Secret Of The Rose (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 2) (13 page)

Whipping her head up, Gwen stopped looking at the images on the digital camera. “Come again?”

“I said, did you know that we have a ghost?”

Gwen set the camera on the counter. “What makes you think we do?” She smiled as if I was making a joke.

“I don’t think we have a ghost,” I bristled with indignation. “I
know
.”

“I’ve seen plenty go on around the manor, but I’ve never seen a ghost.” Gwen started to walk by, patting me on the arm as if to reassure me.

While she may have meant to be kind—the arm patting pissed me off. “That’s interesting Gwen, because she told me that you
knew
she was here!”

“You interacted with another spirit?” I had Gwen’s full attention now. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. “
Where
exactly did you have your encounter?” she asked after a moment.

“I first saw her the other day when I looked out my window and spotted someone working in the rose garden. I thought she was a real person so I went to find out who she was, and what she was doing in the yard.”

Gwen’s eyes grew large. “Describe her to me. What did she look like?”

“She’s an older middle aged lady, blue eyes, gray hair, and she was wearing denim overalls with a bright pink sweater. Goofy clothes for a ghost, if you ask me. Oh, and she had this crazy straw gardening hat on, with bright pink flowers on it.”

Gwen made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “Did she tell you her name?” She pressed a hand to her heart, and her eyes shimmered with tears.

“She told me I could call her Ro.”

Gwen suddenly burst out laughing. “She did, did she?” Gwen wiped at a few tears that had spilled over, and cleared her throat. “When did you see her again?”

“This morning after I came home from Duncan’s.”

“I see.” Gwen slanted me a look. “Did she communicate with you today?”

It wasn’t a secret that I’d spent the night with Duncan, but still... I struggled not to feel embarrassed. “For a short time, she did talk to me.” I hedged, not wanting to discuss my sex life.

“Come with me. I want to show you something.” Gwen motioned for me to follow her.

I trailed along as we went upstairs and into Gwen’s bedroom suite. We walked through the turret space and Gwen went immediately to a gorgeous antique wardrobe in her bedroom. She opened it and pulled out a storage box.

She sat on her bed and patted the yellow and white quilt next to her in invitation. Gwen pulled up the lid on the box. As I sat beside her I saw dozens of old photos inside, all stacked neatly. She rummaged through, pulling out a snapshot. Gwen studied it carefully for a moment, then, finally, handed it to me face down.

“What’s this?” I asked. As I reached for the photo, I saw the year 1992 printed on the back.

“You tell me,” Gwen said.

Flipping over the photo, I got a good hard jolt of recognition. A middle age woman seemed to smile at me from the snapshot. She was wearing jeans, a hot pink sweater and a silly straw gardening hat decorated with pink flowers. This was absolutely the woman who’d appeared to me.
Ro
was kneeling in the rose garden of the manor with her arms around a laughing, pigtailed toddler.

It wasn’t so much seeing a photo of the ghost—when she’d been alive, that had me jolting. It was the sudden realization that the little girl who stood grinning in Ro’s arms, was in fact, me.

“Ro told me she had changed my diapers,” I whispered to Gwen.

“
Now,
do you recognize your grandmother, Rose?”

“She told me to call her Ro—” I shook my head over that.

“My father—your grandfather, used to call her Ro,” Gwen explained.

“I don’t remember her.” I felt sad about that.
No wonder she told me to look at my roots. My grandmother had probably been miffed that I hadn’t recognized her!
I replayed in my mind everything Ro had ever said to me.

Remembering our conversation this morning, I shut my eyes in mortification.
That had been my grandmother asking me about my sex life!
While I sat there and wondered if it was possible to die of embarrassment, Gwen pulled out a stack of photos.

“I have some other pictures in here of your grandparents, and your father. Would you like to have them?” Gwen asked kindly.

“I would.” I accepted a neat bundle that had been tied together with a blue ribbon. I flipped through them, thinking about the date 1992, written on the back of the photo of Ro and me. That was the year the Blood Moon Grimoire had been stolen. Afterwards, Thomas Drake had hexed the thieves, because of this, my grandparents and Duncan’s father had all died.

