Synopsis | Reviews | Excerpt
Someone has been waiting a long time
for Alice Towne to arrive in Hawthorne.
Two hundred years, in fact.
Trying to accept her mother’s belief that the women of the Towne family are
blessed, not cursed, with supernatural abilities, twenty-seven-year old Alice
leaves a disapproving Boston husband to housesit for the summer in tiny
Hawthorne, a historic village famous in the 1800s for its peppermint farms and
the large, herbal-essence distilleries that flourished around the Massachusetts
township.
She settles into a beautiful old home with a tragic reputation. There are
said to be sightings and sounds from the spirit of a young woman who hanged
herself after all her children died there of illnesses in the 1900s.
But
soon, Alice experiences firsthand encounters that convince her the spirit is
not who people think. The truth is shocking, steeped in the town’s distillery
history and its legends of a local wizard and witchcraft. As she falls in love
with a local farmer whose family legacy is as tangled in the magick and the
mystery as her own, Alice’s fear becomes not whether the past can be resolved .
. . but whether it’s waiting to claim new victims.
Ariel Swan teaches English and creative writing in western
Massachusetts where she lives with her husband, three cats, and a small flock
of happy chickens. Visit her at Arielswan.com.
Coming soon!
Chapter 1
Calcination
The first stage of the alchemical
process grinds the substance into powder and then burns away the corrupted
matter within.
———
BY TWENTY-SEVEN, I was tired of having a
fortuneteller for a mother. From the stars, the tarot, or simple omens, always
there were signs. She pestered me over the phone with her canon of aphorisms
and lore. She told me to grow rosemary in the garden for fertility, cautioned
against cutting my hair during the waning moon, or starting something new on
the full. She sent emails regarding the luckiest months for love, suggesting
April, June, or September, but warning against May, July, or August. As was my
nature back then, I didn’t bother to pay much attention. But I supposed she was
right about one thing. It was May when I left.
THE OVERLY AIR-conditioned doctor’s
office left my skin puckered and my brain fogged as I stepped out into sun
saturated downtown Amherst. My car was hot. I pulled out onto the road,
slipping in behind a bus, sweat prickling on my forehead.
"Come on.” I switched off the
dysfunctional air-conditioning system of my old Subaru, rolled down the window,
and followed the bus into the heart of campus. Light glinting off the
glass-covered Integrated Sciences high-rise blinded me. A horn blared. I glanced
around to see if it was for my benefit. A young man in a baseball cap sliced
his hand through the undoubtedly cool, clean air of his Audi, apparently
disgusted I hadn’t let him in to traffic. In one motion, I flicked on my
blinker and flipped him off.
Turning down a
side street, the antiquated brick buildings squatting in the shadow of the
research tower came into view. Outside my husband’s office, a man in a filthy,
hip length, canvas coat paced, hat gripped in his hands. Strangely, I saw this
one before I smelled it. A few students passed by him, close enough to brush
his jacket, but took no notice.
"Shit,” I
breathed, and slipped my car into a parking space between a university issued
van and a pick-up. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. The engine coughed
and the car shuddered as I turned off the ignition. Craning my neck over the
steering wheel, the man was gone.
Inside, a long
legged woman in nylons and heels, her face framed by a wave of hair much
blonder than mine, grimaced as I gagged from the overwhelming smell of
formaldehyde while passing her on the worn, gray marble staircase.
Steven’s
office was the size of a large closet, shadowy and stale, walls stained with
the ghostly remains of tobacco smoke, but the smell of worn socks and mildewed
books gave me a welcome relief from the odor in the hall.
"How’d it go?”
My husband’s brown eyes looked tired from too much reading.
"Fine. She
said we’re good to go. We can start the treatments anytime.” I tried to sound
excited, but controlled.
He didn’t look
up from his papers again for a few moments, and when he did, he seemed
surprised to find me still there. "How’re you?”
I sat down on
the red faux leather of the one chair in the room other than his, the sweat,
still drying on the back of my thighs causing my skin to adhere to the plastic
like a licked stamp. The prematurely salt streaked black hair made Steven look
old, even though he was just thirty-five. Hours spent in that room, or in the
sterile glow of his lab in the research tower had changed him from the fresh
faced young man, redolent of soil, ardent for botany, I’d fallen in love with.
"You look
pale, Alice. Are you feeling all right?” His voice was dry.
"Yes. I’m
doing well. It’s a little humid out there today.” I ran the back of my hand
across my forehead. The smell of formaldehyde had found me again and my stomach
turned. I couldn’t ignore it. "Do you smell that?”
