The Curse of Misty Wayfair

by Jaime Jo Wright

  Another major understatement. She thought Heidi was dead. Their conversation returned so vividly in Heidi’s memory, her stomach turned.

  “Let me see it.” Rhett held out his hand.

  “See what?” Heidi countered.

  “Vicki said you came here ’cause your mom sent you a letter. I’d like to see it.” His hand remained outstretched.

  Heidi raised an eyebrow while nervously scratching the tattoo on her left wrist. “And you think I have it with me?”

  Rhett just stared at her and waited.

  “Okay fine.” Heidi scrounged in her military green bag, pulled out the crinkled letter, and gave it to him. Impatience welled inside her. It was nice having him help, but it was also intrusive. Every step she let him in was one less brick in her protective wall.

  He skimmed the letter, then folded it and handed it back to her. “What did your mom say about it?”

  Heidi made a pretense of carefully tucking the letter back into her bag. “Oh, not much, other than insist I didn’t exist.” Heidi zipped the bag shut. She waved her hand toward the home. “Can we just go in, then?”

  Rhett didn’t budge. His eyes narrowed.

  “What?” Heidi pressed.

  “Did you ask Vicki what your mom meant?”

  “Since the fire, Vicki won’t talk to me. She didn’t want to talk much before it either.”

  Rhett gave a grunt and turned toward the home. Heidi followed, lagging just a few paces behind him. An aide buzzed them into the locked-down facility. Within moments, they were in a lounge area and standing over Loretta Lane, who stared off into the corner. Her eyes empty.

  Heidi wasn’t sure what Rhett’s intentions were. Getting any more details out of her mother seemed miraculous at best. She flopped onto a chair, as if they were here simply to eat cookies and watch TV with the old woman. Her mother. Her vacant, sad mother. If she thought too long about it, Heidi knew her emotions would twist into fits.

  Rhett eased onto a chair beside Loretta, swiping his hat off his head. His hair stood up in bunches, a thick mess, but he somehow seemed more vulnerable. More approachable.

  “That’s better,” her mother stated baldly. She still stared into the corner. “That hat has seen its time, Rhett Crawford.”

  Heidi’s mouth dropped open in disbelief—and hurt, if she were being honest. Her mother remembered who Rhett was? But not her own daughter? She blinked fast to shoo away the scalding tears that sprang to her eyes.

  Rhett gazed into the same spot Loretta did. “I like my hat.”

  “Always did.” Loretta’s hand lifted and settled down atop of Rhett’s larger one.

  “Got a question for you,” he stated. No dancing around the conversation—he was diving straight in.

  Heidi bit the inside of her lip.

  “All right then.” Loretta nodded. Her eyes were so cloudy, so unclear, it was odd that she spoke with such precision.

  “Are you a Coyle?” Rhett asked.

  Heidi shot forward, stopping herself when Rhett lifted a finger toward her. She leaned on her knees, her breaths coming fast. Just like that? He thought he was going to just ask and Loretta would tell him? It couldn’t be that easy. It wouldn’t be. It was obvious that—

  “Why, yes. Yes, I am.” Loretta’s face transfigured into a vague smile. She turned her head and met Rhett’s eyes. “Are you?”

  “No, I’m a Crawford,” Rhett responded. His eyes met Heidi’s. She knew her expression was one of wounded incredulity.

  How had her mom given that up without question, without even a blink? Heidi leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. Maybe her mother’s fragile mental state had loosened the locks on the secrets she held. But when Heidi asked, her mother spoke only riddles in return.

  Somehow, Loretta Lane knew Rhett, and trusted him, more than she did her own daughter. The pang of that truth stung Heidi.

  Rhett addressed Loretta again. “Was Coyle your maiden name?”

  Loretta gave a slight nod. She raised a tremoring hand and pushed a strand of hair from her eyes. She searched Rhett’s face, her furrowed brows pulling even tighter together. It seemed she was thinking, remembering—or trying to.

  “Coyle. Yes. I was a Coyle.” Her tone made it sound more like a question than a statement.

  Again Rhett exchanged looks with Heidi.

  “Do you remember anything about being a Coyle?” he asked.

