A Spicy Secret

by D. Savannah George

  By closing time, the girls had picked out some yarn—dark green for Vanessa, light blue for Mackenzie—had chosen an afghan pattern that used simple crochet stitches from a pattern book, and had done a few practice squares. They hugged Mary Beth as Kate shooed them out the door to go home.

  ****

  The next day, Mary Beth watched the store while Kate went to visit Reverend Wallace. Kate found him in the food pantry at the church, putting cans and other donations onto shelves. Even doing menial labor, he dressed nicely in a pair of pressed khakis and a long-sleeve polo shirt. Kate smoothed down her ankle-length paisley skirt, glad she had worn something nice. The minister was one of the kindest men she knew, but she always felt a little intimidated by his presence.

  “Hello Kate! How nice to see you. What brings you here today?” he asked, climbing down from the stepladder.

  “I’m here to talk about your mission trip to Haiti. The Hook and Needle Club would like to help.”

  “Wonderful! Let’s step into my office where we’ll be a little more comfortable.”

  He led the way to a small room near the back of the fellowship hall. Furnished in shabby but sturdy furniture, it had a view of the ocean from the windows in the left wall. A bookshelf filled the opposite wall. It was crammed with Bibles, Christian literature, dictionaries, thesauruses, concordances, and compilations of sermon notes, not to mention books on theology, prayer, evangelism, spirituality, and church history. Kate couldn’t help but feel impressed by the vast number of books.

  The minister indicated she should sit, and she did, finding the faded floral wingback chair quite comfortable. Reverend Wallace sat in his desk chair, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back, almost touching the large bulletin board on the wall behind him. It was covered with photos, inspirational sayings, church bulletins, postcards, and Bible verses.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been in here before,” she said, nervously plucking at her skirt. “That’s quite a collection of books.”

  “It is, and believe it or not, I’ve read most of them. They come in handy when I’m writing my ‘Wit and Wisdom’ column for The Point, and for my sermons, of course.”

  “Do you have a favorite book?”

  “That would be like asking me to choose my favorite parishioner.” Reverend Wallace laughed, leaning forward. “But if pressed, I’d probably say my favorite is this Bible that June gave me as a wedding gift.”

  He picked it up from his desk and passed it to Kate, who carefully turned the gold-edged pages. The green leather cover was embossed with his name, and several pages featured beautiful full-color illustrations.

  “I know it cost her more money than she probably had at the time, but it meant much more than that. I had truly chosen a helpmate. By giving me this Bible, she told me she supported me and my life’s calling.”

  Kate closed it gently and handed it back.

  “That’s a sweet sentiment.”

  The minister agreed, touching the cover as he set it back down. “So, how can the Hook and Needle Club help us with our mission trip?”

  “I read the article Mike put in The Point. For some reason, it really touched me. I can’t personally go on the trip or donate much money, but I can crochet, and I have easy access to yarn. So I thought, why don’t I make some blankets for them to take along to give to the orphans? And then I thought, why don’t I get the club members involved? We always do a project, so I figured this would be a good one.”

  Reverend Wallace nodded as she continued.

  “At Tuesday’s meeting, I handed out copies of the newspaper, told them my idea, and everyone agreed we should make a blanket for each and every orphan. Annie Dawson suggested we make some for the people who work there as well. But before we get too far, I wanted to make sure it’s a good idea, and that the orphanage can actually use blankets.”

  Kate had never seen the minister grin so widely.

  “Oh, Kate, you have no idea how wonderful and generous that is! I corresponded with Father Bruno recently—he runs the orphanage—and he said they receive just enough monetary donations for basic necessities, like food and medicine, but don’t have anything left over for other things.”

  “So, would a blanket be something good to give them?” Kate asked. “Or would it be like giving an ice maker to an Eskimo?”

  Kate grabbed a small notebook out of her purse and began scribbling down some details, knowing she wouldn’t remember everything he told her. The ladies were sure to have questions.

