Ornithophobia
Sarah Ryerson sat in the town hall's conference room, sipping her coffee and looking down at the cheese Danish on her plate. Seated next to her was her fiancé, psychiatrist Lionel Penn, who was enjoying his second peanut butter-frosted fudge brownie. At the head of the table, Patience Scudder, chairwoman of the Community Improvement Committee, was taking suggestions for the fall fundraiser.
"Why don't we have a murder mystery event?" police officer and true crime lover Shawn McMurtry proposed. "We can combine it with a masquerade party in which everyone comes dressed as their favorite fictional detective."
"Sounds like it might be fun," Abigail Cantwell, owner of the Bell, Book and Candle, opined. "I can go as Miss Marple."
"Or we can put on a performance of The Crucible," Shannon Devlin, proprietor of the Green Man Pub, suggested. "A play about the Salem witchcraft trials ought to pull in a large crown in October."
Josiah Barnard pitched the idea of a haunted house, and Rebecca Coffin recommended a scary hayride. Ezra Graves thought it would nice to show a classic horror movie outdoors, possibly at the former Puritan Falls drive-in.
"It can be hosted by the village's own horror celebrity, Belladonna Nightshade. I'm sure Martha wouldn't mind slipping on her old costume and black wig for the occasion."
"No, I wouldn't mind," responded Martha Prescott, who was once the host of Classic Horror Movies on the Thriller TV network. "But the weather in October is unpredictable. I, for one, don't want to sit outside, freezing my butt off, to watch Halloween, Friday the 13th or any other horror movie I've seen dozens of times already."
"What do you think, Lionel?" Patience asked.
"These are excellent ideas you've all come up with. However, for the past several years, we've gone above and beyond the usual Halloween events other towns offer," the psychiatrist reminded the committee. "Do we really want to lower the bar now?"
"What do you think we should do?"
"I'm afraid I don't have any ideas. What about you, Sarah?" he turned to his fiancée and inquired.
Dr. Ryerson, a physician at the Puritan Falls Hospital emergency room, had not been following the conversation. She looked at the psychiatrist with a glazed look of confusion.
"What?"
"Do you have any suggestions?"
"About what? Sorry, everybody," she apologized when she realized her friends and neighbors were expecting an answer. "My mind's on something else."
"Your upcoming wedding, no doubt," teased Rebecca, who owned The Quill and Dagger bookstore.
"That's it," Lionel joked. "We can have a Halloween-themed wedding and charge our guests an admission fee, which, naturally, we'll turn over to the town."
Martha, the only one of the committee members who was not laughing at the psychiatrist's jest, suddenly rose from her seat.
"I got it!" she cried excitedly. "We can hold a Halloween baking competition."
"You mean like the one they have on the Food Network every year?" Shannon inquired.
"Yes. We can run it just like they do. We invite a group of people compete over a one-week period, eliminating one of them after each round."
"How will that help us raise money?" Patience wondered.
"First, all contestants will need to pay a nominal amount as an entry fee. Then, we charge people admission to watch the competition. Lastly, we hold a bake sale immediately after each round, selling the baked goods the contestants make."
"What do we offer the contestants as an incentive?" Ezra, owner and editor of The Puritan Falls Gazette, wanted to know.
"I recommend the businessowners in the village chip in and offer nonmonetary prizes. For instance, Josiah, you can give the winner a free dinner for two at the Sons of Liberty Tavern. The same goes for you, Shannon. Rebecca and Abigail, you can donate gift cards for your shops. I'll talk to Douglas and Michael and see if they'll contribute a gift certificate for Treasure Hunt Antiques."
"That's a great idea," Patience agreed. "I bet we get can all our shopkeepers onboard. I'm sure Desiree will want to give us something from Sweet Indulgence."
"And no doubt Victoria can offer a free high tea for two," Abigail added.
"Speaking of Victoria," Lionel chuckled. "Will anyone dare to compete against her? She's got to be the best baker in New England!"
"I will," Shannon said. "I don't expect to win, but I'm sure I'll enjoy the experience."
