Omens

Chapter Forty-eight

When we turned onto Rowan, the moon slid from behind the clouds and illuminated a strangely perfect circle of glowing white mushrooms.

Rose quoted, “And I serve the fairy queen, to dew her orbs upon the green.”

“Midsummer Night’s Dream again?”

“Of course.” She walked over to the mushrooms. “If it’s fairies, it must be Shakespeare. And that”—she pointed—“is a fairy circle.”

“Ah.” I followed, dew dampening my sneakers.

“You have no idea what a fairy circle is, do you?” She sighed. “Which is shocking for a changeling child.”

“What?”

She laughed as she bent beside the mushrooms. “You know what that is, then.”

“Sure. It’s a fairy child left in place of a human one. I stumbled across the Bridget Cleary story in a high school law class.”

Rose recited, “Are you a witch, or are you a fairy, or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?”

“Her husband burned her to death and was found guilty of manslaughter, not murder, because he claimed she was a changeling.”

“And you cannot murder a nonhuman.” Rose smiled. “The much-underutilized fairy defense. One that would impress even my nephew.”

“So now you’re saying that I’m a changeling?”

“Metaphorically speaking, of course. A child stolen from her parents and snuck off to others, who raise her unaware of her true heritage.”

Tricked by malicious fairy folk. I wondered what my mother—Lena—would think of that. Was it how she felt?

“Olivia?”

“Sorry.” I snapped out of it and nodded at the mushrooms. “What’s the story with these?”

“They’re considered the dancing place of the fair folk. If you see them, you must hurry on. Do them any harm and you are doomed to misfortune and early death. Dance with them and you’ll dance forever, trapped in their circle.”

I crouched to look more closely. “There must be a natural explanation for the growth formations.”

“Don’t be dull, Olivia. There is no graver sin.” She began walking again. “Now come. We’re having tea, and you’re going to tell me what you found in your room.”

I looked up sharply.

“Did I mention I have the second sight?” she said.

“No, Grace told you I thought someone broke into my place.”

“Perhaps, but how would that explain knowing that something was left in your room?”

“Inference. Or firsthand knowledge.”

“You mean I put it there?” Rose laughed. “That would be a trick indeed, considering Grace won’t let me set foot on her property. The old bat hates me.”

She resumed walking, long strides consuming the sidewalk.

I caught up. “I thought you were friends. I know you gossip.”

“No. We trade points of information. When dealing with a bogart, one must be careful.”

“Bogart … Right. That’s a type of brownie.”

“You remember. Excellent. Yes, it’s a particularly nasty subspecies.”

“I don’t think she’d appreciate the comparison.”

“Didn’t I mention that I keep a sprig of hawthorn in my attic to ward off bogarts? Grace hasn’t darkened my doorstep in years. If that’s not proof, I don’t know what is. Of course, it could be the fact that the last time she came over, I threatened to pluck out a hair and fashion a poppet. But I prefer to believe it’s the hawthorn.”

I laughed.

Rose continued, “She’s useful to me, I’m useful to her. As long as that continues, Rowan Street is safe from an old-lady smack down of epic proportions.” She turned up her walk. “Come inside, get tea, and tell me what you found.”

As it turned out, Rose didn’t know that something had been left in my apartment. Grace had told her I suspected a break-in, Rose had guessed that something was left behind and my reaction had confirmed it.

“A con artist mustn’t be afraid of being wrong,” she said as she set out a plate of ginger snaps. “We must be willing to make guesses, act as if we fully believe them to be true and promptly dismiss them when they aren’t.”

“I thought you really had the sight.”

“I do.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with the teapot, picking up the conversation as if she’d never left. “But it isn’t like a light switch. I can’t simply flick it on when I need it. Think of it as…”

She walked to a group of vintage photographs, removed one, and brought it over to the table. “Recognize this?”

The photo showed a dumpy old woman in mourning black, with a very recognizable “ghost” behind her. “Abraham Lincoln?”

Rose nodded. “William Mumler’s photo of Mary Todd and her dead husband. And this one?” She picked up a second and brought it to me.

“Again, it looks like Lincoln and…” I sputtered a laugh. “P. T. Barnum?”

“Correct. Barnum hired someone to create that photo, which he then gave as evidence in Mumler’s fraud trial, proving how easily it could be done. Barnum may have believed there was a sucker born every minute, but apparently he didn’t think it was fair if the ‘sucker’ was a grieving relative.”

Rose sat across from me. “The second sight is like the ability to see the dead. One cannot simply conjure real ghosts for a photo session.”

“Like real fairies?” I said, reaching for a ginger snap.

She waved a finger at me. “You mock, yet you want to know more. Feigning disinterest is fine for teenagers, but you should be beyond that.”

Rose poured the tea. “Let me give another analogy, then. My power is like the ability to notice and interpret omens.”