Steven sniffed
the air and shook his head with little momentum, twice. "What?” He lowered his
chin, and looked at me with eyes pushed to the top of their sockets, gearing
himself up.
"Chemicals.
Dead frogs. I can smell death.” I wanted to vomit.
A slow smile
crept over half his mouth, eyes brightening at the opportunity to laugh at me.
"Alice,” he paused readying his admonition. "There have been no dead frogs,
cadavers, or chemicals in this building for over a hundred years. Come on now.”
I swallowed
and tried to let my face fall blank. I bit my tongue and held back the words.
The man outside, he was waiting for something, afraid of something, afraid of
getting caught or being seen. In his mind, he wasn’t in broad daylight. I was
sure of it. He was lurking in the shadows, reliving a memory he couldn’t let
go, waiting for his payment or his loved one, or something that involved a body
inside this building. I didn’t share this with my husband. I never did anymore.
But I had regrettably told Steven before and he knew there was a story behind
the smell. There always was. And this had taken its toll.
"You can’t let
your anxiety get the better of you.”
I laughed
lightly, widened my eyes to a doll-like gaze, and then tilted my chin downward
giving my neatly folded hands a demure smile. "I know.”
Steven stood
and came around the desk, perched one butt cheek on the corner, the picture of
a professor, and looked down at me. "Darling. I know it’s been hard.” A sad
grimace dipped his flat lips. "But maybe we should wait. I don’t know that
having a baby would be good for us right now. Your illness is progressing. Have
you made an appointment with the psychiatrist? I think it’s time. The longer
you’re off the medication the worse it’s going to become.”
The
anti-anxiety meds had been my choice, a decision to silence the part of me that
didn’t fit into my husband’s rational world order. It was easy to get a
prescription; all I’d had to do was explain to the doctor how I felt tense, at
times overwhelmed with irrational fear, and unable to sleep. All of this was
true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The meds had done the trick though,
dulling my senses, keeping me blind. It was easier that way. And now, three
years into our marriage, his PhD almost complete and my own graduate work
finished, it was time for Mr. and Mrs. Steven Clark to get serious, buy a
house, and have a baby. If we could move on, if I could get pregnant, if I
could just control my problem without the meds, then just maybe I could make us
both happy. Steven had led me to believe it was possible, but now he was
hedging his bets.
The digitized
jingle of his cell phone perforated the air.
Back at his
chair, my husband answered. His words were perfunctory, guarded. "Six o’clock
then? I’ll do my best.” The device went dead with a push of his thumb. "I’m
going to be late tonight.”
THE ALARM
CLOCK read ten. I wasn’t sleeping. The lock turned over and I heard the door
whine as it opened. He tried to be quiet, but the floor squeaked beneath his
lanky weight. For a new house, it had a lot of noises. He rifled through the
fridge for a few minutes and then the shower was on. I turned over and tried
not to think about what my husband was washing away. When he came to bed, I
sensed his arousal immediately, even before he began to rub my back with greedy
hands. Though I felt no desire, I played my part, rolling towards him, feigning
half asleep, and let him present token attempts at stimulation. He didn’t
strive for long before falling onto my limp body and thrusting his conscience
clean. He slipped his arms beneath my pillow, and buried his face in my hair,
breath sour with liquor. The bed bounced with his climax, but then his muscles
tightened, and his skin turned hard like the bark of a twisted oak. He turned
his face away from me, pulling back, up onto his knees. In the orange light of
the clock my husband lifted his hand to his eyes to examine what he’d found. I
closed mine, wishing this moment and all of its mistakes would blow away like
smoke.
"What the fuck
is this?” In his open palm, he held a small, white stone, glowing bright among
the shadows that stretched across our marital bed. He rolled it over, revealing
the archaic F shape on its flat side.
I looked at
him with sharp eyes, eyes he hadn’t often seen. "It’s a fertility rune.”
I hated him
then, hated him for the disgust in his voice that left me feeling dirty.
Steven got up
and pulled on a pair of sweat pants before sitting back down on the edge of the
bed, elbows resting on his knees. "Was this your idea or your mother’s?”
"Does it
matter?”
He shook his
head and got up. "I’ll sleep on the couch.”
My husband was
gone before I got up.
THE END OF MAY
was too hot for New England. I was packing and the phone was ringing. It
wouldn’t stop ringing. I took it off the hook, and she called my cell.
