“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Helena,” I said. “By then we may know more.”
It turned out I had multiple calls, one after the other. Everyone who had lost a pet to Sea-to-Sea Transport must have seen Kate’s segment tonight, as well as those who had been at the meeting at Sue’s ranch. Including Sue. But no one had any additional information. Yet.
“I’m going to turn the phone off tonight,” I said. “What famous person once said, Tomorrow is another day?”
“You say that,” Crane answered. “Let’s go to bed. I’ll take the dogs out.”
Amazingly, most of them understood what he’d said. Candy rushed to the side door, and Sky emerged from her den under the dining room table. The others materialized at Crane’s side like shadowy ghosts. They all went outside quietly, and I moved through the first floor rooms turning out lights.
I silenced my phone and dropped it into my purse. It was later than our usual bedtime. In fact, tomorrow was only an hour away. The next day promised to be busy in a good way.
~ * ~
I was so tired that it took me a while to fall asleep. I could turn out the lights in the house but not the one that shone in my brain. Question after question paraded through my mind.
Where had the driver of the transport van taken refuge? Would the state police find him? Who was missing money and a husky puppy? And where were Arden and the other dogs stolen from their trusting owners?
Finally I fell asleep only to wake about an hour later, having escaped from a terrifying nightmare. I lay still, wanting to forget it, but at the same time thinking parts of it were worth remembering.
I was back at Brent’s house walking alone in the vast wilderness that was his yard. Annica and Brent had left. I had tried in vain to keep up with them, but they were too fast for me. They’d gone through the gate and disappeared from my view.
Loosestrife Lane was a singularly dark road. I couldn’t see my car, but there was the pond in all its newly-restored glory, illuminated by a light from…somewhere. The moon, perhaps? But since when did the moon spill eerie yellowish-green light on the earth?
A sound of water broke through the silence, a loud splashing. A creature emerged from the pond. Seaweed hung from its fur like an uneven fringe, but its form was clear. A dark sable collie stood in the weeds and shook himself vigorously.
I felt the drops of water on my face and on my arms. And I was afraid.
Twenty-one
In the end, the day that had promised so much proved uneventful. The state trooper had taken temporary custody of the husky puppy, as his owners apparently were the only people who hadn’t seen Kate Brennan’s segment. The scam artist hadn’t been found, but there were plenty of places to hide in the woods of Maple Creek.
The van was, as I had suspected, totaled. With the Sea-to-Sea case out of my hands, I turned my attention to the mystery at Brent’s house and the search for Holly Wickersham.
Really, this summer would go down in my history as the summer of the myriad mysteries. I relived our exploration of the attic and ignored the weird ending my dream had conjured.
The makeup I assumed belonged to Holly bothered me, as did the comb and a toothbrush, along with a half-empty tubes of toothpaste. More than anything else we found in Holly’s boxes, the discovery of those essentials convinced me that Holly had left the house suddenly and perhaps not of her own will.
Or had she planned to return in an hour or two, then something untoward had happened?
We hadn’t found her handbag, which suggested that she had taken it with her.
A common thread ran through these speculations, the image of Holly trapped on the landing in the grip of terror.
I could create scenarios all day, but what I needed were facts. Fortunately I found a few informative sentences in a short biography at the end of Holly’s book, The Ghost of Sunburst Plantation.
Born in Oscoda, Michigan, Holly Wickersham had attended Michigan State University. She began her career as a journalist but soon discovered she preferred to write fiction. Her hobbies were folk music and traveling. Her next book, a supernatural mystery titled The Edelweiss Lure, was scheduled for release in 1990.
Had that book ever been published? I could easily find out.
The biography included a black and white photograph that might have been taken on the porch of Brent’s house. Holly wore a dark dress with cap sleeves, possibly black, and her shoulder-length blonde hair was slightly tousled…as if a wind gust had passed by at the very moment the camera captured her likeness. She was an attractive woman with the ghost of a smile on her lips.
