The Sisters of Blue Mountain

by Karen Katchur

  “I was over there, but it seems most of the dead geese have drifted over here.”

  She glared at him, taking an immediate dislike to him and his cavalier comment about her father’s birds.

  “Where are my manners?” he said, and reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card. “I’m Jake Mann, journalist for the Lehigh Valley newspaper.” He held out his card, but she refused to take it, realizing he was the journalist who had waved to them from across the way.

  “Do you live here?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “The B&B, right there?” He motioned to the main house that was at least twenty yards away.

  “Yes,” she said again. “Now get out of my way.” She pushed past him.

  He matched her stride. “Do you have a room I could rent?”

  “No.”

  His steps faltered, but he rushed to catch up with her. “Wait.”

  “We’re all booked.”

  “Will you at least take my card?” he asked. “Maybe something will open up.”

  “Why would something open up? Or are you planning on scaring people away with some fabricated story about the birds?”

  “What? No,” he said, and looked insulted that she would think he was the kind of journalist who would do something like that. But she didn’t know him.

  “Is there a problem?” Al appeared from around the corner of the house. He was holding pruning shears in his hand, finally getting around to shaping the rose bushes on the far side of the wraparound porch. Al was tall and strong, and the sharp shears made him look threatening. She’d never tell Ian or anyone else, but sometimes she’d catch something in Al’s eyes when he looked at her, a lustful look that he’d flushed over on more than one occasion. Maybe she was being silly and the looks had been nothing. She hoped so.

  “No problem here,” she said. “Mr. Mann, was it?”

  “Call me Jake,” he said.

  “Mr. Mann was just leaving,” she said, and marched to the side door. She entered the kitchen just in time for Hank to burst into the room. He was a cyclone of energy when he came home from school and baseball practice. He threw his glove onto the table and dumped his backpack onto the chair. Ian was right behind him. They both wore baseball caps and smelled like the field, wet and dirty. Hank went right to the refrigerator in search of food. He was hungry all the time. At his recent physical, the pediatrician had said it was normal for growing boys to eat a lot. But the way he put away food was astounding. And where did it all go? He was thin, all knobs and bones.

  Hank pulled out a small covered plate with a note from Cora on top. She’d made him a snack, knowing he’d be starving. It appeared she’d left for the day, and she wouldn’t be back until the morning.

  “Hello,” someone called from the main entrance.

  “That must be the new guests,” she said to Ian. “A young couple.” She left the kitchen to greet them. And oh, were they ever young. A twig of a girl clung to a boy’s arm. The boy’s cheeks were red. The girl hid behind his shoulder. Linnet had the distinct feeling she’d interrupted something. There was a small suitcase on the floor by their feet and what looked to be a bottle of champagne.

  “I’m Mick.” The boy touched his sunken chest. “And this is my wife, Emmy.” He grinned. Emmy giggled. They looked like a couple of kids pretending to be grown-ups, but Linnet supposed if they were old enough to drink alcohol, then they were old enough to get married.

  After all, Linnet had married Ian when she’d been only twenty-two, having met in college, saying I do three months after the ink on their diplomas had dried. They’d met her senior year. She and Myna had drifted so far apart by then; Linnet had been so vulnerable and lonely. She’d found Ian had been just as lonely, an only child and the kind of math genius that hadn’t lent itself to having a lot of friends. He’d been prone to spending long hours alone working equations on the chalkboard in an empty classroom, which is where Linnet had stumbled upon him while on an errand for her father. She couldn’t remember why she’d entered that particular room. Ian had been facing the chalkboard, his back to her, and he hadn’t realized she’d barged in. She’d watched him, his long arm extending across the board, the way he’d cocked his head to the side as though he were deep in thought, the freckles on his earlobes. There had been something familiar about his intensity, a trait she’d found endearing in her own father. She hadn’t been able to look away, but when he’d turned around and caught her staring, her heart seemed to have stopped.

