She Came From Away Read online

  “‘Ow’s it goin’, then?” he greeted. “Doris told me about the nasty business of the dead rat.” Charlie glanced at the check then stuck it in his shirt pocket. “Thank you kindly, Miss Barnett.”

  “And thank you kindly, Mr. Fudge,” Riley replied. “The wagon’s going like a well-oiled sewing machine.”

  The next item on the agenda was to unload her stuff. It consisted of two suitcases and half a dozen bags of groceries, not forgetting two bottles of white wine. She took the suitcases to the master bedroom, then stowed the food in the kitchen. She had actually moved in! This was her house, she owned it, ergo it was home. She felt so excited that the next thing she did was call Joni again.

  “Yes?”

  Riley heard a yawn.

  “I thought I’d invite you for a visit—all expenses paid including the air fare. After all, you’re my only friend right now and I’ve simply gotta show this place to someone.”

  “Come on, Ri, why would I want to come to Newfoundland? It’s freezing, isn’t it?”

  “No. Yes. I mean sometimes. Depends where you are. And Joni, don’t call me Ri. You know I can’t stand it.”

  “Sorry, but thanks for the invite. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all. Mind if I think about it?”

  “Of course not, but don’t leave it too long. Newfoundland summers are short.”

  Riley hung up, uncertain whether or not Joni would come.

  She spent the rest of the morning puttering around the house and moving the furniture to suit her taste, apart from the bedroom. There was no way she could shift the bed on her own. Besides, she was getting overheated. A cool beer would have complemented lunch, which she ate at the small kitchen table, but she had forgotten to buy any.

  After eating, she daubed her face and arms with bug repellent and snooped around the garden again. The flower beds were full of weeds and the lawn needed cutting, which wasn’t surprising since it was quite a while since the Coffins had left. There was an empty bird feeder hanging from a branch outside the kitchen window, so she made a mental note to buy some seed. In addition, she discovered a few shady spots where you could put a lawn chair beneath the surrounding trees.

  One of the traits that Riley had inherited from her father was that generally speaking, she was a solitary sort of person. So it was, that by dinner time she was beginning to feel quite at home and not the least bit lonely. After an omelette she switched on the TV, forgetting that there were just two stations available outside of town: CBC and CTV. Neither had anything worth watching until later, so she settled for a stroll around the meadow. Before leaving, she located the survey map that was attached to the deeds, but it only showed the boundaries of the property plus the house and the driveway. Maybe she would fill in the meadow and anything else she might discover during the weeks that followed.

  The meadow was in reality an extensive grassy knoll sticking up from the surrounding woodland. It must have been used for grazing at some time or other because its extremities were defined by broken fence posts, and in some places, twisted, rusty wire. Riley had almost reached a point opposite the path from the house, when she came upon a ten foot gap in the fir trees. After a couple of steps into the woods, she had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Before her was a straight, clear-cut footpath, dropping away quite sharply for about a hundred yards until it disappeared around a corner. Riley wondered if Uncle Richard had cleared it. Maybe, but if not, who? And what lay at the other end? There was nothing for it, she had to satisfy her curiosity. Sunset wasn’t for a while, so there was plenty of time to investigate before dark.

  It was more or less quiet in the woods, apart from a robin singing in the distance. Riley proceeded down the path, which passed through sparse underbrush beneath widely spaced trees. From time to time, she noticed piles of dead branches on either side; they had obviously been cut several years ago. Whoever did the work had made the trail easy to use by maintaining an almost straight line, apart from small diversions around patches of soggy ground or the odd outcrop of rock. As she continued, the woods became denser, then all of a sudden the trees ended. Before her was a bog, but what surprised her most was a well-constructed boardwalk. It wasn’t very wide, but provided a curved, dry crossing through squelchy wet moss with flourishing patches of pitcher plants, marsh cranberries and other small bog plants.

