Nine Lives: A Lily Dale Mystery (20 page)

Okay, maybe not perpetual.

It wasn’t blowing the other day in the yard when you heard the wind chimes clanging.

Bathed in golden light, the rows of Victorian cottages that seemed so foreboding in the rainy fog the other night now look like a perky storybook village. Everywhere she looks, there are vivid splashes of color, from the bright exterior paint palettes to the lush foliage and flamboyant blooms that fill garden beds and borders, pots, planters, and window boxes.

Her gaze lands on the red geraniums that fill the scalloped white window boxes of a cozy pink cottage.

Pandora Feeney’s place?

As if summoned by the mere thought of her name, the woman emerges from the front door in that very instant. As before, a straw sunhat sits atop her head, and a flowing floral dress does little to enhance her bony frame. She has a canvas tote bag over her shoulder and is holding a large key ring similar to the one in Bella’s pocket.

As she watches Pandora insert one of the keys to lock her front door, Bella can’t help but wonder about the others. Pandora had mentioned she still has a key to the front door of the guesthouse. What if she’d kept all the rest as well?

She turns away from the house and looks squarely at Bella, as if she’d had a preternatural awareness of her presence.

Maybe that isn’t the case. Or maybe Pandora simply spotted her from inside.

She beckons to Bella, who reluctantly walks over.

Pandora greets her with an air kiss. “How delightful that you’ve accepted my invitation to come ’round for tea!”

“Actually, I’m just waiting for my son.” She holds up the pair of helmets. “He’s in the café getting ice cream with his friend.”

“Jiffy Arden.”

Bella nods, though it was hardly a question. No secrets in Lily Dale.

“I do wish you’d stay for a short visit.”

“Thanks, but I really can’t right now.” She glances at her watch.

“Keeping a tight schedule, are we?”

She finds herself irritated that Pandora pronounces the word with a
sh
sound instead of a
sk,
even though she knows that’s the British way.

It’s the attitude, not the accent. It’s as if she’s questioning that Bella might actually have something better to do than sit around sipping tea in the little pink house.

“I’m sorry,” she says tautly, “but it’s been a crazy day.”

“I can imagine.”

“Anyway, you seem to be on your way out,” she tells Pandora. “Are you going to the speaking event at the auditorium? Everyone else seems to be.”

“I was just about to stroll over, yes. But now I’ve thought better of it. It’s bad form to show up late for these things. People do talk around here.”

Oh, really? People other than Pandora herself?

“You should go,” Bella tells her, but she’s shaking her head, her mind made up.

“I rather don’t feel like it. My timing is simply off today. I’m afraid I was so knackered this morning that I didn’t get up until noon.”

Why
, Bella wonders,
would she bother to share that bit of information?
Why mention where she was all morning unless she’s attempting to subtly let Bella know where she was
not
?

As in driving down Bachellor Hill Road in the car that’s parked in her driveway.

She dismisses the notion as farfetched the moment it enters her mind.

Pandora is simply the kind of conversationalist who overshares everything. She chats on about having eaten eggs for lunch and the delightful weather and invites Bella to admire her geraniums and various delights in her yard. An avid gardener, she insists on identifying flowers by their botanical names, presuming that Bella will appreciate them because she’s a science teacher.

Did I tell her that?
she wonders.
Or did she find out on her own?

Why would she care?

For that matter, why is Bella bothered by it? She’s met plenty of people like Pandora, who have nothing better to do than concern themselves with other people’s lives. Irksome but harmless.

As Pandora chatters on, she casually twirls one of her braids. Both are once again accessorized with a pair of scrunchies that match her dress.

Bella keeps an eye on the screen door of the café and is grateful when the boys emerge at last.

“Max!” she calls. “Jiffy! Over here!”

They come toward her, licking their ice cream cones and chatting as if they’ve known each other all their lives. Max is starting to fit right in with his ragamuffin pal, from his unkempt hair to knees that are dirty and scraped from a few early falls off the scooter. He’s hardly become proficient at steering, but at least he’s no longer
crashing to the ground after managing to hit every pothole on his way over.

And he’s wearing shoes She insisted on that. When she suggested that Jiffy do the same, lest he step on broken glass or a yellow jacket, he proudly showed her the scars on the bottoms of his filthy feet from having done both.

