DYE, DYEING, DEAD
Copyright © 2014 by Bobbi A. Chukran. All rights reserved.
SAMPLE CHAPTER ONE
The white-haired woman stooped over a rusty iron cauldron, stirring the boiling contents with a long, gnarled stick. Fire leapt from beneath it with a crackle and the smell of pungent pecan wood smoke filled the September air.
"More wood!" she demanded, brushing her hair back from her forehead with her wrist.
A small figure scurried to fulfill her wishes. Someone giggled then began to chant, in a low, soft voice. "Bubble, bubble toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
"Ah ha!" the woman cackled, stirring a beaker of white powder into the boiling liquid. "We're almost ready."
The chanting continued. "Eye of newt and toe of frog . . ."
"What did you say? Eye of what? Is that like a lizard or something? Wait a minute. Where in the world do you buy newt's eyes? And who around here's fast enough to catch a frog and get his toes?"
"Yuck," another commented. "That's not just wrong; it's cruel."
"Hey, look, Miss Smarty Pants. I didn't write it, I just recite it. Listen to this part—wool of bat and tongue of dog."
"Wool of bat? Hmm. Now that's very interesting. How exactly do you gather the wool from a bat? Do you suppose you have to pluck it? Or shear it, like a sheep?"
"You'd have to use an incredibly small pair of clippers to shear a bat, don't you think?" another said. "Or tweezers? You could do it with tweezers, I bet. You'd have to pluck a bat."
"Yeah, right—like a bat is just gonna hang around and let you tweeze it."
The other nodded. "That would be a problem. I don't suppose you would get much wool, either. Wouldn't be worth the trouble."
"Nope," the group agreed.
"That's why the line says 'toil and trouble,' I bet."
"Yep," they agreed again.
"Maybe it's fur on a bat?"
The woman straightened up with a groan and clutched at her back. "Are y'all gonna stand around here all day practicing your comedy routine and quoting Billy Friggin' Shakespeare, or are you gonna help me get this plant workshop going?"
Kendra Louise Harper smiled at her aunt. "Of course we are, Aunt Jewel! We're just having a bit of fun, that's all."
Jewel Moore frowned at her niece. "Looks
like I'm doin' all the work while y’all flap your lips, makin' fun! Not to mention that it sounds like y'all had one-too-many margaritas for lunch, too."
Ginger Marshall giggled. "Who, us?"
"Sorry," Kendra mumbled, scrambling to take the stirring stick from her and taking her place beside the huge iron pot. Her aunt might be right about the margaritas. That new watermelon margarita recipe she'd tried was really good.
To tell the truth, Kendra silently wondered why she'd offered to help with the workshop considering how much of her own work she had to do. Ever since her Aunt Jewel started teaching gardening workshops at their house, her own life had been severely disturbed. She'd barely had time over the last few weeks to work on her own book, a collection of local ghost stories. Her deadline was rapidly approaching.
In general, at the age of 35, Kendra felt time sliding away from her. Kendra was a folklorist who had studied Texas legends and lore. She told people that folklore was one of those college degrees that doesn't take you very far unless you get a Ph.D. and end up teaching other people. Kendra didn't follow that path like most of her schoolmates did. She chose to do her own thing and went into independent research, and had a whole list of projects she wanted to tackle.
Luckily, her Aunt Jewel, a widow for three years, had come to the rescue when Kendra's five-year marriage ended. It didn't take much to convince Kendra to move to Nameless into Jewel's tiny 1940s cottage. Together, they remodeled the old house and after a period of re-adjustment, they fell into a nice routine.
Kendra felt that she and her aunt made swell housemates. They both loved gardening and maintaining the large corner lot. Aunt Jewel loved to bake and Kendra loved experimenting with all the herbs they grew. They both loved to eat and her friends loved sampling their efforts. An additional bonus was that Kendra had found Jewel's older friends to be very helpful in researching the local ghost stories. It was a win-win situation.
Now that she had settled into her new home, she was eager to delve into her work. She had one book almost finished and several others on the back burner. Kendra was anxious to hide away and write, but first, she had to keep her promise to help her aunt with this workshop.
The steam from the cauldron was thick and hot. Kendra blew out a breath and pushed her dark hair back out of her face and tried to tuck it back into the braid that lay down the middle of her back. It immediately sprung back, curling into her dark green eyes. Kendra made a mental note to get a haircut.
Her aunt had been planning this Dyeing with Plants workshop for over three months. The fall weather had turned out beautifully, the crisp blue sky filled with soft, billowy clouds. The humidity
that was common year-round in Central Texas had been chased away by a cooling rain shower the night before. Kendra knew that it would be hot and humid again before the afternoon—probably near 100-degrees—if not higher. For now she was thankful for the (slightly) cooler weather.
Kendra's aunt was known for her gorgeous gardens where she mixed native plants with herbs and old-fashioned roses. They covered almost all of the large corner lot near downtown Nameless. Over the last few years, after Jewel had turned 60, she'd been bored and out-of-sorts, wondering what she'd do with the rest of her life. Not one to rest for long, she'd decided to start teaching local classes on gardening—how to design small gardens, how to use flowers and herbs in crafts and how to cook with herbs. From time to time, she also wrote a short garden column for the Nameless News.
Once she'd decided to give outdoor classes, Jewel and Kendra had spent months remodeling the large backyard shed into classroom space and putting a brick patio underneath a huge ancient pecan tree.
In addition to Kendra and a few of her friends, Aunt Jewel was expecting at least a dozen others for the workshop, mostly members of the Nameless Garden Club and a few of Kendra's friends from town.
Aunt Jewel's workshops were always popular and they filled quickly. For one thing, there wasn't a whole lot to do otherwise in Nameless, and artistic people were somewhat of a curiosity in the
small town with a population of 2,354—give or take a few. The next closest center of cultural knowledge was Austin, and that was over 30-miles away.
There was one movie theatre in town that showed two movies at a time. It was only open on the weekends and showed one movie upstairs and one downstairs. Kendra still wasn't used to that after going to the multiplex theatres in Austin for so many years.
Jewel loved to share her garden with others, and show people how many ways the plants could be used. In an area where invasive nandina shrubs and non-native boxwoods lined up beside every other house on the block, Jewel's garden was different, and attracted all sorts of attention.
Luckily, the love of gardening had rubbed off on Kendra. She figured it was genetic. She remembered walking underneath okra plants when she was much younger and was sure that was why she was so interested in plant lore.
After Kendra moved away from Austin and moved in with her aunt, they had spent several years designing and cultivating a small themed dyer's garden around the perimeter of the back yard courtyard. Jewel used many of these plants for her workshops. She wasn't much of a fiber person, but did use the yarns she dyed in small knitting projects.
Jewel's prized indigo bush, from which she had plucked some of the leaves for today's workshop, stood proudly against the short rock wall dividing her property from her closest neighbor. Edging it was a whorl of prickly green leaves belonging to the madder plant—a plant whose roots produce a red dye that had also been used for centuries before synthetic dyes were discovered. Red, pink and salmon cosmos nodded in the wind and deep orange marigolds edged the paths.
