by Dani Lamia
Clive angled the Ford police cruiser onto the main street and through town, joining the two-lane highway that led out of town. He gripped the steering wheel harder to guide the sedan around a familiar bend, which was, due to its sharpness and the thick forestation on both sides of the road, a blind corner.
This time, as he approached the curve, the already cloudy skies went dark and lightning flashed in his face. An intense rainfall ensued immediately after, further obscuring his vision.
“Shit,” Clive muttered. The lightning was dulled by his aviator sunglasses, which, due to the sudden darkness, he had to remove, leaving one hand on the wheel.
As Backstrom looked from the road to drop the glasses onto the passenger seat, another lightning bolt turned the world a brilliant white, its bolt striking a tree ahead of him. The damp wood exploded in a shower of sparks, fire, and splinters, and the tree began to fall his way. He had not even had time to turn on the wipers.
Clive swerved, kicking out the cruiser’s rear end. The smoking tree came down on the trunk. The back of the car bounced about, and Clive counter-steered. The tires screeched as they slid on the freshly rained upon blacktop.
“Fuck!” he shouted as his car slid along, this time toward a pedestrian.
The man simply stood in the middle of the road, deluge notwithstanding. Clive had time to notice that the idiot was tall and wore a long black garment with a hood. Not wishing to run him down, Clive allowed the vehicle to continue its leftward fishtail. The Ford continued sliding along the opposite lane, missing the cloaked individual by inches. The car’s momentum was bleeding away, but not quickly enough.
The car went off the road, its tires throwing up gravel and grass before sailing into the thickly forested land. Rain, lightning, and branches crashed to the ground as the Ford struck several trees.
10
Gifts & Invitations
Phoebe returned to the house and went about her assigned chores. She took care of Dzolali’s room first, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps driven by her obsession. Onenspek’s room was in the same unused state as it had been the day before. Then, without encountering another soul, she took care of the other rooms.
In the basement, she set the laundry machines to their tasks and went to her room to sneak in some writing. She was barely thirty minutes into it when a knock came to her door.
“Shit,” she whispered, then called to the door, “Yes?”
The door opened and Phoebe knew who it was before she even looked. Water lily and vanilla came to her nose. She turned her head, unaware of the goofy grin that had planted itself on her face.
“Busy?” Dzolali asked. She stood in the doorway, wearing a simple, modern knee-length skirt and a white blouse, not buttoned to the top. Her black cherry red hair was left down to spill over her collar and shoulders.
“Nope!” Phoebe said too loudly and slapped the laptop shut.
Dzolali’s face broke out in a giddy smile, and she stepped in, shutting the door behind her. A long black garment bag hung from her fingers. “I brought something for you.”
“For me?”
“Yup,” Dzolali said. “Cute glasses,” she added, eyeing Phoebe’s face until the blonde blushed.
“Oh, God,” Phoebe said with irritation. She had forgotten to take them off. She swung them up onto her head.
“No. Really.”
“Whatever,” Phoebe said and waved her off. “What is it?” she asked, indicating the bag.
“You’ll see,” Dzolali said with a slanted grin. She strode to the bed and laid the bag out on it. Unzipping it, she carefully freed a dress and held it out for Phoebe to see.
Phoebe gasped. “That’s beautiful,” she whispered and stepped closer to touch it.
The dress was shiny emerald green from top to bottom, with a skirt that looked as if it might end just past her knees, edged with gentle ruffles and adorned with stylish buttons placed in a vertical zigzag. The bodice featured a thinly padded stitched panel, decorated with a bow at the midriff and framed on either side by more ruffles, sweeping upward into a collar. The sleeves were long and sheer.
“Try it on,” Dzolali said and held it out.
“Oh, I can’t.”
Dzolali stepped forward, close enough for Phoebe to feel her warm breath on her face. “For me?” she begged with a purr.
Phoebe met the redhead’s eyes and felt her knees wobble. “Okay,” she said without thinking. She reached for the dress, but Dzolali held the hanger.
