Bitter Harvest

by Sheila Connolly

  “Why do you care?” Bree asked.

  “Because it’s a puzzle. And because the sampler is here, in this house. I’ve held something that this girl Violet Cox made two hundred years ago, and I want to know how it found its way into my hands. And if I’ve learned anything about the people around here, it’s that almost everyone is connected somehow.”

  “I can understand that. Of course, my family background’s entirely different. I might have been born and raised in Massachusetts, but the rest of my family’s in Jamaica. And my ma and my auntie keep all the relations in their heads.”

  “Make sure somebody writes all that information down before it’s lost. You never know when you might want it,” Meg said. “How’s it coming?” She nodded toward the papers Bree had scattered over the table.

  “Not bad, I guess. I can see progress.”

  “Oh, wait a sec.” Meg darted back to her workspace and pulled out a piece of paper from the folder her mother had left. “My mother stumbled on this and thought I might be interested, so she printed it out. It looks like some kind of orchard accounting—from 1912.”

  Bree held out her hand, and Meg gave her the printout. “Cool,” she said. “You know, things aren’t all that different now. I mean, look at it.” She laid it on the table, and Meg leaned over to read it. “It’s set up chronologically through the year, and each task is assigned a cost. Fertilizing, pruning, spraying—I’d have to check what they were using a hundred years ago, ’cause they were really hitting the trees hard for a week or two there—more fertilizing. Then picking and packing, and hauling. Sound familiar?”

  Meg laughed. “I guess it does. But we don’t have to count horse-hours now, do we?”

  “No. But you could substitute equipment costs. Amortizing your capital outlays might be the modern equivalent.”

  “Listen to you! You must have been paying attention in all those classes you took.”

  “I was an A student. I just don’t like sitting still and putting all this stuff together.” She held up a hand before Meg could chide her. “I know, I know—it’s part of the job. I’ve got everything together, and now I have to make sense of it and write up a summary. You go back to your family history or whatever.”

  Meg looked out the window and realized that it was getting dark. Where had the time gone? “I think I’d better do something about dinner.” She had some ground lamb . . . maybe shepherd’s pie?

  She was in the kitchen feeding Lolly when she saw Seth’s van pull into the driveway. She waited until he had parked and was approaching the door before opening it, to conserve heat.

  Seth hurried inside, his face flushed with the cold. “Hey, Meg. Is Bree here?”

  “Yes, she’s in the dining room. Why?”

  “Looks like she’s got a flat. Yo, Bree?” he called out.

  “Yeah?” she yelled back.

  “I think you’d better take a look at your back tire.”

  Bree appeared quickly in the doorway. “Huh?”

  “Looks flat. When was the last time you drove your car?”

  “Day before yesterday. It was fine then.”

  “I can give you a hand changing it now, if you want, before we lose the light,” Seth volunteered. “If your spare’s okay.”

  “I guess,” Bree said grudgingly. “I know how to change a tire, but this isn’t exactly the best time to do it. This sucks!” Muttering under her breath, she pulled on her coat and gloves and stormed out the back door, with Seth following. They were gone for a while, and Bree was cursing openly when they finally returned. “Damn it, that tire was almost new.”

  “What was the problem?” Meg asked.

  “A nail. A stupid nail. How the hell could I get a nail in my tire in all this snow?”

  “And it was fine the last time you drove on it?”

  “Sure it was. At least, I think so. The roads have been so lousy with all the ice and snow, it’s hard to tell. Seth, you think it can be fixed? ’Cause I sure don’t want to have to buy another one right now.”

  “I think so,” Seth said. “A patch should do it. Want me to drop it off at the gas station tomorrow?”

  Bree exchanged an amused glance with Meg. “Uh, yeah, sure, I guess. I could do it myself, you know, now that we’ve got the other one on.”

  “That’s just a temporary one—I wouldn’t risk that on these roads. It’s no problem—I go right by the gas station. You can have it back by the end of the day tomorrow. Would you feel better if I let you put it back on all by yourself?”

