I stepped back, afraid, and teetered on the edge of the landing. Strong hands gripped my arms and pulled me back to safety.
“It’s only a clock,” he said.
“Thomas!”
We were standing close, close enough to kiss, but I couldn’t step away from him. If his hands hadn’t held me, his dark eyes would have.
“I hate that clock,” I said. “It is always telling us what to do when.”
Thomas laughed. “And you certainly don’t want to do what is expected of you.”
“Do you?” I asked.
“I used to.” His gaze dropped to my mouth. He looked so long, so steadily, my cheeks burned and my heart pounded. I felt his eyes making my lips soft. I felt as if they were kissing me.
“April,” he whispered, “I can’t stop thinking of you.”
I didn’t say a word-l knew the pain we could cause. But every time he looked at me, every time he spoke his special name for me, I wanted him more.
He laid his hand against my cheek, then touched my mouth with one finger, running it over my lip.
just once, I thought, gazing up at him. One kiss wouldn’t be so terribly wrong.
He bent his head and our mouths moved closer. His lips brushed my cheek, the lightest touch of him making me shiver. Then his arms tightened around me, and I felt the warmth and tenderness of his lips against mine.
“Thomas!”
We both pulled back. My sister stood at the top of the stairs glaring down at us.
Thomas let go of me. “Helen, 1-”
“Don’t try to explain,” she told him angrily. “Don’t make it any worse for me. Leave, Thomas.”
“But I need to explain,” he said. “I’ve let things go too long.”
“Leave!” she shouted. “Now!”
He looked at me and I nodded.
“I-I’m very sorry,” he told her.
My sister waited till Thomas was gone, then started toward me, her eyes burning with anger. “Is there nothing of mine you don’t want, Avril?” she asked. “Is there nothing of mine you won’t take for yourself?”
I bit my lip.
“Mama and Papa already give you whatever you ask for.”
I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming next.
“The servants will do anything for you. Your friends cover for you. All the boys in this town wait on you.”
“Helen, it’s not my fault that-” I broke off.
“That you’re everyone’s favorite?” she finished for me. Her face was so pale, her skin so tight, I could see the bones moving beneath it. “Say it, Avril, it’s the truth.”
I looked away.
“You have everything. Did you have to take Thomas, too?”
“I can’t help the way I feel about him,” I said. “He can’t help the way he feels about me.”
“And what about good old Helen?” she asked. “Does it matter at all what I feel?”
Her eyes were bloodshot. I knew she was trying not to cry. My heart felt cut in two. I ached for her, but I ached for us as well.
“Do you think because I keep my emotions in check that I feel nothing?”
I was desperate to prove myself right. “If two people feel the same way about each other,” I reasoned, “then that must matter more than what one person feels.”
“I can’t believe you’d do this to me!” she cried, her voice quivering with anger. “One day you’re going to pay, Avril.”
She took a step toward me, then another. Something in Helen had shattered, the lock she kept on her fierce passion had been broken. I could see the fury in her eyes, in the curl of her fingers.
“Mark my words,” she said, coming toward me. “You’re going to pay.”
I stepped back quickly and missed my footing. I reached out, but couldn’t stop the fall. My head snapped back and I tumbled downward, the edge of each tread banging against my spine. I heard Helen scream-scream as she did when we were children, “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!”
Then everything went black.
“Megan! Are you all right?”
My back hurt and my arm, jammed against the stairway banister, buzzed with pain. Matt knelt next to me, halfway down the flight of steps.
“Just a little bruised,” I answered shakily.
He helped me sit up. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure.” I struggled to put together the jumbled images in my mind. “I must have been sleepwalking. I did it a few nights ago. You didn’t see me fall?”
“I was in the library,” he said. “When I heard the noise, I rushed out and found you here.”
“What time is it?”
He glanced over my shoulder. “About ten after five.”
I turned to look at the clock on the landing and suddenly remembered the thirteen chimes and the scene with Avril, Helen, and Thomas. This time I wasn’t dreaming simply of a place, but an event. Had it actually happened? Was I fantasizing, elaborating on the story that Mrs. Riley had told me, or was I truly remembering?
Until Matt touched my cheek, I hadn’t realized I was crying. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Tell me.” He gently took my face in his hands.
I didn’t know how to begin to explain. “It was so real,” I whispered. “But that’s what crazy people always think, that what they imagine is real.”
He put his arms around me and pulled me close. I buried my face between his neck and shoulder.
“You’re not crazy.” He smoothed my hair. “1 promise you, you’re not.”
“I-I’ve had a lot of weird dreams since I’ve come here.”
“Dreams about what?” he asked softly.
“Places, people. Thomas, Avril, and Helen-Grandmother. Dreams about the past.”
His arms tightened around me. I could hear his heart beating fast.
“Were you dreaming when you fell?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
“In the dream Grandmother was young, no older than us. And she was furious with her sister. She had walked in on Avril and Thomas.”
