The Forever Stone

by Gloria Repp

Madeleine took a step backward. Grief hung in the room like the odor of something walled up, decaying, and it filled her lungs with an intolerable stench. She wanted to turn and run.

  “I wonder,” Jude said. “I wonder what happened to him.”

  But after so many years, what did it matter? Only that he was gone and would never come back.

  Jude turned to an oak cabinet. “Can I open this?”

  Madeleine nodded yes, but she edged toward the door. She shouldn’t be breathing this air.

  The cabinet held an elaborate train set, unused. Nearby, a closet was filled with clothes the size of a young boy.

  They followed her out of the room, and she quickly pulled the door shut.

  Think about something else. “Jude, where did you ever learn to open locks like that?”

  Bria laughed, a brittle sound in the dim hallway. “You don’t want to know. It does come in handy, though.”

  Madeleine started down the hall. Get busy and do something.

  She paused beside the storage room. “Let’s look at those decoys again.”

  Jude opened the trunk. She lifted out one of the mergansers and handed it to Bria. “Your family makes decoys, right? Can you tell me how you do it?”

  Bria turned the bird over in her hands as if she were inspecting it for cracks. “All I do is paint them.”

  “Jude, what do you do?”

  “Cut out the chunks of wood.”

  The two of them seemed to have an unspoken pact to say as little as possible.

  Madeleine chose her words with care. “Aunt Lin wants me to learn about decoys. Do you think I could visit your workshop?”

  Bria stared at the floor. Jude shifted his gaze when Madeleine glanced at him. “It’s not our workshop.” His words came out in a mumble.

  “Whose is it?”

  “Our mother’s.”

  So that was it. Protecting their mother?

  “Do you think she would let me visit, for just a few minutes?”

  Jude fidgeted. “She don’t like visitors.”

  “Doesn’t,” Bria said. “Doesn’t like visitors.” She handed the decoy back.

  “What if I sent her a gift?” Madeleine said. She couldn’t let this chance slip away. “What does she like to eat?”

  The two exchanged a glance. “Fudge cake,” Jude said. He looked interested, but Bria had a wooden expression on her face.

  “That’s it!” Madeleine filled her voice with cheer. “How about we make her a cake this afternoon, and you take it home and ask if I can come and visit tomorrow? What’s a good time?”

  “After school,” Jude said.

  “Perfect,” Madeleine said. She looked at Bria. “Can you work tomorrow morning?”

  “No.”

  “Then could you phone tonight and tell me? Do you have a phone?” Madeleine busied herself with putting the decoy back into the trunk.

  “Sure we have a phone,” Jude said. “What’s your number?”

  Madeleine tore a page out of her notebook and wrote her cell phone number on it. “Here.”

  Bria’s dark eyes were shadowed. “We’ll . . . have to see.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Jude—he’s shy but inquisitive;

  self-assured and protective.

  He seems to have secrets too, like Bria.

  Not your average teen.

  ~Journal

  Jude liked Madeleine’s fudge cake recipe and did most of the work himself. She packed it into a box for him to tie onto his bike, Bria warned him not to try jumping over puddles, and they were gone.

  Tonight she wanted to do some serious course work. Her next project was French Bread, and from reading the syllabus, she discovered that she was expected to write a paper on the reasons that it had declined in quality over the years.

  The article she’d downloaded wasn’t much more than an introduction. One of her cookbooks had a short section on the history of breads, but tomorrow morning she should go back to the store and see what she could find online.

  She began reading about artisan breads and stopped to wonder why Bria hadn’t phoned yet. The look on the girl’s face, was it dread? Something was wrong in that family.

  The evening dragged on. Her mother called, and then she took a shower, and finally her phone rang again. Jude’s voice sounded deep and grown-up. “Mom liked the cake, a lot. She said it’s okay for you to come. I’ll walk over after school and get you.”

  “Thanks, Jude.”

  She felt like singing as she put down her phone. Why was this visit so important? For her research, of course. But those two—was she beginning to care about them? Perhaps.

