 
# Murder In The Ferns

#

Published by Melissa Dill at Smashwords

Copyright 2019 Melissa Dill

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to your favorite ebook retailer to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

# Table of Contents

The Beginning

The Ghost

Twin Souls

The Accident

The Journal

The Elevator

The Sign

The Fourth Son

Coniferous

Forsaken

The Dumbwaiter

Captive

Rescue

Proper Folk

Cover Story

Counterweight

Addendum

Other books by Melissa Dill

Connect with Melissa Dill

Ex Libris S. Fern

Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.

That's what Ferns do - don't get me started.

-"Cresol" Fern

# Fern Family Tree    

# The Beginning

"I dare say," he said, "that you are politic enough not to write about us."

"I wouldn't imagine that anyone would care to read the history of the Ferns," I waved my hand at the oil paintings crowding the walls with their dark glares. Nobody would want to read about those fuddy-duddys. The Ferns were not exactly prosperous, not especially well known, but they were as prolific as the rats in the walls of this very hotel and proper in that quasi-neo-Victorian way that has become so popular recently.

My father-in-law tugged at his tie, "I mean, about the accident."

"I shouldn't dream of it," I crossed my fingers behind my back.

As soon as the sun dropped out of the sky into the waiting arms of the mountains, I slipped out of my own bed and into this very book. Stealth was unnecessary, as my husband Aero was obliged to renew the acquaintance of each of the 11 cousins who filled the half empty hotel. Even with its rambling exterior and faux antiques, Hotel Fern experienced a significant off-season when the sky turned grey and the ocean took on the type of menace that would sooner smother you with its icy grasp than pull you out to sea.

So I will endeavor to tell this story from the beginning, even though the beginning was so long ago that I am bound to make an error here and there. Still, it is important to examine everything. Someone wanted Cousin Maizie dead and whoever that person may be, they are under this very roof, while Maizie lies in state. In the lobby. Yes, you read that correctly, Maizie's corpse is in the hotel lobby where every family member and hotel guest can pay their respects.

I should have kept my mouth shut during the viewing, but I couldn't help myself. Cresol was leaning over the casket right next to me. "Just wait a few days," I whispered to her, "then this situation will really start to stink."

She laughed a little too hard, earning suspicious glances from the other Ferns. Cresol is the youngest daughter of the oldest Fern, Alder. Even though she has the almond-shaped eyes and glossy black hair of her mother, she has the typical snub Fern nose. No one escapes the Fern nose. Cresol's oldest brother is named Coal. He is the only cousin who is absent. I've actually never met him, only hearing rumors about his fragile mental state. She also has two sisters, Carbon and Cinder, the twins who share the same complexion and build, but not the same face. Cresol and Cinder are both married; Cresol to Helio, who looks like a troll doll and Cinder to Zephyr, who smiles too much without cause.

The second son is Birch. He and his wife, Geranium have two children, Aero and Amarillo. Aero, as I mentioned, is my husband. Both of them, like most Ferns, have blonde hair, dark eyes, and short, turned up noses.

The third son is Cedar, who with his wife Rhododendron, have four boys. Breaking with the weird alphabetic traditions of this family, they named them Fulvous (married to Talin), Garnet, Jonquil (married to Chantrelle), and Zaffre, all boys, all blonde, well, you get the idea.

The fourth son is Dogwood, who has married a long string of women that no one can keep track of. I think he's single at the moment, but you never know. He is the father of Wisteria (married to Abalone), Cerise (married to Tomtom), and the late Maizie. Except for the nose, none of his daughters look alike. Wisteria has tawny skin and full lips. Cerise has to paint her lips on and has naturally red hair and translucent skin. Maizie has, or had, hair the color of corn and intelligent eyes, if you believe her obituary.

Besides that, there is a gaggle of young children here, ranging in age from infancy to early teens. I'm not even going to try to account for all the tiny snub noses and blonde heads. None of them murdered Maizie, and the only ones I really care about are my two, Trefoil and Sucre, and Cresol's daughter Horizon.

If I were a detective, I would start with the person who had the most reason to want Maizie dead. In other words, I would start with myself.

——

It all started when I was pregnant with Trefoil. It was the warm season and the merest step outside made me faint with the heat and humidity. "We should take a trip to Hotel Fern," Aero suggested as I wobbled to the car, "the ocean breeze is refreshing." He paused for a moment then added, "My cousins might be visiting there too."

"That sounds nice," I pulled my sticky shirt away from my chest, "I've never met your cousins."

I had no idea what I was agreeing to.

A month later, we drove towards the coast through green farmlands and past small towns of cracker box houses with dry lawns. I knew immediately when we were near the water, the air moved from stillness to blustery gusts. I rolled down my window and took my first breath of briny air. Seagulls circled overhead, crying their peculiar half-dirge, half-ice cream truck song. The air pushed itself into the car, surrounding me in a cool exhilaration.

"There it is," Aero pulled into a parking lot, entering a circular cobblestone drive. We bumped along to the front door, where a uniformed doorman was stationed. Hotel Fern stretched above us, the peaked roofline impossible to see from our vantage point. The front doors were framed in my window, brass knobs and glass polished to a high shine. The door man spit, drawing my eye to the copper spittoon.

I pointed at it in surprise, "What is that little pot?"

"It's a cuspidor, you know, uh, spittoon?" Aero popped the trunk, "I have no idea if it's period appropriate, but the guests think it is and that's all that matters."

I opened my door and a gust of wind greeted me. The door blew all the way open, and the spitting doorman approached us with a wrought iron luggage cart. I could hear snatches of conversation between Aero and the employee as I waddled to the front door. The lobby spread out in front of me, wooden floors covered with oriental rugs, plush settees and fainting chairs, lamps, doilies, and all kinds of bric-a-brac. As I walked towards the front desk, I could feel eyes on me. I turned my head, expecting to see someone, but the only presence was a row of oil paintings, their dark eyes following my every move. Shaking off my sense of foreboding, I turned away from them. Aero was already catching up to me, his blonde hair blown to a tousle by the overly-friendly wind.

"Nice paintings," I gestured without turning, not wanting to give them the pleasure of making me look a second time.

"They're all the Ferns that have run this hotel. You know, the fourth son of the fourth son of the . . . well, you get the point," Aero smoothed his hair, "We're to have dinner with them."

"With the-" I stopped myself before the words "oil-paintings" could slip out of my mouth. "Cousins," I forced myself to say.

"Well, cousin, singular," Aero took my elbow and steered me to the front desk, "the others couldn't make it."

The front desk clerk checked us in while taking reservations over a crank telephone. After having Aero sign a guestbook, she handed him a skeleton key. "Are you kidding me?" I pointed to the key.

"Sober as a judge," Aero stuffed the key in his pocket, "The doorman has already taken our luggage up to the room. Do you want to settle in or go down to the shore?"

I looked down. Even though I couldn't see them, I knew my ankles were swelling. My socks pinched my ankles and my shoes felt tight. "Uh, I'd kind of like to kick up my feet."

We crossed the lobby to a golden grating. Inside the grating was an elevator car, a bored looking operator toying with the lever. Seeing us approach, he pulled the grating open and waved us in. "Stand in the center of the car and don't touch anything," he ordered. The meaning of his instructions hit home as the floors rushed past us, no inner door to guard unwary arms or legs. He jerked the lever as we reached the fifth floor, pulling the car up smooth and level with the interior floor.

I followed Aero down the hall to our room, a suite that faced the ocean. There were no sweeping views afforded by the small windows, but the room was pleasantly quaint. A roll top desk stood in the corner, hotel stationery flanked by a quill pen and a bottle of ink. The bedspread seemed to be made of red velvet, with a canopy of sheer curtains. Conspicuously missing was a television, coffee pot, telephone, all those things we take for granted. A thought hit me with sudden terror, "Is there a bathroom?"

"Should be that door right there," Aero picked up his suitcase and tossed it on the bed.

My baby kicking my bladder with fury, I opened the bathroom door. Surveying the toilet with a separate tank, clawfoot tub, and pedestal sink, I sighed with relief. I could deal with the octagonal subway tile that made my eyes cross. Right now, I wanted to kiss it. "Thank you, God," I prayed, "that these crazy Ferns didn't decide to go for outhouses."

——

The first time I saw Maizie, she was sitting with her chin in the palm of her hand, her blonde hair whisking the tops of her bare shoulders. Seeing us, she rose, waving a hand in the air.

"Maizie," Aero gave her a hug, "how have you been?"

"Good, good," she looked over his shoulder at me, "Aren't you going to introduce me to your wife?"

"Oh," Aero looked at me, his expression almost one of surprise, "This is Solarium."

"Do people call you 'Sol?'" Maizie smiled.

"Some," I was distracted by Aero. He had claimed the seat next to Maizie, leaving me sitting by myself.

"We have a Cousin Sol, too," Maizie passed me a menu.

"Cresol," Aero corrected.

"She goes by Sol," Maizie paused as the waiter came by. Having had little time to look at the menu, I scanned it while Maizie and Aero ordered.

"We're going to have a little soirée for the guests Friday night," Maizie looked at Aero and I in turn, "I'm going to sing and play some period music in the ballroom. You should come."

"We'd love to come," Aero nodded.

I looked at him in surprise. Aero hated things like that. The entire time I have known him, he had attended only one of my choir concerts, falling asleep in his seat. Before I could say a word, the waiter brought Maizie's appetizer, a basket of truffle fries.

I suppose somewhere out there, someone really, passionately loves truffle oil. Whoever they are, I'd like to hunt them down and kill them. I guess that's a poor choice of words with an actual murderer on the loose, but truffle oil makes me violently ill. I don't even have to eat it. The smell alone was enough to send me retching to the toilet, where I remained until the end of that miserable night.

Even after throwing up multiple times, I found that one misery had simply been replaced by another. Feeling weak, I remained in bed for the next day while Aero went out with Maizie. "I don't get to see her very often," he told me, excusing himself from my bedside, "and we traveled all the way here. It's been years since I've seen the family hotel."

Around mid-day I felt well enough to rise. My stomach rumbled, and I realized that I was actually hungry. Taking the elevator to the lobby, I approached the front desk. A bell sat on the counter, and I gave it a ring. After waiting a few minutes, I paged through the guest book. Being a permanent resident, Maizie's name was block printed on every page in the same room. I noted the room number and headed back to the elevator. It was a long shot that she would be in her room and know where Aero was, but my own loneliness encouraged me to try. I ascended to the second floor, finding number 203 tucked in back corner.

I should have knocked. I almost knocked. But sometimes I get these feelings that are almost premonitions. Something told me to stay quiet and try the knob, so I did.

Really, we have this story backwards, and I am the one who was murdered, because that day Maizie and Aero gutted me like a fish. They were there, in Maizie's room, on Maizie's bed. Both their eyes were closed, so I don't think they saw me. Both were making the soft sounds of love, and their clothes were scattered across the floor like stars forming a constellation.

I would tell you what I did afterwards, but it mostly involved crying, more vomit, and a level of anxiety that would not allow me to sleep. Aero was bewildered by my behavior, and I found myself unable to speak of it, even to my closest friends. As a matter of fact, this is the first time I've ever spoken of it.

——

The last time I saw Maizie, she was waiting for the elevator on the eighth floor. The grating was open, and though I thought it was peculiar, I didn't say anything to her. Honestly, I try to avoid her whenever possible. So I was already halfway down the hall when I heard the scream and the thump as her body hit the top of the elevator car. It could have been thought accidental, had not the murder leaned into the shaft and fired a rain of bullets that terrified the elevator operator and caused permanent damage to the car. 

# The Ghost

Sucre tore through the lobby at full speed, skidding to a stop in front of Maizie. I trailed her, out of breath, her pants still in my hands. A guest sat in front of the coffin attired in full skirts and a corset, a bone-China cup in one hand. "Oh my," the guest's eyes widened, "Young ladies shouldn't run about so attired."

Even though the insult came from in front of me, I could feel from the corner of the room a scrutiny so intense that I almost mistook it for physical heat. The marble inlaid fireplace sat grey and cool, and next to it, Cresol sat still as a statue her eyes burning over the top of her pocket-sized devotional.

Unchidden, Sucre reached a tiny hand inside the coffin. "Don't touch that!" I yelped, scooping her up from behind.

"The young are fascinated by death," the guest sipped her tea, pinkie extended, "They imagine it is something that only happens to other people."

Cresol lowered her booklet, her expression stern, "Sucre, come give your cousin a hug."

I passed my squirming toddler to Cresol. "Sometimes I feel that way too," the guest mused, "that the whole world is a fabrication and I'm the only one who's real."

"A hug as sweet as her name," Cresol's face softened as the toddler snuggled on her shoulder. She wanted more children, pined for them, while Helio balked at the memory of those first hellish months of infancy with around the clock wakings, vacant eyes, and cat-like screams. I don't blame him really.

"We should go beachcombing today," although there were no windows, Cresol turned her head in the direction of the beach.

I shivered, "Isn't it going to be cold?"

Cresol shrugged, the corners of her mouth turning up in a crooked grin, "Coffee, Sol. And the girls will love it. But mostly, coffee."

I nodded, sticking Sucre's legs in her pants. She shrieked at me, kicking them back off. "You want to go to the beach?" I dangled the bait until she nodded, "then you have to get these pants on." Sucre stuck out her bottom lip. With her turned-up nose and blonde curls, her pouty face was one only a mother could resist. "Pants?" I waved them like a matador. Sucre frowned at me, then stuck one leg in the air in acquiescence.

"I'll go get Horizon," Cresol stood, straightening her burgundy sweater, "Meet me by the gazebo in ten."

——

The gazebo stretched its rusty ribs open, its heart a flutter with seagulls and pigeons pecking at the crumbs scattered across its rotting floor. In the warm seasons, the Ferns had it cleaned and couples took their vows under blue skies, the ocean crashing behind them. For the moment the color palette was muted to greys, Cresol's wine-colored parka the only bright spot. I picked my way towards her, hopping from rock to rock, Sucre clinging to my neck. Trefoil followed behind me, her yellow galoshes thunking with each bunny jump and ballet leap. Horizon was already bent over digging in the sand, a red bucket nearby.

"It's cold," I said accusingly.

Cresol pulled a thermos out from behind a rock and poured coffee into a tin cup. She passed it to me, waiting while I took a sip. After I nodded my thanks, she perched on a log, patting the spot next to her.

