"I've got a kid who has missing teeth and has to stay in a locked facility to keep him from drinking gin. I've got a pink kid."
"Oh yeah. Tickle-me-pink Kyle," Eloise said and then bit the inside of her cheek when Ursula kicked her.
The chief gave her a steady look before he continued. "There's Kathy Redding who can only walk or run backwards, Rob Sandis getting lock jaw because he cannot stop yawning, I have a police officer who can only speak in Ukrainian and now Carol Weatherby who has been writing less than kind articles about you and your friends."
"What exactly happened to her?" Eloise asked.
"She was walking home from work when a flock of birds started following her and then got aggressive, chasing her intoher house where she had to board up windows and doors when they started breaking the glass trying to get in."
"Yikes. That is really scary," she replied and then made a grunt when Ursula kicked her again. "Ouch," she murmured. "I'm trying to convey that we would never do anything like that and Alfred Hitchcock The Birds crap is creepy as hell," she said to Ursula who shook her head, still keeping her mouth shut.
"Here's where we are at," the chief said placing both hands on the table. " I am not charging you with anything." Their faces showed relief and his stoic face took on the slightest edge when he added, "Yet. But do not leave town. I or another officer may bring you in for questioning and if we are able to link either of you or your friends to any of the things going on in town, you will hear from us. We already have you at Carol Weatherby's house." When Eloise opened her mouth to say something he lifted a hand to stop her. "Which I know you said you were there to offer her a story and you're the ones who called it in. But you wouldn't believe how many people commit a crime and are the ones to report it."
Eloise wisely kept her mouth closed this time.
"I'm going to finish the paperwork, and then you are free to go. For now."
That evening Ursula, Eloise and Bess decided to uninvite the stress of the day by dancing in the kitchen while making maple blondies with brown butter pecans, and spring salads with berries and bright poppyseed dressing. The house joined in their ritual by dimming lights and flickering black and green candles in every room. Windows creakily opened a few inches as a spring shower danced gently across Salem. That smell of rain-soaked earth wafted through the house waltzing with vanilla and sage.
They put on You've Got Mail, and curled up under checkered blankets wearing their most comfortable pajamas. Every nowand then the movie was paused so they could chat about nothing which was everything.
Lady Macbeth had taken to sleeping on top of Casper where he typically lay next to the couch. The raccoon lay curled up in the grey hound with her hands reaching up into the red bowl on the couch to sneak popcorn.
Bess didn't come out and talk about the bullying at school, and they knew better than to push it, but when she got choked up when asked about a few of her friends they hadn't seen around in a while, something shifted in the living room. And then Bess's mouth lifted in a soft smile as one of the souls had sat next to her on the large velvet chaise, offering a rush of comfort that couldn't be explained, only accepted.
Happy violets popped out of the planter next to the fireplace, their purple and yellow faces mixing with the earthy ferns.
Eloise smelled the comfort of childhood; old Disney VHS tapes being opened before popped into a VCR and cinnamon sugar toast.
Whatever was going on outside in this strange town, inside this house was a place of comfort and rest.
There was a gorgeous settled feeling that overcame these women when they came together. The world may be a place of war and unrealistic expectations, but here? Here was where they could sigh all of that away and just be. And Bess reveled, for an unlikely teenage moment, in how lucky she was to have this now, at her vulnerable age.
She could never settle for less than the kinds of relationships that invited her to breathe and become who she was meant to be; nothing more and nothing outrageously less.
That evening, as they laughed with characters in a movie and felt the living room fill with the lost souls, a creeping evil in town slithered through the air. It felt the magic happening inside of that house and tilted its head at the audacity of it.
The truth about evil is that it was born of goodness and then taken into someone's hands who would use and twist it for themselves.
24. Varnish and Goodbyes
Taylor had been across town for a domestic case when Eloise called him and while Eloise and Ursula were sitting at the police station in the middle of downtown. He'd barely been able to keep his head in the serious situation he was in, his thoughts going to Eloise and what was going on. When he got back to the station and heard what had happened, his immediate thoughtwas of Eloise and her steadiness. He watched the recording unable to keep a light smile from his face. She had this way about her, taking things just on the shy side of light and airy, while folding in the perfectly cavernous depth that gives conversations that pinch of sweet and smokiness to hold your wonder. And seeing that in an investigation room, where he knew what the goal was and he knew how some detectives were willing to play to score brought a weight to his chest.
Something sour hit him in the jaw at the thought. His heartbeat thudded a little louder. And he realized what that meant.
He had learned early on with his curse that he could dance with the line of flirting and liking a woman for a short spell of time, but there was always a razor-sharp cut-off that he recognized. He would offer kind excuses, a gentle reminder that he wasn't one to fall into a serious relationship. He'd become that guy. And he had been mostly adjusted to that for years. Until Eloise Willow.
He couldn't remember thinking that he had found that cut-off with her. It had slipped under his radar between easy shared laughter and getting to know her. He had started noting everything about her, even writing some of them down in his phone as if he were taking a class on Eloise Snowdrop Willow 101.
The other day when a barista had handed him his black americano he was looking at the earthen clay vase with tall pink and white flowers. He hadn't been able to say why but they struck him as distinctly Eloise. When he asked the barista what they were, not only did the barista tell him that they were foxgloves, but she told him the origin of their name, told to her earlier that day by Eloise.
Fairies gifted the slipper-shaped flowers to foxes to cover their feet when it rained in exchange for their cunning protection.He'd smiled at the whimsy. And then laughed as he got into his patrol vehicle when he realized he couldn't recall the last time he had felt such a tickling thing as whimsy.
Which made him think of his mom and her penchant for making moments like holidays and birthdays magical. His father would make fun of it, like she was a child. And then thoughts of his father's darker attributes came to mind as he clenched the steering wheel tightly in his fists. Darker attributes that led to ruined lives, both his mother's and his own...his curse.
He sat at his desk looking at his phone. That sour punch to his jaw wouldn't ease up. Because he knew what it meant. He knew what he needed to do.
The text sitting in his phone inviting him to help with a project at the cafe was still unanswered. He spent three hours doing paperwork, the pauses and blank thoughts not letting up causing him to get one-third of his usual work done.