  Meg giggled, and Bree glared at her. “I can handle that. Thanks, Seth.” She stalked back to the dining room.

  Meg asked, “Are you staying for dinner, Seth?”

  “Sure. By the way, I left Max at Mom’s—I was making business calls today, and I didn’t want to drag him along. So he’s in good hands.”

  “Your mother’s back?” Meg asked, returning to the potatoes she was peeling.

  “Yup. She likes her own space. Sound familiar?”

  “It does. Not only are we Yankees tough, we’re independent. Sit down. Want something to drink?”

  “Coffee’s good.”

  They chatted about Meg’s most recent discoveries about the sampler as Meg chopped, peeled, mashed, and mixed. Finally she dotted the top crust of mashed potatoes with butter and slid her dish into the oven. “There. Thirty minutes until dinner.”

  “Can I give you the good news now? I got kind of distracted by the tire problem.”

  She turned to face him, drying her hands on a towel. “I would love to hear anything resembling good news. What is it?”

  “I’ve got you a furnace. I can pick it up tomorrow, and have it up and running by the day after.”

  “You are my hero!” Meg bestowed a sloppy kiss on him, which quickly grew into more. They broke it off only when Bree came back into the kitchen.

  “Can’t leave you two alone for a minute. Will there be dinner, or are you too busy?”

  “Dinner’s in the oven,” Meg said, unruffled. “I was thanking Seth for finding us a furnace. We may have heat soon!”

  “Well, then, I’ll let you go back to thanking. Call me when dinner’s ready.” She slipped back out the door again.

  “We’re setting a bad example for the children, you know,” Meg said to Seth. “Tell me about installing the furnace. Do I have to do anything?”

  “You certainly are a romantic at heart,” Seth protested.

  “I’m just focused. And cold,” Meg replied.

  Seth sighed melodramatically. “For the furnace, no. You’re keeping the oil tank, which would be the biggest problem, if I had to haul it out. The rest is really pretty simple—you’ll be surprised when you see how few parts there are. After dinner I’ll take another look at the ductwork and see what other supplies I might need. And I’d recommend a new thermostat, preferably a programmable one. I’d suggest multiple zones, but I don’t think it would work in this house, and it would be a pain to run the wiring.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  After dinner Bree volunteered to do the dishes, and Seth disappeared into the cellar with a heavy-duty flashlight. Meg went back to her genealogy materials and stacked them neatly—and put a paperweight on them. All she needed was to have Lolly jump on the table and scatter everything she had laboriously collected and sorted. She hadn’t made much progress with the Coxes. She should ask Seth—he knew everybody. Or Ruth Ferry, who was perhaps the eldest person she knew around here. Or Gail Selden. Maybe Gail had some files about local Coxes. Plenty of avenues left to follow.

  Seth came back up the cellar stairs, whistling cheerfully. “Looks good. I think I’ll replace the electrical line from the box to the furnace. The one you’ve got is Romex, and that could cause electrical fluctuations—you know, lights dimming. You noticed anything like that?”

  “I did, but I thought it was just an old house problem. Like everything else. I never associated it with the furnace.”

  “Well, if that was the
problem, this will fix it. I’d better get back and collect Max from Mom. I’ll pick up the furnace tomorrow morning, and let’s plan on Thursday for the installation. That work for you?”

  “No complaints from me. Take care, and say hi to Max for me. I’ll see you Thursday.”

  “Count on it.” He gave her a quick kiss and disappeared into the night.

  Meg turned off most of the lights in the kitchen and checked the lock on the back door. All secure against the night. Or at least, as secure as she could make it. Bree had escorted the goats back into the barn earlier, so they were set for the night. Meg went back to the dining room, where she was surprised to see Bree still hard at work. “Hey, I’m not a tyrant. That’ll keep until morning.”

  “I’m fine—I got used to late hours at college. Except when I’m working hard physically—then I just crash.”

