There was even less of the impressive academy left. The gray stones were nearly buried in the mud and debris from the lake that had covered them for more than a century. “If this place was so important, why did they cover it up? Why not move it?”
“People were eager for the new found wealth electricity would bring to the area.” He shrugged his shoulders beneath a green T-shirt. “In comparison, history and schooling didn’t mean very much.”
“So now you reap what you can find out here.” Peggy looked at the scattered bones and upended wooden coffins that filled the mud around them. “What will happen to the bones?”
“Your mother and the other ladies will make sure they get a proper burial. Mrs. Waynewright is cataloging the bones as we take them out.” He waved to the elderly lady who was wearing a cheerful pink bonnet. She was seated on the heavy moss that covered the sides of the lake with a large ledger in her lap. “Most of the graves that were moved originally are located in a cemetery over there in the woods. These new remains will be added to that cemetery.” Jonathon looked at her across the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Did I hear you say you’re trained as a forensic botanist?”
“Yes, she is.” Lilla stepped into the conversation. “She taught botany at Queens University for many years. Her specialty is botanical poisons. Now she helps the police and the sheriff’s office investigate crimes. Except when she’s running that little garden shop of hers.”
“You’re very accomplished.” Jonathon grinned. “I took the six-week course in Raleigh and work with the police sometimes as a forensic historian.”
“Really?” Peggy’s mother slipped her hand through his arm. “You’re very accomplished as well, Jonathon. Just what does a forensic historian do?”
“Well, it’s similar to being a forensic botanist,” he explained. “I help discover and sort historical evidence the police can use from a crime scene. I imagine I get a lot fewer calls than Dr. Lee. There aren’t many crimes that involve historical artifacts.”
“Please, call her Peggy.” Lilla smiled and patted his arm. “She’s a very good cook, too. And she lives in an estate on Queens Road. It’s not actually hers. It belongs to her late husband’s family but she can live there as long as she likes. Where do you live, Jonathon?”
Peggy felt the slight bubbling of her temper turn into a full boil. What was she doing? It was obvious. Only her mother would think of setting her up with a man she’d barely met!
Her phone actually started ringing in the pocket of her jeans. Finally! Grateful for the reprieve, Peggy passed the yellow bucket to her mother and pushed through the bone-littered mud to a rock where she sat down. “Please tell me something horrible has happened and I have to come home.”
“Sounds like you’re having a good time with your mother.” Steve’s voice was edged with humor that Peggy didn’t share.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she told her lover (She refused to think of him as her boyfriend. It was undignified.). “I’m standing knee-deep in mud full of human bones while the Shamrock Historical Society tries to sort skulls from femurs. How’s your day going?”
“As well as can be expected with a malignant mole on a Yorkie and bad canines on a Collie. It’d be going a lot better if we’d slept in the same bed last night. My house is empty without you.”
Her heart softened toward his bad attempt at humor. “I’m sorry. I wish I could just come out and tell them. But I can’t.”
“But you’re working up to it.”
She acknowledged his hopeful tone, imagining his face as he spoke, thinking how much she loved looking into his eyes. Peggy pulled herself back before she began acting even more like a love-struck teenager and reminded herself that her hyperjudgmental mother was standing less than ten feet away.
“I am,” she promised. It was a lie, but she didn’t think he could tell the difference.
“Because this can only go on so long,” he continued.
“Are you threatening to break up with me because I can’t tell my parents we’re sleeping together?” She laughed, the humor of the situation hitting her funny bone. “If so, maybe we could sneak out tonight. You could pick me up at the end of the block and we could go to Lover’s Lane.”
“I’m glad this is making you laugh. I hope you’re laughing when I announce our engagement to your family next Tuesday night at dinner.”
She sobered at once. “You wouldn’t! Steve! You know how my family feels about proper mourning. They’d be very upset.” She was putting it mildly. As her mother had just reminded her that morning, no Cranshaw woman had ever mourned her husband for less than five years. It just wasn’t done.