  Heidi could see where he was going, making sure there were memories, even vague ones to back up Loretta’s hurried agreement. To provide proof that she wasn’t entertaining a random question as fact.

  Loretta nodded. “My schoolgirl friend called me Lorrie Coyle. Yes.”

  Rhett nodded but didn’t speak.

  Loretta tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. “My father changed it, though—when I was twelve. Too much stuff and nonsense being a Coyle in these parts. All those old ghosts that trail after us, even after all these years.”

  Heidi ran her palm over her neck. Agitated, she leaned back in the chair, then forward again. She wanted to interrupt. To ply her mother with questions, but for some reason, Loretta trusted Rhett. She found her voice, her memories . . . with Rhett.

  “Is that why you moved back to Pleasant Valley?” Rhett asked.

  Loretta gave a tiny shrug. “Ohhh, I don’t know . . .” Her voice trailed, and she shifted her attention back to the high corner of the room. “My husband took a pastorate here. It seemed—good to come home. No one remembered me, though. We left when I was twelve. No reason to remember the Coyles. And I wasn’t one anymore. We were the last of them, you know?” She smiled.

  Rhett shook his head. “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Yes,” Loretta nodded. “We were.” She twisted in her chair to eye him. “Now, there was a young woman here. She kept saying she was my daughter. She’s not. My daughter died.”

  “When did she die?” Rhett shot Heidi a warning glance. Any interruption now could be detrimental.

  Loretta frowned. She reached up and, with a shaky hand, pushed her hair behind her ear. “Who?”

  “Your daughter,” Rhett replied. “When did she die?”

  “Oh.” Loretta shook her head. “No, no, Vicki is fine.”

  She was leaving them again. Fading into a world of disordered thoughts trapped deep inside the vanishing memories of an old woman.

  Rhett pressed his lips together in a kind smile and gave Loretta’s shoulder a squeeze. “You take it easy, Mrs. Lane.”

  “Oh, I will,” she smiled.

  Rhett stood and motioned for Heidi to follow. She dogged his steps, biting her tongue until they had left the facility.

  Heidi sucked in the warm spring breeze as they started across the parking lot. Rhett mashed his baseball cap back on his head.

  “What was that?” Heidi strained to keep up with his purposeful strides. “How did you—? My mother knew you! How? Wha—?”

  Rhett clicked the locks and opened Heidi’s door in the old-fashioned gesture of a gentleman.

  “Your dad was my pastor. Before he passed away.”

  Heidi stared at him. “He what?” The reminder of her dad and his funeral that she’d not attended . . . no wonder Vicki hated her. Heidi always had a reason, and that week, well, there really hadn’t been a good enough one, so she’d opted to say she had a stomach flu. She couldn’t face her mom and Vicki. Not when she spent the weekend curled up in a recliner, watching movies and digging her fingers into kinetic sand trying to cope with her nerves. The dark, apocalyptic pall that settled over her the minute she’d gotten the call from Vicki about Dad.

  Rhett continued explaining as he rounded the truck and opened his door. Heidi dragged herself back from her guilt trip. “That’s how I got to know Vicki and Brad. Offered Brad a job at my shop about five years ago. Your family used to have Sunday dinner with us sometimes.”

  “Why didn’t I know this?” Heidi blurted without thinking.

  Rhett raised an eyebrow. The kind that told
her she’d have no way to argue against him, because he was going to respond with sheer, annoying logic.

  “Because you never came to visit.”

  There it was. The truth. She turned to look out the truck window and away from Rhett, who had climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “And my mother is a Coyle? Why didn’t I know that?”

  Rhett tilted his head. “Maybe because you never knew to ask before. Referencing her letter gave your mom no details. Nothing to spark a memory. She can’t recall why she wrote it. But, asking about a specific name? Apparently the detail jarred her.”

  “I wonder if she would have told me if I’d asked her today instead of you?” It was a murmured question. Not one Heidi really wanted an answer to.

  Inserting the key into the truck’s ignition, Rhett stopped and gave her a long look. “Maybe.”

  Again. A one-word answer. It didn’t make her feel any better. Not at all.

