The Enigma of Longing: Two Tales of Love and Mystery

By Holly Glass

Take a little time to escape into a world of passion, mystery, and romance with The Enigma of Longing, a collection of two short novellas from the unconventional Holly Glass!

First, in Out There, the ex-con Joy DeVries, desperate for a job and a new direction, thanks her lucky stars when she lands a gig as a crime scene cleaner. But her good fortune takes a murky turn when she’s sent to clean up a chilling suicide in the ghost town of Carrion Bluff. The longer she works, the more Joy suspects that this apparent suicide is actually a cover-up for a grisly murder. Unwilling to let the dead rest without their due justice, Joy teams up with a handsome detective who helps her unravel the town’s darkest secrets — and create a few steamy ones of their own.

Then, in Song of the Loon, Rose runs away from the big city and takes a job at a remote lodge in Northern Minnesota in the wake of a messy breakup. But her plan to find solace and healing in the beauty of nature gets derailed when Rose tangles with Jo — the iron-willed naturalist who works at the lodge. Life in the woods gets even worse when Rose is roped into helping Jo lead a series of canoe trips. Stuck together in the middle of nowhere, the irritation - and chemistry - between both women reaches an irrepressible peak. In spite of the sparks between them, Rose and Jo pump the breaks as each woman struggles to be free of the heartaches that haunt them. Will painful memories keep the two lovers apart? Or can love find a way to heal old wounds? Even though the odds are slim, a second chance just might be possible in the Northwoods — a place where the magic of the forest and the mystery of the loon’s call can do just about anything.

Don’t be fooled by their short length: These novellas pack a romantic, emotional punch like only Holly Glass can provide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Shorts
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094435558

Holly Glass

Holly Glass uses romance to explore the complexities of gender identity, the joys of sexual fluidity, and the possibility of personal liberation in a highly gendered world. Her goal is to cultivate intimacy and health by telling stories that are authentic to life and love outside of the hetero-norm.

Book preview

Out There

Chapter One

They found the body of Nathan Baxter in a home that was, by local standards, ordinary, even if it was a little lopsided. Just another haggard house, sagging with age, tucked away in the back corner of a fallow plot. Someone, God knows who, decided to make the best of it whenever the family farm went belly-up, and what was once a sprawling home for running children and tired tillers was now cut up into disjointed apartments. Homes like this are not uncommon in a place like Carrion Bluff, a town that’s on the brink of blowing away with the dry dirt. What else can you do with those vacant, cavernous houses? What becomes of the rutted land that no one wants to tend?

Around town (what’s left of it), everyone knows that these half-assed apartments are for so-called city slickers — outsiders who come to Carrion Bluff without land of their own to live on. But who could blame them for feeling less than eager to put down roots in a place like that?

The downtown was never much, even in the good old days when livestock and soybeans and sweet corn were enough to give a man whatever he wanted: there was Regina’s Diner, with its speckled countertop and homemade hash and burnt coffee, and the post office — which shared the same building. Cast out from the world into Missouri’s northwest corner, Carrion Bluff had once been seen as a happy retreat, glutted with tourist cabins and tennis courts and little dock houses where you could rent a paddleboat and spend the afternoon on Black Pond — a spot that had its own charm in spite of its ominous christening. There was even a dance hall: simple and boisterous and always busy, to the chagrin of the local Baptist church.

Eventually, time and geography took their toll on the little town. Maybe it was the hard, hot wind, or the endless wheezing flatlands, or the highways that could make you dizzy, stretching on and on into some distant nowhere. Whatever the cause, folks seemed to realize that the town just didn’t want them around. They took to the pavement, driving out into the void to see if a metropolis like Kansas City or Omaha could offer a bit more gaiety and comfort.

Today, Main Street is empty — save for the groaning skeleton of Meacham’s Hardware Store and the rest of the defunct business district. The tourist cabins are barely there, threatening to collapse with just the right amount of breeze. Only one gas station is still open. The entire drag would be a complete ghost town if not for Regina’s, which somehow manages to keep on slinging hash even though the post office has long since pulled up stakes.

