The Angel Whispered Danger

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “What was the matter with her husband?” Grady asked. “Was he abusive or something?”

  “Abusive? No, not physically,” our uncle said, “but I think he must’ve been a negative sort; put her down a lot, and wouldn’t let go of a dime. Belinda doesn’t talk about it much, but I think she just got to where she’d had enough.”

  “I’ll bet you thought I wouldn’t remember you promised me a blackberry pie,” Grady said after lunch.

  He was right. I had completely forgotten the pail of berries we’d dropped on the path when we heard Ella’s cry the day before, only it seemed much longer ago than that. “I doubt if they’ll be any good,” I said. “Most of them spilled on the ground.”

  But my cousin insisted we make certain, and sure enough, we discovered over half the pail still filled with blackberries. It didn’t take long with both of us picking to get enough for a cobbler for supper.

  “Mom says Uncle Ernest wants to go ahead with the reunion picnic tomorrow,” Grady told me, untangling himself from a thorny branch. “The doctor said Ella’s vital signs are stable; she might linger like this for days.”

  “Maybe in time she’ll even recover,” I said. “I wish she could at least regain consciousness long enough to tell us what happened.”

  Grady stuck a bleeding finger in his mouth. “She did tell you what happened. She said she was pushed, and that box you found had been shredded from the inside. Had to have been Dagwood in there.”

  “But what if she remembers more? Ella was in a lot of pain when we found her—good Lord, look how far she fell! There’s a chance she might have seen who pushed her.”

  “Even if she lives, Uncle Ernest won’t be able to take care of her here,” Grady said as we walked back to the house. “Spooky as she was, Uncle’s going to miss her. Heck, I guess we all will! I remember when I was little, she used to make me hot chocolate.” Grady laughed. “It was awful, but if you put enough marshmallows in it, you could get it down.

  “Have you ever wondered what will happen to this place when Uncle Ernest goes?” he asked.

  I honestly hadn’t. I couldn’t imagine Bramblewood without Uncle Ernest. “I don’t think any of us would love it the way he does,” I said, and as I spoke, I saw our uncle walking alone in the meadow. He wore an old beat-up canvas hat that was probably as old as he was, and swung his arms as he walked. Now and then he would pause and gesture at something and I could hear his laughter all the way to the orchard.

  “Did you hear that, Kate?” Grady shook his head. “Looks like the old man’s goin’ ’round the bend. What do you suppose he’s laughing about?”

  “Probably just clearing his head. Sitting in a hospital waiting room all those hours has to take its toll,” I said. We stood quietly until our uncle strolled out of sight, knowing he wouldn’t want witnesses to such a private moment. I knew Uncle Ernest was accustomed to taking long walks and that his beloved fields and woods were like personal friends to him, but I’d never seen him talk to them before.

  Back at the house we took our berries to the kitchen, where Grady put them in a colander to wash while I started on the pastry. My cousin went upstairs to change, and I was up to my elbows in flour when Uncle Ernest returned and poured two fingers of bourbon over a small glass of ice.

  “Thanks, but I really don’t care for any,” I said, reminding him he hadn’t offered.

  My uncle smiled. “Sorry, Kathryn. Sometimes I forget you’re all grown up now.”

  I noticed that he still didn’t offer me anything to drink, but that was okay. Grady had the makings for margaritas in the refrigerator, and after picking berries and baking them into a cobbler, I was about ready for one.

  Uncle Ernest tasted the drink and swished it around in his glass. “And where’s Miss Josie?” he asked.

  “Oh, she’ll be here tomorrow for the reunion,” I said, speaking slowly so he could hear. “She’s staying with Marge for now.”

  “Sorry I missed her this afternoon—saw her little friend out there. Funny little thing—do you know, a fawn came right out of the woods and nuzzled her hand? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!” He took another swallow and looked pleased with himself.

  “Out where?” I asked, wondering just how many drinks my uncle had tossed down. “Uncle Ernest, Josie hasn’t been here since last night. She and Darby went fishing today with the youth group from Burdette’s church.”

