21 Shades of Night, page 450
Opal shook her head again without speaking.
“I can’t help it if I heard those voices, those sad babies, and I have no idea how the cards started flying around.” I paused. “Opal, it wasn’t a performance. It scares me, it does. I wish I knew how I did that.” It wasn’t the first time either. I cringed, recalling how the cards had nicked Mrs. Cuthbert’s neck and left angry, red lines. If only I understood what was happening to me.
When Opal regarded me, her expression was unexpectedly fierce. “You have powers, Fiera, truly. It makes Tim uncomfortable. Peter too.”
I threw my head back and snorted. “But Tim is Peter’s friend, and Peter is billed as a medium. Why would Tim loll around Peter if mediums gave him the willies? And why is Peter afraid?” When I glanced back at Opal, she looked stricken. Another round of laughter that was pressing at my throat dissolved like acid. “Is Peter pretending to have reading powers? Why would he do that?”
Opal wouldn’t directly answer the questions. Instead, she dipped a finger into her tea and stirred it around. “You have a job. You’re very good at it. Mr. Dune sees that. Hopefully, he’ll give Tim a what-for.”
“I cannot believe that Tim accused me of doing something underhanded to make those cards fly.”
“Your power threatens him. He has no talents. He’s a hanger-on.” She gave me one of her rare smiles, which made her brooding face light up. “I’m glad you’re here, Fiera.”
I got up and hugged her. Her ribs and shoulder bones jutted out like baby chicken wings. She reminded me of the new arrivals at the orphanage—lonely, lost, and wispy as March clouds. I felt a surge of protectiveness. “Shall we take in some sun tomorrow at the beach? Do you have the morning off? What do you say?”
“Why yes, I do. I’d like that.” Opal rose to her feet and brushed off her dress. “Are you sure?” She was suddenly shy.
“Of course, Opal. You can’t work all the time, can you? Are you a good swimmer?”
“I can do the crawl and the backstroke.”
“You’ve got me beat by a mile then.” I gave her arm a squeeze. “What do you say you give me a swimming lesson? I can hardly tread water.”
“That sounds perfect.” She held up her cup. “Shall I wash our cups for you before I go?”
I took it from her. “Don’t be silly. You work for Peter, not me. I’ll run some water over them. See you tomorrow morning, in your swimming costume.” I gave her another impulsive hug, feeling much like the older sister I never had the good fortune to be.
* * *
“RAISE IT LIKE this,” Opal instructed. She formed a wide circle with a rail-thin arm, then the other, and let each one paddle under the water only to rise again in a graceful arc. We were wading in the shallows, but each breaking wave threatened to knock me over as I practiced.
I was slowly getting the knack of it. Even more exciting was a growing sense that I belonged here—inhaling the scent of seaweed, the swell and ebb of the mysterious aquamarine depths around my hips. It was entrancing. After a series of bungled tries, I managed a respectable doggie paddle away and back to Opal.
“Well done!” she said in a proud teacher voice. Opal would make a good schoolmarm. With her natural seriousness, I could imagine her in her thirties, a little more filled out with a tight bun and pressed uniform, addressing a room full of students as gangly as she was now.
I swam back and forth about six times. Each time, Opal clapped ceremoniously for me. On the seventh lap away from her, I felt a strong urge to go further. So strong, I couldn’t resist. I pushed my arms forward and dove underwater. Once under, I heard a sound, like the humming of golden-throated mermaids. How utterly ridiculous, I thought as I kept on paddling. I was out past the breakers now, and the humming grew more compelling. It was as sweet as the earlier cry of the murdered infants had been bitter. “Come, Fiera,” it sang, “Come out to us, out to us.” Whether the unearthly song was inside my ears, or outside, it was impossible to tell.
On sudden impulse, I dove deeper. In my bones, I felt a delicious, haunting memory of homecoming. On another undeniable impulse, I opened my eyes to see, in vivid clarity, my hair swirling around me, and a glowing green light further ahead.
This too, seemed as natural as drinking a glass of water or combing my hair, and I made my way toward the iridescent underwater lamp, which lured me forward. I scissor-kicked my legs as if I’d been swimming for decades—a human mermaid.
