Coup de Glace

by P. D. Workman

  Erin went to the register to ring everything up and handed Mary Lou her bags. “There you go. Take care, okay?”

  Mary Lou nodded, her eyes glistening again. “I will, Erin. Thank you so much for your help.”

  The bells jingled as Mary Lou left.

  Bella sighed. “That just makes me want to go hug my mom. I’ve never felt like I am less fortunate because I don’t have a dad, but I never thought much about how hard it must have been for my mom to take all that responsibility herself. It couldn’t have been easy. Now, I’m all grown up, and she really doesn’t have to do anything for me, even if she insists she wants to. But when I was little… for her to work and take care of the farm and raise me all on her own… I never thought about how hard that must have been.”

  “Well, like you said, she did a good job. And I don’t think it’s bad that you want to find out more about your grandma and your ancestors. Wanting to know the details about where you came from and what those people were like, that’s natural. That’s showing that they’re important to you. It’s not like you’re disrespecting your mother.” Erin tidied up, even though everything was already neat and laid out properly. “I can tell you… when I was a teenager, I told more than one foster mom ‘you’re not my real mother.’ Like they could help it. Like they weren’t just trying to raise someone else’s thankless child.”

  “You couldn’t have been that bad,” Bella said. “You’re so sweet, I can’t imagine you ever saying a mean word to anyone.”

  “Not true, I’m afraid. I’ve said lots of mean and nasty things in my life. And foster moms definitely took the brunt of it. Foster moms, social workers, teachers, foster sisters…” Erin thought about Reg. How many times had Erin told Reg that she hated her in a fit of teenage pique? How many times had she tried to push Reg away? And why? Because she was annoying? Because she had yet another idea for the two of them to make boatloads of cash? Or was it just teen hormones? Any two hormonal girls living in close quarters with each other would have behaved the same way, blood related or not. “Growing up is hard. I felt so lost and alone and I took it out on whoever was closest.”

  Bella nodded sagely.

  “See what you can find out from your mom,” Erin said. “Maybe this whole thing is a way for the two of you to get closer.”

  Chapter Ten

  E

  rin traced the lines in the diary. Clementine’s long, looping hand was a little difficult to make out at times, written so closely together that the ascenders and descenders got tangled up with each other.

  Cindy Prost is in town to see what she can do with Ezekiel. I think it was probably Lottie Sturm who got in touch with her, the two of them were always pretty close. Cindy came into the tea room the other day, but seems to be at a complete loss as to what to do with her father. He won’t tell her what happened to Martha, insisting that she is still alive and just out of town. Cindy knows very well it isn’t true. Martha never left the farm without Ezekiel in her whole life, why would she start now? But she’s just at sixes and sevens as to what to do. Ezekiel won’t leave the farm and she has no proof that he’s done anything wrong or that he’s become unbalanced.

  Lottie figures Martha is probably buried in the barn or the garden, but there is no way to know for sure. Cindy hasn’t come across anything suspicious at the farm other than her mother’s absence. Ezekiel seems happy to have Cindy in town and is putting back on some of the weight he has lost since Martha’s disappearance. He obviously wasn’t eating very much without someone to prepare meals for him. How a grown man can be so helpless, I have no idea. At least my mother always taught her boys how to take care of themselves. Even if you get married, there’s no guarantee you’ll be with that person for the rest of your life or that they’ll be able to take care of you.

  I suggested to Cindy that if she needed any physical labor done at the farm that her father wasn’t doing or wasn’t up to, that she give Davis Plaint a call. I think he could use the attention and a little bit of cash to help him out. Trenton always seems to have new clothes, but Davis looks grubby and worn, like he’s been sleeping in the rough rather than living at home with his mother and siblings. I’ve asked the sheriff to check in on the summer house at regular intervals to make sure no one is using it illicitly.

  Erin read over the spare account of Bella’s mother, Cindy, returning home to take care of Ezekiel.

