Ladies Courting Trouble. Dolores Stewart Riccio

The subject was Samhain, where and how we would celebrate this year. “Not to mention their seventh and eighth senses.”

      “Which are?” asked Deidre. Her cap of golden curls and her impish grin brightened the gloom in the crowded, book-crammed living room of Fiona’s fishnet-draped cottage in Plymouth Center. Once she’d lost custody of her darling grandniece, Laura Belle, Fiona had reverted to her former haphazard housekeeping.

      “Oh, you know. The sixth is generally a foreboding of accident or death—the impending-doom thing. Next, there’s the perception of bodiless spirits, of course—ghosts, you might say—which is the special province of mediums. Eighth is the ability to detect auras and, often, diagnose illness as well. Ninth…

      “Ninth!” exclaimed Deidre.

      “Ninth is remote viewing,” Fiona continued. “The CIA loves that one! But you gals know the drill.”

      “What about the glamour, your special province?” asked Heather.

      “Oh, that. Glamour is not extrasensory—it’s like hypnotics, a subtle illusion that can make you the center of attraction or, if it suits the situation, practically unnoticed. But, anyway, what I’m saying is, if it weren’t for their tendency to panic at extrasensory perceptions, most people would be able to tell when trouble is imminent.”

      “And do what?” Heather asked.

      “Duck, of course. More tea anyone? Another scone?” Fiona’s Persian companion Omar Khayyám walked delicately across the coffee table and gave the milk pitcher a quick lick with his pink tongue. Fiona scooped him up with one arm and passed the plate of crumbly morsels with the other. Her tiny cream scones are always delectable, but I make it a point never to look in the kitchen from whence they came.

      “That’s all very well for Cass with her visions and Phil with her tarot,” Heather complained, “but what about me? I never know what’s going to hit me until it does.”

      “But you do, my dear,” Fiona disagreed. “That’s my whole point. There’s a place within yourself from which you can reach out in many more than the ordinary sensory ways. Let your higher self guide you, whatever you call it.”

      Deidre brightened. “Oh! I call that my angel.”

      Phillipa looked skeptical. “Catholic holdover?”

      “Wiccans have angels, too,” Deidre said, pouting.

      “I call that little voice in my ear ‘conscience.’ I suppose that might be Torah-based,” Phillipa said.

      “Ghost of my grandma,” I said.

      “Oh, that voice!” Heather said. “That’s Hecate speaking to me.”

      Fiona laughed, with her full-bodied, infectious laugh that none of us could resist joining. “Call it whatever, ladies. It’s the timeless and eternal spirit of you. So…what do you say we have Samhain at Cass’s while Joe is away—did you say Miami? I always prefer an empty house, in case of psychic fireworks. My place is a bit small. I’ll take a turn in spring when we can celebrate in the backyard.”

      Thus it was arranged, and I was delighted, my imagination already spinning off into decorating an indoor altar with symbols of the season. Samhain is the last harvest, meaning I had to bring in any fresh rosemary, sage, and parsley I needed. After that, any plant still growing belonged to the fairies and pixies. I didn’t know if I believed in fairies per se, but it wouldn’t do to take chances with my herb garden. Anyone who’s a serious gardener appreciates the quirkiness of nature.

      “I have something special I want us to work at Samhain,” Heather was saying. “The Nature Conservancy wants to buy some sixty acres of land near Bonds Pond. This would include an important feeding and nesting place for the red-bellied turtle, which is, as you know, an endangered species. Also we’d be getting a pristine pond shore for the Plymouth gentian, which is globally rare. And a nice pitch-pine forest for our declining songbirds and some exceptional insects.”

      “Nature lover though I am,” Phillipa said, “if there’s one species that does not evoke my concern, it’s creepy, crawly insects, other than to keep them off my body and out of my flour bin.”

      “No bugs, no songbirds, Phil,” Deidre said. “So what’s the problem, Heather? Doesn’t the Conservancy have the money?”

      “Oh, sure—gifts and donations, you know, from individuals who care and companies who want to be seen as community-minded and environmentally sensitive, never mind that they produce beer or handguns. Anyway, the problem is there’s a central part of that acreage that used to be working cranberry bogs, owned now by a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee who refuses to sell.”

      “Well, we’ll have to soften him up with a few well-chosen words. Name?” Fiona rubbed her hands together briskly, as if for a psychic warmup. The silver bangles she always wore tinkled madly.

      “Clarence Finch.” Heather sighed. In small towns, the mention of one name can carry a great deal of anecdotal baggage.

      “Uh oh,” I said. “Words of dynamite might be more like it. Isn’t he Iggy Pryde’s father-in-law-to-be?” We’d already had a run-in with Iggy over the illegal dumping of hazardous waste at his pig farm, and the arguments over who would be made to pay for the cleanup, Pryde or the companies involved, were still going on in the courts. As for the Finch connection, Wanda Finch, Iggy’s fiancée, a formidable, frizzy-haired redhead, had once threatened Heather and me with a rifle for trespassing. Clarence Finch, her father, owned a produce farm near Carver and several acres of cranberry bogs scattered around Plymouth.

      “I’d venture a guess that Clarence Finch doesn’t give a damn about the red-bellied turtle,” Phillipa said. “Tight-fisted old sod. Bought all those abandoned cranberry bogs for next to nothing, and now he’s probably holding out for big bucks from some developer. The Bonds Pond Estates.”

      “Never underestimate our powers of persuasion,” Fiona said. “But we’ll get to that later, at Samhain, when we are working between the worlds, such a lovely place to be. Perhaps we’ll invoke some spectral help.”

      At Samhain, when the veil between life and death is so thin that a soul might traverse from one state to another, we would light candles for those we loved who had gone before us to Summerland. I could count on Heather for bunches of quirky handmade candles. I’d dedicate a special one to Grandma—how I wished she could fly in for a moment and bless my presence in the home she’d left to me, and the gardens, and all the herbal recipes and remedies written in her own spidery script.

      Samhain is also the best night of the year for divination. Pagan time is not linear but circular, and on this one evening, when another cycle is poised to begin, the bonds of time are loosened and dissolved into the cosmic chaos. For a few hours, the world exists outside of time, and it’s possible to see in all directions, including ahead to the future. So this year Phillipa would read the tarot, and I—perhaps I would have another vision, one that would reveal the face of the poisoner.

      “You’re on your way to where?” I wailed into the phone.

      “To Greece, sweetheart. Now, let me explain it again. Picture this. We applied to the port of Miami for one week’s berth to resupply the ship, change crew members—that sort of thing. Well, I was specifically recruited to help conduct a few onboard tours, too, since the Esperanza is a retrofitted Soviet Navy icebreaker.”

      “Sure,” I said. “Probably because you’re so smart and sexy.”

      “There’s that,” he said with a chuckle. “Then a new engineer would come aboard, and I’d fly home.”

      “The real engineer. A wizened old salt.”

      “I’m not just smart and sexy, sweetheart—I’m a real engineer, too. But the port’s director refused to allow us to dock. Said we’d be too much of a security risk, requiring extra personnel, and citing the ongoing criminal case, although at worst, it’s only a misdemeanor. We couldn’t get any nearer