Prettyinpinkgal: A few things: First, what do you think of the new summary? Also, I'm sorry I'm making Jesse such a whiney, pathetic bad guy in this story. I wish he wasn't now, but he sort of started this way in the first few chapters I wrote when I was a kid, and now I can't just change him. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the latest chapter (due to the murder in the last chapter, I've bumped the rating up to T to be safe)! By the bye: Chicken and waffles? Soooo good (just in case you folks don't know. I've heard that it's more of a Pennsylvania/East Coast dish).

Disclaimer: I don't own "Tuck Everlasting". Also, in order to show my outstanding level of dorkiness, "Darkness beyond twilight" is the first line in the dub for the Dragon Slave spell in the anime Slayers. (receives Honorary Dork Award)

FOSTER EVERLASTING

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DARKNESS BEYOND TWILIGHT

Everyone stood in numb silence for a second. Then, ever the eloquent one, Jesse said embarrassedly, "Who's Walt?"

James shook his head. Winnie absently answered, "They were friends. They played cards a lot together. He's the one who...who got me all the new dresses in return for his debt being...Oh, Lord, James! Are you certain of it?"

"Of course," he said, his voice muffled through his hands.

"What do you mean by 'they killed him'? It wasn't natural? He was...murdered?" Mae asked, her face pale, no doubt, from the memories of the past as well as the miserable present.

"Start from the beginning, son," Tuck finally said. "Mae, how's that tea coming along?"

"I...oh, I think I need to sit down..."

Natasha jumped up before Winnie could even think of moving. The former led her future mother-in-law to her seat, then went to fixing up the drink.

"I was...walking back..." James finally said, now staring blankly ahead. "I saw a lot of lanterns in the town in the distance. At first, I thought it was a specter of the night. Imagine, thinking it was a ghost when Walter just...!"

"Easy there, James. Talk like it's just the facts," was Tuck's cool and collected response.

James nodded his head jerkily, his eyes still far away from them. Without thinking, Winnie went to James and laid a hand on his shoulder. Despite how slow and sluggish he had seemed a moment before, his hand automatically whipped up to cover hers tightly. Winnie did not notice that, while she did not think of helping her dear Mae, she automatically leapt up to do a small deed to try and rescue James from his own despair. If she had noticed, she would have brushed it away and thought that it was merely because Mae was shocked and recalling unpleasant things, while James was truly filled with anguish, yet the nugget of doubt would have remained, suggesting that slowly, she was finding herself moving on from the Tucks.

But, as it was, she did not think these things, and only thought of jovial Walter lying dead somewhere, the same look on his face that was on the man in the yellow suit's when he died. And she thought of how, despite the fact that all of them would outlive other people on earth, there was no comfort for James when his friend's life had been intentionally snuffed out.

"Just the facts," James repeated now, his eyes unclouding, but only slightly. "I realized it wasn't a ghost. I went over. Walt's wife Abigail was there, and she was sobbing. She looked up at me and said, 'They were demanding to know where you were. Walt told him he didn't know, and I know it was the truth, and they shot him.' And then she burst into hysterics and told me to get away before they came back for me too, and I asked her who it was...I don't even know how I had the sense to ask that. Shock, I guess. She was too far gone then, rocking back and forth, asking the crowd to find her husband, to bring him back. One of them whispered to me, 'She doesn't know he's in the morgue already. We're having the reverend pray over him. More of a Catholic thing, you know, but it's comforting nonetheless.'"

"And so here I am," James concluded monotonously, tightening his hold ever more on Winnie's shaking hand. Whether this was for his comfort or hers, she was unsure.

The tea was served, and Natasha said solemnly, "I am so very sorry, James. Stay here for the night."

Were it under any other circumstances, Winnie might have bitterly thought how much of a hostess and a member of this precious family she looked, holding a teacup in her hand while she offered the invitation. But Winnie was still only thinking of James and Walter, and so she merely agreed eagerly with the rest of the family.

"Is that all right? I don't want to bring any trouble to you."

"What could he do to us?" Jesse asked, a slight shadow of his usual grin in place. He clapped a hand on James's shoulder, holding Winnie's hand in the process, as James had let her go temporarily. She looked up at him, as if just noticing he was in the room, and his eyes said, "You may not have known him well, but I know how compassionate you can be. I know you're in pain too, even if it's not as great as James's suffering."

Winnie returned to her two thoughts, although her numbness was lifted slightly from Jesse's comforting hold on her. Was there something she could do? Anything at all? It was too late to help poor Walter, but...

"Who would do this?" Miles said now. "James, can you think of anyone who would have a grudge against you?"

"If we're talking about someone who made a large debt from playing cards, everyone knew Walter had the greatest amount owed. No one would be that desparate for their measly sums. And if they wanted to kill me, they'd just do it on our weekly game. They wouldn't go to Walter to find me. I can't think of anyone in my entire-entire-lifetime that would want to do something like this."

"Treegap's a small town," Winnie said quietly. "If the murderer was from there, they wouldn't need to go through Walter to find you. Unless..."

"Unless what?" Jesse asked, tightening his hold.

"Unless he's trying to get a message across. Maybe I've read too many novels over the decades, but that's what it seems to me.

