Phantom in the Pond

by Dorothy Bodoin

  I went over the memories again. Micah… The tornado… No; that was all. I sat back and drew my conclusions.

  Micah didn’t kill Holly, at least not at that time. Tristan, the collie, may have perished in the tornado. Holly survived.

  But darn and double darn! She still vanished. I wasn’t any closer to discovering her fate. And that wasn’t likely to change. I could hardly throw myself down the stairs of Brent’s house hoping the dream would continue and give me the ‘what happened afterward.’ I had to keep looking for answers, to look elsewhere.

  Then I remembered Holly’s ‘Anything’ book, her journal. I could have been reading it at the moment, but Annica had it. If she’d remembered. At least I hoped she’d taken it out of the house. I reached for my phone to call her, then remembered she was still working at Clovers.

  In the mid-afternoon, Lucy came over with a box from the Hometown Bakery. My friends knew how to cheer me. This morning Camille had brought a loaf of banana bread, a favorite of mine, created with her own recipe.

  Lucy set the box on the dining room table. The collies went into their traditional welcome frenzy, eventually settling, which allowed Lucy and me to hear ourselves talking.

  “What did you bring?” I asked.

  “Chocolate meringue tarts. I’ll make the tea. We need to see what the leaves know.”

  I rose. “I can do it. I’m not an invalid.”

  But every joint, every muscle rebelled as I made my painful way to the kitchen, trailed by Candy and Misty.

  Lucy sat at the oak table while I filled the teakettle with water and brought my plainest teacups down from the cupboard. I preferred floral patterned bone china, but Lucy required a white background for her tea leaf formations. I cut the string on the bakery box and exclaimed over the chocolate tarts, another favorite of mine.

  “They look so good,” I said, sitting opposite her. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you, Lucy. Yesterday when I fell I had a dream. Well, it was more than a dream.”

  “What was it?”

  How could I do it justice? “It was an out-of-body experience. No, wait. That isn’t quite right. I fell into the body of Holly Wickersham. I was her. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so. You stepped into Holly’s life for a moment.”

  “It couldn’t have been only a dream. It was too real, and I remember every detail, as if it actually happened to me. Maybe it did.”

  I told her about the strange experience while the teakettle’s whistle cut into the silence, and Star howled in response from the living room.

  “That’s like what happened to me, without the bells and whistles,” Lucy said. “I was flying through the air along with furniture and branches and a dog. I felt so terribly ill, and there was no Micah to come to my assistance. I never saw Holly and never left my own body.

  “My problem is that I came to before anything could happen. Apparently Micah had just found Holly some distance from the house. The dog wasn’t with her. He was carrying her to safety when I woke up.”

  “Brent carried you to the sofa,” Lucy said. “That was such a terrible time. We didn’t know if you were still alive, if you’d broken your arm or leg. One minute you were standing on the landing. The next you were falling. It happened so fast. Like a tornado.”

  “Yes. Exactly like that.”

  “Your experience reinforces the terror I felt on the landing,” Lucy said. “In your dream, Holly was in an upstairs room writing. It was summer. The dog was probably outside—”

  If that were the case, the scratching sound couldn’t be Tristan trying to free himself from behind a closed door.

  I thought of something else. How did my out-of-this-world experience mesh with what Micah had told me about Holly and the tornado? Which version should I believe?

  My own, I thought.

  Lucy continued. “Holly heard the siren and possibly saw the funnel cloud through the landing window. The original might have been plain glass. She would have had a clear view.”

  And the landing absorbed her terror and kept it fresh for someone at a future time with Lucy’s abilities.

  “Holly panicked,” I said. “She didn’t have time to escape to the basement. She was thrown out of her house. But I didn’t notice any sign of damage.”

  “That happened ages ago,” Lucy said. “The owner at the time would have made repairs.”

  “I was ready to believe Holly had died in the tornado. Now, with my dream or vision or whatever you’d call it, I’m not so sure. That means we still have a mystery to solve.”