No, Fiera, you’re getting too bold, I scolded. You don’t yet know how to swim properly. It’s impossible with only one lesson. I gaped up toward the sun, undulating through the waves. I was so very deep down with no confidence in my ability to dart back to the surface. Abruptly, I floundered and forgot to hold my breath. I inhaled salty water, which burned my lungs.
Paddling desperately, I struggled toward the surface like a dying porpoise.
Abruptly, lifeguards swarmed all around me, big, burly men, clutching my arms and hauling me in. I pictured the time Peter’s arms had reined me in me and hauled me to shore, and then I remembered we were barely friends anymore.
It turned out to be only two lifeguards, one for each of my arms, helping me lumber over each fierce breaker. They deposited me on the sand, seaweed wound through my hair like tarnished green pirate treasure, my bathing costume bunched up in a terribly unladylike fashion, me coughing out water, while that eerie green light I’d seen still haunted me. It was so very real.
“You almost swam into the jetty rocks!” a lifeguard exclaimed.
The second lifeguard took my pulse. “Didn’t you see the red flag and the signs saying no swimming near the jetty?”
“I saw a green light flashing under the sea. Did you put it there? Does it warn ships they’re too close to shore?” I gasped between wet coughs.
“There’s no underwater light anywhere near that jetty, miss,” insisted one lifeguard, giving the other a baffled frown. “Must have been your mind playing tricks from your near-drowning.”
Opal stood above me with a pale, distraught grimace. “Is she okay, sirs?”
“She’ll be fine, but tell your friend not to go out so far until she learns how to swim, you hear?”
Opal nodded, her eyes pinpricks of fear.
“Fiera! Is that you?” another familiar voice remarked. I looked to my other side. Dulcie! “Whatever is the matter?” she asked one of the lifeguards.
“She swam out too far. You’ll look after her?”
“Why… yes, of course.”
“I will too,” Opal promised.
Dulcie looked from me, over to Opal on my other side, and back to me, utter confusion written on her face. “Fiera, is she with you?”
I struggled to sit up, at which I choked up another round of frothy, discolored seawater. Opal wrapped her thin towel around my shoulders. “This is Opal from Peter Dune’s shop,” I finally spluttered.
“Yes, I recall.” Dulcie looked vaguely uncomfortable. It occurred to me that her level of society never fraternized with their hired help. That to her, Opal was no better than a maid or cook. The idea irritated me, though I was too bleary to think clearly about it. “Good heavens!” Dulcie exclaimed, helping me to my feet. “Fiera, I’m thrilled to see you again. But what a complete surprise!”
“Opal here was teaching me how to swim.”
“Come, join me.” Dulcie offered me a steadying arm, and the three of us walked to her chaise. Once there, Opal stood around nervously as Dulcie pulled over another two chairs. “Would you like a seat, dear?” she asked.
“Miss, perhaps I should head back.” She eyed the towel she’d given me that was now around my shoulders.
“Nonsense,” I insisted. “And call me Fiera. Come, sit by me.”
Opal gave me a grateful smile. I handed her my own dry towel. She spread it over her seat and sat gingerly, as if she was afraid to muss it up.
Dulcie turned to me. “So, what brings you back?”
I was in a pickle, not knowing how much to say about being fired in front of Opal. Or how much I wanted to say about working for Peter in front of Dulcie. But it wasn’t my nature to lie either.
“Things were a tad bumpy with my nanny job, so I um… thought I’d inquire into employment possibilities in Asbury.” I shrugged. “It’s still summer, after all.”
Dulcie gave me a warm hug. “That’s delightful. Are you seeking another nanny job? Do you know anyone around here? Other than myself… and—?” When Dulcie glanced over at Opal, her refined features twisted into a confused frown.
Embarrassed heat wafted into my cheeks. Dulcie must’ve been putting together two and two. She didn’t understand the desperate need to make money at any costs. Not like I did. Not like Opal would.
Opal had the good sense to stay quiet.
“You poor dear,” Dulcie cooed. “Don’t bother explaining anything now. You just about drowned! You must be exhausted.” I nodded weakly. “I have a great idea,” Dulcie eagerly added. “Come learn to swim at my beach club! It’s impossible to learn in these high waves, Fiera. The pool at my club is crystal clear and calm.”
