Honeysuckle Hollow

by Jennifer Moorman

  Tessa’s cell phone rang, displaying a number she didn’t recognize, which wasn’t an unusual occurrence for a real estate agent. People called her from all sorts of numbers, and it was impossible to save everyone in her contacts folder. “Hello?”

  Austenaco “Austen” Blackstone introduced himself and explained how he’d come by her number. His interest in her findings was obvious within the first minute because he asked at least fifteen questions in quick succession, such as: How heavy was the spear? Did it look old? Had the wood splintered? Was the arrowhead sharp? How deep were the carvings? What type of wood was it? Tessa could barely process one question before he asked another. And she had few answers to offer. Before she could object, Austen invited himself to Mystic Water to see the artifact in person and announced he would be there by the middle of the afternoon. Tessa ended the call and cut her eyes over to the spear leaning against the wall in her office. Now why would anyone be that interested in a stick with an arrowhead point?

  Tessa called Scrambled and asked Cecilia if Paul was still there. Cecilia told her Paul had gone up to the apartment to take a nap more than an hour ago, and Cecilia slipped in the fact that she was hoping Paul would sleep so long that he wouldn’t leave town. Tessa imagined Paul as Rip Van Winkle, sleeping for twenty years on the couch in the apartment above the diner.

  Cecilia gave Tessa Paul’s cell number and asked Tessa to see if Paul would stick around for dinner. Paul answered the phone on the fourth ring. His voice sounded delayed and sleepy, making her realize she’d woken him. She explained that Austen would be in town later in the day, and Paul said he wanted to hear what the paleoanthropologist had to say. Relief swelled in her chest, which Tessa knew was a strange emotion for her to feel. Why was she relieved that Paul wanted to wait around and hear about a stick?

  As soon as she realized she was grinning like an idiot into the phone, she stopped herself. She worked a couple of more hours into the afternoon until Austen called her from the city limits sign. She gave him directions to the apartment and then closed down her computer for the day. She grabbed the dirty relic and walked to the apartment.

  Tessa couldn’t believe the sun had not burned off the fog. It rippled across the streets, clung to the lampposts and street signs, and covered cars like misty blankets. People appeared out of the fog like ghosts, and Tessa glanced at the garden before walking up the stairs to the apartment.

  When she opened the door, she saw Paul sitting on the couch reading one of her paperback novels. He marked his place and put the book on the coffee table beside Guests of Honeysuckle Hollow and a pink paper bag from the candy shop.

  “How can you read this?” He pointed to the romance novel.

  Tessa shrugged. “It’s better than real life.”

  “So you want—” he glanced down at the cover, “—Greywolf to rescue you from a fort on the frontier and take you home to his teepee?”

  Tessa snorted. Then she pointed to the character, who was supposed to be a Native American, on the front of the novel. “If that guy shows up at my door, he can take me anywhere.”

  Paul picked up the pink bag and shook it. “I bought you more caramel crèmes, and I haven’t even eaten one for myself yet. I was waiting.”

  “How gentlemanly of you.” Tessa dropped her purse onto the kitchen table and propped the spear against the bookshelf.

  “I’m glad you appreciate my willpower. It wasn’t easy,” he said. “But now that you’re here…” Paul unrolled the bag and stuck his hand inside. “Ouch.” He yanked out his hand. He upended the bag onto the coffee table, spilling caramel crèmes across the surface. Tessa noticed one red object that did not belong. “What in the hell?” Paul lifted a heart-shaped pushpin from the table.

  Tessa’s eyes widened. “That was in the bag?” Her eyes darted toward the wall map and then back to Paul.

  Paul stared at the pushpin in his palm. “Did you do this?”

  Tessa laughed even though her heart jackhammered against her ribcage. “How would I have done that? It probably fell into the bin at the candy shop.”

  “The same pin I threw out the window?”

  Tessa wrinkled her forehead and shook her head. “That’s not the same pin,” she said, but Paul voiced the same question she’d been thinking. She wanted to run down the stairs and dig through the garden until she found the heart-shaped pin, but what if she couldn’t find it? What if…?

  A knock sounded at the door, startling Tessa. She opened the door to a tall, imposing figure with broad shoulders and hair blacker than licorice. Tessa stared at the man with tanned skin, intense brown eyes, and high cheekbones. He smiled at her, and her brain thought, Wow. Thankfully, her mouth said, “Hi.”

  Fog rolled over the threshold and curled into the room around Tessa’s feet.

  “Ms. Andrews? I’m Austenaco Blackstone,” he said, holding out his panther-size paw of a hand. “But, unless you’re my mother, I’d rather you call me Austen.”

  Tessa’s hand disappeared into his, and she smiled. “Austen it is. Although Austenaco is unique.”

  “Too unusual for most people. It was my grandfather’s name, from the Cherokee language, meaning ‘chief.’”

  “Nice to meet you, Chief. I’m Tessa. Come on in.”

  Austen’s smile widened, and Tessa tried not to stare at how it changed his face, softening the straight lines of his face and jaw.

  “I’ve never seen fog this thick. Is it usual for this area?” Austen asked as he stepped into the apartment, filling the space with his presence.

