Many Blessings

Prologue

Mandaline Royce frowned as she stared at the image the Weather Channel displayed. On the screen, a large, pre-hurricane-season blob inexorably chugged its way toward the west Florida coast late that Wednesday afternoon. It would likely be named Tropical Storm Adelle within the next twenty-four hours.

“What the frak is going on with the weather?” Mandaline asked. “Doesn’t Nature know it’s not even June first yet? It’s way too early for a tropical storm.”

“You’re just bound and determined to manifest that dang thing right over us, aren’t you?” Julie playfully teased from the front windows. Both Mandaline’s friend and employer, she was currently emptying the displays of merchandise.

Mandaline twirled a long, brown lock of hair around her finger. “And you’re not? You’re clearing out the front displays.”

“That’s prudence. So is rolling down the storm shutters.” She turned and pointed to Mandaline. “Look, it’s nearly three. I seriously doubt we’re going to have any more customers in here today the way the weather’s looking. Get your butt home, pack, and get yourself and Damien back here ASAP.”

“Damiago.”

“Damien is a better name for that evil pussy,” Julie joked as she pulled her wild, curly red hair into a ponytail and twisted an elastic band around it. “Doesn’t matter. You two are staying here with me during the storm and not in that ratty trailer.”

Mandaline picked up the remote and changed the cable channel to a light jazz music station. “It’s not going to be that bad. That trailer can handle some wind.” Truth be told, she was looking forward to a little skyclad rain dancing.

Julie filled her arms with merchandise she pulled from the window displays and carried it over to the counter. “Bullshit.” She put the stuff down. “I need you here so I don’t have to worry about your safety. This building’s old, but it’s sturdy. I’m going to be over at the Coreys’ house tomorrow in Croom for most of the day anyway. I’d feel better with you here.”

Mandaline shivered. “I reeeeally wish you’d cancel that. Do it next week once the weather clears. And take someone with you. Like Sachi and her skeet gun.”

Julie’s expression softened. “They need me. I have to help. You know I can’t turn my back on them.”

“That house is bad juju, girlfriend.” Mandaline shivered again and rubbed her hands up and down her arms in a futile attempt to soothe the gooseflesh rippling them. “They should burn it down to the foundation, salt the ground, and deed it over to the state to make it part of the park.”

“Things can’t be evil. Energy can be dark, yes. But things can be cleansed of dark energy. You know that as well as I do.” She brightly smiled. “Besides, I really like Sami Corey. She’s a sweet woman. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of her in here once she gets through everything…”

Mandaline didn’t miss the way Julie’s voice faltered, the way her smile faded. Mandaline quickly rounded the counter and put her hands on Julie’s shoulders. “What is it? What’d you see?”

“Nothing.” Julie shook her head and pasted a fake smile on her face that didn’t fool Mandaline in the least. “The weather’s getting to me, that’s all. You know I hate these storm systems.”

Mandaline searched Julie’s eyes. “You saw something. Don’t lie to a witch, girlfriend.”

“Yeah, I saw your ass being blown away if you don’t spend tomorrow here.” From the force of Julie’s smile, Mandaline knew her friend wouldn’t reveal what she saw. “You lose power during a little sunshower. Your power will be out for days even if the trailer doesn’t fly away to Oz with you and Damien in it. Take that large cooler I’ve got in the back and unload your freezer and fridge into it. Bring it all here. We can put everything in the fridge in the break room.”

“Your power will probably go out, too.”

“Ah, but remember, I’ve got that backup generator now. And the propane tank for it is slap full, so we’ll be fine. I had them come top it off yesterday.” She headed back to the front windows for another armload. “Go on. Seriously. Chop-chop, kiddo.”

Mandaline sighed as she watched Julie. Her friend had seen something, had one of her uncannily accurate visions. Mandaline suspected something related to that damn Croom house.

She also knew her stubborn friend wouldn’t say what until she was ready. “Fine. I’ll go pack.”

