by BETH KERY
I would promise him anything.
The experience of the velvet viewing room had dimmed my desire to explore in the house, at least for the time being. We lived in only a small portion of the vast house and grounds, anyway: the big, warm kitchen and sunny terrace, the sitting area in front of the fireplace in the casual dining area, our bedroom, my overlook, and Evan’s study.
One night shortly after we’d moved to Les Jumeaux, Evan built us a fire in the outdoor fireplace after dinner. Early summer nights at Tahoe could get chilly, despite the broiling heat of the daytime sun. That evening was particularly cool, but I was toasty warm and content in front of the fire, with Evan by my side.
“I’m going up,” Evan said when the fire had dimmed to nothing but a few glowing embers. We’d been holding hands and talking idly, staring into the dying flames. He tugged gently on my hand. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, I’ll be right up. I’m going to try to find something to read. I thought I’d look for something in the great room,” I said, referring to what must have been thousands of books upstairs.
“I’ll turn on the lights in the great room for you on my way up, then,” Evan said before he released my hand.
A few minutes later, I stood in the middle of the huge main living space of the mansion, staring up at row upon row of books. They were arranged by genre, I soon realized. Here were all sorts of medical and anatomical books, here books on genealogy, psychopharmacology, psychiatry, and neurology.
“Not exactly the light reading before bed reading I’m looking for,” I muttered under my breath.
I found the fiction section and after browsing a bit, picked a World War II drama-love story by a British author I liked. Two shelves down, I also located a Frida Kahlo biography I’d wanted to read. Satisfied with my finds, I headed over to the switch for the enormous chandelier that lit the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure standing in front of the bookshelf. I had the distinct impression the person faced outward, and was watching me.
I cried out in muffled surprise. I turned fully, but nothing was there.
The hair on my neck and arms stood up. I was completely alone in the great room. My eyes told me that truth, but some other part of me, some primitive instinct, insisted that my vision couldn’t tell me everything.
I stared at the place where I’d seen the figure, searching. When I’d thought I’d seen someone, I’d halted in front of the collection of medical and science related books. A dark red velvet book caught my eye. It was very large, and looked distinctly out of place among all the other scholarly-looking volumes. Approaching the bookcase cautiously, I set my books on a lower shelf. I went up on tiptoe and reached for the velvet book.
Cradling it in one hand, I opened it. The pages were made of thick parchment. I realized it was a kind of journal, not a traditionally published book. On the title page, someone had handwritten in lovely, elaborate cursive: The Madaster Family Tree and Bloodline, Theodore N. Madaster, 1982.
This time, the shivers went all the way down my arms and legs. Theodore Madaster? Could he have been Elizabeth’s grandfather?
I began to turn the pages. Theodore had meticulously drawn out a tree that began on the left page and carried to the right, then resumed when the next page was flipped. As an artist, I admired his elaborate penmanship and well-thought-out design. He must have practiced elsewhere, perhaps many times, before he’d finally copied the pages into this book, because there were no smudges or errors. He’d used mostly black, dark bronze, and red ink, and the colors had held up amazingly well.
Theodore had also drawn several shields and various other heraldic symbols, presumably associated with different branches of the Madaster family. These drawings were concise and beautifully executed using additional ink colors of blue, gold, and green.
I was awed by the grandeur of it all, by the mystery and depth of meaning I couldn’t quite grasp. I was also a bit envious. It was hard for me to imagine someone would put so much thought and care into his ancestry.
I myself was close to both my mother’s parents and my father’s mother—my dad’s father had died when Dad was in his twenties. I’d always been told that my mother’s roots were Irish, English, and Swiss, while my father primarily identified as being German-American. In essence, I’d always proudly considered us to be American mutts. What I knew about my great-grandparents could be said in a very short paragraph, a skimpy affair compared to this scholarly and artistic endeavor.
The first entrants on the Madaster family tree came from the thirteen hundreds. Most of Elizabeth’s ancestors appeared to be from France, and someplace called the Holy Roman Empire, which in later pages became Germany. As I kept flipping the pages, each filled with so much detail that I couldn’t fully grasp, I realized that as the years and the generations passed, the names entered had a sort of flourish beneath them of either a simple or complicated design. As the centuries wore on, the decorations beneath the names became increasingly complex. Sometimes the lines were etched in mere black, but a few of the designs were etched in flowery combinations of black, red, and bronze ink.
I realized I’d been flipping the pages for quite a while now, completely immersed. Evan would wonder what had happened to me. Wanting to cut to the chase, I flipped to the final entries.
Theodore Madaster was indeed Noah’s father. Both of their names were underlined with complicated flourishes and quite a bit of red ink. And here was Lorraine Madaster, Noah’s wife. Her embellishment was not as complex as her husband’s or father-in-law’s, but still contained a great deal of vivid scarlet and bronze ink.
Then I saw the last entry: Elizabeth Antoinette Madaster, born September 13, 1979. The embellishment beneath her name was the most lovely, and the most complex I’d spotted by far. It was also done almost exclusively in red. The scarlet ink glowed on the page, as if it’d been electrified somehow.
