I remembered the picture of Connell that Declan had shown me in the McCarthy family album. The man who was old when he married his young bride, the man who looked exactly the same as she grew older in the photos, down to the buckled jacket, jaunty hat, and high riding boots. The man who had left after his love’s death, never to be heard from again.
The man who had been rumored to be . . . nah.
They’re magically delicious singsonged in my mind. I shook my head to dislodge the earworm.
“It can’t be,” I muttered.
His eyes widened in surprise, and his laugh boomed forth before ending in a kind of cackle. Good thing the windows were closed, because I would have a hard time explaining to Margie the loud Irish guy in my bedroom in the middle of the night.
“Begorra! What is it yer thinkin’, then?”
“What kind of guardian are you if you don’t know your own legend in the McCarthy family?” I asked.
He laughed again. “And Declan ’ere passed it on ter you. Well, then. Let us jist say I’m ’uman enough ter be almost killed, but not enough ter die.”
I squinted at him in the dim light. “Who else is there in this purgatory of yours?” Could it be the same place a cursed soul in a coma on this plane might visit?
But sorrow crossed his features again. “I couldn’t tell you, lass. ’Tis a lonely existence—that’s for sure.” He brightened. “Which is why I so enjoy the company of the livin’! I choose me favorite from each generation of the McCarthys. A fella, t’be sure—I wouldn’t ken what to do with a girl child. Declan ’as been a bit of a challenge, don’t you know, what with all the fighting fires and romancin’ a witch.”
I tipped my head, considering him. “Can Declan contact the dead, then?”
“Och, no. Only me. ’Cause I chose himself, you see.”
“So, you can’t help us find Franklin Taite’s spirit,” I said.
Slowly he shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Katie.”
“You have to leave Declan, you know. You’ve already taken him over for longer than the other times.” A horrible thought occurred to me then: Was it possible that Connell could take over Declan indefinitely? I imagined him there in the back of Connell’s mind, off to the sideline in his own body, trapped and terrified.
“Connell!” I said. “Let him go! He didn’t mean to let you through. It was a mistake.”
Connell/Declan’s face fell. I actually thought I saw tears forming. “Well, now. T’be sure, I can’t stay,” he said, shoulders slumped. “It was pure nice spendin’ a bit o’ time with you, though, Miss Katie. Yer one in a million, and me fella has the luck of Eire ter know ye.” He closed his eyes, and I knew he was about to leave Declan’s body.
“Wait,” I said.
He opened his eyes, that eyebrow lifting in a gesture of wonder and possibly hope.
“Is there anything we can do here, on this plane, to help you get out of your in-between place?”
He looked down at the wooden floor of the bedroom. “That is a kind offer—a kind offer indeed.” He lifted his hands perpendicular to his sides. “I think I’d take you up on it, no matter which side I went ter, but there’s nothin’ you can do. At least not that I’ve knowledge of.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it.
“Tanks. Let me offer you something for your kindness.”
I waited, eyes wide.
“Ach. This voodoo is foreign an’ frightenin’ ter me. All I know is the object yer seekin’ is hidden between layers of magic.”
“The talisman? You can see it? Sense it?” The words tumbled out of me, and for a second I forgot this man was squatting in Declan’s body and had been about to leave.
“The talisman,” he confirmed, and closed his eyes again. Anxiously, I waited for Declan to come back to me, whole and true. Connell’s eyes popped open again. “Beware of someone new ter you, as well.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but then he was gone, and dear Declan stood looking at me in bewilderment, those gorgeous blue eyes reflecting the soul I’d already come to know and love so well.
I rushed to him and threw my arms around him. “Are you okay?”
He embraced me absently, muttering in wonder, “That was weird—really weird.”
I pulled my head back and looked at him. “And scary. I know. I shouldn’t have talked to him for so long.”
“Hmm. Scary, yes. But not as bad as it was before. Maybe I’m getting used to it?”
I stepped back now to stand by the bed. “Declan McCarthy, don’t you dare start inviting your uncle to come visit. It was bad enough waking up to find him ogling me. I have no intention of going to bed with you and waking up with him.”
He blanched. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Well, I sure did,” I muttered as I got back under the covers.
* * *
I didn’t sleep well, waking several times to check that it was really Declan snoring beside me. I was pretty sure he couldn’t have faked that snore, though. At four o’clock, I finally dragged myself out of bed, dressed, and went for a run. The morning breeze soothed my skin, and soon endorphins were running though my veins, lifting my spirits. My feet pounded against pavement as I passed beneath streetlights with no traffic to distract me. I found my rhythm, and my thoughts began to sort from one big, confused jumble into distinct categories of confusion.
My boyfriend channeled his possibly-a-leprechaun, not-dead-but-not-alive great-great uncle. I’d had a night of tossing and turning to let that sink in, but my mind still shied away from accepting it. Even though Declan’s mother had heard stories about Connell’s supernatural roots on a visit to track her relatives in Ireland, I’d never actually believed one of Deck’s ancestors could really be a leprechaun. He hadn’t, either, grinning as he told me the tale. He had also rightly pointed out that I couldn’t arbitrarily draw the line regarding what was possible and what wasn’t when I wanted him to believe in magic.