"You can’t
avoid me, Alice,” my mother said. "Did you see the moon last night? There was a
red ring around it. It’s full. Too bad the timing of this couldn’t have been
more fortuitous.”
"A week ago
you said it was perfect. They need someone there, and I need to get the hell
out of here, before my husband has me committed. When you were manipulating the
stars or the cards or whatever, I guess you should have checked your calendar.
The place is old, so no matter what, it can’t be good. I don’t think the moon
is going to make any difference.”
The crisp and
hectic flutter of hard edged paper came across the invisible miles. My mother
was shuffling her cards. "I know. Never mind. It’s destiny. And the house is
gorgeous, Alice. I think it’s just what you need: a retreat in the Berkshires.
You’ll be all right. What’s a flicker of the past now and then, anyway? You have
to start learning to control your gifts.”
"All right,
Ma. That’s enough. If I had some other place to go, I wouldn’t do this.”
"I have to
tell you, Alice, there have been omens foretelling the convergence of greatness
and miracles. We are both at the top of the wheel of life. You are on your way
home.”
"Too bad I
don’t believe in omens,” I said, throwing my last bag into the pile beside the
door. Home. There was no such thing for me anymore.
She expelled a
long, slow breath in my ear. She was having patience. "All right. Did you get
the mail today? See if my package arrived. I sent you some nice pictures, which
I thought you might like to see, as well as the genealogy, as far as I’ve done
it. Something to look at when you’re up there.”
I flicked
through the pile of bills. There was a thick manila envelope addressed to Alice
Towne. Josephine had stopped addressing things to Alice Clark weeks ago, even
before I had made the decision to leave. Long before I was a Clark, I was Alice
Towne-Blessing, but in our family, the men lost out quick, especially when they
died. We’d reverted to just Towne when I was a kid. When Josephine remarried,
she went to DaLuca. Now that George was dead too, she was a Towne again. In a
way, it was for his own good that I was leaving Steven. In my view, Towne women
were bad news when it came down to it. More trouble than most people could
stand.
"I got it.”
"Excellent.
You’ll have to open a PO Box in Hawthorne. I don’t want Steven getting your
mail.” The sound of a card slapping onto what I imagined to be her kitchen
table came across the distance.
I looked at
the clock on the stove. "I’m supposed to meet your friend at two thirty. I have
to go.”
My mother
didn’t seem to hear me. "Alice,” her voice was distant now. Another slap. She
was doing a reading. "Good luck.”
Chapter 2
WITH THE
WINDOWS down, I drove out of the valley, navigating the winding maple hedged
roads. As I climbed into the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the
temperature dropped ten degrees. The spring air helped cleared my mind, as I
repeated to myself that I was fine. I was good even. I passed through one tiny
village center after another until the sign post for Hawthorne flew by. Around
me sprawled antiquated farm houses with roaming cows, collapsed barns, and a
stream always flowing on one side of the road or the other. I felt I was
entering a different and insular world. A huge retaining wall hugged the land
to my left, seeming to raise the town even further away from the bustle of
cities and universities along the Connecticut River below.
Mounting the
final slope into the center of Hawthorne, I came to the flat main street where
picturesque white buildings perched around a rolling green common. I pulled
into the five spot parking lot of Drake’s General Store and smelled Hawthorne
Pizza wafting across the pavement from the adjacent eatery.
The scent of
the present was so much more comforting than that of the past. But the building
was old. At least a century or two, and in that time, surely, the place had
made some memories. My mother’s description of this escape route had been vague
at best, but she’d been insistent. So, there I was, my life packed into the
hatchback, at the mercy of whatever scheme Josephine had going.
On the porch
were flower baskets, racks of colorful Wellington boots, and barrels of garden
tools. I pushed the door open and a tiny bell announced my arrival, as the
aroma of medicine flooded my sinuses and burned my eyes with bitterness. One
foot already inside, I paused, considering the swelling urge to turn and run.
I just breathed for a moment, but through my mouth only, trying to keep out any
scent. "What are you getting yourself into, Alice?” I asked myself.
I brought the
second foot inside the door. Outside, a tree waved in the wind, its new leaves
catching the light and causing shadows to flicker in a pool of orange on the
wall. The sound of chimes, both high and low notes, slipped in on a breeze.
Surrounding me was a kind of useful clutter. At the far end of the long
checkout counter, a crooked tower of toys leaned with hungry poise over an ice
cream chest.
