Child of a Rainless Year

by Lindskold, Jane

  “You’re saying that this persistent desire to keep a structure on that site had something to do with Phineas House—or rather, an attempt to counterbalance Phineas House.”

  Mikey nodded, and I noticed he was beginning to look tired. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was getting late.

  “Did the attempt work?” I asked.

  “It may have,” Mikey said. “It’s one of those largely theoretical matters, since it’s hard to find a control for the experiment.”

  I noted he said “hard” without irony or humor, and wondered if perhaps somewhere in liminal space it might be possible to find a control for that experiment. Why not? It seemed as reasonable as a house doing genetic engineering on its occupants.

  “However,” Mikey went on, “it did seem that the Montezuma resented being used as a ‘for-profit’ venture. This may have to do with the nature of its mission. It has done much better since it’s been turned to not-for-profit or educational uses.”

  “You’re kidding …” I began, then stopped myself. He wasn’t, and I was being an idiot if I didn’t admit the possibility. “No, you’re not, but I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Phineas House was built to enable Aldo Pincas and his descendants to profit from the charged qualities of the surrounding area,” Mikey explained. “The Montezuma was built to counter Phineas House. My best guess is that in their desire to counter Phineas House, the builders of the Montezuma inadvertently gave the ‘spirit’ of the Montezuma a sense that profiting from the area’s qualities was somehow wrong.”

  “So it kept burning itself down?”

  “Not quite,” Mikey chuckled. “My guess is that the fires were … well, not started, but rather instigated by the friction between Phineas House and her rival.”

  I blinked. That was a lot to take. Mikey saw my expression and began to clarify.

  “Phineas House is specifically positioned to exploit the area. Even when the House’s geomantic qualities were reduced by selling off portions of her lot, she was still a potent force. The Montezuma was a newcomer—and her site was initially not well-chosen.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “After the first fire, the hotel was moved further up the hill, but that one burnt, too.”

  “Because of badly positioned fire hoses,” Mikey said, almost dreamily. “I’d love to see a roster of the builder’s crews. Did someone deliberately do that, maybe by choice, maybe coaxed in a dream?”

  “That’s creepy,” I said.

  “It is,” Mikey agreed, “but Phineas House is a tool, capable of being used for either creation or destruction.”

  I nodded, feeling a trace of the uneasiness I had felt when I had first learned how my grandfather had died. I decided to change the subject, just a little.

  “You said the Montezuma Hotel might have had something to do with Colette’s disappearance.”

  “I did. As you certainly have noticed, when she vanished, she was reported as driving her gig in the direction of the Montezuma Hotel. That may not have been her final destination, but she was heading in that direction. At that date, the Castle was in use as a Catholic seminary. That would not have kept it from serving as a damper on Phineas House’s power. I have often wondered, was Colette going to the Montezuma Hotel?”

  “Could she have been meeting someone there?”

  “Possibly,” Mikey said, “though as the Hotel was not constructed as a channel—as Phineas House is—there is no benefit to be gained by living there. If anything, someone with the ability to use liminal space might find it obscurely dampened.”

  I was just tired enough myself to be blunt. “So if you don’t think she was meeting someone, what is it you’re hinting about?”

  Mikey sighed, and I saw his gaze flicker up to the ceiling, as if he was trying to see if Phineas House was paying attention to his words.

  “I have wondered,” he said slowly, “if she might have been intending to use the Montezuma’s qualities to her own advantage. If so, what did Colette intend to do that she did not want Phineas House—or possibly those tuned to Phineas’s House—to know about?”

  It was a startling conjecture.

  “Did you investigate this theory?”

  “As best as I could, but, Mira, there was a tremendous amount of turmoil then—and we had no more luck tracing Colette than did the police. Moreover, we had immediate problems to solve. If Colette was dead, then you would be heir to Phineas House, but control of the House did not transfer to you. Did that mean Colette was alive, or that she was dead, but that the House was unaware of her fate? Had someone harmed Colette, or had she voluntarily vanished? Some even theorized that she had finally fallen afoul of her tendency to go by routes more careful souls would avoid.”

  “I see,” I said, then voiced only one of the many questions clamoring in my head. “Does the fact that Phineas House seems to be responding to me indicate that Colette is indeed dead?”

  Mikey was blunt. “Quite possibly, but it also could mean that the House is lonely, that it feels abandoned—or that it hopes that with your return you will find Colette. You admit to feeling an imperative to do so, don’t you?”

  “Imperative? I don’t know. Curiosity maybe.”

  But I was remembering the vision I’d had while up on the ladder, the one of Colette in her plum satin gown, driving her gig steadily along a road. Had the House been trying to show me something? To give me a message? To get me to do something about that old mystery, now that I’d finally learned about liminal space?

