The Pearl Earring

by Suzanne Weyn

  “No, I looked old,” Lily insisted. She was getting tired of being told that the things she noticed weren’t real. Why would she all of a sudden start seeing and hearing things? Amy and Daniella might want to find reasonable explanations for what was happening to her, but that didn’t mean that they were right! “I was old. I saw it in the mirror,” Lily repeated.

  “Lily, dear, how could that be?” Daniella asked. Her tone made Lily feel as if she was being spoken to like she was a child and she resented it.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “Then does it make sense?” Daniella went on.

  “No, I suppose it doesn’t make sense,” Lily replied.

  “Perhaps you’re not up to the strains of modeling,” Daniella said, wandering away from Lily to gaze out the large window of her apartment. “Maybe it would be better to stop than to tire you out even more. You’re overwrought. Not every girl has the strength and determination to make her dream come true.”

  “No! No! I’m up to it,” Lily insisted. “Really! I am.”

  Daniella turned around and nodded, though her expression remained serious. “I hope you are, because you’re quite beautiful. You really should be modeling.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have to return some of those phone calls, so why don’t you lie down or walk around a little; whatever would make you feel better. We’ll start again in fifteen minutes.”

  “All right,” Lily said. “I’m sort of cold. I’m going to step outside the apartment to warm up.”

  “As you wish.”

  Lily started toward the apartment door, but Daniella leaped in front of her, blocking the way.

  Lily stepped back, startled. “What’s wrong?”

  “You can’t leave.”

  “Why not?”

  Daniella held out her palm and stepped toward Lily. “The earrings. You can’t take them out of the apartment.”

  Removing the earrings, Lily instantly felt lighter, and laughed at her mistake. “I forgot I had them on. Sorry.”

  HEAT SLAMMED into Lily the moment she stepped out of the apartment. The sudden change in temperature made her dizzy, and she put her hand on the wall to steady herself.

  After a few slow breaths, Lily felt okay once more. She should call her mother and Aunt Amy. They’d want to know if she was all right.

  But there was no sense in telling them she was cold and exhausted and seeing images of her old age in the mirror. No reason to say that it was so frigid where she was that the moment she returned to the heat the change nearly knocked her to the floor.

  They’d only worry. Plus, they might not allow her to return.

  Lily decided it would be better to call at five when Amy was done with work and Lily was finished posing. Besides, she realized, patting her pocket, she’d left her phone in her bag back in the apartment.

  Lily felt a wave of frozen air blow up the stairs and wondered what was causing it.

  In the next moment, Julia stepped into view, stopping at the bottom landing of the stairs and looking up at Lily.

  Lily gasped, and stepped back.

  Julia was young once more in her gauzy dress. Her black curls dangled into her face, and her large dark eyes stared seriously up at Lily.

  Terrified, Lily backed up even more, flattening herself against Daniella’s apartment door. “What do you want with me?” Lily asked, her voice a dry croak.

  Julia lifted from the landing, effortlessly floating up until she hovered in the air over the stairs.

  Lily turned her head away, not wanting to see, but when she glanced back again, Julia still hung there, gazing down at her with dark, sorrowful eyes. “What do you want?” Lily tried again.

  Lily watched, both horrified and fascinated, as Julia’s face became a mass of lines. They traveled down her arms, spreading along her outspread fingers. The sound of splitting flesh drew Lily’s attention to Julia’s ankles and feet where criss-cross patterns emerged with lightning speed. Lily couldn’t look away.

  The hideous sight of Julia’s erupting flesh reminded Lily of an old painted building that had been allowed to blister and peel in the sun. “No!” Lily cried as pieces of Julia’s face flaked away, exposing the skeleton beneath.

  “No!” she shouted again. Julia’s hair was falling from her head, drifting down slowly like falling feathers. As patches fell away, the skin of her scalp was exposed, then it also began to flake away.

  Soon Julia was a floating skeleton in a white dress. Only her eyes remained in the skull socket.