Kendra glanced at her watch as members of the garden club walked through the front gate, chatting excitedly, smelling the roses and exclaiming over the garden. Although it was September, everything was blooming abundantly now, and Kendra thought it looked best at this time of year. She knew that early fall in Texas could be as scorching hot as the middle of the summer, sometimes hotter. The heady scent of the antique roses wafted on the breeze and bird song filled the air.
Kendra took a last look at the setup, making sure Jewel had all the equipment she needed. The contents of two large stainless steel pots simmered on hot plates that were plugged into the outlet on the back porch. Sacks of dried flower petals and huge branches of fresh rosemary sat to the side. A large jar of indigo sat underneath the worktable.
Kendra's friend, Ginger Marshall, a local art quilter, had volunteered to help since she was definitely into the whole fiber thing. Ginger was an
internationally-known quilt artist that tended to do work that would never see the top of anyone's bed. Wall quilts, she called them. Jeremy Clifford, another friend, hovered nearby.
Kendra looked up to greet the group of women that had begun to gather. She suppressed a groan. They were dressed for a tea party, not a messy, drippy dye workshop. She had warned them to dress casually, but old habits were hard to break. This was an event in town, and the ladies of the Nameless Garden Club always dressed up for events. Some of them were even wearing white gloves. Did anyone do that anymore? Kendra wondered. The hats made sense; the sun could turn hot and deadly by noon—but gloves? She shook her head. What was this, church? They'd have to scrounge around and find aprons or old shirts for the women to slip over their clothes. Now that would be an amusing sight, Kendra thought.
"My, my, would you look at that?" Jeremy Clifford whispered. "What have we here, a Donna Reed reunion show?"
Kendra laughed. "Yeah, really. We'll have to find aprons for this bunch. Aunt Jewel will have a cow when she sees how they're dressed."
"You got that right," he said. Jeremy was one of the more artistic of Kendra's friends. He was an
avid member of the local community theatre group and worked at Do-Lolly's Diner in the mornings and whenever Lolly LaRue, the owner, needed him. He said it gave him material for the short plays he was trying to write.
Jeremy watched as the women trailed in. "I do love those gloves. And the hats! The hats are marvelous! I'll have to see if I can borrow some for our next production."
Jeremy was a fan of vintage women's clothing that he frequently wore in his productions at the local community theatre, a fledgling group of six intrepid souls who kept the group together. He was still glowing from his recent spectacular performance as ten of the characters in the Greater Tuna play. The Nameless News had reviewed the play and said that it was "a pure-dee delight and inspirational casting" putting Jeremy in the roles. He agreed. Of course, it helped that he was the producer and director.
"Hello, Kendra," a short, older lady said. Eula-Mae Bunch was the president of the Nameless Garden Club and involved in numerous community groups. "And hello, Jewel," she called to Kendra's aunt. She frowned at Jeremy. "I had no idea you would be here."
Kendra smiled sweetly, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans. "Mornin', Mrs. Bunch."
Jeremy bowed and smiled. "Mrs. Eula-Mae Bunch! I'm delighted to see you. Of course I'm
here to help Aunt Jewel whenever she needs me. I'm like part of the family. I'm surprised you're here, though, what with your busy schedule with the garden club, and the school board and the library committee and I don't know what all."
Kendra gave Jeremy the evil eye, but smiled.
Eula-Mae Bunch sniffed, tugging the cuffs of her white gloves firmly up her wrists. "Yes, I am terribly, terribly busy," she said, smiling at Kendra and ignoring Jeremy. "But not too busy to keep up with what our resident folklorist is doing these days. I trust you are working on something and keeping yourself busy, dear."
"Nosy old witch," Aunt Jewel murmured under her breath, turning to greet the rest of the group.
Kendra frowned at her aunt and rushed to take Mrs. Bunch's arm and lead her out of Aunt Jewel's way. The two women had never got along with each other, and she didn't want a scene in front of the other participants. "I've been extremely busy. I'm working on a collection of Texas ghost stories."
"Oh, is that so? Well, how interesting," Mrs. Bunch said as she tottered over to her chair.
Other members of the garden club spread through the garden, remarking on the copper labels that Kendra had used to mark the plants, and the handmade red birdhouse that perched on one corner of the garden fence.
Ginger scurried around, trying to set chairs out for the group and find aprons and old shirts to cover their clothes.
Alma and Oma Martin, twin sisters, drove up in their rusty Ford truck, clambered down out of the cab, then hung back at the gate, shyly whispering among themselves. The two sisters wore their long hair piled up on their heads, and long brightly embroidered cotton print dresses stretched almost to their ankles. They wore almost no make-up or jewelry, and each carried a large basket piled high with fluffy natural-color yarns. The Martins owned a small organic farm outside town.
"The hippy-dippy sisters are here," Jeremy whispered to Kendra.
"Hush!" she hissed, and moved to greet the sisters. She was a bit surprised to see them there. They rarely came to town unless it was a necessity.
Sarah Wilson, another of Kendra's friends and owner of Sarah's Needles and Threads, a small yarn, knitting and needlework shop in downtown Nameless, rushed to greet the two women.
"Hi! I was glad to hear that y'all were coming today. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Jewel will be glad to see you." She peeked into the basket. "And you brought some of your lovely handspun yarn! Wonderful!"
Alma nodded at Sarah with a shy smile. "We don't get out much to socialize, what with taking
care of all the sheep and chickens and all." She held out her basket. "Kendra said we could bring this instead of paying our fee. We're really excited
about the workshop. We've never tried using natural dyes on our yarns before. It's something we've always wanted to learn how to do. We sure appreciate you lettin' us sit in on it."
"No problem. Look, you're doing us a favor. We need all the yarn we can get today, so Jewel was glad to hear you were coming. Let me take those baskets from you and I'll go tell her you're here."
The two sisters handed the baskets over to Sarah then quietly took a seat at the picnic table to the side of the yard.
Mrs. Bunch marched up to the steaming iron cauldron and peered inside. "Huh. Looks like water to me," she sniffed, pulling back and waving her hand in front of her face as a puff of steam billowed up.
"It is water, Eula-Mae," Jewel explained. "Water with alum dissolved in it. We'll simmer the yarn in the pot before we dip it into the dyes."
"Alum? Isn't that something you use to make dill pickles?" Mrs. Bunch asked, wrinkling her nose.
"Yes, sometimes," Jewel answered. "I'll explain it all later when everyone gets here."
Eula-Mae sniffed and pointedly looked at her wristwatch. "You said we'd start promptly at 9:00, and it's 9:08 already. I do have quite a few other very important appointments today."
"Oh dear, of course. Why don't you try to relax and have a seat. We'll be starting shortly." Jewel looked over the crowd, counting heads. "Looks like almost everyone's here."
Just then a short, stout woman huffed up the driveway and slammed through the gate. Kendra winced as the old antique gate banged back against the wrought-iron fence that rimmed the front yard, crushing a climbing rose in her wake.
"I'm not late, am I?" Verna Holt trilled. "We had a prayer meetin' over at the church this mornin', and Pastor did go on and on and on. I hope y'all weren't holdin' everything up for me, were you? How sweet!" The woman was dressed for church, complete with a navy blue linen suit, straw hat and white gloves. A large red ribbon rose was perched on the back of the hat and long ribbons in the back fluttered in the breeze like paper streamers. "I did expect some of y'all to be there, however," she sniffed.
