Dead of Winter Read online

  “Well?” she asks. “Can you read me?”

  Good question.

  When the timing isn’t right, the energy isn’t there, or Misty just doesn’t like someone, she prefers not to waste the sitter’s time and her own. But in desolate December, she can’t afford to turn down business.

  Maybe if she meditates alone first to get her focus back where it belongs . . .

  “Are you in a rush? Because I have something I have to do first. But it shouldn’t take long,” she adds quickly as the woman checks her watch, a jewel-encrusted gold clunker.

  “Yeah, I guess I can wait for a little while.”

  “Okay, great. I’m Misty, by the way.”

  “I figured. I’m Barbara.”

  Yeah, sure you are.

  Some visitors choose anonymity because they’re not entirely comfortable with what goes on here. Others, because they’re skeptical and “testing” the process.

  Odelia once tried to explain the reasoning. “They think that if they provide us with legitimate information, even a first name, it’s giving away too much and they won’t get a genuine reading.”

  Ironic, considering that the very foundation of Spiritualism is to deliver truth.

  Even if that truth is unwelcome, she thinks, with Mike’s “one of the guys” echoing in her head as she closes the door behind the stranger.

  * * *

  Heading down Cottage Row toward the gate, Bella runs into Calla Delaney coming up. Wearing jeans, sneakers, and a hooded sweat shirt embroidered with the name of a writer’s retreat, she’s effortlessly pretty without a trace of makeup, her long brown hair in a ponytail.

  “I just heard what happened. Are you okay, Bella?”

  She nods and tells her side of the story, which Odelia apparently already shared.

  “What happened is pretty awful,” Calla says, “but at least it doesn’t sound like we need to worry that it has anything to do with Lily Dale.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m still going down to the bus stop to get the boys.”

  “I don’t blame you. I’m on my way over to Gammy’s. She’s having a Crock-Pot emergency.”

  “What happened?”

  “Hers broke a while back, and she’s been trying to replace it, only no one carries it anymore. So now she wants me to help her try to order it online. You know how she is.”

  Bella nods. Odelia is hopeless when it comes to online shopping—or online anything.

  “How about you?” Calla asks. “Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?”

  “I haven’t even started it yet.”

  “Too busy?”

  “Too busy, too broke, too confused.”

  “Confused about what?”

  Bella glances at the Ardens’ cottage nearby, making sure Misty isn’t out on her porch. She’s spotted Jiffy’s mom sitting there only once, before the weather turned. Bella herself was perched nearby on the steps at Valley View, watching the boys ride scooters along the deserted lane.

  Given the size of the glass in Misty’s hand, Bella had assumed it must be soda or juice. But she’d overheard a thirsty Jiffy asking his mom for a sip.

  “This is my wine,” she’d said. “Run inside and get yourself some water.”

  Confirming that the porch is vacant today, Bella sees a black SUV with Ontario license plates parked out front. She must have a client.

  Still, Bella lowers her voice as she explains to Calla that Jiffy wants a snowboard, so naturally Max wants a snowboard.

  “Are you going to buy him one?”

  “How can I? Kids under seven aren’t even allowed to take snowboarding lessons. I can’t have him careening down the side of a mountain.”

  Calla flicks a gaze at the rolling slopes on the far side of the lake. Okay, they aren’t exactly mountains, but still.

  “Maybe you can show him how to use it on the sledding hill. It’s not steep.”

  “I wish I could. Except I don’t know how to snowboard. I’ve never skied. I’ve barely been on a sled. Winter sports aren’t exactly my thing.”

  “Mine either,” Calla says, “but if Jiffy gets a snowboard for Christmas and Max doesn’t, you’ll hear about it every moment of every day from now until Mother’s Day.”

  “Why Mother’s Day?”

  “That’s pretty much when it stops snowing for the year. If we’re lucky.”

  “Terrific. And I’m sure I’ll never hear the end of the cell phone.”

  “Max wants a cell phone for Christmas, too?”

  She nods. “Jiffy has a cell phone.”

