Shallow Roots: An Iowa Girl Mystery (Iowa Girl Mysteries Book 1)

by Anomie Hatcher

  Her unhappy gut squelched loudly in the quiet room.

  TomTom’s curry, she thought, rubbing her belly.

  Dinner had been too spicy for a stomach unused to eating much lately. Maggie got out of bed slowly, shuffled out of the room and downstairs to get herself a glass of water and use the bathroom.

  When she returned to bed, there was nothing to do but lie awake and wonder what in the hell she was doing back here at Original Farm. Why was she sleeping in Fennel’s bed? Sunflower was right; at dinner she had inferred that Maggie had no right to take over this room. Why had this ever seemed like a good idea?

  The October wind gusted, shaking the old panes of glass in their window frame. Maggie glanced at the rusty flower cart full of recipe books and neatly organized seed packets. Like everything else in the unlit room, its edges were grey and indistinct. Against her better judgment, Maggie went over and lifted up the back end of the cart, then pushed it aside on two wheels. The metal parts squealed, too loud for a sleeping house. Maggie cringed and froze, but no sounds of waking met her ears. She left the light off, just in case, then sat down and examined the section of wall, tracing where Fennel’s fingers had traced in the dream.

  It was then that she felt the thin gap. A less observant person, or someone not up tracing wallpaper lines at four in the morning, would never have noticed the distinction. The crack wasn’t merely a seam between two sheets of wallpaper; it ran deep, possibly all the way through the wall itself. Maggie’s reluctant heart nearly skipped a beat. Nevertheless, she found herself tracing the line from top to bottom to discern its height. The tiny opening ran the entire three feet of the wall, starting where it touched the steeply pitched attic ceiling, and ending at the rough wooden floor. And she felt something else, something that she hadn’t been able to see with the cart in the way, something that hadn’t been in the dream. It was a smooth, metal handle.

  The discovery left Maggie breathless, and more awake. Kneeling, she began to feel the wall with flat palms. Sure enough, a few feet to the right of the handle, there were some tiny hinges and another vertical crevice. Maggie’s hands and fingers discovered what her eyes could barely see in the dimly lit room: a door, two feet wide and three feet tall.

  She raised her knuckles to rap softly. A quiet echo answered her.

  Maggie sat back on her haunches. She grasped the handle, prepared to pull open this portal to Wonderland. Between her fingers, the silver metal caught a muted ray of light. The handle looked like it belonged on a kitchen cupboard.

  This is just a storage space. No big deal. Lots of old houses have crawlspaces and odd nooks.

  Still, Maggie’s body began to shake when she recalled why she was sitting here in the first place. Things like this simply did not happen in her world. Ghost women did not show up in dreams to point out secret doors. It didn’t make sense.

  But then, very little made sense to Maggie anymore.

  Ben had been taken from her in a careless act of violence made all the more horrible by the perpetrator’s evasion of justice. She hadn’t been able to wrap her mind around how someone could do that, how they could take a life and just keep on trucking. Her whole life had bent double under the pressure of that reality and nothing made sense anymore.

  Abruptly, the understanding that Maggie had been dreading, the thought she had so readily pushed down and away from her conscious mind came hurtling forward and she could not stop it: someone meant to kill Ben that day. The terrible driver, with hate in his or her soul, had sought Ben out and smashed the life from him for reasons only they knew and did not stick around to share.

  The police are wrong. It wasn’t an accident.

  Tears fell hot and fast, soaking into Ben’s old shirt. There was no reason for Maggie to think that the wreck had been an act of purpose, no reason at all. It was merely a feeling, an intuition so acute she was unable to rid herself of it. In this ridiculous moment, squatting next to a camouflaged door, Maggie had awareness thrust upon her, awareness she had avoided since Ben’s death. The feeling revealed, to Maggie’s shame, that she was illogical, that her animal mind lived on suspicion and egotism and fantasy. All her life she had bucked against the disorder of myth, only to have chaos rear up and snatch away her reason. Particularly now, she longed for reason most acutely.

  She trembled on the cold floor, willing good sense to return.