  Meg checked her watch: it wasn’t even eight o’clock. What should she do? She didn’t trust herself to work on the family tree—when she was tired, she was likely to miss details. Besides, that was supposed to be fun, not a chore. She didn’t want to disturb Bree by turning on the television, if Bree was actually working on the long-awaited financial summary for the business. She picked up a paperback mystery she had started, and after a few pages she realized she couldn’t remember what she had read earlier. She found herself staring into space, listening to the comforting ticktock of the antique clock hanging over the mantelpiece, and thinking . . .

  Suddenly Meg straightened up in her chair. All the small, annoying incidents recently including Bree’s flat tire: were they connected?

  “Bree?” she called out.

  “Huh?” Bree replied. “You want something?”

  Meg stood up and went back to the dining room. “I’ve been thinking, and I need you to tell me if I’ve finally gone over the edge. I feel like I’ve hit a really weird streak of bad luck this past week, and I don’t know if I’m being paranoid or there’s something going on.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bree put down her pencil and focused on Meg.

  Meg began ticking items off on her fingers. “Let’s start with the goats—part of the pen enclosure broke and they got out, and it was only dumb luck that they headed for Seth’s rather than wandering down the road. Two, I found broken glass from a smashed bottle at the end of the driveway one morning, which could easily have blown out one of my tires. Three, Seth said that someone had tried to jimmy the lock on the barn door in the back. Four, he also found one of the cellar windows open when he went down to check out the furnace—and it would have taken some force to do that. Five, I saw footprints outside a back window—and Max thought there was someone there. Six, you told me that a piece of my fence was down, and when I saw it, I didn’t think the snowplow could’ve done it—it was too far back from the road. Seven, one of my downspouts mysteriously came loose during the night and started banging against the house. Eight, somebody ran into my car at the market. Then this morning, there’s a dead squirrel smack in the middle of my back steps. And finally, your flat tire.” Meg held up both hands, fingers outstretched. “That’s ten separate incidents. Taken alone, any of them could be explained away. But all this has happened in one week. Taken together, they scare me. And it feels to me like they’re getting more serious by the day. With that tire, you could have ended up in a ditch.”

  “I see what you’re saying, but what’s it mean?” Bree asked. “Have you pissed somebody off lately?”

  “Not that I know of. Did we make any of our buyers mad? Miss a shipment? Forget to make a payment?”

  “No! Nothing like that. Far as I know, everybody went away happy. Even the pickers—they thought you gave them a fair deal. You seem to be getting along well with most people in town, right?”

  “I thought so, but I could be wrong. Do you think I’m crazy? Is this all just a string of coincidences?”

  Bree shook her head. “I don’t think you’re crazy, Meg. If anything, I would have said you don’t have much of an imagination.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You run this by Seth?”

  “No, I only put it all together now. Maybe I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.” Meg sighed and decided to change the subject. “But Seth says we’ll have a working furnace by Thursday, so at least there’s one piece of good news! I wonder if there’s any sort of ceremony for welcoming a new furnace?”

  Bree laughed. “Not that I’ve heard of, but I’ll be happy to kiss it, if that helps.”

  “Well, I’m going to get ready for bed. Don’t mind me—I hope I’m just seeing things where there’s nothing to see.”

  “I’ll be done with this part in a minute. You build up the fire, okay?”

  “Deal.”

  14

  The snap of a dying ember woke Meg out of an uneasy sleep. It was intensely dark, and very still outside. The clock over the mantel read fivesomething, as near as she could make out. Dawn, almost. Bree snored lightly a few feet away. The round lump that was Lolly warmed her belly. She lay listening, thinking.

  She had been surprised when she’d added up the list of disturbing events for Bree. Could they really be just a string of coincidences? Sure, each one could be explained away. But all of them, in such a short time? Maybe it was a local teenager who was pulling a series of pranks on a dare: go drive some poor single woman nuts.

  Meg stiffened. Was that a noise she heard? Footsteps? Near or far? She strained to hear anything, while Bree and Lolly slept on, oblivious. Another sound. It could be something as simple as ice creaking as temperatures changed. Or not. For all she knew it was a black bear foraging for food. Had she taken any garbage out lately?

