Long Black Veil (10 page)

The encounter with the woman in black last night came back to her. Devon still found it so odd—how had the woman been there one minute and gone the next? Devon knew she hadn’t been at her best last night, but she didn’t think she’d lost time or anything else that could explain the woman’s sudden disappearance. And what was she doing out there so late at night? Who was she visiting in that old graveyard? No one had been buried there in decades.

Devon swallowed the last of her pancakes, her mind still on the woman at the grave. That wasn’t the first time she’d seen her. A woman dressed in black clothes had been walking the hills back in September. And she’d seen her on the night she’d seen Brock at the drugstore. And again, after she’d started going to the records room regularly. The logical part of Devon warned that it probably wasn’t the same woman in every instance, but her instincts said that it was. She told logic to shut up.

It looked like Devon knew what she was doing today.

****
*

The wind was whipping the misting rain almost horizontal as Devon made her very slow way back down the gravel path. She was wrapped in her waterproof coat and a knitted hat, her head pulled into her collar like a turtle in its shell. The damp seeped into her bones, making muscles already sore from last night’s long walk home howl in protest. She thought about just forgetting all about the church and trudging back to Gammy’s and installing herself on the couch, under a warm blanket, reading a book.

But there was something that pulled her on, despite the weather. Devon felt drawn to the mystery of this woman and her strange disappearances. So she put on her big girl panties, sucked up her whining, and didn’t stop until she came to the church.

She oriented herself as best she could, trying to picture exactly where the woman had been standing. Devon walked over, looking for footprints or some sign of someone standing there, but saw nothing. That wasn’t surprising—the ground was wet from the constant drizzle and any print that might have been there was long gone. Instead, she looked over the headstones. She positioned herself where she thought the woman had been in relation to the headstones. There, that was the one.

The headstone was covered in lichen and worn down by the elements. Devon knelt down for a closer look. It was hard to read the name on it. She ran her fingers over the stone, pulling at the vegetation and brushing away the grit and dirt. She felt the carvings of a name and dates beneath her fingers. She looked closer.

Daniel Holfsteder

August 21, 1894  -  April 1, 1914

That was impossible. Devon pulled away and sat back on her heels. How could anyone still be alive that would mourn for this man? And especially one so young? Devon had seen the woman’s face last night and she had looked to be barely in her twenties. It didn’t make sense. Who was she? And what had this man been to her to have her crying that like?

She heard the sound of wheels on the gravel path. Devon pushed herself away from the ground and caught the taillights of a car heading toward the trailer. Gammy was back. Devon took one last look around the small cemetery, but found nothing else interesting. She jotted down the information on the grave marker for later. With a sigh, she headed back up the mountain.

When she opened the door to the trailer, Gammy was already in the kitchen, a clean apron on over her Sunday clothes. She was chopping vegetables and placing them into piles on the large cutting board. Devon came in, shucking off her damp coat and hat before joining her in the kitchen. Gammy handed her a carrot to munch on.

“How was church?”

Gammy didn’t stop what she was doing, her hands working automatically. Devon wished she was that skilled in the kitchen. Gammy performed miracles on the little they had. “It was very edifying. That young preacher has quite a following.”

Devon had heard of him. A lot of the girls at her school had suddenly developed a keen interest in religion and Sunday service was usually packed. His sermons—and how cute he was—were the topics of conversation every Monday. “The girls like his handsome face,” she said around a bite of carrot.

“Faces don’t matter, hearts do.” Gammy pointed a parsnip at her.

“I know Gammy, I know.” But Devon thought that it was rarely that simple.

“So you want to tell me what happened last night? Why you had to walk home?” Gammy didn’t look at her when she asked, just continued to chop vegetables.

Devon ducked her head. “It’s no big deal.”

Gammy just waited her out. When Devon looked up, the woman had her lips pursed and her eyes raised, silently telling her that no big deal wasn’t nearly good enough. Devon sighed and spread out her hands helplessly. “A girl came dressed in prison orange. Said she was Mom.”

“Ah.” Gammy put down her knife and came to stand next to Devon. “That must’ve been hard.”

“More like humiliating.” Devon really didn’t want to talk about it. “That’s why I left. Gil had been drinking so he couldn’t drive me and I didn’t feel like waiting around until he was sober.”

“You just wanted to get out of there.” Gammy nodded, as if giving Devon her approval for her actions.

“You heard something at church, didn’t you?” Devon knew how everyone in this town liked to talk and church was the perfect place to gossip.

Gammy squeezed her shoulder, then went back to her chopping. “A few people may have mentioned something.”

Devon doubted it was only a few. But it didn’t matter. They’d think what they wanted and say what they wanted and the only thing Devon could do was endure it until she could get away from it. “I’m sorry, Gammy.”

“And what exactly do you have to be sorry about? You were nothing but a child when your momma went off the rails. You ain’t to blame for a thing your momma did—it was all her choosing.” Her voice had a tightness to it that only happened when they were talking about Lorelei.

Devon nodded. “I know, I know. But I still feel bad that you’re having to go through this too. It’s not fair.”

Gammy snorted, an inelegant sound from a woman so proper. “My girl, the sooner you realize life’s got nothing to do with fair, the better off you’ll be.” She dumped the cutting board full of vegetables into a large Dutch oven on the stove. “Venison stew tonight! Mr. Caldecott shot himself a beauty and gave me some of the meat once he got it processed.”

Devon smiled. Nothing beat Gammy’s venison stew, especially not when paired with her homemade cheddar biscuits she always served with it. Devon inhaled, taking in the scent of browning vegetables and meat in the soup pot. The smell of Gammy’s cooking perfumed the air and made Devon feel slightly better. This was comfort. This was safety. Nothing could hurt her when she was behind these walls.

