There had been a lot of rumors flying around Hubb NE last year about the terra indigene and some of their deadliest forms. One rumor was that there was a form of terra indigene that could kill with just a look and it could be recognized by its multicolored hair. So it was understandable that guests, when first seeing Ineke, might wonder what they were walking into. And, in truth, there were some who looked at Ineke and walked back out, preferring to stay in the camper park at the edge of town, renting a camper that didn’t have its own toilet instead of staying in a clean room at the boardinghouse—an en suite room if you were willing to pay extra for one of the boardinghouse’s deluxe suites.
Ineke was a good cook, but she wasn’t much interested in baking. She left that to Dominique, one of the two young women who were somehow related to her and also worked for her. So when she showed up at The Jumble as soon as she finished serving breakfast at the boardinghouse, set a large bag on my kitchen table, and pulled out tins of chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon muffins, double-fudge brownies, and pecan-caramel rolls, I didn’t need to be a blood prophet to know she wanted something.
“Is this a bribe?” I asked.
“Of course it’s a bribe.” She sounded insulted that I had to ask. “Do you think I would bring this many treats for anything less?”
Not when sugar and flour were still limited items that weren’t always available.
I selected a chocolate chip cookie from the tin and took a bite. Delicious. Wonderful. And I flashed to the memory of Yorick giving me that smile and a little finger shake whenever I wanted to enjoy a sweet. Not gorge, mind you, just have an end-of-the-meal sweet—a family tradition he insisted on, claiming that none of the members of his family had ever gotten fat by having a small sweet after dinner. But I still got that smile and finger shake at the end of every meal—or a mild scold about being wasteful when I turned down the sweet.
I pushed aside memories that still soured my enjoyment of food most of the time while triggering a need to stuff my face. Feeling rebellious, I took another bite of the cookie. “Why the bribe?”
“People need time to get away from routine and relax. Now more than ever. And the Finger Lakes region has always been a popular destination. But the businesses in Sproing need something more than the Sproingers to give people a reason to stay here for a long weekend instead of spending time at one of the other lakes. I’ve been thinking about ways to hook the tourists, and I have a proposal for you.” Ineke helped herself to a brownie. “I have an arrangement with the stable that adjoins the boardinghouse land.”
Horses for hire and boarding for privately owned animals. I used to love to ride when I was younger, but I hadn’t gone over to see about hiring a horse for an hour or two. Too much to do and not enough money for indulgences.
“Okay,” I said, just to show I was listening, because Ineke wasn’t someone you wanted to annoy. I had boarded with her while the repairs and upgrades were being done on The Jumble’s main house. She usually gave her boarders a couple of prunes in the morning “to keep the plumbing clear,” and you didn’t get the rest of your breakfast until you ate them.
Feeding them to Ineke’s dog, Maxwell, who was a border collie with a touch of OCD when it came to locating and herding his people-sheep, was a no-no. Maxwell loved prunes but did not need to have his plumbing cleared, and the result of feeding him prunes was a messy eviction. Ineke was a lovely woman most of the time, but cross her and she wouldn’t hesitate to open a window and chuck your suitcase—and everything else you owned—onto the front lawn. And her aim was so good that at least half of what you owned landed in the dog’s diarrhea.
While I stayed with her, I ate my prunes and never, ever fed Maxwell table scraps of any kind.
“I thought the stable closed,” I said.
“Well, the previous owner was eaten, and the hands ran off to wherever people were running last year, but it was taken over shortly afterward by Horace and Hector Adams. They’re Simple Life folk. Cousins, I think.” She shrugged to indicate their actual relationship was none of her business. “They aren’t as strict about following Simple Life customs as some of their people, so they were willing to take over a business in a village that’s a mix of people and customs.”
“What does that mean? They use electricity for their appliances and lights but don’t own a television?”
“Pretty much. They have a radio, but only listen to the news in the morning and an hour of music at night. They have a telephone because they’re running a business but don’t have mobile phones. And they wear the traditional Simple Life style of clothes.”
Ineke knew more about who was doing what and where than anyone else in the village, including Jane Argyle, the postmistress, which was saying something. But while Jane might pass on gossip or a rumor indiscriminately, Ineke passed on information only if she thought it was something someone needed to know.
“Last fall, we offered guided trail rides around Sproing, visiting a couple of the boutique wineries in the area and giving visitors a chance to see some wildlife that wasn’t looking for lunch. Even after the Great Predation, there were people who wanted to get away from home for a day or two but didn’t want to travel very far.”
“People went to these wineries and sampled wines and then rode horses? Tall horses?”
“Dominique or Paige looked after the riders. Well, the horses mostly looked after the riders and knew enough to ignore the people on their backs and follow the girls. Anyway, I was thinking that, now that we’re into the summer months and the heat is coming on, maybe we could arrange a guided trail ride through The Jumble. There are plenty of bridle paths. We could start out at my place, ride for an hour or so, and end up at your place, where guests could enjoy a swim in the lake or just enjoy the quiet of your private beach. You’ve got that big screened porch across the back of the main house, so we would offer lunch there before my guests were guided back to the boardinghouse, passing the Milfords’ fruit stand on the way. I would supply the lunch—bringing enough for you and your lodgers—and would pay you twenty percent of the fee for the outing.”
“You’re charging for this?”
“Of course I’m charging. Hiring the horses and making the meal isn’t free. And access to your beach is part of the package, not something that can be had separately. Unless you decide to open the beach on your own, but if you do, you’d better charge enough for the privilege and have someone around who can enforce who gets in and who doesn’t or you’ll be overrun.”
“I’m not planning to make the beach available to anyone but my lodgers.” I’d had enough trouble convincing people that The Jumble, and its beach, was private property. I wasn’t going to encourage people to think otherwise. On the other hand, this sort of setup would bring in a little money. It might even bring a guest or two if someone wanted to spend time on the lake and had to rent one of my little cabins to do it.
“I’m willing to give it a try,” I said.
“I’ll be sure to put a disclaimer on the sign-up sheet, warning everyone that we aren’t responsible for any injuries or accidents that are a result of anyone upsetting the Lady of the Lake.” Ineke finished her brownie and licked the frosting off her fingers.
“The Lady of the Lake?”
Silence.
“No one told you about her?” Ineke finally asked.
I shook my head. “She’s terra indigene?”
Ineke nodded. “It’s one of the smaller Finger Lakes, being barely five miles long and less than a mile across, but Silence is one of the deepest. No one knows what the Lady is—people who might have seen her don’t live to tell about it.”