I had to keep my thoughts moving forward, or fear would paralyse me. ‘So, what was different last night, Gee? The full moon? Being outside? The TTC?’
It had always struck me as strange that they met in the summerhouse. Which made it odd that I hadn’t made it out there yet. Time to change that.
Despite the fact that Gigi was authorized to be upstairs, I didn’t want to deal with Paula just yet. It would have been easier to go down the spiral staircase, but I wasn’t brave enough to go through the French doors, even though there was no sign of anything weird in the hall. Instead, I took my usual route through the den.
Instead of going to the summerhouse directly, Gigi and I walked straight down the sloping lawn and into the trees. It was cool under the canopy of leaves, but only because the sun hadn’t reached in to drive away the morning damp. Gigi made sniffing forays through the pine needles, but never went too far before coming back to me.
We reached the river at the point where I’d seen the girl disappear. Looking back towards the house, I wondered how I’d managed to see her with such clarity. Then I shook myself. Duh. Ghost. Normal rules may not apply.
Bracing a hand on one of the trees that clung to the edge of the embankment, I peered over. It was a steep, treacherous drop, and the Alabama River ran by at a swift clip. But there was no sign of an actual fall. No disturbed earth, no broken branches, no marks in the mud.
A wave of vertigo tightened my grip on the rough bark of the pine tree. Time made one of those sideways slips in my head, and I couldn’t tell if I was falling now, or remembering the fall onstage, or somehow remembering her fall, empathizing too closely with a girl who possibly never even existed.
‘Who are you?’ I whispered. That had to be my next move, finding out. ‘And what are you running from?’
Gigi barked, bringing me back to the present. I forced myself to retreat a step and turned downriver, the dog trotting amiably beside me, unaffected by my momentary fugue.
The path took me downhill, the embankment shortening until eventually the land and water met on the same level. We’d reached the clearing of the inlet – a V-shaped slope that climbed steeply back up to the summerhouse. Set between the house and the water, it would have an excellent view and catch the breeze.
A raised octagon with a pointed roof, the summerhouse had a latticed half wall with screens above it. It was more of a gazebo really, but the tightly woven screens gave the walls a sort of opacity. Even during the daytime, anyone inside would be a shadow at best.
Gigi sniffed the perimeter, ending her patrol at the wooden steps to the entrance. They seemed in good shape, and there was even a handrail. The whole structure was freshly painted and looked a lot better than I would have thought, considering a bunch of teens worked on it.
The screen door opened noiselessly, and a strip of insulation inside the frame made sure that it wouldn’t bang closed. The purposefulness of the silence seemed eerily secretive. I found myself walking quietly, half holding my breath as I came in. The click of Gigi’s nails on the floor was loud, like a pair of high heels in the hush of an empty church.
Trying to shake the feeling, I let Gigi explore, which she did, nose to the ground. There was a wood table, its paint peeling off, that would get a good price from a chichi antiques barn. So would the chairs scattered around the room. Two wicker ones were set with a battered steamer truck between them like a coffee table. The furniture was old but clean, and the place didn’t feel deserted.
There was a faint smell of – herbs? Potpourri? Citronella candle? Maybe a mix of all those things. Several used matches lay on the corner of the trunk, and a lot of wax drippings pooled on the table.
I tried to open the trunk, but it was locked. More secrets. Why did the Teen Town Council meet in the summerhouse when there was a perfectly nice den in the house? And why was Addie out here so late? Did the meeting go into the wee hours, or had she lingered here, maybe with someone else? Shawn?
After an initial stab of outrage – he had a lot of nerve buying me pie – the idea didn’t entirely hold up. I believed Addie and Shawn might be thick as thieves, but it didn’t feel like they were involved in that way.
The summerhouse didn’t look like make-out central, despite the candle smell and the matches. And I didn’t smell pot or tobacco smoke. So what were they doing? Playing Scrabble?
This was occupying way too much of my mental energy. What could this possibly have to do with anything? With my dad, the weirdness in town, the whole Davis/Maddox thing, and last – but so very not least –with the things I was seeing and feeling.
