Joyce Fells was of average height, average weight, average age. Forty-five would be Meg's guess. She was dressed from head to toe in polyester shades of pink and blue. The iridescent necklace she wore sparkled with more pink, more blue. Her bag was pink. Her shoes were blue. She looked like one of the tourists who passed through Mel's Gifte and T-Shirt Shoppe.
Except for her eyes. Her eyes had a kind of fierce blue intensity that seemed, at least to Meg, a little on the nutty side. The fierceness, so at odds with the innocent garishness of her clothes, was eerily intriguing.
"I guess you know about the ... the disposition of the dollhouse," said Meg, choosing her words carefully. She laid the plate of apple slices on a small card table that she'd covered with one of Comfort's red-checked cloths, and readjusted the fan of napkins as she searched for the right thing to say. "Or else you wouldn't be here," she added lamely.
She turned to face the full brunt of Joyce's blue-eyed anger, fully aware of what Orel Tremblay's whim had cost his niece: at least sixty thousand dollars, and possibly much more. It wasn't a huge inheritance — but for people like them, it was a lot of money.
"Oh, Uncle Orel's lawyer filled me in thoroughly. I know all about the disposition," Joyce said, spitting the word out.
The woman sucked in her breath with a pained sound and began circling the house slowly, taking it all in. Meg was reminded of a marsh hawk flying low, searching for prey. Suddenly the woman's hand reached out for the weather vane — Meg thought she was going to snap it from the gable—and then her hand veered away and came down in a sharp, cutting motion as she hissed, "It's mine!"
Meg jumped back, shocked by the woman's vehemence.
"But," said the woman darkly, "that's what I get for not minding my own garden. Still ... this treatment! Blood's supposed to be thicker than ... Well! Never mind that now. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous piece. God, I've never seen better. Never. In my life, never. Museum quality. No question."
Which was just what Orel Tremblay's attorney had told Meg when he contacted her after Tremblay's death. He'd also implied that Tremblay's own house had been heavily mortgaged and had little value, and that Meg could expect his bequest of the dollhouse to be challenged. Right now, Meg was convinced of it.
Joyce was circling the dollhouse again. Meg was really afraid that this time she'd grab the whole thing in her light blue talons and fly off with it. "You sound knowledgeable about dolls' houses," she ventured, trying to think of something nice to say.
The woman twisted her head toward Meg with that sharp, hawklike look of hers. "Yes," she agreed with a bitter smile. "I collect miniatures. It was Uncle Orel who got me interested, in fact. When I was a teenager my mother brought me out East. I saw this, and I fell in love with it. Uncle Orel wouldn't let me touch anything, of course, that —"
She stopped herself mid-insult and took a deep breath, then seemed to calm down a little. "Do you know anything about miniatures?" she said with false brightness.
Meg answered truthfully, "Almost nothing." She realized at once that it was a dumb thing to say; it only rubbed salt into the wounds of this disinherited expert.
"Uncle Orel told me that the original Eagle's Nest was filled with bitterness and tragedy," Joyce said, her mouth twitching in a suppressed smile. "Are you superstitious?"
"No more than the usual amount," Meg hedged.
"Then you don't believe in bad karma," Joyce said coolly.
It seemed ludicrous to have to listen to a middle-aged woman dressed in the worst possible Western taste talking about karma. "If you mean bad luck — no, I don't believe in it," Meg said, flashing a little Yankee orneriness. "People make their own luck."
"You don't know anything at all," Joyce said, cocking her head at Meg.
Meg had heard enough. "If you don't mind —"
She was interrupted by the sounds of a group hurrying through the rain outside. The mourners — or coffee klatchers, Meg hardly knew how to regard them — had arrived in a pack. Allie herded them in ahead of her: Tom, lugging a thermal carafe of hot tea; the nurse, all business and dressed for her rounds; the poor shy housekeeper, a mousy thing who seemed in awe of Allie; and Zenobia, grand and warm and undoubtedly in some kind of control.
"Oh! Hello," said Allie to the pink-and-blue intruder standing next to Meg. "Are you a friend of Mr. Tremblay's too?" She stuck out her hand. "I'm Allie Atwells."
