In a Dark Season

by Vicki Lane

  They had taken a detour on the way home in order to deliver Christmas gifts to Phillip’s aunt Omie, a tiny, fierce-eyed widow who lived in the little community called Shut In. Somewhere up in her eighties (Phillip didn’t know and wouldn’t ask her exact age), Naomie Caldwell was the older sister of Phillip’s late mother. Phillip had spent many summers with his aunt when he was a child, and now that he was back in the mountains, he had tried to assume some filial responsibility for her.

  “She’s got no other close kin around here,” he had complained to Elizabeth, “and I’ve told her over and over to call if she needs help of any kind. I had an afternoon free and I thought I’d ride out and check on her—maybe bust some stove wood since she won’t use that kerosene heater I put in. So I get there and, not only does she have enough wood to do her for two or three years, but she’s at the top of a ladder way up high nailing down a piece of tin that had blown loose on her roof.

  “‘Aunt Omie!’ I holler, ‘I told you to call if you needed me!’ And that little bent-over woman peers down at me from the top of that ladder and waves this big framing hammer. ‘Well, Phillip Lee,’ she says, ‘reckon as how I didn’t need you.’”

  Today, however, she had a task for him. “Iffen you don’t care, you can haul off some trash for me, Phillip Lee. I been going through my plunder and trying to git shed of some of this clutter. Everwhat’ll fit in the back of that jeep, hit’d be a help to me.” Aunt Omie motioned Elizabeth to the sofa. “You set down, Lizbeth, I’ll just show this boy what needs to get gone, then I got something you might like to see. You naming Max Patch put me in mind of my pictures.”

  When the two emerged from a back room, Phillip was balancing a stack of cardboard boxes in front of him, his chin clamping down on the topmost one. He winked at Elizabeth and shuffled on to the front door that his aunt was holding open for him.

  “Now mind them steps, Phillip Lee,” she called after him. She shut the door firmly, shaking her head as she muttered, “That boy’ll break his neck one of these days if he don’t take care.”

  Elizabeth scooted to one end of the sofa, making a space for the white-haired little woman and the worn blue cardboard shoe box she was holding.

  “Now let me see; it’s in one of them yaller envelopes if I remember right.” Omie’s knobby-knuckled hands picked through the stack of photo-return envelopes and seized on a tattered example. She held it up and peered at the spidery writing.

  “Nineteen and fifty-nine—that was the first year Phillip Lee come to stay with me. I thought you might like to see what he looked like back when he had him a full head of hair.” Omie’s eyes sparkled as she drew out a deckle-edged black-and-white photo and offered it to Elizabeth.

  The faded picture showed a sturdy little boy in a plaid shirt and jeans, the hems rolled in a deep cuff. His head was covered with close-cropped dark hair, and he sat, grinning with delight a familiar grin on the back of a white mule, harnessed for work. At the mule’s head stood a man in faded work clothes and a dark hat.

  “He was a fine-lookin’ young un and that’s the truth.” Omie leaned in closer. “And law, was he proud to be settin’ up there on that big mule!”

  “I love this picture.” Elizabeth felt a tug at her heart—a wish that she could somehow have known the little boy in the photo. The smile’s the same, and the way he holds himself. But would I have recognized this as Phillip if Omie hadn’t told me?

  “Is this your husband holding the mule?” Elizabeth turned her attention to the image of the man in the hat. She looked closer and blinked. It’s the same man! The one I talked to…I think I talked to…while Phillip was asleep.

  “Law, no. That picture was took one day when me and Waneeta—that was my sister, Phillip Lee’s momma—carried the young un all the way up to Max Patch in that funny little car of Waneeta’s. I was wanting to get me some young apple trees from James Suttles and while we was there he gave Phillip Lee a ride on that ol’ white mule of hisn.”

  Okay, so this James Suttles had a son who looks exactly like him. Or a grandson.

  “And those self-same apple trees I got that day are bearing yet—they’s a York Imperial and a Grimes Golden and a Junaluska. Law, James was a good hand to graft an apple. That whole family could raise a garden on a rock and have extry to feed the pigs. And they had the best fruit trees you ever saw—apples what ripened earlier and kept longer, peaches that blossomed late so’s not to get hit by a freeze, and the finest cherries you ever tasted.

