by L. M. Fortin
As Audrey approached, carefully balancing a cup of coffee on a saucer, Callie thought back to high school and realized that Audrey wore designer names because that’s what she had always worn. They weren’t any kind of support for her.
Callie got up and gave her a hug. “How’s the bride doing?”
Audrey laughed. “Is it too late to elope? I was thinking this was supposed to be easier the second time around.”
“It shouldn’t be any harder,” said Callie. “What’s happening?”
They sat at the table. “I haven’t yet met Vijay’s mom in person, but she calls almost every other day suggesting some new thing. I keep telling her this ceremony is the small one and she can do all of these other things when we are in India.”
Callie nodded. “Just hold your ground and remember it’s your wedding, not hers.”
“Well, it may not be hers, but Vijay is her only son. She’s made it clear he’s settling for less in marrying a woman who is a divorcee.”
“Don’t people in India get divorced?” asked Callie. “I can’t imagine all their marriages work out one hundred percent of the time.”
“No, they don’t,” said Audrey. “But the divorced women often become a sort of pariah. I’m glad Vijay is thoroughly American.”
“Are there any things she wants done that are easy?” asked Callie. “Maybe we can placate her with some simple window dressing.”
“I love how you go straight to saying ‘we,’” said Audrey. “I can only make it through this with your help. And yes, I think we can use her simpler ideas. She’d like us to give out incense as a wedding favor and although that seems very Skinner to me, I want to modify that and give scented candles and sachets.”
“How can I help?” asked Callie.
“I have a line on the candles. One of my neighbors makes pure beeswax candles and I can get them custom scented from her. I’m sort of stuck on the sachets though. Kareena, Vijay’s mother, gave me a list of ingredients for the sachets and I have no idea where to get them all. I’d like to get them as fresh and local as I can.”
“Leave it to me,” said Callie. “What’s the list?”
Wedding sachets out of the way, Audrey spent the rest of their time together talking about Vijay. Callie nodded and smiled in the right places, glad Audrey had found something to make her happy. She seemed much healthier than when Callie had visited her at home over the summer. Maybe true love did that to a person.
Armed with the recipe Audrey had given her, Callie headed to Alterspice. The shop was located just outside of downtown, in the area Callie thought of as the heart of the weirdness of Skinner. The area was beginning to become more commercialized, but there was still a halfway house for addictions of all kinds, a smoke shop and vegan café. Alterspice and the café shared the same small low slung white brick building. As Callie passed the cafe, she was surprised to see how full it was at this time of the day. She thought maybe those with alternative lifestyles, had alternative time schedules as well.
There was a sign on the window at Alterspice that said, ‘No credit, cash only.’ A bell rang as she entered the shop, but the sound didn’t seem to bring anyone out, as Callie was alone in the room. Lining the walls were shelves from floor to ceiling with hundreds of glass jars carrying a rainbow of spices. There was an island in the center of the room containing some of the things Callie was looking for. It was more floral oriented than the items on the shelves. Callie needed lavender for Audrey’s sachets, and the smell from a stack of lavender bunches drew her in. She leaned over the flowers, breathing in the aroma.
“The lavender is from a farm right outside of Skinner,” said a voice coming from directly behind her right elbow. Callie started and turned around. It was all she could do not to jump a second time. The store clerk, wearing a leather black vest over a black t-shirt was immediately behind her. His salt and pepper colored hair was pulled back from his forehead and plaited into a braid reaching halfway down his back. His arms were tattooed in an array of flowers and herbs like the old fashioned wallpaper Callie had seen of kitchens from the 1950’s. However, what had made her jump were the numerous piercings in his nose and above his eyebrows. His eyes were ringed with kohl. The Goth look was slightly minimized by his purely utilitarian name badge. The badge was a white plastic one with a space for the employee to write his name. This badge was labeled with a hand-scrawled Arnold.
She recovered herself. “It’s lovely. It always smells better when fresh, doesn’t it?”
“We do try to stock as much from the local area as possible just for that reason,” he said, continuing to stand uncomfortably close to her. “Can I help you find something?”
“I came after hearing about this place from Floyd Fillmer,” said Callie, wanting to back up but blocked by the island.
“He’s a good customer,” he said. “It’s amazing what brewers are adding to their beers lately. They have a lot of interesting requests that keep us on our toes.”
“Well, I’m here for something fairly standard,” said Callie. “Ingredients for wedding sachets to be given as gifts. Lavender, rose hips, lemon grass… here’s the list.”
Arnold looked at the list, the late morning sunlight causing the small metal spikes embedded in his temples to gleam. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“Rose buds will be much more fragrant in this than rose hips. Funny, the last time we sold some of those was right when Floyd came in.”
“He wanted rose hips?”
“No, it was one of the other brewers. Lots of crazy beer making going on in Skinner.”
“The more I hear about beer in this town,” Callie said, “the more I realize I don’t know anything about beer.”
