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  “They were this big,” Jason said, measuring an imaginary track well over twelve inches long by spreading his hands apart.

  “That’s big,” Alice agreed.

  “What did they look like?” Hope asked.

  Charles clearly was so excited he could barely speak. “Like—like—like big, fat feet,” he said.

  “Well,” murmured June, “that’s helpful.”

  Alice swallowed a chuckle. “Where, exactly, at the pond did you find them?”

  “We can show you,” offered Jason.

  It was barely four o’clock and Alice didn’t have to get back to help with dinner quite yet, so she decided she could afford to spend a few minutes humoring the boys. “All right.”

  “I’ll come too.” The voice from behind Alice belonged to Ronald Simpson, Florence’s husband. His freckled face wore a smile, and Alice read the amusement twinkling in his brown eyes. “I’ve always had a yen to see a monster. Let’s take my car.”

  Alice and Ronald followed the boys out of the Coffee Shop. Ronald’s car was parked along the curb, and after holding the passenger door for Alice, Ronald went around to the driver’s side while the boys hopped into the back seat. Ronald headed north on Chapel Road, past the inn, to where Fairy Lane was located. As soon as Ronald parked along the lane, Charles and Jason tumbled out of the car and took off at a good clip. They were well ahead of Alice and Ronald by the time they reached the edge of the pond, but then both boys slowed and waited until the adults were close behind them before forging onward.

  It had rained a bit two nights before and on one side of the pond there was a gentle incline to the water. “The tracks are over here,” Jason told Alice and Ronald.

  A path had been worn around the pond by people strolling along the edge of the peaceful water.

  Near the water’s edge there were weeds and cattails, withered and brown from the winter, but new shoots of green were beginning to show.

  Now that they were at the pond, the two boys seemed strangely subdued and surprisingly content to stay near the adults. Ronald led the way along the bank, following clear impressions of sneakered feet that the boys must have left earlier in the rain-softened earth.

  Suddenly, Ronald stopped. Alice nearly plowed into him.

  “Holy moley!” His voice was awed. “Alice, take a look at this.”

  She moved around to his side. There, in the middle of the path ahead of them, were two well-formed impressions of massive feet. Whatever had made the prints had apparently been traveling beside the path rather than on it much of the time, because a third print showed toes only, suggesting that the maker of the tracks had strayed onto the path from the side and then stepped back off it two paces farther on.

  “See?” Jason’s voice was high with excitement. “Monster tracks.”

  “I think they’re bear tracks,” Charles said. His voice quavered slightly as he looked around, clearly more than a little concerned that the bear might be nearby.

  “I don’t believe these are bear tracks,” Ronald said. “Bears rarely walk on two legs for any distance. Also, bears are rarely found in this area, as far as I know.” He knelt, staying a distance away from the tracks. “And in ground this soft, wouldn’t you think you’d see the claws in a bear track?” he said to Alice.

  “I don’t know enough about tracks to have an opinion,” she said honestly. “But I can tell you these are the biggest footprints of any kind I have ever seen.”

  “How big would you estimate they are?” Ronald asked.

  Alice eyed the prints. “Sixteen inches, perhaps?” she said hesitantly.

  “I’d agree with that, give or take an inch,” Ronald said. “Boy, what I wouldn’t give for my camera right now.”

  “You could go and get it and come back,” she suggested. “It’s going to be light for another few hours.”

  Ronald nodded. “That’s a good idea.” He winked at Alice and then turned to the boys. “How about you two stay here and guard these footprints while Alice and I go get a camera?”

  Jason shook his head vigorously, his eyes wide. “I gotta get home. Mom needs me.”

  “Um, me too,” Charles said. He already was edging backward. “I mean my mom needs me, not his. I told her I’d go to the store for her before dinner and…”

  Both boys turned and ran. Over his shoulder, Jason called, “See ya.”

  “See you,” Ronald and Alice called.

  As the sounds of the children rushing away faded, Alice began to laugh. “Those poor kids are half terrified.”

