14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

O ut of the three needs I'd longed for I got two.

Grandpa and Monique brought hot tea in a thermos and a peek at the microfiche in the Liverswell Public Library basement. Grandpa also brought along some escarole soup and a change of clothes. He'd seen the dunking we'd taken online and was still incredibly freaked out, even as he saw and felt that I was fine. The hot shower was going to have to wait. Dry socks and hot soup in my empty belly helped ease the chill in my bones. No amount of tiny meatballs and well-cooked escarole leaves would erase the lingering mental fatigue caused by Aradia shoving her thoughts into my head. Ghosts had little knowledge of consent. Perhaps I could lead a class some night in the cemetery. Thanks for coming undead peeps. Do not touch the living or dump your horrible nightmarish memories into a medium's brainpan without asking first, 'kay? Thanks for coming to my TED talk. There are lady fingers by Wilbur Minnows' tomb.

Monique was standing behind me on the right, Grandpa on the left, and Phil was leaning on the edge of the old metal desk that held the microfiche reader and sipping Italian soup made by a Chinese man and his African American girlfriend. His wet clothes were in the duffel bag that held his football uniform. Yes, he was now geared up in his wide unpadded shoulders to his sporty socks and cleats.

"The article about Aradia is a small one, right down here," Monique said, directing the mouse around, her poofy hair tickling my nose while a demure cloud of Estee Lauder Beautiful floated around her. It was a nice scent. Classy. Like Monique, who did not hesitate to come to the library on Halloween night to read more about a long-dead healer. "We can cross reference the author and see if he has more in-depth writings in different publications."

"Cool, yeah, let's do that." I sat back to let her take over the search. Grandpa had a hand on my neck. Just sitting there as I poked at a tiny ball of ground beef in my cup of soup. He'd not stopped touching me since we'd met in the library parking lot. "I know this all seems incredibly odd to you," I said to Monique. She gave me a smile, warm brown eyes over the top of her bright red glasses.

"Oh, honey, if you're talking about ghosts, then that's nothing odd to me. Marie Laveau's blood runs on my mother's side of the family." She gave my grandfather a wink. "So your lineage and the skills that go with it don't frighten me one bit. I'll have to have you sit down with my mother sometime. She can tell you stories about her childhood in New Orleans that will make your testes crawl up into your body."

"No wonder you two hit it off so well," I said to Grandpa. He nodded, his gaze touching on my swollen nose. I had no doubt I'd have two black eyes soon, if not already.

"She's a special lady," he replied and squeezed my nape. I knew what he was feeling without him saying it. I'd apologized for scaring him that way. He must have been horrified to see me pulled into that lake by a specter just like his son possibly had been. "You eat more soup. Let her do her library wizard thing."

I did as he asked, sipping as Phil and I exchanged looks over warm soup. His blue eyes were dark with worry. I glanced at the camcorder sitting beside the microfiche reader, streaming away. Our episode was interrupted for about thirty minutes as we scrambled to meet up here, get changed, and have soup shoved at us by two distressed seniors. Roxie and Tray had touched base to tell us that we had close to a thousand people now logged in to watch us flounder around like Moe and Curly minus Larry. I was sure the comments online would be ferocious and derogatory, but Roxie assured us that people were loving this madcap paranormal chaos.

Monique's voice slipped into my sore mind, and yes, a brain could be sore. Mine felt like it had done leg day for a week straight. No amount of soup was going to ease the concerto of misery playing in my frontal lobe. That would require rest, something I wasn't going to get any time soon.

"So Herman Lowman has several articles in local papers throughout the area." Monique pulled up some general tales about witchcraft and those who were unjustly accused of practicing the black arts. "He did some rather good research." We all leaned closer to the viewer. "He had a rather pointed fixation on Aradia, as she was one of the most famous quote unquote witches to be taken to the lake and dunked." Pulling up the second part of a section on the back page of a newspaper from the early 60s, she enlarged it. "From his investigation into what happened that night, he cites that a child was rescued from the witch's hut and taken to the local church to be baptized."

"Does it name the child?" Grandpa asked. The heater upstairs came on but very little seemed to be reaching the basement. The old cement walls weren't helping. Cold seeped in around us. I spooned more soup into my mouth.

"It only says that the child, Josefina, was then taken into the loving arms of the Schmidt family to raise in the ways of the Lord." Monique glanced from the screen to me and then to my grandfather. "Sadly, I doubt we'll find more than this about it. To be honest, I'm surprised the family that took the child is even named. Adoption records and papers weren't even a thing so long ago. Most of the time the child was given to a church as this one was and then dumped into an orphanage or given to paid carers, which the Schmidts might have been. I'd not hold out much hope of the family having any kind of certification if the baby was brought into the fold. It may have just been relegated to hired help of some sort. It's hard to say, I'm sorry. I know you were hoping for more to help that poor soul seeking her baby."