Rebecca, Abigail and Martha also volunteered.
"In that case, shall we vote on it?" asked Patience, who was also willing to go up against Victoria Broadbent, despite having no hope of winning.
The vote was unanimous in favor of holding a Halloween baking competition.
* * *
On the first day of October, the town common was transformed into a harvest festival and open-air market. Every shop and eatery in Puritan Falls had a stall featuring everything from books and candles to pumpkin-flavored snacks and hot beverages. Local craftsman and artisans also displayed their wares as did several vendors who offered garage sale bargains. Of course, not all attractions were geared toward shoppers. There were also raffles and games of chance, kiddie rides, pumpkin carving demonstrations, a scarecrow contest and a hayride that transported riders to the lighthouse and back.
Rebecca and Abigail, who had stalls next to each other, kept careful watch on the time. At three o'clock, they both had to report to the town hall where the first round of the baking competition was to be held. In all, there were twelve women competing, including Elaine Kearney, Maureen McHugh and Glenda Wayman, who often referred to themselves as the Three C's Club. Committee members Patience, Shannon, Sarah and Martha were also joined by Desiree LeFleur, Penny McMurtry and April Brower.
Victoria Broadbent, a baker by trade, chose not to compete, believing she had an unfair advantage. Instead, she volunteered to be one of the judges. Joining her would be Josiah Barnard, whose wife also declined to bake, thus sparing her husband a possible conflict of interest. The third judge was celebrity chef Brent Tiller, who had bakeries in Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami, and frequently appeared on Food Network programs.
"How did we manage to get Brent Tiller to judge our little competition?" Eliza Barnard asked.
"You can thank Lionel," April, the psychiatrist's sister, replied. "Tiller is a close, personal friend of one of his former patients."
Although all twelve bakers were delighted to have a well-known TV personality take part in the event, they were also apprehensive about having their baked goods judged by him.
At 2:45, Rebecca and Abigail left their stalls in the capable hands of their employees and headed to the town hall. As they entered the building, they encountered real estate agent Jacqueline Astor who was accompanied by a handsome stranger.
"Ah, ladies!" the realtor greeted them. "I'd like you both to meet the newest resident of Puritan Falls: Declan McCartney."
"Nice to meet you," the shopkeepers said in unison.
"Nice to meet you, too."
"Declan just closed on the old Van Cleve place on Atlantic Avenue," Jacqueline informed them.
"That's a big house," Abigail observed. "Do you and your wife have any children?"
"I'm not married. I'm a widower, and, no, we never had any children. But I need a large home. I'm a veterinarian, and I plan on using the first floor as my office."
"That wonderful!" Rebecca exclaimed. "We could use a vet in the village. Now, we won't have to go to the Copperwell Animal Hospital."
The conversation was cut short when Patience arrived.
"Oh, good! I'm not late," the librarian said. "I was afraid the competition had already started."
"No," Abigail assured her. "But we better get moving."
"Who was that man?" Patience wondered as the three women hurried to the council room where twelve rented ovens were set up for the competitors' use.
"Declan McCartney," Rebecca replied. "He just bought the Van Cleve house on Atlantic Avenue. He's a veterinarian."
"And a widower," Abigail added, looking pointedly in the librarian's direction.
"Looks like everyone is here," Patience noticed, ignoring her friend's attempt at matchmaking.
"Everyone except for Brent Tiller," Rebecca pointed out.
"Do you think he's going to stand us up?" Abigail asked.
No sooner did the words leave her mouth, than into the room walked a man who resembled Robert Redford when he starred as the Sundance Kid.
"Whoa!" Rebecca uttered. "He's even better looking in real life."
Her fellow contestants silently agreed with her.
* * *
"Bakers, your time is up," announced Mayor Ernie Lawson, who was serving as emcee.
