Her mother had come up with the name of Mal’s show: Under the Arbor. Her mother worked in a studio in their backyard that was designed to evoke the ambience of a Victorian garden house. When she looked out the window, she looked through arches of roses. Mal thought it was a good name, that it implied she was low, that she was depressed, but all around her was life and beauty — they were inseparable. And Mal’s task was to find balance. She had started the podcast to make her mother happy, her mother who wanted her to have a focus, but Mal grew to enjoy it. People opened up to her because she was interested in their stories. And she wasn’t afraid to share her own story with them. Her ex thought it was silly, and that was part of the problem — worrying about what other people thought, wanting to be taken seriously in the way her parents were.
Bigelow Bay was a large town compared to Middleton. Mal had left the Fundy Waves Motel for her new “base of operation” at the Sun Valley Motel, equally as dated and shabby. Bigelow Bay was the area’s regional centre, with a hospital, the municipal offices, the law courts. And next to the law courts, in the old courthouse, was the Jericho County Courthouse Museum. Inside the museum the air was heavy and still, musty with the scent of old oak and paper. Mal had to wait when she arrived. A woman in hiking boots and a dirty sundress was shouting at the museum manager standing at the landing at top of the stairs, listening patiently to this woman with black braids streaked with silver who was stamping her boots on the old hardwood floor. At first Mal thought she was angry, but she realized the woman was just speaking at a high volume, full-on with passion, oblivious.
“Why don’t you have more information on the Flying Squirrel Road? Or the Offing Society? Or Lucretia? She’s not just a myth, you know. Is this or is it not a historical society? Jillian said she’d do some research and call me. I hope she does. I’m not crazy, you know.”
Maybe the manager didn’t think this woman was crazy, but Mal did. Except she’d mentioned the Flying Squirrel Road, where Gramma Grant had said to go. The manager’s arms were crossed and she seemed very patient, giving Mal the feeling that this skinny middle-aged woman was a frequent visitor. Kate, the manager’s name tag said. Kate looked over at Mal and apologized that there was no air conditioning, no central air, no cross breeze. The Jericho Historical Society owned the old courthouse and they had only enough money to keep the building running as it was.
The woman in hiking boots turned to come down the stairs to the front door and stopped as she saw Mal. Then she pinched herself and kept staring. The manager hurried down and took Mal to the lower level. “Don’t mind her. That’s Seraphina. She’s researching the same things you are. Well, I don’t know if you can call it research. She’s not making much sense these days.”
Kate took Mal to the archives room where the only paid archivist was waiting for her, papers spread out on the table. Jillian was in her fifties, due to retire soon so she could travel with her husband. She told Mal how she had been married for just one year, joking that she’d been married to history before that. Jillian’s light brown hair was streaked with grey and her eyes were such a pale green they almost glowed. She didn’t have a lot of information for Mal, mostly a few stories and anecdotes she’d heard over the years from some of the older historical society members.
Jillian held a photocopy of the same Fellows United newspaper article Mal had with her in her file. She’d left the rest of the paperwork Flora had sent back in California for safekeeping. Mal now wished she was more prepared, that she had scanned the documents and had digital files she could access. Jillian pointed out the photo of Franklin Seabury IV with the article. His company had changed names several times, had been bought up by a bigger company. It was complicated — that’s all Jillian knew, and that his business had been centred in New York. His family had come from here but he had lived primarily in the United States. His mother, Aoifa O’Cleary Seabury, was a different story. She had lived her life in Nova Scotia, had died in 1982 at the age of ninety-five. Well, she’d been in a nursing home and went missing. They never found her body, and assumed she’d drowned. She was an old woman, and no one paid much attention to that sort of thing back then. Her granddaughter Cynthia Aoifa Seabury had inherited her estate. She lived in Florida with her mother.
Mal didn’t say anything. She had already figured this out when she’d gone to Florida. It was why she was in Nova Scotia now.
Cedar Grove itself was privately owned now, a vacation house for someone from Europe, but Mercy Lake and the trails were owned by the Nature Trust. No one visited the lake anymore except local adventurers and fishermen who would come up the Mercy River.
The lodge at Mercy Lake had been built by a rural sect, connected to some other chapters throughout the eastern and southern seaboards, a revivalist sort of charismatic religion. But it had died out and the lodge on the lake became a deep-woods retreat for wealthy sportsmen. Jillian had another newspaper article, about the local fire department’s response to the fire, how they worked to contain it to the cleared area around the lodge. It had not spread into
