Brownie Oxford and the Seabridge Surprise: Brownie Book 4

Chapter 1

I took one of the baking potatoes out of the five pound bag and put the bag back into the metal basket on the bottom shelf of my pantry. I then took my potato of choice to the sink and picked up the small scrub brush. The handle was shaped like a small potato, albeit with a smiley face and googly eyes. Under the cold running water I scrubbed the dirt off of the potato, thinking over my latest Saturday lesson with John.

In January, John and I met at the large scale flea market built over what was once the site of the Barren Wood's Methodist Church Cemetery. After the church moved to a new location, the cemetery was moved and the land sold. Whoever was in charge of the moving, decided only to bother with the above ground accoutrements, such as headstones and stone fence surround. In what was no doubt a cost saving measure, the bodies were left where they were.

Oops.

Luckily for the dead, John died while visiting the area and was buried with them before the move happened. In life, his skills were like mine. He was able to call the spirits of the dead and converse with them. Should the need arise, the bodies of the dead could also be called with a small drop of blood. Or at least I could call them with my blood. John no longer could.

Mostly because he no longer had any blood.

Personally, I didn't see a lot of point to calling the actual bodies rather than just talking to the spirits. The skill was useful to me when I needed to look like a dog accidentally unearthed a body so it could be found, but personally I preferred my dead to be in the ground where all of their various smells could be contained.

Stinky dead is not my perfume of choice.

John being buried with the other dead meant that their spirits could rise at will, although remaining in the confines of their former cemetery, and interact with each other. The flea market being built on top of their land let them observe everyday folks and listen into conversations, even if they couldn't interact with the living. Despite the residents having been buried between the 1870s and 1970s, they were fairly up to date with the modern world, even if their appearances reflected bygone eras.

It was quite the change from many of my past conversations with the older dead.

It was nice not to have anyone scandalized by my lack of corset.

Unfortunately, they couldn't direct the course of conversations, they could only overhear what the living happened to say in their hearing. While this kept them entertained and let them speculate, they were often curious as to the details they missed, which is where I came in.

I could only join them in their speculation of some of the overheard conversations, many of them taking place well before I was born and having nothing concrete that I could investigate. Other questions related to more recent matters. It was part of the reason that I was watching more of the local and national news on a regular basis as well as taking the local newspaper. The information gleaned, help me fill in the gaps and let me feel as though I was repaying the Barren Woods for not only John's lessons, but for the residents letting me expend my energy by talking to them.

With Swift and others watching me, I couldn't go to cemeteries the way I could before my serial killer neighbors started hiding the bodies of their victims with other dead. Unfortunately, if I didn't use my abilities, I became twitchy and my abilities started calling to the dead without me directing it. As I was currently avoiding cemeteries this shouldn't have been a problem. However, located in the back parking lot of my apartment building was a small stand of trees surrounding a family plot. While the building and parking lot covered where the house once stood, the family plot remained. It turns out I didn't actually have to go to that particular cemetery. My apartment was close enough to it that they came to me.

Handy, huh?

When I went long stretches without contacting the dead, I was treated to images taken from the memories of those in the cemetery.

'Or at least one specific memory, ' I reminded myself.

I looked at the potato and realized I scrubbed hard enough that I was starting to take off some of the skin. I set my little scrub brush to the side, turned off the faucet and dried both my hands and my now clean potato.

The memory I got of the family was of their last night among the living. In the spring of 1898, the family sat down to a meal at their dinner table. While they dined, a man I knew only as pork chop man came in and killed them all. The younger daughter, Emily, was the last to die and as the image always reset after her last breath, I guessed it was her memory I was seeing in my not-quite dreams.

I set the oven on to preheat and went searching for a fork. The last time I forgot to put holes in the potato I heard a muffled thump and, when I checked the oven, found I had potato shrapnel rather than anything edible.

At the moment I was waiting until the fall to investigate any more details relating to Emily and her story. Then I would be taking a history of fashion class and my time in the library, particularly the old microfilm archives, would be more easily explained. I picked up my fork and stabbed it into the potato. The feeling was oddly satisfying and I added several more sets of fork holes to the uncooked spud.

As I repeatedly perforated my potato I realized I was more venting my temper with John than adding steam vents.

"At least I know it won't explode on me, " I said as I set my fork aside.