Meg gave her sister a be-careful look. "This is Joyce Fells, Allie. Mr. Tremblay's niece."
"Ooh."
There was an excruciating silence, and then Allie rallied and said brightly, "It's really nice of you to come to our memorial service for your uncle. Lots of people in your shoes wouldn't."
Joyce, who hadn't spoken a word, allowed her eyes to open just a little wider, then said grimly, "I have no doubt."
Apparently she intended to stay. Meg conducted a round of awkward introductions. The dollhouse needed no introduction, of course; it simply sat there, all wonderfully lit from within, serene and bright and magical.
As the small group stood around murmuring forced little pleasantries, Meg felt suddenly daunted by the dollhouse. What was the purpose of it, really? It was absolutely useless; a rich man's folly. Too precious to play with, too tiny to sit in — it was simply a pretty thing that you owned for a while and then handed off to someone else before or after you died. She felt utterly crushed. The whole impulse behind tonight was so dumb, so futile. They should've just met in a chapel.
"I think tea would be a good idea, don't you, Meg? Suppose I pour," suggested Zenobia in a wonderfully rich voice.
Immediately everyone relaxed. It was much easier to talk about Orel Tremblay in between bites of an apple slice. Of them all, it was Millie, the shy little housekeeper, who had the most to say about him. She'd been cleaning his house for years, just as her mother, now gone, bless her soul, had done before her.
She knew funny little things about him, like the fact that he used to buy only Idaho potatoes, never Maine (she'd seen the peels) and that he was allergic to shellfish (he once gave her a bag of littlenecks that somebody had brought him). He hadn't thrown his money around, but he'd always remembered Millie's mother at Christmastime — and later on, Millie herself.
"I was sorry to see him go," she said simply. "He never felt sorry for himself, and he never complained."
It was the perfect tribute, potato peelings and all. It was comforting to know that after the fire and before the illness, Orel Tremblay had had a life. Maybe it wasn't filled with adventure or family, but neither was it all emptiness and pain. He had dogs, he took walks, he had a few friends. Meg was glad; her heart became a little more easy about him.
The nurse had begun to look restless, as if it were time for her to be on her way, when Comfort suddenly showed up in search of Allie.
"It's Lisa," Comfort whispered in a voice that tried hard to be discreet but failed. "Her boyfriend's just walked out on her. She's very distraught, Allie. She asked can you come right away?"
"Oh, no ... Lisa ... is she still on the phone?"
"She hung up."
"Okay," said Allie. She turned to her sister. "Gotta go. Lisa was real shaky at our last AA meeting. Poor thing; she could see this was coming. I'm sorry, Meggie."
She blew a kiss to Tom Wyler and said, "Be back as quick as I can," and grabbed her windbreaker from the back of a chair. The nurse took the opportunity to leave as well. That left Meg, Tom, Joyce and the no longer shy housekeeper, Millie. And, of course, Zenobia.
"I think," said Zenobia, "that now would be a good time to all join hands in a moment of reflection. Come. Let's join hands."
****
If there was one thing Tom Wyler hated, it was being told to all join hands. He hadn't played that game in kindergarten, and he wasn't interested in playing it now. Not that he objected to the idea of this little get-together. He was quite touched when Allie told him that her sister was rounding up a quorum in memory of Orel Tremblay's passing. Now that he knew Meg more,
he could see how typical it was of her. She took care of people in this life — and, apparently, right on through the next.
If he had to hold a hand, he preferred that it be hers. He placed himself between Meg and little Millie, across from Zenobia and the dreadful Joyce Fells. Fells! What a woman! Tacky, self-pitying, jealous, mean-spirited — she was one, big, negative vibe, guaranteed to thwart whatever it was Zenobia had in mind.
And what Zenobia had in mind was just a little bit hokey. "Actually, wouldn't it be nice," Zenobia said, "if we made a circle around the dollhouse. It is, after all, our most visible reminder of Orel Tremblay."
Without really seeming to push, she managed to shepherd them into a small circle around the table on which the dollhouse sat. Wyler assumed that Meg would balk at this New Age nonsense, but she didn't. She seemed not so much mesmerized as curious to see where all this was leading. He liked that in her. She'd probably make a pretty fair detective.