I opened the screen door and looked towards the house. The rosy morning light blurred the shabbiness of the dingy whitewash and saggy trim like a soft-focus camera lens. The overgrown hedges, the moss-draped oaks, the vines crawling up the side columns – all made it seem like the house had been grown rather than built.
The gap in the hedges was aligned so that I had a clear view of the kudzu-covered stone in the garden. An invisible string tied between the rock and the centre of the summerhouse could be pulled straight and taut, like one of those tin-can telephones in old movies.
More disconnected mysteries, like puzzle pieces jumbled in a box. The wailing in the woods and the watcher in the window. The candles and secrecy here in the summerhouse and the monolithic keystone of the garden. Rhys’s secret agenda and his rock hunting, and the antipathy between him and Shawn.
‘Gigi, sometimes I think the ghosts are the least weird thing going on here.’
She growled, and I turned to see her plumed tail sticking out from under one of the built-in benches that ringed the half walls. She emerged backwards, pulling out something oblong, grey and fuzzy.
My stomach turned. ‘Oh my God. That had better not be a rat.’
Gigi bore it proudly towards me in her teeth, shaking it with a tiny growl, making sure it was dead. Thankfully, as she got closer, I saw it had never been alive; at least, I didn’t see any tail or feet.
I got her to drop the thing and, picking it up between two fingers, I examined what appeared to be a bundle of dried twigs or herbs. A tentative sniff said a mix of both. I smelled some kind of fragrant wood and a pungent green. How weird. The bundle was tied with a piece of cotton string, and it appeared to be charred at one end. When I touched it, my fingers came away black, as if I’d drawn on them with charcoal.
Incense? Maybe Addie was hooking up in the gazebo, and setting the mood.
Gigi’s ears swivelled towards the house, and she ran to the screen door, barking an alert. I slipped the charred bundle into the pocket of my jacket, as if I had something to hide, and wiped the traces off my fingers before going to the door.
But no one was coming. Gigi was barking at Caitlin’s compact car as it pulled round on the drive, heading towards the county road and on to the high school. I glimpsed Addie in the passenger seat, waving her hands as she told an animated, and apparently very humorous, story. Somehow, I was sure it had to do with my screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night.
Nice. I sighed and pushed the door open for Gigi, then carefully manoeuvred down the steps and climbed the sloping lawn towards the house. At least I could now eat breakfast without Miss Malice ruining my appetite.
Clara and Paula were deep in conversation, and they started guiltily when I came in. Obviously I was everyone’s major topic of conversation this morning. I knew Paula felt guilty, because she didn’t say anything when Gigi trotted in alongside me.
That is, she didn’t say anything about the dog. ‘Where did you come from?’ she demanded.
‘I had to take the dog out for her morning business,’ I said. Honest, if incomplete.
Her gaze dropped to my muddy tennis shoes, and the balance of guilt shifted back to normal. ‘You didn’t go out to the river, did you?’
‘Uh.’ I was so used to lying when sneaking Gigi in and out of the house that you’d think I would have been prepared with something better than a blank stare now.
‘Oh, Sylvie.’ Her exasperated lament had a worried edge to it. ‘Did you have to?’
Clara intervened on my behalf. I had started thinking of them as a pair of aunts, the familial version of good cop, bad cop. ‘Paula, she’s fine. Look at her. She looks a lot healthier than when she got here.’
Paula frowned at me, but apparently this was a convincing argument. Still, she wasn’t completely swayed. ‘Can you blame me for being concerned?’
‘Lord,’ said Clara, pushing herself up from the table. ‘This big ol’ house has a history that’s enough to give a girl the horrors. When I first came here, I used to have nightmares about the Colonel coming to get me. Why do you think I’m happy in an outbuilding, like my ancestors? I don’t want anything to do with yours.’
This was an interesting piece of news. Intrigued – not to mention hungry – I took my normal seat at the table. Gigi stretched her front paws up to my knee, asking to be picked up, and while Paula’s attention was on pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee, I slipped the dog into my lap, hidden by the table.
‘What kind of nightmares?’ I asked Clara as she returned to the table with a glass of orange juice for me.
