| |
Eden was barely aware of the hard metal chair under her, or the buzzing of the room around her. She kept replaying the moment she’d found Martha Thorne, hanging upside down in a bundle of vines. She heard her own screams in her mind, and Dotty shouting to Jack over the phone. Eden ran her fingertip over the still-sore cuts on her hands. She’d only half freed the woman from her deathly cocoon when Jack had arrived to help. Of course it didn’t matter. Martha Thorne was already dead. According to Jack, she’d been dead for hours.
Eden felt a warm arm wrap around her. “Are you all right?”
She stared into Dotty’s large blue eyes, nodding slightly.
Dotty looked down, brushing away a tear. “It’s okay if you’re not. I’m still shaken up myself.”
Shaken. Eden was definitely shaken. It wasn’t just Mrs. Thorne’s death, although that was enough to traumatize anyone. It was all real.
Eden pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned it around in her hands. She’d had conversations with her phone, been reprimanded by her microwave, and heard the words of a dead woman. After what had happened to Mrs. Thorne, Eden couldn’t deny it any longer. All of Dotty’s dotty claims were true. There were people who could make trees grow faster, who could control the weather with their mood, and who could pull words from the living and the un-living without even trying. She was living in a community of people with unusual abilities. She was one of them.
Dotty glanced around the clubhouse, her eyes widening. “This is the most people we’ve ever had at a neighborhood meeting.”
“Yeah,” Yolanda said. “If Beverly had known this was the way to get people to come she would have murdered somebody a long time ago.”
Dotty gasped. “It wasn’t a murder, it was a ... and Beverly didn’t—”
“Yolanda,” Arthur said quietly, “do you really think that’s appropriate?”
“I’m just joking. Sorry. I suppose it’s too soon for jokes.” Yolanda gave Eden a wink. “It’s never too soon for a joke,” she whispered, leaning over. “Nothing lightens the pain of tragedy like a little humor.”
Eden forced a smile, but she wasn’t confident humor was going to do the trick. The memory of Mrs. Thorne wrapped up in a flowery death-grip kept coming back to her. It made it hard to sleep at night. Then there were her words: “Watch out for her.” Eden had been trying to decipher their meaning. Was the old woman talking about her plants? After all, it wouldn’t be that unusual to refer to a beloved plant as a she. Or was she talking about a person?
“This was supposed to be a safe place,” Dotty said. “The perfect place. That’s what Beverly always says.”
Eden winced as she caught sight of the back of Jack’s head a few rows in front of her. Seeing him again brought back the whole horrible scene again. Dotty had called Jack for help because he was a registered nurse. She’d seen him working in the yard with his father, so she’d known he had the day off. He was there in two minutes flat. Eden couldn’t explain it, but as soon as Jack had stepped in, a sense of calm had washed over her. It seemed like Dotty felt it, too. Jack knew exactly what to say and how to handle the situation. Eden didn’t even get angry when he asked her and Dotty to move down onto the front lawn. It didn’t even occur to her that carrying on a family grudge, even in an emergency situation, was rather ridiculous. It occurred to her now.
Jack turned, as if he could feel her looking at him. When their eyes met, he quickly turned back around.
Yolanda nudged her. “Wouldn’t mind being his patient, would we?”
Eden’s cheeks warmed. Now Jack would think she was staring at him. Well, she was staring at him, but not because she had the hots for him. In addition to their last unfortunate encounter, she couldn’t help thinking about their grandparents being in love. What had happened that was so horrible that Jack wasn’t just keeping his distance, but didn’t seem to even want to look at her? She had to talk to Clixie again.
Eden gasped, looking around the room. “What about Clixie Albright? I assume someone talked to her about what happened? I didn’t even think about it.” Eden had been overwhelmed, but she should have thought to stop by Clixie’s house.
“Talk to Clixie?” Dotty’s face pinched in confusion. “Clixie hardly talks at all, and when she does it’s hard to make sense of it. I guess we thought it wouldn’t make much difference. That’s not very kind of me, is it?”
“But I talked to her just yesterday,” Eden said. “She made perfect sense, if you can make sense of seeing color and feeling sound.”
“Hmm,” Yolanda said. She studied Eden, as if she were logging away information.
Beverly cleared her throat loudly, and the buzz in the room quieted. “You all know that Martha Thorne passed away this morning. There are a lot of rumors going through the neighborhood. Everyone is understandably upset. So we decided to hold an emergency meeting to give everyone the facts as we know them.”
“What do the police say?” someone shouted out. “Are they going to come poking around the neighborhood?”
Beverly quivered, losing her composure for just a moment. “The police suggested that Martha died of natural causes, and that her vines simply wrapped around her body.”
