money?”
“Yes, she did. I said no.”
“Does she threaten you, Beth? Because threatening a cop…” He let the sentence go unfinished.
“Not physical threats. Verbal poison, said with conviction. She just says things that people already want to believe. I haven’t seen anyone who can successfully fight against that.” She didn’t quite look him in the eyes before she took a step back. “Sir.”
Charles watched her walk out of his office before turning and sitting at his desk.
If Bonnie Wilson was telling tales about Beth, maybe that explained some of the isolation he sensed around his detective.
But if Wilson didn’t live in Penwych, that meant someone was keeping track of Fahey and supplying Wilson with information.
A private investigator? Maybe. A couple of them had been making the rounds during the winter, asking about Rachel Nightingale.
Or was one of those investigators using Nightingale as an excuse to hang around the 13th precinct and find someone willing to gossip about the cops on the special team?
However the information was being funneled to Bonnie Wilson, that wasn’t his biggest concern.
A child living with a neighbor for years and no one asking questions?
He could think of one reason why no one had asked questions about Beth Fahey while she was growing up, and that made him wonder just how long the Arcana had been interested in her—and why.
2
As Beth turned the key in her apartment door’s lock, the door across the hall opened.
“Hi, Mrs. Myers. How are you?”
“I’m fine, dear,” Mrs. Myers replied. “A package came for you today. You weren’t home, so I signed for it. Just a minute. I’ll fetch it.”
Beth unlocked the door and pushed it open. She hadn’t ordered anything from a catalog or done any online shopping, so she couldn’t imagine why she would be getting a package.
“Here you go.” Mrs. Myers handed her a small box from a place called Medicine Magic & Specialty Teas.
“Thanks, Mrs. Myers.”
Mrs. Myers smiled, as if waiting for some comment about the package. When Beth said nothing, the older woman wished her a good evening, went into her own apartment, and closed the door.
Beth entered her apartment and locked the door.
Setting the package on her small kitchen table, she studied the return address.
Then she turned on her laptop and did a search for Medicine Magic & Specialty Teas—and found no company with that exact name.
And the return address? She couldn’t find that either.
She carefully opened the package, making sure to save the return address, and found a small cardboard box inside. That box held three tea bags in separate containers that were numbered 1, 2, 3.
The instructions were specific. Use the teas in the numbered order to provide clarity in dreams and to access family memories.
A shiver ran down Beth’s spine.
The only other thing in the box was a business card of sorts. No company. Not even a person’s name. Just the letters AdW, like a person’s initials. Like the person with those initials had no need for any other kind of identification.
On the other side of the card was a handwritten message: These teas will not harm you.
Maybe. Maybe not.
She stared at her cell phone for a minute, trying to decide which authority she should call for insights and information. Finally, she selected a phone number from her contacts list—a number that was on the special team’s “need to know” list.
“Frost.”
She hadn’t heard his voice in months, but it was a voice a person wouldn’t forget. “This is Beth Fahey. I wondered if you had heard of a company called Medicine Magic and Specialty Teas.”
A long silence. “Why?”
“I was sent a package that held three tea bags and a set of instructions to drink them in a particular order.”
“Was there anything else in the package?”
“A business card with the initials AdW and a note on the back that said the teas wouldn’t harm me.”
Another long silence. “Instructions that come from such a place are meant to be followed exactly. If you do that, you will come to no harm.”
Beth hesitated, then said the words. “Is that a promise?”
“If that’s the word you prefer, consider it a promise between you and the one who sent the package. He doesn’t break a promise—and no one breaks a promise with him.”
Her breath caught. “You know who this is?”
“Good night, Detective Fahey.” He ended the call.
Beth set her cell phone on the table and blew out a breath. The package came from one of the Arcana? Probably, since Lucas Frost recognized whoever only needed to put his initials on a card for other Arcana to know who he was.
How long had the Arcana been aware of her? And why? Not Lucas Frost. He hadn’t known anything about her until she went across the river to ask about a ghost gun. But had one of the Arcana taken an interest in her since she was a little girl? Why?
Beth looked at the package. Clarity in dreams.
Maybe.
No longer interested in dinner, she heated the water in the teakettle, then poured the water over the first tea bag. She steeped it for exactly the required time. Settling in to a comfortable chair in her living room, she slowly drank the tea.
The woman sat on a tree stump in a glade that had never been touched by a human hand, sketching something just out of the dreamer’s sight. Something that made her smile.
Birds sang. Leaves sang their own kind of song when stirred by a breeze. A peaceful afternoon.
The woman put away her pencils and said, “Maxie, it’s time to go.”
A little girl rushed over to the woman. “Can I see your picture, Mama?”
“Of course you can.”
And the dreamer, looking over their shoulders, saw a drawing of a mother and daughter—the mother sketching while the daughter danced with butterflies. Beneath the drawing were the names Maxine and Arianna Greenwood.
Beth woke with a start. Then she bolted into her bedroom and pulled out the box that held her fantasy art. That held the sketchbook. She’d looked at those sketches so many times, but…
No. That drawing wasn’t among the sketches, but some of those sketches had a stylized A where the artist’s name would be. A stylized A that matched the A in “Arianna.”
Beth recognized Maxine Greenwood’s name, but it couldn’t be the same person. Could it? If the Maxine Greenwood who gave birth to her really was Arcana…
Was that the reason the Arcana were interested in her?