  “Holly isn’t at peace,” Lucy said. “She left something undone. And she wants us to help her.”

  ~ * ~

  The somber mood of our visit changed as Lucy interpreted the formations in my teacup. My fortune was a mixture of good and bad. The bad was the initial ‘V’ representing Veronica the Viper. She was still on the scene and, if the tea leaves told the truth, dangerously close to my home. Crane hadn’t mentioned her. I didn’t think he would.

  “I don’t know why you’re concerned about Veronica,” Lucy said. “It’s obvious. Crane is devoted to you.”

  “She’s the one who’s in my cup.”

  “Maybe she’s going to do you a good turn.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “You still have a good fortune. You’ll get your wish. You’re going to take a trip. I still see the overflowing basket that was in your last cup. But I see clouds.”

  “Storm clouds?”

  “Stormy skies perhaps. Trouble down the line. You have an enemy.” She pointed to a long light leaf.

  “I always have an enemy somewhere,” I said. “Do I defeat him?”

  “The leaves don’t say.”

  “Well, then, I’ll hope for the best. Let’s each have another tart.”

  ~ * ~

  I had two more visitors that day. Annica brought four fried chicken dinners from Clovers, and Holly’s ‘Anything’ Book. Brent came with her, carrying an apple pie and a shopping bag from Pluto’s.

  I took the book from Annica’s hand eagerly. “Did you read it?” I asked.

  “Well, sure. It answers some of our questions. I found out that Holly had another boyfriend, but you’ll want to read it yourself. How are you feeling?”

  “Better.”

  “I’m beginning to think my house has a curse on it,” Brent announced as he doled out treats to my ravenous pack.

  “Just beginning to?” I asked.

  “It’s like someone doesn’t want to see my Collie House succeed.”

  “Did another contractor quit?” I asked.

  “No, the guys are hard at work, but my caretaker backed out of the deal. You’ll never guess what happened?”

  “She saw a ghost?”

  “Not even close. Miss Coulder accepted a marriage proposal. She’s moving to Florida.”

  “For heaven’s sake.”

  “You’ll still have time to find someone else while the contractor works on the house,” Annica said.

  “I was getting discouraged. Then I looked over my collies, the senior fringe. They’re counting on me. I can’t let them down.”

  “So it’s sail on, sail on, and on,” I said.

  I didn’t remind Brent that his collies were quite likely happy in his barn, that they had no way of knowing about the house on Loosestrife Lane and the green acreage and the cool pond with the largest weeping willow tree in Foxglove Corners to lie under.

  I longed to be back on Brent’s property, to bring out a lawn chair and watch the gold fish in the pond. To read or rest or simply dream.

  Even though I was afraid.

  Forty

  “Since we invited ourselves to dinner, we thought we’d bring the food,” Brent said scooping up a handful of cashews. “I didn’t think you’d feel up to cooking after your fall.”

  He was right about that. I’d brought two steaks out to defrost, the easiest meal I could think of for Crane and me, but Clovers’ fare was infinit
ely better.

  “Mary Jeanne just came back from visiting her cousin in Louisiana,” Annica said. “She brought back a fantastic recipe for fried chicken. I had to hurry and make up our dinners before we sold out.”

  Brent hovered over the table. “It sure smells good.”

  “She made her cousin’s prize-winning coconut cake, too, but we did sell out of that.”

  I surveyed the table with a hostess’ critical eye. The food was plain but eminently appetizing, as was a surprise side, the pizza Crane had brought home, thinking, like Brent, that I wouldn’t want to make dinner. Annica had taken over my kitchen to toss a salad and bake cornbread muffins. I was being treated like an invalid, and our simple dinner took on the spirit of a celebration.

  “Fried chicken and pizza,” Brent said. “That’s my kind of diet.”

