Serpent's Kiss Page 7

  The thing about pixies, both male and female, was they were rather comely creatures, their features refined, delicate, as if carefully carved out of ivory. But at this particular moment, it was difficult for Ingrid to tell exactly what any of them truly looked like because they were so damned filthy.

  “Will you tell me what is going on here before I cast a spell on you and turn you all into frogs?” she said. Although it was more a reproof than an actual threat.

  “Please don’t do that!” Irdick yelped. There was something so vulnerable and sweet about Irdick that he made Ingrid feel guilty for scolding them. Also, the T-shirt was hilarious.

  Val moved forward from the huddle, speaking so fast that Ingrid could barely make out the jumbled words of his endless run-on sentence, which turned staccato whenever he ran into a word that began with an s. She did, however, catch a phrase here and there, getting the overall gist.

  From what she could tell, they had tried to fulfill the promise they’d made to her to return home following her instructions to follow the yellow brick road—a real path that led between the worlds. At the motel where they had been staying, Ingrid had showed them where the path was in the seam, but when they had set out on it, the path faded, and besides, they could no longer remember where home was, or even what it was. So after they’d failed, they’d caught Ingrid’s scent and followed her home, where they had taken shelter in Joanna’s attic.

  “It’s nice here!”

  “There are pies!”

  “Yummy!”

  “Don’t make us leave! Erda, please!” Kelda donned the black leather mask and began doing fast cartwheels across the room, which made Ingrid dizzy.

  “Did we mention there are pies?” said Val.

  “We promise to stay out of the way!” said Kelda, landing on her feet.

  “Hush!” yelled Ingrid. “I can’t think with all of you shouting and moving around like that!”

  The pixies instantly quieted and stood still.

  “Okay,” said Ingrid, crossing her arms. “I’m going to let you stay, for now, but you have to promise to be quiet and stay hidden and not make such horrible messes. Also, you guys stink and you need to bathe. Do it when Joanna is out of the house, of course, and leave the bathroom as you found it. We’ll do this until I can figure out where home is and what’s wrong with the yellow brick road. But if you don’t behave yourselves, I’ll put a curse on you!”

  The pixies were delighted and thanked Ingrid, who tried not to breathe so she wouldn’t smell them. Sven, however, stood off by himself, his arms crossed over his chest, a sour look on his face.

  Ingrid gently shrugged the pixies off and rearranged her clothes.

  “Thank you, Erda, thank you,” they kept saying.

  “It’s all right. You’re welcome,” she said.

  Kelda spun around on the heel of her combat boot. “We stole something for you.” Her clear blue eyes, white eyelashes batting, peered up at Ingrid through the mask while she reached into the pocket of her pants. “A little thank-you gift.”

  “That’s another thing,” Ingrid said. “No more stealing! You can’t use money, which I think says something about where you guys are from. But absolutely no more stealing. I’ll bring you food.”

  “What about cigarettes?” asked Sven in his gruff voice. He sounded as if he had had been smoking and hitting the hooch for years, although when Ingrid stared at him long enough, she could tell that he didn’t look that old. It was all in the jaded attitude and cooler-than-thou posture. “I’ve been jonesing for a cig. Could you buy me a carton of those wicked Kool Smooths that taste like thin mints, Miss Erda?” He smirked.

  Ingrid was flustered again. The pixies had completely lost their funny accents and were speaking like the local teen derelicts now, some of whom, she had noted at the library, were quite erudite despite all their street jargon. “No, no smoking in here!” she said. “You could start a fire! Sven, I’m serious. Besides, I don’t know about pixie physiology but I’m sure it’s bad for you.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at her while Kelda shoved something in her hand.

  “What’s this?” asked Ingrid, holding the crumpled piece of paper.

  “Our gift!” said Kelda.

  Ingrid set about flattening it. Nyph came and stood at Ingrid’s other side to watch.

