“How’s Boo today?” Joan asked, coming off the deck. Boo wagged his tail in appropriate excitement as Joan rubbed behind his ears and made cooing noises at him.
“He’s slowing down.” Myrtle discreetly wiped sweat off her forehead. “Don’t know why people’ll want to sit outside in this heat,” she said a little too loudly. The woman at the table glanced at Myrtle, then turned to her husband and mumbled something. Myrtle didn’t hear it, nor did she care.
Joan looked back at the tables with their red-and-white checkered tablecloths with beer bottle planters centered on them. “It was full inside,” she said quietly, defensive of the couple or her business, Myrtle wasn’t sure. “We’ve had a good crowd today.” She and her husband, Samuel, had retired from stressful jobs in telecommunications, choosing instead to operate the bed-and-breakfast and the attached café. For ten years they’d lived and worked in the Crossing during the summer months, then vacationed during the winter, visiting their kids, and spending time at their home in Phoenix. They both said that even though the hours were long, it was better than the corporate world.
“I can’t remember when it’s been so dry,” Joan said. “Seems like the heat just came in overnight.” She eyed the sun high overhead.
Boo panted his agreement, leaning languidly against Joan’s legs.
“I suspect most folks will want to go inside where it’s cool.” Myrtle eyed the couple at the table as if they were insane to sit outside.
“That’s true,” Joan continued the small talk, scratching behind Boo’s ears. “Although some of the regulars haven’t been around. That boy Mick and his family have been coming in every Sunday, but not so far today.” By the end of the summer, the locals typically got to know the summer visitors fairly well, sometimes almost like family.
“Have you seen Ed Miller?” Myrtle asked.
“He was by earlier today.”
“He comes for lunch on the weekends, doesn’t he?”
Joan pursed her lips. “Come to think of it, he didn’t today.”
“Didn’t you just say he came by?” Myrtle pointed out.
“I did,” Joan said thoughtfully. “Maybe it was yesterday. I was busy serving and didn’t pay much attention. You know, Samuel was asking about Ed a little while ago, wondering why he’d skipped lunch.”
No cigarettes, now no lunch, Myrtle thought. For a man locked into routines, this was unusual. “I wonder what’s going on with him,” Myrtle said.
Lillian Chadwick emerged from the café and interrupted the conversation. “How are you all today,” she asked with a polite smile. A vivacious Brit with spiky gray hair who was the Taylor Crossing Postmistress, Lillian exuded energy.
“Just fine,” Myrtle said.
“I can’t chat,” Lillian said, hurrying past them. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Say, have you seen Ed Miller around?” Joan asked. Lillian had a great view of Main Street from the front window of the post office, and could keep track of all comings and goings in the Crossing.
Lillian shook her head, long hoop earrings bumping against her tanned cheeks. “Not today,” she called, already heading up the steps of the post office next door.
“You think something happened to him? Like maybe he’s sick?” Myrtle turned back to Joan.
“Sicker than usual?” Joan replied sarcastically.
“You know what I mean.”
Just then Samuel poked his head out the front door of the café. “You want me to clean up in here?”
Both women looked at him with inquiring gazes.
“What?” He looked around nervously, wiping his hands repeatedly on a dirty white apron. He was a big, jovial man, with bulky arms that stretched the material of his plaid shirt, and an expressive face with a white walrus mustache.
“You haven’t seen Ed today?” When Myrtle said it, it was not a question.
“Nope.” Samuel peeked back into the café before he slipped outside and hurried over. “Still got a few people in there,” he said, eyeing Joan as if to chide her for not helping him. “Last time I saw Ed was yesterday.” Boo nudged Samuel’s hand and received some petting for his efforts.
“Was he okay?” Joan asked.
Samuel tipped his baseball cap off his head and scratched his nearly bald pate. “Not any worse than normal.”
“So where is he today?” Myrtle interrupted.
A long pause ensued. “Who knows,” he said finally, readjusting the cap again. “You know Ed, he always seems like he’s got a screw loose…”
“Because he drinks too much,” Joan interjected.
“Anna said he didn’t come by for cigarettes at lunchtime,” Myrtle said.
“Really?” Joan was perplexed. This odd behavior of Ed’s constituted a real mystery in the mundane haven of Taylor Crossing. “Maybe we should go check on him.”
“I think you’re right,” Myrtle agreed. It would sure beat going back to her cabin. A tingle of concern zipped through her.
“You two don’t need to be snooping in other people’s business,” Samuel said. “Besides, we’ve still got customers.”
Joan put her hands on her hips. “I handle the work while you’re off fishing.”
“Not very often,” Samuel grumbled.
“Oh, all right, you win.” Joan rolled her eyes at Myrtle. Joan cared deeply for her husband. “I guess I’d better stay and help the old man here.”
“You hush up,” Samuel fired back, but there was a smile under the walrus mustache.
They waved goodbye and heckled each other as they disappeared back in the café. She teases him relentlessly, Myrtle thought, but she sure loves him. It made her think of her own husband, and she wished he was still around. She and Boo went on their way, but it wasn’t long before Myrtle’s mind was back on Ed Miller. Where was he?
