Fitcher's Brides by Gregory Frost Page A

smiled grimly to his wife and gestured as if to say here was proof that his words had had an impact on their wretched souls.
    Vern soon excused herself from the kitchen and went out the back door to the privy. Kate put away the cups and the pot, then found her way outside as well.
    Her sister awaited her in back of the privy. Immediately she set off into the woods, keeping the shed between her and the kitchen door, Kate following close behind her.
    â€œIf anyone asks, we decided to hunt for berries to make a tart,” she said over her shoulder.
    â€œThere aren’t any berries so early,” Kate replied, but she knew her sister knew that. Finally Vern stopped and turned to her. They stood beside a big birch tree, its roots like knucklebones clutching the earth.
    â€œWhat is it?” Kate asked.
    Her sister glanced about, although no one could have sneaked up on them there, not even one of Fenimore Cooper’s Mohawks. Vern’s gaze was so intense that Kate was compelled to follow it back to the house. There was nothing there she could see.
    Finally, at the point where she had begun to think her sister was stalling just to provoke her, Vern told her what had happened.

Four
    N O DOUBT V ERN WOULD HAVE appreciated the morning a great deal more had she not been saddled with the company of her stepmother.
    They’d avoided the hawker sharpening knives on the street, crossing behind the line of customers who, sporting their various tools and blades, looked like an incipient mob.
    Lavinia took quick short steps when she walked anywhere, which reminded Vern of a spider; the quick little movements let her dart past anyone who might have tried to confront or greet her, or establish a conversation. Before they could get a fix upon her she had moved and moved again. Even so, her defense failed her when, having avoided the queue, she stepped onto the walk on the far side of the road only to be confronted by a nicely dressed couple, who, passing just at that moment, wished them both a pleasant good morning. Lavinia flicked her head, a twist to the side, the slightest sign of acknowledgment. Unprepared for the inconvenience of courtesy but unable to escape, her eyes darted to their faces as her own face pinched into a wince of a smile and she dodged around them. Not bound by similar misanthropy, Vern tilted back her parasol and with a smile replied with sincere pleasure, “Good morning.” She gave the parasol a little spin. The man tipped his hat and the woman returned her smile. They were slicked up as if for going to church. Even if they were, it wouldn’t be the “true church,” as Lavinia would have said.
    Right behind them came another man. Lavinia managed to elude his outstretched hand, but he blocked Vern’s way for a moment and presented her a handbill. Then, tipping his hat, he walked on. She glanced at the bill—it was an advertisement for a demonstration of mesmerism. Looking back, she saw that the man had caught up with the couple, and was offering them a handbill, too. He had a sheaf of them pressed in one armpit.
    Vern folded the handbill to carry with her. She saw Kate across the road, still waiting for their father to come out of the cooper’s. Lavinia called her name impatiently. She hurried on, collapsing the parasol before she passed through the front of Van Hollander’s General Store.
    Lavinia’s stated purpose in coming to Jekyll’s Glen had been to purchase candles if any could be had. Failing that, they would have to make their own.
    Back in Boston, chandlers had been plentiful and candles easy to come by, although Vern had once helped her mother make bayberry ones for some special occasion, Christmas most likely. Bayberry gave off a lovely scent, but it had been hateful work. Before adding the bayberries, her mother had melted mutton tallow, which stank so in its hot liquid state that she’d smelled its ghostly traces throughout the house for days