Just Intuition (3 page)

She suddenly rose and stood by the door where, two seconds later, the dog
's happy grin and dangling tongue appeared behind the glass. She let Fiona in and the dog tracked muddy paw prints across the floor.

Erin stifled a sigh and eyed the closet that held the sponge mop. She placed the café latté she
'd made on the table for Allie. It was nice and frothy, just how she liked. Without looking up, Allie absently reached over, grasped the handle of the coffee mug and slid it to the right about a foot.

Erin picked up the plate of toast and balanced the butter knife. She remembered to snatch a jar of homemade crab apple jelly from the fridge on her way back to the table. Before she could put it down, she fumbled and the knife lurched over the edge of the plate. It skittered across the table where seconds before the coffee had been. Erin cocked her head and stared at it and then the mug. Uncanny. She reached over and straightened the knife beside Allie
's plate.

"Pretty coffee, Honey." Allie smiled and picked up her mug to take a swallow. "Good too." It always made Erin smile when Allie called her that.
Honey.

"It
's Saturday. I don't work tonight so I can sleep later…" Erin began, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. A crazy idea began to form. "Why don't we take Fuzzy Fiona for a walk? She could sure use one. I've been busy. You've been busy with your new job. Fiona deserves it." Erin knew she was manipulating Allie by using the dog, but a spark was igniting in her mind and it stifled her guilt.

Allie
's brow furrowed. "You know I have to go soon. I'm meeting the girls from work at Zumba."

"Zumba? Is that even a real thing?"

"Yes, it's a fitness class, and it's fun. Not everyone likes free weights and treadmills."

"Can
't you miss it once? Spend some time with me?" she cajoled. Allie hesitated until Erin pointed to the grinning dog. "Look at that face."

That did it. Allie bent, rubbed Fiona
's ears and retrieved her jacket from the hall closet. Erin patted the dog, her unwitting co-conspirator. It was simply an idea she had. There was no harm in walking a dog and having an idea. She glanced at the dirty trail across the kitchen. They could go right after she mopped the dog's footprints off the floor.

CHAPTER TWO

"How far into mosquito country do we actually need to go to walk the dog? She likes it fine just going around the block." Allie rolled up her window when the roadside brush threatened to scrape the side of the Toyota Tacoma 4X4.

Erin kept her window wide open, her elbow propped up on the frame, cool wind ruffling through previously tidy hair. She knew Allie liked how it looked when it was wind-blown into disarray but it annoyed her when it whipped her eyes. She ran a hand through to straighten it.

Allie was a city girl, born and raised in Toronto. Concrete and cultivated urban landscapes her home turf. She easily navigated Yonge Street in her black Mini Cooper during Friday afternoon rush hour traffic without losing her cool or spilling a drop of her latté on the leather seats. She knew the best outdoor sight-seeing patios at Church and Wellesley and was most comfortable on a proper sidewalk in a pair of good walking shoes. Allie stifled a grunt when the tires hammered over furrows in the road, jostling her harshly against taut seatbelt. She hunched further down and clung to the door handle.

Warm and clear, the temperature would be eighty degrees by mid afternoon. At least the heat might drive off the majority of hungry mosquitos. They
'd driven five miles from Morley Falls, and Erin navigated through a labyrinth of unmarked dirt roads. She pointed out a few squirrels and a raven along the way. Within minutes, Allie was disoriented.

"What kind of animal is that?" She pointed directly ahead.

Erin squinted her eyes. There were deer around here, rabbits and maybe the odd moose. She stole a peek at Allie, whose brows knitted together in concentration.

"Oh, duh." Allie announced. "It
's not an animal." A few seconds later a dark willowy shape materialized ahead when a figure emerged from one of the bush paths.

"Who is that?" Allie studied the road, eyes wide. She sucked in a breath. When they drove closer, she let it out. It was a young girl, no more than eleven or twelve. Thin as a reed, she wore a long sleeved gray hoodie pulled up over her head and walked with an odd stiff-armed gait. As they passed, she turned her pale expressionless face toward them and vaporized back into the brush.

"That was Lily," Erin told her. "She's old man Gunther's granddaughter and they live at a little place just in behind here. He's been taking care of her since her mom took off a couple years ago and nobody else wanted her. Quite a few guys liked going ice fishing with Gunther every winter but, in the last few years, he's turned into a hermit. Now he pretty much keeps to himself. Except for his grandkid, of course."

"There
's something about that kid."

Erin nodded. Everyone in town felt a bit sorry for Lily, the poor motherless kid practically raising herself. The girl had unusually pale eyes and a thin frame.
Her skin was so light, she appeared almost translucent. They rode on in silence, Allie massaging one temple.

