The souls of lost lake, p.5
The Souls of Lost Lake, page 5
Wren was thankful the parents hadn’t been stationed at the SAR base. The idea of watching their desperation was horrific. She heard that Jasmine’s father had demanded to join a search team but was finally convinced to stay behind after his wife collapsed. Wren couldn’t fathom how torn he was. His wife versus his little girl.
“Hey.” Eddie met Wren as she hiked toward the canteen. It was for campers, but all she could think about was a cherry slushie. It would be refreshing, and she could drown her own sense of failure in sugar.
“Thanks for whipping together those sack lunches.” She gave him the side-eye as he matched her pace.
“I had the volunteers bag a bunch more for tomorrow. I’m glad we’ve got a good set of high-school camp staff this summer. They’re eager to help out.”
“Good.” Wren nodded. They maneuvered the wooden steps onto the sprawling front porch of the canteen. Eddie opened the screen door, and they were met by an assault on the senses. Hot fudge smells mixed with popcorn, and someone had ordered a pizza.
One of the high-school summer staff bobbed to the counter, her ponytail wagging back and forth. She was too happy. Too perky. Wait. Wren reined in her emotions. No, the girl was exactly what she should be. Deer Lake Bible Camp hadn’t closed just because Jasmine had gone missing. There were oodles of campers and camp counselors roaming around, and they needed a sense of normalcy.
“Hey, Eddie!” The girl had braces that spanned her teeth. Wren noted the sparkle in her brown eyes. Crushing on the kitchen manager. She wanted to chuckle. Camp was like that. First, there was summer fun, and second, there were summer crushes. And always for the older staff because, well, they were older.
“Hey, Abby. Wren needs a cherry slushie.”
Wren hadn’t told him. It was just Eddie’s way. He knew.
“Okey-dokey!” Abby tossed Wren a toothy smile and spun around, her ponytail slapping her cheek. “Did you want anything, Ed?”
Ed?
He didn’t seem to notice the little flirt. “No thanks.” Ever polite. Unassuming. Really, Eddie was sort of boring, if Wren was being honest. His primary pastime, outside of mastering casserole concoctions out of leftovers, was reading exegetical books that rivaled the dictionary for length and for their interesting content. He was a thinker. Sort of like her own dad, only Eddie didn’t live in the fictional world of Hobbiton, but in the spiritual world of Christendom.
“You’re not going to Lost Lake.” Eddie’s words penetrated her thoughts, and Wren shot him an incredulous look.
“Wha—?”
“Pippin texted me.”
“Snitch.”
“You can’t take on the responsibility of Jasmine’s well-being by assuming your dream was a premonition.” Eddie dragged a wooden picnic table–style bench from one of the canteen tables and plopped down on it. He didn’t motion for Wren to join him, but she did anyway.
“So, no one in the Bible was told anything important through a dream?” Wren countered, knowing he’d bite.
Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “Unfair.”
“Why?”
“Fine.” He smiled a little, but she noted the depth in the corners of his eyes. A sadness that had been there for months now. He was a mama’s boy—in the best of ways—and his mama was dying.
“So maybe there is credence to my dream?” Wren ventured.
Eddie shrugged in his typical blasé way of dealing with serious issues. “I wouldn’t discredit anything God might deem to use. All I’m saying is to be cautious that you don’t put too much emphasis on emotional outputs versus factual ones.”
Whatever that meant. “So then we should check it out.”
“It’s a two-and-a-half-hour hike.”
“Then let’s get going!” Wren leaned forward.
Eddie pulled away. He shook his head. “No go. It’s already four p.m. By the time we get there—assuming the trail isn’t all grown over—it’ll be almost seven. We’d be hiking back in the dark.”
“I’m not scared of the dark,” Wren argued. “Not to mention, Jasmine is out there alone in it!”
“I have over a hundred campers to feed.”
“Esther can do it.” Wren’s reference to Eddie’s assistant brought a grin to his face.
“Yeah, she could manage the entire Marines if needed.”
