“Listen to me.” Nona reached across the table to touch her hand. “I don’t care much for the direction Lili has taken with her life, but I believe in some power out there that guides us. Whether we call it God, or whether we call these beings our guides or our guardian angels—I do believe that roads are opened to us every day of our lives. We can make choices that send us ahead of our course—whatever, it is. Or send us backward toward regression. Sometimes it requires courage to take a chance and move ahead on the risky, unknown course. Those who are too cautious seldom go anywhere, and they miss a lot. They only avoid. That’s what you’re doing now, Christy—avoiding. It isn’t like you. We all have a destiny to follow, and your way has been pointed pretty clearly. Not to stay where you were, working with the police, but to follow your road here. Though neither of us could know why until you came.”
“You don’t know now! Lili spoke to me last night. She knew my danger and warned me. I have to listen.”
“Lili’s given to dramatics and sometimes she gets a mote in her eye. Ardle was right when he said that it’s not wise to make predictions of danger. Where there are lessons to learn in our lives, we’d better learn them without interference and not run away.”
Christy had heard all this before, since Nona could grow evangelical at times. She wanted only one thing—blindly!—to escape whatever it was that hovered just out of sight in this expanse of valley and mountain.
She stood up and hugged Nona lovingly. “Please want what’s best for me.”
“All right,” Nona said. “You’ll have to choose your own course. You’ll have to learn in your own way. But before you leave, I want to show you something.” She opened a cupboard and took out a tissue-wrapped parcel. “Don’t worry—it’s not that scarf of Deirdre’s.”
Christy took it doubtfully and unfolded the paper. Inside was a single slipper—flat-heeled and worn. A black velvet slipper embroidered with tiny, frayed flowers in pink and green silk. There was no way to avoid the sensation that flooded through her from the object she held in her hands. This was not the energy of a living thing but a freezing wave, a tremor that swept up her arms and enveloped her body.
“Whoever wore this is dead!” Christy could hear her own voice as if it came from far away—as though something else spoke through her. She let the worn slipper fall from her hands and sat down weakly.
“This isn’t Deirdre’s slipper, is it?” Nona asked softly.
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you know anything about the woman who wore it?”
“The slipper might tell me, but I don’t want it to!”
“Was her death violent?”
“Murder is always violent.” The chill had warned her, not only of death, but of a vicious fury striking without mercy.
“Then you must stay,” Nona said. “You know you must. You’re committed to stopping whatever has begun. First Rose, and then perhaps Deirdre—neither of whom ever hurt anyone. This could be Rose’s slipper, though if it is, why didn’t Oliver say so? I’ve never seen her wear a slipper like this, but she could have worn them just around her house.”
“Why would it be found near Deirdre’s scarf, and why just one?”
“Maybe these are questions you can find the answers to—and if you do, perhaps you’ll find the murderer you sense.”
Christy shook away the deadly cold. “I’ve never tried to find a murderer, and I don’t want to. This is what Lili is afraid of—that I’ll put myself in the way of something dangerous. I don’t have that kind of courage, Nona.”
“I suppose I’ll have to let you go”—Nona spread her hands—“but you’ll remember this, Christy. You won’t be able to shake it off. Do you want to live with that sort of guilt—the guilt of running away?”
“I’m guilty of nothing except trying to save my own peace of mind—maybe my life.”
Something fell to the floor with a crash in another part of the house and for a moment Nona and Christy stared at each other. Then Nona ran into the hall, with Christy on her heels. They were in time to block the small figure that ran out of Nona’s studio into her arms. For a moment Donny struggled and fought, but Nona held him until he went limp and started to cry.
“It’s okay, Donny,” she told him. “If you broke something, it doesn’t matter. Let’s go and see what the damage is and then you can start feeling better.”
He came with her, no longer struggling. “I didn’t b-b-break anything. But you lied to me! You were my friend, and you lied to me!”
Christy followed them through the sitting room and into the studio beyond. A large easel had fallen backward on the floor and Christy saw that the painting it held was the one that had been covered by a green cloth which had now slipped from it to the floor. This was the painting Nona had claimed was unfinished.
Her aunt let go of Donny and set the easel on its legs. The boy stood watching dejectedly as she put the painting in place, this time without its covering. Nona had again painted one of her red roads. This road ran through a hemlock forest, winding between tall trees. The focus of interest was a dancing figure in gauzy white. The woman seemed to flit ahead on the path, with mists floating down from the treetops to soften her outline, so that she became part of the mist herself, with only her bright face clear and visible as she looked back over one shoulder, laughing.
There was no doubt in Christy’s mind. Nona had painted Deirdre, and the picture was certainly finished. Yet she had hidden it from view. Perhaps because it was too prophetic?
“When did you paint this?” Christy asked her aunt.
Nona sighed. “At least four months ago. This is the one I wanted you to see. I didn’t know what I was painting—it just came. I covered it up because it made me uncomfortable. Especially after Deirdre disappeared.” She turned to the boy, who had been listening intently. “I’ve never lied to you, Donny. I don’t even know what you mean about lying.”
