The Stroke of Winter, page 1
PRAISE FOR THE KEEPERS OF METSAN VALO
“Wendy Webb once again spins a magical web in The Keepers of Metsan Valo, weaving Nordic folklore, family legacy, and the bonds that unite us to each other and to the natural world. She is the sorceress of Lake Superior. Get ready to be ensnared!”
—Carol Goodman, two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author of The Lake of Dead Languages and The Stranger Behind You
“A novel taut with threats and secrets, family lore, and folktales. Who—or what—truly guards and keeps the magnificent house and grounds of Metsan Valo? That is the question that thrums through the novel. And who—or what—is threatening and haunting the family who calls it home? Dark, brooding, and mysterious, as all good gothics should be. Loved it.”
—Kim Taylor Blakemore, author of After Alice Fell and The Companion
PRAISE FOR THE HAUNTING OF BRYNN WILDER
“The action builds to a satisfying and uplifting ending . . . Webb consistently entertains.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Endearing and greatly readable . . . [a] tale that is both warm and poignant.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Webb’s chilling tale of a woman running from a tragic loss will put a spell on you.”
—E! Online
“Prepare to lose yourself in Wendy Webb’s lusciously written The Haunting of Brynn Wilder.”
—POPSUGAR
“Enchanting.”
—The Nerd Daily
“Wendy Webb weaves a searing gothic tale with elements of horror, mystery, and romance . . . It is incredibly absorbing and atmospheric.”
—Bookreporter
“Wendy Webb is a rising voice in thrillers, and we can’t wait to see what she does next.”
—CrimeReads
“Suspenseful and engrossing, The Haunting of Brynn Wilder is a ghost story, a love story, and a chilling fireside tale in one. Readers will be drawn in from the first page, and they won’t want to stop until they read the eerie conclusion, probably in the wee hours of the night.”
—Simone St. James, New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel
“Evocative and beautifully haunting, Wendy Webb’s latest transports you to a location you’ll soon want to call home, in a story you won’t want to put down. It’s no exaggeration to call this the standout gothic novel of the year.”
—Darcy Coates, USA Today bestselling author of The Haunting of Ashburn House
“A haunting tale of grief and loss that is beautifully layered with new beginnings and woven into a gothic ghost story both bone chilling and heartwarming.”
—Melissa Payne, author of The Secrets of Lost Stones
PRAISE FOR DAUGHTERS OF THE LAKE
“Simultaneously melancholy and sweet at its core.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Well-delineated characters and a suspenseful plot make this a winner.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Daughters of the Lake has everything you could want in a spellbinding read: unexpected family secrets, ghosts, tragic love stories, intertwined fates.”
—Refinery29
“Perfect for anyone who loves a good ghost story that bleeds into the present day.”
—Health
“Daughters of the Lake is gothic to its core, a story of ghostly revenge, of wronged parties setting history right.”
—Star Tribune
“Daughters of the Lake provides an immersive reading experience to those who love ghostly mysteries, time travel, and lovely descriptions.”
—New York Journal of Books
“Daughters of the Lake is an alchemical blend of romance, intrigue, ancestry, and the supernatural.”
—Bookreporter
“Eerie, atmospheric, and mesmerizing.”
—Novelgossip
“Haunting and heartbreaking . . . A masterful work of suspense . . .”
—Midwest Book Review
“In Wendy Webb’s entrancing Daughters of the Lake, dreams open a door between the dead and the living, a lake spirit calls to a family of gifted women, and a century-old murder is solved under the cover of fog. This northern gothic gem is everything that is delicious, spooky, and impossible to put down.”
—Emily Carpenter, author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, The Weight of Lies, and Every Single Secret
“The tentacles of the past reach out to threaten Kate Granger in this atmospheric tale set on the shores of Lake Superior. Filled with all the intrigue of old houses and their long-buried secrets, this gothic tale will make you shiver.”
—Elizabeth Hall, bestselling author of Miramont’s Ghost
“Wendy Webb’s deftly woven tale hits all the right notes. A lost legacy of lake spirits, restless ghostly figures, and a past shrouded in fog and regret blend in delicious harmony in Daughters of the Lake. The queen of northern gothic does it again with this quintessential ghost story [that’s] every bit as compelling and evocative as her fans have come to expect.”
