My first chapter of my work-in-progress:
Chapter One
Miss Tootsie’s nose twitched. Something was in the air besides the smell of spring flowers and the musky scent of last night’s rain. The sun struggled against incoming dark clouds, and the morning felt too warm; muggy, she called it. Not a breeze stirred. Other than those things, her little town looked and sounded the same as usual: a wagon and team lumbered down the muddy street, a farmer on the way to the town branch to slake his horse’s thirst, no doubt, after a trip to town. From over at the sawmill, came the sound of lumber being dropped. But there was something, a niggling worry just beyond her reach, tugging at the corners of her mind.
She saw Jase Carter, a friend from church, heading toward her with a big grin on his face. Jase looked normal. The town looked normal. She seemed to be the only one who felt out of kilter. Maybe she’d feel better after another cup of coffee and a doughnut. Nothing like a hot drink and a bite of something sweet to set things right. She had heard that when a lady got to a certain number of years, she began imagining things. Surely Miss Tootsie hadn’t reached that stage yet, but it could be she was on just the outer fringes of it.
“Mornin’, Miss Tootsie.” Jase tipped his hat and stepped off the board sidewalk to make room for her.
“Good morning,” Miss Tootsie replied, smiling.
The delightful aroma of fresh doughnuts from Bonnie’s Bakery drew her inside. Her friends, Bertha and Carrie were at their table, waiting for her. This was a weekly ritual. Sometimes one friend or the other couldn’t make it, but it was a delicious start to any day.
“Aren’t you two the early birds?” Miss Tootsie said, dropping into a chair.
“I don’t feel fully awake yet,” Bertha muttered. “If I didn’t know how delicious Bonnie’s doughnuts and coffee are, I would still be home in bed.”
“Feeling a bit sluggish, are we?” Tootsie asked as Bonnie approached with coffee pot and cups.
“That noisy storm last night banged around for so long, it put my nerves on edge. Even a cup of chamomile tea didn’t help,” Bertha said.
Carrie raised her eyebrows. “The storm was noisy, but that’s not why I couldn’t sleep. At one point, around midnight, I looked out the window and, so help me girls, I saw a face looking in at me! Scared me half to death.”
“A face?” echoed Tootsie. “Are you sure you weren’t just nervous because of the storm? If it was really a face, you should tell the sheriff. You may have a peeping Tom.”
Carrie sighed. “See? That’s the reason I didn’t tell the sheriff. He’d think I was just imagining things.”
Bertha shook her head. “You’ll admit, Carrie, that in times past, your very active imagination has landed you in a spot of trouble, like when you were sure Ernie Fawcett was slipping around on Matilda but he had actually landed a job as night deputy and was patrolling the town, or running over to Lona’s house and grabbing her feet when you saw her crawling through her window and mistook her for a burglar when she had actually just forgotten her key, or…”
“Just hush,” Carrie said. “All I could see of Lona was her petticoats and shoes and they didn’t look familiar. Anybody can make an honest mistake.”
Miss Tootsie patted Carrie’s hand. “That’s true, dear. Anybody can.”
“Including me.” Bonnie said, as she returned with a plate holding three warm doughnuts. “Last night’s storm was so fierce, that I imagined I heard all sorts of things—dogs howling, somebody at the door.” She shivered. “And, by the looks of the clouds, we may be in for more.”
“Dogs howling?” quavered Carrie. “Somebody at the door?”
Bonnie laughed. “It was evidently my imagination. At least that’s what my husband told me. “
They sat silently as Bonnie went back to the cash register. The doughnuts were melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Miss Tootsie began to feel more like herself.
“Hot coffee, tasty doughnuts, and good friends will start any day off right,” she said. Her unsettled feeling vanished completely as the three chatted between bites and sips. Tootsie glanced at the ceiling as Bonnie flicked on the overhead light, one of the few electric lights in town. The sun should have been shining through the large window, but the three had been so intent on chatting and chewing, they hadn’t noticed the bakery was getting dark.
“I sure don’t want to rush off my best customers,” Bonnie called from the counter, “but it looks like the wind is coming up and it has started to rain. If it starts to rain, you may get soaked before you get home.”
Scudding clouds had erased any trace of the sun and the maple tree across the street was stirring in the wind. Jase Carter hurried back up the street, clutching his hat.
“Oh, my,” Miss Tootsie said. “I didn’t realize the weather had changed. You’re right, Bonnie. My poor little Cocoa, will be terrified if it storms and she’s alone in the house.”
She pushed her chair back. Bertha drained her coffee cup and stood up. Carrie wrapped her paper napkin around the remaining bit of doughnut and tucked it into her purse. “For later,” she said.
The three left some money on the table and hurried to the door.
A sudden boom of thunder rattled the bakery window. As Tootsie stepped onto the sidewalk, the rain struck her with stinging force. Holding her purse over her head, she started up the hill toward home. The wind moaned in the treetops and branches thrashed around like they were struggling to be free. In just a few minutes, she was thoroughly wet and shivering. When her house appeared on the hill, solid and comforting, she breathed a sigh of relief. Trotting up the steps to her front porch, she opened the door. At once, a furry bundle of energy burst into the shadowy living room. Stooping, Tootsie scooped her small dog into her arms. She could feel Cocoa trembling.
“Poor little thing,” she crooned. “I’m sorry you were alone. I’m home now and everything is all right, or it will be as soon as I get out of this wet dress.”
Toweling her hair, she hurried to her bedroom. “Something dry, something warm, and I’ll be as right as rain—well, maybe that’s not a good way of putting it.”
In her bedroom, she stepped into a puddle of water and grabbed the bedpost as her feet slipped. “How on earth…” she began and glanced at her window. It was open.
“Surely I’m not getting that forgetful,” she muttered to Cocoa. “I closed all the windows before I left, didn’t I?”
She pulled down the sash and gave Cocoa a reassuring pat and then looked at her more closely. “Your head is wet, little girl. I know you haven’t been outside, so how did you…“ She picked Cocoa up and set her on the bed. “You know, you’ve got a spot of something on your muzzle. It looks like…did you hurt yourself some way? That looks like blood.”
Miss Tootsie sat on the edge of her bed, pulling Cocoa against her for warmth as she thought about the window. What was going on? “If you could only talk, Cocoa,” she said.
Surely, she hadn’t had a prowler enter her window while she was out. A shiver that was not from being cold crept down her spine. She ran her hands over her dog’s body but couldn’t find a wound of any kind. Nothing seemed disturbed in her bedroom. Retracing her steps, she searched through all the rooms, but everything was just as she had left it and there were no wet footprints on the floor besides her own. Puzzled, she looked at Cocoa again and at the damp windowsill. Had someone tried to get in through the window and Cocoa had bitten him?
Miss Tootsie shook her head. “I’m all a-tremble. Nobody has ever tried to burglarize my house and why would they? I don’t have anything that’s very valuable, except to me. Maybe I’m getting more forgetful than I thought. Maybe I didn’t close the window and that spot on your muzzle—well—did you accidentally bite your tongue?”
She sighed as she pulled off her wet dress and took a dry one from the closet. “I guess there’s a first time for everything, but, why? I’ve got to be careful that my imagination doesn’t get as wild as Carrie’s. I probably just forgot the window. Anyway, that’s a more comfortable thought than someone trying to get in. Let’s go start a fire in the fireplace, Cocoa. I’ve never felt so cold.”
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