Lakeshore Christmas

THE CHARM SCHOOL

THE HORSEMASTER’S DAUGHTER

HALFWAY TO HEAVEN

ENCHANTED AFTERNOON

A SUMMER AFFAIR

To the many librarians I know—including John, Kristin, Nancy, Charlotte, Wendy, Cindy, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Suzanne, Melanie, Shelley, Stephani, Deborah, Cathie—and to the many more I’ve never met…You have no idea how much you enrich people’s lives. Or maybe you do. I hope you do.

Thank you.

Acknowledgments

I get by with a little help from my friends—Anjali Banerjee, Carol Cassella, Sheila Roberts, Suzanne Selfors, Elsa Watson, Kate Breslin, Mary Buckham, Lois Faye Dyer, Rose Marie Harris, Patty Jough-Haan, Susan Plunkett and Krysteen Seelen—wonderful writers and eagle-eyed readers.

Thanks to Sherrie Holmes for keeping all my ducks in a row.

Thanks to Margaret O’Neill-Marbury and Adam Wilson of MIRA Books, Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, for invaluable advice and input. Thanks to my publisher and readers for supporting the Lakeshore Chronicles and for inspiring me to return to Avalon again and again.

A very special thank-you and all my love to my daughter Elizabeth, for her help with the recipes and for her marketing expertise. Thanks also to my sister, Lori, for proofreading, and to my mother, Lou, for mothering me no matter how old I get.

My family—the reason for everything—is bigger and more blessed than ever this year. Welcome to the family, Dave.

Part One

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.

—Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846—1916), American essayist

One

The boy came to the edge of town at twilight, at the close of a winter day. Although the snows had not yet begun, the air was brutally cold, having leached the life from the fields and forests, turning everything to shades of brown and buff.

The road narrowed to one lane and passed through a covered bridge on ancient river stone pilings. Through the years, the structure had weathered and been replaced, plank by plank, yet it never really changed. The tumbled rocks and sere vegetation along the riverbanks were rimed by a delicate breath of frost, and the trees in the surrounding orchards and woods had long since dropped their leaves. There was an air of frozen waiting, as though all was in readiness, as though the stage was set.

He felt a quiet sense of purpose, knowing his task here wouldn’t be easy. Hearts would have to break and be mended, truths would be revealed, risks would be taken. Which, when he thought about it, was simply the way life worked—messy, unpredictable, joyous, mysterious, hurtful and redemptive.

A green-and-white sign in the shape of a shield identified the town—Avalon. Ulster County. Elevation 4347 feet.

Farther on, a billboard carried greetings from the Rotary, the Kiwanis and at least a dozen church and civic groups. The message of welcome read Avalon, in the Heart of the Catskills Forest Preserve. There was another sign exhorting travelers to visit Willow Lake, The Jewel Of The Mountains. The bit of hyperbole might apply to any number of small lakeside towns of upper New York state, but this one had the earnestness and charm of a place with a long and complicated history.

He was one of those complications. His understanding of what brought him here only extended so far, a narrow glimpse into the mystical realm of the human heart. Perhaps he wasn’t meant to know why the past and present were about to collide at this moment in time. Perhaps it was enough to know his purpose—to right an old wrong. Exactly how to accomplish this—well, there was another unknown. It would reveal itself, bit by bit, in its own time.

The main feature of the town was a pretty brickwork square around a Gothic block structure which housed municipal offices and the courthouse. Surrounding that were a variety of shops and restaurants with lights glowing in the windows. The first Christmas garlands and light displays of the season adorned the wrought-iron gas lamps around the square. In the distance lay Willow Lake, a vast indigo sheet under the brooding sky, its surface glazed by a layer of ice that would thicken as the season progressed.

A few blocks from the main square was the railway station. A train had just pulled in and was disgorging passengers coming home from work in the bigger towns—Kingston and New Paltz, Albany and Poughkeepsie, a few from as far away as New York City. People hurried to their cars, eager to escape the cold and get home to their families. There were so many ways to make a family…and just as many to lose them. But human nature was forged of forgiveness, and renewal might be only a word or a kind gesture away.

It felt strange, being back after all this time. Strange and…important. Something was greatly at risk here, whether people knew it or not. And somehow he needed to help. He just hoped he could.

Not far from the station was the town library, a squared-off Greek revival structure. The cornerstone had been laid exactly ninety-nine years ago; the date was seared upon his heart. The building was surrounded by several acres of beautiful city park, lined by bare trees and crisscrossed by sidewalks. The library occupied the site of its original predecessor, which had burned to the ground a century before, claiming one fatality. Few people knew the details of what had happened or understood the impact the event had on the life of the town itself.

Funded by a wealthy family that understood its value, the library had been rebuilt after the fire. Constructed of cut stone and virtually fireproof, the new Avalon Free Library had seen nearly a hundred years come and go—times of soaring prosperity and crushing poverty, war and peace, social unrest and harmony. The town had changed, the world had changed. People didn’t know each other anymore, yet there were a few constants, anchoring everything in place, and the library was one of them. For now.

He sighed, his breath frosting the air as old memories crowded in, as haunting as an unfinished dream. All those years ago, the first library had been destroyed. Now the present one was in danger, not from fire but from something just as dangerous. There still might be time to save it.

The building had tall windows all around its periphery, and a skylight over an atrium to flood the space with light. Through the windows, he could see oaken bookcases, tables and study carrels with people bent over them. Through another set of windows, he could see the staff area.

Inside, laboring at a cluttered desk in the glow of a task lamp, sat a woman. Her pale face was drawn with a worry that seemed to edge toward despair.

She stood abruptly, as though having just remembered something, smoothing her hands down the front of her brown skirt. Then she grabbed her coat from a rack and armored herself for the rapidly falling cold—lined boots, muffler, hat, mittens. Despite the presence of numerous patrons, she seemed distracted and very alone.

The sharp, dry cold drove him toward the building’s entrance, a grand archway of figured stone with wise sayings carved in bas-relief. He paused to study the words of the scholars—Plutarch, Socrates, Judah ibn-Tibbon, Benjamin Franklin. Though the words of wisdom were appealing, the boy had no guide but his own heart. Time to get started.

Hurrying, her head lowered, the woman nearly slammed into him as she left the building through the heavy, lever-handled main door.

“Oh,” she said, quickly stepping back. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s all right,” the boy said.

Something in his voice made her pause, study him for a moment through the thick lenses of her eyeglasses. He tried to envision himself as she saw him—a boy not yet sixteen, with serious dark eyes, olive-toned skin and hair that hadn’t seen a barber’s shears in too long. He wore a greenish cargo jacket from the army surplus, and loosecut dungarees that were shabby but clean. The winter clothes concealed his scars, for the most part.

“Can I help you?” she asked, slightly breathless. “I’m on my way out, but…”

“I believe I can find what I need here, thanks,” he said.

“The library closes at six tonight,” she reminded him.

“I won’t be long.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” she said. “I try to meet all my library patrons.”

“My name is Jabez, ma’am. Jabez Cantor. I’m…new.” It wasn’t a lie, not really.

She smiled, though the worry lingered in her eyes. “Maureen Davenport.”

I know, he thought. I know who you are. He understood her importance, even if she didn’t. She’d done so much, here in this small town, though perhaps even she didn’t realize it.

“I’m the librarian and branch manager here,” she explained. “I’d show you around, but I need to be somewhere.”

I know that, too, he thought.

“See you around, Jabez,” she said.

Yes, he thought as she hurried away. You will.

Two