He released her.
“I’m sorry.” Thea smoothed her dress, staring down at her shoes in embarrassment and not much different had they been caught stealing kisses behind a woodshed.
There was no answer, but she could hear him breathe.
“I’m sorry also for your loss,” she added, lifting her eyes.
He offered an awkward, sad smile, as if unsure how to accept condolences. His eyes shifted toward the house, toward the gawkers come to stare at his dead sister’s body.
Thea backed away another step.
Simeon didn’t follow her. Instead, he seemed to consider the house, the funeral, and all it implied. His hand reached for the door to his shed, and he opened it.
Before Thea could react, before she could say a word to keep him before her, to offer her companionship to the house or express more condolences, Simeon disappeared into the shed.
The door closed.
Firm.
It was a stunning shift from the concerned man who’d held her against him just moments before to a man whose lost expression was a perfect mirror of her own.
The letter stared up at her, the scrolling penmanship staggered and wavy, indicative of the author’s shaky hand. Thea was already more than a bit disturbed by Mrs. Brummel’s ghost story of yesterday—this Misty Wayfair, a wandering spirit—and her discomforting time at Mary Coyle’s funeral. Why she tortured herself by slipping the well-read letter from her valise and opening it, Thea couldn’t explain. It was a repeated torture, almost addictive in its picking at the pain while reviving a thin splinter of hope. There would be no comfort in the words, no solace. Only fuel to continue the slow, ever-present coals smoldering in her soul.
“You were twelve.”
Those three words split Thea’s life into two broken halves. Life before the Mendelsohns and life after. She perched on the edge of the bed in the stark boardinghouse room, her weight causing the mattress to sag.
“It was our Christian duty to take you.”
Her eyes skimmed the words. At twelve, the Mendelsohns had whisked her from the only home she could recall, and her new life had begun.
A nervous prick traversed with rapidity up Thea’s spine as she folded the last letter from Mrs. Mendelsohn—a letter she’d found after the woman died—and jammed it back into her valise. Her breaths coming in short, quick sniffs, Thea bolted from the bed to the washbasin on the stand by the bureau. Lifting the heavy, white crock, she poured tepid water into the matching bowl.
She splashed water on her face. The wetness jolted Thea from thoughts that trapped her in a spiral of remembrances. Tugging her downward, threatening to become more alive than Misty Wayfair’s spirit. More alive than her own rapidly throbbing heart.
Thea turned to the mirror on the bureau, its edges blackened with age, the oak frame that held it in place scrolled and swooped around it. Water dripped down her cheeks. Deep, brown eyes stared back at her. She was Dorothea Reed. That was, for the most part, all she knew. Thea reached up and pushed light brown hair away from her face. Straight hair, unimpressive and mousy, barely held in place by pins.
Mrs. Brummel might be worried that Thea would unintentionally encounter Misty Wayfair in the forest. But Thea knew the only one whose soul she ever questioned was that of a woman who shared her features. A vague, blurry image in Thea’s mind. A feminine voice with no distinguishable tone. Perhaps kind, perhaps not. But the one who’d given Thea her name, Dorothea, and left her on the steps of the orphan home. She was why Thea had come to Pleasant Valley, after all. To find her, or to lay her to rest for good.
Most people did not wish their mother dead. But Thea did. More than anything she’d ever wanted. She wished to lay the woman to rest along with the questions, the betrayal, and worst of all, the series of circumstances her mother had put into play the day she left a little girl to sit on a stair and then walked away.
Chapter 5
Heidi
The lodge house for Lane Landings rose two stories, was built of log, and had as many angles and crevices as a creative architect could draw into its blueprints. Heidi padded across the wood floor and into the kitchen. The expanse of three broad windows over the sink revealed a view of the lake, bordered by pine and oak trees with maples and poplar dotting in and out amongst them. She paused for a moment to take it all in before turning to the Bunn coffeemaker and tugging the pot from its warmer.
