Bitter Harvest by Sheila Connolly Page A

Lolly?”
    Bree sipped and nodded her approval. “Yeah, she’s under those blankets over there. We’re all set. Can you imagine what things would have been like before indoor plumbing?”
    “You mean the, uh, necessities? That’s what chamber pots were for.”
    “Ick. Chalk up one more point for mod cons.” She sipped again. “Listen, Meg—what you said about the footprints earlier. That was kind of scary. Why would anybody be snooping around here, especially in three feet of snow?”
    “I have no idea. But if someone wanted to break in, that’s the side to do it—nobody can see the back of the house, and as you said, nobody uses that room.”
    “Should we go check it out now? Make sure everything’s locked up?”
    “I guess.” So Bree was worried, too? Meg was reluctant to point out how easy it would be to get in through any window in the house, but there was no point in upsetting Bree any further. “Now?”
    “Better now than later.” Bree stood up. “You have a baseball bat or a poker handy?”
    “A what? Oh, you mean something we could use as a weapon. I have trouble imagining myself whacking anybody with a bat.”
    “You’d invite him into the parlor and ask him what he wants? That’ll work really well. You lived in the big bad city—didn’t you ever take any self-defense courses?”
    “You don’t have to be sarcastic. And, no, I don’t have a bat or a poker, and I’ve never learned anything official about self-defense. How about a rolling pin?”
    Bree rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that what they used in old sitcoms? Why is it women don’t have any useful weapons? Maybe you could throw flour in an intruder’s eyes, or soapy dishwater.”
    “It could work. Or even a bucket of boiling water.” Oh, sure—make the intruder wait while I boil water. “Come on, Bree—let’s just do it. I refuse to believe I’m going to have to take a bat to anyone.”
    “All right.” Bree sighed. She led the way across the hall, turning on all the lights as she went.
    As Meg had predicted, there was no one there. The rooms were cold and empty. Meg checked out the single window that overlooked the backyard, but since the snow had been blowing around in the light wind all day, she couldn’t even make out the footprints she had seen earlier—they were just dimples in the blanket of snow, from what she could see in the light from the window. Was she supposed to have taken casts of them? Were snowshoes like fingerprints, each unique and easily identifiable? Meg, you’re being ridiculous! “See? There’s nothing here.”
    Bree shook the sash and flipped the antique latch a couple of times. “Not now, there isn’t,” she grumbled. “At the very least you ought to put some wedges or something here so nobody can just slide the window open. Well, I don’t think anybody’s going to try to sneak up on us in the dark in this snow, so we might as well go to bed.”
    “Sounds good to me.” Meg followed Bree back to the parlor, turning off lights as she went—but she left the light over the front door on.
    After a final dash to the upstairs bathroom, they settled in, in front of the fire. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Sure, the floor was hard, but with the lights off, the fire was soothing, casting a golden glow on the room—and hiding all the nicks and dings and frays of the cheap furniture. Lolly settled herself in the curve of Meg’s body, purring.
    “You ever get scared, being here alone?” Bree asked, her voice small.
    “Sometimes. Mostly because it’s unfamiliar—I’m not used to the noises that an old house makes. I guess I was more scared when I lived in Boston. I mean, I knew there was crime there, and I had to be alert any time I walked anywhere, especially after dark.”
    “You have any break-ins while you were in Boston?”
    “No. I had neighbors who were robbed, but they lived on the ground floor.” And she had lived on the third floor, which had given her a false sense of security. Why