The Splendour Falls

by Rosemary Clement-Moore

  Did I? The worst thing was, I couldn’t be certain. Whatever her intentions, Addie had managed to make me doubt myself. Maybe I was nuts if I was saying things and then forgetting them.

  ‘Maybe you blacked out the conversation,’ said Addie, as if she’d read my thoughts. ‘I hear that can happen when you’re drying out.’

  ‘What?’ I stared at her blankly, my brain completely shut down in outrage and disbelief.

  ‘Addie!’ snapped her mother. ‘That’s enough.’

  My nemesis just shrugged. ‘Everyone knows that’s why she’s here.’

  ‘Everyone knows no such thing,’ said Clara. ‘And neither do you, young lady.’

  I turned to Paula and demanded, ‘Why would people think that?’ Because the only way they could have gotten that idea was if a certain someone blabbed what the stepshrink had told her.

  ‘No one thinks that, Sylvie,’ Paula said impatiently, but I wasn’t listening.

  Pushing back from the table, I stood as calmly as I could, worried any quick movement would break my control over my feelings and I would scream at Paula, or pull Addie’s hair, or start to cry. ‘I’ve lost my appetite.’

  No one tried to stop me. On the porch, Gigi stood in her crate, her front paws up on one of the metal crossbars, waiting for me, as if she sensed that I was upset. I let her out, fitted her harness and snapped on the leash, taking no chances of her running off in the dark. I moved by rote, because I was choking on emotion.

  I headed for the garden, trying to outrun the fury that kept catching me. A few hours of distraction this afternoon, and now I was angry again. At Paula, at Addie, at Rhys. Not to mention Mother, the stepshrink and John. I was mad at the world, and most of all, I was mad at myself.

  I hated that I’d circled back to where I’d started, wondering if I was crazy, wondering if anything would ever be right again. Other people dealt with tragedy without coming apart at the seams – or so my shrink told me. Why was I seeing ghosts and forgetting conversations and imagining connections with the previous occupant of my room?

  Kicking off my shoes, I let the gravel of the path roughly massage my feet. I surveyed my work, willed my accomplishments to soothe me. I had gotten a startling amount done, clearing a tiny, pie-shaped segment of the central circle. Once I’d gotten some of the weeds pulled out, I was surprised at how many of the plants on Dad’s list were still alive, just choked and pathetic.

  My hands itched to get back in the dirt. Looking at it wasn’t enough. Securing Gigi’s leash to the bench, I knelt in the planting bed, burrowing with my toes as if anchoring myself and digging my fingers down to the roots of the weeds.

  I didn’t bother with gloves, and I didn’t need light. By now I could go by feel, the texture of the plant, the shape of the leaves. More than that, it was something that I identified through my skin. I didn’t think about whether this was strange or unnatural. I just worked the earth, and freed my mind from the awful knots of anger and fear.

  The more I thought about it, what Addie implied didn’t make sense. No one in town treated me as if I was unhinged. According to Kimberly, most of them believed in ghosts. Or at least the possibility of them. And if they thought I was an alcoholic, it didn’t stop them from treating me like returning royalty. As long as their prince accepted me, I was golden, even if I did have bats in my belfry.

  And speaking of Shawn … It kept coming back to him. Maybe it was unfair to blame Kimberly for blathering about ghosts to Addie, when she obviously believed in them. But it was Shawn who kept bringing them up. Shawn who was the big fish in this small pond, who ran the Teen Town Council, whose charm and influence were off the chart.

  Who was courting me, the last Davis, and apparently heir to not only a lot of money but Bluestone Hill itself. In my head, I saw the triangle of sweetener packets on the table. If the properties were game pieces, they would trap Old Cahawba and give the player a lock on the corner where the rivers met – a lot of rustic paradise for hunting and ATV trails.

  There’s an old movie, Gaslight, where Ingrid Bergman plays an heiress, and this guy marries her and then makes her think she’s going crazy. It has something to do with getting her house or her fortune.

  Could someone be gaslighting me? I knew from performing, there were plenty of stage tricks you could use: scrim curtains, a TV screen reflected in a pane of glass, a costume and a well-placed mirror. Even fog machines were easy to get.

