Maybe it was pretty in the fall, she thought glumly as they crested another hill that looked down onto large swaths of forest and the double gray strip of asphalt. There weren’t even that many cars, going either way.
“Isn’t this place inhabited?” she asked at one point.
Lana smiled and looked back between the seats. “There’s only about nine hundred thousand people in the province, and most of them are settled on the coast. This highway goes straight up the northern part of the province to Cape Breton, so there aren’t as many towns along the way. And honestly, it’s never going to look like anything you’d see in the States. Maybe Maine, but otherwise, it’s not nearly as densely populated as any area you might know.”
“You’re a wealth of information,” Michelle said, regarding her with interest.
“You should see me at Trivial Pursuit.”
Lana offered a crooked grin and turned to look out the front window once more. Michelle saw Emily glance over at her, and her expression was such a puppy-dog mix of pride and pleasure that she rolled her eyes. There was no way around it. Emily had it bad. Michelle wondered how Lana was going to deal with it and if she would be kind about it. A day earlier, Michelle would have assumed so, but now she was realizing she didn’t really know what went on behind those darkly beautiful features. Even in the very short time she’d known her, Lana seemed to be changing profoundly.
Was that what grief did to someone? Or was it just because she was letting go of that grief and this new person was who Lana really was? Michelle resolved to keep an eye on that developing situation. She shifted her gaze. Emily, on the other hand, was more of an open book: solid, upstanding, courageous, and always prepared to do the right thing. Predictable, in other words, except perhaps where Lana was concerned. Michelle resolved to keep an eye on her, as well. There might come a time when she’d have to jump a certain way, and it would be useful if she knew which way her companions would go.
“Watch out for moose,” Lana noted as they passed a warning sign not long after crossing the Canso Causeway.
“I doubt we’ll see one,” Emily said, flashing a smile at her. “But you’re right. If I had to choose, I’d rather hit a deer.”
“Why?” Michelle asked, curious. “What’s the difference?”
“Simple. When you hit a deer, you wreck your car, you usually kill the deer, and you might hurt yourself,” Emily said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “When you hit a moose, you wreck your car, you usually kill yourself, and you might hurt the moose.”
“Oh,” Michelle said. “Yeah. Let’s not do that.”
They stopped at a diner just outside Cheticamp for lunch. These places didn’t seem to go in for much in the way of décor, Michelle noticed, but the food was spectacular, especially the seafood. Considering that she was used to the bounty of New Orleans, she had to grudgingly admit that it was pretty damned good. She plowed her way through a variety platter containing lobster, crab, Digby scallops, fries, and a vegetable medley, Emily watching with a sort of disgusted fascination and Lana with quiet amusement.
While Emily settled the bill, Michelle found herself standing with Lana by the car. “Look,” she said in a low voice, “I’m going to find a way to pay you both back for all this, no matter what happens.”
“It’s our choice to be here, Michelle,” Lana said calmly. “Our money to spend. I can’t speak for Emily, but when and if I think it’s become too much, then I’ll stop and go home. Either way, it’s my decision. It’s not on you.”
“Okay,” Michelle said, and got back in the car as Emily came out of the diner.
They didn’t have a lot of choice regarding accommodations in Cheticamp this time of year, with most B&Bs, cottages, and motels closed for the season. They ended up at a place that rented individual cabins, two-bedroom units with a small kitchen and living area, electric heaters along the base of the walls, and a small woodstove providing warmth. The wind off the ice-choked bay was bitter as they carried their bags inside.
“All right, where do we start?” Emily asked once she had a small fire going in the stove and the chill in the room had dissipated.
“The cemetery beside St. Peter’s Church,” Michelle said. “I need to check out a gravestone.”
“Do we have to wait until after dark?” Lana asked with interest.
“I’m just going to look at it,” Michelle replied. She glanced at Emily. “Nothing illegal or questionable. I promise.”
“That remains to be seen,” Emily told her.
Michelle thought that was just being pessimistic and offered her an admonishing look that didn’t seem to bother Emily at all.
The wind was even stronger as they got out of the car by the church, blowing in from the southeast. Michelle shivered in her winter coat, pulling the hood up over her head.
“How do you people stand this?” she muttered as they tromped across the snowy ground toward the gates guarding the cemetery. Beneath her booted feet, ice crunched, and there seemed to be a lot more snow in this area than in Grand-Pré. This was a much harsher environment, and Michelle wondered if the Acadians who had returned here ever missed the much-hotter climes of Louisiana and why they would even consider this a suitable place to settle.
Home had to be where the heart was because it certainly didn’t make sense otherwise. Maybe it was just all the crazy ones that came back.
“These are Les Suêtes winds,” Lana explained. “They’re abnormally strong because of the highlands. They can regularly blow up to 230 kilometers an hour this time of year.”
Michelle looked at her and saw Lana was reading from a pamphlet that she’d acquired somewhere and grinned. It was obvious the woman loved information.
“Where is this grave and why are we looking at it?” Emily asked sourly. It appeared she didn’t like the weather any more than Michelle did.