“I’m sure she’d be willing to.” Wren knew Esther well enough—they’d been friends for the past two years, since the day Esther first came to camp as a member of the paid staff. Wren didn’t make friends with females very well. Her upbringing at the camp, coupled with literary parents who ran in administrative circles, had made her socialization attempts awkward.
“Here you are!” Abby’s chirpy voice interrupted them. The slushie looked fabulous and Wren told her so, and was rewarded with a beaming, metallic smile.
Eddie appeared to be caving. Wren could see it in his eyes.
“I could ask Troy to help us.”
Eddie nodded, clearly thinking it through. “Not a bad idea. He’d have headlamps. Some extra gear if we need it.”
“You will then?” Wren straightened in her seat, swallowing a gulp of the slushie. She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face at the anticipation. Somehow she knew—she just knew—the dream hadn’t been a random subliminal story playing in her mind.
Eddie drummed his fingers on the table. “If Esther is okay with taking kitchen lead, then yeah. And—” he hesitated before finishing—“I need to check in on Mom.”
Wren’s smile faded. “Of course.”
Why was it that during small victories, death hovered? Like a phantom in black, undulating above them with the threat of descending and cloaking them in its embrace. It was inevitable really. Patty Markham was dying. She’d been sent home to live out her last days with her husband and son. Eddie had moved out of staff housing to return home. And now? Jasmine. In Wren’s mind, she was too quickly moving into position next to Patty. Imminent death, immediate loss, and the agonizing aftereffects.
“You okay?” Eddie’s words pierced her spiraling thoughts.
“Hmm? Oh. Yeah,” she answered. Watching her friend, she took a sip of her slushie. Ten years ago, they’d sat in this very spot, with ice cream cones, and dreams, and ideas that would take them far away from their camp roots. Instead, they were still here, more tied to the camp, to its story, and to the grief that seemed to lurk in the cracks of it all. A grief that was slowly seeping out and threatening to poison them.
7
Ava
She followed him silently. His strides weren’t remarkably long, as he wasn’t remarkably tall. In fact, he only topped her by an inch or two. Yet for a preacher, the other qualities made up for his lack of height. Ava made a promise to herself to avoid his eyes. They were haunting, and there was such depth in them, she was afraid a person could rightly crawl in and drown. His jawline was distinct but not harsh. Just strong enough to indicate he might get a stubborn set to it if pushed too far. She noticed his suit was worn, and he could use a haircut.
He led her to the parsonage, and when they arrived at the porch steps, he hesitated, turned, and eyed her. Ava looked at the toes of her very scuffed shoes. If nothing else, he should be able to figure out that she wasn’t a murderess. She could hardly look a man in the eyes if he was good-looking. How then could anyone think she could hack a man to death and stare at the gore of it?
“I’m sorry you’re in this predicament.” Preacher Pritchard was soft-spoken. Ava had a hard time picturing him leveling fire and brimstone down, but she expected it. He’d probably jumped at the chance to take in a wayward sinner and have her completely under his soul-correcting influence.
She didn’t reply.
He sighed. He didn’t move to enter the parsonage, which was small and definitely not set up for a boardinghouse. The preacher took off his hat and ran fingers through his hair. He was agitated. Probably because she wasn’t saved yet. Going to hell in a handbasket.
“Miss Coons—”
“Ava.” She hadn’t meant to speak. It came out habit-like.
“Ava,” he nodded. “Okay.” The man was at a sheer loss. He cleared his throat. Put his foot on the first porch step as if he was going to step up it, but then he retracted it back to the earth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think this through as well as I should have.”
She was sorry for him then, if she was honest. So, Ava lifted her eyes from her shoes and made sure her attention landed on his nose.
“You don’t got a mama or a sister or nothin’?” She tried to offer him some justification for bringing a lone woman into the home of a single preacher.
“No.” He sighed. “Not here.” Now it was his turn for downcast eyes.
Ava crossed her arms over her thin form. “Looks like you’ve dug yourself a hole and crawled right in. Tell ya what, I can just haul myself off and you can be rid of me.”
“No.” He shook his head. “That will not be adequate for your safety.”
