Page 22 of Song of the Dawn
“Not the future, but she has a hunch about clothes, and you’d be best to follow her advice.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The door opened, and Dusty came in. After taking his hat off his head, he hung it on a hook near the door that also had coats and scarves, with boots sitting below it. “Welcome, Mila,” he called, his face ruddy from being outside. “I brought some elderberry wine. Would you like some?”
“Yes, I’m not picky.”
“Good.” He wiped his hands and ambled across the room to give Giselle a kiss on the cheek. “This bottle was made right here in our own vineyard.”
After going to the cupboard, he poured each of us a generous serving of wine, while Giselle dished up bowls of steaming fish stew. It simmered in a red sauce, with chunks of white fish floating in it, surrounded with mushrooms and round cherry tomatoes. All the food in Lagoda tasted far better than the food in the city. Was it the air, the freshness, or something else?
We ate and drank heartily, laughing and talking until my skepticism about them faded. It was a refreshing change from the inn and quite different from my time spent with Ezra. I thought of him briefly, wondering what he would have invited me to do tonight. As my thoughts drifted to him, I steered the conversation in that direction. “How do you know Ezra?”
Dusty wiped his mouth with his napkin and folded it on the table. “I do a bit of woodworking, more as a hobby than anything else, but I know wood. One day, Ezra came looking for a specific piece for his collection. We started talking, and next thing I knew, he was telling me about the inn, the property, and how he needed help working the land. He shared his vision for the orchard, the gardens, the vineyards, and it sounded like an ideal opportunity.”
“Just like that, you decided to work for him?”
“We did.” Giselle nodded, beaming at Dusty. “I was making quilts back then, selling them at market along with Dusty’s wooden creatures. He was a woodsman. It was good work, honest, but not what we wanted to do. Ezra’s invitation to work the land came both as a challenge and something we’d dreamed of doing. At the time, we were saving up to buy land, and I wanted a larger garden. Then we came here. With the lake, the barn, this hut, and the big house up the hill, it’s everything we dreamed of.”
I watched them hold hands at the table, grinning at each other. My eyes misted over with wistfulness. Since I’d grown up without a father, it was rare for me to see acts of love between partners. Ezra had helped them realize their dream, and unexpectedly, my thoughts went to Rachelle. She had goals and was unwilling to talk about them. Life, in all its beauty, was about work and chasing a whimsy that could never be achieved. Yet Dusty and Giselle were happy, living their dream every single day.
“How long have you been here?”
“Hmm…five or seven years.” Dusty shrugged. “I can’t rightly recall. It took a few years to figure out the rhythm, to get the garden growing, purchase livestock and plant the vineyard, but now it’s second nature. We’ve got to get another cow and perhaps in time, raise some horses and give the other horse breeders in the valley some competition.”
“What about Ginger? Has she always been here?”
“As far as I can tell,” Giselle puzzled. “I don’t know her very well. She likes to keep to herself, but she does a good job running the inn.”
I had to agree, but it was odd that Giselle and Dusty, who had been there for years, didn’t know very much about her. “Where did she come from?”
Giselle gave Dusty a confused look before turning back to me. “I don’t know that either. My guess is she has a past she doesn’t like to talk about and she’s afraid of getting too close to anyone.”
Nodding, I voiced my other thought. “What about Rachelle? How long has she been here?”
Giselle shrugged. “She and Ginger have always been here. I admit, when we first arrived, I mistook Ginger for Ezra’s wife and Rachelle for his daughter.”
A chill went through me at her words. Wife. Daughter. But Ezra was so young.
Seeing my expression, Giselle laughed. “I was wrong though. Ezra’s always been single, a bit of a loner but a hard worker.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. “What about the woman who was here before me? The one who ran away?”
Giselle exchanged a glance with Dusty. “Should we tell her?”
He went to the fireplace, retrieving a pipe and tobacco from the mantle. “Might as well,” he said quietly.
Giselle leaned back in her chair. “Remember how I told you strange things happen here?”
I nodded once, doubts swirling.
“Well, I don’t think she ran away; that’s only the official story. I think something happened to her. Her name is…was…Endia, and I hope, if she’s still alive, she found a better place. Shortly after we moved here, she arrived, fleeing from an abusive family. At first she was shy and quiet, but as she worked, she blossomed. She was animated, dedicated, and she didn’t want to leave. I don’t believe she left willingly, because she told me a hundred times how happy she was to have found the Dawn and how much she enjoyed spending time with the guests.”
A wistful look crossed Giselle’s face, and I imagined that they’d been close.
“Did she play an instrument?” I asked.
“No, but she was the kind of person everyone loved.”