Okay, then. Uncle Connell, possibly immortal and in his personal purgatory, could possess Declan practically without warning. Check.
However, Connell hadn’t been the only thing muddying my half-dozing thoughts. Dawn Taite was still in a mysterious coma. Franklin had been killed by a snake, possibly—no, make that probably—in some kind of sacrificial ritual. Dawn’s sudden appearance at the Honeybee, begging for my help, had been too desperate and alarming—not to mention her current state of mysterious unconsciousness—for there not to be a cause.
A curse. Place by a person, Katie. Someone is behind all this. Connell said to beware someone new.
The missing voodoo talisman had something to do with his death, my gut insisted. The image of Dawn’s fingernails scrabbling on the window glass in the bakery kept returning to my mental movie screen, becoming clearer each time rather than fading as most memories do.
The gris gris is missing. You must find it.
Well, there was Cookie’s friend, Poppa Jack. I didn’t want to believe, for her sake, that he embraced the dark side of voodoo. It didn’t make sense that he’d help me, either, by sending me to the voodoo queens.
Unless he was offering me a distraction from the truth.
Nah. We’d talked in that star-shaped garden at Magnolia Park. It was a sacred place, a witch’s place, and he’d taken us there to determine whether I was worthy of his assistance. I was pretty sure I could trust Poppa Jack.
What about the voodoo queens he’d directed Cookie and me to? Marie LaFevre had certainly had some strange items on offer in her shop, and summarily turned us away. Because she had something to do with Franklin’s death? Maybe. I hadn’t thought she was lying, but, on the other hand, Ms. LaFevre possessed obvious power. Though I didn’t like to admit it, her Voice could have worked on me after all—at least enough to make me think she was telling the truth.
Perhaps Franklin had her in his sights on his ongoing quest against evil. Even during our brief exchange, I suspected the woman would have little compunction about engaging with the darker side of voodoo.
Mambo Jeni was down and out, certainly, but evil? I couldn’t discount it, but I didn’t know what she’d have against Franklin and Dawn. Mostly I’d felt sorry for her. She might be willing to do just about anything to make a buck, though. So if Mambo Jeni was responsible for what had happened to the Taites, it was possible she was working for someone else. Talk about layers of magic. Ugh.
As for the third voodoo queen, Mother Eulora, I hoped to know more about her before the day was out.
Who else?
I grimaced as Oscar Sanchez came to mind. Cookie’s husband was handsome as all get-out, and the spellbook club was delighted that Cookie appeared to be so deeply in love. He was a scientist and made a good living. She’d told me they planned to have children in a few years. He was polite and interesting to talk to. I didn’t feel a terribly friendly connection to him, however. Perhaps it was his subtle disapproval of the spellbook club that I picked up on. Oscar knew his new wife was a witch, but he didn’t necessarily like it. And he definitely didn’t like her being involved with voodoo.
Yet why would he be involved with Franklin’s death? He’d been out of the country three months ago.
No, wait. Cookie had told the spellbook club that after she and Oscar got married in France, he’d come to Savannah to look for a job in May. She’d followed a couple of weeks later. How “new” had Connell meant? Because Oscar was not only new to me, but his own wife hadn’t known him all that long.
Other people relatively new to my life included Iris and Skipper Dean. And, according to Steve, that girly-girl Samantha had elbowed her way into his life only a few weeks ago. Of course, she was new to his life, not mine. I sighed. I met dozens of new people at the Honeybee in the course of a day’s work. Surely Connell hadn’t meant any of them. And what about Dawn herself? Was I supposed to beware of her?
I began to mentally roll my eyes, then stopped. Literally stopped running on the sidewalk a block away from the carriage house.
What if Dawn herself is not who she appears to be?
The sun was beginning to lighten the sky when I opened the front door. Declan was already up and the smell of bacon was in the air, but only Mungo looked well rested.
I kissed the cook and hurried in to take a quick shower. Twenty minutes later, I was settled in at the kitchen table, a plate of bacon, eggs, and crispy hash browns in front of me. I dug in with gusto.
“I have to stop by my place before my shift,” Declan said. He sat across from me, digging through the man-sized portions on his plate. Mungo stood over his place mat in the corner, eating his own breakfast. “And by the store—I’m going to make the guys at Five House Mexican steak sandwiches tonight.”
“Mmm. Sounds fabulous. Mungo and I will work on those leftover pork chops.”
Declan put his fork down. “Katie? Are you okay?”
I swallowed and looked up. “You mean about last night? Connell?”
He nodded.
“It was . . . weird. But I don’t have to tell you that.”
He shook his head.
“Um . . . do you think you can stop him from showing up like that? I mean, you opened to him during our little séance and all, but does he have ready access to, well, to—”
“To you?”
