Sanctuary Hill by Kathryn R. Wall

Author:Kathryn R. Wall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2007-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I stared into the dancing golden eyes of the anthropology professor, whose totally unexpected pronouncement had momentarily stunned me into silence.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, absolutely. Let me show you.”

He took the first pouch, the one tied with white ribbon, and his fingers worked at the knots. When he had them both loosened, he opened the little bag to peer inside.

“A few herbs—” He paused to sniff. “Peppermint, I’d guess, salt, and red candle wax,” he said, smiling up at me. “Maybe a little goofer dust, but I’d bet it’s from a Christian burial.”

“Burial?” I leaned back involuntarily as if the bag might reach out and burn me.

“It’s grave dirt, gathered at midnight from the area just above where the heart would be,” Harry Crowder said matter-of-factly. “If the deceased was a good person, someone who lived an exemplary life, then the dust can only work in good roots, like this one.”

“How can you be sure this is good…goofer dust?” I asked, astounded I was actually having this conversation in the first decade of the twenty-first century in broad daylight on my father’s verandah.

“There’d be animal bones or crow feathers. Maybe a salamander’s feet.” He turned the little bag over. “And then there’s the eye. That’s meant to watch over you, protect you.”

He loosened the knots on the other pouch and performed the same ritual of sniffing and poking around inside. When he finally lifted his eyes to mine, the golden highlights seemed to shimmer in the dark shade of the sloped roof.

“You’re a fortunate woman, Bay. Someone is taking very good care of you.”

“Someone?”

I waited for a response that didn’t come.

“Then explain this to me. Two days ago, less than twenty-four hours after I found the first one of these, all four tires on my car went flat. How was that meant to protect me?”

The dapper professor smiled. “Assuming the root had something to do with it.”

“Well, the mechanic couldn’t find anything wrong with the tires, but I replaced them all anyway.”

“Hmmm,” was his only reply.

“And then yesterday—last night—I almost got killed in that big pileup out on the interstate. It doesn’t seem as if my luck is exactly running high right at the moment.”

Crowder steepled his index fingers and rested his chin on them. He sat that way for a long moment. Even Lavinia had turned around to study his face.

“How exactly did the accident happen?” he shot out, making us both jump.

I gave him a brief account, including my rescue by the mysterious Stanley Johnson. The professor’s facial muscles relaxed as he listened. A couple of times he nodded.

“It seems to me the roots are working perfectly,” he said when I’d concluded my story.

“You’re going to have to expound on that,” I said, “because it makes absolutely no sense to me.”

Dr. Crowder leaned back in the chair, this time lacing his fingers together. “Here’s how I see it. Your tires went flat for no apparent reason, causing you to buy new ones. The same day you’re involved in what could have been a fatal accident.

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