Blood Red: Mundy's Landing Book One

Prologue

March 22, 2015

Erie, Pennsylvania

She isn’t the first redhead to cross Casey’s path on this blustery Sunday evening. She’s not even the best fit.

Earlier, there was a woman in the frozen foods aisle who had exactly the right look. Her hair was, if not naturally red, then at least dyed the appropriate cinnamon shade. It was pulled into a ponytail, but if the elastic band were to be yanked away, it would undoubtedly fall in waves to the middle of her back.

Casey’s fingers clenched the metal hand bars of the crutches, itching to sink into that hair and pull hard so that her head jerked back and her neck arched, the creamy skin of her throat begging to be sliced open by a freshly honed blade. Her eyes were probably green, though she wasn’t standing close enough to be sure. Even if the pupils weren’t the distinct and exquisite blend of sage and olive that have always reminded Casey of military camouflage, the rest of her was dead-­on.

She was petite, but not too skinny; fair-­skinned at first glance. If it were summer, the faint scatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones would be plainly visible, but in winter, you’d have to look hard to see them.

Yes, that first woman would have been perfect.

But she had a baby strapped across her chest in a sling and a toddler on board her shopping cart heaped high with boxes of diapers and cereal and cartons of milk and juice.

Sierra, stop that, she said patiently as the child in the cart threw a sippy cup onto the floor yet again, laughing gleefully each time the woman stooped to pick it up.

Casey sensed her glancing over as if hoping to exchange a kids-­do-­the-­darnedest-­things eye roll.

Sorry, sweetheart. You’re not going to get that from me.

Casey swung the crutches into motion and hobbled around the corner, leaving her behind. Clearly, she had her hands full already.

A little later, in the hardware section, there was another redhead. She was wandering up and down the aisles in search of something.

Excuse me, she said to Casey the second time they passed each other, have you seen rock salt anywhere?

No, I haven’t.

I bet they’re sold out, too. Every store is because of the ice storm, but someone told me they had it here. Oh well, thanks.

No problem. Casey watched her wander away.

She had almost the right build, albeit a little too padded, but her coloring was off. A true ginger, she had wiry shoulder-­length hair and a ruddy, speckled complexion.

Casey decided to keep her in mind and move on. If no one better came along, she would do in a pinch.

Someone better has come along.

This new woman is in the pharmacy department, dropping off a prescription.

Feigning interest in an Ace bandage display, Casey watches her approach the counter. She’s alone, and she does have dark red hair, though that’s where the resemblance stops. She’s tall, curvy, and olive-­skinned with Mediterranean features. But there’s something about her: something about the way she walks, about the facial expression that radiates . . . goodness.

But you’re not good, are you? And nobody knows that but you . . . and me.

An old man with a walker is heading in the same direction. Many ­people would have skirted around him, but the redhead takes her time, allowing him to get to the counter first. She waits patiently while he searches his pockets for his prescription bottles, at least half a dozen of them.

Seeing this, Casey nods with satisfaction.

When it’s the woman’s turn to hand over the prescription, the pharmacist checks the shelves. I have it in stock, but it’s going to be about fifteen minutes. Do you want to wait for it or come back tomorrow?

She’ll wait. She isn’t in a rush. Good.

Casey leaves her behind in the pharmacy department, finds a cart, and maneuvers it awkwardly, tossing in enough items to fill several bags. The clock is ticking. There’s a line at the single checkout lane.

Fifteen minutes . . . fifteen minutes . . .

At last, the cashier rings up the items, asking, Do you need a hand getting out to your car?

No, thank you. Casey balances on the crutches and hands over cash.

Are you sure? According to her name tag, the cashier’s name is Althea and she wants to know how she may help you.

Positive, Casey says briskly, silently answering the name tag’s printed question: You may help me by moving a little faster, handing over my change, and then forgetting you ever saw me.

The redhead from the pharmacy appears, heading toward the front of the store.

Althea persists: I can call someone to—­

No, I’m fine. The words come out too sharply, and Althea frowns. She painstakingly takes a ­couple of bills and coins from the drawer and starts to hand it over in an agonizingly unhurried manner.

Casey grabs the cash, thrusting it into the back pocket that doesn’t contain a wad of dry cleaning plastic before wrestling the crutches and cart toward the door, a few steps behind the redhead.

Outside, sleet falls from the night sky and a gusting wind propels a wayward store flyer across the parking lot. The woman hastily puts up the hood of her jacket, obliterating the view of that glorious red hair, which gives Casey momentary pause.