A few of the women pursed their lips, ducked their heads and looked the other way.
Coming right along behind Verna was Nora Rogers, head of the Nameless Public Library. She greeted several of the women as she passed, and smiled at Kendra as she took a chair towards the front of the audience. She looked around and made a sour face when she saw Eula-Mae.
Ginger looked at Kendra, trying to suppress a grin. "Looks like Mrs. Preacher is here."
"Yep. Looks like." She pursed her lips and mumbled. "Help me keep her away from Mrs.
Bunch if at all possible, will ya?" she asked.
Kendra glanced at the pastor's wife, then Mrs. Bunch, then Aunt Jewel. The potential for disaster was great with this particular group of women in the same gathering. Volatile was the word that came to mind.
Even though she attended Verna's husband's church every Sunday, and every Wednesday night for prayer meeting, Eula-Mae Bunch had held a grudge against the pastor's wife for over ten years. No one really knew why, but rumor had it that it had something to do with Pastor Holt and his propensity to want to minister to the widows of Nameless. And if they should happen to give him a large donation for the church in the meantime, even better. He'd be able to pay the electric bill and they would get a nice donation to list on their income taxes.
"Now, if everyone would find a seat," Kendra called, "we'll get started." The clamor of voices finally died down. Kendra looked out on the group, excited for her aunt that so many had decided to attend.
As Kendra opened her mouth to speak, Mrs. Bunch jumped up and exclaimed, "The Nameless
Garden Club is honored to be invited to your little talk. I think we can dispense with the usual business meeting beforehand, since this is such an unusual circumstance. I'm sure we'll all find the subject fascinating, don't you, girls?" She looked around at the group and several nodded and bobbed their heads in answer. No one ever dared contradict Eula-Mae Bunch.
She continued. "Although for the life of me, I can't see why anyone in these days and times would want to go to all this trouble."
"But I . . ." Jewel started.
"We use those easy dyes that come in a box on the choir robes over at the church when they start looking a little faded and ratty," Mrs. Holt interrupted. "I use it myself, sometimes," she confessed. "It's real easy. You can buy it in little boxes at the grocery store!"
"Also," Mrs. Bunch continued, ignoring the pastor's wife, "you can do down to Sarah Wilson's shop in town and buy simply scads of lovely yarns, already dyed." She smirked and glanced over at Sarah, who was hunkering down in her chair out of embarrassment.
Kendra gave Sarah a sympathetic smile, and tried once again to interrupt. "Mrs. Bunch, we really need to get started."
"Kendra, dear. Now please let me finish. Like I said, I'm sure we'll all enjoy ourselves nevertheless." She started to sit down, but popped back up. "But you do know, dear, don't you, that the commercial dyes are less prone to fade."
"Ah yes. So easy—but so unnatural," Jewel murmured, glaring at Eula-Mae, wondering why she had bothered to show up in the first place.
By now, Kendra was gritting her teeth so hard
her forehead was puckered and she felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. "Yes, um . . . well. Ginger, if you will pass around these yarn samples, we'll get started."
As Ginger passed around samples of yarn, Kendra explained that all of them had been dyed with plants from their garden. Jewel showed the group the proper way to tie the yarn into a small skein so it wouldn't get tangled in the dye bath.
Kendra dipped a small white skein into a pan of warm water and let it soak for a few minutes. "The yarn has to be completely saturated with water so the dye will penetrate the fibers."
"Now, I want all of y'all to try it," Jewel announced. "Step up here and grab an apron or a shirt to put over your clothes. I have lots of yarn up here. We'll all tie a sample skein and put it in to soak for a while."
One by one, the group timidly rose to their feet, took the yarn pieces held out to them and proceeded to make small skeins. Mrs. Bunch remained in her chair, now and then pointedly looking at her watch.
"Wouldn't you like to try it?" Jeremy asked her.
Mrs. Bunch shook her head and wrinkled her nose as if he had suggested stroking a dead armadillo. "I don't think so. You all go ahead. I'll just sit here and observe."
Oma, Alma and Verna gingerly stepped up to the pot and peered in. The pastor's wife removed her gloves, tucking them in her purse. "I do hate wearing these, but Pastor insists. I'd hate to get them ruined; they're my only pair. And it's so hard to find nice white gloves anymore."
Jeremy nodded. "Boy, ain't that the truth!"
After all the skeins were tied and soaking in the water, Kendra explained how the yarns next had to be mordanted, or treated with the solution of alum water, so that the dyes would bond with the woolen fibers and be permanent. Jewel used alum because it was relatively non-toxic, unlike a lot of the other traditional metallic mordants. Using a long gnarled stick, she fished the skeins out of the warm water one-by-one, and dropped them into the large iron vat to simmer. Jewel explained how important it was to make sure the wool wasn't shocked by overly cold water.
While the yarn was simmering, Jewel passed around samples of the plants that had been used to make the dyes. She showed a sample of indigo leaves from her garden, natural indigo powder, and a hard rock-like pebble of synthetic indigo that had to be crushed with a hammer before using. She also passed around a section of madder root from
their garden, a plant that would make a beautiful reddish-purple dye. Most of the members were familiar with rosemary as a culinary herb, but didn't know it could be used as a dye plant, too.
Mrs. Bunch tottered to the front and peered into the pot. "Seems like all you're doing is
washing yarn that's already clean," she said. "Is this going to take much longer? Is all this really necessary?" She glanced at her watch. "Kendra, dear, we really should be getting on with it."
Kendra tried to ignore her, and proceeded to demonstrate to the rest of the group the steps necessary for processing the plant materials so that the dye would be released. She explained that plant leaves could be boiled, but roots had to be macerated and smashed.
She dropped a large sack of dried marigold petals into a small pot of simmering water, and the group gathered around to watch. As the water turned from clear to a light yellow, then to a deep golden color, the group oohed and aahed in unison.
Kendra grinned in response. "This is why, Mrs. Bunch, we spend so much time doing this. It's fun!"
Mrs. Bunch sniffed and stood to the side with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Careful, this might splash," Jewel warned the group as she strained the water to remove the flower heads. "The dye will be different colors, depending on the variety of flower used, the
acidity of the water, whether it was dried or fresh, and even when or where the plants were harvested." She explained that summer flowers made different colors than spring flowers.
She showed them how to make other colors using madder root she had dug from their garden, fresh rosemary and another using dried onion skins.
One by one the women dropped their skeins into one of the dye baths and stood aside as the liquids simmered. When the colors were dark enough, Ginger fished them out, carefully rinsed, and hung them from Jewel's clothesline to dry.
The women were excited now, marveling and clucking over "their" skeins and trying to decide what they would make out of them once they took them home. Most of the women were sporadic knitters or crocheted a little.
"Now for a little magic," Jewel announced mysteriously.
The women took their seats again as Kendra reached under the table and carefully pulled out a two-gallon glass jar filled with a murky, dark liquid. Jewel explained that she had been using the liquid indigo in the same jar for several years.