After I avoided the Searchers, people who were hired by families whose bloodlines contained abilities like mine, John agreed to help train me until I could get back to the Matheson family and their training. Once a week, I visited the flea market, searching the offerings at the various stalls while I conversed with the various residents. After a time, John would join me. He would then have me practice raising and lowering my inner shields, protecting myself from the calls of the dead.

The practice was making it easier to build the shields. I was becoming quicker and I was forced to admit that the headaches I usually felt after lowering them again, were fading so that now I only felt a minor twinge for a few minutes when my practice was through, rather than like a mad axman tried to split my brain in two from the inside.

'But that's as far as the lessons have gone, ' I thought scowling at my perforated potato. The oven dinged letting me know the proper temperature was reached and I moved my potato to the oven's confines and set the timer so I wouldn't forget it was baking.

I asked questions both before and after my shielding practice. I asked about the Chaldean cuff that was linked to some sort of beast, the memory of which still gave me nightmares. I asked about the symbols carved on the body that was dumped in front of my apartment building. I asked about the Searchers. I asked about the families.

John's answers were not helpful.

In fact, John's answers weren't really answers.

He told me that the Chaldean cuff was something the Searchers used to flush out those with my abilities. He said the same thing about the symbols. As both were used by Searchers trying to find me, it wasn't exactly a revelation. Any other questions about the Searchers or the families that sent them were answered with the same calm statement.

"They tested you and you were not revealed to have any abilities, " John said. "They won't bother with you again as their methods are foolproof."

As I managed to 'fool' them, I wasn't convinced someone wouldn't think of a loop hole and return to make certain it was closed. I wanted details. Unfortunately, I was only allowed to visit the cemetery because John gave me permission, and I needed the residents to expel my excess energy, so pushing him was not an option. I couldn't just demand he tell me. I was going to have to come up with a good argument if I had any hope of convincing him, and even then I was sure I'd have to tread lightly. He was adamant that all I needed to learn was to learn how to shield myself so that no one could force me to speak to the dead if I didn't want to. He also thought I was being overly paranoid.

"Gee, I wonder why, " I said to myself as I left the kitchen and went into the living room.

I clamped my lips down over further words, reminding myself to keep my words inside my head. Thus far I only managed to find one electronic bug slipped into my coat, but as both Swift, in his guise as retired federal agent Mike Johnson and my other new neighbor, cover name Steve Wallace, were both in my apartment at various times, I was willing to believe there were others I didn't find.

Admittedly, I hadn't seen much of either of them recently. Steve claimed a job at a law office and Swift, that is Mike, was working for a consulting firm. Both jobs came with more regularly set hours. They left the apartment building a little before eight in the morning and got home a little after six in the evening. This semester I had one set of early classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I left my apartment on time, I ended up sharing an elevator with them. Beyond that, our schedules didn't have us crossing paths much.

'Although I doubt either is spending much time in an office during the day, ' I thought as I settled myself with my French homework on the couch. 'My elevator rides are just where I see them.'

Prior to finding the bug in my coat, I was taking the French class because there was a language requirement for my studies. I doubted my travels would take me anywhere I would actually need to use it. As a result, I put enough into it to pass, but paid it as little attention as I could get away with, concentrating on my other studies.

Once I found the bug and realized that not only would someone be listening in on my pitiful attempts at communication, but they would be possibly be recording it for later study, the embarrassment forced me to study harder. As a result, my grades improved and my required conversations were less painful.

"I'm still not certain why all foreign visitors are expected to have conversations with locals about finding the library, " I muttered to myself as I opened my textbook and took out my notebook.

Thus far in my lessons I could not only find the library, but the bathroom, my hotel, a cat and an orange. I was adding vocabulary, but those were the things I was definitely certain I could find. I began copying out the vocabulary words for my next lesson, saying them aloud as I wrote them, finding the repetition helped cement them into my brain. Perhaps soon, I would be able to find more.

'And no doubt provide scintillating audio for whoever is listening in, ' I decided, the thought making my lessons much more pleasant. I wasn't certain if there was someone sitting in either Steve or Swift's apartments or in some non-descript van down the street, as was the case in most of the police dramas I saw on television, but the thought of them following along amused me. 'At least we are all learning something. When everything is said and done we can all go to Paris together and eat oranges.'

