Spider in the Attic

By Joelle Steele

It's 1926, and Irene Arden is happily married and living with her Swedish-Finn husband Karl Mattsson on his family farm in the beautiful, pastoral Independence Valley of western Washington. Irene adapts well to farm life and makes friends in the community. Sounds like paradise, but there is just one catch: Irene must live in the same house as Karl's mother, Agda, a weaver, and self-proclaimed " spider in the attic, weaving my woolly webs." Agda desperately tries to drive away her daughter-in-law, putting Karl in the middle between the two women. Eventually, Irene begins to investigate and question the circumstances of Karl's first wife's death, and whether her own fate might now be hanging in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joelle Steele
• Release date: Apr 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781940388328

Joelle Steele

Joelle Steele writes mystery and ghost novels and non-fiction books about face & ear ID, handwriting forgery, art, astrology, cat care, genealogy, and horticulture. And, she is a legal writer of contract templates for small business. She has extensive published credits and has worked as a writer, editor, and publisher since 1973.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Most of my knowledge for the setting of this story in Rochester, Washington came from people who lived there in the 1920s but have long since passed away. Their stories and memories were incorporated into a family history that I wrote and edited, and some of them now serve as background characters in this story. Other characters, including Irene Arden and Karl Mattsson and his family, are purely fictional.

Thank you for making Rochester come alive: my mother, Norma Elisabeth Steele Martelli, and her sister Lillian Eleanor Steele Anderson, who were born in a house still standing on Independence Road; and Signe Alphild Katarina Carlson Lind, Sharon Patricia Cole Sherwood, Rigmor Riggs Maria Nylund Holm, Elizabeth Betty Elvira Nygard Power, Freda West Hauge, and Rose Marie Erickson Halinen. Thanks also to my cousins Kenneth William Anderson and Donald Eugene Forstrom for their insights into life in Rochester.

Thanks to Kathryn McMahon for her information and expertise on antique American looms. Thanks to my horse breeding friend and weaver Donna Oeneo for her input on horses as well as plant-based dyes and the dyeing process. Thanks to the many people who helped me with information about the farms, land parcels, railroads, bridges, and commercial areas of Helsing Junction, Rochester, Independence, and Centralia: Debra Halinen Santelli, Dawn Brightwell, Bob Broostrom, and Don Mac Smith; the librarians at the Timberland Libraries in Centralia, Olympia, and Lacey; Ted Douglas of the Milwaukee Road Historical Association; the Lewis County Historical Museum; and Eileen Price of the Washington State Historical Society.

I studied up on poisonous plants back in the late 1970s when I was researching my first published mystery novel, Devil's Garden, about a poisonous plant expert named Mariah King who wrote a book by the same title about poisonous plants. Mariah King and her book are mentioned in this story as well.

Thanks again to Gretchen Wilding for her content editing. Her massive rewrites just about drove me crazy but, in the end, I think they were definitely worth the work, and I hope readers enjoy this story and the trip back in time to 1926 Rochester in rural Washington state.

CHAPTER 1

Saturday, February 13, 1926

Agda Mattsson had nine teeth. They were well-worn, yellowed, and streaked with brown stains. One of them, a lower molar, was painfully loose, bombarding her mouth with stabbing pangs that radiated all the way back to her right ear. She sat by the small attic window that overlooked the rushing creek that grew deeper each year as it raced through the wooded landscape, now mostly bare during the cold, wet, Washington Winter. She meticulously diced a Gravenstein apple into tiny squares. She loved apples and, teeth or no teeth, she was going to keep eating one every day. She had been doing so for sixty-six years and it had kept her healthy. She would outlive everyone, that was for sure. She nibbled on the tart little chunks, and when they were all eaten, she cast the core into her almost-empty chamber pot, then went to the wobbly cast-iron wash stand and removed the hand mirror that dangled from one of its hooks.

It was 3:15 p.m., and already the light of day was beginning to fade. She returned to the cushioned chair by the window, and turned her face to the light, holding up the mirror to examine her ailing tooth. The mirror had a minor crack from the time she threw it at Matts when he stumbled home late one night after drinking with Knut Weskar and some of his other logger friends, but the glass was still in place and she could see in it quite clearly. She fixed a gnarled thumb and forefinger around the tender molar and wiggled it back and forth. She held her breath and winced at the jolts of pain that resulted as she tried to free the tooth from her gums. At last, she gave it a sharp tug. She dropped the mirror in her lap and grasped the window sill, steadying herself as blood filled her mouth and she saw stars.

The deed was done, and in this world, you sometimes had to do things that were very unpleasant to rid yourself of something that could be worse than unpleasant. This was one of those things. In an hour or so she would completely forget that she ever had that nasty old tooth. She would go to sleep looking forward to seeing her son Kalle again. He had been gone for three weeks and, at last, would be home tomorrow. Of course, she would now have to decide what to do about the other one, the new one, the wife. She had to come up with a plan. It wouldn't happen overnight, but Agda was patient, and she was a very determined woman.

CHAPTER 2

Sunday Afternoon, February 14, 1926

Scatter Creek had again overrun its banks and flowed over Independence Road east of Michigan Hill in Rochester, Washington. Karl Mattsson stopped as soon as all four wheels hit the only paved portion of the road – a landmark in front of the Steele's farmhouse that the locals referred to simply as 'the pavement.' He allowed his 1925 Paige Jewett four-door sedan to idle as he turned in his seat, placing both feet squarely onto the running board. He looked down, dangled one of his overly long legs towards the road, and gingerly toed the water. Unlike previous floods, this one was minor – so far – covering the road with only two inches of water. The unpaved road ahead would probably be about two inches deeper in places.