Ed Miller lived in a run-down one-room place that was more like a shack than a real home. The ten acres that he owned were inherited from family, and years ago Ed moved onto the property, living out his days fishing and drinking. The most Myrtle could say for the place was that it was far enough away from the other cabins to afford some privacy. Which was as much a blessing for the summer visitors as it was for Ed Miller.
Maybe she should check the place out, see if Ed was okay. Her busybody nature was taking over, and she soon convinced herself she should see if something bad had happened to Ed. She took off in the direction of his cabin, complaining to Boo about the heat.
CHAPTER 14
“Can I help you with that?” Jimmy Holmes stood in the doorway to the general store.
Anna dropped the change she was counting, startled. “No, Dad. I’ve got it covered.”
She’d left him slumped in his rocking chair on the porch, sleeping peacefully with his chin resting on his chest and had come inside to tidy things up before the late afternoon rush that usually followed a busy Sunday. She hadn’t heard him come in, hadn’t heard the old door creak back on its hinges, hadn’t felt the rush of heat enter the room, and most of all, she hadn’t heard Jimmy’s heavy breathing as he struggled for each life-giving lungful of air. She wanted to blame it on the fan that stirred the searing air around the room, but she couldn’t. She’d been thinking about that day, so many years ago, when she’d lost Paul.
Jimmy took a couple of steps inside and eased the door closed behind him. He came slowly up to the counter and leaned against it, watching her put the change back into the register.
She felt his gaze bore into her. “What?” she finally said, turning to look at him.
“Isn’t it time for you to move on?”
Her face grew warm. “What do you mean?” she asked lamely.
A line formed on Jimmy’s brow, an etching of his troubled thoughts. “I can’t undo the past,” he said, raising a hand when she began to protest. “No, let me finish. I’m an old man and my time is near – ” Anna objected again, and he again shushed her as if she were a child. “Now listen to me. You blame me for what happened to
Paul.”
Images of her husband popped into her mind, first of him dressed in his Sunday best, waiting for her to finish dressing so they could go to church in Nederland, the alluring smell of his aftershave lingering near her. The picture burst and she saw him lying prone on a stretcher, wet clothes stuck to his body, his blue face molded into a lifeless mask.
“The accident was my fault, that’s true,” Jimmy continued. “I shouldn’t have gone out on the lake, even if it was icy. It’s just that I had to get to the Barton cabin – ”
“No more,” Anna interrupted him, her tone clipped and angry. “We’ve been over this a thousand times. I don’t care what you were doing. And I don’t want to hear any more stories about needing to find something over there. What’s done is done.”
She immediately saw the hurt swim in Jimmy’s soft eyes, but before she could say more, he turned around and shuffled toward the door.
“Hey, Dad, I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“I hope you can forgive me,” he said over his shoulder. “Before it’s too late.” The door creaked as he went through.
“Darn it!” Anna hissed through clenched teeth. She stared down at her hands, tightened into fists. “Why’d you have to bring that up now?”
She knew the answer even as she asked the question. Her father brought up Paul because he saw the look on her face. It was the same look she’d worn too many times to count. That wishing she could turn back time expression, as if then everything would be better. She knew she shouldn’t think that way, but she struggled with it all the time. Her life was supposed to be different. By now she and Paul should’ve had a house in Boulder, good careers, a few kids. The whole shebang. Instead she was eking out an existence up here at this silly store and waiting for her father to die.
“Lord, forgive me,” she whispered as the last thought passed through her mind. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
In truth she didn’t mind taking care of Jimmy. She wouldn’t consider leaving him with hired help and she would never allow him to go into a nursing home. But her hands were tied until he passed away, and they both knew this. But she blamed him, too. He was right about that.
Anna felt a burning behind her eyes, a headache coming on. She rubbed at her temples, willing the pain to go away. As she glanced out the front window, she saw Jimmy rocking in his chair, a sad expression on his wrinkled face. She felt a weight settle over her.
Her father was right, she thought again, and that made her as depressed as anything. She did blame him for Paul’s death. Jimmy had tried to explain things to her the day it happened, but she didn’t listen. She couldn’t listen. Not with Paul’s body lying under the white sheet, waiting to be carted off like a dead dog. And Jimmy tried again to talk about it when she had visited him in the hospital as he recovered from hypothermia, but she turned a deaf ear to him. In fact, she’d never really let him explain why he was out walking across Taylor Lake in the middle of winter. She’d never really cared. Paul was gone, drowned while trying to save Jimmy. Her future had been irrevocably altered, and the accounts of an old man didn’t seem to matter.
And she needed to move on, just like he said.
Anna wondered why the memories seemed so vivid today. It must be my date with Rory, she thought as her heart fluttered. All those old feelings of attraction to a man begged for her acknowledgement. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to feel anything for another man. It was exciting, but also terrifying.
But she couldn’t think about another man without thinking of Paul. He was the one for her, a great man, an even better lover. They were going to have kids, had held off for a while, thinking they had years for that. She’d never imagined herself with anyone else. What would happen if she let herself fall in love again? What would happen to her memories of Paul? She knew she needed to let go, that it would be okay to allow herself to remember the good things about Paul, and let the bad things go. She should resume her life and not let this tragedy hinder the rest of her days. She looked out the window and sighed.
