A Darker Shade

by Laura K. Curtis

  “No, of course not.”

  “You’re going to talk about me, aren’t you?”

  He hesitated, frowning, and I remembered that he tried not to lie to her. “I promise to tell you anything we discuss that will affect you. How’s that?”

  Her frown perfectly mirrored his. “Why can’t you just stay here to talk?”

  “Because Miss Allworth and I have grown-up things to work out.”

  “But you won’t make her go away?”

  “I won’t make Miss Allworth do anything she does not wish to do. Will that do?”

  She turned her dark eyes on me. “You don’t want to leave, do you, Molly?”

  Yes, I did. Desperately. But leaving meant relinquishing Liza to the thing that wanted her to join it in the land of the dead. Even if Nathaniel survived that, I doubted he’d come out with much of a life. I could not abandon either of them.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I assured her

  Chapter 15

  I was shivering, so I stopped in my room and pulled on a sweatshirt over my pajamas. Hardly the most elegant outfit I’d ever worn for a conversation with an employer, but Nathaniel wore only sweatpants and a tee shirt himself. And in part because of intimacy of our situation, I could not retreat from thinking of him as Nathaniel although he’d returned to the formal Miss Allworth.

  I found him in the library pouring himself a drink. He held up his glass in question, but I shook my head.

  “I don’t drink.”

  “You’re a better person than I am, then.”

  “It’s not a moral thing. I like to stay in control.”

  “And a glass of wine will make you lose control?”

  “You’re not drinking wine.”

  He barked a hoarse laugh. “No. No, I am not. That scene upstairs calls for scotch. But if you want wine, I’ll get it for you.”

  “No.” I sat down in a chair opposite his spot the couch. He looked at the space between us and raised one black eyebrow.

  “I don’t bite, Miss Allworth.”

  “You’re angry.”

  The other eyebrow went up as well. “What gave you that idea?”

  I waited and eventually he put the glass down on the coffee table and sighed. “Angry doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t even say what I was apologizing for.

  “How long have you been seeing...things...in this house?”

  “The first time was the day you fell. That was just a second or two, though. And I can’t honestly say that I saw anything specific. It was more a sense of wrongness.”

  “And you didn’t consider that I deserved to hear about it?”

  “I didn’t plan to let it affect my job.”

  “Oh, yes, the job. Mrs. Martin spoke very highly of you. She swore you were level-headed, one of her best employees. You wouldn’t take off, or develop peculiar ideas, or succumb to religious mania.” That brutal, biting sarcasm was back. I absorbed it, kept all defensiveness from my tone when I replied.

  “My mother worked for Sandy as well. Her recommendation came from two generations’ experience with my family.”

  “She told me that. You don’t have to stay. I release you from your obligation. I’ll pay her fee if you leave.”

  “I promised Liza I’d stay.”

  He sipped his scotch. “My daughter is too smart. She knew I would try to convince you to go, and spiked my guns before I could get a word in.”

  “She sees me as an ally. The first adult who’s taken her claims seriously. If you gave her the benefit of the doubt, she’d desert me soon enough.”

  “The benefit of the doubt. Let’s talk about what that might look like. I pretend to think that there’s a ghostly presence in this house?”

  “You don’t pretend. You just told me that Liza was smart. If you pretend, she’ll know. You have to accept that your own beliefs could be wrong. That another realm might actually exist.”

  “Fine. For a minute, we’ll say it does. So a creature from that other realm has come to this one to...what? Hang around a teenaged girl who’s lost her mother? For what possible reason?”

  “I told you, I have no idea. I’m not a medium, or even a carnival queen.”

  “Carnival queen?”

  “A faker. A fortune teller. One of those women who wears jingling bracelets and earrings and hypes her Romani heritage even if she doesn’t have one and pretends to commune with the spirit world.”

  “Ah.”

  “But...”

  “But?”

  “Liza said the ghost is lonely. I don’t imagine occasional contact with a living child could alleviate that.”

