Quinton and I had done some reading up on the museum and historical society during breakfast. The building had been the summer home of the Lamb-Davis sawmill’s owners, and then the local banker’s house for many years before becoming a bed-and-breakfast, and then the museum. There’d been some information about it online, but not much else about any other buildings, much less one with a labyrinth—plenty about Spring Bird Fest, though, which was upcoming at the museum in a week. I couldn’t say I was sorry to miss it, since I was just as glad not to be eyed by the wild raptors of the local bird rescue group or surrounded by children in songbird costumes. The old house was far enough removed from Front Street to still be peaceful that morning and the clear, constant babble of the river seemed to calm the chorus in my mind, so sitting and waiting suited me fine.
Two women in their late fifties arrived on foot at 10:45. They smiled at us and waved. “We’ll be open in just a few minutes,” one of them called to us. “Just sit tight a bit longer.” They began unlocking and setting up the museum to welcome the day’s visitors. One of them struggled out carrying a sandwich board events sign and Quinton jumped up to help her take it down the steps to the driveway. I drifted toward the door she’d left ajar and slid inside the building.
The house wasn’t very large, at least not on the main floor, and I imagined the one basement floor didn’t add much living space. I found myself in a wide, shallow entry with doors on each side and an open post-and-beam arch ahead of me. The remaining woman stepped out of the doorway on my left, which was labeled “Gift Shop.” She was a soft-looking woman, a little round everywhere without being fat, her blond hair fading but not to silver. She was wearing a brown sweater set over camel-colored trousers and brown loafers that cost more than I made in a week.
She jumped with surprise when she saw me. “Oh, we’re not quite open yet. . . .”
“Actually, I’m looking for some information about an old house in the area. It must have been torn down or otherwise destroyed about two years ago.”
“Oh. A house. We don’t knock down many houses around here, you know. Most are historic one way or another.”
“This one may have been historic in its way. Apparently it was very old, at least two stories, in one of the orchards, and it had a maze or labyrinth on the property.”
“Oh. A labyrinth. In the orchard. My, my. That must have been the Rose house.”
“Rose house? Was that a family name or did that refer to roses on the property?” Maybe I needed to look for rosebushes as well as apple trees. . . .
“No, no. I’d have to look it up to get the family name of the owners, but the house was called Rosaceae originally and it got shortened over time to Rose.”
An electric current seemed to run through me when she said the original name. That was one of the words I’d heard from the voices of the grid: “rosaceae.” I could feel the humming delight of the chorus tingling over my nerves. “That’s a funny name for a house,” I said, coughing a little on the grid’s excitement.
“It’s the scientific name for the plant family both apples and roses belong to.”
“Apples and roses?” I wouldn’t have imagined them to be related.
She smiled a bit smugly. “Yes. Roses, apples, hawthorn, cherries . . . they’re all part of Rosaceae. My family planted some of the earliest apple trees in this valley.”
I noticed she didn’t say “the first.” I shook my head as if amazed. “You must know a lot about the area, then—and the fruit trees.”
“Oh, I do!”
“Why did the owner give the house such an odd name?”
“I don’t think anyone’s sure. Except that he was very eccentric. He didn’t lay out his orchard in the usual way, either—not in square rows but in a kind of crazy radial pattern around the house and the maze. So the most efficient way to harvest the fruit was to spiral out from the middle or in from the edge. Except you couldn’t, since the house took up a big square in one quarter of the array. And the orchard wasn’t all apple trees, either. Some pear and cherry were mixed in, too, though that isn’t really wise if you’re producing commercial fruit.”
The other woman reentered with Quinton at her heels. Up close, she was plainly the subordinate of the pair: Her hair was cheaply dyed, her clothes weren’t so expensive or well maintained, and her complexion bore the ruddy marks of a harder, more outdoor life, though they were otherwise much alike. “Janice,” she puffed, “this young man—oh.” She caught sight of me and came to a sudden halt. “Oh, well, here she is, then.” She turned and looked at Quinton. “Here she is! This is your lady friend, isn’t it?”
Quinton nodded. “Yep, that’s her. Thanks for helping me find her.”
The other woman blushed. “Oh, it’s nothing. Thank you for your help with the sign and the garage doors—they’re so heavy!” This last declaration came with a sharp look askance at Janice.
Janice ignored that. “Belinda, do you remember the Rose house?”
“The house in the crazy orchard on North Road? I sure do. They finally tore the old wreck down about two years ago.”
I turned to look at her more directly. “Why was it torn down?” I asked her.
She rolled her eyes and made half a grin of shameful pleasure. “The upper story caught fire once—don’t know why it didn’t light the trees—but after it was put out, it just sat there for years. No one lived in it and it was turning into a real danger. The kids from the high school would come out and dare each other to go in at night and do something foolish like take something or paint their name on something. Crazy things like that. I did it too when I was a kid, but Nils and I—he’s my husband now—we got chased off before we could get in trouble.”
“Who chased you off if no one lived there?”
“Well, that’s why it was such a big dare. People said the house was haunted. There was always strange stuff going on around there. Lights at night in the trees, wolves and bears and rabid raccoons running around. And oh my God, the crows! Crows used to nest all over the orchard, even when there wasn’t any fruit, and they’d dive-bomb you if you tried to walk through it.”
“Animals chased you off?” I asked.
She nodded. “Oh, yes. I think it was a bear—just a little bear, mind, but a bear all the same. I couldn’t swear, because I didn’t see it very well in the dark and it’s been a long time, but it smelled bad and it growled and charged us, and we ran like the dickens!”
“Oh, Belinda, it couldn’t have been a bear all the way down there,” Janice chided.
Belinda dropped her eyes to the floor for a moment. “Well, I said I wasn’t sure. It might have been a dog, maybe. . . .”
“I don’t know,” Quinton speculated. “It’s not that far from the hills. If the deer come down, why not the bears?”
“Well, yes. Now, that’s what I thought,” Belinda said, shooting a defiant glance at Janice.
Janice sighed as if indulging a child, but said nothing.
“Where was this house?” I asked Belinda.
“Out near the old cemetery.” This just got better and better, didn’t it?
“Could you tell me how to find it?”
“Certainly!” She crossed the room in a few strides and grabbed a handful of flyers about donating to the museum and wrote on the back of one. “See, you go up Division here to Highway Two. Turn right. Then you go just a little ways to Two-Oh-Nine—that’s Chumstick Highway—and you turn left, which is going to be northerly. Then you go on up Chumstick just a mile, past the county shop yard, and turn right onto North Road.” Belinda drew and lettered a map as she talked. Her printing was precise and very quick, her demeanor entirely confident as she worked. I hated to interrupt her.