"Don't you think it's spooky, being in this hotel with a murderer on the loose?" I sat, immediately regretting it as the chill seeped through my pants.

"I thought the police said it was an accident," Cresol tucked her hands under her arms.

"She was shot multiple times."

"With her own pistol," Cresol narrowed her eyes as a gust of wind blew sand in our direction, "there was something about it hitting things and going off as it bounced around."

"Did they find gunpowder residue on her hands? Did they even check the trajectory of the bullets?" I shifted so I was straddling the log, facing away from the wind.

Cresol rolled her eyes, "Stop reading so many of those cat detective novels. Who would want Maizie dead, anyway?"

"Aero might," I bit my lips as if to silence them.

Cresol sat up straighter, "What makes you think that?"

My throat felt glued shut, so I took a sip of coffee. It had already gone cold and was gritty from the spatter of sand. "He, uh," I sighed, then took a deep breath, "He had a uh, special relationship with her."

"They were always chummy," Cresol looked thoughtful, "but why would he kill her? What's his motive?"

"Maybe she threatened to tell someone about their relationship," I sucked air like a swimmer about to plunge underwater.

Cresol's face twisted in thought, "I just remembered something from when we were kids. We were playing hide-and-seek, and the gazebo was home base. Anyway, Aero and Maizie were kissing inside it. I thought it was so gross." She held out her hand and I passed her the half-full coffee cup. Dumping it in the sand, she reached for the thermos, "A kiss doesn't necessarily mean anything. I know it might seem inappropriate, but they are related."

"What if there was more than that?" my body was jittering as the gusts of ocean air blew my words back in my face.

Cresol's eyes glinted with the reflection of the silver sand, "Then I'd kill him."

——

Aero had been acting strange ever since Maizie's death.

No, that wasn't right. Aero hadn't been acting any different than usual and that was strange. He had not shed one tear, nor had he looked especially sad. "We'll see her again," he said blithely, "She's in Heaven."

I put my hand over my mouth, silently screaming into my palm.

Later that night I knelt next to my bed and folded my hands, "Please Jesus, don't make me spend eternity with Maizie and Aero." My mind wandered and I sat on my knees, staring at Aero's suitcase, open on the bed, "Here her body isn't even in the ground and he's downstairs playing cards with the cousins."

The more I looked for the signs of mourning, the more I realized there was nothing. Blankness was all I saw in his eyes, a vacantness with which I was more than familiar. He looked at me but did not see me, he spoke to me but did not listen to the answer. This was no different that the past six years of my marriage. Since having Trefoil, I had become a ghost.

# Twin Souls

Carbon and Cinder bookended me after lunch. "We want to talk to you," Cinder commanded.

"Okay," I wiped Sucre's mouth, "but there might be screaming."

"Zephyr can watch the kids," Cinder was undaunted.

I shrugged. It was rare that someone wanted to talk to me badly enough to arrange childcare. Whatever the twins wanted, it must be important.

Carbon and Cinder steered me into the Business Center, a small room with a telegraph, typewriter, and copy press. Someone had written on the wall above the typewriter i permanent marker, "Where is the monitor for this thing?"

Cinder pulled out the chairs and motioned for me to sit down. "I think," her chair creaked as she sat, "you may be misunderstanding something."

"It's not her fault," Carbon chimed in from the other side of me, "She walked into this whole thing-"

"-in good faith," Cinder finished.

"-blind," Carbon dissented, "she doesn't know what we know."

"What don't I know?" I swiveled in my chair, attempting to include both twins.

They looked at each other over the top of my head. "Cresol doesn't know," Cinder looked at me, her eyes wary, "We don't think she needs to know."

"She was eight at the time," Carbon sucked in her cheeks, "Much too young to know, and we-"

"-we saw them," Cinder toyed with the knobs of the telegraph.

"You saw who?" I was beginning to wonder if the twins were going to do anything except talk in circles, their birdlike voices lapping and overlapping each other in turn.

"We saw Aero and Maizie," Carbon looked at the ground.

"You saw him push her?" I gripped the arms of my chair.

"No, no," Cinder put a hand on my arm, "we saw them being carnal."

Her words dashed the secret from my hands. It spilled, and like an overturned bottle of acetone, it filled the room with its pungent scent.

"So it's not a something Maizie could blackmail Aero with," Carbon scuffed her shoe on the floor, "A lot of the family knows, especially with Zaffre."

"I didn't know we were going to tell her about Zaffre," Cinder stared at her sister accusingly.

Carbon looked up from the ground, her bottom lip turned down in an eerie echo of Sucre's face. "She needs to know. He's her step-son."

The chair and the floor were still as solid as ever, but my body began to lose its molecular structure, sinking into the floor joists, my limbs as heavy as poured concrete.

"They were only 15," Cinder's voice became defensive, "Too young to raise a child."

"So it was decided that Cedar and Rhododendron would raise him as their own," Carbon finished, looking down at me, "I'm sorry. We should have told you before."

——

"Sol," a voice called behind me. I could barely move. Each step sent my foot sinking thigh deep into the floorboards. "Sol. Solarium," Cresol's hand closed over my shoulder, "What did my sisters want?"

"Nothing," I was too tired to push her hand away, but I wished she wouldn't touch me. The weight of her palm would send me into the basement with its clinking boilers and skittering rats.

"I accidentally mentioned what you said about Aero being the murderer," Cresol's eyebrows pinched together, "I thought it was funny, but they got in a snit about it."

My mind moving too slow to lie, I could only stare at her.

"Sol, are you really okay?" Cresol's eyebrows stayed puckered.

"Yeah, Sol, I'm fine," I slogged through the lobby, fully aware that she was still watching me. Concern always made Cresol look a bit angry, as did sorrow, boredom, and concentration. Even her smiles were tinged with an edge of steel. Sometimes I wish I could bottle her determination and take a swig when I need it the most.

As it was, I needed all my reserves just to get to the elevator. My hand passed through the pull-cord and I tried again. A buzzer sounded, alerting the elevator operator that a passenger was waiting. Through the grating I could see the cable move and the counter weight begin its journey up. The rope became a blur, then the car and uniformed operator slid into view. He opened the grating for me, "Sixth floor?"

"Thanks," I stepped into the center of the car.

"I almost didn't recognize you without the littles," the operator tugged the door shut and pushed his lever, "Finally get some time to yourself, huh?"

Why of all days, did today have to be the day the elevator man felt chatty? "Mm-hm," I kept my eyes fixed on the floors whisking by like the chops of a guillotine.

"That husband of yours watching them?" This was a man that couldn't take a hint.

"Nope," I said bitterly.

The car stopped a few inches above the level of the floor. Irritation had given me energy, solidifying my resolve into a physical body. Ignoring the floor gap, I pulled open the grating and stepped out of the car.

Cinder and Zephyr's room was across the hall from ours and I rapped the lion-headed knocker. A blonde boy around eight or nine swung the door open, "We're making lures!"

Not completely understanding what he had said, I looked past him. Five children sat in a circle on a king-sized bed stringing beads, bodies, and jigs on wire. Zephyr sat in the chair next to them, grinning like he couldn't imagine a better way to spend an afternoon. "Spit it out," I gave Sucre the evil eye. A slobbery lure body oozed out of her mouth.

"Ewww!" four blonde bodies bounced with delight.

"Careful, now," Zephyr's voice dripped with the honeyed tones of his southern upbringing, "unless you want to sleep with the fishies."

"Thanks for watching the kids," I scooped up Sucre, gesturing at Trefoil to follow me.

"It ain't no thing," he nodded at the children rolling on the bed and giggling, "I don't really notice a few extra."

Their shoes were by the door in a baffling mixture of tiny tennis shoes and miniature galoshes. Trefoil fished out two yellow boots of different sizes while I unearthed Sucre's glittery pink high tops. Undoing the Velcro, I pulled out the tongue and placed the shoes in front of her, "Step in."

"No," Sucre kicked the shoes over.

"Fine, I'll put them on you then," I stuck a shoe on her foot.

Sucre's face turned scarlet as she ripped the shoe off her foot, "I do it! I do it! I do it!"

"Okay, okay, okay," I put my hands up in surrender, "You can do it." Sucre sat on the ground and stuck her hand in her shoe. "That's not where it goes," I reached down, reclaiming the shoe. Sucre let out an ear-piercing shriek. Across the room, eight small hands clasped over ears. Zephyr's eyes widened and shook himself like someone shaking off the chills.

"Sorry," I opened the door to make my escape. My children followed me like a pair of strange ducklings; Trefoil in her mismatched boots, Sucre in her stocking feet, face the color of a raspberry. I lifted Sucre into my arms and she sniveled into my shoulder.

I had only taken a few steps across the safavieh carpet when I heard it. Someone was screaming.

# The Accident

It was probably stupid of me to run towards the screaming, but that's exactly what I did. There were only two directions to run, either towards the stairs, or the way I was running: towards the elevator. As I ran, I passed Cresol, headed in the opposite direction. I didn't see her face, just the blur of of her wine colored shirt and the swish of her black braid.

The elevator's grate sat open, Amarillo leaning over the side of it. "What happened?" I panted. She whimpered in response, her face walleyed. I peeked over the crown of her blonde head in disbelief. My husband hung from the floor, his fingertips digging into the fraying edge of the carpet. Amarillo's hands were wrapped around his wrists, but she was not strong enough to lift him.

"Trefoil, go get Zephyr, now," I watched to make sure she was obeying, then turned my attention back to Aero. Setting Sucre on the carpet, I reached around Amarillo and grabbed Aero's left wrist. "You take the right side," I suggested.

"Pull me on three," Aero called up, "One, two-" Before he could say three, I felt a strong hand cover mine. "Three," Aero executed what can only be described as a fingertip pull-up as Amarillo, Zephyr, and I pulled. We landed in a clumsy heap, knees jello with relief. The next few moments were a blur of embraces. I was unwilling to let go of my husband or either of my children. For all I knew, the hotel would tip off its axis and they would slide across the wool carpet into the golden maw of the elevator. Amarillo joined us, tears streaming down her face.

But Zephyr made a big mistake.

No one even realized what he'd done until the police cruiser came up the cobble-drive, its lights a tri-colored disco. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: the Ferns are proper. Proper folk don't get visited by the police, and they certainly don't call the police on each other. So Zephyr, with his honeyed voice and perpetual grin, packed up his four kids and left for home. Cinder remained behind, a scowl marring her comely face.

——

"Auntie Rillo, Auntie Rillo, look!" Trefoil rolled the billiard ball across the baize. It hit the racked balls, rolling to the right.

"Wow, Trefoil, good aim," Amarillo perched on the stool next to me, taking my hand in hers. "I've been so nervous since the accident," her dark eyes widened, "I just can't believe something like that could happen again."

I squeezed her hand, "What exactly did happen?"

"Aero and I were waiting for the elevator," Amarillo paused, her eyes flickering over the fleur de lis wallpaper of the gameroom, "I almost forgot, Cresol was there too."

"We do not stick people with darts," I glared at Sucre.

"It didn't hurt," Trefoil giggled, "Poke me again."

"And the grating was open?" I turned my attention back to Amarillo.

"Yes, I thought Cresol had opened it. Maybe she was in a hurry or something," Amarillo gave me an odd look, "Didn't Aero already tell you all this?"

I sucked in my lips, trying to be patient, "He said he tripped, because that's what they told the police."

"Then that's what happened," Amarillo took her hand back, folding it in her lap.

"Your brother, my husband almost died," I dropped my voice to a whisper, "If someone tried to kill him I want to know who it is. Who's to say they won't go after you next?" I slid off the stool, lifting a cue stick off the wall. Unracking the balls, I attempted to break them. They each moved only a few centimeters.

"My turn!" Trefoil danced a jig behind me. I passed her the cue stick, coaching her the same way Aero had coached me. For a moment I remembered those early days of our courting; the crowded bars so loud we had to yell in each other's ears, watching the way the muscles of his arms moved in the dim light, the warmth of his chest against my back.

"Okay, I'll tell you, but you must promise not to talk to anyone," Amarillo pointed at the messenger bag underneath my stool, "and no writing it in that journal you're always scribbling in."

"You have my word," I fibbed, chalking the end of the cue.

"Aero was showing me a, uh, family heirloom, a piece of jewelry. Cresol asked to see it, but when she took it, it slipped through her fingers and into the elevator shaft. Fortunately it caught on a carpet nail and was hanging there by the chain," Amarillo slid off the stool and went to the game room door. She opened it, looked up and down the hall, then shut it again. "I'm not sure what I saw, so I don't think I should say anymore," her pulse was visible, beating frantically in her pale neck.

I tried breaking the balls again, this time getting a satisfying clunk as they separated. Walking around the table, I took another shot, miscuing the ball. "If you won't talk to me, I can't help you," I tried the shot again, watching the ball head off in the opposite direction I'd intended.

"Aero bent down to pick up the necklace. I scolded him, because if that elevator came along . . ." Amarillo shivered, her snub nose twitching, "Cresol kind of maybe accidentally bumped him."

"And then took off running," I put the cue stick back in the cue rack on the wall. I wish I could explain how I felt in that moment, but so many feelings raced through me, that I can't. Part of me almost applauded Cresol for making good on her threat, while another part of me feared her. I was angry, I felt avenged, I was friendless, I was deeply loved. The only thing I can say for sure, is I was certain she had done it, and certain it was on purpose.

There was only one thing that didn't make sense: why did Cresol kill Maizie?

# The Journal

I was in a hurry. I know that's not a good excuse, but it really is what happened.

I was sitting in the lobby next to Maizie, watching Trefoil execute clumsy pirouettes while Sucre spun in circles. Aero entered the room, and for the first time in years, I really looked at him. He was aging well, still trim and muscular, his hair thick and blonde. His eyes met mine and he smiled, "Geranium offered to watch Trefoil and Sucre. I made reservations for us at Speakeasy for brunch."

"Speakeasy!" I'll admit it. I squealed like a stepped-on toy poodle. Speakeasy was one of my favorite restaurants, and best of all, a good twenty minutes drive from Hotel Fern.

"Not to rush or anything, but we should probably leave in," Aero looked at his watch, "ten minutes."

