Not until they reached Redlands, and Nona parked her car did he offer an objection. “There’s something wrong about all this. How can Deirdre’s dress tell you anything about what happened to her—when she gave it away months before she disappeared?”
“That really doesn’t interfere with the impression I received,” Lili said with assurance. “No matter what has happened to the dress since, something of Deirdre remains because she wore it most often. Something of her lingers in the very cloth. I can feel that, and I’m sure Chrystal can too.”
Hayden got out of the car. “Then let’s find out if this means anything.” He spoke as though he had removed himself emotionally from whatever might happen.
As they started off on foot, Christy held the caftan against her body and kept the crystal in one hand. The others let her lead the way past the log cabin and trees that crowded in beyond. Now she had no more doubt than Lili did that she would find her way.
After a short distance, the path turned away from sky and space, dipping downward through a stand of oak trees she hadn’t entered before. The crystal had grown warmer in her hand—not from her own body warmth but from something more. It was no longer asleep.
Treetops swayed in a breeze far overhead, shutting out any sight of mountains and valley. Sunlight slanted through the branches and lay in spangled patches on either hand, and the red color of the path was strong. She felt no fear of snakes now. It was as though something protected her, led her on to the fateful place that nothing must stop her from reaching.
The path curved as it descended, and the others followed close behind—first Hayden, then Lili, who sometimes grasped for his arm when her footing was uncertain. Nona came last, always sure on her feet, and Christy was glad of her strong presence close by on this uneasy expedition. Lili moved in her own spaces, and how much they had to do with the real world her daughter wasn’t sure.
The crystal had grown very warm and, rounding a turn, they saw the great outcropping of rock ahead. It rose straight up from the ground in a series of granite ledges. Its high top stood boldly against the sky, and Christy knew at once that this was the rock pile in Nona’s painting—this was the place. The crystal almost burned her palm, throbbing. Behind her, Nona exclaimed as she too recognized where they were.
Hayden’s voice cut through and Christy heard his strange anger. “This is what you’ve brought us to?” he asked.
Lili ignored him. “You’re right, Chrystal. This is the scene of Nona’s painting.” She came to stand beside Christy and put her hands on the white folds of cloth Christy still held in her arms. “I’m sorry to tell you, Hayden, but I must. This is not only a place to which Deirdre came, but I’m sure she died very near here. I can feel death all around me. The release from suffering, the escape into a new dimension, the wonderful blaze of light—it’s all here, engraved forever on these rocks and trees and ground. The tragedy is only for those who are left behind—not for the one who dies. So you mustn’t grieve, Hayden. Deirdre is safe, happy.”
Hayden’s anger spilled over. “Your voices are way off base! It’s not Deirdre’s death that’s engraved on this spot—it’s Rose Vaughn’s. Christy has brought us to the exact spot where Donny found Rose—after everyone else had given up looking. Probably that’s why he ran away from the painting when you asked him about it today. He knew that Nona had painted the place where he’d found Rose.”
For once, Lili sounded upset. “No—this can’t be! Chrystal—what do you see?”
Christy had begun to tremble. She dropped the caftan to the ground, and Lili, recovering herself, put a quieting hand on her arm. “Tell us whatever you can,” she said gently.
Deirdre’s crystal still burned with its own throbbing heat. Christy sat down on a rock and closed her eyes, waiting for the crystal to speak to her. Hayden was silent now, though she knew his anger still ran deep—as though her bringing him here was somehow a betrayal.
After a moment she raised her head and looked upward—far up to the top of the tall mound of granite—and began to speak quietly without conscious volition.
“It’s true,” she said. “Rose died here. I have held her slipper, and perhaps that’s what led me here. But Deirdre’s death is here too. Not down here where Rose fell, but up at the very top of the rock pile.”
Her own words seemed to well up from some store of knowledge that her conscious mind seldom tapped. Hearing herself, she knew they were true. Yet there was confusion as well. A confusion of time. Had this happened already—or was it still to happen in the future? If it was the latter, could Deirdre be saved?