  On the scrap, torn from a small, rectangular spiral notebook, was the name “Maggie” followed by a phone number. Ingrid stared at it, perplexed.

  Her work with blueprints had endowed her with an adept eye for analyzing idiosyncratic longhand styles. She often had to match the unsigned notes on sketchpads and working drawings to the handwriting on blueprints. In this case, the writing on the scrap of paper tilted ever so slightly to the left (backhand, it was called), indicating a left-handed person, and then there was the distinctive M with its two pointy peaks and the a that resembled the numeral 2 with a loop. She had seen this M and a before.

  Ma …

  Matt Noble. These were exactly the same letters she had seen him use to sign his name on the credit card slip at the bar. Not only that but there was also the fact that Ingrid had immediately noticed that Matt was a lefty when he had begun to scribble in his note pad, a small spiral notebook inside a leather cover. The paper was the same light green–lined one she was now holding. There was no doubt in her mind that Matt had written this woman’s name, this Maggie’s number on this scrap of paper. Ingrid’s heart fell, and her stomach twisted. Maybe this was the reason their date had ended so badly, because Matt had his mind set on someone else.

  She immediately crumpled it back up and threw it away, to the consternation of her pixie friends.

  chapter twelve

  I Get a Kick out of You

  Two daughters?” asked Harold.

  “Two daughters and one son,” said Joanna, then immediately regretted complicating things. She couldn’t explain that her son was in Limbo for an eternity or why; it was just that of course he was never far from her thoughts, and it had slipped out. “Do you have other children, Harold?”

  “What you see is what you got!” said Harold, smiling. “Just my daughter.”

  “She’s darling, really. I know her from the hospital. She was great with Tyler when he was ill.”

  They were sitting in a private alcove facing the ocean at the swanky new French restaurant in town, and so far everything was going smoothly. They were halfway through their entrees—grilled salmon in a triple-citrus glaze for her and a duck confit with blackberry drizzle for him—and the evening had been very pleasant. They made a striking couple: Joanna elegant in a gray cashmere sweater and dark skirt, her silver hair in a loose updo, showing off her pearl earrings; Harold, impeccably groomed, in one of his signature three-piece suits, black with pin-stripes, a crisp white shirt, and red tie. He had entrancing navy-blue eyes, raven hair with thick white streaks (Joanna had noted the ironic widow’s peak). His face was what one might call strong but at the same time refined—emphatic cheekbones, nose, and jaw. He was courtly but didn’t fuss or act slavishly attentive. He exuded just the right amount of care, so as not to make her feel claustrophobic. He was well-read but not pretentious, eloquent but not glib, and cultured but not in an Olympian way. Harold and his late wife had traveled abroad nearly every summer of their professional lives, going as far as Southeast Asia. Traveling and sailing had been one of their passions, he reminisced, before Joanna delicately steered him away from further talk of his wife.

  “So, Freya works at the North Inn and Ingrid’s a librarian. What about your boy?” Harold continued.

  “Oh, him? He’s perfect. Handsome, thoughtful, loving, a sweetie, really.” There. She was done.

  “And he lives here?”

  Joanna coughed, covering her mouth with a fist. She was going to have to tell an untruth. “Abroad!” she said matter-of-factly but squirming a little.

  Harold was an intuitive man, and she saw that he had observed her discomfort. “Allow me, my dear,” he said, taki
ng the bottle of white from the ice bucket to refill her glass. He wasn’t going to pry any further. “You look splendid this evening, and I’m so glad to be here with you tonight.”

  She went ahead and poured Harold’s red wine as he poured her white, their arms parallel as they reached over. It was a nice restaurant, and nice of Lucien to leave them alone and not disturb them, she thought. He was an excellent waiter, knowing just the moment to stop by and check on his diners. “Well, enough of me, tell me more about you,” said Joanna. “Any new interests, hobbies, postretirement?”

