There was a pot of beef stew simmering on the stove, the smell rich and warm. Linnet and Myna eyed the pot suspiciously. Linnet pulled the refrigerator door open, surprised to find a cheese platter that had been picked over. She handed it to Myna.
They helped themselves to the leftover cheese wedges and apple slices, eating in silence, exchanging looks back and forth, listening for sounds of the others.
Myna dipped an apple slice in caramel and stuffed the whole thing into her mouth. Linnet helped herself to another cheddar cube. She didn’t have to ask Myna what was up with the soup and platters. It was for the man who had been coming to the B&B the last couple of months. They’d seen him with their mother on the sofa in the grand living room and on the front porch swing, and once up close when they’d bumped into him in the hallway where the family’s bedrooms were located and where guests weren’t allowed. He’d held up his hands. “I guess I got lost.” Linnet had pointed him in the direction of the dining hall.
Today, there was enough food and wine in the house to feed a dozen people. Linnet hoped that meant more guests were coming. The Snow Goose wasn’t exactly thriving. You could say that business had been dead if you didn’t count that man constantly showing up.
“Do you hear that?” Myna asked.
Linnet shook her head.
“That,” Myna said.
It sounded like giggling.
“That’s Mom,” Myna said.
“It can’t be,” Linnet said. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her mother laugh.
They got up from the table and followed the sound, stopping outside their parents’ bedroom door. Myna’s eyes grew wide. She opened her mouth to say something, but the only sound that came out was a strangled squeak. Linnet had an overwhelming sense that there was something wrong here. She grabbed her sister’s hand and pulled her back down the hall. She didn’t stop until they were standing in the kitchen once again.
Myna rubbed the birthmark on her arm, unaware she was doing it. Linnet could swear her sister could connect with their mother telepathically through the damn thing. Maybe that was the reason why Linnet didn’t have to ask her if she’d felt it, the injustice of what was happening right now, this very instant, inside their house.
“Come with me,” Linnet said, taking her sister’s hand again, but this time leading her outside into the cool air, through the yard and woods to the dam. The trees were nearly bare. Most of the leaves had fallen to the ground, the bright yellows and oranges turning varying shades of brown.
She led her down the pier where the rowboat was docked. Linnet untied the rope from the post and climbed in with her sister. She picked up the oars.
Myna stared at the gray sky. “Pop’s car wasn’t in the driveway,” she said.
“I noticed,” Linnet said.
Myna slipped her arm through Linnet’s. “Look.” She pointed at the V formation of geese overhead migrating south for the winter. Neither one spoke until the honking had faded and the birds flew farther and farther away. When the dam was quiet again, Myna said, “Now we know what has been making Mom happy.”
“Yes,” Linnet said, and closed her eyes, pinching back tears. “Now we know.”
* * *
Linnet carried a plate of cookies to the guesthouse for Pop. She’d seen his light on in his study when she’d gotten out of bed, unable to sleep. If she ever hoped to get answers from him about what he might know about what had happened to Professor Coyle, the opportunity was now. The fewer people around, the easier time he had of focusing, remembering.
The stone path was cold beneath her feet. She rushed inside the guesthouse to escape the chilly night air. When she opened the door to his study, she expected to find him pouring over books and journals or perhaps peering into the lens of a microscope. She found neither. He was slumped back in the old leather chair behind the desk, fast asleep. His lips made a motorboat sound each time he exhaled. There was a time when he’d be so focused on his research he’d remain awake for hours, sometimes days, never even stopping to eat. She hadn’t known then exactly what he’d worked so hard on. Outside of teaching, much of his job had been a mystery, one more thing he’d kept to himself. Sometimes she wondered if a child ever understood the inner lives of their parents. She thought of Hank, of all the things he didn’t know about her, and she supposed not.
“Pop,” she said, and put the plate of cookies on the desk in front of him. She gently nudged his arm. “Pop.”
He opened his eyes, blinking several times.
“I brought you a snack.”
He came around, appearing to remember where he was and why. “I must’ve fallen asleep.” He looked at the plate, the papers underneath. “I’ve barely begun.” He motioned to the table on the other side of the room, where more papers were strewn on top of charts containing information about snow geese migration patterns. She picked up what appeared to be some kind of weather map. More maps covered the wall, including a detailed one of Canada and the Northern Alaskan tundra. Pins marked the final stops where the flocks had nested.
In the corner, Gerty peered at them through glass eyes. She was one of the first snow geese her father had tagged for research. He’d followed her for more than seventeen years until the day she’d died, staying behind on the dam one winter while the rest of the flock had moved on. He’d found her not far from the bench where he’d often sit with binoculars, watching them forage the fields, ripping the bulrush from the shallow water. He believed she’d died of old age, although some snow geese were recorded to live twenty-five years or more, the oldest snow goose on record being twenty-seven.
Linnet remembered finding Pop at the dam with tears in his eyes, holding Gerty gently in his arms. He hadn’t wanted to let her go, so he’d made the decision to have her stuffed and kept in his study. On occasion, Linnet had caught him talking to the old bird, stroking the silky feathers on her back.
