The Riverhouse

by G. Norman Lippert

  Christiana showed surprising sympathy. For some reason Shane had expected her to simply listen, her face set in that grave, inscrutable expression she so often wore, but that face seemed to be absent today. She set her coffee down at one point and touched him, lightly, on the shoulder.

  This, Shane thought, is the difference between having a cathartic conversation with one’s psychologist and one’s girlfriend. For one thing, the psychologist doesn’t normally sit on the couch with you, touching your shoulder lightly, occasionally twisting a finger in your hair, nodding and sympathizing and occasionally saying commiserating phrases like “That’s awful,” or even “Poor baby.” Dr. Taylor had had his own way of empathizing, but he’d never once said “poor baby.” In any case, Shane thought, it wouldn’t have sounded the same coming from him.

  Shane went on, then, and the story got decidedly weirder. He shied away from cleaning it up, or leaving out the most bizarre bits. He told Christiana about Smithy first, about how he and Steph had come to name the quirky personality of the cottage. He told her about the path, and the silver rattle, and the first appearance of Marlena, wraithlike and angry about the destruction of her home, the Riverhouse. Christiana still touched him, but she no longer stroked the back of his head or curled a finger into his hair. He continued, describing the process of painting the Riverhouse, how the imagery came to him as if from some source outside of himself, perhaps even from Marlena herself. She was acting as his muse, plugging into his creativity and feeding the pictures to him, giving him details he couldn’t possibly have known otherwise.

  He told Christiana about Marlena and Wilhelm, about Madeleine and baby Hector, retelling as much of Earl’s tale as he could remember. Christiana listened now without touching him, her brow furrowed, interested but somewhat repulsed. It wasn’t a very nice story, after all; the affairs and the insensitivity that Wilhelm had shown his wife, the mystery about who’d really born baby Hector, and the final betrayal on the night of the storm, when Wilhelm had run off with Madeleine, taking Hector and leaving Marlena with the house and the property—with everything and nothing.

  Finally, he told Christiana about the Riverhouse, about how it seemed to be there again sometimes, ghostly and faint, as if conjured by his strange painting. He explained how the painting itself had been returned to him by Penn Oliver. Christiana had seen the painting on the mantel, of course, but had never asked about it. After all, many commercial artists painted multiple copies of their favorite works, adding them to their personal collections. When Shane told Christiana that the Riverhouse painting was the original, the one she had sold at her gallery show, Christiana surprised him by rolling her eyes derisively.

  “And Penn told you to call her? Offered to send you an advance copy of her review?”

  Shane nodded, mystified, and Christiana roller her eyes again, shaking her head. Finally, she flapped a hand at him, telling him to go on. Somewhat confused, Shane did so.

  He described Marlena’s increasing rage, specifically directed at Christiana, despite the fact that Smithy himself—if there really was such an entity—seemed to like her, going so far as to unlock the doors for her, letting her into the cottage. He tried to explain his fears for her safety, his suspicion that Marlena meant to harm her somehow, for her own nameless reasons.

  Finally, he stood and led Christiana to the corner of the sunroom that overlooked the patio. He pointed toward the leaf-strewn stone floor outside, and she looked, her brow furrowed, thoughtful, obviously struggling to keep up with Shane’s fantastic tale. The leaves of the patio floor were peppered with dingy white sheets of paper, blown hither and thither, now damp with cold dew. Each page was covered with a crayon drawing. The newsprint doodle pad was still laying in the leaves beneath one of the deck chairs, surrounded by a scattering of fat, half-used crayons. Shane saw the drawing of the Insanity Stairs. It was stuck to a leg of one of deck chairs, flapping wetly in the breeze. He shuddered.

  “Marlena saw me,” he finally said. “She found me tapping into the story, and it made her mad. I was about to find something out about her, something Earl had seen, but she shut it down. And then she went after Earl, using Stambaugh. It’s just like Earl told me: crazy is contagious. Somehow Marlena planted the suggestion in Stambaugh’s mind, sending him after Earl before I could get there, before he could tell me whatever it was that he’d seen on that day, decades ago.”