“The far corner.” Michelle wound her way through the ornate headstones. “It’s the oldest part of the cemetery.”
She stopped in front of a stone, weathered and worn, the barely legible chiseled letters indicating how old it was, but the grave itself was well tended, clear of any brambles or growth. She took off her glove and traced over the grooves in the granite, tracing out the letters, her fingers quickly growing numb.
“Father Gaston Beauséjour,” she whispered. “He’s here. He’s right here.”
Emily immediately looked alarmed. “We are not digging up a grave!”
Chapter Eighteen
“I would never!” Michelle responded to Emily’s comment in a completely offended tone. “What kind of person do you think I am?”
Since Lana had been thinking much the same thing, she couldn’t really regard Michelle’s outrage as justifiable, but she did lift her hand, making a nonverbal suggestion to Emily that perhaps she shouldn’t take it any further. Emily lifted her brows at the gesture but set her jaw, her lips thinning as if she was swallowing back another comment.
“What does this signify?” Lana said patiently. “Obviously he died here, in 1803, according to the stone. Is this where he hid the cross?” She glanced over at the magnificent structure that was St. Peter’s, serving a central role in the spiritual life of the small Acadian village. “He had nothing to do with the church. It was built in 1893, a century after he was gone. Even the church that came before it in Le Buttereau was built in 1868. Again, long after his time.”
Emily goggled. “How do you know that?” she demanded. “I expect it from her. She’s supposed to be some sort of an expert, but I didn’t know you were interested in this stuff at all.” Michelle was also regarding Lana, though her expression was more amused than astounded.
Lana felt a little self-conscious. “I bought a book in New Minas when I was picking up the office supplies and read a little bit before I went to sleep last night.”
“And memorized it?”
“She’s just a geek,” Michelle said, cheerfully, as if pleased at Emily’s surprise. “Like me.”
“What next?” Lana interjected strongly, forestalling any further conversation about her tendencies, geek or otherwise. Conscious of Emily still regarding her with a sort of wonder, Lana pulled up the collar of her ski jacket and moved closer to the grave, trying to read more of the weathered inscription. “I don’t think this stone was put on his grave when he died. I think it was put here much later.”
“You’re right, it was,” Michelle said. “By his grandson.”
“Grandson?” Emily frowned. “I’m sorry, but wasn’t Beauséjour a Catholic priest?”
“Things aren’t always that simple,” Michelle said, starting to walk back toward the car.
Emily exchanged a wide-eyed look with Lana, who shrugged and started to follow, slogging through the snow until she caught up to Michelle. “It would be helpful if you told us the whole story you’ve learned from your research rather than deal it out in dabs and dribbles.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to share it,” Michelle explained, patting Lana on the arm. “I don’t know what’s accurate and what’s not until I actually see the evidence, like that gravestone. I knew the cross had been hidden at Grand-Pré. I knew that after the Expulsion, Beauséjour gave up the priesthood and married a woman, Ava Chaisson, with whom he had four sons. I know he returned here in 1790 with his wife when he was in his sixties while his sons stayed behind in Louisiana. But I didn’t know he stopped by Grand-Pré first and took the cross from its hiding place or that he brought it here with him until we found that note to Thomas. The note changed everything.”
“Do you think the cross still exists? It could take years before anyone discovers its location.” Lana glanced back over her shoulder at Emily, who was trudging a few feet after them, and lowered her voice. “There was really no need for us to come up here at all.”
“No, I think I have a line on it,” Michelle insisted as they reached the parking lot. “There was a Beauséjour homestead across the bay. On Cheticamp Island.”
“It’s highly unlikely it’s still there.”
“Yes, but the well might be.”
“What wel—”
“Recognize that car?” Emily suddenly appeared between them, nudging Michelle with her shoulder and inclining her head to the street where a dark sedan was parked. Startled, both Lana and Michelle stopped and stared in that direction.
“Huh? Car?” Michelle frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I thought I saw it in Grand-Pré and driving behind us every so often on the way up here,” Emily said. “It’s a rental. Is that the car that forced you off the road?”
“I don’t know,” Michelle said doubtfully, after peering at it for a minute. “It could be.”
“Stay here,” Emily said firmly and began to walk toward it. She hadn’t gone more than a few yards before it suddenly started up and pulled away, heading south, out of Cheticamp and back toward the mainland.
“What were you going to do when you got there?” Lana asked, honestly curious, when Emily rejoined them.
“Ask for identification,” Emily said, as if that should be obvious. “Check to see if there was any damage on the car. I couldn’t tell from this distance.” She turned to Michelle. “Was it Pierre and Juan?”
“It was too far away,” Michelle said evenly.
Emily looked at her for a moment and then nodded, though Lana suspected she didn’t really believe her. Lana didn’t either, necessarily. “How would they even know to come here?” she asked as the three of them got into Emily’s Challenger.
“They might have picked up Devereaux’s trail in Grand-Pré and saw that she was with us,” Emily said somberly. “We’d be easy to follow. This car doesn’t exactly blend in.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Michelle complained. “We should have taken Lana’s Jeep.”