Knowing that jeans and a sweater wouldn't meet the dress code, I jumped up, then remembered my children. "I need to pack a change of clothes for Sucre. Oh, and girls, take your loveys with you. Geranium always has good snacks . . . maybe boots?" I herded my family towards the elevator. You may think that after all that has happened, I would take the stairs, but climbing six flights of stairs with a toddler eats up a lot of time. So we stepped into the car and huddled in the center while the elevator man took us up six floors.

Ten frantic minutes later, I was walking out the front door of the hotel in a black chiffon dress with an asymmetrical hem. Aero looked at my open-toed wedges, "You think you can do cobblestone in those?"

"They're not heels," I took his arm anyway. My mind drifted to shoes, "We need to find Trefoil's other boot. Somehow she swapped one of hers with someone else."

"Mmm," Aero clicked the button on his keychain and the car door unlocked.

We jumped inside, huddling around the glovebox like two kids in their parent's basement with a bottle of wine. Phones, tablets, and smart watches reclaimed, Aero pushed the ignition button. "We should stream some music," I felt giddy with my return to the 21st century.

"Whatever you want, Hon," Aero pulled into traffic, a hint of a smile on his lips.

We arrived at Speakeasy in good time, Joe Williams crooning through the car speakers about how he would never take us to Chicago. Honestly, Chicago sounded pretty good about now. I could easily book four tickets and take my family someplace with no man-eating elevators or embalmed corpses.

"Madame?" Aero held my door open and swept a bow.

"Why thank you kind sir," I exited the car, taking a deep breath and looking straight up. With a light rain falling, Speakeasy looked magical. It was a great square of a building, with decorative limestone tiles and depictions of muses. The upper section was dedicated to a movie theater, while the bottom half was a prohibition-themed bar. Aero and I headed towards the alleyway that ran in between two buildings. The door to the bar was tucked in a recessed doorway, below a sign that read, "No intoxicating spirits by order of the Federal Government." I opened the door, immediately being greeted by a warm blast of air and the sound of a trumpet swooping drunkenly up a blues scale.

We were seated almost immediately by a waiter dressed in a tux and tails. He led us to a table covered in white linen, a bouquet of Hellebores in a vase between us. After pulling out my chair and placing a napkin in my lap, he left us to decipher the menu. Speakeasy's menu is confusing even to repeat customers. New customers always ask to see a drink menu, only to be told that Speakeasy doesn't sell alcohol. Technically, they don't. They sell small plates that come with a "complimentary" cocktail. The type of cocktail is indicated by the name of the small plate. For instance, Ginny's Lobster Canapes are lobster canapes served with a gin and tonic. This leads to people ordering things like "Ginny's Lobster Canapes, hold the Lobster Canapes." I guess some customers might be annoyed by it, but both Aero and I have always thought Speakeasy was a lot of fun.

I wasn't until I'd taken a bite of the Shaker of Salt Deviled Eggs (hold the shaker of salt) that I realized it. "My journal," I looked at Aero horrified.

"You really don't need it right now, do you?" Aero took a sip of his White Oak Cheese Balls (hold the cheese balls).

"I left it sitting in the lobby on the side table," my stomach flopped like I was falling down an elevator shaft.

"You want me to call the hotel?" Aero pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"I'll do it," I rose from the table, pushing my way out the door back into the grey alley. I punched in the number for Hotel Fern, waiting for the clicking sound that always preceded an answer.

"Hotel Fern," said a scratchy voice.

"Hi, this is Solarium Fern. I think I left my journal in the lobby."

"Hold on, I'll check for you," there was a thunk and then a faint buzzing sound.

While I waited, I leaned against the brick work and prayed, "Please let my journal be where I left it. Please let them find it."

The phone made a crackling sound, then a voice asked, "Are you still there, Mrs. Fern?"

"Yes," I answered.

"I'm afraid there's no journal in the lobby."

——

I wasn't sure if I wanted to touch it. It looked vaguely sinister, a piece of hotel stationery, folded in half, my name written on the outside. "Someone was in our room," I said fearfully.

"Really, Sol? I think the stress has been too much for you lately," Aero bent to pick up the note, "It was probably slid under the door. We do it all the time with check-out paperwork."

He handed me the paper and I flipped it open. "I have your journal," it said, "Meet me tonight at 8 PM in the ballroom." There was no signature or indication of who had written the note. Whoever it was wrote with a feminine hand and had failed to use blotting paper, leaving a ghost of the words in reverse on the other half of the paper.

"See," Aero was reading over my shoulder, "it's good news. Someone found your journal."

——

You may think me odd, but there is still only one person I trust with my life. Before going down to the ballroom, I knocked on her door. Helio answered, his hair standing on end. "Sol," he called as he waved me inside.

Cresol looked up at me as I stepped into her room. She was sitting on the bed, a deck of cards spilling across her lap in a lazy solitaire. "I am going to the ballroom to meet someone who has my journal," I lowered my voice as I looked across the room at Horizon. She had a children's magazine open and was drawing mustaches on the characters with a quill pen. "They left me a, uh, unsettling note and I'm t-e-r-r-i-f-i-e-d," I spelled.

"Why are you terrified, Cousin Sol?" Horizon's head popped up.

Cresol chuckled, pushing the cards out of her lap, "Do you want me to lurk?"

"I, uh, no, um. Maybe come get me if I'm not back in 30 minutes," my face was lit with embarrassment like a carbide lamp.

Cresol scooted off the side of the bed and gave me a squeeze, "Be safe, Sol, okay? If something seems off, get out of there."

"Yeah," I walked out of the room, Helio closing the door behind me. Resting my hand on the outer wall of her room I whispered, "Thanks, Cresol." I doubled back past my room, pushing open the heavy door to the stairwell. The stairs were a dizzying spiral of unadorned steel, each spiral spilling out into a landing, only to resume the helix on the alternate side. The echo of my feet on the treds did nothing for my nerves and I kept turning to reassure myself that there was no one behind me.

Arriving in the rear corner of the first floor, the stairs put me right next to the door to the ballroom. Fully expecting it to be locked, I turned the gilded knob. It failed to rotate, and I dubiously tried the knob on the door to the left. This time, the knob turned, the door creaking open into the grand room.

The ballroom is a tribute to how crazy can turn into a money maker. Not only did it rent out as a wedding hall in the spring and summer seasons, it also was a desirable venue for businesses and churches. The prior month had brought in a slew of women in spandex attending a yoga retreat. There were still signs of them around the room; a business card stuck in the frame around a fresco, a water bottle sitting on top of the covered piano. I could go on about the banquet chairs scattered across the glossy parquet floor and the room dividers casting shadows from the glittering chandeliers, but that was really the furthest thing from my mind at the moment. The only thing I could focus on was Wisteria, sitting in a banquet chair, her head bent, beaded plaits dangling over the pages of my journal.

"Wisteria," my voice bounced off the walls.

She looked up at me, shaking her head. "You need to leave him," she closed the journal, "I'm sure you know I practice family law, and this," she waved the journal at me, "is your ticket to taking him for everything."

"We're on good terms now," I closed the door behind me. Heaven help me if one of Aero's parents walked by and overheard.

"For now," she stood, then passed me the journal, "I'm a little tickled that I get to be in your book too. Like the twins, I know something you don't know."

"What?" I swallowed hard, clutching the journal to my chest.

"I was in the lobby the night Aero fell," she paced like there was a jury in front of her, waiting to be convinced. "I saw you come in, intoxicated-"

"I wasn't intoxicated!"

"Fine, I saw you come in, looking like you were intoxicated," she made finger quotes, "Cresol tried to talk to you but you shrugged her off and went up in the elevator. She went up right after you, probably worried about you."

"Then why was she standing in front of the elevator on the sixth floor? She must have come up only to get out and pull the cord to go down," I raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Let's play this out," Wisteria mimed opening the elevator grating, "I'm Cresol and you're Aero. When I come out you're down the hall, talking about Cousin Maizie's locket."

"What?" I couldn't believe it. The "family heirloom" was something of Maizie's?

"We'll get to that," Wisteria pointed down the imaginary hallway, "So I hear you talking and I decide to stick around and see what you're going on about. After all, my friend just told me she thinks you've been cheating with Maizie. So I pretend like I'm waiting for the elevator." Wisteria turned her back to me.

"Uh, I'm not very good at this sort of thing," I hovered behind Wisteria.

"I ask to see your locket," Wisteria pretended to take it from me, "and I 'accidentally' throw it in the shaft." She threw nothing at nothing.

I bent over, noticing that the floor needed to be swept. The yoga girls had left a fine coat of sand over everything. Wisteria gave me a shove, and idiot that I am, I actually fell over.

"I'm not sure if this was an accidental bump, or if she did it on purpose, but what Cresol did next tells us that she had no intention of killing your husband," Wisteria sprinted across the ballroom, then ran in a circle like a crazed bee. It took me a few moments before I realized she was pretending to run down the spiral staircase. She play-ran a little more, then yelled, "Stop the elevator!"

"You heard her say that?" I sat cross-legged, too lazy to stand back up.

"Yeah," Wisteria plopped down in her chair, breathing hard, "You know, people always think they can jump on top of the car, but it's always the counter weight that gets you."

"From now on," I vowed, "I'm taking the stairs."

# The Elevator

I was in the lobby when it happened. Trefoil, Sucre, Horizon, and I were playing Candyland. Trefoil was pouting because she kept ending up in Molasses Swamp, while Sucre kept trying to eat the pieces. Horizon was sitting on that last square, biding her time for the right colored card.

There was probably a sound, but I can't remember hearing one. I just remember Fulvous staggering into the lobby with his husband Talin, both covered in blood. "It's coming through the ceiling," Fulvous moaned. Talin walked over to us, his face composed and calm. He opened his mouth to speak, then vomited on top of Candyland. Horizon and Trefoil jumped up, backing away from the ruined game while Sucre laughed hysterically. I picked her up before she could dip her fingers in it.

"It's okay," I patted Talin on the shoulder. Obviously it wasn't, but I was getting good at this lying thing. "Just have a seat and I'll get you a towel and something to calm your stomach," I steered him over to the fainting couch by Maizie. Fulvous was standing in a corner muttering to himself. Deciding to leave him there, I called the girls and headed over to the front desk.

Once I was in sight of the elevator, I balked. There was a pool of red liquid inside and in front of it. There was so much, it couldn't possibly be blood. It had to be something else; a catering accident with a vat of tomato soup or an exploding industrial-sized box of red wine. The elevator operator was sitting behind the front desk, his face pale and sweaty. Next to him, the desk clerk was using the telephone. He paused mid-sentence to direct his attention to me, "I'm sorry Mrs. Fern, but the elevator is currently out of service."

"It might be a good idea to screen that off," I waved my hand at the elevator, "Anyone coming through can see all the . . . mess . . ."

"Yes, I'm still here," the clerk spoke into the phone, "Guests are trying to use the elevator though."

"I saw some screens in the ballroom," I volunteered, "I'll go get one and put it up."

"Thank you Mrs. Fern," the clerk seemed genuinely grateful for my officiousness.

I shepherded the children back towards the ballroom. Cresol was coming from the other direction, a look of annoyance on her face. "I called the elevator about five times," she let out with an "oof" as Horizon headbutted her in the stomach, clinging to her mother's waist. "It never came," she patted Horizon's head, "Did the girls have a fight?"

"Not this time," I motioned for Cresol to follow me into the ballroom, "There's something red leaking out of the elevator. Oh, and Cousin Talin threw-up on your board game."

"He what? That was my game when I was little," Cresol frowned at me as if I were personally responsible.

"Can you help me with this?" I pulled on the side of the divider.

Cresol tipped it on its side, arranging the children and I at different lift points. "I'm assuming we're screening off the elevator and that 'something red' is not paint," Cresol lifted her end of the divider and backed towards the doorway.

"Does paint make you puke?" I asked rhetorically.

"If you eat it, yeah," Cresol maneuvered into the hallway, setting the bottom of the divider down, "Coal ate some when we were kids. He was like Sucre, always sticking everything in the mouth."

We rotated the screen, then continued our procession down the hall. The elevator swung into view, still empty and red, but someone had closed the grating, putting a sign over the front that read, "Elevator out of service, please use the stairs." Cresol and I unfolded the screen around it. Sirens sounded in the distance, their wail increasing as they came up the cobblestone drive.

——

I wanted to stay in the lobby and find out what happened. But before I could overhear anything, the police sent Cresol and I up to our rooms. Frustrated, I lay on Cresol's bed complaining while she french braided Trefoil's hair.

"How much you wanna bet they say this is another 'accident?'" I snarled the blue China print light fixture overhead.

"Let's see," Cresol combed a strand of hair away from the others, joining it to the braid, "How about a plane ticket?"

"A plane ticket?" I sat up.

"If they say it's an accident, I'll buy a plane ticket, a cheap one, and come visit you in a couple months," Cresol reached for the comb, only to find it missing, "If they say anything else, you buy a ticket and come see me."

"Everybody wins," I looked for Sucre. She was combing the fringe on the curtains, "Give the comb back to your cousin, please."

She crawled over to Cresol, placing the comb on the floor next to her. Maybe, just maybe, we were exiting the obstinate phase.

There was a rap at our door. "Come in," Cresol picked up the comb and resumed braiding Trefoil's hair.

Alder poked his grey head in the door, "They're giving the all-clear for people to come out of their rooms." He eyed Sucre who was licking the carpet, "Do either of you need help getting down the stairs? The elevator is out-of-order and we're calling a family meeting."

"Well, since you're offering . . ." I wasn't going to turn down a chance to walk down the stairs 20 pounds lighter, "She likes piggyback rides."

"Who doesn't?" Alder winked at me and I shot him a puzzled look. Was that a Freudian slip or did he mean that the way it came out? Either way, I started to get the giggles and was having a hard time suppressing them.

Alder lifted Sucre onto his shoulders and preceded us into the hallway, ducking under the door frame to avoid bumping her head. Cresol and I followed, trailed by Horizon and Trefoil. Cinder and Carbon were waiting outside our door and they joined our procession. I giggled my way down the iron spiral of stairs, chortling my way across the hall, finally arriving at some form of sobriety as we hit the lobby. The Ferns were gathering there, like leaves being raked into a pile. Talin and Fulvous were already there, both still wearing their soiled clothes, faces as pale as Maizie who lay in front of them. Cedar and Rhododendron arrived next with a gaggle of children. Aero, Helio, and Garnet were the next clump, they had been playing cards during the confinement. I watched people trickle in, until every wooden-legged settee and velvet upholstered chair was taken.