"Yeah, we were." I sighed into my soup. "Still, at least we have something to go on. Maybe we should contact the Schmidts and see if they have—"

Phil's phone buzzed. "Sorry," he whispered as he hurried to put his bowl of soup on the desk and take the call. The camcorder sat next to his backside. "Oh, hey, hello. Yes, we…oh you're watching, yes, no. I know it…" Blue eyes rounded. "You have a family Bible. Okay, yes, that's amazing. No, thank you, Mr. Schmidt. We'd love to come over!" Phil looked down at me. I nodded, the motion setting off a wave of hurt in my head. "No, sir, thank you for watching and being a sponsor. We'll be at the orchard within thirty minutes."

"That was Mr. Schmidt," Phil said probably more for the viewers than us. I kept forgetting to include the people watching along. I was a horribly bad host. "He said they have a big old Bible with the lineage of his family going back to the 1500s and his wife found an entry that might be Josefina."

"Might be," I said just to dampen the wild rush of excitement flaring to life in my chest. "It might not be her at all."

"True, but then again, it might be. They know where she's buried."

"Take some soup for the road." Grandpa handed me a Tupperware container with at least another two gallons of soup. "Go, go. This is your calling. I'm so proud of you." He kissed my hair, then motioned us to hurry, his weight leaning heavily on his cane.

"Go on, we'll be watching," Monique said as she linked an arm with my grandfather. "Tell that woman no more playing in the water lest she wants me to come and explain a few things to her."

Grandpa beamed at his gal. "She's so feisty. Go now, your ancestors are with you always."

That was reassuring. As was Phil's hand clutching mine.

***

The Schmidt home was a massive farmhouse with a sprawling wraparound porch and windows aglow. The front door opened as soon as we pulled up. I'd met the owners of the orchard on several occasions. Steven Schmidt, tall, blond, and very Germanic in appearance, helped run the family stall at all local outdoor events selling cider, apple butter, and other apple-themed goodies. Carla Schmidt was a slim woman with a deep love of historical romances, so I knew her well, or as well as one does a fairly regular customer. Both seemed nice. They'd never had children, but they owned a stable of big draft horses that were used to pull wagons at the fairs and during the haunted hay rides.

I suspected they would be needing more wagons next year. And that was only if anyone other than Phil, Grandpa, and Monique actually believed what they were seeing on our stream was true.

"Boys, come on in, we've been digging through the family records and might have something to show you," Steven called in a deep baritone voice. We met him on the stoop and were whisked inside. The house was warm, rustic, and smelled of cinnamon. "Carla's in the study." He led us past wide rooms filled with dark wood furniture, paintings of horses on the walls, and massive fireplaces. Guess selling apples made the Schmidts some bank.

Carla rose when we entered. A maid hustled in to serve us some cookies and warm cider and then left the four of us in a large, book-filled study. Leather chairs of various woodland tones faced a crackling fire. Books and papers had been scattered over the chairs, the thick rug in front of the hearth, and even the long, handcrafted oak coffee table.

"Archie, Phil, please sit and have some cookies," Carla said, waving at the seating area while her husband made a pass to gather some of the mess.

"Do you mind if we record this for the stream?" Phil asked, his camcorder in his left hand.

"No, please do! We're thrilled to be featured. You boys are just amazing! I cannot tell you how fascinated we are with this case! We've had to extend our corn maze and hay rides into late November!" Carla beamed.

"Ah, that's great," I said as I sat on a leather chair that crinkled under me. Phil's chair groaned as he lowered his heft into his seat. "I'm glad you're enjoying it. And thank you for the sponsorship."

"Our pleasure. It's wonderful to see young people taking an active interest in the history of their towns instead of sitting around with their noses in phones eating avocado toast," Steven tossed over his shoulder as he nudged an end table aside so he could tug two more seats closer to Phil and me.

Phil's gaze met mine. We both mumbled around a small, warm, frosted carrot cake cookie. Yes, that was our generation in a nutshell. Not. But there was no point in niggling about misconceptions with two folks well into their 60s.

"Arch has a preternatural gift that allows him to speak to and aid the undead," Phil said, small crumbs tumbling to his lap as he spoke.

Steven and Carla exchanged a look that I knew well. The placating would start in three…two…

"Of course he does," Carla said with a condescending lilt. "I've never been into the hocus-pocus of other lands much. I'm a more practical person but open-minded, which is why we're thrilled to support a livestream that has an Oriental—"

"Asian," I gently corrected.

"Oh, yes, sorry. It's hard to keep up with what's acceptable. We're happy to support an Asian homosexual and his American gay partner. It's a nice look for the company, inclusivity and all that. Steven, we should have a Pride event next June."

