Vermilion

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  It can be frightening to awaken suddenly from a deep sleep and see a light in another part of a house where there should be no light. Frightening, even when I knew that I’d simply forgotten to turn off one of the living room lamps before I went to bed. I raised myself on my elbow and looked across at Alice in the dim, reflected light. She was sound asleep. I would slip out of bed and turn off whatever lamp we’d forgotten.

  The early morning hours were chilly, and I put on a robe and slippers before I went quietly out of the bedroom. Across the tiny hall a lamp was indeed burning in the empty room.

  Now I was puzzled. The lamps Brian had turned on when we came in earlier were connected to the switch by the door. This was a corner lamp that I couldn’t remember lighting at all. Perhaps Alice had done so. It didn’t matter. As I went to turn it off I noticed that one of the sliding doors of the living room storage closet was partially open, yet I could remember clearly that I’d closed that door earlier in the evening, when I’d put Jed’s cane away. Alice would never have opened that closet. Alarmed now, I pressed the lamp switch.

  At once the room was dark, with only a glimmer from stars beyond the windows. As silently as possible, I edged toward the bedroom. If I called out, I might be in greater danger than if I moved quietly and swiftly. Almost at once I knocked against the coffee table with a thud, and I heard the closet door sliding further ajar.

  With sudden clarity I remembered that moment on the terrace when I’d been about to pick up Jed’s cane and the voice in my mind had warned me not to touch it. Now a word exploded through me as though a fuse had been lighted.

  MOVE!

  This time I obeyed instantly, stepping to the side, only to be blocked by a chair. I caught a glint of something flying in the starlight and heard the swish of air as the dragon’s head came down. Pain cracked through me and a black curtain descended.

  12

  I dreamed about Vermilion. A shimmering, dancing Vermilion, with hair that seemed to stream like flames from her head. Her laughter echoed endlessly in my mind—a laughter that sounded strangely triumphant.

  It seemed as though she spoke to me aloud as she’d done when I was a little girl—and only seldom after I grew up. “You need me, Lindsay. You mustn’t try to deny me. I saved you, you know. If only you’d listened on the terrace! I tried to warn you about the cane.”

  I attempted to turn in my bed, but pain attacked, slashing and throbbing, until I lay still. Yet I could hear my own voice, faint and very far off.

  “Go away! I don’t want you! You frighten me!”

  I could hear her whispering close to my ear. “By frightening you, I keep you alive. Because I can only be alive if you are alive, Lindsay. If you die, we die together. Listen to me, Lindsay! There are people around who can’t be trusted.”

  “What people?” I demanded.

  But she only fluttered and shimmered beyond the foot of my bed, and I knew she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—tell me.

  I continued to lie still and the pain faded a little, though I knew she was still there. I could see her clearly, and I’d always loved to watch her dance—light as confetti blowing through the air, graceful, and so beautiful! Now it seemed as though my eyes were open and I could see her swirling, floating, her feet keeping time to her laughter.

  She was my friend. My long-ago friend. Yet sometimes she was not my friend, and then I could sense her malice. Perhaps she wanted me alive, because as she said, I was her life. But there were times when she wanted to hurt me, and suddenly I comprehended.

  “You’re jealous!” I accused. “You want what I have that you can never have—life!”

  Her shimmering became angry and a little wild, but her laughter had been silenced.

  “I can send you away,” I said.

  I think in that moment she chose not to risk it. For an instant more the flames of her hair gleamed brightly and then faded into shadow. There was no sound or movement where she had been.

  An intense awareness of my body possessed me, of throbbing in my head. Of course I had been dreaming—only dreaming. When I opened my eyes it was to see a brightness everywhere that made me blink. The light color of walls, the white uniform of a nurse. Out of sight I could hear a man’s voice speaking to someone I couldn’t see. I could hear the words clearly—the sound of authority.

  “Since she wasn’t unconscious for long, it’s probably not serious. We’ll know better when we see the X-rays. The medication is making her sleepy, and she may be a little confused for a while and not remember. You can see her, if you like.”

