Free Blame It On The Mistletoe - A Novel of Bright's Pond by Joyce Magnin

about that test."
    I looked at him and smiled. "Schedule it."
    After securing Matilda, Cliff and I walked back to my truck.
    "Can I give you a lift?" I asked.
    "Sure. Back to the Kincaids. I promised Nate I'd help him with that tractor again."
    "I don't know why he just doesn't buy a new one."
    Cliff climbed into the cab and closed the door. "Oh, I suspect a man's tractor is a little like a man's airplane. He'll keep it going until she quits for the last time. It's comfortable. Got the seat just where he wants it."
    I pulled up to the Kincaid's house. "Are you going to the Blessing of the Fountain?" I asked.
    "The what?" Cliff said. "Blessing of the Fountain?"
    "Yes, up at Paradise. Some guy named Leon Fontaine, he just moved into a trailer, rebuilt the fountain, and got it running again. They're having a blessing."
    "Oh, boy, it sounds . . . boring."
    "No, no. It'll be great. Bet there will be some great food and it could be kind of fun."
    Cliff jumped out of the truck and closed the door. He leaned into the window. "Oh, I was meaning to ask you since you seem to know everything that goes on around here. Is there any truth to the latest rumor?"
    "The one about Greenbrier?"
    "Yeah, Stella said the talk is that the residents are getting drugged and acting weird. Nobody really knows what's going on."
    "More likely somebody found the Fountain of Youth," I said. "But seriously, yeah, something is going up there. It's weird, Cliff. They do seem to have been bitten by a bug of some sort."
    Cliff waved. "Now I've heard everything. The Fountain of Youth in Bright's Pond. Ponce de León is rolling over in his grave."
    That was when I saw Stella on the porch. She wore a pair of blue sweat pants and a floppy flannel shirt. She waved. "Stay for supper."
    "I can't," I called. "I need to get over to see Agnes."
    "OK, maybe another night."
    "Count on it," I said.
     

     
    I found Agnes smack-dab in the middle of another altercation of sorts. It seems this time Clive Dickens and Faith Graves have decided to tie the knot but their family members are making a stink. Over money. It's always over money. Who cares if these two young, I mean old, people are in love?
    Agnes, still the go-to person for anyone's troubles, was in between Clive Dickens and his son, Wilfred. It looked a little strange to see the two of them on either side of Agnes's chair. But I figured it was the chair that was keeping them from each other's throats the way they were squabbling and pointing fingers at each other.
    "Now, Wilfred," Agnes said. "Don't you want your daddy happy?"
    "Happy shmappy," the tall, gangly—and I must say, ugly— man said. His face was so chiseled and pockmarked from acne scars it looked as though he was wearing a plastic mask. He wore Levi's jeans and a striped button-down shirt. Pink and green stripes—thin as thread.
    "I can't let you marry that woman, Daddy," Wilfred said. "We'll lose our inheritance to her and her family."
    Money, I thought. Why is it always about money?
    "But you don't understand," Clive said. "If you'd only listen and care more about us than yourself you'd know, she's got no family left, Willy. She outlived all five of her children. You'd be her kin."
    Wilfred backed away and looked out the window.
    "Imagine that," Agnes said. "She outlived all her children. Five. I can't even begin to know that pain. And now all she wants to do is get married and maybe have a family again, even for a little while."
    "Ah, Daddy, I'm sorry."
    "You should be, you dumb-dumb. And I'll have you know that woman, your future mother, is worth more money than three of me."
    Wilfred turned around just as his wife sauntered into the room.
    "What's going on?" she asked.
    "Your husband is being very selfish," Agnes said.
    "Wilfred Dickens," the woman said. "What did you do now? If you did anything to lose our mon—" She stopped talking.
    "That does it," Clive said. "I have decided to bequeath all our money, mine and Faith's, to Greenbrier and the