In the Blink of an Eye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Yes, that’s partly why. I mean, that Dulcie wants to see you,” Paine says in a low voice. “But that’s not the only reason I asked you to come over. Something she said this morning bothered me and I thought maybe you’d know what—”

  “Daddy? Who are you talking to?” Dulcie calls from overhead.

  “Geez. She hears everything. It’s like she has bionic ears. I’ll talk to you about this later,” Paine whispers. Aloud, he says, “It’s Julia, Dulcie. She’s stopped by to visit.”

  “Julia!” A floorboard creaks upstairs, followed by an explosive clattering, rolling sound and a wail.

  “Oh, no, I dropped my beads.”

  “Don’t move, Dulcie. I’m coming.” Paine is already halfway up the steps.

  Julia frowns, looking after him.

  When he called her just as she was finishing her readings for the two walk-ins, he simply asked if she could come over for a half hour because Dulcie was asking about her. Naturally, she said yes for Dulcie’s sake.

  Apparently, there’s more to his request. What could Dulcie possibly have said to him this morning that would make it necessary for him to summon Julia?

  She hears them upstairs, talking, moving around, picking up the beads. Should she go up and help?

  When Iris was here, Julia wandered the house freely. Now she quickly dismisses the idea of going upstairs as too presumptuous.

  Instead, she goes into the living room and idly glances at the photos on the mantel, waiting.

  Restless.

  Wondering—

  And then it happens.

  The temperature seems to drop instantaneously, sending goose bumps over her bare arms.

  A rush of energy saturates the room, not seeping in but swooping, and with it comes an eruption of sound. It evaporates so swiftly that Julia isn’t certain what she heard—perhaps a scream, a blast of music, possibly both.

  Tense, she holds her breath, willing further contact even as she feels the energy pulling rapidly away, like a train speeding off around a bend.

  Then it’s gone entirely, and Paine and Dulcie are chatting on the stairway.

  “Julia! Thanks for coming to see me,” Dulcie calls. “I have lots of good knock, knock jokes for you.”

  Unwilling to share with them what just happened, Julia forces her body into action. She moves toward their voices, smiling, reaching out to give Dulcie a quick hug as she feels her way from the bottom step to the floor, with Paine gripping her arm.

  “Dulcie has quite a project for later, too,” Paine says, holding up a large plastic bag filled with beads. “She has to sort these all over again.”

  “Maybe I can help you, Dulcie,” Julia offers, her voice far steadier than she feels. “How do you do it?”

  “Each color has a different shape. Like, the blue ones have little raised ridges in the middle, and the red ones are smooth. That’s how I know which is which. I can make you a bracelet, Julia, if you want.”

  Pushing aside the troubling incident in the living room, Julia says, “That would be wonderful.”

  Dulcie grins. “Are you going to come with us to the store?”

  “To the store?” Julia looks at Paine.

  “We have a few errands to run. I thought we could go a little bit later, but if you feel like taking a ride with us now, maybe you can come along and show us where to shop.”

  “Shop? Around here? There aren’t many places,” Julia says. “The nearest mall is down in Jamestown.”

  “I don’t need a mall. I just have to get some stuff for the house. And Dulcie needs some clothes.”

  Julia looks down at the little girl, who’s wearing ill-fitting pink shorts and an orange T-shirt that doesn’t match. Knowing what Kristin would have thought of the outfit, Julia says, “I’m sure we can find a few things that would look nice on you at T.J. Maxx, Dulcie. There’s one over in Dunkirk.”

  “Is there a bookstore there, too?”

  “Sure. The Book Nook is right down the road from T.J. Maxx.”

  “Good. Because I lost Where the Wild Things Are last night”

  “But I just read it to you,” Julia says. “Didn’t you take it with you up to bed?”

  “She sleeps with it under her pillow,” Paine says. “I’m sure it must have slipped behind her bed. It’ll turn up later.”

  Julia glances at Dulcie, who doesn’t look so certain. She seems troubled.

  “You don’t think it’s somewhere in your room, Dulcie?” Julia asks.