Maybe she isn’t the right stand-­in.

Stand-­in—­that’s how Casey has come to think of the women, like an almighty casting director who aims to spare the leading lady until opening night.

I decide who gets to live or die on any given day. It’s all up to me. I control their fates.

Maybe there’s someone else, someone better . . .

No. It’s now or never. Casey has to leave town first thing tomorrow morning, and there will be no extending the stay and no coming back for her. Those are important rules, self-­imposed and designed to stay one step ahead of the authorities.

One step? Try miles. They’re so far behind they have yet to connect any of the stand-­ins to each other.

The new candidate pauses to zip her jacket, allowing Casey to catch up to and then pass her, making a show of clumsiness with the cart and crutches, stumbling and nearly falling.

Whoa—­do you need a hand? she asks.

Casey turns with a relieved smile. That would be great. I’m still getting used to moving around on these things. Guess I didn’t realize it would be so hard to push a cart.

Here, I’ve got it. She grabs the handle. She’s not wearing any rings, and the skin on her hands looks soft and smooth. Casey imagines her rubbing almond-­scented lotion into them; imagines the fingers clutching and clawing, the nails broken, knuckles raw and bloodied.

Where’s your car?

Over there. Casey points out into a dark and distant corner of the lot before pushing the crutches into motion, leaning and hopping fluidly alongside the redhead and the cart.

The store was a lot more crowded when I got here, Casey adds as they pass one empty space after another. It took me forever to find what I needed and get out of there.

I can imagine. You don’t have a disability parking sticker?

No, not . . . yet. My doctor is working on it, though.

What happened? She gestures down at the blue mesh post-­op shoe strapped to Casey’s bad foot.

My walkway was a sheet of ice on Tuesday. I slipped and broke it.

That stinks. She nods, accepting the explanation. Just another casualty in a massive storm that brought down trees and power lines, caused a massive pileup on the interstate, and resulted in eleven lives lost.

Soon to be an even dozen, Casey thinks smugly. But of course, she won’t be added to the official toll.

It’ll be another of my little secrets.

They’ve almost reached the van parked beneath a burned-­out lamppost.

Well—­not burned out. The rubber tip of one of Casey’s crutches comes down on what looks like a sliver of ice, but of course it’s a shard of glass from the overhead bulb that had been easily shattered with a well-­aimed rock last night, long after the store had closed and the parking lot had emptied.

Casey pulls out the keys, presses a button, and the van’s back hatch unlatches and rises slowly. No interior light though. It, too, has been disabled, long before last night.

Thanks so much, Casey says as the woman parks the shopping cart near the rear bumper.

No problem.

She smiles and starts to turn away, never seeing the metal crutch arcing into the air before it slams into her head; never feeling the hand that roughly jerks down the hood of her jacket and briefly caresses her long red hair before yanking her into the van.

From the Mundy’s Landing Tribune Archives

Opinion

September 10, 2015

Protect Our Precious Children

To the Editor:

When my husband and I relocated to the Hudson Valley after having been born and raised in Manhattan, we were looking for a safe, old-­fashioned small town where we could provide our treasured daughter with the wonderful childhood she deserves. We thought we had found it in Mundy’s Landing.

Imagine our dismay when our Amanda came home from her first day of school yesterday and informed us that her fourth-­grade class would be making an educational field trip in December to the historical society. Aware that the society houses macabre relics connected to the infamous murders of 1916, I was outraged and immediately called her teacher to protest. Ms. Mundy seemed unperturbed and informed me that this year’s social studies curriculum encompasses New York State history, which to her way of thinking entails taking advantage of the fact that some of the most colorful chapters unfolded here in the Hudson Valley. She added that the trip is a long-­standing tradition.

Just because something has always been done doesn’t make it right! I invite fellow parents of our village to join me in taking a stand to protest this inappropriate local rite of passage. Aren’t our children entitled to an anxiety-­free school experience without exposure to a disturbing tragedy under the guise of education?

Bari Hicks

Mundy Estates

Chapter 1

November 30, 2015

Mundy’s Landing, New York

Six minutes.

That’s exactly how long it takes to drive between the elementary school where Rowan Mundy teaches and the riverside home where she lives with her family.

The route meanders along the brick-­paved streets of The Heights, a sloping residential neighborhood. Its landmarks include her childhood home, the little white clapboard church where she was baptized and married, and Holy Angels Cemetery where her parents and father-­in-­law are buried alongside generations of local citizens. Among them: the trio of unidentified young girls whose murders during the village’s sestercentennial celebration a century ago sealed Mundy’s Landing’s notoriety.

