Grave Concern by Judith Millar Read Free Book Online Page A

— everyone roared off down the highway to city malls. The town council’s collective IQ seemed to have fallen by some exponential degree, the most obvious and urgent solutions to the town’s meagre tax base perennially overridden by crucial concerns such as bylaw syntax, the cost of refreshments for subcommittee meetings, and the renaming of streets. Unlike the prank-driven follies of Kate’s youth, Hallowe’en now was a quiet affair, as Kate had learned to her disappointment last fall. And New Year’s Eve, once an arm-linking, street-strolling night of revelry and happy inebriation, was quieter still. Now people mostly huddled in small family groups around screens in their living rooms, watching Netflix. It was at such times that Kate felt oddly out of time, as though she’d crawled through a black hole to a twilight zone exuding a town-imitation.
    Of course, Kate knew it was the same everywhere. It had been so, out West. All symptomatic of the new millennium, new century. Still, a part of her had hoped Pine Rapids would be the exception. But no. Pine Rapids had insisted on changing without her knowledge or approval .
    It all just made a gal want to scream, “No one told me!” No one told me J.P. quit school and drifted down to the city (until the overheard exchange between Greta and Annabel). No one told me he’d returned a decade later and paid cash for the dilapidated old King’s Hotel. No one told me he dealt pot on the side to local kids.

    The night before Kate was to leave her Prairie prison in the tiny Drive-Away crammed with her worldly possessions, a hive of bees swarmed her insides. Below her window, the aptly named subcompact hunkered at the curb, vaguely threatening. Then, just as sleep began to wrap its healing gauze, stark images of childhood, a kaleidoscope of memories, arrived to break up her date with oblivion.
    Toward morning, but well before dawn, an old lady’s face came into Kate’s head. The old lady was not her mother, but was a real person. Kate had been about eight or nine. It was the town’s summer festival, and Kate’s mother had deemed Kate old enough to go the grounds by herself, with a friend. Kate and Greta headed straight for the one tent they’d always wanted to enter. They each paid a quarter (Kate’s entire allowance) to get in. There was hardly any lineup, and before she knew it, Kate stood before a woman with dark, searching eyes. There was no crystal ball, but rather a set of hanging glass chimes, which the woman would tinkle before she spoke. The chimes made an ethereal sound Kate would forever associate with the occult. The woman, Madama Della, nodded at Kate to sit down. Kate sat on the wooden chair and thrust her hands under her bottom to stop a sudden tremor.
    Kate thought of her father proclaiming telepathic powers “pure balderdash but likely harmless.” She thought of her mother, who had frowned when told of Kate’s plan to visit the tent of the gypsy-lady and said, “Are you sure that’s how you’d like to spend your allowance?” As far as Kate was concerned, her parents couldn’t have been more misguided. The gypsy was obviously genuine, her eyes so sharp Kate could hardly hold her gaze. Kate’s eyes strayed to the woman’s forehead (high and narrow), the eyebrows (frowning and thick).
    After a bit, she noticed the gypsy’s hand resting on the table, palm up, as though asking for something. How long had she been waiting for Kate to reciprocate? Kate retrieved her right hand, red and sweaty from being sat on, and placed it tentatively on the exotic tablecloth. The woman took hold of Kate’s fingers, and Kate instinctively pulled away. But the woman’s hand was strong, and Kate had no choice but to relax in its firm grip. Madama Della lay Kate’s arm open across the table. Kate twisted around to look for Greta, who, Kate would soon discover, had run out of