The Siege Page 6

  “Yeah, well—thanks,” Dale said. Without another word, he pulled out into the street. Less than half a mile down the road, they saw a sign in front of a large, white house: APPLEBY’S BED AND BREAKFAST. ROOMS BY THE DAY AND WEEK. Although there was a wide driveway leading up behind the house, Dale pulled up to the curb in front of the house and parked in the shade of a tall blue spruce.

  The house sat on a slight rise well back from the road. It was a towering, three-story Victorian painted white with black shutters and trim. All along in front of the house and lining the walkway up to the front door were carefully tended garden plots, still bursting with color even this late in the summer. Obviously, someone knew how to plan and care for the flowers. Sidelight windows surrounded the heavy door. On the left side of the house was a large bay window, and as Dale and Angie looked up at the house, they saw the silhouette of someone standing there, looking out at them.

  “They don’t have a ‘no vacancy’ sign out,” Dale said. “Maybe we’re in luck.” He was glancing at Angie, trying to gauge her reaction, but her face remained passive. She’s not even listening to me, he thought. She’s still thinking about Larry.

  As they got out of the car and started up toward the front door, the silhouette in the front window drew away and disappeared. Dale pressed the doorbell button, and from deep within the house, they heard a faint “ding-dong.”

  “Avon calling,” Angie said, chuckling under her breath. They were both snickering when they heard footsteps approach the door and saw motion behind the curtained sidelight. They straightened up when the door latch jiggled, and the heavy door swung inward.

  “Good afternoon,” Dale said, smiling at the stocky, white-haired woman who stood in the doorway. She looked to be in her late sixties and like the man at the gas station, had heavy, fleshy jowls. Dale found himself wondering if everyone in town had jowls like that. Maybe it was from eating potatoes all the time! She didn’t have the gas station attendant’s squinty, pig-like eyes, though. Hers were bright, sparkling blue, like ice on a sunny winter day.

  The woman smiled and, stepping to one side, invited them in with a sweeping wave of her hand. Dale opened the screen door and stepped back to let Angie enter first. He eased the door shut behind him to make sure it didn’t slam.

  “My name is Dale Harmon, and this is my daughter, Angela. You must be Mrs. Appleby. The man at the gas station said you might have a room we could rent for a few days. I didn’t notice a no vacancy sign.”

  “Good old Sparky,” the woman said. “Call me Lil.” She extended her hand to Dale and shook it firmly. “And, sure, I have a room. Just one left, but it’s one of the nicest.” She looked smaller now than she did standing in the doorway, and she reeked of an overpowering flowery perfume.

  The house, or what Dale could see from the entryway, seemed an extension of the old woman: cozy, warm, and hospitable. The stairs leading up from the hallway were covered by a dark red runner rug. On one wall beside a small desk with a registration book, a delicately carved grandfather clock measured the time with a slow, steady tick-tock.

  Off to the left was a sitting room whose built-in shelves, Dale could see, were lined with old books. There were leather-bound volumes and “recent” bestsellers with faded and worn dust jackets. Two pine-green leather chairs, glossy with age, faced a fireplace. Between the two chairs was a dark wood, oval table with several copies of National Geographic fanned out. To the right was a small parlor with warm, dark paneling and two fringed couches facing another fireplace. In one corner, almost as an afterthought, was a small television set with a rabbit-ear antenna. Dale wondered what stations you could pick up way out here, maybe something from Canada. Throughout the entryway and two rooms, the polished hardwood floor was covered by several handmade scatter rugs.

  “I charge thirty-five dollars a night,” Lil said. “That includes breakfast, if you’d like. So if you’ll just fill out this registration card, we’ll be all set.” She led Dale over to the desk and stood aside while he leaned over the desk and signed in.

  Angie, meanwhile, was still lost in looking around the house. She felt as though she had literally stepped back into another century. The TV was the only thing that broke the illusion. The house seemed to shut out the rest of the world and embrace her with a warmth she had never experienced before. She could imagine herself living in a house like this and being happy for the rest of her life, even so far away from everything.

