Bitter Harvest

by Sheila Connolly

  She made a fast trip upstairs to brush her teeth, then came down to the kitchen, where Bree was busy scrambling eggs.

  “Hey, ’bout time you woke up,” she said. “Sleep well?”

  “More or less. Did you hear anything odd last night?” Meg helped herself to coffee from the pot, and sat down at the table. Lolly was taking a bath on top of the refrigerator.

  Bree glanced at her briefly. “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure. Some thumping and bumping. It was late, but it woke me up.”

  “Nope, I didn’t hear anything. But I was kind of out of it. Besides, I’m getting pretty used to odd noises here. That room of mine, I think whoever built it kind of skimped on the construction—I hear lots of weird sounds.” Bree set two plates with eggs and toast on the table. “Sit. Eat. So what’s the plan for today?”

  “Talk to Seth about the furnace. Check out what damage there might be from the storm. You think we can let the goats out of the barn?”

  “Do I look like I know anything about goats? You can try. They’ll probably let you know if they don’t like the snow, and you can just put ’em back in the barn again.”

  “Okay. I guess I’d like to go into town and see how the rest of the world is doing. Maybe I’m getting antsy being cooped up in the house. And we need to stock up on some supplies, if there are any left at the store.”

  “Yeah, the people around here go kinda crazy when there’s a storm. They buy up more milk and bread than they’d normally use in a month, just in case. In case of what, nobody ever says—they’re all going to make bread pudding? You want me to come along?”

  “What I want you to do is put together those numbers for me. This is the perfect opportunity, since there’s nothing we have to do outside. And don’t tell me you have to go tune up the tractor or something.”

  “Man, you are one demanding boss. I’ll work on it. Let me add a couple of things to your shopping list first, though. Like marshmallows, if we’re going to keep roughing it like this.”

  “Which reminds me—Seth said someone would be dropping off more firewood today. I guess we should put it in the shed. Can you supervise that?”

  “I think I can handle that. You gonna wash up, since I cooked?”

  “Sure.”

  After cleaning up the kitchen, Meg went upstairs, showered (hot water!), and dressed. She had gotten used to physical activity over the past several months, and now she felt confined and restless, stuck in the house. It would be good to get out and move.

  From the kitchen she called up the back stairs, “I’m leaving now!”

  Bree shouted something unintelligible in response. Meg gathered up the shopping list and her bag, rubbed Lolly’s head, pulled on her boots, and went out the back door. She stopped on the steps, taking in the scene in front of her. It looked like a picture postcard: the distant trees, bare of leaves; the rolling meadow, its snow untouched; the sun in an intensely blue sky. She inhaled deeply. Yes, it was a bit warmer today, and water dripped steadily from her clogged gutters. She’d probably have some pretty good icicles later.

  She made her way to the barn to check on Dorcas and Isabel, who greeted her eagerly. “Hi, girls. How’re you doing? You have enough to eat and drink?” Dorcas stood up, her front hooves on the slats of the pen, and Meg scratched her head. They needed a bit more feed, and she took care of that. They probably needed some exercise, too, but she decided to wait until she came back to deal with letting them out into their pen, so she could keep an eye on them. “Bye, girls. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  Back outside, it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the light. She checked out the house, looking for the source of the night’s noise. All shutters in place. Ah—one of the downspouts from her gutters had come loose. She came closer and inspected it: the strapping at the bottom had been wrenched away from the siding, which left the downspout hanging precariously. No doubt in a wind it would bang against the house. But Meg was a bit puzzled: from what she remembered, the wind hadn’t been strong enough to pull the downspout out by force, and the screws that had held it looked fairly new, and certainly long enough. The wood where they had been dislodged wasn’t rotted. Why had it chosen that particular moment to come loose? She looked around her. Already the ground around the house was marked by a variety of animal prints, mainly squirrel and something smaller. Mice? Chipmunks? But there were some odd blurry tracks underlying them. More snowshoe tracks? Was she imagining things? Surely she would have noticed someone skulking around practically under the kitchen window by daylight. Had someone come along under cover of night and pulled out her downspout? If so, he hadn’t tried to destroy it, which wouldn’t have been hard. Instead he had left it hanging loose so it would bang against the house. Why?

  Shaking her head, Meg went to the shed and cleared what snow had drifted in the night so she could get her car out. Then she backed out carefully, barely avoiding the snowbanks that lined her drive, and headed toward town.

  11

  Meg took her time driving to the market, respectful of the snow on the roads. At least to get there she could follow the main highway, which had been fairly well cleared, then salted or sanded or whatever they did around here. She drove slowly and carefully: she’d never had much experience with driving in ice and snow, even growing up. Luckily there were few people on the road, and most of them kept a fair distance from the person in front of them. Meg pumped the brakes a few times, experimentally, to see how quickly she could stop, and was not reassured; the road surface was treacherous. She was relieved when she made it to the market, but also dismayed that the huge mounds of snow substantially reduced the number of parking spaces available. Apparently a lot of people had felt as housebound as she had, and they had all made a beeline for the market.

