Free Moonshadows by Mary Ann Artrip Page B

careful. I’m afraid my mind was more scattered than these groceries.”
    He stood and wiped his hands on the sides of his raincoat.
    “Can I help you inside?”
    Still holding the picture album and clutching a single orange, Janet shook her head and hurried away. She would clean up the mess later. She stuck her key into the lock of unit seven and thumbed down the latch. As she stepped though the doorway, she glanced back over her shoulder. The stranger was still standing on the sidewalk watching her. With a jerk of his body, he turned and walked away.
    Janet flipped the light switch, let her shoulders go slack, and sagged against the closed door. The warm apartment closed in around her like a lover’s embrace and fulfilled her desperate need for a great deal of comfort. But this time the comfort was mixed with a bittersweet homecoming. There would be no more calls to Heather Down —her haven from the world. The one constant in Janet’s life was gone.
    Streams of water trickled from her jacket and puddled around her feet, darkening the carpet. Tiptoeing around the edge of the living room, she stepped to the shiny tile of the kitchen and dumped the contents of her arms on the table. Her clothes felt heavy and clung hard to her body. She peeled them away and let them fall to the floor.
    Moments later Janet slid into a steaming tub and set her mind adrift; it drifted to gardens and tall grass and towers. And gravesites. And she felt more alone than ever before in her life. Soon the water cooled and goose bumps puckered her arms and she was forced to crawl out and reach for her favorite robe.
    After a supper of grilled cheese and tomato soup, Janet carried a cup of hot tea and the photo album to the sofa and tucked her legs beneath her body. Running her fingers over the cover, she touched cracks in the leather. They were like raw sores that refused to heal. Now she knew why the album had ceased to be maintained, what lay behind the disruption of the Lancaster line. Where are they now, she wondered? Aunt Isabella and Etienne? Her wonderings short and without answers, were interrupted by the telephone. She stretched to the end of the sofa for the receiver.
    “Hello.”
    There was the faintest chuckle: “Riddle me out. Riddle me in. Now’s the time the fun begins.”
    “Sorry, you must have the wrong number.” Janet laughed. “No big deal, I misdial quite frequently.”
    “I don’t make mistakes.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    There was a tisk-tisking: “Riddle a penny, riddle a pound. Follow the clues and truth will be found.”
    Before Janet could arrange her thoughts to respond to the strange message, the line went dead.
    She frowned. “Riddles and clues?” she repeated. That made no sense. “Why would the caller think I would be interested in riddles?”
    Dismissing the call, she went again to the album. Turning the pages, she looked at the pictures and wished that she had known the people, her family from the past. “If wishes were flowers, we’d all be orchids,” her grandmother used to say.
    Sliding the heavy album onto the coffee table, she stood up, stifled a yawn and started for the bedroom when she remembered the mess left on the sidewalk. She climbed into jeans and a sweatshirt, stuffed her feet into loafers and went out the door. The rain had finally stopped, leaving the air chilled and sharp. She walked down to where the accident had happened. The area, well lit by the many streetlights, showed a neat and tidy sidewalk. Janet was amazed to see that every bit of the mess had been cleaned away. She stood for a moment, hands on her hips, and considered the situation.
    “Well,” she grunted, “the elves have been busy tonight.”
    Back inside the apartment, she flicked the loafers into the closet and they clattered against the back wall. Just as she started to tug the shirt over her head, the chimes of the doorbell sounded.
    He stood there holding a small bag of groceries. Minus the hat, his dark hair,