She moistened her lips, and his gaze was drawn to the motion.
“Understand,” she continued. “No one was going by anything concrete. There was no proof of any of it. But the place was spooky enough, and people wanted something to believe. One story arose over the others that a curse would come from a lovers’ argument over a woman.”
Back to whom the woman was. She’d avoided his question earlier. Not that he didn’t suspect the answer.
“The idea of the curse was strong,” she said, cutting into his thoughts. “So when your father walked out and mine became gravely ill, it fueled speculation.”
“Let me get this right,” Andre said. “An old Indian curse is supposed to have caused your father’s death?”
“Not his death. At least, not then, because he recovered. I was born and life progressed. But all these weird things kept happening. It didn’t take much at that point to feed the fear, fear which came to a crest when he died.”
“How did he die?”
Cerise backed up in the room and seated herself on the corner of the bed. “The same way your father died or so I’ve heard.” Her manner said she was through and didn’t want to talk about it more.
Neither did he. His father’s death had always been a sticking point in any conversation. Andre exhaled and asked his original question again. “Who was the woman?”
Cerise’s manner became more upset. She ducked her head and fiddled with her skirt, pleating and smoothing a portion of the hem. He crossed over to her and knelt at her feet. Their eyes met.
“Tell me,” he said. “I am not my father. I never even knew him, so whatever you think will happen with my knowing is pointless.”
“I’ve seen your face for years,” she said. “In the pictures, and now for you to be here, it’s like … like looking at him. Plus, given what happened …”
“Cerise.”
The pull of her breath flared her nostrils the tiniest bit and lifted her chest. She was beautiful, and priceless, like this house. She didn’t deserve to be trapped by all its legends. Because that is all this was, the stories of the past holding her in some vice-like grip, the grip of an old woman who wouldn’t let them go.
“Would you kiss me?” she asked.
Her question startled him. Spoken so childlike, it came out of place – for her, for here.
“Why?”
She continued her ministrations with her skirt. It was rumpled now.
“I … don’t know,” she replied.
He gave a crooked smile. “Because you want to kiss my father? Or myself? Is that what this is? I’m now some historic image and you think I’ll … poof … disappear?” He cupped his fingers and flared them outward. “I can assure you I’m real.”
She laughed lightly. “Childish of me.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Give me two things, and I’ll think about kissing you.”
“Okay.” Her voice wobbled in speaking. “Wh-what are they?”
“Swim with me tonight.”
She bobbed her head. “And what else?”
“Tell me, who was the woman they argued over? Who was so beautiful she could break apart a friendship?”
Cerise ceased crumpling her skirt at last and lifted her chin. “My mother.”
CHAPTER 3
She’d caved, his presence and the stories of the past all tangling together to destroy her usual grace. Add to that being there in that room where it’d all begun and his looking so much like the pictures, and she could no longer pretend she had no feelings for him. But she had to set those aside because he didn’t know her mother’s side of the story. He didn’t know what their fathers had argued over. How one weekend with two friends and a girl they’d met at college had become an irreparable rift.
Levi had brought her mother here; she was crazy about him; and they’d spent one day in peace – eating, swimming, and boating. According to what her mom had told her, the best day of her life. Then late that night her father, Delbert Delacroix the Fifth, had snuck into her room and raped her.
The next day, Levi had suspected the truth and accused him of it. But she’d been so humiliated she’d lied. I don’t love you, Levi. It’s Del I want to be with.
Words falling on deaf ears, for he’d been wild in love and out to defend her. He’d taken a swing, the swing that had resulted in the hole in the wall and his banishment from the island.
Get out and don’t come back, her father had said.
So he’d left, and her mother had stayed. Married Del. Given birth to a daughter.
Been beaten. Night after night, he’d slung her around, broken her arm, her nose, her spirit. Called her names. All because she’d never forgotten the one man she’d truly loved, and he couldn’t live up to that.
He couldn’t be the man with the haunting eyes who’d stolen her heart.
Cerise stared at Andre, her thoughts twisting within her. He didn’t know how her father’s death four years later had come as a relief or how his father’s death a year previous to that had caused her mom to collapse. And she wouldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell him because the aura of Levi Garner now extended to his son, and she was caught up in it, as trapped as her mother had been, as she still was.
“They fought over your mother?” he asked. His face said he’d guessed as much already.
“Yes.”
Stated simply, it held less power somehow.
“You look like her,” he continued. He had no way of knowing that, yet he’d not asked, but stated it. “And like your grandmother,” he added.
“Like both,” she replied. “Not like my mother at all when you place us side-by-side, but separate us and people will say I am her.”
“I saw the resemblance between your grandmother and you earlier,” he said. “And so this is her game.”
Cerise tilted her head. “We are a game?”
He nodded. “Yes. She’s put us together to excise some … demon … left in this house.”
It made sense. She hadn’t considered it.