"Indigo is a dyestuff that has been used for centuries. At least since 2500 B.C. You probably know it best as the dye in blue jeans. It is one of the few blue dyes that are naturally found in nature. Indigo doesn't dissolve in water so you have to add a chemical to change it temporarily to what is called 'indigo white' to get the leaves to release the blue pigment."
She sat the glass jar carefully in a shallow pan of warm water, opened up the top, and poured in sodium hydrosulfite. She explained how the
chemical worked in the process. As the water began to heat, the liquid started turning a sickly yellowish-green color.
"The liquid has to turn to this color before we can use it as a dye. When we dip the yarn into the liquid, and bring it out again, it interacts with the air and turns into the traditional dark blue color we know as indigo."
Jewel dipped a small skein of yarn into the jar, waited a few minutes and pulled it back out. As soon as the yarn came in contact with the air, it began turning, almost magically, from the yellowish color to a deep, dark, indigo blue. "And if you want a darker color, let it dry, then repeat the process. Just keep dippin' it until it's as dark as you want."
"Oh, wow! Would you look at that?" Ginger exclaimed, clapping her hands.
"Cool. Really cool," Sarah commented. "I had no idea!"
"Humph! Really, Jewel, must you be so—so dramatic?" Eula-Mae Bunch said. "All this hocus-pocus. Is this really necessary? Is this what we came to see?"
Kendra stared at Mrs. Bunch, trying to keep calm. Why, the nerve of the old witch, talking to Aunt Jewel like that!
Ginger stood up, throwing Mrs. Bunch a withering glance. "I think it's time for a break. We have some refreshments ready, and we'll meet back here in about twenty minutes for the conclusion of the workshop."
Kendra gave her a grateful smile, as she took a deep breath and fought to keep her temper. She glanced at Jewel, who also looked like she wanted to spit nails. Kendra could tell she was NOT happy. And she didn't blame her. She'd spent a lot of time getting the workshop ready.
Ginger said, "If you ladies would be so kind to come around to the back porch, we have lavender cookies and hibiscus tea ready there for you. Just follow the stone pathway around the corner to the back garden area."
A smattering of applause broke out over the group, as the women rose from their seats, removing their smocks and aprons, pulling their gloves back on, adjusting their hats, clutching their purses to their bosoms, and tottering their way down the sidewalk, through the garden to the porch. They stopped here and there to exclaim over the heirloom roses that were putting on a fall show.
Kendra saw her aunt heading for Mrs. Bunch, full steam ahead. She reached out to stop her, but Jewel shrugged her off. "Let me be, Kendra. It's
about time someone told off that old cow," she said, "and I'm just the one to do it. It'll be my pleasure."
Kendra watched helplessly as her Aunt Jewel took Eula-Mae Bunch by the arm and pulled her to one side. They began to argue as Jeremy and
Ginger hurried to Kendra's side.
"Isn't she great?" Jeremy said, admiring Aunt Jewel.
Sarah nodded. "Yeah, she really is. I wish I had her nerve. Come on, Kendra. Let's go get something to drink and leave them to their little discussion. You probably need it, after all that."
"But Aunt Jewel . . ." she started.
"Can take care of herself," Sarah added. "It's about time somebody told that old woman off. I was just about to do it myself, but it looks like Jewel's got her under control."
"Maybe you're right," Kendra said, taking one last worried glance at the two women before followed Ginger and Jeremy to the back porch for refreshments.
--------
Fifteen minutes later, Jewel huffed up onto the back porch.
Kendra turned to her with a question in her eyes.
Aunt Jewel grinned. "Don't worry, honey. I took care of her. I doubt if she'll ever bother us again—not for a long, long time."
"Aunt Jewel! What did you do?"
Jewel looked surprised. "Why, nothin' that didn't need doin'. I just gave her a big old piece of my mind. Told her things that should have been said a long time ago." Aunt Jewel smiled. "It was so much fun, too."
Kendra breathed a sigh of relief. Eula-Mae Bunch had come close to ruining the entire workshop. She was sure that they hadn't heard the last from the nasty woman, but for now they had peace and quiet and could continue without interruptions.
"Where is she?" Sarah asked.
"Gone," Jewel said. "I personally showed her to the gate myself."
Good riddance, Kendra thought.
The ladies helped themselves to tea and cookies from a table set up on the porch. Some lingered in the shade, while the rest of the group wandered through Jewel's pride and joy—a raised-bed garden patterned after early Texas-style cottage gardens. The beds were edged with native limestone rocks that Kendra had gathered from the nearby countryside, and spilled over with bright, sun-washed colors of bachelor's buttons, hollyhocks and nicotiana.
Another bed contained a sprawling herb
garden filled with rosemary, oregano, thyme, catnip, basil and marjoram. In another bed along the property line grew the dye plants that Jewel used to make the traditional dyes.
The cough of a lawnmower next door caught Kendra's attention. It cranked then finally sputtered to life with a smoke-filled, deafening roar. "Oh no!
Not now!" She groaned, turning to the group and shouting for them to return to the back of the house. What a time for him to do his lawn! Kendra thought. Could anything else go wrong?
Kendra was sorry she'd thought that when Alma and Oma Martin rounded the corner of the house and started screaming. Kendra, Ginger and Jeremy pushed through the crowd and were brought up short by the sight of Mrs. Bunch's ample body, laying very still, face down in a pool of deep, dark, blue indigo, a large silver hammer laying beside her head.
The first thought that went through Kendra's mind was that Aunt Jewel's three-year old batch of indigo had been destroyed.
Her second thought was that her Aunt Jewel must have whacked Mrs. Bunch over the head. She screamed and with a sigh of relief, saw her Aunt Jewel coming around the other corner of the house. She was with Nora Rogers and a few stragglers from the garden club.
Jeremy ran up to her, took one look at Kendra and smirked. "Whoa. Looks like Maxwell's been here."
"What?" she said, staring at him.
"You know, Maxwell's silver hammer came down on her head!" he warbled.
"Oh, right," she said. "I don't think this is the time for a joke, Jeremy."
"You're right, I'm sorry," he said, looking
around. "You know me, I sing when I'm nervous."
Kendra reached down, avoiding the shards of broken glass. Trying not to disturb anything, she gently pressed her fingers to Mrs. Bunch's throat. She looked up into Ginger and Jewel's questioning eyes, then slowly shook her head.
"Ginger, call Sheriff Briggs for me, will you? And see if Jim's there while you're at it."
Ginger stood there for a second, staring down at Mrs. Bunch's body, then pulled her phone out of her jeans and stepped away from the crowd to call.
"Sarah, make sure nobody leaves," Kendra said. "I expect the sheriff will want to question everybody here." She nodded and left to gather the group together.
Kendra looked over at her Aunt Jewel, who had collapsed into a chair. Then she looked around for anything that seemed out of place. Everything was normal except for the body lying in the garden. Her neighbor's mower was quiet now, and the birds twittered in the trees like any normal day.
Except for the prone body, a bloody hammer and a deep, dark pool of indigo, there was no
other indication that a woman had just been murdered in Aunt Jewel's garden amongst the blooming rosemary bush, the bright golden marigolds and the fragrant antique roses.
