Written in Stone (24 page)

“That’s why you’re such a talented writer,” Olivia said. “You’re fearless in life
and on paper. You have the courage to be you, but you’re also willing to be vulnerable.
That’s hard when you’re used to wearing armor. Believe me, I know.”

Millay shook her head in disgust. “What kind of crack was in that chocolate you ate?
Don’t go all fortune cookie philosopher on me, damn it. Hurry up and finish that whiskey.
You need to wash that sugar out of your system.”

Olivia complied. Millay immediately refilled her glass while a man sat down on the
vacant stool to Olivia’s right.

He lifted the faded John Deere cap from his head and said, “Evenin’, ma’am.”

“Good evening, Captain Fergusson.” She gestured at her tumbler. “Would you join me?”

“Reckon I will. Thank you kindly.”

When Millay had poured two fingers of whiskey, he turned to Olivia and she raised
her glass. “‘May the holes in your net be no bigger than the fish in it,’” she said,
reciting one of the fishermen’s traditional toasts.

He nodded and replied with one of his own. “May your troubles be as few as my granny’s
teeth.”

Sipping their whiskey, they fell into easy conversation about the commercial fishing
industry. Captain Fergusson supplied both of Olivia’s restaurants with shrimp and
had recently expanded his operation. He was now her primary source for blue crab and
flounder as well and she often met his trawlers at the dock when they returned with
full cargo holds. Olivia would chat with the captain and his crew as she made selections
for the restaurants. She liked Fergusson and, more important, she trusted him.

Fergusson had cast off from the dock while it was still dark to fish the waters off
the North Carolina coast for the past forty years. And it showed. He was grizzled,
his pewter-colored beard was wiry, and his eyes were sharp from decades of gazing
into the horizon. He was gruff, blunt, hardworking, and fair, and Olivia had grown
quite fond of him.

As they spoke, other fishermen drifted over and inserted themselves into the conversation.
Olivia bought clams, oysters, mussels, scallops, and a dozen different fish from many
of them. Before long, she called for shots of whiskey for the entire motley crew.
In between swallows, Olivia praised everyone she recognized for the quality of their
seafood while the men and their wives shared predictions about the summer harvest.
This naturally led to a discussion about the weather and Olivia realized that to a
bar filled with fishermen, construction workers, farmers, and yardmen, each day’s
forecast had a direct effect on their livelihood.

“You’d best get ready for a hot, dry summer,” one of the women told Olivia.

Another woman, clad in a lace-trimmed tank top that was several sizes too small for
her generous chest, pointed a cherry-red acrylic nail at a man chalking the end of
his pool cue. “Boyd said his pigs have been lying in the mud for weeks.” She cocked
her head at Olivia. “Do you know about pigs?”

“Only that I like bacon.” Olivia smiled. “But I didn’t think it was unusual for them
to roll around in the mud. I thought that’s how they kept cool.”

“Sure is,” a second woman agreed. “But it ain’t normal for them to do it all the time.
See, when they carry somethin’ around in their mouths—a stick or a bone or somethin’—then
you know it’s gonna rain. When they just lie there in the dirt for days on end, a
dry season’s comin’.”

A man wearing a black NASCAR shirt elbowed his way into the group. “The ants are all
scattered too.” He looked at Olivia. “When they walk in a nice, neat line like little
soldiers, then we’re gonna have a storm. I got a big nest right outside my front door
and they haven’t lined up in ages. It’s no good.”

“Woodpeckers aren’t hammerin’ neither,” another man added, and someone else mentioned
how the robins had left his yard weeks ago and that he was certain they’d gone west
into the mountains. “The animals know things we don’t.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and then one of the women turned to Captain Fergusson.
“What’s the sea been tellin’ you?”

“She keeps her secrets close, but the moon says plenty.” He put his whiskey down.
Cupping his left hand, he raised it into the air, palm up. “We got a crescent moon
right now and she’s lyin’ on her back like she’s waitin’ for her man to come to bed.
We won’t see a drop of rain until she gets up again. Mark my words.”

The women tut-tutted and murmured about summers gone by. Summers of unrelenting heat.
Long days of dry wind and parched ground. They talked of how the land had gone thirsty
even though the ocean was close enough to touch. The salt had clung to people’s skin,
making them sticky, short-tempered, and lethargic.

Olivia spotted a local farmer, Lou Huckabee, on the fringes of the group. He’d been
listening to the exchange closely. “I’ll still get you all your produce, Miss Olivia,”
he said above the music. “Don’t you fret.”

“I know you will, Lou. And every piece of fruit will taste like it was plucked from
the richest soil on earth, washed, and delivered straight to my kitchens. That’s why
I won’t serve my customers anything else. You have a feel for growing things like
no one I’ve ever met.”

He dipped his head at the compliment, flushing from neck to forehead. “It’s a callin’,
to be sure.”

