Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

he’s good and full
.
    But no sooner had Jack escaped the giant than he decided to take on the North Wind. Up until this point, Lowell’s task had been limited to adding sound effects by using a rain stick, tambourine, banjo, and fiddle. He’d remained outside of the circle of blue light. But now, he unfolded a stepladder downstage left, donned a short wig of white curls, and climbed to the topmost rung. Perched atop the ladder, he played a set of high, chilly notes on his fiddle. He plucked the same strings over and over again until Violetta, speaking in Jack’s voice, begged him to stop.
    Having transformed into Jack, Violetta appeared to shrink to the size of a child. Hugging herself, she talked of how cold the mountain winters were. How there was a hole in the chinking between the logs next to Jack’s bed. The wind whistled in through this hole, making Jack shiver. Snow snuck in too, covering Jack’s quilts with a dusting of white. Onstage, Jack shuddered and rubbed his arms, and Olivia suddenly felt cold. Because most public places used too much air-conditioning for her taste, she always carried a cardigan in her bag. She hurriedly slipped it on and folded her arms over her chest. The air felt damp. It passed beneath her clothes and chilled her skin. The sensation increased as Lowell continued to play his shrill song and Jack, through chattering teeth, pleaded with him to stop blowing.
    After that story, Violetta told a pair of folktales about how the turtle cracked his shell and why the wolf howls at the moon. She finished the show with another ghost story about a hermit who hid his treasure in the heart of a hollowed-out trunk and became so afraid that it would be found that he began to dress up in bearskins and scare off anyone who came near his cabin. Over time, he began to lose his mind. People said his eyes glittered like diamonds and he attached bear claws to his gloves. When he died one winter alone on the mountain, his ghost remained, walking on all fours like a bear. The legend was that anyone who came too near the treasure would hear the man’s growl and be forever cursed with bad luck, sickness, or death.
    Her strange tale left the audience reeling in horrified delight. Violetta delivered the last sentence and then simply strode from the stage and into the darkness beyond.
    “There’ll be a reception in the lobby when the lights come back up,” Lowell announced when she was gone. “We hope you’ve enjoyed our Appalachian tales.”
    The crowd applauded timidly at first, still too stupefied by Violetta’s final story to make much noise. Olivia shook herself from the storyteller’s trance and clapped louder. Soon enough, the room swelled with appreciative noises, including whistles and cries of “wonderful!” and “amazing!”
    “I couldn’t agree more,” Olivia said to Rawlings. “I could have stayed here all night listening to her. It was like being under a spell. An extraordinary spell.”
    “She certainly drew me in,” Rawlings agreed. “I forgot where I was.
When
I was.”
    Millay pointed at the oil lantern. “What was with all the blue light? That woman’s eyes were crazy blue, and the skin around her eyes seemed kind of blue too. She must have gotten hold of Dixie’s makeup kit. It was kind of creepy. She looked like an alien.”
    “All the better to hypnotize you with, my dear,” Harris said, doing his best imitation of an old crone. “By the time we see her out in the lobby, she’ll probably blend right in with the crowd.”
    “She won’t be there,” Laurel said. “She only appears in public when she’s telling stories. And she always performs in partial darkness like she did tonight.”
    Olivia studied her friend. “Have you been researching her for an article?”
    Laurel nodded. “At first, I was just going to highlight a few of this weekend’s key performers, but Violetta stands above the rest. She’s as strange and mysterious and beautiful as a fairy tale queen. That’s partially why she’s become so well known among the country’s storytellers, though as you saw, she possesses plenty of talent too. She rarely gives interviews. The last one was over a decade ago.”
    Suddenly, the overhead lights were turned to their brightest setting, and Olivia blinked her eyes in discomfort. The abrupt flood of light broke Violetta’s spell. People ceased whispering, and the nervous energy they’d held on to all evening burst forth in rapid, animated speech.