Tide and Punishment

by Bree Baker

“Yeah, thanks.” I slid my coat off and ran my fingers through my hair. “I was on my way here to see how you’re doing.” I forced a tight smile. “How are you doing?”

  Aunt Clara raised a gnome from the partially painted collection on the table. “I’m fine. What did Detective Hays say about your website?”

  “I haven’t told him. I just found out before you pulled me inside, and I’m processing,” I said.

  She gave me a sharp sideways look, then chose a worn, red-handled paintbrush from the row before her and dipped the bristles into a blob of thick black paint. “Well, go ahead. Call now,” she said. “I’ve got boots to paint.”

  I scanned the scene between us seriously for the first time. Her paints, palettes, and brushes were scattered over the table, now covered in a white cloth. The usual handmade and handed-down cover had been folded neatly and set on the cupboard across the room. The cloth beneath my hands was probably just as old, but splattered with a rainbow of accidental spills. A gnome army centered the workspace. The figure in her grip was unpainted except from his rosy cheeks and creepy black eyes. His friends stood in rows, soldiers awaiting their turn under the brush.

  “Are you calling?” Aunt Clara pressed, brush caressing one ceramic boot.

  “Not now,” I said, swirling the remainder of tea in my little cup. “Grady’s next door with Denver. They’re at story time with Mr. Butters, and I don’t want to interrupt their nice moment to deliver bad news.” I stretched for the carafe and helped myself to a refill, then warmed Aunt Clara’s drink up as well. “This can wait. No one’s been hurt, and I’m not in immediate danger.” My tummy heated with the weight of the liquid, and my muscles sagged in gentle relief. “This is really soothing,” I said, running a fingertip around the cup’s edge. “You did something different, and I love it. Do I get to know the secret ingredient?”

  “Sure.” Aunt Clara peered at me over the top of her rimless half-glasses. “It’s schnapps.”

  A ragged laugh burst from my lips. “What?”

  She shrugged. “Mr. Waters had some peppermint schnapps on the shelf the last time I was in Molly’s Market, so I picked up a bottle. I’d originally planned to cook with it, maybe bake it into cookies or boil it into icing. Then, this week started down the toilet, and I just decided to drink it.”

  I had another sip and giggle before setting the antique cup aside. I still had to drive home. “Do I even want to know the tea-to-alcohol ratio?”

  “Probably not.” Aunt Clara smiled. She finished the gnome’s boots and moved him down the line, positioning the next figure before her. “I could use some crushed peppermint for my new Christmas gifts. Since no one will want these guys, I’ve decided to make hot cocoa jars. The kind you layer ingredients in, then attach a recipe card and the recipient can make it at their convenience.”

  “You’re in luck,” I said. “I happen to know where you can find about ten pounds of peppermint in the form of a bat.”

  She smiled. “May I? I can promise to put it to good use if you can’t.”

  “I definitely can’t,” I said. “I’m done with all my peppermint recipes for the season.” I made a mental note to bring the Waterses’ gift with me for Aunt Clara the next time I visited. They’d like to know their gift to me went on to reach so many others.

  I lifted one of the finished gnomes and turned it over in my fingertips, careful not to smudge any spots that might still be wet. “Why are you painting all these?” I asked. “You should definitely stop since they’re being used in all sorts of crimes, but I don’t think you ever told me why you started.”

  When she didn’t answer, I pushed a little more, making a guess. “Are you trying not to think about something?”

  Her brush stilled a moment before busying itself once more. “What do you mean?”

  I returned the gnome to his ranks and refocused on Aunt Clara. “I mean I think you’re upset about something and taking it out on ceramics.” I’d never seen Aunt Clara truly angry, but it seemed fitting that she would channel her emotions into a project like this. I baked to take my mind off difficult things. I could do that anytime I needed, but Aunt Clara’s favorite pastimes were out of season. Her herbs and flowers, the extensive vegetable garden, even the bees were unavailable for now. “So, what is it?” I asked. “What are you trying not to think about?”

