by Vicki Lane
Elizabeth gently took the shears from her nephew as he waved them at her. “Ben, that dime store closed at least fifteen years ago. And it sat empty, just like the old grocery store and all the other little businesses that shut down. When the new road opened and made it easy to get into Asheville, folks just started doing their shopping where it was cheaper. And where their jobs were. And speaking of new people—what are we?” She clipped the ragged stems of a bunch of lavender. “Plus, you have to admit, the deli has great sandwiches. And it’s a kind of gathering place—whenever I’m in town I always see people I know there.”
He was shamefaced now, looking with startled recognition at the marks the pruning shears had left on the table. “Yeah, I’ve been eating there too, now and then. But I still wish—” He broke off. Then the words burst out. “Aunt E, I’m sorry but I’ve got to get away from here for a while. I don’t know…I might go to Florida…. Mom’s been after me to come down for a visit and…well, I just need some time to think about things.”
Elizabeth’s first instinct was to throw her arms around her nephew, but his face warned her off. Only a few days past, Ben’s romantic involvement with a beautiful but troubled woman had ended abruptly. Much of the drama had played out right there on Full Circle Farm; indeed, a wreath the girl had made not long ago hung on the wall by the door, and Elizabeth tried not to let her eyes go to its somber circle of rosemary. The dark red roses that adorned it had dried to resemble nothing so much as clotted blood. Rosemary for remembrance…why didn’t I think to take that down?
“…feel really shitty about leaving. I mean, here you made me a partner in the business and all, but if I don’t get away…” Ben was pacing now. “I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t think Julio and Homero could take up the slack.”
He was right, of course. Now that Julio’s brother-in-law Homero was joining him in the little house across from the workshop and drying sheds, the work would still get done. And if Julio’s wife and children were able to make the move from Mexico soon, there would be even more help. Elizabeth raised her hand to lay it on Ben’s arm, to arrest his pacing, to achieve some sort of contact.
“Hey, Ben, it’s okay. Things slow down along about now. It’ll be fine. We’ll manage….”
“I’ll get everything caught up and I’ll make sure that Homero understands the work before I take off.” Quivering under her touch like a high-strung horse ready to bolt, he had hardly heard her. “I just have to be away from here before—”
“Ben, it’ll be fine.” She fought to keep any hint of chagrin from tainting her reassurances. “I understand. Really. When do you want to leave?”
He closed his eyes and exhaled a long sigh of relief. “I was afraid you’d be pissed.” He looked around the workshop, then went to the big permanent calendar that mapped out the farm’s yearly schedule. Tracing his finger along the days of October, he frowned. “I don’t know…maybe next week? Once we get the greenhouses ready for winter, the load ought not to be too much for the guys.”
Elizabeth returned to her wreath, struggling to conceal her feelings. “Rosie’s coming home for the weekend. I know she’d want to see you before you take off. What if I plan a family dinner for Friday night? Then you could leave Saturday or Sunday, if you wanted.”
Ten uncomfortable minutes later, the van’s door slammed and Elizabeth heard the roar of the engine and a spatter of gravel as Ben and Julie drove off. It’ll do him good to get away. He’s hurt and confused and needs to figure things out…. And a little time with Gloria will probably remind him why he came here in the first place.
Ben Hamilton, the only child of Elizabeth’s much-married (and much-divorced) sister, Gloria, had been born in the same year as Elizabeth’s daughter Laurel, and from an early age had spent his summers at Full Circle Farm. After graduating from college, he had come to Elizabeth and asked to learn the ins and outs of her work—growing and selling herbs and flowers. Ben had quickly become a valuable asset to the farm and Elizabeth had made him a partner in the business.
And now he’s leaving. Just when I’d started depending on him. Just when…But he said it wouldn’t be for long. I don’t know…this thing…this romantic entanglement may have hit him harder than I know. Oh, Ben…
She tidied up the worktable, moving mechanically: putting the unused flowers back in their baskets, returning the wire, the pruning shears, and various implements to the proper places, bringing a semblance of order to the chaos of the crowded workshop. The familiar spicy-sweet smell of the dried herbs interwoven with the new-mown hay aroma of dried grasses and flowers filled her nose. The baskets of dried flowers were a muted rainbow, a soft symphony of color. Poignant melancholy swept over her as she surveyed the rich harvest of her summer’s labor. Everlastings. They call dried flowers everlastings. But, in point of fact, they’re only good for about a year. Then they fade and get dusty and covered with cobwebs. And you toss them out.
