Chapter Ten
The plant reopened days later, and Max was glad to see his entire crew return, even Bonnie and Lois, who received surprising hugs from Brenda.
Brenda doesn’t hug people, Joshua thought. Or does she?
He had put the crystal necklace on, keeping the stone hidden underneath his shirt.
The crew was given their assignments and the machines were turned on. The baler was cleaned and everyone was working as if nothing happened. However, the workers from Great Lakes Packaging had not returned. Max was quiet and withdrawn the rest of the day, staying in his office alone. Brenda went home and Joshua worked upstairs.
Bonnie took over supervisory duties. Joshua could tell she and Lois wanted to talk about Marilyn, but refrained from their usual chatter.
Joshua decided to break the silence. “I’m really sorry about Marilyn. And Leo. What is going on?” He pulled the crystal out from under his shirt. “Why did I find this at my old house? Someone stole it from my room and then I found it wrapped around the padlock at the basement door.”
Lois turned her head and looked at Bonnie, who ran her fingers through her steel-gray hair. “We’ve had nothing to do with this, Josh. Ruth told us about Max coming to her after the hi-lo accident, but none of us left that toy sword. The use of swords is old pagan magic. Justice. Balance.”
“But someone is abusing the balance,” Lois said. “Dark magic, which we haven’t used since...a long time ago.”
“Who is Davey?” Joshua asked.
Lois looked down, getting back to work assembling dividers. Bonnie picked up the glue pail. “We need to get started on the next order.”
“Davey?” Joshua asked.
“We’ll talk later,” Bonnie said.
“When?”
“Lunch. Meet us outside.”
Joshua followed Bonnie and Lois out of the building at eleven-thirty.
“Let’s go for a ride,” Bonnie said. “We’ll take my truck.”
Joshua found himself sitting between Bonnie and Lois in the cab of Bonnie’s old Ford. She made a right turn at the intersection, cruising up to the McDonald’s drive-thru. Several cars were ahead of them.
“Did you tell Max and Brenda you were going with us?” Bonnie asked.
“No,” Joshua said.
“Good.”
“Will you tell me about Davey?”
“Davey would never have lived to see adulthood. Cystic fibrosis. They can’t breathe on their own after a while. They can get pneumonia. Davey was Alice’s son. Alice was part of our circle. Ruth. Elizabeth. Alice. Lois. Me. Marilyn was added later after I had taught her a few things. Marilyn is my cousin. Our mothers were twin sisters; good thing they’re gone now, because this would have killed them both.”
“How did you all become...a circle?”
“It goes back to the Depression. Our mothers all knew each other through marriage, church and neighboring farms. Alice’s mother Rebecca was a strong talent; she knew about Harvester from the Dust Bowl. She was from Oklahoma. She said the witches she knew there would worship Harvester for his favor, but they had no luck. Rebecca and Alice were living with Davey out at their farm when the drought came in 1996. Rebecca started to worship Harvester again, this time involving Alice and Davey. Alice and Elizabeth became close friends while working at the Lake Trust Bank. They were seeing people come for loans, trying to save their farms during the drought. I was related to Alice through marriage, my brother Jim married her sister Sue, but they got divorced later. I was introduced to their worship of Harvester after my husband and I came close to losing our orchards during the drought.”
“Fruit Ridge was more rural then,” Lois said. “Almost everyone was a farmer. But Max worked at a foundry in Falls River, Liz at the bank. Max wanted to have his own business. He saw people losing their farms, their homes. He and Liz could have moved to Falls River. Instead, they chose to stay. They got a loan for the house. Max had grown up here, he wanted to help.”
“We only had a circle of four until I invited Ruth,” Bonnie said. “She was religious, as I had been, and she was offended at first by Rebecca’s altar and old spell books. Liz started putting her own together. She built an altar in her home. After a year with no rain, it came like a typhoon. But Harvester came back to collect.”
“The fire?” Joshua asked.