Caught between
the melody of the chimes and the silence of the room, I thought I was alone
until a shifting shape of shadow and light caught my eye. Tucked into the front
corner of the store, two women sat on a long, old fashioned couch, which was
set against a bay window. For a moment, they just looked at me, waiting to see
what I needed. Then, one of them stood, placing her drink on top of an unlit
pellet stove, the focal point for the seating area. She came toward me, and
moving with the grace of a ballerina, extended her arm.
"Hello, child.
We’ve been expecting you.” I took her hand, feeling the bones inside as she
gripped my own, hard. "I am Lydia Drake.” With her other hand, she clasped my
arm just above the elbow. I remembered learning somewhere this manner of
handshake originated from the practice of inspecting for concealed weapons.
"You’re Alice... Yes? Here for the keys to the Bell’s house,”
Lydia said. "You have your mother’s eyes.”
A wide smile
bloomed on her face, framed by red, red lips. The summer sky blue of her eyes
stood out against the silver and coal sheen of her hair. Her skin was rosy, but
creased with lines of time. I realized then that the medicine smell had
dissipated. From this woman the scent of citrus radiated, wiping my mind clean.
She was looking into me, intensely focused, not searching, but seeming to see
every piece of information I could want to hide. I struggled mentally to pull
back, but those pacific pools of blue were pulling me, turning me inside out.
"Lydia,” a
voice, sweet and tremulous, but laced with admonition, announced from the
window seat. "Let her come in.” I heard the creak of a floor board, and the
first woman released me and stepped away.
Pulling my
head back, I shook it a few times, trying to regain a sense of control. The
second woman approached. She was shorter and plumper, the picture of sweetness.
Yet, I could see they were twins, the hair, eyes, and faces almost identical,
the only incongruities being their figures and height.
With a soft,
warm hand, the rounder sister plucked my own from its position at my side and
held it for a moment. "Come in dear. I’m Matilda. Welcome to Drake’s General
Store.” She smiled so widely that it reached her eyes, sharp as stars. A clock
chimed three times from the recesses of the room. "Did you find us all right?”
I nodded.
"It’s a beautiful town.” I glanced around again, this time not to see the
furnishings or the goods, but to see if the room held any memories. Still
holding my hand, Matilda pulled me gently toward the back of the store, leading
me like a child. From elsewhere in the store, I could hear the sound of
rustling, someone moving boxes. Lydia was nowhere in sight now. "We’re so glad you’re
here. You’re going to love the house. Josephine told us you’d be a perfect fit.
Hawthorne is a special place. Once they’ve visited, people tend to stay on.
There’s magic in these hills,” she said, winking one kind eye.
I held my face
steady, and kept my eyes from rolling. These were certainly friends of my
mother. "Did she?” I asked, keeping the tone light. "How do you know my
mother?”
We were
approaching a narrow doorway covered with a floral curtain. "Yes, she did, and
well, from here and there. We share some common interests. Come. I have
something for you. A house warming gift. Then Lydia will bring you up to the
house.” She pushed aside the curtain, "Come on dear,” her child-like voice and
pink, moon shaped face beckoning me into the back room. Shelves lined the walls
from floor to ceiling. Boxes and bags and steamer trunks cluttered the floor. A
roll top desk stood against the interior facing wall and, top up, I could see
the papers, envelopes, invoices and bills littering its surface. There was no
computer, but a pile of ledger books stood in a heap.
Matilda Drake
began rifling through the small drawers of the roll top desk. "Ah.” She pulled
a key from a cubby. Unlocking a wooden cellar door, she said, "Wait here; I’ll
be just a moment,” and disappeared down a rickety set of stairs.
The dark smell
of mildew flooded the room. My breath caught in my throat and within seconds,
black spots began appearing at the corners of my vision. The odor of rot mixed
with the salty tang of iron. From the front room drifted the sound of a
tinkling bell. My heart kicked in my chest at the shock of seeing a
reddish-black stain the size of a turkey platter spreading across the ceiling.
I stumbled backwards, nearly toppling the ledgers. Catching myself, I steadied
the pile, breathing through my mouth.
Matilda
thumped back up the stairs, exclaiming a concerned "Oh,” seeing my distress
when she reached the top. The door to the basement slammed. "So sorry,” she
murmured, squeezing my arm. "The mustiness is a bit much, I know.”
The splotch
was gone, but I was shaking.
The building
had memories, as I’d known it would. "I’m fine. It’s just that I’m very
sensitive to smell.” I sat down in the desk’s chair. "Old buildings tend
to... have an effect on me.” I searched her face for
recognition. Knowing Josephine, it was unlikely she’d kept my issues to
herself. But, Matilda’s visage was blank. I smiled. Maybe for once, my mother
would surprise me.