"I think I
'm getting a headache."

"I
'm sorry I don't have any Advil." Erin glanced sideways at Allie and wondered how her girlfriend was adjusting to small town Minnesota life. Sure, there were negatives to being outside a big city, but there were good people here too. Allie had been here a mere few months. Would she miss being away from the Center of the Universe, as outsiders often laughingly dubbed Toronto? This was beautiful country and Erin hoped Allie might see that. She could teach her to navigate the interconnecting lakes by canoe. To find the moose feeding in the bog, to pick wild blueberries, maybe even catch a fish. They could sit shoulder to shoulder on their back porch, breathe pure air and watch sunsets with no suffocating city smog.

Allie glanced back, eyes silently imploring her to slow down over the bigger bumps.

Erin gripped the steering wheel and dodged potholes with easy familiarity, smirking an apology. Despite the deplorable road conditions, she was enjoying the drive. "Around this corner is a nice path we can walk on," she reassured her.

Between them, the dog quivered with excitement, her nose scenting the air through the window. Fiona shared Erin
's love of the rough country surrounding Morley Falls and was an eager walking companion. She bounded into Allie's lap with two paws on the passenger door when Erin ground to a halt on the road.

"What
's wrong?" Allie blurted.

"We
're here."

* * *

Allie cautiously opened her door and helped Fiona to the ground. The dog wiggled her body in circles, unable to contain her excitement. Allie looked up and down the dirt road, hemmed in on both sides by thick underbrush. She could not figure out where 'here' was.

Erin hopped out the driver
's side and slung her leather bag across her shoulder, messenger style, before setting off. A few feet in front of the truck, she pointed at a small gap in the brush and waved Allie over. "The trail is here." She disappeared and Allie rushed to follow.

This was wild country and Allie
's pulse quickened. The low brush was so thick that she had to hurry to keep up with Erin, already hidden from view only a short distance ahead. Fiona, nose to Allie's pant leg, followed her happily down the narrow trail. Ferns and low growing branches behind the dog swayed when Fiona's magnificent tail swatted them from side to side. With one arm awkwardly extended in front, she brushed a route through overhanging branches that grasped and tore at her hair like claws. Her free hand swiped at biting insects.

Trees blotted out the sky and Allie heard only the buzzing of hungry mosquitoes and the panting of the dog.
A branch cracked somewhere off to the left. Allie's scalp tingled. Fiona let out a low growl and planted her tail between her legs.

It was suddenly too quiet, and too dark. The birds had stopped singing. There were only her footsteps and the branches ripping at her clothing. Darkness swirled around her. Humid earthiness of the
undergrowth strangled her throat. She glanced over her shoulder. A shadowy presence was following. Watching. Waiting.

She hunched her shoulders and scrambled faster to catch up to Erin, who kept up a jaunty pace ahead, ducking the occasional overhanging branch. Streaks of sunlight pierced the darkness and the phantom vanished. Allie stopped and forced herself to take a deep breath. The dog nosed her hand and prodded her forward. There was no unseen menace, no danger. Was she being paranoid? She patted Fiona
's head and hurried on.

A moment later, the trail widened and they approached a clearing where she joined Erin who surveyed a field of moss. The incessant buzzing of mosquitos dissipated when they distanced themselves from the dank undergrowth to stand in the sunshine. Erin touched Allie
's cheek, her hand cool against burning skin. Eyebrows squeezed together, she tucked errant strands of hair behind her ear.

"
I'm fine." Allie answered the unspoken question.

Erin nodded. She turned and gestured toward the rough green carpet of plant life before them. "It
's a floating bog," she announced, hands on hips like a proud land baron. "There's a fairly deep lake underneath all this moss." She pointed to what looked like a jumbled mound of weather-beaten sticks. "Over by the little creek is an abandoned beaver lodge but I haven't seen any beavers around for a few years now. As a kid, I used to be able to paddle down the river from my parents' dock, up the creek and through the culvert under the road to the far side of this bog. There was always a family of beavers slapping their tails at us, and it had a nice clear pool of open water."

Allie smiled at the thought of Erin as a little blonde sunburned waif.

"My brother and I liked to catch minnows all around that far side and sell them as bait to the tourists. It was better money than a paper route. Now the creek is almost dried up and you can't get a canoe in anywhere until you reach the river." Erin looked down at Allie's tidy leather shoes. "Back then, you'd be up to your hips in muck right here where we are standing. Instead of getting your city shoes sucked off your feet, today you're just getting your toes wet. It's amazing, eh?"

