The Sibyl (14 page)

“Eva, what’s wrong?”

Elliot came through the door in a rush, his
own face covered in the same goop being applied to me. “Cyrus said
you needed to see me. It was important.”

“It is important.” I huffed, brushing aside
the pair of hands tilting my chin upward. I was not rewarded for my
efforts because those hands returned, the woman muttering about
difficult divas with dark circles as she continued her work. “Can
you explain to me why I’m getting assaulted with hairspray and
foundation? I thought we were just doing interviews today.”

“We are.” Elliot’s tone was full of the
laughter he was trying so hard to contain. “Joey is going to be
filming them though. Without the make up, you’d look like the dead
underneath the lights.”

“Poor choice of words, Eli.” I forced my head
straight despite the woman’s attempts to keep me in place. “We are
starting filming? Today?”

“Yeah. The sooner the better. Joanna is
meeting us over at the house in two hours. You’ve got to be
ready.”

The more I thought about what Elliot said,
the bigger the knot grew as it formed in my throat. We were
filming. As in television.

What in the world was I doing?

“What you were meant to do.” Cyrus spoke up
as if I had spoken my concerns out loud. “You were right. He was
extremely pleased with your decision.”

Cyrus didn’t have to go into any further
details. He could only mean Apollo. I made a note to ask him about
how his contacts with a god worked.

“I’ll be just a minute longer then I’ll come
to keep you company.”

Elliot started to come towards me but stopped
when I shook my head, barely missing being stabbed in the eye with
an eyeliner pencil in the process.

“No, take your time. I didn’t mean to scare
you.”

“Me? Scared? I don’t know the meaning of the
word.” Elliot waved my words away as if he rushed into my room
every day. “Are you really ok? I’m sure we can put this off for a
little longer if you need to.”

“Elliot, I have been in this chair for a good
hour now, and from the looks I keep getting from your appearance
people, I might be here for another hour. I do not want to repeat
this process if I don’t have to.”

Elliot laughed. “Then we’ll do it. See you in
a little while, Eva.”

“See you soon.” I muttered as he left the
room. Cyrus took the papers from my lap as the women continued
their work. I think I dozed off because one of them tugged at my
arm.

“Ta da!” She cried out as I opened my eyes to
the mirror she held in front of me. “What do you think?”

I couldn’t respond. The whispers I had been
so successful at holding back were rushing forward. There was no
time to prepare myself as there had been in the hotel room when
Cyrus and I were practicing. I stared at the mirror with an
expression of horror as the woman who I recognized from the
newspaper drawings in my lap formed in the glass. Her eyes were
hardened with a look of hatred. I tried to look away, but I
couldn’t. She held my gaze and began to speak.

“You have come to visit with me.”

“What…” I knew Cyrus was by my side. I could
feel him there. He was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him over the
woman. She continued, clutching at her throat as if trying to hide
the wound stretched across it.

“I’ll see you soon enough, Sibyl. We have
much to discuss.”

“The door, Little One. Close it. Now.”

Cyrus. He managed to break through the
whispers and refocus my thoughts. I imagined my door, watched it
appear across the image and slammed it shut. Cyrus had wrestled the
hand mirror away from the woman, setting it aside face down on the
table before pushing her away from me.

“Out, all of you.” Cyrus didn’t yell, but he
didn’t need to. His voice was one they dared not disobey. I used
the time it took for them to leave to try to gather up my thoughts.
I felt disoriented and nauseous. When they were all gone, Cyrus
knelt down by my feet. He took my chin in his hand to better
examine my face.

“Are you alright?”

I threw my arms around his neck and buried my
face into his shoulder. Cyrus held me until my body stopped
trembling, saying nothing as I told him of the woman I’d seen as
well as the words she had spoken. He was good to me. Cyrus didn’t
try his usual tactic of telling me I didn’t have to go. Or offer me
a chance to run away from Black Hollow as fast as possible.
Instead, he let me work through the fear until I was well enough to
pull away on my own. I wanted to go back to my little room to cry,
but a promise is a promise. Besides, I wasn’t kidding when I told
Elliot this beauty routine was too much to handle.

