Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(56)

Deciding to dig up some of the plants she’d located these last days, she got dressed and gulped cereal. She debated whether to take Harvey’s walking stick with her. It was a thing of beauty, but she didn’t see the necessity. Leaving it behind, she headed over to Cass’s gardening shed. Cass had said to use whatever she needed. Sam prayed it wasn’t all covered in rust and spider webs.

The wooden shed doors sagged open as if in welcome when she approached. Sam regarded them warily but decided the doors had probably just blown loose. The wind was strong off the ocean this morning, carrying the stench of wet ash and smoke away from town.

She looked for a latch to see if she would be able to close the shed properly, but there was none. Cass apparently didn’t mind sharing her tools with anyone who passed by.

She’d brought a flashlight to search the interior. The space was larger than she’d realized. Spotting a light shaped like a lantern overhead, she looked around for a switch. As in the house, the light came on when she stepped inside. Motion sensors in a shed actually made sense and was more modern than she’d expected, considering the ancient sagging exterior.

The tools all looked brand new. No self-respecting gardener had shiny tools without a single dent or worn place in the handle. But Cass had known she was coming. . . .

Preferring not to think about how her great-aunt had all but kidnapped her to bring her up here, Sam found a sturdy, long-handled digger, some like-new gloves, and a bucket for water. She didn’t mean to go far. She needed to be at Dinah’s in a few hours.

She liked this side of the valley much better than the lodge side. Here, birds sang, and the earth simply felt happy beneath her feet. The breeze was chilly but fresh, unlike the stench of hell around the lodge. Carrying her tools through the cemetery portal, she explored the overgrown weeds around the gravestones before making any choices.

She didn’t think it was sacrilege to take cuttings or divide perennials that would otherwise smother in their own roots. She would leave the graves tended, and the plants would grow better next year.

Wolf had told her the stories of Mother Earth, and she respected the land as his ancestors had. She wasn’t so certain her college-educated father had actually accepted the stories, but to her, the earth had always been a living presence requiring respect.

She was pulling weeds and clearing the ground around lily leaves when she realized she wasn’t alone. She reached for her shovel and glanced over her shoulder.

Xavier, in his faded green jacket, hovered uncertainly near the Kennedy vault. He was watching her, but he looked so nervous, she couldn’t feel afraid, just puzzled at these odd encounters.

“Good morning, Mr. Black,” she called. “Out for a stroll?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, wringing his hands. “The fire should have driven out the ghosts, but I don’t think it did.”

She got up to apply her shovel to the clump of lilies, keeping an eye on him as she did so. “If there are spirits, they must be friendly. I like it here.”

He seemed interested in that notion, glancing around as if hoping to see Casper the Friendly Ghost. “It’s an unhappy place,” he finally decided. “Terrible things happen here. The ghosts are angry.”

“Perhaps you’re a sensitive. I’ve heard that people feel the sorrow and pain of soldiers who died when they stand on a battlefield like Gettysburg. Have you ever been there?”

“Wouldn’t like it,” he said.

Remembering she was supposed to be helping Walker, since he’d helped her, she asked, “How long have you lived here?”

He frowned and shifted from foot to foot. “Don’t know. Long time. Why?”

“My parents used to live here. I was wondering if you knew them. That would have been almost twenty-five years ago.”

He appeared a little curious and his brow wrinkled in thought. “No, don’t think so. Geoff died a few months after I moved here. Does that help?”

He’d known the town when Walker’s father died! But getting anything out of him wouldn’t be easy. Before she could prepare another careful question, he ambled away without a farewell.

Possibly Asperger’s? Being a salesman would be tough, if so.

Happy that she’d added one more piece to her store of knowledge, Sam dug in the dirt and decided on her priorities. She needed to talk to Cass more about her parents. What had driven her mother to give her up and send her far away? Her father hadn’t overdosed until after she was born, according to the genealogy. Her adoption date was immediately afterward. It may have been a grieving widow’s decision.

And they still needed a better list of who had been here when Walker’s father died—witnesses, potential killers, anything would help. Cass would know more, as would Carmel, she supposed, but neither woman was inclined to talk. Neither was Xavier Black. Would even the lodge staff be reluctant to recall the past?

She cleared the plot she worked on, then carried the starving lilies back to the house. She’d need some good compost to plant them in.

She cleaned off Cass’s tools and returned them to the shed—again, the doors opened before she could reach for them. Had someone wired doors with a motion detector? Needing to get to Dinah’s, she didn’t have time to inspect them. She rushed back to the studio to shower and dress.

Reluctant to enter the oppressive pall of wet ash in town, Sam decided to explore the lane of cottages where Mariah lived. Half-way down, at a cottage nearly concealed by rambling roses, an older woman with a thick straight salt-and-pepper mane caught in a black ribbon looked up from her overgrown cottage garden. “I see you found the lilies. I used to tend them, but I can’t get up there much these days.”