“Is there a problem?” the Peruvian called.
We didn’t jump apart, but a second later no one was touching, leaning or looking, and we’d turned toward the house again. As we climbed the veranda the front door swung open. In a billow of Falstaffian smoke, waving a cigar in one thick hand and a tumbler of golden liquid in the other, Santa stepped out. His fleece-rimmed red cap was askew, his pants were blue jeans, and his red Santa coat hung open to reveal a Jerry Garcia t-shirt, faded. He plugged the cigar into his white-bearded face and, from around pink stoner lips, flashed me a smile.
“Ho ho har,” he intoned blearily. “I’m Joe Whittlespoon. Call me Santa. My gawd, Gabby Greta, you look like your bodacious baby sister. In pictures Dr. Doug emailed to my sister-in-law Delta. Before Delta threw me out of New York. Bummer. Being thrown out. Not your picture. You’re deeee-lightful. Mow wamma bow wow. Hello, Jay. Damn sorry about the fact you’re a Wakefield. You know you’re going to hell, right? Join the club.”
“Lifetime member,” Jay said, clasping his outstretched hand.
Santa Joe roared with laughter and staggered a little.
I had heard the legend of Delta’s nefarious brother-in-law. In fact, last week Tal had filled me in on his latest news. He’d been kicked out of New York by Delta and her husband, his brother Pike Whittlespoon, sheriff of the Cove’s Jefferson County, after an incident in Times Square. It involved Joe’s naked hairy torso, large jolly paunch, tighty whities, and a sign that he’d labeled, Naked Santa. He was posing next to the ubiquitous “Naked Cowboy,” which was now a licensed tourist franchise. Naked Santa was not. By the time the police arrested him on a drunk and disorderly charge, Joe had collected two hundred dollars in tips—the cash was stuffed in the tops of his briefs—and he’d posed for dozens of photos.
Pike and Delta made him donate the money to charity, and the charges were dropped. The Skillet Stars producers—Delta was there to complete the final rounds of their cooking competition—were not pleased.
“Ever’body’s pissed at me,” Santa Joe said sadly. His ruddy face brightened. “Except your sis. She sent me a box of biscuits and cupcakes.” He clamped a hand on Jay’s shoulder, an effort which required Santa Joe to reach up. He lost his balance. Jay wound an arm through his and held him up. “Good man! Even for a Wakefield!”
“Joseph!”
A solemn woman barked his name. She stepped into the doorway behind him. Skeins of silver-gray yarn draped from her neck and over one arm. In one hand she held a fat braid of roving—wool that had been washed, combed and organized into thick ropes for spinning. Her hair matched the silver of the yarn, and small tufts of escaped wool feathered it. She was lean and stern despite a gold holiday jumper with tiny Christmas ornaments embroidered on the neckline.
“Mrs. Shepherd?” I asked.
She snorted. “Hardly.” Her eyes gleamed as they went over me. “You’ll do. Got the MacBride red hair and the whole sturdy look. Do you knit or crochet?”
“I . . . no, but my brother does.”
“You’re a cook? Like your mother’s Nettie ancestors?”
“Yes.”
“Good enough, then. I’m Nona Nettie Whittlespoon, and you’re a cousin to me on your mother’s side. I am a cousin to Delta Whittlespoon through the Netties and to Caillin MacBride on her father’s side and thus a double cousin to you.” She paused as if I’d need only a second to follow all of that before continuing. Her expression soured as she indicated Jay. “And I am related to him through a connection in the Bonavendier-Wakefield branch.”
“See our family resemblance?” Jay said drolly.
“Woo hee!” Santa Joe exclaimed. “A fight’s already startin’. Come on, Jay, let’s us unwelcome horse kissers go out to my camper and listen to some Lynyrd Skynyrd on the CD player. I’ll get you a big glass of painkillers. A roll-your-own, too, if you’re feeling the need to mellow out.”
Jay slanted his eyes at me, something cold growing under the influence of this unfriendly setting. “Do you miss me already?”
“How can I miss you if you won’t ever leave?”
The slightest edge of amusement softened his face.