END OF CHAPTER ONE
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Copyright © 2014 by Bobbi A. Chukran. All rights reserved.
SAMPLE CHAPTER ONE
The white-haired woman stooped over a rusty iron cauldron, stirring the boiling contents with a long, gnarled stick. Fire leapt from beneath it with a crackle and the smell of pungent pecan wood smoke filled the September air.
"More wood!" she demanded, brushing her hair back from her forehead with her wrist.
A small figure scurried to fulfill her wishes. Someone giggled then began to chant, in a low, soft voice. "Bubble, bubble toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
"Ah ha!" the woman cackled, stirring a beaker of white powder into the boiling liquid. "We're almost ready."
The chanting continued. "Eye of newt and toe of frog . . ."
"What did you say? Eye of what? Is that like a lizard or something? Wait a minute. Where in the world do you buy newt's eyes? And who around here's fast enough to catch a frog and get his toes?"
"Yuck," another commented. "That's not just wrong; it's cruel."
"Hey, look, Miss Smarty Pants. I didn't write it, I just recite it. Listen to this part—wool of bat and tongue of dog."
"Wool of bat? Hmm. Now that's very interesting. How exactly do you gather the wool from a bat? Do you suppose you have to pluck it? Or shear it, like a sheep?"
"You'd have to use an incredibly small pair of clippers to shear a bat, don't you think?" another said. "Or tweezers? You could do it with tweezers, I bet. You'd have to pluck a bat."
"Yeah, right—like a bat is just gonna hang around and let you tweeze it."
The other nodded. "That would be a problem. I don't suppose you would get much wool, either. Wouldn't be worth the trouble."
"Nope," the group agreed.
"That's why the line says 'toil and trouble,' I bet."
"Yep," they agreed again.
"Maybe it's fur on a bat?"
The woman straightened up with a groan and clutched at her back. "Are y'all gonna stand around here all day practicing your comedy routine and quoting Billy Friggin' Shakespeare, or are you gonna help me get this plant workshop going?"
Kendra Louise Harper smiled at her aunt. "Of course we are, Aunt Jewel! We're just having a bit of fun, that's all."
Jewel Moore frowned at her niece. "Looks
like I'm doin' all the work while y’all flap your lips, makin' fun! Not to mention that it sounds like y'all had one-too-many margaritas for lunch, too."
Ginger Marshall giggled. "Who, us?"
"Sorry," Kendra mumbled, scrambling to take the stirring stick from her and taking her place beside the huge iron pot. Her aunt might be right about the margaritas. That new watermelon margarita recipe she'd tried was really good.
To tell the truth, Kendra silently wondered why she'd offered to help with the workshop considering how much of her own work she had to do. Ever since her Aunt Jewel started teaching gardening workshops at their house, her own life had been severely disturbed. She'd barely had time over the last few weeks to work on her own book, a collection of local ghost stories. Her deadline was rapidly approaching.
In general, at the age of 35, Kendra felt time sliding away from her. Kendra was a folklorist who had studied Texas legends and lore. She told people that folklore was one of those college degrees that doesn't take you very far unless you get a Ph.D. and end up teaching other people. Kendra didn't follow that path like most of her schoolmates did. She chose to do her own thing and went into independent research, and had a whole list of projects she wanted to tackle.
Luckily, her Aunt Jewel, a widow for three years, had come to the rescue when Kendra's five-year marriage ended. It didn't take much to convince Kendra to move to Nameless into Jewel's tiny 1940s cottage. Together, they remodeled the old house and after a period of re-adjustment, they fell into a nice routine.
Kendra felt that she and her aunt made swell housemates. They both loved gardening and maintaining the large corner lot. Aunt Jewel loved to bake and Kendra loved experimenting with all the herbs they grew. They both loved to eat and her friends loved sampling their efforts. An additional bonus was that Kendra had found Jewel's older friends to be very helpful in researching the local ghost stories. It was a win-win situation.
Now that she had settled into her new home, she was eager to delve into her work. She had one book almost finished and several others on the back burner. Kendra was anxious to hide away and write, but first, she had to keep her promise to help her aunt with this workshop.
The steam from the cauldron was thick and hot. Kendra blew out a breath and pushed her dark hair back out of her face and tried to tuck it back into the braid that lay down the middle of her back. It immediately sprung back, curling into her dark green eyes. Kendra made a mental note to get a haircut.
Her aunt had been planning this Dyeing with Plants workshop for over three months. The fall weather had turned out beautifully, the crisp blue sky filled with soft, billowy clouds. The humidity
that was common year-round in Central Texas had been chased away by a cooling rain shower the night before. Kendra knew that it would be hot and humid again before the afternoon—probably near 100-degrees—if not higher. For now she was thankful for the (slightly) cooler weather.
Kendra's aunt was known for her gorgeous gardens where she mixed native plants with herbs and old-fashioned roses. They covered almost all of the large corner lot near downtown Nameless. Over the last few years, after Jewel had turned 60, she'd been bored and out-of-sorts, wondering what she'd do with the rest of her life. Not one to rest for long, she'd decided to start teaching local classes on gardening—how to design small gardens, how to use flowers and herbs in crafts and how to cook with herbs. From time to time, she also wrote a short garden column for the Nameless News.
Once she'd decided to give outdoor classes, Jewel and Kendra had spent months remodeling the large backyard shed into classroom space and putting a brick patio underneath a huge ancient pecan tree.
In addition to Kendra and a few of her friends, Aunt Jewel was expecting at least a dozen others for the workshop, mostly members of the Nameless Garden Club and a few of Kendra's friends from town.
Aunt Jewel's workshops were always popular and they filled quickly. For one thing, there wasn't a whole lot to do otherwise in Nameless, and artistic people were somewhat of a curiosity in the
small town with a population of 2,354—give or take a few. The next closest center of cultural knowledge was Austin, and that was over 30-miles away.
There was one movie theatre in town that showed two movies at a time. It was only open on the weekends and showed one movie upstairs and one downstairs. Kendra still wasn't used to that after going to the multiplex theatres in Austin for so many years.
Jewel loved to share her garden with others, and show people how many ways the plants could be used. In an area where invasive nandina shrubs and non-native boxwoods lined up beside every other house on the block, Jewel's garden was different, and attracted all sorts of attention.
Luckily, the love of gardening had rubbed off on Kendra. She figured it was genetic. She remembered walking underneath okra plants when she was much younger and was sure that was why she was so interested in plant lore.
After Kendra moved away from Austin and moved in with her aunt, they had spent several years designing and cultivating a small themed dyer's garden around the perimeter of the back yard courtyard. Jewel used many of these plants for her workshops. She wasn't much of a fiber person, but did use the yarns she dyed in small knitting projects.
Jewel's prized indigo bush, from which she had plucked some of the leaves for today's workshop, stood proudly against the short rock wall dividing her property from her closest neighbor. Edging it was a whorl of prickly green leaves belonging to the madder plant—a plant whose roots produce a red dye that had also been used for centuries before synthetic dyes were discovered. Red, pink and salmon cosmos nodded in the wind and deep orange marigolds edged the paths.
