Shadow Dancer (The Shadow Series Book 1) (4 page)

“Hi Edna. We need to pick up some chicken feed.”

“We just got two dozen cases in yesterday, so help yourself. They’re out back. Anything else you need? Milk? Eggs? Baked goods?”

“Nope, that is all I need.”

Edna smiled and nodded at Jack, but as she watched him head to the back of the store towards the supply yard, she glared at him suspiciously, her crow’s feet appearing on the sides of her face.

“I never did trust him….” Edna said to Peggy, unaware that Tristan and Tommy Morrow were staring right at her when she let the words spill from her mouth.

Tommy motioned to Tristan to follow him, and they followed Jack out the back door. Edna hurried back to her seat as Peggy commented, “That girl is so strange. Did you see the way she
stared? A weird and sullen girl just like her mother.”

“Her poor mother.”

“So why don’t you trust Jack? He comes from good stock.”

“Would you? You know what he did to his wife!”

“Yeah, I know the rumors, but how’s he not in jail? Maybe it wasn’t him.”

“They could never prove it, but you could just tell… that was no accident… and who else had access to her? That was a crime of passion! You’d have to hate someone an awful lot to do what he did. Besides my nephew Earl was on the case. Nasty piece of work, he said that investigation was.”

“I think you’re reading too many of those crime of passion novels that Marty sells at the drug store!”

“I’m not kidding! He’s bad news!”

“Sssh… here he comes again!”

Jack, Tommy and Tristan came in from the supply yard with their arms full of chicken feed. As they approached the counter Edna made sure that they didn’t need anything else – Jack said they did not. A moment later
, as Jack and his children headed back out onto Mountain Road, the muted chatter resumed inside the General Store.

* * *

"Three in a row!" yelled out Shane as he claimed victory in his third straight game of checkers against Tommy. Prior to this, Uncle Frank, and the kids had played their way through the closet filled with board games, effectively exhausting their uncle. Uncle Frank now sat quietly reading the
Elkhart Bugle
in his recliner in the living room, while Jack sat opposite him staring out the window, deep in thought.

"Good job, son. Are we finally finished with the games for the evening?
I need to take Cole home soon. Where is Cole, anyway?"

Shane shrugged his broad shoulders as he ran towards the back door with Tommy in tow. Shane and Tommy headed out onto the
expansive Morrow property in search of Cole and Tristan. They searched through the orchard, the barnyard, and finally, they found them on the bank of Croft Lake. As they approached the lake, Tommy stopped dead in his tracks to find his friend Cole standing quite close to his younger sister. The pair held hands as they stared out across the reflective lake, unaware that they were being watched.

"Hey, there you are," hollered Tommy, effec
tively breaking Tristan and Cole’s attention from each other. Tristan quickly removed her hand from Cole's grasp and Cole looked to see who was calling.

"Did you win again?" asked Cole innocently.

"Three times," replied Shane smugly.

"What are you two doing out here?" asked Tommy, suspicious of his friend's close encounter with his little sister.

"I was telling Cole about our experience in town the other day."

"What about it?"

"How the people were staring, and Joey Binns’ father was afraid of Dad, and what Edna said about me."

"Just ignore them, they’re stupid."

"I don't like how they think they know more about this family than we do... Makes me think we are kept in the dark."

"Your sister was also telling me about the land,” explained Cole. This caught Tommy off guard.

"Oh?" A troubled look grew across Cole's face as he spoke, eyes widened with fear. "I heard this land is haunted, and that a lady died in this lake,” Cole said with a chilling tone to his voice.

Taken aback by his friend's seriousness, Tommy pensively replied, “Our family has owned this land for generations… Do you really believe such rumors?”

Before Cole or Tommy could say anything further, Tristan looked at both of them with a fierce glare in her eyes. All sense of Tristan's usual warmth was removed from her features as she released a simple yet ominous statement: "Without a doubt."

The simple statement and the look upon Tristan's face flushed the color from her brother's skin, and sent chills running up Tommy’s spine. Before anyone could ask anything more, a booming voice echoed from the valley beyond. Frank was calling them home so
that they could take Cole home. As Cole, Tristan, and Shane ran back to the house, all Tommy could do was stare at his sister. He could not quite put his finger on it, but something about that moment scared the living hell out of him.

* * *

Nighttime in the Hollow was
unsettling. The shadow of Mt. Grier and the long-reaching arm of Cavegat forest casted a dark shadow across the valley. The pale light of the moon reflected across the black glassy surface of Croft Lake and acted as the sole source of light for the valley beyond. If you were to walk through the valley in the dark of night, you wouldn’t be able to see your hand if you waved it across your face.

Th
en there was the house itself.

Although Morrow Manor was considered to be farmland, the Morrow family did not live in a simple farmhouse.
The manor house was a massive and elaborate Victorian Queen Anne. Standing three stories high, the moss-strewn building had as much character as the people who lived within. In the darkness of night, the Morrow house stood like a forgotten skeleton in the abyss of night. Morrow Manor set to darkness could strike fear in the stoutest of men.
As Tristan closed her eyes, her mind raced from the day’s events. From outside her window, a bird pecked at the windowsill as a breeze rustled through the tree branches. Overhead, Tristan could hear a scratching from the floor above; the raccoons must have gotten into the attic again.
Tristan rustled in her alcove bed, thoughts disrupting her slumber. Something just wasn’t sitting right with her. Why was her father so willing to get her off the hook for this assignment? He had never done that before. She didn’t want to get out of the project entirely, but she at least wanted him to be aware of what the problem was. Although she would never admit this aloud, what Tristan wanted more than anything was to hear the full story about her mother from her father.