Alder cleared his throat and licked his lips. The only noise in the room came from the children and parents trying to shush them. "There was a horrible accident this morning and Dogwood is unable to join us," he held up a hand as people started to cross-talk. I kept my mouth shut, but dug my elbow into Cresol's ribs. "Accident," indeed.

"Dogwood is fine," Alder paused, "Let me rephrase that: Dogwood is alive, but he is not okay. This morning Cerise accidentally entered the maintenance access door to the elevator shaft. This area is not to be occupied during elevator operation since it can, and in this case, did result in death." There were gasps from around the room. I stopped paying attention to what Alder was saying, and focused on the people around me. It was peculiar that two sisters had died. Perhaps Cerise knew something about Maizie's murder, something that was so incriminating, the murderer had to silence her.

Cresol kicked me in the calf and I snapped back to attention. "The elevator will be out of operation while the car is cleaned and fitted with additional safety devices," Alder took a sip of water, then continued, "Due to the inconvenience, anyone who wants to move to a room on a lower floor may request so at the front desk. Thank you."

The family milled their way over to the front desk. Aero was already standing in the queue, so I wandered over towards the portraits of the fourth sons. Dogwood was the last in the row, his dark eyes following me across the room. "You saw what happened, didn't you?" I whispered to the painting.

"Yes," the painting answered in a voice only I could hear, "and I see it now."

I looked at those dark eyes, then turned to follow where they were looking. It wasn't surprising to see they were looking at the elevator, the center of all our tragedy. The screen was still where Cresol and I had left it, but from this angle I could see something I hadn't seen before.

# The Sign

There was a piece of paper covering the out-of-order sign I had seen earlier. I inched closer to the elevator, bouncing Sucre to keep her entertained. It was hotel stationery, attached to the original sign with a paperclip. The elevator car itself was missing, leaving only a stomach dropping gap behind the golden grating. I squinted, trying to make sense of the messy cursive, "S-e-c-c-u-d-i-i-s? Sec-cud-lis?"

"Secundus," said a voice behind me. I jumped, turning guiltily to face Garnet. He continued as if I were one of his students and he was in the middle of a lecture, "It means 'second,' in Latin, as in the second murder or maybe even the second child. Cerise was Dogwood's second daughter, you know. Second in line to inherit as well. Secundus can also mean 'favorable,' but I'm not really sure how that would apply to this situation. Either way, we can suspect that our murderer likely had a classical education."

"You think Maizie and Cerise were murdered," I looked at Garnet, my face a mask of incredulity.

"Did you really think you were the only one?" he took a small notepad out of his breast pocket and flipped through the pages, "Let's see. I first started paying attention to you because you were laughing at Maizie's viewing. Very suspicious. I followed you around for awhile and realized that you were investigating too."

"You were following me?" the heebie-jeebies crawled up my arms, and boy did they scream.

"Look, I don't have your charisma. People don't just volunteer information to me. I'm balding," he pointed at his receding hairline, "a little soft around the middle, and I'm not good at people."

"I have all the charisma of a cereal box," I glared at him, "What are you up to? Are you the one who killed Cerise and Maizie?"

"Just as I feared, I have become a suspect," Garnet looked glum, "They always try to pin it on the quiet guy who doesn't have a lot of friends. 'He's creepy,' they say, 'Never trusted him.'"

"Sol," Aero interrupted, holding up a skeleton key, "we've been moved to 215. I'm going to start hauling the luggage."

Relieved, I took the key, "Gotta go." I could feel Garnet's dark eyes follow me as I headed for the stairs. Giving myself a shake, I ran all the way up to the second floor.

——

Even though thinking of him gave me the willies, I couldn't help but think Garnet might be on to something. If he was the murderer, then he was leading me to the answer with a sinister tease. If he wasn't the murderer, he had given me a valuable hint. This murder wasn't about blackmail or secret infidelities, it was about money. Whoever had killed Maizie, had killed the heir apparent to Hotel Fern. Even though she wasn't the fourth or a son, she was the next Fern in line to inherit. Logically, Cerise would inherit if Maizie died, so she would be the next target.

A thought occurred to me that made me drop my pen: Wisteria's life could be in danger. Somehow I needed to keep a close watch on Wisteria, and unlike Garnet, I wasn't willing to stalk her like the runners of a Boston Fern. No, charisma be damned, I would go up to her and tell her what I suspected.

——

"I thought you might come talk to me," Wisteria looked up from the leather-bound book.

"Can we go somewhere private?" I looked around the lobby, expecting to see Garnet lurking behind the ornate sideboard.

Wisteria stood, snapping her book shut, "Let's meet in my office."

"You have an office?" I followed her down the hallway to the stairway door.

Wisteria didn't answer, proceeding up the metal steps, her hard soled shoes making a clang-clang noise. She held the second floor door open for me. "I think it used to be a janitor closet," she gave me a wry grin, "We don't put guests on the second floor unless everything else is full, so the nearest closet is one floor up."

"Isn't that hard with the elevator out-of-order?" I couldn't imagine hauling laundry up and down the spiral staircase.

"Just wait," Wisteria's full lips twitched with amusement. She led me down the hall to a door in the center of the building. There was one like it on every floor, unmarked and narrow, usually with a cleaning cart parked out front. Wisteria pulled out her keychain and on it the centuries jumbled together; skeleton keys, electronic fobs, and machine tooled keys. She inserted one of the gap-toothed skeleton keys into the lock and turned it. Swinging the door open, she gestured, "Behold the dumbwaiter."

It took me a moment to focus on what she said, so taken was I by her office. To make up for the lack of windows, she had hung large pictures of the city, the skyline rising over the water. Shelves of books hung high on the narrow walls, a desk with a leather chair tucked underneath. A fainting couch with a blanket and pillow took up the remaining floor space. There was a grinding sound, and I finally acknowledged the sliding metal doors. The dumbwaiter was bigger and lower than I thought it would be. It sat flush with the floor, comparable in size to an industrial washer. "You don't ever . . . ride in that, do you?" I watched Wisteria take a seat at her desk.

"I may be a Fern by birth, but that doesn't mean I'm crazy," she opened a desk drawer, "No, I have not, nor will I ever ride in any dumbwaiter."

I perched on the edge of the fainting couch, "It just concerns me that something like that is in your office." I picked at a loose thread on the blanket, "I think I know why Maizie and Cerise were murdered."

Wisteria handed me a business card, "I don't want to talk about my sisters." She sniffed, staring at the image of the city skyline, "This is the contact info for a good lawyer."

I looked at the card; it was for a divorce lawyer. "Just let me say one thing then," I put the card in my pocket, "I think you're going to be the next target and I want you to protect yourself."

"Don't worry about me," Wisteria opened another drawer. I didn't see what was in her hand until she held it up, muzzle pointed at the ceiling. It was a pistol.

——

It didn't occur to me that Wisteria might be the murderer, at least not until she went all Wild West on me. Wisteria stood to gain the most from the murders and she hadn't shown visible signs of grief. Sure, she had sniffed a little, but that was it. No tears, no hysterics, no shaking hands or lip biting. Could she really have killed her own sisters? There was one person who would know the answer.

# The Fourth Son

I could only think of two places to find Dogwood: the bikini coffee shack off the main street or the dive bar next to the hotel. I went to the bar first, primarily because it was the closest. Cresol was generously watching my kids and I hoped to make it quick for her sake.

The bar was humorously named Dive In, a neon diver flickering in and out of a pike above the door. From the burned out tubes, I could guess that she used to make a somersaulting dive into a squiggle of water. The brick facade of the building lacked windows, its only decor fading beer advertisements. I opened the door, squinting at the dim interior. The far side of the building had large bay windows, hiding the grey seascape with tinted film. The theme of the decor from the outside carried in, poor choices made frequently then neglected. A plaster bust of a scuba diver emerged from the wall above the jukebox, a hole where its index finger had been. Plastic sea plants sprung from planters shoved into corners. I bumped one and a shower of dust fell on me. Sneezing, I wound my way through the scattered tables towards the rope-trimmed bar. Colored glass bottles hung above the bar, illuminated with Christmas tree lights. The bar back itself was faux wood paneling.

Dogwood was slumped across it, his head in his hands like a school child playing seven-up. Two men with full grey beards sat on the far side of the bar, chatting with the bartender. Claiming the stool next to Dogwood, I pretended to read the laminated menu.

"Can I see your ID?" the bartender's eyes flicked over me. Intimidated, I stared back, fishing in my purse with one hand. She was around the same age as my parents, broad faced with her ash-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Haven't seen you around before," she glanced at my Driver License, then did a double-take. "You're a Fern? You don't look like a Fern," she touched her own nose.

"By marriage," I tucked my license back in my purse, "Could I get a Diet Coke and some coffee for Dogwood?"

"And here I thought maybe you were a gold-digger," the bartender grabbed a pint glass, filling it with a soda gun, "Ever so once in a while we get one of those. I say, leave the man alone. He deserves a woman who will love him for himself."

The glass still had the imprint of a former patron's lipstick on it. I rubbed it off with my sleeve and took a sip. Yup, it had that flat, watered-down taste of bar soda. "I heard he was quite the ladies man," I tried the soda again.

"Some people are just jealous," the bartender leaned against the bar top, "He's very smart, you know, and he only likes educated women."

I snorted, the flat soda burning as it went up my nose. I'm sure he goes to Bikini Bean for the conversation.

"His first wife was a nurse, and his second, uh, baby momma was a business woman," the bartender stared off into space.

"What about Maizie's mom?"

"She was a masseuse," the bartender blotted her eyes with a cocktail napkin, "It's so sad what happened to her and Cerise."

I looked at the slumped figure of the smart man. "I think it's tragic, especially since no one will acknowledge the possibility of foul play," I played with the straw of my drink.

"You think someone hurt those girls on purpose?"

I nodded, sipping my soda, "What do you know about Wisteria?"

"I think you're barking up the wrong tree," Dogwood's voice startled me. "Maybe," he slurred, "try something confiferous, carnivorous."

"Okay, Uncle Dogwood, let's go back to the hotel," I helped him off the stool.

"You're kinda cute," he wrapped his arms around me and the yeasty scent of beer enveloped me.

"Thank you, Uncle," I pulled several dollar bills out of my purse.

The bartender waved me off, "Designated drivers get a free drink."

"Right," I staggered out of the bar, my sense of balance interrupted by the heavier Dogwood.

"You're that journalist one, aren't you?" Dogwood slurred in my ear.

"I was an Editorial Assistant and I hated it."

"You wrote stuff," he belched accusingly.

"I sent people rejection letters," I struggled to talk without breathing in, "Form letters, as in letters I didn't write."

"You think you can write some exspouse . . . expedition . . . article about the murders," he sat down on a bench, pulling me down with him.

"No, no, no," I stood back up, trying to pull him to his feet, "Let's go back to the hotel."

"There's no point. I might as well lay here in the gutter and watch everything fall apart," his bloodshot eyes teared up, "My babies, my babies are dead."

I sat down next to him. It was freezing out here, the sky the color of dusk even though we were approaching midday. The tableau of grey stretched in all directions; the white horizon, the steel sea, the charcoal of broken cement meeting the ashy sands. "I can't imagine the pain you're in," I put my hand on his arm, "and I hope that I never know the pain of losing a child. I'm not interested in jump-starting my career. I just think it's wrong to ignore a wrongful death." I stood back up, the cold gathering in my limbs, "I didn't even like Maizie, but I didn't want her dead. I don't want anyone dead."

Dogwood sobbed, the force of his grief causing him to retch, his body bent forward in an uncanny imitation of the neon diver. I stood by him, patting his shoulder, the wet on my cheeks a superfluous contribution.

——

As soon as Dogwood and I staggered into the lobby, I could feel dark eyes on us. The lobby was full of cousins, but it was Garnet's gaze that caught mine. I squirmed as I deposited Dogwood on a chaise, cringed as I reclaimed my children, and quivered as I sat on a velvet settee next to Cresol.

"What did Dogwood give you, and where can I get some?" Cresol cracked a wry grin at me.

"All I had was a terribly flat soda," I kissed Sucre's head. She gave me a sloppy kiss in return before sliding off my lap to rejoin the cluster of children. I trained my ears towards the group around Maizie: Jonquil, Zaffre, Chanterelle, and of course, Garnet.

"Never trust anyone who hasn't experienced the exquisite pain of stepping on a LEGO," Chanterelle pointed at Garnet as she said it.

Garnet laughed, then put his hands on his chest in mock offense, "Your cruelty cuts me to the core. I've offered to babysit."

Chantrelle made a face at him, "And you always have a made-up excuse not to."

"They're not made-up. I'm a busy man," Garnet glanced at me. I immediately looked at my lap.

"Let's see," Chanterelle's voice was heavy with sass, "'I have a computer club meeting,' 'I'm fishing' - that was at night, by the way, and 'Women's figure skating championships are on TV.'"

"He really is interested in those things," Jonquil contributed, "Which is not to say he couldn't have babysat and done those things later."

I rubbed my eyes and looked at Cresol. She frowned at me, "You feeling okay, Sol?"

"I think I just need to clear my head," I rose from my seat and gestured to Trefoil and Sucre.

Trefoil walked zig-zag behind me, "Where are we going, Mom?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"Ice cream?" Trefoil asked hopefully.

——

The ice cream shop was closed, doors locked tight for the season. A sign in the dusty window promised to reopen in June. Sucre sobbed on my shoulder, while Trefoil kicked rocks into the street with her mismatched galoshes.

A blue sedan pulled up next to us, the driver side window rolling down. Garnet stared at my children for a moment before suggesting, "The diner has hot chocolate."

"That's too far to walk," I shot him a dirty look.

In response he unlocked the doors with a click, "I guess you better get in then."

I hesitated, reflecting on something Chanterelle had said. "When you supposedly went fishing at night, were you dumping a body?"

Garnet burst into laughter. He laughed so hard, his glasses steamed up and he had to remove them and wipe them on his shirt.

"Come on kids," I herded them down the street.

"Wait," Garnet croaked, "I need to talk to you."

"Faster," I urged Trefoil. She broke into a clumsy run, her too large boot slipping off and on her foot.

Garnet drove after us, slowing his car to a crawl. "Bass fishing, Solarium," he yelled out his window, "In the summer it's too hot and they bite more at night."

I stopped walking, Trefoil stepping on the back of my heels.