  “You must be, oh, I’d say twelve, going on thirteen,” Mrs. Appleby said, propping her chin on her forefinger as she stared at Angie, smiling.

  One side of Angie’s face twisted into a smile as she nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “Are you a mind-reader?”

  Mrs. Appleby smiled and shook her head. “Oh, no. It’s just that I have a granddaughter who looks about your age. Her name’s Lisa. She’s off somewhere now, but I’ll just bet the two of you will hit it off just fine.”

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” Angie said, still glancing around, trying to absorb the peaceful quiet of the house. The prospect of having someone her age in the house brightened her spirits even more. From somewhere inside the house, there came a loud bang followed by the sound of running feet.

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Appleby, “I’ll bet that’s her now.”

  In a flurry of activity that seemed to contradict the ancient quiet of the house, a young girl with long, dark braids bouncing on her shoulders burst into the hallway. She was dressed in jeans and a light yellow T-shirt with a brightly colored parrot design. Her face was flushed from running.

  “Hi, grammy,” she gasped. Breathing heavily, she leaned over to catch her breath but took the opportunity to glance slyly at Angie.

  “Lisa, this is Mr. Harmon and his daughter, Angie. They’ll be staying with us for a day or two. Maybe you can show Angie around town a little.”

  Dale had finished with the registration card and, as he handed it back to Mrs. Appleby, he glanced at Lisa and gave her a warm smile. There was no doubt that she was related to the older woman, he thought. Her eyes had the same blue intensity of her grandmother’s.

  “You know,” Mrs. Appleby said, looking at Dale. “I shouldn’t be prying into your business, but you never mentioned why you folks are up this way. Are you taking a family vacation?”

  Dale stiffened as chilled fingers gripped his stomach. For a moment, he had forgotten why they were in town. Carefully placing the pen back on the desk so he could avoid eye contact with her, he said softly, “No. We’ve come up from Thomaston for…” His throat caught, and he almost couldn’t continue. “For Larry Cole’s funeral. He worked with me down in Augusta.”

  “Oh, my,” Mrs. Appleby said, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. “Wasn’t that a shame? I’ve known Larry’s mother and father since they were children. As a matter of fact, I had both his parents and him in class when I taught. Of course, I’ve been retired for twelve years, now. I started taking a few boarders to keep myself busy. But wasn’t that accident a shame? Now with his father gone, that just leaves poor Mildred. It’s a terrible tragedy when you lose a child. Terrible!”

  Dale couldn’t shake the feeling that Lillian Appleby was speaking from personal experience. It seemed obvious that Lisa lived here with her, and there had been no mention of her parents.

  “Actually,” Dale said, clearing his throat, “I was hoping someone could tell me where his mother lives. I wanted to stop by the house and visit her before the funeral.”

  “You’re parked right out front,” Mrs. Appleby said. “Why don’t you bring the car up into the driveway and get your luggage up to your room? Lisa, why don’t you take Angie downtown for an ice cream before it gets dark?”

  “Well, we haven’t had supper yet,” Dale said. “I was thinking we’d unpack and then go find someplace to eat.”

  “Oh, pshaw,” Mrs. Appleby said, waving her hand in front of Dale’s face. “The sign says ‘bed and breakfast,’ but that’s just because I didn’t know what else to c
all it. You can have supper here with us if you don’t mind waiting until after seven.”

  Dale looked at Angie, who gave him a what-the-heck shrug. “Fine,” he said. “That would be just fine. A home-cooked meal will beat anything we could find in town, I’m sure.”

  “You two run along now,” Mrs. Appleby said, shooing her hands at Angie and Lisa. “Just don’t go off so far you don’t hear when I call you for supper, all right?”

  With quick nods of their heads, Angie followed Lisa back out of the house the way she had come in. Again, there was a loud slam as they went out into the back yard by way of the kitchen door.

  Dale turned to go down to the street and get his car, but before he went, he turned to Mrs. Appleby and said softly, “I want to thank you.”

