Rainbow in the Mist

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “How did she die?” Nona asked flatly.

  “I can’t see that. There’s the sadness of death as a loss of those left behind, but after that everything is misty. I can’t tell what has happened. This is your province now, Chrystal.”

  Before Christy could refuse, Lili thrust the caftan into her hands. At once the chill came again, and she wanted only to drop the dress and run out of the room. This was not death but something far worse. Lili could never deal with evil, and it was she who had misinterpreted.

  Her mother’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Don’t give up this time because the feeling frightens you. Stay with it. Let yourself go down deeply into the place and the time and the happening.”

  The Dukas voice, for all its honeyed quality, could compel, and Christy sat down in the nearest chair with the folds of cloth in her lap. She closed her eyes and let her hands play over the garment. It was as though she could sense without sight all that had marked the cloth. Here was red earth, here the green of grass stains. But none of this was pertinent. These stains hadn’t occurred while Deirdre was wearing the dress. Christy pushed the knowledge of them away and held off the chill of horror that wanted to move in, refusing it as well, so that a deeper thought might surface. Now it was beginning to come—the sense of a particular place. It came vividly—a cliff, a red path, even a mound of rocks that towered on one side—all this came through distinctly in greater detail than her previous sensing. But even if what Lili said was true, Christy still couldn’t tell how Deirdre had died. Always before, this had appeared in her mind sharply and clearly, when she was helping the police to find a body. But it was missing now. So—as Hayden had suggested—did that mean Deirdre was still alive?

  Nona put the thought into words. “Can you tell, Christy—is Deirdre alive or dead?”

  With a quick gesture of repugnance Christy pushed the dress from her lap. “I can’t tell. The place was clear this time—so clear that I would recognize it. But there was nothing else. It all faded into mist and disappeared.”

  “Never mind,” Lili said cheerfully. “It will come if you give it time. Rest yourself now. Nona, please show me what you’ve been painting. I read a fascinating piece about you not long ago—all those red roads you’ve been doing! I’d love to see them.”

  No one picked up the caftan, and it continued to lie in a heap of soiled cotton on the floor.

  In Nona’s studio a familiar visitor waited for them. Donny Mitchell sat on a stool before the painting of Deirdre, his heels hooked over a high rung, with Sinh draped languidly over his knees.

  Lili seemed more interested in the cat than in the boy. “A Siamese temple cat! Where did this come from?”

  “Sinh—with an h—belonged to Deirdre,” Nona said. “She’s looking better, isn’t she, Donny?”

  The boy glanced around, his attention focusing on the exotic figure of Lili Dukas. He held on to Sinh tightly, as though he expected her to leap away. Instead, when Lili reached out gently to stroke the cat’s cream and brown fur, Sinh began to purr. She even reached out a tentative paw to touch Lili’s hand.

  “She never makes friends like that,” Nona murmured. “But of course she’d take to you! You’re probably part feline yourself.”

  “We recognize each other,” Lili said lightly. “Her name is suitable, since there really was a temple cat by that name, but she shouldn’t be called Sinh here. This is a magical cat—not a sinful one.”

  Lili’s attention lifted from boy and cat to the painting of Deirdre disappearing down a misty road, her laughing face turned so she could look over one shoulder. “I would like to have known your mother, Donny.”

  The boy spoke quickly. “You can still meet her if she’ll let you.”

  Lili had heard the story of Deirdre’s appearance, and she answered carefully. “That would be very nice. If you see her again, will you tell her I would like very much to talk with her?”

  “Sure,” Donny said. “But I don’t think she want’s to talk to anyone right now.”

  As Christy studied the painting again, sudden realization struck her. In some strange way Nona’s fingers had been guided as she painted. Nona herself had denied that this was a real scene, but now Christy recognized it fully.

  “That’s the place I saw just now when I held Deirdre’s caftan! Do you know where it is, Donny? Is it a real place?”

