Gnarled Hollow

by Charlotte Greene

  “What have you heard from the Wrights?” Mark asked. “They’ve been here for ten years now. Have they said anything?”

  Harry shrugged. “The Wrights don’t talk to anyone. Quite strange, those two. Keep to themselves, barely say a word when you run into them. Definitely not adding to the rumors, if that’s what you mean.”

  Emily and the others shared a look, and this time Harry noticed. “Wait a minute—has something happened while you’ve been here? I see the door propped open.”

  Mark hesitated and then shook his head. “They lock on their own sometimes—that’s all. It’s inconvenient to carry keys around all the time, so we’ve propped them open in here.”

  Harry seemed skeptical, but he let it go. “What is it that you’re all researching out here?”

  Mark gave a quick explanation of what he was doing, and Harry perked up with interest. Emily saw his eyes travel around the room as June went into more detail about the mysterious paintings, and when Emily told him about the Margot Lewis papers, his grin was positively gleeful.

  “I knew it,” he said. “I knew she was out here writing that whole time. I wonder that they haven’t been transcribed before. Do you think I could see them before I leave?”

  “There’s not much to see, I’m afraid,” she explained. “Everything is written in code. My colleague and I are having an awful time getting through it all.”

  “I’d still like to see one the journals, if you don’t mind. I love Lewis’s work. It would be like, I don’t know, holding Elvis’s guitar if you were a fan, something like that.”

  Emily laughed and stood. “Of course you can see them. You’ve told us more than we’ve been able to get from anyone we’ve talked to or anything we’ve read.”

  “Even if it is all a load of crap?” Harry asked, getting up more slowly.

  “Even if,” she said, grinning. “Come on. I’ll show you upstairs.”

  Harry paused. “Do you think you could show me around first? I’d love to have a tour of the house.”

  Mark smiled. “There’s not much to see, I’m afraid. Some of the doors are locked, and I don’t have all the keys.”

  “That’s okay—whatever you can show me.” He looked sheepish. “I’ve always dreamt of coming here. Ever since I was a little boy, and then, when I was older and read Margot’s work, I became even more interested. I don’t think you can grow up around here and not wonder about this place.”

  “I’m happy to show you all I can,” Mark said.

  Emily turned to see if June was coming, but she was still seated on the sofa, her face troubled and drawn. She turned back to Mark. “You guys go on ahead—I’ll catch up.”

  Mark glanced at June and then led Harry into the foyer. She watched them disappear into the dining room and then sat down next to June, taking her hands.

  “Are you okay?”

  It took June a couple of moments to respond, and when she met Emily’s eyes, she looked as if she might cry.

  “It’s all real, Emily,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “All of it. I kept thinking that maybe, I don’t know…maybe we were all hallucinating or something.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “I mean, I knew it was happening—I was here! For most of it. But somehow, hearing all those stories, about the Lewises, about the people from town that worked here, it makes it real somehow.” June met her eyes again, her brow furrowed. “Am I making any sense?”

  “Yes. You are. I mean, I don’t know how much of what he said was true, but while he was talking…” She shook her head. “It seemed like the truth. Especially after he told us about the doors and the face in the window. We’ve seen that.”

  “Do you think it’s all true? The incest? The murder? I mean, my God, Nathan was drowned. I’d put money down that he was drowned in the pool.”

  What June said startled her, but she said nothing. When she’d first read that he was drowned, she’d immediately thought it had happened in the upstairs bathtub, the one she was nearly drowned in. But of course June and Chris had experienced something similar in the pool. She hadn’t even thought of it.

  “I don’t know if we’ll ever know what actually happened, June, but I’m going to try to find out.”

  June blushed a little, not meeting her eyes. “Maybe we can ask them later today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  June grinned. “Lara’s séance. She wants to do it this afternoon.”

  Emily laughed and then quieted when she saw June’s grave face. “Wait a minute. Do you think that kind of thing is real?”

  June lifted her shoulders. “Well, no, not exactly. But then, I also don’t really believe in ghosts, or at least I didn’t before I came here. I’m not sure what I believe now.”

  The front door opened, and Chris and Lara came in from outside. Chris spotted them, and his face seemed flushed and happy. Lara, too, looked excited, and they quickly entered the sitting room, both of them panting as if they’d run there.

  “You guys have to come outside and see this,” Chris said. “You’ll never believe what Lara and I just figured out.”

  Chapter Twenty

  They stood at the bottom of the formal gardens behind the house. The three of them—Emily, June, and Mark—waited for Lara and Chris to explain why they were out there. Chris had left to find Mark, and Mark left Harry upstairs with Jim before joining them. The sun was oppressively hot, and once again Emily was startled by its power this early in the summer. The three gardens at the back of the house were separated by a footpath from one another, but arranged in a kind of fan shape. Each garden had been designed in a slightly different way, and each contained different plants.

  “This is the herb garden,” Chris said, gesturing to the garden in front of them, “that’s the ornamental garden,” he pointed to the right, “and that’s the flower garden,” he said of the final one to the left. “All of them are modeled on the English style, which aimed to be wilder, less regimented than the French style.”