I followed my double-cousin Nona inside the house built by the notorious, mysterious Caillin MacBride—my ancestor, heroic victim, or just an unrelated ghost who shared the same family name?
The keeper of the blood
SEATED ON AN upholstered bench before a tall window, with snow falling as a background, eighty-year-old Anna Shepherd did not turn from her spinning wheel as I entered her living room. Even her profile awed me. She was tall, slender, with a mane of snow-white hair artfully pinned up by small combs. Her face was beautiful, her skin ruddy and soft along her jawline, but hardly the skin of most women her age. She was dressed in pale silk pants with wide legs. Over a silver blouse she wore the most incredible lace shawl I’d ever seen in my life. Intricate patterns defied easy description, except for the main motif—a stylized shade tree spread its limbs across her shoulders and down the sides of her arms.
“She’s here, Miss Anna,” Nona said, then stepped aside.
“Fetch the whiskey, Nona,” Anna replied in a light Irish accent, still not looking up from the gossamer yarn feeding into the spool of her wheel. Fire crackled on a large stone hearth; several dogs and cats raised their head curiously from fat couches and chairs upholstered in soft floral prints. The room was cluttered in an enormously appealing way—old lamps, bookcases, thick braided rugs, knickknacks and small tables filled with a porcupine landscape of knitting and crochet needles in a variety of vases. Near Anna’s spot, an open trunk brimmed with piles of balled yarn and netting bags of raw gray wool. The spinning wheel made a low whirring sound, like a summer cricket.
I eased several steps closer. She seemed . . . unreal. “Sit there, on the rose couch, Gabby,” Anna said, as her long fingers coaxed tendrils of wool into a perfect stream of twisted yarn. Her hands were weathered, deeply veined, and the only thing about her that showed her age. I lowered myself onto the heavy cushions of a couch that couldn’t be modern. Its old springs compressed slowly. I settled into the marshmallow of its comfort.
“Caillin bought that sweet old beast and most of the other major furnishings in this house from the Rich’s Department Store down in Atlanta. She had everything trucked up here in large vans. It was nineteen forty-eight, and the few people who had crept back here after the fires of nineteen thirty that wiped out most of the county, well, they could barely remember the glories of the old days, when the MacBrides and their neighbors, the Gallaghers, spread their wealth all over Eire County. Not a single soul in Eire County lived in need then. There were jobs and good pay at the Little Finn Distillery and the woolen mill. There was help for the sick and the unfortunate. All because of the MacBrides and Gallaghers.”
Anna removed her slippered foot on the wheel’s treadle. As the rotation slowed, she pulled the last handful of wool free from its umbilical cord of new yarn. She stopped the wheel with a touch of one hand, tucked the end of the yarn into a crevice on the spool, then pivoted on her upholstered bench to gaze directly at me with deep green eyes. I was hypnotized.
“Apples?” she asked, smiling slightly, those old eyes boring into me.
I had said “Apples,” out loud. “I try to guess a person’s favorite food. Sometimes I get lucky.”
“I’ve heard it’s more than lucky. A bit psychic, are you? You and your sister? It’s your Nettie blood. I’ve heard about Tal’s wondrous baking over at the cove. And about your doomed restaurant in California. You specialize in pickling, I know, but you also make jams and jellies. I’d love something made with apples.”
“Sweet Hushes.” The type of apple came right into my head.
“Yes.” Her eyes flashed with pleasure. “An old heirloom variety. Regional. There’s a grove of them here.”
We went quiet, her gaze so intense that silence seemed necessary. “You must indeed be a descendent of the MacBrides in this valley,” she said after a minute or two, and the pronouncement made it seem as if I were beautiful and special and endearing to her. Also, for the first time in my life, my family’s name was spoken with an Irish lilt, as if we were old Celtic aristocracy. She went on, “I’ve spent years studying lineages and asking likely relatives of Caillin’s, and of her husband John Bonavendier’s, trying to find the scattered remnants of the families. Primarily in the hopes of tracking down Caillin’s great-granddaughter. She’d be about your age.”
“There are other mystery MacBrides out there somewhere?”
