Then, continuing to repeat my charm, I placed the stones at the four directions, north, south, east, west. Then I lit the candles and placed them at the five points of the pentacle: spirit, head, heart, earth, fire.
While I chanted, Hervé arranged himself, sitting cross-legged, breathing deeply and relaxing into meditation. His broad hands rested, palms up, on his knees to receive the energies.
His head fell back almost immediately upon my completion of the pentacle within the circle, and his eyes rolled up. Just like that, Hervé was no longer present. He was a conduit.
When I was focused on a magical spell or incantation, I often went into a trancelike state, but watching Sailor or Hervé at work reminded me that I didn’t know what a true trance was. They seemed to actually leave their body, somehow, allowing the spirits or words from afar to channel through them. It was equal parts spooky and fascinating.
I sat silently, watching Hervé. His features suddenly shifted, his eyes flew open, and he stared at me.
“Lily Ivory.” Hervé’s voice sounded strangely hollow, and he spoke with Tristan’s odd inflection.
“Tristan?” I tried to quell the queasy feeling of a spirit speaking through a friend’s body. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”
“Your boyfriend.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. He entered the room and began to strike.”
“Do you have any other enemies, near or far?”
Silence.
“Come on, Tristan. Surely you have other enemies.”
If Tristan had enemies, he wasn’t going to admit it. The silence continued.
“What did you want from me?”
“Fire. Time. Teher . . . tears. The tears of the daughter.”
“What does that mean? I think perhaps what you want is in this box.” I held it up. “What is it you’re looking for, exactly?”
“Bēag.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Bēag, bēag!”
He started spouting something that sounded a lot like Oscar’s rendition of the prelude to The Canterbury Tales—in other words, some form of English I couldn’t understand. Or maybe it was another language entirely.
“I can’t understand you,” I said.
“Bēag! Silber!”
“Silber?” I repeated. “As in silver? Is the bēag made of silver?”
“Silber!”
Happily, although spirits can speak through a medium, they very rarely “take over” the medium’s physical body. I was pretty sure that if Tristan could have, he would have gone for my throat. Or, at the very least, for the box.
“What about Renee Baker? Is she involved in this?”
“Kaka.”
Were we talking baby talk now?
He mumbled under his breath, as though searching for a word. “Kuchen?”
“Kuchen—that’s German for cookie or cake?” I ventured.
“Cupcakes!” he exclaimed.
Well, at least I understood that last part. So, Tristan was definitely involved with Renee and he associated her with cupcakes, as we all did. After all, she was the cupcake lady.
“The seers saw. The prophecy.”
“What is the prophecy? Tell me.”
“San Francisco. The child will come.”
I blew out a frustrated breath, more confused than ever. Luckily, I’d been mired in confusion before. In fact, I was beginning to think that this was my process when trying to figure out supernatural mysteries.
Hervé twitched and moaned softly. He was coming out of his trance. The question-and-answer period was over.
Chapter 8
Hervé looked vacant and confused, which was typical for someone coming out of a deep fugue state.
While I gave him some space to recover, I studied the paintings on the door panels and in a border framing the ceiling. It wasn’t hard to imagine a brokenhearted hotelier painting yet another door, a wall, a column, one after another. The variations of grotesques were endless, the outlandish combinations of beasts and mythology restricted only by one’s imagination. Had the artist been desperate to forget, I wondered, or desperate to remember?
“Did I say anything?” Hervé asked after a moment.
“You said plenty. I’m just not sure what any of it means.”
“You never know with these things. Often the meaning is revealed over time.”
“I just hope that time comes sooner rather than later,” I said.
Hervé stood and brushed off his clothes while I gathered my stones and tea lights. I used a small whisk broom to sweep up the salts, hoping that whatever residue remained behind wouldn’t interfere with an ongoing police investigation. Shawn said the forensics unit had already come and gone, but still. I probably should have run this one past Carlos.
I repacked the supplies in my backpack and picked up the shoe box; then Hervé and I made our way down the circular stairs. Shawn was fast asleep on the couch in the front parlor, so I left the room key on the desk and we let ourselves out.
The night was chilly, with a thick blanket of fog blowing in off the bay; I shivered, pulling my cardigan tight. When would I learn to take a coat whenever I was out at night in San Francisco, no matter how warm the day?
A group of five people about Shawn’s age laughed and feigned screaming as they ran across the street. Traffic was light compared with daytime, but nonetheless there were a good number of cars cruising the street. It always surprised me that San Francisco had so many people out at night, despite the fact that most restaurants closed by nine thirty. San Francisco was not New York City.
Hervé escorted me to my car and lingered while I stashed my supplies in the trunk. I let out a sigh, feeling decidedly defeated.
“You know this is how it works, Lily. The spirits aren’t known for their clear signs. You need more pieces of the puzzle before things start to fall into place.”
“I know. It’s just that . . . Well, Sailor’s in jail.”
“Sailor? What for?”
“He’s the main suspect for this murder.”
“This murder? The one in room two seventeen?”
I nodded, glumly.
Hervé paused for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “I don’t know Sailor well, Lily, but I know this: I felt the sensations in that room. Sailor is not capable of that degree of violence or unbridled ambition. Whatever was in that room with Tristan wasn’t some normal guy caught up in the moment.”
I