Sensing he was gaining ground, Garnet continued, "And I just like figure skating. They're so graceful. It's not like football, it's art. It's like dancing . . ."

"You," I opened the rear left door of his car, "are a really strange man." I climbed in the backseat, holding Sucre in my lap. Trefoil scampered in next to me. "You should know," I glared at the back of his head, "if you ever try to hurt me or my children, I will personally remove you from this world."

# Coniferous

The diner was from the era when restaurants were divided into "Smoking" and "Non-smoking," the kitchen and hostess station diving the building in two almost identical halves. Only one side was in current use, and we were seated by a bored-looking waiter. The vinyl of the booth seats were torn in places and the melamine tabletop was scarred.

"Look, Mom," Trefoil held up the kids menu. It was in the shape of a unicorn head with punch-out eyes and an elastic band so it could be worn as a mask.

"Wow, what did you get, Sucre?" I pulled the end of the elastic out of her mouth and flipped it over, "Look, it's a pirate."

"I want the pirate," Trefoil offered the unicorn to Sucre.

Sucre turned bright red as she took a slow breath. Wise to her antics, I plugged my ears. "No, no, NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she shrieked.

Garnet waved his hand at the waiter, "Please, can we have another pirate kids' menu?" The waiter headed back towards the middle of the diner. "Now that that's settled," he pulled his notebook out of his pocket, "What did Dogwood have to say?"

"Not much," I sighed, "Just some drunk ramblings about carnivorous trees and ex-spouses."

Garnet scribbled something on his notepad, "Do you remember the exact sentence he said? With the trees?"

"Mommy, I'm hungry," Trefoil tugged my sleeve.

"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," Sucre tugged on the other side of my shirt.

Garnet pulled his phone out of his pocket, "You kids like cartoons?" He tapped the screen a few times, then passed the phone to Trefoil. Sucre climbed over me, her eyes glued to the screen. "Now, back to what Dogwood said," Garnet prompted me.

"Uh, yeah. 'You're barking up the wrong tree,'" I slurred, waving a hand in imitation of Dogwood and accidentally smacking Garnet in the process, "Oops, sorry."

"The wrong tree. The carnivorous tree," Garnet repeated.

"Yeah, he didn't appreciate my suspicion of his one remaining daughter."

Garnet's eyes lit up and he pointed at me. I knew what he was going to say, but I refused to say it with him. I'm not going to get that chummy with a murderer.

"Coniferous tree! As in not a Dogwood. As in a Cedar!" Garnet looked so pleased with himself, that I knew he didn't realize what he'd just said.

"A Cedar, like you," I picked up my butter knife.

"There's only one thing to do-" Garnet looked at the knife, "Good luck killing me with that. In the meantime, let's make a list." He divided a sheet of notebook paper into three columns.

The waitress returned, a pot of coffee in her hand. She poured cups for Garnet and I without being asked. "Can I get something for the kids? Juice, milk?"

"Two hot chocolates, please," Garnet covered his notebook with his hand, "with whipped cream and sprinkles."

"I don't have sprinkles," the waitress looked thoughtful, "Nuts?"

"No thank you, we have enough of those already," Garnet laughed at his own joke. The waitress gave him a strange look and hurried back towards the kitchen.

"What are we making a list of?" I tried to make out what he'd written through his fingers, but all I could see was "-cts."

Garnet uncovered the paper, titling the two remaining columns, "Suspects, Unknowns, and Innocents." He put Wisteria, Cresol, and Aero in the first column. "Innocents should be people for whom the murders would be physically impossible," he listed Maizie and Cerise.

"Fulvous and Talin," I contributed, "They couldn't have lured Cerise into the machine room while they were on the elevator."

"And Zephyr left before Cerise was murdered," Garnet added him. He gave me an evil grin, then listed my name under Suspects.

"Put yourself in the first column, and Dogwood in the last," I sipped the coffee. It was surprisingly good with just the right notes of bitterness.

"We can't know for sure he didn't-" Garnet snapped his mouth shut as the waitress deposited steaming mugs of cocoa in front of Trefoil and Sucre. They were so entranced by the cartoon that they didn't even look up.

I spooned a dollop of Sucre's whipped cream into my coffee, "I know he's innocent. I talked to him and I just know."

"Then we have to add Tomtom too, and pretty soon we're adding everybody," Garnet glared at me over the rims of his glasses.

"I forgot about Tomtom," I really had. I'd forgotten that Cerise had a spouse and children who would be grieved by her death. Alder hadn't mentioned them at the family meeting, and I couldn't even remember if they had been present.

"He's good friends with Jonquil," Garnet stopped talking. It was a little like watching a computer shut down. For a few moments lights seemed to flicker in his eyes, then he was completely blank. I waved a hand in front of his face, then took the list and pencil from his hands. I added Tomtom and Dogwood to the list while I waited for Garnet to reboot. He took a sip of coffee, then gave me a dirty look.

"Here," I passed his list back to him, "We need to start filling in the middle and see if anyone stands out."

——

"Where were you?" Cresol frowned over the top of a magazine as I staggered into the lobby.

"Drinking coffee with a murderer," I flopped down on the fainting couch, Sucre still in my arms. She climbed on the top of the couch, straddling it like a horse. Trefoil wandered over to join a circle game with other Fern offspring. Let me tell you, Fern children don't play duck-duck-goose. Whatever it was they were doing involved a lot of eye-closing and words like "angel of death."

Cresol dropped the magazine on the coffee table. The pages reeled, finally stopping on an ad for face cream, "I'm bored, Sol, let's go outside."

Sucre slid off the top of the couch. She landed on my stomach and I let out with an "oof." I tickled her and she screamed out a string of giggles. "We were just out there," I held up a hand, still red with the cold, "It's frigid, and Sucre feels like an Otter Pop."

"Horizon," Cresol called.

"Moooom! I'm the Angel of Death!" Horizon popped up from her cross-legged position. The other children opened their eyes.

"You ruined it," complained a blonde girl, "Now we have to start all over again."

"Perfect, then you can include Sucre," Cresol was undaunted.

"Moooom!" Horizon and Trefoil chorused together.

——

Once we were standing in front of the glass doors of the hotel, the doorman huddled behind us, Cresol pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

"I thought you quit," I watched her dig in her purse for a lighter.

"Yeah, yeah," she pulled the plastic off the pack, "Nothing like family to get you started again."

I held out my hand expectantly. Cresol huffed at me and passed me the pack. I picked the rest of the plastic off while she lit up.

"That's better," her words came out mixed with smoke, "Can you believe they're already arguing over who should get the hotel?"

"Who's arguing?" I pulled the card off the side of the cigarette pack, "Ooo, look Sol, I got a monarch butterfly." I showed her the card, then dug in my purse, "I don't think I have this one." I pulled out a stack of cards and shuffled through them.

Cresol chuckled, "I can't believe you've saved every one of those cards." She tucked the cigarette pack back in her purse, "Dad, Birch, and Cedar. Dad thinks it should go to Wisteria, Birch thinks it should go to Zaffre, and Cedar thinks it should go to Jonquil, which makes zero sense."

"It sort of makes sense, because Zaffre . . ." I trailed off as an image of the twins flitted through my head.

"We don't want Cresol to know," they chorused in my imagination.

"What about Zaffre?" Cresol puffed a mixture of steam and smoke at me.

"I heard a rumor that he might be adopted," I didn't even blink at the half-truth.

Cresol snorted, smoke coming out of her nose like her whole head was a stove, "Riiiight. They just happened to adopt a blonde kid with a turned up nose."

Aero popped out the door behind us, wrapping his arms around himself as the air hit him, "The girl's are hun-" He stared at Cresol like she'd just grown horns on her head, and I knew we were going to have a conversation later. You know, the kind of conversation where he goes on and on about how Cresol was wild when she was younger and will die an early death of lung cancer. He wishes, really.

Before he could say anything else, I blurted out a spur-of-the-moment fabrication, "Garnet was just out here looking for Jonquil. Do you know where he is?"

"Did he try the church? He was over there with Tomtom earlier," Aero looked over his shoulder, "The girls-"

"Thanks, Hon. I'm sure you'll find something for them to eat," I dashed down the street to the crosswalk, adding under my breath, "After all, you are their parent too."

# Forsaken

The church was a small rectangular building with the obligatory steeple. A sign above the door read "Tiny Chapel." It was meant primarily for vacationers, with services only held in the summer. There was a guest book, six votive candles, ten pews, and red and green stained glass window panes. A cross hung from the ceiling in a disconcerting manner, and I could imagine it plummeting to the floor and falling forward into the congregation during an earthquake. Hopefully it was secured to a joist, and not hung as haphazardly as the light above me, its ballast dangling from a wire.

I inched my way down the aisle, my eyes still locked on the dangling crucifix. Jonquil's faith was much stronger than mine; he knelt in the pew directly underneath the bottom of the cross. I sidled up to him, clearing my throat to let him know I was there. He opened his eyes, rubbing them with the back of his hand, "I wasn't expecting you."

"Uh, sorry. I can go somewhere else, like five pews back."

Jonquil rose from his knees, sitting in the pew next to me, "I didn't mean it that way. I was just surprised." He stared into the middle distance for a moment, his eyes unfocused. The expression made him look more like Garnet, a likeness I hadn't noticed before. "So," he said blankly, "Why did God let this happen? Why let Maizie and Cerise die?"

"You really want my opinion?" I waited until Jonquil nodded to continue, "I don't think we can hold God responsible for the failings of humankind."

"You sound like Garnet," Jonquil rubbed his temples with his fingers, "But still, even if it was murder, couldn't God stop it?"

"Uh, I mean yeah, I guess," I needed to get this conversation back on track, "Where were you when Cerise died?"

Jonquil's eyes sharpened, "You think I had something to do with this." The look on his face was a mixture of surprise and pain, "You think I would do this to Tomtom? To those half-orphaned children? To Uncle D?"

"I'm not saying that," I put a hand on his arm, "I'm half-orphaned myself." It was a weird way to put it, but I was starting to realize that Jonquil was just strange as Garnet. Rhododendron must have eaten too much lunch meat while she was pregnant and the nitrates went to their heads. "But," I took my hand back, "As the youngest son of the third son, you could be a potential heir."

"The heir has to live here," Jonquil waved his hand, "in this tiny little town where people are constantly in-fighting. No thank you. Anyway," he gave me a pained smile, "There's a murderer on the loose and God has forsaken us."

——

When I got back to the room, Aero was sitting at the faux roll top desk, staring at a business card. I could hear the chirps of Trefoil's voice through the wall, interspaced with Sucre's yelps and the rumble of Birch. Geranium couldn't be heard, although I would bet my journal that she was next door and that she was talking.

"What is the meaning of this?" Aero stared at the desk.

"Uh," I looked where he was looking. The desk was made of particle board, the wood grain veneer peeling back at the corners. The card that sat in the center of it was unfamiliar, and I moved closer to read the name, "Mint Johnson, Esq. Gunn, Brown, and Brown Family Law."

"I wasn't snooping," Aero continued, his voice flat, "Sucre pulled it out of your jeans pocket and handed it to me."

The realization hit me with the suddenness of a wave breaking against the sea cliffs. "Oooooh," I gasped, "Wisteria gave that to me." Aero was still unmoved; I'm pretty sure he didn't blink our entire conversation. "I was investigating, you know, the murders," I barked a laugh, "I don't know why she gave me the card." My lies were as thin as crepe paper, no match for the heavy stock of the divorce lawyer's business card.

"If anyone really thought there was a murder, they would call a real detective," the corner of Aero's mouth curled up by a millimeter.

"Anyone who?" I challenged, "Both Garnet and I think it was foul play."

Aero's eyes widened with surprise, "I guess Garnet is family."

"And what? You guess I'm not?" I was hopping, spitting, levitating-off-the-floor-while-projectile-vomiting mad. How dare he imply I wasn't family?

"You know what I mean."

I snatched the card off the table and made for the door, tears blurring my vision. Aero watched me, a puzzled look on his face.

As I slammed the door behind me I could hear him ask evenly, "Why are you so upset?"

I yanked the door back open, not caring if I ripped it straight off the hinges, "Why aren't you?"

——

"Where are we going, Mommy?" Trefoil pulled the seatbelt slowly, leaning forward in her booster seat until she could scoot almost off the seat.

"Home," I could see my own puffy eyes in the rear view mirror, "Sit on your bottom please."

"Like the city, home? Not the hotel?" Trefoil leaned back in her seat, playing the belt through her hands as it fed back into the retractor.

"Yes," I adjusted the mirror until I could see Sucre. She was passed out in her seat, the five-point harness doing little to keep her head upright.

Behind me I could see the same blue car I'd seen since I'd entered the interstate. I cut over a lane, expecting the car to whiz by. Instead, it slowed and moved behind me. Already feeling anxious from my one-sided fight with Aero, I slowed down. The blue car slowed as well, other vehicles branching out behind us as they moved into other lanes.

I was almost certain I was being paranoid when there was a jolt and a horrific crunch. It was nothing more than a little nudge from behind, but when you're going 60 mph, it feels as if the entire car has been crumpled. Terrified, I hit the brakes, causing contact with the car behind me yet again. We skidded to a stop in the middle of I-5, smoke rising behind us.

The smoke cleared for a brief moment and I caught a glimpse of the driver's blonde hair and a snub nose. My hands shaking, I fumbled for my phone, dialing 911 as the blue sedan disappeared into traffic.

——

Aero rubbed a spot on the crumpled trunk, "It's been a bad day for cars. Someone stole Garnet's, you had a hit-and-run . . ."

I twisted my tongue in my mouth, flipping it over and pinning it between my teeth. There was no point in telling him that Garnet was the one who hit me. Garnet, of all people, knew I was getting close to solving the murder. He was trying to scare me off. I shivered in the chill of the icy wind. He was succeeding.

"They'll probably total it," Aero's eyes glazed over and I knew he was thinking of sports cars.

"We could get a station wagon," my voice shook and I ignored it.

"You know," Aero gestured at the car, "God might be trying to tell you something."

The crinkles in the metal reminded me of a chip bag. I nodded as I stared at where the bumper used to be, "Message read and received. No more playing detective."

# The Dumbwaiter

I know it's against the rules, but I tucked my cellphone into my purse and left it there. It sat cradled in the lining, both the sound and vibration functions disabled. I felt better knowing help was a button-push away, safe enough to wander by myself into the lobby. Cresol was already there, sipping from a steaming mug, her forehead wrinkling into worry lines.

