A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (16 page)

There was a knock on the doorjamb. “Is it my turn?”
a woman from the party asked. If she had wrinkles, they were microscopic. She had to be a regular… and addicted.

The doctor held up his hand. “One minute, Carrie Ann.”

“Sorry. We’ll get out of your way,” I said, ushering Josie and Madelyn back into the hallway as Buckley whispered in his wife’s ear.

“See you around, ladies. Thanks for coming by.”

Anna met my eyes. “Yeah, thanks for comin’ by, y’all. Y’all have a good night, ya hear?”

We said our good-byes and skirted around Carrie Ann, who waited patiently for her treatment.

“Quick,” Josie said with a hiss, “before they ply us with alcohol and make us get it done.” She started down the hall, but we all turned at a sharp sound. Dr. Hughes hurried up behind us, snapping his fingers again. “I just remembered something,” he said, grinning big and wide.

Josie, Madelyn, and I looked up expectantly. “What?” we all said at once.

“She said that when her great-granddaughter came home—you, I assume—”

I nodded, holding my breath for the great revelation about Meemaw.

“Right. She said that when you came home, things in Bliss would change. Even for me, she said. For everyone. Wrongs would be righted. Things would settle and be like they were supposed to be. Then she mentioned something about a wedding.”

Josie’s wedding.

At that we left Buckley to his work, escaping with more questions than answers.

An hour later, as I carefully stitched the torn section
of the replica gown back at home, I thought about the Cassidy charms. They came with a checks and balances system. For everything Meemaw made happen, someone else lost something they’d wanted. There had to be bad with the good. If I made the dress I had in mind for Mrs. James, would there be a consequence for someone else? It was a question I couldn’t answer.

I moved on to the hem of Libby’s dress, slip-stitching it, the length of every stitch painstakingly precise. It was tedious, but allowed me time to think. But after another hour, I still couldn’t come up with a reason why Mrs. James would be involved in Macon Vance’s murder, or why I was even getting involved. Finally, I wandered to the kitchen in search of corn bread. And fried okra. A Southern woman’s sustenance.

With my stomach full of fried okra and corn bread and the kitchen cleaned up, I headed back toward my workroom. As I stepped out of the kitchen and into the little dining room, the front door swung open and a strong breeze ruffled my hair. Mama burst into Buttons & Bows with a potted plant under one arm. Typical.

At the very same moment, Nana threw open the Dutch door in the kitchen, tossed her Crocs off, closed the door on Thelma Louise with an admonishment to
stay put
, and turned to me. “Harlow Jane,” they both said at exactly the same time, with the exact same Southern drawl, and just like that, the whole crazy situation was back in my head, front and center.

I looked from Mama to Nana. This was my future. Blue jeans. Cowgirl shirts. And perfect timing. My words tumbled out with lightning speed. “I needed you. How did you know? I have to make these dresses, but Mrs. James is in jail and
your boyfriend
thinks she killed the golf pro, and I’ve been calling for Meemaw but she won’t talk to me, and… and… and…” All my Southern strength faded as I sank onto the wood steps at the base of the staircase.

Nana took one long look at me, put her hands on her hips, and turned to face the front room of Buttons & Bows. Nobody messed around with Coleta Cassidy. “Loretta Mae Cassidy,” she said to the room at large, her voice as sharp as cactus thorn. “Enough of these games. I know you can hear me. You just get on out here and show yourself. You’re causing our girl here quite a bit of turmoil with your antics.”

And just like that, a rush of warm air blew past me, leaving a shimmery trail in its wake. Meemaw was back. Not that she’d ever left, because I was quite sure she hadn’t.

“Meemaw,” Nana said again, her tone sharp and annoyed. “You brought Harlow back. You got what you wanted. She’s here, but now it’s time to clear some things up.”

The pipes upstairs groaned and something clanked. It sounded like a wrench being hit against a metal drum. I dropped my hands and snapped my head up. This wasn’t my feisty great-grandmother.
This
was a haunting.

But Nana wasn’t about to be intimidated by a bunch of ghostly noises. “Stop that,” she barked. And everything went utterly silent.

“What’s happening?” I whispered, standing and moving toward Mama.

“This is your house and you have work to do,” Mama said. “We’re here to settle Loretta Mae down and get you some peace,” she said as she reached behind her to close and lock the door.

