“And one of the prettiest. Why don’t you walk breakfast off on the avenue? It’ll take you up to the main complex. If the whole Hershey Corporation can’t solve your problem, no one can.”
Chapter 20
As Scott strolled down Chocolate Avenue later that morning, the fragrant bouquet from the hanging flower baskets gave way to a sugary nutty scent. He stopped opposite the Hershey Peanut Butter Cup facility.
“I’m in Wonkaville,” he remarked.
Soon after, he cottoned onto the street lights. High above the flower baskets, each lamp shade was depicted in the shape of a Hershey’s Kiss candy. They alternated from lamp-to-lamp, silver and brown, wrapped and unwrapped. As far as the eye could see, every lamp carried the iconic shape.
- God, Jules. I don’t think I’ve seen this many Hershey’s Kisses since—
- The night you gave me the ring?
- Yeah.
- Me neither. How many did you use?
- Over 2,000. Do you know how long it took me to collect 2,000 Hershey’s Kisses?
- How long did it take you to lay out the trail?
- Bout five hours. I skewered my finger four times threading them together.
- I was so surprised. Opening the apartment door like that. Finding the line strung up right inside.
- I thought you’d just cheat and cut straight to the end. Miss all the good bits.
- Not a chance, babe. Anyway, the note in the basket made it clear.
- ‘Fill me.’
- Yup. And the other hung at the start of the chain.
- ‘Follow me.’
- That basket weighed a ton by the time I got to the end.
- Had to weaken your resistance for when I popped the question.
- How could I resist, holding a lifetime’s supply of chocolate in one hand and that beautiful ring in the other? Oh my god. That last note at the end of the trail. ‘Wear me…?’ You didn’t need the question mark, you know.
- Is that ring still on your hand, Jules?
- You didn’t find it, did you?
- That says nothing.
- And you think the note said everything?
- It said enough.
- It said what it said, nothing more.
- Who were you trying to be?
- Does it matter? You can make me into whatever you need right now by how you’re doing this.
- This?
- Whatever’s going on inside that head of yours, Scott.
- In my head? Let’s see, I’m talking to myself. That’s a sure sign of psychosis.
- You think you’ve lost it?
- Haven’t I? I’m walking down Main Street, Hershey. Middle of the day. Talking to you. At any moment I’ll probably start speaking aloud. It’s one step away from the guys in white pants with butterfly nets appearing behind me.
- Well, let’s try the standard test. Stop a sec. Ok. What’s today’s date?
- I’m not doing this.
- Indulge me. What’s the date?
- August 25th.
- Promising. Who won the World Series?
- Your guys did. Sox.
- Such acceptance of painful reality. I’m reassured. Last one: who’s the President?
- Your answer would be Dick Cheney.
- There you go. Totally in touch. You are officially compos mentis, as much as a registered Republican can be anyway.
- Thanks. Except for one thing.
- Which is?
- You’re still not really here, Jules. And I’m holding a conversation with you anyway.
- Yes. That is unsettling. Why are you?
- Just working it through, I guess.
- Killing time until Dallas?
- Suppose so.
- And when you get there? What then?
- Ah. Shit. I dunno. I get down on my knees and beg you to come back with me?
- Is that going to work again?
- ‘Again’?
- Like when you proposed to me? The only other time you went down on bended knee.
- That’s the done thing, isn’t it?
- You shouldn’t have had to. I ought to have truly known that you wanted to marry me. You didn’t need clichéd gestures to back up your sincerity.
- I didn’t want to lose you then.
- So it was a knee-jerk reaction at the time, done out of fear?
- No. Maybe you’re confusing it with your actions. Leaving like that. No explanation. None worth a damn anyway. Stop trying to make this about me.
- You’re the only one here, Scott. It’s all about you.
- Is that your way of saying this is all my fault?
- Ask the question that’s been bugging you for the last two days.
- I thought we were happy. Not perfect or anything. Just happy.
- Ask the question, Scott.
- Ok. Don’t you love me any more, Julianna?
- Why do you doubt that I do?
- Because you gave me no warning, no indication at all. You just left. If you loved me then how could you do that?
- People stay—without love. How can they do that, long after they’ve even begun to despise the other person. How could they do that to another human being, let alone themselves?
- Does that make it honorable then? Bailing out is doing the right thing?
- No. That was an act of pure selfishness.
- Maybe it was an act of love, even if it was selfish. Maybe you did it for your own dignity, for your own… self-worth. And for whatever feelings you had left for me too. Pity, no doubt.
- Love is selfish, I think. You don’t love someone for their betterment. You love them because of the way it makes you feel. Having them around is better for you. When someone says ‘I can’t live without you’, that’s not an expression of selfless unconditional love. That’s selfish. ‘You need to stay for my good, not for your own.’ That’s all it means.
- And you, Jules, can you live without me?
- It’s killing you to know the answer to that, isn’t it?
- Yes.
- Yet you’ll plough ahead to find out.
- I don’t want answers. I want you. If I can’t have that then I just want… closure. From your lips to my ear.
- And I bet you want to finally cut loose about—
- No. I’m not going there. That’s dead and buried.