  She smiled widely. “For what, renting you a room? Don’t worry. I’ll give you a bill for that.”

  “No,” Dale said. “I mean for everything else. Just for being here and even for having Lisa here. Coming for Larry’s funeral hasn’t been easy for me or for Angie. Larry was more than just someone I worked with. He was almost a part of our family. But I was expecting we’d be staying in some flea-ridden motel for the next two nights, and… and…

  He wanted to say more, but his voice suddenly twisted and broke. Mrs. Appleby reached out and gripped him gently by the elbow.

  “Now, now,” she said, almost cooing. “You just take it easy. I know what it’s like when you lose someone you love, and I could tell as soon as you mentioned Larry, that it pained you. You just get your car up, and I’ll show you your room. Then I can tell you how to get to Mildred’s house.”

  Dale smiled and nodded as he went out the door and down the walkway to his car. All the while he was thinking that it was people like Lillian Appleby, people who reach out and help people in the simplest ways by being kind and caring who can, with time, help blunt the hollow pain of loss.

  III

  Angie was surprised how fast she and Lisa hit it off. It felt like they had known each other before. Even before they were out the kitchen door and walking across the back yard, they were chattering away to each other like long-lost friends. Again, Angie found herself thinking that she wouldn’t mind living in a place like Dyer if she could have a house like Mrs. Appleby’s and a friend like Lisa.

  As they crossed the back yard, heading toward the line of trees at the margin of the well-trimmed grass, Angie paused and looked back at the house. Slanting sunlight lit up the side of the house, making it gleam so brightly it hurt her eyes. The windows reflected back the cloudless sky with a dark marble sheen.

  “I thought we were going to take a walk downtown,” Angie said, frowning. She heard a car pull into the driveway and saw her father back into the turn-around. When he parked and got out to get their luggage from the trunk, he glanced up and saw them standing at the far corner of the backyard. He smiled and waved.

  “I want to show you something else, first,” Lisa said. Her voice was hushed with repressed excitement, and Angie had a moment of doubt, wondering if she could trust her. Maybe, living in such an isolated town, she was weird or something.

  “I was thinking maybe I should help my dad unpack,” Angie said. She hoped her momentary doubt wasn’t betrayed by her voice.

  Lisa looked over and watched as Dale, a suitcase in each hand, walked up the back steps. “It looks as though he’s got it. Come on. I want to show you my secret place.” She spoke in a low, conspiratorial whisper and, lowering her head, glanced to either side as though the surrounding trees had ears.

  “Exactly what is this place?” Angie asked.

  “Follow me,” Lisa said, and she started off into the woods, following a well-worn path that twisted between trees and through ever-thickening brush.

  Angie hesitated before following, uncertain exactly what Lisa had in mind. Growing up in Thomaston, she had never spent much time playing in the woods, although she didn’t exactly define herself as a “city girl,” either. But there was something about the forest, especially deep forest, like these must be, stretching all the way to Canada that unnerved Angie. She felt a gnawing of fear in her stomach as she watched Lisa’s yellow shirt plunge deeper into the foliage.

  “Uh, remember what your grandmother said about not going too far from the house?” Angie said as she started along the path. “We don’t want to miss supper.”

  Lisa glanced back at her over her shoulder and waved her arm to hurry her along. “We won’t miss supper,” she said with a slight agitation. “Come on. If you hurry, we’ll be back in less than half an hour.”

  Taking a deep breath, Angie quickened her pace until she was only three or four steps behind Lisa. The woods grew thicker as she followed her, but the path continued, unwinding like a beige ribbon up a gradual rise. Angie cast several nervous glances behind her as she went, and the gnawing in her gut got worse when she lost sight of the large house.

  “Your dad said something about you guys being here for Larry Cole’s funeral, huh?” Lisa said.

  The woods were dark and cool, and the ground was thick with musty, matted leaves. Each step she took gave with spongy softness, and the air was full of a fresh, woodsy smell. Afraid she might trip over a hidden root, Angie didn’t hazard to look up when she responded.