I pointed to the lavender plant she carried. “What’s that for?”

“I work with my strengths. Lavender promotes cooperation, love—of course I’m not using it for
that
right
now—and harmony. I’m thinkin’ Meemaw’s a hair unsettled in her transitional state.”

I’d used my Scarlett O’Hara trick of not thinking about the fact that I’d be a ghost someday if what Mama and Nana said was true, but now all that anxiety crashed through me again. All the more reason I couldn’t possibly have a relationship with Will and get married anytime soon. Or a relationship with anyone else for that matter. I was almost a… a… a
witch
and just how was I supposed to keep
that
quiet? “That’s good,” I said, “because I could sure use some peace and harmony. Look at that gown.” I lifted my chin toward the workroom and to Libby’s dress, which I’d put on the pulley contraption. “And I’m working on one for Gracie Flores, now, too.”

“We’re the cavalry, darlin’,” Nana said. “You just have to holler and we’ll come a-runnin’. And sometimes we come a-runnin’ even if you don’t holler.”

Like now. Thank God for family. “How will lavender help?”

“I’m leaving this plant here. Now, you take care of it, you hear?” Mama walked past me and set it in the center of the dining table right across from my little computer table, the lavender blooms fragrant and abundant.

“I don’t have a green thumb—”

“But I do.” Little bit of an understatement, but I let it go. “It’ll be fine.” As if in response to her words, the stalks shimmied and swayed. The tiny flowers turned from a light to a vibrant royal purple.

I peaked out the window and sure enough, a cluster of weeds had grown in the flower bed by the front gate. “I’ll pull them as I leave,” Mama said, looking over my shoulder. “You just work on that dress.”

The shimmering trail that had lingered in the air gathered together as if someone were patting biscuit dough into a mound before flattening it out to cut into rounds. It began to spin, like a funnel cloud gathering strength; then, just like last time, we could suddenly see the faint image of a person—of Meemaw—take shape. Slowly, like steam evaporating from a mirror after a hot shower, she became clearer. I could make out details. First her blue jeans, then the snap buttons of her plaid cowgirl shirt. Next, the pointed toes of her cowboy boots, and finally, the streak in her hair, more pronounced than I remembered it being, but maybe being a ghost’ll do that to a person.

I wasn’t going to let the moment slip by again like it had last time. I wanted a hug. To feel her warmth. The touch of her hand against my cheek. I rushed forward, spreading my arms wide. Closed them around her. And poof! Like a bubble popping, she was gone and I was hugging myself.

A split second later, I felt a shift in the air behind me. Mama inhaled sharply, and I whipped around to see Meemaw’s wraithlike figure appear next to the armoire we’d moved down from the attic.

“Enough of the cat and mouse,” Nana said, moving toward Meemaw’s ghost with the stealth of a cat. “Show yourself.”

The command worked. Meemaw’s form shimmied, translucent and airy, then started to take shape again. Just like before, she seemed to turn from nothingness to something almost tangible. But this time I stayed put, hardly daring to breathe, let alone try to touch her again.

Mama hurried back to the lavender plant, closed her hand around one stalk, and slid it down over the purple
buds. A few scattered onto the table, but the rest were cupped in her hand. A moment later, she sprinkled them right onto Meemaw. The petals sunk into her misty form before falling to the ground, but my great-grandmother didn’t evaporate. She didn’t levitate. She didn’t budge. It was as if the lavender rooted her to the spot, like glue on the base of a figurine.

“That’s better,” Nana said; then she held out her arm, palm up, waiting.

Tears pricked behind my eyelids as Meemaw slowly raised her arm and placed her hand in her daughter’s. As she moved her head, shifting her gaze from Nana to Mama, and finally to me, her form flickered. I held my breath, silently willing her to stay put.

“Meemaw,” I said, taking a tentative step toward her. The flickering grew erratic and I stopped short. It felt like a thread of static electricity ran between us. When I stopped, her flickering stopped. When I moved forward again, her form shuddered and I had that same image of Princess Leia. Only Meemaw wasn’t asking for help.

Or was she?

I ran up to the dining table, ran my hand over a lavender stalk just like Mama had done a minute earlier, then raced back to her. She quivered, her shape disappearing and reappearing, as if we needed to adjust an antennae so she could ground herself.

“Meemaw?” I struggled to keep my voice steady and my tears at bay.