"Ils mangent l'orange, " I said. I looked back down at the book.

"Not unless we all eat one orange, " I said.

"Ils mangent des oranges, " I corrected. "There we go, oranges for everyone."

My learning was interrupted by a knock on the door. As I wasn't expecting anyone, I set my homework aside and stalked to the door, peering through the Judas hole.

"Ricky, " I said, relieved to see my friend standing in the hall and not one of my neighbors. Relief quickly reverted to surprise as I opened the door.

"Shouldn't you be getting ready for a show?" I asked as the door swung open. Ricky, known on the club scene as Lady Destiny, rolled his eyes and sighed heavily.

"Not tonight, " he said as I stepped aside and let him in.

He was wearing street clothes, but his face held the freshly scrubbed and slightly reddened look he usually only had right after he removed his stage makeup. In his hand he held a garment bag. As the garment bag made so many trips from my apartment to his that it ought to have been listed as a form of public transport, at least for garments, it was less surprising.

"Nathan hasn't done something foolish again has he?" I asked as he swept inside.

Several months prior, Nathan, the owner of the club where Ricky worked, let his much younger boyfriend convince him that Ricky was too old to draw a crowd. The result was a complete fiasco and Ricky was asked to come back, with the added bonus of a promotion.

Ricky laughed as I closed the door. "Fear not, Bon Bon, my job is secure. The plumbing and electric, not so much. Our nearest neighbor was doing some renovation work. Apparently we were connected by more than a street address and a party wall. End result, no water or power so, extra night off for me. Nathan is keeping me posted on events as they unfold. At the moment he is nearly apoplectic at having to close."

Ricky handed me the garment bag, sprawled across my couch and glanced at my text book. "Bonnie, " Ricky scolded. "Homework on a Saturday night?"

"First of all it is a late Saturday afternoon, technically, " I told him, still unused to hearing myself referred to as Bonnie. I walked over to the kitchen table and draped the bag over one of the chairs before returning to flop down beside him.

"Second, my plans were rained out." I gestured to the steady spring rain that was currently pouring down from the sky. It began shortly after I left the flea market and John's less than informative lessons. When I reached my building's parking lot I held the bag of my most recent purchases over my head as I sprinted for the door. While I hoped I looked as though I was worried about my hair and make-up, I was more worried about the rain turning my laboriously straightened hair back to my natural curls than I was about anything else. Turning myself into Bonnie Brown and not Brownie Oxford required the straightened hair and the concealing clothes and make-up.

"What were you planning?"

"The monthly movie in the park with friends from class, " I told him. "They started up again thinking that it was now warm enough for people to sit outside without freezing half to death before the closing credits. With the weather, we all decided next month might be a better option for that particular event."

"So nothing else scheduled?" Ricky asked.

"No, " I told him. "With the lack of a plan everyone scattered. I was invited to a party, but I decided to pass."

"You need to get out and meet people, " Ricky said shaking his head at me.

"I've met everyone planning to go to this particular party, " I told him. The party invitation was passed along by a friend from class who was invited through his roommate. I learned very early any party he attended was likely to end in me driving several very drunk and often only semi-conscious people home. With my need to be very careful about what I consumed as well as what I looked like, I tended to end up as the designated driver.

"Besides, I prefer my drinking limited to a glass or two of wine or a well-mixed cocktail, " I added.

"Amen to that, " Ricky said. "Although you should still work on meeting someone. Live a little."

"I did meet someone I thought might be interesting, " I said, thinking of Tom the archival assistant. Not only was he fairly attractive, but letting Ricky think I was interested in someone might forestall any matchmaking attempts on his part.

"Details, Bon Bon, details, " Ricky said fluttering his hands in the air excitedly.

"There aren't many details to tell, " I said with a laugh. "After I did that steam punk body armor for one of my clients, I thought I might want to look into more historic-esque pieces in case I got more requests from cosplayers. Actually, at the time, we just discussed you photographing things for my potential website."

"And you were thinking ahead, " Ricky said. "Oh, that reminds me." He dug into one of his pockets and came up with a flash drive. "All of the photos I've taken are on there."