I held up the picture of Ro—Rose and me. “How long was this photo taken
before
she and my grandfather died in that accident?”

“A few months before.” Gwen closed the photo box and left it on the bed beside her.

“Thanks for these, Gwen.” I said of the photos, meaning it.

“If you have any other questions about the photos or your grandparents feel free to ask me.”

As I thumbed through them, one in particular caught my attention. The photograph was of an older man sitting on the back patio of the manor in an Adirondack chair. What was unusual was the crow perched on the arm of his chair. “Who’s this?” I held up the snapshot.

Gwen glanced over. “That’s your grandfather, Morgan.”

My heart started to beat a little faster as I thought about the weird encounters with crows I’d been having. “This is an interesting picture,” I said and tried to sound casual. “Tell me about it.”

Gwen smiled. “That’s a picture of him and Midnight.”

“He had a pet crow?”

“Not so much a pet...” Gwen chuckled a bit. “Let’s just say your grandfather had a way with animals...”

“Are you telling me the crow was his familiar?”

“Of course.”

“Really?”

“My father was able to communicate with animals. All sorts of animals,” Gwen said proudly.

“Can you, Bran, or the twins do that?” I wanted to know.

“Holly can with song birds. I can a little—though I have a better connection with cats,” Gwen said. As if she’d conjured him up, Merlin jumped up on the bed and climbed into Gwen’s lap.

That explained the comment she’d made about having an agreement with Merlin about leaving the Halloween decorations alone. Oh, and how Holly had gotten those birds to eat out of her hands at the pool.
Well, well, the things you learn...
I stacked the pictures together and retied the ribbon around them, while Merlin purred contently from Gwen’s lap. “Did anyone else in the family have the ability to communicate with ghosts?” I thought to ask.

“Your Great-Aunt Faye is a Seer. And a Medium, like you are.”

“Are you still in contact with her?”

“Yes. She’s a widow, in her seventies now. She lives in Hannibal.” Gwen started to root through the box again, and after a bit handed me another older photo. This one included Morgan, my grandfather, and two other women. One was smiling, while the other appeared intense and serious.

“Who are these ladies with my grandfather?”

“His two sisters, Irene and Faye.” Gwen pointed to one of the ladies who had piercing pale eyes. “That is Faye Bishop.”

“So, Hannibal’s only what, a couple of hours north from here?” Gwen nodded her head in confirmation. “Can you arrange for me to speak to her?” I asked.

“Of course.” Gwen ran a hand down my back. “I’ll contact her tonight. You’ll like Aunt Faye. She’s quite a character.”

I added the picture of my grandfather and his sisters to the stack. “It’d be great to speak to another Seer and Medium. The sooner the better,” I said, thinking of Ro.

I thanked my aunt for the photos and took them back to my room. I spread them out across my bedspread to study them more carefully, in private. There were about a dozen photos. A snapshot of my father and his father, Morgan, was there. They seemed to be grilling on the back patio. I saw several photos of my grandmother working in her gardens- always with the silly hat.

The photo of Morgan, Irene and Faye was stamped 1990, and I wondered at Faye’s serious expression. Finally, I studied a cute picture of my grandparents sharing a kiss. When I flipped over the back of the photo it said “30th Anniversary Mo and Ro”.

Oh god. They called themselves Mo and Ro.
It was silly enough to make me smile. I pulled the photo of the anniversary smooch, the shot of Grandpa Morgan and Midnight, and the photo of myself in the rose garden with Ro, and put them in an envelope. I had seen an arts and crafts store in town, and I thought I’d take some time this afternoon and get some pretty frames for the pictures. I wanted to display them on the fireplace mantle in my room. They would be perfect next to the framed picture of my father. While I didn’t remember my grandparents, they seemed very determined to interact with me—even from the other side. I wanted to honor them in some way, and this seemed appropriate.

No sooner had I made the decision, when the scent of roses bloomed in the air. “Okay, Ro. I mean
Grandma
Rose. I understand what you were trying to tell me. No worries, I’m honoring my roots.” I sat on the padded bench at the foot of the bed, waiting to see if she would reappear, but the scent of the roses faded away.

