First Frost

  She thought about Russell Zahler’s suitcase and how little he carried with him. How little he needed. She wanted to be like that. She wanted a life not full of things, but stories, so many stories that, if they’d had weight and heft, they wouldn’t have fit into a thousand suitcases.

  With one last look at the inn, she started the engine.

  She was about to put the car in gear when the passenger door suddenly flew open, and Russell Zahler got into the seat beside her, his suitcase on his lap.

  “So you were going to leave without me?” He nodded. “I approve. It’s much less pressure on me, not being the reason you’re going. Next time, don’t wait so long.” He stared out the windshield.

  Her mouth fell open. A test? Really? “You were watching?”

  “I’ve been sitting in your alcove all day. I wanted to see if you’d really do it.”

  She stared at him, her mouth still agape.

  He seemed to grow uncomfortable with her silence. “Okay, I left through the back door this morning, but then I sat down in one of your chairs and I couldn’t make myself get up again.” He paused. “I’m tired, Anne. I’m very, very tired.”

  “Maybe I don’t want you to go with me now,” she said, a little put out with him. “Maybe I want to do this alone.”

  Russell straightened his shoulders, still staring straight ahead. “I’ll give you a story a day, in exchange for a ride to Florida. A story a day, for meals, and care, if I ever need it. But I require a promise that you’ll always remember them. If you remember the stories, you’ll remember me the way I want to be remembered. That has become curiously important to me.”

  “What happens when you run out of stories?” Anne asked.

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “That will never happen. Trust me.”

  So this was it, Anne thought. She was escaping her bubble and flying loose in the air.

  “Put on your seat belt,” Anne said, pulling away from the curb.

  Immediately, she heard someone yell, “Wait! Wait!”

  She and Russell both turned in their seats to look out the back windshield. Bay Waverley was running down the sidewalk toward them, waving her arms madly to get their attention.

  Anne turned back and hit the gas.

  “No,” Russell said. “Wait. It’s me she wants to see.”

  Anne braked. “She’s going to get my brother’s attention.”

  “It will just take a moment,” he said, lifting his suitcase into the backseat, then reaching for the door handle.

  * * *

  When Bay caught sight of the old man getting into the SUV with his suitcase, she’d taken off into a full sprint, yelling for them to wait.

  She’d gotten this close. She couldn’t just let him go without some answers.

  She kept yelling as she ran, but the SUV pulled away.

  Bay slowed to a stop, the photo clutched in her hand.

  Then, to her surprise, the vehicle suddenly stopped, and the old man got out. “We’re in something of a hurry, child,” he called to her in that smooth voice she remembered.

  Bay ran up to him on the sidewalk. “Do you have any more photos of her?” Bay asked breathlessly, holding up the photo and pointing to Lorelei’s image. “My name’s Bay. I’m a Waverley. Lorelei was my grandmother.”

  “I know who you are,” he said. “And, no. I just have a copy of that one. Nothing more.”

  “What did you know about her?” Bay asked quickly, gulping air. “Is there anything you could tell my mom or aunt Claire about their mother?”

  He sighed impatiently, then looked up and squinted his silver eyes at the darkening sky. “I met Lorelei in a bar in Shawnee. I was working the carnival there. We had some fun. That was it. I only knew her for three weeks.”

  “But Claire is Lorelei’s real daughter, isn’t she? Lorelei didn’t steal her.”

  He looked down and met her eyes. He let some tension build, like it was a reflex. “As far as I know, yes, Claire is her real daughter.”

  Bay wanted to jump on that, to ask why he would lie about such a thing, why he decided to come to town and disrupt the lives of perfectly decent people. But a few day-early trick-or-treaters appeared down the street and Russell turned quickly at their voices. She sensed his unease. Her time with him was short, so she didn’t linger on judgments.

  “Then who are these people?” She pointed to the dark-haired couple in the photo.

  “Friends of mine from the carnival. They had nothing to do with Lorelei, or Claire. That was just a moment captured in time. It was the only time they met, I believe. And that’s all I can tell you,” he said, making a move to get back into the SUV.

  Bay leaned down to see who the driver was. It was Anne Ainsley, the sister of the owner of the inn. Strangely, that made sense. Bay had caught glimpses of her over the years, and it always struck her that this wispy, rail-thin woman who flitted around the Pendland Street Inn like a ghost didn’t belong here. Anne belonged in the wind, not confined to a house.

  “Wait!” Bay said before he could get back inside.

  Russell turned, his hand on the car door. “What is it, child?” he said. “We really need to go.”

  Bay hesitated. “What was her Waverley magic?”

  He didn’t pretend not to understand. A strange look came over his face. “Lorelei Waverley was very fond of the cold.”

  Bay felt her shoulders drop. “That’s not magic.”

  Russell smiled. “It is when you can touch an apple and cover it in frost in the middle of the hottest summer on record. She could have made a fortune on the carnival circuit. But she kept it to herself, for reasons she never told me.” Russell lowered himself into the passenger seat and closed the door without another word. As Anne drove them away, Russell rolled down the window and called out blithely, “My sincerest of apologies for any trouble I may have caused.”

