The Forever Stone (4 page)

Kent leaned back in his chair, making it creak. “That sure was good cobbler, Lin. I stopped by at the right moment.”

“Thanks to Madeleine,” her aunt said. “She’s the cook in this family.”

“Did you tell her about my book?”

“No, I didn’t. Go ahead.”

He turned his blue gaze upon her. “It’s my second. My first book is called
The Forest Primeval Prescription
—it’s
rather academic. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it?”

Madeleine shook her head, while mentally editing that title, and he continued. “This new one is in the planning stage, but I’ve already found some good material.”

He adjusted the crease in his pants and rested a hand on the sheathed knife at his belt. His voice took on the cadence of a lecturing professor as he described the local museums and their links with colonial America.

“So,” he said, “I came out here, rented a cabin, and started my research.”

“How do you research?” Madeleine asked.

He patted his shirt pocket. “My trusty voice recorder. I’ve been interviewing people, getting family histories. They’re all related around here. Intermarriage, with its attendant complexities, is not unusual. If I need more information, I send the kid to the library in Hammonton.”

“The kid?”

“My assistant,” Kent said. “I ran into him at a campground in Kentucky. There he was, cold and hungry, sleeping in his old truck. Found out he had an education of sorts and offered him a job. He comes in handy.”

Aunt Lin looked thoughtful. “Remi seems like a smart young man. I wonder how his parents feel about him wandering across the country by himself.”

“He doesn’t have parents anymore,” Kent said, “but I’d guess he’s the product of one of those Hispanic-white marriages. Says he comes from an orphanage in Ohio. Reminds me of myself at that age, trying to make it on my own.” His gaze fastened on Madeleine, as if to gauge her reaction to this bit of personal history.

Aunt Lin pushed her chair away from the table, and Kent glanced back at her. “I still have work to do tonight.
Beant goin’
as the Pineys say.”

He stood to his feet, a big man who carried his weight well. “Okay, Lin. I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch.”

A lunch date with her aunt?

“That’s right.” Aunt Lin’s voice was matter-of-fact.

“I’m looking forward to it.” Kent tossed a farewell over his shoulder as he strode through the kitchen. “It’s been a pleasure, Madeleine.”

She picked up her dishes and added them to the pots in the sink. Something about that man was less than forthright, as if he had layers, like an onion. Where had Bria gone? Never mind, they could easily load the dishwasher.

When they were finished, her aunt said, “Let’s go into the parlor and make a battle plan.”

The empty room, with its blank, un-curtained window, looked cheerless in the dusk. Wallpaper still clung in patches to one wall, and the floor was littered with dusty remnants.

Aunt Lin paused in the center. “Bria can clean this up.”

Madeleine ran a hand over the wall’s plastered surface. “Only two layers of wallpaper—that’s fortunate. Do you have any paint?”

“There’s some ivory left from when they did the kitchen. You wouldn’t mind?”

“Not a bit. What about brushes and things?”

“Might be some in the pantry. Or buy whatever you need at Timothy’s store. I have a charge account there.” Her aunt looked hopeful. “Paint could make a big difference.”

They walked back through the dining room, and her aunt said, “For your research, why not start by checking through each room? Make a list of what you find.”

A list? There’d be hundreds of pieces in this room alone.

“A general list,” her aunt added quickly. “We’re looking for anything of value, so don’t bother with the junky stuff. Soon as you find a treasure”—she smiled at her own optimism—“you can start digging into its history.”

“Didn’t Kent say something about a library in Hammonton?” Madeleine asked. “And I brought my laptop, so I can check the Internet.”

“I meant to tell you, our phone line is down for a couple of days.” Her aunt looked regretful. “That’s one problem with living so far out. We’re supposed to be getting cable too, but it might take weeks. So I’ve been using my company’s air card.”

What? No Internet access here? What about her baking course? Okay, regroup. “I suppose the library has Internet,” she said.

Her aunt nodded. “And Timothy has wireless. He wouldn’t mind your using it.”

She turned back to the kitchen. “I’ve still got to pack, and, considering that delicious meal, I suspect that you haven’t had a minute to yourself. Don’t work too hard, Madeleine. This house will take us a long time.”

She paused as if she were consulting a mental list. “There’s a TV set in my office. You’ll find hiking paths close to the back door. And out in the woods, after you go past that garage, we even have some genuine ruins.”

“I’ll be okay, Aunt Lin.”

“Good. See you in the morning.”

Madeleine lifted a suitcase onto her bed and unzipped it. She’d made the obligatory phone call to her mother, and soon as she finished unpacking, she could settle down with a cookbook.

She unfolded a sweater, and the paperweight slid into view. She picked it up, her fingers curving around the glass oval. The delicate flowers would still be lovely, the colors soft, the workmanship exquisite, but . . .

Her breath caught in her throat.

She tugged open a drawer, pushed the paperweight in among her socks, and let herself be distracted by the bag of apples on top of the bureau. Frances Rondell’s sympathetic face came to mind. Her mother’s face, resentful and unhappy, eclipsed it.

She hung up her raincoat and paused, smoothing its wrinkles, thinking back. I had to come here, she told herself. To stay at home would have been the end of me.

Soon after Brenn and her mother had formed a partnership, she’d realized how the two of them operated. Both were determined to get ahead, no matter how the truth might be shaded.

With Dad gone, she had started to change. Brenn talked her into marrying him, Mother’s business prospered, and their ethics troubled her less and less. She became a meek little . . . mouse. Madeleine the Mouse.

“I am mired in the slough of my own acquiescence.”

Where had that come from? Drama Club? She’d loved memorizing the lines for those plays, but college seemed a long time ago. She shut the closet door with a snap, angry at herself, at what she had become.

