by Nicole Bross
“You’d better get your butt downstairs for lunch.” He’s pointing his finger at me in mock aggression, and his smile softens his tone. “My mama’s starting to wonder if you don’t like her cooking.”
“What? No, of course, I do. I’m just—” I sweep my arm around, indicating the table and its contents. “Busy.”
“Busy people eat. Have you even had breakfast?”
“Of course, I have.” It’s not a complete fabrication. Ever since I’ve started drinking it, I’ve considered coffee a breakfast staple, and most days it’s all I need until lunch. Kellen, however, isn’t convinced.
“There’s your tell,” he says, breaking into a grin that shows off his perfect teeth. “You’re a terrible liar, Audrey.”
“Oh yeah? What is it?” I know as soon as I ask that he’s never going to tell me.
“Yeah right. Come on—food’s waiting.”
I pop the lock in the doorknob and pull the door shut behind me, giving it a jostle for good measure.
“What do you have up here anyway?” Kellen asks as he leads me down the hall past the guest rooms. I can’t help but appreciate his ass in his low-slung jeans as I follow him and feel my face reddening.
“Just bookkeeping. Stuff that has to be done before the transfer of ownership can go into effect.” We pass through a door marked Employees Only and down another staircase. Now we’re behind the pub in what looks like a staff room, with a comfy, but worn leather couch, a double row of lockers, a small kitchenette, and a battered Formica table surrounded by mismatched chairs. To my right is a door, and the window set into it gives me a view of the kitchen, where Naomi flits from one stove to another.
“That going to take a while? Don’t answer yet. I’ll be back in a second with lunch.” The promised second is more like five minutes, but when he pushes back through the door, he’s carrying a tray laden with more food than I can eat in a day, never mind a single meal. I shake my head in disbelief—about to tell him I couldn’t possibly eat so much when my stomach betrays me with a growl so loud they probably heard it in the kitchen. One side of Kellen’s face twitches as he tries to suppress a smile.
“You’d better not touch my fries,” he says, and I clue in that he’s carrying food for both of us.
“They look so good though.” I snag one before he can swat my hand away and pop it into my mouth. I fully intend on poaching as many as I can, since my lunch, a bowl of thick chowder and a plate of fried clams, didn’t come with any.
I explain about Roz’s unfinished bookkeeping between mouthfuls, a subject which doesn’t take more than a couple minutes to cover before I steer the conversation to what I learned about the town’s past from Sheena earlier that day.
“You love that sort of stuff, don’t you?” My enthusiasm must have shown on my face. He’s also managed to steal two fried clams from my plate while I was retelling the story, so caught up in telling him what I’d learned this morning that I let my guard down.
“I do,” I admit. “It’s the fun side of history, the type of story people are interested in, even if it’s a bit unsavory. Or maybe because it is,” I add, holding up the three fries I’ve liberated tauntingly. It’s been an all-out war ever since Kellen sat down across from me, despite my effort to use my soup bowl as a shield against him. “Anything else you’ve ever heard about it?”
“Nah, I mean, I’ve heard TJ’s story because that man will take any excuse to tell it, but I think most everybody has this vague notion that a long time ago smugglers used to hide their booze here. I don’t even know if there’s anything in the cellar here from those times. I’ve never heard anyone talking about hidden rooms or anything, and I’ve been down there and haven’t seen anything. Mama and I only moved here fifteen years ago though, so I’m probably not the best person to ask about it. Check in with some of the old-timers—they might have heard stories from their daddies or granddaddies. Bill Blackmoor might be one guy to talk to or Alice Jordan. Alice might even be old enough to have been alive during Prohibition, although if she was, she would have been a baby.”
I make a mental note to ask Bill Blackmoor when I stop in to see him tomorrow to see how the paperwork is progressing. We had sent off my birth certificate application, but it hadn’t arrived at the inn yet. Even with the rush request, it was still at the mercy of the postal service once it left wherever birth certificates came from.
“All right, that was a good idea,” I concede as I push my empty bowl away from me. I have a feeling that as soon as I get back upstairs where no one will see me, I’m going to be popping the button of my jeans open.