"So what's up?" she scrutinized me over the top of her coffee cup.

"Cinder told me that Zephyr has Trefoil's other boot. It went all the way to Carville, if you can imagine. Boot travels more than I do," I fished a pack of gum out of my purse, pulling a stick out of the pack.

"Hmmmm . . ." Cresol narrowed her eyes until they were only slits, "Is that really it?"

I swiveled my head to make sure we were the only two living souls in the lobby. "Aero and I had a fight and I was so mad I packed up the kids and started driving home," I unwrapped a piece of gum, curling it into a loop as I put it in my mouth.

"I should have pushed him harder," Cresol held out her hand for a stick of gum.

I passed her the pack, my confession momentarily stalled by hers. "You, uh," the gum blurred my speech and I chewed it into submission, "You really tried to push him down the elevator shaft?"

"I pushed him as a joke," Cresol took two sticks of gum, unwrapping them and bending them into a sandwich, "I didn't think he'd fall over like that."

"You didn't jokingly push Maizie, did you?" I bit my own tongue. Playing detective had become a reflex and I found myself already breaking my promise to Aero.

"When Maizie fell, I was at the front desk complaining about a leak in the bathroom," Cresol frowned at me, steel in her eyes, "You can ask them if you don't believe me." She placed the pack of gum on the table between us, her mouth twisting into a grin, "Did you really think I might be your killer, Sol?"

I bent to reach for the gum, "No-". Cresol grabbed my arm so fast, that the pack skittered across the table, spewing sticks of gum as it spun.

She pulled me forward, forcing me into a deeper bend, "What are you hiding from me?"

Pain blossomed in my wrist, radiating down my arm. "Aero was sleeping with Maizie," I blurted, "Zaffre is their child. Cresol, you're hurting me."

"What?!" Cresol released my arm, "You go find Wisteria. I'm going to have a little talk with Aero." She stomped through the lobby before I could protest, leaving a half-empty cup of coffee, a scattering of gum, and, at the very least, a bruise. I rubbed my arm, prodding at the tender parts of my wrist. Moving it in a circle, I rose to my feet and scooped the gum off the table and into my purse.

I followed the same path as Cresol, but slower and with less certainty. By the time I reached the stairwell, it was empty, the steel helix whorling around me like a trap that released instead of caught its prey. Weariness hit me as I ascended, and again I was sinking, each step up taking me down two treads. For a moment I thought I would never reach the top, the dramas and deaths of the Ferns playing out above me like a cinematic reel. But it wasn't too late for one person, and the thought of her buoyed me.

"Go find Wisteria," I whispered to myself, my shoe landing firmly on the next rung. With a surge of energy, I crested the staircase, pulling the door open to the second floor. I strode down the hallway, ignoring the yelling coming from 215. The door to Wisteria's office was ajar, and I burst inside, my intuition going crazy. Her office was empty, the dumbwaiter doors standing open. With my pulse banging in my neck, I walked over to the dumbwaiter and peered in. It was dark inside and I could just make out a shadow of an object or a person. I was digging in my purse, reaching for my phone when someone pushed me from behind.

——

I'm not sure I can accurately describe the horror I felt as I clung to the frame of the dumbwaiter, resisting the force pressing against my back. Any slackening in my muscles and I would join the list of "accidental" deaths. Then, just as abruptly as it started, the force released me, and I fell backwards, my knees so weak that I could only scrabble crab-like away from the dumbwaiter's maw.

"You're not Wisteria," said a voice.

My eyes trailed across the ground, the contents of my purse scattered like confetti; coins, a tube of lipstick, a jumble of keys, sticks of gum, a wallet, and everywhere, cigarette cards. Slowly I looked up, "You're not who I expected," I looked back down. Somehow I was still holding my phone in my hand. I clicked on the center button.

"Sorry to do this to you, but I can't let you make a phone call," a hand reached down and wrapped around the front of my neck. It pushed me into the ground, and though I wanted to fight, I found myself falling out of my own body, down through the laundry room, into the basement. It was dark there, a dark so complete my mind kept seeing purple rings. I swam up through them, the purple rings turning iridescent as I passed through their centers. I was rising, rising, up through the floors, to the sound of grinding gears and a motor humming. I opened my eyes, but there was still a blackness and I could barely move.

When I realized where I was, I couldn't hold back the screams.

——

"Calm down, calm down, I don't want to have to gag you," my kidnapper pulled me out of the dumbwaiter into the janitor's closet. A maid's cart vied for space with a mop bucket and vacuum cleaner. Shelves of cleaning chemicals and toilet paper lined the walls.

I panted, tears running down my face, "You're going to kill me."

"I don't want to, you're just in the way," his dark eyes were regretful.

Whatever my wrists were tied with, bit deep into the tender spot on my right wrist. I scanned the room for something, anything useful. "You don't have to," I tried rising to my feet, and fell over sideways, "Oooooh."

"I'm the only fourth son in this generation, you'd think that would mean something," he helped me up with something like gentleness.

"You don't know, do you?" I looked him over, and I could see the resemblances; the corn-colored hair, the lean-muscular build.

"Know what?" asked Zaffre.

"Nothing," I replied.

——

If I really thought about it, I might have realized that Zaffre didn't join the queue for room reassignment. Now, he was the only living soul above the third floor. He escorted me down the hall as if I were his date, his arm linked through mine, our feet soundless on the safavieh carpet. He stopped at 511, pulling out a skeleton key and turning it in the lock, "You know, I never had any of the others to my room before."

Zaffre's room looked like all the other rooms in Hotel Fern. I don't know what I was expecting, but I had anticipated some difference somehow, a sinister book perhaps or a morbid trophy. His four-post bed stood unmade, the velvet bedspread jumbled with the cream sheets, the tulle canopy knotted in a loop to keep it out of the way. His suitcase sat open in a corner, full of half-folded clothing and toiletries. The game Apples to Apples sat on the surface of his rolltop desk, next to the hotel-issue quill pen and ink. "Sorry about the mess," he sat on the edge of his bed, pulling me down with him, "I told the maid not to bother coming all the way up for me." He pushed me over and I recoiled from him, curling into a ball. "It does give us some time to ourselves though," he leaned in close to me, his breath tickling my ear, "doesn't it?"

The sobs that wracked my body were silent, and I turned my face as far away from him as I could. If I was calm enough to speak, I can't imagine what I would have said to him, but it surely would have contained a few choice words. Zaffre hovered over me for a few moments, his breathing becoming increasingly ragged the more I cringed and wept. It was different from before; when he had pushed me and strangled me, he had been calm. Now, he was trembling and he rose from the bed clumsily, staggering into the bathroom and slamming the door.

I rubbed my eyes as best as I could against the sour-smelling sheets. Rolling over, I was able to put my feet on the ground and hoist myself up into a standing position. I made for the door, then stood there flummoxed. How on earth does one turn a doorknob with one's hands bound? I turned around, fumbling for the knob with achingly numb hands that I couldn't even see. Grasping the knob, I could feel it start to turn. Right as the latch started to disengage, my hands slipped and I lost my balance. I hit the ground with a thud, sobbing with frustration.

The bathroom door opened and Zaffre stood over me, his face a mask of anger, "How dare you soil my carpet with your dirty body." He kicked me and I screamed, pain blossoming in my ribs. Bending at the waist, he grabbed my right ankle, encircling it with a zip-tie. Horrified, I jerked my legs apart, kicking like a jack-rabbit. One of my kicks connected with his stomach, and he stepped backwards, pulling me by my legs. The carpet burned my back, and I squirmed, trying to pull free of him. "Whore," Zaffre hissed as he fasted the other zip-tie, binding my ankles together, "this will keep your legs together." He dropped my legs and banged out the hotel room door, closing it behind him, the key scratching in the lock.

——

I lay on the floor for what seemed like forever, unable to do anything other than flop like a fish. I was thirsty, hungry, and I desperately needed to pee. By the time Zaffre returned, I was almost relieved to see him. He set his grocery bags on the desk, then knelt down next to me, "Are you okay, Solarium?"

"I need to use the bathroom," my voice wobbled.

"I'm going to help you up," he helped me into seated position, then sat down behind me. "I'm going to link my arms through yours to help you stand up," his arms looped through mine and I could feel the warmth of his chest as he helped me up. "Sorry about this, but could you maybe hop?" Zaffre bumped me from behind and I tried to hop.

Once in the bathroom, further indignities awaited me. There was no way I could unfasten and pull down my own pants. "I'll try not to look," he unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, pulling them down my thighs.

"Thanks," I sat gratefully on the toilet, watching Zaffre turn his back. He stared at the door while I did my business. "I'm done," I called out meekly.

"You know," he turned towards me, "your back is pretty scraped up." Zaffre unrolled some toilet paper into his hand, "Sorry, again," he wiped me, then pulled my pants up. "I bought some antibiotic lotion and bandaids," he linked his arms through mine, "oh, and food. Are you hungry, Solarium?"

Tears straggled down my face, "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I'm sorry about earlier, I really am," he gave me a nudge forward, "I've never tied up anyone before. But, I'm in control of myself now."

I hopped back into the room, using Zaffre for balance. There was no doubt in my mind that he was completely out of control and would cycle back into violence again.

# Captive

When I woke up, my whole body hurt. I was laying on the floor next to a scattered deck of cards. "A Funeral" read the top card fittingly. It may sound insane, but I had played Apples to Apples with Zaffre last night until I could no longer keep my eyes open.

"You're awake," Zaffre looked up from a magazine, "I have to go be social, but let's have some fun before I leave."

I shook my head, "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"I won't hit you this time, I promise," Zaffre put the magazine down, rolling it into a tube, "Plus, I think I can make you a little more comfortable."

"I'm okay," I lied.

Zaffre held up a rope made of zip-ties, "I made it while you were sleeping."

My eyes followed the rope to its end, the post of the bed nearest the bathroom, "No."

"You're getting scared, aren't you?" Zaffre's eyes widened, "but there's nothing you can do." He pulled a folding knife out of his pocket, opening the blade with a flick, "Maybe I should cut you."

I started to cry as he approached me, unable to look away from the knife. He attached the rope to one of my ankles, then leaned against me, holding the knife against my throat. "Please," I whimpered, "please, don't. . ."

Zaffre let me cry hysterically for a few moments before lowering the knife and cutting my hands free, "I'm going to let you have your hands back." I could hear the creak of the floor boards as he stood, then the click of the door as he left. I waited a few moments before rubbing the feeling back into my hands.

With hands, I could pull myself along the floor. With hands, I could even stand. I scooted towards the door, coming up a few feet short. I yanked on my rope, hoping it would break. Then I tried the bathroom and the desk. I searched everywhere for something sharp. He had to forget something, just one small thing could mean my escape. But before I could find anything useful, the room door opened again, and boy, was I surprised.

——

Garnet's face was inscrutable. He looked me up-and-down like I was an object, then turned back to his brother, "You didn't take any liberties with her, did you?"

Zaffre pulled a sour face, "Do you have to be such a pervert? Not everything is about sex."

"Just making sure," Garnet took a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket. Terrified, I backed into the corner of the room.

"You promise to get rid of her after you have your way with her?" Zaffre's eyes flicked over to me. "You're getting scared, aren't you, Solarium?" he held out his hand and Garnet passed him the cuffs, "I'll miss the way you cry when you're scared."

"Yeah, I'll take care of her," Garnet looked at me and winked.

I shivered with revulsion, and for a moment I considered begging Zaffre to keep me. "Both of them want to kill you, Stupid," I thought to myself, "but if Garnet moves you there's a chance to escape, a chance someone will see or hear you."

Zaffre cuffed my hands in the front, "She's been cuffed with her arms behind her for a while, so this should be more comfortable." Zaffre cut the zip-tie rope, and put a hand on Garnet's shoulder, "Don't mess this up."

"I won't," Garnet bent, grabbing me around the waist. He lugged me over his shoulder, grunting with the effort. Zaffre held the door for him, and he staggered into the hall.

# Rescue

We had only gone a few feet when Garnet put me down, panting, his glasses steaming and sweat running down his face. "You're heavier than you look," he took out a pocket knife and cut the ties around my ankles.

"Where are you taking me?" I demanded.

Garnet helped me stand, "I'll tell you once we get down a few floors." He led me past the janitor closet to the stairway, and I almost cheered. Everyone used the stairs. There was no way he could escape notice.

I went down the stairs as fast as I could, getting as far in front of Garnet as possible, my feet making a clang on every tread, as if I was the clapper inside a giant bell. I felt that sort of jubilation until I missed a step and went sliding down the twirl of stairs on my behind. It only took Garnet a few minutes to catch up to me, and he scolded me as he helped me to my feet, "Don't go so fast, your hands are still cuffed together." He looked up, a strange expression on his face, "I guess we're far enough down." Garnet pulled a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and turned it on. He put it on channel 5, then pressed the talk button, "Lord Unicorn here, do you read me Fairy Dragon? Over."

There was a burst of static then a familiar voice, "Affirmative, Lord Unicorn. Do you have the mystical orb? Over."

"The mystical orb is in my possession. New mission: defeat the boss. Over," Garnet grinned and I could imagine him behind the controllers one of those role-playing games. Not that I have any idea what those are like.

"Copy that, Fairy Dragon starting quest: defeat the boss. Over and out," there was a burst of static, followed by silence.

I held out my cuffed wrists to Garnet, "You have a lot of explaining to do."

——

I didn't get my explanation right away. Garnet took me to the lobby, where Aero was sitting in front of Cousin Maizie's coffin. "I'm so sorry," Aero held his hands over the coffin, the chain of a necklace dangling between his fingers. He looked up as we approached, his expression transforming from sorrow to amazement, "Solarium!"

At that moment, for reasons I can't explain, I could no longer stand. I sat down hard on the Oriental rug, unable to do anything but shiver and stare at the way the legs of the settee pushed down individual strands in the carpet, bending and warping them into the inverse of its shape. If you moved the furniture, the impressions would remain, a crater in a surface once smooth.

"Is she okay?" Aero's voice seemed to come from a hundred feet away.

"I suggest calling an ambulance and probably the police," Garnet's voice seemed to echo. I was shrinking, the strands of carpet growing larger. They grew to the size of spaghetti noodles, then expanded, like trees, around me. I was lost in a forest of loomed yarn, but I no longer cared. I was part of the carpet, I was hidden, and I was safe.