“Caillin hid her only child when she came home from Ireland in nineteen forty-six. Gave her away for safe-keeping. Caillin was wanted by Hoover’s FBI as a witness to the nineteen thirty moonshine wars in this valley.”
“When you say ‘wanted,’ you mean . . .”
“Feared. They wanted her silenced.”
“She felt so threatened that she hid her identity and gave up her child?”
“Yes. And her daughter disappeared as an adult, and has never been found. We search and celebrate the MacBrides who do come back to us. Family we choose is always so much more precious to us, don’t you think?”
Nona returned, rattling small crystal glasses and a dusty amber bottle on a tray of strange old wood. The bottle was caked with cobwebs. She set the tray down on a table between Anna and me. When Anna nodded and gestured, she lifted the bottle and turned it for my inspection. A very faded label, mildewed and eroded by time, showed the faint outlines of art nouveau curlicues and the words Little Finn River Whiskey.
Nona set the bottle on the wooden tray and disappeared as silently as she’d come.
Anna held out a clump of unspun wool. “You come from a long line of men and women who made some of the finest woven goods in the South. They ran the mill here. You’re sure you don’t do any needlework?”
“No, but . . . as I said, my brother does. And our daddy was a knitter.”
It sounded funny, my big, redheaded father, the policeman, with slender knitting needles and a skein of fine yarn in his large hands. But he’d been good at it. “My brother doesn’t want anyone outside the family to know. Especially none of his army buddies.”
She smiled. “His secret is safe with me.” She held out the wool again.
I took the soft wool from her with both hands, as if I might drop it and do some harm. Her aged but lithe fingers brushed over mine as she drew her hand away.
Caillin loved apples, too.
That was strange—to get a Caillin vibe through Anna. They must have been as close as sisters.
She lifted a walking cane from a discreet spot next to her bench. Its silver knob was a ram’s head with curving horns. “That wool is from sheep descended from the flocks that roamed this valley since the eighteen hundreds. When Caillin returned from exile, she built new flocks around their bloodlines. That’s a blend of wools from her Blue-faced Leicestors and her Wensleydales. Some say the Wensleydales have coarse fleeces, only fit for rugs and felting. But their wool makes a strong base when blended with the others. Every family needs a core spun from its strongest fibers, tempered only by the finest ideals. Never let a fiber fool you. Look to the core before you trust it for your garment.”
I rubbed the soft wool in my hands, let the knowledge come to me, let myself feel everything whispered about the valley and its people. “Candy. Salted caramels. Hard licorice drops. And . . . sugar-cured dried fruits. I feel . . . dried apples and wild blackberries.”
“And peaches,” Anna said. “The MacBrides and Gallaghers grew peaches in the low coves near the river. Where the water warms the air. There are vineyards there, now. The grapes are protected by the hills and the heat off the water. Tom Mitternich, from the cove, comes here to advise on the vineyard. In another two years there’ll be a harvest of whites and reds.”
She poured golden-brown liquid into two small crystal glasses. “This liquor was made by your ancestors. Also Jay’s ancestors, through the old connections.” Anna handed me a glass. “Ninety-year-old whiskey that’s not only worth sipping, but worth celebrating. Aged in barrels made from the memory oaks in this valley. Distilled with water from the Little Finn that comes from the ancient bedrock of these Appalachians, the oldest mountains on Earth. These huge old rocks and the worlds atop them are worth honoring, don’t you think? They’re sacred.”
I nodded and raised my glass, studying the clear, gold-brown beauty of the aged liquor. “How did Caillin die?”
“Died in a plane that went down in the Atlantic. They never found the body. She would be ninety-two this year,” Anna said.
“Maybe I should have asked how she lived.”
“That is a much better question. She always remembered to protect her own. She didn’t let love slip away even though some said she seduced a Bonavendier from his Wakefield wife as revenge for the massacre. She lived life with few regrets, except perhaps that she’d been strong enough to give up her child.”
“A MacBride should toast a MacBride. Apparently, there aren’t a lot of us left. “
She lifted her glass, too. “Indeed.”