Kendra glanced at her watch as members of the garden club walked through the front gate, chatting excitedly, smelling the roses and exclaiming over the garden. Although it was September, everything was blooming abundantly now, and Kendra thought it looked best at this time of year. She knew that early fall in Texas could be as scorching hot as the middle of the summer, sometimes hotter. The heady scent of the antique roses wafted on the breeze and bird song filled the air.
Kendra took a last look at the setup, making sure Jewel had all the equipment she needed. The contents of two large stainless steel pots simmered on hot plates that were plugged into the outlet on the back porch. Sacks of dried flower petals and huge branches of fresh rosemary sat to the side. A large jar of indigo sat underneath the worktable.
Kendra's friend, Ginger Marshall, a local art quilter, had volunteered to help since she was definitely into the whole fiber thing. Ginger was an
internationally-known quilt artist that tended to do work that would never see the top of anyone's bed. Wall quilts, she called them. Jeremy Clifford, another friend, hovered nearby.
Kendra looked up to greet the group of women that had begun to gather. She suppressed a groan. They were dressed for a tea party, not a messy, drippy dye workshop. She had warned them to dress casually, but old habits were hard to break. This was an event in town, and the ladies of the Nameless Garden Club always dressed up for events. Some of them were even wearing white gloves. Did anyone do that anymore? Kendra wondered. The hats made sense; the sun could turn hot and deadly by noon—but gloves? She shook her head. What was this, church? They'd have to scrounge around and find aprons or old shirts for the women to slip over their clothes. Now that would be an amusing sight, Kendra thought.
"My, my, would you look at that?" Jeremy Clifford whispered. "What have we here, a Donna Reed reunion show?"
Kendra laughed. "Yeah, really. We'll have to find aprons for this bunch. Aunt Jewel will have a cow when she sees how they're dressed."
"You got that right," he said. Jeremy was one of the more artistic of Kendra's friends. He was an
avid member of the local community theatre group and worked at Do-Lolly's Diner in the mornings and whenever Lolly LaRue, the owner, needed him. He said it gave him material for the short plays he was trying to write.
Jeremy watched as the women trailed in. "I do love those gloves. And the hats! The hats are marvelous! I'll have to see if I can borrow some for our next production."
Jeremy was a fan of vintage women's clothing that he frequently wore in his productions at the local community theatre, a fledgling group of six intrepid souls who kept the group together. He was still glowing from his recent spectacular performance as ten of the characters in the Greater Tuna play. The Nameless News had reviewed the play and said that it was "a pure-dee delight and inspirational casting" putting Jeremy in the roles. He agreed. Of course, it helped that he was the producer and director.
"Hello, Kendra," a short, older lady said. Eula-Mae Bunch was the president of the Nameless Garden Club and involved in numerous community groups. "And hello, Jewel," she called to Kendra's aunt. She frowned at Jeremy. "I had no idea you would be here."
Kendra smiled sweetly, wiping her hands on the back of her jeans. "Mornin', Mrs. Bunch."
Jeremy bowed and smiled. "Mrs. Eula-Mae Bunch! I'm delighted to see you. Of course I'm
here to help Aunt Jewel whenever she needs me. I'm like part of the family. I'm surprised you're here, though, what with your busy schedule with the garden club, and the school board and the library committee and I don't know what all."
Kendra gave Jeremy the evil eye, but smiled.
Eula-Mae Bunch sniffed, tugging the cuffs of her white gloves firmly up her wrists. "Yes, I am terribly, terribly busy," she said, smiling at Kendra and ignoring Jeremy. "But not too busy to keep up with what our resident folklorist is doing these days. I trust you are working on something and keeping yourself busy, dear."
"Nosy old witch," Aunt Jewel murmured under her breath, turning to greet the rest of the group.
Kendra frowned at her aunt and rushed to take Mrs. Bunch's arm and lead her out of Aunt Jewel's way. The two women had never got along with each other, and she didn't want a scene in front of the other participants. "I've been extremely busy. I'm working on a collection of Texas ghost stories."
"Oh, is that so? Well, how interesting," Mrs. Bunch said as she tottered over to her chair.
Other members of the garden club spread through the garden, remarking on the copper labels that Kendra had used to mark the plants, and the handmade red birdhouse that perched on one corner of the garden fence.
Ginger scurried around, trying to set chairs out for the group and find aprons and old shirts to cover their clothes.
Alma and Oma Martin, twin sisters, drove up in their rusty Ford truck, clambered down out of the cab, then hung back at the gate, shyly whispering among themselves. The two sisters wore their long hair piled up on their heads, and long brightly embroidered cotton print dresses stretched almost to their ankles. They wore almost no make-up or jewelry, and each carried a large basket piled high with fluffy natural-color yarns. The Martins owned a small organic farm outside town.
"The hippy-dippy sisters are here," Jeremy whispered to Kendra.
"Hush!" she hissed, and moved to greet the sisters. She was a bit surprised to see them there. They rarely came to town unless it was a necessity.
Sarah Wilson, another of Kendra's friends and owner of Sarah's Needles and Threads, a small yarn, knitting and needlework shop in downtown Nameless, rushed to greet the two women.
"Hi! I was glad to hear that y'all were coming today. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Jewel will be glad to see you." She peeked into the basket. "And you brought some of your lovely handspun yarn! Wonderful!"
Alma nodded at Sarah with a shy smile. "We don't get out much to socialize, what with taking
care of all the sheep and chickens and all." She held out her basket. "Kendra said we could bring this instead of paying our fee. We're really excited
about the workshop. We've never tried using natural dyes on our yarns before. It's something we've always wanted to learn how to do. We sure appreciate you lettin' us sit in on it."
"No problem. Look, you're doing us a favor. We need all the yarn we can get today, so Jewel was glad to hear you were coming. Let me take those baskets from you and I'll go tell her you're here."
The two sisters handed the baskets over to Sarah then quietly took a seat at the picnic table to the side of the yard.
Mrs. Bunch marched up to the steaming iron cauldron and peered inside. "Huh. Looks like water to me," she sniffed, pulling back and waving her hand in front of her face as a puff of steam billowed up.
"It is water, Eula-Mae," Jewel explained. "Water with alum dissolved in it. We'll simmer the yarn in the pot before we dip it into the dyes."
"Alum? Isn't that something you use to make dill pickles?" Mrs. Bunch asked, wrinkling her nose.
"Yes, sometimes," Jewel answered. "I'll explain it all later when everyone gets here."
Eula-Mae sniffed and pointedly looked at her wristwatch. "You said we'd start promptly at 9:00, and it's 9:08 already. I do have quite a few other very important appointments today."
"Oh dear, of course. Why don't you try to relax and have a seat. We'll be starting shortly." Jewel looked over the crowd, counting heads. "Looks like almost everyone's here."
Just then a short, stout woman huffed up the driveway and slammed through the gate. Kendra winced as the old antique gate banged back against the wrought-iron fence that rimmed the front yard, crushing a climbing rose in her wake.
"I'm not late, am I?" Verna Holt trilled. "We had a prayer meetin' over at the church this mornin', and Pastor did go on and on and on. I hope y'all weren't holdin' everything up for me, were you? How sweet!" The woman was dressed for church, complete with a navy blue linen suit, straw hat and white gloves. A large red ribbon rose was perched on the back of the hat and long ribbons in the back fluttered in the breeze like paper streamers. "I did expect some of y'all to be there, however," she sniffed.