  Harold cleared his throat, hesitating. Was he embarrassed? But why? “I’m starting a little business with a friend. Don’t want to say too much. Don’t want to jinx it. But you’ll eventually find out, Joanna dear.”

  “Oh, how nice, I’m sure it will be lovely.”

  “I hope so,” he said, then winked. Was he flirting? Was she?

  The next morning Joanna had a slight hangover, a pinch at the temples and nape, but it had been worth it to spend a lovely evening with a new friend. To her great relief, the objects and furniture in the house had been staying put lately. Although now it appeared as if the pantry and refrigerator were being raided nightly. Just yesterday she’d baked a whole batch of cookies, but when she returned from errands only a tray of crumbs remained. There was also the vexing issue of Gracella refusing to come back to the house because it was haunted, no matter how much Joanna tried to explain that there was no such thing as ghosts. Even if his mother had effectively stopped working for them, Tyler was still very much a part of her life. Joanna still picked him up from preschool and they spent many an afternoon together.

  Last night, she and Harold had laughed like kids, but they had also crossed a new frontier. After acknowledging Harold as a friend from the start, Joanna was beginning to think she might actually like him that way. She hadn’t anticipated something like this ever happening to her again and had been resigned to being single without a complaint. Not that she was truly single of course, since there was Norman to think about—but could they even consider themselves still married? It’s not as if one of them had ever filed for divorce, but who ever heard of a thing like divorce among immortals. She supposed she would have to ask her daughters what they thought.

  The thing was, she didn’t think she would ever have this problem. Harold had caught her by surprise, and now she was walking around the house with a smile on her face, which she had noticed when she crossed the antique cheval glass mirror in the living room. Who’s that? She started before realizing it was herself. Then she examined her reflection, pushing a strand of hair behind an ear, noting the glow in her face. She appeared years younger, which made her smile even more, but then she grimaced.

  “What am I doing?” she asked her image.

  Then Joanna saw Gilly above her, pointing her onyx beak, the same black-blue shade as her feathers. She turned around to face her familiar, who was perched on the grandfather clock. Whatever Harold had done with Gilly the other day had worked. The raven looked so much healthier, glossier. Joanna was thrilled to see her up and about, not just listlessly whiling away her time in her cage.

  Gilly cawed. She was telling Joanna she wanted to take her somewhere, and she appeared anxious, moving from one foot to the other. The raven fluttered down from the clock, landing on Joanna’s raised forearm. “What is it? Where are we going? Out? Okay.”

  Joanna donned a coat and her Wellingtons, tied her handy red bandanna around her flyaway hair, and stepped outside, following Gilly. The raven flew from branch to branch, perched on the fence in the garden, guiding Joanna past the gate to a path that cut through an overgrown field. They wound past a few neighboring properties, a barn and corral, and then headed toward the woods.

  They moved quickly and Joanna soon grew winded, but the brisk walk in the cool breeze felt hardy and good. The air smelled of earth and wild thyme. Having nearly reached the forest, her familiar alighted in the weeds. The raven waddled along, bringing Joanna’s attention to ground level. Gilly stopped, pointing her beak, and Joanna saw the path of wilted, shriveled weeds and wildflowers, violet asters and goldenrod, surrounded by other flowers that were still thriving. It was as if someone trampled on the overgrowth, leaving death in his or her wake.

  Joanna kneeled and touched the desiccated flowers and weeds. They crumbled at the slightest contact. She rose to her feet and followed the dried path that led into the forest. Gilly flew up onto her shoulder as Joanna ambled along, and they arrived in a clearing, where the grass was still green. Here the path wove desultorily through the grass, as if searching where to go next, then further veered uphill through more weeds and wildflowers.

  Gilly began to caw as if she were eager for Joanna to keep moving, let her know she was getting closer, but then Joanna heard her name being called. The voice was immediately familiar and welcome that she turned around, abandoning the path.

