Chapter Two
I Can Smell the Woods on You
‘You’re late, Dandelion!’
Grandmother Clo didn’t bother to look at me as she stirred the red sauce simmering in the big pot on the stove. The turquoise and silver rings covering her fingers danced in the low kitchen light.
‘Hello to you, too,’ I said, letting Flora off her leash. She sniffed at the familiar surroundings before nosing her way out through the screen door to the deck.
The cabin where I’d grown up had most of the living space on the second story.
The front door was on the first floor along with a bedroom that once belonged to my younger sister Lia.
A wide set of oak stairs led to the second floor.
As soon as you were on the landing, the space opened into a massive chef’s kitchen that spilled into a family room.
The entire back wall was nothing but windows, allowing a clear view of Meadow Lake.
Grandmother Clo kept her focus on the pot. Her shoulders scrunched up around her ears.
‘Rabbits stealing from your garden again? You only call me by my given name when you’re irritated.’
‘They took a bunch of tomatoes and a cucumber this time!’ Her stirring grew more agitated. ‘How can those little buggers possibly carry a cucumber?’
It was hard, but I bit back a smile because Clo was serious about her summer garden. ‘You could always put up a fence.’
She pushed out her lower lip. ‘No. It’s not natural.’
I laid a hand on her too-bony shoulder. For all intents and purposes, she and my late grandfather, Beau, had raised me and my two younger sisters while our mother was off ‘finding herself’ at some weird commune or artists’ retreat.
It was hard to watch her age, but while her stature may have shrunk over the years, her bossy attitude only swelled.
‘Where have you been?’ She tugged at the light strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail. ‘And don’t feed me nonsense about work either. I can smell the woods on you from a mile away.’
‘And they accuse us girls of having magic.’
She threw me a sour look because she hated any mention of magic.
I reached out and patted her hand. Her rigid posture eased as she sank into my touch.
When people started whispering about me, they often wondered, usually out loud, if my ‘special touch’ worked on people as well as animals.
Thank goodness it didn’t or I would have had to move into the forest like some hedge witch.
‘I tried to go for a hike, but it was interrupted.’
Her stirring stopped. ‘Bears again?’
I’d had one close call a year ago, and I’d made the mistake of telling Clo about it.
Now she worried every time I hiked, because all sorts of creatures liked to trail me through the woods.
Having a connection to animals was fine as long as they were domesticated, but wild animals were a whole other ballgame, which is why I often carried bear spray.
‘No. An idiot on the trail lost his dog. Had to reunite them. Not a big deal.’ I didn’t mention that I sensed his dog was sick or that the idiot had the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen.
‘Now that you’re here, make yourself useful and set the table. Lia is finishing up some search and rescue training, and Aster called to say she’s helping one last customer.’
‘What? Then why did you give me grief about being late?’
‘Because I expect you to be on time. Five minutes early, in fact. Your sisters,’ she grumbled, blowing a curly gray hair off her forehead, ‘they’re a whole other matter.’
As Clo continued to stir the sauce, I walked out of the kitchen toward the rectangular dining table my grandfather had fashioned out of an alder tree as a wedding gift for her. With care, I set out the cutlery and glasses. My gaze stuttered on the chair where my grandfather once sat.
The table was the centerpiece of our family’s life.
Scrapes, spills, gouges in the aging wood marked past holidays, birthdays and, sadly, funerals.
Aster was even born on the rug next to it when she showed up a week before her due date.
Her early arrival pleased our mother, because she’d sworn from the beginning that her third baby girl was going to have all the attributes of a Virgo.
Sensitive. Loyal. Most of all creative. She was, of course, right about everything.
My youngest sister was all of those things, especially creative, owning our town’s only floral business, The Bloomin’ Blossom.
Once the table was set, I walked past the wooden hutch that was covered in generations of family photos dating back to my five-time great-grandmother, Sylvia, and her daughter, Ambrosia Perkins.
Two of Harvest Moon’s first settlers after it was incorporated in 1874.
I always loved the sepia-toned photo of mother and daughter.