"Thanks, I really appreciate it, " I replied, taking the drive and setting it on the coffee table. As any pictures I took tended to accidentally crop important portions of the item I was photographing out, I desperately needed someone else to photograph my creations if I wanted them to be useful. "I think you have gotten all of my extra pieces. I'm finishing school work now so I won't have another one ready for a bit."

"No problem, " Ricky said. "Now, back to your cutie."

I shook my head at Ricky. "He isn't mine. I figured a good place to look at old images would be in the archives, since they have all these old magazines and newspapers and things. I could look at them and maybe sketch out some ideas that might work, whether for the reenactors or the steam punk folks. He was working in the archives."

"And..., " Ricky prompted.

"And nothing, " I told him. "I thought he was cute, that's all."

Ricky sighed heavily. "Have I taught you nothing of stalking?

"No, " I reminded him. "You haven't. Isn't that supposed to be illegal?"

Ricky waved away my comment. "Not if your heart is pure, and they don't call the cops. Have you been back to see him?"

"I was waiting until I had time to work on my own stuff to go back and look at more images."

"And flirt, " Ricky added. He frowned at me.

"And possibly flirt, " I told him.

"Good." Ricky said. "You can go Monday and report back in."

"Ricky, " I started.

"No sense putting it off. Someone else could snatch him up and start dating him."

"He might be dating someone now, " I pointed out.

"True, but you won't know until you go. And if he is, then we can scratch him off your list and find you someone else."

"Fine, I'll go Monday after class, " I told him, knowing he would not relent. "I can at least get some sketches done whether he is dating anyone or not."

'I also have an excuse to look into Emily, ' I thought. 'Getting caught scoping out the archivist would be a bit more embarrassing than using my history of fashion class as cover, but it could work.'

"I can break in my new sketch book, " I added for Ricky's benefit.

When the Searchers dropped a body on my lawn, Ricky was with me. Nicole screamed from the yard due to the Searchers trying to abduct her, and everyone ran outside, Ricky still carrying my sketch book. He hurled it at the attackers, knocking one off balance and causing the other to slip in the wet grass. It helped prevent the assault, but was forgotten until Swift brought it back to me. The wet warped its cover and pages. I tried to continue using it, but finally had to admit defeat as the warped hard backed cover skewed my lines.

"A good use for it, " Ricky declared. "So should I leave you to your homework or do you want some company?"

Chapter 2

Ricky stayed and I turned off my oven, leaving my potato to wait while we ordered pizza and settled in to watch a string of old monster movies. It was in the wee hours of the morning when Ricky finally left. I collected the empty pizza box and glasses, taking both to the kitchen. The box was folded and after I stomped on it a few times, added to my trash can. The glasses were washed out and placed in the dish rack to dry.

Outside, the rain turned from a pounding deluge to a constant shush of white noise. I yawned and rubbed my eyes as I headed towards my bed room. Once safely locked in my bedroom, I went to the en suite bathroom and washed my face. In the morning I would shower and not leave the bathroom until my hair was dry and straightened, my make-up back in place.

Face freshly scrubbed, I took a minute to study myself. All my life, my hair sprung out in a riotous mass of curls. From visiting the Matheson estate, I knew that both the curls and my naturally green eyes were a trademark of the Matheson blood line. In fact, when I mentioned them to John, he knew right away which family I belonged to.

'Not that I actually belong to the family, ' I thought.

I grew up in the Riverdale Girl's home. I was dropped off and never reclaimed, so I figured I wasn't wanted. Later, I found out that I was sent away to protect me from Cecil Matheson and that the plan was always to reclaim me. With Cecil dead, I inherited his estate as well as whatever my parents left me. Avery, the butler, and his wife, as well as a host of dead Mathesons, expected me to return, both to learn and live on the estate. I still hadn't made up my mind how I felt about that.

On one hand, they promised lessons so I could better control my abilities. Finding out I wasn't the one-off freak I thought myself, but someone whose abilities were hereditary, felt really good. The estate made me wonder. Not only was it daunting to me to stay there, let alone think of owning it, but I knew it took a lot of money to build and maintain a place like that. While I knew the Mathesons had abilities like mine, I knew very little else about them. Before I considered going back, I wanted to know how they made that money.

Over the years I did many favors for the dead and was offered many varieties of reward. In general, I favored information as payment. In exchange for enough energy to converse and interact with each other I was given a math tutor and sewing lessons, among other things. In Mayenfield, I traded the energy for assistance in balancing my nutrition and learning to cook. Occasionally, I traded for more substantial items like the safe deposit box held in a long term lease by James.