Her spirits lifted as she ate her lunch—a quick bowl of ramen with dried shiitake slivers, cut-up green onions, a bright red blob of fiery Sriracha sauce, and an egg poached gently in the broth. Her silver spoon broke into the bright yolk nested in the soft white noodles, and she paused to enjoy the picture the vivid colors made in the cobalt blue bowl—a picture of domestic comfort, like those old Dutch paintings. She smiled to find herself so cheered—and by a twenty-cent pack of noodles too. Am I a cheap date or what?
As she washed the few dishes, the sight of yellow leaves whirling against the clear blue sky beyond the kitchen window called to her. Maybe a walk before I go back to the shop—I could stand to get away myself.
Lacing up her boots, Elizabeth looked around for the dogs. They were usually frantic with joy at the prospect of a walk into the woods, but at the moment they were nowhere to be seen. Off on their own adventures, no doubt.
“Alone, alone, all all alone!” She declaimed Coleridge’s melodramatic lament in a mock-lugubrious tone and found that she was smiling again as she walked toward the grassy track at the top of the pasture. In the shade by her toolshed, she paused to check the stack of oak logs that Ben had inoculated with mushroom spawn. A lone shiitake the size of a silver dollar, its chestnut cap edged with tiny mocha dots, protruded from an upper log.
Nearby, a shaft of sunlight through the trees illuminated an unruly patch of hardy begonias, shining through the intricate tracery of the red-veined leaves and setting alight the delicately pinky-tan winged seedpods that dangled from slender red stems like inverted candelabra.
Beneath the trees a carpet of fallen leaves covered the still-green grass and made a satisfying crackle as she shuffled through them. Not much color yet—the occasional scarlet and some gold amid lots of brown. The earthy smell of leaf mold was pleasant and she inhaled deeply. To every thing there is a season. The words ran through her head as she pushed open the metal gate and stepped into the sunshine of the pasture.
The vista here always took her breath. At the house, the view from the porch had, year by year, become more limited as the trees below grew taller. Someday she would have them cut down, Elizabeth thought, and restore the view to what it had been when she and Sam first came to the farm. It was beautiful, even with the trees blocking the view, and the far peaks of the Blue Ridge were still visible in places, but sooner or later, steps would have to be taken.
She set out across the path that ran into the woods. The wild flowers of autumn, starry lavender asters, deep purple ironweed, and bright goldenrod dotted the mountainside above and below her. At the edge of the woods, where there was more moisture, a patch of deep blue-violet lobelia pooled at the foot of a tall persimmon tree.
Stopping to drink in the view, Elizabeth sat on a rustic bench, one of four Sam had set along this walk. The locust logs that supported the broad oak plank were showing signs of decay and the seat was slightly wobbly. More change. But you can’t make time stand still. She pivoted to look up the hill, up to the southern ridge that separated Full Circle Farm from Mullmore—the
one-time home of the Mullins family. The slope was thick with black pines, and the sound of the wind through them was a melancholy moan. “Soughing”—that’s what the wind is doing. What a great word—like “wuthering.”
She stood and looked at the ridge, considering. The ghost of a trail curled up the slope and disappeared into the pines. That must be the route that Rosie and Maythorn used. Rosie took Sam and me and Laurel along it, that time we went to Krystalle’s big birthday party—that awful party. That would have been ’85, the year before Maythorn disappeared.
The path was still recognizable—probably part of the dogs’ vast network of appointed rounds—and Elizabeth studied it, appraising the possibilities. It was so beautiful and manicured over there…all that professional landscaping…the rose garden…and it’s been almost twenty years since anyone’s lived there. I wonder what’s left.