“It’s a bright pearl blue,” Lana pointed out, trying to forestall another argument. “And there aren’t a lot of Wranglers on the roads around here. They’re too hard on gas.” She flashed a smile at Emily. “I guess neither one of us is very practical when it comes to our vehicles.”
Emily returned the smile. “Are you saying my baby isn’t practical?”
“Can we forestall the flirting for later?” Michelle said, an exasperated note in her voice. “If it’s them, what are we going to do?”
“Well, clearly you didn’t report what they allegedly did to you, so unless you change your mind and make a formal statement, there isn’t much I or the rest of the members can do,” Emily retorted. “There’s no law against these guys traveling to the same places you are. It’s only if they approach or threaten you in some fashion that something can be done.”
“Besides, it might not even be them,” Lana pointed out in a reasonable tone. “Just some people on the side of the road looking at the church, and their leaving as you walked toward them was merely a coincidence.”
“And in that event, we don’t have anything to worry about.” Emily looked over her shoulder at Michelle. “What now?”
“It’s getting dark,” Michelle said uncertainly. “Maybe we should go back to the cottage and regroup.”
“I don’t have that much time to waste on this,” Emily told her. “I go back to work on Tuesday, which means I have to go home tomorrow.” She offered a thin smile. “You do understand the concept of work, don’t you?”
Lana felt a pang. She was enjoying this adventure, but was it because Emily was with her on it? Would she be as interested in continuing if Emily went home?
She turned in her seat, fixing a look on Michelle. “This homestead. Do you know where it is?”
“I think so.” Michelle reached down for her briefcase, which had been tucked under the passenger seat. After rifling through several of the pages, she came across an old map, outlining the various properties and who owned them in the village in the late 1700s. “It’s on Cheticamp Island. Off Phare Road.”
“Great. Let’s see what’s there.”
They were quiet on the way to the island, having to backtrack down the highway to the road that ran over a thin strip of land connecting the island to the rest of Cape Breton. There wasn’t a lot of settlement here, the houses few and far between, and Lana wondered if they stood a chance of finding anything from two hundred years earlier.
“Is it still considered an island if it’s connected to the land?” Michelle asked.
“I think this bit is manmade, like the Canso Causeway,” Emily said.
“Do you know that for sure?”
“No,” Emily said shortly and looked over at Lana.
Michelle did too, as if Lana had all the answers. “I don’t know,” Lana said mildly, when she belatedly became aware of their scrutiny. “I’m just glad it’s been plowed.”
“Yeah, maybe we should have taken your Jeep after all,” Emily said as they turned onto an ice-covered dirt road. “Just for the four-by-four option.”
Through the passenger window, Lana could see the lights of Cheticamp starting to appear across the stretch of frozen water running between the land masses. It was beautiful in a stark sort of way, and was probably even more so during the summer months. She supposed anyone living here found it easier to get to the village by boat rather than drive the length of the island and back up. Two hundred years ago, they definitely would have rowed across rather than utilize fuel-driven engines.
As they drove north, signs of civilization grew even sparser until there was nothing but trees and telephone poles on one side of the dirt road and the frozen harbor on the other. “Is there anything else here?” Lana asked.
“No more present-day houses,” Emily said tersely. “The road itself ends at the lighthouse on Enragée Point.”
“All right,” Lana said. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“I’ll tell you when to stop,” Michelle said, looking at the GPS on her phone. Only a couple minutes later, she reached out and put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Pull over here.”
It was dark now, the stars ov
erhead sharp and clear in the winter sky, the waning gibbous of the moon rising in the east. From across the water, the faint sounds of the village drifted, but here on the island, she heard nothing but the wind in the tree branches and the sound of the car’s engine ticking as it cooled.
“I’m not seeing anything,” Emily said dourly.
“There’s a driveway there,” Lana said, pointing to the rear of the car. “Still has a culvert. And what looks like a trail through the woods.”
“We’re going to need snowshoes,” Emily said with a sigh. “And we won’t find anything in the dark. I guess she was right. We should go back to the cottage and try this again tomorrow morning. We should also see who owns this particular parcel of land or if it’s federal, granting us access to walk over it.”
“On a weekend?” Lana said, skeptical.
“That’s what the Internet’s for,” Emily remarked.
Michelle, who was staring forlornly into the forest, didn’t seem to be listening to any of their discussion. Instead, she suddenly took off, plunging into the snow and struggling up the trail.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Lana said, startled.
“Hey, come back here!” Emily said firmly.
Michelle ignored them both, continuing to break a path through the trees, the moonlight casting muted shadows across the snow. Lana and Emily exchanged a glance. “Let me get the flashlight,” Emily said, apparently resigned.
While she did that, Lana started off after Michelle, slipping and sliding as she slogged through the wet snow.
“Christ on a crutch,” she heard Emily mutter after a minute or two as she brought up the rear, the beam from her flashlight stabbing through the forest.
It was a surreal experience, the struggle through the knee-high drifts, but eventually, they reached a clearing, and in the center rose a small mound that Michelle immediately headed for. Once she reached it, she began brushing away the obscuring snow to reveal a pyramid of stones.
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