'What would Cecil trade for, ' I asked myself. Nothing good was the only answer I came up with. As he tried to kill me, using some sort of arcane ritual to add my power to his, I doubted he traded energy for sewing lessons.

'Maybe if I told John about the ritual he would explain, ' I thought. It was worth a shot. I hadn't tried that angle before. 'Next week, ' I decided. I looked away from my brown eyes, the green covered with contact lenses and turned off the bathroom light. 'For now bed.'

Sleep found me an easy mark and I drifted off with no problems. In my dreams, the beast returned.

I was in the parking lot of the flea market and was humming to myself as I placed my purchases in the car. I turned and the beast was there, pacing a few feet away from me.

At least until I noticed him.

I froze at the sight and the shadowy beast raced forward, its form covering me in a thick miasmic cloud. The stench of it filled my senses, invading as though it was a solid presence dripping into me through my pores, absorbed through my skin. It was the stench of something dead and rotting in the hot sun. I could also smell burning and the rotten egg smell of sulfur, the fumes strong enough to make my eyes water.

In my ears I heard screams, shrieks of torment and pain. There was no escape. It was all around me. The sounds of terror echoing through my brain, vibrating through my organs and sinking into my bones, the smell like a slithering snake moving under my skin. I tried to run, to turn, to move, to do anything, but I couldn't. I could only stand there and let the sound and smell assault me.

'Just a dream, ' I reminded myself. 'The people with the Chaldean cuff left. It's just a dream.' I screamed the words so I could hear myself over the screams of others.

In my dream, I realized my eyes were squinched shut. I opened them to reassure myself that I could still see the parking lot outside the shadows. I found myself looking directly into the eyes of the beast as it looked down on me. I was still encased in its body and trying not to retch. Its gaze fascinated me, like a small bird trapped by a snake. I could not look away. To my surprise, the hunger that I saw in its eyes when I met with it in reality, was dimmed. Now, it gazed at me, a look of curiosity and puzzlement on its face.

Slowly, the beast backed up. It was no longer covering me, the screams and the smell faded. My heart raced and all I could hear was my blood pounding in my ears. I sucked in as much air as I could, trying to wash my lungs clean. I wanted to spit the taste of it from my mouth, but didn't dare as the beast continued to watch me, studying me.

A strange call rent the air and the beast turned. He looked over his shoulder as if annoyed by the sound. He turned back to me and tilted his head to the side, once again studying me. The call came again, sounding somehow silvery in the air. The beast growled and then turned and loped off in the direction of the clarion call. My knees went weak and I slid down the side of my car, landing on the asphalt of the parking lot.

'Just a dream, ' I told myself as I pressed my hands to the rough surface beneath me. 'Just a dream.'

I closed my eyes and woke up in my own bed. "Just a dream, " I told myself, " my voice a whisper in the pre-dawn darkness of the room. Somehow, I couldn't make myself quite believe it.

Chapter 3

The dream left me shaky and sweaty. It didn't feel like a dream. It reminded me of the tricks Cecil Matheson used when trying to get me to go into his tower of doom. The first of those dreams left me shaking as well. It also let me wake with the petals of red poppies in my bed. Hands shaking, I gripped the edge of my blankets.

Slow peek or quick like a band-aide?

I opted for quick and flung the covers back, sitting up quickly and pulling my knees to my chest so that I was practically sitting on my pillow. The sheets were white and slightly rumpled. They smelled like my fabric softener. I sagged against the headboard.

'I don't know what I would take from that dream anyway, ' I thought as I turned and dangled my feet over the side of the bed, toes brushing the floor. 'There weren't any flowers, just asphalt.' Remembering the feeling of the rough surface against my palms I turned my palms up and looked at them. My hands looked the same as always. 'See just a dream.'

I slid further out of bed and winced, sucking in air as my foot pressed down on the floor. I lifted my foot up cautiously. I looked down at the floor and saw nothing that I could have stepped on. I lifted my foot to my knee and looked at the sole. On the bottom of my foot I had a crescent shaped scar. The scar had been with me for as long as I could remember. I couldn't remember getting the cut, but the scar was a thick band of hard tissue, so I knew that whatever made the cut went deep.

