Murder Under the Mistletoe

by K. J. Emrick

  Not long after that, Zane had found a squirrel scampering between the trees. It had a dried-up apple in its teeth that it must have dug out from the snow somewhere. Zane crouched down nearby, and the squirrel stopped in its tracks, and then suddenly the two of them were having a long conversation about what was better, apples or nuts or berries. Zane thought apples were the best, but the squirrel had argued for nuts apparently, because they lasted longer in the cold.

  “She says she can fill up a whole tree with nuts and they last all winter!” Zane told his parents enthusiastically. “Can we try that? I can maybe put a bunch of nuts in my piggy bank, and then eat them until summer comes!”

  “Well,” Darcy said hesitantly, “I don’t know about that.”

  “Please, Mom? Chipper said it works good.”

  “Chipper? Who’s Chipper?”

  Zane blinked at her like it should be obvious. “Chipper’s the squirrel. That’s her name.” He pointed at the furry little creature, flicking her tail back and forth.

  Jon did a little double take watching them. This was too much. “How in the world did you find out her name?”

  “Easy,” their son answered proudly. “I asks her, and she said so.”

  Well, of course that’s what happened, Darcy thought to herself. Her son was the sort of kid who wouldn’t think twice about asking a random woodland creature what its name was. But Chipper? She wondered if maybe her son’s ability wasn’t quite as developed as they thought it was. He must be making that up.

  “I don’t know,” she said, smiling over at Jon. “Can we trust anyone named ‘Chipper’?”

  “Hmm,” he said, rubbing his chin with a very serious expression. “I think that is a very trustworthy name. As far as squirrels go, anyway. I don’t think I’d trust a car salesman named Chipper, and maybe not the guy making my burger at a fast food restaurant, but yeah. For a squirrel I think that’s a very good name.”

  “See?” Zane practically cheered. “Dad even says it makes sense. So can I put some nuts and fruits and stuff in my piggy bank? Please?”

  “Well, no, because we don’t need to use your piggy bank,” Darcy reminded him. “We have this thing called a cupboard where we store all our food. But, if you want to try eating nuts we can get some for you. Peanuts, and walnuts, and any kind of nuts you can think of.”

  Colby snickered a laugh through her fingers. “You’ll grow a fuzzy tail just like that squirrel, if you start eating like that!”

  Chipper the squirrel stood up on her hind legs and chittered a long string of squeaky noises before jumping away at a full scurry.

  Zane crossed his arms in his heavy winter coat and stuck his tongue out at Colby. “She said you aren’t funny and if you doesn’t like nuts then she can’t be your friend.”

  “Hey,” Colby protested, “I never said I don’t like nuts!”

  “I think you made her mad. She says…um.” He hesitated, sucking on the finger of his mitten. “I can’t say. It’s not so nice.”

  “What?” Colby planted her fists on her hips. “What’d she say?”

  “Um. She says, you wouldn’t know a acorn from a rock if it fell on your head.”

  “Ugh! Mom, did you hear that?”

  Darcy had her glove up over her face to hide her smile. “Sorry, honey, your brother is just the messenger.”

  Colby threw her arms up in the air. “Whatever. I’m not going to stay here and be insulted by something that escaped from a Disney cartoon. Let’s keep going.”

  Jon shared a look of amusement with Darcy as they followed the kids down the trail, further into the woods. It was a beautiful day, snow and all, and the kids were being wonderful. Darcy found she was able to forget about the mystery of the Hideaway Inn for a while. The ghosts could wait while she spent some time with her family. They’d been here for two hundred years. Another hour wouldn’t change that.

  The trail through the snow-laden trees followed a winding path. It had been plowed at one point, but with the snowfall over the last few days they were dragging their feet through a foot of drift in some places. It was easier going wherever pine trees leaned in close and blocked the weather, but those places were few and far between. Darcy was breathing hard after just twenty minutes, and nearly an hour in she was thinking it might be time for a break.

  “Jon, do you still have the interactive map open on your phone?”