The only thing Jack ever told her about her mother was that she was gone. No explanation how, or why, as if she vanished out of thin air. There had to be more to the story than that. People don’t just vanish. Why did she leave? Where did she go? And why did no one seem overly concerned with finding her?
Tristan had always gotten the impression that her father loved her mother tremendously, and to speak of her pained him deeply. But didn’t she have a right to know the whole truth?
In frustration, Tristan kicked off her purple comforter, giving up on sleep for the time being. She slipped her feet into a pair of moccasins and quietly trudged from her tiny bedroom into her brothers’ bedroom. Her brothers were already sleeping, so she had no qualms about booting up the ancient computer and giving her project yet another go. Although she was determined to give the assignment her all, she feared that the little information she knew about her mother would simply not be good enough for the persistently picky Mr. Kendricks.

* * *

Exhausted, Jack walked down the hallway to check on his children before bed. He wandered down the long hallway, past his own bedroom suite and beyond the one belonging to his sister on the opposite side of the hall. Generations of family portraits and paintings led the way from the master suites to the single
bedrooms. He approached an old wooden door on his right. The word “nursery” was etched into the wood, though someone had tried to paint over it in years prior; below hung a sign that read simply, “Tristan.” Jack cracked open the door to reveal Tristan’s tiny bedroom. In the room stood a wardrobe and an ancient alcove bed, with the bed linens still perfectly intact.
With a lurch of his stomach and an awful sense of déjà vu, Jack closed the door quietly, leaving it slightly ajar. He walked a bit faster now to the last door in the hall, and opened it with a push. Jack listened with a touch of amusement as he took in the symphony of snores that was coming from the two sets of wooden alcove bunk beds. To his left, Blake and Tommy slept peacefully, while his nephew Shane occupied the bottom bunk to his right as Liam crowded the top bunk. In a recliner in the back corner of the room, Adam slept soundly. As Jack turned to leave the room, he noticed there was someone asleep at the keyboard. When he removed the hood, long dark curls were revealed and he found who he was looking for, fast asleep. Jack read the words on the computer screen, and a fracture in his heart began to form.
Tristan Morrow October 6, 1997
English 104 Room 219
Biography Assignment

Subject’s Full Name

Catherine Elizabeth Westfeld-Morrow

I never met my mother. I hear she was lovely. I hear she was crazy. I hear lots of things. One thing's for certain though, she didn’t stick
around long enough to teach me a single thing. My oldest brothers, Adam and Liam have memories of her. I have not a single one. Were this assignment about lessons my father taught me, or advice my Aunt Bridgette gave me or practical jokes my brothers have played on me, I’d have hundreds of words to fill this page. But as it is, the assignment is to write a biography on someone I never knew and regrettably, I have nothing further to add.
Jack released a deep sigh. How could simple words from a fifteen-year-old girl rip open old wounds afresh again? It was as if she ripped the bandage off of a healing scab. His intentions were not to have his children hate their mother, nor to alienate them from her completely. His intentions were to protect them from the horrible truth that occurred in the winter of 1981.
In one swift movement, Jack lifted his daughter from the rickety folding chair and cradled her in his arms. Delicately, he carried her out of the boys’ bedroom and down the hall. With a skillful move of his foot, he nudged the door to Tristan’s tiny bedroom open.
The room was no bigger than a small walk-in closet. Her alcove bed was crafted from mahogany wood and built into the wall some generations before. Carved into the wood were elaborate flowers, fleur-de-lis and a bold cursive M across the center of the frame. Adorning the bed was a brass rod from which purple, gauzy curtains with silver crescent moons hung. Jack approached the bed and moved the billowing curtains aside so he could tuck her safely in her bed. With the tug of a gold tassel, the curtains closed again. Tristan let out a sigh as she slept.
Wearily, Jack walked down the hallway to his own bedroom. Thoughts continued to flow, a stream of unwanted reminders of his wife’s final curtain call. The night his daughter was born, the very same night his wife had disappeared. How he yearned to protect his children from the devastating truth, but somehow, he knew that one day he would have to tell them, especially Tristan. How very alike they were too, with the same hair, same face, and same laugh. It took forcible measures to keep from calling Tristan her mother’s name: Catherine.
Jack glared at a beautiful oil painting that hung above his bed. A beauty with raven waves and piercing blue eyes. She stared down at him with an inquisitive look. How very similar they were. Tristan’s anger at the dinner table reminded him just how alike they were. If Catherine were still alive, she would have reacted the very same way. Jack pulled out a worn leather wallet, and removed Tristan’s latest school photograph and held it in the air next to the oil painting. If he didn’t know better he would swear they were the same person.

That night as Jack’s mind drifted into slumber he could see both their faces, side by side. Mother and daughter, Catherine and Tristan; united in this moment, but never in life. The pair came closer, slowly approaching the foreground of Jack’s mind. The nearer they came, the more they looked like one.

Then in an instant the faces joined, and in a flash transformed into one. Catherine. Tristan. It was getting hard to differentiate. In an instant of panic, Jack shot up in his bed, sweat dripping from his brow, adrenaline pumping his heart to its limit. Above him, the woman in the oil painting, nestled in its oval cherry frame, stared down upon him with a contemptible glare.

Chapter Two

Morrow Manor

Fox Hollow, PA

December 24, 1981

Late Afternoon

A dark-haired beauty clothed in a red maternity dress stood at a wooden easel in the kitchen of Morrow Manor. With the curtains drawn, she peered out of the bay window of the large house as she painted a watercolor of the aging blue barn that stood in the distance on the land. Her tiny hands danced gracefully over the canvas. Her strokes were meticulous, methodical, and perfect. Occasionally, she would need to crouch lower to the floor to give the bottom portion of her painting the attention it deserved, as her swollen belly tended to get in the way of her art.