When I was little, I studied the scar, making up stories for myself to explain how I got it. The stories varied from slicing my foot open when playing in the yard with the family dog, to a ritual scar marking me as an alien princess in a far off galaxy. Regardless of which version, there was always someone there who cared enough to patch me up and worry over my pain. As an adult, I rarely thought of the scar. As it was located on the bottom of my foot, it was mostly out of sight and out of mind. The last time I even thought of it was before I ran away from Swift.

'After Ashland, ' I thought. 'In my first dream of the poppy field and tower.'

The Ashland cemetery was where Cecil Matheson's merry band of mercenaries took me to test my abilities. Swift rescued me and once I was safely scrubbed and tucked away in a safe hotel room, I expected to have nightmares of the evening. Instead, I dreamed of a field of poppies and a tower. Stepping into the tower, I cut my foot in exactly the same place as my scar, creating a lake of blood where something hungry lurked just below the surface ready to gobble me up.

In later dreams, Cecil Matheson's voice tried to coerce me back into the tower, but I managed to fight his suggestions off, causing him to throw temper tantrums. 'But my foot didn't hurt then, ' I remembered. 'Just in the first dream.'

The scar, when I remembered to look at it, was a thick band of hard white tissue shaped more or less like a crescent moon. 'Or like the edge of a broken glass bottle, ' I told myself automatically looking for the mundane. This morning, the scar was red. I touched a finger to it and hissed with pain. It was like touching a fresh burn.

'It wasn't burnt last time. Why would my scar be burnt now?'

I had no answer. I gingerly eased myself out of bed. I stood, more or less on tiptoe, to keep the injured part of my foot from touching the floor. I gathered my clothes for the day and took them and myself to the shower. By the time I was clean, the sweat from the dream washed down the drain, my foot no longer hurt. I was surprised as I expected the water to make the burn feel worse. I slipped on the loose cotton dress I planned to wear and began the process of sorting out my hair. I said goodbye to Brownie's curls and welcomed back Bonnie.

Before leaving the bathroom, I smeared burn ointment on my no longer throbbing foot, just to be on the safe side. The scar was already back to its normal white and no longer hurt at all. I frowned and pulled on thick socks to wear around the apartment like slippers. The socks covered the scar, but even after I washed the excess cream from my hands and went to the kitchen to start coffee and make breakfast, I could see it in my mind.

'There is no reason it should be burned, ' I said. The fact that it no longer was burned just made my scowl deepen. 'I know I didn't imagine it.' I stared at the toe of my fluffy green sock.

'Think of something else, ' I ordered myself.

I lifted my gaze from my toes and let my eyes scan the room as I pulled my coffee filters and coffee grounds from the shelf above the coffee pot. My small kitchen was more or less open to both the living room and my small dining area. This gave me a good view of my three main rooms at once. In the dining area I saw the garment bag Ricky left. It was still draped over the back of one of my kitchen chairs.

I added water to the carafe, set the coffee on to brew and decided the garment bag would serve nicely as a distraction. Inside of the bag were the last of the extra clothes I made in preparation for a potential website business. This semester I was taking the required marketing and business classes and I thought of the website as a possible business. While most of my classmates dreamed of the red carpet and their own line promoted during fashion week, my dreams were much quieter.

I wanted to find someplace where I could do something I liked and still pay rent while managing to go unnoticed. Due to outside interference, I was having issues with the going unnoticed part. As for the paying rent, I repaired or created garments for an assortment of folks from drag queens to cosplay and historic reenactors. My business plan was to create a website that showed off samples of what I could do and let people order similar in their sizing, or order the excess that I posted.

To that end, Ricky photographed most of the garments in my personal wardrobe as well as the extra garments I created solely for the site. A few weeks prior, during one of my flea market trips I found what looked like an old hotel luggage rack. It was mostly a flat cart on wheels with a rack for garment bags arching above it. The caster wheels squeaked a little, despite the oil I squirted into them, but it still suited my purposes and was wheeled up to my apartment.

If any of my neighbors noticed the squeak, they didn't mention it.