  Maggie’s breathing became ragged and her expirations made puffs of steam in the chilly, moonlit room.

  “Ben,” she whispered. “Ben, what’s wrong with me?”

  She let go the handle, and crawled up into the bed, letting the pillow muffle howls and soak up tears. Sobbing was physically painful, it had built up for so long. She turned inside out, with everything about her that was soft and vulnerable left carelessly exposed.

  Maggie was scoured, scrubbed raw by the cry.

  Eventually, the wracking sobs subsided. Maggie lay in bed, waiting for sleep to take over, hoping for the numb apathy to return and drag her back under. Sleep wouldn’t come, though she was exhausted.

  There was nothing else to do but drag herself out of bed and look for a flashlight.

  A ghost came knocking, Maggie concluded wearily. The least I can do is answer the door. Or in this case, go through it.

  She found a flashlight in the second floor common room, in the side table drawer by a couch which smelled strongly of stale potato soup and used condoms.

  She tiptoed back up to Fennel’s room.

  Despite the odd circumstances, Maggie felt buoyed by a renewed sense of purpose. Her grief was not so much gone as it had been altered, sinking deep into her frame.

  Ben would laugh to see me chasing phantoms in the night.

  The image of his sweetly grinning face prompted her onward. She needed to keep occupied, like Joe had said, though prising open walls in someone else’s bedroom was a strange occupation.

  Perhaps her state of mind had brought about the dream. Maybe it was the oily combination of spices from supper, but Maggie let herself believe, for the very first time in her life, that something larger was at work. Maggie was aware that what she was doing made absolutely no sense and, for once, didn’t let that bother her.

  She opened the little, wallpapered door, and pointed a beam of light into the hole. She squinted after it. There appeared to be a short tunnel, about four feet long, which opened into a larger space, beyond. She held the flashlight in her left hand and crawled through to investigate. One of her bare knees gathered a splinter along the way and she bumped her head on a wooden support beam.

  It was incredibly dark when she got to the little room. The flashlight was more hindrance than help, at first. When her eyes adjusted, she made out the dimensions of the room, roughly six by eight feet. A video chair and a lockbox were the only items in the room. The lack of insulation made Maggie shiver and wish for a blanket. She could hear and feel the wind now. She was careful not to stand, as the flashlight exposed roofing nails poking through the ceiling like deadly stalactites.

  She picked up the lockbox and shook it from side to side. She could hear a flat object sliding back and forth, clunking dully, made of a sound-absorbing material such as cardboard or linen, perhaps. The brown metal box was padlocked and looked like the sort used for collecting money at a garage sale. She set it down, and sat in the video chair, pointing the light around the corners of the room. For an unfinished room in an attic, it was surprisingly clean. And pretty much empty.

  Maggie rested her head back against the chair and rocked for a few minutes. The only interesting object in the room was inaccessible to her. She felt a bit foolish and let down. The chair was comfortable and rocking in it nearly lulled her to sleep. As she relaxed, the dream came spinning back, reminding her of Fennel’s second destination in the dream. Maggie left the chair and squirmed briskly through the crawlspace.

  Once in the bedroom, Maggie did not bother to stand, but made her way on all fours around the bed and over to the dresser. She ignored the
pain in her knees and her protesting, gurgling abdomen. Pulse charging and breath held, she reached under the dresser. Her hand closed around a small wooden object. She pulled out a box decorated with an inlay of nacre.

  In the low light, the pearly bits were a dull white color. Maggie brought the box over to the window and pulled aside the curtain. In the direct moonlight, the geometric pattern shone with the luster of an opal. A box like this might contain jewelry or another precious trifle, she considered, nothing larger than a couple of marbles. But it’s a key, she thought to herself. I know it’s a key.

  Hands shaking slightly, Maggie opened the hinged lid. Nestled on the dark velvet lining was a silver key. Maggie began laughing hysterically. She had to stifle the sound with the back of her own hand. Her abs contracted with the effort of suppressing the mad outburst.

  Still sputtering, somewhere between a sob and a cackle, Maggie convulsed her way back through the crawlspace. She applied key to lock and was not disappointed. The hasp popped open easily. Maggie freed the lock from the box, opened the lid and looked inside. There were two thin, leather-bound volumes.