The twelve contestants emitted a chorus of groans and sighs as they stepped back from their creations. The first challenge presented to the twelve women had been an easy one: they were required to bake and decorate a minimum of three dozen cookies, only three of which were to be given to the judges. The rest were put in baggies and sold at the harvest fair. Chocolatier Desiree LeFleur's chocolate meltaways were the first to be critiqued. All three judges agreed that they were baked to perfection. Martha was the second one to appear before the judges. Although her peanut butter sandwich cookies tasted good, they lacked decoration since the erstwhile Belladonna Nightshade had run out of time.
Penny, the third baker to step up to the judging circle, presented her plate of snickerdoodles after Martha returned to her work station. On each cookie, she had piped a raven with black icing. When Brent Tiller saw the cookie placed in front of him, he let out a strangled cry and collapsed on the floor. Dr. Ryerson was the first person to race to his side, followed by Penny's husband, Officer McMurtry.
"Shawn, call an ambulance," Sarah instructed as she performed a cursory examination on Brent Tiller.
The competition was paused while the paramedics took the celebrity chef to the waiting ambulance. Since Sarah accompanied him to the hospital, Lionel presented her lemon bars, decorated with sugar pumpkins, to the two remaining judges who were now joined by Pierre Deschamps, owner of Chez Pierre, the village's popular French restaurant.
"Mmm! Delicious!" Josiah opined; Pierre agreed.
"And the tiny pumpkins are adorable," Victoria added.
"I'm sure Sarah will be delighted by your comments," Lionel said and then left the town hall and headed for the hospital.
Nine more contestants paraded their cookies before the judges. Most received praise for their efforts, while two (Glenda Wayman's attempt at macarons and April Brower's gingerbread ghosts) were underbaked and one (Abigail Cantwell's candy corn-shaped sugar cookies) needed salt.
After Victoria, Josiah and Pierre conferred, they proclaimed Maureen McHugh's pumpkin spice and white chocolate biscotti the winner of round one. They also, reluctantly, eliminated Martha because she had not decorated her cookies. Her elimination was ironic considering the baking competition was her idea.
* * *
"How is he?" Lionel asked when he found Sarah looking at the results of Brent Tiller's EEG.
"Everything looks good. I'll have more tests run."
"Is he still unconscious?"
"Yes."
Three hours later, the patient opened his eyes. However, he failed to respond when the doctors and nurses spoke to him.
"It's like he's catatonic," an intern described his condition to Sarah.
The following day, more tests were conducted, all of which came back negative.
"I can't find anything wrong with him at all," the doctor confessed. "Yet, he still lays in that bed, unresponsive to the world around him. It's as if the lights are on, but nobody's home."
Lionel looked at his watch and warned Sarah that she would be late for the competition if she didn't leave the hospital soon.
"Do you expect me to desert my patient to go and bake brownies?" she cried.
"You won't be abandoning him. Noah is keeping an eye on him, and you volunteered for this competition. Now, hurry up," the psychiatrist urged.
Sarah donned an apron the moment she entered the town hall, while Lionel joined Shawn and Ezra in the audience. The three of them, along with Liam Devlin, Dylan Osborne and Tom Brower, were present to cheer on the women they loved.
Sarah blushed when her birthday cake blondies were complimented by all three judges. After the judging was concluded, Rebecca won the round with her three-layer fudge brownies, decorated to look like miniature coffins. Surprisingly, Desiree LeFleur was eliminated because she added too much ancho chili powder to her cinnamon-chili brownies.
"I don't know about any of you," Lionel said to his friends, "but I'm heading over to the common to buy an assortment of cookies and brownies."
When he and his fiancée exited the town hall, a large black bird swooped down and nearly collided with them.
"Is that crow?" Sara asked. "Or is it a raven?"
"I can't tell one from the other. To me, they're both blackbirds."
"Whatever it is, it's huge."
* * *
After the ten o'clock patient left the psychiatrist's office, Judy Stanfield, the administrative assistant buzzed Lionel on the intercom.
"Sarah phoned," she stated. "She wanted me to remind you that the competition doesn't start until five tonight."
When he called her back, the emergency room physician informed him that although the patient still did not respond to his caregiver's questions, he spoke several times.