“Give me an option or I pop the question.”
“Give me a little more time.”
“Peggy, it’s been a month already. I’m too old to sneak around somebody’s parents. Let’s think of some way to take care of the problem.”
“I will. I promise.” She hoped she sounded more sincere than she felt. She might be fifty-three-years-old, a botanist, and a mother herself, but when it came to confronting her parents with unpleasant news, it was like she was still seventeen.
“What do you mean you’re in mud filled with human bones?” Steve asked as though suddenly realizing what she’d said.
“I’ll tell you when I see you.” She saw Jonathon and her mother headed her way. “I’ll talk to you later. Love you.” Peggy closed her cell phone like a naughty school girl and looked up at them with a smile.
“I hope everything’s all right.” Jonathon looked worried as he got near. “I appreciate your help today, Peggy. I know you have a lot to do without helping us find what’s left of Whitley Village.”
“I was explaning about the Potting Shed and everything else you do.” Lilla smiled in a way that let her daughter know she was working on her behalf. “Jonathon has five cats.”
“Really? That’s interesting.” Peggy knew her mother was probably telling Jonathon her whole life story from winning 4-H ribbons to opening her store. She couldn’t convince her that she and Steve had a serious relationship. Lilla was always looking for new suitors for her daughter. It might not be right to get married again just yet, but her mother was looking toward the future.
“Yes.” Jonathon took his wallet out of the back pocket of his khaki cargo shorts. “They’re my pride and joy.”
“Margaret named her dog Shakespeare. I’m not really sure why.” Lilla turned to Peggy. “Weren’t you thinking about changing his name to something more doglike?”
“No. I wasn’t.” Peggy smiled at Jonathon to keep from strangling her mother. It had always been this way between them. She’d vaguely thought this historical thing might bring them closer together now that Lilla was living a few miles away. But she was beginning to think it might cause another wedge between them. Sometimes she wondered how this woman could be her mother.
“I think Shakespeare is a fine name.” Jonathon put away his cat pictures. “I enjoy plays and poetry, too.”
Peggy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to encourage him along the romantic path her mother had no doubt sent him. He was probably half her age. She could just imagine her words: She’s alone like you, Jonathon. I’m sure the two of you would have so much in common.
It ended up she didn’t have to say anything. Geneva Curtis screamed and fell backward into the mud. “Everybody come here! You won’t believe this!”
Mrs. Waynewright, probably the oldest member of the group, got painfully to her feet to see what was happening while the rest of the group slogged toward Geneva, who was trying to get out of the gooey mess where she’d fallen. They gathered around her, grasping her arms, the thick mud creating suction that popped as it released her. She would’ve fallen forward if it wasn’t for Annabelle Ainsley and Lilla holding her up.
“What is it, Geneva?” Chapter President, Dorothy Myrick, looked around where they were standing, her fists on her ample hips. “Please don’t tell me you saw a snake again.�
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“I didn’t see a snake this time,” Geneva assured her in a loud voice. “Although, a water moccasin is nothing to fool around with.”
“There are no water moccasins in this area,” Mrs. Waynewright yelled from the shore. “That was probably just a plain old water snake. I’m sure it was more frightened of you than you were of it.”
“I doubt it.” Geneva’s thick black curls shook as she disagreed. “But that’s not why I screamed. Take a look over there.”
“That’s the old post office.” Jonathon looked at his map of the village. “One of the few relics we have from Whitley is the post office sign.”
“That may be. But there’s something in there.” Geneva’s dark eyes were large and frightened in her chocolate brown face.
Jonathon picked up a sturdy piece of wood from the mud while the women began to fall in line behind him. Peggy couldn’t imagine that anything out there could be that ferocious. She fell into step beside the director.
“We’ve had a lot of problems out here with theft,” he confided as they advanced on the deteriorating post office. “None of us realized there was a market for human bones. We could only afford to hire someone to protect the site at night. He leaves at first light and goes on to his real job. The first week we lost ten skulls and various other bones.”
