by Kristy Tate
“Welcome home,” they chittered.
Lizbet could only smile in return.
They crested the hill. The cottage, overrun with ivy, looked desolate, tired, and empty.
Elizabeth paused, sadness in her eyes. “This is where you lived?”
Lizbet nodded.
“What would make Daugherty hide this way for so long?” Elizabeth asked.
“She thought the world a scary place,” Lizbet said.
“But why?” Elizabeth asked. “She’d always been such a bright and lighthearted child.”
“But she wasn’t a child when she came here, right?” Declan asked.
“Not much older than you,” Elizabeth said.
Lizbet skated Declan a glance, wondering how he would take being called a child. He ran his hand through his hair, caught Lizbet’s gaze, and gave her a sheepish smile.
“Come on,” Lizbet said, “I’ll show you inside. I know it must be strange to you, but we were, mostly, happy here.”
But the front door wouldn’t budge.
“That’s strange,” Lizbet said, leaning against it. “It’s never stuck before.”
“It’s probably locked,” Declan said, brushing her aside so he could give it a try.
“But why? Who? I didn’t lock it.”
A squirrel ran along a branch of a nearby maple tree. “Men in uniform,” he chattered.
“A back door, possibly?” Elizabeth suggested.
“If someone locked the front door, it makes sense they’d lock the back,” Declan put in. They tromped around the house anyway, trying all the doors and windows.
“Mmm...” Lizbet considered her options. She didn’t want to break a window. “The root cellar has a trap door!”
She led them to the wide plank-like doors lying just a few inches off the ground. Lizbet pulled on the handle and the door gaped open exposing a hole about four feet deep with only a few potatoes and onions lying on the dirt floor.
“A root cellar,” Declan murmured.
“It’s empty—mostly—now because it’s spring. In the fall, this is full of—“
“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Declan said, his voice full of laughter. “Root vegetables.”
Lizbet nodded. “And bottles of blackberry wine. See the cubby door? That leads to the cellar.”
“Blackberry wine?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, Daugherty...the other one—although, I now wonder if that was really her name, made it. Years ago, Rose had a successful business that she sold...” She paused as realization dawned. “It wasn’t my mother’s business, because my mother wasn’t Rose, like I thought. Rose, who I thought was named Daugherty, was the one with the wine business.” She shook herself. “There are papers and documents in the house. I’ll show them to you. They should answer some questions.”
Lizbet dropped into the hole. To her surprise, Declan climbed in after her.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you have all the fun, did you?” he asked, wiping his hands on his shorts.
He stood close enough for her to feel his warmth. She shivered at his nearness.
“I think you two have a very different idea of fun than me,” Elizabeth said.” I’m more of a front door sort of gal.”
“We’ll meet you there,” Lizbet said.
Stooping, she pushed open the cubby door that led to the basement and jumped through.
“For being paranoid, your mom lacked certain basic security measures,” Declan said. He barely fit through the door.
The cellar had stone walls, a cement floor and a ceiling made of wooden beams and planks. A small window bordering the ceiling let in filtered light. Lizbet stopped, sickened, when she spotted a large red stain on the floor. She put her hand over her mouth to keep from gagging.
“Is that...blood?” Declan asked. He put a steadying hand on her back.
Lizbet nodded. “I think so.”
“Your mom?”
“Probably Wordsworth, my dog.” She’d mopped after moving and burying him, but she hadn’t thought about his blood dripping through the floorboards.
He touched her elbow. “Lizbet, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.” She straightened her shoulders and pushed toward the rickety wooden stairs. A stream of light shone beneath the door that separated the basement from the rest of the cottage. With one had on the wooden rail, she climbed, hyper-aware of Declan close behind.
The kitchen looked just as she’d left it. A couple of teacups on the dish drain, hand towels folded over the oven’s door handle, bundles of herbs hanging to dry near the window. A faint odor of rosemary filled the air. Lizbet inhaled deeply—it smelled of home. She wavered on her feet, rocked by overwhelming homesickness.
Declan put his arm around her waist. He didn’t try to hold her or pull her close. He was just there. Solid. Warm. Lizbet closed her eyes and tried to steady herself.
Knocking sounded at the front door. Lizbet pulled away from Declan to let Elizabeth in.
She had straightened up the living room before leaving, even though, according to her mystery novels, this was a crime scene and therefore should have been undisturbed, but now that she’d brought Elizabeth and Declan, she was glad. She didn’t want them to think any less of her mom than they already did. She wanted them to know that she and her mom had created a nice home. They had lived in isolation and maybe it had been a shade primitive according to today’s standards, but not squalor.
“Let me show you the office and the things I found in the safe.” Lizbet directed Elizabeth and Declan through the front hall to the small room. Everything looked exactly as she’d left it. The desk tidy, the books neatly lined up on the shelves, the room seemed to be caught in a holding pattern, waiting for Lizbet and her mom to return.
Lizbet went to the shelves and pulled out the books in front of the safe. She spun the combination on the lock and it clicked open.