  After about a hundred feet, the boardwalk ended while the trail meandered on across slightly higher ground through bushes of alder, mountain holly and chuckley pear. Riley walked on for five minutes or so, then without warning, she stepped onto a narrow dirt road. It intersected her path until it disappeared into more woodland. Evidently, this was the end of her property.

  Riley swatted at the few mosquitoes that were braving the insect repellent, then examined the loose surface. Judging from the tire tracks, the road was well-used. She guessed it was someone’s driveway. The large scale map that Mr. McGrath had provided would indicate where it went.

  By now the sun had set and darkness was fast approaching. Time to go.

  As Riley turned to enter the track, she heard a sound: the crunch of gravel a short distance down the road. Expecting to see a person, she whipped around. Instead, she caught a glimpse of something large, a fleeting impression of a big animal, a flash of pale gray disappearing into the gloom. Then came the snap of breaking twigs; it was heading straight toward her.

  Riley was a townie, her woods experience being limited to campsites while a kid. Consequently, she had no idea what the animal was, nor did she care. Half-running, half-walking, she stumbled back along the trail to the boardwalk. She stopped in the middle and held her breath. It was following her. The sound of something enormous moving through the undergrowth seemed just a few yards away. She ran to the other end of the boardwalk and into the dark threatening woods, almost falling twice. At last, she stumbled into the meadow through the gap in the trees, where she paused to listen. The silence was complete except for her own panting.

  Two minutes later Riley reached the lawn, almost winded now and walking. Then she was fishing in the pocket of her shorts for the front door key and putting it in the lock—safe at last.

  Once inside, she turned on the dining room light. Out on the deck, the evening was quiet. Not a breath stirred the air. The only sound was a distant car turning a corner near the bottom of Dog Cove Road.

  Back indoors, she realized that her blouse was soaked with perspiration. A shower was imperative, but first, some ginger ale. Riley grabbed a can from the fridge and drank the fizzy liquid in great gulps. What on earth was the animal in the woods? Because of its size, the obvious answer was a moose; she had heard there were quite a few in the area. Strange, though, she thought they were brown, not pale gray.

  Chapter Four

  The New Friend

  When Riley awoke on Tuesday morning there was something amiss—she felt cold, shivering cold, even in bed. This was odd, because the previous day had been warm with the temperature in the low seventies. She grabbed her dark brown housecoat and went over to the window, clutching it tightly to her chest. A strong northeasterly wind was howling through the trees, blowing a heavy shower almost horizontally. But that wasn’t all. Little white things were mixed with the rain. The house had electric heating, which had been installed in the not-too-distant past, so she turned up the thermostat and dressed as fast as she could in the early morning chill.

  After breakfast, during which she ate her last egg and last slice of bread, Riley donned a heavy blue waterproof jacket over her University of Toronto T-shirt then walked to the store. Jean Collins drove up in her ancient Pinto at the same time, so the two went in together.

  “Cold enough for you?” greeted Doris.

  “Does it always snow in June?” Riley asked.

  “Not usually,” Jean replied.

  At that moment, the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard from the passage out back, then a big man with a round face and dark moustache came through the open door.

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nbsp; “This is Jack, me ‘osband,” said Doris. “‘E works on a long-liner that sails from St. John’s so we don’t see ‘im too much.”

  Jack Fudge was wearing a heavy plaid shirt with grubby gray work pants and a Blue Jays baseball cap.

  “‘Ello, Jean. ‘Ello, Riley,” he said. “Doris told me about you. Lovely weather, eh?”

  Riley smiled. “Downright frigid. I hope it warms up soon.”

  Jean went over to the milk fridge.

  “Do you mind passing me some eggs?” Riley requested.

  She picked up a loaf of bread, then they both settled up with Doris and said their good-byes.

  It was still raining outside, but the snowflakes had stopped.

  “How about some coffee at my place?” Jean suggested. “I’ll run you home afterwards.”

  “Sure, that would be great. I could do with a bit of company.”

