Part Four

When she returned to the kitchen, she found Aunt Hepzibah making coffee and Honey absent.

“The little boy woke up,” the old lady explained. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Yes, please,” Trixie answered. “Would you like something to eat, too?”

“Just some of the chocolate we hid in the living room, for the moment. But go ahead and have something else, if you like.” She frowned. “What nonsense was Joe telling you in here?”

Trixie looked up, startled. “I don’t remember any nonsense. He wants you walking around and not just sitting in bed. And since that’s what you seem to want to do anyway, I told him it would be no problem. You’re not going to make a liar out of me, are you?”

“I suppose not.” She peered around the kitchen suspiciously. “Your friend isn’t going to feed me salad, is she?”

Trixie shook her head. “We wouldn’t dare. She’s going to cook her special chicken dish for us. I don’t know what she puts in it, but it’s my favourite thing that she makes.”

The old lady dumped three teaspoons of sugar into her cup and began to stir. “You don’t have the recipe yourself?”

Again, Trixie shook her head. “It wouldn’t be the same if I made it.”

Hepzibah nodded. “I felt like that, too, about a few things. But let me tell you: you miss them when the person who made them is gone. I’ve often wished I learned things, before it was too late.”

“Let me go get that chocolate,” Trixie offered, eager to escape the room but at the same time feeling guilty for running away. “I’ll be right back.”

On the way back, she met up with Honey and Elijah.

“Something wrong?” Honey asked, before they got to the kitchen.

Trixie shrugged. “Just an uncomfortable conversation. Too much about leaving things too late.”

Honey squeezed her arm and smiled, then they joined Aunt Hepzibah.

“That child needs some fresh air,” the old lady declared, as soon as she saw him. “The two of you had better take him to the park for an hour. Trixie knows where it is. I’ll be fine here by myself.”

“Are you sure?” Honey asked, casting her best friend a questioning glance. “Because Trixie could stay if you needed her. Or I could.”

Trixie took a sip of her coffee and was relieved to find it not too sweet. “I’m sure Aunt Hepzibah would be okay for an hour. And she could call us if she needed us. It’s not that far away.”

Hepzibah nodded agreement. “Drink your coffee and let the little boy play outside. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“It might not be quite an hour,” Honey decided, looking at her watch. “I’ll need about twenty minutes to prep, then I want everything in the oven by–”

“Yes, yes. That’s fine,” Aunt Hepzibah interrupted.

“If you insist,” Honey answered, slightly puzzled by the turn of events.

Ten minutes later, they buckled Elijah into his car seat and set off.

“What was that all about?” Honey asked, as she craned her neck to see any oncoming traffic.

“Not sure, really,” Trixie answered. “She has her own routine and we were getting in the way of it, I think. Some of the things in it she lets me know about – like the jogger she watches every day – and others she keeps secret. And I don’t want to pry, so I just let her get on with it. There’s the place to turn up there.”

“She’s not anywhere near as frail as I expected,” Honey commented, after she had negotiated the bend. “But I don’t think she’s as able to do things as she thinks she is, either.”

“Maybe not. But she doesn’t actually need me watching her all the time.” She gave a few more directions. “Here we are. There are some swings over there, so maybe park down that end.”

Honey pulled in under a shady tree and they got out.

“I don’t see a baby swing.”

Trixie shrugged. “But there’s two swings we could use and he could sit on your lap.”

They strolled over to the play equipment and Honey took Trixie’s suggestion, holding tight to her son while pushing off gently. Trixie, meanwhile, propelled her swing into higher and higher arcs.

“You’ll make me dizzy,” Honey complained. “Slow down.”

“Spoil sport,” Trixie teased, but she stopped swinging her legs nonetheless. “So, what are these two theories?”

“Well. There’s one group of people who insist that the unknown woman was Lily White and that she was murdered by a young local man because he got her pregnant and didn’t want her telling anyone.”

“Was she pregnant?”

Honey shrugged. “I don’t think anyone knows. She’d been dead a year or so when they found her body and forensic investigation wasn’t so advanced in 1948 as it is now.”

“Then, what’s the second theory?”

“That she was an escaped Nazi and that she was executed by some kind of agent – though which kind no one can agree on – and hidden here so that no one would know. And that Lily White is some sort of a code name, which is why she couldn’t be identified, because there was no such person.”

