The interloper briefly clasped Patricia’s slim, dry hand with her own clammy one, swallowed visibly, and replied, “I’m Willow Stone. It’s… nice to meet you.”
The girl was afraid of her. Good. Patricia asked pointedly, “And where might you come from? Is it a place where it is considered acceptable to step into unfamiliar churches and play their instruments without invitation or permission?”
Oh no, Willow thought, understanding immediately. The pastor may have invited Willow to play for Sue’s memorial service, but she would bet her organ shoes that he had not bothered to inform the regular organist. And the organist, rightly, was annoyed in the extreme.
“Mrs. Ramsey, I am so sorry for the misunderstanding,” Willow managed to stammer. “I’m Susan Davis’s goddaughter; I’ve been emailing with Reverend Barton about Aunt Sue’s memorial, but it never once occurred to me he would have invited me to play without the knowledge of the church’s regular organist. Please accept my deepest apologies for trespassing here.” She knew she was groveling; she didn’t suppose it would help much, but she couldn’t think what else to do.
Patricia sniffed, clearly unmoved. “Miss Stone, can you appreciate how dismaying it is for me to walk in this morning, preparing to offer my own ministry as a musician to this woman who was such a pillar of our community, and find a stranger seated here, playing the organ as if it were her own?”
Thanking God the black knit dress hid the droplets of perspiration now coursing down her back, Willow could only stammer, “I can, and I’m so sorry; again, please know I would never have done so had the pastor not explicitly—”
“Well then,” the woman interrupted, “I will need to have a word with the pastor, won’t I?” She turned on her heel and left the loft, her heels clicking smartly on each step as she descended, returning a few minutes later with the wary-looking pastor.
In the end, despite Reverend Barton’s obvious terror of his organist, Mrs. Ramsey was persuaded to a compromise: Willow would play quiet music as people entered the church and again at the end as they left, and Patricia would play the full service itself as she had planned. The pastor made a brief attempt to push for more, but Willow knew better than to let herself get nudged one inch further into Patricia’s territory. Besides, Willow reflected as she eased into a transcription of her favorite Fauré motet, fifteen minutes of prelude music before the service would conveniently free her of any obligation to perform awkward social niceties with strangers.
At precisely one minute before the service was to start, Patricia Ramsey pointedly cleared her throat. Willow quickly gathered her music from the rack, slipping off the bench so the woman could take the spot she clearly deemed to be hers by divine right. Willow didn’t mind; she was happy to spend most of the service in the corner of the loft, as far out of Mrs. Ramsey’s peripheral vision as was possible in the limited space.
At the pastor’s cue, Patricia launched into the opening hymn. Divine right or not, Mrs. Ramsey was not a good organist, Willow realized. No wonder Reverend Barton had been so solicitous.
Willow gazed down over the loft railing at the gathered people below, whose clothing ranged from floral dresses and Big Church Hats to the plaid chamois shirts and heavy work boots of the island fishermen. A few others wore simple clothing that looked somewhat old-fashioned; Willow noticed the pair of elderly womenquietly knitting at the far end of the pew together, wearing long black dresses and matching bonnets. She half remembered them from the Quaker meetinghouse Sue used to attend on the north side of the island—Sue had taken Willow with her a few times, and there were usually a few differently dressed Quakers scattered among the majority of modern-dress-wearing worshipers; these two particularly stuck in her memory.
She recognized Rina Montalto, sitting in the front pew with several other women—the “family” pew, Willow thought with a pang. Geralt Talbot was there as well; an elegant young blond woman—his daughter? Willow wondered—leaned her head on his shoulder in an affectionate gesture she would not have expected the cantankerous old man to tolerate.
“Welcome, brothers and sisters, as we gather to bid farewell to our sister Susan,” the pastor intoned as the service began.
The church was nearly full; Sue had obviously been well-liked on the island. Near the rear of the church, a melancholy-eyed young man in a gray pin-striped suit sat next to an elderly woman, holding his hat awkwardly in his lap; she wore a yellow-flowered housedress and purple cardigan over mismatched knee socks and L.L.Bean boots, and her hair was pinned up in a braided coronet.
Readings, responses, remembrances.To everything there is a season. The Lord is my shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life.Willow wondered why, with a whole Bible to choose from, people tended to choose the exact same readings for every single memorial service.
At one point, Willow realized she and Patricia were not alone in the organ loft; a man in an unadorned and unfashionable black suit had slipped upstairs unnoticed and taken a seat in the opposite corner of the loft. His well-groomed beard was peppered with silver, and his dark hair was neatly slicked back; his eyes, dark and sharp, roved the room as restlessly as Willow’s. He caught her looking at him—of course he did, she thought, given her utter lackof social skills and subtlety—and gave her a courteous nod before focusing again on the service. Embarrassed, she turned back to face the front of the church and attempted to do the same.
Finally, Reverend Barton made his closing remarks, inviting everyone to a casual reception that afternoon at Diana’s Café and Antiques—presumably named for the pastry chef and antiques dealer Geralt had referred to earlier. Patricia lurched through the final hymn and, with a false smile and glance full of venom, slipped off the organ bench for Willow to take the postlude.
Willow took her seat and set the stops for her favorite Bach work. She poised her hands and feet over the keyboards and began to play.
The church’s organwas far too small to render Bach’s massive passacaglia and fugue in anything like its proper glory, but Willow didn’t care; she doubted any organ scholars were present to criticize her repertoire choices. Once the music had died out, Willow quietly packed up; she shoved her musical scores and battered shoes back into her backpack, closed the swell box and powered down the organ, and slid off the bench. Most of the church had emptied out by now, and both Patricia and the unfamiliar man had departed.
She debated hiding in the organ loft till everyone was gone, but the thought of Mrs. Patricia Ramsey coming up to chase her out was enough to stop that plan in its tracks. She quietly made her way down the choir loft steps—but halted before stepping out into the open church foyer. Two men’s voices were engaged in hushed argument.
“We had an agreement, Talbot. The old lady’s gone and the lesbian’s out of the way, so for God’s sake, get on with it!”
Willow’s breath seized in her chest, like someone had punched her hard in the gut. She stood motionless, pressed tightly against the wall.
“The deal’s off,” she heard Geralt Talbot say bluntly. “I’ve had a better offer. You’re out.”
Silence hung in the air; then the second man spoke, his voice soft but threatening. “Think carefully about this, old man.”
“You sayI’mthe one who needs to be careful?” Geralt growled back. “I suggest you remember who you are dealing with.Icall the shots on this island. If I decide you’re not a man I choose to do business with, what are you going to do? Sue me for breach of contract? You’re the one conspiring to commit felonies here, so I wouldn’t—”
“Prove it,” the other voice challenged. “And before you even try, remember how many skeletons are inyourcloset, old man. It takes two to conspire. Be very careful before you think about crossing me.”
“I don’t need to,” Talbot scoffed. “You’re deluded if you believe you hold any power over me. Now get out; what are you thinking bringing this to me today? Show a little respect.”
The other man murmured, his voice so low Willow had to strain to hear, “Oh, I’ll show respect. I’ll show it at your funeral too, old man. After all, when someone with one foot already in the grave kicks the bucket, how hard are they going to look for a cause of death?”
The stage-whispered words hung in the air ominously.
Geralt’s voice dropped even lower, as though he had moved closer to the other man. “I would suggest you mind your tone, you sniveling lowlife. There are no more Camerons; I’mliterallythe end of the line. And you need me. You all need me. Do not ever—ever—threaten me again.” He paused. “Now get out.”
