Old Wounds

by Vicki Lane

  28.

  …AND CONUNDRUMS

  Sunday, October 23

  Rosemary lifted her eyes to meet Elizabeth’s gaze.

  “No one knew about this hiding place—no one but Maythorn and me.”

  Phillip leaned closer to examine the beautiful little carving. “Fine work. Like those little Japanese whatsits—netsukes, I think they’re called. But you said you left a green heart…. When was that?”

  Rosemary took the carving and turned it to examine all sides. “I don’t understand.” The words were barely audible and she seemed not to have heard Phillip’s question.

  “Christmas of ’86—is that when you put the heart up here, Rosie? They’d quit searching for Maythorn by then.”

  “Yes…That was when I left the first note…and the heart. And the heart was still here the last time I left a note. That was two years later. I was about to turn thirteen and I had decided that it was childish to keep coming back and leaving notes that were never answered.”

  She glanced around, her eyes vacant. “It had snowed hard the night before, but I was determined to make the last trip up here before my birthday…before I became a teenager. I remember that the stone was hard to lift because it was frozen to the ground. I broke my stick trying to pry it loose.”

  Rosemary brushed a stray lock of hair away from her cheek. “Nothing had changed. All the notes I’d written before were still there, along with the little green heart. I wrote one last note and told Maythorn good-bye. And I never came back.”

  She looked from the overturned stone to the little sleeping winged fox, nestled in her hand.

  “Mum…” It was the voice of a young girl. “Mum…where did this come from? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand, Phillip. Who could have switched the carvings? And why?”

  The three of them had debated the question during lunch, without reaching any conclusion. The little carving sat on the dining table, its sleek black shape revealing nothing. Soon after the meal, Rosemary had left for Asheville. She and Jared planned to search newspapers on file at the library for references to Maythorn’s disappearance, in hope of finding some overlooked item that might suggest new avenues to explore.

  Phillip looked up from his textbook on criminal justice and the notes he was preparing for his class. Elizabeth had brought a stack of unpaid bills to the dining table and sat opposite him, quietly working her way through them. The sight of her across from him, brow furrowed in concentration, hair escaping from her long braid to curl around her face, was infinitely pleasing—a quiet domesticity that now seemed to him the way that life should be. Elizabeth, my love.

  But quiet domesticity could not last in the face of so many unanswered questions. Elizabeth had picked up the carved fox and was frowning at it. “Rosie was so definite that no one else knew about that secret stone. So how did this get there? And what happened to the notes Rosie left?”

  He put down his pen. “I was thinking about that. Who else would have known about that rock? Who else spent a lot of time in the woods and might have seen the girls hiding things?”

  He watched her face as she considered the implications. Several unwelcome ideas seemed to be suggesting themselves to her. “Jared might have seen them. Or Mike. Patricia and Moon weren’t much on being in the woods. And anyway, by the time Rosie left the last note, they’d all moved away. This was put there after the Mullins were gone.”

  “And who was still around…and was out in the woods a lot?”

  “Cletus. You think it was Cletus.” Her eyes were deep pools of sadness. “Do you think that means Cletus was the one responsible for what happened to Maythorn?”

  “No, not necessarily.” He reached out for the little carving. “I don’t know…in a way it seems to me that whoever left this might have been trying to make Rosemary feel better somehow—like all her notes to Maythorn had finally been answered.” He studied the enigmatic black fox. “It’s really fine work; where would Cletus have gotten something like this?”

  “Cletus carved things…animals…I remember he gave Laurel a little wooden pig years ago. It was beautifully done.”

  “Maythorn’s real name was Blackfox—right? And this black fox has wings—is it saying she’s in heaven, maybe? I don’t know—seems like a fairly sophisticated way to express something. Everyone keeps referring to Cletus as simple—could he have come up with this concept? This is more like something Sam might have thought of. Like those—”

  “Like those boxes he made for us that last Christmas, all with carving that referred to our names. And Sam might have seen Rosie going up that way after Maythorn was gone….” Elizabeth’s voice took on a defensive tone. “She wasn’t supposed to roam around alone anymore; I didn’t think she was. But obviously there were lots of things I didn’t know.”