She could answer none of this and opened her hands to allow the crystal to cool. It had ceased to pulse—it had nothing more to tell her.
Hayden’s impatience increased, his anger smoldering. “This is foolish! What would have harmed Deirdre up there? Besides, this area is one of the first places we searched for her, after what happened to Rose.”
“I’m sorry,” Christy said. “I can’t tell you anything more.”
Again the sense of evil filled her. If Deirdre had died up there, and Rose down here—there had been violence, wickedness in both cases. But she couldn’t speak to Hayden about this until she knew more. She’d received a sense of lines being crossed—as though something wrong interfered with the pictures in her mind. They were true, yet out of focus at the same time. Even as she sought for clarity, mists wiped everything away and the vision was gone, leaving only weariness behind. She sighed in unhappy defeat.
“This isn’t something I can command,” she told Hayden sadly. “Sometimes I know who, but not where. Or I know what but not when.”
“You’re tired now,” Nona said. “We’ll go back. Another time you can take the path to the top, Christy. This is enough for today.”
Lili understood better than anyone else. She bent over Christy where she sat and touched her forehead, pressing gently, her fingers cool on the darkening bruise. She spoke as though they were alone.
“You must learn to use your gift,” she said. “It may be frightening, and sometimes disappointing. But now you’ll stop fighting what is there. Just allow it to surface. You want to help—and you can.”
When she took her hands away, a sense of calming, of healing, remained, and Christy relaxed a little.
“Let’s go back,” Nona repeated.
But before they could start up the hill, a voice called to them from high above. “Wait!”
They all looked up in surprise, and Christy saw that Victor Birdcall sat on a ledge where the rock face curved around to the left. His gray work clothes blended with the granite, so he was nearly invisible, and she had no idea how long he might have been there.
“I have something for you, Nona,” he said, and started to climb backward down the wall of granite, its irregularities forming steps and handholds, so that he came down easily. When he reached the ground he took something from his jacket pocket and held it out to Nona. “I found this in a crack up there on top.”
Nona took the velvet slipper from him in bewilderment. “This is Rose’s matching slipper. But why would it be up there?”
“Perhaps she lost it when she fell,” Victor said. “It looks as though it’s been rained on a few times.”
“And she lost the other one a mile away in the woods!” Nona cried. “This makes no sense at all. In the first place, she would never have worn those slippers out walking.”
“You’re right,” Hayden said. “When Rose was found, she was wearing boots.”
“What do you know about this, Victor?” Nona said. “You’re the one who finds the slippers. Is there something you haven’t told us?”
He returned her look calmly and said nothing.
Nona introduced Victor and told Lili how he had found the first slipper in the woods, where Rose would surely never have left it. Lili traced the frayed embroidery thoughtfully with one finger
and then handed the slipper to her daughter.
Christy took it and waited for any pictures that might form in her mind. There were mists again—no particular scene. And then three figures gradually emerged—two women and a man. But only Rose was clear, wearing her velvet slippers. Both women seemed angry, though Christy couldn’t distinguish their words. The man remained silent in the background, taking no part. Rose and Eve and Oliver? But this was her conscious mind building its own fantasy—intruding. Haze swept over the three, erasing the vision, and Christy found herself staring at her mother.
“I’m sorry—there was nothing I could identify that had any meaning,” she said, and gave the slipper back to Nona. “Something is trying to come through, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Perhaps you’re not being receptive,” Lili said. “I still feel that you fight this every step of the way.”
“I’ve been trying to help!” Christy cried. “I hate all this. It makes me feel ill and helpless. I don’t even want to try any more—it’s all so awful.”
For once, Lili’s calming hands had no effect when she touched her daughter, and Christy drew away.
Hayden put a stop to what was happening. “Christy’s had enough. Nona, you’d better get her back to the house. I’ll see you all tonight—whatever good that will do.”
