entirely. Ella brushed her foot lightly against the wooden porch, making the swing move slightly, as if it had caught an errant breeze.
“You know about the reservoir,” she began.
Ella nodded. “I’ve heard bits and pieces. Probably everyone in this part of the state has.”
“Well, the state—my boss, actually—wanted to make sure that everyone involved got fair treatment...as fair as possible, given that the reservoir was going to be built and the people here were going to have to leave...regardless. So about three months ago, once all of the details for constructing the reservoir were completed, he organized a meeting here in Shadow Valley. In the old church.”
“That would be before it was knocked down, of course,” Ella said with a faint smile.
“Uh...yes. A week or so before.... Anyway, everyone in the Valley attended, mostly because final financial transactions were underway and my boss wanted to make sure there were no questions.”
“Were there any?”
That seemed like an odd response. Lila glanced at Ella, but the other woman was sitting in the swing, apparently relaxed, her foot still brushing the rough planks of the porch.
“A few. But really only one of any importance.”
“Yes,” Ella said when Lila seemed reluctant to continue. “What was it?”
“It was whether or not the owner of this property would show up. Anna Stevenson. The last surviving member of her family.”
“And did she?”
Lila stood up and began pacing back and forth, her movements unconsciously parodying the slow rocking of the swing. To the porch rail turn, then back to the house, turn, to the porch rail, turn....
“No. Actually, she didn’t. Most of the people there saw nothing unusual in that, though.”
She turned to face Ella.
“According to them. Anna Stevenson hadn’t been seen outside of this house in over twenty years. Almost no one had even spoken to her in that time, except over the telephone she had installed just after she moved in. She was a recluse. Neighbors would leave supplies for her on this porch when she asked, and she always paid them for the supplies, with a bit extra for their taking the time to come all this way out.
“But they never saw her. Except perhaps as a movement, a shadow behind the curtains.”
Lila gestured to the two large front windows, actually noticing for the first time that—unlike the windows in so many of the houses she had visited recently, these were still closed off by draperies. The visible material was faded and stained, as if the drapes had been hanging in place for decades without being either opened or taken down for cleaning.
“So she didn’t know about the plans for the reservoir?”
“Oh, she knew, all right. I even spoke to her once...by telephone. There was a bad connection, a great deal of static, so I had to hang up fairly soon, and we really didn’t get to say much to each other, but she knew what was happening. She knew how much she would receive for her place...more than she would have gotten if she had tried to sell it, actually. Land values here in the Valley have dropped a lot over the past decade.”
Ella remained silent, swinging rhythmically back and forth. She turned to look out at the vista from the porch.
Lila followed her glance.
It was beautiful. Even weedy and overgrown, the land sloped gently downward from the house, offering a view of acres of land, mostly covered with scrub brush, with an occasional patch here and there that was probably some farmer’s pasturage, or a field that in past years would have been nearing harvest time. On the other side of the valley, the mountains rose in a rough parapet, seeming to lean protectively over the intervening landscape.
“Perhaps she thought that beauty should count for something,” Ella said, with an edge to her voice that sounded as rough as the porch railing, splintered and worn. “Perhaps she thought that history—that time and family and memory—were worth more than outsiders were offering.”
Lila stiffened. She had heard a similar tone in house after house over the past weeks. Usually it modulated rapidly into outright anger and indignation.
But Ella didn’t live in Shadow Valley. She hadn’t been at the meeting, nor did her name appear on any of the deeds Lila had examined.
“What...,” Lila started to say.
Behind her, one of the front windows shattered with a high, ringing craaak!
CHAPTER FOUR
Lila dropped to her knees. Her heart was racing but her breath seemed to have stopped entirely. She tried to make herself as small as possible, hunching behind one of the porch uprights.
When her ears stopped ringing, she forced herself to speak.
“Ella,” she whispered hoarsely. Her voice didn’t sound like her own. “Are you all right?”
She didn’t dare move to look behind her.
“Yes,” Ella said. “I’m fine. Are you?”
“Yes, I think so.” Lila had felt nothing. She didn’t think she had been injured at all. But she was certain that she knew what had happened.
One of the farmers—most likely one she had met and talked with—had figured out where she still had to go, had followed her, and from the shelter of one of the clumps of wild rose had taken a shot at her.
And missed.
She told herself not to move. Not yet.
“Do you see anyone out there, Ella?”
Pause.
Silence.
Then: “No, I don’t think so. Do you think it is safe?”
Lila risked a glance over her shoulder. One of the panes in the nearest window was gone, leaving behind only ragged shards that looked dangerously sharp...wicked sharp, her grandmother might have said.
But the window itself was several feet away, closer to the center of the long porch span; and Lila and Ella had been together near the swing at the far end. She had not been near the window at all.
Surely anyone who was anything like a decent shot would have come closer if they wanted to do her...or Ella...harm.
Cautiously she straightened, then stood.
Nothing.
She heard the rustle of clothing behind her and turned to see Ella coming from around the back of the swing. Apparently she had taken refuge there as soon as she had heard the shot.
“Still nothing,” Ella said, peering over the top of the car. “Whoever was there is either gone, or hasn’t moved at all since....”
“But why now? Why here?” Lila took one step toward the broken window, then stopped.