  “Oh, ever one wanted to get their fruit trees from the Suttles. Yeah, boy, they was the finest folks.”

  Omie’s eyes were half-shut and a wistful smile crept across her wrinkled face. Then, recollecting herself, she nodded toward the snapshot. “Yes, that’s James all right in that picture. Now his mommy, she was a full-blood Cherokee princess named Rebecca. James was a dark-complected man hisself, but he had the bluest eyes. Him and me was playmates when we was young—we called ourselves cousins.”

  Okay, the man I talked to couldn’t be Omie’s age…maybe…

  “Did you know my Mamaw was part Cherokee?” Omie twinkled up at Elizabeth. “Reckon that’s her blood makes Phillip Lee’s skin so dark, even in the wintertime. Howsomever, my Mamaw and James Suttles’s mommy was kin some ways and when I was just a little thing, Mamaw would take me with her to go a-visitin’ up there. We’d stay several nights and oh my, me and James would have us a time.”

  “Did this James Suttles have a son? I think I’ve seen someone who looks just like this man.” She tapped the pale figure, identical to the man she had spoken with a few hours earlier. “His spitting image, as they say.” Which derives from spirit and image. Oh, lord, this is too weird.

  Omie’s brows contracted as she searched her memory. “Let me think about that, Lizbeth…now, yes, I believe James did have a boy, just the one, far as I kin recollect.”

  “Was he named James after his father?” That could explain it. But even as the thought formed, Elizabeth knew there would be no explanation.

  “No…” Omie shook her head. “I believe they named that boy Larry and last I heared, he had moved off somewheres. I’m ashamed to say it, but I don’t know if James is living or not. Could be he is. Suttleses was always a long-lived family.”

  Chapter 20

  Who Are Her People?

  Friday, December 22, and Saturday, December 23

  Mum, have you heard anything I just said?”

  “What?” Elizabeth looked up from the book she was reading—rereading, if truth be told, for the umpteenth time—a tattered and loose-paged paperback of Dorothy L. Sayers’s Gaudy Night. “I’m sorry, sweetie, did you say something? I was just finishing a chapter while I drink my coffee and let lunch settle.”

  Her thumb held the place that wonderful scene in the punt while her face attempted to give the impression of total attention to her daughter’s words. “Did you and Rosemary eat in town?”

  “Yeah, we grabbed a wrap at the deli. Rosie stayed down at the workshop—she wants to make a wreath to take back to hang in her office.”

  Laurel dropped onto the sofa and fixed her mother with an unrelenting eye. “What do you know about Amanda’s family?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “Not much—they’re friends of your aunt Glory; they evidently have a lot of money—Ben says they have several vacation homes. But, Laur, didn’t you tell me your generation wasn’t into all that ‘who are her people?’ stuff—that you prefer to judge a person by what they themselves—”

  “Okay, I know I said that,” Laurel waved off the question and pressed on, “and usually it’s true. But Rosie and I got to talking and—”

  She stopped abruptly and looked toward the front door. “Someone’s out there. Is Phillip—”

  With a barely concealed sigh, Elizabeth laid down her book, stood, and went to the door to let in Molly and Ursa. “Phillip went in to Weaverville. He needed to pick up his mail and take care of some other stuff at his house. And, as far as I know, Ben and
Amanda are making a delivery. So we’re all alone.”

  She watched the dogs curl up before the fire, then sat down by Laurel. “What’s bothering you, sweetie?” she asked, raising one hand to ruffle her tall daughter’s red curls.

  Laurel pulled her feet in their thick orange-and-purple socks up on to the sofa and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her face was set in an expression of anxiety, so different from her usual carefree exuberance that Elizabeth felt a prickle of cold apprehension.

  “Like I said, Mum, Rosie and I’ve been talking.”

  Elizabeth waited but Laurel seemed unable to continue. As she wrestled to form a sentence, Laurel began to twist a lock of her hair in the old familiar sign that something was bothering her. Finally, with excruciating reluctance, she got it out.

