Blackthorn Winter (22 page)

Life with Dad was just plain easier. He helped us kids with homework projects and got the Goops ready for bed, and made bowls of popcorn for us all to munch while watching videos on the weekends, and he gave really amazing shoulder massages ... or at least he used to do all that back before he'd started working such long hours.

Maybe if Dad promised to change his schedule and be home more often, Mom would move us back to California. I pictured her down in the sitting room, sprawled on the couch, eyes closed—and I imagined Dad materializing like a genie at her side, holding out a fresh cup of tea and offering a shoulder rub. Then he'd get the Goops into bed, and finish off my algebra problems.... Liza would still be dead, but everything else would be so much better with Dad in the picture again.

From downstairs we heard the slam of the bathroom door. Then a howl of anguish. Then Edmund called up to us that the bathwater was COLD. Ivy and I started searching for her nightgown. "Dad called while you were out," she reported, as I lay on her floor to fish under the bed. It was almost as if she had read my mind. I pulled out the nightgown, along with her polar bear. "Dad said he missed us. I told him we were missing him, too, and the weather here is pretty good, like spring, and he should come to visit."

"Did he say he'd come?" I asked, handing Ivy the nightgown and setting Polar on the dresser.

"He said sometime, but ... well, he's busy working on a big project right now." She slipped on the nightgown, then reached for her stuffed animal and dusted him off.

Those eternal big projects were what drove Mom away in the first place. I sighed, and Ivy touched my hand.

"Jule?"

I looked down at her thin, troubled face framed in yellow curls. "What?"

"Are they, you know ... getting divorced?"

"I hope not. But ... I just don't know."

"They can't!" Ivy hugged her polar bear hard, then stormed out of the room and down the stairs. "Mom!" she yelled at the top of her voice. "You can't get divorced! I know you love Daddy, and I know he loves you, and so why can't you just live together like before and work things out!"

We heard the creak as the bathroom door opened a crack and Edmund's voice shouted out in agreement: "Yeah!" Then the door slammed again. I sank onto Ivy's bed. Downstairs I could hear the murmur of Mom's voice, calming our resident drama queen. Then her voice called up the stairs to me, impatient.

"Juliana,
will
you get these kids into bed?"

Resentfully I trudged downstairs to retrieve Ivy. At least if Mom kept me busy I'd have less chance to think about everything.

At last the Goops were tucked into their beds, reading mystery novels. I kissed each of them good night, and all my irritation with them vanished at their sweet smiles. They were my brother and sister, fully and completely and forever. And it didn't matter one bit if we didn't have the same ancestors. We were family now, and we loved and needed each other, and that was what counted.

Tiredly I made my way downstairs, and Mom made sure I felt loved and needed by asking me to fold laundry and take it upstairs, and then to sweep the kitchen floor and wash the tea things. At last I was on my way up to bed myself, exhausted. Mom's voice stopped me on the stairs, and I braced for the next work order. But this time her voice was gentle.

"So how was dinner with the Glendennings?" she asked.

"
Ugh.
Celia's weird. But you'd like to see her art. The house is like ten museums stuffed into one."

Mom smiled. "Yes, I can imagine it's a bit daunting to navigate. Quent's told me about her collections."

That reminded me. "Mom, did you ask Quent who else has keys to our cottage?" I came back downstairs and sat with Mom at the table.

"I did," Mom replied. "He said he'd been wondering himself. Liza had her own keys, of course, because she often helped him here with housecleaning and parties. And the Coopers, Duncan's grandparents, have a house key, too, but only for the big house."

"But once they were in the Mill House, they could have found the key to our cottage," I pointed out.

"I suppose that's possible," Mom conceded, "but it's hard to imagine that old couple would have any reason to come over here."

"Well, they didn't like Liza. Something about the Drama Society. And about how she introduced Duncan's father to the Brazilian dancer he ran off with."

Mom laughed. "Not really motives for murder, though."

"I guess not. But..."

But that stain was still upstairs in our sunroom, testament to someone's motive. "Anyone else have a key?"

"Yes. Celia does, and Duncan, of course—"

"Celia!"

