Rainbow in the Mist

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Have you any idea, Christy, how long you were unconscious?”

  “I don’t really know,” she told him. “I did have a sense that time had passed when I came to, down there under the trees.”

  “We haven’t been in the house very long,” Hayden pointed out, “and we didn’t all come by car.”

  His inference was clear. Any one of them might have slipped around to the back of the house to push Christy from the deck. Someone who had planted the dress there earlier? In which case, intent was evident. A plan. The dress really had been used as bait.

  “The llamas have been humming on and off all day,” Floris said. “That means they’re uneasy about something. They’re sensitive animals and they know when anything is wrong. I only wish one of them could tell me who came into my house and took Sinh away. I don’t think that cat was strong enough to go far from milk and food. But you said she turned up in your studio, Nona, which means that someone must have carried her up to your house and left her there.”

  “Cats! Llamas!” Oliver dismissed both impatiently. “The question is, who pushed Christy off the deck and why?”

  He could be dissembling, Christy thought. Any of them could be dissembling.

  “The caftan is really the key to all this,” Nona pointed out. “Someone used it to coax Christy to investigate. Do we know anything about this gown? Anything that would help us?”

  Eve stopped drumming on the table. “Deirdre gave me that dress months ago. She knew I admired it. But after she disappeared I didn’t want to wear it, even though all those folds would cover me up nicely. Anyway, I put it in the back of my closet, and I’d thought it was still there.”

  “It’s the same dress whoever I saw in the woods was wearing,” Victor said. “Since it’s like a tent, anybody could have put it on.”

  “Including you,” Oliver pointed out grimly.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Nona quietly took charge again. “Lili will help, and we need to consider how to assist her. I’m not sure when she’ll arrive tomorrow, but we’d better arrange to meet with her here tomorrow evening, if you can manage it.”

  “I’ve got other things to do beside attending a séance,” Floris said. “Count me out.”

  Oliver agreed emphatically. “Waste of time. No séance for me either. I’ve investigated a few and found them all fakes.”

  “‘Séance’ is an old-fashioned term,” Christy said quietly. “My mother may be able to help us, as Nona says, so I think we should meet here and see what happens. Unless, of course, someone feels that it’s too much of a risk to face her.”

  That seemed to startle them, though no one spoke until Hayden took the lead again. “The sheriff should be notified of this attack on Christy. But we might as well take whatever Lili Dukas offers as well.”

  “Let’s skip the police for now,” Nona said. “There’s not much to tell them and Lili won’t want them around. What about you, Victor? You’ll be here?”

  “I might like to watch,” he said grudgingly.

  “Good!” Nona approved. “So will you change your mind, Floris? And you, Oliver?”

  Floris agreed reluctantly. “Okay—I’ll come if I must.”

  “You might as well change your mind too, Oliver,” Nona urged.

  He shrugged elaborately. “All right. Though I still think it’s a waste of time.”

  Victor moved toward the door to the front deck. “Let me know when you want me,” he told Nona.

  Oliver said, “Wait a minute, Victor! You came later than the rest of us—so how do we know—”

  Victor returned to the table where Oliver sat, and stood looking down at him. “Anything more you want to say?”

  Oliver flushed angrily, but he didn’t pick up the challenge, and after a moment Victor went out of the room.

  “That fellow’s going to explode one of these days,” Eve said, clearly on Oliver’s side. “Maybe he has already.” She went to where the white dress lay across a chair, but when she reached to pick it up, Christy stopped her.

  “Wait—please! It might be better if no one else touches that caftan until my mother gets here. Perhaps it will tell her more than its told me. In the meantime we’d better not impose any more impressions on it.”

  “We’ll leave it right there,” Nona agreed. “Now then—” The phone rang and she took it at the kitchen counter. When she’d answered, she nodded to Christy. “It’s Lili’s secretary, Mrs. Brewster. Your mother wants to speak to you. You can take the call in my studio, Christy.”