He went off up the hill alone, and Lili shook her head, looking after him. “That is an angry, troubled man,” she said. “Perhaps we can help him tonight.”
Nona told Victor about the planned gathering at Wintergreen, but now he seemed undecided as to whether or not he would come. He’d been watching Lili Dukas, and suddenly she reached out and took his right hand in both of hers and looked at him intently.
“The flames are behind you,” she said. “But you must still be careful. Your own nature leads you into dangerous ways.”
Christy had often seen her mother do this with someone she’d just met—dipping back into the past, suggesting the future—and she knew how alarming it could be. Lili never seemed to recognize that the whole world wasn’t tuned in to her way of being. Though perhaps that very fact gave her a quiet assurance that was seldom shaken. Victor, however, didn’t seem to mind. He looked deeply into her eyes for a moment, and Christy sensed that these two were more of a kind than she’d expected.
Victor withdrew his hand, nodded to them all, and walked off without haste, choosing the downhill way.
Lili looked after him. “Victor must come tonight. Nona, make sure that he is there. I feel he is close to the heart of all that is happening, and his presence is vital. Perhaps he is closer than he knows.”
“I’ll do my best,” Nona said, “but Victor chooses his own way.”
“What did you mean about flames?” Christy asked her mother.
“I saw flames all around him—but they died away, and I knew they belonged to the past.”
They’d started back up the hill and Christy asked another question of her aunt as they walked. “Does what Lili saw have something to do with Victor’s being in prison?”
“How do you know about that?” Nona asked in surprise.
“Oliver found out, and he’s been spreading rumors about Victor. But why flames?”
“Because his house burned after his wife was murdered. Probably in an attempt to cover the crime. He was accused and sentenced, though he always claimed there was an intruder. Such intruders have been used so many times to explain a murder that he wasn’t believed. After he’d served two years, the real murderer was caught and confessed. So Victor was set free. He told me all of this when he came, but there was no need to explain to others, and there wasn’t any further publicity. I’ll talk to Oliver and set him straight. I knew Victor long ago and always admired him. So when he had a need to go to a new place, I suggested that he come here. I don’t want the peace he’s found to be disturbed.”
Lili had listened closely, and now she stopped on the path, facing her sister. “There’s still some cloud around that man. I want to see what happens tonight when we are all quiet together. Perhaps his Indian ancestors will help me.”
“Do you mean to invite in devils or saints?” Nona asked tartly.
Her mother’s laughter was something Christy remembered—high, light laughter, musical and confident. Something to dispel darkness.
“I don’t invite either. I ask for knowledge, wisdom. Help from higher sources who know how to advise me. Of course I always guard against anything that might harm us.”
Christy followed her mother and aunt along the upward curving path, thinking again of Hayden, and wondering how she might reach through to him. Of them all, he needed help the most, but she didn’t know whether it could come from Lili. Nor did she feel that she had any power to help him. He had been angry over her bringing him to that particular spot. But she’d had no way of knowing that the place she would lead them to would be the scene of Rose’s death.
Above all else, there still remained the strong feeling she had received about Deirdre—that she had died up there on top of that granite pile. Present, past, or future? She lacked faith in her own power to produce anything useful.
“Look who’s waiting for us,” Nona said over her shoulder.
At the place where the path took its next turn before reaching the top, Eve Corey sat on a rock, watching them approach.
“I saw Hayden,” she said as they reached her. “He told me where you were, so I came along to wait for you. No use climbing all the way down. He seemed pretty unhappy.”
“Why did you come? Has something happened?” Nona asked.
“It’s Oliver. He’s upset about your Wintergreen plans. He wants to talk to you, Nona, and he’s waiting up at your house. He wants to call everything off for tonight.” Eve glanced at Lili apologetically. “He thinks Liliana Dukas is dangerous and should be stopped.”