  He glanced up from the drink he’d been studying. “Spit it out, Miss Allworth.”

  “If you accept that we’re dealing with a ghost, then it can likely only have a real relationship with another ghost.”

  “You’re telling me this thing is trying to kill her?” The question sounded almost academic. He didn’t believe his daughter was in jeopardy. And why should he? They’d been living in the house for months without incident. At least without any harm coming to his daughter. The incidents with the other tutors and the ladder he blamed on completely mundane causes.

  “It hasn’t yet, so perhaps that’s not the goal.”

  “But you ascribe some malicious intent to this thing, or you wouldn’t have run into Liza’s room to chase it away.”

  “If you could see it, feel it, you’d understand. It’s cold. Nasty. There’s no love in it. No joy. Nothing, for want of a better word, human.”

  He nodded. “If you say so. Let’s continue. Hypothetically, some evil spirit lives in this house and haunts my daughter. What should I do about it? I’ve already told you I can’t afford to move.”

  “You say that, but this place, the way you live… Before I moved in here, I shared a two-bedroom apartment with more people than live in this whole house. You can’t support Liza in the style to which she’s accustomed, but isn’t poor and safe better than comfortable and threatened?”

  Not that there was much safety in poverty, but I had never felt, even when things were at their worst right after Mama’s diagnosis, before Nadya and Bo made room for us, the way I did when I’d seen that creature hovering over Liza’s bed. Even the memory made me nauseous, and it must have shown on my face.

  “You really believe she’s in danger.” Nathaniel shook his head.

  “I do.”

  “Then I suppose I owe you the truth. I can’t leave. We can’t leave. I stopped paying attention to the business after Marianne’s death. I coasted, left everything to other people to manage. Danny said it was under control, but his accident forced me to wise up, to focus. The finances are a mess. I have an accountant and a tax attorney trying to untangle it now. Marianne and I set up a trust years ago, when things were good, to pay for Liza’s tuition. That’s where your salary is coming from, so it’s safe. Eventually, perhaps as early as spring or summer, we’ll be back on our feet. But right now, abandoning ship is simply not feasible.”

  “What about your parents? They can’t help?”

  “If I landed on their doorstep with this story, both my daughter and I would be institutionalized faster than you can say Ghostbusters. They’re firm believers in reality, my parents. And in standing on your own two feet. And every other good, New England Puritan value. They never warmed up to Marianne. The fact that I’d married an artist appalled them. She was too moody, too emotional, too flighty. They weren’t even surprised by her suicide. I never told them about Liza’s ghost stories. I knew they’d say she’d inherited her mother’s instability.” He grimaced. “But you don’t have to stay. As I said earlier, I’ll settle up with Mrs. Martin. We’ll find a suitable excuse for her.”

  But if I went home, Sandy wouldn’t give me the good jobs. She’d sniff out whatever lie Nathaniel came up with. And I couldn’t maintain my self-respect, my desire to become a school counselor, if I abandoned Liza. One way or anothe
r, my future was tied to the Prescotts.

  “No. I’m here for the duration.” With the concession, exhaustion swamped me and I felt myself listing to one side. For better or worse, I’d made my decision. And even if Nathaniel never called me Molly again, at least I’d told him the truth.

  He let out a long breath, and his posture relaxed slightly. “Good. I admit to being glad I won’t have to answer to Liza for your absence. But you still haven’t told me what you think we should do about her situation.”

  “No. And I’m not thinking terribly clearly right now.”

  “No. Of course not. You should get some sleep. Will you be able to?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Then we’ll talk more in the morning.”

  Despite my confidence, sleep eluded me until the sun’s first bloody rays stained the sky. When a sharp rap at my door woke me, my eyes were filled with grit and my head pounded. Hailey let herself in without waiting for an invitation and sat in the chair next to my bed, drawing her knees up under her chin.

  “So. What happened last night?”

  This, at least, Nathaniel and I should have discussed. I had no doubt he would get the same question from Jennifer.