  She turned to stare out the window at the distant mountains. Her pen tapped absently on the tabletop and her lips were half-parted. Phillip waited.

  “Maybe Sam made it and put it there for her to find…but she never went back.” Elizabeth’s words were slow and halting. “But I would have thought he’d have told me if he knew about the message place and that Rosie was leaving notes for Maythorn. I would have thought…” She seemed unable to go on.

  The sorrow in her voice stabbed at him and he set the little carving down. “Elizabeth—” he began and, as he spoke, the cell phone Gabby had given him vibrated against his hip. “Oh, hell, it’s a call I’ve got to take,” he apologized, and stood and moved toward the kitchen.

  Elizabeth’s gaze wandered over the warm shades of the mountains’ autumn foliage, vivid in the afternoon sun. From the kitchen she could hear the confidential murmur of Phillip’s voice.

  She reached for the carved stone fox. Could Sam have made this? I don’t think he ever worked in stone. It was always wood. This is more like some of the carvings we saw over in Cherokee—soapstone, I think. Is this something Driver made? All of his carvings were life-sized, but this…the scale is so different.

  The little figure slumbered on, its secret safe within the sheltering wings that wrapped it round.

  Phillip emerged from the kitchen, returning the cell phone to his waistband. “That was one of Del’s people—they’ve been looking at your ring and the box Sam made and they don’t think there’s any hidden message in either one. They’re sending them back.” The chair scraped noisily on the red-brown tile floor as he resumed his seat. “We’re running out of time here—word is Landrum’s appointment will be announced November 1—a week from tomorrow. If we find the deposition before then, Del is certain that Landrum will withdraw his name, just on the threat of it becoming public.”

  Elizabeth dragged her thoughts away from the enigma of the little fox. “But even if Landrum did get named Secretary of Defense—if we found the deposition eventually, couldn’t your friend still use it to discredit Landrum, force him to resign?”

  Phillip looked uncomfortable. “Thing is, it would get tricky for Del—possibly ruin his career if it all went public. Too many questions—why did we wait so long to bring this up?…what are Del’s personal interests here? It could get very ugly. And once Landrum was in the Cabinet, there’d be the whole loyalty question. They’d be asking Del why he hated America.” He pushed aside the textbook. “No, our best bet is to find the deposition and find it soon.” His brown eyes were steady on her. “Let’s go over this again, Elizabeth. Try to remember what gifts Sam gave you, beginning in ’98.”

  Four gifts: a small table, an outdoor bench, an early copy of Girl of the Limberlost, and a simple box for stationery, free of any cryptic carving or false bottom, were all that Elizabeth could remember.

  “That’s it, Phillip. Sometimes he gave me a plant or flowers on our anniversary, but I just don’t think there’s anything else.”

  Phillip was riffling through the pages of the book, examining them closely. Finally he closed it with a disappointed sigh. “Not a mark. An old book like that, you might expect t
o see something. It’s a not uncommon way of sending a message—low tech but—”

  “An old—wait a second!” Elizabeth jumped up and darted away, returning almost immediately with a small book.

  “I’d forgotten; he gave me this at some point during that last year, not for any special occasion but to replace one he’d lost—and there are some marks in it.”

  She held out the copy of Walden that he had seen on her bedside table. With a rising feeling of excitement, he took it from her. On the title page were the words “For Liz—Here are things that mustn’t be forgotten. With love, from Sam.”

  The inscription was dated February 12, 1999. Phillip began slowly to turn the creamy pages. The table of contents caught his eye with the faint check mark by the words “What I Lived For.”

  Turning to the indicated chapter, he began to grin. “Miz Goodweather, this could be it!”

  29.

  A VOICE FROM THE PAST

  Sunday, October 23

  “What do you think, Jared? Would your father be okay with our looking around the house at Mullmore? I’d really like to find Maythorn’s spy notebooks. Do you think he’d let us have a key?”