  She found a narrow spot adjoining one of the snow mountains and squeezed the car into it. It was a good thing that she wouldn’t have to open the passenger door, because it wasn’t possible. Someone at the store had made an effort to clear the sidewalks, but even so, people walking to the entrance had packed the remaining snow into icy patches. For all of that, inside the store people looked extraordinarily cheerful. Glad to be out of the house? Relieved that the worst was over? Voices seemed louder than usual, as friends greeted each other and exchanged snow stories. Meg walked past a number of conversations where people were comparing the depth of their snow accumulation—a number that seemed to keep growing the longer she listened. She shook her head: she hadn’t even measured the depth at her place. Three feet? A nice round number—and more than enough.

  Half an hour later she emerged with a couple of bags of essentials, after spending most of the time waiting in line for the cashier. She opted to carry the bags rather than to try to maneuver the shopping cart through the now-icy ruts in the parking lot. Despite the store’s best efforts, apparently at least one person had found the footing treacherous: an older man was kneeling on the sidewalk, off to one side of the doors, and there were a few kind people clustered around him, trying to assist him to his feet. He didn’t seem to need any additional help, so Meg returned her attention to trying to avoid slipping on the treacherous surface. She didn’t look at her car until she reached it, orienting herself by the massive snow pile next to it.

  As she rounded the back of the car to stow her groceries she was startled to see that her rear bumper was crumpled. “Damn!” she swore. How on earth could someone have run into it, protected by the snow mound? She looked quickly around, but there was nobody nearby in the parking lot at the moment, and she had no idea when it might have happened. She tried her key in the lock of the trunk, and was relieved when it opened. She dumped her groceries in and slammed it shut, then looked at the bumper again. It would have been all but impossible for someone to skid into that part of her car—unless they had wanted to hit it. But why would anyone do that? She was parked as legally as possible in the space; she had pulled as far forward as the snow would allow, and if anything, farther than her immediate neighb
ors. She should have been safe, but obviously she hadn’t been.

  She surveyed the damage. Nothing major, but probably within her deductible, for which she’d be out of pocket in any case. Should she talk to the police? The market administrators? Did they have surveillance cameras? She stopped herself at that last question: this was a fairly rural area, and they didn’t worry about things like electronic surveillance. Just to be sure she surveyed the widely spaced light poles in the parking lot, and didn’t see anything that looked remotely like a camera. She sighed. Not much to be done about it, except get the blasted bumper fixed, when time and the weather allowed. One more expense she didn’t need right now, not when she was facing paying for a new furnace.

  Without much hope she looked at her front windshield when she got into the car, and was not surprised when she saw no note from an apologetic driver. She pulled out of the space cautiously and made her way back to the main road. When she reached Granford, she surprised herself by passing the turnoff for her house and continuing straight toward town, pulling off at the driveway to the police station, half a mile before the center of town. In the neatly plowed small lot there she found a parking space easily. Inside she was happy to see the police chief, Art Preston, in the lobby, chatting with one of his officers. He looked up as she came in.

  “Hi, Meg. What brings you here? No bodies, I hope?”

  “Good to see you, Art. Sorry, no bodies, unless you count my dead furnace, and I think that was due to old age rather than violence. Actually I just wanted to ask a question. I was parked in the lot at the market just now, and somebody ran into the car. It’s not major damage, just a crumpled fender, but whoever it was didn’t leave a note or anything, and I don’t know if anyone saw it happen. I just wondered what my legal liability is, or what I should tell my insurance company.”

  “How bad is it?”

  Meg shrugged. “Cosmetic, not structural. And before you ask, yes, I have a high deductible, to keep the cost down.”

  Art grinned ruefully. “Then you’re probably better off just getting it fixed and eating the cost. Sorry—and you didn’t hear it from me. Not my jurisdiction anyway—it happened outside Granford town limits.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. It’s about what I’d figured.”

  “I’m sure Seth—” Art began.

  “Can find me someone who’ll give me a good deal on the repairs,” Meg finished his statement for him. “I know. It just seems like everything is falling apart on me at once. Did Seth tell you about the furnace going out?”

  “Maybe he mentioned it. So where are you staying?”

  “At home. I’ve got firewood, and we got the old fireplace working downstairs. We’ll be fine for a few days. I’m certainly glad the power’s back, though. How’s the rest of the town doing?”

  “About what you’d expect. A couple of carbon monoxide scares—you know, someone turns on an old kerosene heater and forgets to open a window. We had to pull a couple of people out of a ditch, but no injuries. That sure was some blizzard, wasn’t it?”

  “I haven’t seen many, but I was impressed. Back in the old days, did things just stop dead until it all melted?”

  Art laughed. “How old do you think I am? But that’s what I’ve heard. I gather there used to be horse-drawn plows that kind of pushed the snow to the side of the road, but I’ve never seen one.” He checked his watch. “Well, I’ve got some wellness checks to make. Some of the older folk around here can’t do their own shoveling, so they’re pretty much confined to their houses.”

  “Don’t make me feel guilty. Anyway, I’ve got groceries to take home. Thanks for the advice, even if I didn’t like it. I’ll see you around.”

  “Say hi to Seth when you see him,” Art called out to her retreating back.

