Page 106 of The Souls of Lost Lake
Widower Frisk waved his arms around. “Here’s the damage that begun it all, huh, missy? You an’ that bloody ax. Then you traipsed into town like a special kind of poison. Right into my house. ’Course, I didn’t know it then.” His yellowed eyes scaled her body from top to bottom and then up again. It made her skin crawl. “Had other ideas for you and no plans to let a little chit like you take an ax to me or Jipsy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ava skirted around him until she was firmly on the shore.
“Wheedlin’ your way in. That’s right.” Widower Frisk was spry. Even in his older years, he was wiry and strong. His eyes were wide, tinged with crazy, and not at all kind. “Got my years’ worth of work outta ya, but then Jipsy. You an’ Jipsy and your littlesecrets.” He spat a stream of tobacco.
Widower Frisk knew. About Jipsy and Matthew Hubbard. Somehow he knew.
Ava’s nerves settled in a ball in the pit of her stomach. Jipsy had started messin’ around with Matthew Hubbard a year ago. When Ava caught them, they’d sworn her to secrecy. Jipsy with threats ofa whippin’, and Matthew with a much kinder approach of bribery. Chocolates. Candies. The like. She’d taken it. What girl wouldn’t be bribed by chocolate? ’Sides, Matthew Hubbard might be a bit sleazy, but he was a keen sight better to look at than Widower Frisk. She’d always wondered why on earth Jipsy had any common-law marriage or commitment to the old geezer.
“It wasn’t my doin’.” Ava tried to convince Widower Frisk of her innocence. Seemed like that was her life’s calling.
“Sure it was.” Widower Frisk smiled again. He gave a broad sweep of his arm. “Fine place you got here.” His cackle was cruel.
Ava narrowed her eyes. “Did you kill my family? So you could have me for free labor? A kid you could use to do all your chores?”
Widower Frisk scowled in disbelief. He hiked toward the burned-out ruin of the cabin. Ava dogged his steps from a safe distance.
“You think I did this.” It was a statement, not a question. He bent and picked up a charred piece of wood that had once been part of a wall. He tossed it into the ruins. “I didn’t do this.” When Widower Frisk turned toward her, his expression was bitter. “But you did this to me. You let Jipsy get away. You an’ your secrets. S’why I hunted you down. Scared ya too, didn’t I? The church? The woods? That ax-head? Folks in town are stupid. Wharn’t hard to figure out the preacher was hidin’ you in his room. Little hussy that you are.”
“It wasn’t like that!” Ava hurried to Noah’s defense.
Widower Frisk’s eyes narrowed. He stepped toward her. Ava took a step backward. “‘Forty whacks’ ... you ain’t the first female to kill her parents.”
“You honestly think I could have hacked my parents to death? I was a child!”
“Ya came outta the woods draggin’ an ax and covered in blood. This place was burned down, blood in the grass, ax marks in the soil and wood. Your family was missin’. I came and looked myself.”
“You did?” Ava paused. She hadn’t known Widower Frisk had inserted himself into the search for what had happened here so many years before.
The widower walked a circle around Ava, eyeing her up and down as if determining what to do with her. “Sure did. I was the one what found the drag marks in the mud. Finger marks like someone was clawing at the mud.”
“They were dead.” Ava’s voice was weak. Her legs were trembling.
“’Course they were.” Widower Frisk patronized her. “You didn’t do nothin’ to them. So’s you said for years. An’ everyone believed you until Hubbard done showed up dead.”
“You killed him,” Ava accused. “You were jealous and murdered him.”
“Me?” Widower Frisk slapped his hand to his heart. He continued to circle her, his eyes wild. “Never. Killin’ ain’t my thing. Well,” he added and tipped his head, “it wasn’t. Not him no ways.”
“Ididn’t kill Hubbard,” she argued. Ava looked around for a way to escape. He was older. She would have the advantage over him for speed. But she also knew the widower. He knew these woods better than she did. He was sprightly. Odds were he’d find her again before anyone from Tempter’s Creek actually made their way to the Coons homestead.
“’Course you didn’t. Neither did I.”
“Who—who did then?”
“Ava!” The shout came from deep in the woods. It didn’t sound like Noah, but it snagged Ava’s attention.
Widower Frisk leapt forward and grappled her to the ground. Ava screamed, kicking out at the man, his springy body straddling her. His hands pressed her shoulders to the ground. Ava bucked and kicked her heels. Widower Frisk sat on her legs and leaned close to her face, the heels of his hands digging into her shoulders, tobacco juice dripping from his mouth onto her cheek.
“Little witch. All you had to do was tell me about Jipsy an’ you wouldn’t be here.” His hands snaked to her neck. Ava twisted her head away, trying to sit up against him. Arms pinned at her sides, she opened her mouth to shout. Widower Frisk’s thumbs dug into her throat. His eyes were wide, blue staring into hers with thegleam of the devil in them. “You shoulda told me. Had to find out from Jipsy. Found her cryin’ in the woodshed like a little girl. Blubberin’. All a mess.”
Ava choked. Coughed. She dug her fingers into the dirt. She heard her name again. “Someone’s—comin’,” she choked out, hoping it would send Widower Frisk running and release her to find her breath.
The man ignored her. Ignored the shout. He had lost his mind with purpose, and his purpose was only her.
Widower Frisk’s breath was rancid. “Ohhhh Matthewwwww!” He made a mockery of Jipsy crying. “Matthew’s dead, an’ the town’s blamin’ poor Ava.”
Stars danced in Ava’s vision. In the distance she heard her name again.