  What was it that made Clementine and apparently Lottie Sturm and Cindy Prost so sure that Martha Prost was dead? If she had died, wouldn’t Ezekiel have told someone? Even if he had done something to hurt her, would he really keep insisting that she was alive and well and would be home soon? Was he in denial? Was it the beginning of dementia? Perhaps, like Roger, his behavior had been erratic for some time, and Martha Prost had been doing the best she could to take care of him and to hide his condition from everyone else. Maybe in a moment of anger or confusion he had turned on her but, having hurt her, he couldn’t admit to himself what had happened and made up a story to go with it.

  Erin wrote down a few notes in her own notebook. Even with Vic’s teasing, she couldn’t bring herself to keep her notes and lists on her phone rather than hard copy. She was sure that if she put them on her phone, they would end up being erased. Having her thoughts on paper, all neatly marshaled before her, gave Erin a kind of comfort and reassurance. If it was all down in black and white, she wouldn’t lose or forget it. She could rest her anxious brain, taking peace in the fact that everything was in proper order.

  Lottie Sturm was Cindy’s generation, older than Erin. Erin was not close to Lottie, but Lottie did come into the bakery every now and then to pick something up, when she wanted fresh baking and didn’t feel like making the trip into the city. Erin had never been favorably impressed with Lottie. She was a mean woman, always out to humiliate Vic or call her down to repentance, to spread some gossip, or otherwise disturb the peace in Bald Eagle Falls. If she had some recollection of what had happened on the Prost farm, some tidbit that Cindy had shared with her or something she had observed herself at the farm, Erin might have to find a way to connect with her.

  She wasn’t sure she could do that, given the way that Lottie had treated Vic in the past. It felt like a betrayal. Even if she told Vic and Vic understood why she was doing it, Erin wasn’t sure she could forgive Lottie’s past behavior.

  She’d do well to learn a lesson from Melissa and Charley, putting any past differences behind them and apparently enjoying some time together.

  There were footsteps behind her, and Erin turned to see Reg coming up the stairs into the attic. For a few minutes, she had actually forgotten that Reg was there.

  “Oh, hi Reg.”

  “Hi yourself. There’s a woman here to see you.”

  Erin looked at the time on her phone. It obviously wasn’t Vic, who would have just let herself in and who Reg had met before. There weren’t a lot of other people who would call on Erin in the evening when it was getting so close to her bedtime.

  “It must be Adele.”

  Erin shut the journal and put it neatly away. She followed Reg back down the stairs. After pushing the stairs back up into the ceiling, she went out to the living room. It was indeed Adele. She looked uncomfortable to be waiting for Erin in the living room. She often made a cup of tea for Erin before bed, and the formality of waiting like a guest didn’t suit her.

  “Erin, I didn’t know you had company. I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

  “No, not at all. Adele, this is Reg. She’s just staying here for a few days while she looks for a place of her own. She’s… thinking of moving to Bald Eagle Falls. Reg, this is Adele.” Erin wasn’t sure how to introduce Adele. As her groundskeeper? Her tenant? “A friend of mine.”

  “I think I’ve heard your name in town,” Reg said slowly, looking Adele up and down with a suspicious, cat-like gaze.

  Adele was obviously also taking Reg’s measure. Reg didn’t like to go to bed as early as Erin and hadn’t yet changed for bed
, which meant she was still in her fortune-teller costume, looking ready to run a carnival booth at a moment’s notice.

  “What is it you do?” Adele asked baldly. “Are you… a practicer of the arts?”

  Erin looked from one friend to the other, the tension drawing out between them.

  Reg gave a dramatic, mysterious smile. “Are you a kindred spirit, maybe?”

  Adele wasn’t in costume. She didn’t wear costumes. But she did tend to wear long, flowing dresses and a hooded cloak. Her skin had a pale, ageless cast to it. To Erin, Adele looked just like she would have expected a modern witch to look. But as most of Bald Eagle Falls hadn’t immediately identified her as one, Erin figured she was biased by her prior knowledge.

  Adele raised her eyebrows at Reg’s flamboyant outfit. “Perhaps not.”