  First thing the next morning, she set off for Timothy’s. She would download everything she could find about French bread and get a good start on that paper. What had Timothy thought of her scones?

  Since he was busy with customers, she went right to his office. She found an article by a Cornell professor and was taking notes from it when the doctor came in.

  He nodded to her, poured himself some coffee, and sat on the sofa to drink it.

  Moving kind of slowly, wasn’t he? Not a morning person?

  She found another article to read. All of this could go into her paper. How should she organize it? She began outlining her ideas.

  He got up, rinsed his cup at the sink, and came to stand beside her.

  “Yes . . .” she said, finishing a sentence.

  “I didn’t think you were so reckless.” He had a smile in his voice.

  She leaned back to look up at him. “Wait a minute. That was an interrogative sort of yes, not ‘your wish is my command.’ ”

  “Just checking.” His face sobered. “I’ve been afraid you’d ask about that piece I’m supposed to be writing.”

  “I’ve been careful not to.”

  He leaned against the table, gazing down at her. “I’m grateful for that. You made it sound easy—just weave in the story, transplant a heart.”

  She studied his face. Except for the scar, it was gray, the lines etched more deeply than usual. Worry? More likely just plain tired.

  “You look worn out,” she said. “You can’t expect your brain to work without sleep. That’s tough writing, doctor.”

  “You’re not supposed to call me that.”

  “Nathan.” She smiled at him. “Take a nap.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Not interrogative.”

  He strolled back to the sofa. She finished her outline and downloaded a half-dozen more files to read at home. The next time she looked up, he was stretched out on the sofa, asleep. At least he didn’t snore.

  She pulled her thoughts back to the task at hand, worked until she had more than enough information, and went to find Timothy. He was in the storeroom unpacking boxes of corn flakes.

  “Here she comes, the scone princess,” he said.

  She laughed. “I hope you didn’t put that in your report. They might wonder about your objectivity.”

  He stacked boxes into a faded red wagon. “I put plenty in my report, but not that. My biggest challenge was deciding which variety to evaluate.”

  “And?”

  “I did the blueberry ones. I’ve eaten a lot of them in my time, and those were exceptional.”

  “I’m glad. The next project is French bread, complete with a paper to write.”

  “Are you going to write it here? Our printer finally came.”

  “That’s good news, but I have what I need for now, and I’m going back to the Manor. Your friend is asleep on your sofa, by the way.”

  “I’m not surprised. He was up all night with the little Shupert girl.”

  “I didn’t think doctors made house calls anymore.”

  “This one does. He’s the most determined man I know.”

  That afternoon when Jude knocked on the door, he was breathing fast, as if he’d run all the way from school.

  “We could drive,” she said.

  The eagerness drained from his face. “No cars. Not today. S
he don’t—doesn’t—like the sound of them. She’ll like you better if we walk.”

  He led the way with a swift, loping gait, and she concentrated on matching his pace instead of puzzling over what he’d said. A chilly breeze swept them on their way.

  The forest varied with each turn of the path—countless pines, oaks with russet leaves, thickets of dark cedars. They came to a grove of charred pines that were nothing more than blackened skeletons. Some of them had a fuzz of green at the tips of their branches, and knee-high ferns grew among them.

  “Forest fire,” Jude said, “but the pines always come back.”

  She knew that. Dad had camped in the Pine Barrens. He’d told her about the pitch pines, how they survived fires.

  She thrust the memory aside and answered Jude’s question about hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

  “I knew you were a hiker,” he said, “when I saw you out here the other day.” A fleeting scritch stopped him short. “Lots of red squirrels around.” He pointed at a small pile of pinecone bracts beneath the tree. “There’s his feeding station.”

  They paused to cross a stream, and he began walking more quickly. A few minutes later he veered onto a narrow path that led to a clearing.

  Before them stood a brown bungalow with twin dormers. The house seemed to droop, perhaps because a gutter had come loose and slanted down in front of the porch.

