The Widow of Pale Harbor by Hester Fox

Author:Hester Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2019-07-15T14:45:21+00:00

* * *

Gabriel had only just sat down at his desk when there was a frantic knock at his door. He’d been planning a sermon, a real one. This wasn’t going to be some tepid plagiarism of other men’s work; this was going to be a revelation. He would capture the feeling that enveloped him when he was with Mrs. Carver, find the right words and illuminate the darkest crevices of the universe. But every time he meditated on her smile or the gentle warmth of her touch, his thoughts wandered to decidedly less holy topics.

Pushing aside his papers, Gabriel looked up to see Fanny leading the hack driver Reuben Reese into the room. “Mr. Stone?”

Gabriel was on his feet in an instant. He’d spoken to Mr. Reese only once before—on the night Garrett Hawkins died—but he struck Gabriel as a levelheaded and self-possessed man. So when he saw the knit in Mr. Reese’s brow and the tightness with which he gripped his hat, Gabriel knew there was cause for alarm and in his gut he knew what it was about. “Is it Mrs. Carver...is she all right?”

Mr. Reese gave a tight nod. “She’s safe, but you’d better come quickly. I’ve already sent the constable on ahead.”

If the constable had dragged himself out from behind his desk, then it had to be no small matter. Gabriel tamped this down along with his other swirling thoughts as he sprang into Mr. Reese’s hack, and they flew through the town.

The wheels had hardly come to a stop when Gabriel hopped down. They were in front of the cemetery. “She’s in there?”

Mr. Reese didn’t say anything, just led him to the center of the cemetery where a barren elm tree stood above a shaded cenotaph and crypt.

He hardly noticed the constable standing beside the wrought-iron fence as Gabriel rushed to Mrs. Carver. “Sophronia,” he said as he crouched beside her and took her face in his hands. “Are you all right?”

She looked up at him with glazed eyes. She was pale, and her skin was clammy under his touch. “I...I think they meant to frighten me to death,” she said with a shaky laugh.

“What happened?” There was no evidence of violence on her, thank God, and the cemetery was quiet except for the sound of a slight breeze through the branches above them.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the constable said before Mrs. Carver could answer, pushing his thinning brown hair back and shaking his head. “I’ve lived in Pale Harbor my whole life, and I’ve never seen the likes of this before.”

Gabriel wanted to shake him by the shoulders and tell him if he’d bothered to stick his head outside once in a while, he would have long ago realized that something was afoot in the town.

Once he’d made sure that Mrs. Carver wasn’t in any danger of fainting, he stood back up and glanced around the forlorn gravesite. “And what would that be, exactly?”

The constable didn’t say anything, just peeled back a cloth Gabriel hadn’t noticed on the ground and then stood back.

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