  It might make sense – if I could think of how anyone would benefit from making me think I was nuts. I already had plenty of doubts, without anyone’s help.

  Sitting back on my heels, I wondered if I could feel this clearheaded and still be crazy. The world seemed to be trying to convince me my own senses were faulty, and Rhys had warned me to be careful whom I trusted. If I couldn’t believe my own instincts, what did I have left to rely on?

  I woke, facedown on my bed, William S. Davis’s book digging into my side. With a groan, I pulled it out from under me and flopped back down. It was a good thing, I guess, that I’d taken a break from reading the journal; the ancient pages would have been ruined if I’d fallen asleep on top of them.

  Squinting at the bedside clock, I saw it was half-past indecently late, and other than the sharp corner of the Davis family history, I couldn’t figure out what had woken me.

  Had the Griffiths come in? When I’d returned to the kitchen to wash my hands, Paula had told me – after complaining about my getting dirty all over again – that the professor had called to say they would be rolling in very late, if they made it back that night at all.

  ‘Will you be all right upstairs by yourself ?’ she asked, in the tone people use when they’re concerned, but trying not to sound concerned.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ I challenged, some of my hardwon calm slipping away. ‘I’m sure you’ve hidden all the liquor, so I can’t get into too much trouble.’

  ‘Sylvie—’ she started in an annoyed voice, then stopped and blew out a breath. ‘Addie wouldn’t be able to get to you if you weren’t so prickly.’

  There were so many arguments I could make to that, but half of them would just prove her point, so I let it go. But I noticed she hadn’t denied my accusation.

  I listened for the sound of someone coming up the stairs, but heard nothing. So, whatever had woken me, it was not the Griffiths returning.

  Gigi stood on the edge of the bed, her little body stiff, her hackles raised as she stared at the window. I turned off the lamp, so the room was lit only by the moonlight, then went to see what had disturbed her. Peering out, I scanned the lawn, the woods, the river, all painted in a silver glow. The moon was three-?quarters full, and I sort of wished I hadn’t joked with Rhys about werewolves.

  I leaned across the desk to slide open the window. There was a strange electricity in the air, like a static charge. Gigi growled softly, and I thought about how dogs were supposed to be able to sense earthquakes and natural disasters right before they happened. The night had the kind of pent-up energy that ran through me when I was backstage waiting to go on, the stored potential of bunched muscle preparing for a leap or a turn.

  It didn’t make sense. But neither did my inordinate fear of the watcher, and I’d accepted that. Whatever the cause, the feeling was real.

  A shadow moved swiftly and stealthily across the lawn. Unlike before, the girl wasn’t wearing a long skirt, but jeans. She glanced towards the house, and I ducked down, but not before I recognized Addie.

  What was she doing out? And where was she coming from? I listened for a car engine, or the crunch of tyres on the gravel, indicating she’d been dropped off. But she hadn’t come from the front of the house. She’d come through the back garden, from the southeast. There was nothing in that direction, except for the river and the summerhouse.

  Was she just now leaving the Teen Town Council meeting? It was a school night, and this was way past curfew.

  The way she’d looked up at the house – had she seen the watcher? Or had she
merely glimpsed my light going out? I risked a peek over the windowsill, but there was no sign of her. Of course, the balcony blocked my view of the back yard. Cautiously I levered myself up on the desk, then craned out the window. I could just see the corner of the summerhouse and what could have been a glimmer of light. Or it might have been the moon reflecting on the river behind it.

  I’d promised Rhys I wouldn’t go wandering around in the dark, but curiosity steamed like a kettle inside me. The weird charge in the air made it impossible to stay still.

  Gigi jumped down from the bed and scratched eagerly at the door. That settled it. My dog had to pee. I had to go outside, even if it was just to the yard.

  I grabbed her extra leash from a hook on the cabinet and clipped it to her collar. Pausing briefly, I grasped the doorknob, feeling for cold the way they teach you to feel for heat in a fire. The brass felt only cool, so I poked my head into the dark hallway.