"Maybe he's not trying to kill you," Winnie continued, her voice getting higher as her mind caught up with what her mouth was saying. "Maybe he was trying to get you to come forward quietly after seeing what he could do."

"But why?" James demanded, whirling around and inadvertantly causing Jesse's hand to fall away from Winnie's. "Why would they do something like that? Wait...Are you suggesting he knows about the curse?"

"It's very possible. After all, it hasn't been that long ago since we...turned. Someone might have noticed. You've been in town far longer than I have. That would explain why I'm not one of his targets. He didn't notice me; he noticed the one who's been in town consistantly for the past several months."

"Bloody...If that's the case, then he's more of a loon than that uncle of mine ever was! What would his motive be, if you're right? The spring's gone."

"Maybe he doesn't know that the way to live forever was through that water. James, I occassionally sent letters to my family's lawyer, asking him to keep it private. I made up stories about how I was living far away with my charming husband and asking for management of these woods. After my latest letter, he sent me all the paperwork. These trees will never be public property, as my supposed offspring will have it passed down to them, and then down to their grandchildren, etc. If there's any contesting about my 'family's' rights to the woods some years in the future, I'll show up and claim to be Winnifred's daughter. Or granddaughter and so forth."

"As much as I respect you for that cleverness," Natasha cut in, not unkindly, "what does that have to do with the murderer?"

"No one dared venture into Foster Forest when my parents were alive. As Foster Forest is still private property, no one goes in there. I know, although I've kept my distance from venturing too close to town for many years. So if he did think that it was from something in the forest, if he suspected the Tucks also at any point, then he would not have been able to look in here. The town's close-knit enough to call him on it. He wouldn't know about the grave over the spring, the only place that even remotely suggests the possibility of magic. And if he really didn't suspect anything except that you knew the secret to living forever, then he certainly doesn't know about that way being gone."

"We don't even know if your theory is right," James said, curt from anger and depression. "All I know for sure is that I have to find this son of a-"

"You're right," Winnie cut him off in the nick of time. "We don't know for sure. That's why I'll go into Treegap tomorrow and find out what everyone knows."

"What?" Jesse yelled. "Are you insane? You are not about to just waltz in there when a murderer could be searching for us immortals!"

Winnie nodded gravely. "Thank you for your concern, Jesse, but I'm perfect. You stirred up too much controversy thirty years ago. There may still be people around who remember. I'm not the one the murderer's looking for. Even Natasha thinks I'm clever" -she shot Natasha a brief, small, smile mixed with amusement and gratefulness- "so you must know that I'm not going to run around with a chicken with its head cut off, asking, 'Are you the murderer? Are you hunting for immortal people? Are you mad at James?' I won't make a spectacle of myself. I'll be covert."

"Still!" was Jesse's impressive argument.

"Let her go," was Mae's sudden command.

The entire company turned towards her in confusion. Even Winnie was baffled by her sudden entrance.

She was still leaning against her husband, but her eyes were open now and as alert and intense as eyes could be. "Winnie's a brave, smart girl. She'll be just fine. And how else are we to get our information?"

"Besides, it isn't like he'll kill me," Winnie said with a obviously forced laugh. She left James for a moment to kiss Mae on the cheek. "Thank you for believing in me. I promise I'll make you proud."

Mae kissed her back, whispering, "I wish you could be my daughter too."

A little bit of her now-familiar ache came back, knocking at her heart's door, but Winnie tried to shoo it away, as enough anguish was in there for the moment, thank you. Instead, she only hugged the woman she once hoped would be her mother and told her thank you from the bottom of her heart.

"Be careful, Winnie," Tuck said, and Miles commented, "Try pulling your hair up. Wear one of those modern dresses you got. Look different than how you looked yesterday. Try to throw off their memories."

Jesse grumbled, "I still wish I could go with you."

"You'd mess everything up," Winnie answered truthfully. "But thanks."

Natasha surprised her with a hug. "Even if he can't kill you, he might still hurt you. Please be careful. What's your favorite dish?"

This last comment threw Winnie through a loop. "Um, what? Well, er, I've been craving chicken and waffles lately. Why?"

"I'll make it for you tomorrow, so be home promptly by six o'clock. If you're not there, then we'll send out a search party for you an hour later."

Thinking of Jesse's always-present appetite, Winnie couldn't help but think Natasha would make a good wife for him, it's true. But she was also immensely touched by the continual friendship Natasha was striving to make with her, so Winnie hugged her tightly and thanked her as well.

She turned to James, who was staring at her.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, dreading the answer.

He shook his head, then stared at her again. "I was just thinking that I broke so easily over this, despite how callous I felt myself growing over the years, yet you're really seventeen, despite the years, but somehow you've become the strongest person, male or female, I've ever met. I can't thank you enough."

Winnie felt her cheeks pinken under this praise. "I'm a little more than you thought I was the day in my father's sitting room, then?"

"You're ten thousand times the person I thought you were," was his reply. Knowing that James had already had a fairly favorable opinion of her then, Winnie felt the compliment accutely.

They soon retired to bed, although most could not sleep well. Winnie, miraculously, could, as tomorrow would be a big day for her, both in walking her own path for once and in finding Walter's killer.