by Jane Toombs
She could hear Helen’s voice in her mind. “You’ll never get another job if you persist with your Alice-in-Wonderland appearance. All that hair! Why not cut it?” But her first boss after she had finished the medical assistant course, a young doctor just starting his practice in San Diego, had liked the childish look and only asked her to pull her hair back enough to keep it out of the babies’ faces—he was a pediatrician. He’d been sorry to let her go, but when she blacked out for the second time in a month, he told her she shouldn’t work with babies. What if she was holding one when she fell? He’d been nice, Dr. Johnson, taking tests to see if he could find her problem. But all the tests showed nothing physically wrong with her. He’d even suggested a psychiatrist, one who would see her for nothing on the first visit as a favor to Dr. Johnson. But she was afraid to go. And there hadn’t been a second job.
So stop picking holes in this opportunity, Janella. Even if you can’t warm to your aunt (and how do you know you won’t?), you can be a good companion, take care of her. Think of the meeting as a job interview. Neat. Nails clean. Clothes fashionable but not way-out. Okay—let’s go.
Janella walked to the door but stood with her hand on the knob. Was she some kind of monster that she couldn’t be enthusiastic about finding a relative? She who had always secretly bemoaned her step-status, even Arnie only half-related. Here was someone to tell her about some of the missing years, to talk about Daddy with, someone who must have known her mother. All things Janella had dreamed of finding out, wanted desperately to know.
Was she afraid of Aunt Toivi? A small shiver crawled down her back as she remembered the black hag of last night. No. No way a woman in her thirties, forty at the most, could shrivel up into that. No, it was not Toivi in her room last night. Don’t think now about your feelings—get out there, go downstairs and face what may be your future. She smiled a little as she turned the knob—she’d nearly thought “face your fate,” like some storybook heroine.
In the hall she glanced at the other closed doors. Toivi’s bedroom was across from hers, Lucien had said. Janella wondered if she should knock, ask if her aunt needed anything, but she shrank from the idea. I don’t know her yet, she told herself. I’d better wait.
The end of the hall widened and she saw draperies pulled across what must be a window wall. I’ll peek out at the view, she thought, and then shook her head. No, she was procrastinating, putting off going downstairs. For all she knew her aunt and uncle were waiting for her, impatient with her dawdling.
She descended to the second level and went into the dining room. Two places were set at the table but she saw nobody. She hesitated, wondering if she should go into the kitchen. Where was everyone? She had an eerie feeling she was alone in the house. All alone, the only living being present.
A figure appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, and she jumped, choking back a startled cry.
“You must be the young lady. He said you’d be here this morning. I set a place for you there in the dining room.”
Janella stared at the sallow-faced woman framed in the doorway. No smile accompanied the words and the eyes in the gaunt face seemed curiously lifeless. Was this—no, this couldn’t be. Aunt Toivi, gray-haired already?
“I’m Janella Maki,” she said, trying to smile at the woman.
“You can call me Ruth, that’s my name, Ruth Barnes. He calls me Mrs. Barnes but I don’t like it, seems like it’s my mother-in-law he means.” Something stirred in the blank eyes as she said the last words, something glittered and was gone.
“Thank you for the cold supper last night—I enjoyed the beef.”
“It’s my job.” But the lips twitched slightly and Ruth’s face looked less cold. “What anyone needs around here, I get for them.” She did smile then but it made her face less attractive, almost sinister.
“You don’t stay at the house?” Janella asked, knowing the answer yet needing the opening for her next question.
“No. My boy drives me over from Santee.”
“Then there’s just Lucien—Mr. DuBois—and his wife living here?”
Ruth shrugged. “There’s the old lady.”
Janella hesitated a moment, wondering if she should wait for Lucien to tell her about the woman in black, her night visitor.
“Did she bother you?” Ruth’s head darted forward and she now looked almost predatory. “Wanders around a lot at night—I see her sometimes when I stay late to wait for my boy to pick me up. Enough to give you the creeps to meet her in the dark.”