“Pandora, this is my son, Max, and this is Jiffy.”

“Oh, I know Jiffy. It’s good to see you again, young man. And it’s lovely to meet you, Max.” She shakes their sticky hands, which wins her a slight reprieve from Bella.

Still, however, eager to escape, she says, “Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Pandora, but we’d better get going.”

Max looks at the helmet she holds out to him. “Don’t we have to finish our ice cream first?”

“Of course you must,” Pandora tells him. “One cannot eat ice cream in a helmet, much less ride a scooter.”

She’s right, of course. Max can barely maneuver the scooter without an ice cream cone in his hand.

Bella reluctantly accepts Pandora’s invitation to sit on her porch swing for a few minutes.

“The lads can explore the garden,” she says.

“But stay where I can see you,” Bella cautions them as they head across the lawn. “And don’t trample anything!”

“No worries. I’m sure they’ll be very careful.” Yet Pandora, too, keeps a watchful eye on Max and Jiffy as they poke around the yard speculating about buried treasure.

Meanwhile, Pandora herself pokes around Bella’s business and speculates about everything from her love life to her future plans.

“I heard Grant Everard is back in town,” she says, after prying into whether Bella has dated anyone since losing her husband and whether she’s reconsidering staying in Lily Dale after all—for the summer or permanently.

The answer to both questions is a decided no, of course. As for Grant . . .

Pandora didn’t ask a question, but Bella decides it’s her turn to pose one. “Do you know him?”

“We’ve met a few times. Rather handsome bloke, isn’t he?”

Ignoring that, Bella asks Pandora how she knew Grant is here. “Have you seen him?”

“I haven’t, but someone mentioned that he was here.”

“Who was it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says off-handedly. “Maybe Roxi, the girl who works the gate. Does it matter?”

It does if she heard it from someone who would recognize Grant on sight. That would confirm that the man who checked into the guesthouse is, indeed, Leona’s vagabond so-called nephew.

Hearing sirens in the distance, she automatically glances over at Max. He’s fine, of course, still holding the cone in one hand and a stick in the other, using it to gently prod into a clump of pachysandra.

Jiffy, too, is accounted for.

But the sirens are a reminder that somewhere, someone is in trouble.

“We really should go,” she tells Pandora, looking at her watch. “Boys? Come on. Finish up!”

“There’s no need to hurry, love.”

“There is. I have something I need to do in a few minutes.”

“Oh? What is it?”

Something in Pandora’s tone bothers Bella. For one thing, she’s tired of the questions. For another, she can’t help but wonder if Pandora already knows about the kittens and the feedings. She seems to know everything else about Bella’s life, past and present.

Is she a harmless snoop or a dangerous one?

The sirens aren’t fading. They’re coming closer, making her tense.

“Boys!” She stands abruptly. “Let’s go.”

“Coming!” Max calls.

Pandora, too, is on her feet. “I’ll walk you home. I was about to take a stroll anyway.”

“Oh, it’s . . . it wouldn’t really be a stroll, with the kids and the scooters.”

“I don’t mind. I rather want to ensure that you get there safely.”

Halfway down the porch steps, Bella turns back. “I’m sure we’ll be safe,” she says with a nervous little laugh. “I mean, why wouldn’t we be?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.” Pandora offers what she surely intends to be a reassuring smile.

But there seems to be something more to it—a sharpness, or maybe an awareness, in her eyes.

Maybe she’s picking up on Bella’s anxiety. She probably wouldn’t have to be psychic to do that.

But she
is
—supposedly—psychic. Maybe she does know something.

“Mom, look! This will cheer you up!”

“Hmm?”

“Remember this morning when you were sad? Here. This will cheer you up.”

She turns to see Max holding out a flower. It has a long, slender stem topped by a well-spaced row of deep-blue, ruffle-tipped petals shaped like miniature upside-down lilies.

“Where did you get that?” Pandora asks, behind her.

“Over there.” Max points to the pachysandra.

“I’m so sorry,” Bella tells Pandora. “Max, I told you not to disturb Ms. Feeney’s garden.”