  “Yeah. Hold on.”

  The Inn’s website was really informative. Considering it was an out-of-the way place just outside of a small town in the middle of New England, with a sordid history, Maxwell Bylow had really gone all out. There were tabs that showed all of the amenities and things to do both here and in Pittsfield. One of them was for this hiking trail, and when Jon tapped on it there was a map showing an overhead image of the trail with a red line added for detail. Along that line, various points of interest were marked.

  Right now, she was only interested in where they were, and how much farther they had to go. Brunch had been two hours ago. The granola bars in the backpack Jon was carrying might hit the spot. Looking at the map, Darcy made her best guess and figured they were past the halfway point by quite a bit. Good. They were among another stand of pine trees again, and for now they were blocking the wind and keeping most of the snow away. This was a good place to have a little break.

  “Colby, Zane? How about a granola bar?”

  “Yay!” Zane cheered. “Ganola!”

  Darcy waited for his sister to correct his pronunciation like she always did, but instead there was just the silence of the woods around them and the sound of Zane’s boots charging through the snow.

  Just Zane’s. Not Colby’s.

  “Jon?” she said to him, looking around the close-set trees as she did. “Do you see Colby anywhere?”

  “She was right…” He stopped, his finger pointing at one group of trees, then swinging over to another. “Huh. She’s not there anymore. Well, she’s got to be close by. She couldn’t have wandered far.”

  “For Pete’s sake, are you part of the same Tinker-Sweet family I am? She’s not in front of our face which means she could be anywhere.”

  An anxious feeling began to rise inside of her, thinking of all the other times when things had gone horribly, inexplicably wrong for her or Jon or any of them. This was the norm for her family. Trouble, trouble, and more…

  “Mom?”

  Colby’s voice was hesitant, carried by the cold wind from the exact opposite direction that Jon had expected their daughter to be standing. Darcy spun on her heel and started that way.

  Jon picked Zane up, holding him tight, hiding the same anxiety that Darcy was feeling for the sake of their son. “Come with us, big guy. We’re going to collect your sister and then we’re going to munch down some granola bars. You like the ones with fish oil in them, right?”

  “Ew!” Zane giggled. “No! I like the ones that has choc’late.”

  “Well, we might have a couple of those. I guess I can save you one. Come on.”

  His eyes found Darcy’s, and with a glance he tried to tell her that everything was fine. This was just a walk in the woods. Literally.

  “Um. We maybe shouldn’t go there,” Zane informed them when he saw which way they were heading.

  “Oh?” Darcy asked. “What makes you say that, honey?”

  “’Cause that’s where the bad stones are,” was Zane’s answer.

  Darcy took ahold of Jon’s elbow to keep herself from stumbling. She tried to put on the same calm face that Jon had, and she thought she managed it. Mostly. The bad stones? Of course there would be something like that out here, almost in the back yard of this old house that was being haunted by the ghosts of a long ago era. The ghosts of people who might have been murdered or who might have been just really, really clumsy.

  So much for having a normal family vacation.

  “Uh, Zane?” Jon asked when Darcy found she couldn’t untangle her tongue. “What stones are you talking about? Who told you th
ere were bad stones over here?”

  “I was talking to a rabbit,” the boy explained, easy as that. “He said so. Said there was bad stones over here and we shouldn’t dig near ‘em.”

  Zane, and his amazing ability. Darcy could hardly believe it sometimes. There had never been a boy child born into the family with a paranormal gift. Not that she could tell, at least, having read through Great Aunt Millie’s journals and family genealogy books. Only girls had the gift, to one degree or another. Zane was unique. He was one of a kind. So was his gift.

  Darcy loved him so much.

  She actually felt a little better knowing that Zane’s information had come from a rabbit. The concerns of woodland creatures really weren’t the concerns of humans. For all Darcy knew there was a dead deer carcass over here, and the “bad stones” were stained with the poor thing’s blood. Animals hated the scent of blood. That could be all it was, and maybe that was what had Colby sounding so spooked.