"What did he say?" the psychiatrist wondered.
"Raven," she answered.
"Weren't there ravens on Penny's cookies?"
"You're right. She piped them on with black icing."
"And it was immediately after she presented them to the judges that Brent Tiller collapsed."
"Yes. Could it be that he's afraid of ravens? Is there such a thing as ravenphobia?"
"No," Lionel laughed, "but there is one called ornithophobia, which is the fear of birds."
"I don't suppose you can diagnose him if he can't answer your questions."
"No, I can't. But if he becomes more responsive, I can talk to him. After all, in a way, I'm responsible for him being here. It was my former patient who talked him into judging the competition."
* * *
The challenge for the third round was to bake cupcakes. Before joining Shawn at the town hall, Lionel stopped at the common in hopes of buying any cookies or brownies left over from the previous two rounds of competition. As he made his way to the bake sale stall, another large black bird swooped down at him—or was it the same one?
"Why do I feel like I'm in an Alfred Hitchcock movie?" he asked his niece, Holly, who was manning the stall.
"It did seem like that bird was targeting you, Uncle Lionel," she observed.
If this keeps up, I'll be the one suffering from ornithophobia.
Once he had a bag of assorted cookies and brownies, he went to the town hall and took a seat next to a stranger with sandy colored hair and brown eyes. Assuming he was an out-of-towner in the village for the harvest fair, he nodded, but made no attempt at conversation.
"Excuse me," the stranger inquired. "Aren't you Dr. Penn?"
Lionel cringed, fearing his evening would be ruined by a man seeking free psychiatric advice. He wanted to get up and change his seat, but good manners forced him to remain.
"Yes, I am."
"I'm pleased to meet you," the man said, extending his hand for a shake. "I'm Declan McCartney. I just moved to Puritan Falls."
"You're the vet," Lionel said with relief. "My fiancée, Sarah Ryerson, told me she met you. Welcome to the village. McCartney, huh. Any relation?"
"Don't I wish!"
The two men engaged in pleasant small talk for the next ten minutes until Mayor Lawson took the stage to announce the start of the competition. Soon, they were joined by Shawn, Ezra and Liam. The spectators talked quietly among themselves as the competitors baked and decorated dozens of cupcakes.
"Shannon is making her chocolate cupcakes with Guiness stout," Liam claimed.
"Sarah's doing red velvet, I believe," Lionel said.
"Penny is baking carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese filling," Shawn announced proudly, fairly certain his wife would win the round.
Once the judges conferred, they agreed with Officer McMurty. Penny's cupcakes were the best of the lot. Sadly, Rebecca was eliminated because her salted caramel apple cupcakes were still warm when she spread the Swiss buttercream on them, thus melting the frosting.
The following day, Elaine won the fourth round. Challenged with making profiteroles, she created a croquembouche with chocolate mousse filled cream puffs. The spun sugar she wrapped around it gave the appearance of a web, which she dotted with chocolate spiders. Unfortunately, her good friend, Glenda was eliminated because her pate a choux did not rise.
* * *
Before heading to the town hall for the fifth round of competition, Lionel stopped at the hospital to check on the progress of the celebrity patient. As before, Tiller was lying in his bed with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
"He still hasn't responded to anyone," Dr. Noah Prestwick informed the psychiatrist.
"Sarah said he can speak."
"I wouldn't actually describe it as speaking. He mumbles."
Despite knowing the answer to the next question, Lionel asked it anyway.
"What does he say?"
"The same thing, over and over again: raven. I understand there was such a bird on the cookie that was given to him just before he collapsed."
"Yes. Which might mean he suffers from ornithophobia. However, I can't diagnose him properly until I have the opportunity to speak to him. Hopefully, that will be soon."
Noah noticed the time and took off his white lab coat.
"Going off duty?" Lionel inquired.
"Yeah. I thought I'd go over to the town hall and meet up with Martha."
"That's where I'm going. I have to cheer Sarah on, you know. Come on, I'll give you a lift."
