Free The Secret of Raven Point by Jennifer Vanderbes Page A

think of. She tracks everyone’s birthday in a calendar and arranges festivities.
    Bernice keeps to herself and suffers from awful insomnia. She seems to knit herself to sleep. My first night here, before bed, her face all greasy with cold cream, she sat there for hours with a ball of yarn in her lap and two knitting needles clicking and clacking like they were having a sword fight. Everyone calls her “Bernether.” But Glenda loves her. She told me thatBernice lost her parents to the influenza epidemic in 1918 and grew up in orphanages. So I try to be as forgiving as possible.
    The girls swear this tent can be collapsed and packed in under an hour, but from the look of it, you’d think we were settled in for the long haul. Glenda decorated it with purple and yellow silks she bought in Rome and some silver trinkets from North Africa.
    It’s been raining nonstop, so Glenda put Vaseline along the tent seams and that stops the dripping for a few hours at a time. It’s cozy. We have a little woodstove, but haven’t had a moment yet to cook so we make do with rations and what the mess gives us.
    Forgive me again for the way I left, but here is where I can make the most difference.
    Love,
    Juliet
    Juliet studied her final words. She had never told her father and Pearl that she enlisted to try to get close to where Tuck went missing, and if they guessed it, they had opted to avoid a confrontation. When she had written from Basic Training, they accepted her explanation of patriotic duty. And she had dutifully written once a week, sometimes twice, always careful to clarify she was in no danger, and always careful not to mention Tuck. Yet it was now unavoidable; the question was crucial. She added:
    PS: I’ve a new patient who served in the same unit as Tuck—Private Christopher Barnaby. Do you recall Tuck writing about him? It’s possible some old letters arrived since I left. Please let me know.
    She sealed the letter.
    Outside the rain had lightened, and in the gray mist Juliet trudged toward the Post Exchange, where a small supply convoyhad parked in a tidy line. Empty barrels flanked the massive water truck. Beside the mailbox, where she slipped her letter, a stocky young man jumped down from an army truck. He reached back for two black suitcases, a white cross on the side of each, and curled them to his chin like free weights.
    “They sent a new chaplain before they sent plasma?” Juliet blurted.
    “Reporting for duty with the 42nd Field Hospital.” His hair was dark brown, neatly combed, thinning slightly at the front, though he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. His nose was large and beak-like, his eyes small and dark and alert. Pinpricks of acne clustered beneath his temples.
    “Father MacDougal fell ill just a few days ago,” she said.
    The chaplain tilted his head. “My understanding is that Father MacDougal fell ill a very long, long time ago.” He set down his cases and surveyed the area. The silver crosses pinned to his lapels glinted in the light. “Tents, tents, and tents.”
    “Just try not to confuse the outhouse and the shower house,” she said.
    “Simon Reardon.” He extended his hand. “Army Chaplain Corps.”
    “Juliet Dufresne. Army Nurse Corps.”
    His handshake was authoritative, but his smile was boyish, buoyant. Around his neck hung a long, thick chain with an ornate crucifix, nearly the size of her index finger. She’d never before seen anything like it.
    “The abbot lent it to me,” he explained. “For protection.”
    The abbot. He was a monk, then. Juliet didn’t quite believe in God, and certainly not in all the hoopla of Christianity, but it seemed wise to be friendly to a chaplain—just in case. She worried her haggard and sleep-deprived stare had been impolite.
    “If you’d like, I can show you to Major Decker’s tent,” she said.
    “I’m here to tend to the soul,” he said, “and the spirit and essentially whatever else pops up beforeme. You, though