Startled by the encounter, but aware of how she looked, and the sound of the begging, moaning voice behind her, she shut the door quickly. “Evelyn Ann!,” she exclaimed weakly.
“Why, Mrs. Martin,” the girl said with humor. “I was sure that was your car, but in this fog it’s hard to tell. Mrs. Martin! You don’t look so good. You’re trembling!”
“Would you take me to the corner market? I need something cold and sweet to drink right away. I – I haven’t eaten ...”
“Here, let me have your purse and sweater. You lean on me. You shouldn’t go around not eating. It can cause a drop in your blood sugar. You could faint.”
Della didn’t answer. Talking took too much of her precious energy. She just hoped that she didn’t faint again. She was sure that Evelyn Ann thought her very near that point, otherwise, she wouldn’t be bothering with her, for which Della was grateful.
“I’ll open the door. You just get in,” the girl said as they approached the red Camaro parked behind her own car.
Della mumbled a whispered thanks as she sat down in the car and leaned her head back. Oh, this helped so much, she thought. But it seemed an eternity until they reached the market on the corner. Evelyn Ann was having to drive so slow because of the fog. Della handed her two one-dollar bills from her purse as she was parking the car. “A small carton of orange juice and a soft candy bar.” she murmured.
Della wanted badly to ask her if she had seen Addie during the day, but she dared not. It would create questions that she would not answer for Evelyn Ann. So far the girl had not asked any questions, or said anything, apparently realizing that she didn’t have the energy to talk. Della just hoped her luck held.
When Evelyn Ann returned with the juice and candy bar, she opened the carton of juice for Della. “Here, drink as much as you can,” she said, seeming to sense that Della was on the verge of passing out.
Quickly, Della drank the whole carton of the cold, sweet, liquid, as Evelyn Ann unwrapped the candy bar. Della took the candy bar but closed her eyes and relaxed for a few minutes until she could feel some relief from the juice. She took a slow deep breath. “I think I’ll make it now. I guess I got out too soon after the flu,” she offered as an explanation, hoping the girl would accept it. She bit into the candy bar. “I do appreciate your helping me, Evelyn Ann.”
“I’m glad I could be of help, Mrs. Martin,” she said as she started the motor and proceeded to slowly back out of the parking lot. “Mama said we must always take time to help those less ... who need our help.”
Della knew she had intended to say ‘less fortunate’, but it didn’t matter. She knew Evelyn Ann and her mother from having had the girl in a Sunday school class she had taught two years before.
“I didn’t see Addie at school today. I hope she didn’t catch the flu.”
“She’s not feeling too well, but it’s not the flu.” Della said hoping the girl wouldn’t get too inquisitive.
“That’s good. She might not get over the flu in time for our trip to Florida.”
“Addie’s not planning to go on this year’s trip,” Della answered.
“That’s too bad. All the kids are real excited about it. I know I am, and I’ve already been to Disney World. I was bringing my money to the parsonage. I had forgotten it yesterday.”
They were turning into the parsonage driveway. “Were you leaving? I mean, had you finished your business with Brother Morris?” she asked with a smirk on her face. “Shall I drive up to your car? Do you think you’re capable of driving now?”
There was amusement in the girl’s tone of voice, and Della knew she was anxiously anticipating spreading the news of what she had seen, and no doubt heard, before she could get the parsonage door closed. She would have her own interpretation to the scene, and Della also knew it wouldn’t be too far wrong. But that couldn’t be helped right now. She had to get in touch with Ben. They had to find Addie. It was getting late, and the fog had not let up. It seemed to be getting worse.
“I was leaving, Evelyn Ann. Thank you again. You’ve been very kind. Your mother should be proud of you,” she added as she collected her purse and sweater. “I think I’ll be fine now,” she said opening the car door. As soon as she was in the Plymouth, the Camaro moved back out of the driveway and parked on the side of the street. Della backed out and turned in the direction of the corner market. There had been a telephone on the outside wall. She finished the candy bar as she drove carefully. She no longer felt so lightheaded, just weak and shaky.