Then again, it doesn’t mean much to the residents, the lifers, the ones who choose to stay in Carrion Bluff because it’s where their grandparents grew up. They tend their precarious farms and slip into their own dark forests to go bow hunting. They meet up for a cup of gritty coffee if there’s something worth discussing, or even if there isn’t. They don’t miss the out-of-towners or the less-than-hearty newcomers who never belonged to this town in the first place.

As far as the locals are concerned, the only people who live in those modernized farmhouses are just like the tourists. Teachers, maybe, who sign on to prop up that struggling grade school over in Ocilla, or maybe the occasional nurse who can only afford to live an hour away from the regional hospital that employs him. They never stay long, never more than a year or two until they score a promotion and move someplace better. And the people of Carrion Bluff are never sad to see them go.

Nathan Baxter was one such man: a janitor who worked the night shift at the Advent County Courthouse. He was a city kid, growing up in St. Louis before bouncing over to Boonville to serve time for a few botched robberies. There was never work for a man with a record, and Baxter counted himself lucky when he landed a gig waxing floors and cleaning windows during the quiet night hours. He was a quiet man, preferring to wile away his free time in the forest skinning squirrels, away from other people, so long as he could help it. He didn’t mind the echo of his footsteps in the vacant hallways or whistling alone in the dark.

He kept to himself, this man of thirty-six who spent his nights mopping floors in silence and his days in the deep wood — certainly not one for bothering his neighbors. That was, at least, until his downstairs neighbor and property owner, Mrs. Virginia Forsythe, noticed a new crimson stain that bled its way across her kitchen ceiling and down her dingy, papered walls.

She pursed her lips and curled her trembling hand into a weak fist. Mrs. Forsythe had been a widow for as long as Nathan had been alive, and if there was one thing that old age had taught her, it was the wisdom of her hunches. She’d always known that Nathan was trouble. It wasn’t normal for a man to come alive only at night. Even after Nathan explained the nature of his job, she remained skeptical. What was that young man really doing under the cover of darkness, out on those pitch-dark highways and hidden forests? It didn’t matter if the townspeople had no interest in Nathan — Mrs. Forsythe still begrudged him for never seeking out the company of others.

She hobbled up the stairs to Nathan’s unit, pausing to catch her breath and give her bad hip a little grace. She threw her frail fist against his door and, when no one answered, let herself in.

First, there was the smell: that odious stench of a body returning to its most basic elements.

Then, there was a bathtub that overflowed with blood.

Chapter Two

Joy DeVries was tired of St. Louis. As far as she was concerned, it was a gateway to a new world that had long since outpaced that modest city. It felt bleakly magical, somehow, located in the middle of everything and still devoid of anything. It was a city of higher powers and mixed messages: cathedrals that could rival the ones in Europe, and enough beer to drown the city’s residents. Maybe she didn’t like the place because all those churches and that big stupid arch stood for hope. Start here, said every clergyman and pioneer. Someplace better is within reach. To an ex-con, the town itself seemed like one great big poke in the eye — for Joy DeVries had never felt so hopeless in all her life.

During her final year at the state prison, her good behavior had earned her a work detail at the Kaneville Poultry Plant. The placement was a coveted one amongst the inmates: a chance to earn a little money, wear real clothes, and leave the prison grounds each day. Joy wasn’t crazy about disinfecting the slimy conveyor belts or hooking stunned chickens into their slaughter machines, but the change in scenery and the promise of a little dough was enough to lure her in.

She would’ve kept the job after her release, if it weren’t for the paltry wages that couldn’t cover a month’s rent. She drifted onward, using the bulk of her poultry money to buy a beat-up Chevy Coupe. She drove from one town to the next and spent her days in the local libraries filling out an endless succession of job applications.