  “Colby?” she called out to her daughter. “You okay over there?”

  “Um. Yeah, I’m good,” was the answer they got back, making Darcy feel at least a little better.

  Jon gave her a wink and mouthed “told you so” over Zane’s shoulder. Smart alek, she thought to herself. She could just smack that little smirk right off his face. Or kiss him. Either way. She had every right to be afraid for her children when things were getting weird all around them and they were talking about…

  …bad stones.

  In a clearing among the trees, they found Colby standing and waiting for them, pointing at a row of stones sticking up among the snow. The space was wide, and nearly round with the trees creating a sort of wall separating them from the rest of the world. There was a hillside to their left, buried in a thick blanket of white. In front of Colby were the oddly shaped, old and gray stones speckled with patches of lichen. The wind had blown the snow away from the tops and at first, Darcy didn’t know what to make of them.

  Then she took a step to her left, and the stones took on specific shapes. Now she knew what they were…just not why they were here.

  “Mom, what are these?” Zane asked from his perch in Jon’s arms. “Are those the bad stones the bunny told me ‘bout?”

  Colby dropped her arm at last. “No, dufus. Those are gravestones. That’s what they are.”

  She was right. The one in the middle was a cross as tall as Colby. Darcy hadn’t seen it for what it was right away, because the right arm was cracked and missing its edge, and the left cradled a mass of snow that obscured the shape. The snow nearly blended in with the faded gray of the stone. On either side of the cross were thin rectangles standing nearly as high, both leaning backward, with one tilting to the left as well. There was writing on them, faded and unclear.

  Gravestones, here behind a house that turned out to be haunted. Wow, Darcy thought to herself. She really knew how to pick a vacation spot.

  The Inn hadn’t done a very good job of maintaining these grave markers. They needed attention, and cleaning, and the graves themselves probably needed attention, too. Darcy made a mental note to talk to Maxwell about it. Spirits became upset if their resting place was disrespected or forgotten. Nobody wanted that.

  She was pretty sure she knew who these stones belonged to.

  “Jon, can I see the map again?”

  He passed her his phone, rather than try to do it himself while holding Zane. Darcy checked again, and followed the red line around the trail, until she came to the spot where they were standing. Sure enough, there was a dot, with a little notation next to it.

  Family Plot.

  Darcy had skimmed over all the points of interest listed on the hiking trail map when they first decided to go for this walk, so she’d seen those words before. She just hadn’t realized what they meant. Of course it would mean ‘graveyard.’ In a place like this, what else could it be?

  Colby was crouching down in front of the stones now, careful not to kneel in the deep snow so her jeans wouldn’t get wet. She put a gloved hand to the big cross, brushing away snow, running her fingers over the barely visible writing.

  “I can’t quite make this out,” she said. “At least not all of it. There’s a date of birth here, and a date of death there, but the stuff in between is what’s really interesting.”

  “What’s it say?” Jon asked.

  “Um. Give me a sec.”

  Zane was chewing on the finger of his mitten again, shaking his head. “Don’t think we should be here,” he said. “The bunny said we shouldn’t dig near the stones.”

  “That’s true,” Darcy told him gently, “but we aren’t going to do any digging. I promise. We’ll just see what the stone says and then leave them alone. How does that sound?”

  Her boy thought about it, and then shrugged. “I guess that’s okay. Can I get down, Daddy? Maybe I can find the bunny again so I can ask him what’s so bad about the stones.”

  Jon didn’t even blink as his son talked about having a conversation with a rabbit. “Okay, kiddo. Just stay close to us. Don’t go out of sight.”

  As soon as he was down, Zane began hopping on both feet through the snow, declaring that he was going to be a rabbit. Darcy snuck her phone out to capture a couple of photos of his silly antics. Jon bumped his shoulder against hers.

  “Look at our little rabbit,” he laughed. “Think he’s chatting up every animal in sight because he misses Cha Cha?”

  “Yeah, I do. He’ll be chatting up a fieldmouse next.”

