“We” could refer to the household staff. But a society implied more than that, didn’t it?
She flipped forward, scanning for other mention of the loans. Here it was, a simple note, two weeks later.
Our faith and our money have been repaid. What a relief.
The next few entries focused on the children, then the subject returned to the loans.
Mrs. Smalley thinks our club should join the state federation, but the rest of us have voted her down. It does us no good to be so public with our mission. I am happy to keep the Lakeside Ladies’ Aid Society—
The society. And Mrs. Smalley—Becca’s great-grandmother?
—a private endeavor. Heaven knows Deer Park has plenty of other clubs for other purposes. The Medical Auxiliary has been spreading word of new treatments and fund-raising for a local hospital, and the Ladies’ Literary Society is soliciting funds for a library. I am on both committees. There is even a mah–jongg club. Con thinks I should cut back on my outside commitments and let others raise their hands and voices, and perhaps he is right. But wealth carries responsibilities.
Some things never change, Sarah thought, recalling similar conversations with Jeremy.
The clock struck midnight. She closed her eyes and rolled her shoulders back, careful not to rouse Bastet, queen of the sharp claws. God, she was tired. But Holly had guessed right. She didn’t want to risk another nightmare. She blinked, clearing her eyes, and focused her attention on the pages, skimming accounts of house parties, the children, of Fanny the Nanny becoming engaged to a lumber company accountant. “Beware!” Caro joked. “That’s what I did and look what happened!”
Then she reached the end of the journal, two entries made in February 1926.
The first expressed concern about Sarah Beth, who had a fever and swollen throat.
I know my daughter is not well when she loses interest in her precious dollhouse, the gift Con arranged for the shop foreman to build for her sixth birthday. Con tells me she will be better in the morning, that I am over-anxious because of the blizzard, with its high winds and driving snow. Besides, the telephone lines are down and it would be difficult to summon the doctor.
The dollhouse, tucked away in the carriage house.
And the last, lengthy entry, made the next day.
I saw the girl again in my dreams last night. I’m sure it’s the Swedish housemaid, the girl who died so tragically. Anja, she was called. There is no reason to tell anyone, and certainly no reason to leave the lodge. It has drawn us here, and it means too much to the children. It should stay in the family.
Anja, with a j. But Swedish, so Anya, said with a y?
Then Ellen Lacey returned to Caro’s thoughts.
Ellen blamed herself for not listening to the dream, for not realizing the girl was so deeply troubled. I am not inclined to believe in premonitions, and certainly not to be haunted by them. There is a simple explanation, I am sure.
So Caro and Ellen had had disturbing dreams too.
Con ran into H today at the hotel. Apparently he plans to build on his land, clearing it this next summer. Distressing news, though not entirely unexpected. I am sure the conversation triggered my dream, though perhaps the sherry after a rich dinner contributed. And of course, my worry over dear, sweet Sarah Beth …
Sarah scrambled for the rolled-up photos. Grabbed the shoreline shot, then traded it for the photo of the house party. Laid it out as carefully as she could. Despite the new bulb, she couldn’t see the faces in detail.
In the bright light of the kitchen where Caro and the estimable Mrs. O’Dell had once presided, Sarah got a good look at the face of the young woman—a girl, not much older than Abby—in the black dress and frilled white apron standing a few feet apart from the rest of the household staff. Anja. Ellen Lacey’s handwriting on the back of the photo was in pencil, faded and smudged, but Sarah managed to make it out. Besides, she didn’t need the name to recognize the face. She’d seen it twice—last night, and twenty-five years ago.
FRIDAY
Twenty-One Days
24
“And you didn’t think you should tell me?” Janine’s tone was low and controlled, but her eyes were wild.
“I thought it was just a dream,” Sarah said. “It wasn’t until—until after the attack that I realized it might have been a warning. And now …”
“No,” Holly said. “If we’re coming clean, we’re coming clean.” She turned from her sister to Janine, parked in front of the kitchen sink. It was morning, all of them up early. “Sarah told me about the dream. She was convinced it was telling her someone was in danger. I’m the one who dismissed it. Who went all Miss No BS and said dreams were, I don’t know, misfirings in the brain while we sleep, or the result of too much wine. Then afterwards …”
“Afterwards,” Janine said. “Afterwards, you disappeared. Acted like nothing had happened, like I wasn’t even here.” She glared at Holly, then directed her anger at Sarah. “And you talked me out of filing an official report. You and that sheriff. You were more concerned about what would happen to Lucas and his reputation. No one gave a damn about me.”
“Janine, that’s not true,” Sarah said. “I knew how fragile you were—”
“Fragile? You’re calling me fragile?” Janine was ablaze. “I’m the girl who practically raised herself because her father left her mother without a backward glance and her mother was too busy screwing any man who would buy her a drink to stay home. I learned to cook so I could eat. And no one”—she jabbed at the space between them—“no man has ever taken care of me. No tech genius who made millions while I stayed home having babies and playing with houses. When my mother was in and out of rehab, or in and out of jail, I took care of myself. When my husband left me with nothing but a toddler, I worked my tail off to raise my son on my own. I am not fragile.”