She gave me a ‘don’t be naïve’ look and pointed to her dark-skinned face. ‘What kind of nightmares do you think?’
‘Oh, of course.’ My ears burned with the realization I’d said something stupid and possibly offensive. ‘I’m sorry.’
I was apologizing for a lot with those two words. Clara seemed to get that, and smiled slightly. ‘The past is a fact we can’t change. I live in the present.’
‘But …’ I looked from one woman to the other, seeing an opening for some prying. ‘It’s like you said, Clara. The house really is full of history. The past seems so close. Hasn’t your imagination ever run away with you, Paula?’
She blinked, her hesitation covered by Clara’s laugh. ‘The Colonel wouldn’t dare haunt Paula.’
It was the smallest chink, but I pursued that momentary delay in answering. ‘Maybe when you were a kid?’
This time, Clara noticed the hesitation too, and stared at her friend. ‘You did. I can see it in your face.’
Paula huffed, irritated that we had cornered her. She resisted for another stubborn moment, taking a long sip of coffee, then said, ‘When I was a little younger than Sylvie, I had a sleepover. We were “camping out” ’ – her tone supplied the quote marks – ’ in the summerhouse. And Rainbow Maddox—’
‘Rainbow?’ echoed Clara.
Paula ignored her. ‘We were doing silly girl stuff. Telling fortunes, ghost stories. I think there was a Ouija board involved. We were trying to scare ourselves, so it’s no wonder …’ She paused as if regretting starting the story.
‘Go on,’ said Clara.
Paula blew out a breath and half rolled her eyes. ‘Rainbow heard something outside, and when we went to look she swore she saw someone at the upstairs window, watching us. That it was the Colonel, and he was going to get us for doing magic in his summerhouse. Everyone screamed and hid in their sleeping bags, pulled them up over their heads.’ She chuckled. ‘It was the hit of the party, really.’
While I stared at her, trying not to look as gobsmacked as I felt, Clara said, amused, ‘I’m so glad to know you were once capable of being silly.’
I leaned forward, figuratively holding my breath. Something she’d said clicked, and I had to phrase my question carefully, to keep the mood light and the emphasis off my nighttime adventures.
‘Do you think,’ I ventured casually, ‘this is where the rumour that the house is haunted came from? Kimberly and the others really seem to believe in ghosts, and you said yourself Shawn is fascinated. Those would be their mothers, wouldn’t they? The girls at your slumber party.’
Paula blinked in surprise. ‘I never thought about that.’
Should I press my luck and point out how this meant I wasn’t nuts? That she could stop worrying about me? Or would it just remind her about last night? Her story didn’t explain the girl at the river, after all.
While I debated, Clara got up from the table and asked, ‘What do you want for breakfast?’
‘Is there cereal? I should have gotten some when I was— Oh, crud.’ I edited my usual curse word. ‘I left the soy milk I bought yesterday in Shawn’s truck.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Clara knowingly. ‘I guess you’ll have to call him to bring it over.’
Or not. I didn’t think he needed encouragement. Even forgetting that Addie had been out late with someone last night, if my gut said things like ‘stage presence’ and ‘Tom Sawyer trickster’, I needed to pay attention. Which was easier to do when Shawn wasn’t around.
My noncommittal ‘Humph,’ which both women seemed to find amusing, put an end to the conversation, or at least that part of it. As Clara and Paula exchanged a few words about groceries, I ventured into the inner sanctum of the kitchen and found regular milk and some bran flakes, carried them back to the table and poured myself a generous bowl. And then, suddenly, Clara left, as if she and Paula had made some agreement while I was crunching and couldn’t hear, and I was alone with my cousin.
‘Listen, Sylvie.’ She leaned her elbows on the table.
I set down my spoon warily. Nothing good was going to follow that gently concerned overture. The phone rang, and I grasped at the diversion. ‘Do you need to answer that?’
‘Clara can get it in the den.’ She cleared her throat and continued. ‘Your stepfather gave me the name of a colleague of his in Birmingham, who will see you at a moment’s notice. Maybe I should call and make you an appointment.’
