And Then They Were Doomed

by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

  And how did they manage all that rain?

  Nothing to look forward to here. If she decided to leave tomorrow with Jenny and Lisa, it would be no great loss to anyone. Least of all to her.

  * * *

  Later, back in her room, she lay on her bed thinking. Not a decent greeting. Certainly, this event seemed thrown together by amateurs. But then there were the others who were coming. All with good credentials, publications—unless none of it was real.

  When she thought about this so-called Christie society, it seemed she was in the middle of amateurs—Or fakers: webinars and crowdfunding sites, anonymous benefactors, black-edged envelopes. All of this and a group of strangers brought together in the pouring rain. She could almost hear the clash of cymbals inside her head.

  More like a play. Characters—all of them so far. With more to come. Walk-ons and main characters. Subplots. A rising and falling main plot. She’d have to keep notes on the stories that would develop between the people around her—to see where they led.

  She would have to watch. She would have to put events and relationships together until she was sure what was happening in this place. She would have to decide quickly if this was only a lame academic affair or a threat.

  Chapter 18

  Zoe was bored. Her room was small. There was nothing she wanted to read, and sitting, waiting, in the reception room got old. She’d already searched every corner of her room again. Nothing under the bed. No dust anywhere. Bella Webb must be a good housekeeper after all.

  There was the box in the closet, but when she opened it, hoping for something left over from years ago, when the lodge was all rich men with secrets, she’d found photo after photo of a young girl—from babyhood on. Too many to go through. Somebody’s child. Maybe someone connected to the lodge. As boring as everything else in her room.

  Standing at her slightly open window, Zoe sighed. Nobody here. Nothing to do. The rain had stopped at last. The sky was dark, but it didn’t roil over itself and seemed about to give up a dash or two of sunshine. A raincoat would take care of the dripping trees. A scarf. She didn’t have to go far, only to where she could take a deep breath and not sense eyes trained on her. Just to be away from this room and this building for a little while.

  * * *

  Bella was sweeping the porch with a broom taller than she was, when Zoe—umbrella in hand—stepped outside. The day was almost nice. A slight breeze. A little warmth. Stray shots of sunshine behind the leftover clouds.

  “Afternoon.” Bella looked up at Zoe, stopping her work. “Good to have no rain. Been a deluge, I’ll tell ya.”

  Zoe nodded. “Still not many people here.”

  Bella turned back to her sweeping, shoulders hunched. “Will be.”

  “I think I’ll take a walk.” Zoe started toward the steps. “Haven’t seen the grounds, or the woods.”

  “All still wet. You got to be careful, ya know.” She spoke over her shoulder. “Lots of bears this time a year. Hungry and angry—the bears. Not long out of hibernation, ya know. And Coyotes. Foxes—but they won’t bother you. Cougars out there too. You can’t outrun ’em, ya know. Hope you understand well enough where you are, Miss … er … Zola.”

  “I won’t go far.”

  “Well, the thing is, you should have a gun with you.” Bella nodded hard.

  “Gun?” Zoe laughed. “I’ve never shot a gun in my life. And where would I get one?”

  “Nobody goes in the woods without one. I think we got two or three old ones in the lodge, fer target shooting. Maybe some a those who’re coming might be armed. Used to be, in the old days, men would pull up here with a whole arsenal a guns. Some for bear and some for seagulls. Think you should wait.”

  Bella sighed and went on. “Such a shame, the way the place is now. Ya should’ve seen it before. Well, I’d say, especially bad now, with the downpour and such. There’s water over the roads in more places. River, over there to the west, is in torrent I hear. One of the workmen said it’s getting deeper, even though the rain’s stopped a bit. We have to be careful, ya know. Odd time o’ year. Seems the water keeps rising even when the rain’s stopped. All the rivers and streams and creeks overflowing, pushing out to Lake Superior. That’s what does it, the way the earth up here sheds water. Maybe that’s what they mean by ‘watershed.’ Add more rain and we could be in fer a lot of trouble.”

  She looked at Zoe harder. “And you being a little one, like you are, well …”

  Zoe ignored her but climbed carefully down the steps, hoping she didn’t trip and land on her nose in front of Bella.