She thought about her unfinished wreaths down in the workshop, but the faint trail was too enticing. She started up the slope. Behind her the wind riffled the poplar trees, twirling the leaves with a thousand brittle rustlings to sparkle gold and green in the sun. Higher up, the pines grew close and dark, their long shadows thrusting toward her, but beyond them there was sunlight.
She paused to look back at Full Circle Farm. A hawk was circling high over the fields below and she saw the flash of his pale belly and then the copper gleam of his broad tail. He circled once more, then set his wings and soared south in her direction, crowning the ridge and dropping down into the hidden cove that had been Mullmore.
Elizabeth climbed steadily toward the ridge, carefully pushing aside the pine branches when their prickly fingers brushed her face. Here the trees grew so close that most of the usual clutter of multiflora rose and black-berry bramble had not been able to gain a foothold. Her boots trod noiselessly on the soft duff of pine needles and she was soon at the top, at her line fence.
And here was the scuttle hole that Sam had built so many years ago, a narrow, zigzag parting in the fence that a person, but not a cow, could slip through. As she angled herself through the opening she could hear him saying, Now maybe those girls won’t keep snagging their clothes trying to crawl under the barbed wire. And for two years the path and the scuttle hole had seen almost daily use as the two little girls ran in and out of each other’s homes, families, lives. Elizabeth stood there on the other side of the fence, remembering. And then it stopped. I don’t think Rosie ever came up this way again. I know I didn’t.
Long rays of afternoon sun shafted through the old hardwoods—maples, poplars, hickories, and oaks—that guarded the upper slopes of Mullmore. Emerging from the deep, chill shade of the pines into the brilliance of this south-facing slope was like coming into another country, a dreamlike, mazy kingdom of slanting autumn light. A small wind trembled through the treetops and a shower of brilliant leaves swirled around her. Like Danaë, she thought, when Zeus came to her disguised as a shower of gold. Caught in the dream, she held out her arms and lifted her face to feel the leaves flutter against it. She stood there as the air grew still and the leaves fell to the ground. Then she set off down the trail that led to the clearing below…and to whatever remained of Mullmore.
3.
SLEEPING BEAUTY’S CASTLE
Wednesday, October 5
The trail wound through the trees, a narrow ribbon twisting down the wooded slope. Far below her and only partially visible through overgrown shrubbery and rampant wild vines, Elizabeth could see the dark red tile roofs of the abandoned house and outbuildings. Mullmore lay in the heart of the sheltered cove that previous generations had known as “the ol’ Ridder place.” Almost two hundred acres, it had once been a prosperous farm, comprised of steep woodland, gently rolling pastures, and an unusually large stretch of level bottom—so-called “tractor-land,” much prized for ease of cultivation. But when the Mullins had bought the property at a staggering price—“Paid cash for it too” the local grapevine had insisted, “cash out of a suitcase”—it had swiftly become apparent that they did not intend to farm.
The log barns had been sold—dismantled and hauled off on trucks. And the weathered old farmhouse, with its gently sagging porches festooned with ancient rambling roses, had been demolished in favor of the massive, four-storied brick Tudor-style house that rose in less than a year. The fact that no local builders were employed had rankled the native inhabitants of Ridley Branch and they had watched, incredulous, as truck after truck of building supplies were followed by a small fleet of campers, bearing the crew of workers. Soon the dwelling under construction was spoken of as “a mansion house” and speculation ran wild as to what the “millionaire new folks” would do next.
All the construction and landscaping had been finished when we moved here, but people were still talking about it. I think some of them were a little disappointed when we built such an ordinary, modest house. Elizabeth’s neighbor Dessie, gone now, but always vividly alive in memory, had declared, “Why you uns ain’t a bit like them Mullinses! You and yore man is just as common!” It was a compliment, Elizabeth had come to realize.
She continued her descent, out of the forest into the rolling meadow that had circled the many-gabled house like a smooth jade collar. Smooth no longer. She picked her way through a maze of rampant growth: locust saplings in thorny and painful profusion; tall pokeweed that leaned over her, its strong magenta stems culminating in dangling clusters of hard emerald berries; and then a regiment of pale gray-green thistles, standing like prickly sentinels, their purple blooms mostly gone to down. A bevy of goldfinches, disturbed at their feeding, rose up from the thistles in a twittering cloud and scattered in their curious swooping, faltering flight.
