The Story Keeper (10 page)

The caretaker didn’t answer, only climbed into his boat and cast off, the lower part of his form disappearing first, then his head and shoulders fading incrementally into the haze until he was gone altogether.

I set Friday down, and he ran yapping and snarling across the yard all the way to the shore, vanishing into the fog.

The caretaker’s unceremonious exit wasn’t a confidence builder, but I had, at least, gained a bit of information. Clearly the man was acquainted with Evan Hall, and clearly Ms. Hall knew why I was here, more or less, and she’d chosen to rent this cabin to me anyway. That was a good sign.

“Friday?” I whispered into the damp morning air, but no response came. “Friday, where are you?”

Again, no reply, and a vague uneasiness niggled. The woods could be dangerous for small pets. Bobcats and black bears
wandered into yards looking for easy meals, even just a few miles from town like this. On occasion in Towash, black bear sightings had shut down recess when I was a kid. There was no telling what kind of trouble a city dog could get into around here. Friday’s idea of wild space was a fenced half-acre dog park.

“Frida-a-a-y!” I called more loudly, conscious of the fact that, even though I couldn’t see them through the trees, there were other cabins within earshot. I’d noticed lights and driveways, coming in last night.

Friday didn’t reappear, so I grabbed my tennis shoes and started to the lake, the fog seeming to part and close around my knees as I moved closer to the rushes along the shore. The image of a weathered dock and an old red canoe melted into view.

“Friday . . .” I felt like an actress in a horror movie, inching toward certain disaster. “Friday, are you out here?”

Maybe he’d circled back to the cabin. . . .

“Friday?”

Suddenly there he was, bolting my way with his ears and tail tucked, his eyes white-rimmed with terror. Behind him, the reeds swirled and bent, forming a miniature tornado. Something black and gray and angry was hot on his heels. Bear? Bobcat? Dog? Deer?

. . . or a full-grown Canada goose. It burst from cover, wings outstretched, and it was fighting mad.

Friday veered around me at the last minute, and so did the goose, the two of them brushing by on either side before I could scramble after them. We played a strange game of tag, in and out of the trees, around and around the car, me trying to shoo the goose away, the goose nipping and pecking at Friday, Friday yipping and growling, and me zigzagging in and out of the fray, waving my arms and yelling, “Hey, stop! Shoo!
Shoo! Friday, come here! No . . . wait! Just . . . Shoo . . . Fri . . . Stop! Ouch!”

Finally Friday and I grazed past each other, going opposite directions. I scooped him up like a fumbled football and dashed for the cabin with the goose flapping its wings and nipping at my sweats. Taking the porch steps in one giant leap, I left our pursuer behind long enough to get in the door and slam it shut, saving life and limb, if not dignity.

Friday wiggled free, attacking the door with gusto while the goose pecked the other side, and I threw my head back, letting laughter come. I hadn’t been chased by a goose in years. Grabbing my phone, I snapped a photo of Friday on the inside, then ran to the front window, took a picture of the goose on the outside, and sent both to Jamie with one line of text.
Goose attack. Survived.

Jamie’s response was a smiley face followed by a complaint that I hadn’t let her know I’d safely arrived last night. We texted back and forth while Friday guarded the door and I made ready for the day, hurrying through cleaning up and dressing in a pair of black jeans and a loose-fitting yellow blouse that was simple enough for casual wear, but dressy enough for business . . . just in case I happened to have the chance to do any today. I finished it off with my tall black boots, then stood in front of the mirror. Basic, understated. Nothing flashy.

The outfit would probably blend in well enough around town.

“All right, Friday, now the question is . . . what do I do about you?” I stood looking at him, debating. Back in New York, he stayed alone in the apartment for hours on end. Other than an occasional walk, he didn’t need, want, or relish company.

But here? He’d already tried to claw his way through the door.
What if he destroyed the place while I was gone? Aside from that, I didn’t have anything to feed him for breakfast.

“Okay, listen.” I grabbed the leash and shook it at him. “I’m taking you with me, but I want no shenanigans. None. Do you hear me?”

Friday lifted his chin, exposing the collar among his chub bundles, surprisingly cooperative. Maybe he was worried about the goose coming back. Maybe he was just looking forward to an adventure. Hard to say.

“No letting stinkers in the rental car, no threatening strangers, no attacking other dogs. We’re trying to blend in around here. Just a couple tourists. Got it?”

Friday didn’t answer, but no sooner had we made it to our vehicle, bumped and scratched our way up the driveway, and started toward town than I realized that our chances of fitting in around Looking Glass Gap this week were nil. We hadn’t even made it to the outskirts before we passed a Confederate soldier driving a golf cart, waved at a mountain man on a horse, and spied a guy up ahead who looked for all the world like Mel Gibson in
Braveheart
. He was directing traffic. In a kilt. Cars were waiting to pass by him and descend into what looked like a makeshift campground in a patch of bottomland on the way to Looking Glass Gap.