"Apparently Celia was helping Quent move Nora's artwork out of the studio after her death. He gave her a key so she could come while he was working in London. Quent told me Duncan gave his key back already, but I do want to
get Celia's back. And there isn't really any reason the Coopers should have a key to this cottage now that we're living in it. I'll ask Quent to talk to them, too."

"Or change our lock!"

Mom reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "Things will sort themselves out, honey. Now, you'd better get off to bed yourself, don't you think? You look like your head's whirling."

My head
was
whirling. "You're not going over to Quent's?"

"No. I'm not very good company tonight, I'm afraid. I'm going to bed and you should, too." She hesitated, then added, "And I'm sorry to be so—whatever—tonight. Just frazzled, I guess, with everything that's been going on. You've been a very big help at a very trying time. What would I do without my sweet, precious Jule?"

I felt better then, and smiled back at her. "You'd be a wreck," I said. "Life would be totally terrible without me."

She laughed, and agreed, and then we said good night, both of us feeling better. But when I lay in my own narrow bed, trying not to think about the stain on the sunroom floor, I kept hearing Mom's voice, over and over again:
What would I do without my sweet, precious Jule?
and there seemed to be an echo, somehow, or a voice-over, like you hear in films:
What would I do without my sweet precious Jule, sweet precious Jule, my little precious Jewel-baby, my little precious Jewel-baby, are you Buzzy's little precious Jewel-baby?

The loving voices in my head became a sort of song, a lullaby. And I fell asleep humming along and wondering,
Who in the world was Buzzy?

***

T
HE DREAM STARTED
with a little girl and a young woman—almost still a girl herself from the look of the long legs sticking out from a short, ruffled blue-jean skirt, skinny arms sticking out of the faded pink flamingo T-shirt. They were walking on the beach, gathering shells ... and then it was me, that little girl, holding the shells in my hot little hands ...
Look, Buzzy, shells! Pitty shells!

"
Yeah, Toots, tons of pretty shells. Let's take 'em home and I'll string 'em together. We'll make a pretty necklace for you.
"

"
No, no! Pitty necklace for
Buzzy!"

"
For me? Well, aren't you a sweet Toots...
"

And then another scene, with the little girl leaning over an unsteady card table in a gloomy room, with the shells on the table ... and the shells in her little hands—no,
my
little hands...

"
Okay now—hand me another shell, Toots. Look how I'm stringing 'em onto the yarn—oh, careful! That's a sharp needle ... see how I'm poking the yarn through the little holes in the shells? They're like beads, aren't they? Shell beads ... Hey, can you do it? You want to try it all by yourself?
"

And then, still later, a necklace of shells held out for display: "All
finished now! Come here, come try it on.
"

"
No,
Buzzy
wear it. Pitty necklace for Buzzy!
"

Laughter. "All
right, Toots. You win. I'll wear the necklace, and treasure it forever. It'll be my good luck charm because it's a present from my precious little Jewel-baby...
"

I woke up to wind rattling the diamond panes in my bedroom window. The dream of those shells lingered. That hot beach...

Rain slashed hard against the old stone walls outside. The room felt steeped in cold as I slipped out of bed, shivering, and reached for my thickest fleecy sweatshirt. I pulled it on over my nightgown, and tugged on my thickest socks, too. Then, in search of hot tea and buttered toast, I headed downstairs. Mom called to me from the bathroom, "I thought I heard a knock at the door a moment ago, Jule, but I'm in the tub. Will you check if anyone's there?"

"Sure," I said, and went into the sitting room. I unbolted the front door, and pulled it open to only a gust of cold air. I glanced around, but saw nobody—only a whitedusted garden.
Snow!
But wait, not snow, after all ... just all the white blossoms from the blackthorn trees blown down in the wind.

I started to close the door, calling to Mom, "It was Mr. Nobody—," but then I broke off as I stumbled over something. Looking down, I gasped.

There on the welcome mat lay a large, oval beach rock. Not the same white-veined one I had taken to the police, of course, but another one—quite similar. There were red
words on this rock—careful block letters spelling out a message in bright red paint. I leaned down to read it:

STOP. OR BE STOPPED.
Then in smaller letters,
YANKEES GO HOME.