  Jude caught the direction of her gaze and muttered, “Got to fix that.”

  Bria met them at the door, her mouth set in a tense line. “There you are. Mother’s in the living room.”

  Paula Castell sat upright in a fiddle-back chair, her hands folded in her lap, unmoving as a blonde porcelain doll.

  After a long minute of silence, she turned her head. “Hello, hello! Come and join us.” She waved gracefully at the table beside her, set with fragile-looking cups and plates. “We were just having our tea.”

  She sounded as if she were reciting the lines of a play. The room itself, with flower-sprigged wallpaper and Queen Anne furniture, looked like a set designed for this scene.

  Madeleine perched on the edge of a wing chair, and Jude dropped into another. Bria hovered in the doorway.

  Paula Castell inclined her head. “I’m so glad you could come for a visit.” She seemed to be looking past Madeleine, past the walls of the house into the trees. “Are you writing a book too? It’s such a great deal of work, I hear.”

  Madeleine tried to reach her with a smile. “I’m helping my aunt restore an old house. We found some decoys, and I was—”

  “—Brianna, is the tea ready?” her mother said. “We are waiting to be served.”

  Jude leaped to his feet, and a minute later, Bria carried in a silver teapot. Behind her came Jude with a platter of sliced cake, the one they had baked yesterday.

  Bria poured a cup of tea and handed it to her mother, but she said, “Cake first, please.”

  Jude slid a piece of cake onto a plate, and she took it from him with a smile. “Fudge cake! It’s delicious.” She gazed at a point somewhere above Madeleine’s head. “A kind lady made it for us.”

  Jude flushed, but his voice was gentle. “Mother, this is Mrs. Burke, the lady who made it for us. She wants to know about your decoys.”

  Her blue eyes widened, and she laughed, a silvery sound. “Of course! Brianna, Jude, have some tea with us.”

  Bria poured the tea while Jude served the cake, and silence fell. Paula Castell wore a meditative look that no one seemed disposed to interrupt. Madeleine drank her tea and tried to look meditative as well, but Jude ate his cake in three bites and then started on his thumbnail. Bria studied the carpet as if she were analyzing its colors.

  Paula Castell finished the last crumbs of her cake. “Now, what were we talking about?”

  “Decoys,” Jude said. He nodded toward the next room, which held a long table with tools, unpainted decoys, and blocks of light-colored wood. “She wants to see how we make them.”

  The blue eyes gazed at Madeleine as if this were a fascinating new topic. “How nice. Did you know my grandfather?” She put a hand on the worn rocking chair beside her. “This is where he sits. He’s really the one you should talk to. I learned everything from him.”

  Jude twitched forward. “Can Bria show her a decoy?”

  Bria gave her mother a vigilant look, but the woman didn’t object, so she stepped into the workroom and soon returned.

  “Here’s a canvas back duck,” she said.

  “What beautiful colors!” Madeleine said. Its head was chestnut-bronze shading into a black breast, its back and sides white. Compared with the decoys from the trunk, this one glowed.

  She turned to Bria’s mother. “I understand that you carve these yourself, Mrs. Castell.”

  The woman’s eyes clouded. “Please, call me Paula. I don’t use that other name any more.” She rose to her feet, poised and erect. “It has been very nice having you over. I hope you’ll come again someday. Perhaps we’ll have another cake by then.”

  For an instant, Madeleine couldn’t move. Then she stood too, smiling into the shadowed blue eyes. “Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed meeting you.”

  To Jude, chewing on his lip, and Bria, white-faced, she said, “Thank you for the tea.” She gave them a don’t-you-worry smile. “That’s the prettiest decoy I’ve seen.”

  Bria followed her to the door. “I’ll come over on Saturday,” she said in a low voice.

  “I’ll be glad for your help.” Madeleine took a last look at the tall blonde woman, now gazing into the workroom, and stepped outside.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Jude, “but I can’t find my way back without your help.”