The safe was empty. All of the papers Lizbet had found earlier gone. She felt as if someone had punched her in the gut, and she rocked back on her heels, bumping into Declan who peered over her shoulder.
“I take it that you expected to find something,” he said.
“The last time I checked, this was full of legal documents, tax forms, and receipts. Most of what I found made little sense to me. Except I learned that before I was born, Rose had a wine business. I thought it was my mom’s because I thought that was my mom’s name. What else was I supposed to think?” She turned to Elizabeth. “I was hoping you could help me put the puzzle pieces together, but now...”
“Should we call the police? Report a break-in?” Declan asked.
Lizbet sighed. “I don’t know. They already suspect me...”
“Nonsense. Of course we tell the police!” Elizabeth dug into her bag and pulled out a cell phone. “Only I don’t get service.”
Declan also pulled out his phone and after a quick glance said, “Neither do I.”
Lizbet held up her finger. “There’s a phone here...or at least there was.” She went to the cupboard.
“What a remarkable place for a phone,” Elizabeth said.
“I think she didn’t want me to find it,” Lizbet said.
“Well, it was awfully clever of you to do so,” Elizabeth said.
Lizbet bit her lip thinking of that awful day, wishing she could admit she’d had help. “I was desperate.”
“Of course you were.” Elizabeth picked up the phone. A satisfying ringtone answered. “Let me handle the police,” Elizabeth said. “Why don’t you show Declan around?”
Outside, Lizbet took a deep breath. She’d missed this. The quiet. The sun on her skin. The breeze whispering through the trees.
“It’s like a different world here,” Declan said. “No traffic noise, no people...just us.”
“I think my mom felt that way, too.”
“How did she do it? How could someone completely disappear off the grid?”
Lizbet led him to the garden. The seedlings ha
d sprouted another couple of inches. Little white blossoms covered the tomato plants. The beans and peas were nothing more than spindly vines climbing the trellis her mom had made from fallen branches. “We grew most of our own food.”
Declan stared at the garden as if it were a science project. Lizbet laughed at the expression on his face.
“I think the real question isn’t how we managed to live off the grid, but why did my mom choose this? What was she afraid of?”
“Who said she was afraid? Maybe she just liked the isolation.”
“I think that maybe she grew comfortable with it, but I don’t think it was a choice she made lightly. According to Elizabeth, Daugherty...I’m going to have to get used to calling her that...was an outgoing, happy person.
They tramped through the tall grass, following the path that led to the woods. When they reached the trees’ heavy canopy, the wavy grass turned to ferns. Lizbet stopped in front of a huckleberry bush. “It’ll be a hot summer,” she said.
“How can you tell?” Declan asked.
“Just look at all the blossoms on the huckleberry bush.” Her mouth watered at the thought of the tart berries and another wave of homesickness crashed over her. Where would she be when the huckleberries bloomed? Would her mom still be in the hospital? Were there even huckleberries on Elizabeth’s ranch? Instinctively and without knowing why, she reached for Declan’s hand.
“Come on,” she said. “I want to show you Daugherty’s wine shack.”
“Rose,” he reminded her. “It was Rose’s wine shack.” He didn’t resist when she pulled him deeper into the woods, nor did he drop her hand when they reached the shanty.
“This is where they made blackberry wine. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think the wine is how Daugherty supported herself...and us.”
This time Declan didn’t correct her, so she did it herself. “I don’t know what else to call her.” Lizbet’s mood sank. “She died when I was little...it’s strange, isn’t it, that it still makes me sad?”
“Not really. Your world was so small, anyone, especially someone that you were fond of, would have been a giant loss.” Declan squeezed her hand. “Do you know how she died?”
Lizbet gazed at the weather-beaten hovel. A light smattering soft green moss covered the mellow silver wood. The door hung ajar and the air inside sparkled with flying dust motes. A slight breeze carried the faint odor of pungent berries mingled with the scent of pine. For just a moment, Lizbet caught a memory of Daugherty, small and dark, bustling around a steaming vat of boiling berries. Lizbet blinked and the memory faded.
“No. I understood death because of the animals, but I didn’t watch her die,” Liz said. “One day she was here, the next she was gone.”
“Wow. And then it was just you and your mom.”
“And the animals.”
“You keep saying that, as if they’re people.”
“Well, they’re not people, but they are here.” She waved her hand at the woods.
Declan looked up at a squirrel watching him from a cedar tree. “What do you mean you understood death because of the animals?”
“Their life expectancy is so much shorter than ours. And their world is, in some ways, harsher. And simpler. I watched the animals, pets and friends, die.”
“But it’s not the same as watching a person die.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Animals aren’t people.”
“You keep saying that. You’re about to lose your grandfather, a man you’ve never met. Which will hurt you more—his death, or the death of your dog?”
“I get what you’re saying, but—”
“Animals have spirits—the same as us.”
“What do you mean by ‘spirits?’”
“They hurt, they mourn...”
