"Madame! If you please! We have not yet started the soup course! Remove the chicken and keep it hot until we're ready." He explained to Chrysalis, "This is the first time I've had dinner here. We should have gone to Amy's Lunch Bucket. It would have been more congenial."
"Don't worry," she said. "I don't go out enough to know the difference."
After a few moments of silent sipping of chowder, Qwilleran asked, "Are the shops in Potato Cove considered successful?"
"I don't know what you mean by 'successful,' " she said, "but we were kind of surprised when some promoters in Spudsboro invited us to move down into the valley. They want to build an addition to the mall and call it Potato Cove."
"How do your people react to that offer?"
"Most of us want to stay where we are, although the promoters tell us there'd be publicity and we'd get more traffic. The rent would be low, because the mall management would consider us an attraction."
"Don't do it!" Qwilleran said. "Potato Cove is unique. It would lose its native charm in a mall. You'd have to stay open seven days a week, eleven hours a day, and the rent would go up as soon as you were installed. They're trying to exploit you."
"I'm glad to hear you say that. I don't trust the Spuds. They do everything for their own benefit with no consideration for us. They drive up our mountain and dump trash and used tires in our ravines instead of going to the Spudsboro landfill where they'd have to pay fifty cents."
"Have you protested?"
"Often! But Taters never get a square deal from the local government. You'd think we didn't pay taxes! And now they're trying to push us off our mountain."
"How can they do that?"
"Well, you know how it is. Old folks have to sell their land because they need money or can't pay their taxes. The Spuds buy the land for next to nothing and then turn around and sell it to developers for a lot of money. That's what Hawkinfield did on Big Potato, and that's what we're afraid will happen to us. The developers will come in; taxes will go up; and more and more Taters will have to sell out. When you live on land that's been in your family for generations, it's heartbreaking to lose it. Lowlanders who don't have roots like ours don't understand how we feel."
The meal progressed with a minimum of annoyance after that, although Qwilleran found the chicken unusually salty for a dining room that prided itself on flavoring with herbs. He did his best to maintain a pleasant attitude, however. He said, "I must ask you about something that baffled me the first night I was here. It was Friday, around midnight. The atmosphere was very clear, and I saw a circle of light on Little Potato. It was revolving."
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "I don't know whether I should tell you about that. It's kind of far-out . . . You have to understand my mother. She's a positive thinker, you know. She believes that sheer willpower can make things happen. Do you buy that?"
"I'll buy anything," he said, thinking of Koko's supra-normal antics.
"It's not just her own idea. My grandmother and great-grandmother believed the same way. They survived hard times and both lived to a ripe old age. I wish I had their conviction."
"How about your mother? Has she been able to make things happen?"
"Well . . . my father was in a terrible accident at the factory once, and the doctors said he couldn't possibly pull through. But my mother and grandmother willed him to live. That was twenty-five years ago, and you'd never know anything had happened to him, except for a slight limp."
"That's a convincing story."
"Some people call it witchcraft."
"Tell that to Norman Vincent Peale," Qwilleran said. Noticing that she was picking at her food, he inquired how she liked the chicken.
"It's rather salty. I'm not used to much salt."
"I agree the chef has a heavy hand with the saltshaker. Someone should set him straight . . . Are there any other examples of your mother's positive thinking?"
"She always used to arrange good weather for our family reunions," Chrysalis said with a whimsical laugh. "Seriously, though, she made up her mind that Forest and I would go to college, and you know what happened? The state started offering free tuition to mountain students!"
"With all that you've told me, how do you explain your mother's speech affliction?"
She stared at him with the hollow-cheeked sadness he had seen when she spoke of her brother's imprisonment. "She blames herself for the terrible thing that happened to Forest."
"I don't understand," Qwilleran said.
"She used all her mental powers to stop Hawkinfield from ruining the mountains. She didn't want him murdered; she just wanted him to have a change of heart!" Chrysalis stopped and stared into space until Qwilleran urged her to go on. "The horrible irony was that my brother was convicted of the murder—and he was innocent. She made a vow never to speak another word as long as he's in prison."