  He frowned. “Why, out in the meadow just now—I saw a girl. Thought she must’ve been a friend of Josie’s since she seemed about her age—maybe a little older.” My uncle laughed. “I reckon she must’ve been a woods sprite. Looked a lot like one of those old illustrations from a fairy-tale book. Did my heart good to hear her laugh!”

  I turned away to put the cobbler in the oven, glad Uncle Ernest couldn’t see my face. It looked like Penelope was being careless again.

  “Have they found out anything about those bones they dug up this morning?” Uncle Lum asked of no one in particular as we sat on the porch after supper.

  “Uncle Ernest said they don’t know much of anything except they’ve been there for a while.” Aunt Leona fanned herself with one of those old cardboard fans with Jesus blessing the children on the front that probably came from the local funeral home.

  “How long is a while?” her husband wanted to know.

  “Well, my goodness, Lum, how should I know? Thirty or forty years, I think he said. Maybe even longer.” Leona fanned faster.

  Uncle Ernest had left earlier for the hospital and the four of us had just blimped out on warm blackberry cobbler with ice cream on it—except for Aunt Leona, who only had a little doll-size helping with about a teaspoon of ice cream on top.

  “I just wish they’d hurry and find out who it is,” she said. “Makes me sad thinking about that poor soul lying there all those years without even a proper marker.”

  Grady stretched his long legs in front of him. “I’d kinda like to know who put him there,” he said, “and why.”

  Because of the two margaritas I’d drunk earlier, I decided to stay again at Bramblewood instead of risking the steep curving road back to town. My uncle and aunt retired fairly early and Grady had some work he needed to do, so I waited downstairs reading one of Carolyn Hart’s classic mysteries until Uncle Ernest came home from the hospital. I could tell even before asking that Ella was the same.

  The telephone rang just as I was getting ready for bed, and I answered it quickly before it could wake my aunt and uncle. What time was it in California? Maybe Ned had taken a break from his busy agenda to check on his family on the other side of the States.

  It wasn’t my husband calling, but it was the next best thing.

  “Mama . . .” Josie’s little voice sounded lost and far away.

  “Josie? Are you all right, honey? Is anything wrong?”

  “No, I’m okay. It’s just that everybody’s asleep but me, and well . . . I just wanted to tell you good night.”

  I went to bed smiling. In spite of Ella’s “fall” into the ravine and the Belle Fleurs Garden Club digging up old bones next door, I should sleep soundly tonight.

  That was why it was hard to force myself awake a few hours later when somebody sat at the foot of my bed and jerked the covers from me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  For a minute I thought I was back in my own home and Josie was waking me with a nightmare. But my daughter’s hair—even as light as it is—doesn’t shimmer with an aura of coppery gold.

  “Wake up!” Augusta said, bouncing lightly as she leaned over me. “Somebody’s out there digging. Sounds like it’s coming from behind the house.”

  I rubbed my eyes and blinked. “Maybe they’re looking for fishing worms . . . I’m really tired, Augusta.” I yawned and tried to roll over but she had a most unangelic grip on my arm.

  “Hurry now, and try to be as quiet as you can. It wouldn’t do for them to hear you.” She grabbed a robe from the chair and tossed it in my direc
tion. “Where are your shoes?”

  I fumbled for them under my bed. “They just dug up bones from where there shouldn’t have been any, somebody shoved poor Ella off a bluff and now you want me to go out there in the dark? What kind of guardian angel are you?”

  Her glittering necklace winked turquoise and violet in the dusk and Augusta gave me an impatient little smile. “I’m here, aren’t I?” she said. “We might never know who it is if we don’t get closer. You do want to know, don’t you?”

  I grunted a yes.

  It must have been just before dawn because there was barely enough light to see, and I sensed, more than felt, her small hand on my shoulder, urging me from the room. “Do jiggle a limb now, Kate, we don’t have time to dawdle!” But I noticed she took time to glance at herself in the mirror as we hurried out the door.

