Skeletons in the Closet (Phantom Rising Book 2)

by Davyne DeSye

  Skeletons in the Closet

  (Phantom Rising #2)

  by Davyne DeSye

  © 2014 Davyne DeSye

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from both the copyright owner and the publisher.

  Requests for permission to make copies of any part of this work should be mailed to Permissions Department, Illuminus Publishing, PO Box 75459, Colorado Springs, CO 80970-5459.

  Ebook ISBN: 978-0-692-82317-0

  Cover art by Biserka Design.

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  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  For Bit: Thank you for putting the idea in my head.

  CHAPTER 1

  LONELINESS

  The wildflowers Erik clutched in his long white fingers were an absurd gesture.

  He dipped his nearly nostril-less nose toward the small bouquet and inhaled of its almond scent. His shoes still bore traces of his trek through the nearby woods to gather the small flowers for his beloved, his Christine, and he tapped them against each other where he stood in the short green grass. Before him in the far distance rose their manor house, strong and stately against a backdrop of the blue-white Swedish sky. The house stood at the edge of a cliff top that dropped toward the gulf waters, but at this distance, Erik could not hear the soothing sound of the waves beating at the cliff base.

  He moved his eyes to where Christine knelt in the freshly turned earth, and then lowered them again to the flowers in his fist. A smile turned up the corners of his thin lips. As absurd as his small gift was, it might help ease Christine’s mood, her loneliness. They would serve as a gentle reminder that even with Petter gone, she was not alone, not unloved. He missed his son as well, but Christine’s prolonged melancholy was worrisome.

  He walked toward Christine along the white pebble path, careful not to step as silently as was his wont – he did not wish to startle her. She turned toward him as he approached. Suddenly shy of her – Erik had never lost his amazement of her affection even after their score years of marriage – he dashed the small bouquet behind his back. He was rewarded with a tentative smile.

  “What have you, my husband?” she asked as she rose to her feet. Even in his concern for her, Erik could not help but admire the figure he knew so well – it had not much changed in the years between when he first saw her – as a young girl of seventeen – and now, as she was approaching forty. She was still a beautiful woman.

  “Come and see,” he answered. His tone conveyed a lustful quality he had not intended, but Christine cocked her head, and raised one eyebrow. Her tentative smile grew to the teasing smile of a young girl pretending to coyness.

  As she approached, Erik’s knowing eyes searched her face. Her smile did not reach her blue eyes. She was pretending to good humor for his sake.

  When Christine reached him, she raised her hands to his chest, and rising to her toes, kissed him, a warm feather-brush against his thin lips. Her eyes moved over his deformed face with the same unfaltering acceptance of their years together. Her hand stole to his head and smoothed his still thick but silvered hair.

  “What have you?” she whispered toward his ear. He had won that much at least: the listlessness that had so often dulled her voice of late was gone.

  Presenting the aspect of a young boy come a-courting, he stepped back from Christine and presented her with the bouquet, his arm jutting between them, his chin ducked in mock embarrassment. His reward was immediate. Christine threw her head back and shaking her golden lustrous hair from her shoulders, laughed fully, melodically. When she lowered her head her eyes sparkled as they had not in weeks.

  “Erik, you sweet, sweet, silly man!” She laughed again – a smaller tinkling sound – as she took the flowers from his hand. “You felt I needed more flowers?”

  Erik’s eyes danced over the garden in which they stood – tall colorful ranunculus in myriads of colors bobbing in the gentle breeze, smaller daffodils, straight and yellow in the morning sun, the small anemone, luminous and white against their dark foliage.

  “You didn’t have any of these,” he said.

  “Oh, Erik. I love you so,” she answered. She lifted the delicate dangling pink blossoms to her nose, and slipped her arm into his. “Come, let us see if we can find a vase for your silly, wonderful gift.” As he led her toward the large stone manor house, she raised the flowers to her nose again, giggled, and tilted her head against his shoulder.

  Yes, the flowers had been absurd, but their absurdity had broken through to her. He hoped the transformation would last, although he feared it would not. But, it was a start, and he would be satisfied with that. He had left her alone with her grief for too long – he hoped now to draw away the shroud in which she was smothering.

  ***

  Erik lay sprawled across the blanket under a large poplar, enjoying the rare grace of a warm Swedish summer afternoon. Christine sat at his head; her feet curled to her other side, hidden under the folds of her blue skirt. The open book from which he had been reading lay forgotten on the blanket beside him.

  Christine fed him morsels from their picnic, teasing him with the food bits. They had not picnicked in some time. Christine seemed carefree, younger than her nearly forty years, released of the aging that had crept upon her in the past months.

