Part Two
He Said
The sun was barely over the horizon when Brian arose. His back ached and the wound throbbed. Staying in bed was far too painful, so he went outside in search of somewhere comfortable to sit. He chose a spot overlooking the river, on a bench whose back-rest was made of a single plank. As he had hoped, it did not touch the sore area at all, while still giving him enough support.
He gazed out over the water, tinted pink by the reflections of sunrise clouds. Stretching slightly, he leaned forward and rubbed the wound gently, inadvertently causing his T-shirt to ride upwards.
“You’re hurt,” Dan said, from somewhere close by.
“What? No, it’s nothing,” Brian contradicted quickly. “Don’t say anything about it, please.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Stepping into sight, Dan could be seen to have a thoughtful frown on his face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you–” He stopped suddenly. “Right. I see.”
Brian looked up in surprise. “What do you see?”
“Why you don’t want me to say anything,” Dan answered. “It’s on your own head, I guess.”
“What do you mean by that?” Brian demanded, surprised into anger.
Dan gave a negligent shrug. “I would’ve thought your friends and family deserved to know that sort of thing. If you don’t think so, that’s your call.”
“Damn right, it’s my call,” his friend muttered.
“But, if you’re fine with keeping something that serious a secret, I won’t say a word.”
“You can start right now,” Brian suggested curtly. With an inward sigh, he resigned himself to more grief on the same topic at a future time, but changed the subject to avoid hearing more in the short term. “I haven’t been up to Ten Acres for a long time. Do you still use the barn there?”
Dan gave a shrug. “Sometimes. Mostly when the girls aren’t around anyway. We don’t really want to hide from them any more.”
Brian nodded absently. “I’d rather like to hide from them still, sometimes.” An uncomfortable silence fell, until Brian got the nerve to continue. “I don’t fit in any more. In fact, I don’t really know what I’m doing here. It would be better if I just stayed away.”
“It’s just your turn to be the seventh wheel,” Dan told him quietly. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t think I want to get used to it,” Brian replied. “I’d rather set right what I made wrong.”
Dan gave him a wary look, but said nothing in reply.
She Said
Honey awoke that morning to an insistent tapping on her shoulder. She opened a bleary eye to discover the owner of the annoying finger and found that it was Di.
“Wakey, wakey! Rise and shine!” Diana greeted her, in painfully cheerful tones.
“Go ’way,” Honey groaned, pulling the covers over her head. “I’ll wake up when I’m good and ready – about ten o’clock.”
The tapping continued, though now it was through the sheet. “Mart will be waiting… trust me, I know Mart.”
Sleep fell away from her and in a moment or two Honey was wide awake. She rolled over, to get a better view of her friend. “Why are you doing this?” she wondered, aloud. “Don’t you feel funny telling me to go off and spend time alone with your ex-boyfriend?”
Diana considered the question for a moment. “I guess I don’t think of him that way any more,” she decided. “I mean, I had fun with him, and we were pretty close for a while, but in the end, we were too unstable as a couple to do anything but break up. Anyway, I’m happy with Dan. More than happy.”
Honey nodded and dragged herself out of bed. In the act of pulling out her clothes for the morning, she paused, frowning.
“So, are you going to be meeting Dan?” she asked.
Di’s eyebrows shot up. “Looking like this? Of course not! I have my whole beauty regime to go through before he can see me. I’ll be finished right in time for breakfast, if I’m quick, but not before.”
A few minutes later, Honey walked outside into the early morning light. The shimmer of the water and the pink streaks of cloud made a beautiful picture and she simply stood and gazed at it for a few minutes. A slight sound behind her caught her attention and she began to turn, just as a gentle arm snaked around her waist.
“Morning,” Mart breathed into her hair. “I hoped I might see you.”
She turned in his embrace and gently kissed his lips before responding. “I’m glad I made the effort to get up. It’s so beautiful out here.” She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m happy to see you, as well.”
Smiling in response, he took her hand and led her upstairs, to a place where they could sit and admire the view. He chose a wooden sun lounge of angular design, moved its back to the most upright position and sank onto it. With a gesture, he invited Honey to sit in front of him and lean against him. She settled within his arms and enjoyed the feeling of her back pressing against his chest in silence.