He tapped the mouse, and his computer screen lit up. Weather charts appeared. One in particular showed the radar tracking another storm. It looked to be a few days away but was clearly heading in their direction.
She covered his hand before he could touch the keyboard. If she allowed him to go back to his research, she’d lose him to it. “I need to talk to you about Professor Coyle,” she said.
“Young guy, isn’t he? He must be around your age,” he said.
“I’m thirty-seven, Pop. Almost a decade older.”
He searched her face as if he couldn’t quite believe so much time had passed. “I’ll always see you as my little girl. You and your sister.”
She leaned on the desk, bending close to him, smelling the soap on his skin, the scent reminding her of when she was a child curling into his arms. “What happened to the professor?”
“You’re different from your sister. You’re stronger. You have a level head on your shoulders,” he said. “Your sister, well, she’s impulsive. She doesn’t always think things through. I worry about her.”
This was all great, but he wasn’t answering her question. “Please, Pop. Tell me what you remember about last night. Tell me so I can help you. When was the last time you saw him?”
“Did I show you the new pictures she sent me of the Pelecanus occidentalis?” He searched his desk for the iPad Ian had given him for his birthday two years ago. “It’s fascinating watching them plunge-dive for small fish.”
“Myna’s here, at the main house, do you remember?” she asked. “She came home to visit.”
“Yes,” he said. She detected a slight irritation in his tone.
“What about Professor Coyle?” She had to get him back on track, in-line with what she’d been asking. “I want to know everything you remember about him.”
“Is this another one of your tests?”
“No,” she said. When she’d noticed he’d been forgetting more and more of life’s daily activities in the last year—like brushing his teeth or changing his clothes—she’d gone online and printed out tests and
made flashcards, trying to self-diagnose how far things had progressed. Eventually, she’d taken him to a doctor, under duress, who in the end hadn’t been able to tell her anything she hadn’t already known. He’d suffered from vascular dementia after a series of minor strokes that had originally gone undetected, reducing the blood flow to the brain, the result of which forced him into retirement. “It’s not a test. But it is important,” she said.
“He was supposed to take the birds to the lab,” he said. “And that’s the last thing I remember, so stop asking me about it.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing else you remember about him, about what happened?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” he snapped.
“Okay, Pop.” If she continued to press him, she’d only keep agitating him, and then she was certain not to get anything more out of him. She believed he didn’t know much more than he was saying, or if he did, he wasn’t capable of remembering what it was. “Have a cookie.”
He picked one up and took a bite. She got up to leave.
“I’ll get the plate tomorrow.” She paused in the doorway. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”
He waved her off.
She hesitated, watching him, the cookie shaking in his arthritic hand as he brought it to his lips. There was nothing she could think to do. She was powerless over time pecking away at his mind. The feeling of helplessness was so strong; it took everything she had not to fall to the floor at his feet. What kind of daughter was she if she couldn’t help her own father?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I think your honeymooners have come up for air,” Myna said to Linnet, and helped herself to a fresh cup of coffee. She’d gotten up early after a cold, restless night, missing the warmth of Ben by her side. She’d slipped on a pair of jeans and a peasant blouse, something that looked as though it came straight out of the seventies. She’d debated whether or not to throw on the only sweater she’d brought, having forgotten how much cooler spring was in the mountains, but in the end had decided against it.
“I almost forgot they were here,” Linnet said, and leaned her back against the countertop. She raised a mug to her lips.
“They were wandering around the halls,” Myna said. She was aware of treading lightly, testing the waters between them after their exchange the night before. The tension was there, rough but not rocky, nearly gone but not forgotten.
Linnet put her cup in the sink. “I don’t have anything prepared. I gave Cora the day off with everything that has been going on around here. And with the Rapps leaving.” She opened the refrigerator door. “I’m going to have to whip up some scrambled eggs or something.” She pulled out the egg carton. “Maybe some bacon. Are you hungry?” she asked.
Ian and Hank strolled into the room. Hank reached for a bowl and a box of cereal. Linnet handed him the milk and pulled open the silverware drawer for a spoon.
Ian touched Linnet’s arm as he moved around her to get to the coffeemaker. He sat at the table with the paper and his cup. The news of Professor Coyle had been plastered on the front page. He scanned the article. “Did you see this?” he asked, before flipping to the sports section.
“Yes,” Linnet said.
Myna had read Jake’s article on her laptop before she’d gotten out of bed and before the Internet connection had crapped out on her. He’d mentioned The Snow Goose briefly, focusing more on Professor Coyle, the man, his life before it had tragically ended on the B&B’s property. Somehow Jake’s words made what happened to the professor all the more real.
Linnet turned toward the counter and cracked an egg into a bowl, cursing the pieces of shell she’d dropped into the yolk.
Myna knew her sister was good at hiding her feelings, stowing her emotions away so that her face was unreadable. She’d always been the stronger of the two, but there were times when even she had shown signs of breaking. And Myna was beginning to see the splintering behind her sister’s expressionless mask.