“Well, yeah.”
He sat back. “I don’t think so. I was there when he was talking to you, in the background. Unlike the other times he’s shown up, I felt like I could have pushed my way forward. I wanted to hear what he had to say, though.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “He had a few things to say about me.”
“Come on, Katie. It’s not like you were in the shower. Plenty of people have seen you in your sleep gear. It sure didn’t seem to bother you when Steve did.”
I ignored that. “So, your, er, relationship with Connell has changed?”
“It feels like it. Most of the time he’s not around, but then he’ll be there, in the background.”
I felt the skin tighten across my face. “That doesn’t sound good.”
His head tipped to the side. “I don’t know yet. But I sense that he’s on my side, you know? He’s watching over me—and over you, too. Like your nonna does.”
I started to argue that it was completely different to have the spirit of your grandmother occasionally make contact than to have a half-dead ancestor from the Old Country take over your physical being, but Declan looked at the watch on his wrist and suddenly stood.
“I’ve got to go, darlin’. I’ll call you later, okay?”
Finished with breakfast, I stood, too. He swooped me into a big hug, laid a good-bye smacker on me, and then released me to grab his coat and head for the door.
* * *
Things were busy at the Honeybee that morning, but when Cookie showed up at ten o’clock, Lucy shooed us out the door. I drove right to Eulora Scanlon’s house without consulting the address. Cookie didn’t seem to notice, however, and I didn’t mention I’d thought about visiting the voodoo queen—no, spiritualist—the evening before on my own.
It was a small, square house on Lincoln Street. The wooden siding was painted butter yellow; the trim, pale beige. The closer we got, the smaller it appeared, dwarfed by the homes that loomed on either side. The neatly trimmed lawn was set off from the street by an openwork, decorative iron railing. The gate swung open on well-oiled hinges, silent and smooth. I walked up the narrow tabby sidewalk that precisely bisected the front yard, with Cookie on my heel. On either side of the walkway, bright orange marigolds alternated with classic red geraniums. A small table flanked by two rocking chairs with worn but clean patchwork cushions took up most of the space on the covered porch. I didn’t see a doorbell, so rapped on the dark wood of the door. And waited. Beside me, Cookie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, fidgeting with her bracelet.
I tried to quell my own nervousness. If this woman couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help us, I was back to square one. Perhaps Poppa Jack knows of others, I told myself. Or perhaps Quinn would come up with information about Franklin’s death—or his life the past few months in Savannah. Neither possibility filled me with hope, however. I tried to center, to focus my intuition to mentally probe beyond the door, trying to get an idea of what to expect from the third of our voodoo queens.
Nothing.
There wasn’t even a response to my knock. I looked to Cookie, who shrugged. Determined, I knocked again, then backed off the porch so I could see the windows. Gauzy curtains shut out the view of passersby. No lamps shone inside, but the windows were large and the light curtains would still let in the sunshine. Someone could be in there.
And avoiding us. Could Mambo Jeni or Marie LaFevre have alerted Eulora Scanlon that we might be visiting? I sighed at the thought. My bet was on the latter.
As I was getting ready to head back to the car in defeat, the door opened. I quickstepped back up to the porch to find Cookie stammering out, “We are here to petition Mother Eulora for assistance.”
“Petitioning” hadn’t worked so well with Marie LaFevre. I pushed up beside her, peering through the screen door at the handsome woman regarding us from the other side.
“We need a spell,” I said. “A . . . a spell to find something lost.”
A perfectly shaped eyebrow arched in response.
“You are Eulora Scanlon,” I said. “Aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice deep as a cave. “No spells. No magic here. Not anymore.”
“Please,” I began as she shut the door in my face. “Please, Ms. Scanlon!”
The latch clicked, and I heard footsteps walking away.
I stepped up and pounded on the door with my fist. “Mother Eulora,” I yelled. “Just let us talk to you!”
Silence answered my plea. It was broken by only the distant sound of a megaphoned voice from a tour bus the next block over and a light breeze sighing through the cypress tree in the neighbor’s yard.
My shoulders slumped, and I turned to Cookie. She leaned one slim hip against the porch railing, looking as if she had somehow failed.
I put my hand on her arm. “Thank you for trying. I know all this has been hard for you.”
“I’m sorry there isn’t more I can do. I suppose we could try finding someone online that could help. Or maybe the spellbook club . . . ?” She blinked hard, and I realized she was nearly in tears.
“Oh, Cookie! Please don’t feel bad. We’ll figure something out.” I gave her a quick hug, and we turned and began walking slowly back to the street.
“Ladies!” a light, wavering voice called behind us.
We looked over our shoulders to see the screen door open and a short, round woman bustle forth. She had a deep butterscotch complexion and a puff of pure white hair. She stopped on the top step and put her hands on her more-than-ample hips.
“I do believe you were looking for me.”
I felt a grin break out on my face as Cookie and I hurried back.