By Familiar Means Read online

  “This close to the river?” said Jake incredulously. “Bad idea. We are as low as we go.”

  But there was something; I knew there was something. It was right under my shoes. I was sure of it. A secret, waiting to be found.

  I crouched down and pressed both palms to the floor. It was cold and a little damp.

  “Anna,” said Miranda. “It’s not that I don’t respect your practice. I do. But—”

  That was when the brick under my hands shifted. I stared between my fingers, and I noticed that this set of bricks didn’t have any mortar between them. They were just set loosely into place. I scrabbled at one and it came up in my hand. So did its neighbor.

  “Well, ain’t that a kick?” Jake got on his knees beside me, and we started piling up bricks. Miranda stood behind us, her hand pressed against her mouth.

  Underneath the loose bricks, there should have been plain dirt, or at least sand. But what we cleared away was a square of old wood. With a rusted metal latch and a bolt and a very old padlock.

  It was a trapdoor.

  5

  “Outta sight,” breathed Jake as he stared at the trapdoor. “I mean, like, really.”

  I sat back on my heels. The Vibe had receded a little, and I was fizzing on the inside with that kind of zingy triumph that comes from being proved right. Miranda, on the other hand, looked positively green around the gills.

  “Did you know about this?” she demanded, but I wasn’t sure which one of us she was talking to.

  I shook my head. “I . . . there was a secret. There is. It’s down in here.”

  “Well, like my pop used to say, no time like the present.” Jake climbed to his feet, flipped up the lid on the nearest toolbox and fished out a screwdriver. He set to work on the trapdoor’s hinges, which were marginally less rusty than the padlock.

  “Jake, maybe this is not a good idea,” Miranda murmured.

  “Can’t back out now, Starbabe,” he said. Just like that, the pair of them had switched places. Now that there was something tangible under his hands, Jake was all action and Miranda was the one holding back.

  Miranda muttered something under her breath, but she found a second screwdriver in the toolbox and got going on the second set of hinges.

  I backed away and let them work, rubbing my hands together. It was cold down here and smelled like earth and damp. But there was something else, too, and I felt it prickling up my arms from my fingertips.

  Magic, and not mine. At least, not entirely.

  Movement caught my eye. There, behind the two-by-fours and the Sheetrock leaning against the wall, was a flash of blue, like a cat’s eyes gleaming in the dark. Specifically, like Alistair’s eyes.

  Since he’s my familiar, Alistair cannot be kept away from me. He can, and has, appeared in a locked room, or down in a basement, or anyplace else I’ve gotten myself, unless there’s a spell deliberately keeping him out. Since he’s also entirely a cat, this means he comes and goes as he pleases, or when he’s sure I’ve gotten myself into trouble.

  “Got it,” said Jake behind me. “Grab the corner there, Miranda.”

  Alistair blinked at me from the shadows behind the Sheetrock. I made myself turn my back and watch Jake and Miranda lift that splintering trapdoor out of its recess. Underneath was a roughly circular opening that led straight down and bottomed out at a floor of what looked like packed dirt.

  “It must be an old cistern or a well, something like that,” said Miranda.

  “No chance. Look.” Jake pointed. Miranda and I leaned closer. A set of big, rusty iron staples had been pressed into the wall.

  “Rungs,” said Jake. “It’s a ladder.”

  Jake and Miranda locked gazes with each other. There is a kind of telepathy that happens with couples who have been together a long time, and I knew it was zinging between Jake and Miranda now.

  “Well, are we doing the smart thing or the dumb thing?” asked Miranda.

  Jake pushed his glasses up farther on his nose. “Something still down there, Anna?”

  “Oh, yeah.” The Vibe fountained up fresh and clear from the open space at our feet. I felt it all the way up to my neck.

  “Groovy.” Jake fished around in the toolbox again, and this time he came up with a flashlight. He flicked it on and off a couple of times, making sure of the beam. “Let’s go see what it is.”

