The woods were like walls around the castle, a long, straight line, a right angle, and another long straight line, the same over and over. The castle was boxed in by dense forest that was made impassable, in most spots, by thick, tangled weeds and vines along the perimeter. It was like a fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, I think? The one with the impenetrable thicket of thorns. Once I got closer, I was eerily aware of something watching me, and I saw a spot of orange that melted back into the gloomy gray and green. The attack cat again, supposedly Becket, Uncle Melvyn’s faithful companion. But I was too distracted by the magnificence of the forest, and by a realization that struck me as I stood and stared. A pattern emerged in my vision. The trees were mostly lined up in perfect rows, like marching soldiers. “I wonder if the Wynter family planted all of these trees,” I said, pointing out the straight lines to Shilo.

“That sure doesn’t look natural.” She shivered.

Doc English had said my grandfather and Uncle Melvyn had planted trees. Could this forest be the results of their labor? “Someday I’d like to take a walk in there.”

“Someday,” Shilo agreed, “but not tonight.”

It was getting dark and the moon was rising. The cool breeze had become cold. “Okay,” I said and laughed, linking my arm through hers. “We’ll head back now.”

I made us cocoa, and we drank it, then headed upstairs. As we got ready for bed, I told her about my day—we kept both ends of the Jack and Jill bathroom open to talk to each other, then closed it at night—and my run-in with Tom Turner. “I don’t know what is up with him. Big galoot.” Uneasy, I looked out my window at the Bobcat excavator, and beyond to the black woods. “I wish McGill wouldn’t leave the excavator here. It’s like an invitation.”

“Can’t be helped,” Shilo said. “It’s too slow to drive it back and forth from town, and he doesn’t have a trailer to carry it. He’s locked it down. That’s the best he can do.”

“I know. Good night, sweetie.” I waved to her, grateful beyond words for her companionship, and closed my door, collapsing in bed and burrowing my face in sweet-smelling linen. It was weird living with someone else’s stuff, but in a week or so I’d have all my belongings from the storage locker in Manhattan. The castle, as big and cavernous as it was, was beginning to feel like home, since I had constructed a bedroom “nest” with some of my familiar stuff around me, and was working on the same for the kitchen. I was undecided if my increasing comfort in Wynter Castle was a good thing or a bad thing.

Despite the peace of falling asleep after a vigorous day, my dreams were tumultuous; in them I confronted various weird folks, asking them about my father as a child. Then I was running across the lawn of the castle, dodging huge holes made by giant badgers. I could feel them underground. It was like a scene from Tremors, a movie that always makes me laugh when I catch it on late-night TV.

And then I woke up. I could still hear and feel the rumble. I dashed to the window, but didn’t see anything. Was it an earthquake, maybe? It wasn’t loud, just a faint vibration. I flung on a housecoat and slippers, and dashed downstairs, through the kitchen and out the pantry door. It takes a lot longer to do that than it does to say it in such a big place. “Darn it!” I yelled. The Bobcat was in action, and someone was digging another damn hole!

I raced back into the kitchen, fished around in my purse to find my cell phone, realized it was either dead or not getting a signal, and grabbed the wall phone receiver, dialing nine-one-one. I yelled my location and emergency, and said that Virgil Grace, sheriff of the Autumn Vale police department, was well aware of the problem. I slammed the phone down and dashed back to the door.

The Bobcat motor was still going, but the operator had stopped digging. Fury was building up in me. Had the coward taken off, leaving the vehicle running? I stood in the open door. No movement. I heard a loud caterwauling a ways off. Maybe that was my feline stalker.

I waited and watched. Still nothing. Finally fed up, I stormed outside toward the excavator, the scent of newly turned earth strong in the air. “Tom Turner, come on out and fight like a man!” I yelled like an idiot. I stopped a ways away. There was no one in the driver’s seat. What the heck?

Just then, the sheriff’s car screamed up my drive, emerging from the woods. He parked it facing the Bobcat, and the bright, halogen headlights illuminated the scene, throwing long, weird shadows over it. Virgil Grace, dressed in a uniform jacket, plaid jammie pants, and little else, bolted out of the car leaving the engine running and lights flashing. “Stop, Merry! Don’t move another inch. Let me handle this.”

“There’s no one in it,” I said, waving my hand toward the machine.

He threw open his trunk and emerged from it with a big, square flashlight, then trained the light on the scene. “Tom, you there?” he called out.

Aha! So he did think it was probably Tom Turner! “There’s his red-and-black-plaid jacket, on the edge of the hole!” I said, as we walked toward it.

The chug of the motor and the smell of the raw earth he had just opened will forever haunt me and take me back to that moment. Together, Virgil and I looked over the edge of the hole, where Tom’s jacket lay, and the sheriff shone his flashlight down into it. At the bottom was the still form of Tom Turner, dressed as I had seen him earlier that day. Shilo, in her robe and slippers, was loping toward us asking what was going on.

“Oh, no!” I cried, hands over my mouth.

“Damn it!” Virgil shouted. “Tom? Tom, you okay?” He whirled and handed me the flashlight. “Shine this down in the hole and don’t waver.” He grabbed a handful of weeds at the top of the hole and gingerly lowered himself near the guy, kneeling at his side as I tried to angle the flashlight beam as best as I could so Virgil could see what he was doing. I couldn’t get close enough, and picked up a long piece of metal, which threatened to spill down on the cop and Turner, tossed it aside, then shone the light on the guy’s face.

There was blood, I could see that, as Shilo picked her way close and grabbed my arm, trembling. Virgil tried to rouse Turner, but then looked up. He shook his head. “He’s dead. Murdered.”

I was shocked, and stammered, “M-maybe he just fell and hit his head.”

Virgil grabbed a hank of roots and clambered up out of the hole. “No,” he said tersely, dusting the dirt off his hands. “You two, come with me,” he said, and headed toward his car.

We followed, holding onto each other like frightened bunnies.

“What’s going on?” Shilo whispered.

“I don’t know,” I muttered.

“Sit in the back for a few minutes,” he said, opening up the back of his sheriff’s car and motioning us to slide in. “You’ll stay warmer.”

“We could just go back to the castle.” I said.

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I can’t let you go until I get your statement, check your hands for defensive wounds, and fingerprint you.”

“Defensive . . . fingerprint . . . what?” I was stunned. “What’s this all about?” I was not going to be cowed into acquiescence.

Virgil faced me, his expression grim in the shadowy flash of the roof lights. “Look, Merry, everybody in town has been talking about how you threatened Tom Turner in Binny’s Bakery today. She called me to complain.”

“But Merry was just telling him to keep off the castle property, or else!” Shilo cried, clinging to my arm.

“Exactly,” Virgil said, over the thrum of the excavator engine. “And tonight he came back. And now he’s dead.”

Chapter Nine