Silver Spirit Inn

1 - Last Will & Testament

Is it rude to comment that the lawyer's office smells of brine and fish guts? That's what my mother says when Mr Mayhew, my great-aunt's attorney, ducks out to grab some paperwork.

The whole room looks like a generic soap opera set: cheap, pale brown wood paneling dominates the office; the bookshelf behind his dark brown Ikea desk and chair is filled with law books bound in red, blue, or green. We sit in red-brown chairs with half-moon backs that look like they were once in a bank lobby. Greyish-green metal cabinets sit up against the opposite wall. I recall seeing similar cabinets in the office of my elementary school's secretary.

Maybe they were purchased at a surplus sale?

"He could've picked a better location than this," I reply, glancing out the open window. The piers of Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard stretch into the Atlantic Ocean. Boats bob against their moorings—everything from tiny skiffs to thirty-foot yachts. It's a quintessential New England scene.

Mom can do little more than shush me before Mr Mayhew returns. The lawyer is an average-looking middle-aged man, with close-cropped black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. An eye patch covers his right eye, a thin scar bisecting his bushy eyebrow. The wound is the result of surviving an IED attack more than twenty years ago he explained upon welcoming us into his office.

I don't know what this man will tell us about Great-Aunt Louise's estate, but I'm pretty confident a veteran shouldn't wait twenty years to get approval for a healer to grow him a new eye.

"Sorry about that." Mr Mayhew puts a thick manilla envelope on his desk and pulls out a tri-folded group of papers. "Let's begin, shall we?" He clears his throat. "I, Louise Josephine Stefanik, being of sound mind and body ..."

I listen with half an ear to the requisite legal mumbo-jumbo, until I hear my name.

"... to my niece, Elara Nowak, I leave the Silver Spirit Inn in its entirety."

I sit up, grabbing the arms of the bank chair in shock. Did I hear that right? "Excuse me?" I blurt out. I have vague recollections of my parents talking about Great-Aunt Louise, but I can't remember them ever mentioning she owned an inn.

Leaning forward, I straighten the hem of my black pencil skirt. "That can't be right," I tell the lawyer in disbelief. Maybe it's a book series or collection of—oh, I don't know—porcelain figurines. Witches get weird after they hit their hundredth birthdays—and Great-Aunt Louise was 114.

Mr Mayhew's mouth quirks in amusement. "I'm afraid it's correct," he says, pulling out another sheet of paper. This one is yellowed with age, its corners rounded by time. "This is the deed to the inn," he tells us, laying it flat on the desk. "And here is the document she signed in my presence and witnessed by my secretary, transferring the property to you." Another paper from the stack joins the deed.

"You've got to be kidding me," I exclaim, falling back in the hideous bank chair. "What the hell am I going to do with an inn?"

Mom's eyes cut to me. "Well ..."

I know exactly where she's headed. "No. I'll find another job soon."

Mom sighs and turns back to Mr Mayhew. "Is there anything else that we should know about?"

The lawyer nods and reaches into the manilla envelope. "This is a letter your great-aunt told me to give to you. She said that you're to open it alone."

I reach for the plain white envelope. My name is scrawled on the front in a shaky, spidery hand and it's sealed with a dab of orange wax. "I don't get it," I say, turning the envelope around in my hands. "I met her once, at her sister's funeral." I glance at Mom. "That was—what?—ten years ago?"