Armed with a name, I searched the Internet and found that Holly had written seven novels of romantic suspense. Then in the summer of l998 she disappeared without a trace, like one of her own heroines. I had a good idea of the date—August 15th, the day when she had stopped writing notations on her calendar.
Holly’s life had turned into one of her own mysteries.
Had she been murdered or perhaps arranged her own disappearance? Or could she have lost her memory in an accident? None of her contemporaries seemed to have speculated on her fate. Eventually her books went out of print and her brief sojourn on the mystery scene slipped out of the public’s consciousness.
As Holly had lived in the house on Loosestrife Lane at one time, I thought Miss Eidt might have met her. She liked to showcase local authors. I might find other Wickersham books in the Gothic Nook. Therefore, a trip to the library was my next logical step.
Afterward, I planned to visit Lucy at Dark Gables. Now that I knew more about Holly and had access to her possessions, I could give Lucy more to work with. I suspected it was Holly’s emotions, her fear, that had seeped into the walls of the Brent’s house. With Lucy’s affinity for supernatural oddities, perhaps she would be able to add to our slowly forming picture of Holly Wickersham and with luck, we would be able to solve the mystery of her disappearance.
That was the project I would pursue while the authorities tried to track down the Sea-to-Sea man and return the missing dogs to their families.
~ * ~
At noon the Corners drowsed under an unrelenting sun. After a brief respite, we were back in the hot zone. The line in front of The Ice Cream Parlor was long, and the library’s parking lot was practically empty. I imagined Sagramore Lake would be crowded, but since I needed quiet, if not solitude, a sparsely peopled library appealed to me.
Dodging the reach of the sprinkler, I paused to give Blackberry the cat my customary greeting. She didn’t stir from her perch on the wicker chair but returned it with a cold, inimical stare that neither welcomed me nor warned me away from her domain.
I pushed open the door and was welcomed instead by cool air circulating in the large quiet space.
Miss Eidt was shelving books in the paperback carousel to the right of her desk. She always looked cool and lovely, especially in one of her pastel shirtwaist dresses, today the color of a clear blue sky.
“Are you changing the carousel theme?” I asked.
“Yes, to science-fiction,” she said. “I have a nice mix of classics and new releases. What are you in the mood for today?”
“Research. I’m still hoping to solve the mystery of Brent’s house on Loosestrife Lane. I’d like to use your marvelous vertical file.”
“Are you talking about the ghost in the pond?”
“This is something else. Did you ever hear of a Michigan author named Holly Wickersham? She was writing mysteries and Gothics in the nineteen-nineties.”
“I’m afraid not,” Miss Eidt said. “But Debbie and I aren’t finished cataloging the books in the Gothic Nook yet.”
“I should start there then.”
“What does this author have to do with Brent’s house?” she asked.
“She may have disappeared from there. When Lucy and I were on the staircase, she became aware of a disturbance.”
“Lucy is so lucky to be able to tune into the other world,” Miss Eidt said.
&
nbsp; “In a way.” I doubted that Lucy thought of sensing an unpleasant, long-departed emotion as lucky. “The problem is she can’t tell the cause of the disturbance.”
“I hope this hapless writer wasn’t walled up alive,” Miss Eidt said, revealing her rarely seen macabre side.
“Doesn’t that just happen in historical fiction?” I asked.
“It must have happened in real life. Somewhere. Sometime.”
“Well, I don’t think it happened in Foxglove Corners in the twentieth century.”
Now that Miss Eidt had brought it to my attention, though, I could only hope Holly’s fate hadn’t been that gruesome.
~ * ~
I had the Gothic Nook to myself. Readers who weren’t devoted to the genre would take one look at Miss Eidt’s collection and head for the flashy new offerings in the front of the library. They wouldn’t see the chocolates Miss Eidt had set out in antique candy dishes on vintage tables.