  Whipping around, Lily pulled at the knob of Daniella’s apartment but it wouldn’t open. “Daniella!” she shouted, leaning on the doorbell. “Daniella!”

  LILY?” AUDREEN stood at the bottom of the landing. “What’s the matter?”

  Couldn’t Audreen see Julia? Lily pointed, and Julia’s skull smiled ghoulishly at her, and she vanished.

  Suddenly overwhelmed, Lily’s knees gave out and she dropped to the floor, feeling completely drained.

  Audreen climbed quickly to her side. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve … well you look ill.”

  “I’m so tired. And I don’t know why Daniella isn’t answering,” Lily said. “I know she’s there.”

  “Come to my place and rest,” Audreen said. Lily allowed Audreen to draw her to standing and help her down the flight of stairs.

  Audreen’s apartment was cooled by a small air conditioner in the window. It was enough to take the brutal edge off the heat but didn’t make the place feel like a freezer as Daniella’s apartment did.

  “I heard you shout when I stepped into the hall,” Audreen explained as she poured some cold tap water into a glass for Lily. “What happened?”

  “You didn’t see anyone else on the stairs with me?” Lily asked.

  “No …,” Audreen said. “But I felt a presence with us.”

  “There sure was,” Lily told her. Lily didn’t know if Audreen would believe her, or if she’d insist that Lily was imagining things like Aunt Amy and Daniella had. But she was so upset that she couldn’t help telling her everything. “Daniella gave me one of her portraits and the girl in the painting is haunting me.” She went on to tell Audreen about the sleepwalking and raining teeth and the video and the voices in the studio and how just now, the ghost had decayed right there in the air.

  “It sounds to me like Julia’s trying to tell you something about death and decay,” Audreen said.

  “But what?” Lily asked. A spirit with a message about death and decay wasn’t exactly comforting.

  “That’s one of the first things we’ll have to find out,” Audreen replied thoughtfully.

  Find out. Lily could have cried with relief. Someone wasn’t telling her she was crazy, but thought she could figure out what was going on! Lily didn’t feel quite as alone.

  “Where’s the portrait now?” Audreen asked.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but it disappeared this morning. Aunt Amy thought it reminded me of the Haunted Museum and gave me nightmares, so she wanted to give it back to Daniella. I’m sure we had it with us when we left this morning, but when we got here, it was just gone.”

  Audreen took the glass of water from Lily and set it on the table, then bent for something behind her couch. “Would this be it?” she asked, lifting the portrait.

  Surprised, Lily stood. “Yes! That’s it! How did you get it?”

  “When I came home this morning from the coffeehouse where I eat breakfast it was leaning against my door,” Audreen said, setting the portrait down to lean against the side of the couch.

  “I know Daniella just donated some of her portraits to the Haunted Museum and I wondered if this could be one of them. I went to the exhibit and thought I remembered this face. So I went upstairs to ask Daniella if it belonged to her because I thought it looked familiar. Didn’t you see me talking to her at her door?”

  “That was you? I couldn’t see who she was speaking to.”

  “That w
as me. She’s never been very neighborly, but she seemed annoyed that I’d bothered her and practically slammed the door in my face. She said she knew where all her portraits were and not to trouble her with nonsense again.”

  “That was rude,” Lily remarked. “She has this extremely cold room where she keeps lots and lots of this kind of painting. Some of them were painted hundreds of years ago.”

  “That’s probably why she has to keep them so cold,” Audreen suggested, “to preserve them.”

  “Probably.”

  Audreen lifted the painting again and froze, studying it carefully. Slowly, she turned the portrait so that Lily could see it. The background colors were exactly as they’d always been.

  But there was no one in the painting.

  “It seems your girl has flown away,” Audreen commented.

  “See?!” Lily cried, sitting alongside Audreen. “This painting is haunted!”

  “You don’t have to convince me. I saw you surrounded by the dead, remember?”