Heidi liked her coffee black, though something about the Northwoods brought out the cozy in her. She adjusted a red-and-navy plaid blanket she’d wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl and retrieved heavy whipping cream from the stainless-steel fridge. Creamy goodness swirled in the Costa Rican blend, and as she lifted the pottery mug to her lips, Heidi wondered briefly if Heaven might be a little bit like this.
She slid onto a barstool. Taking another sip of her coffee, she tugged the letter from her flannel pajama bottom’s pocket.
The handwriting was shaky across the front of the envelope. Heidi ran a finger across it, as if somehow by doing so it would revive old memories long repressed. Memories she would want to remember, instead of the ones she tried to forget.
Heidi Loretta Lane.
Her name in the address field was formal, and she could remember hearing her mother call it with that stern edge in her voice. Loretta Lane. The woman she was named after. Heidi stared at the Return to corner of the envelope.
L. L.
Briar Ridge Memory Care
Pleasant Valley, WI
Years with barely a word from her, and then the letter had shown up in Heidi’s mailbox. Cryptic. Almost desperate.
“Please. You must come.”
So she had. Out of obligation, some concern, and definitely curiosity. Why dementia-ridden Loretta Lane wanted her here in Pleasant Valley was a mystery.
“I’m heading into town.” Vicki’s strident voice matched the pace of her march into the kitchen.
Flustered, Heidi jammed the envelope and its contents back into her pocket.
Vicki didn’t seem to notice Heidi’s sneaky gestures as her hand burrowed in a blue canvas tote on the counter that was crammed with junk mail, rubber bands, odds and ends, and—interesting—Vicki pulled out a ring of keys. It was an unorganized place for her typically systematic sister.
Heidi quirked an eyebrow at her frazzled sibling. Vicki jammed the keys into her purse and shot a stern look toward Heidi.
“We’ve got new boarders for Cabin Two coming in at ten a.m. for early check-in. Brad cleaned it last night, but I need you to take towels over there. Four bath, two hand, and two washcloths.”
Heidi took a sip of her coffee and watched her sister over the rim of the mug.
Vicki continued as she swiped some renegade papers from the opposite counter and stuffed them in her purse. “The boarders upstairs in the main lodge will need new towels. I typically deliver them after lunch and pull the dirty ones. Think you can handle that?”
Heidi bit back a smile and raised her mug. “Towel duty. Got it.”
Vicki froze and eyed her. The assessment was accompanied by a sigh through her nose. “You should visit Mom too.”
“I will.” Infusing a chipper nonchalance into her voice was what Heidi did best.
Vicki blinked. “When I get back tonight, I’ll take you through the ins and outs of running day-to-day chores for the lodge.”
“Capeesh.” Heidi sipped more coffee, leaning against the counter on her elbows and staring out the windows at the view.
Vicki paused, eyed Heidi once more for good measure, and frowned.
“Go!” Heidi smiled, trying to add warmth to her eyes, anything to get her sister to feel reassured enough to leave. “I’ve got the towels.”
“Fine.” Vicki spun and headed out of the open kitchen to the front door. She paused, her hand on the knob, and attempted a smile. “Mom will be happy to see you, you know.”
“I know.” Heidi nodded.
The door closed.
If Mom r
emembered her. Heidi blinked fast to push back renegade moisture in her eyes. She didn’t want to be here. To be with family, to run a lodge, to be reminded whether by frank words or inference that she always fell just short. Like the prodigal son compared to his perfect older brother.
Heidi cleared her throat, her voice echoing in the empty room. She needed to get busy so she didn’t think too much. Easy morning chores for Vicki and then she’d reread the letter Mom had penned to her. Every single nonsensical word that ended with her plea for Heidi to come.
Returning to her room, she slipped on a pair of black leggings and a buffalo-checked flannel shirt. Socks, knee-high wine-colored boots to offset the red-and-black shirt, and she felt her confidence growing. A few minutes in the bathroom fixed her face, lip gloss, mascara, and a bit of chocolate eyeliner to emphasize her eyes. Hair? Check. It was straight and colored golden blond with the tips dipped in royal blue. She’d seen Vicki eyeing her hair last night. It was well dyed, professional and classy, but the blue? Heidi ran a brush through it before fingering in some styling paste to give it texture. Vicki probably wasn’t a fan of the blue any more than she was a fan of the tattoos.
