The Story Keeper (37 page)

This moment is for me alone. I focus on the envelope, quietly break the seal. Lifting the flap, I remember the very instant Evan sprang the lock on the communion box that we now know his mother came upon completely by accident. She had no relation to the people in the story, other than her desire to discover and record the rest of it. Using Rand’s journal and his early-day photographs, she’d developed an obsession, something she pursued between housekeeping and child rearing, a quest she never had time to complete before time ran out.

Around me, all the world seems suspended in place now, breathless. Tipping up the envelope, I watch two sheets of folded paper slide into my hand
 
—the yellow kind from a child’s writing tablet. They have been wrapped over something, taped on both ends, as well as in the middle, forming a package. The tape is old enough to have dried and turned yellow, the adhesive almost gone.

It releases its hold easily as if it has been waiting for me a long time.

Unfolding the top flap, I read the beginning of a message written in the mixed print and cursive of a woman who’d dropped out of school in the eighth grade. Not long after, she would meet my father in a store in Towash and marry him to escape an unthinkable situation.

Mama loves you . . .

The letter begins. The one thing I’ve always hoped, always yearned for is
proof
. Proof that, even though she left, my mother still loved us
 
—that she didn’t just vanish one night without a word or a thought of what would become of her children.

My goin is the only way I know to stop it.

Watch after the babies, my big girl. I hadnt got much to give you, but this was in my granny’s family, and I always kep it with me. It’s a old thing, from way far back. Granny hung it over my cradle when I was tiny, and I hung it over you till I found you with the string broke, just sittin there lookin at the pieces.

I thought I’d fix it back one day, but it’s good it’s broke still so I can leave one for each of y’all and take the middle piece myself. It ain’t much to tie us all together in this big, wide world, but it’s somethin.

I ain’t much either, but I love you.

Mama

Tears blur the words. I wipe my eyes impatiently, lift the top sheet, and stare down at my mother’s gift taped to the second piece of paper
 
—a single, oval-shaped bone bead etched with a cross, a star, and what looks like the oar of a boat. Carefully, I peel back the tape that secures it. I hold it in my hand.

It’s so similar to the ones on Sarra’s string. A piece of a heritage I never dreamed of. How would I? How could I have imagined this link to things still unknown, to questions yet unanswered?

This gift that was kept from me for so many years, and now has finally been released to me.

With it come both comfort and hope. A stirring. A rush of air and light and joy and tears of the kind that taste salty-sweet as they moisten skin.

As I gaze toward the stage and then into the auditorium, I see the path from the beginning to this moment as clearly as if it had been sketched on the paper and handed to me. The journey has led me here.

This time, I see the moment just as Wilda described it, not in hindsight, but in full and miraculous bloom. I experience it in a soul-deep way that is new and vibrant and all-encompassing.

This is the glory hour.

And this time, I step fully in.

A Note from the Author

D
ear Reader,

I hope you’ve enjoyed
The Story Keeper
, and I hope Jen, Evan, Rand, and Sarra have made you at least a bit curious about Appalachia and its history. If you’ve never visited the area, please take the opportunity to plan a trip there. The peaks and hollows of the Blue Ridge and the Smoky Mountains whisper with history, with stories, with trickling brooks and teeming waterfalls waiting to be discovered by new eyes. While Lane’s Hill, the Brethren Saints, Towash, and Looking Glass Gap are fictional, many of the places mentioned in
The Story Keeper
are real. Driving a loop along the Blue Ridge Parkway, you can visit Mount Pisgah, hike dozens of trails, and see incredible waterfalls (including Issaqueena, where Nathaniel and Anna disappeared through a time portal in Evan’s book). You can marvel at the Stumphouse Tunnel, still frozen in time halfway through a mountain, and imagine yourself back in the days when men dug through mountains by hand. Appalachia offers so many incredible places to visit.

Go. Experience. Stay awhile and enjoy the slower pace.

You might also be wondering about the Melungeon people mentioned in the story and whether they are real. The answer to that question is yes. In 1654, the first English explorers to push into the Cumberland Pl
ateau of Virginia, Kentucky, and the Carolinas reported the discovery of “blue-eyed, reddish-brown complexioned” people who referred to themselves as “Portyghee.” The origin and meaning of that term and the word
Melungeon
have been long debated.
Portyghee
was thought to be a corruption of
Portuguese,
and
Melungeon
possibly a corruption of an African word meaning “friend” or “shipmate,” but nobody really knows. In 1673, Englishmen James Needham and Gabriel Arthur, traveling with several Native American guides, reported meeting “hairy people . . . (who) have a bell which is six foot over which they ring morning and evening and at that time a great number of people congregate together and talks.” The dialect used by these “hairy, white people which have long beards and whiskers and weares clothing” was neither English nor any Native American language the guides recognized.

