“Thank goodness that the paint was the kind that washed out with water,” she said. “Otherwise, I think we would have been fired. Sans doute.”
The Inn at the Kuskawa Pioneer Village Park was a two-storey wooden building with several rooms on the top floor, a dining room and parlour on the main floor, and a huge kitchen at the side. The kitchen was a pleasant place to be, because Mrs. Creasor, the staff member who ran it, was always baking something in the big woodstove and liked to see people eating what she made. She always had a big pot of hot apple cider on the stovetop, and as visitors came in to see what an old-fashioned kitchen was like, she offered them a cup of cider and a cookie, or whatever she had just baked.
“You’re like a professional pioneer grandmother,” Alan said, when the three were meeting her.
She laughed. “Sort of,” she said, “but I think the pioneer ones were too busy to fuss over people much. They had to do everything by hand, you know, including the laundry. Oh—you must be the three Mrs. Tench was just talking to me about. She had a wonderful idea today about laundry, and I think she has you three in mind to help us. Now come on in and have a cookie, and explore the inn a little before we start with another job I’ve got for you.”
It was warm in the kitchen, but the windows and doors were open, so it wasn’t stifling, and it smelled wonderful—a mixture of cinnamon and bread, wood smoke and something lemony that Josée said was furniture polish. Just about everything was made of wood, the floors, walls, chairs and tables. There were a few rugs in the parlour, but mostly the whole inn was just smooth, polished or painted wood. The floors creaked a little when you walked on them, and your footsteps echoed. It was very quiet. Not library-quiet, they all agreed, but the sort of quiet that you got when there were no radios or TVs or air conditioners or fridges running. It was peaceful, Alan thought. And sort of sad, in a way he couldn’t quite figure out.
Nobody stayed at the Inn—it was a museum, really. The rooms upstairs were roped off, so you could look in, but not actually touch anything. The museum people had set it up so that it looked like someone was staying in each room, though, with clothes laid out, and some of the beds looking slept-in, old fashioned brushes and perfume bottles on the dressers and slippers on the floor. Josée said it gave her a weird feeling, being up there alone. Mrs. Creasor had sent her upstairs to get an apron from a closet in one of the bedrooms. She had to climb over the rope across the door, and reported to the others when she returned that she had felt a strange tingling feeling, as soon as she crossed over into the room.
“It was like I’d gone back in time,” she said. “Like the person who belonged there had just walked down the hall, but they could come back at any second, and ask me what I was doing in their room.”
“That’s nuts,” Ziggy said. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”
“Oh, I know what she means,” said Mrs. Creasor. “Many’s the time I’ve been up there, tidying up or doing some dusting, and I’ve felt almost a presence watching me. Nothing harmful, you understand, but something, nonetheless. These old places often contain the energies of the past, I think.” She glanced at Josée, who was looking a little pale. “Nothing to be frightened about, though, dear. Now put that apron on, and come and help me peel these apples. I’m making apple pies today, you see, and it’s a big job.”
She handed Josée a small bowl of apples and a peeler, and showed her how to remove the apple skin without taking off too much of the apple at the same time.
“Boys, we’re going to need quite a few more of these. See that tree out there—the one beside the outhouse? That’s your job. You’ll find a bushel basket at the back door. There are quite a few fallen ones on the ground, but they’re not the best for apple pie. There’s a ladder somewhere out there, I think. Don’t be too long. We’ll have these ones peeled in no time.”
Mrs. Creasor bustled to the other side of the kitchen to get something from a cupboard, and Alan leaned down to whisper to Josée.
“She seems to like to talk. See if you can get her to tell you about the other staff members—especially Sheldon and that black-haired girl from the blacksmith’s shop. I’m sure there’s something going on with them. They’re way too prickly. I think they’re hiding something. Okay?”
“Pas de problème,” Josée said. “I am the spy in the women’s quarters, yes?”
“Exactement,” Alan said, and snitched a couple of apple-peelings to chew on the way. “Come on, Zig. We’ve got a tree to climb.”
The day had started out bright and sunny, but it had begun to cloud over. The air was very still, and it felt like a thunderstorm was on the way. As Alan and Ziggy began putting the fallen apples into the basket, a couple of pigs in a pen next to the tree left the muddy shade they’d been lying in and wandered over to poke their snouts through the gaps in the split-rail fence.
“Hungry, guys?” Ziggy said, and rolled a half-squashed apple within reach of the biggest one. It was crunched up in a moment, and the pigs jostled lazily for position, hoping for more, baffing each other aside in a blubbery way, their mouths half-open in piggy grins.
“I like pigs,” Alan said. “They’re sort of comfortable.”
“Smelly, though. I’m glad we weren’t assigned to clean out their pen,” said Ziggy.
“Yeah, how come the gun wasn’t tossed in with them? Nobody would ever have found it.”
“Good point.” Well, the pigs might’ve. They’re smart, I think. If they’d found it, they would have busted outta there and gone on a rampage.”
“Ha. Right—they would have broken into the tourist money safe, then bought tickets to some place where they don’t eat bacon.”
The pigs got the really rotten apples, and the rest were put into the basket, but there weren’t many, so the next job was to pick some of the fruit that was still on the tree. They looked around for a ladder, but not very hard. Climbing without it would be much faster.
Alan, the taller one by several inches, gave Ziggy a hand up, then swung onto the lower branch himself.
“Wait—shouldn’t we take the basket with us?” Ziggy said.
“Yes, Mr. Spock, we’ll haul it up with a rope or something, then when it’s full, we can lower it down without having to carry and climb at the same time.”
Alan went back to the back porch of the inn, where he’d seen a coil of thin rope that would be perfect. Ziggy called out to him, “Hey—if I’m Mr. Spock, and I’m guessing you’re Kirk, who’s Josée?”
“Maybe Dr. McCoy?” Alan called back.
“A friendly alien,” she said, coming up behind him. “Madame Creasor heard you at the back door and wants to know where the apples are.”
“We’ve got some you can take, but we haven’t picked any from the tree, yet,” Alan said.
Josée came over with him and filled her apron pockets with the ones in the bottom of the basket.
“Not many here,” she said. “We’re too fast for you, yes?” She looked up. “Whoa! You’re very high, Ziggy.” Ziggy had climbed up a good way, and they could only see his feet through the branches. There were lots of apples up there, at least, and some of them had fallen while he was climbing. Alan started picking