The date of death had not yet been entered.
“Anna?”
I jumped, nearly dropping the book at hearing Evan’s voice at the top of the Y-shaped stairs.
“I-I’m coming.”
I hurriedly replaced the red velvet book on the shelf. By the time Evan peered down at me from the landing, I’d grabbed my books and was walking over to the light switch.
“I’m on my way,” I told him with a little wave before I plunged the enormous room into darkness.
When I reached the landing, I was breathless.
“What kept you?” Evan asked. His voice was low and relaxed, but his eyes searched mine curiously. He wore only a pair of black pajama pants, the drawstring tightened low on his ridged abdomen. My hunger for him—ever present, but sometimes banked—leapt up in me like a flash fire. I stepped into him and pressed my mouth against the crisp hairs on his chest and the dense muscle beneath.
“Nothing as interesting as this,” I assured him as his scent entered my nose.
Chapter Four
I started to settle into the routine of my new life.
In the morning, I would pack a picnic lunch in a basket I’d located in the pantry. Evan brought it up with him to the overlook at one o’clock or so, and we’d share it, looking out on the mountains and sparkling lake. He was always interested in my work. I reveled in his praise. Again and again, I experienced that wonder at being seen by him, valued. Cherished.
I was so in love, it was almost an exquisite ache, so difficult to describe. Always present.
One morning, I heard a knock down the kitchen passage that led to the driveway.
“Anna? Would you mind answering it? It’s the groceries,” Evan called from the distance.
He was working. I hadn’t discovered his office on that first day, but had since. It was a woody, book-lined room on the same level as the kitchen. There was a pair of mahogany French doors that he often left wide open to the terrace, the sunlight, and the cool lake breeze.
The bank acquisition was moving along, according to Evan, with only expected, minor bumps in the road so far. He was video conferencing or on the phone with his colleagues almost every time I tiptoed into the room. I felt a little guilty that the daily functions of being the owner and president of a private fund were such a mystery to me, especially when he seemed so interested and knowledgeable about my painting. But he insisted it was boring work, and usually deflected my questions about it.
Increasingly, I longed for that elusive study where I was not invited. Not the room, of course, but the man in it, the part of himself that existed in that space with whom I couldn’t quite connect.
Among the many treasures of that morning’s grocery delivery were peaches, golden and ripe. We ate them with relish that afternoon during our picnic on the overlook.
“Is this what I signed up for, then?” I asked him after I’d wiped juice off my chin. “We just live here in paradise, day after day. A maid service comes on Saturday, the groceries on Thursdays… everything provided like I was a princess in a tower?”
Evan smiled as he chewed his peach and swallowed.
“Are you complaining?”
“’Course not. I’m ridiculously happy. But I do feel a little… useless.” I saw his slight scowl as he bit into his peach again with straight, white teeth. “Not useless, exactly,” I clarified, thinking. “More like a boat without a rudder.”
“Adrift in paradise?”
“Something like that.”
“You have your painting.”
“I know. And it’s going so well. I’m amazed.”
“I told you that you’d be inspired here,” he said, tossing the peach pit aside and briskly wiping his hands with a napkin. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll have enough for a showing by the end of the summer. I’ll contact Lauren whenever you say the word.”
Lauren was the gallery owner he knew in South Lake Tahoe. He’d told me that he’d arrange a meeting with her whenever I was ready. Everything I could ever need, everything I could dream of, supplied to me on a silver platter.
“You really do spoil me,” I said.
“Only because I like to so much. I’m a selfish man.”
I heard the husky warmth in his voice. His mouth was there when I turned my face to him. He tasted like peaches. He cupped my face with one hand, drawing me closer. Our kiss deepened. Evan came down over me on the spread blanket, his hunger seemingly as great as mine. I worked my hand between our pressing bodies, finding a button on his shirt.
He covered my busy hand with his.
“No, Anna. Not now.”
“Why not?” I whispered urgently. “There’s no one around—“
He didn’t reply. I saw him glance in the direction of the house, his light eyes gleaming in his dark face. His expression was hard. Unreadable.
“I have an important phone call at two fifteen. I should get back,” he said, sitting up and brushing a pine needle off his jeans. He tossed some silverware in the basket in preparation to leave and glanced back at me. His face gave slightly.
“I’ll make it up to you tonight?”
“There’s nothing to make up for,” I muttered, sitting up and brushing my hair out of my face. In a quick movement, he caught a tendril. I went still, watching as he ran the strands through his fingers.
“I’m neglecting you, aren’t I? You’re getting bored.”
“No,” I insisted truthfully. Bored wasn’t the right word to describe my restlessness, my sense of being unanchored. “I’m so happy. So lucky. I shouldn’t have said anything. I was being a whiner. It was stupid of me.”
His gaze flickered to my face. “Not stupid. Honest. We’re very isolated here. You’re feeling lonely.”
“No.” The only company I wanted was Evan. If I could be with him more, I’d adore the isolation of Les Jumeaux. I was being incredibly selfish. He devoted his evenings and nights to me. He joined me for lunch on this idyllic spot most days, even when I knew how busy he was.
