The smell of wood and earth and wild vegetation rose chokingly, and after bright sunlight, darkness fell like a blanket around me. I could only descend blindly into the depths below. Under my hands the rungs were gritty with earth that had washed down from above, and not a little slippery. The whole ladder swayed as I descended and I fought off vertigo. Wind came blowing up from the open face of the rooms under me where no windows were in place. Now I could see bands of light below where dust motes swirled in the wind. Slowly, as darkness gave way to faint light, I left the pit that still dropped to a lower level, and stood upon a bare wooden floor.
“Jilly!” I called again. “Please help us, Jilly. Your father brought me here to find you.”
There wasn’t even a rustle from the stretch of rooms where I stood. Leaves and small branches and loose earth littered the floor. A bird’s nest built in the spring still clung to the overhang. I stood near a wide opening where picture windows would have been placed and looked out over a full sweep of the Rockfish Valley, with its rim of mountains all around. Curving roads crossed the valley floor, and small clusters of tiny houses showed here and there. Looking down the rocky face was dizzying, and I went back to the pit, where another ladder reached to the floor below.
Before I started down, I called to Stephen. “I’m all right. The ladders are safe, and I’m going down to the lower floor.”
He didn’t answer, and I hoped he was all right. This time I descended more quickly, feeling more confident. Again, these were nearly finished rooms at the bottom, and again space for windows opened on the cliff. There had been rain damage at both levels, and the whole structure would be falling into decay before long. Except for the police, probably no one had been here since Luther’s death—the project held up by the courts, perhaps abandoned for good, unless some new buyer took over.
“White Moon,” Stephen had named this place. A careless whimsy from the past? It was an attractive name, so why not use it since, of course, after he married, it could hardly be given to her house. The top floor would have been the living area, the next one down the bedrooms. This floor was probably intended for utilities and perhaps a game room.
I stood still again, listening, sensing—and I knew Jilly was here, hiding in breathless silence, perhaps hoping I would go away. I moved toward the rear room built into the earth of the mountain. As my eyes grew used to the deeper gloom, I could see her crouched in one corner of what might have been a closet space. She wore jeans, a pullover sweater, and a cardigan. Her hair had been plaited into long braids, and her head rested on bent knees that she hugged tightly. She must have heard me coming, but she didn’t move, even when I stood beside her. An apple core lay on the floor nearby, and the remnants of a sandwich in paper wrapping.
“Hello, Jilly,” I said gently. “How did you ever manage to get up here?”
She didn’t raise her head. “I got a ride from a lady, and then I hiked up the mountain.”
“How long do you plan to stay?” I went on, as though we were having a polite conversation.
She wriggled her body under the layered sweaters. “Go away! Leave me alone!”
Staying just outside the door of the small space, I sat down cross-legged on the floor and said nothing at all for a few minutes. I remembered the rule I had made for myself long ago in my work with children. Give only love, and I let my feeling for Jilly warm me and reach out to her without a word.
Perhaps curiosity won, for after a while she raised her head to peer out at me.
“I can wait,” I assured her. “I’m not in any hurry. And your father will wait for us upstairs. If there’s something you want to do here, Jilly, perhaps I can help.”
“Nobody can help!” Her chin tilted and she stared off into space.
“Have you remembered anything?” I asked. “Would you like to tell me?”
She buried her head on her knees again, and all I could see was her woolen cap, with a border of black reindeer running across a red and green ground.
I tried again. “Sometimes it helps to talk about what frightens us, Jilly. We don’t feel so all alone if there’s someone to talk to.”
“I’m not frightened.” The words were muffled against her knees.
“That’s fine. I envy you. Because I am terribly frightened. Right now.”
She looked up suspiciously. “What of?”
“That’s the trouble—I’m not sure. Sometimes I have a feeling that something just out of sight is watching me. It’s a spooky feeling.”
She seemed to be staring at me fixedly now, as though something was wrong, and her next words surprised me.
“Sometimes I can see a shimmery red light around you, Lynn. When it’s clear and bright, that’s good. It means courage and hope. But sometimes it’s slashed with a darker color because of bad things that are negative—feelings that can hurt you.”
“Julian told me you can see auras.”
“He got me a book about them—so I can figure out what they mean.”
“That’s interesting. Jilly, is there anyone you know who has a really bad aura around them?”
“Sometimes Carla does, but I try not to look at her much. Lynn, if something is worrying you a lot, you could tell Uncle Julian. He might help you to fix it.”
“But he hasn’t been able to fix what frightens you, has he?”
“Nobody can fix that.”
She jumped up suddenly and went out to where the wind blew through the empty window space on the face of the cliff. I followed, ready to pull her back if she went too close to the opening.
“This is where Luther fell,” she said, looking over the sill into space. “He fell from the top and he went halfway down the mountain, right past this window.”
“Did you see him fall, Jilly?”
She stepped back from the void, her forehead wrinkling. “I don’t think so. I really don’t think I saw him fall—except that I see him all the time in my head. Going over like a rag doll, falling, and falling! But it’s just in my head. I think maybe he hit me before he fell and I didn’t really see anything.”