Julie waited until Mandaline left to flip the sign to Closed on the front door and sit down at her desk, where the shakes finally hit her. Persnickety, her shaggy little terrier mix, jumped up into her lap and whined.

Julie felt the tears in her eyes and brushed them away with the back of her hand. “I have to,” she whispered to the dog. “I have to help them. If I don’t help them, they’ll die. All three of them, tomorrow. George Simpson is coming through strong and using the storm’s energy to grow stronger. They have a chance if I go help.”

The little dog’s brown eyes stared up at her as if in agreement.

Julie hugged him close and breathed in the warmth from his body. “The future isn’t written until it’s the past,” she whispered into his fur. “I have to help them. May the Goddess help me write them a better past than what I saw.”

Still, she couldn’t shake the image that had invaded her mind. Of a woman, Evelyn Simpson, tied to her bed and being raped by her husband, George Simpson.

A vision of an event that had happened nearly a hundred years earlier.

An unrecorded, unreported crime, but one that Julie knew to the depths of her soul had occurred in that house exactly as she’d seen it.

Something that occurred before George murdered Evelyn and their children. A mystery that had lingered in the county’s history.

Something that could happen again if she didn’t stop it and rid George Simpson’s dark energy from that house—and from Sami’s husband, Steven Corey—for good.

A little after nine fifteen Thursday morning, Julie finished loading all her equipment in her kiwi green Honda Element.

“At least let me come with,” Mandaline begged as she watched. “Don’t go out there alone.”

Julie picked up Pers and hugged him tightly to her before kissing the top of his head. “No, I need you here.” She handed the trembling dog to her. “He hates storms.”

“He’ll live. I—”

Julie held up her hands. “Please, I know what I’m doing.” She hugged Mandaline, the little dog sandwiched between them. “I love you, sister. Take care of things for me. Promise?”

Every instinct in Mandaline’s body screamed how wrong this was, what a bad idea it was. But all she could do was nod. “Okay,” she whispered. “I promise. I love you, too, sister.”

Julie kissed her cheek before stepping back. She cupped the dog’s head in her palms and kissed his nose. “And take care of Pers for me. He’s my baby.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Julie assured her. “I’ll be back later tonight. Then we can crack open a bottle of wine and chillax. Matt Barry and Sami Corey are sweethearts. You’re really going to like them.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about, from what you’ve told me.”

“I haven’t met Steve in person yet. From what Sami’s said, he’s a troubled man, but he has a good heart. What kind of person would I be to turn my back and spit in the face of the Goddess and the good fortune She’s given me all these years? That house is my history, too.”

“You can’t save your great-grandfather, or your grandaunt,” Mandaline quietly said. “They went on to the Summerland a long, long time ago. That’s not your burden to bear.”

“No, I can’t. But if I help them today, maybe I can keep someone else’s ancestors from taking the journey too soon.”

With one final hug and kiss for Mandaline, and one final hug and kiss for Pers, she climbed into her Element and drove off with a wave.

Mandaline closed her eyes and turned her face up to the overcast skies. Astarte, Hecate, Nokomis, Cerridwen, Nodens, please protect her and bring her safely home. So mote it be.

With a shiver in the growing breeze, she returned inside and bolted the back door behind her.

Julie waited until the first red light she hit to pull the large, bulky, sealed manila envelope from her purse and tuck it in the space between her front seats where it would be easily visible. On it she’d written Mandaline’s name and cell phone number, along with the store’s name, address, and phone number.

If her visions were wrong and she didn’t need what she’d prepared, no one need be any wiser. She could tear up the forms and documents she’d had witnessed and notarized late yesterday at her bank across the square while Mandaline had gone home to pick up her things from the trailer.

If her visions were right…

She sighed and prayed to the Goddess they weren’t, that the future remained unwritten.