Her words hung in the air like smoke after the fireworks on the Fourth of July, thick, their sharpness piercing the nostrils and watering the eyes.
“I’m sorry, Janine,” Sarah said. “I have always regretted what I did, especially since finding you here. All I can say is that I honestly, truly believed letting it drop was the best thing at the time. I never imagined Lucas would skate on the crash—I was absolutely positive he’d be charged and convicted and do time. And I never imagined we would let it tear our friendship apart.”
Or bring us back together, but for how long?
“We were all upset,” Nic said in her rational lawyer tone. “Over Michael’s death and Jeremy’s injuries. We didn’t know whether he would live or die. We were young and upset and we didn’t know what to do.”
Janine dug her fingers into the flesh above her elbows. Her lips tightened and she turned her head away. After a long moment, she faced her friends.
“I appreciate the confessions. But what about now? What are the dreams saying now?”
“Right.” Nic pulled a notepad out of her tote bag. “Let’s go over what we know.”
“If you’re making notes,” Holly said, “I need coffee.”
Minutes later, over coffee and scones at the kitchen table, Sarah described the nightmare of two nights ago in detail, the young woman in the white nightgown fleeing down the staircase.
“Who was she?” Nic asked. “Where was she going?”
“Toward the doors to the deck. I don’t know that she was going to the lake. But I knew. You know?”
“That’s dreams for you,” Janine said. “They totally make sense, until you wake up.”
“My first thought,” Sarah said, “was that it was Abby. That she was in danger. But she’s fine. Well, fine-not fine. She’s an eighteen-year-old grieving her father. Then—then I thought maybe it was my mother, but that didn’t make sense, either.”
“So who?” Holly said. “I mean, you said the face resembles Anja, but if you’re right and the tragedy Caro was referring to was Anja’s death, that was a hundred years ago. Why is she coming back now?”
Nic wrote t
he number one and circled it. “The first dream, that we know of, was Ellen Lacey’s, shortly before Anja’s death. Exactly what she dreamed or when, we don’t know. Tell us again what Caro said.”
Sarah read the journal entry out loud.
“Sounds like H,” Holly said, “whoever he was, attacked Anja. Caro called him ‘a powerful man.’ Whether he was local or a guest, we don’t know. Clearly, the Laceys believed the girl’s account of whatever happened, but that wasn’t enough to save her.”
“Caro and Con wanted nothing to do with him, either,” Sarah said. “I’m assuming that’s the same H she mentions later, when they were discussing how to complete the deal. Though what deal, we don’t know.”
“We can assume that the incident involving Anja occurred sometime between December 1921, the date on that photograph”—Nic pointed her pen at the house party photo—“and May of 1922, when your great-grandparents bought the lodge. Right? Ellen’s dream occurred before the incident with H. Caro’s dream came four years later. The journal’s short on details, but we know she believed the woman in her dream was Anja. And that her dream was the same as Ellen’s.”
“Oh, God,” Sarah said, bolting upright. “That was the last entry in the journal. She mentioned the dream, and that she was worried about her daughter. Do you remember when Sarah Beth died? Or of what?” she asked Holly. To the others, she explained. “Our grandfather’s little sister. I’m named for her. She was only six when she died, so 1926 is about right. But of what?”
“I remember seeing her gravestone in the family plot,” Holly said. “but what happened, I don’t know. The dollhouse was built for her.”
Sarah opened the journal and read the symptoms.
“That could be anything,” Nic said as Holly picked up her phone and started punching buttons.
“Which would make it worse,” Sarah said. “You know how, with kids, you can’t always tell if the symptoms are serious or no big deal.”
Holly set her phone back on the table. “I thought I could look up those symptoms, but my friend Google is playing dead.”
“Then there was the third dream,” Nic said, bringing them back to the topic at hand with a glance at Sarah. “Yours, twenty-five years ago.”
“Right. There was a woman screaming, then running. Through the trees, across the lawn. But I knew the dream was referring to you.” She laid her hand over Janine’s. After a long moment, when the air in the room did not move, Janine turned her hand over, her palm touching Sarah’s, and gave a gentle squeeze.
“There’s a partial pattern.” Nic tapped her notes. “If we assume that Ellen Lacey’s dream foretold the attack on the housemaid, and maybe her death, and that Sarah’s first dream foretold the attack on Janine. But how does Caro’s dream fit, even if it was foretelling her daughter’s death? Unless there was some attack we don’t know about—that’s when she stopped writing in the journal.”
“Powerful men,” Holly said, “taking what they want. Although Lucas wasn’t powerful then.”
“Powerful enough,” Sarah said. “But Nic’s right. Ellen’s dream meshes with my first one. If Caro’s dream was a warning, too, then of what? And what about my dream Wednesday night?”
