The Forever Stone (31 page)

He said there’d be a name on a sign, somewhere along Salty Spung Road. She’d had to detour because of a forest fire, and the officer had given her directions. She could only hope that he knew which Marrick was Sid.

The sign turned out to be a rusted iron post with a crossbar made of wood and a name painted in red: MARRICK’S MIRACLE SHOP. Trees grew to the edge of the narrow driveway, sheltering piles of car doors, fenders, and bumpers.

The driveway led to a house dwarfed by a ramshackle barn that towered behind it. Both seemed deserted, and after she parked and turned off her engine, the silence closed in. If anything moved here, it would be only the crawling vines and the creeping rust. 

She picked her way around a sprawl of engine parts and hesitated before walking up the steps to the door-less screened porch.

“Mollie!” A red-haired streak rushed down the steps and pulled her into a bear hug. “Oops!” Tara let her go. “I think I crushed whatever was in that bag.”

“Just your cookies,” Madeleine said, handing them to her,

“For me!” The girl’s eyes were puffy, but a smile lit her face. An instant later, it vanished. “You’d better meet my uncle.”

A tall, gaunt figure ambled down the steps, blinking in the sunlight.

“Uncle Sid,” Tara said. “Mollie brought us cookies.”

The man scratched at the tuft of red whiskers on his chin, nodding, and she recognized him from Timothy’s store.

He peered into her face. “I thank you,” he said, “for lookin’ after our Sally.”

He spoke with care, as if finding and retrieving words from his brain was a risky business, but his blue eyes examined her appreciatively.

“We enjoyed having her,” Madeleine said, as if Tara’s presence had been a pre-arranged social occasion.

“Hey, let’s go for a walk in the woods,” Tara said. “Can we, Uncle Sid, just for a few minutes?”

He considered. “You be careful.” He gazed at the smoky pallor of the sky, and sniffed the air. “That fire is still movin’. And . . .” He paused to drag out a new thought. “Make sure you get back before . . .”

“We will.” Tara was hopping from one foot to the other. “You can hold the cookies. C’mon, Mollie.”

She darted into the trees as if she’d been let out of a cage, and Madeleine hurried to keep up. She hadn’t locked her car. Would it be safe? Or would the Miracle Man dismember it just for the fun of putting it back together again?

“Got to hurry,” Tara said over her shoulder. “I’m grounded. But I want to show you something.”

She turned off the path, pushing through waist-high bushes, and Madeleine stayed close behind.

“Over there,” Tara said.

“That?” All she could see was a huge brush pile.

“I piled a whole lot of branches over it for camouflage.”

Tara ducked under a tree limb, dropped to her hands and knees to crawl forward, and Madeleine did the same. She found herself in a tiny brush-lined cave that was roofed with wood scraps. It ended at the rusted body of a truck with flattened tires.   

Still crouching, Tara grinned at her. “Like it? My hideout. Right in my own backyard. Got the boards from Sid’s pile behind the garage, but he won’t mind. We’ve got to hurry,” she said again. “I need to ask you a favor.”

She crawled to the truck body, reached underneath it, and pulled out a black metal box with dented corners.

“This is my hideaway box,” she said. “Sid comes home with all kinds of junk and this was just what I needed. I . . . um . . . acquired it from him.”

She crouched over the front of the box and opened it, shielding the contents with her body.

A second later she clicked the door of the box shut, and she slid it back underneath the truck before turning. In her palm lay the pendant she’d worn around her neck.

“This is mine,” Tara said, her voice grown fierce. “And I’m not going to let her steal it from me again.” She gave Madeleine a pleading look. “Can you keep it for me?”

“If you’re sure you want me to.”

Why was it so important?

Tara slipped the metal disc into the outside pocket of Madeleine’s purse and zipped it shut. “There, it’s safe now. It belonged to my mother. And it—oh! C’mon, or she’ll catch me.”

