Homecoming in Mossy Creek

by Debra Dixon

  Mossy Creek rolled softly, singing its sweet music beneath the moonlight once again as I crept near. Barefoot, my blue jeans rolled up to my knees, I waded out into the shallows, letting the cold creek roll and eddy around my legs, reveling in the feel of the world moving on its own. That was part of what I loved about the place. It was always there. No one made it happen. You couldn’t command the creek to flow or the trees to bend and sway with the wind, to reach down and touch the water with their gnarled and aged fingers.

  No this place was alone, unto itself. No matter what happened elsewhere, here it was always the same. And when I thought of home, it was this place that came to mind.

  I leaned down and felt the cold water with my fingertips, let the stress run out of me into the creek. I’d done it. I’d saved my job, my reputation, broken fundraising records. But I’d also brought two towns together in celebration. Whether they liked it or not, Bigelow was a part of Mossy Creek heritage and vice versa. It seemed only fitting that they should somehow be a part of the biggest town celebration in twenty years.

  Having stood up on stage, hearing the laughter, the gasps, the applause, you couldn’t tell which cheers came from Bigelowans and which from the Creekites. They all blended together. And it had been beautiful. Just like Seth and I had always imagined.

  “Mia.”

  I turned at the sound of Evan’s voice. He stood at the edge of the creek, and I could barely make out the crooked smile on his lips.

  “You did it, Mia.” He came closer, close enough that he reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

  I shook my head. “No. We did it. Evan, I don’t know what I...I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “It was the right thing to do. Harley never woulda lived down busting into tears on stage.”

  “And I never would’ve lived down another flop.” I reached out and took his hand. “You saved the entire night. You saved me.” I gave him a teasing look. “Romeo.”

  He took a step closer, the creek rushing around us and between us, turning us into part of it, part of the magic so embedded in the very soul of the place.

  “May I kiss you?” he whispered.

  His words lit something inside of me and I couldn’t hold back a smile. “You didn’t stop to ask the first time.”

  He stepped forward, so close I could feel his warmth. Yet he made no move to touch me. “But you never said whether you liked it.”

  “Oh, yes,” I whispered. “I liked it. I most definitely liked it.”

  He chuckled, looking more handsome than ever in the sparkling moonlight, as he pulled me close and pressed his lips to mine.

  For the first time in a long time everything felt right, felt as if it was the way life was supposed to feel. For the first time I felt like I belonged, safe and loved and destined for Happily Ever After. I’d managed to turn a tragedy into a story of hope. And not just the play. I’d finally found my place in the world.

  As Evan took my hand, I could have sworn I saw the fairies dancing here and there among the swaying, moonlit trees, welcoming me home.

  PART SEVEN

  The Great Time Capsule Caper

  Louise & Peggy, Friday afternoon

  But of course we couldn’t leave it alone. We were given a mission and come heck or high water, we’d finish.

  “Let’s drive back to the stadium,” Peggy said. “Maybe somebody actually stumbled on it with all that digging. They haven’t had time to abscond with it, if so.”

  Nobody had found it. Everyone had gone home in disgust, apparently. I was sort of expecting to find Katie Bell’s car, but either she hadn’t caught on to Peggy’s lie yet or didn’t want to mess up those pumps.

  At the far end, a bulldozer rumbled as the driver shoved his front loader into a pile of scrub pines.

  “Look, Peggy, everybody’s dug holes down by the men’s bathroom. But John said he thought it was the women’s side. Maybe we can get the bulldozer guy to dig a little at that end.”

  Football fields don’t look that big on TV, but even when I’m training the Bouviers for sheepherding I don’t do that much walking. Peggy, however, does. She reached the bulldozer before I did, yelled loud enough to get Wolfman Washington’s attention and signaled for him to shut down the engine.

  “What now?” he called down. “I already chased them folks off from down there. Acted like they was digging for pirate treasure. I just got this dang field halfway smooth. Don’t y’all let me see no shovel down thisaway.”

  So much for asking him to dig up the entire end of the arena.

  “Not pirate treasure,” I said in the voice I use to cajole my plumber into fixing the leak today instead of next week. “Just one little bitty old steel box.”

  “What kind a’ box?”

  I spread my hands, guessing that the box would be less than a yard across. “Probably about this big. Kind of heavy. It’s got some real important papers in it.”

  “What kind a’ papers?” he asked. His voice dripped with suspicion.

  Peggy stepped up. “Important to the town of Mossy Creek. If we could just get you to use your backhoe to dig...”

  “Ma’am, I have excavated until I am blue in the face. You got any idea what a concrete block does when it gets burned? It breaks up, is what it does. And in near thirty years all them blocks have been covered up with brush and trees and roots and dirt and I don’t know what-all.”

  “You have dug in this area?” Peggy asked.

  Wolfman lifted his hard hat and ran his hand back through his buzz cut. “Halfway to China some places to get them footings out.”

  “And what did you do with what you removed?” Peggy asked.

  I caught my breath and looked around, expecting to see piles of debris where I saw only piles of scrub trees.

  “Took it to the dump like I was supposed to. Code says you can’t leave that junk sitting around. If you knew how many copperheads I have done run over...”