Most days, she drives on past all of those sites without taking note, her mind on whatever happened during the past few hours or on whatever needs to get done in the next few.

Once in a while, though, she allows herself to get caught up in nostalgia for long-­gone loved ones and places that will never be the same.

Today is one of those days. Christmas music plays on the car stereo, and the business district is decked out in wreaths and garlands that seem to have materialized overnight. She wistfully remembers cozy holidays when her parents were alive and her brothers and sister weren’t scattered from East Coast to West.

Now her two oldest children are gone as well. Braden is a junior at Dartmouth; Katie a freshman at Cornell. Both were here for the long Thanksgiving weekend that just passed, but it was all too fleeting. They headed back yesterday in opposite directions.

I hate this letting go thing, she told Jake, wiping tears as they stood on the front porch watching taillights disappear.

They’ll be home on break for a whole month before you know it, and you’ll be counting down the days until they go back to school in January.

No I won’t.

Oh, right. I’m the one who does that. Jake flashed his good-­natured grin and went back to eating a leftover turkey drumstick and watching the Giants win in overtime.

Passing the Mundy’s Landing Historical Society, which occupies a grand turreted mansion facing the Village Common, Rowan is reminded of an unpleasant phone call she received this morning from the mother of one of her fourth-­grade students.

Bari Hicks moved to town from New York City over the summer, and has proven to be one of those ­people who always manages to find something to complain about. This week, she was calling to once again express her displeasure with the upcoming class field trip to see the Colonial Christmas exhibit.

The annual excursion has been a well-­loved school tradition since Rowan herself was in fourth grade. Back then, this turreted mansion was still a private residence and the historical society was housed in the basement of the local library.

I just don’t think a trip like this sounds appropriate for children this age, Bari insisted back on curriculum night in September. Appropriate seems to be her favorite word. Rather, inappropriate. My Amanda still isn’t used to her new bedroom and she has enough problems falling asleep at night without being dragged through a gory chamber of horrors that’s going to give her nightmares for years.

Although Rowan immediately grasped what she was referring to, she couldn’t resist feigning ignorance.

Oh, you must have this mixed up with the high school’s haunted hallway fund-­raiser, Mrs. Hicks. That’s on Halloween, and I wouldn’t dream of exposing my class to—­

"No, I’m talking about the historical society. The murders."

Which murders? That time, Rowan wasn’t playing dumb. Mundy’s Landing is famous for not one, but two notorious murder cases.

The first unfolded in the mid-­seventeenth century, when Jake’s ancestors James and Elizabeth Mundy were executed on the gallows for butchering and cannibalizing their fellow colonists. Their only son, Jeremiah Mundy, and his offspring lived such exemplary lives that the town was later named in their honor.

Mundy’s Landing itself wasn’t quite so fortunate in terms of redemption and reputation. Precisely two and a half centuries after the hangings, the so-­called Sleeping Beauty murders marked one of the eeriest unsolved crime sprees in American history. The young female victims, whose identities were never known, were lain to rest beneath white granite markers simply etched with the year 1916 and the word Angel.

Those are the murders to which Bari Hicks was referring. I heard the museum has bloody clothing on display, and the murder weapon, and a disembodied skull. Do you really think it’s necessary to—­?

There’s no skull, Rowan quickly assured her, though she’d heard that rumor all her life, and it isn’t the actual murder weapon, it’s just an antique razor blade someone’s grandfather donated as an example, and the bloody clothing is only exhibited in the summer during . . .

She couldn’t quite bring herself to call the event Mundypalooza, the flippant popular term for the annual historical society–sponsored fund-­raiser that draws crime buffs, reporters, tourists, and plain old fruitcakes from all over the globe.

. . . the convention, she chose to say instead, and hastily added, We’re only visiting the Colonial Christmas exhibit on our field trip. I promise Amanda will love it. All the kids do.

Bari aired her frustrations in a public letter to the Mundy’s Landing Tribune, expecting to rally the villagers in protest. Today, Rowan convinced her to come along as a chaperone so that she can experience the long-­standing tradition firsthand—­and, ostensibly, protect her daughter from the evils of Mundy’s Landing. It seemed like the easiest way to avoid additional Monday morning stress, but she regrets it already.

Now, winding toward home, she blinks against the glare of sinking autumn sun at every westbound curve. Lowering the visor doesn’t help at all.