She crawled outside and plunged into the woods again, and after only a few minutes they reached the clearing. Uncle Sid stood in the sunlight where they’d left him, eating a cookie and gazing at Madeleine’s car. “Need a bumper,” he said. “I kin fix you up. Paint job too.”

He shifted his gaze to a black pickup barreling down the driveway, and both he and Tara seemed to stiffen.  

A grizzly-sized woman stepped from the truck. Her jacket, pants, and boots were black leather, and a knotted brown plait hung down her back. “Sally! What’re you doing outside? You’re grounded, remember?"

“Hi, Aunt Dixie.” Tara’s voice had changed timbre. It was lighter, more childlike. “Mollie just stopped by to say hello.”

The implication was clear: she’s just leaving.

Madeleine arranged a smile on her face.

The woman gestured toward the house and Tara scampered back inside. “Sid, it’s cold out here,” she said in a caressing voice. “And you without your jacket.”

“I’m okay, Dixie. She brought cookies.”

The woman’s gaze skimmed across her, and the black eyes were disdainful.

She put a muscular hand on her husband’s shoulder and turned him toward the house. “I will make you plenty of cookies.” She linked her arm with his.

He went willingly enough, but they had gone only a few steps before his head rotated on the thin neck. “Come see us any—” His words squeezed off in mid-sentence.

As she opened her car door, Tara’s shout came from the porch. “Bye, Mollie. Thanks for coming!”

How much would Tara have to pay for that cheerful expression of defiance? She did a careful three-point turn to get out of the small clearing and prayed for a chance to come back.

She had kept her cell phone off during the visit, and now it blinked at her with voice mail. Nathan’s mellow voice said, “Do you have time to go visit Mrs. Bozarth with me this afternoon? I’ll be with patients, so leave a message.”

She told his voice mail that yes, any time in late afternoon would be fine, and stopped on the way back to the Manor to buy groceries.

Aunt Lin helped her to carry them in. “I’ve called the Truck Guys about the Blue Room,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what it looks like without the clutter.”

The men arrived by the time lunch was over, and they cleared the room under Aunt Lin’s watchful eye. The blue sofa went too, and Madeleine thought about the nights Tara had spent on it. What could be done about her?

Afterwards, Madeleine joined her aunt in the doorway, and Bria came to stand beside them. “That fireplace,” Aunt Lin said. “I could tear off those blue tiles with my bare hands. Another of Henrietta’s fantasies, and all wrong for this house.”

Bria tilted her head. “I wonder what the original fireplace looked like.”

“That’s a good question,” Aunt Lin said. “Let’s see if we can find out. I hope Jude’s coming today.”

As soon as Jude arrived, he pitched into the work. Madeleine walked past while he was wiping down the fireplace. “What happened at Tara’s?” he asked.

“I think I’d run away too. That aunt of hers is terrifying.

“Tara said she’s big and strong.”

“Understatement. Twice my size and all muscle.”

Jude grinned. “What about the uncle?”

“He’s different. Sort of quirky and passive. He seemed almost normal until the aunt showed up.”

Jude asked how Tara was doing, and she told him what she’d observed but didn’t say anything about the hideout or the pendant.

“What about the fire?” he asked. “Our teacher told us there’s a bad one up that way.”

“She’s right. I got directions and drove around it.”

“Our teacher said that a store in Tabernacle blew up, too, so she gave us a lesson on how explosives work. Might come in handy.”

Madeleine said she hoped not, and he went to get a bucket of fresh water.

A short time later, while she was putting supper into the oven, she thought about the pendant and wondered what it would look like, cleaned up. She could try silver polish.

It was small, the size of a silver dollar, and it bore a raised motif that was lost in the tarnish. As she worked, the image of a tree with twining, interlaced branches appeared. Jude stepped through the doorway, coughing. “Bria’s raising a dust cloud in there. I need a drink.”

She moved aside as he filled his glass at the sink, drank it down, and filled it again. “What’s that?”