  I lit the candles in the antique candleholders that had belonged to Crane’s Civil War era ancestress, Rebecca Ferguson. As I transferred the contents of the Clovers boxes onto plates, I glanced at the ‘Anything’ book. It lay on the credenza, tantalizing me with its unread pages. But I couldn’t be rude. I’d have to wait until my friends departed, before I could read the entries. Annica refused to say anything more about the book, claiming she didn’t want to spoil the suspense, but the fact that Holly had another boyfriend opened a wealth of new possibilities.

  Darn it all! I was the one who had found it. Oh well, it would make excellent before-bed reading.

  “We don’t want to miss the news tonight,” Brent said. “Did you hear what happened to Kate Brennan?”

  “No, what?”

  “She was in an accident last night. A hit-and-run.”

  “Oh, no. Is she hurt?”

  “I heard she was in stable condition,” he said. “David Ardmore is taking over her segment.”

  “And the investigation, too? Because some of the dogs are still missing, and no one ever found O’Meara’s partner.”

  “No one knows where O’Meara is,” Brent added.

  Annica brought in the beverages, and we took our places, Crane at the head of the table.

  “We’ll find out tonight,” Brent said. “Remember, Lyle and Marguerite are still missing one of their dogs, Lady.”

  “I wonder…” I helped myself to a cornbread muffin and passed the basket. “No, that’s too far-fetched.”

  “What is it, honey?” Crane asked.

  “I just wondered if the two incidents were related. If by some chance Kate was targeted because of the investigation.”

  “Mmm,” Annica said. “I’ll bet that’s what happened. O’Meara ran her down.”

  “Unfortunately hit-and-runs are a dime a dozen,” Crane pointed out. “Just like road rage. People don’t want to get in trouble. If there were no witnesses, they just take off.”

  “There’s a thousand dollar reward for information about the accident,” Brent added. “It’s expected to go up. Kate’s fans are sending in donations.”

  “The people who were affected by Sea-to-Sea should get together again,” I said, thinking of the dogs like Lady who were still unaccounted for. “I’ll call Helena and see if she’ll host another meeting.”

  Finally Brent and Annica departed on a wave of bonhomie. I blew out the candles, cleaned the kitchen for the quick morning breakfast I always cooked for Crane, and saw that a good portion of the evening remained. I opened Holly’s ‘Anything’ book and began to read.

  At first the entries were a disappointment. Holly recorded her writing progress which slowed down dramatically as summer came. Instead of working, she lay in the backyard of her shady new Victorian rental or strolled on Sagramore Beach.

  In Holly’s time, the trees must have been younger and the landscape tamed. Her favorite place to sit was in front of the fish pond with the water fresh, the rock garden flowers flourishing, and the flamingoes newly painted a silvery peach color.

  She was writing in a different genre, a western saga, and it wasn’t going well.

  The first reference to a man, Mark, came in July. They met at a peach festival.

  Her new boyfriend?

  After that, Mark’s name appeared on every page. “I think he may be the One,” she wrote. “Although it’s early. Time will tell.”

  After that initial meeting, they were often together, mostly dining out in upscale restaurants; she recorded that Micah was jealous. She didn’t tell him about Mark, only that she was busy writing.

  I skimmed through pages detailing dates—summer concerts, romantic picnics, movies—then came across this telling entry: ‘I’m taking the dog and driving up to Mackinac City to meet Mark this weekend,’ she wrote.

  It was August 15, the day the tornado struck.

  ~ * ~

  Going up and down the stairs was a painful chore. By then, I should have felt better, not worse. Oddly enough, when I had distractions, like company for dinner, I didn’t think about how much it hurt to put one foot after another. My discomfort was especially worse in the moments after I got out of bed.

  The next morning I paused at the top of the staircase frozen by the rush of memories that assailed me. A shape at my side, barely discernible in my peripheral vision. The sickening sensation of a stair melting to nothingness under my feet. A fall into darkness. Into the body of Holly Wickersham.

  Something was wrong with this version of the incident, and suddenly I knew what it was. Misty hadn’t caused me to lose my balance. She wasn’t the shape. There was another dog on the stairs. I knew this even without having seen her on the landing.

