Annette Blair (21 page)

Doris pointed a finger Kira’s way. “You got the story from the last book about this place, didn’t you? Davie’s uncle wrote that, and he never did get the story right. It was the birds, Davie said. He told me the ghost was after getting the crows back.”

“Are you sure, Doris?” Gram said.

Doris pulled her arm from Gram’s hold. “Yes. The aviary had been closed, you see, and the ghost said to get the crows back, or everyone would be “kissed.” Silly, I know, but that’s what Davie said. They got the birds back; he was that scared. Got ’em and kept ’em, and Davie put it in his will that they had to stay, forever.”

“Yes!” Kira said, her eyes so bright, Jason could fall in and drown happy.

Everyone applauded, as if Doris’s revelation were part of the show.

Jason offered Doris his arm and escorted her to the refreshment table, probably to quiet her ramblings while they were ahead of the game, Kira thought.

Wherever Jason went, their attendees rallied around him. Jason Goddard in person was pure charisma, a rare
diamond of a charmer, flawless, his smile alone worth the million he’d won on the reality show.

He was flirting for dollars, and he was a natural.

Kira felt as if she’d fallen in the deep end of the infatuation pool where he was concerned, which made her nervous as a cat.

She wondered now if he had been using his million-dollar charm for her benefit in the stairwell the other day, except that she was the only one who benefited from that performance.

If he had honestly been attracted, which his erection plainly said he was, it must have been because she was the only warm body available. Because when he really had his chance, he’d run away.

And on the phone? Well, what man wouldn’t be turned on by phone sex? What woman, either, for that matter?

Kira gave credibility to her rising blush by announcing that it was time for the cemetery tour, pretending embarrassment for her interruption.

No sooner had she announced it than Jason took her arm, as he had taken Doris’s a while ago, but this time he placed his hand over hers and squeezed as they led the way to the cemetery. The evening was comfortably cool, enough for just a sweater. No coats or umbrellas necessary.

Four gravestones would be spotlighted, as needed, three whose epitaphs lent themselves to fictionalization, and as a grand finale, the headstone most of them had never seen, the monument to Addie Winthrop.

They decided to save Addie’s for last, because the fact that it had been raised after so long was big news. Crews were standing by to film the story, great coverage for the foundation and its causes.

The news crews had asked to film segments of the cemetery tour, as well, which would surely raise the prestige of the event in the eyes of their philanthropic attendees.

Kira led them to the first stone, and when that spotlight went on, she read the first fictionalization into a portable
mike, a lusty tale of Nathan Winthrop’s third cousin, Kathleen, age eighteen years, who died in a suspicious carriage-house fire in 1919. Kira ended by reading the stone:

“K
ATHLEEN
H
ARRINGTON
Vain in beauty,
Siren in song,
Perished in shame.
Nevermore do we speak her name.”

Jason read the second story, of a young dressmaker, a stranger who died at Rainbow’s Edge in 1920, after residing with the family for three weeks, while fashioning a new wardrobe for Addie. Jason read her stone:

“L
YDIA
G
ODEY
S
PIRE
Sewed by the fire,
Caught her skirts
And made her a pyre.
’Twas it that warmed her,
Also claimed her.”

Gram told of a sixteen-year-old servant girl who’d killed Addie’s beloved crow with a rock in 1921. The girl did the deed, ran, tripped, and fell into an inferno of autumn leaves. Gram read the last epitaph:

“L
IZZIE
W
ILLIAMS
As if an unseen arm
Propelled her in,
The fire she swallowed,
And the witch did win.”

“What gruesome stories,” Jennie Ellers, heiress and busybody, said as she preened for the cameras. “And all of them young women.”

“Well, what do you expect to find in a cemetery?” Gram
asked. “Happy endings? Besides, this is a ghost tour. How frightening would a normal death be?”

Jennie harrumphed. “Did no one in this place die of old age? Of anything but fire? Did none of the
men
die young?”

All morbidly valid questions, Kira thought.

“Thirty-five was old back then,” Jason said, capturing a few grunts of assent. “There are plenty of people buried here who died of natural causes,” he said, “but their gravestones weren’t as interesting.”

“Now for Addie’s mysterious gravestone,” Kira said to capture their attention as she signaled for the spotlight, then the unveiling. The cameras moved closer as Jason took the mike to read the stone:

“A
DDIE
W
INTHROP
Her words:
At the edge of the Rainbow
In the void of the mist,
Accused of witchcraft,
Her accuser, she kissed.
With a beak and a claw,
And the flap of a wing,
She sent him to Hades
For the fire to sting.

 

Beneath this stone,
She does not lie.
Do not question;
The birds know why.
She’s at the edge of the Rainbow
In the void of the mist,
Waiting to kiss you,
And you will be missed.”

A stunned silence was followed by murmurs of speculation.

Doris Putnam poked Jason in the side with her cane and cackled like the crow in the aviary. “Didn’t I tell you? She had a love for the birds, did old Addie.”

Still laughing, Doris shook her head. “Davie, you old bugger,” she said, waving her cane toward the heavens. “You were right all along.”

Kira realized that her fingernails were cutting into Jason’s arm and that he was holding her waist in the same gripping manner.

“My God,” Jennie breathed. “There really is a ghost at Rainbow’s Edge.”

“Of course,” Jason said, not looking Kira’s way, since she was as surprised as him, and they both knew it.

“Why do you suppose Addie let her stone be raised now, after more than eighty years?” Gram asked.

“Perhaps it’s because we brought everyone here to witness her plight,” Kira said.

“Plight?” Jennie said with a laugh. “Old Addie reveals a pretty clear
threat
on that stone.”

“Or a great deal of fear,” Kira said.