“Then by all means let’s go talk to Oliver Vaughn,” Lili said cheerfully. “I always like to help skeptics in their search for truth.”
Oliver was less eager to meet Lili Dukas. When they reached the house, he sat waiting for them in a chair on the deck, and while Lili and Nona joined him, Christy and Eve sat on the steps just below.
“You can count me out,” Oliver announced curtly as soon as introductions were over. “I don’t want any part of this.”
“Do I frighten you that much, Mr. Vaughn?” Lili asked gently.
He looked indignant. “I don’t like to be manipulated. I don’t believe in your so-called powers, Miss Dukas, and there would only be unpleasantness for you if I were present. I wouldn’t hesitate to expose any trickery.”
“Then let me reassure you.” Lili smiled at him kindly. “I have come here to see my daughter and make sure she is well. Now that I know she’s fine, I’ll be leaving tomorrow. So all I intend is to invite Nona and her friends for dinner and then to an evening of talk and friendship in the place up at Wintergreen where I’m staying tonight. I am concerned about the terrible things that have happened here, and if I could help in any way, I’d like to. But only if you all want me to try.”
Christy watched her mother with the same amazement she’d felt in the past. When Lili exerted herself to calm and reassure and win over, no one could resist her. Perhaps this worked because she herself never realized the performance she was putting on. It all seemed natural and convincing to her, first of all. Oliver Vaughn was no exception. He relaxed, melted a little in spite of himself, and let his antagonism subside. Lili was first of all a beautiful and charming woman, and even Oliver was not immune to her spell. Especially when her seeming interest in him was so flattering. What Lili intended to do tonight, and how Oliver might react, was something else. But for now he gave in.
“All right, I’ll come,” he agreed. “Though if I don’t like what is happening, I’ll leave at once.”
Eve had been watching, entranced. She left the steps, smiling rue
fully at Oliver. “This should be interesting. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
When they went off together to their separate cars, Nona regarded her sister thoughtfully. “I don’t know how you do it, Lili. Oliver is practically a fanatic when it comes to anything psychic.”
“He is also a disturbed and suffering man,” Lili said. “I’m not sure that his suffering is entirely due to his wife’s death. Is he interested in Eve Corey, by any chance?”
Nona smiled. “You don’t miss a thing. But you’ve got it turned around. It’s Eve who has always been interested in Oliver Vaughn. They were engaged once long ago, before Rose came into the picture and captivated him.”
“He is too susceptible,” Lili said. “But don’t tell me any more. I must stay open and wait for whatever comes from higher sources.”
“What will you do tonight exactly?” Nona was persistent.
But Lili only waved a hand in airy dismissal. “That isn’t up to me. What will happen will happen. Right now I think we must deal with something troubling that is coming to us from Hayden Mitchell’s house.”
Christy and Nona turned to look in the direction Lili indicated. Leonie James, Hayden’s housekeeper, was coming toward them with her free stride, managing to look exotic in spite of the slacks and plain blue shirt she wore today. Gold hoops in her ears danced, catching the sunlight with a certain gaiety. But her expression was anxious, and she spoke at once to Nona.
“It’s Donny, Miss Harmony. He’s done something very upsetting. I don’t know how to handle this, and I can’t reach Mr. Mitchell by phone. So will you please come?”
“Of course,” Nona said. She glanced at Christy and her sister. “You may be needed too. We’d better get over to Hayden’s right away.”
Where had Hayden gone? Christy wondered. He had been on foot, without a car.
Dukas is here and spreading her useless spells! It was clever of her to decide that Deirdre is dead—but it doesn’t really matter. Not unless she could find her.
The Wintergreen affair should be interesting, and it may upset a few people. But, at the same time, this is pointless too. There’s nowhere Dukas’s spirits can take her that will touch me. Even if they try to tell her, they’ll talk in such riddles that no one will understand. If it wasn’t all so dangerous, it would be funny.
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