I felt him swallow hard.
“They were kissing.”
The motion was slight, but I sensed it, the way he pulled back from me.
“Grandmother threatened Avril,” I added, then the tears streamed down my face again.
“Megan, you should leave.”
“Leave?” That’s not what I wanted to hear from him, not now that I was wrapped in his arms. “Why?”
“I think that if you leave, all of this will stop.”
“All of this meaning what?” I asked.
“You know what.”
Suddenly I wasn’t in his arms anymore; he had let go and stood up. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
Matt led me to the library, where the lamp on Grandmother’s desk was already lit, and gestured for me to sit in her chair. After retrieving a key from a vase on the mantel, he returned to the desk and unlocked a drawer.
“I saw you in here,” I told him, “the first night I came.”
He laid several flat boxes on the desk in front of me. “I was looking at these. Have you ever seen a picture of Aunt Avril?”
“No.”
“She’s pretty.” He lifted a lid and handed me a black-and-white photo. “Look like anyone you know?”
My breath caught. Her resemblance to me was striking.
He opened another box. “There’s a colorized photo in here, a portrait.” He sorted through the pictures, then handed one to me.
“Gray eyes,” I observed. “Her hair’s lighter than mine, but her eyes are gray and the facial structure’s the same.”
“You see why Grandmother is going crazy,” Matt said. “You look like her sister. You look like Avril the year she died, and it’s spooking her.”
I nodded. “The question is why. Sixty years is too long to be mourning a sister, to be upset about seeing someone who resembles her . . . unless there is more to the story.”
&n
bsp; I looked at him expectantly, but he said nothing.
“In my dream Grandmother told Avril she would pay for what she had done.”
“So?”
“What did she mean by that?”
“Sounds like a typical fight between sisters,” he replied, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He knew more than he was saying.
“Mrs. Riley said the cause of death was an overdose.”
His hand tensed till it creased the picture he held. What had Grandmother told him the night they had spoken in her bedroom?
“But,” I continued, “who would know the difference between an accidental overdose and deliberate poisoning?”
“You can’t be thinking-”
“Only Avril,” I continued, “and the person who poisoned her, the murderer, if there is one.”
“Megan, I told you not to trust Lydia. She makes her money off people’s fears. She suggests things and lets people make themselves crazy wondering about them.”
“So, why did Grandmother go to see her the other day?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” he said brusquely. His face was a mask. Grandmother had nothing to worry about-he wasn’t telling her secrets. I was the one who should be wary of what I said to him; he probably told her everything.
“Does that key work on the other drawers?” I asked.
He unlocked them, and I started going through files and boxes.
“Look at these.” I showed him photos of myself and my brothers, our names and ages inscribed on the back in my mother’s handwriting. Grandmother never even sent us a Christmas card, but apparently my mother kept writing to her, kept trying to make contact.
Matt placed a picture of me on the first day of kindergarten next to a young one of Avril, then shook his head slowly. He cradled in his hand a photo of Avril standing by the gate in the herb garden. “It’s scary how much you look alike,”
“It’s as if I’ve been here before,” I said, watching his face carefully. “Have you ever felt like that, Matt, like you’ve been in this house some time long before now?”
“No,” he answered quickly.
Perhaps I was reading into it, but it seemed to me that if Matt had never thought about reincarnation, my question would have drawn a different response, a slower one. He would have looked at me puzzled and asked what I meant.
“You should leave,” he said.
“No way”.
“Why are you so stubborn?” he exclaimed.
“It’s you who are stubbornly refusing to open your mind to questions and explanations you don’t like. I’m staying here till I find out what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on,” he argued, walking away from me. “You look like Avril. It’s just a bad coincidence, and you’re going to make both yourself and Grandmother insane over it.” He started pacing the room.
“Did you move any of the objects in this house?” I asked.
Matt swung around. “I’m not the kind to play tricks.”
“Then you must suspect me,” I said. “But think about it. How would I know where those objects were kept when Avril was alive, unless-”
“Grandmother moved them,” he interrupted. “Maybe she’s gotten senile and did it without remembering, or this is just some crazy spell she’ll snap out of. Whatever the case, you’re not making things any easier for her.”
He walked over to me. “Finished?” Without waiting for my answer, he put the photos and boxes back in the drawers and turned the key in the lock.
“Matt, those pictures mean that Grandmother has always known that I look like her sister. She knew and chose to invite me. I want to know why.”
“Curiosity,” he replied.
“Guilt,” I countered. “Morbid curiosity and guilt.”
Matt shook his head. “You’re getting stranger than Grandmother. Take my advice, Megan. Get out of here. Get out before it’s too late for both of you.”