  “In the debris that you moved, did you by any chance see a steel box?”

  “Lord, I may have.”

  “Think, Wolfman. It’s important,” Peggy said.

  “There was some old metal lockers, I remember that.”

  “Not lockers. A box,” I said. Did he want money for information? My handbag was locked in the car, and I didn’t want to go back to get it. Besides, if we bribed him, he’d be likely to tell us what we wanted to hear.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Could’a been I picked it up with all the other junk. Can’t say for certain.”

  “But it’s possible?”

  “Well, yeah. Sure as shooting ain’t buried around here, I can tell you that. I had to go down a couple of feet to break the footings loose.”

  “And you take everything to the dump?”

  “Somebody does. Wouldn’t do to drive my dozer all the way out there.”

  “When did you do this?”

  “Couple of weeks ago, maybe.”

  “So it would be close to the surface?” Peggy kept up her interrogation. Just like Sherlock Holmes.

  “Could be. Most of the construction debris goes into a single area in the dump.”

  “Where?”

  Wolfman grinned. “No idea, ma’am. Don’t go out there myself. Ain’t sanitary and it smells to high heaven.”

  Peggy reached in her pocket, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it up to the man. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” She turned to me. “Come on, Louise, we’re going to the landfill.”

  “Not tonight we’re not. It’s late. I have to get home to fix Charlie’s dinner and take the honey bunnies for a walk. We can start tomorrow morning early.”

  “Cutting it close, Louise. Today’s Friday.”

  “You don’t truly think we’ll find it, do
you?”

  “Not really, but we have to go through the motions.”

  “The motions can start tomorrow morning. I’m whipped.”

  The Mossy Creek Gazette

  215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia

  From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager

  Lady Victoria Salter Stanhope

  The Clifts

  Seaward Road

  St. Ives, Cornwall, TR3 7PJ

  United Kingdom

  Hey, Vick!

  Just a quick note to update you on all the Homecoming goings-on.

  The best gossip floating about town is that a letter was sent to Police Chief Amos Royden about mysterious items added to the time capsule buried by the last graduating class of the OLD Mossy Creek High School. Rumor is that every single “extra” thing added twenty years ago incriminates someone. Everyone’s in a tizzy, I don’t have to tell ya! Kinda makes ya wonder what-all folks have to be worried about, doesn’t it?

  It’s gonna be interesting, and that’s the truth. But don’t worry! I’m on the case and I’ll keep ya posted!

  Katie

  Homecoming Headaches, Homecoming Heartaches

  Homecoming means coming home to what is in your heart.

  —Author Unknown

  Win Allen, Thursday

  “Where’s Jayne?” I asked loudly. My words had to carry above the din surrounding The Naked Bean’s booth at the bake sale.

  Betty Halfacre looked up from the cash box. She regarded me for a long moment, unblinking, then turned and unhurriedly counted change to Eleanor Abercrombie for her cookie purchase. After closing the box, she looked at me again. “Jayne isn’t here.”

  I returned her gaze. This short, round half-Cherokee woman could’ve exchanged places with Marilyn on Northern Exposure without any loss of vacant stares on either side. But the mind behind the stares definitely wasn’t blank. I enjoyed engaging her in conversation when I could, just to see who would blink first. “I can see that. Do you know where she is?”

  Betty didn’t still blink, but her attention was pulled away by Derbert Koomer, who cleaned out their stockpile of vanilla brownies. As I watched the exchange, I wondered if he was going to mark them up and sell them at his I Probably Got It store at the crossroads.

  When his purchase was complete, Betty turned her attention back to me. “No.”

  I was so amused by her classic American Indian taciturnity, I couldn’t help but chuckle. The humor was unexpected, and felt good after the week I’d had. So good, I leaned across the goodie-laden table and planted a kiss on Betty’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  She didn’t act surprised. “You’re welcome.”

  Somehow, Betty could always zero in on what people needed, and knew exactly how to give it to them. I envied her that trait.

  “Jayne and I have been missing each other all week.” I glanced around at the crowded square. Seemed as if everyone in Mossy Creek was there. I even spotted a few Bigelowans in the throng, mingling easily with the Creekites wandering from table to table. “I’ve barely seen her.”

  “I know,” Betty said.

  She had such an odd tone in her voice that I turned back, but her attention had already been claimed by Bert Lyman. I exchanged a nod with the owner of WMOS, who handed a dollar to Betty for one of Ingrid’s famous chess pie squares.

  What had Betty meant by that cryptic comment?

  I waited while she helped Bert, but then she turned immediately to another customer. Since she seemed determined to help everyone but me, I stepped away from the table and glanced up and down the aisle fashioned from festooned tables laden with Mossy Creek’s best baked goodies, canned goods and crafts. The aisles wrapped three sides of the Mossy Creek Town Square. Vendors from other close-by towns were also there.

  Aurrie Putney from Yonder was selling various cheeses that her husband, Burke, made on their dairy farm.

  LuLynn McClure and her daughter, Josie Rutherford, from Bailey Mill sold dried wildflower arrangements. Feng shuied, no doubt.