Declan smiled and shook his head.
“Just because they can’t share their thoughts doesn’t mean they don’t have any.”
“Animals live by instinct. They’re bred to survive. They can’t reason...”
“They might not always be reasonable, but people aren’t always reasonable, either.” She folded her arms as if to protect herself from Declan’s hurtful words. She knew he wasn’t being intentionally callous, he just didn’t understand, and she didn’t know if she had the ability to make him see that animals weren’t the mindless creatures he supposed.
“True, but...”
“In fact,” she persisted, “I could argue that the animals’ motives are much more clear and honest than most peoples.”
“I think you’d have a hard time explaining that to a water buffalo when he’s being chased by a hungry lion.” He gazed up at the squirrel and addressed him. “How about you there? What are your motives?”
“At this time of year, he’s probably thinking that his store of acorns is low. He’s wondering if this year’s crop of nuts and seeds will last him through the winter. Spring has just started and he’s already worried about the next snow.”
“Are you a squirrel whisperer?”
She elbowed him. “Sometimes I feel like I know animals better than people.”
“I get that. I do, but I disagree that animals have souls.”
“Everything has a soul,” Lizbet said, looping her hand around Declan’s arm and pulling him along the path. She didn’t want to argue with him, but she also wanted him to know he was wrong.
“Everything?” He walked beside her.
She nodded. “Everything not man made.”
“So anything manmade is evil?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You also didn’t describe what you mean by soul. What do you think, exactly, is a soul?”
“I’m inside my body, but I’m not my body...the me that makes me me lives independent of my body.”
“I disagree.”
She stopped, paralyzed by his assertion. “You disagree? Really? How can anyone disagree with that?”
“How can you believe in souls?”
“Everyone does.”
“Lizbet, listen to yourself. You’ve really only known one person in your entire life...” He faced her.
She wanted to wipe the smug expression off his face with a leaf from a stinging nettle. “B-But Whitman—”
“The poet?”
“Yes! Leaves of Grass—”
He tugged on her arm, leading her back to the house. “He was a poet. He wrote fiction for money. His word wasn’t—isn’t—gospel.”
“What about the Bible?”
“Do you believe in the Bible?”
“Of course. Everyone does.”
He shook his head. “No. Everyone absolutely does not.”
“Really?” This was a new, disturbing thought. “Then how do they know right from wrong? What provides a moral compass?” When her mom had told her about evil men and greedy women, Lizbet had just assumed that these were people who knew right from wrong, but had simply chosen the wrong versus the right.
“What moral compass?”
“Everyone has a moral compass...” Her words trailed away as she realized how naïve she must sound. “Don’t they?”
“No.”
“You sound so sure. How can you know that?” It had never occurred to her that maybe some people didn’t know, or care, about right and wrong. “Everyone has a conscience, right? That voice in your head that helps makes your decisions...”
“No. There’s no voice in your head.”
“There’s definitely a voice in my head...”
He laughed. “That’s the definition of schizophrenia.”
She pressed her lips together, trying not to be upset.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a friendly hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I think everyone has a voice in their head. Some people,” she skated him a dark look, “might chose to ignore it.”
“Hey, I’m not a bad person.”
“How do you know? What makes someone good or bad? If
you don’t believe in the Bible, or an inner moral compass—how can you know if you’re bad or good? Are the words good and bad even relevant?”
He chuckled. “Wow. You’re deep. You should be a philosophy major.”
“What good would that do?”
“Didn’t we just establish that there is no good or bad?”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “I want to help the world be a better place. That’s good.” She emphasized the word.
He bumped her with his hip. “That I agree with.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Go to medical school. Help people.”
“See? You’re a good person, too.”
“If you say so.”
“You also have a voice in your head.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not schizoid.”
“That’s debatable,” she said in a huff.
He grinned.
“There you two are!” Elizabeth stood on the porch, waving at them. “Are you ready to go?”
Although, she knew she didn’t want to stay on the island by herself, the thought of leaving made Lizbet ill. She felt more solid here, more grounded, more herself. It was easy to lose track of all that she believed when she was on the mainland. Maybe when her mom got better, she’d feel more stable, more herself.
She cast Declan a quick glance. Did others share his way of thinking? Was her mother’s religious training considered odd and outdated by the rest of the world? Who could answer this?
Her thoughts went to her mom. She missed her with a lonely ache. Images of her mom still, lifeless, and pale in the bleak hospital room flashed in her mind. Somehow she had to revive her.
“I need to get some books from my mom’s office,” Lizbet told Declan. “Do you mind helping me?”
With Declan following close behind, she went into the living room. Suddenly, she saw the room through his eyes, and she wondered what he would think of the towers of books, the framed homemade art lining the walls, and the loopy crocheted afghan draped over the sofa. It probably looked primitive and homespun to him, but to her it was home. She hated to leave again, but she knew she couldn’t stay here alone. Bracing her shoulders, she headed for the office. “I want to pick up my mom’s books on herbology.”