  “Father Bruno specifically mentioned blankets as a need. The island gets cool at night, but not cold, so they wouldn’t need thick, heavy blankets. Also, many of the children in their care arrived literally with only the clothes on their backs. Yes, it would be a wonderful gesture. And if you sent one for each child, each of them could have something of their very own.”

  “What about the people working there? Could they use blankets?” Kate asked.

  “Chances are they give whatever they have to the children, so I’m sure they could.”

  “How many people work in the orphanage?”

  “I’ll confirm with the Father, but I know there are about five people who work there on a permanent basis, and then at any given time they usually have fifteen to twenty temporary volunteers. Right now I have ten people from the church signed up to go with me, but that number may change.”

  Kate continued to scribble as the minister talked about Haiti, its needs, and the work the volunteers planned to do while on the trip.

  “I’m especially excited about working with them on their school. They’ve got the structure mostly built, and it just needs finishing.”

  “I can’t imagine how fulfilling it will be for you and everyone going on the trip.”

  “Yes—I’m sure it will be. In the meantime, I have a lot to do to get ready, including fundraising,” Reverend Wallace responded. “Do you have any more questions?”

  Kate told him that Mary Beth had volunteered the store as a drop-off point, and that Vanessa and Mackenzie planned to design flyers to request help from the community.

  “Is there anything else they need to include in the flyer?” Kate asked.

  The minister smiled. “No. I think you’ve covered everything. Checks can be made out to Stony Point Community Church and note ‘Haiti’ on the check. We will gladly take as many blankets as you give us. If I hear of anything else, I’ll be sure to give you a call.” Reverend Wallace stood. “Thank you so much for coming by, Kate. Your visit has truly been a blessing.”

  He escorted her to the door and waved as she got in her car. As she drove back to the store, Kate felt blessed for having visited him and for the knowledge that her little idea would make a big difference.

  3

  When Annie awoke that cloudy Friday morning, she discovered Boots, her lovable gray cat, curled into a ball on her left side. Loath to get out of the warm bed, she sat up against the pillows, pulling on the pile of blankets and quilts until it once more tucked under her chin.

  “Boots, I sure am glad you’re here,” said Annie to the cat, who by now was licking her paws and blinking. “With you here, I’m not just talking to myself.”

  Annie loved Grey Gables, but like most old houses, it was drafty and cold in the winter. Days like this made her miss her late husband, Wayne, even more than usual. On the few cold days they’d have in Texas, he would make her hot cocoa and bring it to her in bed. He also had an uncanny ability to find where drafts were coming in. His efforts always seemed to instantly make her feel warmer.

  Despite its chill, Annie felt thankful for the old house, the blankets piled on her, and the quilts that had been handmade with bits of old cloth. She could almost hear Gram’s voice saying “Waste not, want not,” as she had many times during the summers Annie had spent with her. She looked around the room, grateful for Gram’s loving care of everything.

  But she also felt a tinge of guilt for all of her blessings, when there were so many needy kids.
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  “Well, Boots, thank heavens for all that yarn I have on hand.” She threw off the covers, eliciting a disgruntled meow and an injured look from her feline companion. “Oh hush, cat. If I get up, then you’ll get breakfast!”

  Annie threw on her usual wintertime work clothes—a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. A trip to the attic was in order to retrieve yarn so she could start crocheting her first blanket for the group project. It seemed no matter how much time she spent in the attic—how much she discovered, and how much she cleaned—she always found something new, and she stirred up some dust. She also felt certain that Alice would call and request her assistance at the carriage house since she hadn’t heard from her the previous day. The things they had found under the floorboard in the carriage house nagged at Annie, and she wanted to talk to her friend about it.

  “I bet Alice will be bored again today. What do you think, Boots?” The cat just looked at her with a “like-I-care—feed-me” expression on her whiskered face. “Don’t worry, little rascal. You’ll get your breakfast!”