It would be easier if she didn’t have to walk by the lake every day. Much easier. Then, not for the first time since Paul’s death, the question popped into her head. What was her dad doing trying to get across the lake? Why did he have to get to the Barton cabin?
CHAPTER 15
With fear in his heart, Brewster returned to his cabin from town. It had started. Everything that his daddy had warned him of, had always told him – you’ll know, just like your granddaddy did. He massaged his chest in the spot where his daddy always thumped him when they had that conversation about his granddaddy. He knew things and so will you.
He got his Bible, old and worn, from the mantle above the fireplace and cracked it open. It had been years since he’d opened it, but he went right to the passage in Genesis. He reread the passage on the Nephilim, how they were on the earth in the days of the Great Flood, but also afterward. He thought about the black flash he saw in town. They were here now.
And they wanted their release. Brewster sat down on a worn sofa and thought back to his childhood, all those times his daddy talked. How the old cuss could go on! As a boy, he’d tune his daddy right out. He rubbed the spot on his chest and strained to remember some of the words.
They’re spirits, wandering around this earthly plane since the Flood.
What flood?
You need to be listening in church, boy. The Great Flood that wiped out the earth. But it didn’t get them. And now they’re condemned to wander the earth, spirits that can’t get onto the next spiritual plane.
He must’ve looked confused, because his daddy threw up his hands. Heaven, boy, enlightenment, peace, whatever that is, they can’t get it unless they perform a ceremony to release their spirits from this earth so they can move on.
And they came back to the Crossing?
Yep, that’s what your granddaddy knew. And they needed hosts.
What’re hosts?
People, boy, they needed bodies for the spirits to reside in, until they can do their ceremony and get enlightenment. Those bodies have roles, and each has a part in the ceremony. The four elements are key as well, helps them harness their power.
What are those?
Fire, earth, air, and water. They get them, and the ones with roles, they can do the ceremony. If that happens, boy, watch out.
He sat back, the memory vivid now. He’d never really known what it all meant until now. But he didn’t know who would fulfill all those roles.
He got out a piece of paper and thought about what he knew so far. They needed a gatherer. That one was here – the blackness he’d seen earlier told him that – but who was it? He’d have to watch, see who in town was missing. And they needed representatives of the four elements. Who would those be? Someone that had something to do with fire, and the same for earth, air, and water. There were others, ones to perform the rites. It would be someone who dealt with death, someone who prepares the dead, that’s how it worked. A mortician. But there wasn’t a mortician in town. He shook his head. At least not yet.
What other roles? One with the words. Oh, what were the rest? He pounded the table. Someone had to do something with the words, was that right? He tried to think this through, but couldn’t come up with them.
What a time for my mind to wander, he thought. Can’t remember. And he couldn’t tap into any memories of his father talking, either. He hit the table again. How could he help when he didn’t know who would fulfill the roles?
CHAPTER 16
Samuel Friedman stood idly at the cash register, waiting for a young couple seated in the corner to finish their meal and leave. From the kitchen, Elvis Presley belted out “Hound Dog”. Samuel tapped his finger on the counter and glanced at the couple. They were talking animatedly and didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
He sighed audibly. He’d cleaned up all the tables except theirs, and he wanted to clean up the kitchen, get the lunch mess taken c
are of. Joan had gone over to visit with Lillian at the post office, so there’d be no one to watch the front if he were back in the kitchen.
Shouldn’t have left me here alone, he thought to himself as he thumbed through an outdated copy of People magazine. Yesterday’s gossip, for all the good it did him.
The couple finally gulped down the last of their iced teas, dropped some money on the table for a tip and sauntered up to the counter.
“Good meal,” the woman said. “Best burger I’ve had all summer.” She had a sharp New York accent that was hard on the ears.
“Thanks,” Samuel beamed, taking the proffered money and getting change. The register drawer was full of bills, the sign of a good day’s work. But then he was successful at pretty much everything he did. He was a leader, a go-getter, and he didn’t get pushed around. Except by his wife. In all their years of marriage, he rarely contradicted Joan. Whatever she wanted, she got. That’s why he was here instead of fishing, and Joan was enjoying herself with Lillian.
“Hey, what’s up with that old guy hanging around the dock,” the man said, crossing his arms and looking Samuel in the eye. His demeanor had the same East Coast bluntness as his wife’s voice.
“The weird-looking guy,” his wife added. “He told us to watch out.”
Samuel met the man’s gaze and grinned. “Is he giving you folks problems?”
“He said something about things were burgeoning,” the man said.
“No, Duane,” the wife waggled her head at him. “He said to watch out for Burgess. Like a name,” she clarified for Samuel.
“Oh,” Samuel said.
“That’s what I meant, Dee,” Duane said sarcastically. He didn’t appreciate being corrected.
“I wouldn’t worry about Old Man Brewster,” Samuel said. “He’s harmless.”
“Who’s Brewster?” Duane asked.
“The old guy who told us to watch out for Burgess, you dolt,” Dee shot back at Duane. “But who is this Burgess person?”
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