“So what should we do?” she asked. “Ignore each other? Go our separate ways?” That seemed the bent of his remarks. He hadn’t wanted to be trapped here, and so why would he want to please her grandmother?
His lips curved upward in a teasing smile. “Hardly. I don’t believe in curses or superstitions. I do believe in using my eyes. They have served me well, and though your grandmother may have had an additional motive, they brought me here.”
“So what does that mean?”
He stood to his feet. Lifting the shirt, he hung it back over the bed post. “It means, you owe me a swim so I can use my eyes to stare at you.”
Her cheeks warmed. “Was your father this bold?”
He flicked her a glance, the playful smile still on his lips. “I haven’t any idea, but let’s say he was. And let’s say you and I make use of this day to do whatever it was your grandmother expects of us.”
“What is that? Kiss?”
He laughed. “You asked, and so I’ll consider it.” He held out his hand, and she took it, rising from the bed. His boldness settled. Curling her fingers in his, his next words emerged soft, almost inaudible. “Not that there’s much to consider.”
***
“Mrs. Delacroix will not be with us for lunch today.” Mimi, the maid, said. She set a plate in front of him and moved away.
Andre stared at the dish in amazement. When did a five course meal become the standard for lunch between two people? “Does she usually …” he began.
“Miss lunch?” Cerise finished his thought.
He lifted his gaze. “I was going to say, ‘Invite people and avoid seeing them,’ but your version will do.”
“Sometimes. I frequently eat alone.”
He stared at her, more questions rising in his head. “Why doesn’t your mother live here?”
Unfolding a cloth napkin, Cerise laid it in her lap. “She’ll never set foot on this island until the house burns down.”
&nbs
p; “Until? She expects it then?”
Cerise dipped her chin. “It’s part of the curse.”
Back to that. He snorted.
“You said you don’t believe in curses. Can I ask why?”
“Do you read the Bible, Cerise?”
She’d taken a bite and so paused to swallow, wiping her lips. “The Bible? A book of old stories, much like this house.”
“A book of truth, real events, like this house,” he said. “Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin. He lived a life healing the sick, preaching forgiveness and blessing the poor, then died a cruel death for the very people who hated him.”
“Sounds like a fable to me,” she said.
He let her statement sit in the atmosphere and ate several more bites. “A story proven true in the lives of His followers, then and now.”
She seemed to think about that. “Say I believed, what has that to do with curses?” She didn’t believe, her bearing told him that.
“The apostle Paul said, ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse, being made a curse for us.’ In essence, that He died to lift the curse from us. It holds no power now.”
She was silent for a minute, then laid her fork down on the edge of her plate. “You don’t believe in the devil, in evil, or karma.”
“You get what’s coming to you,” he mumbled, then cleared his throat. “Yes and no. I believe the devil exists, evil exists. I believe what we’ve sown through our words and actions will grow when planted. But I believe wherever we walk, the death of God’s Son provided us the power to have free, happy lives without curses if we’ll believe in Him.”
She bowed her head, chewing slowly, and he let her be. A gust of wind rattled the window panes. Both he and Cerise turned. “It’s getting worse,” she said.
Yes, it was. This was by far the worst storm he’d seen in quite some time.
“If tomorrow is cloudy, she won’t see you then either,” Cerise said.
He stifled a frown. He’d figured as much. Yet this house, despite its immensity, was becoming too small. If the old woman had wanted him trapped here with her granddaughter, she’d succeeded.
“So we occupy ourselves,” he replied. He couldn’t let it get to him.
“We?” she asked.
He didn’t respond right away, instead concentrating on his food. It was quite good, but then he expected as much. Mrs. Delacroix had high standards for everything. Not until he taken his last bite did he look up at Cerise. She’d been finished long ago, from the expression on her face. She was calm and relaxed again, not at all the frightened girl who’d asked for a kiss.
A contradiction. He mulled the differences over. She liked to project an image of control when maybe her insides weren’t as settled. He could understand that. It probably came from living with the history of this house. But where her exterior seemed hard, where she’d encased herself in a cocoon for protection, really it was as transparent as the glass he was known for. Oh, there were colors involved, acids mixed in to give the object red or gold shades, any number of other hues, but still, when brought to the light, you saw through it. Only then, it was more rare, more precious, than it would have been if made plain.
“I want to see the rest,” he said.
Her gaze deepened to a fine shade of amber. Not nondescript as she’d suggested, but an alluring orange-gold.
“The third floor?” she asked.
He nodded. “You can stay here or go along.” It made no difference. He was going up regardless. He simply had to see a space neglected for so long.
“I’ll go,” she said. “There’s nothing there but my grandmother’s memories.”
He stared at the irony of that. This whole house was made of her grandmother’s memories.
Cerise stood to her feet and motioned at the door. “Come.”
He rose and followed.
The third floor was a cavern, one large empty space lined with three inches of dust. Only two large objects sat in it, both covered in a bed sheet. Along the far wall, a set of dormer windows looked out over what was probably a fantastic view on a clear day.
