“There’s something you ought to know,” Nona said quickly to Hayden. “Victor Birdcall told us a little while ago that he’s seen Deirdre too—the same white figure in the woods.”
“There—you see!” Donny cried. “Victor wouldn’t make that up.”
“I don’t know that you can trust Victor,” Floris said, filling a coffee mug for Hayden. “Oliver’s been checking up on him. Some pretty bad things happened out in New Mexico.”
“Oliver’s been down here?” Nona sounded surprised.
“Why not? He used to come with Rose sometimes when she was watching the llamas and getting stuff for her book. He was here just a few days ago. He’s writing some sort of article he thought I might help him on, and he hinted around about Victor. Though he wouldn’t explain. I guess he has a friend in Santa Fe, where Victor comes from.”
“I don’t like this,” Nona said. “Victor’s had enough to deal with. All he wants now is peace. He’s not harming anyone, and Oliver has no business stirring things up.”
“But there hasn’t been much peace around here, has there?” Floris asked, her eyes bright with something like malice. There was a scrappy side to her nature, Christy thought, and remembered Hayden saying that she liked animals better than people.
Donny was still indignant. “Victor’s not lying! He’s not making anything up, and neither am I! If you don’t believe me, I don’t care!”
Before Hayden could stop him, the boy rushed out of the room and down the steps of the deck.
“Let him go,” Hayden said wearily. “I’ll talk to him later.”
Nona said, “Do you mind going back to the house alone, Christy? I’ll see you in a little while.”
Clearly she wanted to talk to Floris. Christy thought of the narrow path up through the woods—the red corridor of her dreams—and her hesitation must have shown.
Hayden stood up. “I’m going your way,” he offered, though his tone was cool, as though he performed a duty reluctantly.
“Thank you,” Christy said stiffly—better Hayden than snakes—and they went outside together.
He had left a forked stick near the foot of the steps and he picked it up as they started toward the bridge.
Three llamas stood near the fence, watching—Snow White, of course. She was the Mama Llama, as Donny sometimes called her. She always seemed affectionate toward humans, and very inquisitive. A smaller animal stood beside her—one whose fur was pale brown, which indicated a newcomer, since the original color still showed in the fur. Three curious faces looked over the fence at Christy and Hayden, and there was no uneasy humming now. The one male in the group stood back from the others, observing with a paternal air. The three at the fence had small, pursed mouths that looked as though they were about to smile.
“These days,” Hayden said, “Floris keeps just one male, and lets them breed according to nature. With more, they’d be in separate fields. When Abel was alive they had a large farm and sold the wool. They even trained some of the llamas as pack animals. Now, when Floris takes care of them herself, she just keeps a few as friends.”
Christy paused beside the fence and permitted Snow White to salute her. But she had no food pellet to reward her with and the animal lost interest.
“Deirdre was wonderful with all animals,” Hayden said. “Just as Donny is. She used to say she must have been a llama in a past lifetime. At first they took to her and seemed to understand what she was saying.”
“In spite of the earrings?” Christy asked.
The life went out of Hayden’s voice. “She could be whimsical at times and get carried away.”
Christy groped futilely for anything that would make the scattered fragments of Deirdre come together. “Floris said they hummed in the last weeks as though Deirdre were some strange animal.”
He let that go. They had reached the bridge and were crossing it. When he stopped midstream and stood looking down into the rippling water, she paused beside him.
He spoke without looking at her. “Are you going to look for Deirdre?”
His words sounded more like a challenge than a request, but she could understand his pain—his reaching for anything that came to hand.
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” she told him. “I don’t even know much about what Deirdre was like. I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
He left the rail and walked on and she went with him.
“I thought psychics received answers from their own sources,” he said.
She sensed mockery and ignored it. “I don’t think of myself as psychic. What comes to me is limited. It’s only an occasional clairvoyance.”
“The scarf wasn’t enough? You reacted pretty strongly to that.”
“Whatever was there of Deirdre had been erased and some other personality superimposed.”
She didn’t want to think about the scarf, and they walked on in silence, her resistance growing. They had started up the steep path through the woods, and he went ahead now. She found herself looking for snakes, not sure she could even tell one from a broken branch unless it moved. When she hesitated because of a twisted tree limb, Hayden looked back.
“We’ll probably never see a snake, but I carry this stick with me, just in case. I can hold one down with the forked end.”
“Then what?” Christy asked.
“The copperheads we kill—though I don’t like to. Unfortunately, there’s not always a peaceful way to let a copperhead go.”
It was not snakes alone, however, that troubled Christy about the woods. A pressing sense was growing in her—of something unseen following. Something that caused a prickling at the back of her neck. Halfway up the hill, she turned to look down through tall columns of oak and poplar and maple that crowded each side of the path and stretched away thickly on either hand. Nothing moved and the woods seemed still and empty. Around her, gray trunks thrust into the sky, their high canopies blocking the sunlight except where it fell through to the ground in golden-brown patches. Far above, their green heads swayed gently in a wind that never reached the ground. Down here the stillness seemed eerie and there was only the red path and the gray columns to give her a frightening sense of her dream. But this was real. This was where it might happen—if she stayed.
