Page 30 of Murder Will Out
He gave Willow a pitying look, then gestured to the women. “Delphine and Dorothy Drummond, meet Willow Stone. She is Dr. Davis’s goddaughter.”
“Call me Dellie, please,” the first woman said with a rosy-cheeked smile. “And my sister is Dot. A pleasure.”
Willow cleared her throat awkwardly. “It’s very nice to meet you too,” she said. “I saw you at the church, I think.”
Dot shrugged. “Well, of course we had to pay our respects. Even if Miss Susan was not a proper Cameron, she did her best.”
There was an uncomfortable pause, and then Dellie said brightly, “Do you enjoy ghost stories, Willow dear? Effie loved watching them on her big television. Such a marvel, all those people moving around on the screens as clear as though we were looking through a window at them.” She leaned confidentially in Willow’s direction. “Joel will pretend he was too busy with numbers and ledgers, but he enjoys them as much as we do.” She resumed her knitting. “Remember, Dot, that film about the young woman with the pottery wheel, whose beau was murdered, and his ghost came back to avenge his own death?” she asked.
Dot nodded. “So exciting—and such a handsome young man—improper, of course, sharing a home together before marriage, but oh, Dellie, weren’t they so much in love—”
“Ladies,” Joel snapped at the sisters. He turned back to Willow. “Miss Willow Stone, meet the North Islands Historical Society. The original membership, in any case; there are of course many others now.”
Willow’s eyes darted from one to the other of the matter-of-fact trio. “You’re… ghosts.”
The little quirk at the corner of his mouth returned. “An archaicword, bearing the baggage of ages.” His shrug was nonchalant. “I suppose it is as serviceable as any.”
“But…” Willow remembered something else. “When I saw you the other day, you helped support Mr. Talbot when we tried to get him to the couch. How could you do that if you aren’t… real? You had your arm around him. You touched my face when…” She shuddered, not wanting to revisit the experience.
“We are very real. Just not tangible in the way you understand reality. And I didn’t truly touch you—or him,” he said. “I gave the appearance, but your mind filled in the rest. Here,” he said, holding his hand out to her—outstretched, as real as her own, every pore and hair and crease, rounded fingernails and ragged cuticles and a smudge of ink on his second finger. Hesitantly, she reached back with her own hand to clasp his; for an instant, she felt his fingers around hers, the warmth and solidity of his steady hand, but as she looked down, she realized they were not touching at all, hands hovering a breath away from each other.
He withdrew his hand from hers and took a step back, resuming his slow pacing. “Suffice it to say that in our state of being, we can only physically interact with things that existed when we lived. Newer objects, and of course humans, we cannot.”
“Tell her about the talismans, Joel,” Dot said.
Dellie jumped in before he could speak. “You see, dear, most of us have one thing, one tangible object,” she said. “An item that was important to us in life, that can interact with both past and present.” She waved one of her knitting needles in Willow’s direction. “Here, touch it,” she said.
Willow did; the needle felt solid and firm and exceedingly… ordinary. She looked at Joel, then down at the antique fountain pen on the hearth. “Yours is… your pen?”
He nodded. “It is. Even filled with modern ink, on modern paper. These… mediate for us.” He looked vaguely embarrassed. “Again, I do not understand the mechanics. But these help us accomplish our purpose.” He gestured around the library. “Ghosts,spirits, shades—whatever you call us, we are here, and it is our responsibility to see to the house and the rest of the family. Which brings us to your second question: why we are here.”
He stopped pacing and looked at her. “Miss Stone, were you aware of what Dr. Davis was attempting to do for us?”
Willow thought again of Sue’s letter.Please come back to Little North—and this is important—come soon… you are still part of this place, and it needs you.She shook her head. “No; she wrote me a letter months ago, but I only received it last week. I came as soon as I could, but it was too late.”
“Dr. Davis was working with us, with the historical society,” Joel said. “It was Effie’s idea; she knew that between herself and Geralt Talbot, the Cameron line was coming to an end. But she believed there were others, descended from previous Cameron generations; if one could be located and brought to Little North, our problem would be solved.”
“What problem?” Willow asked.
“The problem of our being,” he said heavily. “Our existence here requires a living Cameron on the island, taking responsibility for this house. Once the last is gone, our hold—all of us—will begin to fade until we… cease.”
“So you can imagine our reaction when Effie left the house to a non-Cameron,” Dot said acerbically.
“Indeed,” Dellie said. “A questionable decision,notdiscussed with the family.”
“I’m sure Miss Effie had her reasons,” Joel said, then fixed his eyes on Willow’s again. “We believe Dr. Davis, despite not being a Cameron herself, was on the cusp of a discovery—that she had learned something and was pursuing a lead to another Cameron family branch. She brought you back, I suppose, to ask for your help in finding it.”
Willow blinked. “Me? Why?”
“Your third question.” Joel shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea, Miss Stone. She wanted you here, and Effie concurred,and neither deigned to share their reasoning with us.” He held out his hands in a gesture of resignation. “But here you are. It’s not unusual for islanders, especially the old families, to see us from time to time, though they rarely pay us any mind. It’s infrequent for someone from Away”—Willow could all but hear the silent capitalization—“to notice us, but not unprecedented, particularly if some aspect of their lives resonates with ours or has a particular connection. We suspect that Susan’s bond with Effie, and yours with Susan, are what give you this ability. But that won’t be enough to sustain us.”
“But Sue wrote to me,” Willow said. “She must have known something. She must have had a reason.”
Joel’s mouth set in a grim line. “Yes, she must have. But she is gone, and whatever she knew seems to be gone with her.”
“And why is she gone?” Willow asked. She took a few steps closer to him. “What happened to Sue? How did she die?”
Joel winced and turned away, facing out the window. “Please, Miss Stone.”