Leaving my coffee to brew, I walked over and picked up my garment bag. I then took it to my spare bedroom, which served as the headquarters for my fledgling sewing empire. When I arrived, it was little more than a space to put my sewing machine and the headless dressmaker's dummy I named Martha. Both Martha and the sewing machine remained, but they were no longer alone.

The sewing machine lived on a battered wooden table I once planned to refinish, or at least have someone else refinish, but never got around to. Against one wall was a small book case containing various boxes I picked up at flea markets and thrift stores. Each one was unique and something I liked the look of. They contained a variety of odds and ends from spools of thread, bits of ribbon and lace to straight pins and bias tape. The one Ricky used to bash Noah over the head was slightly dented, but still in use.

Against the opposite wall was my reupholstered fainting couch. I thought it added a little something glamorous to the sewing room and I noticed that my more dramatic clients tended to favor lounging on it while the rest perched uneasily on the edge as though afraid it might protest, despite being a very solid piece of furniture. It was fast becoming my litmus test for whose personality fit into what category. While sometimes the results were surprising, they were, thus far, never wrong.

While the room was fitted with the unique, the closet was another story. Stacked neatly, and filling the space, were plastic drawers picked up from a local big box store. While they were nothing special, they did a fantastic job of holding the various materials I kept on hand. I also didn't feel bad about putting a strip of masking tape on the front of each drawer so I could use a sharpie to label it. Sometimes I picked up fabric merely because I liked it and it would stay in its assigned space until I found the design it was destined for. Most of the time, the fabrics didn't linger long. The masking tape let me change out the labels easily and the plastic of the drawer fronts had no issues with tape being peeled off and put back on.

'And if anyone objects to the not so spiffy storage, I can close the closet doors, ' I reminded myself.

Of more interest at the moment was my ad hoc clothing rack. While my clothes went back into the closet when Ricky finished photographing them, the other clothes went here. I unzipped the garment bag and let it slide to the floor as I lifted the hangars. The rack was almost completely filled. I managed to hook the last hangars onto the end, but if it weren't for the metal knobs on either end of the rack, the hangars would have slid off the rounded end.

It's amazing how much you can get done when your closest friends are arrested as serial killers and you stay indoors a lot to avoid the Feds.

I toyed with the idea of getting a storage unit for the clothing and any extra purchases I made at the flea market, but thus far, I hadn't made the leap and done it. Since the storage unit with the books the Matheson spirits sent with me, along with anything else that would mark me as Brownie instead of Bonnie, was already stashed in a storage unit, I thought I could get another one for my Bonnie business in the same area and then sneak off to see the books when I needed to. I thought it would be one way to side step John's reluctance to teach me anything, but shielding training.

Now, I was having second thoughts.

The problem wasn't the books, or the business or even the money, as I still had some of the Matheson funds hidden away. The problem was Swift.

'Isn't it always, ' I thought as I studied the rack.

Renting a new unit in a storage area that already had one of my storage units, reminded me strongly of some of Swift's lessons in subterfuge. Despite viewing me as an asset to be used as situations demanded it, Swift tended to give me lectures when we were in the field. He just didn't seem to be able to stop himself. While many of his lectures were, oddly enough, proving useful in things like helping me spot people following me, this one made me re-think my plan.

'People choose places for a reason, ' I reminded myself.

When I learned this, we were in a small town in a country we had no legal right to be in. If we tried to arrive in the normal manner we would have been turned away. Instead, we arrived in a neighboring country. Swift was dressed as an academic doing research in a local archives and I was his hapless assistant. During the three days it took to establish our cover, I carried books, fetched maps and arrived every morning with Swift's coffee in hand. Once we were alone in the archives with papers and books piled around us, Swift would map out our upcoming adventure.

"But why would he go there if people knew he had family there?" I asked as I perched on the uncomfortable wooden chair across the table from Swift. A mountain of books shielded the map from casual observation, a notebook and a list of long dead landholders was stationed at the ready for concealment purposes. Already twice, the map was slipped beneath them when the guard made his rounds. I estimated we had another twenty minutes before the guard circled back again.

"Because it is familiar to him, " Swift replied.

"Wouldn't that be a reason why he wouldn't go back there?"

Swift sighed, folded the map up and slipped it into his pocket, arranging the books as the guard would expect them. "Familiarity can be useful. If he knows the area, he will have an advantage. He will know who does not belong and he will know what resources are available to him. While this familiarity protects him, it also lets him get comfortable. Because he is in a place that he knows is safe, he will feel safe. People who feel safe let their guard down."