Without warning, panic seized her, and she tried to run past Hayden up the hill, only to stumble over a rock. He caught her by the arm and saved her from falling.
“What’s really bothering you?” he demanded. And then more gently, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Not to him. Not even to Nona. Not to anyone! The haunting lay deep inside herself and only she could deal with it.
When she didn’t answer he walked ahead, speaking over his shoulder. “We’ll stop for a break in a minute. It’s a long climb back—worse than coming down. There’s a rock outcropping around the next turn where we can sit for a while. You sound winded.”
His tone was impersonal, but at least he was being considerate.
Only once after that did she look back, and there was still nothing to be seen. The follower of her dream existed only in her mind, and she must deal with it—not allow it to become a prophecy she believed in.
The great pile of granite made an opening in the trees, with only seedlings clinging here and there to its crevices. One side rose in a gentler slope, and where they would first set foot to climb up, a large coiled snake lay in a spot of sunlight.
“It’s only a black snake,” Hayden assured her. “They’re harmless and they do a lot of good, eating mosquitoes and insects. Look—he’s not unfriendly.”
Hayden set the end of his stick down beside the snake, not pinning it, just nudging a little. After a moment the creature uncoiled itself and investigated, recoiling gracefully up this new attraction. Hayden tossed the stick away into the brush, and pulled Christy up the sloping surface of the rock.
&
nbsp; “I’m not sure I’d try that with a copperhead,” he said, and Christy shivered.
The high slope of rock was free of invaders, and Christy sat down beside Hayden, pulling up her knees to rest her cheek against them, closing her eyes. The man beside her was quiet, no longer an antagonistic presence—but merely a listening one. What if she could tell him, after all? One reason she’d never told anyone about her dream was the sense that if she put it into words she would make it real. Now, however, the place itself was real—perhaps the very scene of her dream. Something had been put into motion that she might not be able to stop, and it might be better to tell someone about it.
She began to speak without preamble. “I have a dream that recurs. In it I’m always running down a corridor with a floor that’s the color of blood. Like that path down there. On either side of me are high gray walls closing me in—like the walls those tree columns make. There’s no way for me to go except ahead, and I’m always running because something is forever coming after me. I know if I stop I’ll be caught and something awful will happen. But my lungs are bursting and I can’t breathe. Of course that’s when I wake up. But it’s a terrified awakening because I can’t throw off my fears right away. Sometimes I’m almost afraid to go to sleep at night—though the dream only comes once in a while.”
When she raised her head, Hayden’s look was grave but not unsympathetic.
As though she were still running, Christy went on breathlessly. “Of course I can just stay out of the woods, but I’ll dream anyway. I’ll dream until it’s over. I’m sure now that I’ve come to the place where it must end, one way or another. Perhaps I can’t run away any more, even though I want to. Perhaps I have to let it happen, before I can ever be free.”
Hayden spoke calmly, accepting. “If this happens in real life, you’d certainly better run.”
But in the dream her feet turned to lead at the same moment that all the breath went out of her.
For a while they sat in silence, though Christy’s thoughts were busy. Perhaps it was the very fact that Hayden seemed distant and impersonal that had enabled her to tell him. Strangers on a train! But when the silence grew too long, Hayden began unexpectedly to talk about himself.
“I’ve had a repeating dream too, though it’s recent, and it’s not about a place. There’s only darkness—like a starless night. And out of that void a voice calls for help—always the same voice.” He paused for a moment and then went on. “It’s Deirdre calling. Sometimes I think her spirit is very near, trying to reach me so it can be released. But I don’t know how to let her go until I know what has happened to her. Can you at least try to help me, Christy?”
For the first time he had spoken simply, no longer on guard against her in some way she didn’t understand. And now she knew there was no other way except to try. His need was too great, and even though she had no confidence in her own ability to help him, she could no longer choose to go away. Always before, she had wished that her talent could be used to help—instead of offering only the knowledge of death. But she had not felt that Deirdre was dead—though she might very well be. There was Donny’s need as well, and there her sympathy and longing to help came easily.
“This is untested ground for me,” she said. “My mother has always told me that I ought to develop whatever talent I have—instead of turning my back on it. So all I can say is that I’ll see what develops. Perhaps there’s something I can try. Will you take me back to Deirdre’s room? I won’t touch her scarf again, but there may be something else there that will speak to me.”
“We can go any time you like,” he said. Strangely, now that she’d given in, he sounded stiff again. It was as though he must resist kindness, gentleness. But his reaction no longer mattered. She had chosen her way, and there might even be times ahead when she would need to oppose him. She must find out how to go down into some dark place ahead, not only to find Deirdre but to unmask the one who might have harmed her. Whether she had the power to follow through on this she had no idea. Or any idea what might happen to her if she did. There could be a psychic risk when one became open to evil. Yet this was a risk she would now have to take—might be compelled to take.