“I’ll be fine.” She didn’t believe the words herself, so it was obvious why he didn’t believe her either.
Instead of climbing the porch steps, the minister lowered himself to sit on them. He leaned his elbows on his knees and stared past her, across the dirt road to the small clapboard church flanked by two saloons.
“I was so sure God called me here. To Tempter’s Creek.” His mumble might not have been meant for Ava, but she responded.
“What’d He do? Shout at ya?”
Preacher Pritchard raised his eyes, the first glimmer of a smile at the corners. He gave a little laugh. “No. No, He didn’t shout.”
“Seems like people sayin’ ‘God called me’ is a piece of work, if you ask me.” Which he hadn’t, Ava realized. “If God can’t talk, then He can’t call. So then you’re just going off into the wild blue on your own whims and fancies, not thinkin’ ’bout no one you might’ve left behind.”
He reddened.
Ava waited. It was awkward. Truly, it was. Her habit of overtalking was fast coming to the fore. She did that when she was nervous—which was all the time—talk. Talk like a chatter bug and hope no one could see inside of her.
“Preacher Pritchard—” she started.
“Noah,” he retorted.
“I ain’t callin’ you by your first name!” Ava’s voice squeaked. “Goin’ to be bad enough, me livin’ in your house! If’n I use your first name, then folks’ll think we done common-law married up. All familiar like. You really want that?”
He paled this time. “God, what have I gotten myself into?” Noah Pritchard squeezed his eyes tight.
“You prayin’ or swearin’?”
“Neither.” His response was under his breath, but Ava heard it. A preacher who cussed? He shook his head quickly then. “No. No, it was a prayer.”
Ava bit the inside of her bottom lip. She had a feeling he was lying now. Maybe not. But if he was, maybe he wasn’t the Goody Two-shoes she thought preachers were. She shifted her weight to her other foot, and the movement grabbed Noah’s attention.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Coons.” Seemed he’d taken her comment about first-name familiarity to heart and reapplied it to her as well. He stood up, wiping his trouser legs as if the porch step were filthy. “Come inside.” Seeming to arrive at some resigned acceptance of their situation, Noah hiked the three steps until his feet were planted on the porch. He reached for the front door and opened it.
She felt as though she was sinning just setting her backside on the bed in the parsonage’s guest room. Of course, Preacher Pritchard—Noah, if she used his first name and to the devil what people thought—had already high-tailed it from the place like God himself were about to set foot there and utter all sorts of condemnation. So for now, Ava was alone, and God was really quiet.
She swept her gaze over the room. It was simple. Whitewashed walls made the room brighter. She wondered briefly what sucker of a church member had to mix the lime and salt and water and what-have-you to make this room as pretty as it was. Ava had figured the parsonage would be dull, uninviting, even dark. Dark like hell itself. That was what the church preached anyway. Seeing the bright walls and the patchwork quilt on the bed made of green and blue gave Ava pause.
“I ain’t proper enough for this.” Ava stood from the bed as if poked by a porcupine. She noted the bureau on the far side of the small room, which had a dresser scarf of embroidered cotton stretched atop it. A hand mirror lay facedown. It tempted her, so Ava gave in—which was what sinners did when tempted—and moved to pick it up. Turning the mirror, she stared at her image as it reflected back at her.
Ava knew that behind their hands, townsfolk tittered about her looks. She was on the thin side but had a “nice bosom,” as Jipsy had once uncouthly declared. Her hair was blond like a hay bale, which made it not corn-silk yellow, a color Ava had always secretly wished for. Her eyes were blue like the sky, and someone told her once that the Coons family had been rumored to have Norway running in their blood. Maybe some Sweden. Ava hardly knew what that meant, except that they were other countries far away. She wasn’t stupid, she reminded herself as she counted the tiny brown moles that dotted her face in various places like freckles. She was just uneducated. That meant she hadn’t a clue where Norway or Sweden was, and what were moles on one’s face for anyway? They sure weren’t becoming like that porcelain doll complexion of Mrs. Sanderson’s.
“Contemplating your next kill?”