  The floor creaked as we crept down the dim hallway past rooms where my relatives slept, and from the far end of the passage, I could hear Uncle Lum’s staccato snoring. Feeling my way in the dark, my hand trailed past the place where the wallpaper was beginning to peel . . . and dear God, what was that brushing against my leg? Something soft and tickly that sent shivers up my spine! I almost bit my lip to keep from yelling before I realized it was Ella’s cat, Dagwood.

  I kept close to Augusta as we made our way downstairs, hoping we wouldn’t wake Amos, who slept on a mat by the door. If suddenly roused, the dog would go into a frenzy of barking loud enough to wake the entire household. Augusta held up a hand in warning as Amos groaned in his sleep. The angel smelled of lavender that reminded me of the dried sachets Ma Maggie kept in her linen closet, and her chiffonlike dress swirled behind her as she walked. By the light of the table lamp in the window it looked creamy white with a spray of dainty pink flowers trailing about the hem.

  We slipped silently past the sleeping dog and into the kitchen where the sound of digging seemed even louder. Crouched behind Augusta, I hesitated at the door that led to the back porch. “What on earth could anybody be looking for out there?” I whispered as Augusta edged slowly outside.

  “That’s what we want to find out,” she said, beckoning me to follow.

  The wind ruffled the leaves in the fig bush by the back steps and there was a hint of rain in the air. Augusta and I stood on the brick walk that led to the garage and listened. The noise was coming from that area of the yard Ma Maggie referred to as Rose’s flower garden. My grandmother said there had once been a fence around the garden, but that was long gone. Now a straggly tangle of pines, honeysuckle and knee-high weeds surrounded a tiny, well-kept garden plot. With Augusta’s prompting, I crossed the yard and hid behind the large sycamore that halfway screened the small garden from the house. I couldn’t see who was digging, but now and then I did glimpse the pale beam of a flashlight. Was this the same person who ran from Parker and Burdette the night before?

  A family of mosquitoes enjoyed a midnight snack on my neck and a tendril of some kind of vine whipped my ankle—at least, I hoped it was a vine. The thought of snakes crawling about my feet in the dark scared me more than being discovered by the mysterious digger.

  While I quietly battled insects, the treasure hunter, or whoever he was, moved his search to another part of the overgrown garden and I saw the light flicker on and off twice as he renewed his digging. How long was the blasted man (if it was a man) going to pursue this ridiculous quest? And how was I ever going to get close enough to see his face? My foot was asleep and I’d made the mistake of drinking a large glass of tea with supper so I really needed to go to the bathroom! I looked for Augusta to try and signal her of my distress, but she had stationed herself under the scuppernong arbor and couldn’t see my face. I don’t suppose angels ever have to go to the bathroom, so naturally my discomfort would mean nothing to her. I had decided to go inside without her when a loud clap of thunder came out of nowhere and seconds later lightning sizzled in the sky. It gave me just enough light to see the silhouette of a dark figure through the trees. I flattened myself against the sycamore as the person tramped through the junglelike border of weeds and saplings and passed almost close enough to touch as he made his way to the toolshed. He wore a slouchy old hat pulled low over his forehead, and I couldn’t see his face, but he smelled of bourbon and pipe tobacco. Uncle Ernest!

  We waited until my uncle had time to put away his shovel and watched him go inside. The kitchen light came on and I knew he was making his ritual nighttime drink of something called Chocolate Comfort before retiring. It seemed to take forever before he finally turned off the light! I mentally timed Uncle Ernest getting out of his dirty clothes and washing up before going back to bed. He probably wouldn’t have heard us if we’d tramped in right behind him, but we huddled under the scuppernong arbor at least fifteen minutes as raindrops as big as cherries started to fall. “Enough of this!” I whispered, shivering. They began to pelt us even faster as we finally bolted for the kitchen door. It was locked.

  “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into!” I said, not expecting Augusta to understand the reference.

  But she did. “Laurel and Hardy!” She clapped her hands. “Oh, what fun they were! Not still around, I suppose?”

  I shook my head. “What do we do now, Augusta? I really have to go!”

  “I don’t like to do this as a rule, mind you . . . but in this case . . .” Augusta disappeared from beside me, and seconds later opened the door from the inside.

