~ * ~
The high temperatures of the previous days dipped down to a more comfortable level overnight. I woke to a cerulean sky filled with white cotton candy clouds. The grass and leaves seemed greener, and Camille’s gardens blazed with color. It was a picture perfect summer day when anything was possible.
When Crane left for his shift, I set out for a walk with Raven, Gemmy, and Star, leaving the rest of the pack with fresh water and toys. The ones left behind didn’t fuss; they knew their turn would come. Thank heavens for summer vacation and the priceless gift of time.
A soft wind blew the myriads of floral scents of Foxglove Corners over the lane as we headed toward Sagramore Lake, one of the most popular gathering spots in the area. It was early, so I anticipated having the beach mostly to ourselves.
The water sparkled in the morning sun. My collies didn’t like to get their feet wet but loved making tracks in the sand. An elaborate sandcastle, still intact, captured Raven’s attention. As she nudged a turret with her nose, I guided my trio around it. Gemmy alerted me to a disturbance on the beach. Three figures were running toward us. One of them called my name.
It was my young friends, Molly and Jennifer, with the collie, Ginger. I tended to think of them as little girls selling lemonade and cookies, but they were in high school now, taller and wearing makeup. Both girls had long flowing hair. They were dressed alike in shorts and the shirts Miss Eidt had designed for her summer reading club. Not to be left out, Ginger proudly wore a pink and white bandana.
The four collies, old friends, greeted and sniffed one another and performed endearing play bows. Ginger’s paws were wet. Here was one canine who didn’t mind the water.
Molly brushed back her hair with her hand, her pink shell bracelet making a gentle clacking sound. Like Annica she favored jewelry with sound effects. “Do you have any mysteries to solve this summer?” she asked.
The girls fancied themselves amateur detectives and, in truth, had been helpful to me in the past. Because I couldn’t see any harm in the mysteries of Brent’s house—only ghosts—I told them about the phantom in the fishpond and the scratching noise inside that might indicate the presence of a rat or something more sinister.
What I didn’t mention was the feeling of terror Lucy sensed on the landing.
Jennifer reacted for both of them. “Wow! Maybe a whole pack of rats lives there.”
“I hope not.”
“Where is this place?” Molly wanted to know.
“Not far. On Loosestrife Lane.”
“We’ve seen it,” she said. “Last summer when we rode our bikes that way.”
“It has to be the spookiest house in Foxglove Corners,” Jennifer added.
“Mr. Fowler is going to fix it up as a shelter for geriatric collies, the ones nobody wants.”
“How sad,” Molly said.
“I don’t think so,” Jennifer countered. “That’s a wonderful idea. A house just for dogs.”
“I mean about the ones nobody wants to adopt. Will Brent’s house be just for collies?”
“That’s what he says.”
“Oh.”
“What?” I asked.
“What will happen to other breeds?” she asked. “All dogs get old and sometimes their owners don’t want to keep them. Like Sandy on our street.”
“Lila and Letty Woodville welcome all dogs at the animal shelter,” I told her. “Any breed, any age.”
“Maybe not anymore,” Jennifer said.
The animal shelter across from the municipal park was the library’s neighbor. Like the library, it was an institution in Foxglove Corners. I knew the Woodville sisters well and felt bad that I hadn’t visited them in months. I used to bring treats for the foundlings regularly.
“What changed?” I asked.
“Miss Lila said they may have to close the shelter,” she said. “Then all that’s left is the pound, and they kill dogs there.”
Seventeen
“Back up, Jennifer,” I said. “Why would the Woodville sisters close the animal shelter?”
“They don’t want to, but Major March passed away. The legacy he left to the shelter won’t be enough to feed all their dogs and pay for vet bills.”
Soon after moving to Foxglove Corners, I had met charismatic animal activist, Caroline Meilland who had later been slain. In her memory, her friend, Major March, had established the shelter and recruited Lila and Letty Woodville to take care of the town’s strays and find new homes for them. Without his financial support, they would soon be floundering.
