always people here. Even when it was empty.”
I smiled. “You mean ghosts?”
“I don’t know. I only know that what my mom said scared me. I don’t like creepy places, and I don’t like creepy stories. I guess I’m just a scaredy cat.”
“Stories are just stories,” I said. “They can’t hurt you.”
I might have said more, but that was when I heard the flies.
Trapped inside the bottles, buzzing to be free.
I stared at the wall of glass. A few corked bottles, but most were open. Narrow throats and wide throats. Lips polished and dirty, cracked and smooth…but no flies.
Not yet.
But soon. That was a certainty. Because I had what the flies wanted. They had scented the bloody thing in my backpack.
I couldn’t wait to be rid of that thing, and all that came with it, and all that it attracted.
Flies…and a woman named Circe Whistler.
The woman I’d come to meet. But I wouldn’t wait for Circe here. I’d wait outside, and I’d take the little girl with me.
“Let’s go,” I said, and that was when I noticed that the little girl was already gone.
I took a step back and my heel struck an uneven stone in the floor. It seemed to wobble underfoot, or maybe it was me who wobbled, but the end result was the same. I nearly lost my balance.
The first fly brushed past my cheek.
If I waited another minute, I’d be crawling with the things.
I turned, a chill of disgust capering up my spine.
A woman blocked my way.
I only knew two things about the woman: she wasn’t afraid of flies, and she wasn’t Circe Whistler.
“I was expecting someone else,” I said.
“Plans change,” she said. “Life is fluid.”
“Life is clockwork. Or it should be.”
“Maybe where you come from, but things are different here. Anyway, I didn’t mean to give you such a start.”
She smiled. Blonde and slight, but she didn’t look at all weak. And the way she held onto her amused expression reminded me of some smartass kid who’d just spotted a zipper on Godzilla’s back.
We stood outside, away from the flies. The little girl was nowhere in sight, and I was surprised to find that I was worried about her. I couldn’t help wondering if she’d seen the woman, if this stranger had scared her off “What’s wrong?” the blonde asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I stared at her. Maybe she’d seen the little girl and was being coy with me. Maybe she hadn’t. I couldn’t decide-her eyes were flat and cold, like the ocean.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked.
“I believe in many things. For instance, I believe that the bottle house is a place of intense energies. Both positive and negative. Souls dwell here. I’ve spoken to them.”
“Really,” I said, doing my best to sound diplomatic. But my new age radar was going up, and going up fast. The last thing I needed was a lecture on energies, or dynamics or “Faith is the key, of course,” she said. “This place was a temple, you know. A place of intense faith. And faith is power. Intense power. Don’t you agree?”
“I’m getting the all-over heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.” I bit off the remark as fast as I could and held out my hand, one last stab at diplomacy. “Clay Saunders.”
She looked at my hand like I’d offered her a bug on a silver platter. “Forgive me if I don’t shake.”
“I’m sure you have your reasons. Energies, dynamics…like that.”
“My name is Janice Ravenwood,” she said, ignoring the jab. “I’m a medium. Perhaps you know my books.”
“No. But then, I stick mostly to nonfiction.”
“I think I’m full up with sarcasm now.”
“I’m not being sarcastic. It’s just the way I am. I only believe what I see.”
“You see what you choose to see.” She raised her hand. “It’s all a matter of energies.” Her fingers did a little dance, and the silver bracelets encircling her thin wrists provided the music. “If you had a sensitive nature-I’m speaking psychically, of course-you’d understand. You’d see beyond the physical, as I do.”
“The physical suits me just fine,” I said, nudging the backpack with my shoulder. “Let’s stick with it.”
“As you wish.”
“Run down the plan for me.”
“You bring your backpack. I bring you. We go to the Whistler estate. You meet a few people. From there on out, you’re on your own.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said. I looked around, searching for spectral company, but the little girl was nowhere in sight. “Seems like I’m always on my own.”
Janice Ravenwood stared at the backpack. She didn’t say a word, but her smile knifed into a smirk.
And then she slipped a pair of dark glasses over her gray eyes, and the sun broke through the clouds behind her, and light caught the bottles and a dozen colors were reflected in the polished lenses of her shades.
She turned and started down the trail before I could say another word.
I followed in silence.
The medium’s Ford Explorer was parked on the beach. “Give me your pack,” she said. “I’ll toss it in the back.”
“I’ll hold onto it, if that’s okay.”
Janice sighed disapprovingly. “Have it your way.”
“Sorry. I have issues. Trust is one of them.”
She laughed, but a wave broke behind her and I hardly heard the laugh at all.
In a moment, nothing remained of the wave but a crust of foam sizzling high on the beach.
“Let’s go,” Janice said.
I got in and buckled my seat belt. The beach was empty-still no sign of the little girl. I sat there with the pack at my feet. Janice Ravenwood got behind the wheel and slammed the door. She keyed the engine, slipped the Explorer into gear, and drove down the beach. Waves broke, but we were sealed in tight and I couldn’t hear them anymore. Just an annoying whisper of new age music coming from the stereo, and the sound of our breathing.
And a fly.
The insect must have followed us inside. It buzzed around the cab and lighted just where I knew it would, on the backpack.
I stared at it. Crawling, fat and black and shiny. Stopping. Rubbing its legs together. Janice Ravenwood saw it too.
She stopped the car and leaned toward me so that her hair brushed my shoulder. In close, I could smell her perfume.
Vanilla-sweet, with a hint of jasmine. It went just fine with the new age music.
Her fingers neared the backpack, but didn’t quite touch it.
Our eyes met. Just for a moment. Janice gave a little sigh, only vaguely theatrical.
Energies, I thought, considering the backpack’s contents. They must be thermonuclear.
It seemed like Janice knew that too. Though her fingers were close, she didn’t touch the backpack.
She was a very patient woman. She turned her hand palm upward, ever so slowly, so that her silver bracelets didn’t make the slightest sound.