“I think you’re forgetting something,” she said, looking Phoebe up and down.
“Umm.”
“You have to take off all that to put this on,” Dzolali said and laughed.
“But, you’re in here.”
The next thing Phoebe knew, Dzolali had her free arm around her and their lips met. Dzolali’s kiss was forward and unexpected, but as Phoebe found, most welcome. Their mouths opened and Phoebe reached up, touching Dzolali’s cheek.
As quickly as it happened, the kiss ended. Phoebe was breathless, held up solely by Dzolali’s arm.
“My—” Phoebe tried, but nothing further could she manage. She was dizzy and unabashedly aroused. She searched Dzolali’s sultry face and knew that anything this woman said, she would do, short of, perhaps, murder.
“Get undressed,” Dzolali huskily commanded. She removed her support from Phoebe and stepped back.
Phoebe took a sidestep to keep her balance. She peeled her t-shirt off, then released and kicked away her jeans. All the while, her eyes watched Dzolali’s face.
Dzolali’s eyes slowly covered the youngest Pyncheon’s territory. Her eyes widened slightly, and an eyebrow slowly raised. She smiled approvingly and looked back up to Phoebe’s face. “Verrry nice.” She held out the dress.
Phoebe took it, removed it from the hanger, and slipped it on. Turning for Dzolali to zip it up, she received more than that. Dzolali’s mouth landed upon the nape of her neck. Phoebe gasped again and felt faint. The zipper went up.
“Easy there,” Dzolali cooed in her ear and wrapped her arms around Phoebe’s midsection. She had felt Phoebe’s trembling and thought she would indeed drop.
What the hell is happening to me? “I’m okay,” Phoebe said and regained herself. She turned and faced Dzolali.
“That is perfect!” the Latina witch exclaimed.
Phoebe turned to look at herself in the vanity’s mirror and was amazed. It did fit perfectly. Dzolali’s face appeared next to her own and their eyes met once more.
“Come to my room,” Dzolali commanded sweetly. “There’s more.”
Without a thought, Phoebe did follow, her eyes barely leaving the intoxicating shape of the woman leading her upstairs and to her room in the opposite turret.
“Sit,” Dzolali directed, pointing to her larger, more elaborate vanity’s bench.
Phoebe did as she was told and sat looking at herself in the mirror, entranced, while Dzolali decorated her further, trying different necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and different hairstyles.
Phoebe had never been shown such attentions, or such kindness. Her proximity to Dzolali Alameda had renewed Phoebe’s notion that she loved the woman. Any reservations were discarded.
Dzolali arranged Phoebe’s shoulder-length hair into a braid but left the longer, dyed blue, to lay naturally. She tenderly applied eyeliner, mascara, rouge, and lipstick to Phoebe, and when she was finished, they both stared at the transformation in the mirror. The smoky eye effect brought a shine and richness to her brown eyes that Phoebe had never been able to achieve on her own. The blue lipstick was a surprise, but as it went with the copper and midnight blue eyeshadow, it popped. The rouge was also a copper, but, finely brushed, it accentuated her cheekbones.
Phoebe could not stop grinning and blushing.
“There,” proclaimed Dzolali. “Now you won’t feel so
left out at dinner.”
Phoebe gasped. “Oh, I can’t wear this! I have to help Alva in the kitchen and then set the table.”
“Do you trust me?” Dzolali stepped back, forcing Phoebe to turn on the bench to look into her face. Dzolali regarded her with a thoughtful head tilt.
“Yes,” Phoebe said.
“Do what you need to in the kitchen, come up here, and put on your dress.”
“My dress?”
“Uh-huh,” Dzolali answered. “A gift from me to you.”
Phoebe bounced up to her feet. “I can’t! I couldn’t!”
Dzolali stepped into her and embraced her tightly, freezing Phoebe’s protest. They stood looking at each other, saying nothing for a moment. Then, another kiss, this one deep and long.
