CROW

9

MORNING SLOWLY TURNED into afternoon.

Benjy left with the fiddle and returned with a bag of groceries and not once did visitors darken their doorstep. This wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened, and most days it was just an annoyance Hetty fumed over. Today it was agonizing. Because bereft of anything to do, she was left there alone with her thoughts, and they kept turning to Nathan Payne.

About all the things she could be doing to quell the threat he represented. About what Payne was doing in Philadelphia. Or what would happen if she did seek him out without Benjy knowing. Although she was tempted to confront Payne, she had to admit Benjy was right. Going after him out of the blue would be like kicking a hornet’s nest. She just needed to have a plan that was more detailed than making sure Payne never darkened her doorway.

Eventually Hetty got up and flipped through the mail they received yesterday but had never gotten around to looking through. Most of it wasn’t noteworthy, but one small envelope in the stack sent her looking for Benjy.

She found him in the cellar. A mix of magic and gas lamps brightened the place enough to banish the gloom. A new door led directly into the yard so the bodies of the deceased wouldn’t have to go through the house. Tucked in the corners were a few crates and supplies. And a punching bag dangled from the rafters, stuffed full with a number of rags and discarded clothes. Benjy used it for boxing practice, and made particularly good use of it after his broken arm had mended.

But a large portion of the room gave a few tables focus. Long tables that could hold the bodies that Oliver embalmed and worked on. There were three tables, but two were pushed to the side, as they never had more than one body in the cellar these days. At this table, Benjy sat on a stool, adding the finishing touches for another casket. Since they had no funerals to work on, it was simply another one to put on display. Custom caskets hadn’t been on their list of services to provide, but Benjy saw it as something to keep busy with while practicing his woodworking skills. Like anything he worked on, they were beautiful, and casket sales made up what little business they had recently.

“Look at what was in the post!” Hetty tossed the envelope onto the table.

Benjy snapped his fingers, and the envelope floated into the air before him. “An invitation from Bernice Tanner,” he said. The envelope turned over, and he studied the seal on the back. “She has a new assistant. Much better than the last one. Look how everything is perfectly done. Even the words are crisp.” He plucked it from the air and ripped open the envelope. “We’ve been invited to a ball.”

“A ball?” Hetty snatched the card from him.

In elegant handwriting that must belong to Bernice’s new assistant was the announcement for a ball to be held in the Peabody Hotel this Saturday night, and hopes that both Hetty and Benjy would attend. The only explanation for why it was being held was at the end. The money raised would go to Olmstead Secondary.

This was about Raimond Duval.

Olmstead was the school he’d taught at, and Bernice had known him through her work with the Vigilance Society.

Another link to Duval in so few days, and it came from Bernice Tanner, the woman who knew all the rumors in town before they were even whispered in discreet corners.

This was not by chance.

“It’s a charity ball.” Hetty dropped the card onto the table. She strode right to the punching bag and swung a fist at it.

The bag didn’t move, but that didn’t stop her from hitting it again and again.

Benjy watched her, letting her swing at the bag.

“Are we going?” he asked when there was a break in the punching. “There should be good food there.”

Good food at these types of gatherings was the only reason they went, besides murder.

“That’s one reason. I do have an old dress I can alter for the ball. The gold one.”

“It’s not old if you never wore it out of the house.”

Hetty dropped her hands to the side and turned away from the bag, rubbing her slightly sore knuckles. “We should go. It’ll be a way to gather some customers if we make some polite conversation.”

Benjy raised one eyebrow. “Of course that’s the plan.”

“What other plan is there? I’m not going to slip poison into the punch bowl.”

“That would be a terrible idea,” Benjy said. “You can’t control the spread and who it affects. A dusting around the rim of a glass would be better.”

“And doing it repeatedly is not a good way to keep business,” Hetty added. But she shook herself before she accidentally got wrapped up into another conversation about murder methods. “I’ll leave the poison at home and send a response saying yes.”

Benjy leaned back on the stool, watching her as he clearly sought the right thing to say. “Do you really want to go?”

“Of course I do. Why do you ask?”

“It’s a ball,” Benjy said, as if the word was more than adequate to explain things. “It’s not a dinner party with close friends. The room will be filled with all the high society people you hate and I barely tolerate, and we’ll be stuck in dreadful conversations about the same topics that have been circulating for weeks on end.”

“The food will be good,” Hetty said, echoing his earlier sentiment.

“It will be excellent. So will the drinks Bernice will offer to us when she draws us aside for a private conversation.”

“A private conversation?” Hetty echoed.

