“Who’s the thundercloud?” Chase watched as Jah strode away from Wicked Weaves. “Hey! Are you okay?”
“Yes. It was just very . . . intense.” I filled him in about Jah while I wolfed down both donuts he was holding. “I may have to rethink my investigation into Joshua’s death. It’s very possible Jah murdered him instead of Abraham. That boy is super angry with life.”
“Don’t say that!” Mary yelled as she came back into the shop. “Jah has every right to be angry, but that doesn’t make him a killer. Where did he go, Jessie? I have to talk to him.”
“He went that way.” Chase pointed down the street toward Baron’s Beer and Brats.
“Tend to the shop,” she told me. “I’ll be back after I find my son.”
The door closed quickly behind her. I looked at Chase. “You should go after her. Otherwise, he might kill her, too.”
“Aren’t you being a little paranoid? Just because the guy is angry doesn’t make him a killer. Mary’s right.”
“Mary doesn’t think anyone killed Joshua. She thinks he died of natural causes that just seem to include almost having alcohol poisoning and being strangled. She’s not a good judge of what’s going on.”
“And you are?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she might know best. You have to leave this to the police, Jessie. Someone could get hurt.”
This wasn’t the time or the place to talk about it as two visitors dressed as ladies-in-waiting with high hennins and long veils came into the shop, laughing. I dragged Chase into a corner. “I don’t have time to argue with you right now. I think Mary could be in danger, and you’re the only one who can do something about it, since she’d kill me if I left the shop while she’s gone.”
I pulled him close and kissed him hard. “You have to take care of this for me. Even if we got the police involved, it could be too late.
“Is that it?” He raised that left brow at me. “Is that all you’ve got? Because it’s really hot out there, and following Mary and her son could be a long, hard job.”
“What else do you want?” I eyed the customers warily, but they were too busy exclaiming over baskets to notice us. “We’re in a public place with people watching us. I’m not—”
Chase lifted me off the floor. It’s a bad habit I wished he’d stop. He finally put me down and put his hands in my hair and kissed me, slowly and thoroughly for a few minutes. “Okay. Now I can go.” He walked out the door, whistling.
Now the two ladies were interested. “Was that playacting?” one asked.
“Yes.” My heart was pounding hard, and my lips could barely form coherent sentences.
Both women giggled and asked how they could get summer jobs there. I couldn’t answer, since my brain still felt like it was filled with cotton candy. The women each bought a small basket and left Wicked Weaves.
I took my basket outside on the back steps and thought about lighting up Mary’s pipe. But that was going too far. Instead, I stared off and thought about Mary and the life she’d led. I thought Tony and I had a hard life without our folks. At least we knew who they were and that they were dead, not just hiding out in an old village somewhere.
It was three, and there was still no sign of Mary or Chase. I wished I had my cell phone and that Chase had a cell phone, too. Or we could both have two-way radios. Anything so that I’d know what was going on.
The Village closed early on Sunday for the King’s Feast. At this rate, I was going to have to close up and head over to the castle without knowing what was going on. I wasn’t crazy about that idea. Chase was right; I was paranoid. I kept picturing all kinds of terrible things happening to him and Mary— like Mary was dead and Jah killed Chase when he’d found her, and it was all my fault because I’d sent him after them.
I’d sold a few baskets. The crowd was light. It might’ve been a race weekend again. I couldn’t keep up with what was going on at the speedway. At least I couldn’t imagine Chase being killed by a car in the Village. A fast-moving camel, maybe, but not a car.
I’d waited as long as I could before locking the front door and counting up receipts. I stashed everything in Mary’s rooms upstairs. There was no protocol for closing up without her. I guess she never thought it would happen.
I took the opportunity to look around her apartment. I knew it wasn’t polite or nice to look through someone else’s things. I wouldn’t have liked it if someone looked through my stuff. I told myself it was okay because I needed some clues to what was going on, but really I was just curious.
The three rooms on top of Wicked Weaves were sparse like my room in the hut. You’d never guess Mary had lived there for ten years. There were small, personal touches, but mostly it was very plain.
I looked at the tiny, carved wooden animals she collected. There was an owl, a horse and a chicken. There was no sign of baskets or sweetgrass up here. I guessed she got enough of that downstairs.
Her clothes in the tiny closet were brightly colored and almost the same; dresses and matching scarves and shawls. Everything was made of cotton. She seemed to have two pairs of sandals: the one she was wearing and the other in her closet. They were exactly the same.
In all, I had no feeling for the woman who lived here. If I hadn’t known Mary already, I wouldn’t have learned anything about her besides the fact that she liked carved animals. Everything else was something you might find in a hotel.
I took a brief peek at her bed. Now there was something that gave her away. Mary might not have any elegant clothes or room decor, but she had expensive sheets. They were at least a thousand threads per square inch. Premium. I smiled, thinking about that indulgence.
