by Alex Gordon
“Hello.” Lauren remained in the gazebo, her foot hovering above the top step. She would never have called Barton “kind,” even though he had been helpful and had quite possibly saved her life. But on a Seattle street, she would have hurried past someone like him. She might even have crossed to the other side to avoid an encounter depending on how hard he pinged her weirdo radar. He’s just a grumpy old man. A small-town fixture. And I’m just a little on edge.
“Not safe up there.” Barton cocked his head, revealing a nasty razor scrape along his jaw. “Floor weren’t made right. Not enough joists.” He kicked the bottom step. “Every winter, they say they’ll fix it in the spring. Then comes spring, everybody forgets.” He squinted at her. “You all right? You look a mite peaky.”
“I’m fine.” Lauren leaned against the railing, but pulled back when the wood creaked and wobbled.
“Not too smart, you being out on your own, is it? Considering?”
“You’re not the first person to ask me that this morning.” Lauren felt a tingle between her shoulder blades as she looked around. It’s just nerves. “Seems pretty safe.” She scanned every doorway and window. “No one’s about.”
“Some folks out lookin’ for Miz Petersbury. Others? Work, I guess.” Barton made a show of looking everywhere else but at Lauren. “What are you doin’ here, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I just wanted—” Lauren stopped. Simple enough question. If Corey or Waycross had asked, she would have told the truth. Probably. “I just wanted to check things out. First chance I’ve had to look around.”
Barton stared at her for one beat, two, squinting as though the sun blazed. Then he shook his head. “Not much to see. Not anymore.” He jerked his chin toward the empty square. “Used to be something. Lots of rosebushes. Market during the summer and everybody bringing in the stuff they growed, all the vegetables and fruits and flowers. Lambs and calves and pigs.” His voice lightened, the memories shaving away years. “And there was a harvest dance in the fall, lanterns hanging in all the trees and the ladies in their best dresses and their men all done up in Sabbath black. Fiddle playing and tables piled with cakes and roasts and frosty bowls of rum punch—” He stopped, wiped his sleeve across his mouth. Licked his lips. “Those were the days.”
“Must have been fun.” Lauren waited for Barton to say more, but he remained silent, staring into some middle distance, a boyhood long past. She left him to his memories, eased down the steps past him, and walked around the gazebo. She flattened clumps of mulch underfoot, straightened the plastic cones. A soggy shred of newspaper lay plastered over one board—she peeled it away to find it had hidden a small copper plaque gone green with age.
This poor remnant of the home of Micah and Ruth Corey we display in memory of the Great Fire that consumed the town of Gideon on the Eighth and Ninth days of October in the year Eighteen and Seventy-one. Rest with the Lady, dear Ruth.
“This was from their house.” Lauren brushed the wood with her fingertips. No heat this time, just the cold roughness of chipped paint and old wood. “That was Ruth Corey who I saw in the window.” She looked toward the steps, but Barton had gone. Then she heard a hacking cough and sounds of spitting, and caught sight of the old man shambling toward the large houses that lined a short street just off the square.
Lauren heard Corey’s soft voice in her head, his glum assessment. The good part of town. Where else would the Master of Gideon live? She waited until Barton had crossed the road that encircled the square, then started after him. She walked slowly at first, off at an angle, so that he wouldn’t suspect that she followed him if he happened to turn around. But he continued his straight-line trudge toward the houses, arms bent and elbows jutting, like a puppet controlled by a skilled master.
Lauren tried to pick out which house best suited the Leaf Cateman she had heard the others speak of, the secluded Master who rejected Virginia Waycross’s invitations. Was it one of the glum Federals with stone sills and black awnings? The white colonial, one green shutter knocked cockeyed by weather or neglect? Or the red-brick Georgian, solid as a prison?
Barton passed by all those places, walking until he came to the rambling rose-and-gray Victorian that had caught Lauren’s eye when she first entered Gideon. He paused in front of it for a few moments, surveying like a buyer sizing up a potential purchase. Then he walked up the sloping driveway and disappeared around the back.