  Her head snapped in my direction, lips parted. “How did you know?”

  “Because I do this too,” I said, waving a hand toward the legion of ceramic men. “Except I bake. And then I eat.”

  Aunt Clara set the paintbrush aside with a long and labored sigh. “One more way you and I are alike. We avoid unpleasant feelings.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I asked.

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and her work on the gnome before her had been all but forgotten.

  “You know you can tell me anything, right?” I asked. “It helps to talk about the things that bother us, even if we don’t want to. You taught me that.”

  Aunt Clara finished her tea in one gulp. Then, she finished mine. “Okay.” She shook her hands out hard at the wrists. “The truth is I’m feeling a little lost without Fran around all the time. We’ve practically spent our entire lives attached at the hip and suddenly she’s off on a new adventure. Without me. I’m having a hard time processing that, and it’s making me feel all sorts of…things.”

  I folded my arms on the table and rested my chin on them. “It must be a miserable adjustment for you.” I glanced away, heat rising to my cheeks. “Jealousy’s tough.”

  Aunt Clara’s eyes widened. “I’m not jealous of Fran. I’m thrilled for her.”

  I nodded, rubbing my chin against my arms. “I meant jealousy toward Janie.”

  Aunt Clara removed her glasses and covered her mouth in horror. “It shows?”

  “A little, but only to me because I’ve been feeling the same way. I’m not used to sharing either of you with anyone, and I know it’s nonsense, and I’m too—”

  “Too old to be jealous of someone spending so much time with someone you love?” Clara cut me off. The understanding in her eyes made me smile.

  “We’re ridiculous,” I said, feeling doubly silly as I recalled the way I’d felt about Janie getting to know Grady.

  Aunt Clara sighed, resigned. “Yeah.”

  “And you decided to paint gnomes to stay busy?” I guessed with a laugh. It was definitely an original idea, as unique and slightly eccentric as Aunt Clara herself.

  “Originally, I was waiting around to be invited to the party,” she said, “figuratively speaking. I thought eventually Fran would need me to step in, help out, or take over some aspect of the planning, but that never happened. So, I started reading more and volunteering a little, then I took one of Mr. Butters’s painting classes.” She shot me a red-cheeked grin. Aunt Clara had told me what she thought of Amelia’s dad more than once, and how she wished she was twenty years younger.

  I blushed a little too.

  “It was fun and soothing, so I kept going back and I got pretty good. Once the holidays were upon us, I figured I’d paint gifts this year. There was a massive end-of-season sale on garden figures at the nature center gift shop, and I remembered the Christmas lore about Nisse, so I bought them out. I thought it would be fun to see a gnome on every porch in town. A little piece of me guarding all my neighbors, family members, and friends.”

  “You really need to reread that fairy tale,” I told her, feeling the effects of the tea take hold.

  She wet her lips and frowned, apparently lost in her thoughts. “The worst part is that I’m torn between wanting Fran to get her wish and become the mayor this town needs and wanting her to fail.”

  I reached for Aunt Clara’s hand and covered it with mine. “Don’t beat yourself up too much,” I said. “You’re allowed to miss her. Let’s think of the election as a win-win. If thi
ngs go one way, we’ll be thrilled to see her success. If things go the other way, you get your sister back full time.”

  Aunt Clara squeezed my hand. “I like that.”

  I sensed there was more. “But?”

  “I don’t know who I am without her, or where I fit in if she’s the mayor. It’s sad and scary to think about. One day next fall it might just be me and the gnomes.” She offered a mischievous grin and wiped a tear discreetly from the corner of her eye.

  “Well, for what it’s worth, you’ll always have me,” I said, sliding out of my seat to wrap her in a hug. “I’m not the same as a sister, but I love you just as much.”

  Aunt Clara sank into my embrace, hugging me back with all her might. “Thank you.” When she pulled away, her usual easy smile had returned. “I guess talking about the hard stuff does help.”