  “What a miserable …” she muttered as she walked toward an open space carved from the forest where there were benches and lawn chairs and what looked like a small flower garden beyond the seating area. Then the woods. What looked like thick, endless forest.

  “‘Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!” She sat in one of the smaller chairs and thought about wild animals in the woods, water over the road, and people she didn’t like.

  She crossed her arms, squinted her eyes, and looked back at the house. Last thing she was going to be was no trouble for Miss Emily Brent and Bella Webb. Who knew? They could be her aunts or cousins. The kind of weird relatives that showed up in people’s lives without warning.

  * * *

  There were a few faded tulips in the circular garden ringed by gray river rocks. There was one peony with brown blossoms hanging in the dirt. She counted twenty-seven weeds but refused to pull them.

  The sky got darker again, but not dark enough to worry her. There was a paved path leading around to the back of the long and low green-log building. She started up the path, past a row of small windows either covered with drawn curtains or opening onto empty rooms. At the side of the lodge, wooden fire stairs came down from the upper floor, reminding her she was in an old wooden building. She’d been through a terrible fire once before. She hoped there were “No Smoking” signs hung everywhere and that somebody would keep an eye on Leon Armstrong. Men who drank and smoked had a habit of starting fires in their beds. Her window was small. No fire escape on her side that she’d seen. She looked from the lodge to the woods. Lady or the tiger? she thought and wondered how fast she could run if she had to.

  She thought seriously about where she’d brought herself.

  * * *

  A large white van and a dark SUV were parked at the back of the lodge, near what looked like a kitchen. There were cardboard boxes and metal tins and garbage containers stacked near a propped-open screen door. Voices and the clatter of dishes being moved came from the doorway, but she saw no one inside.

  Beyond the door, she circled over a wide pebbled area to a closed shed at the back, and beyond to a place where three dark and grassy paths fanned into the woods.

  Zoe took the first path, setting off slowly between the trees. Nobody was going to scare her into staying inside for the next five days. No sense thinking about cougars and bears. Still, she didn’t want Bella to be right. Fifty–fifty proposition, she thought as she walked slowly, looking back and forth. She might meet a cougar with bloody fangs or a bear on its hind legs. Or she could have nothing more than a pleasant walk.

  Chapter 19

  The path was wet, and her white tennis shoes were quickly muddy, but she wouldn’t turn back. Let them call out the National Guard—if they could get there. She was feeling good again. Taking in deep breaths. Running when she felt like it. Swinging her arms.

  She skipped over every puddle she could and stayed to the middle of the grass. Tall pines and firs shut out the overhead light. Maybe virgin pines and fir. She tented her hands above her eyes, trying to see up to where the trees ended, cutting an entwined stencil against the sky.

  The smell of the woods was damp and piney. Fallen limbs lay everywhere, and then deep shadows that moved with the wind as other quick shadows flitted from tree to tree. It wasn’t quiet. Not what she’d expected. There were birds singing songs she didn’t recognize. Trees brushing one anothe
r. Overhead branches shook as they dripped water on her head.

  She walked faster. Took longer steps, and then a hop; a stop to bend, studying tiny yellow and blue violets. She felt good about herself and her bravery in the face of imminent danger. Best she’d felt in a long time.

  The path opened into a wide clearing of nodding grasses and tall brown reeds. The ground was firm, so she stepped into the clearing. There were no snuffling bears. No growling cougars. What she heard was a hum—or sort of hum that kept getting louder, as if coming at her.

  Voices. People, in this place where she’d seen so few.

  Zoe scurried back into the trees, off the path. Getting away. Her small feet slid in places, but now she was at a full run, legs pumping, her upper body overtaking her short legs until she righted herself.

  Something hit her shoulder from behind, a hard prod, something thrown at her. Or a branch fell, She was knocked forward, arms flailing, shock overtaking her system as she tried to stop a facedown plunge into the wet weeds.