I heard a noise downstairs and hurried out of her room. I didn’t want her to come back and catch me snooping around. Especially since I hadn’t learned anything of value doing it.
But it was only my brother Tony. “How did you get in here?” I asked him. I knew I’d locked the doors.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I have a key that opened the door.”
“Let’s see.” We went outside and locked the front door. Tony used his key and got back inside. “Where did you get that?”
“Remember when I was working at the pub for a while? Brewster gave it to me to open early so he wouldn’t have to come in.” Tony frowned. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“So one key opens the whole Village?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried it. One key seems to open Brewster’s and Wicked Weaves. Why all the questions?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, weird things have been happening here the last few days. Give me the key.”
“Weird things always happen here, Jessie.” He laughed and handed me the key. “We’re in the middle of a village built on an old airstrip and set up to look like it’s in the Middle Ages.”
I totally lost it with that statement. “This is not the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were between 1000 and 1450. The Renaissance came after the Middle Ages. I can’t believe you don’t know that!”
“I can’t believe you bothered telling me. They all look the same to me. If you see one group of peasants riding horses, you’ve seen them all.”
“Tony, peasants don’t ride horses. Haven’t you learned anything being here?”
“That my sister is a crazy history person? Yeah, I’ve learned that.”
We stood facing each other, and I thought again about how different we were. I’m not sure the doctor knew what he was talking about when he said we were twins. How could that be possible when we’re so different?
“Why are you here, anyway?” I stopped staring at him and started straightening up the baskets around the room.
“I’m getting ready to leave with Tammy. I wanted to say good-bye.”
“You’re really leaving?”
He smiled and grabbed my hand. “Come with us. There’s more to the world than this place, Jess. We can have some fun.”
“You forget; I come
here for fun every summer. I have a job the rest of the year. This is a fun time for me.”
“Okay. I’ll call when I can. We’re taking Tammy’s car to Vegas. Maybe you can come out sometime and visit.” He hugged me, and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t pretend I wouldn’t miss him, even though he was always a problem.
“Be careful out there. They do mean stuff to cheaters.”
He pushed away from me. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t know. You’ve always cheated at Monopoly. I thought you might cheat at cards. They’re experts out there at catching card cheaters.”
“Thanks for spoiling the nostalgic mood, Sis. I guess I’ve always known what you think of me. Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”
I watched him slam out of the shop, sorry I’d said anything. He was right. I’d spoiled one of the few bonding moments we’d ever had. I don’t know why we aren’t closer, since we’re the only family we’ve got, but that’s the way it seems to be. People at the Village thought we were close. The truth was, we might be closer with him in Las Vegas.
With that depressing thought, I closed and locked both doors into Wicked Weaves and walked toward the castle, hoping to see Chase and Mary. The tide of people was flooding that way down the cobblestone street. Jack Be Nimble was hopping that way but took the time to stop and ask how I was doing. He was another summer love affair. But that was a long time ago.
Mother Goose was hurrying toward the castle with her bird. I asked her if she’d seen Chase or Mary. She said she hadn’t seen either one of them but would tell them I was looking for them if she did.
I would’ve scurried along with her to the castle, but I wanted to stop and test Tony’s theory. I figured the Three Pigs Barbecue would be as good a place as any. It looked like it was closed already; probably taking barbecue to the castle.
I glanced around, and no one seemed to be looking my way. Everyone was intent on what they were doing. I took the key Tony had given me out of my pocket and tried to open the Three Pigs’ door.
Just as I got the key in, one of the pigs came out with a surprised look on his pudgy face. These guys weren’t cast; they owned the place. All the brothers had a distinctly porcine look to their faces. “What are you doing?”
“I was wondering if you were gone already.” I tried to laugh it off. “I’ve had a craving for barbecue all day.”
He glanced at me. “You’ll have to get it at the castle. We’re closed.”
I thanked him, wishing I could remember any of their names or tell them apart. I hurried away, embarrassed to be caught trying to break into the diner. But I’d found out Tony was right. There was a master key. Who else knew that? I was going to have to ask Chase about it, if I ever saw him again.
The closer I got to the castle, the more congested the King’s Highway became. There were hundreds of visitors waiting in line to get inside and hundreds of vendors from the Village waiting in line to take their stuff inside. It was total chaos, even though Roger Trent was trying to organize everyone with a list on a scroll.
“My jerkin for a Palm Pilot,” the glass blower growled as I came closer. “This gets worse every year. We might have to do it more often or not at all.”
“Can I help?” I don’t know exactly what made me volunteer. I guess I felt sorry for him, and I knew I wanted to apprentice with him in the future.
“If you could organize the rabble, I can deal with the visitors.”