  Chapter 30

  Thea

  Thea.” Simeon’s voice broke through her frantic thumbing through a pile of loose papers scrawled with inked handwriting. Names, medical information, random paragraphs of random observations.

  Thea ignored him. He had known. All along he’d known her mother was dead and buried at the asylum. She’d admitted to him she was afraid of finding her mother here. She’d taken on the duty of rifling through the haphazard records to find out if it was even possible. And, Simeon had already known.

  “Thea, stop.” Simeon’s words echoed in the small office. His hand closed over her wrist.

  Thea froze. She eyed it. She shook him off. Turning, she skewered him with her hurt, ignoring the way his face twisted and jerked. He was upset too. He should be. He was a liar. He was a deceiver.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You let me come here, and all the time—all the time you knew Misty and my mother were buried here. Why at the asylum? Is my mother really a Wayfair? How is this possible?”

  The questions came along with tears. There was no closure in finding her mother’s grave. It had only opened and exhumed a chasm of unanswered questions.

  “I didn’t tell you because . . .” Simeon hesitated. He appeared to will his features to be calm. A deep breath through his nose, and then he released it. “Because I don’t know the answers, Thea. I didn’t know how to explain it to you.”

  “This is why Mr. Amos didn’t want me here, isn’t it?” He’d known too.

  Simeon’s jaw set. His eyes were clear. Strong. They drilled into hers as he flipped the edges of some of the hospital records. “No one knows why your mother was here. No one knows why Misty is buried here. The asylum wasn’t built when she was buried. Those of us closest to it don’t know what to do with it all, so we try our best to ignore it. Right or wrong. That’s what we do.”

  Thea studied his expression. Her emotions began to calm. “The asylum was built around her grave?”

  Simeon nodded. “And until you came, with your mother’s initials and the surname of Reed, no one knew you existed.”

  Thea licked her lips and bit the corner. “Misty Wayfair . . . is she my grandmother?” Visions of the woman in the street below her room replayed through Thea’s memory. Had the connection she’d felt to the eerie sight been that of a granddaughter to her grandmother? The thought was unnerving, and it gave Thea pause.

  Simeon shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Do I have a father?”

  Simeon’s look was pained and apologetic.

  “You don’t know,” Thea concluded. She returned to the desk, lifting a stack of documents. She slammed them on the desktop in front of Simeon. “Start looking.”

  Their eyes locked. She recognized something familiar in his. Something she detested but understood all too well. There was fear there. The monsters he’d mentioned, being loosed. The stories they might uncover. None of it would be welcomed. None of it would be pleasant.

  Thea tamped down her hurt at Simeon’s actions. In a roundabout way, he’d been trying to protect her, just as Mr. Amos had. Maybe protect himself and Rose too. But it was time. Misty Wayfair had cursed these woods for far too long. Cursed the Coyles for too long. She had whispered death over them, avenging her own, and now she had touched Thea’s life.

  Perhaps Thea had been spared by growing up in the orphanage and in the care of the Mendelsohns. Maybe it was that distance that gave her the courage Simeon didn’t have. Could she blame him? His father had abused and almost ruined him. His mother and sister had both passed without compelling causes. The town looked at him as an outcast.

  But it was time.

  Thea lifted her hand and touched Simeon’s bare forearm lightly, his shirtsleeve rolled back. He glanced down at her fingertips as if she’d pressed into his skin with a branding iron.

  “Simeon, it’s time.”

  He moved his arm until his hand wrapped around hers. Their fingers closed in a desperate grasp. Not friends. Not lovers. Not family. Not enemies. But two lost people, weary and desolate, and each without purpose in a life that never embraced them.

  A small knock on Thea’s door brought her attention from the window and view over Pleasant Valley and the river. The fact it was night and the moon was full meant the world seemed half awake still, even at midnight. But she’d not expected the knock. The boardinghouse didn’t allow visitors into the living quarters, let alone in the middle of the night.

  She leaned her shoulder against the door. “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Fritz.”

  Thea pulled back and frowned. It was highly inappropriate for him to be here just outside her door. Opening the door would make it even more so. Yet the gnawing curiosity of why he’d come, along with the shared intrigue surrounding the asylum, made her reach for the knob.

