Norman Partridge - Wildest Dreams

I flipped to the back flap of Marble Roads and studied the hazy photo of Janice Ravenwood. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was fanned over a black evening dress and she was doing her best to look beautiful in a noble, Russian kind of way.

Which was another way of saying that the photo did exactly what it was supposed to do and then some. The way I figured it, with a jacket photo like that and a couple rungs’ ascendancy on the bestseller lists, Janice was sure to earn herself a spot in Clifford Rakes’s wallet gallery.

But I was getting ahead of myself, concentrating on the sizzle and forgetting the steak. I took the time to sample the words Janice Ravenwood had written. It was the usual stuff for the usual crowd, pillow books for the unimaginative and the gullible, but it wasn’t all bad. Janice could actually write. She had it all over Shirley MacLaine, and she kept the touchy-feely bits to a minimum. For example, she handled each and every one of those philosophical intangibles that troubled me in a straightforward glossary that closed out Marble Roads.

I was tempted to clip it and save it for easy reference.

Maybe keep it in my wallet.

Or the wallet I’d recently stolen.

Keep it right there with those photos of bestselling literary lionesses.

But clipping could wait. I grabbed paperbacks of Living with the Dead and The Ghost Inside You, adding a Marble Roads hardcover to my stack. Then I reached under my untucked shirttail, my hand barely skimming the pommel of my K-bar as I extracted Clifford Rakes’s wallet.

Good old Clifford.

“I think these should get me started,” I said, sliding the books toward the cash register.

The clerk’s expression told me that I’d obviously made the right impression. “In two weeks, Janice will be doing a signing for To the Devil a Daughter,” she gushed. “It’s Circe Whistler’s autobiography. Janice was the ghostwriter.”

“They couldn’t have timed that one better if they’d tried, huh?”

“Well, it’s not out just yet,” the clerk explained, managing to look slightly embarrassed. “We’re not scheduled to have copies until next week, but I’d be glad to reserve one for you if you’re interested.”

“Do you think there’s any chance I could get in touch with Ms. Ravenwood before then? She seems like such an expert. I’d love to talk to her about the things I’ve seen.”

“Since Marble Roads, Janice has become very popular. And with the Circe Whistler book coming, well…I’m sure you understand that Janice is a very busy person. She doesn’t often do private consultations -”

“Sure.” I handed over Clifford’s American Express Card. But since I’m here in town…well, I really feel that I have to at least give it a try. I’m having such a hard time with the things I’m seeing, and I really want to understand what’s going on.”

The clerk’s brows knitted in real concern.

Mine did too, but in anticipation.

She opened the cash drawer, slipped a card from one of the trays, and handed it to me.

There was a phone number, but no address.

It didn’t matter. This kind of detective work, I could handle.

I signed for the books and the clerk bagged them for me Then I returned to the pay phone. This time I made a call.

Janice picked up on the second ring. I mentioned her work on the Circe Whistler autobiography. I said that I was with CNN, specifically The Larry King Show.

I didn’t say much else.

I didn’t have to.

Janice took my introduction as an overture. She asked if I’d like to come over for lunch. A few seconds later, I had her address. I should have known it all along.

“It’s the house at the end of Hangman’s Point Drive,” she said. “My place overlooks the hanging tree. You can’t miss it.”

At the end of Hangman’s Point Drive, a tree with gnarled branches scratched the iron sky.

Not one leaf on that tree, and nothing grew beneath its bare branches. I stepped over slabs of bark that lay on the ground like scales shed by a dying dragon. Lover’s graffiti scarred the trunk, and fat black beetles scuttled in a pile of broken branches near a historical marker that looked more like a headstone.

Anyone else might have thought the hanging tree was dead. Ready for the chainsaw. But I knew that it was alive.

I could see that clearly.

The tree bore fruit. A fine crop of ghosts. Six Russian witches dangled from nooses that had rotted long ago, but the ropes didn’t seem rotten to me. To my eyes they were as fine and strong as the day they were knotted, like healthy stems bearing the weight of ripe apples.

The ropes twisted and creaked against the rising wind. The storm was coming on fast. I leaned against the trunk and stared up at the iron sky through a tangle of crippled branches. The smaller branches swayed against the surging storm, scratching the sky more eagerly now. Before long, I knew they’d slice heaven’s belly and rain would fall like cold droplets of blood.

I waited for that moment, and so did the witches.

Spaced evenly on low branches like decorations on a maypole, hands bound behind their backs with festive satin hair ribbons, the ghosts danced on the wind. A plump redhead here, a thin brunette there. A tall girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, her naked feet forever kicking just an inch above the ground. An older woman with long black hair that lashed her face like a scourge, and another who had shed one of her shoes and seemed to be searching for it with eternally downcast eyes.

But it was the sixth witch that held my attention. She was blonde, with features that might be described as noble. I threaded my way through the others until I stood near her, close enough to study her bright blue eyes.

She was Natasha Orlovsky, Janice Ravenwood’s spirit guide. She had to be. She was the only blonde in the bunch.

She looked down at me, and she didn’t blink. Her expression softened as our eyes met, so suddenly that it surprised me. Despite the claims of the woman at the new age bookstore, I had no way of knowing how long it had been since someone with a heartbeat had looked into Natasha’s eyes.

I was willing to bet that it had been a very long time, indeed. I wanted to talk to her, but I couldn’t see how that was possible. For one thing, I couldn’t speak Russian. But it wouldn’t have mattered if I could. Natasha Orlovsky’s spirit couldn’t speak to anyone, in any language. Like her sister witches, her lips were stitched closed.

In death, she was mute. There was no way that she could answer my questions, even if I could find a way to ask them.

There was no way she could tell me anything.

Me, or Janice Ravenwood, or anyone else.

“I’m sorry, Natasha,” I said, even though I knew she couldn’t understand me.

She moaned, or maybe it was only the branch that bore her spirit’s weight. Resignation colored her eyes. And then the rising wind caught her, and the rope twisted, and the storm turned her eyes away.

A raindrop splashed my hand.

The first of many.

It felt like a tear.

The house was small and old. Nothing more than a vacation bungalow, really, though Janice had tried to spruce it up. Flowerpots dotted the porch, and the knocker on the front door was a brightly polished brass sun that smiled cheerfully.

I entered the house and found Janice Ravenwood in the kitchen, making precious little hors d’oeuvres for a reporter from CNN.

“You’re a fraud,” I said.

I must have surprised her. She gasped and gave a little start, but even in the cold silence of my accusation her eyes refused to surrender their secrets.

But they would not hold those secrets for long. Not if I could do anything about it. “I guess Natasha didn’t warn you about me,” I said. “Then again, it’s pretty hard to say anything when your lips are stitched together like a torn mainsail.”