  For the next several months they’d worked side by side, making plans on how to improve The Snow Goose, crunching numbers, spending every free moment together, falling in love. At the same time, Ian had been pursued by financial investment and consulting firms across the United States, the salaries growing larger and larger the longer he’d held out. But in the end, all he’d really wanted was to teach. It had been Pop who had suggested the teaching position at Mountain Springs High School.

  * * *

  “Welcome to The Snow Goose,” Linnet said to the young couple now. “If you want to follow me, I’ll show you to your room. Cocktails are being served in the dining hall.” They climbed the stairs. “I can give you a list of restaurants in the area and some places to visit while you’re here.” She hesitated. This was the part where she’d give her spiel about the snow geese.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Mick said wearing a sheepish grin. “We probably won’t get out much. Well, at least not tonight anyway.”

  Emmy buried her face in his shoulder. “Mick, you’re embarrassing me.”

  Linnet held up her hands. “Say no more.” She stopped outside room number two and opened the door. “If you have any questions or you need anything, you can always find me in the kitchen at the back of the house.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Enjoy your stay,” Linnet said, and darted down the hall, hearing the door close and the click of the lock. At least some of her guests weren’t here for the birds.

  Ian was hanging up the phone by the time she returned to the kitchen. She hadn’t heard it ring. Ian’s face was pulled tight. She recognized the look of bad news.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The other couple that was supposed to arrive tonight just canceled.”

  Her body tensed. She didn’t even realize she’d put her back up against the counter, arms folded defensively. There was more he had to tell her, but in typical Ian style he’d parcel out the bad news one snippet at a time so the hits came in succession, small and manageable, rather than one massive blow all at once.

  She exhaled. They’d had cancelations before—someone gets ill, babysitting falls through, couples split—life happens.

  “They heard about the birds,” Ian said. “I think they were scared there might be something infectious around here. I didn’t know what to tell them.” He shrugged. “So they’re not coming. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. He was right. It wasn’t the end of the world. Or maybe it was if you believed in the apocalyptic signs found in the Bible about birds falling from the sky, which Linnet did not. She was a scientist’s daughter who believed in factual data. It was only a matter of time before Pop or the wiry young professor provided a reasonable explanation for the fallen birds.

  Ian stared at her, his soft blue eyes searching hers.

  “What else?” She pulled in a deep breath and waited for the final hit.

  “You and Pop made the national news.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jake was sitting at the bar in the Loose Goose. It was an old establishment by the looks of the scars on the wood and the heavy varnish attempting to conceal them, not to mention the hundred-year-old barn beams dissecting the ceiling. There was even an old dartboard hanging on the corner wall with metal darts pinned to its face. Peanut shells covered the floor. The place smelled of yeast and bodies and a hint of disinfectant. It had the feel of being well-loved, a favorite ha
ngout for the locals.

  Jake had rented a room above the pub for a measly eighty bucks a night. The room itself looked to be straight out of the seventies: rust-colored carpet, burnt orange bedcover, cracked toilet seat. Even the television was older than Jake. But he didn’t care. He wasn’t here to sit around and watch TV. He wasn’t here to sleep one off, which was what he’d imagined was the purpose of the shabby accommodations upstairs.

  He hadn’t bothered with the fancier hotel in the center of town, the Mountain Springs Inn. He found if he wanted to get to the bottom of a story, it was best to mingle with the locals and steer clear of tourists. The locals were the ones with inside information, the juicier pieces of the events that made the news interesting. What better place to get the scoop about the dead birds, or about his father’s car accident, than the neighborhood bar?

  He drank from a frosted mug. His laptop was open in front of him. A stack of brochures boasting about nearby waterfalls, trails, and outdoor parks was piled to his side. But he wasn’t interested in the other tourist attractions the Blue Mountains had to offer. He was only concerned with the dam and the snow geese for his article.

  And the mountain road.