# Proper Folk

Geography has never been my strong suit, but I'm pretty sure Louisiana isn't the halfway point between the two Washingtons, no matter if you throw in Wisconsin to confuse things. But, Cresol was paying for my ticket, Cinder was letting me stay at her house, and I was longing to escape the grey chill that had continued well into Spring.

Louisiana, from the air, looked oddly flat to me. Honestly, anywhere I fly looks flat unless the plane comes in eye-level with a snow-capped mountain. As soon as I was on the ground, the humidity hit me with its heavy, wet embrace; a weighted blanket that encases one in sweat no matter the garment. I was still dressed for Seattle, and stopped to remove my heavy coat and sweater. Bemoaning my choice of knee-high boots, I wandered through the airport to the car rental. The woman behind the desk spoke to me, but not a single word made sense.

"Sorry?" I cocked my head and focused.

The woman repeated herself and finally in dawned on me; she was speaking a dialect. I gave up on understanding and simply nodded. Ten minutes later I was behind the wheel of a red Mustang, giggling as the air conditioner blasted me with cool air. Cinder lived just outside of Baton Rouge, a discrete little city that you can walk from end to end if you have mind to.

I followed the directions on my phone, unnerved by a scraping sound that seemed to be coming from under my car. Strangely, the sounds continued as I drove down the gravel road towards my destination. I was standing outside Cinder's house, peering under my car, when Garnet approached me.

"It's probably not a good idea to stand outside during a thunderstorm," he looked under the car as well, a puzzled look on his face.

It took a moment to sink in; the strange sound was not coming from my car, it was the Southern version of thunder. "Do they do everything differently here?" I straightened up.

Garnet gave me a wry smile, "Zephyr is inside complaining that you don't have 'the sense the good Lord gave you.'"

I looked towards the house. Zephyr was framed by the front window, grinning like an idiot. "Is that nice-nasty? I've heard of that."

"No," Garnet walked around my car, "I can look under the hood if you'd like, but Cresol's waiting for you inside with a tall glass of sweet tea."

"Sweet tea!" I squealed.

Garnet gave me an odd look, his eyes unfocusing, "I'm really glad Zaffre didn't kill you."

"Yeah, me too," my arms tingled with a familiar sensation; even though I now considered him a friend, Garnet still gave me the willies. I shook myself and trotted up the gravel path to Cinder's front door. It was a large house with a screened-in porch, though what type of colonial style it was escaped me. I entered the shelter of the porch through a door that was more screen than door. The interior was a cheerful white with cushioned wicker furniture, pillows floral-patterned with pink and green tones. Before I could think the word "cicadas," the front door was thrown open and Cresol was in front of me, her eyes reflecting the heat that moved like a liquid across the horizon.

"Hey," she looked at me as if she didn't recognize me, a look that should have been on my face. She had cut off her rope of hair, and the boyish cut softened and rounded her face. Her arms were bare, and I could see the muscles trailing their way up her arms like beads on a string.

"Hey," the sweat that had formed on my skin earlier was back, and I could feel rivulets running down my shins inside my boots.

"Are you going to let our guest in?" Cinder squeezed her sister from behind, a grin on her tanned face.

Cresol moved to the side, and I stepped into the coolness of the house proper. Time seemed to have stopped a decade ago, reflecting the arrival of children. Two of the eldest lounged on the futon/couch, giggling at a program on an aging flat-screen. Above their heads were the words, "Live, Love," and I pointed at them, "What happened to 'Laugh?'"

"Kale broke it," chirped one.

"Did not," the other rubbed his snub nose, "It fell off the wall by itself."

Cinder waved me in like a plane about to land, "Come in the kitchen so we can have some girl-talk." Cinder's kitchen was large, a marble island gracing the center with wooden swiveling chairs surrounding it. A pitcher of tea sat in the center of it next to a plate of cookies, its surface fogged by the coolness of its contents.

The chair squealed as I sat on it, rotating left and right as I shifted in place, "I've heard a lot of strange things since going home."

"Like what?" Cinder poured me a glass of tea while Cresol dug in her pockets.

"Uh, let's see," I counted them off on my fingers, "Cresol is not actually in textiles, she's a police officer, this is not the first time Zaffre has killed, Wisteria is representing Zaffre - now I know that one has to be false. Oh, and Aero and I are separated." Cinder gasped. "We're not," I clarified, taking a cookie, "That's just the rumor."

"Zaffre's never killed a person before, just small things like insects and birds." I jumped at Garnet's voice. I had no idea when he had entered the kitchen, or even what direction he'd come from. "There was that one time he strangled Jonquil," Garnet's chair squeaked in protest as he sat on it, "but everyone wants to do that occasionally." Garnet pulled out his notebook and flipped through it, "I promised you an explanation, so let's see . . . " he scanned a dog-eared page, a puzzled look on his face.

Cresol stopped fidgeting and peeked over his arm, "How do you read that?"

"Well, apparently I can't," Garnet pushed the notebook away from him. From my upside-down vantage point, it looked like Russian characters. "I guess I'll start with the yelling that I heard. It was coming from your room, Solarium, and I thought it was you. I listened for awhile, and realized you were interrogating Aero. I thought that was strange, but I've always thought he was a psychopath.'"

I shivered at the word, as if just the sound of it could pin my ankles and wrists together. I could feel dark eyes on me, hear the sounds of breathing. It was the same ceiling, the same China-blue light fixture, and I realized that I had never escaped.

——

"Sol," Cresol's hand was cool on mine, "There you are."

I was staring at the metal track lighting above the island, "Sorry, I kind of spaced out for a moment." I took a sip of the tea and winced. It was so sweet, it tasted more like a weak lemonade than tea.

"To review," Garnet's glasses flashed as he shot me an indignant look, "I heard a scream, went down the hall, saw an open door, went in, and no one was there."

"Okay," it didn't sound like I'd missed much.

"I was going to leave, but then I stepped on a clue," Garnet turned his glare to Cresol, who was giggling. She pulled a cigarette card out of her pocket and handed it to me.

"Monarch butterfly," I breathed. My purse itself had been recovered from Zaffre's room, the contents stuffed back inside, my phone turned off and partially disassembled. I had only paid attention to the larger items, ensuring that I had all my cards and keys. While I flipped the card between my fingers, Garnet continued his story.

"At that moment, I didn't know the significance of what I'd found. It was only as I walked back to my room, that it would become clear," Garnet paused for dramatic effect. "As I passed by your room, Solarium, the door opened. Much to my astonishment, Cresol emerged with Aero as her hostage."

Cresol snorted, "Hostage, snostage."

"You had him in handcuffs."

"I was arresting him," Cresol crossed her arms, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Anyway, I asked her, 'Where is Solarium?'" Garnet picked up a cookie, regarded it sorrowfully, then took a bite, "At that point, we started checking everywhere. Aero found the kids with his parents, but no you. Cresol found Wisteria in her room, but no you. I looked in the lobby, where you were last. I almost felt your presence lingering in the air, but you were gone."

Cresol took the cigarette card from me, "Garnet rejoined Wisteria and I for dinner." She held the card image out, like she was reading a picture book to a child, "The first thing he does is to hand this to her and ask, 'Does this card mean anything to you?'"

"Once I'd established it was yours, we went back to Wisteria's office to check the dumbwaiter for, uh, for . . ." he let the obvious hang in the air. They were looking for my dead body. "We pulled out our suspect list, but all of the suspects were sitting around Wisteria's office worried sick. Unable to sleep, I decided to do what any reasonable person would do-"

"That was not reasonable," Cresol interrupted, "and I don't really know why I went along with it."

"You couldn't sleep either," Garnet flipped back in his notebook and I gasped. It was a map of the second floor. Unlike the other page, it was legible, the rooms drawn with box-like precision, half-circles marking doors, the staircase depicted in a perfect whorl. Each room had the names of the occupants, room number, and notations written in Cresol's fine hand. "It wasn't until after we were done, that it occurred to me that someone was missing," Garnet flipped a page ahead. This page was messy, a clumsy rhombus floating in space under the header, Fifth Floor. Zaffre's name was written in Garnet's scrawl, underlined with enough force to tear the page.

"There were multiple ways to manage this situation, but I was sleep deprived and anxious," Cresol looked at Cinder.

Cinder took her sister's hand, "This doesn't leave this room."

"Who would I tell?" I had been staring at the map of the fifth floor so intently, a ghost of the image appeared every time I blinked. I watched the isolated room flicker across Cinder's face, her dark eyes, her turned up nose. Three similar faces regarded me, and it was all I could do to breathe evenly.

"Aero?" suggested one of them.

"The guy I can barely talk to, because he reminds me? Because every time he touches me, I jump? I don't even want him to look at me," my ribs quivered with a dread I couldn't begin to understand. All their faces stared at me, masks through which Zaffre could still access my fear, his excitement growing with my panic.

"I'm so sorry," he reached across the table, his hand on my shoulder, "We got you as soon as we could. We didn't want him to panic and do something desperate."

I forced myself to focus on the differences in their faces; the way Garnet's hairline receded, the freckles across Cinder's cheeks, the small scar on Cresol's chin. "He's not here," I thought, taking a deep breath. "I'm safe," another breath.

"It's true," Cresol's face seemed to pop into focus as she spoke, "The rumors about me. If too many people know, I'll be reassigned." She swallowed so hard, I could see her throat move, "I can't imagine doing something else. I was made for this kind of work."

"So you're undercover," I took another slow breath. Part of me was dying to know what she did. Did she infiltrate gangs? Lure child traffickers? Bust drug lords? Imagining Cresol in a gang distracted me from my anxiety, and I couldn't help but ask one question, "You don't have a tattoo, do you?"

Cresol's jaw slackened, "Is that really the first thing that came to your mind?"

——

Cinder needed her kitchen back for dinner, or at least that's what she said. Kefir, the eldest girl showed me to my room. "Were you really kidnapped?" she asked once I set my suitcase next to the oak framed bed.

"Yes," I sat down on the wedding ring pattern quilt and unzipped my boots.

"Were you scared?" Kefir's dark eyes widened, "Did you think you were gonna die?"

"Kefir Fern Winslow," Zephyr drawled out her name like only a parent could. I could hear a floorboard creak as he made his way towards us.

Kefir ducked out of the room, pausing in the doorway, "Write me a note." She turned and dashed down the hall.

"Now where did that little mouse go?" Zephyr passed my doorway, and even from the side I could see that he was smiling.

I smiled too, glad that this new generation of Ferns were discontent with the secrecy of proper folk. I vowed to write her, even though I'd rather forget everything I went through. I would write to her because in the telling of my story, the next tragedy might be halted before it even began.

# Cover Story

Garnet was sitting in a wicker chair on the front porch, his bare legs in a lazy cross, phone in one hand. His legs were slimmer and paler than Aero's, and I couldn't help remark, "You don't spray tan, do you?"

"I don't even know what that means," Garnet set his phone down on the glass table top.

Images of used cars filled the screen of his phone, and recollection shook me, "What happened to your car, the one that was stolen?" I dropped into the couch across from him, folding my arms across my chest in a nonverbal pout.

"Oh, I forgot about that," Garnet took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Right after we realized Zaffre had you, the police called the front desk. They found my car, parked in that empty lot across from the Bikini Bean. The front was smashed in pretty good, but it was driveable. I was going to fix it, you know, go junkyarding for parts, but one of the wheels fell off last week." Garnet slid his glasses back into place, "Like really just fell off, while I was driving."

"It's Karma for rear-ending me," I tried to look tough, but the uneven surface of the cushion sent me slouching sideways.

"I didn't . . ." Garnet trailed off, a thoughtful look on his face. "You know," he resumed, "the keys were in the ignition when they found it. I always keep my keys in my pocket."

Curiosity piqued, I went into detective mode, "Was anything taken from your car?"

"No, my phone was still locked in the glovebox. Nothing inside the car had been disturbed," Garnet pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of his breast pocket, smoothing out the folds. Three familiar columns filled the page, and Garnet ran his finger over the names in the first third of the page.

His finger stopped on Aero's name, and I flopped over on the sunbrella throw pillow, "Oh, c'mon, Garnet, give me a break and just say it was you."

"I had opportunity, but not motive. Aero wanted to stop you from leaving him. He didn't have a car, so he took mine," Garnet tapped Aero's name with his finger.

"I saw you," I insisted, tucking my feet up next to me. The couch fabric was unpleasantly slickery, and I could feel it adhere to the fat on my arms.

Garnet uncrossed his legs and sat up, "Then you saw glasses?"

"Well, uh," I couldn't remember.

"You saw a long forehead," he pointed at himself.

"I saw blonde hair," from my current position, I couldn't see much of Garnet's hair, and I started to doubt myself.

Garnet stood, scooping his phone off the table, "I would never try to stop you from leaving Aero." He turned away from me, his back expressing the hurt his front couldn't. I thought about speaking as he opened the front door, struggled to frame my words as he walked through, cleared my throat as he closed the door behind him.

"Forgive me for asking," I said to the empty room, "but do you have a crush on me?"

——

"Absolutely," Cresol's voice floated in from behind me, and I rolled off the couch and onto my feet. She was standing outside of the screen door, her face tessellated into a million small circles, smoke rising around her like heat. There was a rattle as she opened the door, a sound as summery as the smell of grass. She pinched out her cigarette, tucking it delicately in her pocket, "Sorry I got so defensive earlier. I've been put on leave and things at home have been . . . difficult. I'm thinking of staying here."

"Living here, staying here?" I knelt on the sofa, baffled, "What about Horizon?"

Cresol kicked off her flip-flops and padded over to Garnet's vacant chair, "She'll come out here once school's out, and anyway, I'm always at work and she won't miss me."

I gaped at her, sinking back into my couch in some semblance of a normal sitting position, "She'll miss you."

"I know," Cresol wheezed out a sigh, "Let's talk about something else."

"Like what happened after you realized I was being held hostage?" craving comfort, I put one of the vinyl-coated pillows in my lap.

"People keep throwing that word around, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. A person takes hostages as a means to gain something else. Zaffre didn't gain anything by keeping you alive," Cresol paused and watched me try to twist the pillow into a more appealing shape. Amusement sparkled in her eyes like a sun break; then the clouds gathered, and it was gone. "I wanted proof," she looked down at her bare feet, "I've seen too many perps, if you'll excuse the expression, 'get away with murder,' all from lack of evidence."