The wizened voice of an old woman broke the silence.
Ava dropped the hand mirror, and it clattered onto the dresser.
“Easy there. A broken mirror is a mighty long streak of bad luck, you know?” She was short. Squat. Barely five-foot, if that, and her chin rested almost on her chest. Ava wasn’t sure if the old woman really had a neck—oh yes, it was there—and her brown eyes swallowed her face that was otherwise as wrinkled as package paper balled up and tossed away. The woman hardly blinked as she eyed Ava with an intensity that was both curious and knowing.
“Did you know that about forty years ago a woman in Massachusetts hacked her parents to death in their bed with an ax?”
Ava wished she hadn’t moved from the bed so she could let her knees buckle and flop down onto the mattress in shock at the woman’s audacity.
The elderly lady didn’t stop there. She took a few steps into the room and eyed the mirror for cracks. “She didn’t go to prison for it either. Guess it’s hard to prove a woman can wield an ax as well as a man.” A little chuckle, and then the brown eyes rested on Ava again.
Ava squirmed. It’d be nice if the lady left her alone. In peace. But apparently the town’s doubts had crept in through the parsonage door. Fine job Preacher Pritchard was doing of protecting her!
“I’m Ramona B. Hancock—not related to the late president—but I am the great-aunt of Mildred Hancock from Madison.” She waited as though that would ring some bell of recognition in Ava’s mind.
Ava stared blankly back at her.
“You can call me Hanny. Ramona was my mother’s name, and God forbid I even try to follow in her footsteps, rest her soul. Hancock is just so plain lofty, it makes me sound like I’m running for office myself.” Hanny patted the side of her hair, which was neatly pulled back into a knot at the nape. It was white, like snow, and spectacles perched on her nose. “Now, what’s this I hear about Noah putting you in such a pickle?”
“I think I did that to him.” Ava finally found her voice. Which was dangerous, ’cause once she found her voice, it rarely shut up. “He volunteered to take me in, and of course what was I to do? People think I killed that man, and I didn’t, but no one will believe me.”
“Except Noah,” Hanny inserted.
“Except Noah,” Ava nodded. “I think,” she added. He’d never outright said he thought she was innocent.
Hanny walked past Ava to the lone window and peeked out. Her head didn’t come up to the first trim piece that cut the window into a half pane. “Can’t blame folk. They say Matthew was quite a sight after he was axed.”
It didn’t seem to faze Hanny—talking of murder.
“I didn’t kill him, though.” Ava couldn’t help but insist once more.
Hanny turned, her eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
Ava didn’t like the way dread coursed through her with the paralyzing effect that truth could be a fearsome thing, and she wanted to be sure she was on the right side of it.
Hanny waggled her index finger in the air. Its knuckle was swollen, the skin wrinkled from age. “I’ve seen a lot in my eighty-nine years, and one of them is that some people have wickedness deep inside, and it scares them so fiercely they choose not to remember it.”
“I never killed no one,” Ava insisted again, and she sure would not admit to Hanny that her observation was terribly correct. At least the not-remembering part.
Hanny huffed and shuffled past her. Ava trailed behind, mostly because she didn’t really know what she was supposed to do. They entered the short hallway, with Noah’s bedroom door down just a tad from her own, and then they entered the main living space, which had a sitting couch, a small woodstove, a bookshelf packed with books, and a small secretary where Noah must sit and prepare his sermons. In the room’s corner by the front window was a stuffed chair covered in a goldenrod yellow velvet that had seen better days.
A sigh pushed through Hanny’s pale lips. She clucked her tongue. “I never thought—not once—I’d be living in a parsonage.” Before Ava could respond, Hanny finished, “But I guess that boy Noah has no choice but to let me stay here too. Otherwise you’ll both be gettin’ married by morning’s light or the town will chase you both out for sure and for certain.”
Ava blanched.
Hanny’s laugh was simple. Small. Resigned and a little overwhelmed. “A murderess, a coward, and an old widow with her own tales to tell. Aren’t we the trio of sinners to congregate under a steeple?”