  Maggie flipped through one, noting the hand-written pages and occasional dates marking new entries. The next book held the same. They were journals—Fennel’s journals.

  Maggie held each by the spine and ruffled the pages, to see if anything lodged between them might shake loose. Nothing fell out.

  Wanting to leave the room much as she found it, Maggie closed the box and replaced the padlock. Holding the key in her teeth, journals in one hand and flashlight in the other, she crawled as quietly as possible back to Fennel’s bedroom. She closed the wallpapered door and pulled the squealing cart back into place. Maggie almost returned the key to its secret resting place, but instead replaced the empty box beneath the dresser, then turned on the bedside lamp. The brightness was shocking.

  Maggie set the journals and the little silver key on the lamp table and went to search through her luggage, still piled haphazardly at the foot of the bed. She rummaged through her toiletry bag and dug out a pair of tweezers. Sitting on the bed, legs stretched out straight, Maggie picked the splinter out of her knee. Then, without even really deciding to, she pulled on the green embroidery thread round her neck and slipped it over her head. She yawned as she untied the knot and strung the silver key onto the cord, alongside Ben’s ring. Retying the knot, she slipped the thread back over her head and fished it back down into her shirt, where both metal objects found a home against her sternum.

  Tokens of the dead, close to my heart.

  She had every intention of reading the journals, but her body was against the idea of staying up any longer. The amassed nights of sleeplessness finally took over with an unstoppable force. Maggie lay back against the pillow, journals in hand. Minutes later she conked out, blissfully dream-free, unaware that the sun had begun to paint the eastern sky a lighter shade of grey.

  Chapter 9

  Apples and cinnamon drifted up the stairs, under the door, and reached Maggie’s nose. She woke, abruptly aware that the room was full of light. It took a moment before Maggie realized where she was.

  The door cracked opened and Loki stuck his hand through to wave at her.

  “Morning, Mack. Are you decent?”

  Maggie hastily stuffed Fennel’s journals under the covers.

  “Yes. Come in,” she called.

  Loki bounded in and jumped on the bed. “I couldn’t wait any longer. You’ve been asleep forever, woman. Time to get up!”

  “Sorry. I had a weird night.”

  “Huh. So what should we do first?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Breakfast and then a walk or a walk, then breakfast?” Loki lifted his eyebrows theatrically. “Hmm?”

  Maggie’s stomach growled, on cue.

  “Breakfast it is,” he responded, bouncing a few times on the mattress, propelling himself upward and leaping gracefully onto the floor. “I’ll make you some fake bacon and real eggs.”

  “Okay,” she responded, getting up to shut the door behind Loki.

  Maggie grabbed a pair of leggings and sat on the bed to put them on. She thought about how she had hidden the journals from Loki and tried to decide if she felt guilty for possessing them or deceitful for keeping them secret. Opting for the first feeling as the most probable, she told herself that she’d put the journals back after the walk. Last night seemed very far away, suddenly.

  On the way downstairs, Maggie hesitated at the second floor landing and tried not to picture Fennel lying at the bottom of the stairs.

  In the kitchen, Sunflower and TomTom were busy dumping fresh muffins and bagels into plastic bags, hastily looking through the scraps of paper that were the sole means for keeping track of customer orders. Loki skipped around, digging out a cast iron skillet, nearly tripping TomTom in the process, opening the fridge in Sunflower’s face, waltzing his way through the chaos.

  “You know this is a baking day, Loki,” TomTom scolded. “Help or get out!”

  “I’m on a mission, sister. Breakfast for m’lady!”

  Sunflower grumbled something about this not being a hotel. Maggie ducked out of sight. She was supposed to be helping, not mooching off her friends.

  “Sun, give it a rest will you? Her man just died. She’ll get into the swing pretty soon,” said TomTom.

  “Yeah, Sun,” Loki chimed in, ducking out of Sunflower’s reach. “Knock it off.”

  Sunflower made no audible reply.