  * * *

  After Russell left her house that morning, Claire was a cooking fool. She finished making fig and pepper bread, and started in on soup. Simmering soup on a cold day was like filling a house with cotton batting. The comforting scent of it plumped and muffled and cuddled. She went on to make egg custard tarts for dessert, longing for pansies to place on top to decorate them.

  That night, Claire served the homemade vegetable soup, fig and pepper bread, and tarts to her slightly perplexed husband and daughter. She understood their confusion. It had been a long time since she’d spent the day cooking real food for them, let alone set the table in the small dining room, where they ate with real silverware and cloth napkins.

  They should use the dining room more often, she decided. When Grandmother Mary died, Claire used her life insurance to remodel the kitchen, which ended up taking most of the dining room where Mary had once served her boarders. But it was just the right size now for the three of them.

  “That was delicious, Claire,” Tyler said at the end of the meal.

  “Yeah, it was great!” Mariah agreed. “But don’t use potatoes in the vegetable soup next time.”

  “Why not?” Claire asked.

  “My best friend doesn’t like them.”

  Good old Em. They couldn’t get through a meal without Mariah mentioning something about her. “How did Em know we were having vegetable soup?” Claire asked as she stood to gather the empty dishes.

  “I don’t know.” Mariah shrugged. “She just knew.”

  “Did you call her?”

  That made Mariah laugh. “Why would I call her? She’s right here.”

  Claire and Tyler exchanged glances. “What do you mean, she’s right here?” Tyler asked.

  “She’s here. In this room with us.”

  “Why can’t we see her?” Claire asked as the curtains fluttered slightly.

  Mariah shrugged again.

  “Can you see her?” Tyler asked.

  “Sometimes. Mostly I can only hear her.”

  “So Em isn’t a friend from school?” Tyler asked.

  “No. She doesn’
t go to school. She says I should go to my room now, that you two need to talk. May I be excused?”

  Claire nodded and they both watched Mariah shoot up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  “Em is imaginary!” Tyler said. He slapped the table and laughed. “You know what? I’m relieved. I thought I was missing something. I kept thinking to myself that if you had been taking her to school and picking her up, you would have known who Em was. You would have known her parents and what they did for a living and their favorite food.”

  Claire was still holding the empty dishes, still staring at the staircase. “She’s a little old for imaginary friends, isn’t she?”

  Tyler got up to help her clear the table. “She’s choosing her own path,” he said, walking to the kitchen. “I look at her sometimes and can’t wait to see what she becomes.”

  The curtains were still fluttering. A gust of air shot by Claire and up the stairs after Mariah. Then the curtains went still.

  Together in the kitchen, they loaded the dishwasher. Tyler was rinsing the bowls before handing them to Claire, when she suddenly said, “I’m getting out of the candy business.”

  Tyler didn’t miss a beat. “You finally decided to sell to Dickory Foods in Hickory?”

  “No. I’m just ending it. It wouldn’t be the same if someone else made it. It wouldn’t be … Waverley.”

  “Okay,” Tyler said amiably. He turned off the faucet and dried his hands. “Is that why you actually cooked tonight? Is this a preview of coming attractions?”

  Claire closed the dishwasher with a firm click, confused by this reaction. She’d tried to think of ways to tell him all day, fearing she was letting him down in some way. “That’s it? What about what this means for our finances? It’s going to take a while for me to get my catering business back to what it was. What about Mariah’s college fund? I thought you were worried about it.”

  “I had no idea you’d taken those words to heart. Candy has been very good for her college fund, but we were doing fine with it before.” He put his hands on her waist. “I know you haven’t been happy with the candy business for a while. We’ll manage.”

  “Was I that obvious?”

  “You think I’m not paying attention when I’m staring into space?” he asked as he brought her closer.

  “I know I worry too much.”

  “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.”

  “Exactly!” she said, looking up at him. “Will you please tell that to my sister?”

  “No way. She’ll cut my hair into a mullet, like the last time she did when she got angry with me. I had bad luck for weeks after she did that. Three flat tires before my hair finally grew out.”

  Funny how easily he accepted Sydney’s gift, but not her own. Tyler began to nuzzle her neck when she asked, “Have you ever believed I could do special things with food?”

  “Of course I believe it. But there’s so much more to you, Claire. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who can see that.” He kissed her like he meant it, leaving her breathless against the cabinets. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”

  After tidying the kitchen, Claire walked upstairs and found Tyler in the hallway, lost in thought as he rearranged his paintings hanging there, a series he called “Claire’s World,” which he’d painted when they first married. She wasn’t actually in the paintings, he wasn’t a portrait painter, but they were beautiful studies in light and color—leafy greens, black lines that looked like lettering, bright apple-red dots. If she stared at them long enough, sometimes she thought she could make out a figure, crouched among the greens. Claire wondered, not for the first time, what she did to deserve this man, her husband. She’d done everything in her power to dissuade his interest in her when they first met. She had been fine alone. She used to think that if she didn’t let anyone in, she wouldn’t get hurt when they left, because everyone she’d ever loved had left her. But, that was just it, she had no power over him. None of the Waverley kind, anyway. He loved her for every other reason but that one. And she still didn’t know why.