The Melungeons and their origins remain one of the world’s greatest cultural mysteries. Thought to be a tri-racial isolate of Anglo, African American, and Native American blood, they suffered under prejudice, discrimination, and misinformation. Their family stories were often lost or altered as later generations chose, in self-defense or shame, to hide their Melungeon roots. Both Abraham Lincoln and Elvis Presley were rumored to have been of Melungeon descent.

You can see, I suppose, why Evan Hall would have found these enigmatic, reclusive people a fascinating culture among which to set his novels . . . and why I have found them fascinating as well. Who were these people? Where did they come from? Were they the descendants of shipwreck survivors who, perhaps, pressed inland and intermarried with local indigenous populations? Does their presence in the Carolina mountains in some way solve the mystery of Sir Walter Raleigh’s 117 Lost Colonists, who were left on the Outer Banks in 1584 and never seen again?

Much debate has been given to the question, and while the mystery might never be solved, it is fascinating fodder for a series of stories, don’t you think? History’s mysteries have a way of sweeping us up and transporting us into our own family origins, and also far beyond them into places we’ve never seen and lives that never were.

Or perhaps, lives that might have been . . . once upon a time.

Happy reading,

Lisa Wingate

Chapter 1

P
erhaps denial is the mind’s way of protecting the spirit from a sucker punch it simply can’t handle. Maybe some people are more prone to it than others. Maybe it’s a function of a dreamy, impractical mind.

It could be simpler than that. Maybe denial in the face of overwhelming evidence is a mere by-product of stubbornness.

Whatever the reason, all I could think as I stood in the doorway, one hand on the latch and the other trembling on the keys, was,
This simply can’t be happening. This can’t be how it ends. It’s so . . . quiet.
A dream should make noise when it’s dying. It should go out in a blaze of tragic glory. There should be a dramatic death scene, a gasping for breath . . . something.

Denise laid a hand on my shoulder, whispered, “Are you all right?” Her voice faded on the last word, cracked into several jagged pieces.

“No.” The hard, bitter tone sharpened a cutting edge on the words. It wasn’t aimed at Denise. She knew that. “Nothing about this is
all right.
Not one single thing.”

“Yeah.” Resting against the doorframe, she let her neck go slack until her cheek lay against the wood. “I’m not sure if it’s better or worse to stand here looking at it, though. For the last time, I mean.”

“We’ve put our hearts into this place. . . . ” Denial reared its unreasonable head again. I would’ve called it
hope
, but if it was hope, it was the false and paper-thin kind. The kind that only teases you.

Denise’s blonde hair fell like a silky curtain, dividing the two of us. Maybe it was easier for her to speak the truth that way. “Whitney, we have to let it go. If we don’t, we’ll end up losing both places.”

“I know. I know you’re right.” But even as the words swirled into the frosty air of a Michigan spring, part of me rebelled.
All
of me rebelled. I couldn’t stand the thought of being bullied one more time. “I know you’re being logical. And on top of that, you have Maddie to think about. And your grandmother. We’ve got to cut the losses while we can still keep the first restaurant going.”

With dependents, my cousin couldn’t afford to take chances. She’d already gone further than she should have in this skirmish-by-skirmish war against crooked county commissioners, building inspectors taking backroom payoffs, deceptive construction contractors, and a fire marshal who belonged in jail. As nearly as I could tell, they were all in cahoots with local business owners who didn’t want any more competition in this backwater town.

Denise and I should’ve been more careful to check out the kind of environment we were moving into before we fell in love with the old mill building and decided it would be perfect for
our second Bella Tazza location and our first really high-end eatery. Positioned along a busy thoroughfare for tourists headed up north to ski or spend summer vacations in the Upper Peninsula, Bella Tazza #2 with its high, lighted granary tower was a beacon for passersby.

But in eleven months, we’d been closed more than we’d been open. Every time we thought we’d won the battle to get and
keep
our occupancy permit, some new and expensive edict came down and we were closed until we could comply. Then the local contractors did their part to slow the process and raise the bills as much as possible.