What surprised him even more was that Tremblay's niece was tolerating Zenobia's antics. Apparently Joyce Fells was willing to put up with anything to stay close to the dollhouse. She hadn't taken her eyes off it once during the evening.
Which was not good. He'd seen her kind so often. They carried a permanent grudge against those who had something they wanted, and when the grudge got too big, they exploded. It could be over the most worthless, trivial things: a pair of sneakers, a bag of Cheetos. He'd seen people murder for sunglasses.
The dollhouse, on the other hand, wasn't simply desirable. It had genuine value.
"Let us take up the circle of joy," said Zenobia.
So now they all were holding hands. He liked the feel of Meg's in his. It had a kind of steadiness that he wasn't aware of when he held Allie's hand. With Allie that could never be for long, anyway; she needed her hands to express herself. But Meg ... well, her hand felt ... just about right.
Meg turned, and he turned, and when she gave him a fleeting, tentative smile, he felt something deep inside him shift and move slightly, like the first subtle lurch of a frozen river in spring. It took him by surprise. He rubbed his thumb gently across her knuckles in a gesture as much protective as it was possessive. Something is happening here, he realized. It was as disturbing, as intriguing to him as the touch of her flesh against his.
Zenobia began her invocation. "Lord," she said, "we ask you to open your kingdom to Orel Tremblay, a man who by all accounts bore malice toward none."
Maybe just one, Wyler couldn't help thinking. But no one seemed to be counting.
"He loved life, or he would not have lingered so long on earth," said Zenobia. "And yet it's clear that he looked forward to being free of it, because he cared little for its vanities and trinkets — with only this one, wonderful exception," she said, nodding at the dollhouse in their midst. "How beautiful it is," she added, almost involuntarily.
Indeed, in the darkened shed the dollhouse seemed suddenly to glow with an enchanting grace. Light from every one of its rooms, from gable to ground floor, tumbled through dozens of multipaned windows, binding the mourners in a pattern of tiny squares of brightness, blurring the outlines between them. Sparks of light were everywhere, dancing and disorienting. Wyler had the sense that he and the rest were all dissolving into a vague, shadowy presence. He thought of breaking the circle by releasing Meg's hand, but something compelled him to hold on.
This is absurd, he thought. A trick of light and shadow. He gathered all his wits and focused on Zenobia's hands, convinced that she'd be rapping out a message on the table next. Watch her hands, he told himself. Keep an eye on her hands.
"Ohhh ..."
The sound, somewhere between a moan and a whimper, sent the hair on the back of his neck straight up. The cry was not Zenobia's.
It was Meg's.
"No . . I won 't go in there," Meg said in a low wail.
He caught his breath, hardly daring to turn his head and look at her. But when he did he could see, by the light of the dollhouse, that her gaze was vacant and trancelike. She wasn't seeing him. She wasn't seeing the dollhouse. She wasn't seeing anybody in the shed.
"Speak in French — en Française!" she cried in the same low wail. "Do you want the children to hear you? Pourquoi ne me vous-laissez pas tranquille? C'est si faux. Je suis une femme mariée. J'ai deux fils. Pourquoi me faites-vous cela? Vous savez qu'il me faut cet emploi. Ne me faites pas cela, s 'il vous plait."
The hand he was holding was now cold and limp, in appalling contrast to Millie's warm and trembling hand. He held on to each, completely baffled, unwilling to change a thing until he got more of a handle on the situation. He reminded himself to watch Zenobia, then promptly forgot. All he could think of, all he could focus on, was Meg. Or whoever she was.
In a more frantic voice, now: "They're waiting for us. We have to go. We haven't much time. It 's coming nearer. I can smell it. Oh, God ... why won't you let me go? Are you mad? Please don't ... don't ... don't .
Meg's voice, bone chilling and exhausted, trailed off into a soft drumbeat of the single syllable. No one else spoke, no one else moved. Wyler could sense, rather than see, that Joyce Fells was weaving in place, like a snake charmed out of its basket, and that Zenobia was holding her breath, mesmerized or mesmerizing, he wasn't sure which. Could she have hypnotized Meg?
Millie, clinging to his hand, was near collapse. He could feel the hummingbird-beat of her heart through the palm of his hand. It's gone too far, he thought, and wanted to stop it. But he feared hurting someone in the process.