  “I’m awake,” I said in the same faraway tones I’d used to Vermilion.

  The doctor must have gone, but the nurse smiled at me benignly and beckoned to someone who stood in the doorway. Rick came into the room and pulled a chair near the bed where I could see him without turning my head. “Don’t stay too long,” the nurse warned, and went away.

  “It’s morning,” Rick said. “You’re in the hospital in Cottonwood. It’s a good hospital, and closer than Flagstaff.” He picked up my hand and laid it against his cheek. “Don’t try to talk, darling. Luckily you just missed receiving a lethal blow. The doctor says there was no laceration, though you’ll have a lump on the side of your head for a while.”

  I reached up gingerly and felt the soreness and swelling. “What about Alice?” I whispered.

  “She heard you fall and ran out of the bedroom, but she had trouble in the dark, and whoever it was got away. By the time she turned on the lights and saw what had happened, it was too late to see who was there. She called me, and we brought you here right away. The lock on the guesthouse door hadn’t been touched, so whoever it was must have come in earlier and stayed out of sight in that closet.”

  “That’s where I put the cane,” I said, and closed my eyes because the light hurt me. The world—even a hospital world—was beautiful and dazzling, and right now my eyes had to get used to it.

  “Who were you talking to just now?” Rick asked.

  I wasn’t strong enough to equivocate. “Vermilion,” I said. “She comes back too often lately. She says she helped me last night. I know something told me to move just in time.”

  He squeezed my hand and stood up to look at someone else who had entered the room. I had no wish to move my head. Alice came around the end of the bed and spoke to me.

  “I could almost sense her there last night,” she told me. “Your Vermilion. There was something strong and good in the room that was trying to help you.”

  I managed to smile at Alice. “She’s not always good. Only when it serves her to be.” I looked uncomfortably at Rick. Alice Rainsong might understand, but I wasn’t sure of Rick.

  “You are your father’s daughter,” he said a bit ruefully. “And both you and Alice belong to Silvercloud.”

  Relief ran through me. Rick would never mock me as Sybil had done.

  “Have you talked to the sheriff?” I asked.

  “Yes. Jed’s cane was dropped on the terrace before whoever struck you went down into the wash and ran away. Everyone who came to dinner last night is being questioned—whatever good that will do. So far there’s not a lead. It wasn’t necessarily one of us, of course. It could have been anyone at all.”

  “I don’t think so,” Alice said calmly. She sat beside my bed, straight-backed and poised. “The connecting strands with Jed and Sybil are too clear. Someone is frightened, and the frightened can be dangerous. What was Sybil after, that last day? Someone knows.”

  “She didn’t confide in me,” Rick said dryly.

  I asked a question of my own. “Were there any marks on the cane?”

  “I doubt it,” Rick said, “but it’s being checked.”

  “Is Marilla all right?”

  “Orva is keeping her occupied. She can stay there as long as we like.”

  Urgency was rising again, and I knew that Vermilion’s mistrust and suspicion were still alive.

  “Bring Marilla home, Rick,” I pleaded. “Don’t
leave her in that house with Orva and Brian. Don’t let her become a hostage.”

  “What are you talking about?” He sounded angry now, and I knew how stretched out he was.

  My courage was fading with my strength. “I don’t know what I mean—I don’t really know! You told me to stay away from Orva and her son—remember?”

  “This is different. She’s devoted to Marilla.”

  “Just the same, bring her home!”

  Alice put a calming hand on my arm. “Hush, Lindsay. Rick will bring Marilla home soon.” She looked up at him. “What should we do now?”

  “First of all, I’d better make it clear to everyone who heard her that Lindsay was talking off the top of her head at dinner last night. I mean, when she said she might know who killed Jed, and perhaps Sybil. I don’t suppose I can undo the damage, but I’ll try. In the meantime, Lindsay, be quiet and rest. You’re safe here, and the doctor thinks you should stay overnight. If the X-rays are all right, he’ll probably release you tomorrow.”