You’re not the one who needs to apologize,
I wanted to say to Denise, but I didn’t. Instead, I surveyed the walls, with their beautiful painted murals and the fabulous archways over the booths and the frescoes Denise and I had worked on after spending long days at Bella Tazza #1.

I felt sick all over again.

“The minute we have to give up the lease, they’ll move in here.” Denise echoed my thoughts the way only a cousin who’s more like a big sister can. “Vultures.”

“That’s the worst part.” But it wasn’t, really. The worst part was that it was my fault we’d gone this far in trying to preserve Bella Tazza #2. Denise would’ve surrendered to Tagg Harper and his good ol’ boy henchmen long ago. Denise would’ve played it safe if only I’d let her.

Yet even now, after transferring the remaining food inventory to the other restaurant and listing off the equipment and fixtures we could sell at auction, I still couldn’t accept what was happening. Somehow, someway, Tagg and his cronies had managed to cause another month’s postponement of our case with the State Code Commission. We couldn’t hang on that long with
Bella Tazza #2 closed, but still racking up monthly bills. This was death.

“Let’s just go.” Denise flipped the light switch, casting our blood, sweat, and tears into darkness. “I can’t look at it anymore.”

The sound of the latch clicking held a finality, but my mind was churning, my heart still looking for a loophole . . . or a white knight to ride in, brandishing sword and shield.

Instead, there was Tagg Harper’s four-wheel-drive truck, sitting in the ditch down the hill. Stalker. He was probably kicked back, sipping a brew, and smiling to himself.

“Whitney, don’t get into it with him.” Denise’s hand snaked out protectively and snatched a fistful of my jacket. “I’m serious. I don’t think you really know what he’s capable of.” A time or two, we’d wondered if Tagg might go a step further and do something drastic to come out on top in this war.

“That goes both ways.” Fumes wafted from my skin, leaving behind a boiling, feverish anger, a seething hatred. I imagined the heat slowly rising upward, spinning through long, dark waves of hair, burning into my brain, turning brown eyes to glowing red. I imagined myself with some form of superpowers, the kind that could magically, miraculously vaporize Tagg Harper. Turn him to ashes right there in his truck.

Something superhuman was about the only remaining possibility at this point
 
—that or a miracle
 
—but Denise and her grandmother had been to church every Sunday for months, praying for our miracle. It hadn’t come.

Denise’s grip tightened. “I can’t deal with any more of this today, okay? It’s bad enough thinking about posting auction listings on eBay and parceling out whatever we can take away from this place.”

“I’d just like to . . . walk down there and nail him with a
roundhouse kick to that great big gut of his.” The past few months’ drama had spooked me enough to prompt some refresher courses in Tang Soo Do karate, a pastime I’d given up after leaving the high-school bullying years behind. I hadn’t told Denise, but someone had been prowling around outside my cabin at night, at least once lately and probably more than that.

Denise didn’t need anything else to worry about. As usual, she was focused on the practical end of things. “We need to just concentrate on digging out financially and keeping Bella Tazza #1 alive.”

“I know.” The problem was, I’d been adding things up in my head as we moved through the mill building, making our auction list. What we’d get for the supplies and equipment wouldn’t even take care of the legal bills we’d amassed, much less the final utility costs on the new building. With business slumping slightly at the other restaurant due to a flagging economy and an incredibly harsh winter, I wasn’t even sure we could make payroll. And we had to make payroll. We had employees counting on the money.

Guilt fell hard and heavy, weighing me down stone by stone as I crossed the parking lot. If I hadn’t come back to town five years ago and convinced my cousin to leave her teaching job and start a restaurant with me, she wouldn’t be in this position now. But I’d been sailing off a big win, after starting a cozy little Italian place in Dallas, proving it out, and selling it for a nice chunk of change. With $300,000 in my pocket, I knew I had the perfect formula for success. I’d told myself I was doing a good thing for Denise, helping her escape the constant struggle to singlehandedly finance a household and pay for Maddie’s emergency-room breathing treatments on a teacher’s salary.

Denise, I had a feeling, had been hoping that the realization of the childhood mud-pie fantasy she played along with while
babysitting me would somehow defeat the wanderlust that had taken me from culinary school to the far corners of the world and back.