  Of all the Originals, Maggie knew the least about Sunflower. Sunflower’s was also the nickname that made no sense to her. The best she could come up with was that Sunflower was tall and blond. Her disposition was anything but sunny. She even lived in the basement, as far from the light as a person could get. She was tough and self-reliant and butch—she even had a butch.

  Sunflower rarely spoke at length. When she did utter brief communications, her tone ranged from taciturn to sour.

  Maggie took a deep breath and rounded the corner. Loki was submerged to the waist in the deep freeze. He pulled out an ice-encrusted package of soy bacon with a triumphant, “Ha!”

  “Oh, no! Don’t you even think of opening that in here!” TomTom warned, shaking a wooden spoon at him.

  “Why?”

  “How many times did Fennel have to tell you? That stuff is full of wheat. And what are we trying to avoid getting into the baking?” TomTom kept the spoon in her hand and would have resembled a schoolhouse marm handing out punishments if it were not for her Raggedy Ann red hair pulled into several short ponytails. The leather camisole atop bloomers and the ball-and-stick eyebrow piercing were decidedly un-schoolmarm-ish, as well.

  “Wheat is the enemy and must be avoided at all times. It won’t happen again, ma’am.” Loki saluted. “I’ll nuke ‘em upstairs. No eggs, Mack. Sorry. Too crowded. Back up the stairs.”

  TomTom put down the spoon and tossed a muffin to Maggie, with a wink. Sunflower frowned at the loss of precious baked goods, but kept quiet.

  After breakfast, Loki took Maggie on a walk to the river.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Around.”

  “Don’t we have work to do?”

  “Not much going on today.”

  She followed him a mile and half down the road to a vast, wooded area. She could hear river water running in the distance and twittering birdsong in surround sound. The crunch-swish of their footfalls added off-beat percussion to the music of nature.

  “Does this land belong to someone?”

  “I dunno. Maybe the county.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Loki took her hand and they traipsed over fallen leaves, companion children in the primeval forest.

  Maggie stopped suddenly. “Populus grandidentata!”

  “What about grand tatas?”

  “Bigtooth aspen,” Maggie responded, picking up a leaf. “See the jagged edge— like teeth?”

  She touched th
e pale bark of the aspen, “You don’t see these often. River birch and sycamore have light colored trunks, too, and they’re much more common in Iowan woodlands. Aspens—what a find!”

  “Here’s another one!” Loki called, ten or fifteen feet away. “And another! Look, it’s a fairy ring! We’re surrounded!” He stood in the center, arms outstretched, spinning with his head thrown back.

  Maggie smiled, despite herself. The fall air was wonderfully brisk, making her sweater feel like a second, warmer skin underneath her jacket. The sky was clear, a cerulean dome stroked by treetop fingers.

  “It’s possible that they share a root system. Parent trees send out suckers, especially after a forest fire, so that what looks like a bunch of trees is actually one organism.”

  Loki did not appear to be listening. He found a clear spot and lay down on his back, tilting his head till the crown rested on the ground. “Hey, do this!”

  Maggie hesitated. The ground looked cold and wet.

  “Mack!”

  “Okay, okay.” She lay down beside him, mimicking his actions. The result was immediate disorientation. Earth was up and sky was down. She had to close her eyes, for fear of falling into the wide, blue expanse.

  “Like swimming, isn’t it?” he whispered. “Like swimming in the sky!”

  Maggie opened her eyes again. The aspens were dipping their remaining bright yellow leaves into blue heavens. A memory, sharp and clear, rushed forward. She was eight years old, at sleep-away camp. While the other two hundred campers sat with bowed heads at morning prayer, Maggie had tiptoed away for a walk in the woods by herself.

  Her child eyes had marveled at the early morning sunlight filtering through the leaves, dust motes like airborne flecks of quartzite .

  Although her mother Mary had explained the basics of photosynthesis, young Maggie itched to know more. She wanted specifics. It seemed senseless to her—a complete waste of time even—for trees to grow leaves that would die. What did the trees do in winter? Hibernate? Didn’t they need to eat then, too? Were there great storage tubes deep within their trunks where they saved food? If so, what did the food look like? How was it different from being fed by their leaves?