Trixie frowned. “But it wasn’t an execution-style killing, was it?”

Honey shook her head. “I don’t think so. I haven’t had time to read all of that booklet I bought, but it had copies of some newspaper cuttings from back then. They kind of go back and forth between suggesting it was murder and saying it looked like natural causes.”

“If it had been an execution, I think the police would have been able to tell,” Trixie theorised.

“I think so, too.” Honey pushed off a little higher to better match Trixie’s speed. “And I guess you could also say that there’s a third group, who don’t think the woman in the grave is Lily White, but that the graffiti came about because of the white lily that got left on her grave.”

“That’s one of my biggest questions about this,” Trixie admitted. “Did the white lily get left on her grave because she was called Lily White, or is she called Lily White because the white lily was left on her grave?”

“And who left the white lily?” Honey wondered. “Where did it come from?”

“Those are good questions, too, but I don’t know how we can answer them.”

“I don’t know how we can answer any of the questions,” Honey countered. “It’s all so long ago.”

“Then why does the graffiti keep appearing?” Trixie replied. “There must be someone who knows what happened and who she was. Otherwise, why do they keep it alive?”

Honey dragged her feet on the ground until she stopped. “That worries me a little. I can’t help feeling that there’s something else behind it – other than the fact that a young woman died and no one seems to know who she was, or who killed her.”

“Before we go back to the house, I want to stop by the church again,” Trixie mentioned, deliberately avoiding addressing her friend’s concerns. “There were fresh flowers on the grave yesterday when I was there, and a woman was arguing with the pastor over something and I think it was something to do with that grave. I’d like to take a look when they’re not there.”

“Is it far from here?” Honey wondered.

Trixie shook her head. “We could walk there, if you like.”

“After Elijah has a few turns on the slide,” Honey answered.

She carried him over there and lifted him onto it a short distance from the bottom. He made delighted sounds as she guided him down. They repeated this a few times, while Trixie took the keys and returned to the car for the stroller.

“Well, I’ve had enough of this.” Honey rolled her shoulders a couple of times. “Time to go, now.”

Elijah made a token protest as she strapped him in, but soon settled as they left the playground behind.

“So, where else can we get information?” Honey asked. “Barclay isn’t big enough to have its own newspaper, or library, or historical society, I don’t think. And it’s not like we can go and ask for the police file.”

“That’s one of the big problems,” Trixie admitted. “And I’m not sure how to get around it. Oh, drat.”

“What is it?”

“Look over there. It’s the same woman I saw yesterday. And she’s still arguing with the pastor.”

“Well, do you want to go in there, or will we turn around?” Honey asked.

Trixie considered a moment, then straightened her shoulders. “I’m going in there. It’s a public place and I can if I want to.”

As they turned in at the gates, the pastor’s voice drifted across to them.

“–because this is a churchyard. It might be different if it was a public cemetery, but it isn’t. And I will not allow this to become some sort of shrine. Besides, it isn’t even her name.”

“It might be. You don’t know that,” the woman argued.

“There’s no evidence that it’s her name. There’s no evidence that anyone by that name went missing in the right timeframe. And I refuse to allow a baseless rumour to be perpetuated here.”

“You there!” The woman turned and pointed to them. “This is a private conversation and I’d ask you to stop listening to it. Off you go, now.”

“Mrs. Murray,” the pastor chided, “you have no right to turn people out of here. You insisted on speaking to me here, which means that it is by no means a private conversation.”

“You would take that line,” Mrs. Murray grumbled. She pointed her finger at him instead. “This isn’t over, not by a long shot.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” he told her. “It would be better by far if you allowed the matter to rest.”

She made a disgruntled noise and stormed off.

“Murray is the name of the family who’ve been vandalising Aunt Hepzibah’s house,” Trixie told Honey, just above a whisper.

“You’ve saved me again,” the pastor greeted, as he walked towards them. “This seems to be becoming a habit.”

Trixie laughed and made the introductions. “I think I spoke to that woman’s son this morning,” she commented. “He seemed a bit interested in the whole Lily White thing, too.”

“Well, there’s not much else to keep folks’ interest around here, I’m afraid,” he replied. “And while I don’t mind them being interested in the history, I don’t condone the rumour-mongering, or the dark hints of secret knowledge.”