  “That’s ridiculous. They’re first graders. Have you talked to his mom about all this?”

  “I don’t talk much with Misty. Anyway, I really can’t relate to her. She’s young. Jiffy said she just turned twenty-four.”

  “That’s only six years younger than you. You’ve breached that same massive generation gap with Drew. He’s thirty-six, right?”

  “That’s different. Drew seems younger than he is, or maybe I just feel older than I am after everything I’ve been through. But we’re not talking about Drew and me.”

  “I wish you would. I think it’s time that you—”

  “By the way, I installed that backsplash.”

  “‘By the way’—now you sound like Jiffy. How’d it come out?”

  “Let’s just say it’s far from perfect.”

  “Perfect is boring.”

  “I love you, Calla,” Bella says with a smile and checks her watch. “I’ve got to get to the bus stop. Good luck with Odelia.”

  “Good luck with the snowboard situation.”

  Too bad that’s the least of my problems right now, Bella thinks as she continues down the lane, keeping an eye out for strangers lying in wait.

  * * *

  Jiffy notes a sudden swirl of snow in the air.

  It isn’t really there.

  The sky is brilliant blue, and the late afternoon sun is as bright yellow as the empty school bus disappearing around the bend. The breeze is so warm that he’s not even wearing a coat, mostly because he left it on the bus. The other kids’ jackets are unzipped, and they’re not hurrying toward home, heads bent against the wind, the way they usually do on December days.

  Only Jiffy can see the white flakes, and he knows what it means: snow, real snow, is coming soon.

  Back in the Arizona desert where he used to live, interesting weather never happened.

  Too bad he can’t be excited about his first big snowstorm on account of the kidnappers.

  “Hey, how come your mom is here?” Jiffy asks Max, spotting Bella up ahead.

  “I don’t know. She’s s’posed to wait on the porch at home.”

  “Maybe something happened. She’s worried.”

  “She doesn’t look worried.”

  Jiffy peers at her. She doesn’t, but he feels like she is. Really worried.

  “Hi, boys,” she calls, smiling and waving. “Hey, Jiffy, where’s your jacket? Did you lose it?”

  “Nope. I know ’xactly where it is.”

  “Where?”

  “On the bus, smushed on the floor in front of the third seat on the right.”

  “You’re not s’posed to meet the bus, Mom!”

  “Oh, I know I’m not,” she tells Max. “I had to come down here to check something at the gatehouse.”

  Jiffy looks at the little white hut. Someone works in there during the season, collecting money from the cars that come through. “What are you checking? Do you have a key? Can me and Max check with you? Because I want to go in there and see what it’s like.”

  “Actually, I . . . already checked it. Now I’m going home.”

  “Well, don’t go home next to me,” Max says, “because people will think I’m a baby.”

  Jiffy nods. “And me, too, because I’m his best friend. You should stay here for a while.”

  “I can’t, but I won’t walk with you, okay? I’ll stay way behind. I promise.”

  As Jiffy and Max hur
ry to catch up to the older kids, he smells vanilla pipe tobacco. Somewhere nearby, Albie is whistling “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

  You better watch out, Jiffy sings along inside his head.

  He can’t whistle because he fell off the monkey bars one day and knocked out one of his front teeth. The tooth fairy didn’t even come because he forgot to find the tooth in the dirt to put under his pillow. He was too busy bleeding and crying just a little and looking for his mom because she said she’d meet him at the playground. She’d forgotten, but that was okay, because the Spirit kids were there. They said he was going to be just fine, and they were right, except for the tooth fairy part and the whistling part.

  And the snow, he thinks, looking at the flakes dancing all around them like glitter dust.

  No one is paying any attention to it, other than the girl who slipped into their group as they got off the bus.

  She isn’t wearing a backpack like everyone else. She’s carrying her books in both arms, flat against her chest. Her face is almost as freckly as Jiffy’s, and her long hair is reddish orange like his, except hers hangs in braids tied with blue ribbons, and it’s always wet. The hem of her blue dress almost reaches the little white socks folded down above her shiny black shoes with silver buckles. Her clothes, too, are always drenched, and sometimes she smells like the lake.