Can we get through here? asked Irene, Karl's young wife of three days.

Yeah, I think so, he replied, pulling his feet back inside and closing the door against a sprinkling of rain that was typical for February in the Pacific Northwest. It had been pouring in Mount Vernon two days earlier when they boarded the train to Tacoma where they bought the car. Now he was thankful they didn't have to make the three- hour drive to Rochester during a downpour.

They sat in silence as Karl shifted the car into gear and slowly crossed the wet pavement. The vehicle then dropped sharply onto the dirt and gravel road that was also covered with a layer of water just slightly deeper than that of the paved area. Karl silently prayed that the tires would hold. They had two spare tires and had made it without a flat all the way from the auto dealership where he bought it, and so far the six-cylinder engine had done everything the dealer claimed it would as far as managing the hills and rough terrain along the way. Any doubts he'd had about spending $495 on the second-hand, shiny black auto were gone. It was fully one-fourth of the money he had inherited from his Uncle Ludwig, but he had a wife now, and to get around in the Independence Valley she would need reliable transportation, something nicer than the old 1915 Peerless 4- ton truck he normally drove which was strictly utilitarian. The Paige Jewett, on the other hand, was advertised as 'the most beautiful car in America,' and that was what he wanted for Irene.

Do you think your mother will like me? queried Irene, as she rearranged the multi-colored wool afghan that was wrapped around her legs. Her heavy wool coat and hand- knitted muffler hid the beautiful dusty rose suit she had worn in place of a wedding dress when they took their vows in front of a justice of the peace and a few of their close friends and family members in Mount Vernon.

I don't know. But, I'm sure you'll find a way to get along with her. He almost added that's what Selma did but thought better of it. No need to make a comparison of his late wife to his new bride on their wedding day. And the last thing he wanted to think about was Selma.

I just thought that since we'll be living in the same house and all … her voice trailed off as the car slowed. She had a sudden sinking feeling, as if she had just received news of a death in the family. She furled her brow as she realized that she probably should have met Agda Mattsson before she agreed to marry her son and make a home with both of them.

But she quickly shrugged off the thought and tried to think positively about her new life ahead. She was normally a happy person, always looking on the bright side. But even though she lived on the sunny side of the street, she sometimes drifted into worrying about things that she imagined would be much worse than they turned out.

Karl was a wonderful, charming man. There was absolutely no reason to think that his mother would be anything less. After all, the apple didn't fall far from the tree, did it?

They crossed the bridge over the Chehalis River at the same time that a slow-moving locomotive of a southwest- bound freight train was entering the covered railroad bridge a little west and parallel to them. After they passed Michigan Hill Road they were at Helsing Junction where the Union Pacific Railroad's tracks met up with those of the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway lines. The massive black behemoth was now on the tracks that crossed the road, and as they waited for it to pass Karl admired the powerful engine. He had stopped far enough back from the tracks to avoid being hit if a log rolled off a car and onto the road – it had happened once – or if the train should happen to derail – that had not happened there ... yet. The engineer blew the whistle and the locomotive roared by, leaving a waning trail of black smoke and white steam that hung in the air above its short consist.

Irene glanced at the train for a second, then turned her attention to the bare maples and other trees that covered the watery Winter landscape. She had secretly hoped that her wedding day might be one of those rare, sunny ones, but no such luck. She instead tried to envision the soggy day as romantic, followed by a cozy evening spent curled up in front of a warm fire with her new husband in his – in their – farmhouse.

The freight train was slowly chugging by, preparing to stop at Helsing Junction once it cleared the bridge. It was probably going to pick up more flat cars loaded with logs that were sitting on a side rail a short ways up the track. The ground vibrated as the cars passed by, each laden with an enormous pile of 80 foot-long fir logs bound for the saw mills in Hoquiam and Aberdeen.

Karl remembered watching an old steam crane loading those giant logs onto skeleton flat cars somewhere in Tacoma when he was a teenager. But he could also vaguely remember back to his earlier childhood days, before the railroads came to Rochester, when the logs were still floated down the wide creeks and into the fast-flowing but gentle rapids of the Chehalis River.

He kept his eyes on the train through the rain-covered windshield, not speaking. He had never been much of a talker and wasn't a fan of idle chit-chat. Neither was Irene. It was one of the things he found most attractive about her. She was nice enough to look at with her clear blue eyes and her chestnut hair cut in one of those new wavy bob styles. But what he liked most was how she had a mind of her own and didn't feel the need to babble away like so many girls did, always running on about things that seemed so silly and senseless to him.

The freight train finally passed and stopped to take on water. Karl threw the car into gear, and they proceeded through Helsing Junction with its train depot, water tower, and other railroad structures, including old bunk houses for rail crews and living quarters for the rail agent and his family. There were also a variety of other buildings and storefronts – a few of which were run-down or abandoned. From there, they continued down the winding rural road that snaked its way past the farms that lined the lush green hills and fields of the Independence Valley.

You'll be able to catch a train from here to Centralia, explained Karl. "They've got a Sears Roebuck store and a Montgomery Ward there. Lots of other