“Are you feeling better?” the white-haired tour guide called from behind her.
Kara turned around to look at the woman, who was standing at the museum entrance. She called she was feeling better, which was true. Her headache had eased, but now she realized her arms were cold. As Desmond and Tracy’s doppelganger had disappeared inside the restaurant, Kara returned to the museum.
The guide clucked, letting her pass by. “Flu season will be here before we know it. I hope you aren’t catching anything.” She gestured with her chin toward the back of the building. “They’ve gone to the basement. That’s where we keep the modern Gracie Town models and maps. We have a nice section on commerce down there too. I can show you where the stairs are.”
They spotted Jack sitting on an olive green vinyl chair between the 1960’s and 1970’s displays, his crutches leaning against the wall beside him.
“There’s no elevator and Mrs. Haley said I should stay here,” he explained, looking bored.
The guide shook her head sympathetically. “I’m afraid we don’t have the budget to install an elevator.”
“You use the stairs all the time at home,” Kara told him.
“We’d rather keep our…injured visitors up here. Just a precaution.” She said to Jack, “The cool things are up here anyway.” She winked and, before walking away, told them to feel free to look over the floor again.
“Mom, I’m bored. Can we go?”
“We can’t leave without your class.” Kara moved through the rooms, stopping in the area devoted to the nineteenth century. “Let’s look at this stuff again.”
He groaned, but leaned on his crutches and came over.
She tilted her head, saying quietly, “I prefer to look at this stuff on my own. This way we can take our time.”
Next to the walnut bureau was a secretary desk. Kara ignored the folded cardstock paper positioned on its closed lid that read, “Don’t touch, please,” and slid her finger over the smooth, polished wood.
“Mom, it says ‘don’t touch’,” Jack hissed.
She stopped touching it and gave him with a mischievous smile. She looked up and was drawn to the painted portrait hanging on the wall behind the desk. It was of a brown-haired man with piercing blue eyes. He was handsome, dressed in an old-fashioned suit, and wearing a beard that was fuller than most would wear in the twenty-first century.
“Who’s that?” Jack asked, noticing it too.
“I don’t know.”
“Ah, I see you’ve found something of interest.” The guide from the door returned.
“Who’s this?” Kara asked, pointing at the portrait. The artist’s brushstrokes were so detailed and precise that she felt like the subject watched her.
“Ah, you found the most eligible man in all of Gracie Town.” The woman sighed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“ ‘Most eligible’?” Kara asked.
“Come, follow me. We need to go back to the eighteenth century for that story.” Excited now, the guide led them to the next exhibit, closer to the door.
Kara glanced over a dozen miniature paintings set in silver frames, gracing the top of a harpsichord. They were mostly of children. “Which one is he?”
“Oh, none of those. He’s in the painting on the easel behind the harpsichord.” The guide moved around the instrument and tapped the top of the canvas, stretched four feet by three-and-a-half feet.
Kara slipped past Jack, and stopped, her breath catching.
The guide admired the painting. “Robert Collumber, our unofficial patriarch, died alone and heart-broken.” The man in the portrait was obviously the bearded man, but in this painting, he was much younger and clean-shaven with chiseled features.
And Kara recognized him.
She digested the name. “Collumber? As in the Collumber house?”
“The very one. The Collumbers were wealthy Virginians. Shockingly to his family and social circles, Robert enlisted in the American Revolutionary War at its start. After the war, he settled here in Grace Township on a land grant. Even from a portrait painted over two hundred years ago, you can see how handsome he was.”
“Wow…” Kara didn’t sigh because she finally had put a face to the namesake of the estate. She was in awe because Robert Collumber was the man from her dreams…her nightmares! She knew it was absurd. How could she have dreamed of him?
“Mom, can we go now?” Jack asked, turning away.
“Jack,” Kara said, distractedly, “your class will be up any minute.”
“Oh, yes,” the guide nodded. “I can hear them coming up the stairs.”
“He lived in the Collumber house down the street?” Kara asked.
“Yes. Soon after the war ended, Collumber decided to set roots down here in virtually uncharted territory. In fact…” The guide pointed at a framed map hanging on the wall across the room before leading Kara to the brown creased paper, crudely drawn by hand. “His land was from here to here.” She traced a finger that lapsed nearly five hundred acres.
Kara peered closer at the small handwriting. “Is that…Oh, Jerome Point.” She frowned. She had thought the map covered—
“It used to be Jerome Point. Now it’s Seter Lane. Right there.” The guide tapped the glass at the center of a crooked rhombus.
Kara’s heartbeat quickened, recognizing the plot of land the guide indicated was where her house was located. Robert Collumber had walked on her property two centuries ago. It was incredible, the idea that this man had actually lived where she lived…this man from her dreams.
Sensing Jack approach her from behind as the rest of the class tromped into the room, Kara composed herself and said, “See Jack, that’s where our house is.”
“It is?”
The older guide asked, “You live on Seter Lane?”
Kara nodded. “Yes. Right there.”
“Then you’re within the boundaries of Collumber’s property.”
The classroom’s guide asked the older one, “Did you tell them his story?”