"I
'm the Canadian here," Allie quipped. She didn't want to ruin her shoes, and retreated from the edge of the mossy shore to more solid footing near the trail. "I'm supposed to be the one saying eh."

Erin laughed. "All the old Swedish geezers in my family have been saying eh since forever. I
'm sure we invented it, but you Canadians portaged it back across Lake Superior to claim as your own." She bent down and picked a sprig of tiny green leaves from the edge of the bog.

"Wintergreen." She tore off a leaf and popped it into her mouth. "It will get a little red berry later in the season. Also edible." She handed the sprig to Allie who cautiously tasted it.

"Minty!" Allie exclaimed, putting a couple more leaves into her mouth. "Trés cool." They were surprisingly refreshing. She picked another sprig and put it in the front pocket of her jeans. This was the first time she had ever eaten anything off the ground in the wild and it was energizing.

She heard a veritable cacophony of birdsong, but could not name a single species. Brown, blue, red and black streaked wings flitted from branch to stalk all around her. Then there was a familiar staccato in the distance. Now that she identified as a woodpecker. Even in the middle of Toronto, woodpeckers hammered telephone poles.

Tiny yellow blossoms peeped shyly from the moss near her feet and she bent to smell the moist richness of new plant growth. In the grasses further ahead, dragonflies in dazzling colors zoomed precision loops in the air in pursuit of insects. A gold and white butterfly careened drunkenly between pink, purple and blue petals. Allie exhaled in awe. She never would have noticed any of this had she not stepped off the trail. She followed Erin's careful footsteps around the sodden edge of the swamp.

"Don
't try to walk out past this point or zoop! You're underwater," Erin warned. "I did that once on a grade six field trip and my teacher, Mr. Wozniak, pulled me out by my little red backpack. 'First time in the swamp?' he asked me. The other kids teased me for the rest of the year." She laughed and then sobered. "I remember it being kinda scary." Fiona sniffed at the edge of the mossy area and backed away when her paws sank into the water.

Allie relaxed and began to enjoy the walk. It helped having a personal guide. Since she
'd been in Morley Falls, her new job consumed her time and there was no chance to sightsee.

"What
's going on?" She pointed to a stand of blackened spires across the bog. Occasional wisps of gray smoke still wafted into the surrounding air.

"Uh, I don
't know." Erin deliberately evaded Allie's question. "The other side of the bog is close to the highway turnoff. We should go look."

"We could have driven!" Allie frowned suspiciously at her. She had not lived here long, but she knew that if they were near the highway, this would have been a short easy stroll from the paved road. She scratched itchy mosquito bites on her neck and scowled at the smelly swamp water ruining her leather shoes. Erin was being unusually deceptive and she had never seen this side of her. Why all the effort to come in the back way?

Without another word, Erin turned and led the way down the trail skirting the bog. Allie followed reluctantly. They slowed when they could see that the blackened spires were scorched tops of poplar trees and the smoking remains of a house below. Burned nearly to the ground, the brick chimney and the frame of the kitchen stove stood solitary in the wretched carcass of the home.

Allie stopped, feet rooted, and stared at the charred wood that used to be a home. Her face blanched and her gut twisted like she
'd been punched. She bent over and gripped her knees to keep from falling.

"I don
't want to go there." She backed away, repelled like opposing magnets.

Through the poplars, flashing lights of a police cruiser and an unmarked vehicle blocked the road into the home. A uniformed officer stood with his back to them, writing on a notepad. Accompanying him was a beefy blond man in jeans and polo shirt who casually leaned one haunch on the hood of the cruiser. The blond man crudely gestured the outline of a woman with both hands, obviously telling a dirty joke.

Both laughed and the blond man shielded his sunburned face to light a cigarette. He inhaled, tilted his chin and blew smoke straight into the air. Allie focused on the scene, not noticing Erin discreetly side-step behind an outcropping of brush. Her brain buzzed.

"Watch her burn. Watch her burn!" She exhaled the words as if in a foreign tongue.

* * *

Erin snapped her attention to Allie whose eyes opened wide. Face twisted in fear, she pivoted and strode back down the trail. Her stride became a hurried jog and then she sprinted. Swampy muck clung to her shoes and spiky branches scratched her skin bloody. Fiona yelped and thrashed blindly in her terrified wake.

Erin lost sight of them and her throat ran dry. In the woods, brush crashed like a fleeing bull moose. Allie had missed the trail. Following the noise, she tried to parallel their progress from the footpath. With fewer obstacles, she reached the truck first.