Oriana covered her face and began to cry silently. “I would never have brought her here if I’d known such a thing. I never believed she was so disturbed that she would kill herself.”
“What if she didn’t kill herself? What if she didn’t send her car over that cliff?”
Unsteadily, Oriana reached for the clothes she’d taken off when she put on her leotard, picking them up absently, not looking at me.
“I must get away from this terrible place!” Her voice quavered, and she looked up at me as though she were pleading for something. Some understanding, perhaps? But I didn’t understand Oriana at all, nor did I want to.
“Please, Lynn—try to see. I have only one talent to give—to justify my life. It’s necessary to protect my gift. I need to feel a serenity that is almost like a prayer when I dance. Anything evil and ugly can destroy the inner tranquility that is necessary to me.”
I felt only impatience. “Sometimes life seems evil and ugly, but we have to live it just the same.”
“I can only dance when I am able to transcend all that.” Her sigh sounded tremulous, regretful. “Stephen was so beautiful—physically. So strong and sure of himself. Loving him helped me bring a new dimension to my dancing.”
“It didn’t bother your tranquility that he already had a wife?”
“Fate brought us together. It was right from the first.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I still love him—in my own way. But now when I’m with him I can feel the very essence that belongs to my talent slipping away.”
As she sat there wrapped in her white robe, her hair flowing down her back now and still damp from the shower, there seemed something ethereal about her—as though she existed on some plane different from ordinary mortals. And she expected never to be judged as an ordinary mortal!
But I was earthbound—and impatient. “What about Jilly?”
“Poor, darling Jilly. I would take her with me, if I could. But I believe she understands what I need more than anyone else does.”
At what cost? I thought. I’d had enough of unearthly dancers, but before I could leave her, she spoke again.
“Carla did tell me that Luther was blackmailing someone. She didn’t know who, or for what reason, but she believed that was why he was killed. That’s all I can tell you. There’s so much horror here. I can feel it around me. It will be best for Stephen if I leave right away.”
“And best for Jilly—who needs her mother?”
“She already knows I can’t stay. She’s a wise little person, and she understands that more than anything else, I must dance.”
Too many heavy burdens had been placed on Jilly’s young shoulders. Somehow I must try to ease them a little. Perhaps that was where my talent lay, and Julian had realized this when he brought me here.
“I’ll go find Jilly now,” I said, and left Oriana sitting very still, with a listening look on her face, as though she heard some inner and comforting music.
17
Jilly stood at the rail of the gazebo, looking out toward that marvelous blue ridge not so very far away. She heard me coming across from the house, and I could sense the way she stiffened, ready to resist.
“Do you mind if I join you?” I asked. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
She looked around in sudden alarm. “Is my father all right? Has anything happened?”
I sat on the bench and drew her down beside me, reassuring her quickly. She had never been connected with Carla through bonds of love, but what had happened would carry its own shock.
“Your father’s fine. It’s Carla, Jilly. She has been killed in a car accident. I’ve been telling your mother about what happened and she wanted me to tell you.”
“Carla thought somebody was going to kill her,” Jilly said.
“We don’t know that’s what happened. The sheriff thinks she might have run her car off the cliff at White Moon herself.”
Jilly’s expression went suddenly blank. “My mother’s leaving soon, isn’t she?”
So we weren’t to talk of Carla. “I believe she is.”
“Lynn, do you think I could go back to school now? Would they let me? I don’t need someone new to stay with me, and if I’m going to school every day, then I wouldn’t need to live in Charlottesville with Uncle Everett and Aunt Meryl.”
“Let’s talk to your Uncle Julian and your father about this. I think it might be a good idea for you to be with other kids again.”
“Part of the trouble is this house,” Jilly said, turning to look across at the rambling decks and graduated roofs her father had created. “It’s not like a house where you can have a family. Everybody is separated, so we’re not close to each other—not like in a real home.”
For the first time her words made me see that the beautiful plans Stephen and I had pored over had resulted in something exotic—a lovely picture of a house. But not, as Jilly realized, a home to be easily lived in with a close family.
“You’re right, Jilly,” I agreed. “Though I never really saw this before I came here. Perhaps your father will be able to move into a smaller house. In a place not so isolated. I think he’s taking hold a little more, Jilly, so things may change.”
She nodded soberly, not entirely reassured.
“Jilly dear,” I said, “do you think you could trust me a little by this time?”
She edged away on the bench, not ready. But I had to plunge ahead while I had this chance.
“I know something is troubling you. And I think it might help if you could talk to someone about it. Perhaps to me. Or to Uncle Julian. Or, best of all, to your father.”
Today her eyes seemed more gray than green, and I saw in them that look of fear I’d have given anything to lessen.
“If you could just talk about what worries you, Jilly, you might feel better. If you could—”
Quite suddenly she decided to trust me. “My father killed Luther Kersten.” She paused as if examining her own words. “There! I’ve told you, but I don’t feel any better. I feel worse. Are you going to tell anyone?”
“I don’t want to tell anyone what I don’t believe is true. How do you think it happened?”