“You know anything about a Daniel Holfsteder?” Devon asked, wanting to see if her grandmother had any recollection of the man buried under the gravestone.

“Don’t recall that name,” Gammy said casually, making a mound of flour on the counter and hollowing out a well in the center. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know, but he’s buried at the old church just down the road. I saw a woman standing at his grave last night. It was weird. I didn’t think there’d be anybody left to mourn for him, but there she was.”

Gammy stopped what she was doing, floured hands and all. Her head came up, her eyes blazing like a house fire. “What woman?”There was the same tone in her voice as when they’d been talking about Devon’s mother.

Devon shrugged. “I didn’t see her too well. But she was dressed all in black and she was crying at his headstone. She had a long black veil and everything.”

Gammy went pale, all the color leached from her face so that she was almost as white as the flour dusting her hands. “Have you talked to her?”

Devon shrugged. “Not really, I guess.” She put a hand on Gammy’s arm. “Are you—”

“HAVE YOU TALKED TO HER?” Gammy’s voice rose into yelling.

Devon flinched away, dropping her hand. Gammy never raised her voice to her. “N-no.”

Her grandmother seemed to relax the slightest bit, but she was still staring at Devon strangely. “That’s something then.” Gammy leaned in close. “If you see her again, you just keep on walking. You pretend she’s not even there, you hear? And whatever you do, DO NOT speak with her.”

Devon felt something yawning and vast open in the pit of her stomach. “What if she tries to talk to me? What do I do?”

Gammy stared at her, the force of her gaze a palpable warning. “You run.”

Chapter Twelve

Gil called in the early afternoon to check on her. Devon was elbows deep in studying for her AP History test. She’d been reviewing her notes, but her mind refused to stay where it should. Instead thoughts of Daniel Holfsteder and the woman in the veil kept popping into her head. In truth, the force of Gammy’s words had frightened her a little, and she’d been happy to let the matter drop just then. But now that she’d had a chance to calm down and recover from Gammy’s harsh reaction, Devon had to admit she was curious.

Who was Daniel Holfsteder? And who was the woman mourning at his grave? And why did Devon have to run from her?

Devon knew better than to bring it up to her grandmother again. The look on her face and the tone of her voice when she’d said to run was one that demanded the matter be dropped. And Devon wasn’t about to push Gammy on this, not now anyway. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t do a little digging on her own.

So when the phone rang, Devon already knew the penance Gil was going to have to perform for her to make up for the long walk home of the night before. The library was open until five o’clock and they had microfiche. Devon knew Daniel’s date of birth and his death. Surely there would be something—even a funeral notice—that would give her an idea of what he’d been like when he was alive. Perhaps she’d be able to find something related to this mysterious woman as well.

She didn’t even let him stop the car when he pulled up; she just hopped in before it could roll to a stop. Gammy sternly shouted from the porch, “Be back by five thirty!” Devon waved as Gil turned the car around and drove off back down the mountain.

He was quiet as he navigated his Civic down the bumpy gravel road. As they passed the church, Devon looked out the window, craning her neck to see the cemetery around the bulk of the church. It was empty.

Gil’s voice pulled her back to the present. “So the party pretty much blew after you left.”

Devon made a face. That wasn’t surprising. Without her there to torment, where was the entertainment supposed to come from? “Gee, that’s too bad.” Her sarcasm could have withered plants.

Gil flinched slightly from the venom in her voice. “Yeah, well you did miss the mother of all screaming fights. Brock and Skylar really went at each other once he realized you had left.”

Devon whipped her head around to stare at Gil. “I’m sorry, what now?” She couldn’t believe that anyone besides Gil would care that she left, let alone Brock. He’d only invited her to his party to be nice; why should he care if she left early?

He nodded, eyes on the road. “Yeah. He came looking for you a little while after you took off. When he found out you were gone, he was pissed. He found Skylar and threw her out.”

“Brock threw her out of the party?” She tried to keep the incredulity out of her voice and failed spectacularly.

“Well, he tried.” He gave her a quick look and frowned. “Don’t be mean. I can tell what you’re thinking.” He paused to check for oncoming traffic, then rolled through the stop sign. “He really did try to get rid of her. But Micah came up and said something to him before Brock got her out the door.”

“What happened then?” Devon asked, curious in spite of herself.

Gil shrugged. “I didn’t see Brock after that, so I guess he went somewhere to cool off. Micah came back and hung out with Skylar and her minions.”

Devon leveled a look at him that said she knew he had more to tell. “Spill it, G. I know you were rounding up all the news unfit for print before you left. What else did you hear?”

He treated her to a lopsided smirk as he turned the old car smoothly down Main Street. The library was perhaps another mile ahead on the left. “I did do some investigating,” he admitted, his dimple flashing. “Turns out Brock didn’t think Skylar’s costume was…ah… appropriate. He called it a mean joke.”

“It was mean,” Devon ground out. Expected, but mean. And no joke. She didn’t know what she’d ever done to Skylar to piss her off so much, but the girl had taken an instant dislike to her in middle school. A stunt like last night’s wasn’t surprising. “But that’s not enough reason for him to get jacked up.”

Gil’s eyes twinkled. “But that’s not all. My source tells me their argument got pretty loud. Skylar was already half-lit when she showed up and she tried to put the moves on Brock to get him to calm down.”

Devon felt sick to her stomach. The visual of Skylar crawling all over Brock in that prison jumpsuit was going to give her nightmares. “And?”

“And, he blew her off.” Gil’s face grew more serious. “That’s when she started saying some pretty raunchy things about you.”

Devon stared out the window. They were in front of the library and she gestured for Gil to park in one of the spaces out front. “Just say it, okay? It’s going to be all over school tomorrow anyway.”