  Erik closed his eyes and tilted his head back as Christine moved a grape toward his mouth. When the grape did not enter his mouth, he smiled and opened his eyes expecting to see that Christine was teasing him again. She was not.

  The grape still dangled from her fingers, but her eyes were not on his. She was gazing, unseeing, past Erik. He knew from the cloud that had descended over her features that she was thinking of their son, Petter, again. His certainty was answered with her quiet statement.

  “I wish Petter could be here with us. He always enjoyed our picnics.” She sighed, and turned her sad eyes to Erik, a small apologetic smile twisting her lips before she turned away from him. The grape, now forgotten, fell to the blanket.

  Erik had to restrain himself from sighing in answer. He rose from his elbow and propped himself in a sitting position with one hand. With his other hand, he caught Christine’s chin, and turned her face toward his. Her eyes were dark with her sadness. He kept his voice gentle as he spoke.

  “Petter is not dead, Christine, he is mere
ly in London. They have trees in London, and blankets, and picnic baskets…”

  “But he is just a child!” Christine answered. “He needs us!”

  Or you need him, he did not say.

  “He is a man of one and twenty, Christine, off to seek his fortune, to seek adventure,” Erik answered, hoping for her understanding, her acceptance.

  She pulled her chin from his hand, and looking toward her hands in her lap, she whispered, “He needs us.” She raised her eyes to Erik, and the pleading in her eyes was painful to him. “We have sheltered him so. He has no knowledge of the world.”

  In one sense she was correct. They had sheltered and protected Petter – Christine because of a mother’s love, and Erik because… because Erik of all people knew the dangers and evil in the world. He would have given his life – would even now give his life – to protect the woman he loved, and the son he never thought he would have. But Petter also needed to live and grow. Protecting him further would weaken the boy of whom they were both so proud.

  “You were married before you were his age, Christine,” Erik said. “Married and traveling the world.” He raised his eyes to hers to see how she would react to this gentle reminder of her imprudent marriage to her first husband. He was pleased to see a smile playing at her lips.

  “Exactly,” she said. “I was a foolish child. If not for your… persistence, I would not be the happy woman I am today.” She leaned toward him and kissed the cloth of his coat at his shoulder.

  Are you happy?

  “We must give Petter the chance at his own happiness,” he said. Christine pulled away from him, and a small pout replaced her smile.

  “It’s different,” she said. She tried to marshal a reason for her statement, but he knew from her pout and her posture that she had none. She always pouted like a child when she knew she had lost an argument – a habit that, even after all these years, charmed him. He kept his silence.

  She shrugged and lifted her hands from her lap to throw them to either side of her skirt. Then with a sigh, she lifted her hands again and smoothed at the blue fabric.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s not different. Petter could not stay with us forever.” She sighed in defeat. “But I miss him so. He was such a bright, funny child. He will make mistakes and we will not be there to help him.”

  “We are all entitled to our own mistakes,” Erik answered. He tried to catch her eye, but she refused to raise her head and meet his eyes. She busied herself replacing their luncheon in the large basket. He kept watching her – her face, her eyes. When she finished packing the basket, she brought her eyes to his.

  “I know,” she said. She gave him a hesitant smile, and said again, “I know. I shall try not to worry.”

  As they walked toward the house, she said, “I love you, Erik.”

  “I love you, my strong wife,” he answered. He emphasized the word, strong, hoping to remind her of her true character.

  “Will you sing with me?” Erik asked, as she delivered the remains of their luncheon into the hands of the young maid, Aina. Aina’s youthful eyes moved to Christine, excitement evident in their depths.

  “Nothing would please me more,” Christine answered, with a smile and a glint of the same excitement in her blue, blue eyes. Erik smiled as Aina dashed from the room, and he knew from experience that the young girl would inform all the servants who could be spared of the upcoming performance.

  “Which would please you? Something by Strauss, or perhaps Puccini?” Erik took Christine’s hand as he led her to the music room.

  Christine wrinkled her nose as she answered. “Not Strauss – he is too heavy for such a lovely afternoon. Puccini better suits the lightness of the day.”

  Erik preferred the dissonance of Strauss, but was not surprised with Christine’s answer. He knew she was struggling against the discord within herself. He smiled and bowed over her hand.

  “I shall be Rodolfo,” he announced, his lips brushing her hand as he spoke the words.

  She waited until he was looking into her eyes again before answering, with an obvious expectation of the ecstasy that still overwhelmed them with their song. “Mimi shall make love to you with song.”

  With no further preliminaries, he seated himself at the piano and they flew into song, swept away by the rapture so akin to that which they found in lovemaking. Even through the rapture, Erik watched Christine, pleased to see that despite her longing and worry for their son, she could still touch her fountainhead of happiness through song.