“Sorry.” I mumbled, reaching up to wipe my
eyes then stopping before I smeared anything. “They are going to
think I am insane.”

“They already do.” Cyrus offered me a small
smile. “I believe the exact phrase the women were using was
‘difficult diva’?”

I wanted to smile, but couldn’t manage it.
Instead, I shuddered. “Cyrus, if this can happen here, in a safe
place, what happens when we get to the house?”

“Remember your door, Eva.” Cyrus took my
hands and squeezed them. “I will teach you more as time passes, but
for now, believe each mirror in that house is covered by the very
image you created. Allow the spirit to speak with you only through
Apollo’s mirror.”

“How do I keep them quiet?” I leaned forward.
“The whispers. She was talking to me. I could hear her.”

“Block them out. You have to; otherwise, you
can truly go insane from it.” Cyrus glanced around the empty room.
“If it becomes too much, ask Apollo for assistance. Guidance. He
has always aided his Sibyls. You are no different.”

“Is there a prayer, a chant?” I stood up to
pace the room. “I’ve never talked to a god before. Do I give him an
offering?”

I didn’t count my little spell back in New
York. I wasn’t so sure it had qualified as actual contact with a
deity since I never heard anything back from him.

“You already have by promising to showcase
him on this project of yours.” Cyrus stood along with me, tucking
his hands in his pockets. “Talk to him as you would to me. Well,
not exactly like you talk to me. Be respectful.”

“Hey, I can be respectful when I need to
be.”

It was Jonathan who knocked on the door to
interrupt us. He gasped at the sight of me, clamoring with
excitement over my new face as he pulled me over to the chair. As
he pulled rollers from my hair, I looked to Cyrus who was still
standing in place. Apollo could guide me, but it was Cyrus who
would protect me.

I was sure about that.

The Black Hollow Murder House looked exactly
like it did in the picture. In fact, without its horrible nickname
or history, it was a house I could see myself settling down in one
day. Bay windows gleamed in the sun. The black shutters contrasted
nicely against the outside’s white paint. It was far enough from
the road to block out any noise from passing cars. Not that there
were many cars driving past it. This place was out in the middle of
nowhere.

“Welcome to Black Hollow!” A chubby woman
decked out in full Victorian regalia stepped off the front porch.
She grabbed for Elliot’s hand to shake it with a warm smile. “You
must be Elliot and Eva. I’m Joanna. So nice to be able to put a
face with the voice I’ve been talking to on the phone.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.” Elliot returned
her shake. “Is Joey Lawson here already? Has he talked to you about
the interview?”

“Yes. I believe I’ve talked to him. Your
people have been here since 9 this morning, setting everything up.
Several of them made sure to tell me what I needed to say.”

“We need you to tell us the truth.” I spoke
up as I moved away from the car to stand by Elliot’s side.
“Otherwise, this is never going to work.”

“The truth?” Joanna smiled. “Well, now. What
fun is that?”

“We don’t need fun.” I glanced at Elliot. “In
order for our evidence to speak for itself, we have got to know the
whole story. This is where you come in.”

“I was teasing, my dear.” Joanna’s friendly
smile had turned cold. She must have decided that Elliot was more
to her liking because she took him by the arm and led him inside. I
was left outside alone with Cyrus, tempted not to follow them
inside.

“Hey, McRayne!”

The man I recognized as Joey Lawson had
opened the front door with a large black camera slung over his
shoulder. “You coming?”

“Yeah.” I allowed myself one last moment of
peace before I climbed up the stairs after him. “I’m coming.”

***

“It was a horrible tragedy. Black Hollow had
never seen such violence before, and hasn’t since that fateful day
in 1876.”

I had to make an effort not to roll my eyes
at Joanna’s theatrics. We were seated on an overstuffed Victorian
couch better suited for a parlor in Charleston than this small
house in Kansas. In fact, the whole place seemed to be made up in
the most garish Victorian fashions imaginable.

Much like Joanna herself. She was simpering
now, overcome by the deaths of two as he continued on with his
interview. I caught Joey standing off to the side, struggling to
open a piece of gum while holding the camera steady and tried not
to laugh. I wondered if he knew this was what he was signing up for
when he agreed to join our little show.

