Chapter 11

Annie was working on Ben’s soccer book. She was thrilled that Sheila had finally gotten in the soccer ball embellishments she’d ordered a couple of weeks ago. She placed the ball on the corner of the photo. Her oldest son with that grin on his face, holding a ball. She loved it. This was one way her boys were fitting in—with their athleticism.

Annie took a long sip of her beer and thought about this group of women who were her friends. Sheila, with her morning runs and scrapbooking business, everything in her home and life so precise, except for her own grooming; DeeAnn, with the hands and heart of a baker, always finding a reason to laugh; Paige, with her tie-dyed hippie clothes and decidedly un-hippie lifestyle; and Vera, always a little too made up, a butterfly stronger than stone. Cookie, the outsider that everybody adored, was caught up in some shimmery paper across the table.

“Oh, isn’t that beautiful!” DeeAnn exclaimed over a scrapbook page that Cookie was working on.

Annie glanced away from her boy’s photo on the page to Cookie’s white slender fingers holding the paper. It was just like DeeAnn to get excited over a shiny thing.

“It’s for my book of shadows,” Cookie explained.

“Your what?” Annie said.

“A book of shadows is a witch’s journal. I keep track of things and write about rituals and moon phases. My observations. Stuff like that,” she said. “My other one is getting kind of used and full. I thought I might start a new one, using some scrapbook techniques.”

“I love that glitter paper,” DeeAnn said, holding out some nachos with her homemade salsa. “Have you tried this?”

“Now, be careful. I don’t want salsa spilling. Take it over to the snack table, please,” Sheila said.

DeeAnn rolled her eyes but did what she was told. Food and precious photos didn’t mix well.

Annie went back to her soccer book, sipping her beer. Beer and scrapbooking had become synonymous with her Saturday nights. If her old friends in D.C. could see her now.

“I wonder what Vera is doing right now,” Sheila said and giggled.

“One thing she’s not doing is this,” DeeAnn said.

“Oh, it’s a good thing we have Vera and her sex life to talk about,” Paige said, fussing over the Cricut personal cutting machine. “None of the rest of us old married ladies get much sex.”

That’s what you think, Annie thought.

“That’s because our husbands are too tired from work. What does that Tony guy do with himself, anyway?” DeeAnn said, scooping up more salsa. Her large hands dwarfed the salsa jar.

“God only knows,” Sheila said. “He’s teaching dance somewhere, I suppose. Chelsea Dance?”

Again, it became very quiet. The spurts of quiet were probably what Annie liked the most about their gatherings. They could be quiet among themselves, and it wasn’t a problem. DeeAnn was working on a scrap cookbook; Paige was working on her niece’s wedding scrapbook; Sheila was scrapbooking her daughter Donna’s senior year of high school.

But tonight an air of fear seemed to permeate. The news that a second body had turned up had sent the town—especially the women—into a state of fear and shock. The victims were both young women from Jenkins Hollow, a place that seemed to be legendary for outcasts.

“I just can’t believe it,” Sheila suddenly said. “Another murder.”

“Did they ever find out who the second woman was?” DeeAnn asked Annie.

“Yes, Rebecca Collins,” Annie said, pushing back the images that came to her from her morning at the landfill a few days ago. “We’re going to her funeral.”

“Did you say that Bea went to Sarah’s funeral?” Sheila said, pushing her glasses back on her nose.

Paige piped up. “Bea’s not going to miss a funeral.”

The women laughed. It was true Beatrice Matthews didn’t miss a funeral within fifty miles of Cumberland Creek proper.

Paige was one of the few croppers who still had deep ties to Jenkins Hollow. But she was recently ostracized by her church because her son was gay and she’d just reconciled with him. She stood up for him one Sunday during the preacher’s antigay rant, and that was the end of her church relationship. It was the church she was raised in, the one her family had always gone to, and it held many memories of weddings, baptisms, funerals. Paige was devastated, but also angry.

“Of course, my mother wouldn’t miss one, either,” Paige said.

Annie nodded affirmatively. “Both of us went and wished we didn’t. It was sad and bizarre.”

“What do you mean?” Sheila said in a hushed tone.

“Very few people were there. I mean, there were five of us. Bea, me, Detective Bryant, and her parents. There was no wake, no friends. Nothing.”

It was the second Christian funeral Annie had attended since she moved to Cumberland Creek. The two funerals were a year apart from one another. This one was so different from Maggie Rae’s, which was attended by everybody in town, and then some. The wake was huge, with tables and tables of food. Sarah’s memorial service was sparse, and it left Annie feeling weirdly frightened. Was Sarah that isolated that she had no friends? Or was there a statement being made? If so, what was it? Or were people afraid to show up for some reason?

Annie was met with silence from the scrapbookers.

“That makes sense,” Paige finally said, her blue eyes lit. “It makes sense in some weird kind of way. Those people are very superstitious, very backward.”

“Do you mean they think her bad luck would rub off?” Cookie asked with one eyebrow lifted.

“I don’t know, really. Who knows?” Paige said, waving her hand. “But there’d have to be a reason for it, and I’m betting it has to do with one of their strange beliefs.”

“I keep hearing about their strange beliefs,” Annie said. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is there a certain religion? What is it?”

“Who really knows?” Sheila said. “No outsiders know all about them. Some Old Orders don’t even believe in funerals. Maybe people didn’t even realize she was gone at the time they buried her. They bury their dead quickly, sometimes before the service. One thing I can say for sure is that some of them may call themselves Old Order Mennonites, but they are not Mennonite.”

“Oh, heavens no,” DeeAnn said. “That’s some odd brew of weirdness going on up there. They keep real close to themselves. I’ve heard of cousins marrying. I’ve heard of animal sacrifice. And even drugs and rituals.”

DeeAnn, hailing from Minnesota, had married a local man and had settled in Cumberland Creek with him. She was a culinary school graduate and owned and operated her own bakery, yet Annie had always thought she was a bit sheltered.

“Sounds a little far-fetched to me,” Cookie said.

“Humph. This coming from a witch named Cookie,” Paige said good-naturedly and rolled her eyes.

“They call me Cookie for one simple reason, Paige,” Cookie said. “If you bite me, I taste really, really sweet.”

Laughter ensued.

“Let’s turn up the music. Gosh, I love that new Usher song,” Sheila said.

Annie emptied her glass of beer, smiled at Sheila dancing between the chair and the shelves that held every color of paper you could imagine. Tomorrow she would be slaving over her next article for the paper, trying to keep Ben and Sam occupied, fixing some kind of supper, and trying to keep some semblance of sanity. But tonight she’d finish this book, eat some chips and salsa, and drink another one of those dark chocolate stouts. Yes, indeed.