Yet, what struck her hardest was the calm, the sense of relief she felt moments after stepping inside. The quiet, the peace, the protection were . . . spiritual, she decided—as nurturing as one would wish any church to be. For several minutes she stood with her hands on the straps of her pack, eyes closed, simply breathing, deeply, in and out, as if she were home again. At last.
“Ho there!” a male voice, deep and throaty like the growl of a bear echoed in the clearing. “Yer trespassin’.”
Odd. Rather than the surprise or alarm she would normally feel in this situation, his tenor resonated with something familiar inside her. Calm and . . . expectant, as if he should recognize her, she turned to face a short burly man in stretched-out denim and soft flannel. His face was bushy and his hair was gray, but his movements were sure and determined as he approached her, double-barreled shotgun in hand.
Odder. She knew it wasn’t loaded. She knew she was in no danger. She knew he was sweeter than he looked.
Oddest . . . she was delighted to see him.
“Hi!”
“ ’Ello. Yer on private property.”
She nodded. “The Tennets’. Yes, I figured that.”
“Mumford Manor, miss. You oughta be leavin’ now.”
“I’m Ivy Bonner.” She met him on the back side of the canopy and held out a hand. “I’m staying at the Rossinis’ this summer.”
A moment of confused speculation crossed his face before he glanced at her hand, shifted the rifle from his right to his left, and stepped forward to take hers.
“Mr. Craig mentioned ya. Gus. I keep an eye on things here.”
“This”—she held her arms out to indicate the gazebo—“is lovely. The scrollwork is amazing. It must have been spectacular once.”
He took a good look and gave one firm nod. “Gone to ruin of late. Rotting. Could be dangerous.”
“Mm. The floorboards, I saw those.”
“ A couple ties in the roof ain’t as strong as they oughta be neither.”
“What a shame Mr. Tennet doesn’t care enough to keep it up.”
The old man looked as if she’d slapped him—he was annoyed.
“He cares, miss. Best you go now.”
“I didn’t mean anything by that. I was . . . It was just an observation.” She spoke hastily. She didn’t want to leave. But even before the last word left her lips he was pointing south with his shotgun, toward the woods and the Rossinis’ property beyond. “Fine. But I was heading the other way . . . to the top.”
“Private property.”
“What—the whole cliff top? I don’t think so.”
“Think what you like, but it’s true. Too many cracks and gaps in the rock to have folks wandering up and down the cliffs, killin’ ’emselves fer pictures. The park put in a lookout a few miles up the road. You can have a look-see from there.”
“But . . .”
“Come along now,” he said, patient but determined, as he moved to meet her at the south-side entrance.
Reluctantly, she took the first and then the second step down, looking back over her shoulder, pondering the strange pull she felt toward the little ramshackle structure that even its owner didn’t seem to have much use for.
“It’s been here a long time but . . . it was originally built for something else, wasn’t it?” She didn’t want to know how or why she knew this—especially in light of the fact that it looked perfect in its current location.
“Yes, miss.” He led the way to a gap in the woods and an obvious path to the other side. “Miss Ruth’s wedding canopy.”
“Miss Ruth. Mr. Craig’s . . . sister?”
“His mother, God keep her. Last Mumford, she was.”
“Mumford? Like the dam?”
“And the mine and the town I was born in.” He stopped where the path started. “Good to meet you, Miss Bonner.”
“Ivy.”
He nodded. “Miss Ivy, then. You find you need somethin’ just give a call to the house and I’ll come a-runnin’.”
“Thank you, Gus. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
“Will do. You do the same.” He tipped his head at her, turned, and walked away.
She watched him lumber off, but then her gaze gravitated back to the gazebo.
