Are You Haunted (part eleven)

Are You Haunted

(part eleven)

He saw the tree he’d been watching for…the trunk looked dead, but a living branch clawed the sky, dripping pink flowers.

Just here was the way up. He could see sunrays cut the missing mortar of the chimney bricks.

“What are you doing?” Tovey smacked the dashboard. “Keep going!”

“This isn’t the driveway?”

“Jeez, Kenzie, you wanna take this car up the driveway?”

Now Powell was worried. He leaned to look out the window, back down the road. The car swerved, and Tovey blew air through his teeth.

But Isobel laughed. “I don’t know where we’re going either.”

“If Mother Hubbard wants to give it some gas, you’ll see in a minute.”

A curve came next, the berm undercut by a ditch. Once-pollarded apple trees had cankered to a rail fence, the whole mess propped above water on springy young twigs and brambles. Powell saw a barn, its siding blackened, its patch of grass mashed by circling tracks.

“Yeah, that’s your spot. Only don’t be a dolt, Kenzie. Pull up a ways, and back’er in.”

Before he could bring the car to a stop, Tovey popped his door and jumped. Isobel, the sardine-can pressure suddenly released, steadied herself with a hand on Powell’s shoulder.

When he set the brake, she kicked Tovey’s door and slid out.

“Wait. Isobel. Dennis.”

Would it be okay, calling them like that? Powell scrambled, red-faced, to rest hands on the warm hood. “Listen. The way I see it, the trust pays three people to look after this place.”

He let this be a question.

Tovey spat his tobacco, and walked back. “You see it that way.”

“Why wouldn’t they have a tenant?”

“You think I didn’t ask the old lady the same thing? Are you a man with a plan, Kenzie?”

“He thinks,” Isobel said, “that we ought to take charge ourselves.”

As though in some private talk they had discussed this. The enmity of Dennis Tovey was a thing Powell didn’t want. “Sometimes, people get an idea in their heads, and they just can’t see past it. Mrs. Drybrook might own property…”

“Lots.”

He appreciated she meant him to laugh. He could not place himself at odds with these two, when he needed their help. He spoke only to Tovey. “Maybe she figures renters are too much trouble. But what I’m talking about is a fair exchange.”

“It’s not the kind of thing,” he added, seeing Tovey crouch, and fiddle with a shoestring, “you can prove in a week. Being good as your word, I mean. It might take three or four months.”

“Yeah. So what kind of fair exchange…”

Tovey ambled to the driver’s side, bent to check the tires.

“…are you gonna use to bribe Lloyd Guy?”

On the move, dropping one conversational shoe after the other, Tovey had forced Powell to change position. He saw Isobel was gone; she had cut off when her husband’s crouch first drew his eyes. If she’d been picking his pocket, it might make sense…but his pockets were empty.

11

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part twelve)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)