“The history is the part I’m interested in,” Trixie admitted, “but Aunt Hepzibah doesn’t want to talk about it, which kind of leaves us in the dark.”

“There’s not really very much to be known,” he answered. “It’s a tragic story, but there’s only a very scant collection of actual facts. Most of what you’ll hear about it is just idle speculation.”

“And after so long, it’s very hard to tell the difference, I suppose,” Honey commented.

“On the contrary,” the minister answered, “the facts are quite easily accessed. And if you care to step inside the church, I can show you practically everything there is to know about it.”

Trixie smiled. “That would be great, thanks.”

He ushered them to a side door, which he opened with a key, and they stepped into the vestry, leaving the stroller outside. Mr. Bentley opened an ancient-looking filing cabinet and took out an old book and a thin file. He flicked through the pages of the book, which was filled with hand-written entries.

“These are the original records of the burial ground,” he explained. “And here you will find the entry for the unknown woman. This gives us the date she was buried, the date and place she was found dead, the names of several people who had some connection with her, but not much else.”

He opened the file. “Here I have all of the other information I found about her when I first came to Barclay. This is a copy of the police file. This is a copy of the coroner’s report. These are copies of letters I wrote asking about potential missing persons and the responses I received. You’ll see that they were all in the negative. No Lily White. No one who matched her description.”

“How did you get the police report?” Trixie wondered, picking up the single page and turning it over, only to find the reverse blank.

He smiled. “I asked. I dare say he shouldn’t have given it to me, but it’s hardly sensitive information. You could ask any resident around here and they could give you more details than that.”

“It certainly is scanty,” Honey agreed, frowning at it. “Didn’t they investigate at all?”

“What was there to do?” he asked. “They sent out enquiries to the most logical places. And they asked around here, to no effect. No one knew her.”

“It says here that she was about twenty-five years old and that she’d been dead about a year,” Trixie pointed out. “She probably died by strangulation, but her body had been carefully arranged. That sounds quite contradictory.”

“Like one person killed her and another hid her body?” Honey suggested. “And this is interesting: she had a recently-healed broken collarbone and two of her ribs and some of her fingers had been broken before, too.”

Trixie turned back to the burial register and looked at the entry again. She flipped back to the previous page and let out an exclamation.

“You had two unknown burials around that time. About a year before, an unknown man died here.”

Mr. Bentley shook his head. “There wasn’t any mystery about that. He was a drunken vagrant and he was hit by a train. It was a horrible death, but there’s nothing to suggest any connection to our mystery woman. I’m afraid he was the kind of person that nobody troubles to get to know and nobody misses when they’re gone.”

Honey opened her mouth to comment, but caught the look that Trixie shot her and changed her mind.

“Thanks so much for showing us these,” Trixie told him, as she tidied the papers back into the file. “That’s really cleared things up for me.”

Honey echoed her thanks and they left the building. Trixie led the way over to the unmarked plot, then bent to examine the flowers she found there.

“I don’t see a card anywhere. Do you?”

Honey leant down to look closer and shook her head. “They’re beautiful, and not cheap either. Someone is determined that this woman be remembered. I wonder why?”

“Let’s get back to the car,” Trixie suggested. “We can drive by the address where the body was found on our way back. And hopefully, by the time we get there, Aunt Hepzibah will have done whatever it is she didn’t want us to interrupt.”

Honey nodded. “I need to get to work, too, if we want to eat tonight.”

They made their way back to the car and Trixie navigated them past the address of the house where the woman’s body had been found. The house itself had long since been demolished and the site never been rebuilt upon, but they could find the approximate location by checking the house numbers either side.

“I’m not sure this helps us at all,” Honey noted with a sigh. “There’s nothing left here.”

“Just drive down to that corner,” Trixie directed. “If I’m right about where we are…”

A minute later, Honey pulled the car to a stop again.

“I don’t see anything. What are we looking for?”

Trixie got out, saying, “Just wait a minute. I want to check something out.”

She walked along the side of the road for a short distance, then began to poke around in the undergrowth at one side. In a short time, she found what she was looking for and returned to the car.

“What did you find?” Honey demanded.

“Old railway tracks.” Trixie pointed to the spot. “This was the level crossing, back in the days that the railway came through here.”

Honey’s mouth dropped open. “There’s no way this is all a coincidence. A man and a woman that no one can identify, who died around the same time and who are found not far from each other – it just has to be connected somehow. But how is it that no one ever thought of this before?”