“I’ve read about that,” Peggy said. “Some of the market is for trinkets and the rest is medicinal. People believe powdered human bones are good for them.”
“Yes.” He glanced at her then looked away. “Good for male stamina, I undertsand. You know?”
She smiled as she saw his face turn bright red. He obviously hadn’t thought about his explanation before he got started. “It seems odd the black market could reach a little area like Charlotte but I suppose someone could consider this to be a wealth of material.”
“It was right over there.” Geneva pointed to the eastern side of the stone walls that marked the abandoned post office. “I was poking around in the mud with a stick and I saw it.”
“Don’t leave us in suspense.” Dorothy adjusted the colorful scarf she had covering her gray-streaked brown hair. “What did you see?”
“I’m not sure.”
There was a collective sigh from the rest of the women. Geneva was the youngest of the group, probably in her late forties and frequently indulged in flights of fancy that included seeing ghosts in cemeteries and imagining the shuffling of leaves were woodland creatures about to pounce on them.
“This is a wild goose chase,” Annabelle mumbled, her round face florid from the sun beneath curly white hair. “We’re not going to get anything done if we keep jumping every time Geneva sees or hears a booger.”
“There really was something,” Geneva defended. “Wait’ til you see.”
Geneva’s friend and mentor, Grace Kallahan, pushed through the mud to reach her side. The large, black woman who had been a psychiatric nurse looked around the group as though daring anyone to say another word. “Don’t pay no never mind to them, honey. You saw something that wasn’t normal. It won’t hurt us to take a look.”
Lilla nudged Peggy. “It’s always like this. We go out to shaving cream some graves and someone forgets the shaving cream. This is the most unorganized group I’ve ever been in. It’s a good thing I moved up here. I think they really need me.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” her daughter agreed. “They seem a little scattered.”
“And that’s why I wanted you to be a part of the group, too. You’re organized and you could get us into all kinds of places. You’re a descendant of a Revolutionary War hero, too. Captain Jeremiah Cranshaw would be proud of you joining us.”
“Thanks.” Peggy had heard about her famous great-great-great-granduncle who’d died in the battle of King’s Mountain since she was a baby. It was a great source of pride to her mother’s side of the family.
“Is this where you saw it?” Jonathon had reached the side of the post office.
“This is it.” Geneva pointed to the mud. “See? There’s my stick.”
“What I’m curious about is why you screamed and fell over there,” Annabelle said. “This is a long way from where you were.”
“The sheer horror of it hit me as I was making my way back,” Geneva explained. “That’s why I screamed and fell. It was like a delayed reaction, I guess.”
“Very delayed,” Annabelle agreed.
Each of the women picked up a stick to poke around in the mud. Grace dropped hers right away when she realized it was an arm bone. Jonathon walked slowly through the area, kicking his feet hoping to find something.
Peggy stood to one side watching the group search the thick, brown mud. There were too many of them already to find anything. Whatever Geneva saw would no doubt be lost in the traffic. That’s why police kept people out of crime scenes.
The dying October sunlight was drifting across the ghost of Lake Whitley. Another day was over in the search for what remained of the village. In all fairness, the group had collected a sizable number of bones and household artifacts that day. They were all piled on the shore near Mrs. Waynewright who’d covered the find with tarps.
The group knew they were working against time and nature as the state moved further into the active hurricane season for the Atlantic. One or two good storms could leave this area under water again with possibly another hundred year wait until it was dry enough to salvage.
She glanced down at a spot where the sunlight was gilding across something white in the mud. Absently, she leaned down and touched it with her gloved hand. It was probably another shard of pottery.
What her fingers encountered was soft, pliable. She pushed at it, thinking it might be some form of plant life or even a dead fish. Instead, as she prodded it, the round white surface moved, revealing itself to be the face of a dead woman with bright red lips.
Wicked Weaves Page 28