Tucker’s Grove (16 page)

“
Just rattled.”
She sounded confused. “
Listen. Did you hear something?”

“
My ears are ringing louder than an out-of-control stereo.”
Peter D. shook his head to knock his brain back in place.

“—
struck by lightning,”
a young man
’
s voice said.

“
What if the roof is on fire?”
A woman
’
s voice this time, frightened, followed by a sudde
n gasp. “
Will! How are we ever going to explain you being here?”

Peter D. got to his feet and helped Kathy up. The voices were coming from the hall mirror. “
What the hell?”

The decor shown in the reflection did not match the actual things in Lillian
’
s home
. The furniture looked old-fashioned, but the pieces themselves were new. Peter D. turned around to see Aunt Lillian
’
s TV on its imitation-wood stand, the paperback historical romances strewn on the coffee table, curio shelves on the walls filled with rid
i
culous knick-knacks from the old bat
’
s world travels. None of those things showed up in the mirror.

The young couple talking in the reflected parlor were def
i
nitely not Peter D. and Kathy.

“
She looks like Jane Seymour in
Somewhere in Time
,”
Kathy whispere
d.

“
Somebody better start playing the
Twilight Zone
theme.”

“
It
’
s raining too hard for the house to catch fire,”
said the young man in the mirror. Will? He looked about twenty years old, with blond hair and a few wisps of beard. “
It
’
ll be all right, Audre
y. I promise.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders, pr
o
jecting calm confidence.

The young woman was seventeen or so, quite pretty, with big eyes and long brown hair wrapped up in an intricate bun, leaving a few curls to hang at the sides of her face. She
gazed at Will for a moment, then slid into his arms for a hug.

Peter D. raised his voice to the mirror. “
Hey, can you two hear us?”
The figures in the reflection did not react, even when he r
e
peated the question in a loud shout. “
I guess not.”

With her fac
e pressed against Will
’
s faded work shirt, Audrey
’
s voice became muffled. “
You should get going now
—
Nels will be home soon.”

“
He doesn
’
t even care about you.”

Audrey drew back in alarm. “
He
owns
me! You
’
d be a thief stealing one of his possessions
—
and he h
as the right to shoot any thief he catches in his own house.”

“
He doesn
’
t have the right to ruin your life.”

Audrey kissed his continuing scowl away. “
He saved my life, remember? Please don
’
t make things worse by getting yourself killed.”

As Audrey hurried
the young man toward the front door, Will glanced at his reflection in the hall mirror. He seemed to stare directly through Peter D. “
Something
’
s wrong with your mirror. I can
’
t see my reflection.”

Audrey was concerned only with getting him out of the hou
se. “
Nels will know how to fix it. Now you have to go.”

Before the door swung shut, the young man called, “
See you next Wednesday!”
and Peter D. could hear a horse and wagon departing. Audrey didn
’
t even look at the mirror on her way to the parlor, where s
he sat in silence, trying to compose herself.

“
From their clothes, I
’
d place those two in the mid-to-late 1800s.”
Kathy headed to where boxes of old records and local books sat on an enormous dining room table in front of seven potted geraniums. “
We
’
ve got
three names
—
Audrey, Nels, and Will
—
connected to this house. With all the research material your Aunt Lillian left here, we should be able to find out som
e
thing.”
She was always the “
hard facts”
person, while Peter D. considered himself the “
creative geniu
s in training.”
For a project like this, they were a perfect team.

Not long afterward, another voice came out of the mirror. “
Damn storm hit me half an hour before I got to Tucker
’
s Grove.”

Nels was a tall, sturdy man of about forty, his light brown hair j
ust on the verge of turning gray, with rugged features that showed no hint of softness. His blue eyes glimmered with a common-sense intelligence. His flannel shirt and overalls were faded and worn to the point of being comfortable. By the careful way Nels
wiped his boots on the front rug and looked around the foyer of his house, Peter D. imagined him to be a hard-working man.

Soaking wet, he carried a brown paper package, which he had shielded with his body in an effort to keep it dry from the dow
n
pour.

Au
drey stopped several steps away from him, well out of reach
—
trying to hide her fear? discomfort? Peter D. couldn
’
t tell. “
You
’
d better change your clothes. You
’
re getting the floor all messy.”
Her voice held nothing more than the required emotion as she s
a
id the required comment.

“
I still need to do some chores outside. I just…
stopped in to see you.”

A long silence.