  “Joanna, what a pleasant surprise,” Harold Atkins said. “I was over at the barn back there”—he motioned with his head—“and saw you two passing, but I was in the midst of administering a shot to a mare.” He smiled as he took wide strides through the open field toward her.

  “Nice to see you so soon, Harold,” she returned. Even on one of his veterinarian calls, Harold wore a suit and polished tan leather shoes. It made her feel underdressed—her country clothes, red foulard around her unwashed hair, jeans, wool coat, big rubber boots.

  “I couldn’t just let you wander by and not say hello.” His smile was contagious. “I see Gilly is doing well.”

  “Oh, yes, she’s suddenly very spirited. I’m so relieved. We were taking a walk.”

  They kissed on either cheek, European style, and Joanna noticed that she liked the way Harold smelled—like soap and the woods, but also the ocean mist. Perhaps it was just the fresh scent of the North Hampton outdoors.

  “Well, I’d love to walk you home if you don’t mind. It’s such a glorious day,” said Harold.

  She accepted his offer, and the two chatted all the way back to her house, making plans for dinner again sometime soon, and she forgot all about the strange trail of dead flowers.

  chapter thirteen

  Hide and Seeking

  The Dragon, a sixty-foot-long sleek white sport-fishing yacht with a seventeen-foot-high beam, could cruise at up to 44 knots at 2,330 rpm, but for now ropes held it tautly moored to the dock of Gardiners Island. The boat comprised three levels. At the top was the exterior gallery with a mezzanine-style cockpit replete with a freezer, two tackle drawers, a drink box, coolers, various storage bins, a transom fish box, and a live well—in other words, plenty of places to hide something. Below that was the second tier, the flybridge with a peninsula-style console, a teak deck containing a trapdoor leading to more storage, and starboard and forward bench seating, beneath which were yet more compartments for ropes and rigs.

  Moving farther down from the deck through the solid teak door to the companionway, the steps led to the interior gallery: teak flooring and cherrywood walls, cabinetry and bulkheads with bas-relief carvings, and fawn leather seating. Aft was the master stateroom with a biometric safe, which could only be opened with the fingerprint of Killian’s index (but it was too small for what Freya had been searching for), and multitudinous cabinets and closets; starboard, the crew cabin with three berths that lifted to reveal more storage units; then forward, the salon attached to the galley with black granite counters and cabinets everywhere. There were also the three heads and the engine and pump room, which Freya had already inspected several times.

  Every inch of the Dragon contained some kind of stowaway space. Freya had searched the boat from stem to stern, but one compartment could possibly be concealing another, like a series of Chinese boxes, so she started all over again.

  Now she was downstairs in the crew cabin that doubled as a guest room. She had lifted the top of a berth and, from the container inside it, removed all the bedding, which was piled high on the third larger bert
h. Just as she thought, she discovered a hidden door in the bottom planks. She tried to lift it, but there was no handle, and her nails wouldn’t do. She needed something to slip into the groove to jimmy it.

  She turned around to retrieve a knife from one of the galley drawers and found herself standing face-to-face with Killian, who had apparently snuck up on her and been observing her—for how long, she didn’t know. She hadn’t heard him board or come down the companionway; it was as if he had floated down here.

  He looked bewildered, but there was also something else in his piercing eyes, and she couldn’t tell whether it was anger or disappointment. “What’s up? What are you looking for?”

  Freya tried to look sheepish. “An extra pillow. I think I pulled my back at the bar carrying those stupid ice buckets. I don’t know why I didn’t use magic to get them upstairs. Now I’m going to need something to prop myself up just right when I sleep, so it doesn’t hurt so much.” She squeezed her right arm. God, that was lame. Plus, why did she have to always talk so fast when she lied? Joanna always could tell when she did that, and probably everyone else.

  Killian stared at her for a long moment, behind his thick dark bangs, and then his face broke into a slow smile. “Cut the crap. You and I both know that is bullshit.” He laughed.