This was the famous Warrior Week encampment. The festivities below seemed to be a cross between a grown-up costume party, a Renaissance festival, a flea market, and a county fair. Tents, horse trailers, cars, motor homes, and campers of all vintages dotted the entire meadow and faded into the woods. In the center of camp near what looked like a jousting ring, open-air vendors offered everything from movie memorabilia and psychic readings to fried crawfish baskets and fresh-squeezed lemonade.

I was tempted to pull in. After all, it was still early. The stores in town might not even be open yet. Aside from that, a parking lot manned by a guy in a kilt was the sort of thing a person shouldn’t miss. It would be worth the small delay, in story value if nothing else. I had a feeling this adventure might rival the Tom Brandon tale in the end.

The idea grew more tempting as I inched closer to the front of the line. When I reached the decision point, I couldn’t help veering off the highway, offering up the three-dollar parking fee, getting my hand stamped, and asking Braveheart if I could take his picture. He was kind enough to strike a pose.

I sent the photo off to Jamie along with a caption:
We have arrived!

It was a shame she couldn’t see the camp for herself. The place was oddly alluring . . . fascinating, even. Friday seemed to think so too. He stood perched with his paws on the window, watching the goings-on and salivating at the scent of corn dogs, roast turkey legs, and fried onions. I’d never seen him so openly enthusiastic about anything. He passed a cheery look my way when I chuckled at what looked like a
Hunger Games
enthusiast strolling alongside a woman in a Victorian day dress.

“I dunno, Friday, I’m pretty sure we’re not just visiting Looking Glass, we’ve fallen through one.” Friday growled in agreement, and I was glad I hadn’t left him in the cabin. It would’ve been a shame for him to miss this, and looking out the window into the fray, I had a feeling I was about to need either confirmation or backup. I wasn’t sure which.

Chapter 11

“
T
hose are for LARPing. We got other ones down there that are the real thing, like if you’re gonna actual
go
through a portal.” The girl in the woodland elf costume was filled with information. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen, a kid clinging to the last vestiges of childhood, seemingly playing dress-up while working behind a vendor table. Her gray-green eyes took me in from beneath flyaway shocks of brown hair that looked like it hadn’t been combed in a week.

“Excuse me?” I staggered sideways as Friday body-slammed my leg, then hooked his little claws on my boots and did a surprisingly good imitation of a spider monkey. His eyes were on the foot-long smoked-sausage-and-pancake-batter corn dog that flouted every cardinal rule of the
Eat Healthy for Life
books I’d edited last year. “Friday, stop it!” I shook him off, then pinched another piece of the corn dog and dropped it on the ground to settle him down.

“What’s . . . LARPing?”

The girl sighed, discerning that she had a newbie on her hands
 
—someone perhaps not very likely to buy the merchandise. “LARP, like,
live-action role-play
?”

Live. Action. Role. Play.
I turned the words over in my mind, tried to mesh them with the fascinating yet weirdly bemusing things I’d seen since paying at the front gate. For the most part, the goings-on looked like family fun, and it was sweet, really
 
—mothers, grandmothers, and granddaughters dressed in costumes they’d created together, a twentysomething couple with plans to marry in the camp, confused fathers in street clothes tailing wide-eyed teenage daughters, here for the first time. A dream trip with Dad. I couldn’t help envying that bonding experience.

I’d made it to the vendor area, where items of all sorts were being offered in front of RVs and travel trailers like the one manned by the elf child. Several smaller kids scampered about behind her table
 
—a princess girl, a boy in some sort of tunic and tights, and a tiny fairy barely old enough to toddle, her soiled wings made from clothes hangers and colored panty hose. Wings of all types hung on a sale rack nearby.

“I can give you a discount on them wings if you get two pair. Like, one for you and one for the dog? We got dog wings too.” The girl braced a hand on her hip. “It’s all about findin’ you a role . . . like,
becomin’
somebody else, while you’re here at the camp. LARP, I mean.”

A massive bluetick hound tackled the baby. Friday barked and tried to crawl under the table, taking the leash, my arm, and the corn dog with him. The elf girl paused to rescue her tiny sister, and Friday started a scrap-scarfing contest with the hound. They met over the sausage, which Friday wasn’t about to relinquish.

“I gotta give him a A-plus for attitude. He don’t know he’s a
Chi-weenie dog, does he?” the little salesgirl observed. “He looks like that ain’t his first corn dog, neither.”

“He has a slow metabolism . . . and he’s big-boned.” I let go of the leash. Friday wouldn’t run off with food around. “Well . . . so . . . what determines whether something will . . . go through the portal or not?” Now I regretted that I hadn’t taken time to brush up on Time Shifters details, other than just comparing bits of the writing and watching movie scenes on the Internet.