"Let's not get carried away, darling," he replied, giving me a small, tight smile. "We don't want to appear to support one lifestyle that might offend the rest of Liverswell, you understand. But we're happy to give you two young men money to highlight our small town as well as the haunted businesses within it."

"I'm bisexual. I like guys and girls," Phil corrected while chewing on his second cookie. Both the Schmidts gaped at him as if he had just said he was the Easter Bunny.

"Yes, well," Carla hurried to sweep away the disconcerting comment, "that's nice. So, we've been scouring our papers since you and Aradia had your little lakeside chat, which was such good storytelling! How you boys made it look like Phil had been pulled under the water was incredible! I told Steven it was probably special effects like they do on that dragon show."

"That was real," I said and got a wink from Steven.

"Of course it was. So, what my wife and I found might be a clue," Steven said. Phil shoved another cookie into his face probably, and this was pure speculation on my part, to keep himself from saying something to our biggest sponsor that would cost us their support. The two of them rifled through yellowed and brittle old parchment until they located a certain form. A huge Bible was plunked down on my lap. "Now, if you follow my paternal lineage, you can see that our tree dates back well into the 1300s."

"Impressive," I replied as I scanned the large pages lying open in front of me. Steven wasn't lying. His family was large and old, with branches spanning two huge pages.

"Thank you. We're proud of our heritage, just as you two are." He ran his finger down a fat branch on the eldest tree, my sight following his nicely manicured nail until it landed on a small stick so thin it was barely legible. "This is an addition to the tree in the same year that Aradia Flores was killed."

I leaned over the page. "The name says Priscilla."

"It does, and that name is not mentioned anywhere else. The date of death is a bit smudged, but this Priscilla is not noted in any other place in the family records. My mother has spent fifty years researching our line all the way back to the Duchy of Prussia in the early 1500s."

"Cool," Phil said, then dunked another cookie into his cider.

"We think so," Steven replied. "Returning to Priscilla…there is nothing mentioned of her in any of our records. So, we believe the church may have given Aradia's daughter to our ancestors, either as a ward or to serve in the house as a worker. If she was brought into the family as a worker, she may be buried by the old granary along the creek. There's a small lot there, mostly in ruins now, where they buried the hired help. It's about a mile northwest from the Schmidt family plot that you visited last week. Kudos on doing your research on the old Schmidt names. Even Carla and I had to ferret through the Bible to locate old Gerhard."

"He told me his name. I didn't look it up," I wearily stated. They nodded and chuckled. I let it go. As long as they were happy supporters of the stream, I was okay with letting them think what they wished. Most people would have the same response. "Well, thank you for the information. I guess we'll head out to the servants' lot by the old granary and see if we can make contact with Josefina there." I rose. We shook hands, and Phil swiped one more cookie for the road.

The Schmidts showed us out, waving merrily at us as we dragged our tired asses back to the truck, bellies full of treats and cider. We'd need all that energy if we were going to hike through the woods. Phil took me by the hand, yanked me to the other side of his truck, the side facing away from the Schmidt house, and kissed me with such wild passion my aching head swam.

"Wow," I panted when he lifted his head, his lips slick and bright pink. "What was that for?"

"Because I love kissing you." He rubbed his nose to mine, his breath tinted with apple and ginger. "Arch, I think we should pick this up next week."

Ah. "No, I…we…I can't. I know it's late, but I have to try to resolve this for Aradia and for Josefina. We can share what happens as a two-parter."

"I knew you were going to say that. Okay, we can try to wrap this up tonight, but I want you to promise me you won't get into weird ghosty contracts." His hands rested on my hips.

"I'm not sure a ghost can sign a contract," I teased. His eye roll was epic. "I won't get into any weird ghostly contracts, I promise. Can you kiss me one more time before we head to the pumpkin patch?"

His lips moved over mine, sinfully slow. His kiss warmed me in ways that escarole soup couldn't.

"You boys having some tire troubles?" Steven Schmidt shouted, cutting into our makeout session like a rusty chainsaw.

"Nope, just coordinating our plans," Phil yelled back as I buried my flaming face into his chest. He tipped my chin up with a rough finger. "Promise me you will not do anything to make yourself toss your cookies."

"It's you who needs to keep your cookies down." I patted his firm stomach. "Let's go. The night is getting away from us."

"I never knew paranormal investigating was a third shift job."

He yawned. I did the same. Then we climbed back into the truck. Billy Idol growling about a white wedding blasted out when the engine rolled over. If only we were attending a wedding and not tramping around the woods looking for dead people. Pity my ancestors hadn't been wedding planners. That seemed a far less headache-inducing family biz to inherit.