  “Nothing of importance.” I picked up my cell to check the time. Five after eight. Curiosity had a salutary effect on a teenager’s sleeping habits, apparently. “It’s early. I need another hour of sleep, and then maybe we can convince your uncle to dig out the sleds.”

  “No way!” Her shriek pierced my throbbing head. “I’m not leaving until you tell me the truth.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said, and rolled over, pulling the duvet over my head.

  She yanked it down. “Come on. I heard you go downstairs with uncle Thane.”

  “If you heard us go downstairs, you know that our discussion was none of your business.”

  She huffed and narrowed her eyes. “Uncle Thane will tell mom and she’ll tell me. We don’t keep secrets.”

  “Great. Then you don’t need me.” I pulled the duvet back up. Another knock at my door and I gave up on getting more sleep.

  Jennifer stuck her head in. “Hailey! I thought I heard you. Go on downstairs and get breakfast. I need to have a conversation with Molly.”

  She groaned.

  “Now, Hailey.”

  She stormed out, slamming the door behind her and sending another spike of pain through my skull. Jennifer sighed.

  “She has a temper, but she’s a good girl.” She eyed me up and down, and I resisted the urge to sit up straighter in my bed. She’d invaded my private space; she could deal with the informality.

  “Thane is my family,” she said at last. “And I care for Liza as my own daughter.”

  An odd assertion, given her widely disparate ambitions for the two girls, but I said nothing. Zipped lips led to job security.

  “I don’t know how you managed to get her to speak. Perhaps the whole screaming fit scared her. Perhaps it made her think you believed her ridiculous ghost fantasies. Perhaps the time was simply right. No matter, we are all grateful that she’s gotten over of the worst of her issues.”

  I bit my tongue.

  She sat down in the chair Hailey had vacated. “I am sure Thane expressed his appreciation last night. But I need to be frank with you: others before you have gotten the wrong idea about him.” She waited, but I didn’t say a word. My bedroom, her ballgame. “He had an affair with Liza’s last tutor. It did not end well.”

  Interesting. Nathaniel denied the affair in his story. I was all for female solidarity, but in this case, a case where the female in question had then attacked Jennifer’s “family” with a butcher knife, I couldn’t quite see how she’d landed on Aimee’s side.

  “Did you hear about that?”

  “I did. First from Hailey, then from Nathaniel.”

  She waved a hand and her wedding set caught the light, fracturing it into a thousand shards. Too bad Nathaniel couldn’t convince her to sell that. It would bring them enough to live on for a while. But I doubted it would even occur to him to ask. He had too much pride.

  “Nathaniel probably said there was no affair. And more than likely he didn’t think there was. Men and women interpret emotional ties so very differently, don’t they?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “But I like you, Molly. I don’t want you to get caught up in the same trap Aimee did. She thought his casual affection meant more than it did. She thought she was going to marry him.”

  A trill of laughter at the ridiculousness of such a belief and then she sobered.

  “But the attack was partly my fault. I helped select her, you know. Went to the interviews, talked to her. I should have understood how lonely she was, how likely to fixate on Thane. He’s always had a magnetic personality. Ever since we were children.

  “I did warn him, but I left it too late. And I never spoke to her about it, which in hindsight I should have. I don’t want to make that mistake with you.”

  This was not a question, but she waited for an answer.

  “I see,” I said at last, although I didn’t.

  “Do you? Thane adores his daughter. Right now, he’s undergoing a wave of euphoria, and for the moment it will focus on you. Don’t mistake his gratitude for anything more serious.”

  Had she missed Nathaniel’s decided coldness the night before? Or was she so intent on securing her own position that she feared any challenger, no matter how ill-equipped?

  “Of course not,” I said.

