“Birdie!” I rushed forward to embrace my old friend.
My seventy-something friend had dyed a turquoise streak in her long, white hair, which undulated through the weave of the braid hanging over her shoulder. “We wanted to escape before the hot season began, dear. Those summers in Arizona are too extreme for us.”
Birdie Watson, one of the original members of the Tuesday morning quilters, had been wintering in Arizona with her new husband, Denver. Now they were back in the San Fernando Valley, and she was ready, it seemed, to rejoin our group today.
She wore her signature denim overalls and white T-shirt. As she limped into my living room, I noticed she no longer wore white socks with her Birkenstock sandals. Instead, her toenails were painted turquoise and silver rings circled three of her toes. Marriage apparently agreed with her, because she also seemed to be a little broader across the rear.
Birdie sat in the middle of my cream-colored sofa and rubbed her knee. “My arthritis is getting worse. The doctor says I’m ready for a knee replacement. But I’ve got another solution in mind.”
Before I could ask what she meant, Lucy Mondello walked into my house and shoved a plate of oatmeal cookies into my hands and grinned. “Do you like my surprise, Martha? I looked out my window yesterday and saw the Winnebago parked in Birdie’s driveway.” The tall, orange-haired grandmother lived across the street from the Watsons. “So, we hatched a plot to surprise everyone this morning.”
“What surprise?” Jazz Fletcher breezed through my front door, impeccably groomed and wearing a pink polo shirt. Although he was the same age as me, he had well-toned muscles and a flat stomach. A small sneeze and a little yip came from inside the pink tote bag he carried, a signal from his petite dog, Zsa Zsa, that she wanted to be released. Jazz reached inside and tenderly lifted out the little white Maltese. Today she wore a pink pinafore and rhinestone barrette in her topknot. As soon as her paws touched the floor, she immediately sprinted to the sofa.
When Jazz realized why the little dog was unusually excited, he made his way to the living room. The six-foot-tall man sat next to Birdie and enveloped the small woman in a hug. I returned to the kitchen to pour five cups of coffee. Birdie’s voice was so soft I had a difficult time understanding their conversation as I filled the little pitcher with half-and-half. But I did hear her mention “a mystical white feather.”
Last to cross my threshold was Giselle Cole. In her early forties, she was easily the youngest member of our group. As usual, my red-headed half-sister wore one of her many designer ensembles. This morning it was a blue silk tank top and a white linen suit with the jacket lined in the same blue silk. Rather large diamond studs sparked on her ears. She handed me a pink cardboard box tied with white twine. “Eclairs.” When she noticed the older woman sitting on the sofa between Jazz and Lucy, she turned to me and raised her eyebrows. “Who... ?”
When I told her, she smiled broadly and marched to the living room. “So you’re the famous Birdie Watson everyone talks about! I’m Martha’s little sister, Giselle.” She thrust her hand toward the older woman.
“Hello.” Birdie smiled, wincing a little as Giselle grasped her arthritic fingers.
Giselle plowed ahead, apparently unaware of the brief pain she’d just caused. “You’re the one who used to be a hippie flower child. You must be disappointed the Age of Aquarius never happened. Or maybe it did happen but died in infancy. Either way, I’ll bet it was tough letting go of the fantasy and adjusting to the real world.”
I brought in a tray with steaming cups and placed it on the coffee table next to a platter of sweets. Then I glanced at Birdie to see how she was reacting to my sister’s tactless comments.
Just for an instant, confusion flitted across Birdie’s face. “You mentioned the Age of Aquarius. Are you interested in spiritual matters, dear?”
Giselle sat in one of the two easy chairs I had recently reupholstered in velvet in the color of a Creamsicle. She paused for a moment and shrugged. “Sometimes, I suppose.” She reached in her Gucci tote bag and extricated a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt she’d been working on. “Martha’s teaching me a little bit about Judaism. There’s a lot of spiritual reasons for stuff Jews do. I’m learning it’s not always about money.”
I rolled my eyes. Giselle had been raised in the Catholic faith and had little or no knowledge of Judaism until she met me. “I can’t wait for the day when you learn enough to stop making such asinine comments, G.”
“What?” Giselle feigned an innocent stare. Her green eyes were one of the few things we had in common, inherited from our Irish father.
