Page 5 of The Witch's Orchard
The engine in my beautiful amber Datsun 260Z rumbles, grumbles, and pops as I roll slowly down the road, passing a row of apple trees—their fruit already fallen—and an old white farmhouse.
“Almost there, Honey,” I say, patting Honey’s steering wheel.
Honey growls. She’s tired. So am I.
Honey is an old lady now and since she came into my life, after I leftthe Air Force six years before, I’ve done my best to take care of her, just as she takes care of me.
“Almost there,” I say again, reassuring her. Or myself.
I turn in at a wooden sign that says, “Crow Caw Cabin.”
The light on the porch of the little A-frame cabin shines bright. The roof is black and a crow is perched at the top. He’s so still that, at first, I think he’s sculptural. Some kind of interesting weather vane. But then he tilts his head this way and that, staring at me. He flutters his wings and blinks, then takes flight and folds himself into the gathering dark.
I park, turn off the car, listen as Honey’s straight six finally sputters and quits. I fight with the trunk for a minute before it lurches open and reveals two Air Force duffels of dirty laundry and a brown paper bag filled with peanut butter, bread, bananas, and beer. The four main food groups.
I load everything inside the cozy cabin and have a look around. The place is a symphony in wood. Wood walls, wood floors, wood-framed sofa. The bedroom at the end of the cabin boasts an antique-looking double bed stacked with quilts. The little utilitarian bathroom features a shower stall that’s actually bigger than the teensy closet bathroom in my apartment. Back in the kitchen, I grin when I open the fridge to find yetmorebeer, sandwich supplies, a gallon of whole milk, a carton of eggs, and thick bacon.
“Someone’s been shopping,” I say, grabbing a dark stout and popping the top with a bottle opener carved in the shape of a fish that sticks to the fridge. I unload half of one of the duffels into the washing machine with plenty of Max’s store-brand detergent before heading back into the living room, where I discover a basketful of muffins, cookies, and banana bread with a note on stationery from Shiloh’s Sweet Treats that says,“Thanks for helping out. Call if you need anything—Shiloh Evers.”
Shiloh, I think, is probably the one who did all the shopping in addition to the baking, and I wonder about her relationship to Max as I grab a ginger cookie. I bite into it with a snap, then pick up my old rucksack and plop onto the sofa, pull out Max’s casebook, and open it up along with a brand-new gas station–procured spiral-bound notebook and pen. I flipthrough the pictures and land on a photo of a white farmhouse with a wraparound porch and black shingle roof.
There’s a knock at the door. I look toward my rucksack where my gun sits in its locked hard case and remind myself I haven’t pissed off anyone in Quartz Creek enough (yet) to dig it out and load it. Instead, I jump up and open the door to find Max Andrews.
“You’re a little later than I thought,” he says. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I push the door all the way open and he comes inside. “When you drive a fifty-year-old car, a six-hour drive sometimes takes eight hours. It’s its own kind of time travel.”
“Oh. Okay.” He glances out at my ancient Datsun, then back to me. I expect him to tell me how beautiful Honey is and what a wonderful machine she must be, a carriage fit for a king.
“I, um… I tried to kind of stock the place. Well, Shiloh did most of it. But if you need anything, let me know.”
Then again, not everyone can appreciate Honey’s unique specialness.
“I think I’m good,” I say. “I’ve got my poking stick all sharpened up.”
“Your…”
“For the hornet’s nest we talked about.”
“Oh.”
I take a drink of my beer, watch Max put his hands in his pockets and take them back out.
“The house I passed on my way in,” I say. “It’s the house you grew up in, right? You and your dad still live there?”
His gaze shifts away from me, out the door and east, toward the white farmhouse.
“Yeah,” he says. He opens his mouth to say something else but then just says again, “Yeah.”
Can’t have this conversation all by myself so I say, “Tell me what happened after your sister was taken. You were eight, right?”
“Yeah,” he says. Then, there’s a long pause before he starts again. “Things got really rocky for my folks after that. My dad used to be a biology teacher at the high school. My mom was a farm girl, I guess. This washer land, originally, her family’s land. She rented out some of the fields to local farmers. But she kept the land closest to the house for us. She had a vegetable garden, flower beds. She kept chickens, an old pony, and a couple goats in the barn.”
“Oh,” I say. “Cool. So… your dad wasn’t home that day.”
“No,” Max says. “He was at school. It was summer but he was doing some kind of in-service teacher training thing.”
“And you said you had a piano lesson that morning? What was the name of your piano teacher?”