“I kind of hoped we’d get a chance like this,” he admitted, after a long pause. “I’ve been thinking that we need to talk about some stuff.”
Her voice sounded small when she asked, “What sort of stuff?”
His fingers traced light circles across her waist. “Where this is going, mostly.”
Honey relaxed, slightly, and took one of his hands in hers. “I’m not about to dump you for making one silly mistake, then go right after someone with bad boy good looks, if that’s what you’re asking.” Her thumb caressed his hand, echoing the movement he had used. “I feel so comfortable with you, Mart. I like it when you touch me and I like the way you hold me and I like the time we spend talking together. And I know you learned your lesson after what happened with Di, and that you won’t do anything like that again. I don’t know what sort of future we might have, but I want to explore this and find out.”
She felt some of the tension flow out of him. “I want that, too,” he admitted. A sigh escaped his lips, as they brushed against her neck. “I wish things were different, though, so I didn’t feel like I had to be so careful.”
Without asking, Honey knew that he meant the situation with Brian. “It’ll get better.” It was the hope that she had been clinging to over the last four weeks. “He’ll get over it, one day, then it’ll be okay, just like it is with Di.” A pause, while she considered her words. “It is okay with Di, isn’t it? I mean, she says it’s okay, and that she doesn’t think that way about you any more, and she keeps encouraging me to be with you, and you don’t seem to have a problem with it, either… Why are you laughing?”
“Only you could express yourself like that, Honey; only you.” He helped her turn side-on, so that they could see each other’s faces. His eyes seemed to drink her in, until she felt dizzy with emotion. When he next spoke, it was in a whisper. “You’re so beautiful.”
“I’m glad someone thinks so,” she replied, running a self-conscious hand through her hair.
Abruptly, he reverted to the previous topic. “Are you really sure about this, Honey? I don’t want to let you go, but I know that Brian really wants you back. Are you sure it’s really over?”
She kissed him, gently and slowly. “I don’t want to go back,” she assured him. “I didn’t know how wrong things were until you showed me how it felt for them to be right.”
He Said
In another place, two men stood waiting at the counter of a small eatery. They appeared to be completely dissimilar types, unlikely to ever associate with each other. One was tall, solid and relatively young, dressed for manual labour. The other was dressed in a well-cut suit of conservative style, and had a lined face and greying hair. A signet ring graced his finger and he wore old-fashioned cuff-links.
“Has he sent the package?” the older one asked, without looking at his companion.
“It should arrive there this morning,” the other replied, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. “He’s got a man driving up there to deliver it in person. They started last night and he said he’d pay extra for him to drive all night.”
“Very good.” He adjusted the folded newspaper, which was tucked under his arm. “Is everything else in place? You never know how soon she might decide to get here.”
“It’s fine,” the young man snapped. “It’s been ready for months.”
“No need to be rude,” the older man chastised. “Just see that everything stays ready. We won’t get another chance like this one.”
She Said
With one regretful backward glance, Trixie left the boat and headed for the car which would take her home. For some reason, which she could not pin down, she felt different now than when she had arrived here. Contrary to her usual bounciness, she was quiet during the homeward journey. Mart was similarly reflective. Brian, who was driving, seemed perfectly happy to travel in silence.
They arrived at Crabapple Farm to find their younger brother in a state of excitement. “Trixie!” he yelled, on seeing them. “Finally! I thought you’d never get here. There’s a package for you an’ you’ve got to open it right away!”
“All right, all right,” his sister chastened, as she wandered inside and dumped her bag on the kitchen floor. “Keep your hair on! Oh, good morning, Moms and Dad.”
With a start, she forgot what she was doing and came to a complete halt. From her father’s demeanour, Trixie could tell that there was something wrong. She looked, in trepidation, at the plain brown cardboard box. “Who is it from?” she wondered, aloud, not recognising the originating address, which was printed on a neat label. No one answered. With a slight shake of her head, she ripped off the packing tape and struggled to open the flaps.