  This time she must resist, Christy thought as she went out of the room. She must hold on to her own identity and resist her mother’s hypnotic spell. She switched on lights and went to the phone at her aunt’s desk.

  “Hello? Mother?”

  “Darling!” The voice that was like rich velvet seemed to envelop her, pour love and warmth around her. There was no escaping its effect. “Something dreadful has happened, hasn’t it, Crystal? I could feel it this evening when it stabbed through me. Are you all right?”

  “I’m all right,” Christy said, wincing at the name she’d always disliked. “Are you coming tomorrow?”

  “I’m flying into Charlottesville in the morning, and I’ll drive out by limo. Be sure to say your words of protection tonight, Christy. Nothing can happen to you if you put a shield around you. There is no evil—only good for you. You know that, don’t you, darling?”

  “I know someone pushed me off Nona’s deck tonight,” Christy told her grimly. “I hit my head on a tree and was knocked out. But I’ve recovered, except for some bruises.”

  Lili poured the warm elixir of her voice around her daughter again. “You are protected. Nothing can harm you. Tomorrow we will work through this darkness—whatever it is—together. Good night, darling.”

  She was gone, and Christy sat for a moment allowing the echo of those melodic tones to comfort her. In some strange way she really did feel protected. For the moment. If only she could believe, as Lili did, that protection from harm was so easily achieved. Lili herself moved in an enchanted space. No matter what the outer circumstances, no matter what danger others might feel—Lili was spared. The knowledge Christy had had as a child, that her mother possessed the power to keep her safe, touched her again. The Dukas healing could flow out toward whoever needed it. It could also be a soporific and something she must guard against, lest it weaken her own resolve.

  At least, when she returned to the kitchen, Christy felt calmer and more at peace, yet more determined than ever to follow through on exposing what lay behind all that had been happening here at Redlands. Her mother hadn’t succeeded in blanketing her resolution.

  Only Nona and Hayden sat at the table—the others had gone, Floris down through the woods with her flashlight, knowing her way well, while Oliver had driven Eve home in his car.

  Nona looked up from her coffee cup and caught the change in Christy at once. “She’s done it again, hasn’t she? I wish I had Lili’s talent for pouring anesthetic over whatever she chooses to touch.”

  Christy sat down beside her. “I do feel better for having talked to her. But she isn’t going to change my course.” She met Hayden’s eyes resolutely.

  He pushed his own cup aside. “I’ve been talking to Nona and we both think you must get away from Redlands as soon as you can.”

  “I can’t leave now,” Christy said quietly.

  “Look!” Hayden tried to control his impatience. “Someone is afraid of you. That’s evident. Afraid of your particular sensitivity. If you stay, you’ll ask for a lot worse than a push in the dark. Your aunt and I agree now that I shouldn’t have asked for your help in the first place.”

  Nona reached out to touch Christy’s hand. “Please listen, dear. Stay until your mother comes, if you like. She won’t be here long, if I know her. We’ll see what she has to offer—and then you must le
ave as you meant to when you knew what had occurred here.”

  “Once you asked where I’d go,” Christy reminded her aunt. “I didn’t have a good answer then, and I don’t now, Besides, I know I must stay and see this through. I don’t know if I can help, but I have to try.”

  She didn’t look at Hayden. She’d never asked for this feeling of involvement in all that concerned him, but she had no way to stop it from happening.

  Nona gave up trying to persuade her. “At least, you’d better sleep upstairs tonight, Christy.”

  She managed a smile. “No, I’ll lock the doors to the deck and I’ll be fine. Nothing more is going to happen for a while. I think someone only wanted me to find that dress.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Nona said. “There’s a—a madness in all this, and we haven’t a clue where to look. Madness is like evil. It can wear disguises.”