Trixie shrugged. “Maybe they did. Maybe, when we get around to reading that little book you bought, we might find out that they’ve been talking about this the whole time.”

Honey frowned as she turned the car and started back to the house. “Are you sure this is the right level crossing? There isn’t another one, is there?”

“I think it’s the only one in Barclay,” Trixie answered. “And the burial register called him ‘Man killed by a train on the road to Livermore’, and this is the road to Livermore.”

“Well, that settles it.” Again, Honey frowned. “Do we mention any of this to your aunt?”

“No!” Trixie blurted, louder than she intended. “No. If she asks, we’ll just say that we went to the park, played in the playground until your arms got sore, and had a nice walk. Which is all true.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Trixie?”

She cringed a little at her best friend’s stern tone, then hurried to explain. “When I first arrived here, after Aunt Alicia left, Aunt Hepzibah wanted to go back to sleep and for me to bring her some breakfast later. But when I brought the tray, I guess she was talking in her sleep. She called me Nelly. She was talking about someone who was dead, but it wasn’t Nelly’s fault, and that if the police didn’t know who the dead person was, they wouldn’t know that Nelly had something to do with the death.”

“You think she was talking about the unknown woman? Lily White?”

Trixie nodded. “Remember, Aunt Hepzibah fell right after she saw the graffiti on the church. It was in her mind.” She gulped. “And my grandmother had curly, blonde hair and was known as Nell.”

Honey kept her eyes on the road as they rounded a sweeping curve. “You’re saying that your Aunt had something to do with the cover-up?”

“I’m thinking my grandmother had a whole lot more to do with it,” she answered. “But, yes, I think the reason she’s upset by all this is because she knows. And the thing with the neighbours is because somehow, they know that she knows.”

For a few moments, Honey thought this through, during which they arrived back at the house. As she unstrapped Elijah from his seat, she made one last comment, before the subject would have to be dropped.

“Nothing can hurt your grandmother any more. So, if it was to do with her, why the need for secrecy?”

Trixie shrugged helplessly. “I just can’t answer that. Maybe it’s her memory that might be hurt. Or maybe there’s a whole lot more to this than we’re seeing.”

“I’m sure there’s something more than we’re seeing,” Honey answered, as they walked up the stairs. “Because right now, I only have the vaguest idea of what happened.”

They entered the house, with Trixie calling, “Aunt Hepzibah! We’re back!”

“In the living room,” the old lady replied.

Trixie bent her steps in that direction, while Honey excused herself to get her son cleaned up.

“Is there something you need?” Trixie asked, smiling.

“My independence,” her aunt snapped. “And my privacy.”

Guilt swelled up inside Trixie, but she tried to keep it off her face.

“I hope you’ll have both of those back soon. And I hope that Honey and I aren’t intruding too much–”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you,” she interrupted. “I meant that, that goose of a woman from the house behind.”

“Mrs. Murray, isn’t it?” Trixie asked, with sympathy and more than a touch of relief. “I think I saw her in town this afternoon. She was… uh, causing some trouble and I heard someone say her name.”

“She never does anything else.” Hepzibah scowled out of the window. “She had the nerve to come here and make demands.”

The guilt surged again. “I should have come straight back here.”

Hepzibah made an impatient noise. “Why? You couldn’t know she’d bother me. And I told you to take the little boy out.”

“True.” Trixie made a wry face. “But I was the one who kind of interrupted her argument with the pastor – or, at least, she interrupted her own argument with the pastor to start arguing with me about listening in to her argument instead.”

“Ah. That explains quite a lot.”

Trixie groaned. “She accused you of having me spy on her, didn’t she?”

“I always knew you were sharp,” Hepzibah answered approvingly, with something of a return to her usual manner. “She did. At considerable length.”

“I’ve seen her twice,” Trixie admitted. “And both times she was arguing with the pastor and both times I inadvertently interrupted.” She grinned. “And both times, he thanked me.”

Hepzibah laughed. “He’s quite a sensible man, I’ll admit.” She let out a breathy sigh. “I just wish this thing would die down. I don’t want the past coming calling. Why can’t that silly woman let it rest?”

Trixie sank down on the chair opposite. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either. It’s not even her past. And why should she carry on her father-in-law’s grudge – if that’s what it is – after he’s been dead fifteen years?”