I blinked a few times, as if blinking would make the words disappear. Then I lifted my head and looked out at the garden again. I shivered, trembling not only with the chill but now real fear because I knew this was a message. To me.

A warning.

Whoever had killed Liza had left this stone to warn me to stop asking questions. To stop figuring things out. To stop doubting that Simon Jukes had murdered Liza Pethering. The person who left this message might still be nearby, even now, watching me. Despite the cold morning air, I felt myself break out in a sweat.

The back door to the Old Mill House slammed and I saw Duncan start across the blossom-strewn lawn toward our cottage. He waved when he saw me in the open doorway.

I waved back, though my heart was pounding. He approached, grinning, his arms wrapped around his torso dramatically to pantomime the cold. "This is the blackthorn winter Grandad was telling you about," he announced as he reached me. "He'll be absolutely gleeful, you wait and see. He loves to have his weather predictions proved true. Missed his true calling as a weatherman on the news, he did. Anyway, I've come to ask you if you'll come with me tonight to have a meal with them. I'm doing the cooking—that shepherd's pie I was telling you and Kate about."

"Sure," I mumbled. "Sounds good ... but, um, Duncan?"

"Hey, what's this?" He saw the stone at my feet and bent down.

"Wait—don't touch it!" I cautioned. "I just found it here. Someone knocked on our door a few minutes ago. Did you see anybody? I mean, in the garden just now?"

He scanned the garden. "No. Did you?"

"Only you."

He peered at me closely. "I hope you're not thinking
I
left this little gift."

"No ... but I hoped you might have seen who did."

"Sorry." He nudged the rock with his shoe. "I just finished eating breakfast."

"Maybe Quent saw somebody."

"You'll have to wait till tonight to ask him. He left already for London—he's getting ready for a big show, you know."

"Is the door in the wall the only way into the garden?" I asked.

Duncan pointed to the far end of the extensive garden. "There's a back gate, too. But it's kept locked."

I heard Mom's voice behind me. "Juliana! Close the door—it's freezing in here! Oh, good morning, Duncan. Why don't you come in, too?"

"Mom, we've been left a little, um,
gift.
" I pointed to the rock. "Should I bring it in?"

"What is it?" Mom bent down and read the warning aloud. "
Yankees go home
is clear enough, I'm afraid. But
stop or be stopped?
What can that mean, Juliana?"

"I think it means somebody doesn't like that I took Nora's beach rock to the police. I think it means somebody isn't very happy that you found that bloodstain and told the police."

"Oh, I don't think this has to do with Liza's death," Mom protested. "Simon Jukes is in jail."

"Exactly," I said. "So it isn't Simon Jukes who left this message. It was left by the real murderer." I'd already suspected that Simon Jukes might be innocent, ever since Henry Jukes's outburst after the funeral. Now Mom would have to agree.

But she shook her head. "No, honey. It's probably just some sort of prank. There's anti-American feeling in some places, you know. No reason Blackthorn would be immune."

"You mean you think this is
political?
" I couldn't believe Mom didn't understand. I turned to Duncan. "Do
you
think it's just an 'Americans-go-away' thing?"

He shrugged. "It's terribly rude, and I'm sorry. But I think that's all it is."

Mom went to the kitchen for a dish towel. She wrapped the rock up and carried it back inside. "We'll take this to the police," she said over her shoulder. "After breakfast. Maybe they've got other reports of villagers harassing tourists and foreign visitors." Then, as the Goops came hurtling down the stairs, shouting greetings to Duncan, Mom added in a low voice: "Let's not say anything about this to Ivy and Edmund just now. No sense worrying them."

So we all ate breakfast just as if it were any normal Saturday, and Duncan had a bowl of Mom's thick creamy oatmeal, even though he had already eaten at his house. Mom made the oatmeal the way she always did at home in California, seasoned with salt, but Duncan called it
porridge,
and said eating it with salt instead of sugar was the Scottish way. His own dad had come from Scotland, and that's the way he'd cooked porridge, too. Ivy made predictable jokes
about Goldilocks and the three bears, and I tried to ignore the rock that lay behind me, hidden in its towel.