Damn him. He could have said good-bye. A man didn’t just make love to a woman and disappear. But he hadn’t implied that he’d see her through the storytelling, and she had no right to expect him to be there.
Dusty felt a wave of panic overtake her. The following night she was supposed to tell the story again. Dusty wasn’t sure whether the panic came because of what had happened before or because there was a possibility that Nick wouldn’t be there in the corner giving her the courage to tell Hattie’s ghost story.
“Is Nick leaving—permanently?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No,” she admitted. “But I haven’t seen him since—last night. David, could I go with the artist tomorrow?”
David looked at her with an odd expression on his face. “Well, okay. We always welcome all the help we can get. Are you sure? I mean, even Hattie never went into the Children’s Center classroom.”
“I’m sure. There was a time when Hattie thought I had some artistic talent. I just spent years trying to ignore it.”
“Well, Thelma leaves here about nine o’clock. She’ll get you back in time to rest up for the spooks.”
Dusty nodded, rode her bike off down the road, and turned it back toward the house. She’d done enough leaving in her life. Maybe it wouldn’t make things any different, but she thought that she might give staying a chance. Tomorrow wasn’t really the future. She was morally obligated to stay a week, and she’d take it one day at a time.
If Merlin left, so be it. She’d make it on her own.
“Aunt Hattie, if you’re listening, you’d better be prepared to step in and give me moral support. In fact, maybe you’d better materialize and tell the story yourself. Hell’s bells, send me Mother Goose. I could use her help.”
“Dusty darling,” Hattie’s voice spoke out as easily as if she were riding on the back of Dusty’s bike. “You don’t need anybody. You never did. But it is nice having someone who can share the uncertainty.”
Dusty tightened her grip on the bars. “I don’t know how you do this, Hattie, but I’m beginning to believe that you aren’t a figment of my imagination.”
“That’s what Nicky said, just a few minutes ago. He’s got to turn himself around and get back, but he’s got a few problems to work out first. Be patient, Dusty, love is as hard to accept as it is to give.”
The sound of distant bells came floating through the air. Hattie’s neighbor on the other side of the street had hung a sheet from a tree, creating a ghost that fluttered in the breeze. Pumpkins garnished every porch like squatty candles on a birthday cake. Halloween was only a week away, and Dusty wasn’t sure whether to believe Hattie or not.
She was having trouble deciding whether love was a trick or a treat.
ELEVEN
Hattie didn’t cause any more manifestations to occur.
Nick didn’t come home until after Dusty was asleep.
When Dusty arrived at the Station the next morning, Thelma was ready to go. By lunchtime Dusty had learned more about the humanitarian side of Dr. Nick Elliott than she’d ever expected.
“You mean he’s been examining the children while you teach them?”
“Not in the beginning, only in the last week. I thought at first it was because he was someone who was concerned, but now I think it’s because he’s had some special kind of training.”
“Of course he has,” Dusty said, “he’s a doctor.”
Disbelief swept across the teacher’s face. “Really? That explains why the center had him sign those forms.”
It was Dusty’s turn to be surprised. “You mean you didn’t know he was a doctor?”
“No, he never said, and I never asked. I just knew it was unusual to find a man who related to the children so well. And then when he began to notice things about them, to help them, I was grateful. He seemed so lonely.”
“Do you know where he is this morning?” Dusty asked.
“No. David didn’t say.”
The art classes were fun. The enthusiasm of the students was contagious, and by the time Dusty and the art teacher returned to the Station, Dusty had discovered that she had more artistic talent than she knew. That, and a certain natural empathy she’d always considered one of her strong points as a police officer, made her efforts a success.
On their return to the Station, Dusty was invited to accompany Thelma again, and she agreed, providing Nick approved. She hurried home, already formulating suggestions about how they might expand the ART Station’s efforts.
“Nick?”
The house was empty. Really empty.
A note was propped against the toaster.
Dusty. I have something I have to do for the next couple of days. I’m sorry to desert you. Just pretend Hattie is there and you’ll tell her story fine.
Merlin
Merlin? He signed the note Merlin. Why? Where had he gone so suddenly? What had she done to scare him away? She knew that she’d been pretty wild in bed with Nick, letting go with a freedom she had never experienced, but it never occurred to her that he’d panic and jump ship.
Obviously he took her at her word: Sleep together, take care of the urge, and get past sex and desire. Apparently it had worked for him. Why hadn’t it worked for her? Here she was standing in the middle of a kitchen, the one room in the house in which she’d spent little time, and she felt a pool of heat puddling in her lower body.
A no-brainer, that’s what this was, an exercise in futility. A letdown. A pain in the … heart. Dusty turned and climbed the stairs. Nick’s shaving gear was gone from the bathroom. She didn’t know how many clothes he normally kept in the closet, but there was a blank space to indicate that some were missing.
Gone. Nick was really gone. Even the suggestion of Hattie’s presence was gone, and Dusty needed her. Dusty stood by the window and emptied her mind, just as Aunt Hattie had instructed her to do so long ago.