—Eliza Maxwell, bestselling author of The Unremembered Girl
OTHER BOOKS BY WENDY WEBB
The Keepers of Metsan Valo
The Haunting of Brynn Wilder
Daughters of the Lake
The End of Temperance Dare
The Vanishing
The Fate of Mercy Alban
The Tale of Halcyon Crane
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2022 by Wendy Webb
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542037600
ISBN-10: 1542037603
Cover design by Damon Freeman
To my lobster, Mary Gallegos.
CONTENTS
MAP
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
The painter awakened, his head pounding. He was sprawled out on the floor of his studio, his clothes a damp tangle around him, a paintbrush still clutched in his hand.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position and rubbed his bleary eyes, the room coming into focus. A ray of hazy, dusty sunshine streamed in through the windowpanes. An empty bottle of wine lay on its side, a glass broken into shards next to it. The wooden floor was splotched with paint, the colors blending into a mosaic.
What in the world . . . ? He stared at the paintbrush in his hand, turning it around, slowly. Red, streaked with black. He dropped it as though it were on fire.
He scrambled to his feet and whirled around. What was this? How had he gotten here? Why was he here? He didn’t remember coming into the studio. He wouldn’t have. Not after what had happened. He was done with painting. He had made that clear to himself. Yet here he was.
He ran a hand through his hair, straining to reach back in his mind to piece together the previous day. There was lunch with his friend at the Boat Club in Salmon Bay. Yes. He remembered that. The drive back to Wharton. Yes. Twists and turns. Then what? He had read a book on the porch that afternoon, hadn’t he? Opened a bottle of wine. Yes, it was coming back to him now. It had been a nice day.
But . . . what of dinner? What of the evening? It was all a blank. A great empty void.
He groaned as his head pounded. Aspirin. He needed aspirin. And his mouth felt and tasted like a hamster had died in there. He crossed the room to pour a glass of water from the tap in the bathroom, his hands shaking.
That was when he saw the canvases. Four of them. Or was it five? Could he possibly have painted all those in one night? It couldn’t be. He squinted to ge
When he focused on the paintings, his eyes grew wide as he realized what he was seeing. The horror of it hit him like a wave from the icy lake. What had he done?
Oh no. Dear God, no.
CHAPTER ONE
The snow came out of nowhere. Whiteout conditions bore down on Amethyst Bell as she drove from Salmon Bay back to Wharton on what had been a clear December day. The snow was coming down in sheets, the howling wind whipping it sideways with a fury. Amethyst couldn’t see the hood of her car, let alone past it. Anything could be out there in her path. A deer. A dog. A person.
She silently cursed the holiday decorations she had driven to Salmon Bay to buy. Today of all days.
This stretch of roadway was precarious under normal conditions, with a steep, rocky cliff on the lakeside that had seen more than its fair share of accidents over the years. Local legends abounded about the area. People in Wharton said a shroud of evil hung in the air there, a menacing energy that lured motorists over the side with a treacherous siren song.
But Amethyst shrugged off those old tales. She had driven this road hundreds of times on her way to and from her family’s vacation home in Wharton. She’d never been tempted to veer off the cliff, even if she always felt an uneasy tingling up her spine as she drove by it.
Strangeness in the air notwithstanding, she knew she was in a practical sort of danger then, not a haunted one. There were no gas stations, stores, wayside rests, or other places where she could safely stop the car, and she very much wanted—needed—to pull over. She couldn’t see anything but white. But stopping too close to the roadway in whiteout conditions might mean someone wouldn’t see her and could hit her from behind. Too far off it, and she could go over the cliff. With no better option, she inched along, using her memory as her eyes. A turn here, a straightaway there. She held on to the wheel so tightly her fingers ached.
After what seemed like an eternity, she took the familiar sharp right turn into Wharton and exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. A great wave of relief washed over her as she finally rounded the corner of her street. She pulled into her driveway, resting her forehead on the steering wheel as her heart raced. She had made it. She was okay.
She snapped her head up as she heard the yowl of a police siren and could make out the blue and red lights of a squad car disappearing into the whiteness. It was headed up the road toward the cliff. She shuddered, wondering if someone had gone over.
Amethyst grabbed her shopping bags and opened the car door, stepping out into the wind. Her feet sank into at least six inches of snow. Maybe more. Icy pellets punished the skin on her face as she hurried to her front door, closing her eyes against the fury of it.
A memory struck her just then. Amethyst had grown up hearing stories about legendary Lake Superior blizzards, of people losing their way in the blinding whiteness, becoming lost in their own yards, unable to get from their barns to the house and freezing out there. Thinking of them, those poor souls, she was grateful to be standing at her own side door.