Birdie reached for a cup of coffee. “I believe everyone has their own spiritual journey in this lifetime. What we don’t learn now, we’ll have a chance to learn next time around. That’s why Denny and I are going to live in the Mystical Feather commune.”
“What’s that?” Lucy put her sewing in her lap and sat at attention. Lucy claimed she had ESP and was deeply interested in metaphysics.
“It’s a spiritual discipline started in the nineteen thirties by Madam Natasha St. Germain. She was a famous medium who encountered her true spirit guide while fasting and meditating. He revealed many secrets of the spirit world and instructed her to bring those truths to the material world. When she came out of her trance, she discovered her guide left plumage—three white feathers, to be exact—on the table as a sign. So, she established the Mystical Feather Society.”
“Fascinating.” Jazz moved a little closer to Birdie. “What is a spirit guide?”
Birdie sat up a little straighter. “It’s a spiritual entity that’s assigned to each individual before birth. It manifests itself as a person, an animal, or a being of light. Its mission is to protect the individual and help them fulfill their life’s purpose.”
“You mean like a guardian angel?” Giselle snorted. “I don’t believe in angels.”
Lucy frowned at my sister. “Don’t be so sure of yourself. There are many famous people who’ve been guided by these entities. James Van Praagh. Alison Dubois.” She turned back to Birdie. “Who was Madam St. Germain’s spirit guide?”
Birdie smiled softly. “An albino raven.”
Giselle laughed out loud. “Hence the white feathers? Oh, come on. How can you believe all that nonsense?”
“To you it may be nonsense, dear. But not to us. Denny and I received our own sign when we went walking in the hills around Sedona at the vernal equinox in March. We spotted three white feathers on the path in front of us.”
The more she spoke, the more my gut clenched. “Where is the commune? What, exactly, is involved in joining?”
“The actual commune is not far from here, in the mountains of Ojai, California. Denny and I aren’t getting any younger, dear, and neither one of us has any heirs. So, we’ll be selling the ranch in Oregon, our house here in Encino, and the one in Arizona. The money will go into the Mystical Feather Society Trust, which runs the commune. We’ll be well taken care of until our spirits leave our bodies.”
When my sister glanced at me, I could tell she was as disturbed as I was. Jazz also looked alarmed.
Even Lucy’s smile faded. “Oh, hon, I sure hope you know what you’re doing. That’s a big commitment to make.”
Giselle murmured, “Especially on the word of an albino raven.”
Birdie seemed unflappable. Either she didn’t hear the comment or she chose to ignore it. She pointed to a photo in a silver frame of me holding my new baby granddaughter wrapped in the pink quilt I made for her. “Oh, Martha dear, Quincy’s baby is precious. What’s her name?”
“Daisy. She’s five months old and bright as a button. I practically have to pay my daughter to let me babysit.”
Birdie sighed. “I hope to see her before we move to Ojai. Once we arrive in the community, we’ll be pretty much incommunicado.”
An alarm started clanging in my head. “What do you mean? You can’t have visitors? You can’t use a phone?”
“Well, there will be an orientation period in which we’ll learn the secrets of the Mystical Feather. Then we’ll receive instruction on the techniques of meditation in order to contact our own personal spirit guides.” She smiled. “During that time, we must have no distractions from the outside world. I hope you understand.”
“When do you plan to go there?” Jazz scooped up Zsa Zsa and held her protectively against his body.
“As soon as our properties are sold. Then there will be a formal welcoming ceremony in which we turn over to the community all our earthly goods and they will embrace us as full members. We already have a buyer interested in the ranch, and our real estate agent thinks she can sell the other places within the month.”
Giselle frowned. “But, Birdie, aren’t you in your seventies? At this time of life, why is it important to meet your spirit guide? Let’s face it. Isn’t his work pretty much over?”
For once, I was grateful for my sister’s ability to shoot right at the heart of the matter. Everyone else must’ve felt the same way because all motion had stopped and all ears were focused on what our friend might say.
Birdie laughed. “Ask me that question again when you’ve reached my age, my dear. Where there’s life, there’s always a thirst for knowledge and enlightenment. Take my arthritis, for instance. It’s merely a symptom of a stressful existence. Once I’ve become an Adept, my guide will help me completely reverse the disease.”
For the rest of the day, I scarcely heard the conversations. My stomach churned and my heart sat heavy in my chest. Hadn’t Birdie just described typical cult tactics? Make outlandish promises, isolate the individuals from their normal support network until they’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated, and keep them dependent by seizing all their resources. How could I prevent Birdie and Denver from making such a terrible mistake?