I got up from my chair. “Sorry. It already is.”
fifteen
When I returned to my room, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I dressed and took a long walk, spending time by the water then stopping by Avril’s grave. It didn’t give me the same eerie feeling as the first time I saw it. Perhaps seeing your own grave is like looking at a gushing wound on your leg: Once you’re over the initial shock, it seems natural enough. I knelt down before the stone and traced the name and dates with my finger. On the final date my finger stopped. Today. Avril had died sixty years ago today.
When I finally arrived back at the house, it was nine o’clock. I entered through the front hall, wanting to avoid Grandmother and Matt in the kitchen. I was angry with Matt for turning away when I needed his help. He had chosen Grandmother over me, determined to protect her at any cost.
I crept upstairs, stuffed some things in a backpack, and headed out again, leaving a note in the hall telling Grandmother I’d be gone for a while. My first stop was the library at Chase College. I hoped to access local newspaper articles from Avril’s time that might shed light on what had happened.
Three hours later, totally frustrated by the library’s ancient and cranky microfiche machines, I’d found just one short piece on Avril that attributed her death to allergic reaction. It made no mention of the mill or Thomas. After trying a number of sources on red-creep, it became obvious that its local name would not yield information on the plant and its byproducts. But I got lucky with Angel Cayton. She had not only started the Watermen’s Fund but contributed to the college. A librarian directed me to a conference room where her portrait hung.
Angel looked like all the other matrons honored in the conference room, with gray hair, blue eyes, and a bustline that could amply support pearls and eyeglasses-only she wasn’t wearing pearls. Around her neck hung a silver chain with a blue gem as mystical as the eyes of my newest-and perhaps oldest-friend. It was the pendant Sophie loved.
I opened the front gate. “Is Sophie around?” I called to the group of little girls who were playing dolls on the porch. Barbie and Ken kissed with loud smacking noises, then one of Sophie’s sisters turned to me. “Mom said we can only have one friend over at a time. Sophie’s already got one.”
“I’ll be just a minute. Is she inside?”
“Around back,” said another sister.
I followed a stone path to the narrow space between the Quinns’ house and the house next door and emerged into a backyard.
“Oh,” I said, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Hi.”
Sophie, who had been leaning over a tub of suds, leaped to her feet. A large black-and-white dog jumped with her. Alex caught the dog just before it escaped its bath. Soap bubbles flurried around them.
“Hey, Megan,” Alex said, smiling. “Want to help us wash Rose? We’ll throw in a free bath for you.”
I laughed. “Thanks, but I’ve already had mine. I’ll watch.”
“Rose met up with a skunk this morning,” Sophie told me.
“I’ll watch from a distance.”
“And Alex sort of stopped by to help,” she continued, looking embarrassed.
“Glad he got here first,” I teased.
“It was nice because he hadn’t seen the girls for a while,” she added, as if Alex had come by with the passionate hope that he could deskunk her dog and visit her sisters.
“Like I told you before, we’re just old friends.”
She was so worried that she was intruding on my dating territory, she missed the expression on Alex’s face-the protest he almost spoke aloud. I saw it and smiled.
“You know, Sophie, I’m here for a two-week visit,” I reminded her. “And I doubt Grandmother will be asking me back.”
Alex realized that I was giving Sophie “permission” to go with whomever she wanted and glanced sideways at her, but she didn’t get it. I don’t think it had crossed her mind that her old crabbing buddy was falling for her-falling fast, I’d say.
“How’s Matt today?” Alex asked.
“Hot and bothe
red, thanks to me.”
“Any chance of you two cutting each other a break?” he asked.
“Don’t think so,” I replied, and tried to ignore the ache inside me.
I watched him and Sophie work the soap through the thick fur of the dog, debating what to say in front of Alex. How aware was he of Sophie’s psychic side? He seemed an open-minded person; still, I decided to mention only what I had to.
“Listen, Sophie, I’m trying to get information on the plant called redcreep. Do you know its botanical name?”
“No, but Miss Lydia might.”
“What do you need to know about it?” Alex asked.
“I was told that people used it as a beauty supplement. I want to know if the processed stuff has any taste-or smell or color. Does it dissolve in liquid? What exactly does it do to you? How fast does it work? How much is too much and what are the symptoms of an overdose-uh, you know, that kind of thing,” I added casually, after giving a list that belonged in a forensic lab.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked.
I glanced at Sophie.
“It’s a long story,” she answered for me. “How about someone at the college, Alex-would one of the biology profs know?”
“We can find out,” he replied.
“Would you?” I asked quickly. “I’ve got some other things to do. Thanks. I’ll catch up with you later.” I started across the grass.
“Megan,” Sophie called, hurrying after me. “Megan!” She waited till we were in the side yard, out of earshot. “What are you up to?”
“I have a lot to tell you,” I said, “but not now. I want to talk to Mrs. Riley, then go to the mill.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Go to the mill. I have a bad feeling about it.” Shaded by a cedar, her blue eyes were a flicker of light and shadow.
“Look, Sophie, don’t get prophetic on me. It’s the past I need info on, not the future.”