“Yes, well, I did see her last night, and I didn’t know…” Janella’s words trailed away. She couldn’t admit no one had told her.
“A proper old witch, that one, mumbling around in some outlandish language—Finnish, he says.” Again the flash of some emotion. “I can understand a little Spanish myself—you need to living around here—but Spanish sounds all right. The words she says don’t sound like they mean anything.”
Janella shifted her feet, not knowing how to reply to this, and Ruth stepped back from the doorway.
“Come in and look at the kitchen,” she invited.
At first Janella was fooled completely. A polished wood range, black, stood to her right and an old-fashioned icebox was on the other side of the room. The countertops were covered with the tiny white octagonal tiles of long ago. She turned to Ruth, who was smiling again.
“You got taken in like they all do,” she said. “Somebody went to a lot of trouble to get this electric stove made up like the old kind, and that icebox is really a refrigerator—electric, too. Even the tile’s fake—it’s regular size with the little lines sort of etched on.” She shook her head, smile fading. “A bunch of foolishness. No wonder they got a divorce.”
Janella was startled. “Who?”
“The people who own this place.”
“Oh—yes, Mr. DuBois just rents the house, doesn’t he?”
Ruth nodded. “I bet you’re hungry. Tell me how you like your eggs and I’ll make some up for you. We got bacon and some sausage.”
Janella shook her head. “Thanks, but I only want some orange juice, toast, and coffee. Is he—is Mr. DuBois going to be eating breakfast with me?” And where was Aunt Toivi? There were only two places set at the table.
“I’ll let him know you’re down,” Ruth said. “He told me to earlier this morning. You go along to the dining room.”
Janella and Lucien sat formally across from each other at the oval dining-room table, not side by side as they had last night. “You slept well?” Lucien asked as they sipped orange juice, and she nodded before she thought. After that they breakfasted in silence until Ruth’s strong, slightly bitter coffee infused her with enough spirit to begin questioning him. “Who is the elderly woman I saw last night?”
“Damn it. I told Toivi to lock her in—I didn’t want her frightening you to death your first night here—which, I suppose, is what she did.” He smiled at her ruefully.
“Well, I didn’t know she lived here.”
“That’s my fault. To tell the truth, she’s a nuisance as far as I’m concerned, senile, can’t remember things, speaks no English whatsoever and pretends she doesn’t understand it.” He shook his head. “I am sorry—I should have prepared you. We’ll see she doesn’t bother you.”
Janella couldn’t quite bring herself to repeat her original query—who is she? Uncle Lucien’s face seemed closed this morning and he sat stiffly, bringing the cup to his mouth like an automaton.
“She’s Finnish, I guess,” Janella ventured finally.
The words lay between them and Janella thought he wouldn’t respond at all, hadn’t heard them, because he went on methodically eating, his eyes not meeting hers. She felt chastised somehow, like a naughty child.
But then he gathered his napkin together, laying it on the table. “No,” he said. “Actually she’s a Lapp. Like old Louhi.”
He got up and Janella began to rise, but he shook his head. “No need to hurry.”
<
br /> “But Aunt Toivi—won’t she be needing me?”
“Not this morning. She’s asleep, usually sleeps until noon. Why don’t you go outside for some sunshine. There’s a flagstone path through the grove, otherwise it’s muddy walking.”
He stepped through the doorway. “Cold, though,” he said over his shoulder. “Don’t forget a coat.”
She went back up to her room to get a short coat from the closet. The front door was off the second level and she went out that way to walk around the house. And there were the eastern suburbs of San Diego spread out below her—El Cajon, Santee, La Mesa. The view was spectacular but the house was on the wrong side of Mt. Helix to have a view of the ocean, and she felt a pang of disappointment, almost as though she was being shut away from home and Helen on purpose. What’s wrong with me? she asked herself. I’m having too many of these paranoid ideas.