“To farmers,” Olivia said, and held up her glass.

“To farmers!” the men and women around her echoed.

Next, they toasted fishermen, fishermen’s wives, an array of different types of laborers,
Millay, Olivia’s mother, and on and on until Olivia was dangerously close to being
drunk. Despite the close air and the way the whiskey made her feel overheated, she
was too content to leave. And when Captain Fergusson began to tell a tale about a
pod of dolphins changing into mermaids, she became as instantly enraptured as the
rest of his inebriated audience.

While the old man spoke in a voice as weathered and worn as his face, Olivia thought
about the note Flynn had given her. She glanced around at the people in the bar, reflecting
on how each and every one of them had grown up listening to the stories of their parents
and grandparents. Their elders passed down folklore on the weather, animal husbandry,
treating ailments, courting, raising children, and more. And here they were now, sharing
those same stories. Old, well-loved, and oft-repeated stories.

They are as much a part of us as our DNA
, she thought. She knew that in the small, coastal town of Oyster Bay, the local legends
focused mainly on the sea. She’d heard them over and over since she was little, but
now she was suddenly curious to hear what tales Flynn’s storytellers would bring to
share with them.

A burst of laughter erupted as Captain Fergusson reached the end of his story. The
woman in the tank top took a long pull from her beer and said, “Them mermaids might
not be real, but my daddy saw the flaming ghost ship last September. Said it came
out of the fog like somethin’ sneakin’ through the gates of hell. He was supposed
to bring his catch into Okracoke that night so it’d be fresh for the mornin’ market,
but he sailed home with it instead.”

No one laughed at her. Millay wiped off the bar and poured another round. “I’ve heard
about that ship before. Would you tell me the whole story?”

The woman nodded solemnly, but there was a gleam of excitement in her eyes. Olivia
saw it and smiled to herself. She’d seen the same spark in her mother’s eyes every
night at bedtime. Without fail, Olivia was sent to sleep with a spectrum of wonderful
images and words floating through her mind. And though her childhood was long gone,
a good story was no less magical to her now.

“A long time ago, a ship full of folks from England sailed to Okracoke,” the woman
began.

Olivia turned away from the storyteller so that she wouldn’t see her take out her
phone. She quickly sent a text to Flynn, telling him she’d be glad to help defray
the costs of the retreat, and then turned the phone off and put it back in her purse.

When the woman was done with her tale of murder, robbery, and revenge, the talk returned
to the weather, as it so often did at Fish Nets
.

“It’s hard to prepare for a dry season,” Lou Huckabee told one of the fishermen. “I
can irrigate, but nothin’s the same as real rain.”

“That’s true enough,” the other man agreed. “Much easier to get ready for a storm.
You know they’re comin’ and you know that, by and by, they’ll move on through.”

Olivia sighed. “Still, we’ve had enough storms to last us a lifetime. I hope the big
ones pass us over this year.”

Captain Fergusson covered her hand with his and Olivia sensed that he knew she wasn’t
referring to hurricanes, but to the number of violent deaths that had occurred in
Oyster Bay over the past few years.

She squeezed his hand. “I could use a season of peace and quiet.”

“It’s all right, my girl,” he said as tenderly as possible. “Life ain’t always easy
and it ain’t always fair, but there’s beauty in every day. You just gotta know where
to look.”

Olivia considered this. She looked around the room and decided that he was right.
Tonight, the beauty had been in this rough place filled with rough people. It had
been in their lore and their legends and the way in which their stories bound them
all together, weaving a spell of binding that could never be broken.

On impulse, Olivia told the captain about the storytellers’ retreat. “They’ll bring
energy and tranquility and a little bit of magic to our town,” she said, smiling widely.

For a long moment, the old fisherman didn’t respond. Then he rubbed his bristly beard
and slurred into his cup, “Outsiders tend to bring us things that we don’t want. Sure,
stories can be like a fire on a cold night. But they can burn too. There ain’t nothin’
can cut deeper or sting with more poison than words can. You’d best keep that in mind,
Miss Olivia. Words have power and all things of power are dangerous.”

And with that, he tossed back the last swallow of whiskey, slipped off his stool,
and stumbled out into the night.

A
BOUT
THE
A
UTHOR

Ellery Adams grew up on a beach near the Long Island Sound. Having spent her adult
life in a series of landlocked towns, she cherishes her memories of open water, violent
storms, and the smell of the sea. Ms. Adams has held many jobs, including caterer,
retail clerk, car salesperson, teacher, tutor, and tech writer, all the while penning
poems, children’s books, and novels. She now writes full time from her home in Virginia.
For more information, please visit www.elleryadamsmysteries.com.

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Ellery Adams

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A KILLER PLOT

A DEADLY CLICHÉ

THE LAST WORD

WRITTEN IN STONE