“
How was Bartonville?”
She was obviously forcing herself to talk to him, but the chill in her voice was obvious.

Nels extended the package to
her. “
I got you some sewing material. You can make a new dress.”

She stepped forward to take it from him, tugged on the strings and brown paper to reveal a pale flower-print material. “
Thank you, Nels,”
she said with no warmth or genuine thanks. She r
e
treated toward the parlor with her package.

“
Who was here?”
he said quickly.

She froze, her back to him. “
Who said anybody was here?”

“
I can see the cart tracks out front, Audrey. Who was here?”

Audrey finally faced him. “
Mrs. Litch came, from church. Just
after the storm.”
Peter D. thought he saw defiance in her eyes as she told her bold lie. “
She wants every family from around town to make one square for a community quilt they
’
re going to auction off at the church. That
’
s why she was here.”

“
She couldn
’
t
have come
after
the storm.”
Nels kept his voice carefully even, though he seemed charged with more static ele
c
tricity than any thunderstorm. “
There
’
s only one set of wheel tracks in the mud, leading out from here. And a dry patch where a wagon sat during
the storm.”

Fear sparkled in Audrey
’
s eyes. “
Maybe she came before the storm, then. I can
’
t remember. We were talking.”
Then, with a hint of exasperation, she added, “
Shouldn
’
t you be out doing your chores?”

Peter D. noticed Nels clenching his fists as he
turned and pushed his way back through the front door.

During the next three days, Kathy buried herself in the names and dates of Rutherford County, poring over the data and waiting for her mental junction-boxes to throw the proper information into the p
roper places.

Before leaving for Florida, Lillian had gathered all the local historical documents she could find: birth records, death records, tax records, court records, even a boxful of yellowed letters, di
a
ries, and postcards gathering dust in the atti
cs of those “
nursing home fixtures”
Aunt Lillian resented so much. Everything was grist for Kathy
’
s data-crunching mill, raw material to be digested into a detailed story that Peter D. would tell with all the verve he could muster. Kathy chewed the pink e
r
asers off pencil after pencil
—
it helped her concentrate, she said.

“
Want to hear a rundown of everything we can get from names and dates?”
She tapped her pencil on the legal notepad where she had jotted her thoughts. “
Nels Waltercroft, born March third, 18
54; married Leilah Miller in 1880
—
he was twenty-six. He built this house, and the two of them lived in it for ten years until Leilah died. Seven years later he married young Audrey Bailey. She was seventeen, he was forty-three. Audrey died on August 25, 1
8
97
—
less than a year later. Nels never ma
r
ried again and died in 1901.”

Peter D. paced the room, tapping his fingertips together as he painted a picture in his mind. “
How did any of them die?”

“
These death records aren
’
t very explicit.”

He looked over her s
houlder to scan the notes on the yellow pad. “
What about that Will guy?”

“
No way of knowing. No last name, no other concrete info
r
mation. I can
’
t work miracles.”

“
I beg to differ.”
He gave her a peck on the cheek.

Peter D. stationed himself in a folding ch
air where he could watch the mirror. Restless, he waited for something important to happen. He toyed with Aunt Lillian
’
s enormous collection of knick-knacks, even tried to read one of her romance novels, and kept Kathy supplied with fresh pencils.

“
This r
eally gives me insight into how boring life was in those days.”
Peter D. said. “
No TV, no video games, no stereo, no i
n
ternet, nothing to keep you occupied at all. Get up with the su
n
rise, go to bed shortly after sunset, unless you feel inclined to light a
lamp. Just listen to how quiet the house is! It
’
s enough to drive you up a wall.”

At the moment, in the mirror, Audrey was alone in the house, writing in some sort of diary. “
No wonder so many people kept journals…
although why anyone would want to relive
an un
e
ventful day is beyond me.”
He stopped as an idea occurred to him, then looked closer at what Audrey was doing. “
Wait a m
i
nute! I
’
ve seen that book before.”

He hurried to the boxes of records, shuffling through them until he held up a faded brown bo
ok and flipped to the front page. “
Audrey Waltercroft
’
s diary.”

Thrilled, Kathy took the book from him, flipped pages, looked for dates. “
She didn
’
t write in it every day, so the entries are sporadic. They start a little before she married Nels.”
She thumb
ed through the journal to where the writing ended, leaving half a book of blank paper. “
And the last entry
—
an interrupted one
—
is dated Saturday, August 21, 1897.”

Peter D. did the math. “
That
’
s only four days before she died.”