  When she sat up there was no one near her. Many broken branches lay over the ground but nothing or no one else. When she looked down, at her right foot, the ankle had turned in an odd direction. She was soaked, and immediately cold. Her hands were covered with wet grass and leaves. She sputtered, looking around, then sat up. She lifted her right arm, testing to see if there was pain there. Nothing much. But her right foot throbbed. The odd turn to it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought but it hurt again when, trying to rise, her other foot skidded sideways. She grasped a small tree and held on, pulling her body up while she tried to catch her breath.

  “Hey there! Are you okay?” The humming she’d heard became a shout.

  A woman Zoe’s age came running from farther up the path, to kneel and look into Zoe’s face.

  “What happened?” the woman—dark eyes wide, pretty face knotted into a frown—asked. “Should I get someone?”

  The woman’s black hair hung in streamers around her face as she put a hand behind Zoe’s neck, her other hand under Zoe’s shoulder, and stood her upright, bringing a groan from Zoe when her hurting ankle was dragged over a small hillock.

  The woman smiled, brushed her hands together to get the dirt and grass off. “You’re Zoe Zola. I was looking forward to meeting you. I’m Doctor Louise Joiner, from Amherst, Massachusetts. Not medical, you understand. I can’t do a thing about that ankle. Looks like it might be swelling.”

  Zoe examined the hurting ankle already bubbling over the tennis shoe. Maybe sprained. Didn’t feel broken. But sprain or break, either way it hurt.

  She looked at Louise Joiner and smiled. “Emily Dickinson’s home. I’ve been there.”

  Louise frowned, not understanding.

  “Amherst, where you teach. That was Emily’s home.”

  Louise Joiner thought a minute, then smiled—a pleasant face, short brown hair. She looked very much like a professor to Zoe. “Oh yes. And I read your book on her. Made me shiver, the way her poetry does.”

  “Well.” She was back to business. “Let’s get you to the lodge and Emily Brent.”

  Another woman came down the path toward them, her face displeased. “There you are. For goodness sakes. What’s going on?”

  Middle-aged and plain; brown hair cut short and left to stand up around her head, the ungainly woman looked unhappy Zoe was there at all.

  “Louise and I heard the noise.” Her thin arms, in a khaki shirt, were crossed in front of her when she stopped short to eye Zoe.

  “What happened?” Her legs, in khaki shorts, were planted wide apart. “Should be more careful. You’re awfully little. Coulda been trapped out here. Nobody else out.”

  “This is Zoe Zola, Anna.” Louise introduced them. “And this is Anna Tow, Miss Zola. She owns Tollance Press.”

  Zoe, leaning hard against Louise Joiner’s side, took the limp hand Anna Tow held out to her, shook it once, and dropped it.

  Anna Tow’s large, bald eyes stayed on Zoe. “So you are Zoe Zola. I figured. Heard a lot about your work, not that I agree with all of your ideas. Some too far out there”

  “Could you help us, Anna?” Louise cut her short. “We should get Miss Zola back to the lodge.”

  “Hmmp.” Anna stepped closer, trying to lean far enough forward to get an arm around Zoe’s waist. “All kinds of holes to fall into and logs to fall over. Must be what you did. But why go off the path at all? Seems …”

  “Anna and I met in the woods,” Louise Joiner said, smiling down at Zoe. “Just like we’ve now met you.”

  “But she shouldn’t be out here.” Anna sniffed as she looked Zoe up and down. “Not if you’re not used to rough hiking. What happened? Looks like you’ve got a problem with that ankle. Your own fault.”

  “Anna. Excuse me. I don’t think this is the time to bully.” There was a slight edge to Louise’s voice as she took Zoe’s arm, supporting her as they moved back toward the lodge.

  “What about the wild animals? Anything could’ve got her,” Anna grumbled from behind them.

  Zoe looked over her shoulder at the woman with a large nose and an unhappy face. She opened her mouth to mention that wild animals ate nasty women too, but said nothing, instead turning to thank Louise for the use of her arm while her clothes dripped, her ankle throbbed, and her bad mood deepened.

  Chapter 20

  The rain stopped. The moon played tag with the clouds. It was time to go to dinner, Lisa told her.

  Jenny climbed into Lisa’s Jeep and they were off, fast, down sandy roads, under trees where Lisa had to warn Jenny to duck or be lost in wet, low hanging leaves.

