“What is that smell?” I asked unexpectedly. “The cinnamon scent? It’s lovely.”
Heading toward the register, she placed the books on the counter. “It’s Xanthe’s favorite tea. I was getting ready to put the kettle on. Would you like a cup?”
It was then I noticed a couple of small tables and chairs were next to the waterfront-view window.
“I’d love one,” I replied, desperate to taste Xanthe’s favorite tea.
“It’s a raspberry-and-cinnamon blend. She has the tea shop people make it for her. It’s not my favorite. I like a good English breakfast myself. But it does smell heavenly.”
She wasn’t joking. It was my all-time favorite scent.
From my camera bag, I pulled out my wallet and made my way to the register. She rang up the books only.
“The tea?” I asked.
She waved her hand. “Friends drink for free.”
Grinning, I handed her the cash.
“Do you need a bag?”
“No, thank you,” I replied. Picking up the pristine copies, I studied the artwork on the covers. I found these to be much more interesting than my scowling mug on the front of the rerelease.
Ellen grabbed the electric kettle and made her way to the back of the shop. I heard a faucet turn on as she filled it, and moments later, she was back, plonking it down on the base and popping the switch. Retrieving two canisters from a shelf behind the counter, she scooped out the loose tea leaves into individual strainers and then placed them into large coffee mugs.
“Have a seat,” she warmly told me.
I sat down next to the window, looking over the covers. From my bag, I retrieved Haunted Bonds, a little worse for wear, to compare the artwork. Something gave me a sense of déjà vu on the cover of the first Paranormal Hunters book. There was the haunted house that Lindsey and Donovan met in, both of them on their own mission to eradicate the apparition that had taken up residence in the vacant home. It was a chance meeting, one that changed the course of their lives forever. With the moon and its soft white glow above some spooky trees, on the branches sat two crows in silhouette. It was their stances, the placement of their wings…
“Did Ronen Kelly make this cover?” I blurted as Ellen came over with the mugs of tea.
Gingerly, she took the seat across from me. “He did,” she replied, smiling. “He did all the first editions. It’s a shame that the publishing house wanted something more titillating, but it’s what really grabs the readers, you know?”
“It is a shame. His work is brilliant.”
“Don’t tell Xanthe, but I like the new cover, too. She’d be scandalized. She’s a bit of a purist.”
“What of Elaine?” I asked, my eyes not leaving her face.
“What of her?”
I looked back down at the cover, my vision blurring, as I read over Xanthe’s pen name.
“Do you know who Elaine is?” Ellen asked.
“Elaine is Xanthe,” I replied quietly.
“Yes, and no,” she replied.
My eyes looked up at her again. “What do you mean?”
She smiled warmly. “Xanthe didn’t tell you about Elaine and Hanna?”
My heart thumped hard in my chest. “No.”
“My twin sister, Hanna, and her daughter, Elaine, were Xanthe’s grandmother and mother.”
My breath grew shallow, and my throat dried up. I reached for my tea and took a scalding sip, welcoming the burn. “I know about them, but she never told me their names.” If she had, I would have put it together on my own.
Ellen nodded. “Xanthe’s funny like that. She takes her time with people. She’s had to.”
“Why is that? Was it their deaths that made her…introverted?”
“Indirectly, I would say.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” She looked as though she was seriously contemplating telling me. “I’m sure if you’re a friend, then Xanthe will eventually tell you this.”
I was more than a friend, damn it.
“She took their deaths like any other healthy twelve-year-old girl would. Elaine and Hanna were pretty much destroyed in the accident. Unrecognizable.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed around the lump in my throat.
“Closed-casket funeral, you know.”
I hadn’t known, but I nodded, as though I understood.
“David—her father—and Xanthe were there after the accident had happened. Xanthe saw Elaine’s car being pulled out from beneath the big rig. At that point, she didn’t actually see the bodies, but the car itself left little to the imagination of what was inside.”
Ellen glanced out the window, over the water. I could see how hard talking about this was for her, and I almost told her it wasn’t necessary to continue, but she did.
“So, she and David were grieving, as was natural. When the trial came about to put the driver away, they showed the pictures of the accident and the victims to the jury—a shock-and-awe tactic. Xanthe and David were in the courtroom—”
I gasped. Ellen nodded in agreement to my sound of protest.
“So, you can imagine what that had done to her psyche. David was furious. He hadn’t wanted her to see her mother and grandmother like that. It was bad enough—with her being at the scene. I was there in the courtroom, too. In that moment…I watched an innocent child become something else.”
“My God.”
“God wasn’t there that day,” she said flatly. “But after that, something in Xanthe’s mind unlocked. Her stories were no longer those of a romantic preteen, mooning over vampires and the like. She wrote of horrors, of pain and suffering, and even torture. Her own pain, what she saw…she could imagine what the human body might look like under different conditions. She’d already spent much of her life around the preserved dead, so perhaps it was only a matter of time. But there’s a difference between seeing a two-thousand-year-old mummy and the mutilated corpses of people you love.”
“Yes,” I whispered. I cleared my throat. “I’d imagine so.”
“In school, her literary teacher grew increasingly alarmed by her stories. It was part of a weekly curriculum—to write essays and such. They contacted the school counselor, who contacted David and myself, and also a psychiatrist. We thought the shrink was a good idea. Hell, we all could have used a little shrinking after what we’d gone through. But they wanted to medicate Xanthe, and that was something we didn’t agree with.
“Xanthe was never violent, never suicidal. She was just depressed, and that was to be expected. She used her writing as therapy. Drugs would have dulled her, maybe even destroyed her. But the school and the shrink were adamant. So, David and I packed up the household and moved them to England.
“After they settled down, I came back here. I’ve had my shop for a long time. However, Xanthe would come and stay with me when David was sent to dangerous places—the ’Stans mainly.”
“The ’Stans?”
Ellen nodded. “You know, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan. The Middle East. He didn’t like bringing her to those places, and I didn’t blame him. And…I love Xanthe, as though she were my own. She looks so much like Elaine and Hanna. I suppose me, too. Hanna and I were identical, after all.”