Mercy Snow (29 page)

H
azel rarely came into Titan Falls if she could help it. Even before Rory’s birth and his unexpected death, she had her reasons for keeping herself separate, just on the edge of things. It had never been Hazel’s intention to weave the strands of her own life into the warp of the community—or at least not to let anyone know that’s what she was doing. Before Rory passed, she used to attend church, switch out her week’s library books, and grab an occasional bite at the diner, but after Rory’s death, and now with all the distractions of her sheep and the burden of caring for Fergus, Hazel could honestly say that she craved town company about as much as a bucket of ice come the middle of winter.

Still, she couldn’t totally avoid society if she wanted to keep her small amount of business humming. At the beginning of each wool season, just as she was ready to start combing and spinning her fleeces into different weights and textures of yarn, she reluctantly made her single annual appearance in June McAllister’s sewing circle, and this year she couldn’t afford to skip it.

Hazel thought of the appointment purely as a fact-gathering mission. She had no idea what the ladies termed the visit behind her back—and didn’t care to know either. She tended to keep the hour in June’s parlor businesslike, inquiring about upcoming projects the ladies thought they might be undertaking and advising what weight wool they might want to use, learning which colors they fancied and how much and how soon they could pay. It was rarely an extravagant sum. Hazel made most of her money selling surplus sheep—the ewes who were too old to breed anymore, the male lambs—and sometimes, if she really needed money, one of her better specimens.

This year she had seven male lambs she could part with,
including the bitty one with the smudge at his tail, not that he would fetch much. It hurt Hazel a little to think of auctioning him. For a split second, she was tempted not to, remembering that first lamb Fergus had ever brought her—it had been an orphan, too—but she gave herself a shake and put a quick stop to silly thoughts. Necessity called, especially with Fergus in his current state. She didn’t know if they’d ever see another paycheck out of him, and his pension was smaller than she’d been counting on.

The tow-truck company had tried to insinuate that the reduction in his pension was due to the accident, but Hazel had given them a solid piece of her mind. “First of all, you’re stacking apples up against oranges. Fergus wasn’t even
in
one of your vehicles. And you know as well as I do that he was in no way responsible. Why, I bet if he hadn’t been driving, everyone on that bus with him would have been killed instead of just the Flyte girl, and if he was wholly himself,
he’d
be telling you this instead of
me
.” Of course, if Fergus were himself, Hazel wouldn’t have been having the conversation in the first place.

She patted the loose ends of her frizzy hair back into the knot she wore at the nape of her neck and took a deep breath. June McAllister’s front porch was not the place for entertaining self-doubts. Behind the door she could hear the buzz of the town ladies as they waited, their gossip punctuated by the clatter of teacups and then, cutting through the convivial hum, the authoritative ring of June’s voice, encouraging them to take their customary seats.

“Hazel! Welcome!” June threw the door open without warning, catching her off guard and putting her in an even worse mood. “We’re all already gathered and waiting. Please, come in.”

Every time Hazel stepped into June’s home, it occurred to her that the woman really did live a paper life. Everything that Hazel could see was swept clean and was as squared as a fresh sheet of
parchment. All the rooms were decorated with antique patterns of wallpaper—intricate swirls and paisleys in clashing colors that made Hazel’s head ache. Meekly she followed June to the parlor.

The ladies stopped their chatter when she entered. Alice Lincoln half rose, but Dot shot her arm out and stopped her. “She’s not royalty, you damn fool,” Dot hissed, and Alice plopped back down on her ample bottom.

Hazel was surprised to find Dena Flyte hunched in the far corner of the parlor, her chair a little out of kilter with the rest of the other women’s, her eyes hooded so that Hazel couldn’t easily read her expression. Certainly she was much thinner than the last time Hazel had seen her, but grief could swallow the flesh right off you. Hazel knew that from experience. After Rory she’d dropped a dress size and never gotten it back. Though Fergus had always sworn he never minded, Hazel rather suspected that he sometimes missed the old curve of her hips, the bounty of better days.

