“We’re going to do a ritual,” Myrna explained. “It’s called smudging. We light this,” Myrna held up the dried herbs, “and then we walk around the garden with it.”
Ruth was staring at the cigar of herbs. “Freud might have a little something to say about your ritual.”
“Sometimes a smudge stick is just a smudge stick,” said Clara.
“Why’re we doing this?” Dominique asked. This was clearly a side to her neighbors she hadn’t seen before and it didn’t seem an improvement.
“To get rid of the bad spirits,” said Myrna. It did, when said so baldly, sound a little unlikely. But Myrna believed it, with all her considerable heart.
Dominique turned to Ruth. “Well, I guess you’re screwed.”
There was a pause and then Ruth snorted in laughter. Hearing that Clara wondered whether turning into Ruth Zardo would be such a bad thing.
“First, we form a circle,” said Myrna. And they did. Myrna lit the sage and sweetgrass and walked from Clara to Dominique to Ruth, wafting the perfumed smoke over each woman. For protection, for peace.
Clara inhaled and closed her eyes as the soft smoke swirled around her for a moment. Taking, said Myrna, all their negative energy. The bad spirits, outside and in. Absorbing them. And making room for healing.
Then they walked around the garden, not just the dreadful place Lillian had died, but the entire garden. They took turns drifting smoke into the trees, into the babbling Rivière Bella Bella, into the roses and peonies and black-centered irises.
And finally they ended at the beginning. At the yellow tape. The hole in the garden where a life had disappeared.
“Now here’s a good one,” Ruth quoted one of her own poems as she stared at the spot.
“You’re lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?”
Myrna pulled bright ribbons from her pocket and gave one to each of them saying, “We tie our ribbon to the prayer stick and send out good thoughts.”
They glanced at Ruth, waiting for the cynical comment. But none came. Dominique went first, fastening her pink ribbon to the gnarled stick.
Myrna went next, tying her purple ribbon and closing her eyes briefly to think good thoughts.
“Won’t be the first time I’ve tied one on,” Ruth admitted with a smile. Then she fastened her red ribbon, pausing to rest her veined hand on the prayer stick, like a cane, and look to the sky.
Listening.
But there was only the sound of bees. Bumbling.
Finally, Clara tied on her green ribbon, knowing she should think kind thoughts of Lillian. Something, something. She searched inside, peering into dark corners, opening doors closed for years. Trying to find one nice thing to say about Lillian.
The other women waited while the moments went by.
Clara closed her eyes and reviewed her time with Lillian, so many years ago. It whipped past, the early, happy memories blighted by the horrible events later on.
Stop, Clara commanded her brain. This was the route to the park bench. With the inedible stone bread.
No. Good things did happen and she needed to remember that. If not to release Lillian’s spirit, then to release her own.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?
“You were kind to me, often. And you were a good friend. Once.”
The gem bright ribbons, the four female ribbons, fluttered and intertwined.
Myrna bent to pat the garden soil more firmly around the prayer stick.
“What’s this?”
She stood up, holding something caked in dirt. Wiping it off, she showed it to the others. It was a coin, the size of an Old West silver dollar.
“That’s mine,” said Ruth, reaching for it.
“Not so fast, Miss Kitty. Are you sure?” asked Myrna. Dominique and Clara took turns examining it. It was a coin, but not a silver dollar. In fact, it was coated in silver paint but it seemed plastic. And there was writing on it.
“What is it?” Dominique handed it back to Myrna.
“I think I know. And I’m pretty sure it isn’t yours,” Myrna said to Ruth.
* * *
Agent Isabelle Lacoste had joined Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir on the terrasse. She ordered a Diet Coke and gave them an update.
The Incident Room was up and running in the old railway station. Computers, phone lines, satellite links installed. Desks, swivel chairs, filing cabinets, all the hardware in place. It happened quickly, expertly. The homicide division of the Sûreté was used to going into remote communities to investigate murder. Like the Army Corps of Engineers, they knew time and precision counted.