  “Only if he finds one. Hey, Zane? Don’t go too far, remember?” He gave Darcy a quick kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll watch our little Doctor Doolittle. Why don’t you see what Colby’s found on the stones. That’s more your thing. Yours and Colby’s.”

  She kissed his cheek and let him be right this time. She had a feeling that he could figure out the writing on the gravestones just as easily as she could, and maybe even discern a few things from it that she might miss with his police officer skills. But he was giving her a nice compliment, and she loved him for the way he made her feel like her gift was something to be proud of, rather than feared.

  Her boots crunched in the snow as she stepped over to stand beside her daughter. She leaned down, looking close at the weathered writing on the face of the chiseled stone. Colby was right. It was hard to read.

  “Can you make any of it out?” she asked Colby. “You’ve got younger eyes than I do.”

  “Well, there’s a few words here. ‘Gone.’ That makes sense on a gravestone, I guess. This one is ‘forgotten,’ I think. So, maybe ‘Gone but not forgotten?’ Huh. That’s anticlimactic. Every gravestone in the world has something just like that.”

  “Maybe there’s more to it. And, hey, you’ve got nothing to say about you having younger eyes than mine? Really? Your mother’s not that old, kiddo.”

  Colby gave her a sidelong glance. She couldn’t hide a little smirk, no matter how she tried. “Uh, sure Mom. You’re a regular spring chicken.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” Darcy nodded as if that had been some kind of great compliment…and then she reached over and shoved Colby’s shoulder, sending her sprawling into the snow.

  “Hey!” Colby sprang back up to her feet, frantically brushing off the backs of her legs. “Mom! Why’d you do that?”

  “It’s a spring chicken thing,” Darcy told her, lifting her chin, flapping her arms like wings. “You wouldn’t understand. Hey. Did you notice this spot of lichen here in the middle of everything?”

  Colby looked over. She kept her arms crossed like she was still really mad, but her expression showed how interested she was in what her mother had found. “Lichen? You mean that gross mossy stuff? Yeah, I saw it. Is there…oh, yeah. There’s more words under there, isn’t there?”

  There was, and Darcy had a feeling that it was the important part of whatever had been carved into the stone. She ran a bookstore. She knew the value in words, and how the right ones could change the entire meaning of a story.

 
; She used the side of her glove to scrape at the thin layer of crusty plant growth. There were other letters here, just like she thought. Other words. The cross was tall but narrow, leaving only enough room for a word or two for each line of the epitaph, except along the wider length of the broken horizontal arm. When her glove wasn’t enough, she picked up a clump of snow and fashioned it into a ball to scrub at the stone. With a little effort, what had been obscured to time just a moment ago was now…easier to read…

  Oh, my.

  Darcy traced the lines with her fingers, one after another, committing the words to memory as she did.

  Here lies

  my son, gone in death

  Forgotten already by all.

  A wasted

  life.

  The worms

  may have

  him

  for I

  do not

  want

  him.

  Colby let out a low whistle. “Wow, Mom. I’ve never seen that kind of hatred from a parent toward a son. And it’s right there, forever. For anyone to see.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Gravestones stood for hundreds of years, just like this one had. For someone to put something so vile on their own son’s epitaph spoke to a deep-seated loathing. The person who had this made had to know people would read this about the boy who had died.

  The father mentioned in the words had to be Orson Bylow. That made the son…

  “Rupert Bylow.” Colby read the name at the very bottom of the stone, above the date of death, as Darcy shoved the snow out of the way. “That’s him!”

  Darcy stood up, slapping the snow off her gloves. “That’s who, honey?”

  “That’s the guy from the mirror. The ghost. The one I told you about.”

  “The boy ghost?’

  “Yeah, him.”

  “The one that you spent over an hour talking to in there this morning?”

  “Well, yeah…”

  “The same one that clammed up and disappeared when we came looking to see where you were?”

  “Mo-o-om…”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll let it go. I already knew it was his ghost. I was just teasing.”