Chapter 1 #2
“Oh, so it’s my fault?”
“Yep.” Giving me a single, sharp nod, she went on with a shrug, “Better yet, I’m just like you, and you love me more every day because of it all.”
“Well, shit, ya’ got me there.”
“I’m good like that.” Motioning with both her hands for me to get the show on the road, Iona couldn’t help but add, “Enough stalling. Get on with it. I can tell that you’ve made up your mind, and that means you’re not gonna change it.
So, tell me what’s up, and let’s go from there.
I figure there will be shouting and the proverbial gnashing of teeth before I get my way. ”
“Damn, Iona,” I exclaimed. “How did you get so grown up?” Then I realized what she said. “Hey! What! That’s not what…”
“Nope, too late.” She shook her head. “You lost.” Shrugging, she added, “And to answer your question, I’m so grown up because I had a good role model.”
“Awwww….”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t go gettin’ a big head just yet.” Leveling her gaze, she grumbled, “I might have to amend that statement after I hear your hairbrained scheme.”
“Hairbrained?”
“Usually.” Nodding, the smartest kid I’d ever met, and not because she was my sister and I raised her, Iona snapped her fingers. “Now, come on. Out with it.”
“Okay.” Suddenly nervous, I cleared my throat and tightened the scrunchie holding the messy bun atop my head. “You see… Well, it’s just that I…”
Throwing open my hands, I twisted them at the wrist, ending with my palms upright, huffed out a breath, and was just about to speak when my precocious, intelligent, and seriously smart-assed little sister poked, “Good grief, Bernie, you’re not giving your final words before a firing squad.
Nobody’s gonna etch them in stone somewhere.
Just tell me what the Sam Hill is going on.
” Opening her eyes wide, tilting her head to the side, and sucking her teeth, she added, “You’re startin’ to make me nervous, and we’re out of mini peanut butter cups. ”
“Okay, okay, okay.” Nodding like the bobble-head Witch on the dashboard of Aunt Ginnie’s Urban Gorilla Land Yacht, aka UGLY, aka her 1979, olive green, Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham she’d been given as payment for speaking to Edda Mae Brumfield’s recently departed hubby and locating his Last Will and Testament, I was struck with an idea.
Even though most of the reason I got to see my first Summoning when I did was because of all-out war between a wife and a mistress, and Aunt Ginnie refused to leave me unattended in her house because I had a tendency to get into things I wasn’t supposed to, I could use this story to soften the blow of what I was about to tell Iona.
“Hey, do you remember me tellin’ you about the first Summoning Aunt Ginnie let me attend?”
“It took you a month to come up with that opening line?”
“No,” I deadpanned. “I just thought of a better one.”
“And it starts with a trip down your block of Memory Lane?”
“Yes.” Bopping her shoulder with the back of my left hand, I growled, “Do you remember or not?”
“Let me see, was that the time you saw the three recently deceased wives of some gambler from Vegas who didn’t know about each other until they reached the Afterlife and said, 'Hello, my name is Mrs. Rogers?”
“No, that was just the first time I knew I could see dead people.”
“Oh, right, because not all Necromancers see dead people. Only the women of the two Royal Families have that ability,” she stated. Then tapping her temple, added, “See? I listen.”
“When you want to.”
“That’s fair.”
“Anyway, I know I told you about my first Summoning. It was…”
“It was when Aunt Ginnie was asked to talk to Edgar Moneypants…”
“Brumfield,” I corrected. “It was Edgar Brumfield, but you’re close.
The man had way more money than sense, according to pretty much everyone.
The very wealthy and very stingy businessman up and died at his Friday Poker Game with the boys without telling his widow where his Last Will and Testament was hidden, and she was stuck fighting with his bimbo mistress for about eight million dollars in money and assets. ”
“Holy smoky bones!” Iona gasped. “That’s a lot of shoes.”
“Yeah, it is.” Nodding, I kept right on going. “And it makes people crazy. Ya’ see…”
I went on to explain…
Edda Mae refused to believe that her husband of fifty-three years would leave anything but the jewelry, house, car, and personal items he’d bought her to his long-time mistress.
The couple had an agreement, and she knew Edgar wouldn’t go back on it.
However, the girlfriend, Belinda Broman, aka Gold Digger Goldie, did not agree.
So, Mrs. Brumfield contacted Aunt Ginnie, an old friend from the Ladies’ Auxiliary and, more importantly, a Necromancer known for her expertise in crossing the Veil between Life and Death and speaking to the deceased.