“I like to think there’s a lot we can learn about everything,” he said. “We’re always experimenting with herbs and spices to find new ways to use them.”
Callie looked at the list. “I must have written it wrong. Let’s go with rosebuds. They are probably prettier anyway.”
She was relieved as he turned and walked away. “Come to the counter and I’ll get these items filled.”
The counter at the back of the store was of a light blond wood. There was a clothesline running the length of the counter behind it and as Callie walked forward she could see something hanging from the line and assumed it was herbs or bunches of flowers. They were the wrong shape for something like drying rosemary or lavender. When she got closer, she realized they were small shapes, sculpted from metal. The majority were bats, but his display also included metal spiders, crabs and dragons.
Arnold saw Callie looking at them. “I am only working here to fund my art. I make these at my metal shop at home and sell them here and at the Saturday Market.”
Callie wasn’t sure what to say. “They are very interesting.” She couldn’t imagine having one of the dark, jagged sculptures hanging anywhere in her home. “You have quite a few bats. Does no one buy them?”
“Oh, no! They are by far the most popular. We have a Bat Earth Society here in town. Bats are wonderful creatures, taking care of many pesky insects that bother plants. But it’s not their bug eating skills or claws that I like, but rather…” Arnold stopped a moment, looking into the distance, lost in thought.
Callie sometimes had a tendency to finish people’s sentences for them, but could not imagine how he was going to finish this one. Wings? Beady little eyes?
Then, looking at her intently he said, “I like them because there’s a piercing power in the creepy.”
She nodded her head as if she had some idea of what he was talking about, but in reality she was sure she did not.
“I never thought of it that way, but when you say it like that, I definitely understand creepy,” she said.
He seemed to be satisfied and puttered around the shop, opening various jars to fill her order. Callie wanted to look at something other than the variety of surreal metallic creatures hanging behind the counter and looked at the counter i
tself. There was an old fashioned metal cash register with a large account book next to it. Callie read it from upside down and saw it was a ledger of all the purchases made in the shop. So not only did they not take credit, they used a paper accounting system to track their merchandise.
“Out of curiosity, does this book show what kind of mushrooms Floyd Fillmer ordered?”
“As long as he got them here. Do you know when it was he purchased them?”
Callie thought for a moment. “Probably September or early October.” That was when Walt had begun signing up people for the premium showcase.
Arnold paged back through the book. “Let me see… yes, here it is. October 10th. He bought a couple of bags of Chanterelles. And just as I had thought, the brewer from Sylvan Ales was here the next day and got rose hips.”
“Thanks. My grandma was cooking with mushrooms lately and I was wondering if some dried ones might help.”
“You probably wouldn’t want Chanterelles. I’d recommend some Porcini because they have a more distinctive flavor when dried.”
Callie added that to her order. Mushroom and potato casserole was probably never going to be her favorite no matter what flavorings she had grandma add.
Chapter Seven
Thursday morning, Callie patted Hops on the head and got into her car to head out of Skinner. The address Walt had given Callie made her pause for a moment. Weissworks Brewery was located outside of city limits in an area she had always thought of as primarily industrial, and not it a good way. Maybe lying outside the legal boundary of both Skinner and Millton gave business owners a feeling of more freedom to not keep to any municipal code or standard when it came to how their buildings looked from the outside. Broken chain link fences, vehicles Callie hoped weren’t considered roadworthy and scraggly grass and trees lined the road as she headed toward Weissworks. She passed the turnoff to Seavey Loop Road and, as if she needed another example of the general seediness of the area, also passed a bedraggled trailer park.
Surprisingly, the road she turned on to was paved and well maintained. The trees were maples and oaks and, being as it was early Fall, their colors were translucent and vibrant in the sunlight. The trees hid the brewery until she was right in front of it.
Callie got out of the car, eyebrows raised. Weissworks Brewery was housed in an old church. The building was covered in white plasterwork, the steeple painted a bright red. She wondered if the arched and pointed windows had ever held stained glass, but now they sported mullioned windows, sparkling in the sun like Grandma Minnie’s faceted jam jars.
There didn’t seem to be anyone waiting outside to meet her, so she walked around the grassy lawn in front of the former church. The lawn was crisply mowed and Callie didn’t see any garbage or junked cars.
The doors at the front of the church were almost twice her height. They had ornate brass handles and the carving on the wood was an intricate scroll pattern around the entire perimeter. She tried the handle, but the door was locked. Callie knocked, but thought she would damage her knuckles long before any sound was heard through the thick wood. There wasn’t any kind of bell she could see, either. She walked around to the south side of the building. There was a small white structure attached to the side of the church. It looked to her to be the former office of the pastor or priest who had once ministered here. The bright red door was half glass and through white lace curtains, Callie could see into an office with shelves of account books and two brown wooden desks with chairs.
At one desk sat a small woman industriously typing away at a keyboard, staring intently at a glowing computer screen.