  “Mum, it’s Amanda—she doesn’t seem…Rosie and I, we both think she’s…well, too good to be true and we don’t want Ben to get hurt again. Did you know that Amanda’s dad is some kind of big-time developer? We Googled his name and found out he builds these monster resorts all over the country.”

  Elizabeth leaned back into the cushions, eyeing her unfinished book. “Well, I know we’re all kind of sensitive about developers recently, but it isn’t actually illegal. Besides, according to Ben, Amanda’s not close to her family—she can’t help what her father does.”

  Laurel’s anxious expression deepened. “It’s what Amanda’s doing that has us worried. She’s been spending lots of time at the library—”

  “Laurel! Sweetie! Since when is that suspicious behavior?”

  “And she’s been at the Registrar of Deeds. She was there today. Rosie and I think she’s working for her dad. Don’t you see”—Laurel grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and squeezed, as if trying to force her mother to understand and share her concern—“if it gets out that a big developer is putting together something for a multimillion-dollar resort, land prices’ll go out of sight and owners will hold out for top dollar. But if people think she’s just another dreamer who wants a place in the mountains—”

  “Whoa!” Elizabeth broke into Laurel’s increasingly impassioned outburst. “Do you really think Amanda’s been buying property? You do realize that land purchases are published—don’t you think folks like Sallie Kate would notice one person buying lots of adjoining properties?”

  “Well, maybe she hasn’t made her move yet,” Laurel insisted. “Maybe she’s going to work with lots of different realtors and make all the purchases right at the same time. I don’t know what exactly it is, but she’s up to something.”

  Elizabeth was amused to see her daughter’s lower lip thrust out just as it had when Laurel was an obstreperous toddler, thwarted in some ambitious plan.

  “And another thing, Mum, why does she have a box at the post office? I know she gets a lot of mail here, mixed in with yours and Ben’s—what does she need a post office box for—unless it’s for mail she doesn’t want you all to see?”

  “The girls concocted this conspiracy theory all because they saw Amanda coming out of the Deeds Office. Apparently she didn’t see them, so after she was gone they went into the office themselves. One of Rosemary’s friends from high school works there, and she told Rosie that Amanda had been in quite often but she—the friend, I mean—didn’t know what Amanda had been looking for. And then later, the girls were passing the post office and through the window they saw Amanda unlocking one of the rented postal boxes.”

  Christmas cards—Sandy and good old hairy-assed Don, one from that car dealership where I was pricing a four-wheel drive, bills, junk, more bills—Phillip raised his eyes from the stack of letters he was sorting through to see Elizabeth studying him, waiting for a response.

  “Sorry, sweetheart.” He dropped the letters onto the kitchen table, gave her a lingering hug, and looked over her shoulder at the pots on the stove. “I don’t get it; the other night they were all having so much fun together—I was thinking how well Amanda fit in. I would have sworn your girls really liked her.”

  “Me too.” Her lips brushed his cheek and she returned to her dinner preparations: assembling a salad, cracking the oven door to check on the heating bread, stirring the thick mass of spicy black beans, lifting the lid of the pot where rice was simmering.

  Phillip sniffed the rich aromas greedily, hoping that dinner would be soon. “Can I do anything?”

  Elizabeth turned a harried eye on him. “Make a suggestion. How can we find out what Amanda’s up to?”

  “Oh.” He snagged a cherry tomato from the container on the counter and popped it into his mouth. “I meant do you want me to set the table or open some wine. But as for Amanda and her suspicious activities, why don’t they just ask her?”

  “Laurel said she was going to. They’ve all gone in to Asheville to listen to music at some pub tonight. I expect before the evening’s over Laurel will find a way to work it into the conversation.”

  Elizabeth was chopping a large red onion with careless speed, her face screwed up against the fumes. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Lizabeth, what do you think about Amanda? I sure wouldn’t figure her for some kind of corporate advance man—you just have to look at her and Ben together. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

  The frenetic chatter of the knife on the cutting board slowed, then stopped. “That’s true. And that’s what makes even the possibility that she’s not here just because of Ben so disturbing. I don’t think he can survive another heartbreak.”