"But if he knows that, why wouldn't he go someplace unfamiliar to him?" I asked. Swift's explanation made sense but I still wasn't sure the guy he wanted wouldn't just flee to somewhere remote and unknown.

Swift shook his head. "If he had chosen some place unfamiliar, there will still be something that drew him there. Whether a distant family member or a long ago vacation, something will be familiar to him. People rarely choose places to run, or really anything for that matter that is completely random. If it looks random, look harder. There is probably something you don't see. There may even be something they don't realize connecting them to the spot. Sometimes it is subconscious, but there will always be something."

A few hours later, word came that the man had been found and was found dead in a small town where his aunt lived. It wasn't much of a surprise. Since Swift brought me along odds were pretty good everyone expected him to die. I was never brought in to question the living, there was no point to it. I was only good with the dead. After word came down, we spent a very uncomfortable night sneaking across the border to a shack hidden in the middle of nowhere so I could interview the man they found dead.

'At least I was told he was found dead, ' I thought.

Even then I suspected that whoever found him made him dead rather than finding him that way. I even suspected that was the plan all along and not just an accident. Otherwise why bring me in at the start? Usually I was the court of last resort.

While it bothered me a lot to think that he might have been killed specifically so that I could question him, given the intense... nastiness of his spirit and his actions in life, my conscience settled quickly. The memories of him gave me nightmares for months. The things he did were inhuman. It was almost a relief to know that once I stopped questioning him, he was put in a dark hole in the ground and would no longer be able to interact with the rest of humanity.

Ever.

It was only when I was back home that I realized I was still uneasy. It took a further two days of thinking before I realized that while it didn't bother me that he ended up dead, I didn't want it to become a habit. I didn't want people to die so that I could question them to become a habit. By that point everyone knew the dead couldn't lie to me. They could be vague or confused, but they couldn't lie. It was a rather strong incentive not to spare the bad guys. Thinking about it then, I realized I was being brought in early on more and more cases. It was when I put this together that I started to think I might need to find a way out.

'I'm out of it now, ' I reminded myself as I felt the dark thoughts in the back of my brain begin to rise. 'So if they want to question people, they have to do so while they are alive. I am no longer an option, ' I reminded myself. I shoved thoughts of the past away and concentrated on my own present life.

One of the reasons I kept my interest in sewing and fashion away from Swift was due to his tracking. I knew when I left, he would compile a list of everything he knew about me to figure out where I would run. He could find out what books I checked out from the library fairly easily, but the topics ranged far and wide. While I did check out the history of silk while I was hiding in Mayenfield, I also checked out books on forts, earthen windbreaks and dream regression therapy, as well as a host of books from the fiction section.

An older woman, named Maryann, owned a minivan and served as Mayenfield's only taxi. A discrete questioning of her would tell Swift I often went to the fabric store. I ran from Mayenfield leaving Swift and the questioning of the unsavory dead behind. I had no destination in mind at the time. When I chose this place, I trusted in the fact that there were hundreds if not thousands of fashion design programs across the country to help conceal me. If there was something that drew me here intentionally, it was definitely subconscious.

'None of which matters now as they found me despite that and now know I'm doing fashion. But it could matter with the storage unit.'

If I chose the storage facility with my unit in it, I suspected Swift would investigate every unit in the place to make certain none had any connection to me. 'People always choose the familiar in some way shape or form.'

While I was willing to argue the absolute, in this case I had to admit defeat. If I chose the storage area it would have a reason. 'So how do I make certain to choose something that can't be linked to me?'

My coffee pot beeped, letting me know that my morning brew was ready for consumption. As I fixed my first cup I thought about subverting my subconscious. I only had a link to one storage facility. 'So theoretically it shouldn't be that hard to choose one with no link to me.'

I just had to avoid choosing that one.

Why did I think it wouldn't be that simple?

I sipped my coffee and leaned against the counter. 'Maybe I'm over thinking this. What would be the best way not to choose something familiar to me?' I blinked in surprise as a thought surfaced in the sluggishness of my brain. 'Let someone else choose it.' I turned the thought over and decided it would work. A slow smile spread across my lips.

I knew exactly who to ask.