The white-haired woman crossed the room to Collumber’s portrait. Everyone gathered around. “After the war, Collumber was paid for his services, as well as granted land in Ohio, more specifically, in Gracie Town. He never returned to Virginia, settling here instead. Actually, he had a hand in building some of the buildings on his estate. He was a hard worker and loyal to a fault, as the saying goes.
“One day as he was cutting timber for his home, his stables, a barn…”
Kara’s thoughts fluttered to the gray barn. If that wasn’t the same structure (it couldn’t be that old, could it?), then it was possible Collumber’s barn had been built in the same spot years before. She had dreamed of it and she had felt it.
The guide continued her tale, “After cutting wood all day, Robert ventured one last time into the woods. But instead of gathering more wood, he discovered he wasn’t alone. There, surrounded by trees, he found a woman, lying unconscious.
“He nursed her back to health, finding she was pregnant and had run away from home. We have no record of the baby’s father, but it’s believed she had been forced into an unwanted betrothal to him, or he had died and left her a pregnant widow. Unfortunately, we only have stories passed down from generations to rely on. Collumber, being the loyal man he was, vowed to take care of Elizabeth and the child. Her family sent out a search party, but she never returned to them. It is unknown if they ever heard from her again. Romantics like me like to think her family had been cruel to her, which had been the cause for running away, and Robert rescued her from a life of misery.
“But still…the new family was content, but not for long. Collumber, a quiet man, prevented most details from leaking to the newspapers. It is believed he didn’t want Elizabeth’s family gaining insight on where she was. But soon, tragedy struck and, as a result of his secrecy, no records exist of what happened to Elizabeth, or the infant, for that matter.” The guide sighed. “Legend has it that Robert refused to give a clear explanation to th
e authorities on how they died. Was it disease? Most likely. But we don’t exactly know, which is strange. Possibly, it was murder; maybe he realized he wasn’t prepared to care for this ready-made family. But that’s a far-fetched theory and one I don’t like to entertain. It remains a mystery. Historians know so little. It is believed Collumber destroyed their belongings, as if he was ridding himself of their memory. Two portraits of mother and baby, however, remain.”
The guide ushered the crowd to the opposite side of the room, Jack hobbling near the front. With an over-dramatic flourish, she gestured to the wall. “Elizabeth!”
Jack looked past a display case, seeing a portrait of Collumber in uniform, then a painting of a frail-looking baby dressed in a christening gown, before straying to the one of Elizabeth. He froze.
The blonde woman in the portrait was seated, wearing a blue dress and pearl necklace, with long, wavy hair spilling over her shoulders. Wisps of the yellow hair needled their way here and there, as if the artist had caught them in a breeze. The streaks of yellow took Jack back to his swimming pool, to blonde strands in the water, tangled between his toes, knotted in the ladder, the ghostly shoulder he had touched…
His heart beat faster; his breathing grew shallow. As the crowd encircled him, he broke away, needing air.
Kara, at the back of the crowd, craned her neck to see. Catching sight of the yellow hair and curve of the head, she suddenly felt sick, her face growing warm. The painted face blurred for a moment and then cleared again, giving credence to the woman’s distinct features. The woman in the painting was beautiful: large blue eyes, smallish nose, full lips, fine cheekbones. But to Kara, the portrait had split in two: one of lovely Elizabeth, the other of the blurred monster, who haunted her dreams.
How could it be? It wasn’t plausible that Kara knew this couple. She looked away, her eyes landing on the portrait of the baby. Even in its portrait, the infant appeared sickly. Her stomach twisting, Kara backed up, mentally filling in the tour guide’s missing details.
I know Elizabeth drowned. The image of the woman being carried out of the pond buzzed behind Kara’s eyelids, urging her to shut them so she could replay the scene.
“…Poem written about Elizabeth,” the tour guide was saying at the back of Kara’s mind. “ ‘Yellow hair, gold hair, dressed in bands, met a fair man on unfound lands…’ ”
Fighting to remain alert, Kara stepped aside. She spotted Jack hunched over at the door. His expression looked as strange as she felt.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Can we go?”
“Yes.” The room was suffocating.
“Did you guys see the Collumber house finally sold?” The third tour guide appeared beside them. “I’m so glad it did. That house has been empty for years. Historical landmarks need caretakers.”
Kara stared at her. “It was empty for years? But there were fresh flowers on the porch a couple months ago,” Kara said, remembering the pink roses spilling out of them the day they arrived in Gracie Town.
“The town council maintained the house. Every so often they list the house for sale and then pull it off the market after lack of interest. For a time, they were going to make it a museum, but it never panned out. I’m happy it’s finally sold, though.”
“Who bought it?”
“I heard it was someone from out of state. I’m sure the township will be on them to keep the integrity of the estate intact.”
Kara’s legs felt weak and her throat burned. She excused Jack and herself, explaining to the guide he had a doctor appointment to get to. Jack was quiet, going outside ahead of Kara, instantly finding relief in the cool autumn air.