  “More than half, I’d say.” Ronald took another long look at the tracks. “But, Alice, I have to tell you that I have no idea what could have made these tracks. No idea at all,” he said slowly.

  “Maybe it’s someone playing a joke,” she suggested.

  Ronald’s freckled forehead wrinkled. “Who would do something like that? The prints are too well-formed to be the work of kids.”

  Alice shrugged. “Good point.”

  The two of them stood for a moment longer, staring down at the “monster” tracks in the soft mud of the path. The longer they stood there, the odder Alice felt, as if there were eyes watching her from the heavy underbrush farther back from the pond.

  A shiver chased itself up her spine. “Okay,” she said, “I’m as ready to get out of here as those boys were. And I have to get home and help Jane with dinner.”

  “All right,” Ronald said. “I’ll drop you off and then I’m going home to get a camera.” As they turned to retrace their steps back to Fairy Lane, he muttered under his breath, “And maybe someone to come along with me.”

  Alice chuckled. “I’m glad it’s not just me who feels a little spooked.”

  “You know,” he said, “we ought to have someone make plaster casts of the prints. Then we could take them to a biologist who might be able to figure out what they are.”

  “That’s a great idea. Fred Humbert probably sells plaster at the hardware store.”

  “I’ve never tried to make plaster casts before,” Ronald said. “I’d better find out if he knows anyone who could help me do it.”

  The two of them were almost back to the car when Alice felt a raindrop on the top of her hand. Then others struck her nose and her forehead. “Oh no. It’s starting to rain,” she said to Ronald.

  “I can see that.” As the drops began to fall faster, the two of them rushed the last few yards to Ronald’s car. Ronald’s blue shirt was spattered with dark blotches by the time they got there, and moments after they had scrambled in, the heavens opened and a deluge poured from the skies.

  Not unexpected in March, Alice thought, but surely unwelcome at this moment. The tracks were going to be too damaged to view after a downpour like this. When she said as much to Ronald, he glumly agreed. “Not much point in heading back there with a camera now,” he said. “I’ll just drop you off at the inn and go home.”

  “Thanks,” Alice said. “And perhaps on the way back to town you’ll see the boys. I can’t believe they didn’t wait for a ride. They must be soaked.”

  “They’re young,” Ronald said philosophically. “They’ll think it’s a great adventure.”

  Chapter Six

  An hour after Alice arrived home, the telephone rang. Jane, who was in the living room, walked to the reception desk and picked up the handset. “Grace Chapel Inn, Jane speaking. May I help you?”

  “Hello, Jane. This is Carlene. Is Alice around?”

  “She’s here somewhere,” Jane said. “Let me find her for you.” She glanced into the parlor and the dining room, but she did not find Alice until she stepped into the kitchen.

  “Telephone for you. It’s Carlene.”

  Alice looked surprised. “What does she want?”

  Jane shrugged. “She didn’t say.”

  Alice went to the kitchen phone. “Hello, Carlene. This is Alice.”

  Jane moved to the counter where she began forming the dough that had finished rising into croissants for tomo
rrow’s breakfast menu. Although she did not intend to eavesdrop, it was difficult to ignore Alice’s end of the conversation.

  “Yes… just Ronald and me… the boys found the tracks first… No, no, I don’t believe they were human. They were really large, well over a foot long, but also they were very broad. Ronald said he didn’t think they were bear tracks, either… No, I didn’t look closely at the toes… We intended to, but it began to rain. You might take a walk back there to see, but I imagine that hard rain we had washed them out or, at the very least, damaged them badly.”

  By now, Jane had given up any pretense of not listening. After Alice concluded her conversation, Jane said, “What on earth was that about?”

  Alice rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’ll never believe it.”

  “How about you tell us all about it over dinner. Would you please call Louise while I serve this potpie?”

  Alice did as requested, and in a few minutes, the three sisters were sitting at the kitchen table. Alice opened the meal with a prayer for Wendell’s safe return in addition to the usual blessing of the food. When she finished, there was a heavy moment of sorrowful silence.