  The dam was a seventy-eight-acre shallow waterway anywhere from four to five feet deep with the maximum depth of eight feet in the center, giving it a spoon-like shape. It was big, but not huge, packed with aquatic weeds, shallow vegetation, and grasses, an optimal food supply for hosting thousands of migrating snow geese. There was a public boat launch next to the gravel parking lot, the same lot he’d pulled into when he’d first arrived in town only to find most of the birds had drifted to the other side. The few locals that had remained lingering near the launch and dock had refused to answer his questions. He’d gotten back into his car, taking a winding road around the waterway only to get kicked off a certain B&B’s property. So far his interactions with the people in Mountain Springs were far from welcoming.

  He continued reading. Gas motors were prohibited on the dam, and electric motors were to be used with caution due to the shallow, weedy waters. The message was clear—manpowered boats were preferred. Oddly, he’d found only one listing for boat rentals in the area: Leo’s, a canoe-and-rowboat rental shop. “Small-town monopoly,” he grunted, and continued searching for more information, but all he found was the surface kind of stuff anybody with Internet access could pull up.

  He checked his phone for messages from Kim. Nothing. He set it back down on the bar next to the laptop and stared at the article on the screen.

  Who was he kidding?

  He hadn’t come for the birds, not really, although how convenient for them to have dropped from the sky at the exact time he needed to be in Mountain Springs.

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out the old Nokia, rubbing his finger along the deep grooves in the back where it had been scratched.

  * * *

  “Your father would’ve been so proud of you.” Jake’s mother had come up behind him where he’d been sitting at the dining room table next to several letters and a stack of brochures. She placed her hand on his shoulder. He’d been accepted to all three colleges where he’d applied.

  “I didn’t expect you home until later,” he said. He thought she’d be working until the library closed at 7 P.M. He tried to look casual, putting his arm over the brochure in front of him, covering it from her view.

  “What’s this?” she’d asked, and had removed it from under his forearm. She was petite and thin. Her hands were no bigger than a child’s. She still wore her wedding ring. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Me and some of the guys were hoping to go away for senior week.”

  She shook her head. “Find someplace else to go,” she said, dropping the Blue Mountain brochure on the table. “You can’t go there. I can’t…” She broke off. “You just can’t.”

  He covered it with his arm again. Why couldn’t she understand this wasn’t about her? This was about him. The very reason she didn’t want him to go was the very reason he longed to go. She was scared. He was curious. His father had done a lot of traveling as a salesman, selling roofing and siding for old and new homes alike. He’d rarely been home. He’d been traveling when the car accident occurred in Mountain Springs on some godforsaken road, and Jake just wanted to see the place where he’d lost him.

  “Why don’t you go to the Jersey shore or Ocean City, Maryland?”

  “It’s cheaper to go to the mountains,” he said, feeling defiant and, at the same time, ashamed. The few memories he had of his father were fading, and he was grasping at anything, terrified he’d wake up one day only to realize he’d forgotten everything about him.

  “Please,” she said, her voice cracking. “Pick somewhere else to spend the week.”

  * * *

  Jake drained his beer and signaled Rodney, the bartender who’d rented him the room, for another draft. He was the only customer at the moment if he didn’t count the two old men at the other end of the bar who looked as though they were permanent fixtures in the place.

  Rodney refilled the mug, lingering, waiting for Jake to look up from his computer.

  “What’s that?” Rodney asked. He was short and thick around the middle. His dark eyes were kind. He motioned to Jake’s left hand. “Is that a championship ring?”

  “This?” Jake lifted his hand. “Yeah. It was my dad’s.”

  Rodney poured himself a beer.

  Jake wondered if Rodney should be drinking, but figured the man owned the place and could do whatever he wanted. “My dad wore it on his pinky because his ring finger was banged up from playing. I think he might’ve had some arthritis because of it.” His words came out in a rush. “My father was killed in a car accident near here on the mountain road.”