  “Where could she have gone?” Lily’s voice rose fearfully, becoming squeaky with anxiety. “Why is this happening?”

  “I don’t know. Where did you first see this portrait?”

  “The Haunted Museum. Daniella was there because she owns the portraits. She noticed how much I liked that painting in particular, so she gave it to me.”

  “Was there anything special about the painting? Or did anyone follow you out of the museum? Why would Daniella have given it to you?”

  “I noticed all the paintings in the collection had the same earrings, but that’s it. Why? Do you think all this has something to do with the museum, or with the paintings?”

  “It might be, either. But I know a lot of other spiritualists and mediums here in the city. We talk. I hear things about that Haunted Museum.”

  “What kinds of things?” Lily asked.

  “It’s a lot older than people realize — and a lot spookier, too. There are stories about objects vanishing from their displays and turning up elsewhere, sometimes years later. There are stories of items kind of following people home, things from the museum that they shouldn’t have touched.”

  Lily remembered the chill she’d felt when she’d studied the portraits. Had she touched one of them? “Do you mean this could all be my fault?”

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, does it?” Audreen said. “It’s more important to find out what’s going on. We need more information.”

  “Are you going to contact the spirit world?” Lily asked hopefully.

  “Not yet,” Audreen replied. “I’m going to start with the Internet. And you’d better get back to Daniella.”

  LILY ROSE from the couch, but she didn’t want to leave. She glanced at the painting that was now an empty background in a frame. She didn’t even want to go out into the hallway. What if Julia was out there?

  What if Lily just never went back?

  But there was the modeling contract to think of.

  “Come back here when you’re done and I’ll let you know if I find out anything,” Audreen said.

  Lily took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to calm herself. What was she so worried about?

  Daniella might snap once in a while, but she was basically thoughtful and nice. And the fashion shoot she offered was an awesome chance. Lily knew it could take her years to be seen in an ad otherwise. Her future as a model might not happen at all without this. “All right,” Lily said as she headed for the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

  Audreen was already absorbed in the glow of the screen as she sat with her laptop balanced on her lap. She didn’t seem to hear Lily.

  Lily turned back to repeat her good-bye, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a young female figure glide out of Audreen’s kitchen and into her bedroom.

  Lily froze in place, her hand still on the knob. “Audreen,” she said in a choked whisper. “Someone is in your apartment.”

  Looking up from her laptop, Audreen scowled. “Is it Julia?”

  Lily shook her head. This figure had blond hair piled high on her head and wore a blue embroidered gown. “It’s another girl from one of the portraits, though.” Lily recalled the girl called Ashlynne from the 1600s.

  Getting up slowly, Audreen joined Lily by the door. “Maybe you should go,” she suggested.

  “I’m not going to leave you here alone with … her,” Lily said.

  Nodding, Audreen quietly pulled open a drawer of her nearby desk and picked out a tied bundle of some kind of herb. “Sage,” she whispered. Taking out a box of matches from the same drawer, she lit the sage. Rather than burst into flame, the sage burned slowly, giving off lots of smoke and a pleasant aroma. “For some reason the dead don’t like this smoke. It’s a good way to clear a place of unwanted spirits.”

  Audreen ventured forward with the sage held in front of her. Her heart beating fast, Lily followed. She was close behind when Audreen entered the bedroom.

  They saw the ghostly figure immediately.

  She’d taken some daisies from a vase next to Audreen’s bed and was scattering them into the air, singing a sad song that sounded very old. “My love doth weep for I do sleep, evermore in the cold, hard ground.” She danced with her back to Audreen and Lily, tossing the daisy petals.

  “It doesn’t look like she’s in the cold, hard ground to me,” Audreen whispered with grim humor as she held the bundle of sage behind her back.

  The sound of Audreen’s voice startled the spirit, who whirled around to face them.

  “You’re pretty,” Ashlynne said to Lily, her voice a high singsong. “I was pretty, once.”

  “You’re still pretty,” Lily found the nerve to say. There was something so sorrowful about the spirit girl that Lily wanted to make her feel better.