The collection had steadily grown as Miss Eidt and Debbie haunted estate sales and bookstores far and wide. Old paperbacks with small print and yellowish pages. Intriguing covers promising a world of Gothic thrills. Occasionally carefully mended covers. Hundreds of them. No wonder they were behind in their cataloguing.
The books weren’t shelved in alphabetical order. Mary Stewart shared space with Mary Higgins Clark and Rebecca. One could tell that some books were better than others, but here in the Gothic Nook all were equal.
The only way to find a specific title was to dive right in. As many covers resembled one another with a castle and a damsel-in-distress, I searched for the author’s name, Wickersham. Eventually I found The Edelweiss Lure, a novel of romantic suspense possibly published around the time of Holly’s disappearance.
This cover was different, depicting a German cuckoo clock and a girl in a long pale yellow dress. She held a tan dog in so close an embrace it seemed as if she would never let her go. All three spun around in a whirlwind that held them in captivity.
The cover art suggested time travel. It would make a provocative painting.
Twenty-two
By the time I reached Dark Gables, the sky had darkened, and thunder rumbled high over my head. I didn’t intend to stay long, only long enough to have my tea leaves read and convince Lucy to accompany me to Brent’s house.
Sky was watching my approach from the window, and Lucy stood in the doorway. I tucked The Edelweiss Lure into my purse, grabbed the umbrella, and walked quickly up to the porch, well ahead of the first raindrops.
“My goodness,” Lucy said. “You came out in the storm?”
“I was already out.”
She scanned the sky. “Nonetheless, you’ll stay till it blows over. Hurry inside.”
Sky circled happily around my skirt, nudging me playfully, adding her invitation to Lucy’s.
“I have a favor to ask you,” I said. “Your participation in an afternoon of ghost chasing. Not today though,” I added as a bolt of lightning zigzagged across the sky.
“That sounds intriguing. Let’s have tea and you can tell me about it.”
In the sun room, Lucy lit a crystal banker’s lamp that sat on her desk and turned on the teakettle.
“What ghosts are we going to catch?” she asked.
“The spirit of Holly Wickersham. Maybe. She lived in Brent’s new house a long time ago.”
“Are you sure she’s a spirit?”
“Pretty sure.”
I took The Edelweiss Lure out my shoulder bag and watched Lucy study the clock, girl, and dog swirling through the air on the cover.
“So Holly Wickersham was an author. Have you read it?”
“Not yet. I will tonight. I found a box of other books, all the same. They must have come from the publisher.”
Lucy nodded. “For promotion. What else did you find?”
“Probably everything that belonged to her. It was packed away and apparently forgotten.”
“I assume that’s why you think she’s deceased.”
“She must be.”
“Do you think she’s haunting the house?”
“I haven’t seen anything ghostly. Haven’t heard anything… Wait, that isn’t true. There was a scratching sound and the terror you felt on the landing. And the collie in the pond. One time I heard a siren. I’m not sure that could be classified as ghostly.”
“That’s plenty,” Lucy said. “You want me to go back to the house with you and see what else I can find or perhaps sense.”
“If you would. Two searchers are better than one.”
“We’ll have to have Brent’s permission,” she reminded me.
“He’ll give it. He may even offer to go with us. Will you come?”
The teakettle whistled. Sensing treats, Sky began to whine.
“I’d love to know more about a fellow author,” she said. “Especially if she experienced a traumatic happening that keeps her earthbound. When shall we go?”
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
Lucy nodded in agreement. “The sooner the better. Before the place is overrun with contractors. They can be loud enough to scare the most desperate ghost away.”
“I had the same thought.”
~ * ~
After dinner that night, I settled in the rocker with a cup of hot chocolate and The Edelweiss Lure. The old paperback was all I had to show for an hour and a half of library research. This book with its unique cover seemed to call to me. Besides, it was a time travel, which was one of my favorite genres. I would read the other book another day.