When she reached the phone, she called the furniture store again, and again, the woman who answered said she was sorry, but Mr. Martin was not there. Della couldn’t believe her ears. “I told him you had been trying to reach him,” the woman said. “But right now, he should be out at the Johnson’s house on Forest Lane. Something happened to Mrs. Johnson’s dishwasher. It was putting water all over the kitchen floor, and their kitchen is carpeted. It must really be a mess.” The woman paused, “And, Mrs. Martin, if you talk to your husband, would you tell him that Donnie has been trying to get in touch with him also.”
“Thank you,” Della said hurriedly hanging up the phone, and wondering why Donnie Whitefield would be trying to find Ben. Could he know something about Addie? Was it possible that he knew where she was? Or could she be at home? Hopefully, she dropped in another coin and quickly dialed her home. She let it ring more than ample time for Addie to answer no matter where she was in the small house, then she hung up. Still, she felt a glimmer of hope as she returned to the car. At least she knew where Ben was.
She had to sit for a few moments, for she was still slightly trembling. She tried to picture in her mind the shortest way to Forest Lane from where she was, but her mind was still in such a shocked and disillusioned state that she couldn’t think clearly. She started the car. In this fog she would have to drive slow when she wanted to get there as fast as she could, and she would just have to work her way the best she knew.
As she drove, she still searched her surroundings for that dear familiar figure which she felt was lost and in grave danger. In her mind she explored every possibility of where she could be, or what could have happened to her, but uppermost in her thoughts was the red haired man. Who could he be but Julian Dane? The spirit of the man who had made her pregnant, who had drowned himself some fifty years ago. Had he found her? She wondered again – his daughter – his two daughters? Did he have Addie and his Vicki in some supernatural realm where he existed? Would she ever see her daughter again?
Chapter Twenty-three
Addie came slowly awake. She was feeling groggy and unable to concentrate. A feeling of strangeness and apprehension filled her. She opened her eyes to find herself in an unfamiliar bed, and she was not alone. Somebody was in this strange room. She could sense it. What was she doing here? Where was she?
She arose quickly and looked about. She was at the foot of the high, dark wood bed that she remembered having seen in her mind in a room in Stonegate. An elderly woman, her arm in a sling, wearing a pale blue, satin dressing gown was standing beside the open French doors to a balcony. She was smiling rather cynically at her. The look in the woman’s eyes sent a chill up and down Addie’s spine. Instantly, Addie disliked the woman. And she knew without asking that she was Wilhelmina Stone, or Miss Willy, as she was known to the townspeople, the most of which had never seen her. And she had to have been lying on a bed in Stonegate – sleeping on a bed in Stonegate, but how she had gotten here? She did not know.
The last she could remember was being afraid to go to sleep in her own bedroom – no, she had been in the truck with Donnie. Did she remember trying to get ready for school? She wasn’t sure. Her mind seemed to be out of focus. She stood up and smoothed out her clothes as she looked at the silent Miss Willy.
“How did I get here?” she asked. She felt completely drained like she had slept too long and too hard.
“That’s a good question,” Wilhelmina Stone said sarcastically. “Do you kno
w where you are? Better still, do you know who you are?”
“Of course. I’m Adelaide Martin. How long have I been ...”
“Hmmm, that’s interesting. You came in here after ten o’clock, and you were Vicki Dane. You cry yourself to sleep over the death of your grandmother and your mother, and when you wake up you’re Adelaide Martin. How do you do that? How does it work?”
“You mean I’ve been here since ten o’clock?” Addie asked with alarm.
“That’s about right.”
“But it’s dark outside!” she said looking through the open French doors. “My mother will be worried to death! And how did I get here?”
“It’s not dark, just foggy,” the woman said calmly.
“What time is it? I must call my mother. May I use your phone?”
“That’s not necessary. Don’t you think I thought of that?”
“Then – you knew my name?”
“Certainly.”
“And my mother knows I’m here? Is she coming for me?”
