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CHAPTER 1

She built the fire at twilight, and by the time the sky had filled with stars, a welcome blaze lit the campsite. For a long time, the two young women didn’t talk but sat together, staring into the flames.

“Are you sorry you came back?” This woman had long hair, night-sky black, and spoke with the accent of someone whose first language was Spanish.

“No, but it’s going to be rough.” The second woman, the one who’d built the fire, had red hair cut short, and she spoke with a flat Midwest accent. “My life has been about so much that hasn’t included them.”

“This is your home. They are your family.”

The redhead took her companion’s hand and kissed it gently. “You’re my family now. My home.”

“You need to tell them.”

“I will. When the time is right.” She saw that her companion was hugging herself. “Cold?”

“I am used to hot and humid.”

“This is hot for Minnesota. Here, let me help.” She wrapped her arms tenderly around her companion.

“You told them I was coming?” the black-haired woman asked. “A friend. That’s all I said.”

“What? Not even ‘a good friend’?”

“This isn’t about me. My brother’s getting married. I don’t want to steal his thunder.”

“We could make it a double wedding ceremony.”

“How many times do I have to tell you no?” the red-haired woman said.

“You don’t love me?”

“You know I do. And you know why we can’t marry.” “I will love you always.”

“And I you.”

Again they were quiet.

“What did you call this place?” the black-haired woman asked. “Bizaan. It’s an Ojibwe word that means at peace. The white folks call it Still Island. I used to come here whenever I needed to

figure things out.” “And the lake?” “Iron Lake.”

“When we went swimming today, it didn’t feel like hard water.” The black-haired woman smiled. “When will we go to your family?”

“Tomorrow. I wanted today to be just for us. After this, things could get complicated.”

“They are your family. They will understand.” “In time.”

As the fire died, they laid out the blankets they’d brought on a bed of soft pine needles. The red-haired young woman stared up at the sky. Although the night was warm, the stars seemed to shiver. She’d known the night skies in Minnesota well as a child. In Guatemala, there were constellations and stars she’d never seen before. In the years since she’d left Tamarack County, Annie O’Connor’s world had expanded in ways she’d never dreamed possible. But now she was back, and although she knew she would be welcomed with open arms, there was something inside her that was alien, that would hurt the people she loved, that would, in its way, come to threaten them all.

 

               CHAPTER 2

“Can I eat some while I fill my bucket?” Waaboo asked.

“A few,” his father, Daniel, said. “But leave some for the rest of us.”

“And for the animals,” his uncle Stephen added. Waaboo looked confused.

“Always leave plenty of blueberries on the bushes for the other creatures we share the forest with,” Cork, who was his grandfather, explained.

They were driving down an old logging road just south of the Iron Lake Reservation, heading toward the patch that had been the locale of wild blueberry picking for the O’Connor family since before Cork was born. Many families in Tamarack County, Minnesota, had secret places for picking, patches whose locations were passed down as part of the heritage from one generation to the next. This outing was for the men of the O’Connor clan: Cork, the patriarch; Stephen, his twenty-three-old son; Daniel English, Cork’s son-in-law; and Waaboo, Cork’s seven-year-old grandson. The little boy’s real name was Aaron Smalldog O’Connor. It was Stephen who, long ago, had given him the nickname Waaboo, which in the language of the Ojibwe people meant little rabbit.

“What eats blueberries besides us?” Waaboo asked.

“Bears and skunks and deer. And other waaboos,” Daniel said, ruffling his son’s hair.

“And lots of birds,” Stephen said.

Waaboo’s little brow furrowed in concern. “Maybe they’ve eaten them all by now.”

“Don’t worry,” Cork assured him. “Our blueberry patch has always produced enough for the animals and for us.”

It was mid-July of a summer that had so far been ideal. The morning air was sharp with the clean scent of pine. The sky was an arch of pure blue. Cork’s heart was full of gratitude. Stephen had been gone for two years, or mostly gone, finishing his degree at the University of Minnesota. Although he’d returned for brief visits, his focus was on his education. And on his girlfriend, now fiancée.

“Nervous at all about the wedding?” Daniel asked. “Still six weeks to change your mind.”

“Belle’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” Stephen said. “Besides, all the arrangements have been made.”

“If you ever decide to leave this family,” Cork said, “we keep Belle.”

“Leave?” Waaboo said.

“Just kidding, little guy,” Cork said. “And here we are.”

They’d circumnavigated a bog area and Cork parked on solid ground among a stand of birch. The men and the boy got out and grabbed their pails from the back of Cork’s Expedition.

“Where are the blueberries?” Waaboo said. “I don’t see any.”

“We have to walk a little,” Cork told him. “We don’t want anybody passing by to see where our patch is.”

“Nobody’s here,” Waaboo pointed out.

“You never know who might be watching,” Daniel said with a wink. “A good blueberry patch is worth more than gold.”

They skirted the bog, following a path almost impossible to see because it was trod only in July, when the blueberries of the North Country had ripened. As they walked, Cork studied the ground with growing concern.

“Somebody’s been here,” he said quietly. “How do you know?” Waaboo asked.

“See all those broken plants?” Cork pointed toward a growth of rattlesnake ferns in front of them. “Somebody’s trampled their way through. And there.” He pointed toward a footprint in soft dirt.