“Oh, that’s just a part of small-town politics,” the old lady explained. “She married into that family because she was on their side of the argument, not the other way around. I don’t know why she and her family chose that side, but her father-in-law most likely did because of his grudge against me. He never did forgive me for my part in Lena getting away from him – not that I really had much to do with that; she had other ideas than settling down with him all along.”

“But he must have married someone else and had children with her. Didn’t his wife resent all this?”

“Did she ever realise what it was all about?” She shook her head. “She was a pretty girl when we were young, but none too bright.”

“That almost makes it worse.” Trixie shuddered. “But forget the crazy neighbours. Is there anything you need from us right now? Because Honey’s about to start cooking and I’m going to have to look after the baby while she does, and I think that might be easier upstairs than down here.”

“I’m fine,” her aunt assured her. “I don’t need anything.”

“Let us know if you change your mind, okay? Honey won’t be far off.”

The old lady nodded and returned to her contemplation of the view through the window, but with a much calmer expression than the one she had worn when Trixie entered the room.

Easier in her mind, Trixie left her there, meeting Honey at the base of the stairs.

“Everything okay?” Honey asked, as she handed over her son.

“Except that the lady from the cemetery came here, looking for trouble? Yeah, fine.”

Honey winced. “I almost wish we hadn’t gone near her.”

Trixie shrugged, deciding not to voice the opinion that the trouble had been worth it for what they gained in exchange. She headed back up the stairs and chose to use Honey’s room, closing the door behind them so that Elijah couldn’t escape.

“What will we do now?” she asked him, as she set him on the floor.

It occurred to her that she had meant to search this room after Aunt Alicia left, but that she had never gotten around to it. However, she didn’t really want to do so in front of the little boy, who while he couldn’t talk much yet was rather in the habit of imitating adults and might give the game away that way.

With a regretful sigh, she put the task off until later still and started looking around for something for them to play with. The baby toddled off to the end of the bed, where his toys were kept, while Trixie got distracted by a framed photograph on the wall. It depicted the same three women – Hepzibah, Nell and Lena – but when they were aged around fifty, at Trixie’s guess. Nell looked older than her years and Trixie wondered if she was already sick when this was taken. She leaned closer, noticing the resemblance to her own mother and to herself.

Movement caught the corner of her eye and she sprang to catch the drawer Elijah was holding onto as he fell backwards. She struggled to both keep her balance and not drop the heavy weight, hindered all the while by the angle she had to be on to avoid hurting the boy. After what seemed like minutes, but in reality lasted only a few seconds, she got a firm grip and dropped it gently onto the bed.

“That was close,” she told Elijah. “You know, you’re a whole lot more trouble than I expected. And I think I’m going to have to incarcerate you to get this back in again.”

She picked him up and dropped him into the travel cot. He wailed his displeasure and held up both arms to be picked up again.

“Just for a minute, okay? I just need to put this back.”

She hefted the drawer, which was empty, all the while feeling thankful that the chest was an old, sturdy piece. A more modern one might have toppled altogether and she doubted she could have caught it. Bending slightly, Trixie lined the drawer up and tried to slide it in. It stopped just short.

“Quiet a minute, okay?” she tried to reason with the baby. “I just need to fix this.”

She pulled it part-way out and tried again, but still it would not fully close. Sighing in frustration, she took it back out and put it back on the bed.

“There must be something in the way,” she decided. “If I can just find it…”

She reached into the cavity and began feeling around. Her fingers closed around something like cardboard, but when she tugged on it, it would not move. Trixie turned her head, peering into the space. She ran a fingernail along the place where it jammed into a join in the wood and, finding a different place to grasp, tried again. The card came out in a rush, making her bump back onto her bottom. Elijah stopped crying suddenly and laughed.

“Nice,” Trixie commented, turning to him. “Did you think Aunt Trixie falling over was funny?”

He babbled something to her, still asking to be let out.

She tossed the card onto the bed, picked up the drawer and this time it slid properly into place.

“Okay. You have my full attention now,” she promised, as she picked the little boy up. “I’m not letting you out of my sight again, you little trouble-maker.”

He turned a face of such innocence to her that she laughed. “You’re not fooling me again, okay? Come here.”

She settled on the floor with him and tried to play with the toys, but Elijah soon made it clear that he wanted the door open and for them to go out through it. After ten frustrating minutes, Trixie relented.