Her face clouded as she pulled out the first item, a large soft-cover book which had been covered in brown paper. Across the front, in rather old-fashioned handwriting, were the words ‘A Distinguished Career.’ As she opened the cover, Trixie let out a gasp. Gazing back at her was her own photograph, slightly grainy from being enlarged too much and obviously taken from a great distance away. With shaking fingers, she turned the page. She recognised a clipping from the Sleepyside Sun, which she and Honey had seen during their first case, along with a picture of Jim.
Page after page, the litany of cases continued. A newspaper clipping was pasted onto one page, detailing one of her cases and illustrated with her own picture. She flicked through the remainder of the book and found more of the same, from newspapers across the country, along with eyewitness accounts, photographs and other mementoes of their travels and cases.
On the final filled-in page was a picture cut from a magazine of a brown cardboard box. Beyond that, the book was blank.
“Who did this?” she wondered, aloud. “Why have they sent it to me now?”
Frowning in confusion, she set it aside and looked for the next item. Pulling out a sheet of stiff cardboard and several wads of crumpled newsprint, she uncovered another object and gingerly extracted it. It was surprisingly heavy for its size, particularly considering the formidable length of bubble wrap in which it was encased. Muttering under her breath, Trixie wrangled with the half-dozen pieces of tape which held the wrap in place and finally managed to free the object.
To her amazement, Trixie heard her mother give a startled gasp. “What is it, Moms?” she asked, glancing between the strange little figurine and the look of shock on Helen’s face.
“It’s ugly,” Bobby put in, before anyone else could speak. “Blech! It’s probably from Aunt Alicia.”
Trixie flipped the box shut to look once more at its label. “It’s from a Lucius Englefield from Corbin, Kentucky,” she contradicted. “But I’ve never heard of him before. Do you know who he is, Moms and Dad?”
Her parents shared a look, but her father was the one to answer. “He’s just someone who used to know our family,” he soothed. “He’s very elderly and a little eccentric. I wouldn’t worry about the package. I’ll put it in the attic and you can forget about it.”
Something in the way he spoke aroused all of Trixie’s detective instincts. “No, thanks, Dad. I think I’ll take it up to my room. I need to take my other stuff up there anyway.” With a casual air which was entirely feigned, she gathered her belongings and went upstairs.
Once safely inside her room, Trixie decided to examine her acquisitions in more detail. The figurine yielded no further clues of any value. It was metallic, finished in some sort of dark material, which did not fully extend across the base. At one time, it seemed, there had been some sort of covering over that part, but it was only evidenced by some patches of yellowed adhesive and a few greenish threads. It depicted a young woman in a long and flowing dress, with one arm outstretched.
“Blech!” Trixie muttered, echoing her younger brother. “Bobby was right. It is ugly.”
She turned her attention to the book. A few hard shakes affirmed the idea that everything inside was stuck down, so she began to search, page by page, for clues. Nothing appeared until she reached the last filled page: the one with the picture of a box. Her searching fingers found that the cutting was only adhered along the uppermost edge, so that it could be lifted as a flap.
“Eureka!” she whispered, seeing the few words underneath. “This is what I’m meant to find.”
In the same hand that had marked the front cover, a few words were carefully inscribed: ‘Dulcibella Englefield Belden. She who touches my sister’s likeness is duty-bound to respect her memory. Uncover the lies, or fall victim to the Englefield curse – July 22 of this year.’
I’ve never heard of anyone of that name, Trixie mused, as she stared at the clue. A moment later, she turned her attention to the little statuette. I guess this must be her. If she was a Belden, why wouldn’t Moms and Dad talk about her? She set the items down and headed for the attic, where she knew there was a box of old photographs.
Unnoticed, she ran lightly up the stairs and settled with a bump on the lid of an old trunk. The box opened and she pulled out a pile of studio portraits. Someone, in the distant past, had sorted through these relics and pencilled names and rough dates on the cardboard backing. Trixie had no success until she reached the ones dating back around sixty or seventy years. Here, she found a wedding photograph of her great-grandfather Belden, with a woman whose name was noted as ‘Dulcie’. While her figure was rather plump and few would call her pretty, she had an attractive light in her eyes suggestive of mischief and good humour.