  Donny looked suddenly alarmed. He jumped down from the stool and the cat flew out of his arms and dashed for the door, as though more than his sudden movement had frightened her.

  For a moment the boy stood looking at Christy, shaking his head. “No! I don’t know anything about that place. I never saw a place like that!”

  He ran after the cat in the same pattern of wild flight.

  “Let him go,” Lili said quietly. “He recognized it, but he doesn’t want to tell us. It is a real place you painted, isn’t it, Nona?”

  “Not that I know of. I was making up the pile of rocks as I imagined it—though I remember that everything came easily at the time.”

  “You were probably channeling. Artists and writers often channel when inspiration is flowing. You don’t know where it comes from when you create. You didn’t think about this with your conscious mind—but suddenly it was all there.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Nona said reluctantly. “Though I call it my unconscious. I’ve never known myself to paint a real place that I’ve never seen. That picture was done some time before Deirdre disappeared, so how could I—” Nona broke off, and Christy knew that her aunt had had enough experience with the mystical to stop her denial of foreknowledge in midair.

  “Do you think you could find this place, Chrystal?” Lili asked.

  “I’d recognize it if I saw it, but I don’t know how to look for it. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Then let’s put the caftan in your hands again,” Lili said decisively. “This time you’ll find the way.”

  Reluctantly, Christy followed her mother and aunt back to the kitchen. Donny stood there, holding Sinh in his arms, staring at the folds of his mother’s gown, white against red tiles.

  “That’s my mother’s dress,” he said to Nona. “How did it get here?”

  Christy answered him quietly. “I found it last night lying across a bush behind the house.”

  “Then she was there! I know she was there!”

  “No, Donny. I don’t think so.” Christy didn’t believe for a moment that Deirdre had pushed her off the deck. And she was sure that nothing of Deirdre’s essence was left in that garment.

  Lili spoke to the boy gently. “I’d like you to try something, Donny. Sinh was Deirdre’s cat, wasn’t she? So will you put her down for a moment—put her down on your mother’s dress.”

  Donny hesitated. Then he set the cat carefully upon the caftan and stepped back, watching. Sinh seemed to stand on tiptoe, as though something burned her feet. Her fur stood on end, her tail twitched, and her eyes looked wild. In an instant she leapt away, and Donny ran to open the door to the deck, lest she hurl herself against the glass. Then he threw an agonized look at the three women and tore after the cat.

  “Interesting,” Lili said. “That was a strong reaction.”

  “Sinh felt what I did,” Christy said. “Someone really wicked has worn that dress recently. Not Deirdre.”

  Picking up the caftan, Lili held it in her own hands, closing her eyes. “Whoever has worn it is confused and frightened and very much to be pitied,” she said, and handed it to Christy. “Discover the place for us if you can. We must find the compassion to help someone in terrible need.”

  There was no way to refuse, and now, as she held the gown, no chill touched her, no sense of horror. In fact, a strange sense of happiness came as she closed her eyes and let herself drift. She had gone down deeply to something earlier that had woven itself into the very threads of the garm
ent. Was this what Lili meant by compassion? She was Deirdre now, running along a path that followed the side of the hill where she had gone yesterday with Victor during the storm. There was the log cabin that belonged to neighbors, and into which he’d taken her for shelter. The path led on for some distance and then turned downward into the woods. Only a lovely freedom possessed her. If Deirdre had been running to her doom, she hadn’t known it.

  She opened her eyes and looked at Lili and Nona. “I think I can find the way. I believe Deirdre was happy when she followed the path that led to that place. I don’t think she expected anything bad to happen to her.”

  “We must go wherever the trail leads,” Lili said. “Now you are using your gift as you were meant to use it, Chrystal. We must be on our way.”

  Nona spoke firmly. “Not without Hayden. He’s at the plant nursery today, and we will go there and pick him up. I’ll telephone first and make sure he’s free.”