“Okay, I guess. But you’re not going to fall down the stairs, or break things, or get into mischief. Right?” Under her breath she added, “I don’t know who I think I’m kidding.”

Once the door was open, Elijah toddled off, making a beeline for the stair head. Trixie followed him closely, breathing a small sigh of relief when he got down onto his tummy and climbed backwards over the first one. She sat down two steps below him and let him do it himself, bumping down step by step as he progressed.

At the bottom, he got back on his feet and peered around curiously. Moments later, he headed for the kitchen, where Honey’s voice could be faintly heard singing.

“Oh, so that’s what you’re up to,” Trixie commented. “Well, she’s not going to thank me for this. She’s busy right now. And the person you’ve got to play with is me.”

He ignored her and continued his search for his mother. As they stepped into the kitchen, Trixie drew a breath, anticipating the meal to come. Partly prepared vegetables and their scraps covered much of the table. On the stove, a small saucepan held the gloopy sauce that made this dish so tasty and which already filled the kitchen with its aroma. Honey trickled some off the spoon and, apparently not yet satisfied, continued stirring.

“How’s it going?” Trixie asked, while scooping the toddler up onto her hip.

“It’s not nearly ready to go in the oven yet,” Honey answered. “And until it does, I can’t help you with him. You’re just going to have to deal with him.”

“I’m not trying to hand him back,” Trixie explained. “It’s just that he was so annoyed at being cooped up that I had to let him out and this is where he came.”

Honey let out a breathy sigh. “Of course he did.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?”

“Distract him,” Honey told her.

“I was trying!”

Again, Honey sighed. “I know. But you’re going to have to try harder. It’s going to be a while yet.”

“You hear that?” Trixie asked the baby. “We’re not welcome here, so we’d better scoot.”

Honey smiled. “I’ll come and tell you when it’s okay to come back.”

Trixie nodded and left the room. Elijah bucked on her hip as she walked back up the stairs and she grabbed the handrail to keep from overbalancing. At the top, she let him down and he began to work his way back downstairs again. With a heavy sigh of her own, Trixie grabbed him again and made the rest of the trip to the bedroom. By the time she got there, he was wailing.

“I’m just getting your ball, okay? And then we’ll… I don’t know… go outside, or something.”

“Ball!”

Trixie poked around, eventually finding it under the bed.

“Yes, ball.” She squeezed the soft sphere and grinned. “Hey, I think I have an idea.”

She let him walk beside her back to the stairs, then waited while he climbed down. Halfway, she stopped him.

“You stay there, okay, and roll it down to me.”

He didn’t understand. But she showed him what she meant and he got the idea, laughing loudly as the ball tumbled down the stairs into the hall below. Trixie ran to get it, then tossed it back up to him.

The game went down so well that they were still at it when Honey came looking for them.

“Oh, Trixie! You haven’t been teaching him to throw things down the stairs, have you?”

“You told me to distract him. And this is a fun game, see? And we’re not throwing. We’re rolling.”

“That’s only slightly better.” Honey sank down on the stairs and Elijah climbed down to her. “But you’ve been having fun with Aunt Trixie, sweetie?”

He grabbed hold of Honey, saying, “Ball!”

She cuddled him closer. “I hope you’ll be good and tired at bedtime. But not too tired.”

“How can anyone possibly be too tired?” Trixie asked, then disregarded the look Honey gave her and changed the subject. “I’ve had an idea for after he’s asleep, but I’ll have to tell you about it later.”

“I hope I’ll be able to stay awake later than that, then,” she answered. “I almost feel like I could go to sleep right now, except that that smell makes me so hungry that I couldn’t.”

Trixie took a deep breath. “Mmm… I love that smell. And you can even smell it from here.”

“Or maybe it’s because I spilled sauce on myself.” Honey pointed to a tiny fleck on her shirt.

“So, what are we going to do now?” Trixie wondered, looking around.

Honey glanced at her watch. “Well, I’m going to give Elijah his bath. Can I get you to keep an eye on the food? When the timer goes off, just see if it looks done. I’ll be along to serve up as soon as I can.”

Trixie suppressed a disappointed sigh. “Okay. See you soon.”