“When did Major March die?” I asked.
“Last month,” Jennifer said. “He was killed in a plane crash.”
The Woodville sisters were my good friends. I should have known.
Not if you don’t keep in touch with people, I told myself.
“We’re organizing fundraisers for the shelter,” Molly said. “Will you help us?”
“Of course I will. Whatever you need.”
Jennifer said, “I knew you would. We’re going to bathe dogs at Molly’s house the first Saturday in August. We’ll charge fifteen dollars for small dogs and twenty-five for big dogs like Ginger.”
“And my job will be…?
“To give them baths. We’re getting soap and tubs and stuff from all over.”
Oh, good grief. I had a fleeting vision of suds and water, struggling dogs, flying hair… Fleas? With seven collies of my own to groom, I usually took them, two at a time, to Marina’s Pet Parlor.”
“Miss Lila and Miss Letty are going to help,” Molly said. “Do you think we should ask Mr. Fowler?”
Brent? I had to think about that. Brent usually hired others to do menial jobs or any jobs, for that matter. I knew that one of the young men at his barn was in charge of grooming Napoleon and his collies. I couldn’t imagine Brent with his shirt sleeves rolled up, rinsing shampoo out of a dog’s coat.
“He loves animals. I’m sure he’ll make a donation to the cause,” I said.
“We’ll ask him then, and we have other ideas. We’re going to learn how to embroider pretty collars. Can you think of anything else we can do?”
“Not right away. I can probably come up with something.”
Or Sue would, or Ronda or Emma, my fellow Rescue League members. But whatever funds we raised couldn’t compete with Major March’s ongoing support. Perhaps the animal shelter, as we knew it, was doomed.
“They were going to turn away new dogs,” Molly said. “But then someone left a cute black and white puppy on the porch, and they couldn’t send him to the pound.”
What if they had no choice? It might happen if all the fundraisers in town couldn’t bail out the shelter.
We couldn’t let that happen.
I gazed out over Sagramore Lake, trying to see the horizon as if the answer could be found in that barely discernible line.
In the short time we’d been talking, the lake had filled with watercraft, and sunbathers were claiming prized lying places on the beach. Like the animal shelter, I expected the lake and the beach to be there for us always. But suppose some future summer it was gone? The beach contaminated or the lake dried up?
“All we can do is try to save the shelter,” I said. “All of us working together.”
We said goodbye, humans and canines, and I took the collies home, filled a large brown bag with treats, and drove to the Corners. As I glanced at the yellow Victorian I remembered that Camille often gifted our dogs with homemade treats. Maybe she would be willing to make flavorful bones to sell at one of the fundraisers, along with handwritten recipes. She and Leonora could always arrange a bake sale.
Maybe all was not lost.
~ * ~
For once I bypassed the library and parked in front of the Foxglove Corners Animal Shelter. The house was another old white Victorian built around the same time as the library. Memories rolled over me.
The day I had seen a Christmas tree, decorated with vintage icicles, in the bay window of the hou
se next to the shelter. A tree that subsequently, unaccountably, disappeared the next time I looked. Of Winter, the glorious blue merle I’d found lying as if dead on a snowy country road and taken to the shelter. My first rescue.
All the other strays I’d brought to the shelter, wholeheartedly welcomed by Lila or Letty. I could almost see Lila in one of her old-fashioned aprons offering me a piece of her homemade coffee cake, and Caroline Meilland who’d championed all the animals who share the earth with us.
Caroline had never seen the shelter, nor met the Woodville sisters, but from the first, she had been there in spirit.
The memories dissolved around me, and I was back in the present leaning over the gate to the shelter’s spacious backyard. About a dozen of the Woodville’s foundlings rushed the fence to welcome me, all noise and bright eyes and wagging tails. I wanted to greet them by their names but realized they were all new since my last visit. How long ago?