Misty padded into the living room and lay at my feet, followed by Crane with the Banner. This, I reflected, was a perfect way to end the day, with a good dinner, a better dessert—apple pie—and quiet time without interruption.
I turned to the first chapter and started reading.
I woke to the ticking of a clock in the adjoining room, lay still, and listened. Where did that sound come from? Nothing in the living room was capable of ticking, except the ornate cuckoo clock that hadn’t been working yesterday when I’d moved into the cottage. And even before that, according to the realtor.
“The clock comes with the house,” she’d said. “It starts and stops at odd times, so you can think of it as a wall decoration. Or you could have it repaired.”
“It’s magnificent,” I said. “I’ve never seen a cuckoo clock like it.”
“Oh, it’s different all right. There’s a story attached to it. You can take it with a grain of salt.” She paused, glancing at me as if seeking permission to continue. “The clock has to stay with the house. If it’s moved, bad luck will follow.”
“Bad luck for whom?” I asked.
“For the current tenant,” she said. “That’s you.”
I believed she was having fun at my expense and changed the subject.
The clock seemed to be fine now, rhythmic beats like water dripping from a downspout. What had brought it to life this morning? Didn’t someone first have to start the pendulum moving by hand? I might as well get up and see.
Heat pressed down on me as I swung out of the tangled sheets that had been clean and crisp seven hours ago. It was hot and muggy in the bedroom. The cottage had no air conditioning, only a small fan, but it was a house, snug and pretty with pale yellow siding and white trim. Best of all, it was mine for the summer.I crossed the small living room and stood in front of the clock. It was definitely working, its pendulum swinging languidly to and fro, the weights lower than they’d been last night.
~ * ~
“Is your book good?” Crane asked.
I looked up. “Well, I just started it. It’s about a clock.”
“Strange subject.”
“A haunted clock,” I added. “It’s supposed to be a time travel, but it sounds more like a traditional ghost story.”
“It’s your kind of book then,” he said.
“I think it will be.”
He turned to another page of the Banner. “I’ll let you get back to it.”
> ~ * ~
I couldn’t help but admire the clock’s workmanship, even though it was too large and heavy for the wall, too imposing for the small space. Unlike the classic cuckoo clock adorned with branches and birds, it invoked images of the sea.
At the top a mermaid with streaming hair reclined on a rock. Sea shells and sea horses cascaded down the sides. At the base sat an ornate treasure chest. Delicate edelweiss flowers shone like white stars amid the aquatic decorations. The clock supposedly played “Edelweiss” on the hour, according to a square of faded paper on the side.
The clock was ticking, but the time was wrong. The hands, previously frozen at one-thirty, had been advancing slowly. I moved them to the right time, six forty-five. Now, in fifteen minutes, the cuckoo would emerge from its house, the miniature Bavarian figures would twirl on their pedestal, and I would hear music.
I wondered. By what magic had the clock suddenly start running?
~ * ~
I took a sip of hot chocolate. It was just right, but it wouldn’t be for long if I let it set.
I would love to have a clock like that. But not one with a mind of its own. I already had a watch whose hands had run backward—until one day they stopped moving entirely. My timepiece had been found in the wildflower field on Huron Court, which says everything one needs to know about the object. I’d never understood its proclivity, but sometimes I wore the watch as a bracelet.
Perhaps Holly’s heroine—whatever her name was—would have better luck with her cuckoo clock.
I turned back to my book as my cell phone started ringing. I considered ignoring the call but couldn’t do that. There was too much going on in my life this summer, and all of it was important. I checked the caller ID. Sue Appleton.
“Were you watching the news?” she asked.
“No, reading.”
“It’ll be over now. The Sea-to-Sea man turned himself in this morning. He needed medical care.”
“Did he say what he did with the missing dogs?”
“He claims they were all delivered to their new owners.”
“That’s a lie,” I said.
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