But Great-Grandma Belden’s name is Ethel and her maiden name was Hughes, Trixie remembered. Ten years before she was born, her Belden great-grandparents had retired to Florida. When she was a baby, her father’s parents had followed, to be close at hand when needed. The Belden great-grandparents were still alive, though very elderly and frail. Trixie and her siblings rarely saw their Florida relatives, but she knew them well enough to be sure of their names. Interesting. I need to think about this for a while.
“Morning, Moms,” Trixie greeted as she arrived at the breakfast table the next morning. A moment later, her father arrived and she added a greeting for him. “So… what’s the Englefield curse?”
The spoon her mother had held dropped to the floor with a clatter. “What did you just say?” Helen asked, in a shaky voice.
With a tiny swell of inward satisfaction, Trixie repeated her question. “I’m supposed to be cursed, so I thought it would be nice to find out what’s about to happen to me.”
“I don’t believe in curses,” her father asserted with a frown. “Please, Trixie, shove the thing in the attic, or send it to the second-hand store, or throw it away and forget all about that old nonsense. The Englefields are nothing to do with us any more.”
“Moms?” Trixie asked. She hoped that the clearly nervous state that her mother was in would be to her advantage.
The ploy did not work. “Listen to your father,” was all that Helen would say. “They’re nothing to do with us any more.”
He Said
“Morning, Trix,” Jim called, as he saw his girlfriend heading towards him at speed. “Where’s the fire?”
“They’re keeping something from me,” Trixie complained, with a stomp of her foot that sent her curls bouncing. Jim could not resist the temptation to tug at one.
“About the box?” he asked. The day before, she had told him about the arrival of the mystery package and together, they had discussed her plan of action.
Trixie nodded. “They wouldn’t tell me who the Englefields are, or what the curse was, or anything. All either of them would say is that we don’t have anything to do with them any more.”
Jim ran a soothing hand across her shoulders and pulled her to his chest. “It must be something pretty serious, in that case,” he mused. “I wouldn’t think someone would want to curse you if they weren’t pretty angry about something.”
“So, why won’t they tell me what it is?” she demanded. “I need to know.”
He shrugged. What can I say? he wondered. There must be a reason why they’re not telling. “They don’t want you to know,” he pointed out.
“But this is driving me crazy!” she declared, her voice sounding muffled against his body. “I need to investigate this, but if I do…”
“You don’t like the potential consequences,” Jim finished for her. Pulling back slightly, he raised her chin with one finger. “I’m sorry, Trixie. I don’t have an answer to the problem. My gut tells me you should leave this alone, but if not knowing is so unbearable, you’ll have to weigh up the risks for yourself.”
She sighed, then snuggled back against him. “I know. I just wish that they’d tell me what this is about. They should know that this would be torture.”
“There must be a good reason,” he replied, dropping a kiss on top of her head. “Take some time to think about it and I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.”
Trixie raised her lips for a kiss. “You’re so smart, Jim,” she told him, grinning. “That must be why I keep you around. I’ll give it a week and if it’s still unbearable not knowing, I’ll start investigating then.”
She Said
A week had passed since Trixie’s conversation with Jim and she had come to a firm conclusion. The burning, unyielding curiosity had matured over the past few days into a resolve to settle the matter. Further, in the back of her mind, she had begun to develop a plan of action.
For months now, the Bob-Whites had been planning a summer road trip to celebrate the girls’ graduation. The itinerary, which had been developing along the way, included several days’ stop in Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, Kentucky – only twenty miles from the home town of her mysterious correspondent. Trixie looked at her calendar and frowned. Those few days would have to be enough to answer the most burning questions, but the trip was still four weeks away, to allow Brian to join them. In the meantime, Trixie had a number of research points to settle, so that she would be ready when the opportunity arrived.
“Newspapers,” she muttered to Honey, as the pair sat at the clubhouse table, discussing the case. “A trip to the library. Another search of the attic at home – but sometime when no one will notice I’m there.”
“Are you sure about this, Trix?” her friend asked, nervously fiddling with her hair. “We haven’t had an investigation before that was directly against our parents’ wishes – I mean, we have, but only in that they didn’t want us investigating something dangerous, not investigating them – and I’m not really sure I want to start now, especially since they’re being so good about letting us go on the road trip all by ourselves, without a chaperone, even though Di and I will only just have turned eighteen when we leave.”