  Then she picked up her fork. “You two will never, in a hundred million years, guess what I saw today.”

  “I could make a lot of guesses in a hundred million years,” Jane said, gamely trying to lighten the mood.

  “In the interest of time, I move we dispense with guessing,” Louise said dryly. “Let’s hear it, Alice.”

  As Alice launched into her story, Louise and Jane listened with growing incredulity.

  “So why did Carlene call?” Jane asked when Alice finished. “Is she going to write an article about it?”

  Alice chuckled. “Apparently, after Ronald dropped me off, he went back to the Coffee Shop. Everyone who had heard the boys the first time wanted to hear what he had to say.”

  “And he said…?” Jane leaned forward.

  “The same thing I said. He had no idea what to make of the tracks.”

  “Could they have been a hoax?” Louise asked.

  “I suppose anything’s possible,” Alice said, “but except for the boys’, there were no human prints of any kind around. And unless the boys are terrific actors, they had nothing to do with making the prints. As for what the tracks are, I’m afraid to even guess. I keep thinking about those ridiculous Bigfoot stories, but they don’t seem quite so ridiculous anymore.”

  “Bigfoot,” Jane said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the North American equivalent of the Abominable Snowman?”

  “It is.” Louise picked up the salad bowl. “It is also called Sasquatch, and the Himalayan monsters are called Yeti.” She spooned a portion of salad onto her plate, then realized both her sisters were staring at her. “What?”

  “Interesting trivia for you to know,” Jane said with a grin.

  “Cynthia had to do a report on the topic in school one time,” Louise said. “What else would you like to know?”

  “Do you think they’re real?” Alice took the salad from Louise.

  “I just don’t know.” Louise shrugged. “I’m skeptical. There are no fossil records, no skeletal remains, no records of any hunter ever bagging one… on the other hand, there are many, many eyewitness reports and findings of tracks. There have even been a few claims of finding nests or scat.”

  “Scat?” Jane’s brow wrinkled.

  Louise gave her a look. “F-e-c-e-s.”

  “Oh.” Jane made a face. “Sorry. Keep going.”

  “Some of the eyewitness accounts are extremely detailed and a significant number of them share commonalities that the average person would not have known.”

  “Geographically speaking,” Jane said, “I don’t think we are exactly in the center of Bigfoot sightings. Aren’t most of them out in the Northwest?”

  Louise nodded. “A lot of reports have come from areas where there are extremely large tracts of undeveloped land.”

  “So the four of you are the only ones who saw these tracks?” Jane asked Alice.

  Alice nodded. “Ronald was going to get a camera, and we had talked about making plaster casts. And then it rained.”

  “It didn’t just rain,” Louise said. “It poured. And it’s still raining, although certainly not as hard as it did earlier.”

  “It just kills me to think of Wendell being out in this.” Alice had to voice the thought that wouldn’t stop circling in her brain, despite the memory of her unusual experience during the afternoon. “It’s supposed to get down into the low forties tonight.”

  “Perhaps he’s not outside,” said Jane. “Maybe he’s found sanctuary with some lovely person who will call us tomorrow. Or maybe he’s sneaked into someone’s warm, dry garage.”

  “Oh, I hope so.” Alice’s voice quavered and Jane reached over and placed a comforting hand atop her sister’s.

  “Have faith,” Jane said. “We just have to have faith.”

  Alice realized, apparently at almost the same moment Jane did, that Louise had been noticeably silent during their exchange. She reached out and clasped Louise’s hand and Jane did the same.

  “It is not your fault, Louise,” Alice said firmly. “Neither of us blames you, and we won’t let you blame yourself. If I’d been in the kitchen and caught him on the table, I’d have reacted very much the same.”

  “Do you remember the time he leaped onto the counter and walked right across that freshly iced sheet cake I had made for the Potterston Art Festival?” Jane asked. “By the time I found him, he had licked his feet clean, but the paw prints in the icing gave him away. I wasn’t very happy with him that day.”