“That makes sense.” I glanced over at Opal. I hated to cut her out of the lessons, especially since she’d been a game soul to teach me in the first place.
Opal sensed my worries. She patted my arm. “That sounds grand, Fiera. These waves are a challenge.”
“Well, you’d come too, wouldn’t she, Dulcie?”
Dulcie smiled. “The more, the merrier. I don’t see why not.” But the waver in her voice belied her misgivings. Perhaps my growing power of sensing knew she was uncomfortable with viewing Opal as an equal.
Still, I had to swim. I would do anything to dive back under those ocean waves.
Chapter 14
IT HAD ALL been leading up to this. I’d felt it for a couple of weeks. Tim and I were sliding way out of sync, and I was too tired and drained from the drama of the reading to contain my temper.
“Why on earth would you confront Fiera like that, Tim? We’re supposed to find out as much as we can without exposing who we are—get more evidence first. Now, Fiera will know we suspect her of being a con.”
He sniggered. “Funny, you don’t act as if she’s conning anyone. Far as I can see, you’re swooning like a schoolgirl and eating up her every dark Grimm’s Fairy Tale.”
“Now wait a darn minute!”
“The first time you fainted, I thought you were putting on an act. Now I think it’s real. Can you truly handle this line of work? You’re cracking. Do you even know what you said?” Tim’s freckled face contorted in a grimace. “You scared away Talcott. We need him on our side in order to infiltrate their two-bit operation. Your melodramatic acting went too far. He thought you’d had a stroke.”
I breathed out in a disgusted huff. “Isn’t that our job? To make a good show of it?”
“Sure, but you take it too far.” Tim flipped pages back in his notebook. “And what does all of your lunatic babbling mean?”
Clammy nerves wafted through me. Truth be told, I had no idea what I’d said. So I waited, hoping yet dreading he’d reveal it all.
Tim launched into an account of my supposed tirade. “You mumbled something about killing babies, poisoning them with iodine, with botulism, and about taking a tour through some old granny’s kitchen with gray paisley linoleum. Said you were in a room with a black cauldron, and the old hag was wearing square-toed shoes that you deemed witch boots. You said she was mumbling Latin, and you claimed it was her witch’s spell.” Tim glared at me as if I was an oil stain on his dress trousers.
“That’s absurd. I never said those things.”
“You’re accusing me of lying?” Tim wagged the notebook at me. “I have evidence. We’ll answer to our boss sooner than you think.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a fact,” he spat out. “Mr. Vane is coming down in a few days from the New York headquarters. Don’t you remember? Or has your brain been pickled by that card reader?”
“Her name is Fiera, and she’s nothing to me. I’m simply trying to get evidence on her.”
“Then why were you so upset when I asked to inspect her cards?”
“Because it’s too obvious, Tim. You’re the one who’s fouling up our case.”
Tim stalked over to my desk. Before I realized what he was going for, he grabbed a fistful of the Lucky in Love taffy I’d left out, including a dozen empty wrappers of pieces I’d already devoured. He pitched them to the floor. They scattered under my chair, around my shoes. “You’re eating this garbage like it’s opium,” he exclaimed. “You’re falling for the girl. Deny it all you want, but you’re the one waxing up the works.”
“Get out!” My fists itched to bust open his jaw. I was a gentleman though; I didn’t do that. It would be his fault if I transformed into a marauding beast. I had to get him out.
He must’ve felt my rage. “Fine by me.” He grabbed his hat and hurried toward the door. “If you refuse to fix your mistakes, we’re done. If you fix things, get Miss Bone here for another reading, we can talk. That’s what Talcott wants; it’s the only way to lure him back.”
“Why are you so fixated on Talcott? It makes no sense when the person your crosshairs are on is Fiera.” Admittedly, a small part of me didn’t want Fiera to be caught, but really, Tim’s preoccupation with Talcott bordered on the manic. We’d only gotten a box of retouched photos from him, and I was pretty sure that was all we’d get.