- That remains to be seen. Hey, can you smell that?
- What?
- The peanut’s gone. Smell. It’s all chocolate now.
- There’s why.
- I guess it’s the main Hershey factory.
- I’m disappointed.
- Why is that?
- It doesn’t look anything like I expected.
- You expected candy cane towers puffing marshmallow smoke into a Kool-Aid blue sky?
- Kinda.
- Welcome to the real world, Scott. The sweet things in life don’t seem so sweet when you have to roll up your sleeves and fix the greasy machines that make them, do they?
Chapter 21
Williamsport, Maryland
Thursday August 25
The clock tower showed 5:50pm where Scott parked under it on Conococheague Street. He scanned the store fronts. There it was—two doors down—a hanging sign exactly like the image on the flier he held. He walked beneath it and looked up.
The painting on the board showed a woman’s silhouetted head. She wore a tall Victorian riding hat, a full veil falling from its brim. The translucent mesh of her veil was lit by a bright moon over her right shoulder, light which also carved the outline of her darkened face beneath it. Almost in profile, her head titled slightly to look down at the street. Scott imagined he saw sadness in the downturned set of her mouth. The artist had allowed some other unseen point of light to catch her eyes. It seemed to Scott her gaze was on him, and with no rational basis, he sensed menace in it. It didn’t escape him that she also wore a cameo clasp on her neck scarf.
He pushed the store door open and entered
‘The Veiled Lady’s Jewel Box’. A woman acknowledged him from behind a center circular display counter.
“Hi. Are you about to close?” he inquired.
“Not quite. What were you looking for?”
He waved the flier. “I saw this in the lobby of the Red Roof when I was checking in. It says you do custom and antique jewelry.” He fished the broach from his jacket. “I’m trying to find out something about this piece.”
As she took it from him, her eyes widened. “Wow, aren’t we a heavy little thing.”
“I assumed it was gold,” said Scott.
“It could be plated.” She considered the pieces in the glass display and selected a large teardrop pendant. “This is solid silver,” she explained. “About the same metal content as yours.” She tested the pair in each of her hands. “But nowhere near as heavy. See for yourself.”
Scott took both and lifted one against the other. His broach won hands-down—literally—by some considerable margin.
“Does that mean it’s solid gold?” he asked.
“Pure 24-karat gold is rarely used for jewelry. It isn’t durable enough for it. It’s mixed with a base alloy for rigidity. 18-karat is the usual upper-end, three-quarters gold content. I’d say you’re close.”
“Is there a test?”
“Sure. We can do acid and density tests here. They aren’t super-scientific but they would put us in the ballpark. How long are you going to be staying in town?”
“Just the night. To be honest, I’m more interested in where this came from. I’ve stared at it for hours but the design means nothing to me.”
She looked hard at it. “It is exquisite. Nothing I recognize but that’s typical of bespoke pieces.”
“I couldn’t see any indication of where it was made. The hallmark is kinda hard to read.”
“We call that a maker’s mark. Yes, it’s very faint but we can imprint it and see what shows up on a search.”
Scott dug his wallet out. “I’m on a schedule so I have to leave first thing. Could you maybe do the tests and take a photo or something. If there’s some kind of database or reference that might shed some light on it, it’ll be more than I have now. I’ll pay you for whatever your time is.”
“Hold on for one minute, would you?” she asked. “Can I take this in back for just a second?”
He nodded.
The clerk disappeared through a curtained doorway at the rear of the store. Scott absently perused the display case until she returned.
“Ok. Good news. Nita—she’s one of my jewelry makers—is in the back. She says she can run the tests quickly for you. Even better, she’s got the mold-maker fired up right now so we can take a full impression of the piece and make enquiries and contact you if anything crops up.”
“Sounds great.” Scott wrote his details for her.
“Thanks, Scott. I’m Marion.”
“You’re not the veiled lady, are you? The store name I mean.”
“Oh, I have been, when I could run fast enough.”
He looked puzzled at her.
“The Veiled Lady is the Williamsport town legend,” she explained. “A local artist did our sign.”
Marion reached under the display deck and took out a large photo album. She opened it to a clear eight-by-ten reproduction of the hanging sign.
“She kinda creeped me out,” said Scott.
“Really? Mac will love hearing that. He said he wanted her to appear both sinister and sad.”
“Why is she sad?”
“Well, she’s real. Reputed to have lived here sometime about 1850. A woman of breeding, married to a man of means and station in the town.”
“Lemme guess. All not well on the homefront?”
“Alas, no. She suspected her husband of having an affair so she took to following him at night through the town. She’d don a bonnet and hide her face behind a veil so he wouldn’t recognize her. Then she wandered the night in search of him.”
“Couldn’t she ever find him?” Scott laughed, “I mean, it’s not a big town. No disrespect.”
Marion smiled. “None taken. Can you imagine how small a hamlet this was back then? Hard to believe it nearly became the Nation’s capitol. That’s the beauty of small town legends. They get pumped up to proportions beyond the truth’s capacity to sustain them. It’s a nice hook to hang the town on though. Thus, the legend demands that she never found him. And so she wanders the streets to this day, albeit to a more sinister end.”