The two of them smiling ear to ear as they leaned against the doorway of the apothecary they’d owned until Ambrosia’s death in 1934.
Flora greeted me with a soft bark when I stepped onto the porch. In the low evening light, the lake was a deep shade of sapphire. The water level settled well below its dirt-hardened shore. It wouldn’t rise again until this winter’s snowpack melted in late spring.
A cool breeze slid through the swath of ponderosa trees, nudging the hanging baskets dripping with ruby-red geraniums. The plants were my grandmother’s pride and joy and probably why Aster was so obsessed with flowers too.
Clo often claimed gardening had become her passion because she’d never planned on being a mother.
That all she’d ever wanted was a quiet life where she could live in the mountains, enjoy the fresh air and get her hands good and dirty in the dark soil surrounding the house.
It’s why she’d named her only daughter Belladonna.
Her arrival both beautiful and mysterious, because all her doctors insisted Grandmother Clo could never get pregnant.
Flora popped her head up and gave another whine. I bent down and placed a kiss on the top of her warm brown head. ‘You did good today. Although, you didn’t need to growl at the guy. I had it under control.’
A vision of Bryce stumbling out of the woods made my blood heat again.
There was something strange about his presence I couldn’t put my finger on.
I was usually pretty good about hiding my intuition about animals, but the episode today hit me like a baseball bat to the chest, and I’d had no other option but to stay planted and accept the rush of feelings.
The first time the sensation happened was a few days after my tenth birthday.
My mother showed up without warning and whisked me and my sisters off in an old car painted a muted shade of avocado green, the inside reeking of cigarettes and stale pizza crust. We drove at least an hour until we pulled up beside a roadside petting zoo with goats, chickens and roosters.
I walked among the animals, loving how the goats scampered around the small fenced-in pen.
That was until one nuzzled under my hand, and the strange feeling descended.
I sensed the blood as it beat in the animal’s veins.
The cracking and popping of its joints rang in my ears.
A flood of pain, suddenly making my own bones ache.
There were the flashes of red and yellow behind my eyes, before a wash of understanding hit my brain.
I sank down onto the dirt and lifted the goat’s back right leg.
Sure enough, a woman’s earring was embedded into its cloven hoof.
I pulled it out, and the small creature bleated a thank-you before scampering off.
Belladonna witnessed the entire event. She came up beside me, dusted away the straw and mud clinging to my sparkly pink skirt.
Those violet-colored eyes we shared were wracked with fear.
She cupped my cheek and asked what was wrong.
Through tears, I explained the bursts of light, the weakness that had flooded my body, the agonizing crush of the animal’s pain.
I expected her to be distraught. Worried that her oldest child was obviously having some kind of breakdown. Instead, she pulled me close. Whispered that I’d imagined it all. That I needed to forget about it.
Back then I craved any kind of attention from her, so I quickly agreed. Now, the memory sent a chill down my back. I snuggled closer to Flora, the sound of Clo’s humming floating out the door toward us.
Canyon wrens chattered in the trees. The rabbits Clo was constantly battling hopped across the grass. A fawn and her doe inched out of the woods. Their silvery eyes veered in my direction before they walked to the lake’s edge for a drink.
I let myself relax, until the quiet night air was interrupted by the tinny grind of gears. Lia insisted her old Jeepster Commando was a workhorse that would never die, but the moaning of its ancient engine, which had been rebuilt at least four times, said otherwise.
I heard the spin of tires against gravel and a minute later, she accelerated up the steep driveway that was tucked back a half-mile from the main road.
I moved out to the edge of the deck and waved to her as she got out of the car.
She gave me her regular grunt before disappearing inside the front door.
Like she’d done with me, Grandmother Clo called her by her given name, Camellia, raked her over the coals about being late, and then promised we’d eat once Aster arrived.
Lia stopped at the fridge, popped open a beer and strode out to join me on the deck. ‘What’s up her caboose? Squirrels burglarizing the garden again?’
‘It’s rabbits this time.’
‘Gotta give them credit for their bravery. I wouldn’t want to go up against Grandmother Clo.’