“Let the mind flow free,” she’d said, “and your answer will come.”
Except this time nothing happened.
This time her mind was a dark, cold place, as it had been in prison. She’d been better off to stay in Florida, rather than find Nick and lose him.
Odd, the idea of her having been in prison hadn’t bothered him. He’d even suggested that she go back and try to clear her name. But when she’d left Florida, she’d sworn that she’d never set foot back there again. She had no reason to. Only pain and disappointment waited there.
“Pain is like your footprint in the sand,” a voice that sounded eerily like Hattie’s said, “the one you left behind. The only way to make new prints is to erase the old ones. You have to wipe the sand clear, Dusty. Walk a new path.”
“I can’t,” Dusty whispered. “I have nowhere to go.”
Dusty rode to the park early with Betty. She marveled at the beehive of activity now that all the participants had gathered for the first night of the tour.
One of the buildings by the exit gate had been turned into a gift shop, selling books, Halloween candy, and the little black Adopt-a-Ghost boxes tied up with the curly orange ribbon.
One group of guild members had set up a refreshment stand where they would serve hot cider, brownies, and popcorn.
The bevy of tour guides joined the storytellers in the costume house and dressed in their period costumes. The lanterns were lit and everyone took their proper place; the guides to the gate, and the storytellers to their assigned spots. There would be several tours. Dusty hadn’t realized that she’d have to tell the story over and over.
More nervous than she’d ever been in her life, she stood beneath the mantle and studied the woman in the portrait.
“I don’t know whether you have anything to do with my story or not,” she whispered to the woman, “but if you do, forgive me if I mess it up. I don’t know what in hell I’m doing here anyway.”
For a moment she stared at the woman, then realized that the corners of her mouth seemed
to be drawn narrower than usual. Following the path of her gaze, Dusty got the distinct impression that she was focused on the broach.
“This? Is this bothering you?”
Dusty unpinned the piece of jewelry and studied it, comparing it to the piece in the painting. It was the same. If the picture hadn’t verified it, the heat that emanated from the broach would have.
Then she understood. She’d pinned it to the wrong shoulder. As she transferred it to the other side, she heard the approach of the first group of visitors.
Quickly taking her proper place, she glanced anxiously at the empty spot in the corner where Nick had stood, the spot now vacant. She cringed. Without Nick, she wasn’t going to be able to do it.
“Yes you are, Dusty. Empty your mind. You know how it’s done.”
“Hattie?”
But it wasn’t Hattie’s voice that answered. The first guide had arrived and was instructing the group to divide and stand in the two roped-off doorways.
Murmurings and muted conversation came to a stop as Dusty stepped forward, eyes closed, waiting. When she finally began to speak, the words came, not inspired as before, but from memory of her past rehearsals. When she collapsed as she’d done the other times, it was dramatic, but it wasn’t involuntary. Tonight she wasn’t Danielle, she was Dusty, telling the story.
Still, the end result was the same. The group moved away quietly, uneasily down the stairs to the front, where they listened to the final tale of the circuit rider whose body wouldn’t stay put.
Three more tours were presented before the long evening ended and Dusty was allowed to remove her costume. She was left shaken and disappointed. There was no reason for her to have expected Nick to come, but she had. All the way back to the house she held on to a faint hope that he’d be there waiting for her.
He wasn’t.
Dusty couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t eat. Nothing felt right Since Nick had left, every sound seemed magnified in the silent, empty house. Poor Hattie. Dusty knew that Hattie must have felt the same when she’d run away.
Each evening Dusty added a bit of longing to her story. Danielle was becoming more and more distraught and the tour more and more mesmerized by the tale. Dusty might have gotten through the tempestuous events had it not been for the growing identification she felt with the woman who was waiting for her lover to come home to her.
She was dressed and standing in her usual spot, saying a silent prayer of thanks that this was the last night. Nick still hadn’t returned, and she had no inkling why he’d left or if he was coming back. She had, she admitted, accomplished her goal: to sleep with the man in the hope of getting past the attraction.
Except it hadn’t worked. She wanted him. She wanted him back in her arms, in her bed, in her future. And that was what she’d been wrestling with—the possiblity of a future. Nick had suggested that she go back and clear her name. Maybe her past was too much for him to deal with.
No, she reasoned. If she went back, it had to be for her. It was time she stopped pretending she was tough. She wasn’t. Every time something bad happened, she ran away.
Until now. Telling a ghost story over and over every night was enough to make her run away. But she hadn’t. She’d stuck it out. Danielle deserved to have her story told, and Dusty was determined to do it.
“They’re running a little late tonight,” David’s voice said from the corridor. “It’s begun to rain and that means we have to wait for them to run to the car for umbrellas.”
“David, tell me what’s upstairs?”
“Just two bedrooms, nothing more.”
“Does one of the bedrooms have a fireplace and a window overlooking the river?” she asked.
“There is no river,” David answered, giving her an odd look. “Of course, the house was moved to the park from its original site.”
“There was a river—once.” Dusty heard her own words and had no idea where they’d originated. “I mean there probably was, wherever the house was standing before.”