Kara drove to Grace School to pick up Lilah before the appointment. She glanced at the Collumber house as she passed by, seeing it in a new light now that she had faces to go with the property. Her perception of it had been altered. She couldn’t quite understand her feelings about it now; she just felt different, almost detached. She parked in the lot and told Jack she’d be right back. She crossed over the pavement and opened the front door of Grace School. It took her a moment to adjust to the dim foyer. Piano music and children singing drifted from the back of the building.
“Oh! Hello, Mrs. Tameson.”
Kara turned, finding a teacher rounding the corner, balancing a tray of snacks in her hands, an oversized tote bag pulling on her shoulder. “I would’ve called,” Kara explained, feeling oddly nervous, “but I was in town on a field trip that just ended. Is it alright if I pick up Lilah now?”
“No problem!” The teacher shifted sideways, fighting back the tote bag that lurched forward. Kara pushed it back for her. “Thanks! If you don’t mind, Lilah’s using the staff restroom on the second floor. The one down here was in use so I had her use that one…”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll get her.”
“It’s just upstairs.”
Kara turned around and, stepping over the chained “Staff Only” sign draped across the bottom staircase step, climbed up the worn, carpeted stairs to the landing. To her immediate right was a closed door with another “Staff Only” sign posted. She looked to the left and saw only one of the other four doors on the floor was open.
She looked in, finding the office empty. She glanced back at the empty hallway, her eyes rolling over the staircase leading to the third floor. She turned back to the open room, calling, “Lilah?” She entered, her footsteps loud on the aged, floorboards. She moved to the closed door on the left-side of the room. “Lilah, are you in there?” She heard water running on the opposite side.
Kara hovered at the door for a few seconds before turning around. A fireplace was centered against the wall. Overlarge for the room, the hearth was wrapped in smoke-stained stone, its gaping hole covered with an iron grate. Her eyes wandered to the desk on the far side of the room, topped with a computer and picture frames. With interest, she noticed the desk and chair were on a dais, a few steps higher than the rest of the room.
She admired the ornate crown molding and then wondered again if she was in the right room. She started for the closed door. “Li—” but she faltered, catching sight of her vantage point outside.
Through the bubbled glass window between the fireplace and closed door, Kara saw she was level with the Collumber house. She ignored the squeak of the faucet being turned off, focusing instead on the second-floor windows across the parking lot. Lace curtains, like the ones in the room she was in, were drawn back, open to the Federalist period house’s shadowed interior.
Time had stopped. Kara blinked, her eyes boring into one of the open windows. She waited for movement, a face, a hand, something to move on the other side of that window.
“Mommy?” Kara barely heard Lilah’s voice as her daughter approached her. It took Lilah repeating her name for Kara to drag her gaze away from the house across the way.
“All set? I’m taking you home early.” She took Lilah’s damp hand and started to leave, but stopped, her eyes resting on the windows on the far side of the room to the right of the desk sitting on the dais.
She released the hand. Rapidly, her body knowing before her mind did, her eyes moved from the platform to the enormous fireplace, and back to the window. Déjà vu coursed through her. She knew this room; she had dreamed of this room, and in her dream, the bonus room had been on the other side.
With a quick stride out of her control, her face hot, her palms sweaty, Kara passed the dais and went to the window. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see into her own house, tucked away on Seter Lane, but she had to. She pulled back the dainty curtain and looked out. But…it was Main Street, not her house on the other side. SUVs and cars passed by below.
She turned toward the dais, ignoring Lilah’s whines. Instead of the desk, Kara saw the grand bed that had been there before. In that bed was the hideous woman with no face, wrenching her body, reaching for her baby. Elizabeth.
Jumping back, Kara’s fingers brushed the side of the desk, breaking the vision
. Blinking, she looked at the desktop, seeing in the framed photograph the image of Mrs. Chandler, the principal of Grace School. This was her desk, her office. Near the computer keyboard, Kara noticed a shot glass. Something small was inside. She picked up the glass and turned it over. A heavy ball of lead rolled into her palm. The marble she had found at home.
It looked like a musket ball.
And she knew that’s what it was.
Afraid, she set the ball back into the shot glass and backed away. Avoiding the fireplace, she gripped onto Lilah’s hand and steered her out into the hallway. Kara turned to look back, her eyes fluttering over the fireplace, platform, and window again.
It was just an office.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The ride home from the doctor’s was quiet; no one asked to turn on the radio, nobody spoke. Lilah fidgeted in the backseat and Jack, who was in the front, stared out the passenger side window. Kara gripped the steering wheel, making the turn onto Seter Lane.
Jerome’s Point, this was Jerome’s Point, she thought, her eyes twitching, as she waited for the gray barn to come into view through the trees. And then it was in full view.
A voice that sounded like the breeze, whispered, “It’s not yours.”
Kara pressed hard on the brake.
“Hey!” Lilah exclaimed, the statue slipping from her lap. It fell with a thump onto the floor below her feet.
“Did you hear that?” Kara asked, staring at the barn they sat in front of.
Jack looked up and cried, “Ew!” when he saw a swarm of turkey vultures covering an animal carcass on the road in front of them.
Not hearing him, Kara steered the car into the front grass of the barn and parked.
Jack dragged his eyes away from the birds when he heard a door click shut. “Mom!” he called when he saw her already advancing on the barn.
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