The Story Keeper (11 page)

“The story was special,” I admitted. “And . . . well . . . the fact is . . . I wonder if it may have been written by . . . Evan Hall.” Was it my imagination, or had the mention of that name turned heads all over the pharmacy, even though I was trying to keep it quiet?

The little girl at the table shifted her focus to me. Helen took the time to redirect her to her homework. I suspected that was a stall tactic.

Helen’s face was a mask of sympathy when she returned. “I’m afraid you’re on a wild-goose chase. It couldn’t be from him. It’s a shame, what with all the talent he has, but my nephew hasn’t written a thing since he got out from under that legal mess with Time Shifters, and truly, I doubt he ever will again.”

It was now or never. At least she hadn’t thrown me out yet. “This manuscript is twenty years old.”

She increased the distance between us even farther. “Well, now
that’s
quite the story.” An incredulous frown came my way, and she focused on my hand, curled around my purse strap. I realized she was looking at the stamp that’d been put there when I’d entered the Warrior Weekend campground.

“I’m not one of
them
,” I rushed. “I mean, I read some of the books when I was a teenager, but this doesn’t have anything to do with Time Shifters. This manuscript was written before that.” I was losing her, and fast. I’d made enough deals to know when one
was going south. Crossed arms had replaced the welcoming look. She’d decided I was some kind of a stalker . . . or a nut. “I just . . . Look, I stuck my neck way out to come here, but sometimes I run across a story, and I know it needs to be told. I really . . .” Another customer had moved into line behind me. My time was up. “
The Story Keeper
. It’s about two young people trapped in the mountains around 1890. Rand and Sarra?” I blurted. “Does any of that ring a bell at all?”

Her lips parted slightly, then pursed, a flash of some emotion quickly vanishing. Had she recognized something?

“Not that I can say.” Her arms knotted more tightly over her chest, forming an impenetrable barricade. “And please don’t go trying to sneak onto Evan’s place to find him like the rest of these yahoos, either. My sister-in-law, his grandmother, isn’t well. The sheriff was out there again yesterday, dragging away people who’d shinnied the fence, thinking to find time portals. Evan just wants to be left alone. He has a right to his privacy.”

My desperation flared. This was falling apart faster than I could rake it back together. “I’m not here to cause trouble for him. I promise . . . Please just listen to
 
—”

“I have customers.” She looked past me to the person next in line. “Yes, Elmira. I have your prescription right here.”

I had a vision of my whole future tumbling off a cliff. What would happen if I went back to Vida House empty-handed, a blind-swing strikeout on a bad pitch? Would I even have a job, and if I did, how would I ever reestablish credibility? By now, word of this far-fetched trip was undoubtedly circulating. My new coworkers probably thought George Vida and I had gone round the bend together.

But beyond that, there was a deeper sense of loss. Until now, I hadn’t really allowed myself to believe that I might fail to pull
this one off, that I might never know the rest of Rand and Sarra’s story. Grief struck with sudden power
 
—as if someone were dying right in front of me, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“Thank you for talking with me.” I sidestepped to take my purchases up front. The homework girl watched intently, startled by the reversal of the conversational mood. I doubted that Helen Hall gave visitors the bum’s rush very often.

“Oh, I’m not in any hurry,” the woman next in line offered. “You can ring her up back here, Helen.”

“We’re finished, Elmira,” Helen said flatly.

I glanced up, and Elmira eyed me quizzically. Before I knew what was happening, I was in sixth-grade English class watching those stern lips form a thin line as she looked over her shoulder, the chalk still dangling next to her name on the board.

“Mrs.
Penberthy
?” She hadn’t changed a bit. Perhaps she’d aged a little, but she was a memory come to life. When I was twelve, she’d figured out that I hated reading because I couldn’t
see
. She was the one who’d arranged an eye exam and secured glasses from the Lions Club after no one at home took care of it.

Her mental catalog was still as sharp as ever. “Why . . . Jennia Beth Gibbs. Good heavens, child! Look at you. I haven’t heard a thing of you in years. How are you, sweet one?” She opened her arms, and within moments I went from abject rejection to the embrace of the eternally beloved. I would never forget everything Mrs. Penberthy had done for me, and how she’d stood up to my father and threatened to report to child services if
anything
happened to the eyeglasses he thought I didn’t need.