Phoebe felt like she was floating. Her boyfriends had never made her feel so light and free, so daring, or so elated about her very being. When the kiss broke, both women gasped for air but remained in each other’s clutches.
“What were you saying?” Dzolali asked playfully. “Something about you couldn’t do something?”
“I’ll do anything you wish,” Phoebe said and gasped at her own words.
“Good girl,” Dzolali said. Then a thought occurred to her. “Oh! We forgot something.”
Her mind still reeling from being in her new love’s arms, Phoebe said, “I can’t imagine.”
“Shoes!”
“Crap.”
Dzolali released Phoebe and went to her closet. She looked at Phoebe’s feet, told her to kick off her slip-on sneakers, and came away from the closet with a pair of ankle-high leather boots.
“Oh, my God!” Phoebe called out. “I’ve never worn heels!”
“Relax, they’re wide and the shafts’ll support your ankles. Try them.”
Phoebe retook a seat on the vanity’s bench and obliged. Dzolali bent and laced them up.
“There,” said Dzolali and stood. “Take a walk.”
Phoebe did. The fit wasn’t as perfect as the dress, but they would work. She smiled in delight.
“Now those you can’t keep,” Dzolali said in a semi-serious tone. “I go as far as the dresses and costume jewelry. The shoes come back to me.”
“Dresses?” Phoebe uttered in surprise. “How do you have dresses in my size? You’re so... um... more endowed than me.”
Dzolali laughed. “They’re mine from a few years ago. But thank you for that.”
Phoebe smiled and blushed all over again. “I just don’t know what to say.”
Dzolali came close again, to Phoebe’s utter delight. “Say you’ll come to me tonight for a visit.”
Phoebe could have been bowled over with a feather. “Yes. I will.”
***
Phoebe went back to her room to change out of the dress until dinner and resumed her chores in a profoundly giddy mood. She transferred loads of laundry from one machine to the next and folded and stacked the fresh linens on a table, not giving a huff for the noise that assaulted her ears.
A smile was plastered on her face, and had anyone been present to witness it, Phoebe would have appeared slightly off kilter. She imagined herself and Dzolali leaving the House of the Seven Gables together, off to live a life in a beach house somewhere on the coast of California, perhaps even Hawaii.
Phoebe pictured herself becoming well-known and wealthy, an author of dozens of books—all the while, giving her sweet Dzolali anything she ever wanted, cars, homes, trips, jewelry with real stones, anything at all.
As she was about to head upstairs with a stack of clean bed linens to distribute, Phoebe noticed the utility sink next to the worktable. It was where Mr. Holgrave had said he developed his film. Curious, she stepped to the worktable. She wrinkled her nose at the odor of the chemical residue.
In the corner, to the left of the sink, Holgrave had suspended a long string between two water pipes. From this string hung several long strips of developed film, apparently to dry. Looking at them under the light, she found an inordinate amount of the negatives were of the exterior of the house, taken either from some distance into the woods or close up. Many of the close-ups were of the home’s many windows. All the pictures here seemed to have been taken from ground level, and none beyond those of the first floor showed any part of the inside of the rooms.
From these samples, it seemed that Holgrave was obsessed with the house, as there was nothing else present. No animals, no people, and no trees other than the ones closest to the house.
Phoebe had not seen Alec Holgrave all day. He had not been in his room when she’d stopped in to change the sheets, and she remembered his cameras were not on the table. Deciding she would ask him about his interest in the house when she caught him alone, she left the basement to distribute the clean sheets.
The nature of Holgrave’s doings bothered her somewhat as she performed the rest of her chores. She kept him in the back of her mind as she entered the kitchen early to clean the microwave as Great-Aunt Hester had told her.
As she was finishing, Alva arrived.
“Oh, my,” she said, “don’t you look nice.”
“Thank you,” she answered. “Dzolali was kind enough to give me a makeover. She even gave me a dress for later.”
“Oh,” the cook said and smiled strangely.
Phoebe went about helping the cook, and she couldn’t help but notice that Alva was a bit standoffish. Phoebe thought to ask, but she decided against it, figuring her good mood was smudging her judgment.