Heidi exited the attached bathroom and grabbed her cellphone from the nightstand. She hesitated. The photo album beneath her phone stared up at her and seemed to beg to be opened again. A small shiver wrestled Heidi’s body. What was normally compelling now gave her pause. Then again—Heidi reached for the album—maybe she’d overreacted yesterday. Maybe Connie Crawford had as well. A postmortem photograph from the early 1900s couldn’t possibly be her mirror image. Not if one really looked close.
She sank onto a chair and opened the musty volume. The moment she did, Heidi could almost sense the souls of the dead rising from the pages, whispering in her ear, floating about the room, pleading to have their lives rediscovered.
“Stay dead,” Heidi whispered, then laughed at herself. She wasn’t superstitious. Being raised in a very Christian home, with Dad being a pastor and Mom a church secretary, there wasn’t much room for considering ghosts as legit human spirits. Still . . . Heidi ran fingers over the two-toned photograph of a middle-aged woman in starched silk. Still, they had stories. At one time, they had lived, hoped, dreamed, wept, and laughed. Moments lost in the funnel of time. Tiny granules of sand that fell and were lost.
She turned to the page with her supposed doppelgänger. Again, as before, Heidi’s breath was snatched away. She sucked in more oxygen as she studied the photograph. There were actually two women in the picture, though Heidi had been so distracted yesterday she’d hardly looked at the one. The woman to the left—who was very obviously alive by the life in her eyes—was a raven-haired beauty. Thick lashes, perfectly curved lips, iridescent eyes. Beside her, the dead woman with painted-on eyes.
There was no mistaking the similarities. Heidi studied it, even reaching for her cellphone and flicking on its flashlight, though her bedroom was already filled with daylight. Yes. The hair appeared to be the same color as hers, sans hair dye, a mousier blond. The eyes, a perfect almond-shaped imitation. A heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, narrow chin, and full lips. The mole. Heidi leaned closer. It was . . . phenomenal. She really was the woman in that picture! Minus the lifeless face, of course, the pasty skin, and the slightly tilted head that gave her a bit of a zombie-like aura.
Heidi reached between the delicate paper-page frame that held the cardboard photograph in place. She gently tugged it out. The photograph’s footer was simple, the words scrolled in antique print.
Amos Bros. Photography
Pleasant Valley, WI, 1908
Interesting. It was a local photograph. Heidi scrunched her face, recalling the conversation with Connie Crawford. Yes, she’d mentioned going to estate and garage sales.
Heidi flipped the photo over. A feminine script was scrawled on the back of it, as if whoever had owned the photograph saw fit to record details in the event time attempted to erase them.
Dorothea Reed — photographer
Misty Wayfair
She ran her index finger over the faded ink. Misty Wayfair. Perhaps the name of the dead woman in the photograph? Or the living? Misty was a rather odd name for the turn of the century, but then what did she know? Heidi turned the picture back so she could stare into the dead features of her Edwardian look-alike.
“Are you Misty?” Her whisper broke the silence.
Heidi waited, even though she knew the woman wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t say “yes” with applause for being identified, or shriek in protest and deny the name as hers.
There was no answer.
Only the ticking of the wall clock, the sound of a dehumidifier in the hall kicking in, and—
Heidi’s eyes lifted. Sensing she was being watched. The hairs on her arms prickled. A coolness settled over her, chilled from the awareness of being very alone and yet, not alone at all. She cast glances into the corners of the bedroom, as if an apparition might appear and renounce everything Heidi had ever believed about the nonexistence of ghosts.
She tucked the photograph between the pages, not bothering to insert it back into its paper frame. The album closed with a thud. Heidi stood, clutching it.
Where are you?
She glanced toward her open bedroom door. The hallway was lit, and daylight was not a friend to ghosts. And yet Heidi knew she was not alone. She took a step forward, then froze.
