Free Fog Magic by Julia L. Sauer Page A

stepping into a cinema near the end of a picture when she could only guess at all that had gone before. The Morrills were willing enough to answer questions, but often Greta had a queer feeling that even they might not know the answers. Perhaps she herself sometimes knew better than they. Surely this was true about Ann and it was true, too, about the widow of Captain Cornwall. Laleah. Cornwall was a favorite topic of conversation among the women who brought their knitting or mending over to Mrs. Morrill’s pleasant kitchen on foggy afternoons. At such times Greta would sit on the floor with Princess in her lap and listen as they discussed the widow Cornwall. Laleah was a rich woman now. She could even have as smart a pair of horses as Mrs. Trask’s if she wished. Would she marry again? they wondered, or would she be content to stay on in her girlhood home and grow old, another of the solitary widows with whom the province abounds? The tongues of her neighbors might have been softer if they had known that, worn out by genuine grief, she was so soon to follow the captain over the mountain to the cemetery on the other side. But only Greta knew that.
    There were some questions that Greta was sure her father could answer. What, for instance, had happened to the village of Blue Cove itself? Prosperous villages didn’t turn into a cluster of sod-covered cellar holes over night. If some persons in such towns made fortunes and moved away, there were always others to stay on and live and die in the homes of their fathers. But it was a question she could never ask.
    Perhaps the strangest part of all this queer and lovely experience was that she was sure in her heart that her father as a boy had known Blue Cove as she knew it. She had caught a look on his face sometimes when she had come home in the early dusk of a foggy day that was more than welcome. It was more like the way her mother had looked when Greta had come home once from a visit to grandmother’s—an eager look, begging for news of loved ones. Once, too, Father had brought some gentians from a trip inland.
    â€œ ‘Her eyes are as blue as the gentian,’ ” he quoted, and then added, “did you ever see eyes as blue as the gentian, Greta?”
    â€œNever except Mrs. Morrill’s,” Greta had answered without thinking and caught her breath for fear he would ask some embarrassing question. But he didn’t. Still, why had she been so sure that he heard and understood and was pleased? His only reply had been to tell her, quite casually, that the gentians would look well in the pink luster pitcher.
    But Greta seldom wasted time in wondering. She was busy and happy in clear weather. And if the strange fog —born as it was of the northern ice and the tropic sea —had a magic power to enfold her in another life, she saw no need to be anything but happy there, too.
    It was very pleasant to find Retha waiting for her at the Sentinel Rocks one day and looking unusually excited for such a quiet girl. “I just couldn’t have borne it if you hadn’t come today!” were her first words. “What do you think’s happened?” she went on. She gave Greta no chance to speak. “Mrs. Stanton is back from Halifax! She’s at Mrs. Trask’s and she’s coming over to tea!”
    Greta was just as excited. “Did she see the Duke of Kent?” she asked.
    â€œWe don’t know, but she must have, because she looks so happy. Anyhow she laughed when Mother asked her. And now you’ll be here when she tells us about it! I’ve got to hurry right back. I promised Mother I’d butter the bread for tea. She will slice it because I never can get it thin enough, and you can help me butter it. We’ll need loads of it because everybody’s coming.”
    They raced on down the Old Road together and turned into the village street. Anthony was peering out between the pickets in his fence corner with