  “I’m a medium. I foretell the future, read palms, communicate with the dead, whatever my clients need.”

  “Your clients? So you do this for recompense?”

  “If you’ve got it, you might as well use it. You don’t use your… talents to support yourself?”

  “I sell some crafts and herbs,” Adele said slowly. “My… faith… is not for sale.”

  Reg snorted. “Oh, you’re very good,” she said admiringly. “I’d almost believe it. A girl can’t expect things to just fall into her lap these days. We have to take care of ourselves, don’t we? You sound like a real soul sister.” Reg looked over at Erin. “I might have known you wouldn’t drift that far from your roots. You give me a big lecture about how you don’t scam people, but your close friend is doing just the same thing we always did. Not quite as high and mighty as you were pretending, are you?”

  Erin looked over at Adele, worried she was going to be offended. An attack by Erin’s guest might as well be an attack by Erin herself. She was worried Adele would think that Erin had been talking about her, but Erin always avoided any mention of Adele and what she was or wasn’t.

  “Are you aware of the power you are playing with?” Adele asked Reg. “Do you really know what forces a medium employs?”

  Erin didn’t believe in magic or sorcery or any other unseen powers, whether they were those discussed by Adele or by one of Erin’s Christian friends. She believed what she could see and hear and touch. And Reg didn’t believe it either. She might pretend to for her scam, but she knew there wasn’t actually anything to it.

  Reg laughed. “You’re even better than I thought. I know my ‘powers,’ don’t you worry about that. I know exactly what I’m doing. People will see and believe what they want to.”

  Adele shook her head. She made a slight movement toward the door. “If you play with fire, you are going to get burned. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Adele gave Erin a nod and left the house. Erin wanted to hurry after Adele and reassure her that she was not mixed up in Reg’s hocus-pocus. Just because Reg was staying in Erin’s house, that didn’t mean Erin agreed with her about anything. They were just sisters, and Reg had called in a sister’s privilege. Erin shook her head at Reg.

  “You were not very nice to my friend,” she snapped. All at once, she was fifteen and furious over Reg getting her in trouble yet again. “I would expect better from a house guest. But I guess you don’t understand southern hospitality. You don’t know how to treat a sister; how would you know how to treat my friend?” Erin’s eyes burned with angry tears and her throat constricted. “I expected better from you, Regina Rawlins!”

  Reg withdrew into herself, shrinking before Erin’s eyes. She ducked her head and looked ashamed. “I wasn’t trying to insult your friend.” Under Erin’s stern gaze, she turned pink. “Okay, maybe I was. I just thought… she shouldn’t have… okay, I shouldn’t have behaved that way. I was rude to your friend. I’ll apologize the next time I see her, okay? I’m sorry.”

  “You’re the guest here. You should know how to behave. I did you a favor putting you up. I didn’t have to do that. I could have sent you back to the city to find a motel.”

  “But you wouldn’t—Yes, okay, you could have. I didn’t think you would be able to turn out your own sister, but you could have just said no, and you probably wanted to. I’ll try to be a more gracious guest.”

  “You’d better,” Erin agreed. “Or you’ll find yourself out in the street, middle of the night or not.”

  “Well…” Reg looked at the wall clock ticking away. “It’s actually not exactly the middle of the night.”

  Erin froze her with another stare.

  “Okay. It’s the middle of the night for you. So I’d better let you get to bed.”

  Erin glanced to the back of the house. She hadn’t had tea with Adele. What about bread and jam with Vic? It was getting late, and Erin should be getting to sleep instead of looking for other things to do. “Yes, I’d better do that. You’re in for the night, right?”

  Reg shrugged. “There isn’t exactly a night life in Bald Eagle Falls, is there? You chose a pretty sleepy town to live in. I wouldn’t have pegged you for the quiet life.”

  If only it were. In the past year, Erin had learned not to take the quiet persona of Bald Eagle Falls at face value. There was always something more sinister bubbling beneath the surface.