  Nothing. If there was a chill, it was slight enough to be my imagination or maybe the air-conditioning. I picked Gigi up and hurried anyway, avoiding the French doors, taking the main stairs down. With the dog held tightly against my chest, I crept to the kitchen and out through the porch.

  The night was reassuringly warm, which was a good thing, since I wasn’t wearing a jacket, just a camisole and pj’s. These had psychedelic daisies on them. During my months of convalescence, I’d built up an impressive collection of pyjama pants. Though with my nocturnal ramblings with Gigi, I was going through them fast.

  Walking the dog wasn’t only an excuse. She got quickly to business in the back yard, while I crept towards the hedgerow that obscured my view of the summerhouse. I wasn’t halfway there, however, when a light snapped on in the kitchen.

  Crap. Forget sneaking the dog in; Paula would have plenty to say about my being out in the middle of the night. I tucked Gigi into the crook of my arm and made for the spiral staircase, avoiding the kitchen windows on my way.

  The steps were cold and damp under my bare feet, and the iron grating bit into my toes. I held onto the vine-covered railing, reaching the top just as a breeze began to blow. It rustled the leaves and drifted my hair around my shoulders. The coiled-spring feeling in the air intensified, like a clock wound until the key wouldn’t turn any more.

  When the sound came from the woods, I was already expecting it. The wailing cry was unutterably sad. It burrowed into my chest and made a painful knot of heart-deep sorrow. It twisted parts of me that I didn’t even know could ache. The piteous noise reached through my rising fear and tore a gasp of sympathy from my throat.

  I still clutched Gigi against me, and her growl vibrated against my ribs. Setting her down, I went to the balustrade and peered out into the woods.

  Through the trees, I could see a figure moving. She ran through the woods, the branches catching at her long skirts, tangling her loose hair. Her headlong rush would carry her straight to the river, where the ground dropped steeply to the rushing water below. There was no time to wonder how I could see her so well in the shadows, how I could sense what she meant to do, as if some string connected our hearts. It was strange, and terrible, and terrifying.

  ‘No!’ I shouted it across the night. ‘Don’t jump!’

  But she did, flinging herself from the embank-ment, and disappearing into the water.

  I had to call the police, the sheriff, whoever was responsible. Through the pulse pounding in my ears I heard Gigi barking frantically, but my head was so full of this girl and her flight that all I could think about was helping her.

  I whirled and ran to the French doors. My fingers closed on the handles, registered the burning cold of the metal. I snatched them back, cradled them against my chest to warm them. Only then did I look in through the glass.

  A grey man in military dress, thick sideburns and moustache stood looking out at me, watching through hollow blackness where his eyes should have been.

  Chapter 18

  My scream was loud enough to wake the dead. Those that weren’t already walking.

  It also woke the household, including Clara and Addie in their apartment over the garage. Gigi’s barking helped with that, I imagine.

  When the doors in front of me flew open, I screamed again, but it was Paula, not an empty-eyed spectre, who rushed out.

  ‘Sylvie!’ She grabbed my arms and shook me until my eyes focused on her fully; then her hands slid down to mine, chafing them briskly. ‘Oh my God. Your fingers are freezing. What happened? Are you all right?’

  I stopped shrieking and started babbling. The logic parts of my brain were completely overrun by panic. ‘There was a woman, and a man at the window. The watcher. We have to call nine-one-one for the woman in the river.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I heard Clara yelling from her first-floor landing across the lawn.

  Paula stared at me, uncomprehending. ‘What on earth is wrong with you!’

  I realized the words had spilled out in an unintelligible rush. And Gigi was still barking, covering up anything sensible that did come out. ‘I saw … I thought I saw … There was a woman in the woods. And a man at the window.’

  ‘Honey, are you sure?’

  ‘I—’ The words seized up in my throat. I looked into her eyes and saw overwhelming concern, but there was an underlying thread of ‘Oh my God, how am I going to explain this breakdown to her mother’ that cut through my blind panic.