The sound of
voices seeped through the curtain and I realized more customers had come into
the store. Children were laughing.
"Yes,
well...” A shadow of what looked like doubt crossed Matilda’s
face, but she pushed it aside. "... here you go.” She held out a
jar filled with golden syrup, flecked with bits of pale yellow debris and even
tinier flakes of something red. "Some honey for you, dear. Pollen and bee balm
infused,” she blinked, and I thought she was waiting for me to understand
something, but when I just blinked back she went on, "it will keep you healthy.
It’s great for the immune system.” She smiled and looked as if to say she hoped
I’d feel better soon.
I took the
jar. "Thank you.”
When we
reemerged, the tall sister was ringing up a woman accompanied by two children.
The youngest was no more than three. A singe of envious melancholy burned
across my heart. Along with some change, Lydia handed her customer a cloth
wrapped package the size of a kitchen match box. A red ribbon tied in a bow
made it look like a gift. The woman looked at me sideways, slipped the package
into her pocket, and then ushered the children out the door.
"Are we ready
to go, Miss Alice? I’m sure you’re eager to get settled.” Lydia grabbed a set
of keys from beside the register. "Matilda, I’ll be back in a bit.”
"All right.”
Matilda slipped past me with a broom in her hand. "I’ve got work to do. That
back room is showing its age I’m afraid. It needs a good cleaning.” She looked
at me and smiled sweetly. "Good bye, Alice. We’ll see you soon, I hope.” She
waggled her finger tips and turned away.
"Shall we?” Lydia
held the door.
On the porch,
the mother and children were exiting Hawthorne Pizza with their lunch. I now
saw that the woman’s otherwise wan face had a red scrape across one cheek, and
a yellowing bruise beneath her eye. She kept her head down and descended the
stairs to her car with the littlest child held by one hand and the food
balanced on the other.
I recognized
something in the slant of her eyes, something I’d seen come knocking before.
From the vantage of the window in the eaves closet of my childhood home, I’d
spied on the back hallway of our house, where sad, lost women had stood waiting
for my mother to divine or alter their futures with magic. Inside each woman, a
dark light glowed and shone through their shifty eyes, revealing a mixture of emotion:
guilt, suspicion, fear, and most harrowing of all, hope. Whatever was in those
packages these women had needed to believe it would help them to find what
they’d lost or wanted. Based on personal experience, though, I doubted such
endeavors ever did any good.
Lydia had half
her body already inside an elderly Volvo. "Follow me,” she said, "it’s only a
few miles from town.”
White Hill
Road was no more to my eyes than a dirt path meandering through the woods.
Lydia barreled over the ruts with abandon, speeding ahead, while I rolled on
with care. Passing only one house along the road, a mile later, gritting around
a steep corner, I finally arrived at my temporary home. It was brown, with
small wavy glass windows at the front, a number of gables, and a large central
chimney. As if someone had pasted two different antique houses together, the
colonial bottom wore an ornate Victorian hat. The house sat just beside the
road, and a stone path lead around the side through a tunnel of lilac bushes,
still brimming with amethyst jewels.
I parked
beside Lydia’s car, but she was not in sight. A light breeze shook the deep
green leaves of the lilac, its perfume soaking the air. A voice, rough as the
rustling foliage, called my name from around the house. Stepping onto the thyme
tufted walk way, I followed the stones, laid out like vertebras in the earth.
At the end of
the path, three stairs led to a cement landing beside the kitchen door. Behind
the house, a gently sloping lawn stretched toward a low stone wall, which bordered
the forest.
"Come in,”
Lydia said, just inside the door, extending a set of keys towards me.
"Welcome.”
I eyed the old
woman, readying myself for what I’d find inside, and then stepped over the
threshold. The kitchen was odorous of lemon and something just a bit sour. The
smell was not unpleasant, but told of recent cleaning. To the left, a long
wooden table overlooked the garden; to the right, shining stainless steel
appliances and a black marble counter top delineated the working side of the room.
An enormous stone hearth with dried herbs hanging inside stood in the center of
the space. On the mantle sat earthenware jugs.
"Wow,” I said,
soaking in the cool of the room. It was something out of a magazine, a mixture
of high end new and pristine antique. "This is nice.” My anxiety subsided. It
was okay. The place appeared to be empty of memory, so refurbished, so new on
the surface that it didn’t show its age.