As the liquor hit my stomach and brain I said, “She liked apples, the same as you. I don’t usually get foodie menus off the dead. Hello, Caillin. You must be close by, in spirit. I wish I could have known you.”
Anna tipped her glass to mine. “Yes.”
The memory stones
WHERE WAS JAY?
I wandered out into the snowy night, flush with whiskey and profound dilemmas; what to believe? I was stuffed with MacBride history like a martini olive bursting with blue cheese. I stepped onto the front walkway and halted. The campfires and Peruvians had vanished. For a startled second I wondered if I’d imagined the people who’d been here, but the coals of the banked campfires said not. Jay and Santa Joe were nowhere to be seen. And Jay’s truck was gone. My heart raced. The air smelled fresh and crisp, like white frosting. Anna’s gift, a bulging satchel filled with copies of Caillin’s journals, hung across the front of my coat. Her other gift, a beautiful shawl, felt like feathers around my neck.
An inch of snow covered the ground now. Beside me, Nona said, “The memory stones are everywhere. You should walk around and look a bit.”
I wandered into the yard, just inside the lamplight of the stone veranda. Using my foot to scrape the snow aside, I read, Bertrice Dougherty MacBride, on smooth, cold granite. There were more stones in this section.
Ascindra, daughter of Lucias and Bertrice MacBride. And another one. Harold, son of Lucias and Bertrice. I was now on hands and knees, scraping at every stone I felt.
Name, son of . . .
Name, daughter of . . .
Name, daughter of . . .
The image of dead children shook me.
“Seeing the stones for yourself is something, isn’t it?” Nona said. “Did you know everyone had been gathered to witness a wedding? Imagine the living souls at that wedding celebration here in this yard, under a starry April sky, with music and finery and joy . . . and then an army of men equipped with tommy guns come down from the ridges, firing into more than a hundred men, women and children in this yard. The bodies falling every which way, the screams.”
My ancestors? I gathered the shawl around me.
Nona continued, “The official story is that the evil bootleggers barricaded themselves and refused to surrender. Killing themselves and their families in defiance.”
“There’s plenty of evidence that’s true,” Jay said from the shadows.
I turned to search the darkness. Nona stared into it, her face twisting into a tight mask. “Are you spying on us, Mr. Wakefield?” she said curtly, and went inside.
“Nice shawl,” Jay said. br />
I squinted and found him. His voice was far too high off the ground for my liquor-soaked perception. How did he get five feet taller? Maybe the vintage liquor had had a touch of absinthe in it, and I was hallucinating. A snowflake landed on my nose, and I scrubbed it off like a kid pawing at a butterfly. “You have interesting timing,” I said. “How long have you been watching me?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.” He seemed to rock forward, and a tall gray horse stepped into the light with him atop it. A second horse, darker, shorter, fatter, and looking sleepy, followed from a lead held by Santa Joe, attached to the halter beneath its bridle. Jay had waited in the cold and the snow beyond the memory stones, in the edge of the light. On horseback. “My truck has been impounded by Peruvians on Will’s payroll. Without wheels, I can only drag Dustin, Donny and Arwen out of this valley on foot. Which explains why I’m now driving this mustang.”
“I didn’t know you could ride. I knew you owned a thoroughbred farm down in Florida, but . . .”
“There’s lot you don’t know about me. Climb on your steed. He’s slow and safe.”
Unlike you, I thought. “I’d rather walk.”
“It’s over a mile in the snow.”
“To where?”
“To Will. In Tearmann. County seat of old Eire, et cetera.”
“Et cetera,” Santa Joe drawled. He grinned at me and pointed at the horse he held. “I blew some smoke up his nose. He’s mellow. I call him ‘Stoned Pony.’”
I’d never ridden a horse in my life.
“Afraid?” Jay asked.
In a word? Terrified. “No.”
“Chicken,” Santa put in, and clucked at me.
Jay smiled, but his eyes held a challenge.
“There’s lots you don’t know about me,” I replied, and walked toward my stoner ride.
Jay
Over the river and through the woods . . .
GABS LOOKED AT home on horseback. Not. But she’d refused to ride in the sleigh which was Santa Joe’s transportation to Tearmann.