I thought about the family tree in the journal, and those mysterious lines. If I left now, I’d have time to hit the local library before they closed and do a search on
W Sutherland
. I could also research the local newspaper’s archives and see if I could find any birth or death records for my father’s son.

My mind made up, I pulled the family tree book out, added the envelope and the rest of the photos from Gwen, gathered my things and headed out. As I walked to my truck, I heard crows calling in the distance. I smiled to myself, and wondered if that was my grandfather, making his presence known as well. Somehow, I didn’t doubt it. Seems my ancestors were determined to show me more of the legacy of magick, no matter what.

***    

I stood at the information desk of the William’s Ford public library and waited. I had turned in the form to get a library card, and had spent the last hour going through the archives, killing time, while I waited for them to process my application. My newspaper search had yielded no results, but I wasn’t ready to give up. Finally, I had been paged to the desk, and a middle aged woman with a short brunette bob approached me.

“Bishop?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she scanned the application. She wore a gorgeous stone pendant over her dark sweater, and was frowning.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.

She shifted her eyes back and forth, from the application to my face. “So you are a resident now?”

I pulled my university ID badge out, wondering why she was being so hostile. “Yes, I am in the Museum Studies Master’s program at the university.”

As she took the ID and scrutinized it, I resisted the urge to salute. Talk about a tough librarian... If I hadn’t sworn I would never scan another person’s mind without permission again, I’d have been damned tempted to take a walk through her head, if only to see what all the hostility was about.

A shame about the unfriendly attitude, because the pendant she wore was beautiful. It seemed to glow against her dark sweater. I wondered what sort of stone that was? It was a cloudy, soft purple color, but it didn’t look like an amethyst. I thought I’d try a compliment, and see if that helped move the library card process along.

“Your pendant, it’s gorgeous. What kind of stone is that?” I asked.

She seemed to be sizing me up. “It’s a purple sapphire.”

“I didn’t know sapphires came in purple. Where did you get it?”

“My husband made the pendant for me.” The librarian went to her computer and started to enter in my information.

“Does he sell his jewelry?” I asked her.

The librarian seemed to be softening up. She actually gave me a polite smile. “Come back to the desk in a little bit and I’ll have your temporary card ready for you.”

I took my ID back from her and headed into the stacks, looking for books on local history. While looking through the books, I had the oddest feeling I was being watched. I deliberately strolled along acting as if nothing was amiss, but I stretched out with my magick and waited. I turned a corner and saw Thomas Drake standing at the front desk. He was staring right at me. I jolted, dropping the books I was carrying.

I cringed at the racket and automatically picked up the fallen books. A few seconds later, when I stood back up, he was gone. I shifted, looking towards the exit and saw that the door was closing.

I tried to sense the area— to double check, and everything felt normal. The atmosphere of the library seemed different now. I figured my magickal senses were telling me he had left. Relieved, I leaned against the bookcase for a moment. The last time I’d been in a library with that man had been less than pleasant, and I was shaken at the sighting.

My close encounter over, I went back to the information desk with my books, and my temporary card was ready. The librarian handed it over, along with a business card.

“That’s my husband’s card. He has a little shop on Main,” she said. “Tell him that Sarah sent you.” She didn’t smile, but she didn’t frown at me either.

“Thanks, Sarah.” I smiled at her anyway.

I was walking out to my truck, my new library books tucked under my arm, when I glanced down at the jeweler’s card. I stopped dead still in the middle of the parking lot as I stared in disbelief down at the card.

Sutherland’s Gemstones and Jewelry

“Sutherland,” I breathed. Not sure if this was magick or merely a happy coincidence of living in a small college town, I read the address on the card, noted they had evening hours, and decided to go straight to the store.

It was a long shot, but maybe someone in the shop would know who the W. Sutherland was from my family tree. I drove downtown, and tried to work out in my head how to politely ask if a woman in their family had given birth to a son back in 1985. There really
wasn’t
a polite way to ask, so I guessed I’d have to ask for straight up information, and see how it went.