  A smile eclipsed the worry on his face, making him look young again. “That’s okay. I’ll show you.” They left the house and soon turned onto the wider trail. “We need to make you a map,” he said.

  “That’s what I was thinking. Everything looks the same in these woods.”

  Jude told her a complicated story about two of his friends, how they’d wandered in circles for a whole weekend, but her thoughts kept returning to his mother.

  Paula Castell . . . Abstracted? Unstable? Drugged?

  No wonder they hadn’t wanted her to visit.

  “Sorry,” Jude said. “I guess you didn’t find out very much.” He kicked a pinecone off the path. “Sometimes she has a bad day.”

  “Don’t let it bother you. Maybe I can come back when she’s feeling better.”

  Meanwhile, she’d have to research the decoys some other way.

  They crossed a swampy spot in the path. “She got along okay with you,” he said. “Not like some of the others.”

  “Do you get a lot of visitors?”

  “Once in a while, because of the decoys. She sends them away. She likes Kent Sanders, though. He’s supposed to be a cousin of ours. He’s got this book he’s working on, and he keeps talking to Mom about it.”

  Yes, Kent would talk your ear off about his book. So that’s how he knew them.

  Jude didn’t say anything more until they crossed another stream. He waved a hand into the woods. “There’s some ruins over there.”

  “I like ruins.”

  “We’ve got a whole bunch of ’em in these woods,” he said, and interrupted himself to glance at his watch.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Gemma.”

  Bria had mentioned a grandmother. Did she live with them?

  “I’ve got a test I’m supposed to be studying for,” he said, “and I forgot to tell her where I was going.”

  “Better run!” Madeleine said. “I can get back from here. And thanks for showing me the way.”

  “Okay!” He took off at a trot.

  That evening Madeleine took her laptop into the kitchen so she could refer to the recipe for a French baguette. She had watched the video, gathered her tools—except she didn’t have a scale for the flour—and was ready. How hard could it be, anyway, with only four ingredients
?

  She chose a Bach CD from Aunt Lin’s collection and began.

  The kneading wasn’t as easy as it looked on the video, but it was pleasant to feel the dough become supple and elastic under her hands. She set it to rise and worked on her paper until the dough had gone through its two risings and was ready to form into loaves.

  She plopped it out onto the kneading board, and the phone rang.

  Kent. He said that tomorrow he and Remi were going to a place called Widow Bentley's Attic and he thought she could find some useful information there. Would she like to come along?

  She hesitated. “Are you sure Remi’s going?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. He likes talking to the widow’s granddaughter.”

  “Okay,” she said. She’d check out their website and drive her own car.

  “It’ll do you good to get out.” He sounded like a genial doctor. “See you around ten o’clock.”

  Widow Bentley's Attic? She pictured Remi flirting with the widow’s granddaughter and smiled to herself. That would be fun to watch.

  She should have said something to Kent about the stepladder he’d borrowed from Timothy. So gallant, letting her think it was his. She would set it on the porch and make sure he took it back.

  The dough was still waiting for her. She shaped it into three loaves, which gave her only a little trouble, slashed the tops as directed, and stood back to admire them. Just like the picture. Into the oven now, and she’d have fresh bread for a snack.

  By the time she’d cleaned up, the kitchen was filled with the mouth-watering aroma of baking bread. The timer rang, she took the baguettes out of the oven, and immediately knew something was wrong. They had browned nicely, but they looked like . . . sticks.

  She picked up one and broke it open. Crust too hard. Dense inside.

  Check the recipe.

  The third rise! She’d forgotten it. After Kent phoned, she hadn’t gone back to the recipe. She’d just shaped the loaves and put them in to bake. And she’d also forgotten to set a bowl of water beside them in the oven.

  She ate half of one anyway, dunked into cocoa, but didn’t have the heart to finish it. Try again tomorrow.

  The next morning she made a quick trip to the store to check out widowbentleysattic.com, studied a list of their books, and printed out directions for getting there.