  Christiana had that hard, grim look on her face now. “So I’m trying to understand all of this,” she said, still looking out at the patio floor. “You thought you could use your drawings as a… a sort of doorway. That you’d be able to look into the past through what you drew. Right?”

  Shane nodded, sighing. It sounded unutterably stupid when she said it.

  She went on. “Because you wanted to find out why the woman who used to live here—Marlena—why her ghost might have it in for me? But she saw you, knew what you were doing, and then she sent her old caretaker off to kill the only other person who might have known her secrets.”

  Shane nodded again, looking aside at her.

  She raised her eyebrows and met his gaze. “If you want to know if I believe you, I’d have to say I’m about fifty-fifty at this point. I’m not going to say things like this don’t ever happen, I’m just saying that none of them have ever happened to me. I’ve had enough problems with the living. I’ve never really had the luxury of worrying about the dead.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a luxury,” Shane began, feeling that she was missing the point, but she raised a hand and shook her head.

  “Sorry. Strike that remark from the record.”

  “I don’t think that that works outside of the courtroom, counselor,” Shane replied, perturbed.

  “The point is,” Christiana said, plowing on. “You did this because you were worried about me, right? And you were worried because you didn’t know why this woman’s ghost might hate me. Is that it?”

  Shane exhaled wearily and nodded again.

  “You can’t be this dense, can you?” she said, not meanly. “You’re a sweet man, Shane, but you’re pretty naïve about women. You know that?”

  “Rub it in, why don’t you,” Shane said, turning and heading back to the sofa. He plopped down onto it and picked up his coffee mug. It was cold.

  “Sorry, babe,” Christiana said, and smiled a little. The smile didn’t reach her eyes, however. “The Riverhouse painting, for instance. You totally missed that one, didn’t you? I mean, talk about a softball.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Penn Oliver wanted you to call her. Didn’t she spell it out for you pretty plainly? She likes you. She collects artist boyfriends like trophies. You’re the flavor of the month, as far she’s concerned. She sent the painting back to you to get your attention, because you didn’t take her up on her offer of an advance copy of her review. She’s not used to getting blown off like that. It probably drove her completely crazy.”

  Shane frowned at her, incredulous. “How can you possibly know that?”

  “Well, the man’s answer to that question is that Morrie told me all about her. Like I said, they used to date, and Morrie gossips like a school girl. But the woman’s answer is that I just know. Come on, you expect me to believe that this place is haunted by two ghosts—a woman and some weird little sneaky imp—and that your painting of that damned house somehow brought the house itself back to life, but you yourself doubt something as simple and obvious as woman’s intuition?” She shook her head, smiling ruefully.

  “All right, all right, I get it,” Shane said, patting the sofa next to him, summoning her to rejoin him there. “So what’s the point?”

  “The point is, you completely missed Penn Oliver’s hints, and that tells me everything I need to know about how it is you don’t understand what might be going on right here in the cottage. If everything you say is true, which I am not quite ready to accept. Yet. Sorry.”

  “That’s fine,” Shane said as she settled down
next to him again, “just so long as you don’t think I’m crazy.”

  “You may be crazy,” she said lightly, but not quite jokingly, “but that won’t change how I feel about you, and that’s what your real concern is. Don’t worry.”

  Shane relaxed. She was right. “So what am I missing?”

  “You are a sweet man,” she said, leaning close to him and looking him in the eye. “But you are a bit clueless in some ways. Frankly, I like that about you. You risked everything—in your own mind, at least—trying to find out what it is that this Marlena spook might hate about me, why she might have it in for me, when the answer was right there in front of you.”

  “What?” Shane said, not really sure that Christiana knew what she was talking about, but willing to indulge her anyway. “What am I missing?”