The long heavy leaves of the avocado trees were still wet. She peered into the spaces between the lines of trees where the stone walkway led and she hesitated.
“They don’t like trespassers.”
Janella jerked, twisting her body to see who had spoken. She confronted a young man in worn jeans and a faded denim jacket. His dark eyes slanted upward slightly in an olive face half-hidden by a curly beard. He was the most unusual combination she had ever seen, for instead of the black hair one would expect with his coloring, he had deep auburn hair, falling in waves to his shoulders and matching his beard. Fantastic. She stared at him.
“You’d better get off the property before he shows up.” The young man took a step toward her and she edged away.
“I-I’m staying here,” she managed to say.
His eyebrows were the same deep red, looking almost artificial against his dark skin. He moved another step toward her.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“You can call me Red.” The dark eyes—were they black?—bore into hers.
There were a lot of people around Lucien hadn’t bothered to mention. “Do you live here?” she asked.
“Not exactly. And I’m sorry to hear you will be. I thought he’d be more careful after Chris—after the last one…”
“Last what?”
“The last girl. Didn’t he tell you about the others?”
Chapter Four
Janella lifted her chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said to the young man with the red beard. He was standing close to her, too close, really. She took a step away and saw his eyes light up with amusement. “I’ll have to be going,” she said coldly.
“Be seeing you around,” he said, lifted his hand in a casual wave, turned, and disappeared among the avocado trees.
Janella heard the sound of a motor catching, recognized the roar of a motorcycle. Did he work here or was he trespassing, as he’d warned her not to? Who was he with his cryptic remarks about other girls?
She could ask Ruth Barnes if a red-haired man worked on the grounds. And that’s enough of him, stop thinking about him now, she told herself. Helen was always after her about daydreaming.
“You’re acting as if Curtis is a little tin god on wheels. Janella, when will you learn not to paint people royal purple in your imagination? Curtis can’t possibly be as wonderful as you picture him.”
Well, he wasn’t, he hadn’t been. Her fault—or Curtis’s? No matter now, too late to matter. But unwise to feel drawn to an arrogant, red-bearded stranger. Not wrong, like Lucien—he was her uncle, her aunt’s husband, she’d remember he was Uncle Lucien. It was all right to notice Red but foolish just the same.
Janella straightened her shoulders and looked around. The next house up the hill was just a roof above the trees that surrounded it. If she didn’t go back around Lucien’s house, which looked down on the city, she could think this was a mountain removed from urban sprawl, nearer the wilderness. She walked toward the garage, came out onto the road. Narrow, curving, it looped Mt. Helix, she knew, but no cars went by and the house across the road was buried in greenery, so the sense of isolation persisted. This was a different San Diego from hers and Helen’s.
A damp, cool breeze blew and she began to feel chilly. Time to go in. She hung her coat in the entry closet. Ruth Barnes was not in the kitchen when she went to look—no one was anywhere in sight. A short hall ran by the kitchen, and off it were the stairs to the lower level. There was a closed door at the hall’s end. Lucien’s room?
Janella came back to the entry, hesitated, then rejected the idea of her own sterile room. When she heard the music, the plaintive compelling notes, she wondered how long she’d been listening without realizing. The melody seemed to have always been in her mind, surrounding her with old sorrows, making her eyes prick with unshed tears. She moved with slow steps toward the living room, then recoiled with surprise. There was the piano, a concert grand, the focal point in the room, but no one sat on the stool, no one was in the room.
And then there was silence. Janella forced herself to go to the piano and touch the keys. She had heard music, she knew she had. A stereo, maybe, but certainly not ghosts at the piano. She stared past the instrument out the window wall. The hill dropped away to afford a phenomenal view. Near the glass the tops of pine trees swayed as if in a slow dance to unheard music.
