by Vicki Lane
It was a pleasure to be in the cool quiet of my workshop and an even greater pleasure to know I had a Gloria-free hour ahead of me—a whole hour of not being told a better way to do things. Already she had suggested that I gut my kitchen, get rid of the woodstove, add a dishwasher—I have two dishwashers, I had told her, holding up my hands, but she had ignored me, moving on to weigh the merits of granite against soapstone, dismissing my wooden countertops as out of date and hopelessly unhygienic.
Outside I could hear Ben and Julio laughing and joking in an odd combination of poor English (Julio) and worse Spanish (Ben). The distant putter of the tractor let me know that Homero was mowing the lower pasture in the eternal fight against thistles and the vile prickly unnamed weed that had evidently made its way to the farm in hay purchased in Tennessee.
I moved about the big room, taking inventory of wreath-making supplies on hand. Some of the dried material left over from last year was getting pretty ratty looking—most herbs and flowers really need to be dried fresh every year for maximum color and fragrance. I began to cram the pallid leftovers into a feed sack, planning to add them to one of our many compost piles. Soon enough there’d be fresh cuttings hanging in the drying room; there was no need to hold on to this sad stuff.
Other materials, however, keep well for years—as long as they’re protected against dust—and things like lotus pods and the pretty brown and cream seed cases from Siberian iris, branches of curly willow and corkscrew hazelnut, and a variety of pinecones were in good supply. As I lifted the lid on the last bin of pinecones, an unwelcome odor filled the air. Just under the lid, a ragged hole in the pale blue plastic showed where the invaders had gnawed their way in. All the cones were chewed and tiny black mouse droppings were everywhere.
At least there’s no nest of babies, thank goodness. I hate killing anything—mice, even rats. But left unchecked … I dumped the reeking contents into another feed sack, took the bin outside and hosed it clean, then left it to dry in the sun. More check marks on my list and I moved on.
The bin for lavender held only a handful of battered-looking stems and a scattering of purple buds. These too were faded and their aroma was little more than the ghost of a memory. Still, lavender was too precious just to toss into the compost. I found an empty gallon glass jar and shoved the stems into it, crumbling them into bits. If I goosed up the fragrance a tad with lavender oil, then these little crumbs could be added to potpourri or to lavender sachets.
Lavender … it always made me think of Aunt Dodie … Dodie and her standing order for a new lavender wreath every year … and her signature lavender stationery.
That letter—what did I do with that weird airmail letter from Dodie? I forgot all about it in the upheaval of getting ready for Gloria. I put it somewhere … I’ll have to look for it when I get back to the house.
I continued on with my inventory: plenty of wreath forms; order more hoop pins; that’s more florist’s tape than I’ll use in five years—what was I thinking? It must have been on sale; print more tags; need more wreath boxes—but all the while an undercurrent of troubling questions kept pace with my list making.
What was it Dodie said? She was happy I was still planning to marry my Mr. Hawkins and glad there wasn’t any connection between him and someone called Hawk that Sam was worried about. What was that about?
Sam and Phillip served together in the Navy during the Vietnam era, and only a few years ago I had learned from Phillip that their tours of duty had not always been the innocuous “waiting-off-the-coast” support role that Sam’s letters had suggested. Indeed, there had been a dark chapter that I learned of only after Sam’s death—and evidently, there’s still more I don’t know, I thought.
Inventory completed, I pulled up the chair to my desk and began to page through the calendar for the coming year—Ben handled the part of the business that supplied herbs and edible flowers to restaurants in Asheville and he kept those records; my responsibility was the wreath making and flower arrangements—sometimes fresh flower and herb wreaths or arrangements for weddings or parties, but usually wreaths or arrangements fashioned from dried materials and meant to last at least a year or two.
There were two small weddings I’d promised to do, bouquets for brides and bridesmaids—yellows and blues for one at the end of May, pink and orange for the other one in early June. And sometime in June, another small wedding—ours.
