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Dory looked troubled. “That’s a long story…perhaps for another day. But an appropriate acknowledgment of our labors—like a nice bowl of cream or a plate of cookies—nevergoes amiss. Of course, I’ve tried to learn not to get too offended and go all boggart on the poor ignorant thanker…”
“Boggart?”
“Boggarts are brownies who become so angry that they begin playing nasty tricks on their humans. My second cousin Hamm, for instance, has been tormenting a family of dairy farmers in Bovine Corners for years now simply because their great-great-grandfather suggested that his fields had been plowed crooked. Most of us have grown a bit more civilized, though. The college runs anger management classes for brownies in danger of turning boggart.”
It was hard to imagine bright-eyed, pretty Dory Browne needing an anger management class, but I did get to see her temper soon enough. It was at the third house we visited. The first two homeowners we visited—Abby and Russell Goodnough, a young couple who had recently bought the town’s veterinary practice, and Evangeline Sprague, an octogenarian retired librarian—were well prepared for the ice storm. They had woodstoves and Coleman lamps, and not only didn’t need invitations to our Thanksgiving dinner (the Goodnoughs had invited Evangeline to their house), but offered to take in any overspill from our dinner.
“Good people,” Dory said approvingly when we left the Goodnoughs. “They opened up their practice on a Sunday when my cousin Clyde was hit by a car while still in dog form, and was too hurt to change back.”
“Did they know they were treating a…”
“A phouka? Oh no! But they couldn’t have given Clyde better care if they’d known he was a person and not a cocker spaniel.” Dory giggled. “Abby can’t figure out why her house never needs dusting and her hardwood floors always polish themselves. Not that they need much help. They’re both very neat and share all the work at home and at the clinic, but they’re very busy. Not like some who have no excuse for their slovenly ways.”
We’d come to the third house, a decaying three-story Victorian with paint so faded and peeling it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been painted. I recognized it right away as the house I’d seen Nicky Ballard coming out of. I hoped she wasn’t home as I was sure she’d be embarrassed to have me see her house. The assortment of old couches and broken appliances on the porch alone would embarrass anyone, and when I got closer I saw there were crates of empty liquor bottles shoved under the couches.
“It’s a shame,” Dory said, carefully picking her way across the unpainted and rotting porch floorboards. “The Ballards were one of the leading families in Fairwick. They used to practically run the town until…Oh hey, JayCee, I didn’t see you there.”
The woman behind the screen door was wearing a faded gray sweatshirt—so big it drooped off one bony shoulder and hung down below her knees—that blended in with the shadows and the blue-gray smoke curling up from the cigarette clamped between her lips. “I didn’t want to interrupt your little history lesson, Dor-ee. Go on. Tell the newcomer how the Ballards were once high and mighty, how old Bert Ballard once owned all the railroads from here to New York City and had a big mansion on Fifth Avenue. And now this is all that’s left of the great Ballard fortune!” JayCee started to laugh, but the laugh turned into a hacking cough.
“At least your family had this place to come back to. Most of the folks who landed here in Fairwick were grateful for safe harbor in a storm,” Dory said, clasping her hands primly together. I had a feeling she was holding them together to resist the urge to pull JayCee’s sweatshirt up on her shoulder and pluck the cigarette out of her mouth. “But we’re not here to talk about your family. We just wanted to make sure you and Arlette were doing all right after the storm. I see you got the generator going to keep Arlette’s oxygen tanks working. Do you need anything?”
“We’re not morons,” JayCee snapped. The news that the generator was on seemed to take her by surprise, though, now that Dory had drawn my attention to it, I could hear the whining thump of its machinery coming from somewhere below us. “Power’s out, huh? You say there was a storm?”
Dory let out an exasperated breath that clouded in the cold air. “Yes, JayCee, there’s been an ice storm. Why don’t you let me come in and have a quick look at Arlette just to wish her a happy Thanksgiving, okay?” Dory was already opening the screen door (which should have been switched out to storm glass as Brock had done for mine the first of November) and edging into the foyer. JayCee shrugged, sending her sweatshirt halfway down her skinny arm, and backed up. There was only room for one person at a time coming in on account of the stacks of newspapers and magazines lining the entranceway. A narrow strip of dirty marble floor led to an ornately carved wooden staircase. I followed Dory, squeezing past JayCee at the foot of the stairs. Feeling uncomfortable invading the woman’s house, I smiled and introduced myself.
“Your daughter Nicky’s in my class,” I told her. “She’s a good student and a lovely girl.”
JayCee Ballard snorted and rolled her eyes. “I just hope she’s learning a trade at that college. She can’t just sit on her thumbs and study basketweaving like those rich Fairwick girls.”
I couldn’t help wondering what trade JayCee plied, but I only smiled and repeated my assertion that Nicky was a bright girl and I was sure she’d do all right for herself. Then I followed Dory up the stairs, exchanging the downstairs smell of menthol cigarettes and cat pee for the medicinal reek of Vick’s VapoRub and disinfectant. The smell intensified at the end of a dark and crowded hallway.
“Miss Arlette?” Dory called, knocking on a partly ajar door. “Can we come in? It’s Dory Browne and Professor McFay from the college.”
The door was abruptly swung open by Nicky Ballard, who looked over Dory’s shoulder with wide, horrified eyes straight at me. “Professor McFay, what are you doing here?”
I opened my mouth to explain, but a thready, wheezy voice called from inside the room. “Nicolette Josephine Ballard, where are your manners? Invite the good women in and go see if that worthless mother of yours can scare up a cup of tea for them.”
“That’s really not necessary, Miz Ballard.” Dory walked past Nicky into the room. “We’re just checking around town to see how everyone’s faring after the storm. I see Nicky’s got everything under control here.”
Following Dory into the warm, steamy room I saw what she meant. Although the room was crowded with large, dark furniture there was order here. The prescription bottles on the night table were neatly aligned. On a lovely old secretary desk decorated with pink porcelain cupids a humidifier pumped warm, mentholated steam into the air. An elderly woman with sharp features and thin but neatly combed hair sat in the middle of a massive four-poster bed with her gnarled hands clasped on the neatly folded sheets, a plastic tube running from her nose to an oxygen tank standing beside the bed. The old woman’s keen blue eyes snapped from Dory to me.
“Who’s this, did ya say?”
“I’m Callie McFay, Mrs. Ballard,” I said loudly and clearly. “Your granddaughter, Nicky, is in my English class. She’s an excellent student—”
“Well, of course she is,” Arlette Ballard interrupted. “All the Ballards start out with good brains until they pickle them in alcohol like my daughter Jacqueline’s done. You must be new here.” She squinted up at me. “Come closer, but don’t shout. My ears are fine. It’s my damned worthless lungs that are giving out.”
I took a tentative step toward the bed and a bony handsnaked out and pulled me close enough to smell the old woman’s sweetish breath. “Which kind are you?” she hissed. “Fairy, witch, or demon?”
“Grandma!” Nicky covered her grandmother’s hand and tried unsuccessfully to pry her fingers off mine. “I told you about Professor McFay. She’s been really nice to me.”
“Is she that crazy writer woman?”
“No, that’s my roommate,” I replied.
Arlette cackled at that and squeezed my hand even tighter. “Don’t let those witches work my Nicolette so hard. That place can suck the life right out of you. I should know.”
I nodded, trying not to wince at the pain in my hand. “I’ll keep an eye on her, Mrs. Ballard, I promise.”
