“Donny found this today,” Hayden said. “It’s a scarf that belonged to his mother. He came across it near the stream below this house. I went down there with him to look around, though we didn’t find anything else. Donny says this was caught under a bush, so searchers missed it, but Deirdre must have been down there. The water’s low in the stream, so it’s not deep enough for her to have fallen into. I don’t know what to make of this.”
Hayden spoke without expression in his face or voice—a screen, perhaps, for whatever lay beneath, though his dark eyes seemed intensely alive and, Christy thought, strangely wary.
“Christy”—Nona spoke hesitantly, a note of pleading in her voice—“if you would just touch the scarf . . .”
Christy jumped up from the hassock and started toward the door. “No! You can’t do this to me, Nona! Take it away—I won’t touch it!” She understood now what her aunt’s talk about not running away had meant.
“What are you talking about?” Hayden demanded, his voice ragged. “What are you up to, Nona?”
Christy backed toward the door, her hands behind her. On the screen Lili appeared again and she closed her eyes as Josef’s voice emerged, answering Mathison’s last question.
In her mind Christy breathed a quick prayer for help—perhaps to her mother. There had been telepathy between them a few times in the past. At once Lili’s eyes opened and she looked straight at the camera. In Nona’s living room there was sudden silence.
Josef was gone, and Lili spoke in a soft, penetrating voice. “Christy is in danger. I want her to leave that place as soon as she can—tomorrow at the latest. There are clouds around her—a dangerous mist!”
Mathison jumped in at once. “Who is Christy?”
Lili only shook her head and returned to the program as though there had been no interruption.
Christy cast a frightened look at the screen, aware of Hayden’s fixed attention, questioning and curious. But she had nothing to give him and she couldn’t face any of them a moment longer. She rushed out of the room, unable to respond except by flight, and hurried down to her bedroom.
There was no key or she would have locked the door. She threw herself across the flowered quilt and closed her eyes, covered her ears with shaking hands. She had to shut herself away. Lili’s power had reached out to her in response to her own plea, and Lili was usually right. Not for anything would she touch the scarf that had belonged to Deirdre Mitchell. Nor could she face that stark look in Hayden’s eyes. Her instinct was to distrust him entirely, and for some reason to be afraid. A reason that had nothing to do with the scarf.
Upstairs in the living room the four who remained stared at one another, and Nona went to turn off the television set. Quietly she explained to Hayden why Christy had come and why it was probably wise if she never touched Deirdre’s scarf. It had been a mistake, she admitted, to ask that of her niece. Then she looked toward the windows. “Someone’s out there.”
A moment later they heard a tapping on a window to the deck.
“May I come in?” Victor Birdcall asked, and Eve, at a nod from Nona, went quickly to the door to let him in.
There’s no need to fear her. Even if she holds the scarf it will tell her nothing. It’s been washed three times, so she can’t sense anything of Deirdre. It’s only a red herring I put there for Donny to find. They’ll never look in the right direction now.
If she listens to the warning from Dukas she’ll leave tomorrow. Then everything will be safe. For all of us.
3
Christy had left a lamp burning beside her bed, and she’d closed the curtains against the black night outside. She had just fallen into a light, uneasy doze when Nona tapped on her door. Some insistent dream took wing and Christy was glad to see it go. She sat up with a sudden awareness of the wooded hill that dropped steeply down behind this house—to the stream near which Deirdre’s scarf had been found.
“Are you asleep?” Nona called softly.
“I’m awake. You’d better come in.”
She wanted no more stirring of those dark mists tonight, but Nona couldn’t be sent away. Lili’s force, that dynamic energy she could summon, had been frightening. Lili knew—something. So it was best if Christy told her aunt at once that she must leave tomorrow. Redlands was no longer safe for her.
Nona had put on a quilted yellow robe and her short, spiky hair gave her an air of alarm—though she seemed calm enough outwardly. She had brought a tray with glasses of hot milk and wheat wafers on a flowered plate. Her sharp features seemed softened by lamplight, and she looked safe and familiar to Christy, who could remember all the times when Nona had brought hot milk at bedtime to heal the upsets of the day.
“I’m sorry about everything that happened tonight,” Nona said, helping Christy to sit up and take a glass, as though she were still a little girl. “It was all too sudden, and I shouldn’t have pulled you in. Tomorrow night we’ll keep for ourselves.”
“I won’t be here tomorrow night,” Christy told her. “You heard Lili. For once I must listen to her. I must leave as soon as I can.”
Nona sat down and sipped from her own glass. “If that’s the way you feel, of course you must go. Though I’d hoped for a longer visit. I’d even hoped that you could help me. My work’s been taking a strange turn lately, and your perception—”
“How could I help anyone when I can’t help myself?”
Nona puzzled aloud, “Sometimes I seem to put more into my paintings than I expect. I even have the feeling sometimes that I’m trying to tell myself something.”
She sounded so uneasy that Christy began to pay attention. “What could I do that might help?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps I thought you might find an answer if you studied one or two of the paintings that trouble me. There’s one I did of Deirdre in the woods—one you haven’t seen—that seems especially insistent whenever I look at it. As though it were trying to tell me something—though it came out of my own consciousness and from my own brush.”