I doubted it.

“How are you related to the Tillotsons, Ms.
Whitaker?”

Elliot had leaned forward, resting his elbows
on his knees as he listened to her explain how she was the daughter
of Samuel’s great uncle. Not direct granddaughter as we had been
led to believe. I made a mental strike in my head of the first lie
she had been caught in, promising to look up her history as soon as
I could.

“I was raised here, you see. These very walls
speak of the murder which happened here. Poor Catherine.”

Joanna was on the verge of tears again, so I
stepped in. “Tell us about them.”

“What?” She paused, either for the effect or
because she was surprised I had finally spoken. Either way, the
woman had the decency to stop her ridiculous dramatics.

“The murders. What happened that night?”

“Oh, well. It is told that Samuel flew into a
rage after he discovered Catherine had a lover. He had adored her,
you see. He even had built this house for them to raise a family
in.”

“But tax records show Samuel bought the house
in 1872.” I had no problems interrupting her second lie. “It was
already here when they came to Kansas from Tennessee. He didn’t
build anything.”

Joanna glared at me. “Well, perhaps I have my
facts wrong. But he did, at least, buy this house for her. And they
were madly in love.”

“How did he find out about this lover?” I
mirrored Elliot, leaning forward as if I were engrossed by her
tale.

“Well, now, it was such a scandal!” Joanna
threw a gloved hand to her forehead. “He walked in on them in the
midst of a passionate embrace. Her lover got away, but poor
Catherine! She met the edge of her husband’s very blade that
night.”

“I don’t understand.” I gestured to Cyrus who
brought my folder to me. I thumbed through the paperwork and found
what I was looking for. “According to the Wichita papers, there was
a blizzard during the week of the murder. And it had been snowing
for weeks prior to that. How could a lover get to this house –
which is out in the middle of nowhere – and get away without
freezing to death? Besides, we don’t know if Catherine was stabbed
or not. Even the police reports are unclear on how she actually
died.”

“Can we take a break please?” Joanna was
positively furious as she pulled a fan out from her elegant costume
and slapped herself on the knee. Joey made moves to cut the camera
off. She made sure he sat the equipment down before she turned on
me.

“What are you trying to do?” Our client
snapped at me. “You ask me questions but refuse to believe my
answers. How dare you!”

“I told you outside and I’m telling you now,
we are here for the truth.” I returned her glare as I gestured to
the papers in my lap. “There is this new thing called the internet.
I’m sure you’ve heard of it. The people who watch television also
utilize those services. They can easily pull up the information you
give to us. If it is wrong, it will do more harm than good. Your
theatrics are fantastic, I’m sure. But I did not travel all the way
here to be lied to.”

“Lied to?” Joanna was huffing. “Why, I never!
You understand, don’t you?” She turned on Elliot like a cat. “You
understand how important the legend is around these parts. It is
what keeps our town on the map because tourists want to believe the
tragedy.”

“Yes, I do.” Elliot disentangled himself from
the grip the woman had on him. “But Eva is right, ma’m. We are
doing an investigation, not a travel show. We need to know what
really happened so it can support what the spirits are telling
us.”

“There are no facts!” Joanna stood up in a
swirl of skirts and spit. “We don’t know what happened.”

I caught sight of Joey finally getting into
that piece of gum. I noticed to the small red light on the camera
was blinking. God bless him, our cameraman had turned the camera
back on when she wasn’t looking.

“Alright, alright.” I stepped in, trying to
act as a mediator. “Let’s start over, shall we? Joey, grab your
camera. Let’s start with what we do know. Two people died here,
right?”

As Joey raised the camera up, Joanna’s anger
fell away to the genteel façade she had when we arrived. She sank
back into her chair with a nod. “Yes.”

“Catherine Tillotson was believed to be
murdered by her husband, Samuel Tillotson, who then killed himself
in the backyard?”

“Yes. It was,” She looked up to me and the
tone in her voice fell a notch. “That is where they found him with
the knife buried in his chest.”