  “Goodnight,” she told Reg. “Keep out of trouble.”

  “Who, me?” A smile of mischief spread over Reg’s face. “What kind of trouble would I get into?”

  Chapter Eleven

  B

  ella’s tentative invitation to go out to the Prost farm came that Friday, much sooner than Erin had expected. She had figured it would take at least a week or two for Bella to dither around and find a time Reg could put on a show of visiting with Grandma.

  Covering up the phone mic, Reg explained to Erin that Bella wanted both of them to go to the farm together. She knew Erin and trusted her judgment and her ability to figure out what had happened twenty years earlier. Erin hesitated, then agreed. While she didn’t want to go out at the same time as Reg and appear to be sanctioning her talking to spirits, she didn’t know when Bella would be able to arrange for her to go out again. And if she went along with Reg, she could keep an eye on her sister and make sure she didn’t go overboard.

  “Do you need directions?” Reg asked and, when Erin nodded, Reg got driving instructions for the Prost farm. They would head over in the early evening, when Cindy was going into the city for a doctor’s appointment and to run some errands.

  “Now you remember she’s already scared of ghosts,” Erin told Reg sternly once she was off the phone. “I don’t want you making her worse. You want to convince her that Grandma’s spirit is at peace and no longer haunting the barn, got it?”

  Reg sighed. “Fine. You know there’d be more repeat business if we drew it out, though.”

  “We don’t want repeat business. We want to help a friend. And you are not going to charge her.”

  “What? How am I supposed to make the money to get out on my own if you won’t let me charge her?”

  “This is a favor,” Erin repeated.

  “Fine. Hopefully, she’ll spread the word to all of her friends, and we’ll get business out of her that way.” Reg scowled. “It’s not very hospitable of you to say I can’t even earn a living.”

  “Nice try,” Erin told her, unconcerned. Hospitality only stretched so far.

  The Prost farm was farther out of town than Erin had expected. She had thought that it would be one of the houses clinging to the outskirts of Bald Eagle Falls, but it was another half hour of driving before they got to the access road. There were three mailboxes at the turnoff from the highway, suggesting to Erin that there were several farms down the road. The Prost farm was, luckily, the first, so they didn’t have to rattle their teeth going over the washboard road any farther.

  Erin pulled into the graveled clearing in front of the house, where there were vehicles of varying vintages parked or abandoned. Several of them looked like they had been there for decades.

  Bella came out of the yell
ow and white farmhouse that had to be at least a hundred years old. If the Prost family had been on the mountain since before the Civil War, who knew how old it was or how many different farmhouses had stood on the same patch of ground over the past two hundred years.

  Bella gave a jerky wave. Erin parked the Challenger and got out. It was obvious on approaching Bella that she was nervous. Maybe she was having second thoughts about having them over. Most likely, about having Reg over.

  “Uh, hi Erin. Reg. This is… so weird. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Do you really think I should? Maybe I should just leave it alone. Wait until Mom is ready to tell me about her parents. Maybe what happened to Grandma isn’t really the point. Maybe it’s just learning about them and the rest of my ancestors.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Erin agreed.

  Reg gave Erin an irritated look. “I thought you wanted some peace,” she told Bella. “Are you going to get peace from a restless ghost just talking about what she used to be like? You could just wait to see if it goes away, but usually restless spirits don’t get quieter over time. They just get more insistent. They want the living to pay attention to them when they have something to say.”

  “Yeah.” Bella nodded. Erin could tell she was clenching her jaw, steeling herself for what was to come.

  “Maybe we can just visit in the parlor for a few minutes first. Did you find any books or old albums with family pictures?”

  “Actually, yes.” Bella motioned for Erin and Reg to enter the house with her. Reg glared at Erin.

  “Quit trying to sabotage me,” she hissed.

  “I’m not! I’m just trying to help Bella. I’m not here to put on a show. I’m here to help a friend work through a loss.”

  “A loss? Her grandma died before she was born. She’s not suffering from a loss, believe me.”