Phillip and I had decided to wait till then so that his children, both still at college, would be free on summer break. We hadn’t set a firm date yet, beyond saying it would be toward the end of the month. And it would be here at the farm.
… still planning to marry your Mr. Hawkins … What had Aunt Dodie meant by that? Why wouldn’t I be still planning on it? Heaven knows it had taken me long enough to accept his proposal. In a reversal of the expected male/female roles, I had been the one avoiding commitment, perfectly happy—no, eager—for Phillip to move in with me but somehow reluctant for a formalization of our relationship. It had been Phillip who had persisted until finally somehow I’d had a change of heart.
The winter solstice—the anniversary of Sam’s death and, as always, I wanted to be out of the house. So we drove up to Max Patch—there was rime ice … and sunshine … and something about the day just turned me around and I saw that what Phillip and I had was worth honoring … was worth a ceremony and a solemn pledging …
I flipped the calendar to June. June 21, the summer solstice, was on a Thursday. I had thought about a weekend but after all, what did it matter? All the guests would be neighbors and family … if we planned it for early evening, once the sun was down … a picnic supper afterward … and the longest day of the year …
The symmetry of the whole thing struck me as being perfect. I’d check with Phillip but I was sure he’d agree. Plucking a pencil from the jar at the back of the desk, I circled the date.
There. Done. It’s really going to happen. I won’t let Gloria change that.
Like a mocking echo, I remembered Ben’s words: You can always hope.
I~The DeVine Sisters
Hot Springs, NC~May 1887
“Mama?”
The tentative whisper wavered in the rose-scented dusk of the darkened room. One of the heavy draperies covering the tall windows quivered slightly, allowing light to spill across the thick-piled carpet in a bright stream that vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.
“Mama?”
Hands linked around the tapestry-covered table, the seated figures remained motionless as the child’s wistful voice called, first from one side of the room then from another. Above the table a soft, luminescent shape hovered just over the chimney of the low-turned oil lamp—a dancing will-o’-the-wisp, an otherworldly flame that swirled, glowing and dimming, coalescing and dissolving.
There was a choked cry and one of the women half rose. “It’s my Julia—Julia, my darling! Mama’s here!”
The woman stretched out a tentative hand, but the phantasmal apparition moved higher, as if to escape the searching fingers.
“Madam, you must not!” The gentleman on the bereft mother’s right caught at her questing hand and pulled her down to her chair. “You break the circle. Without our combined energies, the drain on the life force of the medium is insupportable. You must resume your seat.”
Across the table the medium groaned and writhed in her chair. Her eyes showed white in the lamp glow and her beautiful countenance was contorted into a mask of suffering.
The grieving mother’s face remained upturned but she allowed her neighbors to take her hands once more. The pale phantasm hung above her and from all sides came the pealing of silvery bells.
The child spoke again, this time her voice brimming with pleasure. “Mama, so you’ve come! But the bells say that my time is almost up and I must go back soon. Will you truly-ooly promise to visit me another day?”
“Oh, it’s she … my Julia.” The words were sobbed rather than spoken but the mother’s fa
ce was radiant with joy. “My angel child, yes, yes, truly-ooly! But my darling, tell me before you go—are you happy … where you are … over there?”
“Silly Mama, everyone’s happy in Heaven. Truly-ooly …”
The bells sounded again and the child’s voice grew softer, dying away as the light in the room dimmed and the apparition grew more and more indistinct.
It was a whisper in the still air that breathed into the mother’s ear. “I miss you and Papa and the boys but I know that we’ll be together again. And when I can speak to you like this, why then the waiting doesn’t seem so dreadful. And did you know—I have Tip here with me now. He’s all well again and we have ever so much fun, playing in the beautiful garden … Mama, I love …”
“Julia?” Once more the weeping woman pulled free of her companions’ hands. She raised tentative fingers to her cheek. “She kissed me … I felt her touch … like the brushing of a feather.”
Across the table, the medium slumped senseless in her chair.