Janella turned away. A fireplace dominated another wall of the large room. She went over to examine the amber tiles framing the firebox and making up the hearth. The designs—she bent closer to see, then made a sound, stepped back. Ugh. Little heads, little faces, ugly. Gargoyles, isn’t that what they were called? Like the faces on the outsides of some of the old European churches—she’d seen pictures of those. Not animal nor quite human. Ugly. Who’d want…?
“Don’t you care for the fireplace?”
She whirled around. Lucien.
“I—I thought I heard you playing the piano.”
“I was—but a recording. I didn’t realize the intercom was switched on in here.”
“You’ve made recordings?”
“I once played professionally.”
“Oh.” Should she have heard of him? Janella wondered. Had he been a concert pianist? She didn’t know much about the music world. Lucien DuBois? No, she’d never heard his name before.
“After I met Toivi my music led me in another direction. Like Jesse Shephard. His Music Room at Villa Montezuma fascinates me—it’s the soul of the house. They’ve been good enough to let me play there when I want, but I’d like to be alone in the house sometime.”
Evidently Doris knew who Lucien DuBois was if she didn’t, Janella told herself. Doris didn’t let just anyone fool around with the antique piano, which had cost a fortune to restore.
“I wouldn’t like to be alone in the Music Room.”
“Maybe you could come with me. Toivi…” He paused, shook his head.
“How long have you been in San Diego?” Janella asked.
“Three months.”
“Was the Jesse Shephard house the reason—”
He broke in. “No, you were why we came. But I’d known about Jesse Shephard, I became interested in his theories associating music and spiritualism. Then I discovered he’d once had a house in San Diego. It was a pleasant surprise to find the Villa Montezuma restored and open to the public. Unfortunately the piano is not his original one, but that may not matter. I don’t know yet.”
He fell silent and Janella watched him as he stared past her, not seeing her, not looking at anything but his own thoughts. He seemed so alone. Didn’t Toivi…
“Will she—will Aunt Toivi be joining us for lunch?” she asked, thrusting her aunt’s name firmly between them.
“She prefers to eat in her rooms.”
“And the other—the old woman?”
He shrugged. “She has a room off Toivi’s. Toivi spoils her.”
Janella thought this an odd choice of words and raised her eyebrows.
He caught her look. “She’s like a child, old Akki. And Toivi humors her whims as though Akki really
were her child. I don’t approve, but…” He spread his hands. “Perhaps if Toivi had been able to have children she would be more”—he groped for a word—“more content.” Then he frowned as though he had used the wrong word after all.
Janella thought of Arnie. Was Helen more—content?
“Have you two been married long?”
“Five years.” The words had a clipped finality that closed the subject. She felt dismissed.
“Mrs. Barnes has lunch ready by eleven thirty,” he said. “I should be back, but don’t wait for me.”
Janella watched him leave the room and wondered how to spend the remaining morning hours. She stopped by the bookshelves near the door but was put off by the subject matter. Mythology, the occult—here was one by Jesse Shephard. She had seen the same book at the Villa Montezuma, but his style—archaic, involved—had dismayed her. No, she wanted a romance, a story with a predictable outcome where everyone lived happily ever after. It didn’t seem she’d find that here.
She went upstairs and saw the draperies had been pulled back at the end of the hall, flooding the area with pale sunlight. All the doors were closed, but now she noticed that the one next to Aunt Toivi’s had a bolt on the outside. The outside? Was this old Akki so dangerous she had to be bolted in at night? Janella stared uneasily at the door, then turned to her own. Should I ask for a bolt of my own—on the inside? she wondered.
Shut inside her own room, she found a crossword-puzzle book she had brought from home and started a puzzle. Strands of hair worked loose from the chignon and fell across her face as she filled in spaces. Finally she went to the bathroom mirror and tried to push in the straying hair, but the knot came undone and in disgust she took out all the pins, brushing her hair until it hung down in back. So much for the sophisticated look.