“She’ll be in a small room at the hotel and will provide liquor from her private stash. There’s something she wants to talk about, but it’s not urgent enough to talk about sooner. Just vague concerns.”

“Trouble for tomorrow?”

A shadow crossed Benjy’s face. And the name of Payne hung between them, unspoken. “There’s always trouble for tomorrow.”

The doorbell rang just then.

Hetty clapped her hands together. “A customer!”

“Maybe I should open the door,” Benjy called as Hetty hurried to the stairs. “You look too pleased to greet someone who is in mourning!”

She scoffed at this, but when Hetty reached the door, she did take a calming breath.

Standing on the steps, however, was only their neighbor.

“A package was delivered to my house again.” Blythe’s eyes narrowed as she attempted to peer into the hallway behind Hetty. “I almost tripped over the box. It’s placed in such a bad spot.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

As Hetty shut the door behind her, the funeral home sign slipped off its post.

“I’d get a new sign if I were you,” Blythe sniffed. “It’s not very helpful. People might think it’s a place for birds.”

Hetty waved a hand and the sign flew back to its previous spot. She had painted it herself and she thought it rather straightforward about all the funeral home offered. While it could be bigger, she doubted it was the only factor in their trouble. People die all the time. A tiny sign couldn’t be the only reason they were being overlooked.

“Maybe you can drum up some business for us, Mrs. Holloway? I’m sure if you put out a call, people will come.”

“Maybe. You won’t forget to ask your husband to look into my cellar door? It’s been quite loose lately. I don’t want any intruders sneaking into my house.”

With assurances, false and otherwise, on her lips, Hetty stepped up to Blythe’s half of the joint steps.

At first glance, she couldn’t blame Blythe for her complaints. It was a rather large crate, and thankfully it was still tightly sealed. Not that Hetty doubted her neighbor would sneak a look if she could. Hetty reached over to pick it up to determine if she should help it along with magic, and stopped dead over the box.

While the name of the sender was familiar, it was the last one she ever expected to see:

 

Esther Beale

342 Cherrywood Road

Savannah, Georgia

 

“Esther,” Hetty whispered. Her breath came up short and her heart raced, as her vision narrowed to the label.

Esther was dead. It was not possible for this to be sent by her.

How was this here?

Unless the news she received had been about a different Esther. People often had the same names . . . Maybe her sister was still alive.

For a moment Hetty considered that seductive idea, letting it bloom in her mind about what it might mean. But then she shoved the thought aside.

Her sister was gone, and her wishes otherwise would not change things.

Hetty carried the box inside and brought it upstairs into the spare bedroom.

She dropped down next to the crate and placed her hand on the lid. Opening this alone was a poor idea.

There should be someone with her. Benjy or Cora. Penelope and Darlene. Even Thomas and Oliver would be good choices. She shouldn’t do this alone.

But she couldn’t bring herself to leave this box unopened, not even for one more minute. She had to see what was inside.

Hetty took a deep breath and drew the lines that made up the Crow sigil. The lines and vertices glowed purple, and the nails in the crate popped out as the lid lifted upward and fell to the side.

A letter rested on top of the various items tucked in the box:

 

To Mrs. Henrietta Rhodes,

When Esther realized she was sick, she directed me to put all this aside for you. I think she knew she wasn’t going to regain her health. Her only true regret was not leaving town sooner to see you. In this box is everything she wanted you to have and remember her by. If you have any questions for me, you need only to write.

 

Hetty read the letter a few more times, as in the first attempts she didn’t fully comprehend every word. When she finally finished, Hetty put the letter aside, feeling the warm sentiments of the writer and a tinge of sadness for the fleeting hope that had seized her for a few moments.

Her sister had sent several somethings for her to have. What could they be?

Inside were things she expected to see. Packets of seeds and gardening tools. Small mementos of Esther’s life in Savannah in the form of notes and stamps. There were bundles of the letters that Hetty had sent. A wooden box filled with jewelry. A few dusty vials of brewed magic, neatly labeled. And there were several books, mostly cheap sensational tales.

But a large leather-bound book caught her attention. Her sister’s handwriting covered every page, broken up by sketches of plants, animals, even a few people. Words made up recipes, observations, and ingredients for potions. It was not a journal​—​it was too disorganized to be that​—​but there were small wry remarks on some pages that lifted a smile to Hetty’s face. Soon she sought these pages out, hearing Esther’s voice in her ear as she read them. Then Hetty got to the middle of the book and there was a bookmark. A scrap of fabric made from the quilt Hetty sewed a lifetime ago.

How did she know?

At her touch, the stitches lit with one last burst of dormant magic before it faded away for the last time.