Chapter Sixteen #2
I poked my head into the kitchen and adjoining dining room, and those were empty, too. Well, I’d tried to find her. From the retreat center, I could return to the library along the path through the woods by the river.
I had made it as far as the retreat center’s front door when a voice called for me from the upstairs landing. I looked up to see Lise staring down. A strange energy passed between us. I couldn’t explain it, except to say it felt like an electrical shimmer.
“Josie?” Lise said. “I was just leaving to look for you.”
I caught my breath. “I was looking for you, too.”
“Let’s go for a walk. There’s a trail through the woods I’ve been wanting to explore.
” Lise was dressed for it—jeans and a cotton blouse—only they were vintage high-waisted denim capris and a men’s shirt knotted at the waist. She looked as if she’d walked off the set of a 1950s movie set in the Maine woods.
We walked toward the trail that led along the Kirby River to the library and Big House. It had once been the graveled road Old Man Thurston used to drive to the timber mill where the retreat center now stood. Over the years, the road had grown over, and now only a footpath remained.
As soon as we entered the forest’s canopy, the temperature dropped, and I slipped off my sunglasses. The air smelled moist and green. Here, birds, instead of chirping on the meadow floor, flitted high in the branches of conifers. By habit now, I listened for the cawing of crows, but heard nothing.
“It’s so nice here,” Lise said. “It smells like heaven— moss, pine, and rising heat.”
A whisper of cinnamon, lavender, and rose settled around Lise like an aura. “Speaking of, you smell good, too. What is it?”
“You like it? It’s an old perfume called Danger. It hasn’t been made in decades. I got it at an estate sale.”
As Lise talked, I found myself examining her for hints of Beata, but other than an apparent penchant for estate sales, I didn’t see a connection. That said, I sensed something otherworldly about her. I reminded myself that Beata’s glamour could make me see whatever she intended.
“You wanted to talk to me?” I asked. I was beginning to suspect I knew why she was in Wilfred, and it had to do with Ian. She had probably uncovered my friendship with Lalena and wanted to ask about him.
Lise stepped forward, into a shaft of light through the trees. It illuminated the red in her chestnut hair— red hair like mine. She didn’t respond at first. I waited.
“I was wrong when I told you I didn’t know why I was here. I’m looking for something. Someone, maybe.”
I nodded. Just what I’d thought. “You’re from Baltimore.”
She looked at me oddly. “I live in Astoria. We talked about it.”
“I mean, before you moved to Astoria. Do you know Ian Penclosa?”
“Who?” When I didn’t respond—why was she here, then, if not for Ian?—Lise tipped up her chin to examine the treetops. Rodney brushed against the pants of her jeans, and when she glanced down, he skittered into the ferns.
“Do you believe in magic?” she asked.
The question caught me off guard. “What? Why?”
Something in her relaxed. “You didn’t say no .”
“You’re right,” I replied, but declined to explain further. “What does that have to do with why you’re here?”
“I met Leo. He told me about you.” As she spoke, she watched me carefully to gauge my reaction.
“You know Leo?” Leo, the man I’d met the year before, the man researching the documentary about folk magic. What had he said to Lise Bloom? “How is he these days?”
“He said he thinks you’re a witch.”
My breath stuck in my throat. I fought to keep a level expression. “He’s been spending too much time reading about old spells. If I was a witch”—here, I forced a laugh—“what’s it to you? Witch hunting went out centuries ago.”
She looked away. “It’s nothing. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Yet it clearly was something to her; otherwise, why would she find it so urgent to ask me about it? I remembered the witch-centered novels she borrowed at the retreat center. “You came to Wilfred because you thought I was a witch and wanted to check me out? You’re not here because of Ian?”
She looked strangely disappointed. “I don’t know who Ian is.”
He might have changed his name when he came to Oregon. “The used book seller in Patty’s This-N-That. Dark hair, a scar right here.” I patted my right cheek.
“Nope.” She had lost interest in me since I hadn’t claimed my magic. She pointed off the trail. “Did you see that clearing in the woods? Someone made a fire.”
The witch’s circle was a solid ten-minute walk from the trail, which meant she must have been wandering in the woods. A casual hiker wouldn’t have found it. If I hadn’t known it was there, I wouldn’t have found it, either. “You went into the woods?”
“I smelled smoke.” She turned toward the barely vis ible trail through the underbrush. “A dead fire, that is.”
She must have an incredible nose. I adopted a dismissive tone. “Campers, likely. Or kids from the high school.”
“I see.”
We both knew how unlikely it was that campers or teenagers would find their way to this obscure part of the forest. I still wondered how Lise had found it.
I sure couldn’t smell anything. Had she really come all the way to Wilfred to see if I was a witch?
Or was she a witch herself—in short, was she Aunt Beata?
“I’ll be moving along, then,” Lise said. “I’ll tell Leo you said hi.”
“A witch,” I replied. “As if.”