Child of a Rainless Year

by Lindskold, Jane

  The second proof was that I’d found the cloth lying in the sink. Even if Domingo or one of the workmen had come in without my permission—and I doubted they would have since they all preferred to use the facilities in the carriage house—they would have wrung out the cloth and hung it to dry.

  Third proof was the absence of water spots. I was a fair housekeeper, but no perfectionist. Even if I had been, the sheer amount of work to be done around the house would have daunted me. Five minutes spent polishing the sink chrome could be better spent folding dust sheets or washing a window or painting a bit of the outdoor trim.

  No. I had never left the chrome so gleaming and bright. Someone else had done it. And I’d seen that someone with my own eyes. Was the house haunted? If so, these were admirable ghosts. No rattling of chains for them. They preferred clean dishes and polished fixtures.

  I remembered the story of “The Shoemaker and the Elves.” Aunt May had read it to me when I was small. I think she’d meant it as a hint, because every so often she’d remind me to tidy my room by saying “No elves here, my little shoemaker.” We’d both agreed that it would have been nicer if there were. Later, I’d read other tales of brownies and pixies, house spirits that cleaned and did chores.

  The strange thing was that some stories were like that of the Shoemaker and the Elves. If you thanked the house spirit or gave it a gift, it grew insulted and left. In others, you had better leave out some sort of gift for them—a bowl of milk seemed typical. That kept them happy and working hard.

  Was what I had seen a brownie of some sort? She surely hadn’t looked like one. From what I remembered from fairy tales those were short and squat or deformed in some way. The woman who had been polishing my faucet had looked as normal as any woman I might pass in the grocery store.

  I stood staring at the polished sink, trying to figure out what to do. If the silent women had returned, I didn’t want them to leave. My reasons had to do with more than the pleasure of having my dishes washed and my sink cleaned. They belonged to the “before”—to the time when Colette had ruled Phineas House. If I could gain their trust somehow … I knew they could talk. I had so many questions, but would they have answers?

  Somehow I had to make contact with the silent woman—the silent women, for now that I had seen one, I was sure that the others were present as well. There had been several. The one I had seen in the kitchen had done a lot of cleaning, but there had been cooks, seamstresses, even “Teresa Sanchez,” the one who had tried to be my tutor.

  What had happened to make them come back? I was certain they had not been here when I had reopened the house. Was it the cleaning? Were they responding to echoes of their former activities? Was it simply having someone living here again? Were they house spirits like the elves and brownies in my fairy-tale books or were they ghosts or something else entirely?

  I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to go about finding out. What I did know with absolute certainty was that I did not want to drive them away.

  “So what will it be, Mira?” I asked myself flippantly. “A saucer of milk? New clothes? Nothing at all?”

  I had a strong suspicion that Colette had given the silent women nothing. I had found no record of payment. If a bowl of milk had been sufficient …

  I shook my head as if I could physically banish an ugly thought. I remembered the silent women. I remembered their whispers. I remembered the terror of the woman who had tried so hard to be my tutor. If somehow they were bound to this place, if somehow my coming back had forced them to come back, well, they had no idea what they were getting into. For all they knew, they were in service to another Colette.

  I had thought I knew nothing about the silent women, but now I realized I did. They could be unhappy. Knowing that, I had to make a choice. Be Colette or be Mira—and if being Mira meant that, as with the Shoemaker, my elves would go dancing away, well then, Aunt May had taught me how to do just fine without elves.

  “Thank you,” I said to the air. “I only just now realized who has been picking up after me. I appreciate it.”

  There was no answer. No neatly clad woman shimmered into sight then or while I made my dinner. Nor did I see any flicker of motion in any of the many scattered mirrors. I avoided the temptation of leaving my dirty dishes in the sink as a test. After I had eaten I went out to sit in the garden for a while. Domingo seemed to be away, but Blanco bounced over and I tossed a stick for him to chase while I watched the coming of night suck the color from the roses.

  When I went inside, there was no sense of anyone but me being in the house, but when I went up to bed that night, I found the quilt turned down. There was a sprig of Spanish lavender—the tiny dark purple blossoms still unwilted—resting on my freshly plumped pillow.

  The next several days were very odd. I didn’t catch another glimpse of any of the silent women, but I knew they were there. My bed—which I usually made simply by pulling the quilt up over the sheets underneath—was made to perfection. The fixtures in the bathroom and kitchen were flawlessly polished. A button I popped off my painting coverall was sewed back on.

  Most dramatic was finding the entirety of my nursery and my mother’s library put into perfect order. None of the missing clothing reappeared in the nursery, but the dust sheets I’d left heaped on the floor were neatly folded, the woodwork polished, and the floors dusted. The same happened in the library. The neat stacks of sorted paperwork were left in place, but the room was dust free.

  One morning, coming back from a run to the hardware and grocery stores, Domingo met me outside the carriage house. He took a couple plastic bags from the back of my truck, then looked at what remained rather strangely.