  “Not at all,” Tessa said. She motioned over her shoulder to Paul. “This is Paul Borelli…a friend. His parents own this building.”

  Paul crossed the room to shake Austen’s hand. He dropped the heart-shaped pin into the trashcan first and then introduced himself.

  “I appreciate you letting me see the artifact myself,” he said. His dark eyes found the spear propped against the bookcase. “Is this it?”

  Tessa nodded and motioned with her hand for Austen to have a look. “I’m curious,” Tessa said. “What made you come all this way based on a picture? I know the spear must be old, but being a professor of Native American studies, you’ve probably seen hundreds of spears, right? What is it about this one?”

  Austen pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and slipped them on. Then he knelt in front of the spear and lifted it carefully in his hands. Paul squatted beside Austen.

  “The carvings?” Paul asked. “They’re tribal writings, aren’t they?”

  Austen looked at him and nodded. “Cherokee language. Spears don’t normally have writings on them because they were tools. They had a specific purpose—to hunt. Tribe members wouldn’t have taken the time to write elaborate messages on them. It would be the equivalent of writing messages on a shotgun. Why bother?”

  He turned the spear in his hands, touching the wood with his fingers as though it might crumble if he handled it too roughly.

  “Can you read what it says?” Tessa asked, standing behind the two men.

  “Only a few words. I brought a cleaning tool kit,” Austen said, looking up at Tessa over his shoulder. “Would you mind if I cleaned it up?”

  Tessa shook her head.

  After Austen walked out, Paul turned to her with an unreadable expression on his face.

  “What?” she asked, sensing he had something on his mind.

  “This isn’t exactly legal.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “This find doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the lady who owns Honeysuckle Hollow. You know that, right? She owns the land. Therefore, she owns the spear.”

  Tessa blinked at him. She hadn’t thought of that, but it didn’t seem right that a lady who didn’t even want the house should have any sort of claim to what laid beneath the ruins. Tessa especially didn’t want to hand over the artifact to the new owner, who wanted to destroy the integrity of the neighborhood by dropping Fat Betty’s onto the street. He’d likely not see the
value in the dated object either, unless it meant more money for him.

  As though reading her mind, Paul said, “I’m not going to call her and tell her you borrowed anything from her land because I don’t think she would care about the importance of the find. But based on the fact that a professor of Native American studies drove a couple of hours to Mystic Water because he saw a few blurry photographs leads me to believe this spear is more than just some random tool found in the dirt. If it is special, then people will find out soon enough, including the owner. It won’t be something you can hide for long.”

  Tessa nodded. She’d also been thinking that the spear must be unique or else Austenaco “The Chief” Blackstone would not have insisted he see the artifact right away. “What should we do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to know what the spear says,” Tessa said.

  Paul nodded. “Me too. Let’s hear what Greywolf has to say and then you can make a decision.”

  Tessa’s brow winkled. “Greywolf?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t think he looks like the guy on the front of your novel. You were giving him the moony eyes.”

  Tessa snorted. “I was not.”

  “Weren’t you?” Paul eyed her. “He might take you to his teepee if you ask him nicely.”

  “Stop it,” she whispered as the front door opened again.

  Austen held a rolled up piece of brown leather tied with a thin leather band. He placed the spear on the kitchen floor and unrolled a rectangular tool kit full of pockets that held brushes of differing sizes and a couple of items that looked like tiny picks meant for loosening rocks or debris.

  While she and Paul watched, Austen worked on the spear in silence, brushing away the caked mud. After half an hour passed, the words were revealed, and Austen rocked back on his heels. He shook his head.

  “I had my suspicions,” he said, “but I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t uncovered the entire carving.” He stood and stretched his legs.

  Tessa stood from the couch and walked over. He towered over her in the kitchen.

  “This spear has a Cherokee prayer for protection engraved on it. I’ve never seen one before. I know the prayer, and I’ve heard talk of this type of engraving having been done before. These objects were usually passed down through families and kept for generations. It’s unusual that it would not have been kept with the family,” Austen said.

  “Maybe it was lost. Or left behind,” Tessa said, feeling the skin on her neck tingle.

  “Maybe,” Austen said. “Where did you find this?”

  Tessa glanced toward Paul before answering. “Beneath an historic home in town.”

  “Interesting. And you are remodeling and found it?”

  “Eh, not exactly remodeling, but working on the porch. It was buried beneath the front of the house.” Tessa avoided Paul’s gaze, but she felt him staring at her.

  “Do you mind if I take a small sliver back to the university? I’d like to carbon date this. The fact that this piece of wood seems to still be in such great shape is remarkable. On one hand, I know it must be old. On the other hand, it shows no sign of being affected by the elements. It’s as though it’s been perfectly preserved in the ground and kept protected from animals and time.”

  Tessa’s stomach knotted, and the tingling spread to her fingers. She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Maybe the protection prayer worked,” she said with a small laugh.

  Austen looked at her with his dark eyes and tilted his head before one corner of his mouth lifted into a smile. “And you believe in Cherokee protection prayers, do you?”

  “Do you?”

