Jeb sighed. None of that had happened, thankfully. Eli Saltwell, now a crotchety old recluse pushing ninety, had uncovered the plot and told everybody in town. So, Bliss had become a summer resort, but one run by locals, not the consortium. It didn’t have the promised fancy hotels, but then, most people felt that was just as well, since out-of-towners came anyway.
In another week, after the Harvest Festival, the summer visitors would be gone, though. Michelle would be gone. Jeb’s heart squeezed in a way that was both unwelcome and unfamiliar. He’d give anything to kiss her once. Maybe even slip his hand under her shirt and cup a breast. His throat tightened as he imagined her sweet pink lips parting, asking for more….
Pappy’s voice drew him from the reverie, and before Jeb could concentrate on the words, he was conscious once more of the thick, dark blanket of air around him, and of the red-yellow glow of logs crackling on the fire, not to mention the pup tent and his unrolled sleeping bag. He heard the hoot of an owl, the whine of crickets, and then stared up at the impossibly yellow globe of a full moon hanging in the sky, bisected by the turret.
It was pure magic.
“It really is one of those special years,” Pappy mused. “We’ve had a series of early cold snaps, and now summer’s back in the air. Once—I guess it was way back in 1790—not long after Matilda arrived, they say we had this kind of strange weather. Unpredictable. Cold then hot, with a few electrical storms thrown in for good measure. They say, for about a week, everything in Bliss…”
Jeb and Marsh scooted on the log, as if to get closer to Pappy. “What?” Jeb said.
“Went silent,” Pappy continued. “A woman named Nellie White was supposed to travel to see her mama over in Buchanan, but never went, as she’d promised. And they say Archibald Evans, the blacksmith, didn’t get out of Bliss to shoe some horses, even though he had an appointment. The local paper—it was only one sheet long in those days—wasn’t delivered the way it was on most Fridays.”
Pappy paused. “They say it happened again, not long after that, too, back in 1806.”
“I heard a train came through. They’d built the tracks by then,” said Marsh. “But it didn’t leave the station for a week, and the conductor would never say why.”
“And in 1865, right?” added Jeb, his voice quickening. “That’s what Gib—uh, Miss Gibbet—told me and Marsh.”
“Yeah,” agreed Marsh. “She said it was during the Civil War. The North was coming one way, and the South was coming another—”
“But both sides laid down their weapons,” continued Jeb.
“And no one knows why,” Pappy finished.
Jeb nodded. “Miss Gibbet said the war picked right back up, though.”
“And then she said that in 1943—” began Marsh.
“When the munitions factory was here—”
“It didn’t deliver orders for guns,” said Jeb. “There was a blackout, too. And no phone service. Planes flew overhead, and pilots said, from the air, the town looked totally dark.”
“Now, if all that was true,” said Pappy with a soft chuckle, “you’d think the U.S. government would get involved. Still, according to statistics, they do say a lot of babies have been conceived during those lost weeks. In fact, my mama got pregnant with me during the blackout of forty-four, if you must know.”
Jeb said, “No way!”
Pappy crossed a finger over his heart. “So I’m told. There’s no pattern to when the town…well, goes silent. But they do say it happens when the weather’s like this.”
Marsh guffawed. “Wish it would happen week after next, after the Harvest Festival.”
“Fat chance,” Jeb said, trying not to think of the festival, and his last chance to get closer to Michelle. “That’s when school starts.”
“A blackout the first week of school. You two should be so lucky.”
Lucky. Warmth flooded Jeb’s cheeks. He sure wished he could get lucky with Michelle. Leaning, he lifted his canteen, unscrewed the cap, then took a deep swig. One thing was certain—the springwater that was purified in the reservoir then pumped into local homes was the best stuff Jeb had ever tasted. It had none of the aftertaste Jeb had tasted in city water—not the hints of metal, nor the soapy texture he couldn’t stand. Nope. Despite the heat that came mysteriously from its hidden source, Spice Spring always stayed as crisp as a winter morning, and the water seemed to bubble when it hit your tongue. No doubt, the spring delivered the champagne of water. Jeb took another deep draft, and just as he did, he imagined spending a lost week in Bliss with Michelle McNulty.
“Earth to Jeb,” said Pappy.
“Ditto that,” said Marsh.
But Jeb was gone, lost in Michelle McNulty’s open arms.
Peru
A WORLD AWAY, Angus Lyons gathered the strands of his shoulder-length silver hair into a ponytail, then he lifted the receiver of a field phone and stared through the open canvas flaps of his tent door, wondering who was bothering to call him in the rain forest. “Yeah?”
“Where are you? Sounds like you’re a hundred feet under water that’s been electrified with static.”
“That’s about right,” Angus admitted, fingering his thick silver beard and wondering if he should trim it, in deference to the heat. Gazing into a spray of morning mist, he took in vaulting curtains of green leaves and mammoth trunks of trees untouched by civilization. And never would be, if Angus had his way. As he considered the losing battle to preserve places such as this, Angus wished he was younger. At sixty, his time wasn’t exactly running out, but he didn’t have his whole life in front of him, either, and there was no one to carry on his mission. Since his wife Linda’s death two years ago, he’d felt like a buoy cut loose on the open sea.
“Aren’t you even going to ask who this is?”
Angus laughed. “Why don’t you just tell me?”
“Jack Hayes. News director at WCBK TV in Pittsburgh.”
“Pittsburgh?” He didn’t know anyone in—
“We went to school—”
Now it came to him. “Harvard, class of sixty-five. Hell, I haven’t seen you since the last reunion, Jack. What can I do for you?”
“Well…I’ve got an employee named Ariel Anderson, who’s from Bliss, West Virginia. She’s keen to do a human-interest story about her hometown, and we gave her the go-ahead. But in the pitch, she mentioned your name, and the possibility of including information about your involvement with—”
“The Core Coal Company buyout in the late seventies,” Angus muttered. “Attempted buyout,” he corrected.
“I was surprised,” Jack continued. “I always think of you as involved in nonprofit. And…well, aren’t you out there saving the rain forests, or some such?”
“Trying,”