“Something of Tara’s.” She ran water over the pendant and held it up. The tree gleamed, and its interwoven roots and branches spread into a circular border.

He set down his glass, staring.

“What’s the matter, Jude?”

“Where’d you get that?”

“From Tara. She asked me to keep it for her.”

“It’s not hers.” He spoke as if the words strangled him. “It’s . . . it’s my dad’s.”

Madeleine looked from his ashen face to the object in her hand. “Are you sure? Maybe it just looks like his.”

He picked up the leather cord that dangled from the pendant. “My dad wore this all the time. He liked Celtic stuff.”

He touched the frayed ends of a knot. “This is where it broke, a long time ago. We were wrestling.” He prodded the second knot with a thumbnail. “Then it broke again. He was going to get a chain for it. He put it in his binocular case for safe keeping.”

His voice cracked, but he went on. “I don’t know where that girl got it, but—”

“Jude! You coming back?”

He jumped. “Don’t let my sister see it, or it’ll make her crazy, like Mom.” He hurried from the kitchen.

She dried off the pendant and tucked it into the top drawer of her bureau with a sigh. Which of them was telling the truth?

Her aunt had worked in her dark room for most of the afternoon, but she came out to pay Bria and Jude before they left.

“You’ll have the house to yourself,” Madeleine said to her. “Supper’s in the oven. I’m going with Nathan Parnell to visit one of his patients.”

“Take your time,” her aunt said, “I’ve got a project in hand. Why not invite him for supper?”

Why not?

She’d hardly finished changing when his Jeep drove up to the back door. She slipped a loaf of walnut bread into a bag and went out to meet him.

“I’m glad you could come on such short notice,” he said, opening the car door. “Evelyn liked you, and it’s good for her to have company.” He frowned. “That ulcer on her leg. Sometimes it’s easier to dress it myself.”

Evelyn Bozarth began to glow as soon as they walked in. “Doc-tor-and-teach-er.”

“How are you today?” Madeleine asked.

”Lov-ing Christ.” Her crooked smile was incandescent.

“Me too.” Madeleine put the loaf of bread into her lap. “Brought you something.”

Nathan said, “Wait till you smell this.”

He opened the bag. “Evelyn, I saw her make this bread, and believe me, it’s going to be tender. Or whatever the term is for dough that’s been beaten up.”

The woman shook her head. “Knea-ded. Glut-en-stretch-es.”

She bent her head over the loaf and smiled. “Cinn-a-mon. Ver-y good.” She patted Madeleine’s knee. “Thank-you.”

Nathan checked her over, changed the bandage on her leg, and watched her walk. “You’re doing well,” he said. “How about trying a cane next week?”

“Good news!” She smiled. “Grad-u-a-tion.”

She leaned back against the pillows while he went to make her tea.

“So you taught at Sandy Bank?” Madeleine said.

Evelyn Bozarth nodded, looking expectant.

“Someone told me that Sid and Sam Marrick went there,” Madeleine said. “Did you know them at all?”

“Bad kids.” Her eyes snapped.

Madeleine hesitated. Was she upsetting the woman? Maybe she shouldn’t ask any more questions about them. Next time.

Evelyn Bozarth leaned forward, stretching a hand toward Madeleine. “Doc-tor,” she said quietly. “Re-mark . . . re-mark-able man.”

“Yes.”

The woman’s voice shook, just a little. “Take-care-of-him. For-me.” The black eyes softened. “Our se-cret.”

Pain twisted deep inside her, but Madeleine smiled. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “And . . . and I’ll pray that the Lord keeps making you stronger.”

He returned with tea and a slice of the walnut bread, buttered and cut into four neat squares. Remarkable man, yes.

It was time to leave, and Madeleine bent to give the woman a hug. She whispered, “You are such a blessing to me, Evelyn. I’ll remember our secret.”

Evelyn Bozarth’s smile followed them all the way to the door.