“You said not to trample. I didn’t trample. I picked. Right, Jiffy?”

“Right.”

“Max, may I see it, please?” Pandora is beside Bella, holding out her hand.

“It’s for my mom.”

“Max!”

He hands it over to Pandora, who doesn’t even have the grace to smile.

Bella bristles. Yes, Max was wrong to pick the flower. But Pandora is the one who invited him to explore the yard. If it weren’t for her meddlesome attitude, they wouldn’t be here in the first place.

“Max, please apologize,” she says. “Pandora, I’ll replace the plant if you’ll just tell me what it is. I’m going to the store this afternoon.”

“
Hyacinthoides non-scripta.
Back in England, it’s our national flower. It’s my favorite. I planted it here, just as I did at the guesthouse.”

“Oh! Odelia said something about that.”

“About what?”

“She said that Chance—Leona’s cat—was born outside in a bed of blooming Wood Hyacinths.”

Pandora shakes her head, irked. “Wood Hyacinths are something else entirely. Those are
Hyacinthoides non-scripta.
I do wish Odelia would get her facts straight. But it’s the most peculiar thing . . .” Staring at the blossom, Pandora shakes her head, and then she looks intently at Bella.

“Maybe you can write it down for me so that I don’t get confused,” Bella suggests. “I’ll try to find it at a nursery, and if I can’t—”

“No, I don’t give a fig about replacing the flower. It’s a perennial. In the spring, there are scads of them.” She gestures at the pachysandra. “But not this late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Max, why did you pick this flower for your mum?” Pandora asks.

“Because she needs to be cheered up.”

“But why
this
flower?”

“Because it was the only one.”

Bella follows Pandora’s gaze to the riot of blooms cascading over the yard.

“But that isn’t true. There are lots of other flowers,” she tells her son, “and anyway, you weren’t supposed to pick any of them.”

His brown eyes fill with tears. “I wanted to cheer you up.”

“Sweetie, I know, but I wasn’t sad. I’m okay.”

“You’re
always
sad. It makes me sad.”

“And your dad, too, by the way.”

At that comment from Jiffy, Bella widens her eyes.

“That’s what Max said,” he goes on. “Right, Max?”

“Max, what did you say?”

He shuffles his feet under her gaze. “I just said we miss Dad, so we get sad.”

“And you said so does he,” Jiffy says matter-of-factly. “You said he doesn’t want you to cry.”

“He wouldn’t want us to cry,” Bella agrees, watching Max stare at his sneakers, “but he can’t
say
that to us. We just know it in our hearts, because he loved us, and . . .” She swallows hard.

“Plus, boys don’t cry, mostly.” That comes from Jiffy.

“Did your dad tell you to pick that flower for your mum?” Pandora asks Max, watching him intently.

“Pandora!” Bella says sharply, putting a protective hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t know why I picked it.”

“’Cause your dad said it would cheer up your mom,” Jiffy says. “Remember?”

Bella’s heart lurches.

She sees Pandora give a slight nod and realizes that she’s no longer looking at Max. She’s staring at something beside him, in a spot where there’s nothing but thin air.

It’s just like the first day Bella met her, when she was conversing with an invisible someone and informed Bella that she’s supposed to be here.

Really? Because right now, she’d rather be just about anyplace else on the face of the earth. Enough already. She’s got enough problems wrangling the living. The last thing she needs to do is worry about the dead.

“We have to go,” she says firmly. “Right now.”

“Bella, wait.
Hyacinthoides non-scripta
doesn’t bloom in July,” Pandora tells her as she hands the helmets to the boys and starts propelling them away with one hand on each of their shoulders. “It only blooms in springtime.”

Bella whirls on her. “Stop! I don’t want any more botany lessons! Can’t you see I don’t care? You’re out of line! How can you get so upset with a little boy for picking a stupid flower? And then to insist on talking to him about . . . about . . .”

“Oh, darling, I wasn’t angry that he picked a bloody flower! Children have been doing it for centuries. Especially those.”

“What do you mean, especially those?”

Pandora recites, “‘
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn from their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly by infant hands, left on the path to die.
’ At least Max left the petals intact,” she adds with a rueful smile.

He turns around to look at her. “Hey, is that a poem?”