Julie had told Mandaline to keep the store closed, but to feel free to answer the phone if she wanted. Julie had already called the other employees and gave them a paid day off because of the storm. And Julie had called the clients scheduled for readings that day and cancelled them as well. As the morning crept on, Mandaline kept one eye on the Weather Channel and their nonstop coverage of the tropical event, and one eye on the clock.

She tried to keep herself busy. Pers followed her around the store, never more than a few feet from her as Mandaline dusted, rearranged displays that didn’t need it, and raked and re-raked the little countertop zen garden every time she walked past it.

That still didn’t settle her.

She went upstairs to the apartment where, the evening before, Julie had her dump all her things in the corner of the living room. She pulled out the box with her personal candles. When Mandaline had packed, she’d hurriedly scooped everything off her altar into boxes, and grabbed her herbs and other ceremonial items, along with pictures, photo albums, her Tarot decks, and a few books.

She’d only packed a few changes of clothes. She didn’t care about them. Only the things she couldn’t replace came with.

She rummaged through her things until she found everything she needed. Downstairs, with her cat curled on the end of a couch in the front of the store and Pers sitting at her feet, she lit several candles and some incense, cast a circle, and called the quarters. With her eyes closed and her hands upraised, working from her heart she poured her prayers out to bring Julie home safely.

Lightning flashed, immediately followed by a loud boom that made her and both animals jump. The lights flickered briefly but didn’t go out.

“Thank you!” She smiled, taking it as a good sign from the Universe. She closed her ritual, opened the circle, and set out to keep herself distracted.

If it wasn’t for the growing wind, she’d change clothes and go outside and dance in the rain. Her chosen alignment was water, even though she did most of her rituals with candles.

Times like this it makes me wish I had a boyfriend. Someone to cuddle with in a storm.

She nixed that thought. Sorry, Goddess. I didn’t mean that. Forget I said that. So mote it be! she quickly added.

She’d sworn off men for a while, at least. The last several disastrous relationships she’d had, including a short-lived and ill-advised marriage followed by an even nastier divorce, left her angry, doubting herself, and full of pain. Not to mention she’d nearly turned her back on her spirituality for her ex-husband because his family was full of devout Evangelical Christians, and she’d been desperate for their acceptance.

Never again.

It wasn’t worth it. Not until she could become a better judge of character and, apparently, better in charge of herself.

I’m thirty-four. It’s not like I’m going to become a spinster. Hence why she’d rededicated herself to her craft, to her life. The right man would come to her in the Universe’s time, not hers.

She just had to sit back and let it happen. Now, she felt the most peace in her soul than she had in her entire adult life. No, she wasn’t rich, but she was happy. To her, that was far more valuable. She could pay her bills, keep a roof over her head, and still do what she loved, which was work for her best friend while also teaching and doing readings for customers.

She helped people.

She realized yes, despite not liking her friend’s dedication in this instance, Julie was right. They helped people, eased their spirits and souls, brought smiles to their faces. Brought them peace.

She let out a little cry as another boom rattled the windows and shook her from her thoughts.

By lunchtime the shop phone still hadn’t rang. She picked up Pers and carried him upstairs with her to make lunch. Halfway up the stairs, the lights flickered out again.

Above her, at the top of the stairwell, she saw a woman silhouetted against the light struggling in through translucent strips in the storm shutter covering the apartment’s living room window.

Pers began barking and whining, tail wagging, struggling to get out of her arms and go to the figure.

The electricity came back on before the emergency generator could kick in.

The stairwell above her was empty.

“Julie?” Mandaline called out, carefully advancing. It had looked like Julie.

Shivering, she immediately dialed Julie’s cell but it went straight to voice mail. “Hey, call me and check in, okay? Please?” She even walked into the bedroom and checked the bathroom, but Mandaline was alone in the apartment.

Struggling with her growing apprehension, she quickly made herself a sandwich, grabbed a zippy bag full of washed grapes and her The Quest Tarot deck, and headed back downstairs again with Pers. She made herself a cup of hot chai tea behind the counter and sat on a stool by the register where she could easily see the TV screen.