“Why would Luther hit you?”
“Because I knew he was trying to hurt my father, and I had to stop him.”
I asked my next question carefully. “Where was your father when this was happening?”
“I’m not sure. It’s all mixed up. It’s as if I can see Luther falling, but I know it’s not real. For a long time I couldn’t remember any of it. It was like I was too scared to remember.”
“Is that why you came here today, Jilly? To see if you could bring some of it back?”
“It didn’t help. It didn’t help at all!”
I wanted to hold her, comfort her, but I didn’t dare. I put cold hands into my coat pockets and felt the piece of turquoise Julian had given me. I drew it out and held it to the light. The sky blue color no longer seemed true.
Jilly saw the change and gasped. “Look! It’s turned green. You’d better be careful, Lynn. When a blue turquoise changes to green it means something is wrong. In you or around you.”
A lot of things were wrong in me and around me—I didn’t need a blue-green stone to tell me that.
“It’s awfully cold down here,” I said, dropping the bit of turquoise back in my pocket. “Let’s go up to the car where we can get warm. That is, unless there’s something you still want to remember while you’re here.”
“I want to remember, but I can’t. It’s no use. There’s just one thing—” She broke off and I waited, sensing that she was on the verge of some revelation. But then she changed her mind.
“I only want to help my father—so he’ll be well again.” Tears brimmed in her eyes and she blinked furiously. As we stood close together, I dared to slip an arm around her shoulders, and for a moment she leaned against me—then pulled away, resisting any affection I might offer. Resisting because she was afraid of giving love to anyone else and being hurt all over again?
“I’ll go back with you now,” she said
, and her giving in seemed more defeat than acceptance.
I tried to sound cheerful. “That’s fine. But first, Jilly, you said there was one more thing … Can you tell me now what you meant?”
“If I tell you, will you promise not to say this to anybody?”
“I can’t promise that, Jilly. Will you trust me to do what seems best?”
“I don’t know. Once you were married to my father, weren’t you?”
So she’d figured that out, as I’d thought she would. “That’s true. I married him when I was nineteen.”
“Then you went away and left him!”
“Not because I wanted to. Please believe me, Jilly—I loved your father very much. But that was a long time ago.”
We were moving toward the ladder, and she paused, considering. “If you loved him, why did you go away? My mother said—”
“Perhaps it’s my turn to say. I didn’t go away because it was my choice. I didn’t want to go.”
“But nobody made you, did they?”
She’d seen something more clearly than I had ever wanted to see in my wounded pride and in the hating that had possessed me. There’d been no love or forgiveness in me then, and I had no answer for her. I’d been so sure that Stephen wanted me to go. And he had been blinded by his infatuation for Oriana. I didn’t want to be loving and forgiving—any more than I ever had. Stephen had got what he wanted and that was that.
At the foot of the ladder Jilly put a hand on my arm. “Dad says my mother lives in a make-believe world. That’s because she’s a dancer first of all. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want me to be a dancer—because he wants me to live in the real world. Though of course now he doesn’t care anymore.”
That might be right. The real world was one Stephen had found so ugly that he had turned away from living. Until today.
“Your father brought me here,” I reminded her. “He was worried about you, and he knew where we might look.”
“All right—I’ll tell you,” she decided abruptly. “There was somebody else here at White Moon that day. Luther and my father and me. And one other person.”
“Who was that?” I asked, startled.
She began to climb the ladder, as though her own words had frightened her. “I—I don’t remember.” She went up swiftly to the next floor and waited for me. “Don’t tell my father, Lynn. Promise!”
That, at least, I could promise. “I won’t tell him. Not now, anyway.”
Someone would have to be told, but it wouldn’t be Stephen. Though even as I climbed to the top after Jilly, I recognized the danger of telling anyone. I had to be very sure I wasn’t telling the very person whose identity Jilly was hiding, and who might be responsible for whatever had happened here that day. Or at least who would have seen what happened. I knew only one person I could trust—Julian. He might not always be counted on to take action, but he could advise me, and perhaps help me to learn from Jilly what we needed to know.
He might even know why Jilly was protecting the identity of the fourth person who had been at White Moon on that terrible day.
11
Sunlight blinded me as we climbed up from the earth into the beautiful Indian summer day. For a moment we both stood blinking. Stephen had returned to the car, and he sat sideways in the front seat, his feet on the ground and his crutches beside him.
He looked pale and drawn and I knew how much this place must remind him of all he had lost. Waiting for us, he would have had time to relive those events. At least he brightened a little when he saw Jilly.
“Good! We’ve found you,” he said mildly and held out a hand to his daughter.
While there would be no reproaches, there was no warm greeting between them either. Jilly walked toward him with her own quiet dignity and looked solemnly into his face.
Whatever she questioned, he wasn’t able to meet. He dropped the hand she’d ignored and spoke to me curtly. “Let’s get going.”
With both hands he lifted his right leg and swung himself around in the front seat. Jilly picked up his crutches without speaking, put them in the backseat, and climbed in beside them.