“They had a fight and I guess Luther turned his back on my father, and then Dad just pushed him over the edge of the cliff. Luther was a very bad man, and maybe what happened was right.” Defiance came into her voice.
“Why haven’t you talked to your father about seeing what happened?”
“I didn’t see it. I don’t mean that.”
“Then how—?”
“Someone else saw what happened. Someone who told me.”
“The fourth person you mentioned?”
“Yes! And if I tell anyone, the police will find out, and then my father will go to prison for murder. So don’t you see, Lynn—I can never talk about this. But you said I could trust you.”
“I want you to. But why hasn’t the person who saw what happened told?”
“Because my father would be hurt, and this person hated Luther.”
“It’s time to tell me who it was, Jilly. You needn’t carry this all alone. There may be more to it than you think.”
“No! If you knew, you’d have to tell—and then my father would be in terrible danger.”
“Oh, Jilly! Dear Jilly—I do think you’re wrong.”
She drew farther away from me. “You don’t know anything!”
“Then why not tell me?”
“Just go away. I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone!”
I’d only caused her to retreat into her shell still more, shutting me out. So much for my skills!
I stood up. “Just promise me one thing, Jilly, and then I’ll go. Promise not to go into the woods by yourself for a while. Or be anywhere else completely alone.”
“What difference does it make? Without Carla, I’ll be alone all the time. Especially at night.”
“Not while your mother’s here. And perhaps when she leaves, I can move into Carla’s room for
a little while. Until everything is straightened out.”
Her look of relief told me how troubled she had been.
“Would you do that, Lynn?”
“Of course. I’ll move in the minute your mother goes. Maybe I’ll start packing now.”
Her smile rewarded me as I left—so I hadn’t lost her completely. As I neared the house, Meryl came up to the lower deck from the driveway.
“Wait a minute, Lynn!” she called.
I waited for her near Stephen’s rooms. I didn’t need to be suspicious of Meryl, whether I always approved of her or not, but I would be watchful with everyone now.
She began to talk before she reached me. “Vivian phoned and told me what happened to Carla. It’s terrible, of course, but I’m not surprised. She was completely unbalanced—that one! Of course I drove right out as soon as I heard—to see if I can help.”
“I’m not sure what you can do. What any of us can do.”
“I can take over with Jilly, at least.”
I couldn’t welcome that. “I’m still here, Meryl. But I don’t think we should do anything without talking to Stephen.”
“That’s what I’m going to do—right now. I’ll see you later.”
She opened a sliding door to Stephen’s living room and disappeared inside. I wanted to follow her, to throw my weight against whatever reasons she might offer for taking Jilly away. But my presence wouldn’t help now, and I needed more time to think—to make some sort of plan. Perhaps what I needed most was a listening ear.
When I stopped at the door of Julian’s study I found him alone, his fingers rapid on typewriter keys. “Come in, Lynn,” he called and looked around at me.
I sat down next to his desk, and he listened quietly as I told him everything Jilly had said. I told him as well what Carla Raines had said to Oriana about Luther blackmailing someone.
“I don’t know what to do,” I finished. “Perhaps whoever has sold Jilly on the idea that her father killed Luther Kersten carries the real guilt. Right now Jilly won’t talk. But how long will this person trust Jilly to keep still?”
Julian’s expression seemed understanding and concerned. But he had his own sometimes strange—to me—means of dealing with problems.
“There’s a possible way to find an answer, Lynn—if you are willing to try. And if you can trust me enough.”
I hadn’t the faintest notion what he was talking about, and I waited.
“Would you let me take you back—regress you? That is, help you to return to a past life?”
This really alarmed me. I had no wish to meddle with such psychic matters, and I didn’t think they were parlor games to play.
Julian spoke reassuringly. “Let me tell you how I do this. It isn’t at all frightening. You would be in a mildly hypnotized state, and perfectly conscious of everything that was happening. At the same time you could go deeply into memories you’ve never tapped. Memories of past happenings that might clarify the present.”
“How is that possible?”
“Many who believe in this and have done research in the field are convinced that we meet the same souls over and over down through the centuries. In other bodies, of course, perhaps even as different sexes. We may still be working out relationships and learning from them. What has happened in past existences may be affecting us now. If I could lead you back into a former life, it’s possible that you would find the answers you most need.”
Everything in me shrank from such an experiment. I didn’t want to be hypnotized into believing whatever Julian wanted me to believe. From the first there had seemed a basic goodness about him, but while I wanted to trust him, I knew this expedition into the past that he proposed wasn’t for me. It might even be dangerous, in spite of his reassurance.
“Why me, Julian? Why do you think I should do this? Why not Stephen, or someone closer to Jilly than I am?”
“You may be closer to her than you think. You always have been. Yet at the same time, you are the one who can stand back a little and look at all of us more objectively.”
I couldn’t trust in some psychic whimsy to help me or anyone else.
“Never mind,” he said. “You aren’t ready yet. We must come to these matters in our own good time, and I won’t press you. Just keep it in mind as a possibility. Something important in your past—something you might recall from another life could give you an answer in the present. I do believe this, Lynn.”
