When we got back from the Wilderness yesterday the Lodge had smoke in it. The counselors acted like they were not upset about the smoke but I know that they were. The fire department had to come and it took a long time for the fire engines to climb up the mountain. If the fire had still been here the whole mountain would have burned down before they could help. I think it is kind of stupid that the fire trucks are so far away. And people say I am the retarded one. Ha!
Anyway after dinner last night we got to roast marshmallows over a fire pit outside. I helped Stacey roast her marshmallows because she is in a wheelchair and she cannot hold the stick. I helped Marcus too because he is Low Functioning. He just laughed and laughed at the fire and did not even eat the marshmallows. I had to eat them for him so they would not go to waste.
Waste is a bad thing. My mom says, “ROBERT! Do not waste your food! There are children starving in Africa!” I do not know where Africa is but I tell her she can give them my spaghetti if she wants to because I do not like spaghetti. But I do like marshmallows.
Anthony did not get to roast marshmallows because he was Over Stimulated after the fire trucks left and he needed to Take Space. My counselor Mr. Paul tried to tell jokes to make us laugh and not think about the smoke in the Lodge but the counselors all kept looking at each other like they were scared and they whispered to each other when they thought we didn’t see them.
When you have a developmental disability other people talk in front of you. I guess people think if you have Down Syndrome you cannot hear what they say but I can still hear. Sometimes people say very strange things around me. Like one time Ms. Hill the librarian at school called someone on her cell phone and told them she wasn’t wearing any underwear. If I forget to put my underwear on my mom gets mad.
When I was in third grade my Staffing put it in my IP that I would wear underwear. My IP is my Individual Plan that I have because I am special. Everyone who is special has an Individual Plan. I guess Ms. Hill does not have underwear on her IP. But maybe she doesn’t have an IP because maybe she isn’t special. She does yell a lot. Anyway she must not get in trouble for forgetting her underwear because she was laughing when she said it.
Last night in the Lodge some Grownups were saying strange things in front of me. All of us kids were in bed but I wasn’t asleep because Anthony rocks back and forth and he is in the bed on top of mine. Sometimes he rocked so much I was afraid the bed would fall down on me. That scared me and I could not sleep. “ANTHONY!” I told him. “Stop rocking or the bed will fall on me!” But he didn’t stop. He just rocked and rocked.
Grownups talk weird and sometimes they don’t make sense. I did not understand all of the things they said last night but I did understand some of them and they were not good things. Now I have a secret but I don’t know who to tell it to. I wish I could tell it to Grandpa. He always understood my words.
Chapter 5
Tuesday
The sun was just beginning to rise over the mountains, reflecting off the reds and golds of a West Virginia autumn, when I pulled up to Mr. Smith’s General Store in Cedar Hollow to top the Subaru off with gas and pick up some coffee creamer for Corinne. The time was barely 5:00 a.m. when my phone rang, Corinne on the other end. “I figured you’d be up early, wantin’ to get a good start to the day.”
I had, in fact, been up early, already loading the car for the fifty minute trip to Cedar Hollow. “Come on by for breakfast,” Corinne had ordered. “I got everything you could want, except creamer. I remember you never did like your coffee black. Better stop by the store and pick some up on your way. They’ll be open.”
No sooner had I turned off the ignition than a stooped older gentleman in a plaid shirt and khaki work pants made his way slowly out the door, pulling his wheeled oxygen tank behind him and shuffling towards the car.
“Jessica Russell McIntosh,” he said with a wheezy smile. “I heard you was comin’ to town.” My spirits lifted at the sight of him.
“Good morning to you, Mr. Lane. I see news in Cedar Hollow still travels faster than the speed of light.” I climbed out of the car to bend and hug the old man. Darryl Lane had been a friend of Billy May’s and had always been kind to me. He cackled and patted my cheek, just as he’d done when I was a young girl.
“You know Corrine. She was so excited you was comin’ she told near about the whole danged town as soon as she heard. Then again,” he paused to adjust his oxygen, “it don’t take long for word to spread among two-hunnerd-sixteen people.”