  The door to the pub swung open. They both turned to see who had walked in. A guy in work pants and a flannel shirt sauntered over. Jake recognized him as the man who’d been holding the pruning shears earlier at the B&B.

  “Al,” Rodney said, and poured him a cold one.

  “Did you hear about the geese?”Al asked.

  “It’s a damn shame,” Rodney said.

  “I took some pictures,” Al said, and held up his phone.

  Rodney shooed the phone away. Jake had the feeling he was trying to tell Al to be careful about what he said next. Al took a long, hard look at Jake.

  Jake turned on his stool and stuck his hand out. “Jake Mann. Journalist from the Lehigh Valley newspaper.”

  Al shook his hand. “I remember you,” he said. “You’re the guy Linnet chased out of her yard today.”

  “Linnet is the woman from the B&B?” Jake asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then that would be me.” He pointed to Al’s phone. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

  Al stuck his phone in his back pocket and picked up his beer.

  “Or not,” Jake said, and turned toward the bar and lifted his own mug.

  “Just so you’re aware, The Snow Goose is private property,” Al said, and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “I’m the groundskeeper, and unless you’re a guest of Linnet’s, you’ve got no business being there or asking her any questions. Am I making myself clear?”

  “I’m not looking for any trouble. I’m just here to report the news.” What was this guy’s problem anyway?

  “Yeah, well, there’s a lot of you reporters poking around,” Al said. “There’s a whole bunch of you at the Inn. I bet you can’t wait to tell everybody the water is contaminated or it’s some new bird disease or some other kind of bullshit. You scare people half to death and then move on to some other town, some other story, and scare everybody there, too.”

  “All right, Al,” Rodney said.

  Al finished his beer, wiping his mouth on his forearm for a second time. He tossed a couple bills onto the bar and walked toward the door. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Well, aren’t you coming?” he asked Jake. “All your buddies are lining up at the to
wn hall waiting for the mayor to speak.”

  “Shit.” Jake threw some cash onto the bar. He hadn’t heard about the town meeting. He packed up his laptop and picked up his phone. No messages. He raced out the door after Al, who was already halfway down the block.

  “Hold up,” Jake called, but it was apparent Al wasn’t going to wait. Jake slowed his pace and decided he’d have to follow several paces behind.

  Al had made it pretty clear. Jake was the outsider here.

  * * *

  Mountain Springs Town Hall looked like any other municipal building in any other town: square-shaped, layered in brick, and lacking any character. The water fountain in the courtyard with the two bronze snow geese was the only identifying feature. Reporters and their cameramen vied for spots near the sculpture preparing to go live with the news. People milled around. Some carried shopping bags. Others were bent over smartphones.

  Jake recognized the local news team from the Lehigh Valley. Others were from the station in Lackawanna County. A couple of news vans were from out of state—two from New Jersey and one from New York. But the biggest attention was being paid to a crew from CNN, with people crowding around the reporter, waving into the camera, claiming their five seconds of fame. Jake couldn’t help but think this could be trouble for Mountain Springs. Yes, the small town would get national attention, but the kind of attention they’d attract, possibly from environmentalists or end-of-the-world religious fanatics, wouldn’t be what they’d want hanging around their watering hole, gawking at their precious birds.

  He took the steps two at a time and entered the building, taking in its stale air and polished floors. He found a seat in the back of the room, where everyone was quieting down now that the mayor appeared behind the podium. The chief of police stood next to him, a much taller, older man. The chief’s stature alone sent the signal that order would be maintained.

  Jake looked around, searching for someone or something. He was half-listening to the mayor’s speech. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, a hint or clue of some kind. He spied Al leaning against the far wall. Sitting in a chair across from Al was the woman from the B&B, Linnet. Jake recognized her straight dark hair, the pale skin of her face and neck. He suspected she was a couple of years older than him, but she wasn’t a bad-looking woman. No, he’d say she was quite attractive. Although the way she was sitting, erect and stiff, made her look harder than he imagined she was. She looked as if she were preparing for a fight.