  “You must have been gone for quite a while, Mira.”

  “I left early,” I agreed, looping bags on my fingers. “I wanted to be back in time to paint before it got too sunny on that side of the House.”

  Domingo walked beside me to Phineas House. “I think I told you that I wouldn’t be here this morning.”

  “That’s right,” I replied. “You said you were taking the crew to help you with an emergency job.”

  “That is so, but before I went to meet them, I remembered I had left a tool kit over by the house where I’d been tightening a shutter. I went over there and—I could have sworn I heard a vacuum cleaner running inside. I thought you were up and being industrious.”

  “Not me.” I denied cheerfully. “You must have heard something from another house. Sound can carry strangely in this area, what with people leaving windows open.”

  “That must be it,” Domingo agreed, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. He helped me put the bags on the kitchen table, then hurried away to meet his crew.

  I thought about saying something to the silent women, just in case they were listening, then I shrugged. I wanted to lure them back, and reprimanding them wasn’t going to help. So I just cut myself a slice of the breakfast cake I’d brought back, donned my painting gear, and went outside.

  As usual when I was painting, I found myself getting lost in the process. I’d finished the series of wild-cat windows and was now doing some routine work along the porch railings. Domingo’s crew had already laid down the base coat, and I was putting on the contrast. I lost myself in the rise and fall of my brush, the pleasure of seeing the two colors coming together so perfectly, until the rumbling of my stomach and the feel of the sun burning the back of my neck where I’d tucked my hair up under a painter’s cap reminded me that a good amount of time had passed.

  Young Enrico was getting ready to go back to school now, but we’d cut a deal that he’d continue being paid for doing small jobs around the house after school—and after his homework was done. One of these was cleaning paintbrushes, a job I hate almost enough to make me eschew jobs that use a brush any larger than about two inches.

  Leaving the brushes to soak, I put away my other gear, rinsed off in the shower, and went down to make a sandwich. This consumed, I grabbed a bottle of cold water from the
fridge and headed upstairs toward a job I’d known I was going to tackle today—and that I’d avoided thinking about in case I found an excuse not to do it.

  Keys in hand, I made my way to the door of my mother’s suite. As I searched for the correct key my hand shook so severely that the entire ring rattled. All over again I was a little girl, doing the forbidden, invading my mother’s territory without her permission. It took all my will to put the key in the lock and turn it. By the time I had opened the door and reached for the light switch I felt as drained as if I’d run a couple of miles.

  Pushing the switch into the on position was almost more than I could manage, but I did it, flooding the room with light from six or seven small candelabra style bulbs in the elaborate fixture that hung in the center of the room. There were at least as many bulbs that had burned out, but with the daylight coming in from the hall there was plenty to see by. I stepped over the threshold and into the room that had been Mother’s private parlor.

  The layout of her suite was not unlike that of the nursery: two rooms and a full bath. The parlor was closest to the front of the house, the bedroom in back of it, the bathroom behind that It was a tidy arrangement, and contained a great deal more space than many New York apartments I’d seen. The only thing it lacked, in fact, were kitchen facilities, and, as there was a dumbwaiter in the bedroom, even those needs could be considered served.

  The parlor was furnished in elegant comfort: a small writing desk, a few bookshelves, a sofa, some chairs, scattered tables—one of which my mother had frequently used when she took meals in her room. I remembered sitting there across from her when she chose to have me with her.

  Like the library, the parlor was swathed in dust sheets, and I didn’t look forward to uncovering everything and dealing with the dust. Rather than doing so now, I checked the chandelier bulbs and made a note of the size and wattage I would need. These were the small stemmed sort, and I had none in my hoard.

  From the parlor I passed into the bedroom to again be confronted with dust sheets. Even so, I recognized some shapes. The bed, of course, the various dressers, the vanity, the big portrait. The bathroom had been spared the dust sheets, and I stood for a long while staring rather stupidly at the huge claw-footed tub. There was a separate shower in another corner, a toilet politely tucked behind a low wall that I vaguely recalled being topped with a planter containing orchids.

  In each room I opened curtains, methodically noted what lights had blown out, replaced what I could, and tried not to run out in a panic. The tactic worked—at least some.

  “Where to start?” I said aloud. “The bedroom. Mother entertained in her parlor—in her bedroom, too, I guess, but I think if she had anything special to hide she would have hidden it in her bedroom. Fewer excuses for anyone to go in there.”

  I was rather surprised to realize I was hunting for something hidden. I even wondered if one of the silent women had whispered a suggestion in my ear, but that was ridiculous. Of course I had to be looking for something hidden. If it had not been hidden, if it was apparent, then the police would have found it. I had read through both Chilton O’Reilly and Aunt May’s accounts of the investigation, and the police really had seemed to want to find the missing Colette Bogatyr.