“Two-hundred-sixteen, is it now? We’ve grown. At Billy Momma’s funeral the sign said two-hundred-twelve.”
Mr. Lane nodded. “You know them Pritchetts. Always makin’ more.” He removed the gas cap and inserted the nozzle, shaking his head with disgust. “Like we need more Pritchetts. Course,” he said, pulling a handkerchief out of his back pocket with his free hand and mopping his forehead in the cool morning air, “if we hadn’t lost Raymond, it’d have been two-seventeen.” He replaced the kerchief and turned his attention back to the pump, facing away from me.
“I was sorry to hear about his passing,” I said quietly, placing my hand on Mr. Lane’s bony shoulder. “He was a very dear friend. He’ll be missed by all of us.” Raymond O’Brien had been a childhood friend of both Billy May and Darryl Lane.
When I let myself think of such things, it frightened me that the people I loved most in the world were growing older and passing on. It was much easier to deny things in the busy chaos of my hectic life in Los Angeles. Coming back to Cedar Hollow was always difficult, on many levels. I’d barely been in town five minutes and my emotions were already threatening to get the best of me. I drew a deep breath, reminding myself to stay focused on my reason for coming.
“He was a good man,” agreed Mr. Lane. “There ain’t too many like him. I reckon he was ready to go on and be with June. Lord knows, worrying about that girl of his took years off his life and just plumb killed June. That girl was a handful, she was. I hear she’s takin’ some kind of treatment now. Maybe it’ll take hold, for the boy’s sake if nothin’ else. Just too bad it wasn’t sooner, but there ain’t nothin’ to be done about that now.”
He cleared his throat noisily and reached for the handkerchief again, loudly blowing his nose. “Goin’ to be a nice day,” he said abruptly, gazing at the lightening sky and stuffing the limp kerchief back into his pocket. “Chilly, but nice.”
I nodded in agreement, grateful for the change of topic. “You know, Mr. Lane,” I said, watching him fill the tank with gas, “this may just be the only place on earth where a person can still get full service.”
“Is that right? Well that’s a cryin’ shame, ain’t it? The world sure is changin’, and it ain’t in a good way, either. Wars ever’where, prices skyhigh. Can’t hardly afford to live no more.” He turned back to the pump, muttering under his breath.
Hands on my hips, I took in the front of the store. The suspended sign was as it had always been, the wording in dark green paint against a white background hanging over the door, although the Smith family hadn’t owned the store for many years. The last Mr. Smith had died the night Billy May saved my life.
After his death, Billy May bought the store and we lived in the upstairs apartment until I went to college six years later. Throughout those years we never spoke of the events that occurred that night on Crutcher Mountain. Instead, we concentrated on making a fresh start and blending into the life of the town.
As the years passed, I sometimes wondered how much of what I remembered had really happened, and how much had grown—or shrunken—in my memory over time. I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. I was most content when I completely blocked that night from my mind. You’ve turned your colors off, I heard the gypsy woman say, and it was true.
The sign swung gently to and fro in the early morning breeze, and I remembered how the squeaking sound of the swinging sign had often been the first thing I heard upon waking each morning. Instead of annoying me, it had
comforted me. It was a sound that had become enmeshed with the feeling of home.
Billy May kept the store, continuing to live in the upstairs apartment even after I graduated college and moved to California. That’s where I had visited her several times a year until her death eight months before. Now, I owned the store.
Mr. Lane followed my gaze and reached out to pat my arm with his gnarled hand, giving it a little squeeze. “It’s hard, ain’t it little girl? We’re all gettin’ old.” His voice was rough. “But she was happy; I know that. She had good years, even after all them bad ones. You brought back the good years for her.”
Before I could reply a younger man, in his thirties, wearing jeans and a green Thundering Herd baseball cap, stepped through the doorway of the General Store. Smiling, he held out his hand. “Jessie,” he said with a broad smile. “How are you?”
“Good, Dennis.” I gave his hand a firm shake. “Just visiting with your dad while he tops off the tank. You’re looking well.” I took in his trim build. “Marriage must be suiting you. How’s business these days?” I nodded towards the store.