  Gradually my head seemed to be clearing, though I still felt far too excited.

  “I can stay as long as you like, Rick,” Alice put in. “Though I don’t think last night will be repeated. We’re on guard now.”

  “What about Sybil?” I asked.

  Rick understood. “The police are holding her body for a few days. So the funeral must wait.”

  A nurse returned to motion Rick and Alice toward the door.

  “We’ll see you later, Lindsay,” he said. “Let me do the worrying for a while.”

  Alice, however, stayed where she was. “I’m not leaving the hospital yet. I’ll let Lindsay rest, but I wanted to be here in case she needs me.”

  Her words reassured and comforted. I wanted to rest. The hurt, physical part of me wanted to rest, though my wakeful mind longed futilely for action. Once more there was a pill to calm me down, and I went to sleep.

  Not until later that day did the police take Rick to Flagstaff for further questioning. In the meantime, all four of the “friends” who had been at the dinner last night came to see me. All were disquieting.

  During the next hours I slept and wakened and ate a little. With Alice there, I began to relax—and I didn’t dream about Vermilion.

  The first of my visitors arrived in midafternoon. Parker brought me a thermos of what he said would be the most strengthening eggnog in the world. Since no voice warned me not to drink it, I sipped a glass right away, and could feel its power flowing through me. Perhaps the touch of brandy helped.

  For once Parker seemed rather subdued, and he showed concern for me. It occurred to me that Sybil’s absence made a difference to all of us. We might regret the way of her death, but things were easier without her presence. A sad epitaph.

  “Are you really all right, Lindsay?” he asked as I drank eggnog. “That was a hell of a thing to have happen. Any idea who it could have been?”

  I wished that I needn’t remember that it might be any of four people, with Parker one of the four.

  “No,” I said, “I’ve no idea.” Even if I’d had an answer, I’d never boast about it again.

  “Clara’s coming to see you later—if you’re still here,” he went on. “She probably can’t get away from the store for a while. This is a bad affair. Terrible! You get to wondering who’s going to be next.”

  Perhaps the eggnog was helping, because I seemed to be thinking a little more clearly. There was a special question I needed to ask.

  “We’re all worried now,” I agreed. “And we will be until this is cleared up. Did you see anything of Sybil the day she disappeared?”

  He had brought another chair to the opposite side of the bed from Alice, and he sat down, considering the question. “Sybil telephoned me early in the morning. Just more details about the dinner. I’d wanted to give her a better meal than the one she planned, but she wouldn’t have it. That was the last I heard from her. I never saw her again.”

  There was nothing else I could ask, and he chatted pleasantly with Alice, speaking knowledgeably about her paintings in the Tlaquepaque store. He even asked about her teaching at the university in Flagstaff, and about the satisfaction she must get from working with young people.

  “You sound like someone who would have liked to teach,” Alice said.

  That seemed to startle him. “Afraid not. All I know is cooking, and I’ve never wanted to teach my tricks to anybody.”

  Not until just before he left did he say anything that disturbed me.

  At the door he looked back as if in afterthought and said, “What’s Orva’s son up to anyway?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, startled.

  “Clara told me he came to the store this morning. He wanted to have another look at that Fire People piece your father carved, Lindsay. Clara said he plunked down on the floor in her office and just stared at it for a while.”

  “Perhaps it was speaking to him,” Alice said.

  Parker moved his shoulders derisively. “Not in any language Clara could understand,” he said, and went away.

  Alice walked to the window to look down into the hospital grounds. She was the one who could accept Vermilion most easily, I thought, and I wished I could open up with her more. But she too liked to go off alone in her mind and seek for answers, and I said nothing, respecting her silence. When she turned back, however, I knew that she’d found none.