Lauren broke into a trot, keeping an eye on windows and doorways, on the lookout for any flicker of shadow or movement of curtain, any sign that she had been spotted. Off the square and into the cul-de-sac. Off the pavement and onto the cracked, buckled sidewalk. A tall yew hedge bordered the Victorian’s lot, and she slipped behind it, bent low, scuttled like a sneak thief.
As she moved deeper into the yard, her skin tingled, tiny static jolts. Any other place, any other time, she would have blamed adrenaline and fear, but now she thought of spells and curses and whether something watched her that she couldn’t see.
Then the voice found her, that peevish old man’s singsong.
“—time to waste—haven’t got all day—”
Through gaps in the hedge, Lauren watched Barton pace around the Victorian’s rear yard, then stop when the back door of the house opened.
“Sorry it’s late, Tom.” Amanda Petrie walked out onto the rear landing. She had thrown a coat over a severe black pant suit, and held it closed at the neck with one hand as she balanced a covered dish on the other. “Groceries only arrived an hour ago.”
“Jus’ leave it there.” Barton pointed to the lowest step. “I don’t want you coming near me.”
“Why, Tom—”
“Stoning. Be whipping us through the streets like dogs next. Just like dogs.”
Petrie had been smiling, almost jovial. But a shadow fell across her face as Barton railed. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Thomas Barton.”
“I know what I seed and I know what I heard.”
“Then you don’t know anything.” Petrie clumped down the steps, the dish close against her chest, free hand gripping the iron railing. “And a wise man keeps his mouth shut about things he doesn’t know.”
Barton stilled. “Are you threatening me, Amanda Petrie?” His voice roughened from wheedle to grumble. “Been a long time since someone threatened me.”
“I never threaten.” Petrie set the dish on the second-lowest step, muttering under her breath as she struggled to bend, pressing her hands to her lower back as she straightened. “I merely advise.”
“Save your advice for someone that wants it.” Barton sidled up to the step and grabbed the dish like a jackal grabbing a bone from a sleeping lion. “I worked for this. Earned it. Fixed that gap in the fence this morning. West side of the orchard. You tell the Master. Won’t be no one getting through there to steal his fine applewood.” A wet chuckle. “Nope. Not a soul.” He lifted the edge of the cover off the dish, sniffed, then set it back in place. “You tell him.”
“When I can.” Petrie’s edges softened, a little. She kneaded her hands, lowered her head. “Master’s feeling poorly. It’s the damp. It always affects him like this, Lady bless him.”
“Tell him no one will be stealing his applewood this winter. That’ll cheer him up.” Barton tucked the dish beneath his coat, then turned and limped toward the line of trees that bordered the yard.
“Just hurry up and eat that before it gets cold,” Petrie called after him. “I don’t want to hear your complaints about soggy piecrust on top of everything else that’s going on.” She mounted the steps, then paused and looked back over her shoulder. As she scanned the yard, one corner of her mouth turned up, a bare hint of a smile. Then she reentered the house and closed the door.
Lauren crouched in the shadow of the hedge, shifting as sore muscles cramped and bruises stung. Good morning, Amanda Petrie. Dressed in black, the coat draped over her shoulders like a cape, the woman had looked more like a witch than anyone else in Gideon. Old wa
ys are the best, ladies. The quiet triumph in her voice as the other women attacked, as though she had won a long-desired prize.
Lauren touched the wound on her forehead, felt a slimy remnant of Petrie’s ointment that had somehow survived all her scrubbing and washing, rubbed it away so hard she broke the scab. Warm blood trickled down her face and dripped to the ground, bright red against the dull brown—she tried to stanch the flow with one hand as she scrabbled through her pockets with the other for a tissue.
The gash stung as cold air brushed over it. Then came pain, like the slice of a knife. She pulled her hand away, found a red smear thick as paint coating her palm.
Lauren pulled tissues from her pocket. A wadded mess, but all she had. Pressed them to the wound. Lady, if you can hear me, if you’re even there, help. She choked down acid that rose in her throat as black spots formed before her eyes, started small and then spread, like inky rain striking the ground.