He stared at her, tear marks streaking his cheeks. “You said you didn’t know what happened to my mother. But you do—you painted her before she—she went away into all that mist.”
“I painted this out of my imagination, Donny,” Nona said. “Just the way I do most of my paintings. It’s true that I painted this before your mother went away. But I didn’t know that was going to happen. Deirdre saw this herself and she liked it. She liked the idea of drifting away as though she were part of the mist. You believe me, don’t you, Donny?”
His dark head seemed too heavy for his thin neck as he stared at the floor. “I guess I believe you.” Then he raised his head to look at Christy with a suddenness that startled her.
“Why did she come here?” he asked Nona.
“Perhaps she was sent to help us find your mother,” Nona told him. “So I think you should make friends with her.”
“I don’t like her,” Donny said. “She’s—creepy.”
“That’s silly. You don’t know her.”
“What do you mean by creepy, Donny?” Christy asked.
He twisted his body away from her, not meeting her eyes. “You can see things—bad things.”
Christy looked at her aunt in astonishment.
“Sometimes children know,” Nona said. “Anyway, Donny, I think you should give Christy another chance—you might like her.”
He looked at Christy then—a strangely searching look for a boy so young. “Don’t make my mother be dead,” he said softly.
There was no answer to so terrible a thought. In a moment, Christy knew, he would pull away from the hand Nona had placed on his arm and run from them both—leaving his frightening plea to hang on the air behind him. Prompted by one of her sudden urges, Christy moved quickly, picking up the copy of Little Red Road that Nona had left on a table. She held it out to the boy.
“This is one of my favorite books, Donny. Did you know that I work in libraries back home, readi
ng stories to children? I’ve read this book by Rose Vaughn any number of times, and children always love it. I understand that Rose was your friend.”
Donny gave her a black look and ran out of the room.
“Bad timing,” Nona said. “It’s my fault. I should have told you that it was Donny who found Rose. He went to a favorite place they used to visit together— and Rose was lying there dead, at the foot of a rock cliff. He climbed down, thinking he could help her—so it was all pretty awful. He’s been a different child ever since, pulling into himself. And now it’s much worse, since Deirdre is missing too. That’s why his father is letting him stay out of school for a while. Though I think it might be better for him to be occupied and distracted.”
Donny’s horror and grief seemed to pour along Christy’s own sensitive nerves. She had to do something.
“I want to try an experiment with him, Nona.” Christy ran outside after the boy and found him sitting at the edge of the front deck, his legs dangling. She dropped down beside him, still holding Rose’s book. Nona followed, but she stayed back, watching.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to try,” Christy told the boy. “I wonder if you would help me? I don’t think I can do this alone.”
Donny looked up at her and Nona nodded. “I think you ought to help Christy if you can.”
Without much interest, Donny let Christy pull him up and they started down the driveway together. Fresh, clean morning air and the sight of new green, slashed here and there with red, brought a lift to Christy’s spirits, and a slow excitement started in her. More than anything else right now she wanted to reach this small boy who walked so gloomily beside her.
“We’re going right down the road,” she told him, pointing. “Once, when I was a little girl, Nona took me to spend a month on a farm and I learned something interesting about cows. The poor things get terribly bored and they enjoy unusual happenings. Just a car going by can be something to watch. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, sometimes they try to stick their stupid necks through the fence to see better.”
“Do you know any of the cows in that field across the road?”
There seemed nothing strange to Donny about being personally acquainted with cows. “Sure. Some of them have names.”
“That will help. Cows are curious animals. So when something new comes along, they’re interested. And I have something very interesting to try.”
Donny had begun to be curious too and he went with her more willingly. They hurried along the road and crossed to where wooden rails fenced in the cows. One animal was grazing placidly nearby and Donny spoke to her.
“Good morning, Ophelia.”
Ophelia turned her head to look at him, her chewing uninterrupted.
“That’s Juliet over there.” Donny indicated a plump cow who examined him thoughtfully and then lumbered over to the fence. A third, whose name, Donny said, was Rosalind, joined her sisters. Rosalind tried at once to put her head—unsuccessfully—between the fence rails.
“Has somebody been reading Shakespeare?” Christy asked Donny.
“My mother named them,” he said. “She could always pick wonderful names.”
“Let’s begin,” Christy said quickly, avoiding dangerous ground. “The other cows will probably come over because they won’t want to miss anything.”
She opened the book to the first page of Rose’s story and Harmony’s pictures and began to read aloud. She knew every word by heart, but she always used the book, since her business was to interest her listeners in books—though that wasn’t exactly her goal now.
“‘Once, not very long ago’”—she spoke clearly and loudly—“‘there was a little red road. It ran through a countryside where mountains and forests opened their arms to let the little road through.’”
The cows stared at her, riveted. Christy gestured widely with one hand to indicate the curling road, and other cows came over to push against the fence. Donny giggled, and she knew what she was doing would succeed.
