by Lin Stepp
Chuck’s eyes glowed. “Man, I can’t wait to tell Vera.”
John looked toward the sun, slipping lower in the sky. “Well, why don’t you go do that now? I think we’ve all put in enough work for today. Besides, it’s moving toward dinnertime.”
He turned to Sam. “Let Charlie, Chuck, and Eugene clean up here. You walk down to the Side Orchards before heading home and see what work needs doing there tomorrow to put wire around those young trees. Then check to see if we have the materials in the sheds. If not, one of us will go into town early tomorrow to get what we need. We can finish here with the fertilizing first thing in the morning and then start the cages for the young trees in the afternoon.”
Looking up the Farm Road, John’s thoughts strayed to Lydia. If he hurried home and showered, he might be able to walk up to the ridge in time to walk her home. Or if not, he could stop by the house a minute to see her. With this in mind, he headed for Main House, whistling as he went.
Thirty minutes later, in clean jeans and a dark green shirt, he headed back up the Farm Road, Cullie loping along happily at his side, ears pricked and tail waving.
“We’re going to see if we can run into a pretty lady, Cullie,” he said to the dog.
Near the intersection, where the road branched right toward the lodge and left across the Upper Farm, John stopped abruptly, the hairs on his arm prickling. A scream rent the air, and before he and Cullie could make it even a few feet toward the sound, Lydia came streaking up from the woods area above Drop Off Ridge, running hard.
She plowed straight into him as she gained the road. “John!” Alarmed eyes rose to his. “I saw the ghost. I swear I did.”
Unlike the boys, John knew Lydia wasn’t prone to fancies. “Where?” he asked, looking over her shoulder from the direction she’d come.
A hand still bunched in his shirt, she turned to point. “In that direction, a little below where the ridge starts to drop off below the lodge. Not far from the ledge. In the spot where the blackberries grow thick. You know the place.”
“Let me go look, Lydia. You stay here until I get back.”
“No!” She wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t leave me here by myself.” She looked down the road toward Hill House. “I want to go home, John.”
“I know.” He rubbed her back, holding her close. “But I need to go check and see if there’s still someone there. I’ll leave Cullie with you. The two of you start walking on toward Hill House if you’re afraid to wait. I’ll catch up with you.”
She looked down at the collie. “I’ll wait with Cullie—unless I see something else. John, I am not kidding about this.” Her breathing was ragged, and her face still pale with shock.
“I know.” John ran a soothing hand down her cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
He quickly took the path down to the rocky ledge above the ridgeline. He saw nothing, even after tromping through the brush all around the area. Crossing the ridge again, he located the blackberry bushes where Lydia had been picking, before she panicked and ran. Her pail still lay turned over in the brush. Circling the area, he looked for tracks. All he found was a small section of dirt where it looked like someone had wiped out a track with a branch.
“Clever,” he said to himself.
Finding nothing else, he climbed back up to the road. Lydia sat on an old log under a shade tree, watching for him, Cullie sitting obediently—if somewhat impatiently—by her side.
“Good dog.” John ran his hand down the collie’s back. Only good training would keep a dog waiting as Cullie had when the scent of danger and excitement hung in the air.
John pulled out his cell phone and called Manny. “Lydia just saw the ghost, Manny. We’re at the Farm Road where it forks to the lodge. Can you come up? Call Sam and Charlie to meet us here, too.”
They came quickly and let Lydia tell them what she’d seen.
“I saw a shrouded, ghostly form exactly like the boys described. Back in the woods area near where I picked berries.” She stomped a foot in annoyance. “Dadgumit, I’d picked a whole bucket of blackberries and I dropped my bucket when that thing appeared, moaning and flapping around.”
“We’ll look for the bucket.” Sam grinned. “And for the ghost.”
John told Manny about the dusted print he found.
Manu nodded. “You take Lydia on home. She’s had a shock. We’ll take Cullie and thoroughly search the area. Maybe find something else with all of us looking. I’ll call the sheriff’s office and make a report after we look around. It’s as likely we’ll find something as Lester.” He grinned.
John looked at Lydia’s hand, clasped in the material of his shirt again. “Good idea, Manny. You call and give me a report later on. Take Cullie back to the house with you, too, when you finish.”
He told Cullie to stay with Manu, then put an arm around Lydia and started down the Upper Farm Road toward Hill House. “Do you need me to go get the truck, or do you think you can walk the distance back?”
“I can walk. But a little help won’t hurt. I still feel shaky.” She wrapped her arm around his waist gratefully, leaning against his side as they walked, coordinating her steps to his in a unified rhythm.
After a distance, she loosened her grip on him at last. “I thought those boys were making up that ghost sighting the other night. Or at least exaggerating it.” She shook her head. “They certainly weren’t, John. Whoever is perpetuating this prank has conceived a very convincing costume, too—blood on the ghost’s garments, and a convincing, raspy, threatening voice.” She turned her eyes to John’s. “Why would anyone do this? Hide out and frighten people in this way?” She stomped her foot in anger again. “When I think of that little Plemmons girl, seeing that thing while out playing by the creek alone. It must have terrorized her.”