“Supper is at six, and you can place your order now so it’s ready,” Kellen tells me.
“You expect me to think about supper now? I’m so stuffed I might not eat again until tomorrow.”
“Your choices are Dungeness crab with garlic butter and a side of mash,” Kellen begins as though I haven’t spoken, ticking off each item with his fingers. “The Soberly Pub burger, which is topped with a fried egg and comes with fries and slaw; fish and chips—which I believe you’ve already had—or Monday’s special, cedar-planked salmon with roasted potatoes and local vegetables.” I open my mouth to reply, but he continues. “As for dessert, we have a selection of pies, baked fresh daily by the Crumbs Cafe and Bakery down the street, or six flavors of ice cream, served in one, two or three scoops—”
“Stop,” I cry, unable to hold in my laughter. “Fine. The burger. No dessert.”
“Have you tried Crumbs’ marionberry pie yet? These are local marionberries, Audrey. Probably picked by Jenny Crumb herself, before the first light of dawn, all so she can craft the most delectable of pies. Do you know the sheer hardship of picking marionberries? The brambles? The thorns?” He shakes his head in mock disappointment and sighs. “All those scratches, Audrey. For you. So, you can have pie.” He stares at me, a mock look of deep disappointment on his face, silently daring me to turn down the pie twice.
“Oh my God. Fine, a sliver of pie.” I hold my finger and thumb an inch apart to show him how much pie I want.
“A scoop of vanilla on top?” He’s grinning again.
“A good piece of pie doesn’t need to be propped up with ice cream,” I say with a sniff.
“Savage.” Now he’s laughing. “Well, have it your way, I suppose.”
“If any of this was actually my way I—”
“Well, back to work for you, Audrey, enjoy your afternoon,” he says before I can complete my protest. He lands a lightning-quick peck on my cheek before I know it’s coming, shoots me one last triumphant grin, and disappears into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the staff room. He reappears half a minute later, a sheepish look on his face.
“Forgot the dishes,” he says, stacking them back onto the tray and heading back through the door. “Mama about had my hide. See you at six.”
***
At the appointed hour, not a minute earlier, I step into the pub, abandoning attempts to smooth down my hair after a breezy stroll down the beach. It’s absolutely packed, more so than on the weekend, and the din is almost disorienting after the peaceful hour I’ve had with only the waves, and the gulls as my soundtrack. Cora is here too, sitting at a table with six or seven others. She sees me, nods, and says something to the woman beside her. The entire table turns to look at me. I give her a weak wave in return and make a point of looking elsewhere in the pub so she doesn’t feel obliged to offer me a seat I don’t want to take. Drew and another server are both shouldering trays laden with drinks, moving from table to table and swapping full glasses for empties.
There’s a strange undercurrent to the mood in the room. It doesn’t feel like just a busy restaurant. Whether it’s the low voices everyone seems to be speaking in, or the fact that nearly everyone is wearing a somber expression, I get the feeling something’s up in Soberly. I hope that something isn’t me, as there are more than a few people giving me curious glances now. Suddenly I’m uncomfortable to the point of panic, and
about to duck into the washroom to take a breather when Kellen looks up from the beer taps and points to an empty seat at the bar, front and center.
Great. What an inconspicuous spot to sit and have everyone watch him flirt with me. The sight of one friendly face among strangers is enough to unfreeze my paralysis, however, and I weave my way through the tables to the bar. His usual wiseass smile is missing, and there’s tightness in his jaw I haven’t seen before.
“What’s going on?” I ask in the same low tone, leaning over the bar so he can hear me.
“Bill Blackmoor’s dead,” he replies as he pulls another tray of beers. “Rudy Jamison found him a couple hours ago.”
The entire town had already heard about it, from the look of things. I mentally chastise myself for the uncharitable thought. Soberly was a close-knit town, and the death of one of its longtime—maybe lifetime—residents would be a severe blow to the community.