“Steady as always.” Dennis turned to look at the front of the store along with me. “It’s a nice way to put the marketing degree to work.” He crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels, glancing sideways at me. “You decided whether or not to sell yet?”
I shook my head; this was not a topic I liked to think about. “Not yet. Maybe soon. When I do, you’ll be the first to know. In the meantime, I really do appreciate you taking care of it for me.” The lump had returned to my throat. I didn’t know what in the world I would ever do with a little store in the middle of Cedar Hollow, West Virginia, but I couldn’t bear the thought of giving it up. It hurt me to see it, but it would hurt even more not to.
“It’s been my pleasure, Jessie.” He studied my face, and I turned my head, pretending to watch the flipping numbers on the gas pump. Vaguely, I wondered how many little towns still had pumps with flipping numbers. It certainly wasn’t a sight I’d ever seen anywhere else, not within the last twenty years.
“There’s no hurry,” Dennis said quietly, watching me. “I’m not going anywhere. Now then,” he said, turning towards the store and briskly rubbing his hands together, sensing my need to get back to business, “what else can I get for you?” I followed him into the store.
Fifteen minutes later I was pulling into the gravel drive leading up to Corinne’s house, a cheerful home painted a bright white, with flower boxes and shutters of hunter green. I killed the engine and opened my door just as Corinne came trotting down the steps, arms open wide, surprisingly spry for a woman in her eighties. Her hair, long and gray, was tucked into a bun on the back of her neck, and her eyes were as blue as I remembered. Her face creased in a smile.
“Jessie girl, it’s so good to see you!” She reached up and clasped my face in her hands, planting a solid kiss on my cheek. Funny, I thought, how my fierce protection of personal space went by the wayside every time I returned to Cedar Hollow. But these people were my family, as much a part of me as if we shared DNA. I smiled and bent down to the tiny woman, returning the embrace. “It’s good to see you too, Mrs. Johnson.”
“How many times have I told you to call me Corinne? No matter. Come on in here; I’ve just started settin’ it all on the table.” Corinne pulled me up the steps by the hand, leading me into a warm kitchen fragrant with the smell of sizzling bacon. “Get your coat off now,” she ordered. “Make yourself at home. Coffee’s over there. Did you get you some creamer? You know where the spoons are.”
I draped my coat over the back of a chair and made my way to the utensil drawer, as familiar with Corinne’s home as I was my own. Pouring two cups, I added creamer to one and a spoonful of sugar to the other, setting them on the table as Corinne turned off the burners and untied her apron, hanging it on a hook by the stove and smoothing her blouse. “Better eat it while it’s hot,” she said, tucking an escaped strand back into the low bun. “And tell me about what’s goin’ on up at the children’s place. John said there was some trouble.” She settled herself into her chair, spreading her napkin over her lap.
I scooted my chair in and reached for the platter of eggs, my mouth watering. My half-shriveled pint of strawberries from the morning before couldn’t compete with the breakfast Corinne had prepared, and I’d had little since. I was famished.
“I’ll need to hike up the mountain to work off all this food,” I told her. “Thanks for breakfast, Corinne. It’s good to see you again.” Sitting there with Corinne in her cozy yellow kitchen, the sun slanting through the window warm on my shoulders, I almost felt as if my life were a normal one. It was a nice feeling, one I’d only ever felt in Cedar Hollow. If only the place that brought me peace didn’t also bring me pain. I’d never been able to figure out how to reconcile the two, and that was the sad irony of my life. A woman composed of opposites, whose yin and yang had never meshed, forever at war.
Corinne waved away my compliment. “It’s always good to see you, too, Jessie. Now tell me what’s goin’ on up on Billy May’s mountain.”
I spooned blackberry preserves over my toast and thought about the phone call from Nora. “Nora seems to think someone has been playing pranks on the staff,” I said finally, resting the spoon on my plate and reaching for the salt. “Apparently, strange things have been happening since it opened, but she didn’t take it too seriously until now. The pranks, if that’s what you could call them, have gotten more dangerous.”
