Chapter 23

“Invisible ink? That is too much!” said DeeAnn at the weekly crop. “It could be fun.”

“But, of course, someone would have to know it was there to put the solution on it to read it,” Annie said.

“Well, sure. But you could leave it as a part of a time capsule for your children, for example. Send them on a treasure hunt for it. It might make getting a sweet note from Mom a little more fun,” Sheila said.

“But I love that vanishing-ink pen. That makes a lot of sense to me,” Annie said. “I love the fact that I can draw lines on my pages with it. Journal along those lines, and in a few days the lines vanish. How cool is that?”

“Very. So many new products, so little time,” Vera said.

“And money,” DeeAnn said. “Good thing we share.”

“Speaking of sharing, I heard that you went to the prison again,” Vera said to Annie, then reached out for an angel food cupcake.

“Yes. I saw Mary Schultz,” Annie said.

“What did you find out? Anything?”

“She won’t talk to me about her case. I totally get that. But I did find out that the Carpenters are an Old Order Mennonite family. I’m wondering if there was a shunning of that young woman.”

Paige spoke up. “Shunning? That would have to be because of a serious issue. We don’t do them . . . my church, that is.”

“But you’re not Old Order. I’d not even know you were a Mennonite by looking at you,” Cookie said.

“I wouldn’t know you’re a witch by looking at you,” Paige said and laughed. “But yes, there’s a big difference between us and the Old Orders. But we respect them a great deal, you know. A shunning is serious business. When a young person is shunned, it’s usually because of romance. You know, they’ve gone against their parents’ wishes. They’ve married someone outside the religion. And that’s it. No turning back.”

“It seems kind of unchristian,” DeeAnn said. “But that’s just little ole me talking. It just seems like being a Christian would give them a bit more forgiveness. . . .”

“That’s all very New Testament,” Annie said and drank from her beer glass.

“Yep,” Paige said. “And we are all about the Old Testament.”

“It’s so harsh,” DeeAnn said.

“Not any harsher than the fire and brimstone,” Vera said.

“That’s not harsh,” Paige said, lifting her voice. “C’mon.”

Vera could hear the history teacher in Paige’s voice, who didn’t come out very often at the crops, but her dance students claimed Paige was one of the toughest teachers at the school.

An awkward silence filled the room.

Cookie cleared her throat, looked up at them through her long strands of black hair, which had fallen in her face. “It’s all Christianity, right? Just different takes on the same philosophy.”

“So, if there was a shunning . . . Let’s say Sarah was involved with someone, and Rebecca was her friend and may have known something. But a shunning is not murder. Why kill them?” Annie said.

“I had an aunt one time who said she’d rather be killed than shunned. It’s a very painful experience,” DeeAnn said.

“Maybe the reason they were killed had nothing to do with the shunning,” Sheila said.

“Could’ve been some crazy man who hates redheads,” Cookie said. “Could be that simple.”

“Yes, but what about the rune symbols carved into them? I mean, to me the killer is leaving a message on them,” Annie said as she doodled the runes on a page of scratch paper.

“I’d be more interested in hearing about Vera’s weekend in New York than about all this religious stuff. What’s gotten into people? All we talk about are murders and religion,” Sheila said and bit into a chip.

“Yes, I think it’s time you told us what happened last weekend,” Annie said and smiled.

“A lady never tells,” Vera said, smiling back at Annie, feeling her face getting warm.

“Well, now, doesn’t that beat all?” Sheila said, cutting a photograph.

Vera sat with her page, pictures, and pens, smoothed her hands over the thick paper. The sex between her and Tony sizzled—even when they were younger. He was the only man she’d slept with besides her ex-husband.

Tony reached inside of her soul somehow and touched a wild part of her—so wild that it scared her sometimes. It was like a wild beast escaping out of a cage. And lately her sexual thoughts dwelled on Tony, but occasionally, on other men, as well.

It was the oddest thing to be forty-one, almost forty-two, and suddenly discover a rampant, evolving sexuality that had been so repressed for years, she hadn’t even known it existed within herself. It was certainly not a topic for discussion at a scrapbook crop.

Did DeeAnn just say she had gotten a gun? Vera thought.

“Yes. I went and learned how to use my gun. It’s in my purse. I have a permit for it. I’m not listening to any of your liberal nonsense, Annie. I’m almost as liberal as you are—but not with a goddamned killer on the loose in Cumberland Creek.”

“I’m just saying that it seems a little drastic. Yes, there’ve been two murders, but they seem related. You don’t have red hair, you don’t live in the hollow, and you aren’t eighteen. It seems to me the last thing we need in Cumberland Creek is another woman carrying a gun in her bag,” Annie said. “How many times has Bea almost shot someone by mistake?”

Sheila’s stifled giggle escaped, sending them all into fits of laughter.