Her eyes looked vacant, like gray spots in her misty, white shape, but I felt her gaze. I knew she could see me far better than I could see her. Her mouth opened and a low, whispery sound, like a breeze rustling through tree branches, slipped out.

“Are you okay?” I had to know if she was where she wanted to be, or if she was caught in some kind of limbo.

She nodded, her head slowly moving up and down, that same breathy sound escaping her lips, but this time I knew she was saying, “Yes.”

Like a handful of confetti, I tossed the lavender buds up and watched them scatter over her, through her, and around her until they settled on the floor at her feet. Her flickering stopped and she became more opaque.

I racked my brain, trying to figure out where to begin. What did you say to the ghost of your great-grandmother? She was the woman who’d single-handedly brought me back home to Bliss, had helped me realize my passion when she taught me to sew, and had tried to keep secrets from me even as a ghost. I had a wagon full of questions, but not a single one formed in my mind.

“Harlow has work to do, Meemaw. You need to let her be,” Mama said, weaving her arm through mine and sounding as if she were chastising a rascally child.

Meemaw, true to her personality when she’d been alive, simply shook her misty head as she opened her mouth and said, “Nooooo.”

I stumbled back a step, fighting the thumping pressure in my temples. “That lavender’s not working very well,” I said under my breath. “She doesn’t seem very harmonious or cooperative.”

Mama’s eyes flashed. “No, she doesn’t.” Behind me, I heard a faint sound. I turned to see the lavender growing before my eyes. It was as if someone had set up a video camera and filmed the plant over a period of weeks, and I was watching the playback. I’d seen the effect Mama had on plants thousands of times, but this… this felt different. This felt
controlled
.

It felt easier to breathe, like the air in the room had become cleaner and lighter. Meemaw’s form still flickered and shimmered, like it wasn’t quite stable. I was pretty sure she—and maybe Nana and Mama, too— would shut down on me again if I brought up the gowns from the armoire. Instead, I brought up the other subject I couldn’t get off my mind. “Zinnia James is in jail.”

Mama shook her head as if she couldn’t believe the news. “I heard. What’s gotten into this town—”

“She was arrested?” Nana cut in, stopping Mama midsentence.

“For killing Macon Vance, the golf pro at the club.”

The low moan of Meemaw’s forlorn voice filled the room.

I stepped closer to Meemaw, nodding. “I know. She couldn’t have done it.”

Nana sank down on the nearest chair, staring off into the distance. “No, that’s not right.”

“Murder’s never right,” Mama said.

“Of course it’s not,” she said, “but that’s not what I mean.”

Meemaw disappeared. A split second later, the skirt on Libby’s dress, hanging on the pulley contraption in the workroom, fluttered as a trail of misty air swooped up under it. Instantly, the bodice puffed out and filled, as if there were a person suddenly wearing the gown. Meemaw’s ghostly face appeared, the collar of her cowgirl blouse like an undergarment for the dress.

Nana started, her face draining. “You knew?” she said to Meemaw in the dress.

I stood at the French doors separating the workroom from the front room, looking from Meemaw in the dress to Nana, ashen-faced and wide-eyed—a disconcerting
look from my grandmother. Mama came to stand by my side. “More secrets?” I muttered. Then to both of them, I said, “Knew what?”

But Nana didn’t answer me. Instead, she said, “She couldn’t have killed him. She
wouldn’t
have killed him.”

I stared at her. “How do you know?”

Nana’s hands shook. “I heard the report on the news. The man was killed between six and ten that night. Zinnia… Zinnia and I were at Miss June’s that night. We had dinner.”

“For four hours?”

Whatever color was left in Nana’s skin drained. “We had some things to discuss. A little bit of history. That’s not important,” she said, waving her hand around. “Zinnia was with me that night. She couldn’t have killed Macon Vance.”

A few minutes later, Mama, Nana, and I sat around the dining table, each of us doing something to keep our hands and nerves calm. Mama held an embroidery hoop, poking her needle and floss through a muslin tea towel. Nana clicked her tiny knitting needles together, slowly working through the long row of the scarf she was making. A length of fabric spread across my lap, the mere feel of it giving me strength. We all stared at the lavender plant in the middle of the table. A wispy Meemaw hovered in Libby’s dress on the pulley, sounds slipping from her lips when she wanted to speak, but the words completely unintelligible.