find it difficult. My talk on Samhain and Wicca at the Ladies’ League sounded really stilted to my own ears. But back to the poisonings. It’s hard to imagine what the common denominator can be.” The green lamp began to swing back and forth of its own volition, like a pendulum. I watched it idly as we talked, realizing that the cellar was fading away. At that point, I must have dropped the phone.
Suddenly I was in the Peacedale kitchen, a room I had barely glimpsed before, although I had been in their parlor and Wyn’s study several times. Now I could see the counters—rather messy, with cereal boxes not put away and dishes still in the sink. The refrigerator was open. Someone, I couldn’t quite see who, was pulling out a crisper drawer, opening a package of salad greens. Looked like baby lettuces. The scene faded. Like all visions, it had a timeless quality. I never know how long in real time I’m traveling that astral plane, unless someone else who is present tells me. I just know I found myself at the cellar table again, feeling nauseated and disoriented as usual.
I picked up the phone. “Hello,” I said in a weak voice. No answer. I hung up, thinking I’d better call her back as soon as I got my wits together. Then I went upstairs to fix myself a bracing cup of Assam tea, a welcome-home-from-the-hospital gift from Phillipa. I’d need to decide what this vision meant and what I should do about it.
Before the kettle had boiled, Phillipa was at my back door pounding on the wooden frame of its glass panel. The Sterns live less than a mile down the road, with Jenkins Woods between us. Although it’s called Jenkins Park now, since we saved it from developers and their seaside condominiums by establishing the place as a wetland and bald eagle preserve. My friend’s face looked pale and anxious as I unlocked and opened the door.
“You’re just in time for tea,” I said.
“Sweet Isis, Cass—I thought you’d had a stroke or something. What happened?”
“What usually happens to me? Psychically speaking, I was having a look around the Peacedale kitchen. Take down the cups, will you? I think I’d better call Patty. What I saw was rather peculiar.”
I punched in the parsonage’s number. She answered at once. “Hell-o,” in a musical two syllables. “Patty Peacedale here.”
“Patty! I hope you won’t think this bizarre, but I’ve just had a glimpse of your kitchen. Well, it was more like a vision. And I saw something that worried me.”
“Oh, lovely!” she caroled.
“Patty, this isn’t an epiphany. Would you look in the crisper drawers in your refrigerator and tell me what you find there?”
“So exciting! Just give me a minute, Cass—I’m in my little office. I’ll pick this up on the kitchen phone.” A few moments passed, and Patty spoke again. “Gosh, Cass—not much. Three onions on one side, and a few Granny Smiths on the other. Wyn does love a cold, juicy apple when he’s composing a sermon.”
Phillipa, who was shamelessly listening in over my shoulder, muttered, “Onions? In the refrigerator?”
“Hush! No, not you, Patty. No salads, then?”
“Well, you see, Cass, we’re scheduled for some dinner function or other every night this week, so I haven’t bothered with any grocery shopping.”
“I don’t mean to intrude, Patty, but as you look at your counters, are there any open boxes of cereal standing there?”
“Oh, dear. This is a bit like having a surveillance camera in one’s kitchen, isn’t it? No cereal boxes right now, Cass, but it has been known.”
“Okay, don’t give it another thought. But when you do go grocery shopping, be especially careful about salads, will you? A whole head of lettuce is your best bet, maybe a few tomatoes.”
“Iceberg, no doubt. Ugh, boring,” whispered Phillipa.
“But wholesome,” I said when I’d finally got a chance to hang up on Patty’s enthusiastic curiosity.
Chapter Four
“The mundanes do tend to panic when their sixth sense kicks in,” Fiona said abstractedly, apropos of nothing we’d been talking about. The subject was Samhain, where and how we would celebrate this year. “Not to mention their seventh and eighth senses.”
“Which are?” asked Deidre. Her cap of golden curls and her impish grin brightened the gloom in the crowded, book-crammed living room of Fiona’s fishnet-draped cottage in Plymouth Center. Once she’d lost custody of her darling grandniece, Laura Belle, Fiona had reverted to her former haphazard housekeeping.
“Oh, you know. The sixth is generally a foreboding of accident or death—the impending-doom thing. Next, there’s the perception of bodiless spirits, of course—ghosts, you might say—which is the special province of mediums. Eighth is the ability to detect auras and, often, diagnose illness as well. Ninth…
“Ninth!” exclaimed Deidre.
“Ninth is remote viewing,” Fiona continued. “The CIA loves that one! But you gals know the drill.”
“What about the glamour, your special province?” asked Heather.
“Oh, that. Glamour is not extrasensory—it’s like hypnotics, a subtle illusion that can make you the center of attraction or, if it suits the situation, practically unnoticed. But, anyway, what I’m saying is, if it weren’t for their tendency to panic at extrasensory perceptions, most people would be able to tell when trouble is imminent.”
“And do what?” Heather asked.
“Duck, of course. More tea anyone? Another scone?” Fiona’s Persian companion Omar Khayyám walked delicately across the coffee table and gave the milk pitcher a quick lick with his pink tongue. Fiona scooped him up with one arm and passed the plate of crumbly morsels with the other. Her tiny cream scones are always delectable, but I make it a point never to look in the kitchen from whence they came.
“That’s all very well for Cass with her visions and Phil with her tarot,” Heather complained, “but what about me? I never know what’s going to hit me until it does.”
“But you do, my dear,” Fiona disagreed. “That’s my whole point. There’s a place within yourself from which you can reach out in many more than the ordinary sensory ways. Let your higher self guide you, whatever you call it.”
Deidre brightened. “Oh! I call that my angel.”
Phillipa looked skeptical. “Catholic holdover?”
“Wiccans have angels, too,” Deidre said, pouting.
“I call that little voice in my ear ‘conscience.’ I suppose that might be Torah-based,” Phillipa said.
“Ghost of my grandma,” I said.
“Oh, that voice!” Heather said. “That’s Hecate speaking to me.”
Fiona laughed, with her full-bodied, infectious laugh that none of us could resist joining. “Call it whatever, ladies. It’s the timeless and eternal spirit of you. So…what do you say we have Samhain at Cass’s while Joe is away—did you say Miami? I always prefer an empty house, in case of psychic fireworks. My place is a bit small.