“Perhaps I can look at it in the morning before I leave.” Hot milk had soothed Christy and made her a little sleepy. But before she could settle down on her pillow, Nona went on.
“If there’s anything there, I suppose it will surface eventually, one way or another. After you left, Christy, Victor Birdcall showed up. I suspect he’d been watching us from outside, and he seemed concerned about Deirdre’s scarf, and the way you ran off. He told us in that prophet’s voice he sometimes adopts to let Deirdre go. He said she was never of this earth—only loaned to us for a little while. So it would be best not to look for whatever remains of her. If there’s a great stir and much suffering, it might draw her back to this earthly plane—and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.”
“How did Hayden Mitchell react to that?”
“He didn’t, outwardly. There’s a lot of deep, angry emotion there, and he just sits on the lid. I’m not sure of its cause. He holds back so much that sometimes I’m afraid there’ll be an explosion.”
Christy was glad she wouldn’t be here long enough to see the outcome of any of this. All her hopes for peace and safety had vanished, and she knew she must escape before that darker shadow that pursued her made itself known. She’d sensed at once that the threat was connected with Hayden.
“What happened after that?”
“Oliver laughed. Hayden said nothing at all—and even his silence can be upsetting. Sometimes I wish he would let go.”
“And Eve?”
“She stayed out of it for once, though I think she was annoyed with Oliver for laughing. She thinks Victor is up to no good, and that we all ought to take him more seriously. There’s some interesting background that I haven’t told you about Eve and Rose. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, since you’re leaving.”
The sleepiness was passing as they talked. “You might as well tell me now. You’re dying to go
ssip.”
Nona grinned. “You know me too well. All right—it’s a bit of a story. Eve and Rose were friends as children. Their families had neighboring farms here in Nelson County. Rose’s father raised horses, so she rode a lot as a young girl. Eve would come to ride with her. They went to the university together in Charlottesville, where they separated for a while because they were taking different courses. Oliver Vaughn was a young professor in one of Eve’s classes, and I think they became what is called involved. Oliver is only a little older. They were going to be married when Eve finished school. Only she made the mistake of introducing him to Rose—and that was that. Rose was beautiful and warm and utterly trusting. Eve could hold her own with Oliver, and still does, but Rose looked up to him in a way he couldn’t resist. There’s a vanity in the man I’ve never liked. Anyway, he fell in love with Rose and whatever he had with Eve was over.”
“How did she take it?”
“I guess she tried to talk Rose out of marrying him. She knew Oliver pretty well, and she knew Rose could never handle him. But Rose was always ready to forgive Oliver anything. She would bear with his sullen moods and be comforting and admiring. So of course she was the one he had to have. I saw her in tears a few times when we were working on Red Road together, so I don’t think she was entirely happy. Strangely enough, Eve and Rose remained friends after Rose married Oliver, and it wasn’t Rose whom Eve blamed or resented.”
“That seems to Eve’s credit.”
“I’m still wondering how Oliver took what happened tonight with Lili. He has always been opposed to everything that hinted at the psychic. Though I don’t think he has the single-track mind that Thomas Ardle has.”
“How did Oliver take Rose’s death?”
“He shut himself off up there in his house in the woods and wouldn’t see anyone for weeks. Now he’s planning to move away, and I suppose he’ll try to forget everything that’s happened here. Except that Deirdre’s disappearance has opened it all up again. He’s sure she’ll be found dead, just as Rose was, but he doesn’t think either of them was murdered—as your mother seemed to be hinting about Rose on the air tonight. Victor had another surprise for us. Are you sure you want to hear all this tonight?”
“Go ahead. You always used to tell me bedtime stories.” Christy ate another wheat wafer and finished the milk.
“All right. It’s on your head. Victor took something out of his jacket pocket and showed it to us. It was a slipper that he’d found covered by leaves on the bank of the stream near where Donny picked up the scarf. At first Victor had only wanted to show it to me—not the others.”
“Why not?”
“I suppose his feeling connects with letting Deirdre go and not stirring up her earthly remains. The only problem is that, according to Hayden, the slipper isn’t Deirdre’s. It isn’t even her size.”
“What did the others say?”
“Nobody claimed it, and they don’t trust Victor, so they didn’t say much of anything. I took the slipper and said I’d keep it for a while. It’s black velvet, flat-heeled, worn in the sole—ready to be thrown away. Not something Deirdre would wear, even if it had been her tiny size. And certainly not out in the woods.”
“So who is running around shedding one slipper?”
Nona raised her hands helplessly and stood up. “Who knows? Let me tuck you in again. You’ll go right to sleep now.”
“What are you really up to?” Christy asked as her aunt moved to the door. “You didn’t tell me all this for nothing.”
“I thought I’d give you some new ideas to stir around in your dreams. So you can see what comes out. I’d like you to stay long enough to get to know Hayden Mitchell a little. Not that you’ll like him. He’s too sure of himself, too macho for your taste. But there’s a vulnerability there too, and a deep love for his son. He needs your help, whether he’d ever admit it or not. Good night, Christy.”