By the time she’d finished unpacking, read for a while, and written in her journal, the anger had twisted into remorse.
Why didn’t I . . . How could I have let them . . . I was nothing but a . . .

No more baggage, remember? She would brush her hair and go to bed. No more sleeping pills, either.

The house creaked as it settled its old bones to rest. The noises from Aunt Lin’s room diminished. Something scuttled down the hall, and she pictured the tiny feet of a mouse.

She pulled the blankets close around her neck.

Madeleine the Mouse, push-over gal. Hunkering down to stay safe.

Mice . . . She composed an ironic mental paragraph about the advantages of mousiness and expanded it into an essay on the subtexts in Rose Fyleman’s “I Think Mice are Nice.” When she ran out of words, there was still too much left of the night.

The next morning after Aunt Lin left, she and Bria cleaned the parlor until it smelled of soap and wet wood. Better than mildew. Bria had carried the rocking chair out onto the porch and then returned to mop with swift, competent strokes, but she’d worked in silence.

While they ate lunch, the girl answered Madeleine’s questions, but her answers were brief, as if it might be hazardous to give out more information than necessary. Yes, she had a brother. Jude. He was fourteen. They lived in the woods with their mother and grandmother, not too far away. She didn’t say anything about a father.

Was she merely shy? Perhaps. But her reticence was edged with caution, as if she were a wild creature in dangerous territory.

After lunch, Madeleine said, “Let’s explore. Have you seen any of those rooms upstairs?”

Bria shook her head, and curiosity gleamed in the brown eyes.

The staircase had a graceful balustrade of honey-colored wood, but the carpet looked like a matted green rag. Madeleine could hear her aunt saying, “This goes too.”

They found a library of dusty books, a girlish-looking pink bedroom that might have been Cousin Henrietta’s, and a modernized bathroom. At the back of the house was a locked room.

“I’ll have to get the key,” Madeleine said, scribbling in the margin of her notebook.

They took a quick tour of the crowded all-yellow bedroom across from the library and looked into the storage room beside it. Bria made a sound that might have been a giggle and pointed to a stuffed owl glaring at them from a plant stand. “Looks like he’s guarding those trunks.”

“Maybe he is,” Madeleine said. “You never know about treasure.”

Trunks
, she wrote in her notebook.
Inventory contents.

She glanced at her watch. “Perhaps we should check on brushes and things, so we can paint tomorrow.”

“I looked in the pantry,” Bria said. “There’s paint, but no brushes.”

“Aunt Lin told me that we could get supplies at Timothy’s store. When does it close?”

“Not ever,” Bria said. “He lives upstairs, and if someone bangs hard enough, he’ll come down.”

“Good. I’ll grab my purse, and you can show me the way.”

Timothy’s store might have stood on its corner for a hundred years. Its walls had weathered to silver gray, and it leaned toward the street as if wearied by the weight of its dormers and the thick, dark roof.

Inside, half a dozen customers strolled past canned goods, hardware, medicines, and camping equipment stacked to the ceiling. The walls displayed everything from tools and fishing gear to paintings by local artists.

A rosy-faced old man stood talking to Timothy at the counter, but when he saw them, he tucked a package of toilet tissue under his arm and picked up a bulging plastic bag. He shuffled past with a nod, his eyes inquisitive beneath shaggy brows and a bald head. His red plaid shirt was almost as wrinkled as his face, and his jeans sagged over dusty sneakers. One of Uncle Ashton’s Pineys?

After he’d gone, Madeleine asked Bria, “Who’s that?”

“Dan’l Forbes. He’s lived here forever.”

She didn’t ask anything more because Timothy was saying, “Hello, young ladies! How can I help you today?” His wizened little face was so cheerful, his brown eyes so lively, that the room seemed to brighten.

“We’re going to be painting,” Madeleine said. “So we need some brushes.”

“Brushes we have in abundance.” He limped purposefully out from behind the counter, one shoulder hunched a little higher than the other.

Bria had gone ahead of them, but Madeleine stayed beside the old man. “I have a favor to ask,” she said. “My aunt mentioned that you have wireless here. Could you possibly let me use it until we get ours?”

He slowed his halting pace. “Certainly. Anytime. How’s the writing business coming?”

Aunt Lin must have told him about her website that offered editing services.

“It’s not. I closed it . . . a while ago.”

Had her reply been too abrupt? She hurried on. “I appreciate your letting me use your space. I’m hoping to take some courses online.”

“But you kept your skills, I’m sure,” he said. “If I may ask a favor in turn, I know someone—the local doctor—who’s looking for an editor.”

She’d heard that request once too often. “I don’t think I’ll have time to do any more editing,” she said, “and I must confess that I’ve developed an allergy to doctors.”

He cocked his head. “Why is that?”

“Close acquaintance,” she said. “My uncle’s one, and I know several others.”

He didn’t look convinced, so she had to explain. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re all highhanded and egotistic. They think they’re medical deities.”

A smile rearranged the wrinkles on his face, but all he said was: “Sounds like you’re renovating the Manor. I’m glad to hear it.”

He wasn’t going to argue. She felt a twinge of remorse for what she’d said—he’d been so friendly—but she wasn’t about to change her mind. 

They had reached the display of painting supplies, and he asked, “Are you using latex or oil?”

“Latex,” Bria said.

Timothy picked up a paint roller and handed it to Madeleine. “I’d suggest using this for the walls, and brushes for the trim. And how about one of these?” He lifted out a long pole with a paint roller attached to its end. “For those walls and the high ceiling.”

The doorbell jingled and Kent’s voice called, “There you are! What are you trying to sell to our newest resident?”

Smiling as if they were best of friends, he strolled toward her.

“They’re painting at the Manor,” Timothy said.