The window.
A woman at the window with massive dark eyes hollowed further by huge shadows beneath them. Her head tilted to the side, watching. Watching her.
Heidi’s scream ripped from her throat, gargled like she was being strangled. Not unlike waking from a nightmare mid-scream and clawing at the air to rake fingernails across the face of an imaginary foe.
The album dropped from her hands.
It was all in slow motion. The album falling to the floor. The photograph floating from its pages and sliding across the carpet. Heidi’s second attempt at a scream. And suddenly, it was all over.
The woman had vanished, as though she’d never been there.
Heidi stood shaking in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around her body.
She looked down. Down at the lifeless woman in the photograph. The woman who looked just like her. The woman who had stood outside her window, soulless eyes peering in.
Heidi pressed the gas pedal down as she pulled away from the lodge. She glanced behind her, thoroughly convinced the woman in the window was chasing her down the curved driveway, screaming with a gaping mouth in a chasm so large an unsuspecting victim could fall into it and never return. Thick forest rose on either side of the drive, unwelcoming to the sunlight that tried to pierce through and warm the earth. She paused only a moment at the end of the drive before turning toward town.
A mile down the road, the clunk-clunk sound coming from a back rear tire alerted Heidi to more problems.
“For all that’s holy and sane and great dane!” Heidi had learned creative cussing from her father, who thought darn was enough to blacklist a person’s soul. She pulled the car onto the shoulder and switched on her hazard lights. Heidi jumped out of the vehicle and rounded it. She couldn’t see anything at the back—at least nothing obvious to indicate the source of the clunking sound. Hopping back in, she unhooked her iPhone from its clip on the dash and speed-dialed.
She’d seen her brother-in-law, Brad, for all of five minutes last night. Good thing he liked her and was a mechanic. After an assurance either he or someone would be out to meet her to take a look and give her a tow if needed, Heidi settled in her car to wait.
Alone.
On the side of the road.
She flicked the locks.
On retrospect, she should have called the cops. But then the woman had vanished. Completely. She’d simply been there one moment and evaporated the next. You couldn’t call the police on a ghost, and, assuming logic prevailed and it wasn’t a ghost, the woman had done nothing wrong besides peek in her window.
Heidi blew a breath through her lips. It was probably a lodge guest. Wondering where their towels were. The ones Heidi hadn’t bothered to swap out in her mad dash to leave it all behind.
She glanced into the woods through the passenger side window, then through the driver’s side window at the woods on the other side of the road. Maybe this was why she preferred Chicago. A person could see there. Buildings, public transportation, huge billboards, and lights. It was occupied by humanity. Here, it was just trees and trees and more trees, with patches of small fields in between them. Like little glimmers of openings before being suffocated by woods again.
Movement at the corner of her eye startled her. Heidi stiffened, staring into the trees. She sagged with relief. A tawny doe stepped from the woods, her eyes huge. Behind her, a gangly fawn, spots dotting its fur like a paintbrush had slapped on white paint. Heidi shifted in her seat, and the doe caught sight of her movement. With a bound, she darted across the road, her fawn scampering behind her, long legs tripping and skidding as it went.
More silence, and then finally, ahead in the distance, a pickup truck heading her way. Heidi was sure it was Brad, until it came closer into view. A gray Silverado, its front fender rusted where it was dented. It pulled to the side of the road, the hood of the truck nose to nose with the hood of Heidi’s much smaller Honda Civic.
The man in the driver’s seat was not her brother-in-law. Heidi rechecked the locks as she surveyed the forms through the truck’s windshield. Odd. A yellow tabby cat perched on the dash, more of a kitten really, its yellow eyes studying her as intently as Heidi studied it. The driver’s side door opened, and before the human could descend from the vehicle, a dog leaped out. A long-haired mutt that looked to be a cross between a collie and maybe a German shepherd?
Oh heavens. The dog was missing an eye!
Heidi sank lower in the seat. What was wrong with this place? Ever since she’d set foot in Pleasant Valley, everything was just off.
The Curse of Misty Wayfair Page 4