A few of the women pursed their lips, ducked their heads and looked the other way.
Coming right along behind Verna was Nora Rogers, head of the Nameless Public Library. She greeted several of the women as she passed, and smiled at Kendra as she took a chair towards the front of the audience. She looked around and made a sour face when she saw Eula-Mae.
Ginger looked at Kendra, trying to suppress a grin. "Looks like Mrs. Preacher is here."
"Yep. Looks like." She pursed her lips and mumbled. "Help me keep her away from Mrs.
Bunch if at all possible, will ya?" she asked.
Kendra glanced at the pastor's wife, then Mrs. Bunch, then Aunt Jewel. The potential for disaster was great with this particular group of women in the same gathering. Volatile was the word that came to mind.
Even though she attended Verna's husband's church every Sunday, and every Wednesday night for prayer meeting, Eula-Mae Bunch had held a grudge against the pastor's wife for over ten years. No one really knew why, but rumor had it that it had something to do with Pastor Holt and his propensity to want to minister to the widows of Nameless. And if they should happen to give him a large donation for the church in the meantime, even better. He'd be able to pay the electric bill and they would get a nice donation to list on their income taxes.
"Now, if everyone would find a seat," Kendra called, "we'll get started." The clamor of voices finally died down. Kendra looked out on the group, excited for her aunt that so many had decided to attend.
As Kendra opened her mouth to speak, Mrs. Bunch jumped up and exclaimed, "The Nameless
Garden Club is honored to be invited to your little talk. I think we can dispense with the usual business meeting beforehand, since this is such an unusual circumstance. I'm sure we'll all find the subject fascinating, don't you, girls?" She looked around at the group and several nodded and bobbed their heads in answer. No one ever dared contradict Eula-Mae Bunch.
She continued. "Although for the life of me, I can't see why anyone in these days and times would want to go to all this trouble."
"But I . . ." Jewel started.
"We use those easy dyes that come in a box on the choir robes over at the church when they start looking a little faded and ratty," Mrs. Holt interrupted. "I use it myself, sometimes," she confessed. "It's real easy. You can buy it in little boxes at the grocery store!"
"Also," Mrs. Bunch continued, ignoring the pastor's wife, "you can do down to Sarah Wilson's shop in town and buy simply scads of lovely yarns, already dyed." She smirked and glanced over at Sarah, who was hunkering down in her chair out of embarrassment.
Kendra gave Sarah a sympathetic smile, and tried once again to interrupt. "Mrs. Bunch, we really need to get started."
"Kendra, dear. Now please let me finish. Like I said, I'm sure we'll all enjoy ourselves nevertheless." She started to sit down, but popped back up. "But you do know, dear, don't you, that the commercial dyes are less prone to fade."
"Ah yes. So easy—but so unnatural," Jewel murmured, glaring at Eula-Mae, wondering why she had bothered to show up in the first place.
By now, Kendra was gritting her teeth so hard
her forehead was puckered and she felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. "Yes, um . . . well. Ginger, if you will pass around these yarn samples, we'll get started."
As Ginger passed around samples of yarn, Kendra explained that all of them had been dyed with plants from their garden. Jewel showed the group the proper way to tie the yarn into a small skein so it wouldn't get tangled in the dye bath.
Kendra dipped a small white skein into a pan of warm water and let it soak for a few minutes. "The yarn has to be completely saturated with water so the dye will penetrate the fibers."
"Now, I want all of y'all to try it," Jewel announced. "Step up here and grab an apron or a shirt to put over your clothes. I have lots of yarn up here. We'll all tie a sample skein and put it in to soak for a while."
One by one, the group timidly rose to their feet, took the yarn pieces held out to them and proceeded to make small skeins. Mrs. Bunch remained in her chair, now and then pointedly looking at her watch.
"Wouldn't you like to try it?" Jeremy asked her.
Mrs. Bunch shook her head and wrinkled her nose as if he had suggested stroking a dead armadillo. "I don't think so. You all go ahead. I'll just sit here and observe."
Oma, Alma and Verna gingerly stepped up to the pot and peered in. The pastor's wife removed her gloves, tucking them in her purse. "I do hate wearing these, but Pastor insists. I'd hate to get them ruined; they're my only pair. And it's so hard to find nice white gloves anymore."
Jeremy nodded. "Boy, ain't that the truth!"
After all the skeins were tied and soaking in the water, Kendra explained how the yarns next had to be mordanted, or treated with the solution of alum water, so that the dyes would bond with the woolen fibers and be permanent. Jewel used alum because it was relatively non-toxic, unlike a lot of the other traditional metallic mordants. Using a long gnarled stick, she fished the skeins out of the warm water one-by-one, and dropped them into the large iron vat to simmer. Jewel explained how important it was to make sure the wool wasn't shocked by overly cold water.
While the yarn was simmering, Jewel passed around samples of the plants that had been used to make the dyes. She showed a sample of indigo leaves from her garden, natural indigo powder, and a hard rock-like pebble of synthetic indigo that had to be crushed with a hammer before using. She also passed around a section of madder root from
their garden, a plant that would make a beautiful reddish-purple dye. Most of the members were familiar with rosemary as a culinary herb, but didn't know it could be used as a dye plant, too.
Mrs. Bunch tottered to the front and peered into the pot. "Seems like all you're doing is
washing yarn that's already clean," she said. "Is this going to take much longer? Is all this really necessary?" She glanced at her watch. "Kendra, dear, we really should be getting on with it."
Kendra tried to ignore her, and proceeded to demonstrate to the rest of the group the steps necessary for processing the plant materials so that the dye would be released. She explained that plant leaves could be boiled, but roots had to be macerated and smashed.
She dropped a large sack of dried marigold petals into a small pot of simmering water, and the group gathered around to watch. As the water turned from clear to a light yellow, then to a deep golden color, the group oohed and aahed in unison.
Kendra grinned in response. "This is why, Mrs. Bunch, we spend so much time doing this. It's fun!"
Mrs. Bunch sniffed and stood to the side with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Careful, this might splash," Jewel warned the group as she strained the water to remove the flower heads. "The dye will be different colors, depending on the variety of flower used, the
acidity of the water, whether it was dried or fresh, and even when or where the plants were harvested." She explained that summer flowers made different colors than spring flowers.
She showed them how to make other colors using madder root she had dug from their garden, fresh rosemary and another using dried onion skins.
One by one the women dropped their skeins into one of the dye baths and stood aside as the liquids simmered. When the colors were dark enough, Ginger fished them out, carefully rinsed, and hung them from Jewel's clothesline to dry.
The women were excited now, marveling and clucking over "their" skeins and trying to decide what they would make out of them once they took them home. Most of the women were sporadic knitters or crocheted a little.
"Now for a little magic," Jewel announced mysteriously.
The women took their seats again as Kendra reached under the table and carefully pulled out a two-gallon glass jar filled with a murky, dark liquid. Jewel explained that she had been using the liquid indigo in the same jar for several years.