She worries about Mick.

In about ten minutes, her youngest son will be getting off the late bus after varsity basketball practice. Even if he’s not plugged into his iPod—­despite her warnings about the dangers of walking or jogging along the road wearing headphones—­he’ll have his head in the clouds as usual.

At this time of year, the angle of the late day sun is blinding. What if a car comes careening up the hill and doesn’t see him until it’s too late?

Long gone are Rowan’s days of waiting in the minivan at the bus stop on Highland Road, a busy north-­south thoroughfare. Even on stormy afternoons—­there are plenty of those in Mundy’s Landing—­Mick insists on walking home up Riverview Road, just as his older siblings did when they were in high school.

I’ll walk Doofus, she decides as she brakes at the curbside mailbox in front of their gabled Queen Anne Victorian perched on the bluff above the Hudson.

Doofus the aging basset hound was originally Rufus, but earned his current name when it became evident that he wasn’t exactly the smartest canine in the world.

Rowan ordinarily lets him out into the yard when she gets home after a long day, but Doofus—­although increasingly lazy—­might welcome some exercise, and she can use it herself.

She bought a tasteless but slimming couscous salad for lunch today, courtesy of Wholesome & Hearty, the school district’s new lunch program. But then someone left a plate of cookies in the teachers’ break room after lunch and one of her students brought in birthday cupcakes. Plus there’s still half an apple pie in the fridge at home, leftover from Thanksgiving dinner.

There was a time when Rowan could gobble anything she felt like eating and never gain an ounce. Those days, too, are long gone. According to her doctor, she needs to exercise nearly an hour a day at her age just to keep her weight the same. And the hair colorist who’s been hiding her gray for a few years now recently told her that her natural red shade was making her mature skin look sallow, and that the long hair she’d had all her life was too weighty.

I think you should try a short, youthful cut and go a few shades lighter, maybe a biscuit blond with honey highlights and caramel lowlights. What do you think?

I think biscuits and honey and caramel sound like something I’d want to eat right now if I didn’t have to run ten miles to work off the extra calories, Rowan said with a sigh of resignation.

She finally agreed to the new hairstyle right before Thanksgiving. It got mixed reviews at home. Jake and Katie liked it; Braden, who resents change of any sort, did not; Mick informed her that now her hair wouldn’t clash with the bright orange hoodie—­emblazoned with a black tiger, Mundy’s Landing High School mascot—­that she wore to all his home basketball games.

I never minded clashing, she said.

I do. Can I dye my hair, too?

"Nope. It’s what makes you you."

"Isn’t it what made you you, too?"

Yes, and whenever she catches sight of her reflection, she feels as though she’s dwelling in a stranger’s body.

Back at work today, her colleagues complimented her, her students questioned her, and the janitor told her she looks hot—­which might be inappropriate, but as the forty-­seven-­year-­old mother of three nearly grown kids, she’ll take it.

She gets out of the car, goes around to grab the mail out of the box, and finds that it’s full of catalogs. No surprise on this first Monday of the official holiday shopping season. Given the stack of bills that are also in the box, plus the two college tuition payments coming due for next semester, the catalogs will go straight into the recycling bin.

Money has been tight lately, and Jake is worried about his job as a regional sales manager amid rumors that his company might be bought out.

Lead us not into temptation, she thinks, tossing the heap of mail—­which also includes a red envelope addressed to the family in her older sister Noreen’s perfect handwriting, and a small package addressed to her—­onto the passenger’s seat.

As she pulls into the driveway and around back, she sees that there’s garbage strewn by the back steps. The latch on top of the can snapped off when they overfilled it on Thanksgiving. Jake tried to pick up a new one the next day, but the strip malls on Colonial Highway were so jammed with Black Friday shoppers that he couldn’t get near any of them.

As Rowan stoops to pick up a gnawed turkey carcass and wads of soggy paper towels discarded by woodland creatures, she tries to imagine Noreen doing the same.

Nope. It would never happen. Noreen, a busy Long Island attorney, runs her household—­her life—­without glitches.

As Rowan lets herself into the house and tosses the mail onto the cluttered counter in the butler’s pantry, she marvels that her sister manages to send Christmas cards at all, let alone ahead of the masses. Yet somehow, she even hand-­addresses the envelopes, rather than use those typed labels you can so easily print out year after year.