Hazel took her seat in front of the semicircle, a little uncomfortable as always with being so exposed, but that was the damn problem convening with a bunch of women. They left you no choice but to either join them like a mindless lemming or stick out like an infected thumb. Hazel smoothed her skirt and sniffed. At least a thumb had its uses.

“Well,” she began, “this year I had a real bumper crop of fleeces, so I imagine—”

“Hazel,” June cut in, “before you get started, please allow me to speak on behalf of us all when I say that we sincerely hope Fergus is coming around.”

Hazel blushed, half in anger and half in embarrassment. “He’s fine.”

“And we also want to say how brave you’ve been all this time,
taking care of him out there on your own.” The women murmured and bobbed their heads. Hazel smashed her lips together to keep herself from saying anything she’d later regret. June made it sound like she was some kind of martyr, when what else was she supposed to do with little money and a broken husband? Hazel eyed the ladies. Any one of them would have done the same. Heck, many of them had.

She put up a hand. “Thank you. Now let’s talk yarn.”

The next half hour passed in a blessed blur. Stella was in a dither about baby blankets and booties and caps. She was already a week late and so put out she could almost not form a sentence whole, either backward or forward. Alice thought she might like to crochet some table runners this summer, and Dot had her heart set on a new coverlet for her bed. “Something in a nice, relaxing purple,” she instructed, and Hazel immediately pictured the delicate hanging bloom of a foxglove. She nodded and made a mental note that come July she should gather an extra armload of the flowers.

Tea was drunk and pineapple upside-down cake consumed on June’s basketweave china. Per usual, Hazel refused all offers of refreshment. For one thing, she was there to conduct business, not eat like a show horse, but the real reason was that it gave her pleasure to know she wasn’t beholden by even a single crumb to the likes of June McAllister. “Don’t be contrary,” Fergus had once said when she explained this reasoning to him. “The woman’s just being polite.”

Hazel had snorted. “Do you really believe that? June McAllister counts the flies that buzz in and out of her life, mark my words. She doesn’t do anything without a reason.” Neither did the McAllister men, Hazel more than suspected, though she couldn’t solidly prove her misgivings. But she knew she wasn’t alone in that suspicion. The town had whispered for years about
Pruitt being on the low-down and dirty payroll of Cal McAllister, though for what, no one really knew.

As Hazel rose to leave, gathering up her gloves and her good handbag, it occurred to her that of all the women, only Dena hadn’t mentioned what she would be making come the warmer months. She hadn’t said anything at all, as a matter of fact. Well, that was understandable. She would put a stone in the sugar bush for Suzie, Hazel decided, even though she wasn’t technically a child. Hazel nodded a final time at the ladies, busy now with second servings of cake and more cups of tea, and let herself out.

“Hazel, wait!” She was halfway down the porch steps. She turned in confusion, expecting June but finding Dena instead.

Hazel clomped back up the steps. “Don’t worry. I haven’t put a stone out for Suzie, but if you’d like, I will.”

Dena looked surprised. “I would. Thank you.” Hazel wasn’t sure if she should apologize for the whole mess with the bus or commiserate. It was possible that Dena blamed Fergus for what happened or, at the very least, begrudged Hazel her luck in still having him with her. Hazel knew that if she were in Dena’s place,
she
would have.

She put a sympathetic hand on Dena’s forearm. “Maybe this year isn’t the year to set out on any new projects. I understand.” A period of grief was never the right time to start on a fresh endeavor, Hazel knew, for the heart couldn’t look both forward and back. Once unraveled, a length of thread took time to wind back up again.

“I know.” Dena wrapped her arms around herself. She was only in a light sweater, and although spring had brightened up the air, it was still chilly enough. “I just wanted to thank you.”

Hazel was straddling two steps. At Dena’s declaration she wobbled, then regained her footing. Wrath she would understand,
but a show of gratitude unbalanced her. She frowned. “Whatever for? I haven’t put the stone out yet.”

