Helens-of-Troy (32 page)

Helen forced a shy smile. “Does this
mean we’re good?”

“I’ll let you know after you answer one
more question,” Helena replied. “You never did answer Ellie. How
did you know about the vampire in her dream? Spill the beans,
Helen. I can always hit you up with truth serum when you’re
sleeping tonight. I keep hypodermics in my office for just such an
emergency.”

Helen turned and looked out the window.
She could see Ellie and Jacey standing in the driveway, just
talking. It was nothing more than a typical afternoon for a couple
of teenaged girls, but somehow Helen found their actions
unsettling. What if Ellie really was in danger? She decided to tell
Helena about her own visitor last night. Just to get a second
opinion. “Willie told me.”

Helena was shocked. “Willie? You were
talking to Willie? You? When?”

“He came into the bathroom when I was
taking a bath and you were otherwise occupied, thank you very much.
He told me about the vampire, and he told me there had been a
second murder.”

“Kevin Clark,” Helena nodded. “Such a
tragedy. The town is going to be in mourning for quite a while, I
‘m afraid. What else did Willie tell you?”

“He told me Ellie was in danger. That’s
why I went storming into your room last night. I heard a moan and I
thought maybe he had changed his mind and went after you instead.
Seriously, I thought you were in pain.”

“Well, I’m not as flexible as I once
was,” Helena sighed. “And for future reference, I can handle Willie
just fine on my own. Did he tell you why Ellie was in
danger?”

“He said he couldn’t tell me. I’m
supposed to just figure that out, I guess.”

“You guess? You can do more than
guess.”

“No I can’t.”

Helena stared obstinately at her
daughter. Helen was incredibly stubborn, and had learned to turn
her back on her calling no matter how loudly she was beckoned. But
this time, it involved her own flesh and blood, and Helena found
Helen’s reluctance to get involved more than a little disturbing.
“You mean that you won’t,” Helena argued. “My God, Helen. If Willie
has come here twice in one week, something is definitely up. It’s
not like he just drops in for dinner. Did he tell you that Ryan
Lachey is in jail?”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” she answered
sarcastically.

“He’s in jail for murdering Brooke
Quinlan. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? It’s all
because Tara Wildman’s father found him with the little girl’s dead
body in his arms. If you ask me, it’s nothing more than
circumstantial evidence. I haven’t killed every dead body that I’ve
held in my arms.”

“You’re maybe not the best example,”
Helen replied. “Wildman…he was that farmer at the search party
gathering, right? He said that Ryan was a pervert, and probably had
something to do with the little girl’s disappearance. Probably,
allegedly, the meanings are strikingly similar. Did you notice at
the football game that Ryan is twice the size of the other players?
Who knows what chemicals he’s taking to bulk up? It’s a well
documented fact that steroids lead to aggressive behavior. I think
it’s a bonus that he’s locked up. At least now I won’t have to
worry about that testosterone-fueled maniac coming after
Ellie.”

“Did Willie tell you that? Because if
Willie knows Ryan is in jail, then he also knows Ryan is no danger
to Ellie.”

“It’s not just murder I think the ‘boy
next door’ is capable of,” she said, sitting back down on the bed.
“I’d recognize that sex-crazed look in his eyes
anywhere.”

“I’m going to have to get you laid,
Helen.”

“There you go again. Did you have to
say that? Just when we were getting good?”

“I apologize. That was uncalled for,”
Helena admitted. “My life is an open book, and I need to be
reminded from time to time that other people aren’t so
inclined.”

“Then tell me about Mrs. Harbinger,”
Helen replied, “if you’ve got nothing to hide between your
covers.”

“Not now,” Helena said
tersely.

Helen put her hands defiantly on her
hips. “I’m waiting...”