  Alice chuckled. “And how about the day he got into one of our guest rooms and knocked over the little girl’s goldfish bowl that she’d won at the fair? Thank heavens I was walking down the hall and heard the crash. That poor fish was flopping around and Wendell was trying to pin it down until I scooped it up and dropped it into a glass of water.”

  Louise finally smiled a little at that memory. “I bet those guests will never come back.”

  “Probably not.” Alice’s eyes lost their momentary sparkle. “Tomorrow I’m going to put up some more posters if we don’t hear anything by noon.”

  “I can help,” Louise volunteered. “And we can go to Potterston to try to find him again. By now, he must be getting hungry and lonely. Maybe he’ll come out if he’s hiding in the bushes.”

  “Maybe.” Alice tried to hold onto hope.

  After dinner, Alice went to the telephone. Smiling to herself, she dialed a familiar number.

  The phone rang once, then a second time. “Mark Graves.”

  “Hello, Mark. It’s Alice.”

  “Alice! Hello. How is business at the inn?”

  “Very good, thanks. We have two guests right now and another lady arrives tomorrow. How are you?”

  “I’m great. I’m packing to fly to California tomorrow. The San Diego Zoo has asked me to do a consult. I’m going to help design a new pachyderm habitat.”

  “That’s exciting. You really enjoy working with elephants, don’t you?”

  “I do.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Weird, right?”

  “Not for a veterinarian,” Alice said. “I think it’s fascinating.”

  “When I return from San Diego, do you think there might be a room available at the inn for a weekend stay?” His voice deepened. “I haven’t seen you in far too long.”

  “I know.” Alice cleared her throat. “I’m sure we can work out something. I’d like to see you too. But that isn’t really why I called.”

  “Don’t burst my bubble. I’m imagining that you can’t live without seeing me.”

  Alice laughed, and he said, “All right. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I called Mark,” Alice announced to Jane an hour later. Jane was at the computer. Looking over her sister’s shoulder, Alice could see a recipe for some kind of pancakes.

  “That’s nice.” Jane looked up,
puzzled. “Is there some significance to calling Mark that escapes me?”

  Alice smiled. “I asked him about Bigfoot.”

  “Ah. And he said…?”

  “Well, I was hoping he could come out and take a look around, but he’s leaving town tomorrow, so that’s a no-go.”

  “How disappointing. I know how much his professional opinion means to you.” Jane was grinning.

  “Stop that,” Alice said with mock severity. “We’re just friends.” She went on. “I was a little surprised at what he said when I told him how big a furor those prints have created around here.”

  “Let me guess. He laughed and said people are gullible.”

  “No, that’s what I said—in a nicer way, of course. I think it’s implausible that an animal that size could have escaped detection for so long. But Mark reminded me that only last year scientists got their first-ever video of a living giant squid. He seems to think it’s possible that a shy creature with significant animal intelligence could evade humans for a long time.”

  “Wow.” Alice had caught Jane’s full attention. “You’re kidding me. Mark believes in Bigfoot?”

  “I wouldn’t say he believes,” Alice hedged. “But he was more willing than I was to entertain the possibility of its existence.”

  Despite their hopes, Wendell did not appear when Alice and Louise went to Potterston on Friday afternoon. They distributed all their posters but one and made a list of several other places that would allow them to hang a flyer.

  Discouraged and disappointed, they stopped at the animal shelter located between Potterston and Acorn Hill on the way home and put up their last poster. The girl at the desk had no record of any gray tabbies brought in recently, but promised to keep an eye out for Wendell.

  Riding home, Alice began to feel the first stirrings of resignation. What if Wendell was gone for good?

  When Louise suggested they stop at the Coffee Shop, Alice agreed, eager to push away her morose thoughts.

  The little restaurant was fragrant with freshly baked pies. As they looked around for seats, a waving hand caught their attention.