‘What? No! Paula—’ My protest was incoherent, the emphatic slash of my hand endangering my cereal bowl. ‘I don’t need a shrink. Weren’t we just talking about how rumour and the history of the house can make even your imagination run wild?’
She didn’t look pleased with the reminder. ‘Imagination, yes. Screaming night terrors, no.’
My heart pounded in my throat. A junior shrink had gotten me into this mess, his confiding manner making me say too much. The stepshrink had told Mother I couldn’t stay by myself, and she’d believed him over me. My own, real shrink was no help at all when I’d begged – well, demanded – that he tell Mother I was fine. He’d just said his usual crapola about mourning and moving on. The psychiatrists who knew me didn’t believe I wasn’t drunk or depressed or deranged. What the hell would an actual stranger do to me?
‘Paula, please,’ I said, knowing that giving into irrational raving was not going to convince her I didn’t need professional help. ‘I’m fine. If it happens again’ – by which I meant, if I got caught in a situation I couldn’t bluff my way out of – ‘I’ll talk to … I don’t know. Anyone but a shrink.’
For a long moment, she studied my earnest expression. ‘What about Reverend Watkins at our church? Will you talk to him?’
I sat back in my chair, struck by the possible providence of this suggestion. ‘Which church?’ I bit my tongue to keep from blurting out: The one where the Colonel is buried? I didn’t want to say anything to make her rethink the shrink issue.
Paula stood up, as if the matter was settled. ‘It’s between here and Maddox Landing. You may have even seen the steeple from the road. It’s been the family church for generations.’
‘So …’ I pretended to be reluctant about the idea. ‘I could even ride my bike over there.’
She was so relieved, her spine relaxed a millimetre or so. ‘I’ll be happy to drive you, honey.’
It wasn’t difficult to manufacture a pained expression. ‘Please. Leave me at least the illusion of independence.’
‘Fine,’ she said, getting the last word. ‘I’ll call the reverend and tell him you’ll be out sometime today.’
I was eating my bran flakes, grumbling silently about being outmanoeuvred, when Clara came in from the front of the house. Something in her step made me look up, and I swallowed hard at her worried expression.
??
?What’s wrong?’ Paula asked. I remembered the phone ringing, and my heart plummeted.
Clara lifted her hands in a calming gesture. ‘Everyone is all right. Professor Griffith just called; they were in a minor accident on the way home last night.’
‘Are they OK?’ I asked, half rising out of my chair, oblivious to the fact that she’d just said so. There were different levels of ‘all right’.
She nodded. ‘He and Rhys are fine. Bumps and bruises. But it was late, and they had to have the rental car towed; they’re working on getting another one. He didn’t want us to worry if they didn’t arrive back until this afternoon or evening.’
Paula leaned a hand on the counter, one hand on her chest. ‘Well, thank God for that. I’ve grown rather fond of those fellows.’
‘You’re not the only one,’ said Clara, and I thought she was talking about herself until she said, her voice warm with sympathy, ‘Sit down, honey, before you fall down. They’re both fine.’
I didn’t feel like I was going to fall down. I felt like I was going to throw up. I’d known Rhys less than a week, not nearly long enough to justify the wrenching knot in my chest at the thought of something dire happening to him.
‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to go, um, change my jeans and work in the garden for a bit.’
Calling for Gigi, I headed to the front of the house. I didn’t care about my jeans; as the dog jumped onto the love seat, I grabbed the home phone and checked the caller ID. My cell phone was still in my pocket from the day before, and it even had a charge. I entered the number – a US one, probably a throwaway phone for their stay – into my cell, then grabbed Gigi and went out the side door to my garden.
Impatiently I unlaced my sneakers while the phone rang. I’d just gotten them off and was kneading the grass between my toes when Rhys answered.
‘Hello?’ I recognized his voice with no trouble, even though the accent was the same as his dad’s.
‘Are you really OK?’ I asked without preamble.
There was a funny sort of exhale on the end. Real-ization, relief, recognition – I couldn’t tell, except that his tone warmed a little. ‘Yeah. We’re both all right. The car’s a goner, though. Dad’s doing the paperwork now.’