“Oh all right,” Helena sighed, and sat
down on the edge of the bed beside her daughter. “About a year ago,
Marita Harbinger, your former babysitter, rented the house on the
other side of the Lachey’s. She hadn’t changed much from the sweet
young thing that appeared on my doorstep years ago, when Ellie was
younger. Did I ever tell you the story of how she came to arrive on
your own doorstep?”

“Not that I recall,” Helen answered.
“She just kind of showed up.”

“Exactly. She showed up at my old house
one day telling a tale of woe about how some man had a lengthy
affair with her but ended it all rather abruptly. He kicked Marita
and her son out of the house they were living in and took up with
an even younger woman. This just goes to show you there is always
someone younger. Anyway, she had no job and no place to live. Sound
familiar? I felt sorry for her, so I hired her as a nanny for you.
You were struggling yourself at the time, trying to raise a toddler
on your own. I was as surprised as you were when she suddenly up
and vanished. Easy come, easy go, I guess. You had a new man on the
scene shortly after that so you managed.”

Helena paused, hoping that would be
enough of a story to appease Helen. Mrs. Harbinger was better left
dead and buried. The less anyone remembered about that day the
better.

“And...”

“And nothing,” Helena sighed, standing
up and making an effort to leave the room. “I never thought about
her again until she turned up in Troy the summer before last.
Imagine that, after all these years.”

“Okay, so it wouldn’t be the first
place I’d move to,” Helen began to say then realized it was exactly
what she had done.

“I thought it was a little strange
too,” Helena admitted. “Obviously we didn’t need a babysitter
anymore. I told her that. End of story.”

“Hang on,” Helen insisted, “if that’s
all that happened, why was Betty Lachey going on about her the
other day?”

Helena turned around and dropped her
butt back down on the bed. There would be no deflecting the Mrs.
Harbinger story, no matter how badly she wanted to. Helen was in
one of her poke, poke, poke moods and wasn’t about to
stop.

“Well... it was the Fourth of July and
I was having a quiet neighborhood party out in the backyard. I
thought it would be a good chance for people to get to know Marita.
But you know how it goes, there’s always one uninvited guest who
gets drunk and decides to perform an exorcism. It happens every
time they have an occult marathon on cable.”

“An exorcism?”

“We tried to humor him and it was all
fine and dandy until Marita imploded. I swear, we thought we had
all her pieces cleaned up, but Betty found some pretty big chunks
of her in the lawn the next morning. I think that’s when she really
started to hate me.”

“So…this uninvited guest of yours
watches a few hours of cable, attempts a centuries old religious
rite and something actually happens?”

“I know! I was as surprised as you are.
His Latin wasn’t very good. Maybe that’s why she didn’t just turn
to ash like she was supposed to. You get one thing wrong with one
of those spellscall it what you want, but that’s what it isand
all hell breaks loose.” She fiddled with the bottom of her robe,
picking at an imaginary piece of fluff. It was easier not to have
to look at Helen right now.

“You mean she really was possessed?
That surprises me. I mean, she was a little loud and cranky when I
knew her, but I there was no sign of any head spinning or
anything.”

“Noooo,” Helena hesitated. “She would
have had to have been taken over bodily to be possessed.” She made
the sign of the cross across her chest. “Our little Marita was the
real deal from day one.”

“You mean you sent a full-fledged demon
over to take care of my child?”

“I didn’t know she was a demon then,”
Helena insisted. “They’re getting better at assimilating here on
earth all the time.”

“Tell me more,” Helen said, leaning in
closer towards her mother. “I’m intrigued. Obviously Ellie and I
survived her employment despite the lack of resume research you
did.”

Helena thought back. They had been in
the middle of a heat wave, and the temperature had been almost
unbearable. The air conditioner had decided to quit working earlier
in the day, probably due to over exertion, making an indoor
celebration impossible. As the Fourth of July wasn’t one of those
occasions you could postpone, she had tried to make the best of it
by moving the festivities outside.