“In due time,” Wilhelmina answered.
For some reason she didn’t understand, Addie didn’t like the way her questions were being answered, and she still wanted to know how she had gotten to Stonegate, and why? She was standing at the foot of the bed facing the wall where a colored portrait of Julian Dane hung. She couldn’t help but be fascinated by it. He looked so real – so life like. His hair was the same color as her own, his eyes the same green, but somehow different from hers – more luminous. Addie was aware that Miss Willy was watching her.
“A striking resemblance, wouldn’t you say?” she asked.
“Yes,” Addie answered slowly, knowing it would be foolish not to, and wondering what the woman knew of her relationship to the man, or the specter – whichever. “I think I’d better wait for my mother outside.”
“Well, now, that’s a little rude, don’t you think? You’ve invaded my privacy, ate my breakfast, and slept on my bed. I think you owe me the courtesy of answering a few questions?”
“Oh. I’m sorry. What is it you want to know?”
“I want to know how you can go to sleep as Vicki Dane and wake up as Addie Martin?” Wilhelmina Stone demanded impatiently.
That was it! Addie thought. She had gone to sleep in her own bed as Addie Martin and had awakened as Vicki Dane. Now she remembered Donnie explaining to her about picking her up downtown where she had ended up after getting herself lost as Vicki Dane. And he had brought her with him to pick up one of those mirrors at Stonegate. But how she had gotten inside Stonegate, and without Donnie, she didn’t know. All this was frightening to Addie, and she realized that she was also frightened of this woman. She wanted out of her presence and out of Stonegate as quickly as possible.
“Well?” Wilhelmina said.
“I’m not sure I can explain it,” Addie said quickly. “At first it was just that I remembered things that I knew didn’t belong to me, that weren’t a part of my life. They were things that had happened a long time ago to someone else.”
“Oh. And I suppose this someone else was Vicki Dane?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Addie answered looking at the portrait.
“How interesting,” the woman said with the same sarcasm she had been using, and waited for Addie to continue.
“But recently, our memories seem to be getting all mixed together. Like, right now, I know what you looked like when you were young. You had a bright yellow dress with a wide white sash ...” Addie stopped suddenly. The startled look on the woman’s face made Addie think she had said something that she shouldn’t have. What was Vicki doing to her? Why had she suddenly seen Wilhelmina Stone as a young woman in a yellow dress? Addie didn’t like the look on the woman’s face at all. “I’d better go wait for my mother now,” she said as she backed away toward the door.
“What about the yellow dress?” She was demanding with a very serious look on her face that Addie didn’t understand, and didn’t want to be around to find out.
Addie tried moving closer to the door, but Wilhelmina was moving closer to her. Was she angry, or was it fear? Addie wondered as she watched the woman.
“What about the yellow dress?” She almost shouted.
“I don’t know. I just saw it in my mind, or Vicki’s. I really need to call my mother again. I need to go home now.”
A strange far away look came over Wilhelmina Stone. She was no longer seeing Addie. “Home,” she said in a low voice as though to herself. “She came home too soon. She was fifteen minutes too early. I had everything planned down to the very minute, but you came home too soon!”
A wild, fierce look came into the woman’s eyes. She turned them on Addie. “Why? Why did you come home early? Why?” She demanded. She had taken the few steps between them. Now her face was right in Addie’s. She had moved in the wrong direction to move away from Wilhelmina, and now her back was up against the tall footboard of the bed. The look on the old woman’s face, and her harsh, demanding voice sent shivers of fear through Addie. But this was foolish, she thought. This was an old woman with one arm in a sling. Why should she feel such terrible fear?
“Why?” the woman screamed at her, and Addie suddenly realized it wasn’t she who was afraid, but Vicki, just as it was Vicki Dane at whom the woman was screaming.
“Nicki!” Vicki’s voice answered. “Nicki needed me. I always knew when he needed me. I ran all the way home from school!”