  Most of the Bailey family who ran Sweet Hope Apple Orchard, also in Bailey Mill, had bushels of their famous Sweet Hope apples.

  A cousin of the Bailey family, Clementine Carlisle, was selling her usual apple butter, and seemed to be doing a booming business.

  Nancy Daniels from Lookover displayed her sewing expertise with aprons, potholders and such decorated with appliquéd Mossy Creek Rams.

  They were flanked by Creekites like Camel-smoking Inez Hilley who stood over a table of fried pies and chow-chow alongside her granddaughter, Lucy Gilreath. Residents of Magnolia Manor had a table with various mountain crafts. There were many others, including parishioners from every Mossy Creek church selling all varieties of goodies and crafts.

  Most of the proceeds would be donated to the Stadium Fund. And most of the county was there to support the cause. I’d seen people I rarely see, and some I didn’t know. Some of those were, no doubt, fall-tree visitors who’d happened upon our quaint festival. All were welcome, and all were welcomed by the friendly Creekites selling their wares.

  I let the warmth of their camaraderie wash over me. It went right to my heart, then filled my whole body. I loved this town. I thanked the good Lord every day that he’d led me there years ago when I’d been searching for a place to belong. Of course, I hadn’t known at the time that I was searching for anything more than a little peace and quiet. I’d found peace, but this town was anything but quiet. Especially now that I’d been elected President of the Town Council.

  What had I been thinking? This week had been a baptism by fire, with Creekites coming at me from all directions with every possible kind of “emergency.”

  Like the argument over who was going to lead the caravan of vehicles from the parking lot of the new high school to the stadium in Bigelow, where we had to play our football games this season.

  Or the brouhaha over Amos’s decree that no personal bonfires would be allowed. It didn’t matter to some folks that the town was planning a massive one at the pep rally just before everyone left for the game.

  Or the letter that had just arrived that had changed the time capsule buried twenty years ago into a time bomb.

  All of that when all I wanted to do was spend time with Jayne and Matt.

  Jayne.

  Just the thought of her caused the heat coursing through me to deepen. A huge part of my feelings of belonging—of having found my home—was due to Jayne, and to her son, Matt.

  I brought my attention back to the crowd. Where the heck were they?

  “Win!”

  I turned to find Bert Lyman wiping crumbs of chess pie square from his face. “Hey, Bert. How’s it going? Have you seen Jayne?”

  “I did see her, about an hour ago. She was here at the Naked Bean table.” He shrugged. “Perhaps her little tyke needed a nap.”

  I relaxed. “Yes, of course. We’re planning to attend the play tonight, and Matt’s going with us for as long as he behaves, so Ingrid can go, too. You going to the play?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Bert said. “Have to review it for my Mossy Creek Culture Hour on Sunday morning. I’ve been hearing rumors about it. Looking forward to seeing it, especially after the flop last spring.”

  “It wasn’t that bad…” I trailed away. Even I couldn’t say anything good about the disaster the spring play turned into. “Okay, it was. Poor Hermia. She tried so hard.”

  “And with her parents…” Bert shook his head. “The expectations were high.”

  “Yes, well, guess I’ll head over to Jayne’s and see if—”

  “Just a second, Win.” Bert grabbed my jacket sleeve and leaned in. “What’s this buzz I hear about the time capsule?”

  I held back a groan. What had it been? Four hours? The Mossy Creek grapevine w
as working overtime. “I don’t know. What did you hear?”

  “Something about secrets. Something about a massive time-capsule hunt.”

  I shook my head. Bert certainly had a flair for the dramatic. “Hardly massive. We can’t find the capsule, so Ida suggested we set the town’s two best amateur sleuths on its trail—Louise Sawyer and Peggy Caldwell. That’s all there is to it.”

  Bert gave me his best you-can’t-fool-an-old-journalist stare. “Is that right?”

  “Bert,” I said with warning in my voice. “Don’t make mountains out of molehills.”

  “Me? What can one person do?” he asked, clearly affronted.

  “A lot,” I answered. “And one person with a radio station can stir up a mess of trouble. You wouldn’t want to do that in the middle of Homecoming week, now would you?”

  “Are you trying to suppress the press?” He stuck a finger in the air. “The truth must be told! The First Amendment says so.”

  “I’m not trying to suppress anything except widespread panic,” I said.

  “Aha! Then you admit there’s a reason to panic.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  Suddenly Bert stiffened as he caught sight of something behind me. “LordAMercy!”

  I turned to see what had captured his gossip-loving attention. Ardaleen Bigelow was meandering down the row of booths. She was dressed to the hilt, as usual, and carried her vicious little Shih Tzu, Pierre, in a huge bag hanging off one shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, turning back to Bert. “Ardaleen has the right to come…” I trailed off as I realized that Bert was glancing between Inez Hilley and Ardaleen. Mortal enemies.

  Ardaleen hadn’t spotted Inez yet, but from the hard look on Inez’s face, something bad was about to happen.

  Win Allen, ordinary citizen, wanted to flee.

  Win Allen, leader of the Town Council, couldn’t.

  I groaned as a football sailed past me.