She took the eggshell from Linnet’s hand. “Why don’t I run into town and pick up some bagels and croissants from the bakery? I’m sure they’re just looking for something to fill their stomachs.”
“You’re probably right.” Linnet abandoned the bowl with the egg. Hank slurped milk from his spoon. Voices came from the living room area. “I better get Pop,” she said absently, and gazed at Ian and the paper once again.
“I’ll get Pop for you,” Myna said.
“No,” Linnet shot back. “I’ll get him.”
Hank looked up from his cereal bowl.
“Fine,” Myna said, putting her hands up in a surrendering gesture and stepping toward the door. “I’ll be back with bagels.”
* * *
Myna hadn’t been to town since she’d arrived in Mountain Springs. She didn’t count her first night here when it had been late and the streets were bare, the stores dark, the streetlamps her only guide. But now in the morning light, Mountain Springs was exactly as she’d remembered it. The cherry blossoms were in bloom, the branches full of lush pink flowers. The pretty trees lined both sides of the street. A dusting of petals covered the walkways; more were piled high in the gutters, where they had been swept aside by passing cars.
But where were the people walking their dogs? Where were the couples strolling arm in arm? Where were the tourists taking pictures of the blossoms and larger-than-life mountains? The scene was usually quaint with quiet activity.
Something was off.
She reached the center of town, where the news vans were lined up in front of the mayor’s office. The sidewalks were littered with pamphlets and napkins and discarded wrappers leftover from the various food trucks that had served the reporters’ makeshift arena. Myna could only imagine what the Mountain Springs Inn looked like, a bunch of men and women wearing badges, vying for the latest gossip, pestering the tourists and locals for information.
She drove another two blocks on her way to the bakery. She stopped at one of three traffic lights. A group of people had gathered at the corner. A woman ran up to her window. She was pale and thin. Her nails were painted black. She knocked on the glass.
Myna rolled the window down.
“Prepare yourself,” the woman said, and shoved a pamphlet into Myna’s hand. “The end of the world is near.”
The pamphlet was covered in quotes from the Book of Revelation, an image of the Pale Rider plastered on the front. “Give me a break,” Myna said, and tossed it aside. The light turned green, and she proceeded through the intersection, the woman and her cohorts spouting off about the signs, about the birds falling from the sky. She spotted Jake walking down the sidewalk. Several doomsayers surrounded him, waving their propaganda in his face. She should drive by and pretend she hadn’t noticed him, but she was more than curious about the ring Linnet had mentioned, the one that had her sister more upset than she’d tried to let on.
Myna pulled over and rolled the window down for a second time, not succumbing to second thoughts, not thinking it through. “Do you need a ride?” she asked. In the back of her mind she heard her sister’s voice asking her what she thought she was doing. Sometimes Myna wasn’t always aware of why she did certain things. Sometimes she did them out of spite, behaving like the child Linnet had made her out to be. But this was more than rebelling against her sister. This was personal.
Jake looked up from one of the flyers that had no doubt been shoved into his hand by the throng of protestors or whatever they called themselves. He jumped into the car.
“Thanks for saving me,” he said, and picked up the pamphlet she’d thrown on the seat.
She pulled from the curb, eager to get away before the crowd surrounded her vehicle. “Where are you headed?” she asked.
“I was on my way to pick up my car from Chicky’s,” he said, and held up the flyer. “What do you make of this?”
“On or off the record?” she asked, and then added, “I suppose it doesn’t matter which it is. I think it’s a load of crap. In a couple of days we’ll know
what happened to the birds, and it won’t have anything to do with the end of the world.”
“Can I quote you on that?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, and smiled. She didn’t care if he did use it in one of his articles. Hell, she was the daughter of the Bird Man, so she should know.
“For the record, I think it’s a load of crap, too,” he said. “And you can quote me on that.” He stuck the flyer into the backpack he was carrying. “Still, it makes for a good story.”
“Did you see all those news vans hanging around town hall?” she asked. “You’d think they’d be hanging around the dam.”
“Oh, I think they’re scared to be near the water in case it’s contaminated. Some of them are worried it’s the bird flu or some other disease.”
“If it is then it only affected some of the snow geese out of the tens of thousands that pass through. Not to mention all of the other species of birds alive and kicking around the dam.”
“You make a good point,” he said. “I’d love to interview your dad. Did he ever tell you his theory?”
“No,” she said.
“Do you think you could set up an interview with him for me?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, and made two more turns through town. In another two minutes they’d arrive at Chicky’s. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off the road to search his hands.
“What if you were there when I talked with him?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How about you set up the interview for me, and I’ll let you see the article before I turn it in to my editor? That way if you don’t like something I write, you can take it out. You’d have control.”
She didn’t see any harm in it, especially if she was there with Pop during the interview, and then later if she could edit the piece as she pleased. Jake had treated him with nothing but respect and care the last time they’d been together. And what if the interview could portray Pop as the scholarly scientist he once was? She knew Linnet would never go for it, not with an investigation pending surrounding Professor Coyle, and Pop’s memory lapse.
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