“And by the by, Dorothea, the animal’s name was Nip, not Tip—when I go to the trouble of collecting useful information for you, the least you can do is to remember it correctly.”
The tall dark-haired young woman in the deep violet dressing gown took a book from the jumble of illustrated papers and volumes that shared space on the center table with the remains of a substantial luncheon. She seated herself in the upholstered rocking chair next to the window seat where her sister was nestled amid a mass of silk and velvet fancy pillows.
Dorothea, her sister’s mirror image but for the emerald of her dressing gown, did not look up but continued buffing her fingernails. “I don’t believe it made a particle of difference, Theo. I could have called the animal Pip or Rip or Gyp—Mrs. Farnsworth heard what she wanted to hear. After the ‘truly-ooly’—which I collected myself—she was convinced.”
Dorothea stretched out an elegant hand, turning it this way and that, the better to admire her work. “She’s booked again for Thursday, is she not, Renzo? And do put out that vile cheroot—the odor is perfectly disgusting!”
The swarthy gentleman lounging on the divan by the window blew out a long plume of blue smoke and, with a dramatic flourish, tossed the smoldering cigar out the open window.
“As always, milady’s slightest wish is my command. And yes, La Farnsworth is panting for another kiss from her Julia.”
Reaching under the divan, he drew out a short black-painted rod and gave it a practiced twist. He smiled with satisfaction as the shaft extended in length to something over a yard long. At its end quivered a small black feather.
“I love you, Dorothea.” The young man’s pleasant baritone shifted to a honeyed falsetto, as the feather tip brushed the ear of the woman in the window seat. “And I love you too, Theodora,” he continued in his normal voice, bringing the feather to the cheek of the other sister, who scowled and batted away the wand tip with an unladylike expletive, “though that frown’s enough to frighten away even the friendliest of spirits. And your language—what would our dear mother say?”
“I doubt our dear mother would say much, having perished of the drink so many years ago,” Theo snapped. An angry flush stained her pale face. “But as to what your mother might say—”
“Theo! Pas devant la domestique!” Dorothea rapped out the warning as a wiry woman of indeterminate age appeared in the doorway. “Have you finished the bedchambers, Amarantha?”
The chambermaid paused, shifting the heavy box of cleaning supplies from one arm to the other. She did not meet the young woman’s eye but seemed to be looking at something just beside her. “I reckon that I have. I still got to dust in here and sweep the carpet. The housekeeper wouldn’t have sent me along if she had knowed you folks wasn’t going to the baths today. I kin come back later—”
“The baths!” Dorothea sat bolt upright amid the cushions. “Good heavens, what time is it? We’re booked for three.”
She shot an accusing glare at her sister, who was already on her feet and moving toward the bedchamber, tugging at the satin sash of her purple dressing gown.
“Whatever made you ask for such an early appointment, Doe? You know we always …” Her voice trailing behind her, Theodora whisked past Amarantha and into the bedchamber.
Lorenzo pulled a pocket watch from his fob and clicked it open. “It’s a quarter till,” he called after the pair. “If you girls are able to forgo your usual primping, I should think that—”
The slam of the chamber door cut short his pronouncements as the second sister hurried to ready herself for the baths.
“Like I said, I kin come back later.” The chambermaid, standing like a patient work animal, addressed the young man in her flat mountain accents.
His eyes slid over her spare frame and gaunt face and he yawned. “No need—pray, go on with your work—I’ll take a stroll while my sisters enjoy the healing waters.”
Lorenzo stood and stretched. His hand went to an inner pocket of his morning coat and withdrew a cigar case of fine Moroccan leather. After retrieving his hat and walking stick from the lunette table by the door of the suite, he paused. With a sigh of resignation he retraced his steps, past Amarantha who was kneeling to brush the ashes of a dead fire into a dustpan. At the closed door of the bedchamber, Lorenzo raised his cane to rap on the door but it opened at once and the sisters, now clad in walking dresses of lavender and spring green, burst forth, exchanging muttered recriminations.