Kellen is too busy to talk at length about Blackmoor’s death, with the drink orders coming in as fast as he can make them. I request a red ale from a Portland microbrewery and don’t mention supper. My entrance was only a momentary distraction for the pub’s patrons, who have all returned to their previous conversations. Nevertheless, there’s still a band of tenseness across my shoulders, and my chief thought is how Blackmoor’s death is going to delay the sale of the inn to Cora even further, which makes me feel even more uncharitable for thinking about his death as an inconvenience rather than the sad misfortune it is. I’m not mired in my own self-flagellating thoughts for long, because Sheena shoulders her way in between me and the person on the stool to my right.
“Audrey, hey,” she says. “Rob, Shawn, move down one. I need this seat here.” The two men grumble a bit, but they do as she requests and she slides in beside me, setting her pint down on an abandoned coaster. “Thought I’d come keep you company. Hope you don’t mind. You heard the news?” I nod, mid-sip. “Everyone’s absolutely shocked,” she says. “Rudy stopped ‘round his office to ask him about a round of golf on the weekend and found him at the bottom of the stairs, dead as a doorknob. Doc Porter says looks like he fell and hit his head. Some people are saying his hip might’ve given out on him—he’d been complaining about it giving him trouble lately. The awful part is, Rudy says he was wearing yesterday’s suit, which means he’d been laying there all night and this morning too.” She took a long drink from her pint, her head bowed.
A fall down some stairs. It was the same way he’d died in the vision he’d given me when we’d first met two days ago. Had it really only been two days?
While people often held onto the same personality traits and habits from one life to the next, specific events like the way they died virtually never matched up. To be fair, I didn’t have a lot of data to say this with certainty, but I couldn’t think of an instance where a person had suffered the same sort of unusual accident more than once over their lifetimes. I once met someone during one of my research stints who had twice died in childbirth in the past, which up until the last century or so was a fairly common occurrence for women. Because he was male in this lifetime, there was no chance of that happening this time around, and I’d chalked it up to random chance. That was likely what this was as well, but it still struck me as strange.
“To Bill!” someone cries from across the pub. The crowd repeats the toast, glasses raised, foam sloshing over the edges. I lift my own pint silently in acknowledgment.
“To Bill,” Sheena says a moment later, so quiet I barely hear her. She sighs, and there’s a great deal of sadness in her eyes, which are rimmed red from crying. “I should go. I need to call my mama and tell her the news. She’ll be devastated. She and Bill grew up together, you see. He’s a good few years older than her, but they were neighbors over on Meadowlark Street when she was a girl, and he always looked out for her, almost like an older brother. When Lilian died—Bill’s wife—I always wondered if maybe they hadn’t started quietly seeing each other, since my daddy’s been dead since I was two and they became real close again. Mama never said anything about it to me specifically, but they were always doing stuff together, scrambling all over the dunes with binoculars looking at birds, taking watercolor classes, that sort of thing. They must have quarreled or something because all of a sudden Mama was determined to leave the only place she’d ever lived and move to Florida to live in one of those retirement parks. She’s never been back once in almost eight years. Still, even if things did end badly between them, she’ll want to know he’s passed.” She gulps down the last two mouthfuls of her beer, slides the empty glass toward Kellen, and leaves me with an apology for her somber mood and an invitation to stop into her shop again soon.
I have the urge to hug her, but at the last moment hold back. I tell myself it’s because it would be awkward to swivel off my stool and stand up without bumping into the person on my left at the tightly packed bar. The reality is I don’t feel like I have the mental fortitude to take on any visions. The grief she’s feeling will most certainly leak into whatever snippet of her past she gives me, and the atmosphere of the pub is already grim enough. Instead, I squeeze her arm, sleeved in a light-green plaid flannel, and tell her I’ll definitely see her soon.
Despite my wish to avoid any direct contact, it comes anyway, in the form of Naomi, who swoops into the spot vacated by Sheena with a plate bearing the food I’d ordered via Kellen earlier. She sets it down in front of me and gives me a long look.
“Our sorrow is yours too, isn’t it, dear girl,” she says. “I can tell you’re feeling it, poor child.”