  Jiffy sees her look up at the snow swirling down from the sky and hold out her hand as if to catch the flakes. She turns to Jiffy, and her eyes are big and wide like she’s scared.

  He glances back at Bella. She doesn’t seem to see the snow, but she’s scared, too. She’s just acting like she’s not.

  “She can’t hear us now. She’s way back there,” Max says, checking over his shoulder.

  “Yep.”

  “Then how come you’re not talking?”

  “’Cause I’m being quiet.”

  “Why? Does your throat hurt? Mine does.”

  “No, I’m being quiet ’cause I’m thinking.”

  “You’re hardly ever thinking,” Max observes.

  “I know. But I am right now.”

  “About what?”

  “Snow. I think it’s going to snow a lot tomorrow or the next day, so—”

  “That stinks. We won’t have our snowboards from Santa till Christmas morning, and that’s over a week away.”

  Jiffy ponders that. It does stink because if he’s not kidnapped after all, he’d like to enjoy the storm on the sledding hill.

  “Wait, I know! We can borrow your mom’s ironing board. I bet that would work awesome.”

  “I don’t think my mom would let us,” Max says. “Wait, I know! We can borrow your mom’s ironing board instead. That would work just as awesome.”

  “She doesn’t have one, and she doesn’t even have a washing machine right now! We won’t tell your mom. We’ll put it back ’xactly where we found it, and she’ll never know.”

  “She knows everything.”

  “Not like my mom.”

  “Well, she’s not psychic like your mom, but she knows a lot.”

  That’s true. Bella’s good at figuring stuff out even though Spirit doesn’t tell it to her.

  A terrible thought strikes him. “Uh-oh. What if your mom stays up late on Christmas Eve and says something to Santa?”

  “About what?”

  “About stuff she knows! Like when we’re sleeping and when we’re awake, and whether we’ve been good for goodness’ sake.”

  “I have,” Max says.

  “Me, too. I try not to pout, and I never cry.”

  “Me either. Only babies cry.”

  “Right. But sometimes, good behavior is not always that easy.”

  Like the other day, he didn’t mean to draw a giant Sharpie picture of a ninja zombie on the living room wall. Well, he did mean to draw it, and it turned out to be his best artwork ever.

  But he was so busy thinking that the boring white wall needed something interesting that he forgot all about how you shouldn’t draw stuff on rental cottage walls. Or probably any walls. Except whiteboards at school. But not in Sharpie there either, even if you know the answer to 2+2 and you want to make sure Kevin Beamer doesn’t erase your name next to the 4 and write his instead.

  Jiffy glances back at Bella, wondering if Mrs. Schmidt told her about that. Or maybe the janitor did, after he had to hang up the new whiteboard. Or maybe she just knows, like she knows all that other stuff.

  “By the way, Max, you need to give your mom a really super great Christmas present.”

  “I’m going to. I have the handprint.”

  “The one we made in school?” Jiffy shakes his head. “You need to give her something way better so that she won’t tell Santa on us.”

  “You mean on me.”

  “Or me. Get her a beautiful golden present like I’m giving my mom.”

  “Okay. Where’d you get it?”

  Jiffy considers telling Max he bought it at a fancy store. But Max might not believe him, so he decides on the truth. Sort of.

  “It’s buried pirate treasure I found by the lake. Only it wasn’t buried, and it wasn’t in a chest. But it’s very golden.”

  “Doubloons?”

  “Rings. I can give you one for your mom because I have four.”

  “Can I have two? My mom used to wear two golden rings, but I think she lost them.”

  “Okay, two.”

  “Good.” He holds out his hand, palm up.

  “I don’t have them now. I hid them.”

  “Where?”

  “In a secret spot. I’ll go get them later.”

  “Thanks. My mom will be happy.”

  “Plus Santa will bring us snowboards for sure, as long as . . .” He glances back at Bella again. She smiles at him. He smiles back even though he doesn’t feel like it.