  The answer is prompt accompanied by a stubborn chin-lift. “No.”

  “Then where can it be, Dulcie?” Paine’s tone makes it clear they’ve been through this before, yet he sounds more concerned than exasperated.

  “I don’t know. Unless whoever was in my room took it. But why would they do that?”

  Paine’s head snaps around, and Julia is caught off guard by the intensity in his gaze when it meets hers. It takes a moment for her to connect the stark worry in his eyes to Dulcie’s words.

  “Whoever was in your room?” Julia echoes slowly, looking from Dulcie to Paine. “What do you mean, Dulcie?”

  “I think somebody came in last night and sat on my bed while I was sleeping. Daddy says it wasn’t you or him. I don’t know who it was,” she adds with an almost casual shrug.

  Alarmed, Julia stares at Paine. He raises his eyebrows at her in return. This, clearly, is the reason he called her.

  “Did you hear anything, Dulcie?” Julia asks. “Footsteps, or somebody’s voice, or . . .”

  A scream.

  A burst of music.

  “No. I didn’t hear anything like that. Why?”

  “I just . . . wondered.”

  “Why did you wonder that?”

  “Because sometimes—” Julia breaks off as Paine shoots her a warning look that clearly says, Drop it. Don’t scare her.

  There’s a pause.

  Dulcie asks, “Can we go shopping now?”

  “In a few minutes, Dulcie,” Paine says. “Why don’t you sit at the kitchen table and start sorting your beads again while Julia shows me where the basement is? I need to check the boiler.”

  “Can I come with you guys?”

  “The stairs are so steep, Dulcie, almost like a ladder,” Julia says hastily.

  “We’ll be right back,” Paine adds, guiding her to the kitchen and pulling out a chair for her. “Sit right here and work on your beads.”

  “I can’t wait till you start working on my new bracelet.” Julia pats Dulcie’s hair, noticing that it needs to be combed. She wonders if it would be out of place to offer to help her with it. She finds herself longing to straighten the silky blond tangles, to smooth them beneath her fingertips as she did in that fleeting interlude when she knew Dulcie as a toddler. The little girl would snuggle into her lap and lean her cheek against Julia’s heart, seeming to take comfort in having her hair brushed and braided.

  “Okay, Julia, come on. Where’s the basement stairway?” Paine asks, turning to her with an expectant expression.

  She leads the way to the back door, asking, “Have you decided what to do about a memorial service for Iris yet?”

  “Actually, I just made some calls to set that up. It’s going to be next week. Thurday morning, at Assembly Hall. Afterward, I’m going to have somebody scatter her ashes over the lake. That’s what she specified in her will.”

  “You’re not going to do it yourself?”

  Paine gives her a look. “I have no desire to go out on that lake in a boat, Julia.”

  Because of Kristin.

  She can understand that. But . . .

  “Who’s going to scatter the ashes, Paine?”

  “Do you want to do it, Julia?”

  She nods slowly. “Yes. I think it should be someone who . . .” She clears her throat, choked up.

  “Someone who cared about her,” he says quietly, nodding. “You should do it. Thursday, after the service. I can make arrangements for a boat to—”

  “No, it�
��s okay. I’ll find somebody to take me out on the lake.”

  “That would be good.”

  They’re in the yard now. Julia notices that the sun has finally made an appearance. The air is thick with heat and moisture, tinged with the scent of wet earth and long grass and flowers. A fat bee buzzes lazily at the blooming magnolia tree beside the door, hovering above a dewy pink bloom.

  “It’s humid,” Paine comments. “I should change.”

  She nods, glancing at his jeans and rumpled long-sleeved light blue chambray shirt that exactly matches the shade of his eyes. He has yet to shave, and his glossy dark hair is as tousled as Dulcie’s.

  Both father and daughter clearly need looking after.

  Well, Paine will certainly find someone to fill the emptiness in their lives when he’s ready. Men who look like him don’t stay single longer than they want to.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, running a careless hand through his hair, shoving it back from his face. “You’re thinking I need a haircut, right?”