  I glanced back toward Alistair, but my cat had already vanished.

  “Groovy,” I muttered.

  Jake went first, while Miranda held the flashlight. He climbed carefully down into the hole, stomping on each rung as he went, but they all held firm. He reached the bottom and held up both hands. Miranda dropped the light down and Jake caught it easily.

  “What do you see, old man?” she called.

  “There’s a tunnel.” Jake was pointing the light and crouching down. “Goes pretty far back, slopes up. Looks old.”

  “Any water in it?” I asked. It would be very bad if all this feeling I was getting about sinking and bubbling and swimming was because this place was flooded.

  Jake crouched down and touched the dirt floor. “Seems dry. You coming down, Miranda?”

  “Why the heck not?” she muttered.

  Jake shone the beam up for her and Miranda climbed carefully down to stand beside her husband. I still had the powerful sense of secrets that wanted to be discovered, but reality was—finally—starting to creep in. This tunnel, wherever it went, had probably never known the loving gaze of a building inspector. It was way too close to the river, and it ran under the foundations of a set of buildings that were old when Grandma B.B. was still Baby B.B.

  But I didn’t feel any danger. Not really. I was swimming through the mystery and I wanted to find out where it was and why it was. Badly.

  But why did the answer have to be so far down in the dark?

  Miranda noticed my hesitation. “You can wait there, Anna,” she called up. “We’ll holler if we need help.”

  “Might not be a bad idea,” said Jake. “I can’t see how far this thing goes.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea, but I still felt like a coward. I’d gotten them into this, after all. And since I was listening to my Vibe instead of my common sense, I also listened when I told myself I couldn’t back out now.

  “No, that’s okay. I’m coming.”

  I turned around and began slowly climbing down the ladder. The rungs felt scaly under my hands and I wished I had my boots. And gloves. And a headlamp. And maybe a way to back out gracefully.

  I got to the bottom. It was cold down here and goose bumps crawled across my skin.

  “It goes this way.” Jake shined his beam into the dark.

  “This way” was a low, rough tunnel off toward the left, from my perspective. The walls were packed dirt and stone, with what looked like railway ties jammed here and there, along with sheets of corrugated tin, now patched and streaked with rust, to give some semblance of stability.

  “Well, if we’re doing this, let’s do it,” said Miranda. “You still getting something, Anna?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s still there.”

  We all set off into the dark.

  The tunnel was so low that both Miranda and I had to walk with our heads ducked down. Jake was practically bent double. We scuffed and crunched across loose dirt and gravel. The air smelled stale and cold. I kept one hand on the wall, and more dirt came loose under my fingers.

  My scalp grazed a railroad tie.

  “You two feeling okay?” asked Jake. “This thing’s been shut up for a long time. The air might not be so good.”

  “Maybe there’s another opening,” said Miranda. “I think I’m feeling a draft.”

  I shivered. I was certainly feeling something. Cold, for starters. Damp. A vibration overhead. The tin sheet under my hand trembled in response. A tiny spill
of dirt pattered down.

  Miranda sneezed.

  “Bless you,” I said automatically. “Are we under the street here?”

  “Could be,” said Jake. “We’re headed inland, and up. I think.”

  The floor underneath us stayed dry, for which I was grateful. I still didn’t like the way the walls crumbled so easily as my palm passed over them, or the look of the tin sheets and timber beams jammed into the dirt overhead. Especially the ones with ragged patches where it looked like some kind of wood-noshing bugs had been really busy.

  “Why would this even be here?” I asked.

  Jake laughed. “Are you kidding? People have been smuggling stuff into Portsmouth as long as there’s been a town. Rum, tea, and guns during the Revolution, escapees during slavery, booze during Prohibition.” He touched the wall. “You name it, it probably came through here sometime or another.”