For a little while longer they sat quietly, Hayden waiting for her to move. Finally, to break her own reverie, she asked a question.
“Tell me what you think about Donny’s and Victor’s belief that they’ve seen Deirdre in her white dress.”
“I don’t know what to think. She wasn’t wearing that dress when she left, but neither is it in her closet. I don’t remember having seen it for a while, but I’m not sure what Deirdre might have taken with her—in case her leaving was deliberate.”
“Have you any reason to think it might have been deliberate?”
The darkness in him that she had sensed before came down like a blind to shut her out.
“I can’t believe it’s Deirdre they’ve seen,” he said curtly. Now he stood up on the rock and held out his hand. “Shall we go?”
She let him pull her up from the rock. One of the difficulties that might lie ahead could be the barrier that Hayden himself was so determined to raise against her. When he started down toward the path, she spoke to him quietly, daring a great deal.
“Do you really want to find your wife?”
His face was tight with anger as he looked up at her. “That’s not a question you need to ask.”
Neither was this an answer, she thought, but when he went ahead down the rock, she followed, with no help from him. At the bottom Hayden picked up the stick the snake had abandoned, and they went on in single file, climbing the hill—separate and on guard against each other. This would not be an easy alliance.
She’s stirring everyone up and I must use this confusion. It can lead them in all directions and conceal the truth. I have the real power on my side. Her so-called gift is nothing. Dukas would be a stronger threat.
Though it was a close call with Victor. Apparently he did see me. Less so with Donny. He thinks his mother was made of mist—so it was easy to get away. Victor is suspicious, but he keeps his thoughts mostly to himself. He has too much at risk to be open. But after this I must be more careful.
I think she heard me in the woods today and was frightened. And that’s fine! She’ll be wary now. The illusion of the white dress was perfect. Perhaps too perfect—a mistake? But of course not—I don’t make mistakes.
Perhaps I indulged my anger too quickly with Rose. But Deirdre had to be subdued—I always knew that. She was afraid of me, but never strong enough to stand against me. I can only laugh when they search for her. The place where she is hidden couldn’t be more secure.
6
When Christy and Hayden reached his house, they found Oliver Vaughn in a rattan chair on the front deck, smoking a professorial pipe. He greeted them with a wry smile, and Christy was struck once more by his almost perfect good looks. She wondered why they put her off. Perhaps they gave him an arrogance that she reacted to and resented.
“I’ve been hoping you’d show up, Hay,” Oliver said, rising to greet them. “I hiked over here to have a talk with you about Victor Birdcall. I’ve recently learned some pretty interesting things about him. Perhaps information that may have some bearing on what’s been happening around here.”
Hayden had chosen his own direction, and for the moment wasn’t interested. “Later, Oliver, please. Have you seen Donny?”
“He’s upstairs. Eve was here, also waiting for you about some problem at the nursery. I’d hardly come up the steps when Donny dashed out of the woods and tore into the house. Eve thought she’d better find out what was going on, so she went inside after him. This must have been a half hour ago, and I haven’t heard a peep out of either of them since.”
“Will you wait for me, Oliver?” Hayden-asked. “We shouldn’t be too long.”
Oliver settled in his chair again rather sullenly. This was S
aturday, so he had no classes, and would probably rather be doing something else with his day.
Hayden gestured Christy into the house. She could still sense his anger because of what she’d asked about Deirdre. Yet she couldn’t regret her question. Did he want to find her? She wasn’t sure what had prompted her to ask him that, except that she needed to smoke him out of hiding. His bristling was useful to him as a screen, but she needed to know what lay behind it. Whether Hayden resented her for probing wasn’t important.
The red-tiled central room was empty when they went into the house. Hayden called out for his son, but there was no answer, and he motioned toward the stairs. On the second floor Christy heard Eve’s voice from the direction of Deirdre’s open door.
Hurrying after Hayden as he entered Deirdre’s room, Christy felt at once a rush of negativity that she hadn’t felt before among Deirdre’s things. Perhaps its source was Eve Corey, who sat jauntily cross-legged on Deirdre’s bed, watching Donny. The boy had perched on a stool before the rainbow painting and he didn’t look around.
Eve glanced at them and shrugged helplessly. “I’m glad you’ve come. I’ve been trying to persuade Donny that he won’t find his mother in that picture.”
Donny kept his eyes on Nona’s painting. “My mother loved rainbows. She always wanted to go into this picture herself. So if I look hard enough, maybe I’ll find her there. I think there’s somebody hiding in those woods—you can see if you look!”
Christy crossed the room to study the painting. Had Nona painted more than mist beneath the rainbow?
“If you do find her there, Donny,” Eve said, “she won’t be real. She would only be a bit of paint that Nona used when she created that scene.”
“What do you know!” This time the boy swung about on the stool and faced them all, his eyes alive with a fury that was nearly out of control. An echo, perhaps, of what Christy had seen in Hayden. “I did see her!” he cried. “I saw her really in the woods—not in a picture. She’s not dead—like Rose!”
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