Honey climbed to the top of the stairs, while Trixie headed for the kitchen, where she poked around rather aimlessly. Fifteen minutes later, she pulled the tray out of the oven, breathing deeply of the delicious aroma. She had her fingers poised to snatch a morsel when she heard someone behind her.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Honey warned. “The sauce will be burning hot and it sticks to your fingers and if you try to put them in your mouth to cool them down, you’ll burn your tongue as well.”

Trixie reconsidered for a moment, then stepped away. “That kind of sounds like the voice of experience.”

Honey smiled. “Not my experience, but yes.”

“So, when do we eat? I’m starving.”

“Very soon. Here: hold Elijah and it will be quicker.” As she passed the baby over, she added in a whisper. “And when we’ve eaten, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“In that case, serve faster.” Trixie passed her a plate. “In fact, no matter what, serve faster. I’ll set the table.”

That task out of the way, she went to see where Aunt Hepzibah had gotten to and invite her in for the meal. She found the old lady dozing in her chair in the living room.

“Food’s ready,” she called, in a cheery voice.

Aunt Hepzibah opened her eyes, looked at Trixie, shook her head and closed them again.

“It’s no good. He already knows. And he’s never going to keep quiet about it – not after what Nelly did to him.”

Trixie hesitated a moment, then tried again. “Wake up, Aunt Hepzibah! It’s time to eat.”

This time, her aunt straightened and kept her eyes open. “I wasn’t asleep,” she protested.

“Okay.” Trixie moved a little closer. “Do you need help getting up?”

“No, no. Just stand by ready to catch me if I fall.”

Trixie did just that. “I think you’re nearly better,” she commented, as they walked together to the kitchen. “You hardly seem stiff at all and you’ve been sitting there for a long time.”

The old lady nodded. “I do feel better. Though I’m glad for someone to cook for me. I’m looking forward to this.”

“Mmm, me too.” Trixie grinned. “I nearly started eating it right out of the oven.”

They sat down at the table and enjoyed the meal together. At the end of it, Hepzibah rose and stretched.

“Thank you, Honey. That was delicious.” She put a hand on the table to steady herself. “But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go up to my room, now. You can leave the dishes for the morning, if you like. I won’t mind in the least.”

“I’ll walk you up,” Trixie offered.

She allowed the other woman to set the pace.

“Your friend looks tired,” Hepzibah commented, while they were half-way up the stairs. “These little children are a lot of work. I’d forgotten, I suppose.”

Trixie smiled. “I think Honey’s going to have an early night. But I’ll try not to make too much noise while I’m awake by myself – or to have to chase around after random cats.”

“Oh, rubbish. He can come in if he likes. I like him.”

“I’m not sure Honey will agree.” Her brow creased a little. “Maybe it was selfish of me to ask her here.”

They stopped. “I have a word or two of advice for you,” Aunt Hepzibah told her. “Friends like Honey don’t come along all that often. You should do whatever it takes to stay close to her. And if that means helping her with her baby while she helps you with rickety old ladies who aren’t even related to you, then that’s what you should do.”

Trixie reached out and touched her arm. “I don’t consider you as not being related to me!” She shook her head. “That came out wrong, but you know what I mean. And I see what you mean. It’s been really hard, while she’s having all these new experiences that I don’t understand, and I’ve been just the same as ever.”

“Well, in my experience, these things equal out in the end.” She sighed and started walking again. “When the child isn’t so small, he won’t take up all of her attention any more and it will get easier.”

“I hope so.” Trixie slumped a little, as a gloomy thought occurred to her. “Unless she keeps on having more and more of them. It might be years before they’re all big.”

Hepzibah laughed. “Even so, she will eventually get to that stage. Just make sure you’re ready to pick things back up again when that happens.”

After seeing the old lady settled in front of the television, Trixie returned to the kitchen where she found Honey in the middle of the washing up.

“Oh, good. You can take over here while I put Elijah to bed.”

Trixie nodded and took her place at the sink. The mindless task allowed her thoughts to wander, at first over the things that she and her aunt had been speaking about, and then onto the things that had been happening around them these last couple of days.

With the last dish put away and all the countertops and table wiped down, Trixie switched off the light and climbed the stairs. Honey had still not returned, so she stopped outside her door, listening carefully for a moment or two before sighing in frustration and returning to her own room. It sounded rather like Honey had made good on her threat and just gone straight to sleep.

Continue to part five.

---

Back to Janice’s Odds and Ends Page.