  Jared took a sip of his espresso before replying. They had spent several hours at the Pack Library, scanning the microfilmed pages of the Asheville Citizen-Times for November and December of 1986. At last, frustrated by the paucity of information, Rosemary had called a halt and the two had moved on to the coffee shop at a nearby bookstore.

  Now Rosemary watched him, supremely aware of his nearness across the tiny table. In these surroundings, peopled mainly by the younger, more raffish of Asheville’s denizens, with a sprinkling of aging hippies, Jared’s impeccable and conservative clothing, as well as his sleek good looks, set him apart.

  He smiled at her, perfect white teeth against the smooth tan of his face, gray-blue eyes regarding her with something like amusement, and suddenly she felt like the awkward little girl she had once been, seeing her friend’s brother as a being from another plane: untouchable, unknowable, unattainable—yet eagerly vying for his attention.

  “Would the notebooks still be there? The movers packed up most of the furniture and things—and even if you did find them, do you really think there’d be anything useful?”

  “I’m sure she hid them well—not in her dresser drawers or under her bed or anything easy.” Rosemary leaned toward Jared. “I think she said something about the basement—that they’d be safe there because we were the only ones who spent time down there. And yes, I think they could be important—Jared, what if she saw something she shouldn’t have and that was the reason—”

  He put his hand over hers but didn’t answer for a moment. At last he nodded. “You could be on to something; it’s certainly a possibility, anyway. God knows, everyone has secrets, including me. If we find those notebooks, I fully expect to see myself revealed as a drug fiend.” The blue gaze held her. “I have to plead guilty to buying the occasional baggie of home-grown marijuana from our redneck neighbors on the backside of the mountain. And I know that Maythorn knew. But so did Moon and Patricia—I took care to let them see how very bad I could be.”

  He winked at her and murmured, “Promise you won’t turn me in, Rosie, and we’ll go talk to Moon about the key to Mullmore right now.”

  “Jared and I went to see his father, and Mr. Mullins said he would meet us at Mullmore on Friday and let us in so Jared and I can look for Maythorn’s notebooks.”

  Elizabeth and Phillip, decorously reading in the living room, looked up to see a flushed and exuberant Rosemary standing in the doorway, a paper bag in one hand.

  “Mum, we went to that mission place you told me about. It was just like you said, all those people in the front yard and everything. And Mr. Mullins was really nice—almost as if he’d been expecting us. When I explained what I wanted to do, he just nodded and said that he thought it was a good idea and that I should let the Higher Power guide me. He said that he’d been avoiding Mullmore all these years, but that perhaps it was time for him to go back and face the past.”

  She waved the bag at them as she approached. “I picked up some bagels for breakfast, and some lox and cream cheese spread. Oh, and Mum—Mr. Mullins wanted you to call him. I’ve got a card with his number on it right here.”

  Rosemary thrust the little rectangle at Elizabeth, then disappeared into the kitchen. They could hear her humming as she opened and closed the refrigerator. Elizabeth looked at Phillip.

  “Well,” she said, reaching for the telephone, “I guess I’ll see what he wants.”

  Her one-time neighbor picked up on the first ring. “Redemption House. This is Moon. How can I help?”

  “Moon, this is Elizabeth Good—”

  “Elizabeth! Thank you for calling. I have someone here who wants to talk to you.”

  “Moon? Who—”

  There was a rustle of sound as the phone changed hands. Then a second voice murmured in her ear. “Elizabeth? This is Mike. I’m back.”

  How can the sound of a voice do that to me? Almost twenty years since I’ve spoken to him and I can still see him, the way he looked when I told him I’d made a mistake, that I couldn’t hurt Sam. The way he just stared at me with that uncanny stillness. And then he said—what was it—No, I think you’re making a mistake now. And he walked away and my heart nearly broke at the sight of his back, the way he held his shoulders as if supporting some invisible weight.