  “You’ve never led me astray,” I said, dropping back into my seat.

  She gathered the excess of a long, shapeless white dress in one fist and crossed her legs beneath the billowy material. She was always wafer thin, but she seemed especially so tonight.

  “You should stop by and let me feed you again soon,” I said. “A one-on-one ladies’ night dinner.”

  “That sounds lovely.” Her newfound smile suddenly doubled in size. “I noticed you haven’t selected your menu for the Holiday Shuffle yet.”

  I marveled at the strange twinkle in her eye. “Not yet. Why?”

  “Is it because you’re planning a big surprise?”

  I laughed. “I wish I had a surprise. What I have is severe procrastination and no idea what to serve that night. Did you see that Grady’s mother-in-law is getting in on the action? Her menu is perfection with generous sides of pizzazz and wow. Anything I make will look amateur in comparison.”

  “No way,” Aunt Clara cooed. “You don’t need fancy food to impress anyone in Charm. We’re already impressed. And no one visits a seaside iced tea shop for snooty food anyway. People come to see you. They want that special home cooking with a twist that only you can provide. It makes them feel good. You make them feel good.”

  I laughed. “I had no idea a glass of iced tea and some finger foods could do that.”

  Clara narrowed her eyes. “I think you do.” She selected a clean, dry paintbrush and passed it to me. “Since you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful,” she teased. “I’m going to run these to the kiln tomorrow, then ship them to places that can use them in their gardens like hospitals, libraries, and retirement communities. No need for them to go to waste.”

  I accepted the brush and she tapped hers against mine in a toast.

  Thirty minutes later, we decided the folks at those hospitals, libraries, and retirement communities might enjoy painting the figures themselves. Aunt Clara boxed up the leftover gnomes, and I loaded the finished ones into Blue’s backseat. I’d take them to the kiln for her on my way to visit Mary Grace and the stand-in mayor tomorrow.

  “Drive safely,” Aunt Clara called from the sidewalk outside her shop door. “Thank you, Everly,” she added with such sincerity, my heart soared.

  I honked as I pulled away. I wished I could stay and talk with her until Aunt Fran returned to the shop as promised, but I needed to get home and bake cookies for my morning inquisitions. Painting the one and only gnome I’d managed to finish had my mind wandering back to the biggest of our problems: how to keep Aunt Fran from winding up in police custody the week before Christmas.

  * * *

  Grady’s truck was parked outside my carriage house when I arrived home. I kept one eye on the darkened vehicle as I reached for the box of gnomes on Blue’s backseat. There wasn’t any movement in the cab, and Grady wasn’t on my porch, so where was he?

  Someone stepped out of the shadows in my garden, and I screamed.

  Grady’s lopsided smile set my heart to skitter. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I did a perimeter sweep while I waited.”

  “You’re living on the edge,” I said breathlessly, “sneaking up on a jumpy lady with a box full of weapons.”

  “Let me.” Grady easily arranged the burden under one arm. He waved me into the moonlight with the other. “Do I want to know why you have a box full of gnomes?”

  “Aunt Clara overbought,” I said. “These are the last of the finished products. She never dreamed one would be implicated in a murder before she gave them all away.” I hooked my hand in the crook of his arm and led him to my front door.

  “You still haven’t told me why you have them,” he said.

  I pressed the numbers on my new keypad. A few local historians had made it known that they didn’t approve of the keyless entry option on a nearly two-hundred-year-old home, but I’d made an executive decision, and I stuck by it. Keys were too easily lost, stolen, or duplicated. My luck was bad enough without pressing it. The way things were going for me, my next investment should probably be a full house alarm system with motion detectors.

  “I’m taking these to the kiln for her tomorrow morning,” I said. “Once they’re finished, Aunt Clara’s going to donate them to charities since she can’t give them to locals as gifts anymore.”

  Grady followed me inside without comment.