“Yeah. The fire.”
Bonnie eased up to the drive-thru window. They ate their lunch in the parking lot.
“Did you lose your orchards, Bonnie?” Joshua asked.
“We worked something out. No one ended up on the street. Max hired me and the others at the plant. His promise to Liz.”
“Did Alice ever work for Dad?”
“No. Not Alice. She didn’t want to work after Davey died.”
“Should I be afraid of Harvester?”
Bonnie watched Joshua take a sip of soda through a straw. “I think you should be afraid. I’ve told Lois to start carrying a weapon. So am I. If Max doesn’t like it, too bad.”
“Ruth said I needed to find my witch box. But I have no idea...”
“Someone may have destroyed it,” Lois said. “Burned it.”
“Don’t put it past Max and Brenda if they hid your box. Even Colbie.”
“I think I’m going crazy,” Joshua said. “Nothing seems real. I can’t sleep. I have bad dreams. I still get headaches.”
Joshua explained about the doll he and Anna found in the mailbox.
“Someone wants to hurt you,” Bonnie said. “Keep wearing your crystal. I can give you a protection spell later. Buy an amethyst. The stone is good for mental clarity. Onyx is protective.”
“Onyx is a black stone, right?”
“Yes. You used to wear—“
“An onyx necklace. Yeah. I remember. The stones were beaded through a string that stretched. Where is it now?”
“Maybe in your box.”
“I need to find it.”
“Keep looking. Start at home.”
Joshua waited until his parents and Colbie went to bed. He started in the attic, the door unlocked.
He found a filing cabinet behind more Bankers Boxes. The top three drawers were not locked, but rusty and off the tracks, heavy with files. Joshua pulled at the bottom drawer, which was locked. He checked out the old lock, knowing something thin and flat could open the drawer, to move the metal latch. A fingernail file? A credit card?
Have I done this before? he thought.
He turned off the light and went downstairs, keeping his footsteps soft. He entered the kitchen. He found a small knife with a thin blade. He was turning the corner, entering the dining area, when he saw Colbie standing there in her pajamas, white-blonde hair sticking up.
“What’s with the knife?” she asked.
“You want to come upstairs with me?”
Colbie sat on the attic floor next to Joshua, her belly resting in her lap. She watched him slide the flat blade into the tiny space at the top of the file drawer, pushing against the latch. A snapping sound. Joshua pulled at the handle, the drawer opening. He dropped the knife to the floor, reaching for the files.
He sat on the floor and opened the first file in his lap. He scanned the papers, realizing he was looking at a deed. Fifty acres of property in Fruit Ridge County. He found another. Two hundred acres. More legal papers. He read the signatures. Leo Berman. Joseph and Bonnie Hagen. Marilyn Thompson. A hundred acres. Max purchased all of this property from his workers between 1997 and 1999. The plant opened in 1996.
“My dad owns a lot of property.”
“He owns my grandparents’ property,” Colbie said. “He offered to buy after the drought. Grandpa and Grandma became Max’s tenants, but they could buy the property back in the future, which they would never be able to do. Grandpa was saving the money from the sale for retirement.”
“I’m sorry, but Leo is probably dead,” Josh said. “Marilyn was murdered. I wonder if someone has a list of all their names, crossing them off one
by one. And Dad owns all of their property. Mom’s circle. Alice. Bonnie. Ruth. Lois. Marilyn. Why would Dad want so much land?”
“He was being generous,” Colbie said.
“But the merger is going to change everything.”
“If the merger happens now.”
Joshua and Colbie were sitting close together. He could smell her toothpaste and the lotion she used on her face and hands. She brushed her hair out of her eyes then moved forward, her face coming in closer to his. He didn’t pull away as their lips met, and he returned her kiss. She pulled her head away.
“You haven’t done that in a long time,” she said.
Joshua took her hand, helping her rise from the floor. “Do you want to come in my room? Hang out for a while?”