  She raised her eyebrows again. “It’s us, silly,” she said, shrugging and gesturing between them. “Our relationship.”

  Shane frowned, thinking. Christiana went on.

  “She thought she had you all to herself. You see that, right? You were the replacement for the husband she lost. Crazy as it sounds, she fell for you. I mean, look at you. You’re about the right age, I’d guess. You’re an artist. You live in the cottage where her husband did all of his painting. And you yourself were alone, recently abandoned by your own wife. It was perfect. It was a match made in hell. Sorry,” she said, smiling crookedly, “couldn’t resist.”

  “You’re serious,” Shane said, narrowing his eyes.

  She nodded, a little patronizingly. “She fell for you, Shane, you old dog. She thought you were hers. And then I showed up, and everything changed. It’s the story of her cruddy, faithless husband all over again. Her man’s sleeping with another woman. My presence is just rubbing salt in some very old wounds. Let me lay it out for you. If this ghost of yours really exists, she’s jealous.”

  Jealous, Shane thought, narrowing his eyes, trying it out to see if it fit. Marlena is jealous. Now that Christiana had said it openly, he was amazed that it hadn’t occurred to him before. But then that wasn’t really true, was it? He remembered painting the bikini-clad girl in the Florida illustration, using the woman in the Flickr photo as a reference. He’d felt like the portrait of Marlena was watching him, judging his intentions. He’d even turned to the portrait afterwards, telling Marlena that she didn’t have anything to worry about. You’re still my main squeeze, he remembered saying. Marlena is jealous, he thought again, and this time it felt true. It felt as obvious as the sun in the sky. She hates Christiana because Christiana is taking away what she thought was hers. Christiana is taking me away from her.

  Maybe there was more to it than that, some specific that he was missing, but that was certainly the core of it. It was so simple that he’d completely overlooked it.

  “So,” Shane said slowly. “What do you do with a jealous ghost?”

  Christiana shrugged and shook her head. “Move away?”

  Shane stared at her blankly, wondering if she was joking. She merely looked back at him, her eyebrows raised inquisitively, as if to say why the hell not? What’s keeping you here anyway?

  It was a good question, a sane question, and yet it was a question Shane didn’t have a meaningful answer to. Moving out of the cottage had never even occurred to him. It was his cottage, damn it, despite its long and interesting history. He wasn’t about to abandon it just because some dead woman had gotten herself into some kind of neurotic, jealous snit.

  But there was more to it than that, and Shane knew it. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. It was all mixed up with his curiosity about the new painting, The Sleepwalker, the one sitting unfinished on the easel upstairs, and the candle that still flickered sometimes on the windowsill of the mysterious, room-less window, and the Riverhouse painting itself, with its haunting, approaching shadow, growing longer everyday in the bottom right of the picture.

  Shane wasn’t going to go anywhere. Not until all of that was resolved. He was curious, yes, but more than that, he was a part of it. He couldn’t abandon it anymore than he could will himself to stop breathing. Surely Christiana understood that. Later, when the questions had been answered, then maybe he’d move. Maybe he’d propose to Christiana, ask her to marry him, and they’d pick out a place together. Maybe he’d even convince her to move back to New York with him, leave all this ugliness behind them once and for all. Maybe she’d even say yes. On both counts.

  But not yet. Not for a little while longer. Marlena was dangerous—Shane knew that now, knew it very well—and yet he still believed that he could hold her off if he really wanted to. And he did want to. Of course he did. Christiana was the rabbit on his lap, and Marlena was the jealous lover, crouched in front of him, reaching for her as if to pet her, but Shane was no fool. He could protect Christiana. For a little while longer. Just long enough to finish the last painting. When that happened… everything would be different.

  “So,” Christiana said, leaning back on the couch with a crooked smile on her face. “Since you obviously aren’t planning on moving away from this lovely little joint, should I start wearing garlic around my neck when I’m here? Or am I supposed to carry a wooden stake and mallet wherever I go? I can never remember which kills what.”