“If they didn’t want me to investigate, they should have just told me what it was about,” Trixie pointed out, not for the first time. “I can’t just pretend this didn’t happen! There’s a mystery here; I just know it.”
Honey let out a breathy sigh. “Okay, I guess. So, where do we start?”
“The library,” Trixie answered, gathering up her belongings. “Come on. Let’s get this part over with.”
Four weeks later…
A refreshing breeze stirred Trixie’s curls as she made her final preparations for the long-anticipated road trip. The pile of clothes she intended to take were folded as neatly as she had patience to achieve, and already packed. Most of the other items were strewn across the bed, awaiting their turn. Among them was a document wallet, the sight of which was enough to instantly distract her.
Her mind straying from the task at hand, Trixie cast her eye over the file she had assembled of her research. To the wedding photograph she had found in the attic, she had added a number of other documents, some snapshots of her great-grandfather with Dulcie Englefield and a few other friends, and copies of several newspaper articles. It seemed fairly conclusive that the family history she had known was not quite complete. The woman she knew to be her great-grandmother was actually her great-grandfather’s second wife and not his first, as she had always assumed.
With a sigh, Trixie put the last few items into her bag and zipped it shut. They would be leaving early the next morning, but it would be days before the investigation could really start. In the meantime, they had planned a combined going away party and five years of Bob-Whites party at Crabapple Farm for that evening and she needed to help her mother with the preparations. Satisfied that she was as ready for the trip as she would ever be, she headed down to the kitchen, where she found Mart engaged in cutting tomatoes for a salad.
“Greetings and salutations,” he pronounced as she entered. “Domestic ministrations await ere the celebratory gathering prior to time spent in carefree travel by this fan of etymology.” Before she could answer, he continued, “You’ll notice, of course, the clever anagram used in that sentence, referring both to the fifth anniversary of our esteemed club and the long-anticipated sojourn on which we embark upon the morrow.”
With a withering look, Trixie took up a knife and began slicing a cucumber. “And how long did it take you to think up this alleged ‘clever anagram’,” she asked.
“A mere trifle of time,” he replied loftily.
Brian, entering in time to hear the exchange cleared his throat. “He’s been working on it all day, at the very least,” he divulged.
“Some confederate you are,” Mart muttered, clutching his chest as if wounded.
“How about if you spend a little more time on the food preparation and a little less on clowning,” his brother suggested, as Trixie moved on to the lettuce. “The others will be here any minute, now.”
By the time the kitchen door opened to admit Honey and Jim, about ten minutes later, there was a formidable amount of food spread across the kitchen table.
“Hi everyone,” Honey greeted, as she entered. “Is there somewhere we can put this food?”
Trixie groaned, knowing that the refrigerator was already full. “Wherever you can find a space,” she told her friend. “I doubt we’ll ever get through what we’ve got already.”
The kitchen door opened once more and Di announced, “We’re here. Where can Dan put this food?”
As Trixie groaned once more, her mother entered the room and greeted the newcomers. “I’ll take that, thank you, Dan,” she told him. “I think everything is under control here, now. Why don’t most of you go outside and relax. I’ll need a couple of you to help with the carrying, but the rest of you can take a break.”
“I’ll help, Moms,” Brian offered, closely seconded by Jim. “What do you want us to do?”
“Take the meat out to the barbecue and the salads and condiments to the picnic table. Trixie, have you put on the tablecloth, yet?”
“No, Moms,” she replied. “I’ll do that right away.”
Picking it up from the counter, where she had left it earlier, Trixie carried it outside, followed by Honey, Mart, Di and Dan. Across the yard, she saw that her father had the barbecue already hot. As the other two couples began to laugh and talk together, Trixie glanced back at the house. Brian was carrying the tray of meat to his father and the look on his face sent shivers up Trixie’s spine.
He Said
“It won’t last.”
The voice was so soft that Jim almost missed the words altogether. “Pardon?”
“I said, it won’t last,” Brian repeated.
Jim followed his friend’s gaze to where Mart and Honey were talking and laughing near the barbecue. The two men finished gathering supplies and headed towards the picnic table, where Trixie was already working.
“You never know,” Jim contradicted mildly. “It just might.” He eyed his friend and came to a conclusion. “You’ll have to face that fact, sooner or later.”