“For letting Mercy tap your maples. Everyone is talking about how the sap’s working wonders on them. Fred’s a new man.” She paused, her cheeks reddening. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Hazel could feel the blood draining from her face. She clutched the porch railing.

Dena hesitated, her expression uncertain all of a sudden. “Didn’t you know?”

“Did Mercy tap the trees in my sugar bush?” Hazel’s voice sounded as if it were coming from some other woman’s body.

Dena stared at her feet again.

How dare the girl?
Hazel thought. It was bad enough living with whatever mumbo jumbo she might have bragged that she worked on Fergus, but it was utterly unbearable to think that she’d brought the sugar bush back to life when Hazel had deliberately kept it fallow. She gripped the wooden railing harder, ignoring the splinters digging into the fine leather of her one nice pair of gloves.

“Didn’t anyone tell you?” Dena put a hand over her mouth. “But I guess how would they, right? You don’t come into town all that often. Still, I thought you might have got some.”

“No.”

“Well. Everyone in town got a little. And it’s done great things, Hazel. You should be proud.”

“Hazel, you’re still here.” June’s front door opened, and she appeared on the threshold like an avenging household angel. Her shrewd eyes flitted from Hazel to Dena and back again. “Dena,” she said carefully, “I think Hazel’s probably had her fill of us now. Isn’t that right?”

Dena opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out, and
wasn’t that perfect? Hazel thought as she stumped down the rest of the porch steps to her car. There really was nothing left to say on the matter, she supposed, for when it came to getting her fill, June McAllister was already the hands-down local expert.

O
nce home, Hazel flew into her kitchen with the ire of a bull. She ignored Fergus, who was in the parlor, stationed contentedly at his spot by the window. She set her handbag down on the table and looked around, and then she began her search. She opened the flour drawer, but it was empty. The cupboard under the sink was dark as always, and there was nothing in the back of the fridge but the usual half-empty containers of mustard and pickles, a quart of milk, the butter dish, and leftover scraps from last night’s dinner.

Then her eye fell on the closet where she kept her cleaning supplies. Inside, there was the mop and broom, stalwart as a pair of soldiers, a stack of stained buckets she sometimes used for dyeing, a jumble of cans of cleanser, bottles of window cleaner, and finally, as she suspected there would be, a trio of glass jars tucked in the darkest corner. Nate no doubt had snuck in and put them there, waiting until he could slip the contents to Fergus. Hazel should have known he’d fall under the spell of that Snow girl. She should have seen that coming two days down the road.

She pulled the vessels out and inspected the contents. The color was richer than anything she’d ever managed to get from the sap the few times she’d tapped the trees—an amber so full it looked unearthly. Hazel scowled something furious and uncapped one of the containers, taking a cautious whiff. The stuff smelled slightly different, too, like juniper, and bay, and something else a little suspect that Hazel couldn’t put her finger
on. Camphor, possibly. Checking over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone, she stabbed her forefinger into the mixture and waited for a second. She half expected her flesh to burst into boils then and there, but nothing happened, and so, mustering up the same enthusiasm she would use for a spoonful of cod-liver oil, she took a taste.

It was sweet, like maple syrup always was, but there was a spicy kick she wasn’t expecting. It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it immediately made her greedy for more. She scooped up another drip with her finger and swallowed again, this time tasting the bittersweet tang of cinnamon and the comforting zest of nutmeg and the earthy undertone of clove. She’d just closed her eyes to concentrate on that flavor when the most startling thing happened: Rory’s face appeared to her as clear as a bell, sharper than any of the photographs she possessed of him, as real as he’d been in life. She gasped and opened her eyes, but everything about Rory was with her, the familiar weight of him against her chest as an infant, the loose web his fingers had made around hers as he lay dying in the hospital, the particular flaxen color of his hair. How had she forgotten those things? And how long had she been missing them? She flew to the silverware drawer and fetched a spoon.