Andre steadied his breath. The climb to get there was, to say the least, tortuous, the hallways long and winding, the staircase steep, and a bit rickety as well, it not having been used in quite some time.
“Your grandmother doesn’t have this kept clean?” he asked. She tended to everything else. Even the empty guest bedrooms were spotless.
“This was grandfather’s space.”
Which didn’t answer his question. Andre glanced behind, meeting her gaze. “He came up here a lot?”
“He practically lived here, pretty much never coming down except for meals or an occasional visit to her.”
An occasional visit to his wife? Andre stepped in further and ran his fingers down the grimy wall. “Then why is it empty? He didn’t have … things?”
“She sold them.”
Another curiosity. Why would a woman who clung to everything else she owned, sell what belonged to her husband?
Cerise’s next statement gave a hint to the answer. “He was cruel, made fun of her and refused her things. He was also unstable.”
“Like your great-grandfather?” Andre asked. “Did he also bay at the moon?”
She smiled softly. “No. His was more anger. He was apt to throw things, smash them.”
“But I thought …”
“Yes,” Cerise continued. “Except for what’s in the glass room.”
The glass room. The mythical emporium of ancient art rumored to exist somewhere in this house. The space he’d been called to contribute to.
“Dare I ask why?”
She stepped across the space and posed herself before one of the windows. “You can ask, but no one knows the answer. The glass there was sacred to him and therefore is sacred to my grandmother.”
“Sealed away from the world,” he added.
She said nothing.
“Who gets it when she’s gone?” Not that it was any of his business. He was here to do one thing and would be granted but a brief glimpse. He’d then be allowed to return – once. He and the people he’d need to assemble his project.
Cerise didn’t move, not a muscle twitched, and her hands hung rigid at her sides.
“Cerise?” he came up behind her, close enough that he could smell the light fragrance she wore.
“Me,” she said. “It’s all mine. The house, the land, the glass.” She whirled. “Does that make you want me more? You’ll change your mind about a kiss because the man I marry will obtain it all? You’re a glassmaker. What’s in that space will be more valuable to you than anyone else.”
She spoke harshly, a hint of anger in her voice.
He raised a hand to her cheek. “You are more precious than anything in there. Has no one told you that?”
She swallowed, a nervous gesture. “I’ve had no one to tell me anything for most of my years. I raised myself, bearing the weight of everything that happened here.”
He drew his fingers over her lips then dropped them to his side. He walked away from her, his footsteps echoing in the large room. Crossing to the two covered objects, he lifted the corner of one sheet, sneezing in the scattering dust. A long whistle escaped. “Why this?”
She approached from behind. “It wasn’t his. But still she doesn’t want to see it.”
He uncovered it further. It was a vase standing five feet high, decorated with Chinese figures dancing in red-gold gowns. He cupped the side, much like he had her cheek. “Whose was it?”
“Fredrick Delacroix.”
He glanced up at her. “The black sheep brother?”
She smiled and nodded. “He made a trip to China when he was twenty-four and thought to impress the family by bringing back what he was confident was a priceless treasure.”
“And it wasn’t?” He knew very little about Chinese art, what was valuable and what was not.
She shook her head. “Worthless. Of course, that was then. Now, it is old, a
nd though not what Fredrick thought it was, it has its own price.”
“She doesn’t want to remember Fredrick,” he said.
“No. She’s removed him from the house as well.”
He lowered the sheet and moved to the next object. This proved to be a small, round pedestal table. It didn’t seem remarkable at all. “Also Fredrick’s?” he asked.
“No, that was hers.”
He raised his gaze. “Should I ask why she hates it?”
“I’m not sure I know. She sent it up here about two years ago.”
“Two years? You’ve lived here all that time?”
Cerise inclined her head. “On and off. I leave to see my mother sometimes.”
He re-covered the table and faced her, folding his arms over his chest. “Objects of great beauty shouldn’t be left on a shelf and ignored, but placed in the open where their worth can be seen by all.”
Her face became a study, emotion flitting across like a cloud on a sunny afternoon. She hid her feelings always, but not particularly well. To his eye, they were there in little ways, clear evidence of a young life left to fend for a grandmother with what looked like little affection for her and a mother with a broken heart.
A bell tinkled through the walls from somewhere distant, and her face cleared, her mask returning. She moved toward the stairs. “I must go. My grandmother calls.”
The door opened and shut, and she was gone.
He stared after her, the sway of her hips and gentle slope of her waist foremost in his thoughts. She was, of all the things held in this house, the one most priceless. Why couldn’t she see that? Worse, what exactly was he going to do about it?
***
Cerise entered her grandmother’s suite clinging to the dignity that held her together most days and found her seated at a small table clothed in a fantastic mauve silk gown. The bell she’d rung lay on its side in the floor. Cerise stooped for it and sat it on the bedside table where a single lamp gleamed.
Glass Page 3