  The possibility made me uncomfortable. I honestly wanted to know what had happened to Colette, but I didn’t like the idea of being pushed into making those discoveries—not even by Phineas House.

  It was late by now, and I could see that the hour was preying on my guest.

  “Mikey, maybe we should resume this in the morning.”

  He politely patted back a yawn. “I wouldn’t mind some sleep. It was a long trip, and excitement carried me along to this point, but even a good meal can’t replace honest sleep. When may I call tomorrow?”

  “I’m usually up early. Domingo and I have breakfast and review the day’s work on the House. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “Perhaps I will. However, I’d like the opportunity to sleep late. May I call after I’m awake and come over then, or would that be asking you to wait around for me?”

  “Not at all,” I assured him. “I’m usually home. There’s quite a lot to do.”

  “Then I will call,” he said. “Until tomorrow, then, Mira.”

  “Until tomorrow,” I replied.

  I went to bed that night, aware that I was digging in my mental heels. I’d wanted to learn what had happened to Colette. I still did—in a way—but I didn’t like the idea of doing so for any reasons other than my own. If Mikey Hart was to be believed, Aldo Pincas had attempted not only to shape, but to secure forces that by their very nature should neither be shaped, nor secured. That Grandfather Aldo had not anticipated the House evolving its own agenda seemed clear. Equally clear was that the House did have an agenda—an agenda that frightened me because I didn’t know where I fit in.

  The kitchen was clean when I went in to check the lock on the back door. The coffee for tomorrow morning was already set up. I made a point of putting the coffee mugs Mikey and I had used in the dishwasher, along with the cookie plate. Before tonight, this would have been a quiet act of thanksgiving. Tonight a hint of rebellion underlay my actions. I appreciated Phineas House’s help, but I wasn’t dependent on it, not for cleaning, not for anything.

  Wondering about Grandfather Nikolai’s death had become almost reflex whenever I went up or down the main staircase. Tonight, however, rather than asking myself did Colette push him or did the House itself do something on her behalf, I found myself wondering “And if Phineas House did help Colette, what then was the price?”

  It was an unsettling thought. The Fenns had reared me with good, old-fashioned values, one of which was that nothin
g was free—there was always a price. Uncle Stan had even made clear that things that apparently had no cost—whether in accepting charity or letting someone else do what you knew you should be doing—was its own form of cost. In these cases many times the coin in which you paid was pride.

  I thought about that as I washed my face and brushed my teeth, as I used a toilet I hadn’t had to scrub for weeks because invisible hands kept it sparklingly clean. I hadn’t thought about the price for these services. Was I losing my own will to act? Was I becoming a bird in a gilded cage?

  When I went into my room, I nearly threw the sprig of Spanish lavender onto the floor in a sudden surge of revulsion. Instead, I did with this piece what I had done with all the others, added it to the sweet-scented bundle that had gradually accumulated in my bedside table. There was no need to reject grace and kindness, just because I wondered at what motivated it. That would be as foolish as accepting without question. Walking a middle line was the only reasonable solution.

  And, Mira, I thought to myself as I drifted off to sleep, if what Mikey says is true, well, then, walking lines, through them, along them, in between them, that’s something you should be very good at indeed.

  23

  Winter in Ohio was especially rough if you had an appetite for color.

  —Toni Morrison,

  Beloved

  INSIDE THE LINES

  My dreams that night were a continuation of the vision that had nearly toppled me from my ladder, only more vivid. Gowned in plum satin, Colette continued to drive her stylish gig along a winding road. Shooting Star continued to trot along, steady but obviously aware of being part of a stylish turn-out. Neither of them seemed aware that they were travelling through a landscape right out of one of M.C. Escher’s nightmares.

  The road along which they traveled split: one becoming two, two four, four eight, eight sixteen, sixteen thirty-two, thirty-two doubtless sixty-four, and sixty-four one hundred and twenty-eight, though by then I had long since lost count. Each road was identical, each route carried its own Colette, its own gig, its own tightly trotting bay mare.

  The skies above were no longer pure New Mexico blue, but were the hue of a two-day-old bruise. They were livid, shot through with lightning bolts in neon orange and lime green. The thunder from the lightning’s passage cracked and screamed like breaking glass.

  None of the infinitude of Colettes noticed. They drove on, each along their own road, each fanning out farther from the others, their roads slim spokes in an increasingly attenuated wheel. I thought of my earlier image of liminal space as like a spiderweb, and looked to see what spider sat at the center of this web, what stable basis provided the hub.

  I expected to see Phineas House, but what I saw instead was emptiness, a dark red void, colored like the afterimages left when you rub your eyes too hard. I stared into that void, certain that something must be concealed beneath the viscous red, but there was nothing but the dull, bloody glow.