“I don’t know—the right words.” Lauren rocked back and forth, then put out a hand to keep from toppling over into the dirt. “Just—get out, whatever the hell you are.” The same words she yelled at the desk. It didn’t work that time. This had to work. “Get out—out—out. Go back—where you came from.” Muttered the words over and over and over and—
—her vision cleared. Pain ceased. Bleeding . . . stopped.
Lauren kept the tissues pressed to her forehead, then used them to wipe her face as the aches, the pain, the nausea and weakness continued to subside.
Like magic. Her shoulders shook, her laughter silent, until it hit her what someone looking out their window would see, a rumpled, bloodstained woman crouched in the shadows, grinning. She sobered, finished cleaning her face, then studied the stained tissues as though she could figure out what had just happened if she stared at them long enough. Something she did had countered the effect of Amanda Petrie’s ointment.
I just wished real hard. Lauren stood. Maybe I’m getting better at this. Or maybe the magic in Amanda Petrie’s ointment wasn’t as strong as whatever destroyed her father’s desk. Oh well—she had to start somewhere.
Baby steps. She set one foot in front of the other, one hand grazing the hedge for support. Touched the gash, and found a new scab had already formed.
She searched the ground, picked up everything on which her blood had dripped, the dried grass and dead leaves, even clods of dirt. Then she folded the mess inside the stained tissues and stuffed the bundle in her pocket as scenes replayed in her head from the television shows and movies she watched at friends’ homes. The books she read behind her father’s back. How a strand of hair, a piece of clothing, could destroy—an enemy could work all sorts of evil if they got hold of them. One could only imagine what havoc Petrie could wreak with a person’s blood.
Lauren peered through the hedge at the Cateman house, the place her father had worked and, according to Lolly, where he had betrayed the man who had helped him. Ask Leaf if you can see his wall. It’s all there.
Lauren paced and pondered. I could walk up and knock. She tried to visualize Amanda Petrie’s face when she opened the door to find the woman she’d tried to kill standing on her back step. Element of surprise. It might even work. For a minute or two. Petrie did not strike her as a woman who could be caught off guard for long.
She pushed through a gap in the hedge and walked toward the house, head held high, as if she belonged there. The backyard of the place stretched for a good two hundred feet, filled by a sweeping brick driveway and a couple of large outbuildings. A four-car garage. A decrepit old shed.
As she approached a rear window, she slowed, ducked low, then peeked over the sill. A storeroom, judging from the details she could pick out through the hazy glass, the walls lined with shelves filled with glass bottles of various sizes. Wooden boxes.
Lauren wiped the window with her jacket cuff, but the clearer view didn’t help much. The storeroom had a single entry that opened onto a dim corridor; through the doorway opposite, she could see the corner of a table, a wall of cabinets. The kitchen, most likely. Not the room where she would expect to see the wall that Matthew Mullin built.
“—too much going on—”
Lauren’s breath caught. She darted around to the side of the house just as two men rounded the far corner and entered the backyard. They wore jeans and barn coats; one carried a heavy canvas tool bag while the other hefted a shovel.
“I told her that we’d get to it after we fixed Jorie’s shower.” Tool Bag hefted the canvas sack atop the steps. “And Jorie’s sink. And her porcelain throne.” He freed a pouch of chewing tobacco from his pocket, hooked a large wad, and crammed it inside his cheek.
“Ol’ Petrie better not hear you call her by her first name.” Shovel spit, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Like she carth.” Tool Bag lisped around a mouthful of chaw.
“Well, better get to it if we want to get home before midnight.” Shovel jammed the tool into the ground, then started up the steps. “Never thought I’d miss crazy ol’ Jim.”
Tool Bag followed. “Don’t thpeak ill of the dead.”
“Better than the dead speaking ill of you.” Shovel entered the house, then held the door for Tool Bag, who trudged in after him.
