can help me tonight, Sapphire,” she said, addressing the bottom drawer with a melancholy smile, “but thanks for the offer.”
She shrugged into her coat and slipped the scarf around her neck. Turning out the light in her office, she retraced her steps to the front door, walking past Ben’s office. But she didn’t go in. She’d decided she wasn’t about to start snooping on him, no matter what he might be up to.
Back at the farm that night, after Doc had gone to bed and the world had quieted down under its winter blanket, Candy lay awake with the lights off, turned toward her bedroom window, which looked out over the blueberry fields behind the house. The nearly full moon had risen, casting its soft blue glow on the landscape. The Native Americans called this the Wolf Moon, Doc had told her a few days ago, though sometimes it was called the Snow Moon. Either would fit, she decided, pulling the top blanket off the bed and wrapping it around her as she rose and walked to the window.
Few things in this world were more beautiful than a moonlit winter’s night, she mused as she gazed out through the frost-speckled glass. In the moon’s light, she could see every undulation of the landscape, every dip and swell, every shelled boulder and sugared bush.
She could also see something moving.
Startled, she took a step back into the shadows of the room, watching as… something… emerged from the woods at the top of the ridge. At first she thought it was Solomon Hatch again, until she realized it stood taller than a man, and had an elongated head.
It turned and ambled along the edge of the woods at a leisurely pace, headed in a westerly direction, away from her. After a few moments it disappeared back into the woods.
It was a white moose.
Ten
She woke in the early morning light, feeling unrested and off center. She knew she needed another hour of sleep, maybe two, but she was determined to be present in Town Park when the first chain saw bit into a block of ice. So she pulled herself out of bed and padded across the cold wood floor to the bathroom, where she struggled to force herself awake.
After her bout of midnight restlessness and the unexpected moonlit moose sighting, she had returned to her bed and burrowed under the blankets, but instead of falling asleep, she lay for what seemed like hours as everything that had happened the day before played back in her head. Her mind seemed to be searching for something—clues, connections, relationships, secrets… something.
When her thoughts had finally quieted down and she’d drifted into a light sleep, she’d dreamt of shadows and light and things in the woods—of Solomon Hatch and the white moose, and of something else, a presence she couldn’t quite identify.
It all left her feeling unsettled, and as she dressed quietly, she cast a few wary glances out the bedroom window, at the woods and the fields behind the house. But she saw nothing unusual. It looked typically peaceful, a landscape intimately familiar to her, though she couldn’t help but feel it had somehow changed in subtle ways. Her sense of safety had been breached the moment Solomon Hatch stepped out of the woods nearly twenty-four hours ago. Her gaze drifted several times toward the line of trees on the far ridge, searching into the muted shadows that faded back into ghostlike infinity.
Solomon was out there somewhere, but so was something else, deep in the woods. She knew it; she could feel it.
If there were any answers to be found, that’s where she would have to look, out among the trees. But she had no time to investigate now. That would come later in the day.
As she passed Doc’s half-opened bedroom door, she heard him rustling around inside, and downstairs he’d put on a pot of coffee for her. She poured a packet of sweetener into the bottom of a cup, splashed the coffee over it, took a few quick sips, and ate half a piece of buttered toast before she bundled up, grabbed her tote bag, and journeyed out into the clear, frosty morning.
Her trusty old Jeep started on the third try, and she nimbly negotiated the snow-packed roads toward town. The Jeep’s four-wheel-drive system came in extra handy at this time of year, especially on the dirt road leading out to the farm, which gained a thick layer of snow and ice in mid-December that didn’t melt away entirely until late March, if they were lucky.
She soon pulled into a primo parking spot on Ocean Avenue and hurried into Town Park, just as the day’s events were getting under way. The temperature had dipped into the teens overnight and was barely edging into the twenties as bright morning light slanted in from out over the ocean, but that hadn’t prevented a fairly large crowd of onlookers from gathering to witness the kickoff of the weekend’s ice-sculpting exhibition. The crowd stood around one of the mountains of ice behind a roped barrier while a smaller group of seven or eight individuals, dressed mostly in jeans, fleece pullovers, parkas, and boots, stood inside the ropes in front of the ice. Candy recognized Mason Flint, the chairman of the town council, standing between Oliver LaForce and Colin Trevor Jones. The ice sculptors stood to one side, while on the other side was Wanda Boyle, clicking off shots with her digital camera.
As Candy approached she dug into her tote bag, pulled out her digital recorder, and flicked it on, just as Mason Flint launched into his opening remarks.
“Good morning, everyone, and thank you for coming!” he said jovially. He was a lean, elderly gentleman, with a full head of white hair hidden under a colorful knit cap. “It’s very exciting to see everyone here this morning, and we thank you all for coming, especially our professional ice carvers. We’re thrilled to host this very special exhibition here in our little seaside community, and we hope it leads to a larger professional event in the near future. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the generous support of local businesses, as well as the involvement of the Pruitt Foundation, which helped with the procurement and transportation of the ice. I’d also like to thank our wonderful anonymous donor, who helped underwrite the travel expenses and fees for all of our ice carvers here this weekend. Now, I’d like to briefly introduce our ice carvers, and then we’ll ask Chef Colin Trevor Jones of the Lightkeeper’s Inn to make the first cut.”
Liam Yates gave a confident wave as his name was mentioned, and Felicia Gaspar and Gina Templeton smiled as warmly as possible, given the chilly temperatures. Next, Mason introduced two newcomers who had arrived in town overnight. Duncan Leggmeyer was an outdoorsy, construction type with a full beard and a ponytail that hung halfway down his straight, muscled back, while Baxter Bryant was a retired military man who’d spent twenty years as a cook in the navy and now specialized in barbecue during the summer months and ice sculpting in the winter. He traveled with his wife, Bernadette, in an RV, along with their little puffball of a dog, Snowball.
With the introductions complete, Mason nodded toward Colin Trevor Jones, who started up an electric chain saw. With his black wavy hair stylishly uncombed and safety goggles firmly in place, he wielded the whirring chain saw at a red line marked on a block of ice, deftly made the first cut, and the ice-carving exhibition was officially under way.
Muffled hand claps and a few bedraggled cheers and whistles rose among the sleepy onlookers, many of whom had steaming cups of coffee or hot chocolate in hand. Following Colin’s cue, other chain saws buzzed to life, and the serious work began.
Candy wanted to talk to Duncan and Baxter, the new arrivals, but she knew she’d have to wait until later, as they were already busy cutting into the ice, calving off huge chunks as they began to shape the blocks. Like the other ice sculptors, they moved quickly with broad cuts; the detail work would come later.
With the ice sculptors occupied for at least a while, Candy knew she’d have to be content with another approach, so she interviewed a few of the onlookers for local flavor. After that, she cornered Oliver LaForce and pried a few decent quotes out of him about the effect of the Moose Fest on the local economy. The inn would be full over the weekend, and the local establishments along Ocean Avenue and Main Street, not to mention those all the way up along Route 192 to Route 1, would get a sizable dose of much-needed revenue. The midwinter jolt in the economic arm would be enough to hold most of them over until the spring thaw and tourist season arrived.
As far as the interviews went, it was all fairly mediocre stuff—not the hard-hitting copy she was looking for