Callie knocked. The woman looked at the door and then looked at her watch. She hurriedly got up and came to the door. “Ach, please forgive me,” the blonde haired woman said. “Time has gotten away from me, I’m afraid. You’re from the brew fest, right?” Her accent was German.
“Yes, I’m Callie Stone. This is a beautiful place you have.”
“I’m Gerta Weiss. Yes, although when I first bought the property, you wouldn’t believe the mess it was in.”
“This neighborhood doesn’t always bring out the best in people, does it?” asked Callie.
“Did you know there is a nudist resort not far from here, on the river?” asked Gerta.
Callie shook her head no.
“You would have thought those people would appreciate nature and value it. Instead this church was used for shenanigans I won’t get into, but where people left their filth behind. I filled two dumpsters with garbage while cleaning up.”
“Do you get any intruders now?” asked Callie.
“Not many, and those that do get in, only come once. I’ve put up a high fence and there are two Dobermans that roam the grounds all night.”
Callie was distracted by the blue highlight in the middle of Gerta’s bangs that moved from side to side whenever she said something in her sharp, clipped speech.
“Let’s go into the tasting room,” said Gerta. “We can sit and have a drink.”
The small office connected to the main building by an archway lined with wooden planks. “Once I cleaned the place up, I found it didn’t need much else,” said Gerta as they walked. “The original structure was sound, so I didn’t need to make many repairs. When people build a church, they build it with care.”
They emerged from the passageway into what Callie supposed was originally the nave. Instead of being filled with pews though, it now held brewing equipment. There were an array of large metal vats, most of them with pipes and gauges running in enough directions that Callie couldn’t tell what liquids were going where. Callie could see one or two people working in amongst the tanks. As they crossed the nave to where the North Transept would have been, Callie marveled at the arched ceilings and the way the mullioned windows let in the light, casting diamond-like reflections on the floor and the equipment.
“Did you replace the windows?” asked Callie.
“Yes. Although some of the stained glass remained, there were pieces missing. I got this glass from Bavaria. It reminds me of home,” said Gerta.
They entered the tasting room and Callie thought she had gone back in time to some ancient German gasthaus, complete with half-timbered ceilings and hand carved tables and benches. There were large barrels scattered throughout the room and on the bar countertop, added for ambiance.
“I didn’t know Skinner had any German restaurants,” said Callie.
“We only serve a little food. Some weisswurst, of course,” said Gerta chuckling at the pun on her name. “It would be a pity to serve beer and not have a sausage.”
The bar was carved with trees, birds and what Callie thought might be a representation of the Alps, complete with hikers. “This also came from Bavaria,” said Gerta as she went behind the bar and got out two glasses. She didn’t ask Callie what she wanted, but just poured two of the same beer.
“This will be my premium showcase beer,” said Gerta.
“You serve your specialty beer at your regular tap?” asked Callie, confused.
“All of my beers are special. I will not be making an extra beer for a competition when mine are already good enough to compete. Prost!” Gerta said, raising her glass to Callie.
Although Callie didn’t know the term, she understood the gesture for ‘cheers’ and followed suit, raising her glass and taking a drink. The beer was a fine golden color and Callie found the flavor crisp and light as the American Lagers she was used to drinking. However, there was a fuller, more yeasty, flavor to the beer.
“This is very good,” said Callie.
“I knew you’d like this. We brew all our beers according to German purity laws,” she said proudly. “They only include water, hops, yeast, wheat and unmalted barley.”
“No orange wheat or coffee stout for you, I take it?” said Callie, remembering the brews on tap at the Barley and Sheaf.
Gerta suppressed a shudder. “The beverage is delicious in its natural form. Why gild the lily?”
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nbsp; Callie nodded her head as in agreement, but remembered the excellent filbert scented beer Walt had served. There was a place for purists in beer making, but Callie thought there might be wiggle room from there.
“I’ve heard Sylvan Ales is offering a specialty beer. I can guarantee you that one will be about as far from mine as it is possible to be,” said Gerta.
“I thought Sylvan Ales was all about being organic and natural,” said Callie. “Certainly that fits in with your concept of beer making.”
“Yes, I guess in a way it does,” said Gerta. “But Chris Ashton, the brewery owner, is always trying newfangled things and exotic flavors in his production methods. Beers are not meant to be spicy.”
Callie had Sylvan Ales on her calendar for the following day. “I don’t yet know what the other breweries are going to show. I’ve only been to Magic Waters and, well, the owner fell ill, so I don’t know if he’ll be at the brew fest.”
“What happened to Floyd?” said Gerta, suddenly concerned.
“I was touring his brewery Tuesday and he collapsed and was taken to the hospital. I haven’t yet heard how he is doing.”
“This is terrible,” said Gerta. “He’s been a true leader of our small industry here. Without him, I don’t know if any of the rest of us would be in business.”
“How so?” asked Callie.