Rowan knows without opening this year’s card that it’ll have a photo of the svelte and lovely Noreen, her handsome trauma surgeon husband, and their four gorgeous kids, all color-­coordinated in khaki and red or navy and white. Inside, there will be a handwritten note and the signature of each family member scrawled in red or green Sharpie.

Noreen has always managed to do so much and make it look so easy . . .

Which drives someone like me absolutely crazy. Which is why, when I was a kid, I didn’t even bother to try to follow in her footsteps.

She’s so caught up in the familiar combination of envy and longing for her sister that she doesn’t think twice about the package that came for her. She tosses it aside with the rest of the mail and takes her medication—­the first thing she does every morning, and again every afternoon when she walks in the door.

It wasn’t until Mick was diagnosed with ADHD back in elementary school that Rowan learned that it was hereditary.

With this disability, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, the doctor told her, leading her to recognize similar symptoms in herself.

It was as if a puzzle piece she hadn’t even realized was missing had suddenly dropped into place to complete a long-­frustrating jigsaw.

If only someone—­her parents, her teachers, her doctors—­had figured it out when she was Mick’s age. Now she understands why she spent so much of her childhood in trouble—­academically, behaviorally—­and why she so often felt restlessly uncomfortable in her own skin, even as an adult.

Things aren’t perfect now—­far from it—­but at least she’s more in control of her life, with better focus and the ability to quell her impulsive tendencies. Most of the time, anyway.

After swallowing the pill, she walks the dog down to the bus stop and returns with a grumbling Mick.

Where’s all the turkey? he asks, poking his stubbly auburn head—­exactly the same shade as her own—­into the fridge.

I tossed it last night.

What? Why?

Because it was old, Mick. You can’t eat leftovers after a few days.

You didn’t toss the pie. He pulls out the dish.

Pie isn’t poultry. That’s still good.

She watches her son put the whole thing into the microwave and punch the quick start button, then open the freezer.

So much for Rowan’s dessert plans. Oh well. She can’t afford to indulge, and Mick can. Half a pie smothered in Vanilla Bean Häagen-­Dazs is nothing more than a light afternoon snack for a famished, lanky sixteen-­year-­old athlete who begins every morning with a three-­mile run.

The stack of mail still sits on the granite counter in the butler’s pantry by the back door, along with her tote bag and the usual household clutter plus additional clutter accumulated over Thanksgiving: clean platters that need to go back to the dining room, a bread basket filled with cloth napkins that have to be washed, bottles of open and unopened Beaujolais . . .

She should get busy cleaning it up. She should do a lot of things. As always, now that the medication has begun to take hold again, it all seems more manageable.

After returning the platters and napkins to the built-­in cabinets in the dining room, she asks Mick, What time do you have to be at work? Three nights a week, he’s a busboy at Marrana’s Trattoria in town.

Five-­thirty.

I need you to do me a favor while you’re there. Can you please get me a gift certificate for twenty-­five dollars? She pulls the cash from her wallet and hands it to him.

Who’s it for?

Marlena, the library aide. I pulled her name for the Secret Santa.

He looks at her as if she’s speaking a foreign language. I don’t even know what that means.

You know . . . or maybe you don’t know. Secret Santa is something we do every year at work—­we pick names and then we have to anonymously surprise the person with a little treat every day next week—­

I don’t really think a gift certificate counts as a treat, Mom. How about cookies or something?

No, the gift certificate is for the big gift on Friday.

Big? You’d better do fifty bucks, then. Twenty-­five seems cheap.

The limit is twenty-­five, big spender. She grins, shaking her head. So, how much homework do you have?

Not a lot.

Same question every night; same answer. The truth is, he usually has a lot of homework, and it doesn’t always get done.

Look on the bright side, Jake says, whenever she frets that even with an early diagnosis, academic accommodations, and medication, Mick has shortchanged himself. We won’t be paying Ivy League tuition when it’s his turn.

No, we’ll just be supporting him for the rest of his life.

It might be the other way around. He’s an enterprising kid. Maybe he’ll invent a billion-­dollar video game.

Maybe. Or maybe he’ll turn himself around academically, find his way into a decent college, make something of himself . . .

You did, she reminds herself. And if Mom and Dad were still alive, they’d still be reminding you they weren’t so sure that was ever going to happen.

Did you get your grade back yet on the English test?

Which test?

As if he doesn’t know. She’d spent two hours helping him study for it last Monday night. The one on literary devices.

Oh. That test. Nope.

Are you sure?

Yep. So stop looking at me like a detective who thinks the witness is lying. He flashes her a grin. See? I know what a metaphor is. I bet I got an A-­plus on that test.