Being the oldest living Medium with the Power of the great and famous Heatherton Family, Virginia Elizabeth, our mother’s older and only sister, and truly one of the most honest people in the whole world, had agreed to help the widow without the slightest hesitation.
One trip to the Brumfield crypt, located in the center of the Peaceful Acres, which just happened to be on the southernmost border of our hometown, Gravesland, Texas, and Aunt Ginnie got right to work.
With her right hand on the lid of Edgar’s cement sarcophagus and the other holding the Rainbow Moonstone that every descendant of Great Grandpa Jimmy Jon Heatherton was given on their one-hundredth birthday, her tone was one of speaking to a friend over coffee as she asked, “Mr. Brumfield, Edgar Brumfield, sir, can you hear me?”
For about thirty seconds, absolutely nothing happened.
There was complete silence. I’m pretty sure everyone was holding their breath.
I know I was, sooooo… Bored out of my gourd, I was finally forced to breathe or pass out.
Then I switched from one foot to the other, looked at the chipped, bright blue nail polish on the nails of my left hand, made a mental note to give myself a manicure when we got home, and silently wondered if my first time at a Summoning would be a dud.
I had heard that it could happen. Not to a Heatherton Necromancer, mind you.
But to any of the others– or so the stories were told.
Could it be happening to my Auntie? She was, after all, a Heatherton, which meant it was unlikely.
But… Well, if she was drawing a blank, then what was supposed to be a learning experience for the use of my Gifts and Magic would be one of a million lessons in being patient– something I had never had and was pretty sure I never wanted.
Eyes wandering around the dark, dank, musty-smelling stone-walled room, my gaze landed on a hopeful, although sad, Mrs. Brumfield.
Dressed in vintage black Chanel from head to toe, she could’ve given Jackie O a run for her money, and not just in the clothing department.
The widow was adorned in diamond and pearl jewelry that I knew cost at least half of the national debt of a small country.
Her hair was a color of silver that Mother Nature had nothing to do with and was perfectly coiffed– not a single hair out of place.
Not to mention, the bag she carried had all the bells and whistles of a Hermès Himalaya Birkin, which I knew had a price tag somewhere in the mid- to high six digits.
She was what I imagined when people used the term ‘well-adjusted rich’.
Not a show-off or a braggart, she simply let her classic taste and refined manners speak for her– and boy howdy, they told a story that read like a fairy tale where she was the good, benevolent Queen.
Smiling at my own silliness, I had to bite my tongue to keep from gasping aloud when a sudden pang of sorrow hit me like a gut-punch from the heavyweight champ.
The poor widow had really loved her husband– and it wasn’t about the money.
She was hopelessly devoted to Edgar Brumfield, and it didn’t matter that he was a philanderer and by all accounts, an asshole.
She loved him with all her heart– and although she had tons of good memories, all she felt in that moment was soul-crushing pain and unending loss.
Wrapped around her like a thick, heavy, black fur coat in the Texas desert, it was stifling her in every way.
Wondering if I would ever love anyone like that, my gaze traveled to the girlfriend.
A young, bleach-blond with oversized boobs tucked right up under her chin, she wore a leopard-print tube dress that hugged every single curve and outlined the fact that she was most certainly not wearing panties.
Add to that an attitude that said the only person Belinda Broman loved was Belinda Broman, and I instantly disliked her more than over-stewed collard greens and burnt cornbread.
My momma would’ve used the phrase, “Bless her heart,” if she’d been there. I would’ve agreed, then added, “Isn’t she precious?” Then we would’ve looked at each other, winked, and chuckled silently. Damn, I missed her.
Anyway, as I was lookin’ at the snooty mistress, I thought about telling her that the jewelry Mr. Brumfield gave her was as fake as a three-dollar bill.
Oh, every piece was a really good, and I’d imagine expensive, fake, but they were still just hunks of glass.
After a few seconds, I decided to let her find out when she tried to pawn them.
It was the least she deserved. There was no doubt in my mind that Edgar hadn’t been the first older man Belinda had slept with for monetary gain, and he wouldn’t be the last. She was the epitome of ‘the mistress’ from every romance novel and rom-com ever written.
She wasn’t sad that Mr. Brumfield was gone.
If anything, she was glad to be rid of him, wanted the money she thought she was owed, and was ready to move on to her next Daddy Warbucks.