As they walked out of the hospital toward the doctors' parking lot, Noah nudged the psychiatrist with his elbow, and said, "Look at that."
Lionel followed the physician's gaze to a red maple tree that had shed most of its leaves. Perched on its denuded branches were three large black birds.
"Are they crows or ravens?" Noah wondered.
"I have no idea, but I've seen quite a few of them lately."
"Maybe I ought to borrow Martha's scarecrow and put it outside the hospital," Noah chuckled as he got in the passenger side of the psychiatrist's car.
The day's challenge had already begun by the time the two men entered the town hall's auditorium.
"What are they baking today?" Lionel asked Shawn who was seated in front of him.
"Fruit pies," the police officer replied.
Of the eight contestants still in the competition, three baked apple pies, albeit one was topped with streusel rather than pie crust. The judges applauded Sarah's peach crumble pie, but Elaine won her second challenge in a row with a cranberry cheesecake pie that caused Lionel's mouth to water. The psychiatrist's sister, April Brower, was eliminated because the filling in her cherry pie was watery and the crust was soggy.
The bakers were also called upon to bake pies the following day. In the sixth round, however, the challenge was cream or meringue pies. Both Abigail and Penny chose lemon meringue. Maureen made strawberry cream. Again, Sarah was able to please the judges. This time with a coconut cream pie. Elaine's chocolate cream pie was good but not good enough to earn her a third consecutive win. It was Shannon who earned the top spot with a banana rum cream pie. Patience was eliminated because the meringue on her s'mores pie did not set.
This failure did not bother the widowed librarian too much since Declan McCartney, the newest addition to the village, asked her to dinner in hopes of consoling her.
* * *
The sound of Sarah's cell phone woke Lionel up forty minutes before his alarm was set to go off. As an emergency room physician, she frequently received calls from the hospital, either summoning her to work early or informing her of a change in a patient's condition.
"What was that about?" the psychiatrist asked sleepily when his fiancée ended the call.
"Good news. Brent Tiller is lucid."
Since he did not have any patients scheduled until nine o'clock, Lionel volunteered to accompany her to the hospital to have a quick chat with the celebrity chef.
When the psychiatrist entered the patient's room, he found Tiller sitting up in bed, eating breakfast.
"The nurse tells me I passed out during the baking competition," Brent said after Lionel introduced himself and explained the reason for his visit. "Nothing like that has ever happened to me."
"Do you remember anything that led up to incident?"
"I had just tasted a cookie baked by a woman who used to host a cable TV show. Martha ... Prescott. That was her name. And she made a peanut butter sandwich cookie, I believe."
"That's right. Do you remember the contestant who came after Martha?"
"No. The next thing I knew, I woke up here in the hospital."
"Mr. Tiller ...."
"Call me Brent, won't you?"
"All right. How do you feel about ravens or birds, in general?"
The psychiatrist's question took he chef by surprise.
"I don't know why it matters, but I don't like them," he answered truthfully. "Messy scavengers, the lot of them."
"Have they ever harmed you in any way?"
"Do you mean have I ever been bitten by a bird? No. But I've often had to clean up after them. I can't tell you how many times I've had my car washed and soon after—plop!—a bird flies over and shits on it. Why? What's your interest in my aversion to birds?"
"There was concern that you might have ornithophobia."
Lionel cited the patient's catatonic-like state, his uttering of the word raven and the decoration of the sugar cookie that might have caused his collapse as possible symptoms for diagnosis of such a phobia.
"Listen, Doc. I'm not afraid of birds—or anything else, for that matter. I don't know why I passed out, but I'm sure it had nothing to do with decorations on a cookie."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that," the psychiatrist said, getting ready to take his leave. "I was concerned I would have to refute those old wives' tales about ravens and crows ...."
The sudden change in the Brent's demeaner temporarily startled Lionel.
"Are you all right?" he asked the chef, whose eyes were glazed over.
"Ravens and crows," the patient cried, "are signs of bad luck and harbingers of death. Ancient Greeks believed that if a crow appeared at a wedding, the marriage would end in divorce."