Shuffling the deck, she took a deep breath and tried to quiet her mind. She had another copy of The Quest Tarot that she used to read for customers sometimes, but this was her personal deck, one she never used to read for anyone but herself.

Quieting her mind proved no easy feat considering the storm and her worry over Julie’s safety.

She didn’t even know what or how to ask. She finally settled on, Show me this evening, please.

She cut the deck, shuffled once more, and quickly pulled the top three cards. She laid them out faceup before staring at them.

The Tower. Three of Swords. Nine of Swords.

She gasped. Every deck had slightly different variations in meaning.

This deck, in addition to beautiful images, runes, I Ching hexagrams, and other symbols on each card, included brief statements summarizing the card’s meaning.

Demolition. Mourning. Cruelty.

With trembling hands she gathered the cards and returned them to the deck. She’d started reshuffling and prepared to cut the deck again when another loud crack of thunder split the air.

She screamed and flinched. The deck slipped from her hand, scattering across the tile floor behind the counter.

“Dammit!” She started to retrieve them when she realized only three cards lay faceup amongst the cards on the floor.

The Tower. Three of Swords. Nine of Swords.

“No.” She quickly gathered the cards, shuffled them, and returned them to the black velvet drawstring bag she kept them in. She left it on the counter and stepped back, afraid to touch it again right then.

I need to sage it. Sage it good. Leave it in the windowsill in a bowl of sea salt under next weekend’s full moon. I haven’t cleansed it lately, and it’s mad at me.

She forced herself to eat even though her appetite had fled.

Around three thirty the power blinked off yet again. She held her breath and counted, but by the time she’d hit ten, the power hadn’t come on and the generator out back hadn’t kicked in yet.

Dammit.

She grabbed a flashlight from next to the register and headed toward the back door. When Julie had the emergency generator installed a couple of years earlier, she’d made sure all the employees knew how to operate it, but Mandaline had yet to be there when it was actually in use. Just as she went to unlock the door, she heard the generator kick on and the power flickered back to life in the store.

She glanced at the ceiling. “Thank you, Hecate,” she said. She returned to the front of the store. The TV showed the cable box boot-up sequence in progress.

At least I still have TV. For now. No telling how long the cable signal would hold out in the storm.

Then she noticed the little zen garden on the counter. The rake lay on the counter next to it, when she knew that was not where she’d left it.

She glanced out to the front of the store where Damiago lay curled up, asleep in a chair. She looked down at Pers, who’d followed her to the back of the store.

Walking closer, she realized there was now a message written in the sand, as if someone had taken their finger and spelled it out.

IT’S NOT HIS FAULT

She reached for the rake but paused. Grabbing her iPhone, she snapped a couple of pictures and checked them to make sure the message was visible before she raked the zen garden out again with a shiver.

“This is just too frakking weird.”

She tried calling Julie again.

Straight to voice mail.

“Listen, sister, please call me. Okay? I’m really, really worried. Maybe the storm has me wigged out, but I need to talk to you.”

The power came back on a few minutes later. The lights flickered for a moment as the generator kicked off and the crossover circuit made the switch back.

At 5:21, the power went off again. She’d been seated on the floor in the front of the store, on a large pillow next to a low table, several candles lit as she tried to meditate.

She opened her eyes when she heard the TV go off. Directly across from her, the candlelight flickering on her face, sat Julie.

“What—”

“Keep your heart open,” Julie said. “Believe.”

Mandaline rolled to her knees to reach across the table when Julie disappeared.

The lights came back on.

Pers ran around the table, to where Julie had been sitting. He barked and whined, tail wagging furiously as he searched for her.

With a stunned cry Mandaline lost her balance and fell backward. She scrabbled away from the table, tears pouring down her face.

Something was really, really wrong.

She half crawled, half ran to where she’d left her cell phone by the register. With hands shaking so badly she could barely hold the phone, she dialed Julie’s number. “Call me. Right now! Dammit, you have to call me. Something bad’s happening.”