  She opened it a few inches, mustering a stern frown.

  The older man’s hand was already up, palm facing toward her to detour any conversation about etiquette and propriety. His balding head reflected a shaft of moonlight as it brushed across Thea’s room and into the hall.

  “I apologize. But I must speak with you.”

  “Now?” Thea glanced down the hallway. If Mrs. Brummel were to see them . . .

  “Come downstairs to the parlor.” Mr. Fritz’s directive would only partially make the situation less controversial, but he turned on his heel and slunk away.

  She shut her door and made swift work of changing out of her nightclothes. Skirt, shirtwaist, and a knitted sweater for extra covering. Pulling her long hair back, she twisted it fast and pinned it. No need to add a wanton appearance to this travesty of a midnight meeting.

  Within moments, Thea tiptoed down the hall, snuck step by step down the narrow staircase, skirted the dining room and found her way into the front parlor. Mr. Fritz stood by the window, and he turned when she entered.

  There was nothing but urgency in his expression. He motioned her toward him, and as she came, he looked past her to be sure she’d not been followed or seen.

  “Mr. Fritz, what is so critical that you must beckon me in the middle of the night?” Thea drew her sweater tightly around her.

  The man crossed his arms over his chest. He was fully dressed and had the vague scent of fresh air about him that made her wonder if he’d just come in after being outside. His eyes were wide behind spectacles, and he lowered his voice.

  “I’ve seen her now!”

  “Who?” Thea asked, though she already knew. Suddenly her sweater didn’t feel like enough covering.

  “Misty Wayfair!” Mr. Fritz wheezed between clenched teeth. He took two steps toward the window and peered up and down the street before saying over his shoulder, “She’s out there tonight. Wandering. I saw her.”

  Thea glanced into the dark corners of the parlor. Not that she expected to see Misty Wayfair materialize in one of them, yet that feeling she often got when Mr. Mendelsohn spoke of spirits as if they truly existed wrapped its chilling embrace around her.

  “Where?” Thea’s voice had a slight sh
ake to it. The morning’s interlude on the way to the asylum, the tormenting song, was all so real yet. But now? The image of Misty Wayfair and the possible link to her mother caused Thea to shiver.

  Mr. Fritz turned from the window, his expression still intense. “She was by the river. Mrs. Brummel said she was wicked, and I daresay she’s right. The creature chased after me. Arms outstretched as if she were going to take flight! She stumbled and weaved. If she were alive, I would daresay she’d been imbibing, but as a spirit, it was haunting.”

  Thea sank onto a nearby settee, her legs weakening. She stared up at Mr. Fritz. “Did she sing?”

  “Sing?” Mr. Fritz shook his head. “No. She appeared—desperate almost. She knows.” He scratched with nervous energy at his shoulder. “Dear heaven, she knows!”

  “Knows what?” Thea whispered.

  Mr. Fritz looked out the window again. He appeared anxious that Misty Wayfair had followed him. That she would breeze through the wall and wrap her bony fingers around his throat, strangling life from him as had once happened to her.

  “She knows I found out.” He noticed the curtains drawn back on either side of the window. Reaching out, Mr. Fritz began to loosen the tie on one side, letting the filmy lace drop in front of the glass like a shield. “I believe I’ve inadvertently found more clues as to how—and why—she died.”

  Thea stilled.

  He let the other curtain fall before hurrying to her side, dropping onto a chair only inches from Thea’s settee. Leaning forward, Mr. Fritz captured her gaze with his frantic, wide eyes.

  “I had no idea what I was investigating! When I came here to research the hospital. When I asked you to—oh, Miss Reed!” He drew back. “You must not go back to that place. I have put you in grave danger. Promise me you won’t go back!”

  Thea narrowed her eyes. “Mr. Fritz, tell me what you have uncovered. I must know.”

  He drummed his fingers on his knee as if reconsidering why he’d asked her to the parlor in the first place. She could see the questions splaying across his face. Was he putting her in more danger? Would it sic Misty Wayfair onto Thea as it appeared she had come after him?