“Well, there could have been. But I don’t know about the fireplace. The room has been padlocked ever since I’ve been coming here. The lock’s so rusty it would have to be cut off to get in.”
“That’s what Nick said. Why haven’t those rooms been restored.”
“I don’t know. The stairs are pretty narrow, and it’s my guess that they used those rooms for storage and for the servants.”
“No. That was my private room. The room where I waited. The room where Nick will come.”
The voice spoke inside Dusty’s mind as clearly as if the speaker was standing beside her. It was Danielle’s voice. But why would she call her husband Nick? His name was Clay.
The answer didn’t come, only a cold chill that wasn’t caused by the rain or by the gloom. Moments later the first group arrived, and Dusty began her tale.
By nine o’clock Dusty was exhausted. She felt tense, keyed up as never before, as if she were the one waiting for her husband. She took a moment before the last group arrived to walk to the window and lean against it. The weight of her gown seemed to pull at her shoulders. She felt a tightness in her chest and tears threatening to spill over from her eyes.
Where was Nick? She wanted him to come back, to hold her close, to make her feel safe again. She wanted his arms around her and his lips against hers.
There was a sound, and she turned just as the artificial flame in the large candle went out, throwing the corner where Nick usually stood into total darkness.
She glanced around the room, but there was no one there.
Then the last group entered the corridor and arranged themselves in the two doorways.
“Clear your minds,” she began as always. “And let the past become the present.
“My name is Danielle. I live here, at Blessing House, the house my husband built for us before the war. My husband, Nick, was so proud when he rode away to fight for our way of life. But now he’s missing. ‘Wait for me,’ he said.”
Dusty turned toward her audience as if she were letting them in on the secret.
“They tell me he’s dead, but I won’t believe that. No, he would never leave me. I feel him here, in my heart.” Dusty tilted her head. “He will be here. Listen. There, do you hear them? Hoofbeats? I hear them every night, but Nick never comes. Nick? Nick?”
Tonight Dusty’s words were different. But the pain and the anguish were the same. She again raised her eyes to the window, then dropped her head as before, tears rolling unbidden down her cheeks.
“I’m here,” a male voice said from the shadows.
There was not a sound, not a movement from the crowd. They hadn’t heard the voice.
“Where are you, Nick? I can’t see you. Speak to me. Tell me what to do.”
As she beseeched him with her eyes, she felt a veil of shadows fall between them. Nick or Clay? She knew he was there. Was it Danielle who felt the presence or Dusty? The room fell away. She tilted her head, as though she were still listening. A new room began to take shape and form.
Once more the walls turned to windows. On one side there was a bed with a red satin spread. The smell of honeysuckle seemed caught in the air currents swirling about the room. The sound of drums, of cannon fire, and of shots faded away, and then she saw him standing there, her beloved.
“Nick.”
“It’s me, Danielle. I’ve come back at last.”
As he reached out for her, the grief-stricken woman took a step toward the man she loved, felt her arms touch the firm flesh of a man, of the soldier she’d waited for so long, and collapsed in a swoon.
There was a woman’s cry.
This time the woman was Danielle.
“Where’d the man come from?” one visitor asked as they followed their guide out of the house.
“There was nobody there,” another argued. “It was just the lightning.”
“Yeah,” a third one agreed. “A shadow. You could see the wall right through him.”
“Naw! It was
a hologram, like in Star Trek.”
“I saw it.” The voices continued to argue in hushed tones.
“Maybe,” a little girl said softly as she glanced back at the man lifting the lady from where she’d fallen, “it really was a ghost. Maybe Nick finally came home.”
“It it really you, Nick?” Dusty asked.
“It’s me.”
“Where have you been? I thought you’d left me.”
“I’ll never leave you, Dusty. I had something I had to do, something you told me to do. Are you all right?”
“I am now,” she said with a sigh of contentment.
“Let’s get out of here.” He unhooked the rope and moved into the corridor.
“Not yet, Nick. There is something I have to do first.”
“What?”
“Please, I want to go upstairs.”
“Why? It’s dark up there.”
“I have to go. We have to go.” Dusty’s voice became frantic, almost shrill. “I don’t know why or how, I just know.”
Nick hesitated. Telling these stories had been too much for Dusty. She was bordering on hysteria. “I told you there is nothing there. The rooms are padlocked.”
“Put me down and I’ll go alone. I won’t leave without knowing.”
“No, I’ll take you.” He turned her in his arms so that her skirt could clear the bannister and, bad leg suddenly strong, he started to climb. At the landing midway, the stairs turned back over the hallway. As they climbed, Dusty’s breathing grew slower. There was a dim light at the top of the steps. It seemed to come from inside one of the rooms.
The door was open, the padlock gone. A fire crackled merrily in the fireplace. Dusty squirmed from his grasp, stepped into the room, and walked toward the window. There was a shadow, a silhouette of a woman.
Dusty felt an odd sensation steal over her, as if she had been there before, as if she’d glanced out the same window night after night, waiting for him to come.
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