“It won’t.” There was an underlying anger in Brian’s voice which Jim found difficult to understand. “I’ve given them time to see that it can’t work. It’ll be over soon.” Without another word, he stalked off to the far corner of the back yard, leaving Jim to gaze after him in amazement.
“What’s up with him?” Dan asked, so suddenly that it made Jim jump and almost drop the potato salad.
He could not keep the incredulity out of his voice as he answered. “He still thinks he can get Honey back.”
Dan let out a laugh. “That’ll be the day! Brian never really did get that close to her; he kept her at arm’s length. Mart, on the other hand, has her purring like a kitten.”
“That’s my sister you’re talking about,” Jim objected, though without conviction.
His friend shrugged. “I call ’em as I see ’em.”
Shaking his head, Jim walked back toward the kitchen. From behind him, he could hear his friends talking and laughing, oblivious to the trouble that was brewing. Gathering more supplies, Jim was puzzled to note that a silence had fallen outside. He returned to the yard a few minutes later, arms loaded with assorted condiments, to find that Brian had returned to the group and that the tension had begun to escalate.
“I don’t think your behaviour is appropriate for this kind of gathering,” he heard Brian say to Mart, while invading his personal space. From her place just behind Mart, Honey put a calming hand on his shoulder.
“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Mart countered, in a quiet voice. “We can discuss this later – in private.”
“We’ll discuss it now.” Brian scowled at his brother. “If you don’t know how to treat a girl by now–”
“Leave it,” Dan interrupted, pushing the pair apart. In the background, Diana drew Honey further away. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
“You can stay out of it,” Brian replied, shoving back with twice the force. “This is between me and Mart.”
“Then you can talk about it without the rest of us.” Dan dropped his voice, but Jim had closed in enough to intervene if necessary and caught his words. “The girls don’t need to hear this – especially not Honey.”
At the mention of her name, Mart looked around to check where Honey was. Brian’s temper flared as he saw the glance and he gave his brother a thump on the arm. “Keep your mind on the matter at hand,” he demanded.
“As far as I’m concerned, the matter at hand is how much you’ve hurt Honey’s feelings,” Mart informed him, his face reddening with anger.
“Honey’s feelings have nothing to do with this,” Brian replied.
A tense silence fell. Jim watched his best friend’s face drain of colour as he realised what he had just said. His attention then shifted to his sister, whose eyes were filling with tears. A moment later, the spell broke.
As Honey fled towards the house, Brian stalked off in the opposite direction, with Jim in hot pursuit. Reaching the bike path, Brian picked up his pace and headed off towards Ten Acres. In a few minutes, the two men were in the loft of the barn.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Jim asked, with a certain sharpness to his tone.
Brian’s shoulders rose in a negligent shrug. “I guess.” For a long moment, he did not continue. “I suppose you’ve deduced that something happened while I was away. I met someone; the situation developed a certain intensity – at which point, I wrote to Honey and released her from the commitment she had made me – but when we both returned to the U.S., she didn’t want anything more to do with me.” His brows creased. “I had thought that there was something more to that relationship. Evidently, I was wrong.”
“And you thought you could just pick up with Honey where you left off?” Jim’s voice held his incredulity, while his face displayed his anger.
“I didn’t think.” Brian turned away. “The situation I was living in was so much more… intense than anything I’d ever experienced before that it made everything at home seem a lot less real. It wasn’t until I saw her with Mart that I knew how much I missed her; how much I wanted to be with her.”
Jim paused, carefully weighing his next words and pushing down his anger and repulsion at the things he had just heard. “Don’t you think that might be a clue?” he asked, in soft, measured tones. “Deep down, you must have known what you were doing, and that you didn’t really want to be with my sister. You wouldn’t have acted that way if you really wanted your relationship with her to continue.”
“I think the mistake I made happened long before I left,” Brian admitted, bitterly, “but I’m not going to discuss that with you, of all people.”
Wordlessly, Jim shook his head and the two lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. After a few minutes, Brian spoke once more. “Go back to the party,” he advised, though not unkindly. “I think it would be better if I stayed here alone for a while. I need the time to think.”
With a nod, Jim did as he was bid.
Continue to part three.