  ***

  It was two weeks later that Erik found Christine weeping over a stack of Petter’s letters – two weeks during which he had lavished his dear wife with affection and attention, singing and activities, and listened to the laugh returning to her voice. And now this distressing relapse. He lowered himself to the cushioned bench on which she sat and put his arms about her. She leaned into his embrace. Under the ministrations of his soothing words and soft strokes to her hair and back, her tears soon subsided.

  “Forgive me, Erik,” she said.

  “Why the tears, wife?” he asked, moving the letters aside to make more room upon the bench for them both.

  “I can’t read this one!” she said, thrusting the letter she clutched in her fist toward Erik. “Why must he write in Persian?” she continued as he took the letter from her. “I can read the letters he writes in Swedish, and French and English… why must he also write in Persian?”

  Erik chose to respond in Persian, to remind Christine of their long habit of speaking the different languages. While she understood and spoke Persian, she had never mastered the script. “To maintain his fluency in the language of love and poets, my desert rose.”

  The stricken look left her eyes, leaving only sadness. Responding in Persian, she said, “You are the poet of my heart.” Her thankful eyes roved over his malformed face. She straightened her posture and smoothed the crumpled letter on her skirts. She pointed to the beautiful script and said, “I can recognize the salutation.” She pointed to the few other words and phrases she recognized, as intent as a schoolgirl at lessons, and then held the letter out to Erik. “Will you read it for me?”

  Erik read. The letter contained information similar to that in the other letters they had received – the letters Christine could read: News of his efforts to find commissions befitting the master stonemason he was, news of his landlady and of other acquaintances, tales of his adventures in London. Christine sighed as Erik finished with Petter’s closing remarks, rendered all the more affectionate by the florid language in which he wrote.

  “He doesn’t sound as though he is having success with gaining commissions,” she said at last.

  “He is a fine stonemason, and can certainly find work, even without his own commissions,” Erik answered.

  “I know,” Christine answered, disconsolate.

  “Even I worked for others when I began,” Erik continued.

  “I know, I know,” Christine answered, slumping against his side.

  “He has not written that he needs money, which is a sign that he is…”

  “Prideful!” Christine finished with surprising vehemence. Her posture collapsed as she whispered, “Like his father.” Erik could hear the small smile behind her words.

  Erik put his arm about her shoulder, and whispering into her ear quoted the Persian poet, “‘Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears today of past regrets and future fears.’”

  Christine pressed herself farther into his embrace, and again answering in Persian, said, “My husband, though the great poet Khayyam speaks to my solace, it is but you, my pillar, my lion, that stills my heart’s fears and fills my cup.” She turned her face to his and kissed him. He pulled her closer and she pressed her face to his shoulder.

  “Fill my cup,” Christine whispered, then rose and pulled him from the bench. He was pleased and excited by her lascivious suggestion, for in her recent sadness she had been less inclined toward lovemaking.

  Even in
his mounting ardor, he found room within himself to maintain his concern for her. He took her to bed in an earnest attempt to both satisfy his hunger and lift the sorrow from her heart.

  After, as she lay sleeping in his arms, he thought of the veneer of melancholy that seemed, even in sleep, to shroud his bright and beautiful Christine, and knew… knew something needed to change.

  CHAPTER 2

  YOUTH

  Petter paused before stepping from the covered building entrance into the gray London morning. He glanced down at the two portfolios he clutched in his hands, one heavy with drawings and small photos of his completed stone carvings, and the other filled with the architectural plans he had labored over in the past weeks.

  At least he had not been laughed out of this meeting. It was a sad measure of his flagging optimism that he considered this a consolation.

  He took a deep breath of the dank air, and pulling his head high, stepped into the fog and stood for a moment, his feet reluctant to step away from yet another failed attempt to gain a commission.

  “Beg your pardon, sir.” This from a round-shouldered older man who almost collided with Petter due to the large black umbrella tilted before the man as he hurried into the fine mist. The man stopped and bowed to Petter before tromping away on his squat legs. Petter watched him until he melted with startling suddenness into the surrounding gray.

  Sir.

  After the undisguised condescension of his latest meeting, Petter was surprised at the off-hand politeness of the stranger. With an internal shudder, he threw off the demoralizing reaction.

  I do deserve “Sir.” I do.

  He had fought against “young man,” or worse – “boy” – through his months of determination to win a commission of his own. A commission his work deserved if only the moneyed gentlemen he solicited could overlook his apparent youth. He knew he cut a fine figure, tall, and with a manner and bearing far more courtly than many of the men to whom he spoke. But his youth was exaggerated in the length and thinness of his limbs, which bespoke a young boy just coming into his height; in the smooth youthful skin of his face which despite his twenty-one years had never needed the scrape of a razor. Like his father, Petter could not grow facial hair.