“Have you been regressed?” I asked.
He laughed regretfully. “I’ve tried. It isn’t always successful, and apparently I’m not a good subject. I always go to sleep. So I must depend on my own intuition and my own guides to lead me. Let me know, Lynn, if you decide to try this. It could even be a peaceful, healing experience for you.”
I was far from ready to accept that, and as I got up to leave, Paul came to the door. “Stephen would like to see you both. Something’s just happened.”
He sounded excited again, and I suspected that he was dying to tell us what it was but had been told to leave this to Stephen.
Again I felt a surge of alarm as we hurried toward Stephen’s rooms. Meryl was with him, looking gloomy.
Stephen told us quickly what had happened. John Williams, the county sheriff, had just phoned. When Carla Raines had been extricated from her crashed car, it was found that she must have died before the car went off the cliff—from a severe blow to the head. Her seat belt was buckled around her, so she wasn’t thrown when the car crashed. The impact would have killed her—but not by this type of wound. Perhaps the killer had expected that the car would burn and destroy the evidence. Williams suspected that she must have sat in her car for a while talking to her killer—where the weight of tire marks showed. She could have been killed while she sat there, and the brake released so the car would run down the incline and off into space.
This was much more awful than her supposed suicide, and Meryl stared at me—probably thinking the same thing that came to my mind. That the person who killed Luther Kersten could also have killed Carla. A person who liked to deal with heights?
That far-off look had come into Julian’s eyes, and he spoke softly. “When there is sudden death, the soul can be lost and confused for a time—not sure where it is, or where to go. I must try to help Carla cross over.”
He went dreamily off and Meryl looked after him. “What a kook! Sometimes I wonder what Vivian sees in him!”
“Perhaps Julian travels with less constricting baggage than most of us carry,” Stephen said.
Paul had been listening avidly and he spoke for the first time. “Carla told me something not long ago. She said she wanted to go up to White Moon and try to reconstruct what happened when Luther died. She said she had something to figure out. I asked her if she meant to go alone, and she got that sly look she could put on, and just said she might be a lot wiser when she came back. Only of course she never came back.”
What he’d revealed didn’t help anything, though Stephen said he’d better tell the sheriff.
Meryl said, “This is bad luck,” but she wasn’t thinking about Carla. “Now there will be more investigating by the police, and Everett isn’t going to like that.”
“What Everett won’t like isn’t the point,” Stephen told her. “A woman who lived in this house may have been murdered, and we’d better give the police any help we can.”
I was thinking of Jilly now and of how this further development might affect her. “Stephen, when Oriana leaves, will it be all right if I move down to Carla’s room? So as to be near Jilly. Just until you find someone else?”
Meryl spoke before he could answer. “Don’t bother, Lynn. I’m going to take Jilly to Charlottesville as soon as I can. She’ll be fine there.”
I didn’t think so, and I was glad when Stephen shook his head. “Not right away, Meryl. Thanks, Lynn. It will be fine if you move into Carla’s room when Oriana leaves. I think that’s likely to be soon. In the meantime, maybe you can stay near Jilly?”
>
“I will,” I assured him, but before I could go off to look for her, Jilly walked into the room. She sensed the tense atmosphere and looked around at us uneasily.
Meryl held out her hand. “Hi, Jilly. Let’s go somewhere and talk. You need to hear about something that’s happened.” She’d cut in neatly on any effort I might have made. In any case, it was Stephen I needed to talk with now.
“Do you mind if I stay a few minutes?” I asked.
Stephen spoke to Paul. “You’ve started packing, haven’t you? Maybe this is a good time to get on with it.”
Paul’s motivating curiosity had been blocked again, and he went reluctantly away.
“Poor Carla,” Stephen said. “I’m afraid I never paid much attention to her. I felt that Oriana made a mistake when she brought her in, but I didn’t do anything. Now we’ll all wonder if what has happened could have been prevented.”
Not all of us, I thought.
He went on. “I’m sorry you’ve been thrown into the middle of this, Lynn. Though at least you’re not made of music and incense.”
Bitterness came through in his words, and I felt all the more impatient with Oriana.
He went on. “I’ll be glad if you’ll stay for a while and help with Jilly, Lynn. I know she’s fond of you. Something is troubling her, but I’ve lost her confidence and she won’t talk to me about it.”
The time had come for him to hear the truth.” Someone has convinced Jilly that if she tells whatever it is that she knows, you will go to prison for murder. Luther’s murder.”
Though I’d spoken bluntly, my words didn’t seem to surprise him. “Maybe what she believes is true,” he said. “I still don’t know what really happened. But I must make Jilly understand that I don’t want her protection.”
“Then talk to her. Bring it into the open, Stephen.”
“If only I could remember. But I can’t get the sequence right. It’s all bits and pieces.”
“Perhaps one way to get Jilly to open up,” I said, “would be to take her somewhere pleasant—give her a happy experience that would relax her. Some sort of treat. She might begin to trust you more, and you could make her understand how important it is for you to know what is real, and what isn’t. She mentioned that you’d promised her a balloon trip. Perhaps that’s what you could do.”
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