Tim focused a hateful frown on me. “I almost got Talcott snookered into letting us attend one of their private séances. Members only. But after tonight…”
I bent over my desk, raking a hand through my hair. Embarrassment and fury rolled out of me in alternate waves. Tim had been working hard, and what I had accomplished? I sighed. “Look, I’ll speak to Alyse Bone—see what I can do to get her in here.”
“The sooner the better.”
“We’re on the same side, Tim, but please don’t tell me how to run the business.” As he stomped out of my office and then the store, my phone rang. Normally, I welcomed company matters, but a shadowy intuition had me flinching.
Intuition? I was becoming as bad as Fiera, getting crazy hunches that I had even a pinch of psychic powers. “Pshaw,” I grunted and reached for my phone.
Chapter 15
“GOOD, FIERA!” DULCIE cheered me on as I swam laps in her pristine beach club pool.
She had invited Opal too, but Opal had bowed out. “I need to work,” she protested. Dulcie would never admit her prejudices, yet her visible relief gave her away. I wondered whether I’d been born to a lowly mother—some scullery maid—or to a highborn unwed mother ferried off to give birth in secret so as not to tarnish her reputation. I’d never know, although I suspected the former because my automatic sympathies went to Opal.
Despite my timidity around the beach club clientele—ladies in beach pajamas with peacock prints, a mother and daughter in matching striped sailor-style bathing gear, and men lolling in chaises, sunning their tanned and oiled Hollywood bodies—I became so preoccupied with perfecting the movements of my arms and the kicking of my legs that I relaxed quickly into the repetitive strokes. Cutting through the sun-warmed liquid was divine. I sped through dozens of laps. Though, strangely, I missed the briny seawater and the tugging of the tides.
“Fiera, dear!” Dulcie called when I popped my head up for a breather.
I waved and made my way over to the ladder where she held out a thick, white towel monogrammed with the club’s logo—AHSC for Atlantic Heights Swim Club.
Wrapping myself up in it, I followed her to the chaises she’d pulled together. Dulcie reached in her cabbage rose bag for her signature drinks—two ice cold Moxies—and popped off their cork-lined tops with the opener she’d tied to the inside with a violet ribbon. She handed me one.
“Gee, thanks! Swimming makes a girl thirsty.” I took a refreshing gulp.
“You’re almost a real mermaid now,” she remarked. “I’d say your progress is one-hundred percent better than your seaside mishaps.”
“One-thousand percent.” We giggled.
“So, Fiera, what really brings you back to Asbury?”
I told her about being fired, even about Terrence finding my Tarot deck, but I said nothing about sleeping in the shantytown. She’d be too shocked.
“Did you gain employment yet?”
I couldn’t lie. I just couldn’t. Sighing deeply, I said, “Peter Dune hired me to be a card reader.”
Dulcie lowered her sunglasses and leveled her gaze on me. “Fiera, you were convinced he was a madman, obsessed with getting you in his bed.”
“I know, I know.” I hated the whine in my voice. “But this time, it’s all business. I told him no hanky-panky.”
Her responding chuckle was surprisingly raunchy. “Lordie, you have nerve! I would’ve liked to have seen his face.”
I allowed myself to relax into the chaise. “It was pretty funny. He agreed to my terms. I guess I’m a better businesswoman than I imagined.”
“Oh? What terms? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Well, I told him I needed room and board. He put me up in the Starfish Inn.”
She clucked. “A tad shabby but not dangerous. You don’t think he expects more of a payback, do you? I’d watch him like a hawk. And dearie, if you want to stay in one of my daddy’s hotels, you—”
“No, Dulcie. You’ve done more than enough. I really appreciate the offer, but I wouldn’t feel right.”
She rubbed drops of condensation off her pop bottle. “You’re so proud, Fiera. I admire you for it. You didn’t even keep that dress I gave you.”
“It was a loan.” I didn’t want to owe anyone anything or depend on anyone’s help. No one had helped me get a leg up so far. It was safer to go it alone, that way no one could hurt or disappoint me.
“But I offered it to you.” Dulcie gave me one more earnest, motherly gaze and then tossed back her blonde curls. “If the Starfish is fine by you, I’m copacetic with it. I have to go soon. I have a date.”