  “Me too. Like you, I live alone.”

  The Pinto made quick work of the mile or so of Dog Cove Road to an unpaved turnoff on the left near Conception Bay. Jean drove a couple of hundred yards then entered a driveway with a bright green mailbox at the entrance. After a short distance through some trees, they came to a new-looking A-frame. Jean parked the car at the end of the driveway on the east side of the building. They got out, and Riley followed her along a footpath to the front door. It faced a small lawn with a few tidy flower beds along its edges. On the far side, the ground fell away providing a magnificent panorama of Bell Island and the distant cliffs of Conception Bay beyond. Today, however, curtains of rain and fog obscured almost everything.

  Jean opened the front door. Riley was presented with an almost complete view of the entire ground floor. A large, stone chimney rose in the center with an open fireplace facing the living area. The kitchen was an annex separated from the rest of the room by a long hardwood counter. There were two bar stools with coasters in front of them at one end, and a phone near the wall at the other.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Riley. “This is something else. And I guess the bedroom’s upstairs at the back of the balcony?”

  “Right,” Jean replied. “But there’s a smaller one as well. It’s behind the kitchen. Make yourself comfortable and I’ll put on the coffee.”

  Jean took off her raincoat and hung it on a coat rack. Like Riley, she was wearing blue jeans, but with a tight-fitting white sweater, which showed off her figure perfectly. Riley felt a twinge of envy as she turned her attention to the living room area. It had a polished hardwood floor and a wood frame settee with comfortable cushions. There were also two heavy bamboo rocking chairs. Riley sat in one of them. Jean moved a low, glass-topped table between them while the coffee was brewing.

  “Milk and sugar?” she asked when it was ready.

  “Just a little milk,” Riley replied, glancing up at the warmly varnished beams that supported the roof. This was quite a place.

  Jean made herself comfortable in the other chair. “In case you’re wondering why I’m home on a Tuesday morning, I work shifts at the Public Library. I was in over the weekend, which means I get Monday and Tuesday off.”

  “As you must have guessed, I’m a girl of leisure,” said Riley. “I usually spend the summer flipping hamburgers in Toronto, but inheriting the house has changed all that.”

  “With a name like Riley I’d have thought you were a Newfoundlander. You know, the Irish connection.”

  “As a matter of fact, both my parents were very English. I guess they just liked the way it sounded.”

  “You said that your parents were English. Did something happen?”

  “My mom got killed in a car crash soon after I was born, but after a while my dad married again. My stepmother is very English too, but they’re both in Australia right now.”

  “I come from an old Newfoundland family,” said Jean. “My grandparents were called Wells and my mom married a Collins, but I don’t know anything about their origins. The family home is in Portugal Cove. We own hardware stores in St. John’s, Grand Falls and Corner Brook.”

  It seemed to Riley that the Collins family was quite well off. Maybe Jean’s parents had given her the house, or at least helped with the financing. “And what does your husband do?”

  “I’m divorced.” Jean held up her left hand. “I wear this for protection.”

  Riley smiled. “With your looks, it’s probably a good idea.”

  Jean blushed a little. “As a matter of fact, I do have a boyfriend, well, sort of. We spend quite a lot of time together but things haven’t gone very far yet. As you can imagine, I’m a bit cautious. It’s not easy as he’s very good looking and hard to resist.”

  Riley felt herself warming toward Jean and was sure they would become close friends. “I broke up with my boyfriend a few months ago. He wanted me to move in but I said I wasn’t ready. After that, things deteriorated and we agreed to part company. My roommate thought I was nuts. As a matter of fact, I’ve invited her for a visit but she hasn’t made up her mind yet.”

  “I hope she comes. But tell me about the house. I can’t remember seeing it, even from the outside.”

  “It doesn’t look like much, but it’s quite nice inside. Why don’t you come for lunch and I’ll show you around?”

  “That would be fun. I’ve always wondered what it’s like.”