  I’d never asked the silent women for anything before, but I decided I would now. I started by removing the dust covers from the furniture, talking aloud all the while.

  “I’d really much rather search than clean, but there’s no way I can do much searching with this place such a mess. I need to put in some laundry and get dinner going. If I could have a little help up here …”

  I let the words trail off, suddenly feeling completely foolish. Even so, I finished stripping off the dust covers in both the bedroom and the parlor. I carried them downstairs and added a few to a load of laundry. Then I went to the bathroom I had been using, and, after rinsing off yet again, I gathered the rest of my laundry and took it downstairs. There I determinedly did chores I really did need to do, including answering some e-mail from friends back East. All the while I wondered what—if anything—was going on upstairs.

  Of one thing I felt fairly certain. The silent women were very good at what they did, but they could not do it without tools. There was a utility closet upstairs, well stocked with everything, but if they needed the vacuum …

  I took my laundry outside to hang—I’ve always preferred the smell of sheets hung out of doors. When I did so, I shut the kitchen door very firmly behind me and tried not to listen.

  This was easier than you might imagine. Afternoon was merging into that wonderful lazy time that isn’t quite evening but that has left the business of the afternoon behind. After I hung the laundry, I wandered the garden, looking at the flowers and enjoying the soft brilliance of their conversation. Then I circled the house, feeling a great deal of pride in the expanded paint job. A neighbor saw me and came over to chat. A bird feeder needed to be filled. Only after that was done did I venture back inside.

  I went up the stairs two at a time, eagerness now overwhelming my earlier dread. Would my experiment have worked?

  It had. Neither the parlor nor the bedroom were what anyone could have called “clean,” but the nose-tickling welter of dust was gone.

  “Thank you,” I said, not feeling in the least foolish about speaking to what was stilt—to all appearances—empty air. I had unqualified evidence that someone—or someones—was there and willing to help me. “I really do appreciate it. I have dinner on now, but afterward, I’ll come up and start going through things.”

  It turned out that I didn’t. Domingo dropped over, wanting to chat about the day he’d spent with my borrowed crew fixing a section of porch that had chosen this inopportune time to collapse. It had been quite a job, and I think he needed to wind down. I certainly did.

  When I went upstairs that night, I was aware of the rooms across the hall, cleaner now, and awaiting my inspection. If I’d been a kid of twenty, I suppose I would have torn over there immediately, but I wasn’t. My bones were tired from a morning painting and a highly stressful afternoon. Whatever Mother had left—if she had left anything that had not already been found—had waited for forty years. It could wait another night.

  11

  Does color hold a power that makes us want to remove its brighter and bolder forms from such serious settings as boardrooms and lecture halls? And, if so, just what power does color have?

  —Patricia Lynne Duffy,

  Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens

  INSIDE THE LINES

  Turned out it had to wait more than another night. The next morning Domingo and his crew were back on the job, working on a Saturday to make up for the time they’d taken off. I was needed to offer my opinions on what colors a certain rather bizarre frieze of bat-winged dragons should be painted.

  I’d gotten as serious as Domingo about this, but unlike him, I didn’t need to dummy up models on a computer paint program. A handful of paint color sample slips combined with a good long stare at the design element in question and I started seeing the way the painting should be done. “Seeing” isn’t quite the right word for it, but I don’t have another. “Hearing” almost comes closer, but if I was hearing the description, it wasn’t linear. It was almost more like looking at a frame of a well-drawn comic strip, narration and action coming at you all at once, but here, of course, if there was any dialogue it was between me and Phineas House.

  These weren’t simple descriptions, either. Nothing like, “Do the body in metallic blue and the wings in that pea green.” No, I’d get an entire image, right down to the highlights and shadows. I’d know if it would take an undercoat to get the right color or a wash to manage the shadows.

  The first couple of times I saw how a segment of the house should look, it scared me. But I couldn’t escape the feeling that to do it any other way would be a disaster, so I took notes. It was a laborious process, and Domingo drifted over about halfway. I don’t remember when he took over the writing
so I could concentrate.

  After a while, I stopped thinking about what was going on. I convinced myself that it wasn’t all that different from when I was working on a painting or mosaic. I’d envisioned those before starting, too, done my rough sketches and then refined them.

  Eventually, the workmen simply accepted me for an extraordinarily difficult to please client, but since I was paying well and regularly, and Domingo was perfection as a foreman, no one complained. They went about scraping old paint, sanding wood smooth, puttying, priming, and, in the case of the most skilled, doing detail work. I had told them I didn’t mind if they played music, and most of the painting was done to an ebullient mariachi soundtrack.

  Domingo, though—I had the feeling that he actually had a sense of what I was doing. A couple of times he even muttered the color before I said it out loud, but he always waited for my narration before making any notes. I remembered how he had spoken of the house being “unhappy” in its white-on-white paint, and wondered if he’d seen it adorned in its new colors.