She went on, even more dramatically now, as people in the story came along the road. Since it loved company the little red road was very happy. One of the cows forgot to chew. Christy had never had a more rapt audience for her reading, and she was caught up in the narrative, not forgetting to turn the pages toward the cows to show them the pictures. Donny thought that was funny, and whenever she paused for breath, he filled in the words, reciting to the cows himself, equally successful as their absorbed attention shifted to him.
As it climbed into the mountains, the little road ran into a terrible storm. A river rolled along beside it, overflowing and washing out the only way by which people could get to town. A donkey that was carrying a boy and a girl was swept right into the swirling water. The little road tried to hold them, but its surface had turned slippery with mud, and the donkey’s hooves slid right into the stream that poured across the road.
Several more cows had forgotten to chew. Ophelia’s large, liquid eyes were wide with interest, and Donny climbed to the top of the fence. “It’s all right,” he assured the cows. “The road knows what to do!”
This was the part of the story Christy always liked best, because what could the little road do? It had no voice to call for help, as Rose pointed out in the story. It couldn’t reach up and save the children. It could only go on its way, climbing, climbing. And that was enough. The water was very deep where it had washed across the road, but the hill beyond was steep and rose above the water level. Someone had dumped gravel there, and when the donkey swam desperately to the place where the road rose out of muddy water, it found its own footing and climbed up to where the road went on, dry and safe. The children were carried happily to their destination, and one had the feeling that the determination of the little road to help had drawn the donkey’s hooves to safety.
Christy had no patience with stodgy critics who deplored anthropomorphism in writing for children. Stretching the imagination in every possible direction was what mattered, and Rose Vaughn had done this with sensitivity.
At this point Christy’s listeners usually clapped. Applause, surprisingly, came from behind her, and Christy turned to find that a Jeep had driven along the real road and stopped near the fence. Hayden Mitchell, Donny’s father, sat at the wheel and he was clapping his hands together gravely, with no more of a smile than he’d shown last night.
“Finish the story,” he directed. “You don’t want to disappoint your audience.”
In spite of the applause, he showed no other approval, his tone flat. She hesitated, the mood spoiled, not wanting to perform for this cold, probably critical man. Donny, however, was waiting, so she went on. Now the boy recited the words in unison with Christy as the little red road wound its way up the mountain and into the town, where people rushed out of their houses to help the girl and boy, who were, of course, soaking wet. Now the little road could continue through the town on its own, gaining new travelers and wandering over the mountain to reach new sights, new places, and new people to help.
Christy closed the book. At once Ophelia blinked and moved away, sensing that the show was over.
Donny looked at his father from his perch on the fence. “Christy reads real good. Though not as good as Rose.”
“This is Rose Vaughn’s story,” Christy agreed, “so she would read it best.”
“But she never read it to the cows,” Donny said, giving credit where it was due.
“I’m going down to the mailbox,” Hayden told them. “Do you want to come along—both of you?”
Since Donny seemed eager, Christy agreed, and when the boy climbed into the front seat, she got in beside him. She must, she thought, make allowances for Hayden Mitchell’s state of depression that made him so curt and unsmiling.
“How long will you be staying with Nona?” he asked as they drove down the road.
�
�I’d planned to leave early this morning, but Donny changed my mind. I expect I’ll be going soon.”
He said nothing more until he’d pulled the Jeep into a parking space above the row of mailboxes. “The flags are down, so the mail has come,” he told Donny. “Do you want to pick it up?”
Donny clambered over Christy and ran down the incline toward the boxes.
His father stared ahead through the windshield as he spoke. “After you took off last night, Eve told Oliver and me about you. I can understand why you’d want to run away from Long Island.”
He couldn’t possibly understand. Christy gripped Rose’s book tightly, knowing what was coming, and bracing herself to resist.
“You know, don’t you,” he went on, “that Donny found Rose? And now he’s sure he’ll find his mother dead too. I don’t feel the way Oliver does about psychic matters, but I’m not filled with confidence either.”
“Yet you’d break down and take a chance with me?” Christy asked dryly.
His smile was sudden, totally unexpected. One side of his mouth lifted, and his eyes mocked her with their curious intensity. The effect was disturbing, irritating. It was anything but a friendly smile.
“If you have the talent Nona claims, aren’t you obliged to use it?” he challenged.
“I’m not obliged to do anything! I never asked for any of this, and—”
“And it’s safer not to get involved?” The twist of smile had vanished as though he had removed himself to some distant plane. “Here comes Donny, so don’t say anything. I’ll drive you back to your aunt’s.”
The boy came running over to the Jeep and tossed his armful of mail into the back seat. “Move over,” he ordered Christy, sounding as curt as his father. “Please” was a word he apparently hadn’t learned. Perhaps Hayden seldom used it.
She had to sit closer, though she tried to lean toward the boy so as not to touch his father. She was sharply aware of the jarring vibrations that seemed to surround this man. There were hidden depths that made her uneasy. Hayden Mitchell needed help, but not of the sort she could give him. Lili might have been able to calm and restore him just by reaching out her hands. Christy had no such healing gifts. What he might get from her was far more destructive. She wanted only to have this grim clairvoyance leave her forever, so that she could be like other people.
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