The girl sighed, now seeming more tweenager and less role-play aficionado. “Okay, so, here’s how it is. Stuff don’t go through a portal unless it’s right for the time period. That’s why guns’re a problem, sometimes even antique guns, if they been refurbed with modern parts. That was in Time Shifters #3
 
—
The Curse of the Black Drake
? So my dad takes all of ours apart and checks for them things. The LARPing stuff is different. It’s just for show, so it don’t matter, long’s it looks right. It won’t go through a portal, but not everybody’s into actual travelin’. Lotta people are just here to live it for a few days, you know?”

“That makes sense.” Not really. “So have you ever
been
through a portal?” Was this poor kid being raised by people who really believed there were time-travel devices hidden in the Blue Ridge?

She rolled a look, indicating that one of us was woefully misguided. “No, but if you wanna give it a try, I can get you a twenty . . . five . . . twenty-
five
percent discount on anythin’ on the costume tables. Early-bird special. This mornin’ only. Once my daddy gets up, I can’t give this kinda deals.” The baby wandered by with a dirt clod in her mouth, and her big sister paused to slap it away. “Stop it, Arlie. Don’t put stuff in your mouth. Becca, you’re supposed to be watchin’ her!”

My emotions ricocheted unexpectedly. I could remember
being
this girl. I’d started minding my father’s table at swap meets
before I was ten years old. No fairy costumes were involved, but like this family, we sold whatever we could make, grow, or come up with. Knives handcrafted from scrap steel were a specialty.

“Really, I’m just window-shopping.” I felt guilty saying it
 
—as if I should buy LARPing equipment or some princess hats, just to be nice. My sisters’ kids would probably like the dress-up goods. But in reality, I still hadn’t even opened Coral Rebecca’s letter, much less decided whether to admit I was nearby.

Now, watching this twelve-year-old manage her parents’ brood, I didn’t think I could stand to make contact with my sisters. I felt bad for this little girl already, and she wasn’t even kin to me. If I saw my sisters’ eyes looking up from that face, it’d be unbearable.

A family, obviously suburbanites from up north someplace, approached the display of fairy wings, and I took advantage of the opportunity to exit the scene. I’d dallied around the encampment long enough. The stores in town would be open by now, and with any luck, I’d find Ms. Hall. Fingers crossed that this produced something, but I had a feeling that, after all the non-responses so far, getting through to Evan Hall wouldn’t be so easy.

Finding the Mountain Leaf store turned out to be simple enough, though. It lay a short drive from the encampment, in an old two-story corner building downtown, under a massive carved marble header that read
E. B. Hall 1860
.

Edward Bartholomew Hall. I’d learned enough Time Shifters trivia to know that name. After constructing this building for his young bride, then leaving to fight in the War between the States, the real E. B. Hall had disappeared. But there was, among the most die-hard fans, a rumor that Evan Hall was, in reality, two hundred years old and his own ancestor
 
—E. B. Hall himself. A time traveler who had come through a portal and become hung up in time in Looking Glass Gap.

Studying the name on the granite corner plate now, I felt fiction and reality colliding. This place looked like something from Evan Hall’s books. The building was solid stone, the relief ornately fashioned. A pair of massive gargoyles guarded the carved marble corners overhead. Clearly there had been money in the Hall family for many generations, yet only a small, fifties-vintage lit sign marked the structure’s purpose now.
Mountain Leaf Pharmacy
, it read, and below that in smaller letters,
Prescription Service, Herbs, Natural Medicines, Cards, and Gifts
.

On the window, the words
Local Handicrafts, Handmade Soaps, Candles
had been chalked in using curvy letters with little circles on the end points, the way a teenager might sign a sweetheart note.

I parked in the shade around the block and left Friday sleeping off his breakfast corn dog.

A number of people were in the shop when I entered. About half wore historical costumes and half were in bystander clothes, like me. The same mixture moved past the picture window in front, giving the sun-drenched street the look of a somewhat off-kilter Dickens Christmas village.

I wandered around the shop, collecting soaps and other things that would fit into my suitcase
 
—all apparently formulated right here in the store. By the pharmacy counter, there was also a small case of natural remedies that local people would have used. Ginseng, sassafras root, spicebush, sweet birch, catnip, mint, witch hazel, wild cherry bark, yellow root. No doubt the locals avoided town like the plague during Warrior Week, unless they had to work. The teenager running the counter up front was obviously from “the Gap,” as she referred to it while sharing information with tourists. The woman working behind the pharmacy cash register was in her seventies at least, her speech beautifully laced with a faint English brogue.

The pharmacist dangled a prescription bottle out the window and said, “Here’s that Amoxil prescription, Miz Hall.”