  “As long as what?”

  “The kidnapper is coming,” he whispers, turning back to Max.

  * * *

  He should have known better than to hang around this crazy place after the black cat crossed his path last night. He did know better, but there’s no way he’s leaving without his missing rings.

  He felt lucky just to be alive this morning, after an asthma attack so crippling that he hadn’t been able to make it all the way back to his truck. He’d spent a sleepless night huddled in a chilly barn that smelled of manure, which didn’t help his irritated airways or his mood.

  When the sun finally rose, he debated whether to backtrack for the rings on foot or get the truck and move it closer. He opted to head back toward the Dale, retracing his steps. A risky move in broad daylight, but with luck, he thought, the rings will quickly turn up glinting in his path, and he’ll be on his way.

  He doesn’t find them along the stretch of road outside the gates and weighs the wisdom of reentering the private community. But there isn’t a soul in sight, and anyway, it’s not like he is conspicuously costumed this morning. He has on street clothes like someone out for a nice morning walk.

  Besides, he reminds himself as he enters the Dale, it’s not as if he has no experience with hiding in plain sight. Isn’t that his job?

  Emboldened by the solitude, he heads back up Cottage Row, subtly panning the ground all the way. He’s careful to focus on breathing slowly to keep his asthma in check, relieved the air is warmer today.

  He can feel panic edging in when he reaches Valley View and hasn’t found the rings, but he reminds himself that they’d most likely slipped off his hands while he was distracted by the chatty kid and black cat. They’ll be somewhere in the grass behind the guesthouse and the cottage next door.

  That’s where he is, combing the lawn between Valley View Manor and the cottage next door, when he hears a commotion. Doors opening, voices shouting . . .

  “See you later, Mom!”

  “Wait! I’m coming, too!”

  He lunges into the bushes and stays there, heart pounding. When at last things have quieted and he dares to emerge, he spots a jarring si
ght at the edge of the lake.

  His pal Yuri has come ashore like a vengeful ghost. He is staring in horror, wondering what to do, when the back door opens and a brown-haired woman steps outside.

  Again he dives for cover, heart pounding, lungs crushed.

  There is no way she’ll spot the tarp.

  She can’t.

  If she does, he’ll have to—

  She does.

  As he crouches there, fighting to draw a breath of air, she looks toward the lake, and he knows it is all over. For him, for now.

  But soon, for her, too. For good.

  She takes a closer look, then hurries back inside, and he knows she’s calling the cops.

  He bolts and is panting in the shadows alongside the gate by the time the squad car arrives. If he ever gets his hands on that cursed creature, or the kid, or the lady snitch over at Valley View . . .

  Still, he’s not going anywhere without reclaiming what belongs to him. No, he’ll stick around and kill some time before he kills . . .

  Anything else.

  * * *

  For a while now, Jiffy has been dreaming about being kidnapped on a snowy day. In the dream, it’s snowing so much that he can’t see the kidnapper’s face. It hasn’t snowed that hard here yet, but when—not if—it does, he’s going to get kidnapped. That makes it hard to look forward to a big snowstorm.

  “It might not happen,” Max tells him. “Like, last night, I dreamed my dad came back alive today.”

  “Did he?”

  “Nope.”

  Until Jiffy met Max, he’d thought the worst thing was to have a soldier dad in the Middle East. Now he knows there are worse things. Way worse.

  “Jiffy, just because you dream about something doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, even though I wish it did for me.”

  “Guess I won’t get kidnapped then,” he says, even though he doesn’t believe it. His own dreams usually do come true.

  “Well, that’s good.”

  “Yep. By the way, if I do get kidnapped, I’ll run away as fast as I can, like the Gingerbread Man. No one ever catches him.”

  “What if the kidnapper does?”

  “Then I’ll escape and run, run as fast as I can. Plus, I’ll be famous. You’ll see me on TV. You might be a little famous, too, because you’ll be on TV saying you hope the police find me soon because I am a great kid. And super brave. Make sure you mention that.”