  But she did have one clue, Christy thought, and not something psychic either. There was still the llama manuscript that had so disturbed Donny. He’d said that real names had been used, and perhaps real characteristics. So Rose’s make-believe llamas might echo the behavior of the humans who lived here. As soon as she could, she would get Donny to show her the book.

  “I’ll be going along,” Hayden said. He stood for a moment looking down at the white caftan where it lay across the chair, and Christy wondered what painful thoughts might be stirring in his mind. Then he turned to her with a look so unexpected that it caught her breath. A look that was warm and approving—grateful. He held her eyes for a moment, and then he was gone—off into the darkness to the house where he had lived with Deirdre.

  Nona sat looking into her cup, elaborately unaware. But Christy knew she had seen that look.

  “Good night,” she said, and kissed Nona’s cheek before she hurried downstairs to her room.

  Deirdre’s crystal gleamed in its place on the dressing table where she’d left it. She picked it up and sat down to warm it in her hands, so that she could feel its power flowing through her. The stone could tell her something, if only she knew how to listen. It seemed willing now, pulsing faintly with the rhythm of her own blood. But if it wanted her to go outside, that wasn’t something she would try again tonight.

  She fingered the swelling on her temple and tried not to remember those wicked hands pushing her. What hidden madness among them wore a disguise?

  Dukas is coming. I’m not sure what this means, or what she can do.

  At least I’ve frightened Christy. There couldn’t have been a better way for her to find the caftan. I wonder what she makes of it?

  So let them gather around Dukas! There’s nothing she can do. Not even Dukas can find Deirdre. But Christy must be watched. There’s a perception there that I can sense. I wonder what she’s decided to do? Probably nothing, since Dukas is coming and will take over.

  That will be interesting for me. Perhaps I can expose her for the performer and charlatan she really is. I would like to be the one to do that.

  9

  They stood on the front deck, watching as the limousine came up the driveway. Again, Christy was aware of the wonderful sense of sky and open space, before mountains blocked the horizon. No darkness of crowding trees threatened here.

  “I wonder which incarnation she’s adopted this time,” Nona said, and Christy smiled.

  Lili claimed to have been a priestess in Egypt, a gypsy chieftain in a male life, a lady of the court during the French Revolution, where she’d lost her head, and many other people whose lives she couldn’t always recall.

  When the sleek gray car stopped near the garage the driver got out and opened the rear door for Liliana Dukas.

  “It’s her female gypsy phase,” Nona commented as her sister stood looking out at the mountains. The day was beautifully blue and sunny, with floating piles of cloud, and Lili stretched out her arms in greeting to the universe.

  She wore a long peasant skirt of garnet red, embroidered deeply around the hem in green and yellow swirls. Her white blouse was rounded at the neck, with eyelet trimming, and strands of beads clattered softly as she moved—amber, lapis, carnelian and jasper. Her brown-blond hair hung free to her shoulders, and gold hoops swung from pierced ears. Her eyelids were carefully tinted in green, and her lipstick was a dark red that matched her skirt. Lili had never held with a fashion that decreed pale lips. Both mouth and eyes reflected character, she said, and the lips should never be neglected.

  Nona and Christy went toward her down the deck, and she held out her arms again widely in greeting. Christy ran to her mother as she always had, drawn by this vibrant woman whose child she still found herself to be—when her mother was present. Hugging Lili, she breathed her elusive scent. Nothing prosaic like verbena—but a delicate water lily essence that was made up especially for her.

  Lili and Nona never hugged, but a look was held between them for a moment of recognition. Then Lili turned to speak to the driver of the car. “I won’t need you until tomorrow afternoon, Albert—say around three. Please leave my bags on the deck there. Then you can go back to Charlottesville and do whatever Mrs. Brewster would like.”

  So apparently she wasn’t staying in Charlottesville, after all.

  Albert said, “Yes, Miss Dukas,” respectfully, and returned to his car.