“See you in the morning, Whit.” She shoulder-hugged me before disappearing into her vehicle, starting the engine, and crunching across the layer of ice runoff from piles of leftover winter snow. Rather than disappearing down the driveway, she stopped at the exit. Through the dark, cold air, I could feel her watching, waiting to make sure I made it to the road without spiraling into a confrontation.

It was so like Denise to look after me. Since the days she’d picked me up after school while my mother worked late tutoring, she’d always been a caretaker. She’d understood all the things I couldn’t tell my mom about
 
—the bullying in the exclusive private school where Mom taught, the pain of not fitting in there, the lingering torment over my father’s long-ago suicide. Denise had always been my private oasis of kindness and sage advice, the big sister I never had.

Passing by her car on the way out, I didn’t even look at her. I couldn’t. I just bumped down the winter-rutted driveway, turned onto the highway, and headed toward home, checking once in the rearview to make sure Denise was out of the parking lot too.

Tagg Harper’s taillights came on just after she passed by his truck. The incredible, desperate hatred flared inside me again. I was turning around before I knew what was happening. By the time I made it back to the restaurant, Tagg had positioned his truck in the middle of the parking lot.
Our
parking lot. The driver’s-side door was just swinging open.

I wheeled around and pulled close enough to prevent him from wallowing out. Cold air rushed in my window, a quick, hard, bracing force.

“You even set
one foot
on this parking lot, Tagg Harper, I’ll call the police.” Not that the county sheriff wasn’t in Tagg’s pocket too. Tagg’s dumpy pizza place and convenience store was the spot where all the local boys gathered for coffee breaks . . . if they knew what was good for them.

Lowering his window, Tagg rested a meaty arm on the frame, drawing it inward a bit. The hinges groaned. “Public parking lot.” An index finger whirled lazily in the air. “Heard a little rattle in my engine just now. Thought I’d pull in and check it out.”

“I’ll bet.” Of course, he wouldn’t admit that he couldn’t wait to get his meat hooks on this place. He was probably afraid I’d have my cell phone on, recording. If I could ever get proof, I’d take it to the county DA so fast, it’d make heads spin. The DA was young and new and actually seemed like a decent guy, but without proof, he couldn’t do a thing. Tagg knew that.

Which was why he was smiling and blinking at me like a ninny now.

“It’s
my
parking lot, and it will be until the end of the month . . . and you’re not welcome on it. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”

“Heard you were moving out early to save on the rent.” His breath drew smoke curls in the frosted air. I smelled beer, as usual. “Expensive to keep a building for no reason.”

I felt the pinpricks of my fist-locked fingers going numb. “Well, you heard wrong, because we’ve got a hearing with the State Code Commission in six weeks, and with that little bit of extra time to prepare, there’s not a way in the world we won’t win our case.”

He drew back initially, his chin curling into wind-reddened rolls of fat before he relaxed in his seat, self-assured and smiling. He knew a bluff when he heard one. “Hmmm . . . well . . . that’d
be a shame to drag yourself any farther under . . . what with your
other
business to think about and all.”

There was a threat in there. I felt it. Fortunately Bella Tazza #1 was outside the county. There wasn’t anything Tagg could do to affect it, other than posting negative reviews online, which he and his peeps had already been doing.

But he was
thinking
of something right now. That was clear enough even in the dim combination of moonlight and dashboard glow. His tongue snaked out and wet his lips, and then he had the gall to give the restaurant a leisurely assessment before turning his attention to me again. “Guess I’ll wait until the carcass cools a little more.”

Pulling the door closed, he rolled up his window, and then he was gone.

That confident look on his face haunted me as I left the parking lot and headed home. What else did he have in mind? What were the good ol’ boys plotting as they kicked back together over doughnuts and coffee?

What other killing blow did Tagg have in his arsenal?

During the thirty-minute drive home, I couldn’t decide whether to develop new theories, scream like a banshee, or just break down in tears. Rounding icy curves and watching the headlights glint against mounds of dirty snow, I had the urge to let go of the wheel, drive into a snowbank, close my eyes, and stay wherever the car came to rest, until the cold or carbon monoxide put an end to all this. In some logical part of my brain, I knew that was an overreaction, but the idea of going broke and taking my cousin with me was more than I could face.

There had to be a way out. There had to be something. . . .

But nothing came. Finally, the icebound shores of Lake Michigan glinted through the trees, and I looked toward the
lake with hope, seeking the comfort it usually provided. This time, all I could see was a vision of myself, floating cold and silent beneath the ice.