  Which would explain the powerful sense of secrets I was swimming through. If people had been moving contraband through here, they would have been worried about being caught. If they’d been escapees, they would have been worried about a whole lot more than that. It would all add up to a lot of pent-up emotion.

  “Wait. Stop,” said Miranda. “I think I saw something moving up ahead.”

  I thought I did, too, just a ripple in the shadows. Then I heard it. A low, distinct and unmistakable sound.

  “Meow?”

  I closed my eyes briefly.

  “Was that a cat?” cried Jake. “Poor guy! How did it get down here?”

  “Umm . . . not sure,” I mumbled. “Maybe through that other opening where the draft is coming from?”

  “Well.” Miranda lifted her head, and even with nothing but the flashlight beam, I saw the distinct light of triumph in her eyes. There was a whole lot of relief there as well. “There’s your ghost, old man. A stray, hunting rats.”

  Jake set his jaw and pushed forward. I wished Miranda hadn’t brought up the possibility of rats. Spiders and bugs were bad enough. I looked around the dark nervously.

  “Actually . . .” I began.

  “What?” asked Jake.

  “Nothing.” My Vibe might be public knowledge, but I really didn’t feel like explaining about Alistair and his personal Cheshire cat–style magic. Besides, I couldn’t help wondering what he was doing in here. Had he found something? Or was he just worried about me?

  “End of the line, kids,” said Jake.

  In front of us was a door. This wasn’t a trapdoor. It was a proper, person-sized door set into a properly built brick wall. The door had been meant to last, too. It was riveted (and rusted) steel. Actually, it looked like it belonged on an old-fashioned bank vault. The tunnel had widened out around us, and somebody, or several somebodies, had made an attempt to stabilize it. There were bricks pushed into the packed dirt walls, and some extra timbers had been hammered into place overhead. One of them, though, had collapsed and now slanted across a big pile of stones and dirt.

  There was something else, too; a very strong smell, and it was not a good one.

  “Eww!” I pressed my hand up under my nose. “Sewer?”

  “Probably,” said Jake. “Maybe one of those rats moved on to his next life.”

  Could we please stop talking about rats? I shifted uneasily, and Miranda noticed. She squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. It didn’t help.

  “Any idea where we are?” I asked Jake.

  “We must be almost to the Harbor’s Rest hotel,” he said.

  It was hotter now, and the air felt close, but there was definitely a current of air coming from someplace. It curled around my neck and ankles.

  I put my hand on the solid metal door and pushed. The door rattled but didn’t give.

  “Locked,” I said. “Or maybe blocked up, on the other side.”

  “Well, that’s kind of it, then,” Jake said. He sounded sorry. I admit, I was feeling a little let down. The Vibe swirling around me had been so strong, I’d expected to find a box of old booze at the very least.

  “But what happened to the cat?” Miranda took the flashlight from Jake and started shining it in every direction. “I’m sure I heard one.”

  “Yeah, about that.” I stepped back from the door. At least, I meant to step back. The dirt pile shifted underneath my heel and I toppled sideways instead. I also swore.

  The smell got stronger. Miranda and Jake were staring at me. No. At the place I had been.

  “Jake, honey, I might owe you an apology,” murmured Miranda.

  Because when I’d fallen, the dirt had shifted. Now, a pair of clouded white eyes stared at us from out of a human face.

  A very dead human face.

  6

  “And you’re certain you didn’t recognize the deceased?” Detective Simmons asked Jake.

  Jake, Miranda and I huddled together on the sidewalk out in front of the old drugstore. A barrier of police cruisers, sawhorses and yellow tape blocked both the street and the sidewalk. Men and women in blue uniforms filed in and out of the building, talking to one another or into their radios. Naturally, a crowd had gathered on the other side, craning necks and holding up cell phones, trying to get a look at what was going on, or at least take a picture of it.

  “I didn’t actually get a good look at . . . the body,” Jake was saying to Detective Simmons.

  “That was my fault,” said Miranda. “I kind of freaked out.”

