Chapter Forty-Two Ashley
FORTY-TWO ASHLEY
“Ashley,” Josephine said with a wide smile. “I’m so happy to see you. Come in, come in. You are just in time for lunch! Hope you’re hungry!”
“Actually, I was hoping we could talk,” Ashley said, looking behind her before slipping inside the house.
“Of course, dear. We can talk while we eat.” Before Ashley could argue, the old woman was leading her back to the cozy kitchen, where there was an old white farmhouse table and chairs.
It reminded her of Gram’s kitchen: the ancient fridge and stove, white-painted cabinets, canisters of flour, sugar, and coffee on the counter.
Malcolm was sitting at the table sipping iced tea.
“Hey, Ash,” he said.
At the center of the table was a basket of biscuits, a bowl of coleslaw, and a pitcher of iced tea, along with some pickles in quart-sized canning jars.
A platter piled high with fried chicken sat next to a deep cast-iron frying pan on the stove, still making sizzling sounds.
The kitchen smelled incredible, and Ashley realized she was hungry—famished, in fact.
“Ashley, why don’t you sit down at the table and help yourself to some iced tea,” Josephine said. “Be a dear, Malcolm, and get us some plates, will you? They’re in the cupboard to the left of the sink.”
Mal jumped up and did as he was told.
Josephine brought the platter of fried chicken over, taking the seat at the head of the table.
“Let’s dig in,” she said, and Malcolm didn’t need to be asked twice. He heaped his plate with food and started eating. They were all quiet a minute, serving themselves and taking their first bites.
“Oh my God, this is amazing!” Mal said around a mouthful of food. “Ash, you’ve gotta try these pickles,” he added.
Ashley looked at the jars of pickles on the table, saw a familiar red condiment. She picked up the jar, read the neat writing on the label: Maple-Spiced Pickled Crabapples. She showed them to Malcolm, giving him a significant look that he completely missed.
“Wow! That’s wild,” he said, taking the jar from her, turning to Josephine. “Our gram used to make this exact same thing.”
“Did she now?” Josephine asked, looking down at her plate.
“She always said it was an old family recipe,” Ashley added. She looked at Josephine. “But of course you’d know it, wouldn’t you?”
Malcolm looked from Ash to Josephine, then back to Ash, confused.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ashley said. “Why keep it a secret?”
“Um, what are you talking about, Ash?” Malcolm said.
There it was. That are you going crazy again look. Slightly embarrassed. Slightly worried.
“Josephine and Gram are first cousins,” Ashley explained. “They grew up together, here in this house.”
“What?” Malcolm said, setting down his fork.
“That picture you pointed out at the pub yesterday? The girl that you said looked like me? It’s Gram. It’s a photo of her and Josephine.”
Josephine sighed deeply, pushed her plate away, looked at Ashley. “I hear you’ve been talking to my daughter.”
Ash nodded at the old woman, held her gaze.
“Poor Cheryl has her troubles,” Josephine went on. “I’ve done all I can for her—even paid to have her sent off to a fancy rehab down in Brattleboro. But you can’t help a person unless they want to help themselves.”
“So wait,” Malcolm said, frowning as he tried to take it all in. “You’re Gram’s cousin? For real?”
Josephine looked from Ashley to Malcolm. “While my daughter isn’t always the most reliable source of information, in this case, she was telling the truth.”
“No way,” Malcolm said.
“Margaret Endicott had an older brother, David Banks. He was my father. And Ashley is correct, Charlie and I grew up together, more like sisters.”
Malcolm was shaking his head. “But our grandmother grew up in Massachusetts. Near Boston with her father’s family.”
“Oh no, dear, not entirely. It was where Margaret went to ride out the flu. Charlie was born there, at a hospital in Boston. But later, when things improved, they returned home to Boone’s Ferry.
Charlie lived here until she was sixteen.
My parents and I lived just down the street, but then there was a fire, and we moved in with Charlie and Aunt Margaret when I was just a baby. ”
“But I don’t understand. She always said she grew up near Boston,” Malcolm said. “Until she met our grandfather, then they moved to Vermont. She told us she’d never even been to Boone’s Ferry. That there was nothing here. None of our people left. Only ghosts. Why would she lie to us?”