In general, Ivy was not an impulsive person in spite of the 180-degree bend in her nature to be expressive and artistic. She was logical and cautious and a bit of a perfectionist in most everything she did—and very aware when she was, well, out of sync with herself. So resisting the urge to return to the gazebo once Gus was out of sight was . . . jarring. As was the driven compulsion to remove sketch pad and pencils from her pack as soon she got home and the feverish style of her strokes as she made first a rough draft, then quickly sharpened and polished it until she was satisfied she had a true image of the wedding canopy—draped in gossamer white silk with a bumper crop of pendulous purple wisteria flowering from thick vines in the eaves.
It was stunning . . . literally, in every sense of the word. Beautiful and shocking.
She tossed the pad away from her as if it had burst into flames. Silk and wisteria? How could she have possibly known that? Her imagination . . . ? Then why not radiant white satin and bold red roses with just as much certainty?
Her eyes stung with tears of frustration and anxiety. She closed them and lay back in the chaise to breathe deep and search for calm.
What was happening to her? The nightmares . . . hallucinations . . . and now this insane obsession with a gazebo. Was she insane? She thought about it—would a crazy woman question her sanity? She chose no. Otherwise she’d have to call and explain everything to her mother, listen to the litany of roots and powders and extracts to ingest or rub or soak in, and then drive herself to the nearest asylum.
After a few more minutes she was able to convince herself that it was all stress. Yeah, stress! It had to be. Her eyes popped open and she groaned over how foolish she’d been. She picked up her sketch pad, smiled at the drawing of the gazebo, and went inside to make valerian root tea . . . a lot of it.
That night the nightmare started in the gazebo. She was happy; more content than she’d been in a long, long time—looking forward to the future. Dark clouds rolled in from across the lake. Lightning sparked and thunder rumbled. Fat drops of rain made hard-hitting noises on the ground first and then on the roof above. A clean, fresh summer storm. Gradually she noticed that night, too, was coming. The land around her safe haven was turning to a thick, sloppy mud . . . but she didn’t care. Slipping her hands into the front pockets of her jeans, she stepped down into the rain. The wind blew in gusts and water streamed down her face as she walked toward the cliffs. She hesitated, and then peered over the edge at the waves crashing and pounding against the craggy rock. A jolt of panic coursed through her and she turned quickly . . . toward home. Lightning crashed, twice, in rapid progression along the slope of land in front of her. It startled her. She jerked back. Her foot slipped in the mud. She pulled her hands from her pockets, waved them through the air to keep her balance, and then suddenly she was falling . . . falling . . . falling.
“Hello?”
“Craig?” Holding her cell phone in one hand, she used his business card to scratch at the bug bite on her knee with the other. “It’s Ivy Bonner. Am I disturbing you?”
“No. How are you doing?” He had the nicest voice—mellow and friendly.
“Good, thanks. I’m calling to ask . . . well, Gus probably told you about our meeting yesterday.”
“Gus?”
“Your caretaker? Scruffy-looking older gentleman? Built like a big shoe box? Carries an empty shotgun around?”
He chuckled. “I know who Gus is. He just didn’t mention meeting you.”
“Oh. Good.” Pretending to be shamefaced, she confessed, “I was trespassing.”
“I see.” Though his voice was serious, she could hear the smile in it. “And now you’ve called to apologize?”
“Not really . . . but I will if you
give me permission to trespass some more.”
“Of course. Feel free to roam around all you like. In fact, please drop in when you do, anytime. I’m always looking for a nice distraction.”
“From what?”
“Work. I travel quite a bit so when the opportunity presents itself I try to work from home. This is the first time in almost two years I’ve had any real time off, so this summer is a bit of a working vacation for me. So you see, you’d be doing me a huge favor if you stop by once in a while to get me out of my office.”
“Well, put like that, it seems like the least I could do.”
“Good. Now I have something to look forward to.”
So did she. And it wasn’t an unwelcome realization.
“You’ll tell Gus not to shoot me on sight, then?”
“I will.”
“Thank you.”
“See you soon.”
They said good-bye, but two seconds after she ended the call on her cell, the house phone rang.