He handed me a list and a quill pen, then pointed me toward the vendors who I assumed must be the rabble. I got to the front of the line and started crossing off names. “The Feathered Shaft; the Hands of Time; the King’s Tarts; Lady Godiva; Merlin and his apprentice; Honey and Herb Shoppe; Harriet’s Hat House.”
It read like a Who’s Who of the Village. Most of the people I knew. They’d been there since the Village had opened. Some were new. Businesses closed and opened every few years. Maybe not so much here as in the real world. Most of the people who came here stayed because they fit into their strange surroundings.
The Three Pigs checked in with the head pig, the one who’d greeted me at the door, growling as he went by. The barbecue they carried in a white wheelbarrow smelled good. I smiled and passed them through.
Little Bo Peep came through with one fake sheep. It was actually a puppet, since they’d banned her real sheep from the castle after an accident a couple of years back. Now the only real animals allowed in the castle were the horses used for jousting.
A troupe of minstrels bowed to me as I checked them in. They were resplendent in gold and blue silk. I hoped they knew what they were doing. There was an ancient rule about out-dressing the king, queen, or any of the court that was established here as well. Anyone dressed grander than their betters could be asked to wear a flour sack the rest of the evening. It hadn’t happened to me, but I’d seen it happen to others. There was a protocol, crazy as it was. It had to be observed.
I looked up from my thoughts to check in the next person, dragon, or fairy, and stared into Abraham’s dark face. He was wearing a monk’s robe.
Twelve
Abraham broke into a sprint when he recognized me. I dropped my scroll and ran after him. “Someone with a radio, call Chase!”
“Get back here, Jessie! I need you.” Roger didn’t understand why I was leaving my post. I didn’t have time to explain.
For a semi-old guy, Abraham could really move. A professional football team could have used him. It had to be all that healthy living. He probably ate right and walked ten miles a day.
I kept sight of him through the crowd. The stream of people pushing into the castle was the only thing in my favor. If he wouldn’t have had to keep stopping for them, he would’ve lost me right away.
There was only one entrance into the castle. There were several exits, but that was because Harry and Livy were worried about people getting inside without paying for tickets. They probably wouldn’t have had any exits at all if the fire department hadn’t made them. But even Renaissance Faire Village wasn’t above the law.
There were several large turrets added on both sides of the castle last year. They flanked the great hall, which made up most of the castle space. Extensive work was done there each year to accommodate the growing numbers of visitors to the Village. There was balcony seating around the arena where the horses and knights competed.
It made the whole thing a little ungainly once you got inside. It didn’t look anything like a real castle in England or France. But the outside facade was enough for the visitors. Besides, they wanted someplace to eat their little chickens while they watched the bloodless show.
But back to getting into the castle. People were ushered into a long hall that divided at the end to allow for seating on both sides of the arena. At one end, like the head of the table, was where Livy and Harry held court. The other end was the massive kitchen where the food was prepared.
I skirted around the crowds of people jammed in, waiting to be seated. There was no sign of Abraham or his monk’s robe. There were no other monks in the crowd, which wasn’t unusual. Most people wanted to dress up for the occasion, and the event became a sea of lace, satin, and velvet. Of course there weren’t as many colors back in the days of the Renaissance, but historical accuracy can only go so far. I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell any of them their outfits didn’t fit in.
I caught sight of one of the handful of security guards who were specially hired for the feast. I tried to make him understand, but he blew me off. Probably thought I was a crazed troubadour. The bells were about to drive me crazy. They were bad enough when I wasn’t running.
I wished I could find Chase, but there was no sign of him. The chances were he wasn’t even at the castle yet. He always came to the feast late so he could make sure the Village was empty during that time.
I climbed up on a cask and surveyed the crowd. Not a brown monk’s hood among them. The security guard made me climb down when he saw me, even though I showed him
my Village pass. There was nothing more I could do.
It was embarrassing to admit Abraham had eluded me. Maybe I wouldn’t say anything. On the other hand, he was wearing a robe. That strengthened my theory that it was him who attacked Ham. What were the odds he’d be wearing a stolen monk’s robe and our only witness said a monk was in the smithy with Ham?
My antics caught Livy’s attention, and she beckoned me to follow her courtiers. She’d changed her velvet for lighter evening apparel. Her dress was made of silver silk and embroidered with little blue butterflies. Her bright red hair was pushed way up on her head and had huge, fake silver clips in it. The effect wasn’t good on her overall. She looked like a big bug of some kind. Not the most flattering thing you can say about someone.
I nudged aside a few ladies-in-waiting to reach her and tell her what was happening. She needed to know why I couldn’t indulge her every whim this evening. Otherwise, I’d be there all night entertaining her. “Livy! I think I found the man who murdered the guy you found by the privy.”
Wicked Weaves Page 13