“You knew he couldn’t crawl up those stairs, didn’t you? And I knew he couldn’t, but Julian didn’t. He was never home long enough. He was always off trying to find help for Nicholas. But he couldn’t be helped. Julian knew it. He just wouldn’t accept it. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone?” She demanded using both hands to grab Addie by the arms.
“But no! He insisted! If he couldn’t find help here, he would go where he could. He was going to leave me! He was going to leave here and not come back. I couldn’t let him leave me!”
The woman had flipped, Addie thought. Her hands had tightened on Addie’s arms, and she was strong. Addie tried to pull away, but her hands tightened even more until they hurt. She was being pulled over to the wall beside the open French doors. She had her now facing a large portrait hanging in the space between the open doors and the bed’s headboard. It was a very large painting of a very pretty woman seated on a small sofa with a little girl standing beside her.
The air was warm and damp coming in the open doors, and the fog was becoming very heavy. Addie shivered, she wanted to leave. Surely, she was the stronger of the two, but she had a feeling that she was very close to whatever it was that haunted her – whatever it was that Vicki wanted her to know, or do. No. She had to stay if she was to ever be rid of Vicki. Addie was certain of this. She had to stay.
“I never loved but two people in my whole life,” Wilhelmina was saying, “and there they are,” she said looking first at the portrait of Julian Dane to the left of them. Then looking at the painting in front of them, “And my dear mother, Victoria Gates Stone! And neither of them could find it in themselves to love me. Just look at her,” she commanded Addie, as she shook her by the arms.
“I wanted her to hold me on her lap while the portrait was being painted, but do you think she would? No!” she shouted as she let go of Addie’s left arm and yanked her closer to the painting with a tightened grip on her right arm. “She said it would wrinkle the dresses, and we had to keep them for the sittings. She didn’t even want to sit for the portrait. She just did it for Hiram Stone. She never did one thing for me. She couldn’t even tell me her little secret,” Wilhelmina ranted.
A secret! Was that it? Addie wondered. Did Vicki want her to know some secret that this woman knew? Or did Vicki need to know the secret? Which was it? She wished she knew.
“It was all her fault! If she had just told me!” Wilhelmina exclaimed as the look in her eyes became wilder. She had now taken hold of both Addie’s arms again with more strength that she thought a woman her age could pos
sess.
“I couldn’t lose them both so close together, but I did,” she almost whimpered. “And it was all her fault! It was her fault, but I paid for it!” she shouted, her fingernails digging into Addie’s arms as she shook her, her eyes blazing. “You weren’t supposed to die! He was! Only Nickelos!”
Suddenly, Addie saw a small child in a white sun suit through a white railing on top of the house on South Street, and a flash of bright yellow disappearing from behind him. Addie gasped. “You put him on the widow’s walk!”
“Of course I did! He needed to die! All he could do, or would ever do was crawl, babble, and drool – and cry. He would never be anything but a baby, but Julian wouldn’t accept it! He wouldn’t believe it!” The volume of her voice lowered as though she was about to tell Addie a secret. “I lay on my stomach up there on that hot roof every chance I got loosening those posts. You were to find him, when you came in from school, having just fallen off the roof, and then find me asleep on the sofa. You weren’t supposed to die!” She was yelling again. “He was, but he didn’t! And I’ve had to play mother to him all these years!”
She was shaking Addie again, her face right in Addie’s. And Addie was seeing the yellow dress again. “You were just disappearing through the living room doorway when I came running through the kitchen door,” Addie said, for it seemed that she and Vicki were one now. “I told father that I saw you while I lay there in the hospital dying. And I told him about mother begging you not to let her die, because I knew I didn’t have to be afraid of you anymore. You’d never be able to lock me in closets again, and you couldn’t send me away.”
“Of course you did!” Wilhelmina yelled, shaking Addie so hard she thought her neck would snap. How could an old woman have so much strength? Addie tried to free her arms, but the more she struggled, the deeper the long fingernails dug in, hurting until she wanted to cry out.
The Daughters of Julian Dane Page 22