Ben didn’t know what this village meeting was about, but he was surprised that the church parking lot was even less crowded than it had been for the meeting of the Preservation Society.
“Shouldn’t be too long,” he told Hudson. He fastened a leash to the beagle’s collar and tied it around a sapling on the edge of the thatch of trees. The dog tilted his head to one side. “Look, you’ve got shade and grass and everything,” he said, scratching Hudson under his ear.
When he entered the church, Ben recognized nearly everyone there. Chief Stanton spoke to Walter Harp by the pulpit, and Mrs. White and Lisbeth sat next to each other at the table up at the front. The only person whom Ben hadn’t met was a prematurely bald man who approached him as soon as he entered.
“Roger Armfield,” he said, shaking Ben’s hand. Armfield was taller than Ben and thin as a lamppost.
“I thought there’d be more people,” Ben said. The chief and Walter Harp waved at him across the pews.
“Oh, no, it’s usually just us,” Armfield said. “The Swannhaven Trust is made up of the heads of the, uh, the village’s first families.” Armfield looked about the same age as Ben, but his breathless way of speaking made him sound like an over-caffeinated adolescent.
“Is that the same as the Winter Families?”
“Oh, yes,” the man laughed, looking relieved. “I wasn’t sure you knew about that.” He leaned closer to Ben. “We’re the largest landowners and we know the village best. The chief is the chief, and Walter Harp owns the store and acts as a middleman for most of the tenant farmers. Lisbeth Goode owns the diner and is our historian. The Goodes have always kept our records. And Mrs. White can fix up almost anybody with plants she grows in her garden. I’m the town veterinarian. Being a vet might not count for much where you come from, but this is a town that has fifty times as many cows as people.” The man leaned back and guffawed.
Ben was beginning to wonder why he was here. As a descendant of a Lowell, he was technically a member of one of the Winter Families, but that didn’t mean he belonged at a governing meeting for a village he’d moved to only a few months ago. Across the room, Lisbeth rose from the front table and began to move toward him.
“I guess that makes sense,” Ben said. “Just doesn’t sound very democratic.”
“Oh, dear,” Armfield said. A sheen of sweat sprang up across his forehead as he looked over his shoulder. People began to take their seats at the front table. “We’re all properly elected. We have our quirks, but that’s not one of them. After all, we fought a war over exactly that type of thing, didn’t we?” His laugh became even more strained, and Ben was relieved when Lisbeth finally reached them.
“Glad you two have met,” Lisbeth said. She put her arms around both of them. “Let’s get started.” Ben had planned to sit in the pews, but Lisbeth guided him to a seat at the table, between Chief Stanton and herself.
Everyone greeted Ben warmly, but he felt more out of place with every moment. He relaxed a bit when Lisbeth announced that they’d begin the meeting with a reading from the Bible. He’d come prepared for that, at least. Everyone else took out a Bible, and he pulled his from his messenger bag. The dragon-skin Bible shook the table when he placed it there.
“We’ll take our reading from Job today,” Lisbeth said. She began to read but hesitated. Ben was still flipping through the pages to find the right passage. It’d been a while since he’d had to locate a specific verse in the Bible, but he’d practiced the day before. He looked up when he was ready and saw that Lisbeth was staring at his Bible. Everyone was, except for Mrs. White, who looked only at him. When her crinkled blue eyes found his, a smile bloomed on her face. Ben was about to say something, but then Lisbeth continued with the reading.
When the passage was finished, Chief Stanton was the first one to speak.
“Where’d you find that Bible, Mr. Tierney?” he asked.
“In the cellar up at the Crofts,” Ben said. “I was cleaning out some things and I found it locked in an old desk.”
“It’s a miracle you found it,” Lisbeth said, shaking her head. “That’s Aldrich Swann’s Bible. One of the only things he took on the passage from the Old World.”
“It looked old to me, but I didn’t realize it was that ancient.”
“Three hundred years if it’s a day,” Mrs. White whispered. The smile she’d set on Ben remained undimmed.
“I should be more careful with it,” Ben said. He began to feel uncomfortable again. “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it out of the house.”
“Nonsense,” Lisbeth said. “Take care with it, to be sure, but the good book’s not meant to die on a shelf. It’s meant to live on a lap. It’s right that you brought it, Ben,” she said. “And it’s good to have you here. Your kin used to sit at this table, and we invited you here today so you can see how the village operates.”
“Great,” Ben said, nodding. He took the opportunity to return the old Bible to his bag.
“Mrs. White, how are the Johnson boys?” Lisbeth asked. She opened her notebook and poised her pen above it.