Yolanda snorted. “How long would that take, a few months?” She shrugged. “I guess it’s easier to believe than the truth.”
Dotty shook her head, her sweet mouth turned down. “Poor Martha. I never thought she would be a danger to herself.”
Beverly raised her hands, putting a stop to the whispers. “Obviously none of us contradicted that conclusion, even though we know better. I think it’s safe to say that their assessment was made due to their lack of a better explanation, and they may be coming around looking for more information. Please cooperate if they come to your door, but refrain from giving them any more information than they ask for.” Beverly looked sternly around the room, a warning in her eyes. “Now, we didn’t assemble to talk about the police. We’ve just lost a friend and neighbor, and some of you want to hear about what happened to Mrs. Thorne. Jack Skelton was one of the first on the scene, and since he’s an RN, we thought he could add some helpful insights.”
Beverly sat down, stiffly facing the group as Jack made his way to the front of the room. Eden sighed with relief, grateful that she hadn’t been asked to speak.
“I know this is difficult for everyone. I think it’s important for me to explain that when Mrs. Thorne was discovered, rigor mortis had just begun to set in. This means she’d probably been dead for two or three hours. There was nothing anyone could have done for her.” Jack looked directly at Eden. As her eyes locked onto his, her hands released their death grip on the sides of her chair.
On the day of Mrs. Thorne’s death, Eden had been certain she could have done more to save her life. Maybe if she’d cut faster, or found a better tool. Jack had assured her then that it wasn’t true, speaking more gently than she’d expected while not taking one step off of Martha’s porch. His words had softened the guilt. But he couldn’t have known how they’d changed Eden’s life. A dead woman had spoken to her. Eden wrapped her arms around herself. Even though she was surrounded by people as peculiar as herself, she wasn’t ready to talk about that. Mrs. Thorne’s words would have to remain hers alone.
“I heard she was murdered by her own flowers,” a man in the back shouted. “Is that true?”
A rumble went through the room.
“It did seem that ... well, they were wrapped around—” Dotty’s fingers waved in circles around her throat.
“But why would Martha’s flowers turn on her?” Arthur asked. “They were her babies.”
“Maybe it was vengeance,” Yolanda hissed, “because they thought she let us hack up her yard.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Beverly said, but her voice seemed weaker than usual.
“If they were angry with her, we’re likely to be next. Are all the plants and trees going to turn on us now?” someone asked.
Whispers rose to murmurs, passing from neighbor to neighbor like a hot potato.
Eden felt the color drain from her face as she thought of Mrs. Thorne’s warning again. She had to have meant the plants, seeing as how they’d squeezed the life out of her.
“Even if they don’t come after us, I’m afraid our yards are in danger,” an old woman said. “I could have sworn my hibiscus looked sickly this evening. How do we know the whole neighborhood’s not going to shrivel up?”
“Everyone take it easy.” As Jacks words settled over the crowd, worry lines faded away, shoulders slumped, and fearful voices died down.
Beverly stood up, nudging Jack aside. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Martha most likely destroyed my yard because of our disagreement yesterday.” Her voice was stiff, like she was trying to control whatever was bubbling under the surface. “It may be that with Martha gone, her plants will go back to being regular plants. But if you’re all nervous, we’ll have Jack double up the neighborhood watch efforts. He’ll need volunteers, of course.”
Several people shouted out, raising their hands in the air.
Eden scowled. “He’s the neighborhood watchman? And that’s supposed to make us feel better? Do they let him use a gun? I can just imagine him tripping and accidentally pulling the trigger.”
Dotty looked shocked. “Why would he do that?” she whispered.
“The man is either extremely unlucky or ridiculously clumsy,” Eden said.
Dotty giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “Only around you, dear.”
Eden’s eyes widened. “He’s not into me, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“I don’t know exactly how the curse works,” Dotty said.
“Curse?” Eden stared with disbelief. She had just come around to the idea of quirky super powers.
“Oh.” Dotty covered her mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to say yet. Beverly says we have to take it slow with you.”
“Well Beverly doesn’t run all our lives. Spill it.”
The words burst out like water through a broken dam. “Someone put a curse on your grandmother and Kem Skelton.” Dotty covered her mouth again, her eyes wide.
“And that goes for me, too?”
“Well, sometimes it holds through generations. That’s why Beverly wanted Jack to bring the welcome basket. We had to know.”
Eden’s jaw dropped. “That was a test? I’m glad I wasn’t climbing a ladder or operating heavy machinery. So the curse made bad things happen to them?”
Dotty nodded. “Whenever they got too close. They thought they could break the curse, but nothing worked. Then one day Kem had a terrible accident that nearly killed him. That’s when your grandmother disappeared.”