“I’m good.” The same scent still wafted from her
 
—dressing powder, old lace, and cats. I closed my eyes and took it in.

“You’re
well
,” she corrected.

“Yes, very well, thank you.” That was what she’d taught us to
say. Etiquette lessons came with sixth-grade English in Towash. Heaven knows, some of us needed them.

“That’s my girl.” The praise fell over me like fairy dust, just as it always had. Before Wilda Culp, there’d been Mrs. Penberthy. The first person I’d ever seen brave enough to give my father what for.

She shuffled me to one side of the pharmacy counter, still sandwiching my chin between her cool, bone-thin hands. “Oh, sweetness, tell me where you’ve been. You do know that Wilda Culp passed some years ago? She was so proud of you. Her son passed as well, but only recently. He survived with all the medical troubles much longer than anyone thought he would.”

“Yes, I knew . . . about Wilda, I mean, not about Richard.” Shame crept over me. I hadn’t come home for Wilda’s funeral. I didn’t have the money or any way of getting here at the time, but that wasn’t really the reason. I wanted to keep pretending she was still living in that big house on Honey Creek, and as long as I never saw her body in the coffin, I could. I didn’t have to be alone in the world again.

“And what are you doing now? What’s brought you back home?”

“I’m an editor at Vida House Publishing in New York.” I was conscious of both Helen Hall and Hannah tracking our conversation from behind the pharmacy counter. “I came here to see about a manuscript, actually.”

Mrs. Penberthy caught a breath. “Oh. Oh, my, how interesting that must be! And how wonderful. I’m so very proud of you. You always were a smart little thing. Such a hard worker. I knew you’d go far.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Penberthy. I don’t think I ever told you this, but . . .” Tears prickled and I swallowed hard to keep them down. “But you made such a difference to me. To a lot of us.”

A wink and a secret smile answered. “Oh, I knew, sweet. A good teacher can see it. No one has to tell her.”

She hugged me again, then held me away, her expression growing more somber. “I thought you might have come home because of your father.” Her concern was obvious, and I knew, because I knew Mrs. Penberthy, that it wasn’t concern for my father as much as concern for how the family connections might drag me under. She understood the difficult scenarios of kinship and poverty all too well. “That accident seems to have caused him quite a bit of trouble.”

“Accident?” The question was hanging in the air before I thought about how much it revealed in terms of our current family dynamics. I had no idea my father had been in an accident, much less a serious one.

Mrs. Penberthy began to speak, stopped, began again. “His arm . . . the one he almost lost in the hay mower?” She was trying to be polite now. Undoubtedly, she could tell I was completely confused. “My daughter teaches at Towash Elementary. She has one of your sister’s little girls in her class. Sounds as if the man’s lucky he didn’t die of the infection in the hospital. It’s been hard on the family and a long time getting the arm to heal. He won’t listen to the doctors or cooperate with any therapy, of course.” Her opinion of my father peppered the tone.

An awkward conversational pause descended, neither of us knowing what to say next. Guilt struck quickly, a skillful and ravenous hunter. No doubt this was why Coral Rebecca had sent the second letter. When an entire family is surviving on the ragged edge
 
—this one borrowing from that one, then asking from the next one
 
—the circle of dependence forms a lopsided card castle just waiting to be toppled by an unexpected wind.

“But enough of that.” Mrs. Penberthy sought a graceful exit,
gripping my upper arms as if to prop me like a scarecrow. “It is so very lovely to see you, Jennia Beth, and congratulations on all of your success. It does an old teacher’s heart good. It certainly does. We always hold hope, but so much of the time we never know.”

I realized suddenly that, all those years ago while Mrs. Penberthy was facing down my father, she was committing more effort to me than I could’ve possibly guessed. For no specific reason, other than her own beautiful spirit, she’d decided I was worth saving.

The tears pressed again. “Thank you, Mrs. Penberthy. That means a lot.”

“It’s Elmira. You’re all grown up now. You’ve earned the privilege.”