By three that afternoon, everyone had gone home but Giselle. “Martha, I hate to say this, but I think your friend Birdie has gone off the deep end. I mean, really. She’s about to give all her money away?”
The thought of being without any independent resources must’ve been impossible for my half-sister to comprehend. She’d inherited her family’s business, a very prosperous oil company. Giselle owned her own private jet and five houses and shopped at stores I’d never been inside of. And despite the fact she could really piss off people with her lack of tact, she had a keen mind.
“Another thing bothers me, Sissy. Where is Birdie’s husband in all this? Doesn’t he have a say? Is it possible that both of them can be that stupid?”
I sighed. “I know what you mean, G. That ranch in Oregon they’ve put up for sale has been in Denver’s family for generations. Why would he just give it up? I’d really like to find out what’s going on in his head.”
“I hope it’s not the same mumbo jumbo that’s going on in your friend’s head. If it is, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do. They’re both adults with no family to hold them back from the precipice.”
Giselle was right. I had no legal recourse. But maybe I could find another way. And I knew just where to start. I reached for my phone and sent a text message.
Emergency. Contact me ASAP.
I spent an hour on the computer trying to find information on the Mystical Feather Society. Wikipedia confirmed the facts Birdie had given me about the beginnings of the society, but I could find no further details about the present-day commune.
At five on Tuesday evening, I got a phone call in response to my emergency text. “Hey, Martha. Long time no see.” Paulina Polinskaya’s hard, East Coast accent drilled through the phone line. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I was with a very difficult client who wanted to speak to her deceased husband. As soon as I contacted his spirit, she started shouting at him for dying and leaving her with a dozen unpaid bills. He said if she hadn’t spent like a drunken sailor while he was alive, maybe she wouldn’t be facing all that debt. I had to play peacemaker for over an hour until he broke the connection. What’s the emergency?”
“Do you remember a friend of mine, Birdie Watson? In her late seventies, long white braid?”
“Yeah. It’s been a couple a years, but I think I remember.”
“I want to stop her from making a dangerous mistake.”
“Do you want to bring her in for a reading?” Paulina was a psychic I met while trying to solve the murder of my friend Harriet Gordon. I encountered Paulina again when my friend Jazz was a suspect in another murder. Both times she was helpful. Sort of.
“I need information on a group called the Mystical Feather Society.” I told her about Birdie and Denver’s plan to sell everything they owned and turn the money over to the trust and live on the society’s commune in Ojai.
“Yeah. I heard about them. Madam St. Germain’s books are still popular today. She was a gifted medium. If this is a cult, like you said, it makes sense they’re in Ojai.”
A chill traveled down my spine. Paulina was confirming what my gut had told me earlier. Ojai, California, was located about eighty miles north of Los Angeles, nestled in a valley just south of the Los Padres National Forest. It was well known as a very liberal artsy community and a magnet for all kinds of philosophical disciplines. The headquarters of the Theosophical Society sat on several tranquil acres to the north of downtown Ojai on Route 33, while St. Thomas Catholic College stood just south of Ojai on Route 150. Every religious retreat imaginable could be found in between.
“I’ve got to find a way to keep my friends from going through with their plans.”
“I’ll find out more, if you want. I’m going to a meeting of COW tonight. Someone there will know.”
“COW?”
“Contacting Other Worlds. LA chapter. It’s a professional organization with members from all over the globe.”
“There’s an association for mediums?”
“Are you surprised? We have a president and board of directors. Mediums are thoroughly vetted before they’re allowed to join. Members are called Adepts.”
“Just out of curiosity, what do you call the president of COW?”
“The Supreme Bull.”
We ended the call as Crusher walked in the doorway.
He hung up his leather jacket, removed his shoulder holster and ATF badge, and put them on the table in the hallway. Then he walked over and gave me a kiss. “Hey, babe. How was your day?”
“Awful.” I told him about Birdie and Denver. “I’ve got to find a way to talk some sense into them before it’s too late. Do you think you can reach out to your FBI contacts for a little research on the Mystical Feather Society?”
“Mystical Feather? That’s a new one to me. Yeah, I’ll call my guy tomorrow and see what he can dig up. What’s for dinner?”