  Riley sipped her coffee. “You never know, the weather might clear later on and we could go for a walk. Guess what: I think I saw a moose the other night. It was near the end of a trail that cuts right through the property. I’ll show you.”

  “There are supposed to be quite a few around here, but I haven’t seen one for years. Maybe there’ll be some tracks.”

  They talked for a little while longer, then Jean drove the Pinto to the bungalow. After Riley had shown her around the house, she suggested a look at the basement.

  “I’ve only been in there once,” she said, “and that was when the lawyer showed me the property. It seemed kind of spooky. The entrance is under the deck, which means we have to go outside.”

  The rain had eased off a little as they hurried down the path along the side of the house. Riley unlocked the basement door and switched on the light. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling just inside. They found themselves standing on a level area of well-compacted earth stretching the full length of the building. Three large reinforced concrete pillars supported steel beams that carried the weight of the main bearing wall above. Ahead of them, the ground sloped upwards until it met the foundation below the front door. A second bulb illuminated the undulating surface from behind one of the pillars.

  “See what I mean about being spooky?” said Riley.

  “I sure do,” Jean agreed. “But what’s that over there?” She pointed to a spot some distance to their right where a slab of rock about two feet across was protruding a foot or so above the ground.

  “Dunno,” Riley replied. “I didn’t notice it before. It could be a gravestone. The size and shape are about right.” She shivered. It reminded her about the ghost.

  Fortunately, the appearance of symmetry disappeared when they got close to the rock.

  “It looks like a chunk of clift to me,” Jean observed. “It’s definitely not a gravestone.”

  “What do you mean by clift?”

  “It’s the local name for bedrock.”

  “Whatever its name is, I’m glad it’s not a gravestone. That would have been too weird. I don’t know about you, but I could do with something to eat.”

  “Me too,” said Jean.

  An hour later, during which they had lunch, the rain had stopped so they put on rubber boots and set off down the trail. Jean was particularly impressed with the boardwalk. She pointed out the various bog plants as they made their way across it. After that, they continued onwards over drier ground to the gravel driveway.

  Jean stood in the middle.

  “Have you any idea where it goes?” asked Riley. “I couldn’t find it on my map but the scale might be too small.”

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bsp; “I’m not sure.” Jean glanced to her right. “It seems to run parallel to Dog Cove Road, which means the exit is likely on Horse Cove Line. The only people I can think of with a house so far back in the woods are the Allens. But where did you see the moose?”

  “It crossed the driveway down there by that birch tree but I was facing the other way when I heard it. All I saw was a flash of gray. Let’s go take a look. I was too scared to hang around.”

  The birch tree stood guard over the entrance to a second path, which was very narrow, indistinct and obviously not man-made.

  “This looks like a moose trail,” said Jean, pushing aside the branches of a chuckley pear. “It could confirm what you saw.”

  “The strange thing was the color. I thought moose were brown, not pale gray.”

  “That’s odd. I suppose it could have been some sort of albino, but it doesn’t seem very likely. How about a dog or even a stray goat?”

  “I think it was too big.” Riley peered at a muddy puddle beside the birch tree. “If there were any footprints, they’re gone. The rain would have washed them away.”

  As they turned to retrace their steps, a watery sun emerged from behind the clouds.

  Back at the house, Riley cleared their lunch dishes from the oak dining table then spread out the two maps that Mr. McGrath had provided.

  “You’ve got a fair chunk of land here,” Jean observed as she studied the survey map.

  “I want to add some features to this one,” said Riley, looking over her shoulder. “Like the meadow, the trail and even the garden.”

  “Why don’t I take this to work and make a few photocopies?”

  “Thanks! That would be great. Okay, let’s look at the road map and see if we can find the driveway.”

  Riley smoothed it out. Most of the area it covered was land, but numerous blue patches marked the ponds. There was also a north-south blue strip along one side; it indicated the eastern extremity of Conception Bay.