Following my
eyes to the large beams that crossed the ceiling, Lydia explained, "White oak: strong
and protective. The settlers knew it would keep them safe and make their houses
last.” She smiled. "I guess they were right. These beams have seen more than
two centuries of life. The hearth is original and in working order, but I don’t
imagine you’ll need it.” She walked into the utility half of the kitchen and
began opening cabinets and drawers, naming their purposes as she did. "Here are
the kitchen supplies for the garden harvest. Bags, labels, twist ties.”
"Harvest?”
"Didn’t
Josephine mention that part? We were wondering if you would mind harvesting
some of the herbs and flowers for us occasionally. We sell them at the store.
Especially the mint. It grows like crazy here and well, it’s part of the town’s
heritage so...” I must have been looking at her with doubtful
concern, because mid-sentence she assured me: "Don’t worry, child, you won’t
need to do much digging or anything like that. There’s a hired man to do the
heavy work. His name is Erickson. He’ll be here off and on. The Bells have asked
that he tend to the grounds and refresh the barn’s paint this summer.” She
pointed up toward a section of beam. "There are a few hooks for drying. If you
need more, there’s a jar of them in the cellar along with the canning supplies,
if you’re so inclined.”
She watched me
for a moment and when I showed no interest in canning, she moved on to the next
topic. "Bast, the cat, is around. Named for the Egyptian Goddess. She comes and
goes as she pleases with the cat door, but needs feeding and a pet now and again.
There’s food in the cabinet above the stove. She’ll reward your kindness with
dead things, I’m sure, and possibly some love.” She was running down a mental
checklist. "Shall we look around?”
Lydia glided
through the house, leading me from room to room, pointing out every feature as
if she had lived in it herself. The kitchen led into a bright living room,
thanks to large windows and a sliding door overlooking the yard. There was no
television, but book cases lined one wall. Another, smaller fireplace occupied
this side of the shared wall with the kitchen hearth. Off the living room, a
back office opened up into the main hallway again meeting the stairs. The
humongous chimney, which the two hearths shared, was the pillar in the center
of it all.
Portraits and
landscapes, some photographed others painted, adorned the front entry way
stairwell. "All Hawthorne,” she said. "And here are Evelyn and Ron Bell.” She
pointed to a frame containing a collection of old snapshots all of a particular
man and woman amongst friends and children. "It’s their house, of course. We’ve
known them for decades. They’re lovely people, though he hasn’t been well.”
Lydia’s eyes focused on nothing at all for a moment, no doubt remembering good
times with young and healthy versions of her friends.
With a sudden
burst, she snapped out of it and moved up the remaining stairs. "Let’s keep
moving. I do have to get back to the store, dear.” She showed me my room, which
was nothing special, except that two dormer windows overlooked the garden. The
space contained a full bed made with white sheets and a patch work quilt that
looked handmade, two nightstands, a straight backed chair, and a tall dresser.
The master bedroom was off limits. The linens I could find in the hall closet.
The bathroom, a marvelously modernized Victorian extravaganza, was pristine.
Then we rushed downstairs and back out into the day.
Behind the
house, a brick patio sprawled in the shade of an overhanging deck. Built into a
hill, the field stone foundation clutched a small green wooden door. "That’s
where you’ll find the furnace, the hot water heater and the electrical panel,”
Lydia instructed, "as well as the mason jars and such. The door can be tricky.
Those,” she turned to the yard and pointed to two rectangles of already turned
earth, and another long row of soil in front of the stone wall at the far end
of the yard, "are the gardens. Mr. Erickson can help you there. Her crooked
finger now arced toward a hunched and leaning structure with a moss covered
roof. "In the barn are the garden tools.”
She turned to
me and took a breath, seemingly for the first time since we arrived. "And
that’s it. Any questions?”
Her march
having ended, I was exhausted. I tried to think of something to ask, but drew a
blank.
"You will. And
when you do, don’t hesitate to call or come see us. Anything you need, we
have.” She faced me squarely and looked in my eyes. "And I mean anything. After
all, we do own a General Store.” Another pause. "But if you need the hardware
store, that’s up the street.”
She clapped me
on the shoulder and moved away as effortlessly as a shadow. When she got to the
car, she turned back. "I’m afraid we’re quite busy with the store, so it may
have to be that you come to us. We will of course stop by when we can, and
check on you. But don’t wait. If there’s trouble, we need to know about it.”
Once inside the Volvo, she leaned out the window: "In the drawer I showed you,
the one with the warranties and such, there’s a Hawthorne phone book. It’s
small and green. We’re in it.” She waved and was gone.