Inside, she flipped the light switch. Nothing. She groaned and set her bags on the kitchen table. It wasn’t surprising to find the electricity out in a storm this fierce. But she noticed that all her window shades on the main floor were open, and the bluish hue of the snow outside washed through the rooms of the house. It was never pitch dark in the winter here. The snow lit up the night.
Amethyst—or Tess, as she had been called much of her life because of her childhood inability to pronounce her own name: Ama-tess, she’d say—made her way into the living room and crossed to the fireplace. She had laid it with logs and kindling that morning, thinking she might enjoy a fire after dinner. Taking one of the long matches from the box on the mantel, she was grateful for her foresight. She lit the match and touched the flame to the dry twigs. They crackled and burned, spreading to the logs in moments. The fire settled into a slow burn, illuminating the room with a soft glow.
Tess walked through the main floor lighting candles, first around the living room, with its high ceilings, dark woodwork, and original hardwood floors. An overstuffed sofa and love seat sat positioned in front of the fireplace, a giant ottoman between them. Books were strewn here and there on end tables.
She wandered into the drawing room, which her parents had turned into a library and study years before, then on to the music room, where a Steinway grand piano was the focal point. She loved the grand dining room with its table that sat ten and a built-in buffet where Tess’s grandparents’ crystal glassware would sparkle in the afternoon sun, sending out prisms of light all over the room.
But the heart of the home was the kitchen, which still had its massive AGA stove, a fireplace with two well-used armchairs on either side of it, a scrubbed wooden table by the wall of windows, generations of beloved cookbooks, and copper pots hanging from wrought-iron hooks. There were modern updates, too, like the dishwasher, the enormous stainless-steel fridge, and a second oven and stovetop that came in handy when feeding a crowd.
Soon, the main floor was aglow. This isn’t so bad, Tess thought. It’s pretty.
What to do now? Tess grabbed an afghan and snuggled on the bench by the bay window in the living room that looked out onto the front porch and the yard beyond. She curled her legs underneath her and gazed out into the whiteness. It was snowing so hard and sideways that it was even accumulating on the porch. She’d have a long day of shoveling tomorrow, that was for sure.
The ringing of the phone startled her out of her thoughts. The old-school phone—a heavy base with a rotary dial and a handset—sat in a little alcove built into the hallway between the living room and kitchen for just that purpose. She unfolded herself from her perch on the bench to cross the room and answer it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Tess. Jim here.”
Jim Evans lived next door and owned the small grocery store a few blocks down the hill, one of a handful of businesses open in Wharton during the off-season. He and his wife, Jane, were well into their sixties, maybe even beyond that, but they both had a delightfully artsy bohemian style mixed with a lifetime of cross-country skiing that made them seem much closer to Tess’s midforties. She hoped she would be as fit when she reached their age.
“Jim! How d’you like this snow?”
He chuckled. “Wish I had my skis instead of the car,” he said. “I’d probably get home faster. I’m closing up the store and wondering if you need anything.”
This warmed Tess from the inside out.
“Thanks so much, but I think I’m set,” she said, remembering the leftovers in the fridge.
“Your power out?” he asked. “Jane said ours went out at the house about an hour ago. It seems like our whole side of town is all dark.”
“Yep, mine is out, too,” she said, nodding. “But I’ve got a fire going and a bunch of candles, so I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be over in the morning to help you dig out. If you need anything in the meantime, just holler.”
Tess thanked him and said goodbye. She put the handset back on the base of the phone and smiled down at it. This kind of neighborly concern was one of the nicest benefits of relocating to Wharton permanently. It made her think back to her family’s history here. Her deep Wharton roots.
Tess had been coming to Wharton to visit her grandmother ever since she could remember, but her ancestors had built the home generations ago, when Wharton itself was new. Tess’s father and uncle had grown up there, as had their father and grandfather.
After her grandmother’s passing more than a decade prior, Tess and her parents had used the house as a vacation home. But Tess’s parents had moved to Florida permanently a few years ago, after having been snowbirds there for years before retirement, so Tess and her son, Eli, who would turn twenty-two this year, were the only ones who used the house these days.
Built a century earlier, the house was a regal Queen Anne, with dusty-green siding, a wraparound front porch, a turret, and a deeply pitched roof. Tess had spent her childhood exploring its endless nooks and crannies.
The main part of the home had five bedrooms, seven fireplaces, and six baths. The house, known as La Belle Vie, or “beautiful life” in French, and a play on their last name, sat on the hill in Wharton, overlooking the harbor below.