“Jennet,” Lila called from the porch. “Don’t stand out there. Come on in.”
I did and found myself enfolded in Lila’s grandmotherly embrace. She wore a voluminous apron that covered the bodice of her blue and white striped dress. From the wall in the vestibule, Caroline smiled down on us from her portrait.
“We haven’t seen you in… How long, Letty?”
Letty emerged from the kitchen, carrying a coffee cup. “So long I can’t remember. We’ve missed you.”
There were minor changes like the highlights in Letty’s pixie cut and a new hairdo for Lila, a short pageboy. The sisters fairly glowed with good health and energy, and neither one looked particularly unhappy.
“I ran into Jennifer and Molly on the beach,” I said. “They told me about Major March’s passing.”
Lila said quietly, “He was a good man, gone before his time.”
“I know what his loss means for the shelter,” I added. “I’m so sorry.”
“We’ve depended on his support for so long,” Lila said. “It’s hard to imagine any other way of life.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” Letty said briskly. “We need to cut way back on the dogs we take in.”
I sensed that the sisters disagreed on that matter.
“How many dogs do you have now?” I asked.
“Twenty,” Lila said.
“Twenty-one,” Letty corrected. “Don’t forget Gareth.”
The puppy. I heard whimpering from the kitchen. It turned into a howl.
“That pesky pup,” Letty said. “He chews everything in sight unless we watch him. And even then.”
“That’s what puppies do. Let’s have coffee and cake. I baked this morning. It’s nothing fancy, just a simple coffee cake.”
So many problems could be solved or at least talked through over coffee and cake. I’d learned that from Camille in her cozy country kitchen.
The puppy’s crate was next to the refrigerator. I talked softly to him while Letty brewed coffee and Lila brought forth the fruits of her labor, an apple coffee cake decorated with apple slices and walnuts.
“We could work harder to find homes,” Lila said. “Doctor Foster gives us a discount for our dogs, but vet bills are sky high these days.”
Letty set the table with dessert plates and coffee cups. “I don’t know what more we could do. People who want a purebred dog tend to go to breeders or rescues. Not everybody, of course, and those dogs need homes, too.”
My memory of the ghostly Christmas tree reminded me of the sisters’ other neighbor.
“How is Henry McCullough?” I asked.
“He’s fine. He went up north for the month of July. Henry pledged part of his pension to keep the shelter open,” Letty said.
“I’m taking part in the girls’ dog washing fundraiser,” I said.
Lila beamed. “Molly and Jennifer are wonderful young women.”
“We need Caroline Meilland,” Letty said.
“We can’t have her, but she sent Jennet in her place, along with a whole bunch of angels to show us the way.”
Lila added, “While people continue to dump their pets on country roads and drive off.”
I didn’t want them to need me too much. True, I was on vacation all summer, but I had the fake transporters to track down, the phantom collie in the pond, and the other oddities of Brent’s house. But…
“Foxglove Corners needs the animal shelter,” I said. “The problem is how to keep it solvent.”
“Not just for now,” Lila added, “but forever.”
Eighteen
I stood under the weeping willow tree gazing at the fishpond beyond the fence and marveling at its transformation. The water was fresh, its surface bright in the sunlight that made its way cautiously through graceful willow strands. All of the deteriorating mishmash of leaves and other debris had been cleared away, along with the weeds in the rock garden.
“It’s so beautiful,” I said. “Just the way I remember it.”
Annica set the picnic basket from Clovers on the ground. “When did you see it before?”
“Oh…” Realizing what I had said, I rephrased my comment, “I was thinking about the pond at our house when I was a little girl. This one brings back memories.”
“Are there any goldfish in it?” she asked.
“I can’t tell from here.”
We couldn’t go any further as the new pickets were in place, accompanied by a ‘Beware—Fresh Paint’ sign. Brent would arrive any minute and unlock the gate and the door to the house.
“I guess we can’t climb over it,” Annica said. “I could have. Once.”