I gave up on the pillow, tossing it down next to me, "Hmph."

"I didn't think Zaffre would relate well to a woman, so that eliminated me and Wisteria. Aero is terrible under pressure, so not him," Cresol's mouth twisted in a derisive smirk, "That left Garnet."

"What," I cleared my throat, "What did Aero do?" I was almost afraid of the answer. I didn't expect him to heroically rescue me, but I wanted to know he cared enough to do something.

"Oh, he wanted to do all kinds of things, but I wouldn't let him. All we needed was someone so obviously nervous that they couldn't even put a sentence together."

I let out a breath I started holding after I finished talking.

"Garnet, on the other hand, seemed pretty calm," Cresol jumped as the door opened behind her. One of the younger Winslows maneuvered a bicycle through the door, then out the other side and down the steps. "Look," Cresol lowered her voice, "I'm not putting Garnet and Zaffre in the same category, but I think his cover story wasn't entirely fictional."

A chill tripped up my vertebrae like an elevator that's been called all the way to the top floor, "You think he wants to kill me."

Cresol barked a laugh, "I think I should just continue telling the story, and you can decide for yourself."

I drew my feet off the floor as if the cedar planks had become overly friendly, "Okay."

"So while Garnet practiced his sting on Aero, Wisteria and I started working on the other half of the plan. Someone had to record Garnet and Zaffre's conversation while I waited on the fourth floor," Cresol's legs bounced with the increasing pace of her speech, "Wisteria was the obvious choice. I figured Zaffre wouldn't expect that: that his next target would be recording him. Plus, if she was in his line of sight, it would make Garnet's proposal more appealing."

"That sounds risky," I hugged my knees to my chest.

"Risky? It was brilliant. She sat right in front of him with her tablet and made a video of the whole thing. The only worry was that someone would pester her about electronics usage."

Zaffre had been very careful about all of his murders and I couldn't imagine him discussing them in the lobby. "How exactly did Garnet get him to talk?"

"A mix of flattery and envy," Cresol pursed her lips, "and he grossed Zaffre out in a weird way."

I could hear Zaffre's voice as if he was standing over me. "Not everything is about sex," he said in a flat voice. Garnet's eyes burned into me; the smile on his lips had the same sort of lechery I reserved for chocolate cake. A shiver started in the arch of my feet, rolling its way up my legs, across my stomach, branching out into my arms.

"Oh my God," a voice from inside the house seemed to echo the feelings that roiled through me. Oh, my God."

# Counterweight

Somehow we all fit on the porch. Cinder, Cresol, and I sat in a row on the wicker couch, Zephyr shared the armchair with Kaleidoscope, the youngest of his children. Kefir, Kale, and Kanga sat cross-legged against the railing, Kale picking at a hole in the screen. Garnet arrived last, shoe-horning himself in next to me. The seam between the two cushions pinched my thighs, and I couldn't move at all without getting overly friendly with either of my seat mates.

I shifted closer to Cresol as Cinder repeated the all too familiar words, "There's been an accident."

"Oh for land sakes," drawled Zephyr under his breath.

"Wisteria is in the hospital in critical condition," Cinder's voice quivered. I couldn't see her facial expression from my position, so I eyed Zephyr. He was smiling in an exasperated fashion, his head shaking rhythmically. "She was working late in her office at Hotel Fern, and decided to go downstairs," Cinder continued, "she got into the dumbwaiter as a shortcut, but somehow it got stuck between floors, and she was exiting the car through a panel in the top when it suddenly started up again."

"It's always the counterweight that gets you," I mumbled. Cresol pinched me on the quadricep and I slapped at her reflexively.

"Cresol!" Cinder admonished, "be nice to our guest." Cinder leaned forward until I could see the swing of her dark hair and the tip of her snub nose, "Anyway, you're right, Solarium. She was struck by the counterweight."

Garnet's legs jostled mine as her sat up straighter, "We got the wrong guy."

"No," Cresol was immobile, "we got one of the perpetrators."

"Two murderers?" Garnet's eyes widened behind his spectacles.

I stared at the white floorboards. They were slightly worn in high traffic areas, and the boards under my feet were beginning to flake, the natural wood grain reasserting itself over the imposition of the paint. Images flashed through my mind: smoke billowing from the rear of my car; the swing of a locket around Maizie's neck; and the word, scrawled in messy cursive, Secundus. The last image was Wisteria's face, dark eyes, snub nose, full lips, and her glossy black braids. "She'll be okay, won't she?" I pinched my words off with my teeth. I never knew Cerise very well, and I loathed Maizie, but Wisteria had extended her circle to include me.

As never before, I took this "accident" personally.

——

I was just falling asleep when I heard a knocking sound. Sitting up and rubbing my eyes, I rasped, "Who's there?"

"It's Cresol. You're not really asleep, are you?"

I groaned and rolled out of bed. Reaching where I thought the door was, I felt for the knob. Cresol pulled the door open from the other side, and a shaft of light entered my room. "Is something wrong?" I peered past her into the hall.

"You really wear pajamas that match?" Cresol glared at my plaid pj set.

"Did you wake me up just to make fun of me, Sol?" finding the door knob, I started to pull the door shut.

"Don't be mad. Come out on the roof with me and Garnet."

The roof was accessible from the attic, a large room with walls that sloped precipitously on one side, boxed windows breaking any sense of squareness. I ducked reflexively as I entered the room, pausing to stare at the unmade daybed and cluttered nightstand. Cresol scooped a pack of cigarettes off the stand, then squeezed herself into one of the window boxes.

"Eat me," I mumbled.

"Well, excuse me," Cresol glared at me over her shoulder, then turned back to push the window open.

I giggled for a moment before trying to explain, "You know, I was talking about 'eat me cakes."

"And you've got it backwards," a voice called from outside. Garnet was already on the roof, waiting for us to join him, "It should be 'drink me,' and I think I need some too. I lost part of my skin going through that tiny window."

I poked my head through the window. Garnet was seated on the sloping roof-line, a bottle of wine clenched in one hand, as if that would somehow keep him from sliding off. Cresol walked around him, spider-like, flopping down as if she were already on the front lawn and not about to fall down there. "Nobody does crazy like a Fern," I grumbled, crawling out the window. Once outside, I was unwilling to stand up. Instead, I kept both hands on the roof as my bare feet nervously tested the asphalt shingles. I clambered over to them, sitting cautiously next to Garnet.

Cresol offered him a cigarette, then produced a lighter for both of them. "I think I know who did it," she motioned to Garnet and he passed her the bottle of wine.

"We all know who did it," I squinted at Garnet. In the half-light it was hard to make out his expression, "Confess already."

"I've been here longer than you," his glasses caught the reflected light of a street lamp, transposing eerie glowing eyes over his real ones, "How do you think I accomplished that?"

"Psychokinesis?" I suggested, "Emphasis on the psycho."

"Quit flirting," Cresol tipped the bottle, taking a swig, "It's hard enough to say this without you two messing around."

A breeze tickled the backs of my arms, and I shivered. It escaped me how accusing someone of murder could be flirting. The bottle was passed to me and I took a tiny sip. It was a cheap red, a sweet little one note that warmed me as it slid down my throat.

Cresol tapped her ashes down the roof in a cascade of lightning-bug sparks, "I think it's Coal."

"But isn't he-" I couldn't think of a way to say in a mental institution without sounding callous.

"He's been living in the hotel for years," Cresol volunteered, "You didn't know it, but you met him."

I passed the bottle back to Garnet. The wine was obviously going to my head, "Whaaaaat?"

"The elevator man that never says anything?" Garnet set the wine down in the crook of his arm, "Too busy listening to the voices in his head, I guess."

"No," I gasped at the memory, "I've heard him talk."

Cresol leaned her weight forward, pushing herself up to standing. Silhouetted against the solitary street light, a sprinkle of stars her crown, she perched on the roof like a misplaced angel breathing brimstone, "Cinder would kill me if she knew I was telling you this, but I'm just. so. sick. of secrets."

"Amen," I tried to stand up and pitched forward with the slope of the roof. Garnet grabbed one of my legs, pulling me back towards him. I sat down hard, the shingles unpleasantly abrasive against my backside.

"The voices tell him that people want to hurt him. The voices have told him to hurt people before," Cresol's face was unreadable, "No one wants to talk to him because he doesn't talk back and when he does . . ." Cresol stepped backwards, coming dizzyingly close to the edge of the roof, "It's easier for him at Hotel Fern. There are few electronics, so that feels safer to him somehow." Cresol spread her arms, her cigarette a sparkler in one hand, "So now you know all my secrets." She leaned backwards, like a leaf testing the wind before it's slow swoosh to the ground. Cresol, being neither angel nor feather, plummeted.

What happened next is still blurry to me, Garnet was suddenly over me, the press of his lips against mine, fruity and bitter. "Go back inside, Solarium," he whispered before scampering down the roof, clinging to the shingles for dear life. I could hear noises below, the shattering of glass and a shotgun being racked.

I inched back up the roof as a voice half-honey, half-sleep filled the air, "What in tarnation? I almost shot you two idiots."

I squeezed myself back through the window just as Cresol started to laugh; and I suddenly realized that there was one other way to land safely than to fly.

Fall.

# Addendum

It's been five years since that night on the rooftop. Five years since the night I was so drunk that falling ten feet backwards seemed like a pretty good idea.

I was at Hotel Fern the day I learned this journal still existed, drinking coffee with Wisteria. Wisteria, the only witness to her own tragedy, has little memory of how she ended up in the dumbwaiter. She only remembers waking up in a dark, confined space, and trying to get out. A head-injury and severed leg later, she ended her trip on the bottom floor, somehow crawling into the lobby; the very lobby we were now seated in. There were no coffins this time, just the usual replica Victorian furniture. Someone had commissioned a portrait of Maizie and Cerise in corseted, full-skirted dresses. It hung over the fireplace, a reminder that our family seemed to be shrinking instead of growing.

"You need to get a better leg," I eyed Wisteria over the bone-China rim of my cup.

"I have a better one," she rubbed her real leg above the leather laces, "this one is period, though. The guests love it."

I set my coffee on the side table and fished in my purse with one hand, "You should have embalmed your leg and put a table top on it."

"Cresol!" Wisteria gasped with laughter, her plaits swinging forward as she clutched her stomach.

"Miss Fern," the desk clerk appeared behind us.

"Which one?" I pointed back and forth between Wisteria and myself.

"Miss Cresol Fern," the clerk looked concerned, "Mrs. Cinder Fern Winslow is on the phone for you."

I kind of wished that I could chug my hot cup of coffee, and that if I did it would somehow steel my nerves. You see, Cinder hadn't spoken to me since the last accident.

I followed the clerk back to the desk, passing around the employee side to reach the phone. The phone looked at me with its shiny brass eyes, daring me to bend to whisper in its trumpet-like mouth. Picking up the earpiece, I could hear the sound of two thousand miles, the echo of telephone lines in the wind. "Hello?"

"Cresol?" Cinder's voice, more familiar to me than my own, sounded tinny and faint. "I was cleaning under the guest room bed, and you'll never guess what I found."

"Um . . ." Having nothing good to say, I hummed noncommittally.

"Solarium's journal was under there. You remember that book she was always writing in?" Cinder didn't pause for me to answer, "There was also a letter in there to Kefir, oddly. I read it."

"Sol's journal," was all I could manage to say. I had always assumed it had burned with her.

"Cresol, it's all in there," there was a burst of static, then the line cleared, "-know if she realized all of it, but she wrote it all down and I'm sorry. I should have listened to you. I should have thought about your feelings. But there was so much loss, to accuse Aero of being responsible just seemed so heartless."

"Heartless!" I couldn't help myself. Let her never talk to me again, I was going to have my say, "I'll tell you what heartless is: How about ignoring a murder to protect the family name? How about ignoring two, no three murders, and a lost leg?"

"I didn't know, Cresol, that's what I'm trying to tell you," Cinder had that mini-Mom tone to her voice, "Now give me your address."

"Why? Are you going to come all the way across the country and slap me?"

Cinder sighed, her breath causing a hiss that overlapped with her words, "I'm going to mail Solarium's journal to you."

"To me?" I was so stupefied by her words that I forgot I was using a corded phone. Before I even realized what I was doing, I was holding the earpiece farther than it was meant to reach, the cord dangling sadly.

"Oopsie," the clerk took the earpiece from me, "It happens all the time, don't worry about it. But you might want to use your future-phone to finish your call." The clerk hung an out-of-order sign over the phone's bells.

"Future-phone," I muttered, "and some future-tobacco."

"Oh, do you vape?"

I skirted the counter, gazing at the oil paintings of the fourth sons. My favorite was the mustachioed Fern with the blonde ponytail that ended in a curl near his high collar. I made eyes at him as I responded, "Heavens, no, that would be so gauche."

——

I hate to say I'm disappointed by this journal, because reading it brought Solarium back to life for me. All of a sudden, I could catch the sound of her voice in a crowd. I would see her, wheeling her suitcase through the airport, moving on to her next destination. I would feel the warmth of her on the bus, sitting next to me. That's when I realized that those we love are never truly lost to us, they just become a part of the buzz of everyday life. If you stand still enough, sometimes, sometimes, if you're really lucky, you might hear, see, or even touch them.

But the problem remains that there is still no evidence, at least not in a legal sense, that Aero had anything to do with ending Solarium's life. I've already been to the police with my suspicions. They regard me much in the way that Cinder did; they run when they see me coming.

——

One morning, a few years ago, I woke up with a terrible hangover. Along with the usual headache, nausea, and thirst; I felt sunburnt across my shoulders. It wasn't until I was getting in the shower that I saw it: the beginnings of a monarch butterfly. Its top wings extended across my shoulders, and I could imagine what the tattoo might look like when finished; the body over my spine, antenna tickling the back of my neck, the lower wings fluttering with every breath.

Monarch butterflies can only live for six weeks. 42 golden days of doing what we all dream to do: fly. And in the grey days of winter, when the night comes earlier, longer, and colder each time; I always remember that there were butterflies and that I loved them.

# Discover other titles by Melissa Dill:

Murder In A Box

Pitter, Patter, Murder

# Connect with me:

Subscribe to my blog: http://refractedneurons.blogspot.com

Favorite me at Smashwords: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Wishhorse>