"Brent," Lionel called, gently shaking the chef to wake him from his trance-like state. "Snap out of it."
"The albatross, as portrayed in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, brought bad luck to the crew of the ship."
"It's a work of fiction. The albatross is nothing but a harmless bird."
The chef paid him no mind. Instead, he continued to spout legends and folklore about birds, becoming more agitated by the minute.
"Seeing a cardinal means a deceased loved one is trying to send you a message. It's said that if the ravens leave the Tower of London, both the Tower and England will fall. If birds enter a house, they foreshadow death."
Sarah, who had moments before entered the room, was awed by what she was witnessing.
"Is it ornithophobia?" she inquired.
"It seems to be."
"A bird pecking on your window means death to someone in the house."
Sarah gave Tiller a sedative, and he soon drifted off to a peaceful slumber.
* * *
Lionel had an early dinner—more of a snack, in fact—in the hospital cafeteria before escorting Sarah to the town hall for the seventh round of the competition.
"This the challenge I've been waiting for," Victoria confessed when she took her seat at the judges' table. "Being from England, I love a good trifle."
Other than whipped cream, which topped all the trifles, the contestants used different ingredients in their desserts. Elaine made her entry with slices of a Swiss roll, sherry and seven types of fruit. Maureen's entry, using lady fingers, coffee liqueur and mascarpone cheese, tasted more like tiramisu than trifle. Penny preferred cubes of pound cake, cheesecake filling and strawberries, and Shannon used madeira cake, tipsy marmalade and Bailey's custard. Abigail wowed the judges and earned first place by layering fudge brownies, fluffy peanut butter pudding, chopped up peanut butter cups and chocolate ganache beneath her cocoa-flavored whipped cream.
Sarah Ryerson, whose mind was on her patient rather than on her baking, burned the pumpkin spice cake that was the key ingredient in her pumpkin trifle. She was disappointed at being eliminated, yet she had to admit she was surprised she had made it that far in the competition since she was not the best at baking and cooking. When she wasn't heating a frozen dinner in the microwave at the hospital, she and Lionel usually ate out.
Since she was not competing in the eighth round, Sarah refrained from going to the town hall the next evening, preferring to stay at the hospital and tend to her patients. Lionel, however, did not want to miss any of the competition. Besides, he had managed to sample nearly every entry so far, and he had no intention of missing out on the remaining goodies.
After stopping at the common to purchase cups of the previous round's trifle (except Sarah's burnt offering), the psychiatrist dodged several large black birds on his way to the town hall. Once there, he sat between Liam and Shawn, both of whose wives were still competing.
"Shannon's not too happy about tonight's challenge," Liam announced.
"What is it?" Lionel asked.
"Rolled cake. Every Christmas, she tries to make a chocolate yule log, and every year, she messes it up."
Shawn did not want to boast and say that Penny baked an excellent Bûche de Noël, but he was fairly certain his wife would win the day's challenge.
In keeping with the season, Elaine made a pumpkin roll, Maureen made a raspberry and cream roll cake and Abigail, a devout chocaholic, made a chocolate Swiss roll cake with salted caramel filling. As her husband had predicted, Penny won the challenge with her meringue mushroom-studded Bûche de Noël.
"You've got to teach me how to make that," Shannon implored, after being eliminated when her citrus cake cracked and crumbled when she attempted to roll it.
"Oh, well!" Liam sighed. "It's back to tending bar at the Green Man tomorrow night."
"You're not going to watch the rest of the competition?" Lionel asked.
"There's only one day left," Shawn pointed out. "Are you really going to miss the finale?"
"One of you can stop at the pub and tell me who wins."
* * *
The next day Lionel and Sarah had planned on checking out Hammond Castle in Gloucester as a possible wedding venue and then enjoying a seafood lunch at a nearby restaurant. Unfortunately, they were forced to change their plans when Brent's behavior became so disturbing that the hospital orderlies had to put him in restraints.