I’d been so busy trying to research the group, I’d forgotten about eating. I did a quick mental scan of the contents of the refrigerator. “You have a choice: tuna sandwiches and potato chips here or going out to a restaurant.”
He chuckled. Crusher was used to my laissez-faire attitude toward cooking. “Let’s go grab a steak.”
That night I dreamt Birdie and Denver had tossed their phones on the ground and jumped into a deep, dark hole. I called the police and the fire department, but nobody could reach them. Wednesday morning I woke up with a headache and my jaw hurt, a sign I’d been grinding my teeth all night.
Crusher had already gone to work and left behind a half-empty carafe of coffee. I poured myself a cup and shuffled into my sewing room. I’d already made a crib quilt for my granddaughter, Daisy, but I wanted to sew a larger quilt for when she transitioned to a real bed.
I chose the Sunbonnet Sue pattern, which featured a side view of figures in long dresses and oversized bonnets that covered their faces. The appliqué pattern was fairly simple. The beauty of the quilt would be in my choice of fabrics. And heaven knew, I had a whole wall of shelves filled with folded pieces of fabric. I’d use plain colors for the bonnets and for the dresses I’d choose conversation prints—those fabrics with a wide range of themes depicting everyday objects. They first appeared in the early 1900s and were geared toward juvenile topics like toys, animals, and children playing. Nowadays, these prints had come to reflect every sphere of life, including different foods, sports logos, vegetables, holiday items, and tools for activities like sewing or gardening, to name just a few. I began sorting through my collection of juvenile fabrics, setting aside the small prints most suitable for the dresses. One fabric had little white lambs on a turquoise background. Another had petite sailboats in red, white, and blue.
Around noon Paulina called. “Last night at the COW meeting I talked to a seer named Mansoor the Magnificent. He knows about the Mystical Feather Society, but he was unwilling to share any information with me. He’s insisting on talking directly to you. But only if he likes your aura. He’s willing to see you at my house today because I told him it’s an emergency. Can you be here at two?”
“Yes. Of course. And thanks for setting it up.”
Paulina cleared her throat. “There’s one more thing, Martha. Last night I had a dream about your friends. I saw them dead on an altar surrounded by white feathers.”
“Good Lord!” I gasped.
“Oh, dreams don’t have to be literal, they can be metaphors. But the message was clear. Your friends are in danger. Oh. And before I forget, bring cash. Mansoor charges a fee for his time. A hundred fifty. That’s the standard for professional consults in our industry. As a favor to you I’m waiving my finder’s fee.”
Industry? I didn’t know whether to laugh or be irritated. “Thanks for the favor. I’ll see you soon.”
Paulina’s house stood on Venice Boulevard in West LA. The lavender bungalow prevailed stubbornly as the last vestige of a bygone neighborhood. The pre-WWII cottage was squeezed between a strip mall and an auto body shop. Purple morning glories bloomed profusely on a trellis near the front door. A large wooden sign stood in the cracked concrete of what used to be a front yard.
I climbed the steps and knocked.
Paulina answered the door, wearing a silk muumuu printed with purple hibiscus, lavish green leaves, and orange birds of paradise. Her long black hair formed a tidy bun at the nape of her neck. Black kohl rimmed her eyes in generous strokes, and her fuchsia mouth grinned. “Martha! It’s good to see you.” She surprised me by springing forward and wrapping me in a strong hug.
She stepped aside as I entered the dim living room, with walls painted the color of terra-cotta. Flames on the white candles nearest the door flickered briefly with the in-rushing air. A little chihuahua with a round belly and spindly legs waddled toward me and barked a wheezy hello.
I stooped to pet the well-fed animal. “Is this Hathor?”
Paulina had adopted the pet of a murder victim over a year ago. The dog was unrecognizable with her increased girth.
“Yeah. She still suffers with PTSD from witnessing that murder. The only thing that seems to comfort her is a scoop of vanilla ice cream.”
I could relate. “Well, she seems happy right now.”
“Come and meet Mansoor.”
I stood and looked toward the dining room and saw the man for the first time. I couldn’t be sure of his exact age, but I guessed he was somewhere between his early twenties and his early thirties. A red turban was wrapped around his head in expert folds. Not a speck of lint marred the perfect fit of his black suit. He sat with a straight back and clasped delicate hands on the purple velvet cloth of the table, ebony eyes studying me with liquid curiosity. One of. . .
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