Josephine slouched in her chair, rubbed at her hands as if they hurt. “It isn’t really possible, is it, to look into the heart of another? We think we know someone, but everyone has things they hide away. Unspoken reasons for doing the things they do. Their own secret engines driving them on.”
Ashley shivered a little.
Secret engines.
She wondered what secret engines drove her.
What had driven Gram and her mother?
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Josephine said. “I hope you two can forgive me. It’s just… I was trying to respect your grandmother’s wishes.”
“Her wishes?” Ash said.
The old woman nodded. “Your grandmother made it very clear that she was done with this place. When she left, she went back to Boston to live with relatives of her father’s there.
I never saw her again. We spoke on the phone and wrote letters from time to time, but she never returned.
” She looked on the verge of tears. “She wasn’t just my cousin,” she said.
“Charlie was my best friend. My confidant. She didn’t even come back to town for my wedding.
Never met my daughter and I never met hers. ”
Josephine pulled away her glasses and wiped at her tears.
“Do you know what made her leave?” Malcolm asked.
“I suppose it was the reason most people decide to leave. Boone’s Ferry just doesn’t hold enough for them.
They want bigger and better things. I can’t blame her, really.
But I suppose the truth of it is, I’ve always been a little hurt.
Hurt that she would leave me like that. Silly, isn’t it?
” she asked, dabbing at her eyes. “To be this heartbroken over it even after all this time.”
“I don’t think it’s silly at all,” Malcolm said. “Is it, Ash?”
“No,” Ashley agreed, suddenly feeling awful that she’d been angry with Josephine when she arrived.
Malcolm reached out, took the old woman’s hand. “I’m really sad that my grandmother shut you out of her life like that, but grateful that we’ve connected now. I’m so happy to get a chance to know you, to have you in my life.”
She smiled at him, squeezed his hand. “I’m grateful too.
And I can’t thank you enough for all the work you did for me today.
” She pushed her glasses back on, turned to Ashley.
“He’s fixed my shutters, put up all the storm windows, somehow managed to tighten the old banister so it doesn’t wiggle when I climb the stairs. He’s very clever. Good with his hands.”
Malcolm was glowing. “After lunch I can go to the general store, see if they might have that washer we need to fix the leaky sink.” He dove back into his food.
Josephine beamed at him. “You bring the old washer in to Pops, show it to him. He’ll find what we need.”
She turned to Ashley, speaking brightly now. “I understand you also met Sad Willy.”
Ash stared at Josephine. News traveled fast in these small towns. “I did,” she admitted.
“I hope you caught him in one of his more sober moments. Not that he has many of those these days. But he can be downright nonsensical when he’s got enough bourbon in him.”
“He didn’t seem too bad off.”
“He’s certainly a character, isn’t he?” She chuckled a little. “What on earth did you two talk about?”
“Oh, you know. This and that.”
The old woman studied her. “Well,” Josephine said, “it’s a shame you didn’t bring him for lunch. He loves my biscuits. But we’ll save him a few. Wrap them up with some jam and bring them down to him later.”
“I’m sure he’d like that,” Ashley said. “Terrible,” she went on, “what happened to him. To his wife.”
“What happened?” Malcolm asked around a mouthful of biscuit.
“She was killed in that fire at the town hall two years ago,” Ashley said.
“Oh God,” said Mal. “Lorelei told us about the fire, but didn’t mention anyone dying.”
Josephine shook her head. “It was a terrible thing. And it broke poor Willy’s heart.
To lose his wife like that. And of course you noticed his limp?
He ran straight into that building and tried to save her.
Fell through the floor. Injured his foot so badly it couldn’t be saved, burns and smoke inhalation.
Barely made it out alive.” She looked down at her plate. “Such a tragedy.”
Ashley looked right at her. “He told me it was the knackerman who started the fire. Who took his wife from him.”
The biscuit Malcolm had been holding crumbled in his hand, falling to his plate.
The old woman seemed to bristle for a moment, but then smiled warmly.
“Willy’s a drinker, so you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt.