  She was just glad he did.

  * * *

  Tyler stayed awake long after his wife had gone to sleep. She was turned away from him in bed, her bare back lovely and smooth. He ran his finger down her spine and felt her shiver, goose bumps breaking out on her skin. He tucked the blankets around her, even as he kicked them off of himself.

  Within the dynamics of their marriage, he knew he couldn’t be the one who fell down the rabbit hole. His job was to stand at the top of the rabbit hole in order to lure the rabbit out.

  But, secretly, yes, he knew all about the tricks this house played on him. And he knew Claire could do magical things with food. And, if forced to admit it, he knew damn well that apple tree threw apples at him. But his job was to let Waverleys be Waverleys. Not be a Waverley himself.

  There were times, though, when he needed to jump down the hole. Times like tonight.

  He rolled out of bed and put on his clothes. He walked out of the bedroom, got distracted by the paintings in the hallway again, and spent some time rearranging them. Then he went downstairs, where he got distracted by the tremendous amount of bread in the kitchen. Real food in the house again. That made him smile. Claire wasn’t going to make candy anymore, for reasons he might never know. But it was remarkably clear that she was happier now that she’d made the decision. And that was all that mattered. Truthfully, it was going to be nice to leave the house not smelling like sugar and flowers anymore. The scent of his wife’s candy-making followed him to work and filled his office, where it attracted dozens of hummingbirds that tapped at his office window every day, trying to get in.

  Tyler took a slice of the fig and pepper bread, then he went outside to the garden.

  Experience had taught him that getting too close to the tree was not a good idea, even if it was dormant. He’d never trusted that thing. He opened the garden gate and stood at the threshold in the cold, eating the piece of bread, realizing he’d forgotten to put on shoes. He’d also forgotten to caulk around those vents in the attic, like Claire had asked him to do. He was about to turn to go back inside, when he remembered the reason he was out here in the first place.

  “Listen, tree, you better bloom tonight,” he said to it. “They’ve had enough.”

  * * *

  Claire woke up on Halloween morning with a deep breath, as if floating out from under water. She didn’t remember what she’d been dreaming of, only that it was cold and sweet. The sun was just rising, and she knew, knew before she even looked outside, that the first frost of the season had finally arrived. She got out of bed, careful not to disturb Tyler, sleeping on his stomach and probably dreaming of warm things like embers and cocoa. She pulled on her nightgown, which had been on the floor, then put on her slippers. As she left, she grabbed Tyler’s blazer where it was hooked over the door.

  She walked through the house, through the darkened kitchen, onto the back porch. Sure enough, icy stars were covering her van, and a fine layer of crystals made the bare honeysuckle vines covering the gate shimmer.

  Her breath formed clouds in front of her as she hurried across the driveway to the garden gate. The neighborhood was quiet in that way only the cold could make it, as if freezing sounds before they hit the ground.

  She fumbled for the key in the vines, her hands shaking. First frost was always exciting, but this year it meant even more, this season, this renewal. There was some small part of her that was almost afraid it wouldn’t happen this year, that there was no more magic, that it was never really hers to begin with.

  She slowly opened the gate, holding her breath.

  There, at the back of the lot, the tree was in full bloom. Tiny white flowers had burst onto its branches, turning it from bare to lush overnight. The tree was shaking as if in celebration, and white petals floated to the ground in waves, making a sound like pouring sand. Already, the garden was covered in white, like snow. Claire walked in, her palms up, and caught so
me petals in her hand. She walked all the way across the garden, up to the tree, petals now sticking in her hair.

  “Welcome back,” she said.

  “Mom?” she heard from the garden gate. Claire turned and saw her sleepy daughter had followed her. Mariah was standing at the gate in her nightgown, her hair a tangled mess of curls. She was Tyler made over.

  Claire walked back to her and put an arm around her. She rubbed her shoulder to warm her.

  “The tree finally bloomed,” Mariah said.

  “It did. Just in time.”

  Mariah smiled. “It’s beautiful.”

  They watched the tree for a while, which it enjoyed. The blossoms began to accumulate on the ground. “I love you,” Claire said softly to Mariah, putting her lips to her daughter’s head and speaking into her hair, making her scalp warm. “You know that, don’t you? For all the wonderful things you are, for all the wonderful things you’re going to be.”

  “I know,” Mariah said.

  “Do you want to hang out with me in the kitchen today?” She now rested her cheek on her daughter’s head. “I know you don’t like cooking. But we could spend some time together.”

  Mariah pulled back. “I don’t like cooking, but I love spending time with you! I just get in your way when you’re making candy.”

  “Oh, baby. No, you don’t. I was in my own way. It had nothing to do with you. Come on,” Claire said, leading her out of the garden. “There’s a first frost party to prepare for! We have to call everyone, too.”

  Tyler got up and started raking the footpaths in the garden, which had to be done every hour because the blossoms kept piling up. He would come in periodically for food and drink, blossoms covering his hair and jacket, and sometimes he’d have a small scratch on his face from when he’d gotten too close to the tree and it would reach out one of its limbs and hit him.