  Austen chuckled and shrugged. “I’m a researcher, Ms. Andrews. I believe in proof. Do you mind if I carbon date the spear?” he asked again.

  “Go ahead.”

  Austen removed a small knife from this tool kit. He cut a sliver from the spear and dropped it into a small plastic bag. After he sealed the bag, he returned all his tools to the kit before rolling it up.

  “I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to allow me to see your item. I assume, by now, that you know that what you have here is unique, and the probability that your finding is valuable is quite high. As a researcher, I’d like to ask you to give me a day or two to gather all the information on the spear before you inform other people about it.”

  Tessa’s brow wrinkled. She looked at Paul, wondering if he understood Austen’s meaning. Who am I going to tell? Who even cares about a wooden spear?

  “He’s saying that the owner of this spear could probably sell it for a good chunk of money based on its rareness alone. But he’d like for you to wait and see what he discovers after carbon dating it,” Paul said. He looked at Austen. “If this spear turns out to be older than it appears, you’re most likely going to try and convince the owner to put it in a museum?”

  “I don’t support the sale of antiquities, especially not to people who hide them from the world,” Austen said.

  Austen’s dark eyes focused on Tessa, and the kitchen lights flickered. She pressed her lips together and nodded.

  “I’ll wait to hear from you,” she said.

  Austen’s gaze softened. He removed the latex gloves and dropped them into the trashcan. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow. While I’m in town, I’m going to pay a visit to a family friend. She’d like to know about this, and I bet she can tell me more stories about it and why the prayer was carved on a spear. Her family has lived around here for years. There’s a good chance she knows which families used to live on the land where the house now stands. Her records date back hundreds of years. I believe she lives at the end of Juniper Lane, near the river. Can you tell me the best way to get there from here?”

  Tessa’s eyes widened. “That’s where Crazy Kate lives,” she blurted.

  “Excuse me?” Austen asked. His thick, black eyebrows disappeared behind the hair brushing across his forehead.

  Paul chuckled, and Tessa cut her eyes over to him. She cleared her throat. “Kate Muir?”

  “That’s her.” He nodded.

  Tessa jotted down directions to Crazy Kate’s house on a sheet torn from one of her notebooks. “She has a lot of beautiful suncatchers,” Tessa said, trying to make amends for her rude comment. Just don’t let any of them fall into your hands because she’ll never forget it.

  “Thanks again,” Austen said, reaching out to shake Tessa’s hand.

  His grip was firm, and Tessa winced. She rubbed her fingers as Paul and Austen said goodbye. Paul closed the door and walked across the room to pluck a caramel crème off the coffee table.

  “Seems a shame that something so rare is owned by someone who won’t care except for its salability,” Paul said. “You sure you can’t market that house in the next couple of days to someone who might actually want to rehab it? I don’t think you should let it be demolished.”

  His words caused her heart to race. She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. Honeysuckle Hollow could be someone’s home again, and she needed a place to live. Tessa stared at the wall map. Her eyes traced the silver pushpins, following Paul’s travels. She felt amazed by his ability to go and go and go and never yearn for that one place to return to every evening, that one place that was his and no one else’s.

  “With everything going on, I forgot to call Mr. Fleming about my condo, but I’m going to call him now and join the party, as if I have a choice,” she said out loud. This time the idea of letting go of her home didn’t twinge as bad. There was nothing left there that she could salvage. Most of her favorite possessions had been saved, and they were crowding the apartment, shoved into corners, and waiting for her to take them to a new home. A voice in her head asked, Would the money from the sale be enough to buy and rehab Honeysuckle Hollow? She had a little bit of money she’d been saving for her future, so she could probably afford to buy the house, but she shook her head. “I can’t buy Honeysuckle Hollow.”

  Paul’s laugh swelled against the
living room walls and wrapped around Tessa’s shoulders. She turned to look at him.

  “I’m not implying that you buy it,” he said. “Someone with rehab experience. Someone who wants a challenge.”

  Tessa tucked her hair behind her ears and swallowed. “I have experience with properties.” Thoughts of Honeysuckle Hollow in ruins ballooned in her head until her left eye twitched. Her pulse throbbed in her neck and then at her temples.

  “You’re a real estate agent.”

  “And you’re a travel writer with a master’s in architecture. I can’t have other skills?” Tessa fisted her hands on her hips.

  “Do you?” he asked. “I mean,” he added, holding up his hands in defense, “do you have rehabbing skills?”

  “Some.” She picked up Guests of Honeysuckle Hollow and waved it at Paul. “This house saved people. It was there for hundreds of them. I can’t let it go.”

  Paul’s expression shifted from serious to gentle. “I have a soft spot for that house too. I can’t quit thinking about it, but that’s a big project, and I would think it’s best suited for professionals.”

  Tessa’s shoulders slumped. He was right of course. She could call in help for the construction and labor, but would she have enough money for a project of that size? The house wasn’t even livable at present, and she doubted her condo money would stretch even halfway through repairs. She dropped the book onto a couch cushion.

  Paul held out a caramel crème in his palm. “Talk about taking the wind out of someone’s sails. You look diminished. How about I fix dinner?”

  Tessa reached for the candy. “Aren’t you leaving?”