  “Jed talked to me once about Sybil,” she said. “He knew there was something in him that caused him to torment her at times, and I think Sybil really hated him. What bothered her most of all was his mysticism. Young Brian learned that from him. She fought the way he drew Marilla into something she couldn’t understand. She disliked anything to do with the Fire People, and perhaps she feared her own fear because she couldn’t accept it.”

  “And of course my father played on her fear?”

  “That’s right. I told him once that he was being cruel, and he laughed at me. The point is that everyone knew about Sybil’s dread of that place. But of course this was before Jed changed.”

  “Brian said something like that too. How did he change? Why?”

  Alice shook her head sadly. “I’m not sure, exactly. There was a time before he died when I seldom saw him, though before that he used to come often to stay at my house in Flagstaff. The last time I saw him there he seemed morose and depressed. The change came after the car accident, and I’m sure Celia’s death was often in his mind and on his conscience.”

  “Why shouldn’t it have been?” I challenged. “He was to blame. He always had a weakness for young, pretty women.”

  “I know. We all knew.”

  “Then why did you send her to him?”

  For the first time Alice’s quiet control seemed to falter. “Celia was in love with someone else. She was even talking about marriage, so I thought she’d be safe. I didn’t count on that attraction he had for women—something he could never keep from exerting. I trusted him at the wrong time.”

  “Was he really having an affair with this girl?” I could hear the bitterness in my voice.

  “How can we know? Perhaps we have to give them both the benefit of the doubt. Afterwards, he kept going back to Jerome.”

  “Why Jerome? And why did Sybil make Brian take her there?”

  Once more, Alice seemed to remove herself from her immediate surroundings. Her eyes took on a distant look, and everything about her became very still. It was as though she turned herself inward and locked all doors and windows that might open her to the world. Almost imperceptibly, she went away to a place where I couldn’t reach her, and I knew there was still something she didn’t want to tell me.

  “I’d rather not talk about Celia right now,” she said after an interval. “There are others concerned, and I haven’t made my peace yet with what happened. There was so much about Jed that I loved. I always looked to him as a father when I was growing up, yet there was that other side of him. That wilder side that led him down strange roads.�
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  “I know. It was like that for me too.”

  At least, by this time, I was sure of one thing. I must go to Jerome. There were answers in Jerome, and it was possible that I could find them, and through them find the truth that would help Rick. The inaction of lying in a hospital bed was frustrating, yet I found myself all too ready to close my eyes and doze again. I must stop taking those pills they shoved at me.

  Alice roused herself and went to draw the draperies, shutting out the light, so that I could nap again. Hospitals were far from quiet places, and someone was always popping in and out, but I was still able to fall asleep.

  When I woke up, an hour had passed, and Orva was in the room, sitting where Parker had sat. She and Alice were quiet, letting me sleep, and they seemed comfortable enough in each other’s company. Alice had a rare quality of meaning harm to no one, yet I couldn’t forget those angry pictures I had seen in the shop gallery. Nor would I forget what she’d said about Jed, and the uneasiness about him that she too had suffered.

  When I opened my eyes, Orva said, “Good, you’re still alive. I was wondering if you were going to sleep all afternoon. Look—I brought you some fruit. How’re you feeling, Lindsay?”

  “Better,” I said. “Thank you for coming.”

  Alice opened the draperies and then came to raise the bed so I could sit up.

  “That was pretty awful—what happened to you last night,” Orva went on. “You were crazy to go ahead with that dinner. Not that I haven’t done a few crazy things myself. But if you hadn’t gone ahead with Sybil’s plan, maybe you wouldn’t have been attacked. When poison’s stirring around under the surface, the way Sybil was stirring it, it’s better to leave the brew alone.”

  I asked a direct question. “You’ve already told me that you saw Sybil the morning of the day she disappeared. You said she came to talk about the dinner. Was there anything else?”

  For a moment I thought Orva might not answer. She sat beside my bed looking as angular and ungraceful as ever, her thin face marked with deepening lines of worry. Then she glanced briefly at Alice, and straightened her shoulders, making a decision.