I don’t know how to reply to this assertion. It’s true, but I don’t quite feel like I have a right to it, not to the degree these people do. Yet as soon as she says it, I’m aware of the heaviness in my heart that’s been present ever since Kellen told me about Blackmoor’s death. It’s a sharp, unwelcome ache.
“Eat what you can,” Naomi tells me. “I always say, when in doubt, eat something made with love.” She leans forward and presses a gentle kiss on my forehead before bustling back into the kitchen.
REGRESS
Yulia willed her body to still, suppressing the shivers threatening to wrack her thin frame. She didn’t want her children to see how she suffered, not since she’d wrapped her warm woolen shawl around her youngest daughter. Although it was not yet dark, she considered telling them all to get ready for bed so they could share their warmth under the quilts. Perhaps she could spend the waning hours of the day making up fairy tales for them until one by one, they drifted off. They had long abandoned separate beds, preferring now to all sleep huddled together on Yulia’s large mattress with all their blankets piled atop it. For Yulia, it had often been the only time she felt warm over this devastating winter; colder and longer than any she could remember. The meager fire burning at the hearth did little to heat her small cottage, but at least they had stones warming at the edge of the flames that she would wrap in flannel and tuck into the foot of the bed. As she did every night, she contemplated dragging the mattress closer to the hearth, but she was so worried a spark would set the bed ablaze and burn them in their sleep, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.
“Mama, I’m still hungry,” three-year-old Oksana said, tugging at her skirt. The other two were old enough to know not to complain, but Yulia was forever having to placate her youngest. Weariness washed over Yulia, and she fought back the urge to snap at her daughter. Of course, she was still hungry. She’d had less to eat all day than a child her age ought to have in a single meal.
“I’m sorry, my sweet girl. There is nothing left to eat today. We will have to wait until tomorrow when I go get our rations again.” She kept her voice calm and steady, even though inside she felt like screaming. The rations were getting smaller, even though the council kept assuring the villagers that there would be enough to last through the winter. Last night, as she watched her son, twelve-year-old Dragan, remove his shirt, she saw his ribs sticking out of his already thin frame, and was
shocked at how his shoulder blades jutted out of his back. She knew he was slipping Oksana an extra bite or two of potato or a morsel of bread almost every meal, and he always refused Yulia when she tried to give over her own small portion.
“I’m the man of the house now,” he told Yulia when she’d confronted him in private. “When Papa left, he said to watch over his girls until he returned.”
“You cannot watch over us if you’re too weak from lack of food.” She’d smiled as she said it, proud of her boy for taking the role so seriously. “I know Oksana’s cries are hard to bear, but I cannot let you sacrifice yourself. We need you.”
“Ahh, Mama,” he’d said, wagging his finger at her. “Do you not think I could say the same to you? We need you as well. Who knows what will become of us if you—” He couldn’t finish his sentence and buried his head into her chest, a rare show of affection from her boy who wanted so badly to be a man.
“Oh, my son,” she’d whispered into his hair. “I’m your mother. A mother would do anything for her children. Anything at all.” Nevertheless, she’d resolved not to give over so much of her own ration to the children. Dragan was right. Without her to advocate for them and Zoran gone, would the village council look the other way and let them starve as well? Would anyone take pity upon them and take them in? As mature and willing as Dragan was, she didn’t know how long he could head the household in the face of so much hardship.
“But Mama, I’m hungry!” Oksana shrieked, bringing her back to the present. She punctuated each word with a hard tug at Yulia’s skirt. “I—want—more—potatoes! I—want—meat!” She dissolved into angry tears, and Yulia slid her hands under Oksana’s arms and lifted her up to her hip.
“Come now, why don’t we wash our faces and hands, climb into bed, and I’ll tell you a story. There will be a princess, a castle, and a dreadful troll. Doesn’t that sound nice?” Oksana howled, arching back away from Yulia, and the room before her eyes closed in, darkness overtaking her sight. With her last conscious thought, she set Oksana down before toppling forward.