  I knew what I’d just experienced was real, and not in my imagination. But that was meaningless. I knew I wasn’t a drug addict or a drunk, either, but I’d still had to endure the humiliation of Mother and the stepshrink searching my room for booze or drugs, even though I’d voluntarily handed over my postsurgical Vicodin. No way was I giving anyone ammunition to do that ever again.

  ‘No,’ I said, wrestling back control over myself. ‘I’m not sure. I was getting Gigi – sorry, Paula – and the glass, it can look like something is there.’ I raised a trembling hand – I didn’t have to fake that – to rub my brow and hide my face as I lied. ‘It must have been all that talk today.’

  Paula’s jaw set. ‘That Adina. I’m going to have a stern talk with that girl.’

  ‘It’s not her fault.’ I took a noble tone, but I was more worried about retribution from Addie if Paula read her the riot act. ‘Shawn started it, then there was all that talk about haints and bottle trees at lunch—’

  ‘What’s going on? Is everyone all right?’ Clara called again.

  ‘We’re fine,’ Paula shouted back. ‘Just a nightmare.’ Then she looked at me, a warning in her eye. ‘She doesn’t need to know how much Addie upset you.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I don’t want to upset Clara.’

  Her expression gentled, which was a relative thing with Paula, but still. I was almost touched. ‘Are you going to be all right?’

  That was highly debatable. I picked up Gigi, who’d finally stopped barking, and she licked my face with anxious puppy kisses as if to ask the same question.

  ‘I’ll be OK. I’ll be better if Gigi sleeps with me.’

  Paula’s eyes narrowed. ‘Now I’m beginning to think this is an elaborate ruse to get that dog in your room overnight.’

  I was fine with that, actually, glad for any excuse for my behaviour. So I said, ‘Would I do that?’ in a purposely too-innocent way.

  ‘Humph. Just for tonight.’

  She walked into the house, and I followed her closely through the hall, certain that no ghost would dare appear to practical Paula. She walked me all the way to my door, then gave me one last worried look before she left.

  I shut the door, set Gigi on the bed and went to close the window. The night seemed resoundingly normal now. No sounds. No cold. No tightly wound tension in the air. It was as if I had imagined everything. In that way, the quick return to normalcy was scarier than any ghost.

  Almost.

  I didn’t think I’d sleep, but when I crawled under the covers, Gigi curled into the curve of my neck, and her even breathing coaxed me
into slumber.

  I dreamed of dancing, and of falling, and of the sweet smell of lilac.

  Despite everything, the morning found me surprisingly optimistic. Maybe it was the reassuring daylight. Or it might have had something to do with Rhys coming back. Compelling or exasperating, at least he was a distraction from my seriously weird problems.

  As I threw on my clothes, I strengthened my resolve to keep an open mind. It was counterproductive to wear the same circle of worry through my mind, and I knew I’d get a lot more done if I just formed a working theory based on an assumption of sanity, then went from there. I was proud of how logical that sounded.

  ‘Here’s what we have to work with today,’ I said to Gigi as she watched me pull on my jeans. I needed to think aloud, even if my only sounding board had four legs and a tail. At least I could trust her to keep my secrets. ‘There seem to be three things. The sound in the woods. The girl, who might be connected to the sound. And the watcher.’

  I suppressed a shudder, even though the sun streamed in the east-facing window, setting fire to the fine particles of dust in the air. I suppose I could start calling him the Colonel now.

  ‘Next,’ I told Gigi, tugging on a T-shirt, and pretending I was as brave and logical as I sounded. ‘They’re getting worse.’

  I managed to say it without too much of a quiver in my stomach. Gigi cocked her head, and I sat on the bed, running a hand over her silky fur. The thing about the Colonel was, if ghosts were just impressions of the past, the leftover psychic fingerprints of the routine of daily living, then the apparition at the window wasn’t so much a thumbprint as a deep, gouging scar. I’d always felt menaced by the watching presence, but last night, face to face—

  My stomach did turn over then, and as if sensing it, Gigi climbed into my lap and I cuddled her close.

  Seeing the Colonel face to face had been like plunging from the high dive into a frigid pool. Hitting a wall of icy malevolence.