Lauren listened as the men’s voices faded, only to be replaced by sounds of a high-pitched argument. Two young women bickering about whose turn it was to wind the clocks in the east wing. This isn’t a house, it’s a household. Never empty. Never still. Not the sort of place where one slipped inside and wandered. There would be someone around every corner, in every room. I need a better plan.
She edged along the side of the house until she met shadow, which she used as cover as she pushed through a thin spot in the hedge and into the front yard of the house next door. Hands in pockets, she strode across the lawn and onto the sidewalk, a woman out for a walk. Nothing to see here—just moving along.
Leaf Cateman stood at the front window of his bedroom and watched the young woman creep along the hedge that bordered the side yard then vanish into the leaves quick as you please. Lauren. Not a traditional Gideon name, but he supposed that was to be expected these days. A sneak, just like your father. Funny how blood always told.
He tensed as a noise sounded from the hallway, just outside his door. The squeak of floorboards. “Amanda?”
The door opened a crack. “Master? Are you decent?”
“Of course.”
Amanda Petrie stepped inside, then shut the door. “I just gave Tom his pie.” She carried a tray bearing some folded cloths, rolls of gauze, a jar of ointment. “The old crank—he didn’t want to take it from me. Made me put it down on the step, then back away.”
“What did you expect?” Leaf walked to the sitting area at the far end of the room, rolling up the sleeves of his pajamas along the way. Tried not to look at the gauze that swaddled his arms from wrist to elbow, the areas of pink-tinged seepage. “I had to field a few interesting phone calls this morning from various concerned parties. Never thought I would ever need to concoct inventive lies on your behalf. Rehearsing a play about the Salem trials. Just an accident.” He tried to smile, but his cheeks felt strange, stiff, as though a tooth infection had come to call. “Quick thinking, even if I do say so myself.”
“I only tried to do what needed doing.” Amanda set the tray on a side table next to the chair. She had already donned a pair of latex gloves, which fit so tightly her fingers resembled pale sausages. “It will turn out as it did with her father, just you see. Sooner trust a rabid dog not to bite than a Mullin to do what’s right.” She paused to watch him as he moved, and frowned. “You should take some time for yourself, Master. Go to Chicago. See your doctor.”
“I can’t leave now.” Leaf sat down, shifting as the nubs of rough brocade upholstery poked through thin flannel. He eased off one slipper, then the other, peeled off the white cotton socks to expose his pink, flaking feet. “Too much going on. Too much to do.” He glanced up to fin
d Amanda looking at him, lips pulled in between her teeth like she wanted to say something but didn’t dare. So, time to change the subject. “Where is my wife?”
“Downstairs, whining to Maureen.” Amanda opened the jar of ointment, dug into it with her gloved fingers, and spread the muck on strips of gauze. “She fell in the kitchen a bit ago. Slipped on Lady-knows-what, whacked herself good on the edge of the counter.”
“I trust the wound isn’t severe?”
“Maureen is seeing to her. She’s going to have a nasty shiner, but she’ll recover.”
“Perhaps it knocked some sense into her.” Leaf wrinkled his nose as the smells hit him. The marshy rankness of the ointment. The strange odor of his skin, like the stink of old fireplace ashes. He sat back as Amanda removed the old bandages and applied fresh, took what comfort he could in the cool numbness as the treated herbs did their work. “You shouldn’t have done it, you know.”
Amanda kept her eyes on her task. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Master.”
“It’s just the two of us here. Not really a time to play dumb.” Leaf shifted again as the upholstery abraded and stung. “Grandfather learned the hard way that only a Mullin could break the curse, a curse that shackles Gideon as strongly as any chain. Father wasted his life trying to prove him wrong—”
“Your father, Lady rest his soul, knew Mullins for what they were. We can work out another way.”
“She showed up, out of nowhere. Unbidden. Unexpected. It’s a sign.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in signs.”
“I believe in taking advantage when it presents itself.” Leaf shrugged, then caught himself as the stinging burn spread across his upper back. “If we play her properly, she will realize we offer the more attractive option.”
Amanda wadded the old bandages and stuffed them in a paper sack for later incinerating. “Virginia already has her.”