LITMIR.BIZ

      The trees hid what a grand house it really was, with its two-story facade of glass windows facing the harbor, flanked with ostentatious turrets in the Gothic style. The confusion of architectural styles and additions gave it a certain vernacular charm, but it was far from the secluded, ramshackle estate he had envisioned. The grounds teemed with activity: a squirrel chittered nervously in a tree, the grass had been raked free of fallen leaves, and the garden beds were mulched and fresh. From somewhere around back came the rhythmic pounding of an ax. For a house that had created such unease in the town, it was remarkably benign in all appearances.

      A movement flickered above him from the windows, and Gabriel stopped short, craning his head up. The curtain in the window stirred, and then fell back into place, but not before he’d glimpsed the sliver of a face.

      If Gabriel had thought the Marshalls wealthy and above him, their home was nothing compared to the scale of Castle Carver. What in the hell was he thinking? What would he possibly say to this woman? But he had come this far, and his curiosity had reached a peak. Gabriel took the five shallow brick steps that led up to the front door and knocked.

      There was no answer. He stepped back to crane his head up to the windows again, but it was still, and no one peered back down at him. Perhaps it was true what they said: not that she was a witch, of course, but that she was a recluse, a madwoman.

      The sound of the ax splitting wood had stopped, and just as Gabriel was reluctantly going back down the steps, he ran into a weathered old man, clutching an ax in his meaty hands.

      “Excuse me. I’m looking for—”

      “Mrs. Carver don’t take callers,” the man said. “You’re wasting your time knocking.”

      Everything in the man’s posture indicated that he didn’t want Gabriel to linger for a second longer on the grounds. But Gabriel wasn’t in a hurry. He crossed his arms and squinted up into the cloudless sky. “Unnaturally warm weather, isn’t it?”

      “Don’t bother me,” the man said with a scowl.

      Ignoring the man’s contempt, Gabriel asked, “So you work for Mrs. Carver, then?”

      The man tilted his bristled chin up defiantly. “That’s right. And she wouldn’t want some busybody skulking ’bout her property.”

      There was something about the imposing house that tugged at Gabriel, beckoned him. “A bandage,” he said, lifting his hand and showing off a miniscule scrape on the palm. He had gotten it while hauling debris from the church and had all but forgotten about it. “I cut myself and need a bandage.” He was sure that if he could just get inside that he would see her, that he could put his curiosity to rest.

      The man stared at him with incredulous scorn. “This ain’t a hospital!”

      This was maddening. He was a minister trying to call on an old widow, not a thief walking up to a jewel vault in broad daylight. But before Gabriel could let his temper get the better of him, there was a rattle at the door, and then it opened, revealing the widow herself.

      Now here was a woman who might have been the picture of widowhood in an illustrated encyclopedia. From her high-necked black dress to the tightly pulled-back hair to the disapproving pucker in her brow, she radiated severity. Though at about forty, she was younger than the white-haired and bent-backed old woman that he had been imagining.

      “What do you want?” she snapped, her voice husky and brittle with irritation.

      Clearing his throat, Gabriel stepped forward. “Mrs. Carver, my name is Gabriel Stone. I’m the new minister and—”

      She said something that he couldn’t hear, and Gabriel stopped. “What?”

      The lines around her mouth tightened. “I said, I’m not Mrs. Carver.”

      “I...” Gabriel looked around at the vast, rolling grounds of the estate, the unmistakable cupola atop the great house. This was Castle Carver, he was sure of it. If this stern woman in dark dress wasn’t the infamous widow, who was she?

      “Do you know where I might find her?”

      “She doesn’t take callers,” the woman said, echoing the groundskeeper’s pronouncement, and moving to close the door. “Now be off with you.”

      Too stunned to say anything, Gabriel just stood there as the door started to swing shut. Perhaps everything he had heard about Mrs. Carver was an exaggeration. She wasn’t a murderous witch, but was probably old and infirm, cared for by this brusque nurse. In the absence of regular sightings, the townspeople must have built up a legend around her.

      Coming to Castle Carver had been a distraction, but now it was over and he would have to go back to his cottage and sit alone with his memories. Gabriel was just about to leave when a voice stopped him. It was light and feminine, musical.

      “All right, Helen, that’s enough,” the voice said as the door swung back open. “I’ll not have a man collapse on my front step for want of a bandage.”