Page 12 of Starved Until Sunset

CHAPTER THREE

Aunt Amelia had her hands on her hips and an expression Demetrius liked to think of as her patient teacher face. She’d been an elementary school teacher for almost forty years before retiring, and she had honed a number of classic teacher expressions in that time. This one clearly showed disappointment while also being encouraging.

“What’s wrong with them?” Demetrius was squatting by the flowerbeds, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. It was warm for a Saturday almost at the end of October. He was happy to be able to help Amelia, but he’d been out in the sun for almost two hours now. “This is how you usually arrange them for fall and winter, right?”

‘Them’ was her beloved garden gnomes. She’d selectively collected them nearly all her life. Only certain gnomes were fine enough to grace her ceramic menagerie. These had been purchased at different points based on some features or colors or pose that struck her at that time. People had, of course, given them as gifts over the years, but unless you really, truly knew what to look for, the gnome was either returned, if a receipt had been provided, or passed off to another gardener with less stringent gnome standards.

Demetrius was proud to be one of the few who had managed to give her a gnome that still prowled Amelia’s flowerbeds. His was a brightly painted gnome depicted in mid-step, lips pursed in a whistle and a sack over his shoulder with different colored mushrooms peeking out of the top. Amelia had named him Martin.

Now she huffed out a quiet breath and shrugged. “I’m not sure what it is. Maybe this warm weather is throwing me off, but it feels like they need to be arranged differently this year.”

“Okay then.” Demetrius got to his feet and stood next to her. They looked at the arrangement together in silence. “Is it Renaldo, the fisherman? Do you think he’s too hidden behind that mum?”

“That might be. Would you mind moving him over beneath the forsythia?”

Demetrius lifted Renaldo with a quiet grunt—was it possible they got heavier each year?—and carried it a short distance away. He plunked it down beneath the forsythia bush and turned it back and forth to get it level. Sitting back, he looked at her.

“Well, sugar maples, now he’s crowding Colin,” Amelia said, falling back on her use of tree names instead of curses.

Demetrius looked, and, sure enough, he had dropped his line not far from a gnome happily raking up some ceramic leaves, which was apparently Colin. He blew out a breath, got to his knees, and lifted Colin with a bit louder grunt.

“Okay, where should he go?”

It took another thirty minutes of shuffling the gnomes to new positions and trimming away leaves or branches that might obscure one of them from view. Finally, however, Amelia looked pleased, and Demetrius was sweaty, dirty, very tired, but happy he’d been able to help. He cleaned up in the hall bathroom, and found Amelia in the kitchen, packing up leftovers to go.

“I made a roast in the crock pot last night.”

“It was delicious!” Otis called from the den on the other side of the kitchen.

Demetrius leaned around the doorway. “Hi, Otis.”

Otis looked away from the golf game on TV and lifted a hand. “Hiya, Demetrius. Get those gnomes all sorted out?”

“I think so.”

“Thanks for the help,” Otis said, shaking his bald head and grinning. “Seems like those things get heavier every year, and my back just can’t take it anymore.”

“I’ve noticed that, too,” Demetrius said.

The crowd on the TV said, “Oooooo,” and Otis snapped his head around to see what had happened. “Oh, he chipped it!”

“Oh no,” Demetrius said. “Maybe he can cover it with some touch up paint.”

“What? No, that’s not…” Otis grinned over his shoulder. “Okay, you’re mocking me. I get it. Go on with you.” Otis shook his head and waved him off. “Go chase something spooky.”

“Haven’t you heard? We don’t do that anymore.”

“Finally wised up, eh?” But Otis’s attention was fixed firmly on the TV.

Demetrius turned back to the kitchen and found Amelia looking at him with a small, sad smile.

“He didn’t mean anything by that,” she said quietly. “He’s only talking.”

“Oh, I know.” Demetrius shrugged. “Things are just different now. This summer was pretty scary. And the whole town had a terrible time a few years ago.”

“Yes, but…” Amelia reached to take his hand and give it a gentle squeeze. “You and Cody most of all. It seems you two always get the poopy end of the stick when spooky stuff starts happening.”

“Well, not any more. Not after the ruling in the civil case.”