  “You weren’t the only one,” I added. It had gotten kind of loud down in that tunnel before the three of us had managed to get hold of ourselves, and the flashlight, so we could get back down the tunnel and up to where my cell phone had reception again and call 911.

  Jake put his arm around Miranda, and I had my arms folded tight across my chest.

  Kenisha Freeman moved away from the pair of EMTs she had been talking to and touched my arm. Kenisha is an officer on the Portsmouth police force. She’s also a member of my coven. The only witch cop in New Hampshire, she says proudly. She has medium brown skin, and a spray of dark freckles decorates her cheeks. Her blue uniform covers a lean, athletic build and she wears her red-and-amber-streaked hair pulled back into a severe bun.

  “You okay?” Kenisha asked, and I nodded, even though I was pretty sure I was lying. Finding a dead body tends to have a bad effect on a person. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but the wind off the river seemed to cut straight through my jacket. I could not stop shaking.

  Kenisha respected my putting on a brave face, though, and just nodded back. She also jerked her chin toward the nearest police cruiser. I followed her glance and saw a (literally) familiar whiskered face peering out from behind the driver’s side tire. Alistair. We blinked at each other for a minute and I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  “And you had no idea that tunnel was there?” Detective Simmons was asking.

  “No.” Miranda glanced at me. So did Kenisha, with one raised eyebrow. “We only found it this afternoon, and we were trying to see where it went.”

  Pete wrote this down, slowly and carefully. Pete Simmons is a short, permanently rumpled fireplug of a man. He was also endlessly patient and quietly, calmly, politely suspicious of absolutely everything. These are traits that make him very good at his job. It also makes watching him take his detailed notes surprisingly nerve-wracking.

  Pete scratched behind his ear with the end of his pencil and turned toward me.

  “Anna!” shouted another voice.

  I spun around to face the street and the crowd. Grandma B.B. was squeezing between the bystanders with their phones, and she had Julia Parris and the dachshunds right behind her. All of them came up to the sawhorses with the crime scene tape wrapped around them and pushed straight on through. Before I knew it, Grandma had hold of me in a very firm hug.

  “What on earth happened!”

  “What are you doi
ng here?” I demanded, at least as soon as I could, gently, pull free and draw a full breath again.

  Max and Leo both started yipping like their doggy lives depended on it and made a beeline, or at least a dog line, straight for the old drugstore’s door, noses to the pavement.

  “Hey!” shouted Detective Simmons, slashing his pencil through the air. “Miss Parris! We can’t have those dogs in the crime scene!”

  Julia thumped her walking stick on the pavement. “Max! Leo! Heel!”

  The dogs stopped like they’d reached the ends of their leashes and trotted right back to her side.

  Under the cruiser, Alistair rubbed a paw rapidly across his ear, in a you guys are embarrassing kind of gesture.

  “Crime scene!” exclaimed Grandma, as if she’d just noticed all the yellow tape, not to mention the cruisers and the uniforms. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Julia and I were finishing our tea when we saw the police cars and . . . are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

  Grandma B.B. scrunched her face up at me, an expression indicating serious grandmotherly doubt. I couldn’t blame her. The words “crime scene” did not exactly go with “everything’s fine.”

  Pete and Grandma B.B. both opened their mouths at the exact same moment. I braced myself, but a uniformed officer waved over the heads of the crowd. Pete looked at the officer, then looked at us and at his notebook with his list of unanswered questions.

  “Wait here, please,” he said before he waved back to the other officer and made his way over to her, leaving us on our own for the moment.

  “Now, Anna, what’s happened?” demanded Grandma B.B. “And don’t you even think about saying ‘nothing,’ to your grandmother.”

  “Or to me,” added Julia.

  Kenisha muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like “uh-oh.” I swallowed. I reminded myself I hadn’t done anything wrong. Not really. I looked down to Alistair for some moral support, but my familiar just dodged behind the cruiser’s tire. Coward.