"What caused him to become so upset?" Sarah asked.
"It was the strangest thing," Noah answered. "A large black bird crashed into the window with enough force to break the glass. I was sure it had killed the bird, but it didn't."
"It was an omen," the patient screamed. "I'm going to die."
Lionel, who had accompanied Sarah, pointed out the obvious, "If anything, it was the poor bird who is likely to die."
"This isn't funny," Sarah whispered to him.
"I didn't mean it to be funny," he assured her.
"Would you prefer a room without a window?" Noah asked.
"What difference would that make? I'm already doomed," the patient whined.
Noah and Sarah both turned to Lionel for help.
"If we knew what caused the phobia," the psychiatrist began.
"I told you," Brent insisted. "I'm not afraid of birds."
"Then would you agree to being hypnotized?"
"Why would I want to do that?"
"Because your subconscious mind might hold the answers that we need to treat you."
Eager to get released from the hospital, the patient reluctantly agreed.
Sarah turned off the lights and drew the curtains. These actions did not make the room dark, but the lighting was considerably dimmed. Normally, Lionel lit a candle to focus a patient's attention, but since no candle was at hand, he used the flashlight app on his phone.
"Not everyone is receptive to hypnosis," the psychiatrist explained, "but ...."
Lionel was pleasantly surprised when Brent immediately went under.
"Okay. Let's begin. When were you first frightened by a bird?"
"I was six. My parents took me to Baltimore to visit my father's family."
Sarah and her fiancé exchanged a meaningful look. Both knew that Baltimore was home to two sports teams named after birds: the Orioles baseball team and the Ravens football team.
For the next twenty minutes, Lionel tried to uncover the exact event that caused Brent's phobia. He soon realized it was ravens, not birds in general, that frightened him.
"So, what is it about ravens that upsets you so much?"
"Poe."
He said the word so quietly that Lionel barely heard him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't quite get that."
"Poe," the chef repeated. "He wrote that poem."
Arguably, Edgar Allan Poe's most famous work was the narrative poem "The Raven."
"I saw it," Brent claimed. "It was there ... with Poe."
"I've been to the Poe house in Baltimore," Sarah whispered to her fiancé, not wanting to wake the patient from his hypnotic trance. "There's no raven there. Although there is a raven sculpture outside his Philadelphia home, which was where he wrote 'The Raven.'"
"Is it the poem itself that scared you?" Lionel questioned. "Is that why you're afraid of ravens?"
"Grave."
"Poe's grave?" the psychiatrist wondered.
"He died and was buried in Baltimore," Sarah clarified.
"The raven on his gravestone," Brent said, beginning to tremble with fear. "That's where ...."
"I've seen Poe's grave," Sarah insisted. "It's a large monument with a bas-relief bust of the writer on it, but there's no raven."
"That's where," Brent continued. "That's where it happened."
"Where what happened?" Lionel urged, believing he was getting close to the truth.
"My uncle ... he ... he touched me," the patient admitted and began to weep uncontrollably.
"He molested you. Is that what you
Unable to speak, the chef silently nodded his head.
* * *
"You're back!" Victoria, Josiah and Pierre exclaimed in unison when Brent entered the auditorium in the town hall prior to the start of the final round of the competition.
"Yes. I'm back and as good as new. Better, in fact. Thanks to Dr. Penn."
Pierre was about to relinquish his chair at the judges' table, but the celebrity chef insisted he remain.
"There's no rule saying a competition can't have four judges."
"The more the merrier!" Victoria giggled.
No sooner was a fourth chair placed at the table for the returning judge than the doors were opened and a crowd of people entered. Shawn, whose wife was competing in the finale, found a seat in the first row. Ezra sat next to him to cheer on Abigail, his significant other. Glenda, who was eliminated in the fourth round, sat with them to support her two friends, Elaine (who was widowed) and Maureen (who was divorced).
Sarah and Lionel were lucky enough to find two seats, but shortly after they arrived, attendance was strictly standing room only.
"Everybody wants to see who wins," the psychiatrist theorized.