I can understand why the Mullins would have wanted to leave after such a tragedy. But why didn’t they try to sell the place? The great house loomed in the center of the cove bottom: a towering mass of deep purple-red brick relieved by multiple half-timbered gables. The lower windows were masked with plywood, but the upper ones were bare, their multiple panes winking blindly in the sun. It was an impressive piece of architecture and could have taken its place in a prosperous gated community without exciting comment. Tudor revival—“stockbroker Tudor,” I think the Brits call it. But here—I don’t know—it’s like a spaceship in a cornfield.
It probably had been a cornfield, she mused, standing at the outer edge of the formal landscaping that had transformed this particular bit of Appalachia into the semblance of an English estate. Before her, the empty swimming pool gaped, its azure-tiled basin stained by the detritus of many seasons. She walked to the edge and saw that among the drifts of leaves and rotting black walnut hulls were the scattered and bleached bones of some large animal—a deer? It must have blundered in and couldn’t get out. She turned away, with a sick pang, saddened as always, at the suffering of animals in a man-made world. The suffering of the innocent.
Broad limestone paving, now almost invisible beneath the fallen leaves, ringed the pool. Stately urns that she had last seen filled with late-blooming azaleas, their pink and coral blooms massed in tight perfection, now overflowed with a jumble of dead or dying weeds and a few tiny persistent seedling maples.
She remembered the scene as it had been twenty years ago: the pool shimmering turquoise, the assorted parents, drinks in hand, milling about, while at the far end of the pavement, in the open pavilion, a top-hatted magician entertained his audience of children. The pavilion was shuttered now, the children grown. Except for Maythorn. Elizabeth stood bemused, unwelcome memories flooding back, threatening to overcome her.
Well, here you are at last! Patricia Mullins had separated herself from a chattering crowd and hurried on clicking high heels toward Sam and Elizabeth. Tight blue jeans outlined her shapely legs and her blue chambray “work shirt,” heavily embellished with rhinestone studs, was partially unbuttoned to display an impressive bosom. Y’all must be worn out, letting those girls drag you through the woods like that. You should have come around by the road. She grabbed Sa
m’s elbow possessively and tugged him toward the bar. You come right over here and get a drink. I’m just dyin’ to introduce my big handsome neighbor to some of my girlfriends. Elizabeth, you want to go on and take Miss Laurel in with the kidlets? They’re having such fun. She had paused, looking Elizabeth up and down. You might want to freshen up a bit—you know where the little girls’ room is.
“Bitch!” Elizabeth had hardly known that she’d spoken, and the harsh sound of her own voice startled her. With a last bitter glance around her, she moved across the terrace and down three wide shallow steps into the remains of the sunken rose garden that lay at the back of the house.
Twenty years ago, at that horrible party, it had been early June and the roses had been at their best. Fat and sprawling, the blowsy petals had shed an intoxicating fragrance, marred only slightly by the acrid smell of the fungicides and insecticides necessary to achieve such perfection. Each curving bed had been devoted to a single variety. Roses ranged from the deepest reds at the garden’s center through corals, deep and then lighter pinks, yellows, and, at last, on the perimeter, a mass of white. The effect had been glorious, especially when seen from an upper window in the house.
I was a fool to go up there with him—all because I was angry with Sam. I should have known…. She thrust the bitter memories aside and surveyed the ruin of the garden. All that work and all that money…all gone to waste now. Today, only a few roses remained amid the weeds—unruly whip-like stems with mildewed leaves—the hardy roses that sprout from rootstock even after the fancy grafted cultivars have succumbed to disease or weather. A statue—a classic nude clutching her stony draperies ineffectually to her chest—had been knocked from its plinth to lie half-buried beneath a tangle of brambles.
The blackberry bushes seemed to be ahead in the Darwinian struggle of survival. They were everywhere, coursing thickly up the dark red walls of the house, barring entry almost as effectively as did the plywood shuttering the windows. They snagged her clothes and skin with their thorns as she threaded her way out of the rose garden to the deserted tennis court beyond.