“You know Gus is harmless, right? You can trust him.”
“I guessed that.” She’d been certain of it.
“Okay. See you later.”
“ ’Bye.”
Packing a notebook and sketch pad and pencils along with a bottle of water, an apple, and an energy bar in her pack, she became aware of the smile that lingered on her lips . . . and a definite sense of anticipation that wasn’t entirely about the gazebo.
So okay, she could admit it, she got a little lonely sometimes. And there was no doubt that it was nice to have something to take her mind off the weirdness happening around her.
She took the cliff trail back to the gazebo, spread out a yoga mat she’d snatched from the Rossinis’ stash of athletic equipment, and spent the afternoon sketching the views of every angle from the tranquility within—the lake, the woods, the steep slope covered in scrub vegetation and wildflowers just beginning to bloom.
Granted, it wasn’t the sketching she was supposed to be doing, the kind that paid the rent, but it came easily and flowed from her fingers like it hadn’t in months—she’d take it and be grateful that her mental block was beginning to crumble.
The next day she slept late into the morning, having spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, eager to sleep but reluctant to dream. Close to midnight, in a fit of desperation, she swam to exhaustion in the Rossinis’ endless lap pool. Then she slept . . . she dreamt . . . and she was falling, falling, falling.
Weary, impatient for the tranquility she’d quickly come to expect inside the gazebo, she took the cliffside path in a hurry. Right away she noticed something different and hurried over to the canopy to get a closer look.
Furniture. A chair, footstool, and small table, all of the Adirondack style, were set smack in the middle of the floor—where three new unfinished planks of wood were set snug and tight, replacing those that had rotted and warped. Even the struts holding up the roof had been reinforced with several metal brackets.
Now it was perfect, she deemed, unloading her supplies. Beautiful, safe, and comfortable—perfect.
She settled back in the chair, feet up on the stool, with her notebook and pencil in hand. She drew a line down the middle of the page and divided it into eight rectangles. Rough-draft storyboards were her basic outline for the story she wanted to write and the even more coarse sketches to go with it . . . when they presented themselves. Which they weren’t, at the moment.
She inhaled the fresh air, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes to concentrate. She heard the water beat against the granite wall . . . and woke up shortly before sunset.
THREE
“ A psychotic break? Seriously?” She put her mother on speaker so she could look up the term on her BlackBerry. “You came up with that one pretty quickly. It isn’t from one of your TV shows, is it? There was no screaming or blood involved. I fell asleep and when I woke up, my storyboard was finished—all five pages of storyboard. Patty Ann Pettigrew Meets a Ghost. That’s the title someone gave it. A ghost, for Pete’s sake . . . and there isn’t even a Halloween theme to it.” She read, An acute psychotic episode lasts longer than one day but less than one month—her nap had lasted about four hours. “It says here the patient will have at least one of the following: delusions, hallucinations, markedly disorganized speech, or markedly disorganized or catatonic behavior. There’s nothing about working in your sleep, Mom.”
“Have you hit your head lately? Maybe you just forgot you finished the storyboard and then . . . you were unconscious, not sleeping.”
“Like amnesia?”
“Yes!”
“Umm . . . no. I think I’d remember having had amnesia, wouldn’t I? Besides, I haven’t hit my head on anything. Not that I haven’t wanted to,” she added under her breath.
“Hitting your head isn’t the only way to have amnesia. Stress can—”
“I’m not that stressed.” Or, she hadn’t been until now. “I swear.”
“Ivy, honey, would you like me to drive up? I can bring you some fresh rosemary. We’ll fill the house with the scent of it, put it in our food. Oh! And I’ll bring this marvelous new tea I’ve been working with . . . and with a dash of tincture of ginkgo biloba and a few drops of concentrated Ashwagandha root and a little ginseng you’ll . . . well, if we’re not careful with the Ashwagandha root, you’ll be jumping every man in the vicinity,” she laughed at the thought. “But at least you’ll remember doing it.” She laughed again despite being entirely serious about her herbs.