  Before making a trip to the attic, Annie walked downstairs to the kitchen. She pretended to ignore the cat’s clamor while she started a pot of coffee. She filled Boots’s empty bowl with kibble before fixing herself a bowl of cold cereal and milk. When the coffee was ready, she retrieved her favorite mug and filled it, going to the window to enjoy the view of the ocean while she sipped her coffee. The clouds cleared, and the sun came out, cheering her immensely. Boots finished her breakfast, sniffed, put her tail in the air, and sauntered off to take a nap.

  Her own breakfast finished, Annie washed, dried and put away the dishes and then climbed the two sets of stairs to the attic. Opening the attic door, she was once again thankful that Wally had installed track lighting. The original lighting—a bare bulb with a pull cord—had been less than useful. And the small eyebrow windows on either side of the attic were more decorative than utilitarian. Not only did she have more light now, but she could actually point a lamp wherever she needed to be able to see.

  She had stashed much of her extra yarn—a thoughtful and generous gift from her daughter, LeeAnn—in one of the many dressers Gram had stored in the attic. She and Alice had carried it down to the living room shortly after the treasure of yarn had arrived, only to lug it back to the attic after Annie discovered the dresser didn’t fit with any of the decor in the room. She smiled and thought, How could I ever say Alice didn’t hoist her fair share of stuff around this house?

  She couldn’t resist poking about in some of the boxes and bins surrounding the dresser. Even after doing so much to clean and organize, she still found something new on every visit. This short foray didn’t yield much of interest: a bin full of old dish towels, another brimming with bank statements and cancelled checks from the 1950s, and a battered green hatbox stuffed with dribs and drabs of colorful embroidery thread. Annie once again heard an echo of Gram’s voice saying “Waste not, want not,” and smiled, imagining that many of those remnants were probably leftovers from a Betsy Holden Original, one of Gram’s cross-stitch masterpieces for which she was revered. She set the hatbox aside in case Alice could use the contents in her own work.

  Just one more box, and then I’ll collect my yarn and get to work! Annie told herself.

  She shifted yet another uninteresting bin and found a sturdy cardboard box, strapped in tape and labeled in Gram’s strong handwriting: “From Charlie’s desk.”

  As far as Annie knew, Gram had never emptied her husband’s desk in the library—it certainly didn’t appear to have been touched since he’d died, and she didn’t think Gram would have ever gone through it when he was alive, either, just like Grandpa had never gotten into Gram’s desk or cross-stitch supplies and projects.

  Most of her grandfather’s files and notebooks were on the bookshelf in the library. She had spent many a happy hour reading through the adventures chronicled in his meticulous journals. So what in the world could be in that box? And why would Gram have labeled it? Most of the things Betsy had stored over the years were not labeled and gave no indication as to where they had come from or why.

  For some ridiculous reason, the box made her both nervous and curious. Annie grabbed it and carried it downstairs to the library and then went back up to retrieve the hatbox and a selection of blue and white yarns for her first afghan.

  “Well, well, well,” she said to Boots as she surveyed the labeled box, which she’d placed in the middle of the library floor. “I do hope this isn’t yet another mystery to solve. I’ve got enough on my hands with those recipes we found in the carriage house.”

  With no food in the offing, Boots didn’t reply, being far more interested in sunbathing on the window seat than worrying about yet another dusty old box.

  “Fine help you are,” Annie said, retrieving a pair of old office scissors from a desk drawer. In response, the cat rolled over, stretching her paws in the air to get some sun on her belly.

  Annie knelt in front of the box. Inexplicably, her hand shook as she sliced through the tape. Whatever could Gram have packed away?

  She lifted the flaps and almost laughed in relief. The box from the attic held patient files from her grandfather’s veterinary practice. She suddenly remembered that he had used the carriage house as an office, and most likely had asked Gram to pack up his desk when he retired. She wondered if Cecil Lewey, who had assisted him on occasion, might have actually done the packing and then given it to her grandmother to store.