  “That’s where we’re going.” Lisa pointed to a large circle of buildings ahead gathered haphazardly—some built kitty-corner to the others. It looked like an old Western movie set, one with a showdown in the middle of the street, except there were no people. Each of the three streets was empty. The windows of the straight and narrow white houses were lighted like dollhouses—a lamp in every front window.

  Lisa pointed to a peeling building set off from the others down one of the three dirt roads. “Saturday night supper, which is a good thing since I only have one egg left in my refrigerator.”

  “Probably only room for one egg to begin with,” Jenny sniped.

  * * *

  Lisa parked, got out, and ran up a set of raw-wood stairs with Jenny behind her. She pushed the heavy double doors open and walked into the church to a hail of “Well, what do ya know?” “Here she is now.” “Our lady picture taker.” “Who’s that you brought with ya?” coming from long tables with women—young and old—lined along either side, some with babies in their laps.

  The place smelled of kerosene coming from a small stove in the middle of the big room. Over that was the smell of food, half meaty and half sweet and syrupy.

  Lamps along the walls flickered.

  “We was jist wonderin’ if ya were comin’ to supper.” A happy-looking large woman with deep brown hair done up in fat sausage rolls leaned back and clapped her hands in front of her face. “I was about ta eat the last bit of food.”

  Lisa turned to Jenny. “Don’t pay attention. They all love to tease.”

  “Who’s dis ya brought with ya?” Another heavy-set woman, this one with a large red scar down the side of her face, smiled and rose, swinging a leg back over the bench. She looked Jenny up and down, then grabbed her hand and whirled her around. “Ya sure can tell she’s related to our Lisa, no matter what anybody says. Jist look at that black hair she’s got.”

  She laughed and hugged Jenny with strong arms.

  “My hair’s thin as seaweed, Inka,” Lisa jumped in. “I told you she was coming. We don’t look a thing alike, and you know it.”

  Another one at the table—a lovely young women with a cooing baby in her lap—called out. “Jist as beautiful. One or da other. Both beautiful girls. Bet your mother’s proud o’ the two of ya.”

  “Marya,” Lisa told Jenny.

  “Now, stop holdin’ ’em u
p.” Leena, older and plumper, and maybe in charge, gestured to them. “Come on now—get yer plates. Help yerselves to the food over there on da tables. And take plenty, yah.” She scratched an itch on the back of her neck, then laughed at them.

  Long tables, laden with platters of fried chicken and two platters of scavenged-looking turkey carcasses, held the place of importance, dead center, on the middle table. The other two tables held deep pots of turkey soup and bowls of salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, half-bowls of green beans, jars of what looked like jams or sauces, and baskets half full of bread. Jenny was wondering where to start, when Lisa leaned close to whisper, “Take a little bit of everything, or somebody’s feelings will get hurt.”

  Women along one side of the table rose to make room for them to sit, making shooing motions for the others to move. Jenny couldn’t shake the feeling she was trapped in a movie scene, something written by Lisa.

  The women were dressed like rural women found anywhere in the United States. Some in over-large cotton pants with loose cotton blouses. The younger ones wore old jeans with T-shirts selling seed corn or advertising a tractor pull in some small town. They looked alike—some with dimpled chins and long blonde hair and big, round eyes. Every one of them, young and old, was shiny clean. Jenny could smell laundry soap and recognized the smell of a hot iron.

  “How’d you ever find this place?” Jenny turned to Lisa, making the women laugh and poke one another with sharp elbows.

  “Raise your hand,” somebody ordered.

  One of the women raised her hand tentatively, as far as her chin, and then spoke in a soft voice.

  “I think that maybe it’s my fault.” The soft, shy woman dipped her head. “I’m Kirsten. My cousin Janne was visiting and said he knew Miss Lisa here. So, Janne’s the one to mostly blame fer all a dis movie business, not me.”

  Laughter.

  “I’m grateful for Janne,” Lisa said and bowed her head to them. “We travel light, the two of us. Couldn’t do anything without him. Janne’s the one who told me I just had to do something on you women. He was so right.”