And while the child in Ivy was sure she’d feel better with her mother nearby, the greater part of her was already gagging on the tea and suffocating from the constant fussing that was her mother’s . . . specialty, to put it lovingly.
“You’re the best mom I’ve ever had, you know that?”
“I’m the only mom you’ve ever had. So I’m guessing that’s a no.”
“It’s a no, thank you, and I appreciate the offer, but I’ll figure it out. In fact, I wonder . . . If I fell asleep with a copy of The South Beach Diet, would I wake up with Cameron Diaz’s body?”
“There you go, my upside-to-everything girl.” She tried to sound cheerful but her voice was still thick with concern. “If that works, you won’t be able to keep me away.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
“I want to be the first to know everything, understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
They ended the call—and there and then Ivy resolved to stop relating her worries and woes to her mother. She was anxious enough by nature—her coronary two years ago was proof of that—and aside from her teas and tinctures, there wasn’t a lot she could do to help.
Leafing through the pages of the finished storyboard, it became more and more confusing. Not only was it not the sort of story she generally wrote, it wasn’t a good story. It was the ghost trying to tell Patty Ann Pettigrew, in several different ways, not to be afraid of him. Clearly inspired by the gazebo, it was in a very similar structure that Patty Ann and the ghost, Oliver, felt most at ease together.
She growled and ripped the pages from her pad, wadded them up tight, and tossed them to the far corner of the room. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she knew she had to get control of it. Ignoring it and moving on with her life was her best bet, as there wasn’t anything else she could think of to do. How did one battle nightmares and, well, sleep in general now?
Though, looking back on it for the first time, she hadn’t jolted awake from her nap, caught in the sensation of falling. Her eyes had opened on a satisfied sigh. A gentle breeze tickled her cheek with wisps of her hair. She’d stretched her muscles out like a lazy cat. Too soon, she’d glanced down at her sketches....
Opening a fresh bottle of pinot noir—high in antioxidants and resveratrol, according to her mother—she poured twice her usual dose into a large wine glass. She practiced her own form of pharmacology.
Curling up on one end of the couch, she strained her brain trying to recall what she’d dreamt that afternoon. Nothing? There was a vague impression of a woman . . . with red hair . . . that deep, rich hue of mahogany . . . maybe. The harder she tried to get a clearer image, the fuzzier it got—and that had nothing to do with her second glass of wine. In fact, she was so clear thinking that when the house phone rang, it barely scorched her nervous system.
“Hello?”
“I woke you up.” That wonderful voice . . .
“You did?”
“I didn’t?”
“Didn’t what?”
“Wake you up.”
“When?”
“Just now, with the telephone?”
“Oh! No.” She rolled her eyes at her stupidity. “I’m awake.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Maybe. Yeah, I might be. A little tipsy, I think.”
“Special occasion?” She heard amusement in his voice. He wasn’t going to judge her.
“Not really. No. Truth is, I lost my mind this afternoon and I was just sitting here trying to decide if I could get along without it altogether or if I should go looking for it.”
“What’d you decide?”
“I haven’t yet.”
“Would you like a second opinion?”
She chuckled. “You’ll have to bring your own bottle of pinot. Mine’s almost gone.”
“No problem. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
It was closer to twenty minutes—not that it bothered her. As a matter of fact, when he rang the bell, she didn’t even bother herself to get up, simply bellowed out for him to come in.
“Ivy?” he called, walking slowing down the wide hall that opened into the big family kitchen at the back of the house.
She’d chosen the library as her sanctuary. The furniture was big and soft and cushy, and so many of the books she loved stood sentry along the walls protecting her. “Here.”
He stopped in the doorway—filled it for the most part. He had a presence, that’s for sure. Not the sort of man to go . . . unnoticed.
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