  “A-huh, he was a really good friend of ours,” Angle said, her voice low and throaty. “Did you know him?”

  “I know some people named Cole,” Lisa said, “but not a Larry.”

  Angie didn’t want to say any more about it, and was thankful that Lisa let it drop. They continued along the winding path, down in a dried stream bed and then up another crest, this one quite steep. At the top of the crest, winded, Angie stopped and hung onto a tree branch to catch her breath. There was no way she was used to tramping around like this through the woods.

  “If it’s much further, I’m not gonna make it,” she gasped. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

  “It’s just up there,” Lisa said. She pointed off to the left where the trees seemed most dense. At first, Angie couldn’t see anything. The gloom of the woods closed in on everything. But then she noticed what looked like a peaked roof sticking up through the autumn-stained foliage. The little she could see of the building was weathered gray, the exact color of a hornet’s nest.

  “What is it?” Angie asked, still fighting the burning in her lungs.

  “I told you my secret place,” Lisa said. “Come on.” They started toward the building, and Lisa explained: “When I first moved here, after my parents got divorced, I…”

  “You don’t live with your parents?” Angie asked. Even though she couldn’t really remember her own mother, the idea that Lisa lived without either parent struck her as terrible.

  “No,” Lisa said. “We lived in Connecticut, but my dad was never home much. Finally, he met someone else and ran off. My, grammy’s never told me the whole story, but I’ve heard from other people that he ran off with one of his students. He used to teach philosophy at the University of Connecticut. My mom, I guess, never thought she was much of a mother, so she asked her mom to take me for a while until she could get her life together. That was four years ago.”

  “Gee,” was the extent of Angie’s response as she considered what a tough situation that must have been and maybe still was for Lisa. She felt a little guilty, feeling so sorry for herself when there were other people like Lisa who had to deal with things just as bad, or worse.

  “Anyway,” Lisa said, forcing a smile, “that was a long time ago, and I’ve pretty much gotten used to it.”

  “Do you ever see your folks?”

  Lisa set her mouth in a tight line and shook her head. “My mom comes to visit once or twice a year and she calls me every couple of weeks. It’s been less and less over the years, though. I haven’t seen my dad since…” Her voice caught for an instant. “Since he left us.”

  “Boy, that must’ve been wicked tough on you,” Angie said.

  “Hey, I didn’t bring you out here to give yo
u my sob story,” Lisa said. They had been making their way slowly down the slope the whole time they were talking, and now they broke through the screen of brush that had been hiding Lisa’s “secret place.”

  Angie gasped and couldn’t help but wonder what such a big barn as this was doing out here in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Years ago, maybe a century or so, the land around it might have been cleared, but now big, thick-trunked trees towered over the ancient barn, almost completely hiding it. She could see where some trees had grown up inside the barn, and one was big enough to have pushed its way up through the roof.

  “Pretty neat, huh?” Lisa said, her voice tinged with the pride of ownership.

  Angie nodded agreement.

  Most of the weathered-gray boards still clung to the sides of the barn, although many were loose at one end or the other, giving the whole exterior a random, lopsided look. Shingles had peeled off one side of the roof, exposing the skeletal structure of the rafters beneath, and the loft doors hung open at awkward angles on either side. Tumbledown fences and rusted farm equipment littered the overgrown dooryard. The big front doors were closed, but the side door was torn off its hinges and lay like a platform entrance. Dappled shadows thrown by the setting sun cast the whole structure in a deep gloom. When the breeze stirred the leaves, the whole barn seemed to vibrate with a weird sort of energy.

  “I found it one day when I was taking a walk in the woods,” Lisa said solemnly. “I used to do that a lot when I first moved here.”

  “You must have been pretty lonely,” Angie said. She locked eyes with her newfound friend, surprised she could feel so close to her after so short a time together.

  Lisa shrugged. “I have no idea who owns the place,” she said. “But I come out here a lot when I want to be alone so I can—you know, think and stuff. You’re the first person I’ve ever shown it to.”

  Angie smiled, acknowledging the honor she had been given.