She went off quickly, and Christy lay awake for a time, listening to the beginning of the loud cricket orchestra outside. When drowsiness came, the dream began—the old dream of a red-floored corridor with high walls and the only escape far ahead. As always, she heard the sound of footsteps following, and something menacing seemed to lie around the next turn. Something that meant her own death. Of course she never rounded the turn—she always woke up in time.
The night seemed long before the insect chorus turned into the trills and twitterings of birds waking up. A pale light appeared at the glass doors to the deck, edging the draperies.
Christy lay still, trying to fling off the tormenting effect of the dream. It had begun to repeat itself soon after she’d found the first murdered girl, and it was nearly always the same. After she woke up from this faceless pursuit, her heart would pound for a time. She waited now for it to quiet before she got out of bed.
As she showered and dressed, she held to the thought of her car waiting for her out on the driveway—a friend and ally that would enable her to get away promptly. She would have breakfast with Nona, and then she would go.
When she’d dressed in corduroy slacks and a jonquil-yellow blouse, Christy went upstairs to find Nona whistling cheerfully in the kitchen. The front windows drew Christy to the tremendous spread of mountains that rimmed the deep cut of this little valley. Its sloping folds of meadow showed red wherever the earth was bare of grass, and cattle were already browsing where green came through. Here the trees had been banished to the high, blue-green mountains, and to isolated clumps that separated the houses along this ridge. Downstairs she’d sensed only the darkness of trees that closed in the house, crowding the lower deck, where the hill fell steeply away in a carpet of dead brown leaves. In contrast, this upper side of the house was open to the sky—open and free.
Christy went out on the front deck and raised her arms, breathing deeply of fresh crystal air, banishing night dreams. Here, surely, she could find peace and goodness and a quiet that could shut out the clamor of a world going all too quickly insane. If only this too were not an illusion, so she might stay and bring her own life forces back to recovery.
She went inside, smiling at her aunt.
“Good morning, Christy.” Nona returned her smile warmly. “We’re having blueberry pancakes—your favorite. I can see you slept well. Everyone sleeps in this cool mountain air.”
“Some of the time I slept,” Christy said, and didn’t mention her dream as she sat down at the table.
Nona’s red-tiled kitchen seemed utterly peaceful this morning, with no waves of uneasiness stirring. The view continued to draw her, and Christy looked out through glass at a light that was still misty with early morning. Sheddings of fog drifted between mountain folds. Part way up the opposite slope, lights shone through the trees around Victor Birdcall’s cabin, though no lights could be seen higher up in Oliver’s tree-hidden house.
When she’d heaped their plates with steaming pancakes, Nona sat down beside Christy. She wore a blue-flowered smock over jeans, and a length of matching material had been tied jauntily around her head. No earrings this morning, but the scent of verbena was familiar and reassuring.
“Where does Eve Corey live?” Christy asked.
“She left the family farm, and is staying in the little house Hayden and Deirdre built out at the plant nursery when they first came here. Eve’s found a place for herself working for Hayden, and her green thumb is a help to him. After she lost Oliver to Rose, Eve married some years ago, but her husband died in Vietnam, so she’s a widow.”
“Is she still interested in Oliver?” The question was an idle one, but Nona hesitated a moment too long before she answered. Once more, Christy sensed the stir of something disquieting.
“I think she may be. But she wanted to show both Oliver and Rose that she didn’t care when she made her short marriage. Don’t be upset by Eve, Christy. She can speak her mind pretty openly, but she’s okay. And she really did care abo
ut Rose.”
Christy had no intention of being upset by anyone here. In spite of the deceptive lure of this place, she meant to be gone for good in a little while.
Nona pushed the butter plate toward Christy. “I love to sit here in the early hours and watch lights come on across the valley,” she mused. “I enjoy being alone in my own little world—yet with human companionship not too far away, if I need it.”
Christy began to eat without comment. The pancakes were delicious and took her back to childhood when she’d lived with Nona on Long Island.
As the light strengthened and the mists lifted, the strong red earth color showed through on meadow and mountain. The red boards of Nona’s decks echoed the very shade of burning red—the red of the path in her dream.
Nona, who always claimed to have no interest in cooking, made the best pancakes ever. Christy spread on butter and ate with gusto. The dream was only a dream. She had never told Nona about it, or Lili—for fear of portents and warnings, and she wouldn’t tell Nona now. In a few minutes she’d be in her car and on her way.
“I hope you’ve changed your mind about leaving,” Nona said. “We need you now.”
“I don’t want to be needed that way!” Christy drank the last of her coffee and pushed back her chair. “Please understand that I’d love to stay with you, Nona darling, but because of all that’s happened here, and is still happening, I don’t dare.”
“Where will you go? Where can you be safe?”
She really hadn’t thought about that. Her one thought had been to get away from those footsteps that might come close in this place; to escape from the horror she might bring to Hayden and Donny Mitchell if she stayed and found Deirdre. There was even that darkness in Hayden that she didn’t want to fathom.
“I’ll just drive off along some country road and find a cabin I can rent. Then I’ll stay for a while and be anonymous—until I’m healed.”
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