  Elizabeth had sought the refuge of her bathroom, too unnerved by the call to explain to Phillip the significance of this unexpected voice from the past. Phillip, aware of her penchant for long, soaking, tub baths, had not seemed to notice her agitation, but had continued on with his preparations for tomorrow’s class. Mercifully, Rosemary, too, had not asked about the call. Instead, she’d said good night, lost in her own thoughts, and explained that she would be leaving early in the morning to return yet again to Chapel Hill.

  As she lay back in the tub, Elizabeth’s mind was busy. Old dreams, long forgotten, and once well-buried regrets seemed to rise with the steam from the surface of the lavender-scented water.

  It all came down to the simple fact that I was convinced Sam no longer loved me…and that Mike did. I felt like Sam was ignoring me and I was hungry for love. And so…

  And so she had come close to tearing apart the life they had begun to build at Full Circle Farm.

  Thank god for that blessed bell…

  April 1985: their first spring on the farm. Sam, plagued by the nightmares of the past and the almost overwhelming job of learning to run a farm, had been unusually short-tempered as he struggled with the plowing and the planting. To his credit, she thought, he had always managed to remain easygoing and loving around the girls. Thank goodness for that. But on that one day, when so many things seemed to be going wrong and all I wanted was for him to put his arms around me like he used to do…to tell me it would be okay…

  Tears were running down her face, already damp from the steam of the bath. Instead, he was so cold, so hateful, that I felt like he was some stranger inhabiting Sam’s body. And then he walked out of the house, saying he didn’t know when—or if—he’d be back.

  She had watched the truck out of sight, then, when Laurel had asked where Pa was going, had concocted a quick story. She had gone through the rest of the day with mechanical cheerfulness when Laurel was around, but with a foreboding that knotted her stomach.

  As soon as Rosie gets home from school, I’ll go for a walk in the woods. If I can just get off by myself for a little while, I can figure out what to do.

  Finally Rosemary had appeared, trudging slowly up the road, an open book held before her. As soon as she reached the house, Elizabeth had charged her with watching Laurie, “Just for a half an hour,” had put on her old straw hat, and headed for the woods.

  Thick-growing wild iris made a pool of lavender-blue on the slope at the edge of the wood and she sat down on a fallen tree, hoping that the flowers’ cool beauty
would calm her and soothe the pain she felt. She was staring unseeing at the flowers, numb and unable to think, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  His hair was silver-gilt in the afternoon sun and his eyes mirrored the iris. He knelt beside her and brushed his fingers against her cheek.

  “Rosie called Maythorn to say she had to stay home with Laurie.” His breath was sweet and clove-scented. “I wondered if I might find you here again.”

  I forgot about the time; I forgot about the girls; I forgot about all the promises I’d made—for better or worse. He made me feel…treasured.

  And then, like a savage intruder into a peaceful dream, had come the frantic clanging of the farmhouse bell on the front porch, the bell that was reserved for emergencies. She had been on her feet and racing toward the house almost at once, without a backward glance.

  On the porch, a white-faced Rosemary ran to her, clutching at her hand and dragging her toward the door as she stammered out an explanation. Laurel, climbing the steep steps up to Rosemary’s bedroom, had slipped and tumbled down the stairs. “She won’t wake up, Mum! She’s breathing but she won’t wake up!”

  Horror-struck, Elizabeth had burst into the house to find her younger daughter sprawled at the foot of the stairs. Far down the hill the welcome sound of Sam’s returning truck grew louder.

  They had bundled both girls into the truck and, pausing only to leave Rosie with Miss Birdie, had pushed the vehicle to its rattling, groaning limits for a nerve-wracking trip to the emergency room in Asheville. There had followed hours of anxious waiting, the exchanging of bitter self-recriminations, and then, finally with the dawn, the joyful news that Laurel was conscious and would make a full recovery. And somewhere in those awful, endless hours between night and morning, their marriage bonds, strained and worn almost to the breaking point, had been mended.