As time passed and the money dwindled, Joy came to realize the limitations of those equal opportunity statements. No one wanted to employ a felon, even if her only crime had been waiting inside her boyfriend’s car while he robbed a convenience store. When she can’t sleep at night, she thinks about that fateful day, how she should’ve known that Nick would be stupid enough to actually use that gun. Her poor taste in men had earned her the title of accomplice and landed her with a ten-year prison sentence. Even though she was out now, Joy could tell that the future was going to be one dead-end town after the next, a long and nail-biting wait for the gas to run out and the money to disappear.

Section Break

She is in St. Louis when Emily Cressley, a manager at Maid for You! finally says these things to her face. She gives Joy a simpering smile, crosses her legs delicately, and removes the leopard-print glasses from her nose.

Look, sweetie, Emily says, her voice as cloying as her thick perfume. I know you want to make a fresh start, but house cleaning is a sensitive business. You’re alone in a client’s home, handling their most precious possessions. Our customers want to know that their sacred spaces are in trustworthy hands. And if one of them were to find out that I was sending a felon into their homes, well, I think my ratings on Yelp would really take a hit. I’m sure you understand the importance of a good image, sweetheart….

That afternoon, Joy eats a mashed-up peanut butter sandwich and thinks through her numbers. If she keeps sleeping in her car and eats just one meal a day, she can maybe hold out into next week.

She sits along the edge of the Mississippi, contemplating her future starvation, when her pay-as-you-go flip phone begins to buzz.

Yes? Hello? Joy says, instinctively brushing the crumbs from her mouth even though they can’t be seen.

This is Wanda Cressley, a woman says. I’m calling for Joy DeVries. It’s about a job.

Yes, this is she, Joy says hurriedly, too excited to really listen. Ms. Cressley, it was so nice to speak with you today. I’m so glad you had a change of heart….

A pause on the other end of the line — so long that Joy wonders if the connection was lost.

Ms. Cressley? she says, a little frantic. Are you there? I’d love to take the job if you’ll still have me. She hears a soft murmur of laughter on the other end of the line.

"Ms. DeVries, you and I have never met before. My name is Wanda Cressley. The woman who interviewed you this morning is my sister, Emily."

Oh, I see, says Joy, even though she doesn’t. So, what exactly—

Joy. May I call you Joy? Wanda says without waiting for an answer. Joy, my sister has absolutely no intention of hiring you. At the sound of those words, Joy feels as if her stomach has just been dropped from the top of the Gateway Arch.

I, however, run a business of my own, Wanda says. And I’d love to have you come in for an interview.

What makes you think I’m a desirable candidate? Joy mutters.

Well, I too run a cleaning service, Wanda says, although it’s a very different kind of work…. Honestly, it’s difficult to explain over the phone.

Joy frowns, wondering immediately what kind of shady hustle this woman must be running.

Listen, Ms. Cressley, I don’t know what your sister told you, Joy says, but I really am trying to get my life together here….

Come down to my office this afternoon, Wanda announces, and you can see if my offer resonates with your goals. She gives the address and directions, which Joy writes down on her arm. Before their goodbyes, Wanda hesitates.

Listen, Joy, I want you to mentally prepare yourself for the possibility that this won’t work out, she says, and Joy rolls her eyes. Yet another manager who wants to pretend to be open-minded.

The work that I do, it’s not for everyone, Wanda goes on. To be honest, you might not have the stomach for it. But, there’s no pressure. Come on down, and have a chat with me. We’ll see where things go from there.

Wanda hangs up without waiting for an answer. Joy is left with a dead line and a strange gnawing tension in the pit of her stomach. Because whatever this job is, she knows she can’t afford to turn it down.

Section Break

Wanda Cressley looks nothing like her sister. Instead of a fuzzy pastel cardigan and pressed floral slacks, Wanda wears only black, along with a long curtain of hair that’s dyed to match. She has black painted fingernails and black patterned tights. The only exceptions are her rhinestone earrings, glinting a venomous shade of yellow.

In spite of her macabre