“It was crazy. Roy was just putting the
finishing touches on my guest cottage, but it was so hot that we
were seriously thinking of opening up the fire hydrant out front
and running through it like a bunch of kids.”

“You have a guest cottage?”

“You’ve seen it out back. It’s my
office now. Don’t look so excited, you can’t move in
there.”

Helen pouted momentarily. “So...did Roy
see the exorcism happen?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Marita was heading
back to her house to refill her punchbowlshe made a killer
margarita, let me tell you  when the idiot guest started chanting.
So unfortunately, Marita blew apart in front of Roy. And Betty. And
Mr. Wagner.”

“Betty saw the whole thing? Not just
the aftermath?”

Helena nodded her head. “I‘ve never
seen anything quite like it, and I’m certain Betty Lachey hadn’t
either. It was an ugly night.”

“What about Roy?”

“Roy had seen bodies blowup before, in
the war,” Helena answered. “But I don’t think he was expecting it
to happen here, in the middle of Mr. Wagner’s banjo tribute to Buck
Owens and Roy Clark.”

“And Mr. Wagner?”

“Mr. Wagner was a big horror film fan.
I think he secretly enjoyed it.”

Helen slapped her hand to her head.
This was the most ridiculous story that had come out of her
mother’s mouth in quite some time.

“That’s when I had to tell Roy about
our little family secret. It put him in an awful position. In order
to get Betty off our scent, he was forced to come up with a story
that Marita was really a terrorist and had strapped a bomb to
herself. Luckily for us, Betty likes her booze and doesn’t always
have a sober sense of reality to begin with.”

“Roy’s story is a bit far fetched, even
for this weird little town.”

“I know,” Helena shrugged. “But his
story worked. At least it did for Betty. Mr. Wagner, not so much.
That’s when I fell in love with him. Roy, I mean. Any man who can
come up with a plausible explanation for something supernatural is
a keeper.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Someday you will, Helen,” she said,
patting her daughter’s knee. “Trust me on that one. And before you
ask, Roy is single. He was married once, but has been divorced for
several years. And I’m not expecting any more explosions, in case
you were wondering.”

Helen let out a deep sigh. About
sixteen years ago, she thought she had found her own special
someone, Ellie’s father.

“You’re lucky you found Roy,” Helen
told her mother. “I don’t know if I can ever love like that again.
I dabble in affairs from time to time, thinking it’s love, but ever
since...”

She couldn’t finish the sentence. Tears
welled up in her eyes and before she knew it, she was sobbing
uncontrollably.

Helena placed her arms around her
daughter. “You have to let go of the past, Helen.”

“But, I killed the only man I ever
loved.”

“Are you ready to tell me about it?”
Helena asked, handing her a tissue from the nightstand. “I’ll just
sit quiet and listen.”

“We were in St. Paul de Vence. I was
called in as an historical consultant on a small excavation of a
site built during the Renaissance period. The building had been
damaged by a car missing a left hand turn on the narrow roadway and
it had to be completely torn down. It had historical significance,
but they couldn’t save it structurally. While I was there, I
unearthed a tiny clay pot, no bigger than a pill box. It suddenly
got really heavy, like it was trying to get me to drop it back into
the ground. But you know me, stubborn has hell, I refused to do
what it wanted.”

Helena smiled. There was no way in hell
Helen could have left it alone. When she was a child, the presents
could never go under the tree until Christmas Eve for the same
reason.

“I opened the little lid. Big mistake.
It unleashed a wraith rider who said he would spare my life, if I
gave up something I loved. Well, you know I wasn’t crazy about this
vision thing to begin with, so that’s what I gave up. Or so I
thought. Until later than evening when I had a vision about Ellie’s
father’s death. Two days later, it happened just like the vision
said it would. So you see, I still had the visions, but I no longer
had Ellie’s father. The wraith knew my true love and took it.
That’s why I’m so afraid to dabble in that power again. I can’t
bear the thought of losing someone else.”