  Lili linked her arm with Christy’s and went up the steps in a swirl of red skirts. Though she was in her sixties she moved like a young woman, her red-sandaled feet stepping lightly and with assurance. The chauffeur carried two handsome pieces of luggage into the entryway, left them, and drove off.

  When Nona led the way along the deck to the kitchen—always the most accessible and informal room—Lili looked about, admiring everything.

  “It’s time I visited you,” she told Nona, and sat down at the kitchen table. “Now then—how are you, Chrystal?”

  “Except for a bump on my head and a few scratches, I’m fine,” Christy told her, and didn’t mention the flashes of fearful clairvoyance that still came at unwanted moments.

  “Good! I’ll treat that bruise for you later on.” She turned to Nona. “Tell me what you’ve planned.”

  “Not very much,” Nona said dryly. “We’ve left that up to you.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll go up to Wintergreen tonight,” Lili said airily. “Brewster has made arrangements, and we can leave right after lunch. This will give you both a change from what seems an unhappy atmosphere around here.”

  This was typically Dukas, Christy thought. Wintergreen, she remembered, was the resort Nona had pointed out earlier on top of the mountain.

  “You really might have told us your plans, Lili,” Nona said.

  “What difference would that make? It will all work out as intended.” As always, Lili was confident of guidance. “Now, if you’ll give me a cup of your cinnamon-apple tea, I’d like that. And of course I want to hear your version of everything that’s happened here. You gave me a fright the other night, Chrystal, when I was on television. Right in the middle of the program, I knew you were asking for help. I tried to send you a message. You were watching, weren’t you? So tell me everything!”

  The name she’d been given at birth always made Christy a little restive. But while Nona made tea and served it with honey, she sat beside her mother and began with Rose’s death. She told her of Deirdre’s disappearance, and the events that had occurred since her arrival.

  Lili listened intently. “I want to meet all these people.”

  “I knew you would,” Nona said. “So I have invited everyone to come over here this evening.”

  “Then you must call and tell them we will all be dining at Wintergreen tonight. I suggest six-thirty at the Coppermine. There are other good restaurants up there, but this is at the Mountain Inn, and convenient. Brewster can set everything up. She’ll be phoning me at any moment. I’ve arranged for a condominium for tonight—one of those
cliff places that I’ve stayed in before you ever moved to this locality, Nona. So you and Christy will spend the night with me there. After dinner we can all have a quiet time to consult with Josef about these problems that face you at Redlands. Those who are involved in any way must be there, and solutions will emerge.”

  Nona and Christy looked at each other with wry understanding. Lili was behaving exactly as expected, and it was easier for everyone to go along with whatever she wanted. There would be a “séance” after all—and perhaps that was a good idea in the atmosphere Lili would create.

  When the phone rang, it was the invaluable Mrs. Brewster. Lili took the call in the kitchen, checked the arrangements her secretary-assistant had made, and added instructions for dinner at the Coppermine Restaurant.

  When she hung up, she paused for a moment of what she would call “focusing”—her eyes closed, her palms cupped. Nona and Christy were silent, waiting.

  Returning to them, Lili went directly to the white caftan where it still lay across a chair. “This is the gown that belonged to Deirdre?” She didn’t wait for an answer but picked it up and held the white folds against her body.

  Christy had seen her mother do this before, and it wasn’t quite the same ritual she used when she’d worked with the police. Lili bent her face to the dress, breathing deeply. She held it to her forehead, as though she searched past the surface with the vestigial third eye that could still be used by those who had learned to draw on its power.

  When she looked at Christy again her expression had sobered. “What did you feel, Chrystal, when you held this?”

  Christy remembered all too well. “A cold, horrible sensation came over me. As though I held something really evil in my hands. Something wicked and destructive.”

  “You misinterpreted,” Lili said with assurance. She stood with the white caftan bright against her gypsy skirt, smiling sadly at her daughter. “Too many people confuse death with evil. Death frightens those who haven’t accepted that it is only a doorway to the next adventure. Whoever wore this garment is dead.”