  Oh, but Misty was there. Lucy, Annica, and Brent had told me that I’d fallen on top of her. Now that I was remembering more details, I had heard Misty screech, a high pitched cry I’d never heard before.

  What exactly had happened?

  What if two shapes had brushed against me just before I fell? Misty and the other dog, Holly’s collie, Tristan, who haunted the pool. Or was there just one shape, the phantom collie?

  It wasn’t the house that was dangerous; it was the revenants who lurked in the shadows of time, waiting to cause a catastrophe. But why they’d wish to harm me was a mystery.

  I could have sustained more than cuts and bruises in my fall. I could have lost my life.

  But was a fall so unusual? People fell all the time. Once a Foxglove Corners woman had fallen down a flight of basement stairs, and a deluded friend had blamed a collie, my own Gemmy, for leaving a dog toy underfoot.

  Almost never did a phantom cause a fall. As far as I knew.

  Crane’s voice cut through my meanderings. “Ready for pancakes, Jennet?”

  Crane was the cook this morning. His inquiry stirred the collies to action. They all began to bark at once.

  “He said Jennet, not dogs,” I had to say that even if no one was there to hear it.

  I followed the delicious breakfast smell of bacon into the kitchen where Crane ladled pancakes onto my plate. “It’s lucky you’re not going to school this morning,” he said. “The kids would tease you.”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Not bad. Just manhandled.”

  “The story would be: I fell, having been pushed by a ghost.”

  “They’d never believe that. By the way, is that what you believe?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Whatever happened, I hope you’re going to boycott Brent’s place from now on. That fall may be the tip of the iceberg.”

  I cut my pancakes in sections and reached for the syrup.

  How could I answer him? I planned to return as soon as I could walk without pain.

  Forty-one

  I resolved that the next time I set foot in Brent’s house, Misty would be at my side. Not that she’d been helpful when I’d fallen, but I had faith in her abilities or sixth sense or whatever I chose to call it. She had heard the eerie scratching sound inside the house, had seen the phantom dog’s face reflected in the pond, and I believed she was aware of shadow figures from another dimension that walked the halls.


  I didn’t know how she could protect me from malign forces, but knew I’d feel safer if she were with me. As for Holly, she had more to tell me. I couldn’t help her or Brent or the collies who waited to move into their new home until I knew the whole story and neutralized the evil vapors that lived on in the house.

  Of course I didn’t discuss my plans with Crane. First, at present they were nebulous. Then I told myself that I didn’t want him to worry about me. He had enough stress every day as he patrolled the roads and by-roads of Foxglove Corners. Besides, chances were the house had already done its worst and there would be no second incident.

  Or so I told myself.

  In the meantime, my bruises faded, and I found I could move without pain. Kate Brennan returned to the air with her arm in a sling, but as bright and energetic as ever. She promised an imminent update on the Sea-to-Sea case and the slippery Duncan O’Meara. And June gave way to July.

  The days were long and sultry. Brent kept searching for his caretaker with mixed results. As soon as he interviewed a likely prospect, a complication reared its head. In the meantime, little by little, the contractor completed the work on the house with no untoward incidents. Shiny new kitchen appliances replaced the old outdated ones, the walls glowed with fresh paint, and the new windows sparkled.

  “It’s in move-in condition,” Brent said. “If only we could move in.”

  That week Helena invited the Sea-to-Sea victims to an impromptu gathering at her house. One person was new, a lady with silver curls and a quiet manner, named Abby Rineland who had never received the beagle puppy she had purchased. Marguerite had found her on Facebook and reached out to her.

  As the evening was warm, Helena gathered us together in her patio crowded with pots of fragrant colorful annuals and hanging ferns. Arden, looking freshly groomed, greeted each of the guests with flattened ears and a vigorously wagging tail, then lay at Helena’s feet, her paws crossed. She was a perfect lady. It hadn’t taken her long to adjust to her new home.

  “You’re one of the lucky ones, Helena,” Lyle said, giving Arden a rough pat on the head. “You have your dog.”