“Yes,” Jason said. “She had to have written it when she was alive and frightened, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate her accusers?”

Kira shook her head, denying her belief in his statement. “Perhaps
Addie
didn’t even write it. Look at the dates on the stones we chose—1919, 1920, 1921—and in 1922 Addie gets accused of witchcraft, then she’s found conveniently dead?”

“What are you getting at?” Gram asked.

“The epitaphs on those three stones are poetic, different from the rest, making them stand out,” Kira said, “similar to Addie’s stone. That was the reason we chose them for tonight. If we could take a trip back in time, I’ll bet we’d find that old Nate, Addie’s husband, had the stones engraved,” Kira said. “It looks like a setup to me.”

Jason nodded. “Who else but the head of a family would order the gravestones in those days? Not a woman,” he said.
“And what’s with that additional line: ‘Her words’? Why was that necessary?”

“To point the finger her way?” Gram said.

“Right. Maybe old Nate
wanted
Addie out of the way and under suspicion.”

“The philandering sot,” Gram snapped, firming her lips.

“That’s what I suspected,” Kira said.

“Some people still didn’t take kindly to witchcraft back then,” Jason said. “It’s likely Addie was accused for foolish reasons, the pet crow, for one, or these fiery accidents . . . if they were accidents. Maybe the squeaky-clean old Nate was behind them all.”

“But there’s no mention in the family history,” an attendee said. “I believe I’ve read them all.”

“Of course there’s no mention,” Gram said. “Nathaniel wrote most of them, didn’t he, except for the one by Davie’s uncle, thirty years later. Nate let us know that the women died here and how they died, but not much more, except to cast a shadow on his wife.”

“I may have been a girl back then,” Doris said, “but I heard talk. Old Nathan did like the skirts. He always had a different woman on his arm, sometimes two, before and after Addie passed.”

Kira shivered and Jason brought her close, the closest they’d been since the week before in the hidden stairs.

“I have to tell you,” the president of a local bank said, “I feel as if I’ve actually seen a ghost on this tour. Good job, Goddard. Excellent!”

Applause followed the man’s words, but Jason gave Kira the credit before Gram hustled their attendees back toward the house, all of them highly entertained, ready for the dessert buffet, a visit to the aviary, and dancing.

The news crew remained and interviewed Kira and Jason, then they packed up the news van and left.

Still standing there, stunned by the way things had come together, Kira turned to Jason. “Why do
you
think Addie let her stone be raised now?”

“Because you’re here?”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, I mean it. Maybe it’s because you’re a witch, too, or because you befriended her birds, or because you made everyone see what she faced. I have a feeling that you might have set Addie free tonight. Cleared her name. Given her closure.”

“I like that theory.”

“Good,” Jason said. “You should be pleased. Our first event was a success, because of you.”

“Well, you’re the one who picked Rainbow’s Edge on All Hallows’ Eve. How bizarre is that?”

Jason took her into his arms and nuzzled her neck, her shoulder, the edge of her strapless gown, there, under the pale quarter moon, and Kira loved it.

As their play became heated and sensual, the wind rose, sighing as if in contentment, swirling the leaves high about their ankles, then higher into the air until the turbulence caught their attention.

When Kira and Jason looked up, a murder of crows flew from the trees in a vee, dipped their wings, cawed as if in approval, and spiraled into the black starless sky.

“We’ve never seen that many before,” Jason said. “How many were there? I know you counted.”

“Twelve,” Kira said.

“Which means?”

“I think Addie got what she was wanted.”

Jason nudged Kira’s bodice with a finger, traced the edge, slid his finger beneath, and distracted her.

“What was it that you think Addie wanted?” he asked some time later. “What
do
twelve crows augur?”

“Closure.”

JASON
led Kira back to Rainbow’s Edge after a ghost and graveyard tour neither could have imagined, one that left his heart racing as much for its magic as for the witch who brought it about.

Jason chatted up their guests and gave house tours, and later, to his amazement, Kira agreed to get into the birdcage and show off the crows.

Once inside, she patted her shoulder, and the crow with the chipped beak jumped up to perch there.

“Nice Chippy,” Kira said, naming the bird as she stroked its feathers, and it stroked her hair.

“Nice Mommy,” Chippy said, and Kira winked mischievously at Doris Putnam, who gasped and would have lost her footing if not for Jason, who righted her, winked, and offered his arm.

Jason let the development director introduce him to as many potential major donors as she could find before he caught Kira on her way by, excused himself, and escorted her to the music room. There, he took Kira into his arms
to dance until Gram came to say that their guests were leaving.

Jason bid them a good evening, basking in the magical afterglow of success and congratulations.
Bewitched
was the only word to describe his evening, his emotions, his pleasure at having Kira beside him, his satisfaction with where he stood at this moment in time, all of which should scare him, but didn’t. Not tonight.

The next afternoon, after school, on Halloween, they repeated the event, in costume, with seven nuns, two hundred boys, unlit jack-o’-lanterns, Halloween treats, outdoor games with prizes, an amusing visit with Kira and the birds, and no graveyard tour. Those gravestones would have scared the boys, Jason thought. Hell, they had scared him.

He’d condescended to wearing his famed hockey jersey. Kira wore a witch’s hat, her gold-starred scarf around her neck, flowing to the floor, front and back, over a
modest
black dress, fortunately or unfortunately.

Tuesday morning Jason drove Kira to Rainbow’s Edge, each of them trying to get enough caffeine into their systems to jumpstart their fried brains.

“It was an amazing event, both times,” Kira said, while she helped him unstring the lights from the stair rail leading to the aviary, the birds screaming as if they knew she was there and could hardly wait for her arrival.

“I think they want a command performance,” Jason said, looking up the stairs.