  I flipped the dead bolt back into place before unlocking the door to my private quarters and heading up the steps. “Right this way.”

  Once we’d made it to my living room, I flipped all the light switches and plugged my tree back in. The space illuminated in a zing of holiday cheer. I pulled the curtains across the rear wall of windows to add the rolling sea and starry night to our view.

  Grady set the box on the counter and watched silently as I headed back to the kitchen.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I said, “It’s nice to see you, but I’m not sure why you’re here.” I considered telling him that Janie had appointed herself his new contact, but knew that was just me being snarky and a little jealous. I blamed Aunt Clara’s tea.

  He gave a disbelieving look. “Any chance you’ve looked at your website lately?”

  “Oh.” My stomach dropped. “That.” Severe unease returned in a crashing wave. Somehow, I’d managed to push the website issue out of my mind while I’d been with Aunt Clara.

  “Yeah. That,” he grouched, pulling his phone from his coat pocket and turning it toward me. “Why didn’t you call when you saw this?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look directly at the phone, though I’d likely see the message in my sleep for weeks to come. “I didn’t want to interrupt story time.” A new thought drew my brows together. “How did you know about it?” I’d only told Aunt Clara.

  Grady tucked the phone away when I didn’t take it. “I’m registered for your updates.” He took a slow step in my direction. “Hundreds of people got the same notification.”

  “What?” My thundering heart seized. “Who?”

  “Your followers,” he said slowly, as if I might be suffering from an exceptionally low IQ.

  I had hundreds of followers? And they’d been alerted about the threat? And my uploaded how-to video. “Oh my goodness,” I whispered. “This is bad.” Suffering in silence while a lunatic taunted me was one thing. Having half the island know it was happening was another.

  “You should have called me,” Grady said. “This is a big deal. I know you’ve received a lot of threats in the past few months, and maybe it’s getting hard for you to discern between them, but this was very bad. It’s not like dropping a broken statue outside your car or even throwing an armload of them at your house. This was personal and invasive. Whoever did this worked at it, so you’d know you can be reached on all fronts. Not even your café’s website is outside the limits.”

  The whooshing sound returned to my ears, and a few spots floated in my vision. I folded myself onto the floor and dropped my head into waiting palms. I focused on breathing.

  Grady sat
beside me, my laptop on his crossed legs. “This was on the counter. May I?”

  I nodded, still working to slow and deepen my quick, shallow breaths.

  “What’s the username and password for your site?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes while I told him, “Username and Password.”

  “You almost deserve to be hacked for that,” he said.

  I couldn’t argue. Instead, I listened to the steady tapping of Grady’s fingertips against my keys, the rhythmic clicking of my touch pad, and finally the satisfied grunt of work completed. “There. I reset it. The site should look exactly like it did before the latest change, and I fixed your log-in situation.”

  I raised my head slowly. “You did?”

  He passed me the laptop. “I did.”

  I scrolled through the site, noting all the familiar materials I’d painstakingly chosen, written, and uploaded. Including the video I itched to take down.

  Grady nudged me with his elbow. “Your new username is BakingGoddess, and the password is GradyLovesLemonCake.”

  I tipped over against him, resting my head on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  A long moment later, his cheek pressed against the top of my head. “What are friends for, Swan?”

  “How about sharing some lemon cake?” I asked, forcing myself away from him and onto my feet.

  Grady joined me in one lithe movement. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  We shared half a lemon cake and two glasses each of Grandma’s Old-Fashioned Sweet Tea before I remembered I still had cookies to make. There were orders from locals to fill, plus I needed a few delicious props to justify my unexpected appearance at Mary Grace’s house and the standing mayor’s office tomorrow morning.

  I arranged the ingredients for my family’s amazing sugar cookies on the counter and smiled. When I cut them out and iced them, people lost their mind in need of more. It seemed like the right recipe for loosening some lips. “Have you learned anything new about the night the mayor died?” I asked Grady. “Found his cell phone? Got any leads on a new suspect?”