My fingers tightened, almost snapping my cookie. She continued without glancing up. “If one could interpret omens and portents, one would presumably have to wait for them to arrive. Like ghosts or the sight. One could not simply conjure them out of the ether.” She lifted her gaze to mine. “Can you?”

“W-what?”

“Is the analogy correct? Does the omen need to exist where everyone can see it? Or can one appear to you and only you?”

“I don’t know—”

“—what I’m talking about?” Rose sighed deeply and added milk to her tea. “All right. We’ll continue this game a little longer. Now, tell me what you found in your apartment.”

I showed her the photos of the symbol under my mattress. When I said I had a sample of the powder, she made me retrieve it.

“There was something like it sprinkled outside my door a few days before,” I said after I got back, as she opened the paper to reveal the grayish powder within. “I thought I detected a symbol there, too, but I was probably imagining things. Hell, I’m probably imagining the powder, too. It might have just been cigarette ash, and I—”

She lifted a hand. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Qualify and backtrack in an attempt to keep from looking foolish. I’m a professional psychic, Olivia. People come to me and say they’ve been cursed by their neighbor, possessed by demons, visited by an angel … I’ve heard it all and I never think the worse of anyone for it.”

“Never?”

She shrugged. “Demon possession strains the boundaries of credulity, given the sheer number of times it seems to happen. One would really hope demons had better things to do with their time.”

She pulled the powder-strewn paper toward her, peered at it, then went to her desk and retrieved a magnifying glass. She took a better look. She rubbed some on her forefinger. She sniffed it. Even tasted it. Then she examined the photos again.

“It’s a ward,” she said finally. “Very old. Gaelic or Celtic, I believe.”

“To ward something off,” I said. “What? Evil? Bad luck?”

“Possibly … depending on what someone thinks of you.”

“Thinks of me?”

“It’s a ward against you. A magical ‘get lost.’”

“An anti–welcoming committee?”

She nodded. “The cards foretold difficulty, which is why I suggested you get a gun. Cainsville has welcomed you, and Cainsville is not a welcoming place. Someone has noticed that and is either envious or concerned.”

“Why?”

“As I’m sure you’ve realized, Cainsville is a peculiar little town. As to the exact depth and nature of its peculiarities?” She shrugged. “Pay attention. That’s all I can say. Answers will come when you’re ready for them. It’s not my place to say more.”

“Okay…”

“Let’s get back to this, shall we?” She poked at the powder again. “Monkshood to warn you that danger is near. Yellow carnation for rejection. Rhododendron telling you to beware.”

“In other words, a no-holds-barred ‘scram and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’ Could it be Grace? She has a key to my apartment.”

Rose shook her head. “The only complaint she’s made is about your cat, and even then, she’s only grumbling. For Grace, that’s as close to a seal of endorsement as you’ll get.”

She looked at the photos again. “Let me think on this and see if the cards will provide direction. In the meantime, I heard that my nephew brought you that gun?”

I nodded.

“Good. Keep it close.”

Saturday was my day off. Dr. Evans had e-mailed me the evening before to get my work schedule. He was working on setting up some interviews for the next week. He’d also invited me over Sunday, to talk some more if I wanted. I hadn’t given him an answer yet, but I planned to go. Talking to him did help.

Having no plans for the day, I decided to sleep in … and my phone rang at seven thirty.

I checked the number. A Chicago-area one I didn’t recognize.

I answered.

“Ms. Lars—” a woman began. She stopped herself. “My apologies. Ms. Jones?”

“Yes…”

“This is Dr. Yvonne Escoda. I was contacted by the office of Gabriel Walsh, in regards to your medical files.”

After the hospital visit, I’d made an offhand comment to Gabriel that I should really get my old medical records. The conversation hadn’t gone any further. Had he placed the call before I fired him? Or after…

“Ms. Jones?”

“Sorry. This is just unexpected. Mr. Walsh no longer represents me. When did he call?”

“Yesterday. His admin assistant didn’t mention that you were a client. She said you were a friend, and he was doing this as a favor.”

Damn it.

Dr. Escoda went on. “Regardless of the circumstances, Mr. Walsh discovered that my father had been your primary physician. He had arranged a meeting at my office this morning to deliver your records to you.” She paused. “We do have a file for Eden Larsen. Daughter of Pamela and Todd Larsen. Born 1987.”

“That’d be me.”

“It ends when you were nearly two. Your parents decided to take you to another physician. I believe they’d moved and our office was no longer convenient. Normally, the file would have been transferred, but there’s no record of that.”

“So you only have my early file. That’s fine.”

“No, I’m afraid it isn’t. The file we have for Eden Larsen can’t be yours. The child in it had spina bifida. If you were her, you’d be in a wheelchair by now, which you are not, as I understand.”

“Definitely not. So your father mixed up the records?”

“I … I cannot imagine him doing that, but someone has made an error.”

She went on to assure me that her staff was searching old records for the file that belonged to me. She promised she would contact me as soon as it was found.