She just prayed Julie called her back.

Mandaline ran to the office and fired up the computer. Julie compulsively wrote everything down, including customers’ information and appointments, and always backed it up into the computer.

“Come on, come on, dammit!” she yelled when it seemingly took forever to boot.

Finally, the password screen appeared. Mandaline logged in and drummed her fingers on the desk as she waited for the desktop to appear.

She opened Julie’s Gmail account, the one she used for the business, and then the contacts list. Scrolling through it, Mandaline located Samantha Corey’s home phone number. When Mandaline dialed the number, however, she received the fast-busy tone of a line out of order.

“Dammit!” She struggled to hold back tears. Julie hadn’t written down the woman’s cell phone number.

All she could do was wait.

And pray.

Mandaline kept Damiago and Pers close. Outside, the storm raged and the skies darkened until it almost looked like night despite it barely being six o’clock and official sunset still a couple of hours away. She repeatedly tried Julie’s cell but it went straight to voice mail every time. Either she was busy with the cleansing ritual, or…

She didn’t want to think about the or.

Not at all.

By seven o’clock, Mandaline was seriously considering calling the sheriff’s office and asking them to go out and check on Julie. The property was smack in the middle of a state forest. Maybe a tree had blown down across the driveway and they were trapped there. Maybe the wind or trees had knocked out cell service in addition to the landlines.

Maybe they’re all dead.

She immediately banished that thought from her mind.

With her stomach too knotted to eat, she kept all the lights on and the TV turned up loud enough she could hear it from anywhere in the shop, even upstairs in the apartment. She kept it tuned to the Weather Channel, preferring the relentless storm coverage to anything else. At least it made her feel connected, like she wasn’t alone.

At 8:25, a loud pounding on the front door scared her. She peeked around the corner of the downstairs hallway and made out two dark shapes at the front door, barely visible through translucent strips in the shutter that covered it.

With 911 punched into the phone in her hand and ready to hit send, she slowly walked up to the door. “Who is it?”

“Detective Haines, Hernando County Sheriff’s Office. We’re looking for Mandaline Royce.”

Her hands trembled so badly she almost couldn’t unlock the door. She stood back as Detective Haines and a uniformed officer came in, both dripping water from their official yellow rain slickers.

“What happened?” Mandaline asked, terror creeping through.

Then she spotted in his hands a clear plastic bag with EVIDENCE printed on it. Her eyes flew up to the detective’s face. She didn’t want to acknowledge what she saw in the bag.

Then it wouldn’t be real.

He looked grim. “Ma’am, are you Mandaline Royce?”

She nodded.

“Ms. Royce—”

“Mandaline.”

He nodded. “Mandaline, are you here by yourself?”

She nodded again. “Julie’s coming back.” She knew her voice raced and rambled in her growing panic, but she made no attempt to silence herself. She suddenly realized she recognized the detective from Libbie’s bakery, had seen him in there a few times when she went to pick up the daily order for the store. “She had to go out to Croom, to a house out there, to do a cleansing ritual. But she’s coming back. I’m worried because she’s been gone all day. I’ve tried to call her and keep getting her voice mail. But she’s coming back. Maybe you can send an officer out there to check on her. She’s coming back.”

She didn’t miss the look the two men exchanged. Her voice grew shrill, panic fully in charge. “She’s coming back. She’s my best friend and, dammit, she’s coming back!”

The detective gently led her over to one of the sofas and made her sit. “Mandaline, I hate to have to tell you this—”

“She’s coming back!” Mandaline screamed. “Dammit, she’s coming back!”

He put the plastic bag down, the one she refused to look at, and knelt in front of her. He grasped her hands. “I’m so, so sorry,” he softly said. “She’s not.”

Mandaline shook her head, her tears falling hot and heavy. “She is! She has to, she’s my best friend!”

He shook his head a little. “Do you have someone we can call for you?” he finally asked.