Scott laughed nervously, instinctively glancing over his shoulder. Marion guffawed at his skittishness.
“Oh Lord,” she said, “you thought someone was going to leap out from behind the keychain carousel?”
“It had crossed my mind. You were starting to do that… you know, campfire voice.”
“Hmm. I don’t doubt it,” she chuckled. “I’ll get a flashlight and stick it under my chin with the lights out if you want the full Abner. I love telling the story, especially to tourists. It’s thin on substance so it needs some theatre to flesh it out.”
“I can’t be responsible for my actions if someone does leap out behind me. I’m just telling you.”
Marion touched his arm. “Scout’s honor. You’re safe… for now.”
“So what’s this sinister end of hers?”
“Well, her spirit walks Williamsport and takes children from the street; anyone foolhardy enough to get caught alone on her path. They know better, but some still do: on a dare or to impress a girl or as a stupid rite of passage. Poor, poor silly souls. They venture out anyway. She will only take the lone child, everyone knows that. So those that risk it and live to tell, no one’s going to believe they encountered her and survived. And the handful that never came back, the three gone forever? Well, they can’t tell their tale, so where was their glory?”
Marion shook her head wistfully. Silence hung in the store.
“Wow. You were really convincing,” Scott complimented her. “It’s all crap though? No one’s ever gone missing, right?”
Marion blew a refined raspberry “No. Horse poop, all of it. Although whenever the high school team tanks, we say The Lady had our defense.”
She showed Scott a mosaic of pictures in the album, snaps of scared-silly kids fleeing an approaching figure in a black Victorian dress, her face veiled.
“Halloween. It’s the town tradition,” she explained. “My eldest girl was The Lady in this one here. The kids play hide and seek for prizes. Still, we make sure to take a conscientious head count before and after,” she added with a knowing smile.
Nita, the jeweler, emerged from the back room, a light-skinned pretty Indian woman of an age Scott was hard-pressed to guess.
“So Miss Mar, this is the man bearing mysteries?”
“Kinda,” Scott answered. “I’m grateful for any light you can shed.”
“Anything in pursuit of a good story. I hope we can give this one a happy ending,” Nita replied, returning the broach to Scott.
Scott shook their hands and was half out the door when Marion called after him.
“Scott, do you want to see her?”
“Who?” He was briefly confused. He had Julianna in his thoughts.
“The Veiled Lady. I can guarantee she’ll walk the streets tonight.”
“Right,” he snorted.
“No, seriously. Come back to the store just before Midnight, not a minute later. I swear you’ll see her.”
“Ok. We’ll see.”
“Just one thing. If you do see her, don’t move. She might not see you then. If she does… well, we’re glad to have known you.” Marion’s eyes sparked mischievously. Even Nita was smirking.
“I’ll hear from you soon, I hope. Night,” he said, stepping out.
Chapter 22
After dinner, Scott walked back into town. He considered it merely a constitutional. Still, he found himself outside the ‘Veiled Lady’ store as midnight approached.
“This is so dumb,” he muttered.
The store was obviously closed. Even so, he tested the door and peered into the darkened interior, half-suspecting the two women were secreted inside, giggling at his gullibility.
The street was quiet and he was the only person out.
He extracted his keys and considered sharply tapping the glass to spook them, if they really were lurking.
But he didn’t; because the street was very, very quiet.
Suddenly the clock tower rang out. It chimed a rhythmical farewell to the day and fell silent. Scott looked up and down the street as the first peel of midnight then struck. He counted off the dozen gongs. The stillness resumed, only a dog barking beyond the distant river.
He was about to turn from the door when a reflection in it stopped him. Something moved on the other side of the street, coming slowly in his direction.
He looked down the length of Conococheague Street and spotted it: a shadow flowing unhurriedly across the faces of the buildings opposite, a human form which rose and fell with each step it took. He recognized the distinctive shape of the riding hat on its head. Slowly he turned around, keeping his back close to the door, and watched it approach.
As it walked between the streetlamps, the shadow oddly never changed perspective. Neither lengthening nor shallowing, it remained erect and immune to the expected effects of the light.
Scott couldn’t hear any accompanying footsteps so he stepped out from the doorway and checked the sidewalks, trying to locate some source for it.
He was still the only person in the street.
The shadow stopped.
He could clearly see the outline of a woman now. Below a pinched waist, the wide folds of her skirt; above it, the curve of her bust. At this range, he could even make out the opaque mask of the veil falling from her hat.
As he backed toward the door again, the hanging sign came into view above him. Mac the artist had captured a sense of malice in the expression, but he had still drawn a woman behind the veil. The thing across the street was nothing but shadow. Eyes or not, Scott believed it could see him. He thrust the ignition key of the BMW between his knuckles, just in case.
He looked again. Across the street, the Veiled Lady had come soundlessly to stand directly opposite him. Scott watched the shape turn to face him head-on. Her outline was painted black on the wall of the building across the way. It spilled onto the sidewalk, where the hem of her skirt sat on the empty path, with no earthly origin to explain her.
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