  “She acted kind of funny, Mum.” Laurel poured a second cup of coffee and joined her mother and sister at the table. “We were at the pub, all sitting around with our beer, and when the band took a break I said, kind of joking-like, ‘So, Amanda, Rosemary and I saw you this morning coming out of the Deeds Office. We waved but you didn’t see us. Are you going to buy property in Marshall County?’”

  Elizabeth pushed aside the pile of Nola Barrett’s papers that she had been studying. Her girls. Almost like old times, both of them in their flannel pajamas, here at the breakfast table together. Laurel’s uncompromisingly red hair was a tousled mop around her angular face, while Rosemary’s usual sleek, low ponytail had been replaced by two braids. Just like she used to wear it when she was five. I swear, it’s hard to believe she’s…my god, she’ll be thirty-one next month! And Laurie just turned twenty-six. Amazing.

  Tearing herself away from happy nostalgia, she addressed the present. “And what did Amanda say?”

  Rosemary looked up from the book she’d been reading as she nibbled at a muffin. “She didn’t say anything for a moment, Mum. You know how unflappable she usually is? Well, it seemed to me that she was rattled by Laurie’s question. She had that deer-in-the-headlights expression for an instant and then she recovered, took a sip of beer, and said something about historical research and that she had a relative who she thought might have owned property in the Ransom area.”

  “And then the fiddler started up again and that was the end of it.” Laurel yawned widely. “Ben and Amanda left not too long after that, and Rosie and I went down to my studio and ended up going to a Christmas party over at the Wedge.” She flashed a devilish grin at her sister. “I wish you could have seen Rosie boogeying down with Rafiq. She made such an impression on him that I think he’s in love again—”

  “But what was really interesting to me, Mum,” Rosemary overrode her sister’s tale, ignoring it out of existence, “was the way Ben was acting—all protective of Amanda—as if she were a…” The professor of English struggled to find the perfect phrase, frowned, and resorted to the inevitable. “…a bird with a broken wing. But I still wonder…”

  Rosemary heaved a sigh and craned her neck to look at the pile of papers in front of Elizabeth. “What’s all that? Are you writing a book, Mum?”

  She reached for the top pages and began to peruse them. “Oh, this is what you were telling me about—the stuff that crazy old lady wrote.”

  “Not that old, nor that crazy.” Elizabeth pulled the photocopy of
the map from the folder at the bottom of the pile and pushed it across the table toward her daughters. “You’ll like this—it’s a copy of a map of the river from the mid-1800s.”

  The two heads bent together as the sisters marveled over the spidery calligraphy and delicate delineations. “Look, there’s Sill’s Slough—and it shows a big house near the river there. And there’s that creepy old house at Gudger’s Stand. But there’s no bridge—”

  “I’ve seen this map before…” Laurel’s head jerked up and she turned a puzzled face to Elizabeth. “It was…” Closing her eyes, she drummed her fingers on the table to aid her memory. “I know—it was in the Troll’s house. In a frame on the wall.”

  Elizabeth shoved her chair back and jumped to her feet. “Wait a minute! Let me see that map.” Peering over her daughters’ shoulders, she jabbed a finger at the name on the foot of the map and the inscription—Thos. W. Blake fecit ~ 1861.

  “It just means Thomas W. Blake made this map in 1861, Mum.” Rosemary’s tone was professorial. “Fecit is Latin for—”

  “I know that much Latin, sweetie. Four interminable years in high school. But I didn’t make the connection till now.” Elizabeth stared at the words, thinking hard. “Girls, I think we need to take the Troll a little neighborly Christmas cheer—maybe some of that pumpkin bread I made yesterday. It’s time to talk with Mr. Thomas W. Blake—the Fifth.”

  Chapter 21

  Echoes in an Empty Room

  Saturday, December 23

  It was a room full of echoes. Look at these nice flowers Lavinia has brought you. Lavinia has brought you. Nice flowers Lavinia has…and how could one know which of the echoes was the first utterance and which were merely the repetitions, the bounced shadow-sounds? And if you repeated yourself, as they said that you did, did you repeat yourself? Then who was to say what was repetition and what was not?