  “No! No, I just . . .” Realizing she’s been staring, she turns away. Her face grows hot. “The basement stairs are over here.”

  She leads him around the corner of the house, just behind the front porch. There, in the shade of the lilac’s leafy branches, a pair of sloping horizontal wooden doors jut out from the stone foundation.

  Julia reaches down to pull them open.

  Paine brushes past her. “Get back, I’ll do that.”

  Thrown off by his nearness—the faint masculine smell of him—she steps aside. How did Kristin resist marrying this beautiful man who was so crazy about her?

  Paine tugs on the doors, first one and then the other, opening them to reveal a steep, narrow stairway leading downward into cobweb-shrouded blackness.

  “Is there a light down there?” he asks, looking dubious.

  “I think so.”

  He wrinkles his nose and starts down the steps, looking up at her. “You coming?”

  She nods.

  “Good. I need to talk to you,” he says softly. “Where Dulcie can’t overhear us.”

  Julia gingerly climbs down the ancient steps into the cellar. The air is clammy here; chilly, almost, and it smells like mud and mildew. She’s only been down here a few times, with Iris, who never liked to venture below ground alone.

  In a far corner of the windowless room, beneath the bare overhead bulb, is an old dresser she recognizes.

  “Iris was going to refinish that for me,” she says, walking across the dirt floor and running her fingers across the dusty wood. “It’s so dark, and I told her I would like it if it were a lighter stain. She said she could strip it.”

  “She meant to give it to you?”

  Julia nods. “I’ve been using my grandmother’s bureau since the drawers warped in mine. But Gram was into mothballs, and all my clothes end up smelling that way. Like an old lady in her Sunday best, Iris used to say.”

  She smiles at the memory.

  “Well, you can still have it, if you want,” Paine offers, poking around, his back to her. “In fact, if there’s anything else you want, help yourself. I’m going to have to unload a lot of this stuff.”

  “Won’t Dulcie want to keep some mementos of her grandmother? And of Kristin? I’m pretty sure Iris still kept some of her dolls and things up in the attic, to give to Dulcie when she’s older.”

  “I’ll have to go through it all,” Paine says with a sigh. He turns back to her. “Listen, I don’t want to leave her alone up there for long. I just need to tell you about a few strange things that have happened with her.”

  “What kind of strange things?”

  “I’m not saying they mean anything, or that I believe anything,” he says, raising a hand as if to hold her at bay. “I just need to know how to deal with them, because if there is anything at all to your medium stuff—and I’m not anywhere near convinced there is—I don’t want her to turn out all screwed up.”

  Julia quells her resentment over his skepticism. He’s entitled to his opinion. At least he came to her for help—and that’s the important thing. Helping Dulcie.

  “You think Dulcie is sensitive to paranormal experiences,” she says evenly. “Is that it?”

  She expects some kind of disclaimer, or at the very least, a heaping dose of sarcasm, but he only nods, throwing up his hands helplessly.

  “When she said there was someone in her room . . .” He shakes his head. “I would write it off as a dream, except that it’s happened before.”

  “When?”

  “The night Iris died. The night Kristin died. Those are the most memorable experiences, and there’s more to it—I won’t go into detail now. But there have been other times, too. Once in a while, when she’s alone, I’ve caught her talking to people who aren’t there, Julia. Looking at people who aren’t there. I want to believe it’s just her imagination, but there’s something so . . . odd about it. I mean, she’s blind, Julia. She can’t see what I see. How can she see what I can’t?”

  She hesitates, searching for the right words, words that won’t further alienate him. “I can’t explain that, Paine. How can I see what other people can’t see? How can I hear what other people can’t hear? I don’t know. It’s a gift. Maybe Dulcie has the gift.” She closes her mouth, not letting anything more, anything about Kristin, spill forth.

  Instead, measuring her next words carefully, Julia says,

  “I’ve felt a strong presence in this house, Paine. It could be that Dulcie feels it too.”

  “A ghost?”

  She nods. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “What do you call it?”