It was the hostage situation, all over again.
"No!" Meg suddenly shrieked, sending every one of them jumping out of his skin. "No no no no no no!"
She lifted both her hands violently, yanking out of his grip on one side and Joyce's on the other, and began pounding against something in midair as she screamed, "Open it! Open it!" And then she fainted.
And then Millie fainted.
****
When Meg came to, she found herself face-to-face with Joyce Fells, who was gazing at her from under half-lidded eyes, her mouth pursed in something between sympathy and a grimace.
"Are you all right?" Joyce asked, apparently annoyed with her. "You put on quite a show."
Confused, Meg said, "You have me mixed up with my sister; she's the actress." She was breathing with an effort. Her legs were rubbery; her skin felt cold. "How did I get on this chair?" she asked, completely disoriented.
Meg turned to Tom, who was crouched next to her with his finger on her pulse. She lifted her wrist out of his grasp and stared at it, wondering why he'd been holding it that way. Then she saw Millie sitting in the only other chair, her arms wrapped around herself, her knees literally knocking together. Zenobia was standing over her, trying to comfort her.
"Millie," Meg said, "what happened to you?
"I w-want to go home," the young woman said between sobs.
"Well, sure, you can if you want to," Meg said, rising. "I'll give you a lift in my —"
But her knees weren't up to it. She fell back limply, missing the chair and landing in Tom Wyler's arms. "Ooo-ee," she said with a shaky laugh. She turned to him; his breath felt warm on her icy cheek. "The flu?" she suggested with a lopsided, dopey smile.
"Not the flu. I'll tell you after," he said. He eased her back into the chair, an old upholstered thing with wooden arms, and said to the rest of the company, "I think we'll call it an evening. Thank you all for coming. Is there anyone who needs a ride?"
"I d-don't think I can d-drive," said Millie, still shivering.
"I'll take you home, dear," Zenobia offered. "You can get your car tomorrow."
The girl nodded dumbly and Zenobia helped her to her feet. "Tom? Do let's get together later tonight —" Zenobia began.
"Not tonight," he said, dismissing her.
"At breakfast, then. This is most interesting." Somehow she managed to lean over and give Meg a reassuring hug without letting go of poor Millie. "Good-night, everyone. Joyce? Are you coming?"
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It was the nudge Joyce needed. "Nice to've met you," she said to Meg. At the door she turned, hitched her pink handbag under her flabby arm, and said with a bitter smile: "Enjoy it."
Meg was left alone with Tom Wyler. He was leaning against the custom-made table that held the dollhouse, his arms folded across his chest, watching her thoughtfully. "You should be in bed," he said softly.
"God, no," she answered, rubbing her hands together to warm them. "Not until I find out what the heck happened here. I'm fine, I'm fine. Just ... tea. I'm fine."
Tom took off the light canvas jacket he was wearing and draped it over her shoulders, then brought over an empty cardboard box and turned it upside down in front of her. "Feet up," he commanded.
She did as she was told while he went over to the big thermos dispenser and poured her a mug of tea. He came back to her and put the mug in one hand and wrapped her other hand around it and held his hands over hers for a moment.
Then he pulled up Millie's chair, a battered kitchen reject, and placed it between Meg and the dollhouse. Meg had the insane thought that he was trying to protect her from it, which made no sense; he didn't know about her bizarre reaction to the master's bed within it.
"What happened?" she asked simply, lifting the mug to her lips.
"That, dear heart, is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I can tell you what I saw, but not what happened."
She made a wry face at his careful distinction, then said, "I remember holding hands and staring into the dollhouse as Zenobia spoke. After a while it began to seem real — full-size, I mean, like a real house. I could picture myself as one of the inhabitants inside. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I had such a clear sense of myself — you know — inside," she said, pointing into the house. "I was standing in the circle, holding your hand and holding Joyce's. But I was inside the house, too. That's all I remember. Did you feel that way too?" she asked him, not sounding hopeful.
He gave her a sigh for an answer, then got up and walked around to the front of the little gabled mansion. He bent over sideways to peek in the windows. "How'd you get all the stuff inside these front rooms, anyway?" he asked.
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