  “English gardens were popular in the Romantic period, right?” June asked.

  Chris grinned. “Yes. It went along with the Romantic ideal of letting nature inspire you through its untamed beauty.” He shook his head. “Of course, it still takes a lot of care to keep things looking like this—it’s a fake wilderness, at best. In bigger English gardens, you might see large, open lawns, untrimmed trees, that kind of thing, but in smaller gardens like the one here, that’s not really the case. Of course, the woods here are untamed, so I guess that sort of goes along with the theme, and I know there are some hiking trails that might be considered part of the gardens, but as far as these three little formal gardens go, the only major thing that tells me that they’re meant to be English gardens is the fact that the pathways between the plants aren’t laid out in straight lines.”

  Emily saw that what he’d said was accurate. All the lines through the plants in each part garden were curving and, in some places, circular spirals. However, a single straight line ran through the center of each of the three gardens, bisecting the curves and circles awkwardly at times.

  “It’s in keeping with the artwork in the house,” June said. “The Lewises loved their Romantics.”

  Chris smiled. “Yes. Anyway, I could tell that they were English. It’s not hard to differentiate French from English, once you know what you’re looking for. But I couldn’t figure out this straight line here, the one that crosses through each part.” He pointed at it.

  “I was wondering about that, too,” Emily said. “It’s kind of, I don’t know—”

  “Ugly?” Chris suggested, then laughed. “It is, and it’s also the complete antithesis of the design. At first, I thought it might be some kind of irrigation line, but it isn’t. Then I thought maybe it was a result of having to dig up some kind of blight, but again, it wasn’t.” His grin turned into a broad smile. “Then, when Lara was out here talking with me, she wondered if it might align with something.”

/>   Lara jumped in, clearly excited. “We started thinking about star charts, ley lines, all sorts of silly things.”

  “But the most obvious explanation was the right one,” Chris said. He turned to Lara to let her tell them.

  “The winter and summer solstice,” she said.

  “Oh! Like Stonehenge!” June said, then laughed. “How funny!”

  “Is it an exact match?” Mark asked.

  Chris nodded. “As far as I can tell without measuring, yes. I could get some survey equipment out here and do the calculations, but I’d put money on it being exact.” He pointed at the two ends of the straight line. “That’s where it aligns. The sun should rise early in the morning on the summer solstice over there in the flower garden, and it would set over there at sunset on winter solstice in the ornamental garden. We’ll be able to see it align with the summer solstice on the twenty-first.”

  “That’s tomorrow,” June said. She paused. “I guess the Lewises also liked prehistoric Britons.” She described the Celtic-inspired hanging bowl they’d found in the steam room.

  “Can I see it?” Lara asked.

  June blushed slightly. “It’s still out there, actually. I sort of forgot about it.”

  “Let’s go get it now,” Lara suggested.

  June seemed reluctant, so Emily volunteered. “I’ll come, too. That way, if the door closes, a few of us will be there to get help.” She meant to speak lightly, but June paled a little. June had no more forgotten about the hanging bowl than she had. They’d simply avoided the steam room since they were locked in there.

  The walk to the pool house was even longer than Emily remembered, and she was once again struck by how strange it was to build the pool out here in the woods, so far from the house. Anyone who wanted to swim would have to either walk out here in a swimsuit or change at the pool, where there were no changing rooms. She remembered the rumor about the Lewis children and the pool, and heat rode to her cheeks. If she managed to find evidence that Margot or her younger sister and their brother were having some sort of incestuous tryst out here in the woods, it would really change the way people thought about Margot’s writing.

  The trees suddenly fell away, and she, Lara, and June were in the clearing with the greenhouse and pool house almost before she was ready for it. Now, instead of interesting, the place was ominous, and she had to make herself keep walking. If only Lara had been here with her, she would have turned around, but she wanted to support June. June was pale and drawn, and Emily knew they were thinking the same thing. June had had two experiences out here—one with her and one with Chris—and Emily knew without asking that she would have happily gone the rest of her life without setting foot in the pool house again.

  They unlocked the door, and the magnificence of the space once again struck her. Today the sunlight was even brighter, glaring even, and it made the water sparkle almost violently. She had to blink a couple of times against the light, squinting in order to see.

  “I’ll stay here,” June told them, standing by the door.

  Lara almost laughed, and then, probably because of their serious, frightened expressions, her smile faded. “It’s okay. I’ll get it myself.”

  They watched her head toward the steam room, and Emily walked into the pool house a little farther to look at the water. She was wearing sandals today, and she slipped one off and dipped a toe in. It was warmer than she remembered, but that might have something to do with the sunlight. She was about to turn back to June to comment on this warmth when she saw movement in the water out of the corner of her eye. She jerked her head that way and cried out in alarm.

  Harry Arnett was floating, facedown, in the pool.

  She screamed again and covered her eyes with her hands, bending over slightly in a low wail. June’s hands were suddenly on her back, and Emily turned into her, clasping her tightly and crying. A while later—she didn’t know how long—she finally realized that June was asking her something.

  “What is it, Emily? What’s the matter?”

  She pulled back and turned toward the water, but saw nothing there. Harry’s body had disappeared.