  Besides being rain-soaked and miserable, I was now wide awake, and while I went upstairs to change, Augusta made hot chocolate and produced from somewhere dainty jam-filled pastries dusted with powdered sugar and crisp triangles of toast that tasted of oranges.

  Penelope, who had rendezvoused with raccoons and a fox or two, she said, in the orchard beyond the house, stood by the open oven drying herself from the rain. I offered a towel and a change of clothes, but she smiled and shook her head, and soon I knew why. In only seconds her bronze and gold sleeveless shift looked as if it had just come from the cleaners. She draped herself in a fringed shawl of dappled green and pulled out a chair for herself at the table, and it was a good thing I was standing beside her because, almost in slow motion, the chair began to topple.

  I was able to catch it before it hit the floor, but I didn’t have as much luck with the mug of chocolate that spilled in a spreading pool across the table and made a brown puddle on the faded green linoleum.

  “Oh, dear! Now look what I’ve done!” Penelope’s eyes filled with tears and her lap with hot chocolate.

  I grabbed a couple of dishtowels and began to sponge her dress. “It’s okay, Penelope. I expect you’re just chilled from the rain. It’s nothing that can’t be cleaned up. It didn’t burn you, did it?”

  “No, but I made such a mess . . .” She looked at Augusta, whose mouth looked kind of pinched at the corners.

  “It’s all right, Penelope, dear, but you must try to move more slowly.” Augusta’s shoulders heaved as she wet a sponge at the sink. “Why don’t you take care of the spilled drink on the floor and we’ll see what we can do with your dress. There’s more chocolate where that came from.”

  Later, as Penelope, soothed and dried, nursed her cup of chocolate by the stove, Augusta sat across from me at the table and sipped silently from her cup. The chocolate was dark and rich with a hint of peppermint, and the pastries tasted of raspberries.

  “I don’t know what to think,” I said, wiping what I knew must be a milky brown mustache from my lip. “What was Uncle Ernest looking for out there? It must be something he didn’t want us to know about or he wouldn’t have been digging in the middle of the night. I wonder if it has something to do with the skeleton they found in the churchyard.”

  “Whatever it was, I’d like to know if he found it,” Augusta said. “And why does your uncle keep that little garden the way he does? Surrounded by such a tangle of undergrowth, you can hardly see it from the house. Seems a shame to hide it that way—rather a sad place, don’t you think
?”

  “My grandmother said that for the longest time he couldn’t bring himself to come near it,” I told her. “But it’s been like it is now for as long as I can remember. Uncle Ernest takes care of it himself—won’t let anyone else in there. A lot of his wife’s roses are still there. Ma Maggie says it’s the only part of his marriage that’s still alive . . . I wonder if it’s because he still loves her or just feels guilty that he couldn’t make things work.”

  “There’s one way you might shed some light on this,” Augusta said, dipping her toast in chocolate. “You might just come right out and ask him.”

  But did I really want to know?

  “I thought I heard somebody digging out back last night,” I said the next morning at breakfast.

  Uncle Ernest shook the salt shaker over his egg three distinct times, and the pepper twice. He didn’t look up. “Did somebody make brownies or something in here?” he asked. “The whole house smelled of chocolate this morning . . . and who do I thank for those little pastries I found on the table?”

  “Oh, I picked those up at a bakery,” I said, pouring orange juice all around—and spilling about half of it.

  “Maybe it was Casey you heard,” Grady offered. “Must’ve come back last night: I saw him trimming the shrubbery when I went out to get the paper this morning.”

  “Why would Casey be digging in the middle of the night?” his mother wanted to know.

  Grady shrugged. “To get an early start? Told me he was planning to mow that field behind the orchard so the children could play games this afternoon.”

  Every year at the reunion all the children competed in sack races and relay games in the big field where I’d seen my uncle walking the day before, and later, some of the adults joined in for a family softball game. Parker and Burdette were due over soon to help Grady set up long tables, made of boards laid across sawhorses, under the large oaks at the edge of the yard, and family members who lived out of town would be arriving all during the day with potato salad, baked ham, fried chicken and just about every kind of cake and pie I’d ever heard of—and some I hadn’t.