  Despite its size, the house crowded, suffocated, and forgoing even coffee, I pulled on my boots and coat to walk down the drive to the mailbox. The itchy frustration running over my nerves intensified when I stopped to pet Rocky, so I ignored his pleading eyes and left on my own. The sky hung dark and low overhead. The massive hawk I’d seen the day I arrived sewed giant circles in the clouds as he searched out his hapless prey. Although I’d taken the trek many times, today the bleak loneliness of the environs enthralled me. Without Rocky’s cheerful, snuffling presence, the world seemed infinite, unconquerable, as oppressive in its own fashion as the claustrophobic interior of the house.

  To my surprise, two of the pieces in the box were addressed to me. The first, a postcard from Ali, was brief and cheerful. She loved her classes, had found a helpful study group, and the only thing that would make her happier would be to have me with her. She hoped my employers and new charges understood how lucky they were to have me. This last made me laugh out loud—completely out of character, it was clearly intended for Nathaniel to read when he picked up the mail.

  The other item for me was a letter addressed in a hand I did not recognize. It had no return address, and a Massachusetts postmark had been smeared across the bright stamp. I peeled off my gloves and slipped a finger beneath the envelope’s flap to tear it open and went straight for the signature. A single, boldly scrawled M. Matt. He’d actually written.

  Dear Molly,

  I bet you thought I wouldn’t write. I almost didn’t. I write all day at work and generally prefer to use the phone to communicate outside of office hours. But I stopped off for lunch on my way home and thought I’d drop you a note from the outside world while I was on the road.

  Also, I have to admit the less than admirable desire to prove you wrong. I could see on your face that you didn’t expect a letter. You don’t hide your feelings well. It’s quite endearing, actually. In the legal system, everyone wears a mask. As I imagine your face now, I hope that mixed with the chagrin at having been proving wrong there is at least a little pleasure.

  I also hope you’ll get in touch with me if there is anything I can do for you. It is probably presumptuous of me to believe there is anything in the world that you cannot handle that I can, but there you are. I am afraid I am presumptuous. It comes with the territory for an attorney—we all think nothing is beyond us.

  In any case, I have little to say, having left your side only hours ago. But I realized I had not given you my cell number and I do want you to have i
t, even if it is only useful when the power is on.

  Please do look after yourself as well as you look after the girls,

  —M

  I folded the letter carefully and slipped it back into the envelope. How odd. I tapped it a couple of times against my chilly lips, considering how I should respond, then shook myself. I had more to worry about than Matthew Brahms. Nonetheless, I tucked the letter deep into my pocket so that it would not get mixed in with the mail I carried in my hand.

  I could hear angry voices even before I opened the back door, and almost turned around and set off for the shed to look for the sleds myself rather than entering, until I heard my name.

  “Miss Allworth is not the problem,” Nathaniel said.

  “No? Have you forgotten Aimee? And Shae? You wouldn’t listen when I warned you about them, either.”

  “This is not the same.”

  “Of course it is. She’s helped Liza more than the others did, I’ll give her that, but I don’t trust her. She’s more than a little crazy—whatever you’re not saying about last night, that much is clear—and she sees you as her golden ticket.”

  Fury heated my cold skin. Snake. But at least I understood my position, and Jennifer’s. The statement made her goal as clear and sharp as the winter air. She planned to replace her dead husband with his brother. I’d have to make her see that I posed no threat to her ambitions. Nathaniel might, indeed, be grateful that his daughter had recovered her speech, but gratitude—at least among my set—did not form the basis of romantic relationships, and my own ambitions touched only obliquely on romance anyway. I was lonely without my family, that much was true. I hoped, someday, once I had my degree and a job that allowed me independence, to start a family of my own. But so many hurdles came before that—Ali’s education and my own, finding a job in a shrinking market—that love and marriage had fallen off my radar.

  And with his daughter’s life on the line, I was fairly sure it hadn’t crossed Nathaniel’s mind, either. Not to mention his fury at me for, as he saw it, playing along with his daughter’s delusions. I blew out a breath, fogging the cold air, and pushed the door open. “I’m back! Alas, I come bearing bills.”