The Witch and the Gentleman

I don’t understand.

You have all been given free will, to do as you wish, to conduct yourselves as you wish, to do with me as you wish, to others as you wish. The Creator wants to see what you will make of yourselves, and with me. The Creator wants to see if you will fly or fall.

Doesn’t the Creator know all? I asked. Doesn’t the Creator know what will happen?

There are many possible outcomes, and many of them are known to me, as well, as are they known to the spiritual masters.

The highly evolved beings.

Yes. Which is why they are here to help.

But if they are helping, I asked, then doesn’t that remove our free will?

A good, question, child. Consider it loving nudges, but only for those who call upon them and seek them out with love.

This is hurting my head, I said.

Then I suggest we end this meditation with a dive off my cliff.

I looked down into the sparkling silvery thread far below.

Won’t I die?

You are sitting in your Spirit Chair, are you not?

True, I said, and laughed.

Then jump, daughter. I am waiting for you with open arms.

I hesitated for only a moment, then closed my eyes and leaped off the ledge. I arched up and out, suspended briefly in mid-air, then dropped like a rock. The water approached rapidly, and as it did, I straightened my body and aimed head first, hands together before me, and plunged into the ice-cold water. Bubbles swarmed around me as I sank deeper and deeper.

I gasped and opened my eyes, and found myself back in my bedroom, in the Spirit Chair, breathing hard and gripping the amethyst charm.

How it got into my hand, I didn’t know.

Chapter Twenty-two

I was nervous. Damn nervous.

It was the next morning, and I was still thinking about my experience with Mother Earth, digesting her concepts, and, most of all, feeling her love, when I pulled up to the last place that Penny Laurie had been seen alive: her elementary school.

I was here because of a dream. I’d dreamed I was in a clover field, sitting with Penny. She was nearby, painting a cute picture of Ren, from The Ren & Stimpy Show, which was a kind of a dog, I supposed. A chihuahua, I think. We were sitting quietly as she painted. All around us, bees were buzzing and birds were tweeting, and that’s when I woke up.

But I didn’t get up immediately. No, I’d spent many minutes in bed, thinking long and hard about the meaning of the dream, then finally decided to see what the dream could mean. I went straight to my dream dictionary and did my best to interpret the many images, but nothing seemed to resonate. Not the bees nor the dog nor the clover field. Nothing.

No, not quite nothing.

I dashed through my apartment and found the police summary of Penny’s case. In particular, the school she had gone to.

The last place she had been seen alive.

Her school was called, of course, Clover Field Elementary.

*  *  *

I parked in the visitor parking and wondered what the hell I was going to do next.

It made sense to retrace her footsteps to the last place she’d been seen alive. Except the police had done that. Anyone who was anyone, from fellow classmates to teachers, from the principal to the crosswalk guard, had been thoroughly interviewed. In fact, I’d read a summary of all of the interviews, and they all read the same: Penny had left school at the same time she always had to make the two-block walk to her home, which was literally just down the street. She had been in fifth grade, and her parents had deemed her old enough to safely walk home the short distance.

Of course, she had never made it home.

I stepped out of my car. The morning had warmed up considerably. The school itself had a high fence around it that looked like serious business. It also looked new. Penny’s murder might have had something to do with that.

I moved through the parking lot, reaching out psychically, trying to get a feel, a hit, anything. Nothing yet, but I was in the right place, I was sure of it. Lots of Mercedes and BMWs in the parking lot. Since when did teachers get paid so well?

I followed a footpath that led along the wrought iron fence, and walked toward the nearby residential street. Beyond the fence were rows of school buildings and an open grass field, complete with backstops and baseball diamonds. The school itself was quiet and peaceful. An airplane droned high overhead. That a girl had been abducted from here and murdered and discarded in a nearby playground was nearly incomprehensible.

Someone knows something.

At the quiet street, I looked to my left where the road curved slightly. Just two blocks from here was Penny’s home, now presently out of view. In view, however, were dozens of beautiful mini-mansions. Some might have even been full-blown mansions.

The last witness to see her had been the crossing guard, an elderly woman who had led her, along with two or three other kids, across the street.

Penny had disappeared around the curve and out of view…and into oblivion.

As I stood here on the street, with the school behind me, I spied the current crosswalk guard sitting in a foldout chair with a small umbrella attached to it. This crosswalk guard was now a middle-aged man.

I sighed and chewed my lower lip. Penny had been in fifth grade. Those students would have all moved on to the nearby middle school. That left, of course, only one person who could tell me more about Penny’s last day.

Her teacher.

I remembered his name from the report. Mr. Fletcher, or William Fletcher.

“Mr. Fletcher,” I said aloud.

Saying the name now sent a small shiver up and down my spine. Seeing the name in the report hadn’t done much for me, although I always had a sense that I would eventually talk to him about the case. The police had been highly interested in him, as well, but he’d fully checked out. He’d been seen at school during the time Penny had walked home, during the time she would have been abducted.

I closed my eyes, and felt the wind on my face and saw her now in the clover field, picking flowers, not looking at me, her face sullen.

She looked mad. This was probably how she looked when she last saw her mother. They’d had a fight, of course, and that was the reason for the mother’s guilt, the reason the mother, eventually, had killed herself.

Perhaps Penny had felt too bad about the quarrel to go straight home? Perhaps she had still been angry with her mother, and wanted to brood about it elsewhere?

I thought about that as I headed back to my car. I checked the time. Almost eleven. School would be out in four hours. I would come back.

To talk to Mr. Fletcher.

Chapter Twenty-three

I was at a Starbucks with a ghost.

Okay, not a ghost, as she liked to point out, but a spirit. Millicent was standing nearby, her hands properly folded in front of her, looking about as old—or young—as me. That is mid-thirties.