“I got it, Aunt Helen,” a little girl at a table behind the pharmacy counter volunteered. Perhaps ten or eleven years old, she looked like the photos of Evan Hall. Dark hair, blue eyes, olive skin. His daughter? Did he have children? His movie-star wife had left him years ago, after only a short marriage. She was persona non grata with the Time Shifters fans, even now.

I made my way to the counter and waited until Mrs. Hall was done with her customer, then introduced myself and finished with, “I’m the one staying in the rental cottage.”

“Oh, the reporter,” she answered. “Well, I’m Helen Hall. Good to meet you.” Her smile widened, creases forming along the rounded lines of her cheeks. She had the earthy look of a woman who spent a great deal of time outdoors
 
—as if she might have personally tried each of the colorful gardening hats hanging on the front rack. Unlike the girl, she was fair skinned and freckled.

“Editor,” I corrected. “From Vida House Publishing in New York.”

Gray brows knotted behind her thick rainbow-rimmed glasses. Angling her face upward slightly, she gave me a confused look. “Oh . . . I thought the woman who booked the cabin told my sister-in-law you were here working on a story, something about the lake . . . But to tell you the truth, the rental agents aren’t supposed to have people call Violet anymore. She’s not doing well lately.” Shrugging, she snatched a stray pen from the counter and dropped it into the cup nearby. “Maybe Violet did say
editor
. These silly wireless phones. I can’t hear worth a flip on them, anyway. That’s what happens when you get old. Can’t hear, can’t see, and your boobs sag. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

“Aunt Helen!” the little girl squealed, wide-eyed. “Sheesh!”

A spit of laughter escaped me, and I decided immediately that I liked Helen Hall. “The cabin is in a wonderful spot. I enjoyed the view this morning.”

“You can swim there in the summertime.” The girl moved closer, intent on joining the conversation. “And the canoe’s fun too. It leaks once you get in it, but Uncle Clive and me took it out the other day and we didn’t sink. The goose there, that’s Horatio. He lives under the shed. He likes bread if you got any. He keeps the snakes away, but he’s kind of a little sh
 
—”

“That’s enough, Hannah.” Helen cast a warning look her way. “Finish your science homework before your dad comes for you.”

“Oh-kay,” Hannah sighed and rolled her eyes, then returned to her schoolbooks.

Helen cast a concerned, slightly sad look her way before turning back to me. “Violet’s cousin, Clive, looks after the place. Did he stop by this morning to see if you needed anything? The cabin hasn’t been rented in a while. We only offer it up when the real estate people have someone reliable. It’s been in the family for years. Don’t want any of these party animals booking it and parking twenty campers in the yard.”

“No parties, I promise. Just me and my dog, Friday. I hope that’s not a problem. He’s housebroken and he doesn’t chew on things. He wasn’t supposed to be coming . . . Well, long story. Anyway, he’s harmless, although he did have a little altercation with Horatio, the goose. And yes, a man did stop by and check on me this morning.”
He didn’t exactly seem thrilled that I was there.
“Everything’s fine at the cabin, other than a few lightbulbs. He said he’d replace those.”

“Good. You have four-wheel drive, I guess? The trip down the hill can be a challenge.”

“Actually, no, but I made it.”

A concerned look came my way. “If a rain rolls in, be sure to park up at the mailbox and walk down, just to be safe.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that. Maybe it won’t rain while I’m here.”

Her reply came with a sly smile. “You must not plan to be here very long.” I understood the inside joke. Water practically seeped from the air around here. “It’s a shame you’re not a writer. The cottage is a wonderful place for writers. My nephew used to work there on occasion.”

Suddenly the door seemed to be swinging open wide.

“So this is a vacation for you?” Mrs. Hall was still trying to figure me out. Clearly her sister-in-law hadn’t gotten all the details from Hollis.

“Working trip,” I answered.

She drew back, her chin folding into her neck. “You picked a strange week to come.”

I fumbled for the best way to get around to my reason for being here. Could this woman secure five minutes in a room with Evan Hall? Would she even be willing to try? “To tell you the truth, the timing sort of picked me. Something ended up on my desk a week ago, a manuscript. Just a partial
 
—the first three chapters. I flew here to find out more about it.”

“Oh? Does the author live here, then?” Now she was watching me through the wary eyes of a deer deciding whether to enter an open field or bolt for the woods.

“I hope so. According to the postmark, the package came from here.”

“What’s the author’s name? Maybe I can help you with directions or a phone number. I know just about everyone in the county. Been here since I fell in love with a sailor and moved inland in ’53.”

I paused a minute, measuring my next words. This was it, the great reveal. My one chance. “The truth is, I don’t know. There was no identifying information with the submission, or if there was information, it had been lost.”

“And you flew cross-country to find the author? That isn’t normal procedure, I suspect. . . .” The front windows reflected against her glasses, partially obscuring the further narrowing of her eyes, but not the shift in posture, the drawing away.