But still, I wanted more. I was becoming insatiable. I wanted everything, including the Evan who shut himself off in his study. Who occasionally—rarely—seemed so far away from me, even when his skin touched my own.
“I’m spoiled,” I said miserably. “And not in any good way.” I reached out and put my opened hand on his chest. “It’s just… I love you so much.”
He leaned forward and kissed me.
“You are the most unspoiled person I’ve ever met in my life,” he said against my lips a moment later.
One morning later that week, I grew disgusted by my progress on a painting. The sunlight was too bright, saturating every surface, making the mountains seem more one-dimensional than I knew them to be, the sky a flat, uninteresting robin’s egg blue. I stood and walked out farther onto the promontory, squinting down at the water. A dark shadow hung over the large boulders of granite just below me, changing their usually benign appearances into a bed of wet, upturned blades.
Although I’m not usually afraid of heights, a wave of vertigo struck me. My eyes burned from fatigue. Holding my breath, I slowly backed away from the edge.
I haven’t been sleeping well. That’s the problem.
The nightmares had started a few nights ago. For the past few nights, I’d only fallen asleep at dawn. But I’d still gotten up at my normal time. No wonder I was so tired. I should take a break, maybe take a little nap up here on the overlook.
Evan had given me a blanket that I kept on the back of my chair. When I painted early in the morning, it could be chilly sitting next to the lake. I’d sit there like an old woman in a trance, huddled up under the blanket, my hand poking out of my cloak, my brush moving over the canvas.
I spread the blanket on the ground and lay down. The sunlight blinded my eyes, but was kinder on the exposed skin of my legs and arms. The warmth made me drowsy. I turned my face away from the sun’s brilliance, putting my forearm over my eyelids.
Soothing darkness. A warm, gentle darkness, unlike the darkness from the nightmares I’d started having.
In those dreams, I lay in bed with Evan. Not in some vague, dream-like bed. In the very bed in the luxurious suite where we slept at night. Where we made love.
It shocked me a little, that I would dream so solidly and realistically about a room that I’d known for only a few weeks. I dreamed of rooms from my childhood home in Oak Park frequently. Occasionally, I dreamed of other places charged with some residue of anxiety or longing: a hallway in high school and my locker, for which I never seemed to remember the combination; the comfortable, cluttered high school art studio where I’d first felt a sense of pride and mastery in my work; the familiar roads, yards, and long-closed businesses from my hometown. I rarely dreamed of my college dorm, apartments, or rental rooms I’d inhabited in the past few years. They were too impermanent, too inconsequential for my psyche to take notice.
That wasn’t the case with the nightmare. This was reality within dream… or dream within reality? Horrifically, I believed completely that I was awake when the nightmare occurred. I knew it was a nightmare only after the fact though, because I could move again.
During the dream, I was paralyzed, forced to helplessly watch.
I didn’t want to recall the nightmare as I lay there on the overlook in the blinding sunlight, but I couldn’t seem to stop the images—or the fear—from flooding my brain.
I awake with a sense of dread. My head and body are like stones. No nerves connect those inert slabs of flesh to my brain. I find, in my rising panic, that my eyes can move,
however. I make out the shadowed shapes of familiar furniture in the dim room. This is our suite at Les Jumeaux, I tell myself frantically. Of course it is. It looks completely normal. I sense rather than see Evan beside me, a warmth that should have been reassuring, but isn’t.
In sleep, he’s so far away from me. What dreams did he envision within the locked safe of his mind? He seems so unreachable. It makes me desperate, because I instinctively know that the visitor is coming.
My panic mounts. I’m trapped in this stone-body, and she would come. Nothing could stop her.
Evan’s name burns a hole in my throat. My muscles spasm as I try to work them, but I’m incapable of sound. My gaze is fixed on the door of the suite, willing it to stay shut. But I know what’s coming. Fear bubbles up into my throat like acid.
Then the door is open. One second, it’s closed as I watch in rising agony, searching for movement, praying I see nothing. Then it’s yawning open, a black void behind it. It opens in less than a second, in total silence.
I see movement emerging from the nothingness, and my heart seizes.
Her shadow moves toward the bed, slow, but steady. It’s as if she knows my heart is threatening to burst with each oncoming step, as if she’s playing with me. My cell phone is charging on the bedside table. The tiny light on it is inconsequential in the everyday world, but it’s more than sufficient for a nightmare’s purpose. I see her outline clearly. She is narrow waisted with round hips and the hint of full breasts. No clothes. She appears to be nude. Her skin is blacker than black, and appallingly… shiny? Wet? I can’t make out her face. Her shoulder-length hair hangs in defined waves and ringlets. In my panicked, stone-like state, all I can think of is Medusa. I dread looking at her, but I have no choice.
She stands over me. My mind is a prison filled with silent screaming. My senses pour into me, but I can’t react. I smell dampness and rotting flesh and the nuance of a perfume, a strangely familiar one. I hear a soft, raspy intake of breath. She’s preparing to speak. To me.