I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but that’s not a metaphor. It’s a simile.

That’s what I meant. Mick settles on a stool with the pile of mail, looking for something to leaf through while he eats, which will take all of two minutes.

What’s this? He holds up the brown parcel addressed to Rowan.

Probably something I ordered for you for Christmas. Don’t open it.

Is it the keys to my new car? Because don’t forget, I’m taking my road test in less than a month.

It is not—­she plucks the package from his hand—­ "the keys to your new car because there will be no new car."

Then what am I going to drive?

You can share the minivan with me. And you already have the keys to that, so you’re all set. Here—­ She gives him the red envelope. You can open Aunt Noreen’s Christmas card.

Bet you anything they made Goliath wear those stupid reindeer antlers again. Goliath is a German shepherd whose dignity is compromised, as far as Rowan’s kids are concerned, by a costume every Christmas and Halloween.

Don’t worry, Doofus, Mick says, patting the dog, who lies on the hardwood floor at the base of his stool, hoping to catch a stray crumb with little effort. "We’d never do anything like that to you if we had a Christmas card picture."

He wouldn’t know he had a costume on if we zipped him into a horse suit and hitched him to a buggy, Rowan points out. "Plus we do have a Christmas card picture. I mean, we have had one."

When?

Back in the old days.

When? Classic Mick, persisting to demonstrate that he, as the youngest kid in the family, has suffered some slight, real or imagined.

It rarely works on Rowan, who as the lastborn of Kate and Jonathan Carmichael’s four children is all too familiar with that technique.

Back when we lived in Westchester, she tells Mick. She distinctly remembers having to cancel a family portrait shoot repeatedly to accommodate Jake’s schedule. He was working in the city then, never home.

Before I was born doesn’t count, Mom.

We had a few after you were born.

We did not.

Sure we did. Did we?

It’s a wonder they even found time to conceive Mick back then, let alone take a family photo.

I don’t think so.

Maybe not, she concedes. After we moved here, I probably didn’t send cards. But God knows we have plenty of family pictures. They’re just not portraits. Her favorites—­and there are many—­are framed, cluttered on tabletops and hanging along the stairs in a hodgepodge gallery.

That’s not the same thing.

You poor, poor neglected little working mom’s son.

Stop. He squirms away from her exaggerated sympathetic hug.

But I feel so sorry for you!

Yeah, right.

She shrugs. Her mother never wasted much time feeling guilty for being a working mom, and she tries not to, either.

She used to be a stay-­at-­home mom. Giving it up hasn’t always been easy, but she’s never questioned that it was the right decision for her family, or her marriage.

Mick was three when she resumed the teaching career she’d launched back when she and Jake were newlyweds. She could have waited to go back until the kids were older if they’d stayed in the New York City suburbs and Jake had stuck with the higher-­paying advertising sales job that kept him away for weeks at a time. But that would have been tempting fate, because . . .

She doesn’t like to think back to those days. Things were so different. She and Jake were different ­people then: different from each other; different from the way they are now.

He quit his job and they sold the house and moved back to their hometown. The cost of living is much lower in Mundy’s Landing than it had been in Westchester County, allowing Jake to take a lower-­paying, less glamorous job as a sales rep in Albany. He was promoted within the first year, but they still couldn’t make ends meet on one salary. She had to work, too.

Oh geez! Poor Goliath! Mick waves the Christmas card at her.

Antlers? she guesses.

Worse. An elf hat. A whole elf costume. Look at this!

Rowan takes in the sight of a humiliated-­looking German shepherd decked out in green felt and red pom-­poms alongside her sister’s picture-­perfect family. Poor Goliath, she agrees. But everyone else looks great. I miss them. Maybe we should try to get together for Christmas.

Mom—­you said never again, remember?

That wasn’t me, that was Dad.

That was all of us, including you. It took us a whole day to get home in traffic last time we went to see Aunt Noreen for Christmas.

That was a freak blizzard. It doesn’t usually snow on Long Island over the holidays.

"Well, it always snows here."

Mick is right. In Mundy’s Landing, Currier and Ives Christmases are the norm. On the bank of the Hudson River, cradled by the Catskill Mountains to the west, the Berkshires to the east, and the Adirondacks to the north, the village sees more than its share of treacherous weather from October through May. But as the hardy locals like to say, We know how to handle it. Plows and salt trucks rumble into motion, shovels and windshield scrapers are kept close at hand, and it’s business as usual.

Rowan opens