“It wouldn’t seem right.” I hugged her again, and both of us laughed before she stepped up to the pharmacy counter.

I was once again aware of Helen Hall and Hannah nearby. No telling what they’d made of the whole dialogue. Hannah and I exchanged glances as I started toward the front counter. I smiled, trying to reassure her.

Helen Hall caught me just before I turned the corner to the greeting card aisle. “I’ll do what I can. If there’s any possibility, I’ll call you. We have your cell phone number on the rental paperwork, I’m sure.” Still holding Mrs. Penberthy’s prescription, she slid her fingers contemplatively along the edge. “But I can’t make promises.”

Chapter 12

The Story Keeper

CHAPTER FOUR

Sarra waited for him to head toward camp so she could follow along behind. She’d trailed the younger one down to the water in the dark on purpose, keepin’ close to him, but just shy of his reach. Seemed he was the most likely one to be different from Jep and the men they’d left trussed up like hogs back at the night camp. They’d used the slave irons on the boy, Revi, and left a bowie knife there aside of him. Whenever he did finally wake, he’d be some time sawin’ through that saplin’ tree to get hisself loose so’s he could untie the others. Few days, mayhap.

She was free of that bunch for now, but could be she’d just swapped one boilin’ pot for another. Somethin’ about the old muleteer warned her agin trustin’ him. She’d caught him watching her with eyes that burned, now that the moon’d sunk behind the hills and the full dark had made them stop till morn.

But this man
 
—
Rand
, the muleteer’d called him as they fled with the wagon neath the moon glow
 
—it was harder to say what sort was he. These last weeks, she’d come to wonder if any men were good. She didn’t want one aback of her in the dark no matter who he was. It’s the things aback of you, you had to fret over. You learnt that, fetchin’ up in the mountains, or you didn’t live long enough to learn nary a thing at all.

He stopped to let her by, waiting like she was a addled thing, a rabbit froze in the grass.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. The words were meant for a comfort, but she knew better than to let them be that.

She didn’t answer. She’d spoke not a word to neither man yet. Better they think she was a wild creature, a whiff of smoke, or a haint.

Straightening her back, she pulled her blanket closer to keep off the chill. Her body ached in every part, her ankles raw and swolt up from the leg irons, but she made herself move ahead of him on long strides, puttin’ distance betwixt them as he lugged the water bucket for the mules and the saddle horse. There was no fire to show the way to camp. Only the dim lantern light. Enough to carry them through this night’s last, long hours.

Enough for her to gather what she needed before sneakin’ off
 
—food from the wagon, a knife, a pistol if she could get it. One lay in the saddle poke on Rand’s horse. She’d fare better if she took the horse, too, but a small bit of thievin’ was bothersome enough, and a wrong thing. She wouldn’t make it more by stealing the man’s mount.

Still, home was far off. Even if she could find her way along the
roads and the rivers, no tellin’ if she’d ever reach it afoot. And Jep and his men would be loose soon enough. They’d come for her, mayhap with Brown Drigger’s dogs, too.

Her hope went soft as she sat down by the lamp and tented the blanket round herself. Across the flame, the old man had tossed a gunnysack on the ground, laid hisself back agin it. He eyeballed her through half-closed lids. “You can talk, girl,” he said. “I know you ain’t gone mute.”

She said nothing.

“You try’a put a hex on me, I’ll cut yer eyeballs out.” He took his knife from the scabbard and laid it on his chest. “I don’t cotton to yer kind, y’hear? You be a looksome thang, but you ain’t worth dyin’ over. The tenderbelly there’s got too much nobleness. Shoulda kilt ’em all and buried ’em where nobody’d find the bones. Now we got us trouble. And that daddy a yourn’s out there someplace too.”

She stared into the single flame, not looking his way nor toward the sound of Rand seein’ after the horse. A chill sliced under the blanket, testing Aginisi’s careful weave. Sarra tucked it over and under best she could, pretended it was Aginisi’s broad, leather-thick hands sheltering her. She bent her head forward to rest on her knees, warming the hollow space with her own breath. Snow was building somewhere over the mountains. She could feel it.