  “He was there!” she said, almost choking on the words. She pointed at the water. “I saw him. Right there! I swear it.”

  “Saw who?” June asked. “Nathan?”

  Lara had joined them now, and Emily saw that she was holding the hanging bowl in both hands.

  “No,” Emily said. “I saw Harry. He was floating in the water!”

  Lara and June peered into it and then at each other. Emily saw Lara raise one eyebrow and suddenly felt anger overwhelm her. She took a couple of steps away from both of them and pointed at the water again.

  “He was right there! I saw him!”

  June shook her head. “But nothing’s there, Emily.” Her was voice quiet, placating.

  “Then he must have disappeared!”

  Again, Lara and June shared a glance, and that same frustrated rage washed through her. She had to get them to believe her. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  “Why don’t you believe me?”

  June put a hand on her shoulder. “It was a bad idea for you to come out here. I don’t even think I should be here.” She looked at Lara. “We should leave.”

  “No!” Emily said, shouting. “We have to find him. We have to save him!” For a moment, she was tempted to jump into the pool, and June, likely seeing something of this intention in her expression, grabbed her arm, squeezing it painfully.

  June made her meet her eyes. “Emily, we have to go.”

  She looked back and forth between Lara and June and saw pity. All the fight drained out of her, and she sagged with something like exhaustion. She let the two of them lead her out of the pool house and back down the little trail to the house. The whole way, she was oppressed with an almost crushing sensation of guilt. She had let Harry down, and she would never forgive herself.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Emily’s bedroom was filled with that strange, golden light that comes just before sunset. It made the edges of the furniture in the room oddly stark and sharp, contrasting vividly with the rosy orange that permeated every corner of the room. She could see June and Mark sitting at the table, both of them engrossed in their laptops, and when she shifted to sit up, they both looked at her, their expressions strangely guilty.

  “What am I doing here?” She hadn’t been back in her bedroom since the experience with the knocking sound yesterday, and the room already felt foreign and strange.

  June set her laptop down and came over to the bed, sitting on the edge. She took both of Emily’s hands in hers. “You don’t remember?”

  She shook her head and then stopped. She had a vague memory of seeing the house after she, Lara, and June left the woods, and then nothing.

  June patted her hand. “You passed out. One minute you were fine—walking along with us, and the next you simply fell.” She frowned. “It was terrifying. I had to get Mark to carry you up here.”

  She shook her head to clear it and sat up a little straighter, wincing. Her neck felt stiff. “How long have I been out? And why did you bring me in here?”

  June met her eyes. “Something happened while we were out at the pool house.”

  She could see the worry etched in June’s face now, and she sat up straighter, scooting to support her back with the pillows. She looked back and forth between Mark and June, but neither of them said a word.

  “What happened?”

  June’s eyes slid to Mark for a second. “I’m not sure we should tell you.”

  “What is it, for God’s sake?” Emily asked.

  Mark sighed and rose, walking the few feet between his chair and the bed. She was almost frightened by his expression. He seemed defeated, broken.

  “Emily, Harry disappeared.”

  She hadn’t expected this news, and it took her a second to process what he was saying. “Wait, what? How?”

  Mark sighed and raised his hands. “We don’t know. He w
as in here, talking to Jim. Jim said he wanted to look at the Lewis papers, and Jim showed him what he could. Harry even offered to help you and Jim get through some of the work, and Jim told him he would talk to you about it. After that, Harry left him to his work and then…”

  She looked back and forth between them. “And then what?”

  June’s expression was still grim. “Apparently Harry left to go find the rest of us. This would have been when we were all outside with Chris, when he was showing us the gardens.”

  Mark frowned. “Somewhere between this bedroom and the gardens, he disappeared.”

  She held up her palms. “Wait—how do you know?”

  “Well, we’re guessing a little. We’re sure he left this bedroom intending to find the two of us, or at least that’s what Jim says. He was planning to head back into town, but he wanted to thank us first.” Mark frowned. “I thought Harry was still up here with Jim, but when we carried you in here, we realized something was wrong.”

  Harry had brought his bicycle in the enormous trunk of Mark’s car, and they’d taken it out when they got here. He’d said at the time that he wanted to ride home, since he liked to ride his bike every day.

  “What about his bike?” she asked.

  Mark shook his head. “It’s still out by the garage. And anyway, he would have needed one of us to unlock the gate to leave.” He paused. “Emily, we had to call the police. They’re here now, and they’ve brought search-and-rescue.”

  As if he’d summoned them, she heard dogs barking in the distance outside. Ignoring Mark and June’s alarm, she got out of bed and went to the window, looking down onto the lawn. Two police cars and several other vehicles were parked on the driveway. A group of men and women waited near the cars and trucks with several dogs.

  “I thought you had to wait twenty-four hours to report a missing person.”

  “Not at all, especially if the person is elderly or very young,” Mark said, “and it’s different if woods are involved, too.” He walked over to her and touched her hand. “Emily, the police want to question you. They’ve talked to all of us already.” He glanced back at June. “We told them you had heatstroke. June and Lara didn’t mention what you saw in the pool.”