  The phone rang, interrupting Annie before she could take anything out or really explore the contents.

  “Hello,” she answered, brushing some ubiquitous dust off her pants.

  “Hi Annie!” Alice exclaimed.

  “Let me guess. You’re bored—right?” Annie teased.

  “Yup. I sure am,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “Not to mention my furnace decided to be difficult again today and it’s freezing in here, so I can’t do any sorting. Mind if I come over? I know I’m not really supposed to be walking, but I think I’ll go mad if I stay here. And the sun has probably melted most of that evil ice.”

  Annie laughed at her friend’s theatrics. “Sure, come on over. I want to talk about the recipes some more. Plus, you can help me look through a box I found in the attic.”

  “Sounds fun.” Alice mock-groaned at the prospect. “See you shortly.”

  Annie went to the kitchen and put on another pot of coffee. She rummaged in her cabinets and found an open box of chocolate-covered shortbread cookies, arranged them on a plate, and put them on a small table in the library.

  By the time Alice arrived, the coffee was ready. Annie settled her friend into the library’s leather chair with a mug of coffee and pulled an ottoman over so Alice could elevate her ankle.

  Annie sat in Gram’s comfy chair, and the two sipped and munched companionably.

  “OK—about the recipes. Things we know,” said Alice.

  “That should be a short list, but I’ll get a pad of paper anyway,” Annie said, retrieving a pen and notebook from Gram’s desk.

  “So,” Alice said when Annie had sat back down, “one—we found the items in a hole under a floorboard in the upstairs spare bedroom of the carriage house. So they had to be placed there by someone who either lived in the carriage house or had easy access to it. It probably wasn’t someone just passing through.”

  She waited while Annie scribbled before continuing. “Two—following the logic of the first item, the floorboard was a different wood than the rest. Someone had to have pried up the original floorboard, which would have taken some doing. It either got damaged or lost, so the person also had to find a plank to replace it.”

  “And no one noticed it all this time.”

  “Yeah, that’s weird. So, three—that rug has probably been there for awhile.”

  “It was rather dusty,” Annie noted.

  “Four—we found a bunch of recipes in a mason jar, a square of fabric, a spatula, a knife, and a bottle la
beled ‘The Spice Café.’ A rather pretty label, if I remember correctly.”

  “And the recipes were handwritten,” Annie interjected.

  “Handwritten, but mostly unreadable recipes,” Alice agreed. “Except for the fabric, all of the items we found are used for cooking, so maybe the person who hid them worked in a kitchen.”

  “So what was the fabric for?” Annie asked.

  “Who knows? Maybe just something to wrap around everything.”

  “So that’s four things,” said Annie. “What else?”

  “Five—most of the recipes are handwritten, and some of them are unreadable.”

  Annie looked up from her notebook. “That’s already in number four.”

  “Yeah, but I think it needs its own category,” said Alice. “Since none of them were torn out of a magazine or newspaper, we can’t date the recipes that way. Also, because some of them are scribbled and have strange symbols or notations, they may have been recipes in progress.”

  “Like when you sketch out a new cross-stitch pattern?”

  “Exactly,” said Alice. “They could be first or second drafts of a recipe. The ones that are readable could be final versions, or they could have been copied from somewhere else.”

  “So a cook probably hid the recipes.”

  “Probably. And that makes number six—someone who didn’t cook would probably not bother.”

  “True. I know I wouldn’t!” Annie said stoutly.

  “Seven—the one recipe I attempted turned out awful.”

  “But what’s the significance of that?”

  “I’m not sure. But it must mean something,” Alice said. “I think that’s all we know.”

  “So, what do we do next?”

  “I guess we can start asking around and find out what people know about the carriage house.” Alice put down her coffee cup and clasped her hands together. “We always manage to solve these mysteries.”

  Annie laughed, put down her pen and notebook, and picked up her coffee mug. “Indeed we do, usually with a little help from our friends.”