“You’d impale yourself,” I told her. “Brent shouldn’t be long.”
Annica glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t see the rabid dog. I hope he’s far away.”
“If he shows up, we have plenty of food in the basket. He’s partial to crullers.”
We wore sensible clothes, as instructed, both of us in jeans and sneakers, to navigate the unstable attic floorboards. Annica drew the line at venturing out without her earrings. Today’s pair were sequined seahorses. She twirled them absently. Unlike her other jewelry, they didn’t make a sound.
In fact nothing disturbed the silence that lay heavily over us. Not even birdsong. The unbroken stillness was eerie, and I was grateful to have company.
“I hope we find something good in the attic,” Annica said.
“Like hidden treasure?”
“Anything but the mystery rat. I can’t understand why anyone would move all but one bedroom suite out of the house and leave stuff in the attic. I wonder if we’ll find the rest of the furniture up there.”
“I hope not. I’d like to find—”
What did I hope to find most in the attic? Something that belonged to a former resident, perhaps the frightened woman whose terror lived on in the walls. Something, an object, perhaps, with a story to tell.
“A diary,” I said.
“How cliché. Every mystery worth its salt has a diary in it.”
“How else can a reader know about events that happened a hundred years ago? Maybe old letters?”
“Another cliché. Besides, this isn’t a book. It’s real life.”
I glanced at the pond, wishing myself inside the yard with Misty at my side. Would the phantom collie still be reflected in its surface if Misty looked into the water? Why had I only seen him twice?
Because I needed Misty?
“There’s Brent,” Annica announced as a green and white vintage Plymouth pulled up in front of the gate. As he got out of the car and waved to us, the sun struck lights into his dark red hair. He wore a green shirt. Brent must have a closet full of green to set off the unusual color of his hair and pay homage to the earth mother.
“Let the fun begin,” I said.
We met him at the gate.
“Were you waiting long?” he asked as he took the picnic basket from Annica.
“Not long,” I said. “We were admiring the pond.”
“This is only the beginning. Wait till they
get started inside the house.”
“Did you buy the goldfish yet?” Annica asked.
“Not yet. Maybe I’ll leave the pond the way it is. Are the flamingoes ready?”
“I gave them two coats of paint, but they need another day to dry.”
“There’s no hurry,” he said. “I still haven’t found my caretaker. Once the word was out that I needed one, somebody let all the inmates out of the looney bin. This basket is heavy,” he added. “What’s in it?”
“Ham sandwiches, blueberry muffins, and fruit,” she said. “And it’s staying where I can watch it. We don’t want a repeat of the doughnut caper.”
“It’ll be okay in the kitchen,” he said. “I made sure the back door was locked before I left. We won’t be bothered by vagrants drifting in from outside.”
“Can we go right up to the attic?” I asked.
“As soon as you girls are ready. I brought flashlights and extra batteries.”
He unlocked the door. I took my last breath of fresh air for a while and followed them inside.
~ * ~
The house didn’t welcome us. We walked into the usual close, stale air, anemic light that filtered through grimy windows, and emptiness. Only the truly imaginative could see a warm and welcoming place where a dog could sleep freed from the fear of being disturbed.
But Brent had turned the fishpond into a thing of beauty. He could work his magic again inside with paint on the walls, rugs on the floors, and new windows. Annica was going to help him furnish the house.
He strode into the kitchen and set the basket on the counter next to the coffeemaker, an array of bottles, and five flashlights.
“I sent one of my men over earlier with water and pop,” he said. “Or we can have coffee. Everyone, take a flashlight. The entrance is on the second floor next to a linen closet. It’s locked, but I have a key.”
Annica patted her red-gold hair. It had a freshly washed sheen. “I wish I’d thought to bring a scarf. For the cobwebs. Oh, well…I can’t imagine why the realtor didn’t examine what was up there before saying you could do whatever you wanted with it,” she added.
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