John thought back on the ghost sightings Lester had told them about. “There must be some logical explanation for all this.”
Lydia stopped walking to glare at him. “And just what is logical and sensible about ghosts moaning around in the woods in bloody garments, John Cunningham?”
He chuckled and took her hand to walk on, seeing her less shaky now, the color returning to her face. “I meant that behind it all probably lies some logical explanation. People seldom do things without some reason, even dressing up like ghosts and frightening people.”
She snorted. “Well, I can’t think of any sensible explanation for what’s happening.”
Once they were at the house, John followed Lydia inside. “You sit down now.” He headed for the kitchen. “What can I get for you—water? A cola?”
She looked at the couch longingly. “I want hot tea, and I doubt you remember how to make it.”
“No.” He smiled. “Not if you still make English tea from loose leaves. I only know how to do the tea-bag kind.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Let me brew it then.”
He followed her into the kitchen, the kittens coming out to scamper around their legs. “Mary Beth said you made afternoon tea when she came here earlier this week.”
A soft look passed over her face. “We had a lovely time.” Lydia glanced at the kitchen clock. “It’s too late for afternoon tea now, John, but we can have high tea.”
“Kind of like supper?”
“Yes, very much like supper.” She put on water to boil, put food down for the kittens, and began to rummage in the refrigerator. “I baked a beef tenderloin yesterday with new potatoes, carrots, and green beans. I was feeling extravagant, having all this time on my hands. I can heat everything up in the microwave in a few minutes if it will suit you.”
He watched with pleasure as she fussed around the kitchen.
“I have homemade bread I bought in Waynesville and I even made scones yesterday, thinking Mary Beth might drop by again.”
“You’ve had a bad fright, Lydia. You don’t need to make me dinner.”
She turned to him. “It will give me something to do to busy my mind. You know that always helps me calm dow
n.”
“Yes, I remember.” He leaned against the kitchen table. “In that case, what can I do to help?”
“Set the table and talk to me. Divert my attention so my mind won’t keep replaying that awful scene.”
John moved with familiar ease to the cabinets where Lydia had always kept her dishes in the past. Finding plates, he put two on the table, then hunted for silverware and got down cups and saucers for the tea. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her spoon loose tea into the old teapot she’d had since they married, pouring hot water over it afterward.
“What?” she said, turning to catch him watching her.
“Nothing. Just enjoying, like Mary Beth did, watching you make English tea again. Not many people do that sort of thing anymore.”
Lydia put the top on the teapot and set the timer. “You know my mother came from the UK and that I lived there in my youngest years. I lost the accent when we moved to the States, but I remember the customs. And, of course, Mother continued them in our home here.” She turned back to her cooking. “It just feels right having tea. I miss it on the days when I can’t make time for it. It’s a small luxury I truly love.”
“Tell me what you remember about living in England.”
“Not much, really. Mostly impressions. Little remembrances.” She turned to smile at him. “I remember having afternoon tea in London with my grandmother Howard at a very elegant restaurant. I have odd memories of row houses in quaint little towns and castles on lush, green lawns. I recall leaning over bridges to look down on the boats on the Thames, hearing Big Ben chime, and seeing the guards walk in front of Buckingham Palace, never giggling or smiling—even when I made faces at them.”
He laughed. “Where did you live in England?”
“In Leicester near the university, in a town house near where Daddy worked on the engineering project that took him to the British Isles.” She whisked one dish out of the microwave and put in another. “He met Mother there, you know. Married her and later brought her home to the small farm and rural property his parents owned outside Boone, North Carolina. His sister, Martha, still lived at home then, and that’s when Mother and Martha developed such a bond.”
“I’ve been to their farm many times.” John sat down at the old kitchen table, in the same chair he used to sit in when he and Lydia lived at Hill House. “In fact, I drove up there last year to help your grandfather with a problem he was having with his orchard.”
She turned around in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
“I visited your parents, too. Thanked them for the flowers they sent for Mother’s funeral.”
“I didn’t send any flowers.” She frowned. “It somehow seemed awkward to do so.”
“Your parents added your name with theirs.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Mother never told me that.”
“Well, she told me I’d lost a prize to let you go. I agreed.”
John watched her blush as she turned to get the tea. “Here, John Cunningham. Everything is ready. Eat while it’s hot.”
He dug in, finding his hunger rising at the sight of the food. It had been a long day.
They ate in silence for a short time, John remembering how they’d eaten here so many times when they first married, loving their little house situated above the farm, private and to themselves. So delighted in each other’s company.
John ran his foot up the inside of her leg. “Penny for your thoughts, Lydia Ruth.”
She flushed. “Well, I can assure you they don’t match yours!”
He laughed. “I was just remembering the good times when we first married.” He reached to get another slice of beef. “We did know happy times here.”
“Yes. And I remember how crowded it was with the two of us and four small children around this table—”
John’s cell phone interrupted her words. He pulled it out of his belt clip. “Yes, Manny. Did you find anything?” He listened as Manu filled him in briefly. “Yes, I’ll share with Lydia, and yes, thank you, she is better now. Tell Ela and Mary Beth I’m eating with her and keeping her company a little longer.”