She hoped not tonight nor in the morn, but it was comin’. Snow could change everything. It hid scents but kept tracks for all to find. Heavy snow would get you away, but a scattering like was apt to come this time of year, it’d lead the devil right to you.

The wagon tarp rustled. Metal clanked on metal, each sound pricking her mind, showing her how close by Rand was, how far off. Even through her cocoon, she heard him come to the lamp. The dull brush of his clothes and the near-silent scrape of his boots tugged her mind. He stopped aside her a minute. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He touched her shoulder. The muscle and sinew in her pulled tight, but she stopped short of flinching. She wouldn’t let herself.

“Do you need anything?” he asked. “I can salve those wounds if you like. It’ll ease the pain.”

She didn’t answer.

Somethin’ fell soft over her then, somethin’ heavy and frost-crisp from the night. Another blanket. She didn’t grip it but just let it lie there, felt it cut the wind.

It’d been a long time since a kindness had come her way from a man’s hand. Not since Gran-dey, with his white hair and round belly and the big voice that filled up the cabin. He was a Scotsman, so she knew it that all Scotsmen were good folk. Mayhap Rand was a Scotsman too, but there wasn’t no way to know without askin’.

It’d been years since the time Gran-dey shed this world without warnin’, his body death-still and so big and heavy it’d took Sarra and Aginisi and the mule, all three, to get him buried. Now she could see him again
 
—mayhap her mind had gone trickish, but he was there with his thick white beard, takin’ her to his knee to read from the Book
 
—somethin’ even Aginisi couldn’t do. They’d all sit together, Aginisi and Mama and Sarra, and listen while Gran-dey told them words of places far off and people long gone, their deeds still remembered.

Those was fine times, when she was bitty, but they hurt too. Fine times do when they’re gone away. Aginisi had told her that after Sarra’s own mama was no more for this world.

All things pass, suga’ pea. All the things a this worl’ got a time for bornin’ and time for dyin’, and a time for troublin’ and a time for restin’.

Ssshhh . . . ,
Aginisi’s voice whispered in her mind.
It’s time for restin’ now, child.

I stopped reading, looked up, and was almost surprised to find myself alone on the screened side porch of Helen Hall’s cabin rather than in a makeshift mountain camp, hidden beneath a blanket as the moon fell behind the peaks and the inky-thick darkness of the early-morning hours set in. On Looking Glass Lake, evening had come as well. A bobcat screamed somewhere in the woods, lending to the illusion that I was living the story, in the body of that frightened, confused girl whose only hope lay with an out-of-place young man she wondered if she could trust.

I had absolutely no idea how this new piece of the manuscript
 
—two complete chapters
 
—had come to be waiting for me at the cabin when I’d returned after supper.

After leaving the pharmacy, I’d spent the day in town with my laptop, getting some work done at a coffee shop while Friday slept under the table and crowds of Time Shifters enthusiasts came and went. I’d hoped Helen Hall would call, and I’d be right down the street . . . just in case she had managed to set up a meeting. But the call never came. When the restaurant started filling up with evening diners, I’d eaten supper and then given up waiting.

The cabin seemed to be just as I had left it, dead lightbulbs and all. There were no tire tracks except the ones from my rental car, no clues as to who had been here. I’d thought at first that the manila envelope tucked between the screen and front door probably contained the rental bill.

Well, not only does he not want to talk to me, but he’s told her to kick me out. Great.
That’s what had gone through my mind. It never entered my thought process that the very thing I’d come here for could be inside that envelope. More of
The Story Keeper
, the paper yellowed, the print a nonstandard font choice like the originals.

Wilda would’ve complained that the author did not know his business. She detested slapdash work and lack of preparation in writing and in life.

A wise woman is always properly prepared. She understands the value of a job done to perfection. She knows that she must be fully capable of making her way independently in a man’s world, Jennia Beth,
she’d said while tapping out the newspaper column she’d created to supplement her teaching income after finding herself alone with a son to raise.
It isn’t what girls of my generation were reared to believe, but our reality is often a far stretch from the things we have dreamed. It is our ability to adapt that determines our survival.

I turned back to the manuscript, wondering . . . If I found myself in the situation of the young girl in the story, would I have what it took to survive?

And did
she
?