Waaboo looked up at his grandfather. “Were they after our blueberries?”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Cork said.

The patch lay on the far side of the bog. When they arrived, Cork and the others stood staring at the ravaged bushes.

“They picked everything,” Stephen said.

“Didn’t even leave something for the animals,” Daniel said. Waaboo looked devastated. “Who were they?”

“Hard to say,” Cork replied. “Six-one-twoers, I’m guessing.

Folks from around here would be more respectful.” “Six-one-twoers?” Waaboo asked.

“It used to be the only area code for the Twin Cities,” Cork explained. “Not true anymore, little guy, but up here we still call them that, the people who come up from the Cities and trample everything.”

“No blueberries,” Waaboo said, clearly distraught.

“We’ll get blueberries, don’t worry,” Cork assured him. “I know another place.”

In dismal silence, they returned to the Expedition and Cork started back toward Iron Lake.

“Where to now, Dad?” Stephen asked.

“You remember an old Finn named Erno Paavola?” “Not well.”

“I did a little bit of PI work for him, three or four years ago. He couldn’t pay in money, so he brought me three full buckets of blueberries, the biggest I’ve seen around here. He was a man who liked his liquor, and he was a little drunk when he gave me the buckets. He told me they’d come from his own private blueberry patch near his cabin. He passed away not long after I did the work for him. He had no family left around here, so I figure it’s up for grabs.”

“Where is it?” Daniel asked. “A few miles southeast.”

“What if somebody already picked everything?” Waaboo said.

“Don’t worry,” Cork assured him. “Erno told me his patch was protected by gnomes.”

“Gnomes?” Waaboo said.

“You know about Irish leprechauns, right? Gnomes are kind of like Scandinavian leprechauns.”

Cork drove the county road south, then east two miles on gravel, and finally turned in to the ruts of a dirt lane that cut through a stand of mixed pine and spruce as it mounted a hill. In a clearing near the top of the rise, a cabin stood amid tall wild grass.

“Paavola’s place,” Cork said.

“Looks run-down,” Daniel said. “Abandoned?”

“As far as I know. But it looked pretty run-down when Erno lived here.”

Daniel nodded toward a little structure off to the side of the cabin. “An outhouse?”

“Erno lived off the grid,” Cork said. “Kept things primitive. He was sure the end of the world was just around the corner, and only those who were prepared to live without all the modern crap, as he put it, would survive.”

“Where are the blueberries?” Waaboo asked.

“I’m guessing we might have to walk a bit,” Cork said. “There better be blueberries,” Waaboo warned.

Cork led the way to the rear of the cabin, where the wild grass ran another thirty yards to the forest edge. He stood a moment, scanning the trees.

“What are you looking for?” Stephen asked. “The gnomes,” Cork said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Daniel said. “Erno seemed pretty serious.”

“I’ll find them.” Waaboo ran ahead, bounding through the tall grass.

“Spread out,” Cork said.

The men fanned out, but before they’d taken more than a few steps, Waaboo cried, “Here they are!”

At the edge of the tree line stood two little gnomes, each four feet high, carved from the stumps of a couple of hardwood trees cut down long ago. They’d been brightly painted at one time but now wore only the faintest tatters of color.

“And there’s the path,” Cork said. “Not much of a path,” Stephen noted.

“Let’s go.” Waaboo started quickly ahead.

They followed the little boy along the faint trace of a trail through the evergreens. A few minutes later, they came to another clearing, where the sun smiled down on a field of scrub under- growth, a mix of pine seedlings and June grass and lupines. Among the other wild flora were squat green bushes on which berries hung like tiny bulbs on Christmas trees.

“Blueberries!” Waaboo said.

“Move carefully,” Daniel cautioned. “We don’t want to destroy any of the plants.”

“I’ll be careful,” Waaboo promised and wandered into the patch.

“Quite a find,” Stephen noted.

Cork grinned. “Wouldn’t have known where to look except for those gnomes.”

“And a drunk and cash-strapped Finn,” Stephen said.

They’d picked for a few minutes when Cork noticed Waaboo, who was a dozen yards away, kneeling on the ground beside his bucket, staring straight ahead, his lips moving as if he were talking with someone. Then the little boy stood and came to his father, who was not far from Cork.

“Daddy, she’s lost,” Waaboo said. “Who?” Daniel replied.

Waaboo pointed to where he’d been picking. “The lady. She’s lost and she’s sad.”

They were alone in the clearing, the men and the boy.

“Wait here.” Daniel walked to where Waaboo had left his bucket, looked around a bit, then down at the ground. In a voice that spoke trouble, he said, “Cork, you need to see this.”

Cork joined him, and Stephen came, too. The men stood at the edge of a small, mounded area that was almost clean of vegetation. The mound was five feet long and a couple of feet wide.

“Is that what I think it is?” Daniel said.

A few moments of silence passed, then Stephen ventured, “Olivia Hamilton?”

Cork slowly scanned the blueberry patch and the clearing, then the azure arch of the sky above. It was such a lovely scene, so peaceful, at least on the surface. He forced himself to look again at the mounding of earth at his feet.

“We won’t know until we dig,” he said. “I’d best call our sheriff.”

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