Once more behind the wheel, I felt a strong reluctance to return at once to Stephen’s house where all sorts of horrors might await us.
“It’s nearly lunchtime,” I said. “Perhaps there’s some place where we could stop to eat before we go back?”
Jilly come to life. “Could we, Dad? I brought a sandwich along to eat, but I wasn’t very hungry. Now I am.”
“All right.” He gave in without much grace. “We’ll turn off into the valley. I’ll show you where, Lynn.”
As we reached level ground, the Rockfish River edged the road, rippling over rocks that shone wet in the sun. The waterline stood too high on dry banks, since there had been a drought. On the other side we could see golden fields, where haying had begun, and bales of fodder were already stacked. Clear to the mountains the land was still green and untouched by coming winter. Stephen indicated a side road and I followed signs to the Swallow’s Nest Inn.
In its day the house had been a family home, and it was big and rambling—part of it close to a hundred years old. A veranda with square white posts suggested the South, and the gracious doorway showed a fanlight overhead. Fortunately, there were only a few steps for Stephen to maneuver, and he managed without help, though Jilly stayed watchfully at his elbow.
Indoors, the architecture hadn’t been much changed, so the several dining rooms were small and intimate. A hostess led us to a room with only four tables, all empty, since we were early. I sat where I could look through trees to distant mountains, their colors growing more intense every day.
Inside, tiny sprigs of blue dotted the wallpaper, and wreaths of dried field flowers hung on the walls. A high shelf displayed porcelain plates from China and blue delftware—someone’s personal treasures. A fireplace had been laid with logs, to be lighted when the weather grew cold. Our surroundings were cheerful, cozy and pleasant. Everything was right for a friendly, relaxing meal—except us three. A stiffness and self-consciousness held us, so that we hardly looked at one another. Both father and daughter had grown suspicious of me, and that was something I didn’t know how to deal with.
When we’d ordered a simple lunch, I went to telephone Julian and let him know that Jilly had been found, and that we’d be home later. He wanted to ask questions, but I put him off and returned to the table.
Stephen and Jilly weren’t talking and they both looked so sober that I knew this lunch together hadn’t been a good idea. When the waitress brought hot rolls with country butter in little crocks, Jilly gave herself entirely to eating, though neither Stephen nor I found ourselves hungry.
There was simply nothing to talk about and I picked at my salad without much interest. It was Jilly who finally broke the strained silence, having satisfied her first hunger.
“Maybe you’re thinking about scolding me,” she said to her father, “but you don’t have to, because I’m not really your daughter.”
That brought his attention into sudden focus. “Maybe you’d better explain that.”
“Oh, I don’t mean I wasn’t born to you and my mother.” She looked shyly pleased with herself for taking him by surprise. “What I mean is that I belonged to Uncle Julian first. I’m really his child, you know. When Amber died she came back into me. He knows that and he told me.”
Stephen turned to me blankly.
“Reincarnation,” I said dryly. “But don’t let it worry you. If Amber has returned, I expect she’s quite happy to be your little girl for this lifetime. Isn’t that so, Jilly?”
At least, Stephen rose to the occasion. “I hope that’s true. How do you feel about this, Jilly?”
Perhaps she’d been playing a game—the game of getting back at her father for his lack of attention. Now she returned his look openly, and I saw the resemblance between them—though Jilly’s small chin was more rounded in its stubbornness.
“I don’t feel like Amber
, Daddy. I only feel like me.”
“Then that’s all right,” he told her. “Your Uncle Julian will just have to wait his turn in a future life.”
Jilly appeared relieved. “When is my mother coming home?”
“I’m not sure. She phoned a few days ago and Paul talked to her, since I was outside. She’s very busy with her movie—doing over some last scenes. You had a letter from her, didn’t you?”
“It didn’t say much. Just that she thinks it’s going to be a good movie, but sometimes the direction is wrong. They don’t really understand her dancing out there.”
“I can believe that,” Stephen said.
All my old resentment against Oriana was ready to surface, and I felt trapped, being forced to listen. How was I ever to relinquish old anger?
When the waitress brought my omelet, I regarded it without the slightest appetite. Stephen and Jilly had decided on grouper, a popular fish locally, and Jilly, at least, was hungry.
As I poked at my food, I tried to think ahead to what I must do when we returned to the house. Once I’d told Julian all that had happened, what then? Would he take any sort of action to learn more about what had occurred at White Moon? I felt sure that until whatever had happened there was fully known, there could be little peace for either Jilly or Stephen.
It was a relief when we could leave this social situation that I had created and didn’t know how to deal with. We drove back to the house without talking, Jilly sleepy now in the backseat.
My plan to talk with Julian had to be postponed, however. When we arrived, neither Paul nor Emory was in sight, and I sent Jilly to find someone to help Stephen. He, however, didn’t mean to wait for his chair. When I handed him his crutches he got out awkwardly and started up the ramp. I followed him, trying to be unobtrusive. As we neared Stephen’s room, Paul came out with the wheelchair.
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