  “Why are you here?” Audreen asked.

  When the spirit girl spoke again, her voice became a low growl. “Because she touched us!” The spirit girl pointed at Lily. “Her touch awoke Julia, and Julia woke up the rest of us.”

  “The rest?” Audreen asked.

  “The girls with the pearls. We can’t go to the other side because part of us still lives here on this earthly plane. In order to go through, we need all our life force, and she took it.”

  “Who took it?” Lily asked.

  “Dolores Agonie!” Ashlynne shouted, shaking her fist furiously. “Dolores Agonie! Curse her!”

  “How did she do it?” Audreen asked. “How did Dolores Agonie trap your spirits?”

  Ashlynne stopped and sniffed the air. Her face collapsed in an expression of disgust. “That smell! I have to leave.”

  Audreen tossed the bundle of sage behind her into the kitchen sink, but it was too late.

  “Nooooooooo!” Ashlynne shrieked as her once lovely form began changing into a charred wreck. Gray ash flew from her as it engulfed her from the feet up.

  Lily turned away in horror but still smelled the smoldering cinders as they piled up on the floor. Audreen stepped toward the ashes but they formed themselves into a column, rising into the air and escaping through the open window. Audreen and Lily watched the gray pillar swirling up into the sky until it disappeared.

  “The girls with the pearls?” Audreen repeated. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  Shaken by what she’d just seen, Lily slumped onto the bed, nodding her head.

  “What? What does it mean?” Audreen prodded.

  “The earrings,” Lily said. “Remember, I noticed they all had the same earrings? But what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s time to do a reading and see what I can find out.”

  LILY AND Audreen sat side by side on the couch as Audreen dealt out strange-looking cards facedown onto the low coffee table. “These might look like tarot cards,” Audreen said, “but they’re not. This deck is modeled on the one they found in King Tut’s tomb. It’s much more ancient than tarot, but the idea is the same.”

  When her cards were dealt, Audreen turned the fir
st card and let out a low whistle.

  “What?” Lily asked.

  “This is the death card.”

  Lily saw a skull with worms crawling out the eye sockets. The next card was a woman who wore a tall Egyptian hat, her eyes rimmed in kohl. “Nefertiti card,” Audreen told Lily. “The positive side of this card is beauty, but the negative side is excessive vanity.”

  Death and vanity. Somehow it seemed they were on the right track. Just then there was a loud knock on the door.

  Audreen opened the door and Amy entered. Immediately, her aunt rushed to sit beside Lily on the couch. “You’re so pale! Are you sick?” Amy asked, distressed.

  Audreen and Lily told Amy what they’d just experienced and about Julia having escaped from the painting. “I guess when Lily touched that painting of Julia, she stirred up some unhappy spirits,” Audreen said.

  “Don’t fill her head with all your craziness,” Amy insisted. “Next you’ll be charging us a hundred dollars an hour to get rid of the evil spirits.”

  “I’m not charging anyone anything,” Audreen defended herself.

  “She’s helping me with this haunting,” Lily said.

  “And what’s all this?” Amy asked, sweeping her hands above the cards on the coffee table.

  “I’m just trying to figure out what’s happening,” Audreen replied. “Lily’s in real danger.”

  “Believing a faker like you is the only danger she’s in,” Amy shot back.

  “Aunt Amy, stop,” Lily said. “We’re not making this up. Look at the painting now!”

  Audreen handed the painting to Amy. Lily was relieved that Julia remained missing from the painting.

  Still looking doubtful, Amy examined the painting, turning it front and back. Lily hoped this would be enough to change her aunt’s mind. What could Amy say after seeing this proof? She had to be convinced now.

  “I’m sorry, but you could have rigged this up,” Amy said, giving the painting back to Audreen. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

  “I’d have to be a fast worker to paint that this morning with enough time for it to dry,” Audreen said. “Plus, I didn’t know anything about any of this until just now.”