  She wasn’t sure how long she lay there listening, but eventually, when she heard nothing more, she drifted back to sleep, and didn’t wake again until daylight. Bree was already up, in the kitchen talking to someone, and from the tone of her voice Meg decided it was Lolly. Meg pulled herself out from the tangled quilts and stretched.

  Much as she relished the downtime, she had to admit she missed the constant activity of working in the orchard. It gave structure and purpose to her days. Dabbling in genealogy seemed self-indulgent and frivolous, but at the very least she thought she should finish what she could with the sampler. Maybe this would be a good day to talk to Gail Selden over at the Historical Society, if she was free.

  Meg dashed upstairs to wash and dress—it was still bitterly cold on the second floor—then joined Bree in the kitchen. “You’re up bright and early,” she said.

  “Thanks to all this snow I can’t even think about doing anything outside, so I’ve had plenty of sleep. Look, I’m almost finished with your numbers. You mind if I head over to Michael’s later? I haven’t seen him for a few days.”

  Meg helped herself to coffee and sat down. “You don’t have a car at the moment.”

  “Oh, s—ugar, you’re right. Maybe Michael can come get me.”

  “Or I could take you to Amherst. I was thinking of getting in touch with Gail Selden to see if she could help me with the sampler. And since Seth can’t install the furnace until tomorrow, it’ll still be cold today and tonight. You don’t have to stay here and suffer.” Meg swirled the coffee in her cup. “Bree, did you hear anything last night?”

  Bree sat down across from Meg, with a plate of scrambled eggs. “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure. Footsteps?”

  “Nope. You getting spooked? There are plenty of animals around, you know—raccoons, skunks, coyotes. Unless you’re thinking maybe this was human?”

  Meg shrugged. “I don’t know. I might have been imagining things, or maybe it was an animal. Maybe whatever it was, was trying to figure out where he left that dead squirrel.”

  “Eew. Seth got rid of that, right?”

  “He did.” He’d even chipped the bloodstained ice and snow off the back steps, which was thoughtful of him. “Well, I’ll be glad to get out of the house again.”

  After breakfast Meg decide
d it wasn’t too early to call Gail. She had kids, didn’t she? So she must be used to early days. She tracked down Gail’s home number and dialed.

  “Gail? Do you have a minute? It’s Meg Corey.”

  “Oh, hi, Meg. Yes, for the first time in days I actually do have a minute. The kids are finally back in school. Another snow day and I think there would have been a murder here. What can I do for you?”

  “I found something interesting here in the house, and I’d like you to take a look at it.”

  “Oh, cool! You going to tell me what it is, or . . . no, I’d rather be surprised. You want to come here? I can give you lunch.”

  “I’d love to get out, if that’s okay. My furnace is dead, and it’s a bit chilly here.”

  “You poor woman! Come over, and I’ll heat up some soup. Let me tell you how to get here.” Gail outlined instructions, and it turned out that she lived no more than a mile away—if you were a crow. By road it was more like two miles. “Noon work for you?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

  Meg debated a moment about whether to bring along the sampler or just the pictures. In the end she decided that Gail should see the real thing. Most likely the materials and the craftsmanship, which the photographs couldn’t capture, would help Gail determine something about its origins.

  After a few more fruitless stabs at finding anything useful on the Internet, Meg collected the sampler and placed it, carefully padded, in a box. She was afraid to fold or bend it any more than necessary, since she didn’t know how brittle it might be.

  “You talk to your friend?” Bree asked.

  “Yes, we’re having lunch. You want a lift now?” When Bree nodded, Meg added, “Why don’t I give you a call tomorrow when I hope the furnace will be up and running? Maybe Michael can bring you back.”

  “Okay. Unless, of course, you and Seth want to celebrate? Might even be warm enough in the house to take off a few layers of clothes. And you can tell him I’ll put the tire back on myself, whenever he drops it off.”