  Shane smiled back at her and shook his head. He was glad that she could laugh about it. After all, there was nothing Christiana could do on her own to protect herself from Marlena. Nothing at all.

  That was his job.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Earl’s funeral turned out to be a crowded and boisterous affair.

  The funeral home was packed with people of all ages, all chattering loudly, as if it was a family reunion. Children chased each other through the throng of legs, followed by the stern calls of their mothers. Shane had been to funerals like it before. Earl had been very old. Even though he’d been rudely pushed into the afterlife, no one doubted that the Reaper had had Earl’s name on his short list anyway.

  Shane moved through the crowd, brushing past a dozen conversations, and stopped in front of the closed wooden lid of Earl’s casket. He touched it lightly, and said in a low voice, “Sorry, Earl. I didn’t know what I was stirring up. I should’ve taken your advice after all. I should’ve stopped asking questions when I could.”

  “How did you know Mr. Kirchenbauer?” a voice asked. Shane turned to see a man in a prim black suit standing nearby, the look on his face a carefully tailored mask of polite sympathy—obviously the director of the funeral home.

  “He was a friend,” Shane replied, taking his hand off the casket lid. “I hadn’t known him for very long. But he made an… impression on me.”

  The director nodded, smiling meaningfully. Shane glanced away, unable to look at the man’s practiced sincerity any longer. Brian was standing near the doorway, looking red-faced and uncomfortable in an ill-fitting suit jacket and tie. Shane made his way toward him.

  “Thanks for coming, Mr. Bellamy,” Brian said somberly. “Especially since it was you who… you know.”

  Shane nodded. “I know. I’m sorry it turned out this way. What a mess.”

  “A goddamn mess,” Brian agreed in a low voice. “But it’s all over now. You know they took Mr. Stambaugh away? He’s in a psychiatric home up in New Haven now, doped all to hell and back. I’d guess that’s how they’ll keep him until he finally kicks the damn bucket. None too soon, if you ask me.”

  Shane didn’t want to talk about it, but he felt drawn into the topic. “Will there be a murder trial or anything?”

  Brian shrugged as if he didn’t care. “What’s the point? Everybody knows he did it. What are they gonna do? Give him life in prison?” He laughed darkly. “Or the death penalty? That’s a joke. It’d probably be a relief to the old coot. If it was me, you know what I’d do? I’d make him young again, just so he had a long, long life to live, knowing what he’d done.” He nodded to himself, looking askance at the closed casket. He cleared his throat and swiped once at his eyes with the heel of h
is hand. “That’s what I’d do,” he said again, and sighed.

  Shane left shortly thereafter, taking off his tie as he climbed into his pickup. He didn’t go to the graveyard for the burial. He didn’t figure Earl would mind.

  On the Monday before Halloween, Shane delivered the final painting in the Florida series to Greenfeld. Christiana took it in the white Sprinter van and Greenfeld called once she arrived at his office.

  “I’ve already got the check in hand,” he told Shane. “You want me to send it back with your girlfriend here?”

  Shane smiled. “Sure, thanks. You aren’t jealous are you, old boy?” If it had been anyone else, he’d never have been so bold as to mention it, but in Greenfeld’s case it was hard not to.

  “Bite me,” Greenfeld replied amiably. “She’ll get tired of you as soon as that old Bohemian artist shtick wears off. Besides, I’ve got my cats and my afternoon stories.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “So are you ready for some more work? Or are you going to take a little lover’s vacay or something?”

  “No lover’s vacay. I think I am going to take a short break, though.”

  “You sure? I have some more studio work on the table, based on the success of your matte painting. Sony needs something for a kid’s movie. Sort of a martial arts fantasy thing, with dragons and anime princesses with eyes the size of softballs, that sort of thing. Straight to video, but it’s got some big name voice talent in it, not that it matters to you. They need a whole series of background plates. You could do it in your sleep.”

  “What’s the deadline?”