  When I looked down the spokes again, the Colettes had traveled far enough down their roads that their images were the size of pinpricks, yet these pinpricks were still perfect in every detail, as if the Colettes had lost size and volume rather than moving along, but the images defied this interpretation, for Shooting Star’s legs moved in their steady, rhythmic trot, the rubber-tired wheels spun, and Colette after Colette shook the reins impatiently, and focused on the landscape through a teleidoscope held in an elegantly gloved hand.

  I looked in the direction in which she pointed the device, trying to see what she did, but all I saw was a chaotic scream of neon brilliance against that bruised sky. I fell into deeper sleep wondering if Colette had seen anything different.

  Mikey did not arrive in time to join me and Domingo for our breakfast in the garden. Although I had genuinely liked the man, I found myself relieved. Mikey himself might be good company, but the stories he had told me had been—to say the least—disquieting.

  I filled Domingo in on some of it, and if I emphasized the points where our guesses had been correct or mostly correct, rather than the unsettling evidence that my mother had been the insane conclusion of a family who sought to control time and space for its own benefit, well, can you blame me?

  “Do we continue the painting today?” Domingo said. “I did not tell the crew not to come.”

  “Continue,” I said, a note of defiance in my voice. “Phineas House may want this paint job, but, you know, so do I. Somehow it’s impossible to be afraid of the House in daylight—especially as it becomes more impossibly gaudy.”

  Domingo dropped his hand to accept the stick Blanco had brought him, and tossed it across the yard. It fell at the edge of a patch of squash, and Blanco paused to bark aggressively at something hiding beneath one of the large leaves—probably a toad. The garden’s dampness drew them. Any wise gardener welcomes toads, but Blanco did not share our appreciation.

  “Tell me, Mira,” Domingo said in that voice that always seemed soft, even when he was shouting orders up to the painters, “do you fear the House?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “You know that. You gave me a bed one night when I was too scared to go back inside.”

  “Sometimes,” he said, and this time his voice was truly soft, “I also fear Phineas House, but long ago I reasoned that there is nothing at all wrong with fear when it is merited.”

  I blinked at this, but there was really no need for me to answer. Domingo and I understood each other too well where the House was concerned. In other ways, we might still almost be strangers, but not in this. The phone ringing in the kitchen saved me from the need to shape an unnecessary reply.

  “That’s probably Mikey,” I said, running inside. Blanco, who like every dog saw a running human as an invitation to chase, came after me, and I let him inside. Domingo remained outside, sipping coffee and looking thoughtfully at the rosebushes.

  “Hello?”

  “Mira? This is Mikey Hart. I’m finally awake, but not yet dressed or showered. How about I drop over in say an hour and a half? I’ll eat here at the hotel, and give you a chance to get your morning in order.”

  “Fine,” I said. “When you get here, just come in the gate and walk around the side of Phineas House. Someone will tell you where I am, and I might as well do some painting.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said. “See you in a bit, then.”

  I came out and told Domingo the gist of the conversation.

  “So,” I concluded, “I’ll have a chance to help paint out the bird poop someone spilled down the side the other day.”

  Domingo grinned at me, but shook his finger in an admonition that was only in semi-jest.

  “I’ll let you do it,” he said, “but no daydreaming. I will not have my meal-ticket fall off a ladder and break her neck.”

  “I promise,” I said, growing suddenly serious. “I think I dreamed enough last night.”

  Mikey arrived as I was wiping paint off my fingers with a rag. With the help of Tomás, I had repaired most of the damage caused by my spill, and I thought the House looked quite good.

  “Good morning, Mikey,” I said cheerfully. “You look rested and well.”

  “I am indeed,” he replied, “and if I thought Phineas House looked impressive in evening light, in full daylight …”

  He trailed off in what I chose to take as admiring astonishment. I dropped the paint rag with its fellows, and motioned for Mikey to follow me.

  “Let me introduce you to Domingo Navidad. You know of him, of course, but I have the impression you have never met.”

  “We have not,” Mikey said, “but I’d be glad to remedy the situation.”

  “Good. Then I’ll let him give you the grand exterior tour while I get out of my coveralls. You’ve had breakfast, I know, but can I offer you anything?”

  “A glass of iced tea, perhaps,” Mikey said, his gaze still moving over Phineas House’s exterior, resting for a moment on an ornate frieze or window frame, then moving on.

  Introduct
ions went smoothly. When I emerged from the House, wearing an olive-green broomstick skirt and an off-white peasant blouse embroidered with wildflowers, most of the paint off my hands, I found the two men discussing the work. I waited until they had finished comparing the very different needs of Minnesota and New Mexico, then motioned for Mikey to come inside.

  “The painters like their music while they work,” I explained, “and I don’t feel like competing with guitars and trumpets.”

  Domingo gave us both a casual wave as he returned to his ladder. “Perhaps we will talk more later,” he said to Mikey. “I am glad you like the paint job.”