When it came time, Phoebe went up to the dining room, set the table, and removed the prepared dishes from the dumbwaiter. She did so hastily, wanting desperately to run and change into her dress before anyone arrived.
Finally, everything was set. Phoebe went to her room and slipped on the fancy green dress. She glided upstairs and knocked on Dzolali’s door. There was no answer, so she slipped inside. Phoebe tidied up her makeup and sifted through the jewelry boxes to borrow a few items. She avoided anything with a pentagram, or a horned goat, or anything that she deemed “witchcrafty.” Unfortunately, that narrowed the selections down severely. Finally, she settled on a red-gemmed necklace, a couple of rings that went with it, two matching metal bracelets, and a pair of earrings with blue gems.
Phoebe sat on Dzolali’s bed to tie the boots on and checked everything one last time in the vanity mirror when she was satisfied. She was sure that Dzolali would be pleased. When she left the room, she could see Hester and Glendarah entering the dining room.
As Phoebe walked into the room, she found Dzolali and Onenspek already there, standing to the side and speaking in hushed tones. She smiled upon seeing her love, but when she saw his hand holding hers and the look in her eyes when she stared into his, Phoebe felt her blood boil.
“That dress is very becoming, Phoebe,” said Glendarah, suddenly at her left.
“Thank you,” Phoebe said.
Dzolali’s eyes found Phoebe and her face brightened. She released Onenspek’s hand and whispered something in his ear. He gave Phoebe a wave in greeting, which she returned obligingly, and he moved to stand behind his chair.
“That’s Dzolali’s touch, isn’t it?” Glendarah went on.
“Oh, yes. She was very kind to me today,” Phoebe said.
“Indeed,” said Glendarah. Her deep blue eyes almost flashed with knowing as she smiled grandly.
“That is a damn sight better,” put in Hester, standing behind her place at the head of the table. Onenspek moved to her and pulled the chair from the table for her to sit.
“You look amazing,” said Dzolali, giving Phoebe that deliciously seductive grin.
Phoebe forgot all about Dzolali’s handholding with Onenspek. Phoebe thanked her and promised she would return the jewelry and the shoes after dinner.
“My word,” Holgrave said from behind Phoebe.
She turned and smiled at him. “Good evening, Mr. Holgrave. And thank you.”
“Certainly,” he said, taking in the sight of her respectfully.
“Good evening, Ms. D’Amitri,” he said to Glendarah as he pulled out her chair, “You’re looking very well this evening.”
“Thank you, Mr. Holgrave,” she replied and sat. “I’m feeling much improved.”
Alva entered at that moment, and Phoebe assisted with the removal of the dining plate covers. That done, she took her seat.
“You do look wonderful this evening, Phoebe,” complimented Ned.
“Thank you, Mr. Onenspek,” she replied and gazed upon Dzolali. After a few seconds, she caught herself and looked to the plate of potatoes that was being passed.
Alva poured the wine for everyone as the small talk began. The usual topics like weather and news items were passed around much like the food itself, though for Phoebe, it was much less interesting and quite forgettable. She couldn’t help but have a stomach full of anticipation over Dzolali’s invitation to her room later that night. She hoped that Great-Aunt Hester would retire early enough for Phoebe to sneak past the master bedroom without detection.
Scenarios passed through her mind’s eye, even the unfavorable possibilities like getting caught on the way or, she shuddered as she considered, being discovered because she and Dzolali were making too much noise.
“Are you all right?” whispered Holgrave.
Phoebe blinked and tore her eyes away from Dzolali to look at him. He had been holding the breadbasket for her, for how long, she did not know.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, laughing it off. She took the basket and placed a roll on her plate, then passed the basket to her aunt. “I’m fine,” she said to Holgrave. “Say, did you catch your—” she interrupted to look around, then leaned in closer to whisper, “—your little friend?”
She and Holgrave locked eyes for a moment while he worked out what Phoebe was asking him.