“What did he say?” Lydia asked as he hung up.
“Manu found some footprints this time, mostly wiped out, as from a branch, like the ones I found. But they discovered no other evidence, nor did they find anyone hanging around the area.”
Lydia sighed. “Oh well.”
“Actually, it’s more than the police have found before. Sam called the sheriff’s office. Lester Sexton came up and they showed him the tracks, filled him in on what you saw.” John speared green beans with his fork. “At least there are footprints for once. Ghosts don’t leave footprints.”
She waved a hand. “Some people would argue with that.”
“Well, to me finding footprints means ‘person’—and a clever person, too, who knows how to cover his tracks.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. A real ghost would hardly bother to sweep out his tracks.”
John told her about the other sightings as they finished their dinner. She cleared their plates and warmed the scones she’d made for their dessert, setting out butter, honey, and several pots of preserves to lavish on them. Pouring them both more tea, she settled back into her chair.
“Here’s your touch of English tea to close the meal, John.” She spread a smear of blackberry jam on her scone.
Noting the picture of berries on the jar, he smiled at her. “Manu found your bucket of blackberries. He said only a few spilled when you dropped the pail. He took them down to Main House for Ela to keep for you.”
“Oh good.” Her face brightened. “They’re delicious with scones and cream at breakfast. And I thought I might try making some homemade jam.” She looked toward the window. “There’s a full moon, John, and with dark just falling we might see lightning bugs. Let’s go sit out on the porch.” She picked up her teacup. “You can bring your tea and another scone if you want.”
She started toward the porch. He followed, after adding more hot tea to his cup. Personally, he preferred hot coffee after dinner, but tea would do.
“There!” Lydia pointed into the night as he came outside. “The lightning bugs are out. What little miracles. You know Mother says they don’t have lightning bugs in the UK. She never saw them before she came to the States. Many places on the earth don’t have them, and I read their numbers are dwindling.”
“Hard to believe, when there are over two thousand species of fireflies.”
“How do you know that?”
“I pick up and remember trivia. You should know that.”
She huffed. “I remember I always lost playing those trivia fact games with you—or with the children. The boys, in particular, got your fact-recall genes.”
“Tell me about the boys, Lydia.”
Lydia filled John in, as she had Mary Beth, going into the house to get the photo album so he could see the pictures she’d shown his daughter.
“I’m proud of them,” John said when she was done. “I hope they know that.”
“How can they, when you’ve never told them? Never written, never called them, and never gone down to see them.”
His temper flared. “I figured they could drive up here to see me if they wanted to.”
“Oh, John. You know the boys—or I—could hardly come to the farm for a cordial visit after our angry parting with Estelle. Don’t you remember how horrible those last days were before J. T. and I left?”
“They didn’t improve after you two left, either.” He scuffed a boot against the porch floor. “Then Billy Dale and Parker packed up one night and drove to Atlanta to join you. They didn’t even wait to finish their junior and senior years at the high school here. They finished in Atlanta with you.”
Lydia put a hand on John’s, where he sat in the swing beside her. “Estelle made it impossible for them to stay. You know what they went through—the incriminations, the rantings and ravings, the accusations and insu
lts against J. T. and me after we left. They couldn’t handle the anger and bitterness. The pressure to change. To choose sides. They felt miserable.”
“I kept hoping it would blow over. That Mother would calm down, settle back to normal. Let up on everything.” He looked out into the night. “She often did after a time.”
“I don’t think she would have, that time.” Lydia kept her hand over his. “It was good of you, John, to let them stay with me after they ran away. You could have legally fought me to retain custody. Unlike J. T., Parker and Billy Dale were underage.”
He pushed the swing into a soft rhythm. “It was early summer when they left. I thought they’d come back. Start missing their friends, want to get back to school.” His voice dropped. “I thought they’d miss the farm, realize apple season was starting. I don’t think I really understood at the time that none of them wanted anything to do with this life here.”
“Oh, John.” Lydia took a deep breath. “That’s too harsh. If the boys had felt that you and your mother supported their dreams and goals, I think they might have come back and forth as they made their way through college and into adulthood. Maybe, like Neal, they’d have found their way back in time. But they grew so angry and bitter.”
He sat quietly, thinking that over. “I tried to be a good father to them. I loved my sons—and Mary Beth—with all of my heart.” John turned his eyes to Lydia. “I didn’t mean to fail them.”
Lydia’s voice whispered across the night to him. “You need to tell them those things. You need to tell them and not me.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Surely they know how I feel about them. Surely, as men, two of them married now, they know a man can have divided loyalties between the people he loves. Divided loyalties about issues in his life.”
She turned to touch his face. “John, we can work on fixing the issues between ourselves. But you must resolve the issues between you and your sons yourself. I continued to tell them through all these years that you loved them, that you felt torn between your loyalties to us and your loyalties to the farm and your mother. I explained that your father had asked you to take care of your mother on his deathbed, made you promise.”