"That plus it's the most exciting round of the competition," his fiancée contended.
"Cheesecake?"
"No. It takes way too long to bake cheesecakes. Tonight's the cake decorating challenge. The cakes have already been baked. The contestants have to decorate them."
Last minute spectators were still entering the auditorium when Mayor Lawson stepped out on stage to announce the start of the event.
"Good luck to all of you," he ended his brief speech and took a seat in the audience beside his wife. Tamsin.
Applause greeted the contestants when they walked on stage, and immediately began crumb coating their four-tiered cakes. Since there were no requirements as to what decorations were to be incorporated into their design, each woman chose a different theme. Elaine decided to make a gothic wedding cake with a skeleton bride and groom, black fondant and an abundance of blood red roses.
"Maybe we should have her make our wedding cake," Lionel whispered to Sarah.
"Sorry. I already asked
"That's fine with me. Like I said, she's the best baker in New England."
Maureen chose to decorate her cake as a haunted house. She placed a small chocolate structure on the top tier and adorned the other three with ghosts, bats, pumpkins and spiders. As the owner of the Bell, Book and Candle New Age shop, Abigail stuck to what she knew: witchcraft. In addition to the stereotypical broom-riding witches in pointed black hats, she included black cats and bubbling cauldrons. All three cakes, despite being created by amateurs, would no doubt have held their own on a Food Network baking show.
It was Penny McMurtry, though, who walked away the winner of the competition and the recipient of the grand prize. Penny's cake, an homage to Edgar Allan Poe, featured hand-painted vignettes of some of his famous short stories: "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Premature Burial," "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Topping the cake was a raven made from modeling chocolate and a gravestone made from Rice Krispies treats covered in fondant.
Sarah held her breath, and Lionel grabbed her hand when Penny presented her cake to the judges. Both feared the sight of the chocolate raven would trigger a bad reaction in the recently released patient.
"This is an extraordinary cake!" Brent exclaimed, showing no sign of ornithophobia. "The level of detail in the paintings is amazing!"
"Good job, Dr. Penn," Sarah congratulated her fiancé.
Lionel seemed not to hear her. He gaze was fixed on Penny's cake.
"What are you staring at?"
"What's written on that gravestone in back of the raven?" the psychiatrist answered her question with one of his own.
Sarah squinted to get a better look.
"I'm not sure. The bird is in the way."
Once the winner was announced, the four cakes were rolled out to the town hall lobby so that the public could get a closer look at them.
Lionel leaned over the cake to read the inscription on the gravestone.
"Original burial place of Edgar Allan Poe from October 9, 1849 until November 17, 1875. I don't get it. What does it mean?"
Penny, who was standing behind her award-winning cake, explained.
"Poe has two headstones in Baltimore's Westminster Burial Ground. I wanted to put Poe's new headstone on top of the cake, but I didn't have enough time to sculp it, so I settled for this old marker instead."
"Let me get this straight," Sarah said. "In 1875, Poe's body was dug up and moved to another spot in the same cemetery?"
"That's right. Given his growing fame, he got a new, much large headstone in the front of the churchyard. This marker was then placed over the original burial site."
"Did you hear that Lionel? Poe had two graves. Sounds like a plot from one of his stories," Sarah laughed.
Lionel paid no attention to her, however. He was gazing at the top of the marker. Engraved in a semicircular shape were the words "Quoth the Raven, Nevermore," and below the famous line was a sculpted bird.
And this was what a six-year-old boy saw as he was being molested by his uncle, he thought sadly.
The psychiatrist and his fiancée left the town hall and headed for the town common.
"I hope they have a slice of Penny's yule log left," he said. "If not, I may have to wait until December. I know Shawn ...."
He stopped speaking as he watched several large black birds flying overhead.
"They must be heading south for the winter," Sarah observed.
Lionel suspected the ravens would fly no farther south than Baltimore, Maryland.
Salem was once a judge at a baking competition. He claimed he could not make up his mind which entry was best just so he could take six or seven bites of each cake.
