The Fall of the Year Read Online Free PDF Page B

Her specialties were love, money, careers, matters of health, and the locating of lost items—so as she and I walked back down to where I’d left Father George’s Buick, I asked her about the missing savant.
    â€œItems, not people,” Louvia snapped, as she climbed into the front seat. She reached into her reticule and drew out first her red high-heeled shoes, then her homemade sealing-wax bridgework, which she carefully inserted into her mouth. “The day before Foster disappeared he came up to consult me to see if I saw ‘an attractive young wife’ in his future, if you can imagine such a thing. You’re the one who needs a wife, Frank, and I don’t mean those wild young Frenchies from Little Quebec that you’ve been running with since you’ve come home from college.”
    â€œGood God, Louvia, what the hell are you talking about? I’ll be starting at St. Paul’s in September.”
    â€œNever mind St. Paul’s. Drive down to Letourneau’s Bakery. It isn’t every day of the week that a backwoods fortuneteller has a chance to get her hands on a magic potion.”
    As we drove, Louvia told me that the night before she’d had a visitation from “the other side.” Two elderly deceased sisters from Little Quebec, Sylvie and Marie Bonhomme, had manifested themselves to her and instructed her to go to the bakery they’d owned there, where a secret recipe known only to them, and once used to bake bread for the Last Supper, would be revealed to her.
    It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. I vaguely remembered the old Bonhomme sisters myself. They had baked bread in an ancient stone oven in a flower garden behind their patisserie. The loaves had had a wonderful fragrance and flavor. Even Father George, a born skeptic, had told me the bread was said to have restorative properties, though this was the first I’d heard of a magic potion. As far as I was concerned, the search for Sylvie and Marie’s miraculous recipe had all the earmarks of one of Louvia’s many wild goose chases.
    As we drove into Little Quebec, we seemed to enter a different country altogether. The mill workers’ row houses were painted in a dozen different gaudy pastel colors, like the houses across the border in Canada. Many had bright orange metal roofs, which sparkled in the afternoon sunshine. Dooryards were ablaze with irises, poppies, and other spring flowers. Vivid patchwork quilts flopped from clotheslines, and sky-blue plaster Madonnas gazed placidly out into the dirt street from upended bathtub shrines.
    Even in this hamlet of blossoms, Letourneau’s bakery stood out. Behind a black iron railing, its front lawn was aglow with violets. Early-blossoming peonies, as crimson as Louvia’s homemade rouge, lined the slate flagstones leading up to the porch. Bright blue morning glories clambered up the iron posts and handrails along the steps. A bathtub Madonna surveyed us from the flower beds.
    The patisserie was bright and clean and fragrant with the aromas of baking bread and fresh coffee. Along one wall ran a spotless glass case crammed with golden loaves, some long, some as round as river stones. Another case displayed glazed buns. There were tortes and pies, cream-filled shells, pastries topped with glazed peaches and candied apricots. A wedding cake with white and pink frosting sat at the end of a short counter with several stools, where customers could enjoy a cup of coffee and a pastry.
    Behind the counter, removing a tray of piping hot loaves from a wall oven, was a tall young woman with long black hair and eyes the color of the morning glories on the railing. Louvia spoke to her in French, and the girl replied rapidly in a clear voice. Though I couldn’t make out a word, I could hear the constant suggestion of laughter in her voice, and wondered why.
    The tall girl flashed me a smile, her blue eyes dancing, and I felt something I could not