And like I said yesterday, and like I told Malcolm this morning, the knackerman…
it’s just a story people tell. Boone’s Ferry’s own version of the bogeyman, you could say. ”
“I told her about the mark on your motel room door,” Malcolm said to Ash. “The creepy red horse. She said it’s just some locals messing with us.”
“Locals who take the stories, the myths, a little too seriously, I’m afraid,” Josephine went on.
Ash thought of what Mini had told her: that Josephine herself told knackerman stories in church during the harvest celebration.
She opened her mouth to ask Josephine about it, but closed it when she realized she’d have to reveal her source.
“We’ve been to his grave,” Ashley said instead. “People who exist only in stories don’t have actual graves.”
“Oh, he was a real man, once,” Josephine said.
She dabbed at her mouth daintily with a cloth napkin.
“An actual flesh-and-blood man. He lived in the hills just outside of town, in the years before the great flu. He was a bit of a hermit. Not from these parts. Ireland, I believe. And then, like now, the people of Boone’s Ferry didn’t think much of outsiders.
But he stayed. He built a little cabin and he practiced his trade. ”
Ashley nodded. “Butchering animals. Disposing of corpses. When a horse or cow or any animal that wasn’t able to be used for meat died, the knackerman was called.”
“That’s right, you’ve done your homework, dear!
” Josephine said, looking impressed. “He also sold his leatherwork,” she continued.
“Bags, moccasins, mittens, and coats. Most of the snowshoes people in town used were made by the knackerman. And if a horse was sick or lame, or couldn’t be trained, it was sent to the knackerman. ”
“To kill?” Malcolm asked.
“Not if it could be helped. They say he had a way with animals. That he could make a lame horse well and teach it to walk again, that he could tame a wild horse.” Josephine looked out the kitchen window, eyes huge behind her thick, smudged glasses.
“He had a gift. And he shared his gift with the people of the village, but still, they shunned him. The children whispered and ran away when they saw him coming. Adults avoided him, mocked him for living the way he did, for the strange way he spoke, for his preference for animals over people. But who can blame him, really, when he was treated like he was? I’d prefer the company of horses too.
Wouldn’t you?” Her gaze locked on Ashley.
“Sure, of course. But then the horses in Boone’s Ferry got sick,” Ashley said. “Sick with a strange illness. They all died within a few days. The knackerman was sent for to take care of the bodies. Only, when he showed up, he was sick as well.”
“How do you know this?” Josephine asked, setting down her fork. “I thought your grandmother never talked about Boone’s Ferry?”
“We have a diary that belonged to Frankie O’Massey,” Malcolm told her. “We were just reading it this morning.”
Josephine’s eyes widened. “Diary? Where on earth did you find that?”
“Our grandmother had it,” Ashley said. “It was in a trunk with a bunch of other papers belonging to her father, some old photos and records of his medical practice.”
“Charlie had all this? Really? I had no idea.” She gave Ashley an excited smile. “What an unbelievable treasure!” she chortled. “I’d love to see them. Do you have it all with you?”
“Back at the motel,” Malcolm said, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin.
Josephine nodded. “Will you bring them by later? I can’t tell you how much it would mean to me. I grew up hearing stories about Frankie, and I always wished I could have met her.”
“Of course,” Ashley said. “You know, we didn’t come across Frankie’s grave in the cemetery. You’re pretty sure she died in the flu outbreak?”
“I believe so,” Josephine said. “But then again, some say she ran off to Boston or New York. No one knows for sure.”
She stood up, pushed her chair in. “I’ll show you what I do have, though,” she said.
They followed her into the front room, packed with the little clothespin dolls.
The old woman went to a set of shelves in the corner, picked up one of them: a figure in a man’s coat and tie but with feminine eyelashes and lips.
“This is Frankie O’Massey,” she said, holding up the doll.
Then she reached for two more of the little figures.
She held them out to Ashley and Malcolm.
“It’s your great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Thomas and Margaret Endicott.”
The man wore a tiny felt hat and matching coat, a little tie.
His mouth was slightly downturned, lips pale.
The woman wore a blue dress, had brown hair and bright-blue painted eyes.
It freaked Ashley out a little, holding these little people, thinking this was where she’d come from.
She had this idea then, that they were all dolls—pawns in some great big game.