  She studies him. He seems receptive, yet she knows his cynicism can’t be far below the surface.

  “I call it energy.” She takes a deep breath, explains, “It’s the energy of someone who’s passed.”

  “Do you feel it now? Here?”

  “No.”

  “When? Where?”

  “It comes and goes.” She doesn’t want to alarm him. Doesn’t want to tell him that the presence she’s felt in this house is troubled.

  He’s silent for a few moments.

  At last he asks, “Can it be Kristin? Can she be haunting this place? Or . . . haunting Dulcie?”

  Haunting. Another folklorish term she prefers not to use.

  She lets it go by, saying only, “I don’t know, Paine. It might be Kristin. I don’t sense that it is. But the few times I’ve felt it have been so rushed—whoever was here was gone before I could tell more.”

  He just looks at her, his eyes burning into hers. “I won’t lie to you. A big part of me thinks this is just a bunch of bullshit. I’ve never believed in any of it. When you’re dead, you’re dead—that’s what I think. And when Iris came to visit, she knew enough not to raise the topic. But . . . I’m worried about Dulcie, ,and I don’t know what’s going on with her. I don’t want her to be . . .” He trails off.

  “She doesn’t seem frightened.” Julia runs her fingertips along the oak dresser’s carved scrollwork, brushing away the dust and shreds of cobwebs.

  “She isn’t frightened. But . . .” Paine exhales heavily. “Look, I sure as hell don’t want to stay here. I don’t even want to be here a second longer than I have to. The sooner I clean this place out and get back home, the better. But it’s not going to happen overnight. And I don’t have anyone else to ask . . .”

  Julia waits, standing still, her fingertips resting on the old wooden dresser. She knows what he’s going to say. And she knows how she’ll respond.

  “Can you sort of spend some time here, Julia? With her? Just in case she’ll open up to you about . . . anything that’s happening?”

  Julia thinks about the season that’s just beginning. This time of year is insanely busy. She needs to work. And her roof is shot. Everything at home is shot. There are hundreds of household tasks she could be doing in what little free time she has.

  Then there�
��s Andy. Who knows where that’s leading?

  “I know you’re busy, and you have a life,” Paine says, and she realizes that he’s watching her. Waiting for an answer. “I wouldn’t ask if I thought there was somewhere else I could turn. But there’s stuff I have to get done around here, and it would be nice to have someone to keep her company once in a while. She needs more than me. Not just now, but all the time. Back home we have her sitter. Here, there’s just me. She really likes you, Julia.”

  “I know. I feel the same way about her. She’s very sweet.”

  She pictures Dulcie’s little-girl face. It melds in her mind with Kristin’s little-girl face, the Kristin she had known so long ago, and loved.

  Kristin, who saw something in this house and never got over it.

  Kristin, who came back here only once . . . and died.

  A stab of fear—fear for Dulcie—takes hold in Julia.

  “It’s fine. I’ll help you,” she tells Paine decisively, just as she knew she would. “When I’m not busy working, I’ll try to spend some time with her. I’ll try to see what’s going on with her.”

  “Good. Thank you so much, Julia. I don’t know what to do for you in return—except give you that dresser. And anything else you want. Like I told you—”

  “I know. You’re going to unload it,” she says flatly

  “Well, what else can I do? Cart it all the way across the country?”

  “What about the house?”

  “I’m going to sell it as soon as possible. Although who in their right mind would want to buy this place is beyond me.”

  “HELLO?” RUPERT CALLS through the screen door for the third time. He knocks yet again, certain there’s somebody home. The red rental car is parked at the curb.

  There is no reply.

  Maybe they’re out walking, exploring the village. Or down at the beach, now that the warm sun has burnt away the clouds.

  Hell. Rupert needs to talk to the man now. He’s waited long enough.

  But what’s he supposed to do? Comb the streets of Lily Dale, looking for Paine Landry and his daughter?

  Damn it.

  He should have come earlier.

  But he couldn’t.

  Before the endless wait at the pharmacy for refills on all the usual drugs, including morphine, there was the doctor’s appointment . . .