"Indigo is a dyestuff that has been used for centuries. At least since 2500 B.C. You probably know it best as the dye in blue jeans. It is one of the few blue dyes that are naturally found in nature. Indigo doesn't dissolve in water so you have to add a chemical to change it temporarily to what is called 'indigo white' to get the leaves to release the blue pigment."
She sat the glass jar carefully in a shallow pan of warm water, opened up the top, and poured in sodium hydrosulfite. She explained how the
chemical worked in the process. As the water began to heat, the liquid started turning a sickly yellowish-green color.
"The liquid has to turn to this color before we can use it as a dye. When we dip the yarn into the liquid, and bring it out again, it interacts with the air and turns into the traditional dark blue color we know as indigo."
Jewel dipped a small skein of yarn into the jar, waited a few minutes and pulled it back out. As soon as the yarn came in contact with the air, it began turning, almost magically, from the yellowish color to a deep, dark, indigo blue. "And if you want a darker color, let it dry, then repeat the process. Just keep dippin' it until it's as dark as you want."
"Oh, wow! Would you look at that?" Ginger exclaimed, clapping her hands.
"Cool. Really cool," Sarah commented. "I had no idea!"
"Humph! Really, Jewel, must you be so—so dramatic?" Eula-Mae Bunch said. "All this hocus-pocus. Is this really necessary? Is this what we came to see?"
Kendra stared at Mrs. Bunch, trying to keep calm. Why, the nerve of the old witch, talking to Aunt Jewel like that!
Ginger stood up, throwing Mrs. Bunch a withering glance. "I think it's time for a break. We have some refreshments ready, and we'll meet back here in about twenty minutes for the conclusion of the workshop."
Kendra gave her a grateful smile, as she took a deep breath and fought to keep her temper. She glanced at Jewel, who also looked like she wanted to spit nails. Kendra could tell she was NOT happy. And she didn't blame her. She'd spent a lot of time getting the workshop ready.
Ginger said, "If you ladies would be so kind to come around to the back porch, we have lavender cookies and hibiscus tea ready there for you. Just follow the stone pathway around the corner to the back garden area."
A smattering of applause broke out over the group, as the women rose from their seats, removing their smocks and aprons, pulling their gloves back on, adjusting their hats, clutching their purses to their bosoms, and tottering their way down the sidewalk, through the garden to the porch. They stopped here and there to exclaim over the heirloom roses that were putting on a fall show.
Kendra saw her aunt heading for Mrs. Bunch, full steam ahead. She reached out to stop her, but Jewel shrugged her off. "Let me be, Kendra. It's
about time someone told off that old cow," she said, "and I'm just the one to do it. It'll be my pleasure."
Kendra watched helplessly as her Aunt Jewel took Eula-Mae Bunch by the arm and pulled her to one side. They began to argue as Jeremy and
Ginger hurried to Kendra's side.
"Isn't she great?" Jeremy said, admiring Aunt Jewel.
Sarah nodded. "Yeah, she really is. I wish I had her nerve. Come on, Kendra. Let's go get something to drink and leave them to their little discussion. You probably need it, after all that."
"But Aunt Jewel . . ." she started.
"Can take care of herself," Sarah added. "It's about time somebody told that old woman off. I was just about to do it myself, but it looks like Jewel's got her under control."
"Maybe you're right," Kendra said, taking one last worried glance at the two women before followed Ginger and Jeremy to the back porch for refreshments.
--------
Fifteen minutes later, Jewel huffed up onto the back porch.
Kendra turned to her with a question in her eyes.
Aunt Jewel grinned. "Don't worry, honey. I took care of her. I doubt if she'll ever bother us again—not for a long, long time."
"Aunt Jewel! What did you do?"
Jewel looked surprised. "Why, nothin' that didn't need doin'. I just gave her a big old piece of my mind. Told her things that should have been said a long time ago." Aunt Jewel smiled. "It was so much fun, too."
Kendra breathed a sigh of relief. Eula-Mae Bunch had come close to ruining the entire workshop. She was sure that they hadn't heard the last from the nasty woman, but for now they had peace and quiet and could continue without interruptions.
"Where is she?" Sarah asked.
"Gone," Jewel said. "I personally showed her to the gate myself."
Good riddance, Kendra thought.
The ladies helped themselves to tea and cookies from a table set up on the porch. Some lingered in the shade, while the rest of the group wandered through Jewel's pride and joy—a raised-bed garden patterned after early Texas-style cottage gardens. The beds were edged with native limestone rocks that Kendra had gathered from the nearby countryside, and spilled over with bright, sun-washed colors of bachelor's buttons, hollyhocks and nicotiana.
Another bed contained a sprawling herb
garden filled with rosemary, oregano, thyme, catnip, basil and marjoram. In another bed along the property line grew the dye plants that Jewel used to make the traditional dyes.
The cough of a lawnmower next door caught Kendra's attention. It cranked then finally sputtered to life with a smoke-filled, deafening roar. "Oh no!
Not now!" She groaned, turning to the group and shouting for them to return to the back of the house. What a time for him to do his lawn! Kendra thought. Could anything else go wrong?
Kendra was sorry she'd thought that when Alma and Oma Martin rounded the corner of the house and started screaming. Kendra, Ginger and Jeremy pushed through the crowd and were brought up short by the sight of Mrs. Bunch's ample body, laying very still, face down in a pool of deep, dark, blue indigo, a large silver hammer laying beside her head.
The first thought that went through Kendra's mind was that Aunt Jewel's three-year old batch of indigo had been destroyed.
Her second thought was that her Aunt Jewel must have whacked Mrs. Bunch over the head. She screamed and with a sigh of relief, saw her Aunt Jewel coming around the other corner of the house. She was with Nora Rogers and a few stragglers from the garden club.
Jeremy ran up to her, took one look at Kendra and smirked. "Whoa. Looks like Maxwell's been here."
"What?" she said, staring at him.
"You know, Maxwell's silver hammer came down on her head!" he warbled.
"Oh, right," she said. "I don't think this is the time for a joke, Jeremy."
"You're right, I'm sorry," he said, looking
around. "You know me, I sing when I'm nervous."
Kendra reached down, avoiding the shards of broken glass. Trying not to disturb anything, she gently pressed her fingers to Mrs. Bunch's throat. She looked up into Ginger and Jewel's questioning eyes, then slowly shook her head.
"Ginger, call Sheriff Briggs for me, will you? And see if Jim's there while you're at it."
Ginger stood there for a second, staring down at Mrs. Bunch's body, then pulled her phone out of her jeans and stepped away from the crowd to call.
"Sarah, make sure nobody leaves," Kendra said. "I expect the sheriff will want to question everybody here." She nodded and left to gather the group together.
Kendra looked over at her Aunt Jewel, who had collapsed into a chair. Then she looked around for anything that seemed out of place. Everything was normal except for the body lying in the garden. Her neighbor's mower was quiet now, and the birds twittered in the trees like any normal day.
Except for the prone body, a bloody hammer and a deep, dark pool of indigo, there was no
other indication that a woman had just been murdered in Aunt Jewel's garden amongst the blooming rosemary bush, the bright golden marigolds and the fragrant antique roses.
END OF CHAPTER ONE
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