  Christy was not sure this was right. Whatever happened might leave Hayden more miserable and uncertain than ever. She lacked her mother’s confidence in the outcome of events in that place, if she found it.

  Between them, however, Lili and Nona had settled the matter, and when Nona had made her phone call, they drove out of Redlands in Nona’s car and Christy sat in the back seat with Deirdre’s caftan beside her. She avoided touching it again.

  “Hayden’s Rockhill Nursery is only a little way,” Nona explained as she drove. “He built the small house for Deirdre and himself when they were first married, and he was just starting his business. Now Eve Corey lives upstairs and uses the office downstairs as his assistant.”

  A narrow dirt road ran through thick woods, with no houses in view. After a couple of miles they emerged above the wide acreage of the nursery. Low, wooded hills enclosed a level stretch of earth dotted with rows of young trees.

  Nona explained to Lili. “Hayden has planted shade trees—maple, oak, sweet gum, and others. Flowering trees too—pear and crabapple and dogwood. Virginia’s climate loves flowering trees and they’re glorious all around here in spring. Though the blooming is about finished now.”

  Over toward the house, smaller plantings had been started in flowerpots, being readied for new lives elsewhere. The house, brown-timbered, seemed to grow from its hillside, with oak and birch and poplar closing in at the back. A lovely, quiet, totally secluded place, Christy thought. A place where nature was respected and nurtured. This was Hayden’s true side—clearly where he loved best to work, and where his spirit must find some sanctuary.

  On the driveway Hayden stood talking to a man about to pull out with a truckload of dirt intended for the landscaping of a new house. He waved at them and motioned them toward the house.

  Nona parked near stone steps and they went inside. The lower floor opened into an L-shaped room with a high, beamed ceiling and wide planking on the floor. At the back, stairs ran up to a section that formed the second floor. The downstairs area was arranged as part office and part rustic living room, with a desk at the front. A small galley kitchen made a divider behind, with a round dining table at one end. On walls above the desk hung framed photographs of homes that Rockhill had landscaped.

  Eve Corey sat at the desk and she rose in surprise to greet them. “Hello, Nona, Christy. And of course this is Liliana Dukas?” She held out her hand and Lili took it with a look Christy knew very well. A sensing look, indicating that her mother was learning a great deal about Eve from this first contact.

  “We’ve come to see Hayden,” Nona said, and didn’t explain.

  Her slanted bangs gave Eve’s face a pixie look that didn’t quite suit her, and from beneath the bangs she studied Lili with cautious interest. Again, she wore her usual informal dress—jeans and a red plaid shirt, with thonged sandals on her bare feet.

  “How do you like our corner of Virginia?” she asked Lili.

  “It’s beautiful!” Lili’s arms reached out to embrace all she saw. “But under the circumstances I find Redlands a sad place.”

  “I hope you’ll be able to help.” Eve sounded as if she expected nothing much from Lili’s “spirits”—since she’d undoubtedly been influenced by Oliver Vaughn.

  “We’re all invited to dinner at Wintergreen tonight.” Nona interrupted the exchange. “Lili has rented a condominium up there, so that’s where we’ll meet with her after dinner. We can count on you, of course, Eve? And will you let Oliver know? We’re all to meet at the Coppermine.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Eve said. She pulled open a drawer of her desk. “Perhaps we can begin by having somebody explain this—if anyone can.” She drew out a tissue-wrapped object, opening the folds so that the contents shone in sunlight from a window.

  Startled, Christy said, “That looks like the crystal that belonged to Deirdre—the one Donny loaned me yesterday. But it can’t be—I left that piece on my dressing table at Nona’s today.”

  “Have a look,” Eve said. “How it got into my desk I haven’t a notion.”

  The stone felt cold and inert as Christy picked it up, as though it had withdrawn into itself. She held it to the light, turning it slowly. The floating phantom at its heart came into view, disappearing elusively when she moved the faceted stone.