In the beginning, it had been easy to dismiss the incidents as coincidence, or even as careless accidents on the part of the staff. The pasture gate had been left open and the horses had escaped, but the gate was notoriously difficult to latch securely. Once the horses were recovered, one with a pronounced limp, a secondary latch had been installed and the veterinarian had been summoned. Thankfully, the injury wasn’t severe and the bruised horse was on the mend.
A week or so later, the storage shed had been left unlocked and cleaning solutions had been poured all over the floor. As potentially dangerous as that was, there was no proof a human had been involved. After all, the wildlife in the area was the basis for the program, and leaving a door open invited woodland visitors. Staff had been given a stern safety lecture following the incident and an incident report had been filed.
More recently, the office had been ransacked, but everyone knew that Virgil Young, the van driver, had been let go the week before, per policy, after receiving his third traffic ticket in three years. He hadn’t gone quietly, and it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he was somehow behind the vandalism. True, he didn’t have a history of violence, but tough economic times can bring out the worst in people.
Sitting across from me, Corinne delicately wiped her mouth and placed the napkin on her plate. “Well,” she said, pushing herself slowly to her feet and reaching for the coffee pot, “I can see how they might be able to convince themselves all that stuff was just accidents and coincidence, I reckon, though it does seem a stretch to me.”
She poured more coffee into my cup and replaced the pot on the counter. “But what happened to make you fly all the way out here, Jessie? What you’ve already told me is concernin’ enough; what is it you ain’t tellin’ me?” Corinne lowered herself back into her chair, falling the last few inches with a soft grunt, and waited.
I added cream and stirred while pondering the best way to tell Corinne about the incident two days ago. Deciding direct was best, I leaned back in the chair and looked at her. “A fire,” I said. “There was a fire in the Lodge.”
“Oh, my goodness.” Corinne’s hand fluttered to her throat. “When? Was anyone hurt?”
“No,” I shook my head. “No one was hurt. It happened Sunday afternoon, shortly after the kids arrived for the week.” I placed my napkin on the plate, my appetite gone. “Luckily, the staff had taken them for their first hike, so they weren’t there at the time. Just the housekeeper and the groundskeeper. I
t was the groundskeeper who discovered the fire and put it out before any real damage was done. Policy dictates they call the fire department for any evidence of fire, so they did, but it wasn’t needed.”
Corinne sat quietly for a moment, mulling over all that I had told her. “And they think it was arson? Couldn’t it have been faulty wirin’ or somethin’? It’s all so new up there, the electric and all. Maybe they didn’t wire it up right.”
I took a sip of the coffee, set it down slowly. “It does seem it was arson.” I paused, rubbing my hand over my face. I was already tired, and the day had just begun. After the chaos of yesterday, five hours hadn’t been nearly enough sleep. “There was a note.”
“A note!” Corinne leaned forward, her own coffee forgotten. “What kind of a note?”
I placed my utensils on my plate alongside the napkin, stalling for time. “A note addressed to me.” I cleared my throat and met Corinne’s stare. “A note telling me to come back.”
Chapter 6: Robby
Hi it’s me again. Robby. Remember? Well we had to get up early this morning to do Group because the lady that owns the mountain is coming for a visit. Mr. Paul said she is a very very nice lady who lets us use her mountain for free to do Groups and see the Wilderness. I didn’t know people could own mountains but I guess they can. I thought God owned the mountains but I guess I was wrong. I will have to ask Mrs. Jamison about that when I get back home.
I think Ms. McIntosh is very nice to let us all use her mountain. If I had a mountain I don’t think I would let Anthony use it because he does not let me sleep at night. For two nights now he has been Over Stimulated and he rocks and rocks and rocks at night and I know his bed is going to fall on top of me.
I would let Stacey use my mountain though because she is pretty. I like Stacey. I think I am in love with Stacey but don’t tell my mom because she will say, “ROBERT! You are too young to be in love. Look where that got me!” Whatever. My grandpa said love makes the world go ’round. But I don’t want to talk about Grandpa because that makes me sad.
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