  Meg drove home in a pensive mood. Maybe she was still a city girl, but at least she had enough strength and energy to get out of her house. Others weren’t so lucky. No wonder so many older people headed south when they retired: no snow shoveling. Was worrying about hurricanes worse? Along the road to the house, she noted the stretch of chain-link fence that Bree had mentioned. Something definitely had hit it: the fencing was warped and twisted, and it looked like at least one metal post was nearly horizontal. But the snow pile shoved off the road by the plows didn’t even reach the fence. Had someone skidded early in the snowfall, hit the fence, and backed out again? Right now there was no way to tell.

  She pulled into the driveway to see Bree wrangling the goats. She had them both on rope leads, but being curious creatures, they were pulling in opposite directions.

  Bree looked relieved to see Meg. “Hey, can you grab one of these critters? They’ve been cooped up too long, and now they want to go exploring. You think they’ve ever seen snow?”

  Meg grabbed one of the ropes. “I have no idea. Will they be all right in the pen?”

  Bree was tugging her goat toward the gate to the enclosure. “I think so. We can check their shed to make sure it’s clean and dry, but I think they’ll be happier out here than in the barn, and we can keep an eye on them from the house. Oh, and we’ll have to make sure the water in their trough doesn’t freeze.”

  “How’re we supposed to do that?”

  “Ask Seth. He’s the plumber.”

  After a few more minutes of wrestling, they managed to get the goats into the pen and the gate locked behind them. Winded, Meg leaned against the fence and watched them. They were playing, running and leaping, and tossing snow in the air. They looked entirely happy in their new environment, and she wondered what they would think when it melted away.

  “Did the wood come?” Meg asked.

  “Sure did. All nicely stowed away in the shed. I made sure the guy stacked it.”

  “Did you pay him?”

  “He said Seth had taken care of it, and not to worry.”

  “Then I guess we should take some into the house and build up the fire, keep the place warm.”

  “Good idea.” Bree came around Meg’s car and caught sight of the damage. “Hey, what happened?”

  “Somebody who didn’t bother to identify himself ran into it in the parking lot at the market.”

  “That sucks.”

  “I agree. And probably below my deductible.”

  “Did you tell the cops?”

  “Yes and no. I stopped by the police station in Granford and asked Art what I should do, and he more or less said to forget it. At least that way my insurance payments won’t go up. Well, let’s get that wood inside.”

  Fifteen minutes later they had hauled a nice stack of wood, setting it by the fireplace, and Meg had added a few logs to the dying fire. “Lunch?” she asked.

  “Sure, sounds good. And didn’t you say you had something you wanted to show me?”

  “Oh, right. But that should wait until after lunch—no sticky fingers.”

  “Then let’s eat.”

  Fifteen minutes later Meg ventured into the dining room, where it was almost comfortably warm. Almost. The business papers were still stacked on the dining room table. “Bree,” she began.

  Bree stopped her. “I know, I know—you want those numbers. How can I forget, when I have to walk by all this all the time? And you keep nagging me?” She waved at the orderly piles on the table. “Show me your new treasure, and then I promise I’ll get right on those numbers. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Once again Meg retrieved the sampler from its place on the dining room sideboard, laid it on the card table by the window, and unrolled it. “Seth and I found this in an upstairs closet. From the dust on it, I think it’s been there for a long while.”

  “What’s a while?” Bree asked, her eyes on the sampler. “I mean, two years or twenty?”

  “Closer to two hundred, I’m guessing. There’s a date on it, so we know when it was made, but I don’t recognize the name of the girl who made it, Violet Cox. I don’t know if she lived in this house, or it was brought into the house by someone else. And when I found it, the power wa
s out so I couldn’t check the Internet.”

  “Huh. So what’s the story?”

  “The top part seems to be a family history, one where everybody died young.”

  “That’s kind of weird.”

  “Seth says it’s not uncommon. A lot of people died in those days, and not in nice distant hospitals, but usually at home. Does that idea bother you?”

  “You asking if I’m worried about ghosts in the house here? I don’t think about it a lot. I mean, obviously somebody’s died in this house sometime over two hundred years, but I haven’t noticed anybody haunting it. And if I did see a ghost, I don’t know why they’d have anything against me. Think a ghost would talk to me?”

  Meg laughed at the idea of Bree trying to have a conversation with someone who had been dead for a century or two. “I have no idea. I think the general assumption is that they kind of pop in and out, and you can see them but not hear them. And sometimes it’s cold where they hang out.”

  “Well, at the moment that describes most of the house, so we must have a real crowd here. Too bad they can’t help keep us warm.”

  “So you’re okay with a little haunting?”

  “Sure, no problem. You going to do some research on this? Are those tombstones?” Bree pointed to the sampler.

  “I certainly think so. And yes, I’m going to keep looking. I’ve got the time right now, and there’s a lot of detail to work with.”

  “Maybe it’s worth money,” Bree suggested.

  “I hadn’t even thought about that. But if it comes from the family, I wouldn’t sell it. Anyway, I can do some hunting online, and then maybe I can talk to Gail at the Historical Society. If she doesn’t know anything about samplers, she can probably point me toward someone who does.”