  “This is certainly Deirdre’s crystal,” she said.

  “Interesting.” Eve was laconic. “I don’t think Deirdre’s spirit is running around moving her possessions. So who is trying to spook us?”

  “May I see?” Lili extended her hand, and Christy put the stone into it. Lili too held the crystal up to the light. “It’s a beautiful stone—a rare one. But I think the last person besides ourselves to handle it must have used a cloth, or worn gloves. Crystals are sensitive—they know who holds them, and they know when the owner is right. Some stones respond to me, and some don’t speak to me at all. This one seems to be sleeping.

  “Waiting for Deirdre to return?” Nona asked.

  Christy moved about the room to hide her deepening distress. Someone as mischievous and playful as Deirdre might have done this. Or it might be someone who wanted them to think it was Deirdre.

  A framed color photo on the wall near Eve’s desk caught Christy’s eye, and she went to look at it more closely. She could identify the three people in the picture, even though it had been taken when they were younger. The two girls were laughing, while the man to whose arms they clung wore a sober expression—as though reluctant to pose. The man was Oliver Vaughn, and one of the girls was Eve Corey. The second one had married him—Rose Vaughn. Christy had seen her picture on book jackets, and she knew that warm, laughing expression. This must have been taken when the two young women were attending the University of Virginia and the man had been a professor there. In fact, the columns of one of the buildings Thomas Jefferson had designed showed at a corner of the enlargement.

  Eve noted her interest. “That’s an old picture, but I do like it of Rose, so I’ve kept it out. We were all young and happy then.”

  “Oliver doesn’t look happy,” Christy said.

  Eve laughed with a hint of malice. “How could he be, when both those women were trying to marry him?”

  Christy set the picture down, feeling uncomfortable, as though she’d trodden on dangerous ground. She was glad when Hayden came up the steps into the room.

  Nona asked at once if he would come with them on a short drive. Obviously, she didn’t want to reveal what they intended while Eve was listening. However, it wasn’t necessary. Hayden acknowledged an introduction to Lili with interest, and agreed to leave with them at once.

  Christy picked up the crystal from Eve’s desk. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take this with me—since I’m the one Donny loaned it to.”

  “Of course,” Eve said. “It has nothing to do with me. I never did go for all the fuss about crystals.”

  “We’ll see you at the Coppermine at six-thirty,” Nona rem
inded her as they went out, and Eve nodded, promising again that she would get in touch with Oliver.

  When they walked to Nona’s car, Lili studied Hayden for a moment with her usual sensing, her smile warm and compassionate.

  “We want very much to help,” she said simply.

  Hayden’s guard was up, however. He said, “I hope you can,” indifferently, and got into the back seat beside Christy.

  “How do you feel?” he asked her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Just a bump on my head, and Lili will fix that. We’ve been busy ever since she came.”

  He saw the caftan she had taken into her lap, but he said nothing.

  As they started off, Nona driving, Christy began to tell him what they intended, but Lili broke in with quiet authority.

  “Christy feels that she can now lead us to the place where your wife disappeared. I’m afraid she is dead, Mr. Mitchell. That was the message that came to me through the dress that belonged to her. Christy has seen the location clearly, and she believes that Nona caught the very spot in her last painting of your wife.”

  Afraid to look at Hayden, Christy put her hands on the dress in her lap but, like the crystal, it seemed to be sleeping now—only a stained cotton garment. She waited for Hayden’s reaction to Lili’s words, but he seemed lost in his own dark thoughts and offered no response.

  “Donny recognized the setting too,” Christy told him gently. “When we went into Nona’s studio this morning, he was there with Deirdre’s cat. But when we tried to ask him about the location of the scene in the picture, he became upset. I think he doesn’t want to admit what he may really know.”

  Hayden stared out the car window, and Christy was aware that he had stiffened against them all.

  Since those few open moments yesterday when they’d gone shopping in Nellysford, he had retreated a long way into himself.