“If you would have the decency—”
“Decency! You have the effrontery—”
Lorenzo stepped back to let them pass then followed them out the door into the hotel hallway. “Ladies—I’ll see you in the dining room at six-thirty. You do remember, Theo, that the recently widowed Mr. Harris is eager for a consultation—”
Amarantha looked up as the door closed behind the trio.
“Furriners,” she commented to the empty room. “Dressed so fine and with money to burn. Think I can’t see what’s before my eyes? I reckon I could say a word to the manager—and him a strong Baptist—and he’d turn these three out. If that Lo-renzo’s the brother of them two huzzies, well then I’m a Tennessee mule … But it ain’t none of my concern. I got my rooms to do.”
Giving the pale marble hearth a final polish with her rag, the woman stood and gazed around the sitting room of the Mountain Park Hotel’s third-best suite.
She crossed to the window seat, where she began to plump and rearrange the scattered pillows, placing them in exact alignment.
“There, that’s better, now ain’t it?” she said to the air. “I like to bust out laughing—her thinking she’s so smart and all the while, you making faces at her. You ought not to do me thataway. I ain’t fixing to mess with them three.”
Amarantha replaced the last cushion and drew the curtains shut. Her faded blue eyes narrowed and came to rest on the black feather protruding from beneath the divan.
“Still and all …” Amarantha mused, weighing the possibilities.
THE NEW MOUNTAIN PARK HOTEL
Is North Carolina’s all-new, improved resort in the charming mountain village of Hot Springs (formerly Warm Springs).
Set in a 100 acre park, this magnificent edifice in the Swiss-Gothic mode boasts 200 gas-lit, steam-heated bedrooms, 1,000 feet of verandas, including 125 feet of glassed sun parlors.
The natural mineral baths, heated by Earth’s own inner fires to temperatures from 96 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, flow into private marble-lined tubs in the specially designed bathhouse.
Milk from our own dairy; food from our own farms; a resident physician and all appliances for medical treatments, in addition to the healthful mountain air make The Mountain Park a specific for recuperation.
All the amenities for a gay social life are here as well: a grand ballroom, an elegant dining room, music room, gymnasium, amateur theatricals, and our own orchestra, in addition to riding, hiking, archery, bowling, billiards, and many more entertainments for our guests.
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br /> Easily accessible by rail from all points.
For an illustrated brochure and further information, including rates and available treatments, apply to: Mr. Steve B. Roberts, The Mountain Park Hotel, Hot Springs, North Carolina
Chapter 3
An Old Friend
Sunday, May 13, and Monday, May 14
Brice! Thank god! I’ve been trying to get you for hours … No, I hate voice mail so I just hung up … anyhoo … here I am and so far, so good. Not a peep out of Jerry … Have you heard anything … Well, no, I didn’t expect he’d exactly broadcast it that I’d left but I thought he might be asking around … Did he show up at the club for the usual poker game? … Really? … Did he mention me at all? …”
Gloria swatted at the moth fluttering near her head then started at the sound of scuttling on the deck just below the front porch. Instantly she leapt out of the rocking chair, abandoning the outdoors for the relative safety of the house. Inside, all was quiet. A single comforting light burned in the kitchen, another in the living room.
“Can you still hear me, Brice? I was out on the porch, trying for a stronger signal, but there was some creature stomping around … I don’t know—I didn’t stay to make friends … god knows, it could have been anything … you wouldn’t believe this place! This morning I saw snakes, at least five of them, lying out in plain sight around this dinky little goldfish pond just off the front deck. I asked my sister why she didn’t get an exterminator or something and she looked at me like I was out of my mind.
“Well, no, they weren’t poisonous—at least, Lizzy said they weren’t. She got out a book and showed me pictures of them and went on about natural balance in the fish pool yadda, yadda, but still, why in the world … Oh, I’m in the dining room now, by the open window … no, of course there’s no A/C—I told you what this place is like—primitive. No A/C, no dishwasher … would you believe, no television … well, there is a television but no cable and no reception worth a hoot—they just use it for movies now and then.