“Julie. Julie Prescott. Call her. This is a mistake. You call her and—”

“Mandaline,” he gently said, “I’m sorry. She’s dead.”

Mandaline closed her eyes and shook her head, refusing to believe it even though in the depths of her soul her dreaded suspicion had come true.

“Libbie Addams,” she finally whispered. “Across the street.” She could have asked for Sachi, but she lived almost twenty minutes away on a good day. She didn’t want her out on the road in the storm.

“At the bakery?”

She nodded. “She lives there. Knock on the back door. Keep knocking. It might take her a while to come down.”

She didn’t open her eyes, but the detective never let go of her hands when she heard the front door open, wind briefly screaming in until it closed behind the deputy again.

“Mandaline, we need to talk. But I’m going to wait until he gets back with Libbie so she’s here with you, okay?”

She nodded, now slowly rocking back and forth in place, not wanting to ask how, not wanting to let go of his hands, knowing in her heart it had to be Steven Corey who murdered her.

Had to be.

Pers, who had remained quiet throughout everything, jumped up on the sofa and laid his head in her lap.

Roughly ten minutes later the uniformed deputy returned, Libbie in tow and wrapped in a pink rain jacket. She pulled off the sodden jacket and immediately rushed to Mandaline’s side and sat next to her, her arm around her shoulder. Mandaline didn’t open her eyes until she leaned her head against Libbie’s shoulder.

Detective Haines wore a concerned expression.

“I called Grover,” Libbie softly said. Mandaline didn’t know if she was speaking to her or the detective. “Grover Johnson. He’ll be here in a minute.”

“Okay,” Haines said. He took a deep breath and gently squeezed Mandaline’s hands. “We still don’t know all the details of what happened,” he softly said. “And we need someone to come…give a positive identification.”

Mandaline nodded, tears falling into her lap.

“Did she have any other family? Husband? Kids? Parents? Siblings?”

“No,” Mandaline said. “Just some cousins she disowned a few years ago.”

He nodded. “Okay.” He reached into the plastic evidence bag and pulled out a large, tan hobo-style purse.

Mandaline sobbed.

“Do you recognize this?”

She closed her eyes and nodded. “I gave it to her for Yule last year. She…she had it with her when she left here this morning.”

She heard him set the purse on the floor, followed by the sound of him removing something else from the plastic bag. “We also found this in her car.”

She opened her eyes. In his hands he held a large, bulky manila envelope she hadn’t seen before.

On the front, in her playful script, Julie had written Mandaline’s name and cell number, and the name, address, and phone number of the store.

“What’s in it?” she asked.

“We haven’t opened it,” he said. “We found it, sealed like this. It…” He coughed. “We didn’t open it because we found it separate from the…scene. It was in her vehicle.” He offered it to her.

She tried to reach for it and couldn’t force her hand to move. “Libbie, please. You open it.”

“Of course.” She took it and opened it for Mandaline.

Mandaline closed her eyes and let Libbie tell her.

“They’re forms,” Libbie slowly said. “I…uh, I think we need Grover,” she said as she looked through everything. “These are all legal stuff.”

A moment later, the large, black man himself burst through the door, shaking water off his rain jacket. “What’s going on?” he asked Libbie as he rushed over. “What happened?”

Mandaline started crying again. The detective pulled him aside and in murmured tones caught him up.

The men returned to them, Grover sitting on Mandaline’s other side. “Oh, sugar. I’m so sorry. We’re here for you.”

Libbie spoke up and handed him the paperwork. “Julie left this for her in her car. In a sealed envelope with Mandaline’s name on it. I opened it for her.”

Grover, a retired attorney, frowned as he quickly leafed through everything. “It’s…” He cleared his throat, obviously overcome with emotion. “Mandaline, honey, I don’t know how to say this other than to say it. Julie left everything to you. She had all these papers witnessed and notarized yesterday. It’s a will, power of attorney, bank paperwork, everything you’re…going to need.”

Mandaline closed her eyes and sobbed against Libbie’s shoulder.