Her coffee had cooled and when she took a sip, it had that bitter edge that puckers the mouth.
“This may sound crazy,” she continued. “Though lately, my life’s kinda redefined crazy. Is the girl, Anja, warning us? Or is it the lodge?” They’d gone beyond pennies from her dead husband, sweet reminders of the past, and electronics that didn’t work to cut wires and photographs stashed in locked trunks that echoed dreams that made no sense. Dreams that foretold danger. Dreams meant to spur the dreamer into action.
She stared into her cold coffee, hoping for a sign. But all she could see in its darkness were her own terrified eyes.
* * *
Sarah stood on the deck overlooking the lake and arched her back. Closed her eyes, worked the knot in her spine. There must be a yoga studio in town. Though a friend had dragged her to a class last week, her muscles contradicted the memory, telling her it had been years since she’d unrolled a mat.
Twenty-one days since Jeremy died. When would she stop counting?
Truth was, she feared that day. Counting kept her connected to him and to who she used to be. As long as it hurt, she was alive.
She exhaled and swept her arms overhead to salute the sun, opening her eyes as her hands met. Then hands down. She had to bend her knees to touch the deck, carefully extending one leg behind her, then the other. She managed two rounds before sinking to a seated position, the muscles in her legs pulling and twitching, even the soles of her feet sore.
Her mother had urged her to come home and rest. The woman could not have known the visit would be anything but restful. Where was she, anyway?
This afternoon. When Peggy came out this afternoon with the real estate agent, she’d ask her mother. Ask what was so freaking important in town, in her studio, that she’d all but abandoned Sarah to the place.
Even stranger, now that Holly was here.
Christ. Humans. What could you do? Those had better be Peggy’s best paintings ever.
Sarah snared one tennis shoe, then the other. Slipped a foot in and tightened the laces. Did anything feel so good as the morning sun on the skin? She tied the other shoe and wrapped her arms around her knees.
If you took a picture, compared one calendar photo to another, then the north shore of Bitterroot Lake might barely be a blip on the register of beautiful places. But Caro was right when she said a place drew you to it and wanted you to make it home. Holly and Nic had gone into Deer Park on a fact-finding mission, hoping to learn more about both Sarah Beth’s and Anja’s deaths. Tragedy had sent Ellen Lacey running, but Caro, of the bigger heart, had not been daunted by Anja’s story, whatever it was, or by her dreams.
Caro had understood that tragedy didn’t scar a house, but shaped it. Made it yours.
Maybe it was time she understood that too.
25
Inside, she scooped up clean rags and grabbed a pair of buckets. Said a quick prayer to the household gods as she walked out the mudroom door that this was the day the phone company techs deigned them worthy of service.
Why were the carriage doors open? Had Janine gone for a drive? Nic and Holly had taken Nic’s car. She set the buckets on the gravel path and walked into the carriage house. Janine’s white van stood next to her SUV, cool as the proverbial cucumber.
From deep inside the building, she heard scraping sounds, the clink of metal on metal.
“Janine?”
“Over here,” came the reply and Sarah peered through the semidarkness. Picked her way to the workbench near the stairs, where Janine stood, hands on her hips. She’d pulled her long curls back in a bright red scrunchie.
“You said this was the most likely place for phone wire, so I figured I’d rummage around. No luck.”
“Half dark, all this dust, who knows what’s out here.”
“I was actually hoping to find a ladder, so we can reach the second-story windows.”
“Outside. At least, that’s where they’ve always been.” Sarah led the way. Wood and metal ladders of different lengths hung along the exterior wall. A squirrel had left a stash of pine cone bits and pieces in the rail of a paint-spattered aluminum extension ladder, and after they lifted it off its wooden prongs, they flipped it over to dump the debris. Carried it back to the lodge and hoisted it upright.
“You should have told me,” Janine said, as they stared at the dull, dry logs and the mud-spattered windows, the sills caked with dirt and moss. “About the dream.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Janine did not reply. After a long moment, she stuffed a couple of rags in her pocket and picked up a bucket. Tested the bottom rung and climbed up.
In truth, Sarah was surprised Janine had stayed. But despite everything, despite the distance they’d let grow between them, when Janine was in trouble, s
he’d sought refuge here.
Sarah picked up the other bucket and started on the kitchen windows, careful of the peonies and spirea. Her grandmother had sworn that the best way to clean a window was with damp newspaper, but every time Sarah tried that, she’d ended up with a lump of wet mush, stained hands, and ink on the window sills. Happily, she’d found a wicker hamper in the laundry room full of rags. Had no one in the family had ever thrown away an old towel, T-shirt, or diaper?
No. No one in this family had ever thrown away anything.
That brought her back to the letters and Caro’s journal. What had prompted Caro and her friends to start the Ladies’ Aid Society loans? Caro had wanted word to spread to women in need, while avoiding talk that might stymie their efforts. She poked her thumbnail at a glob of sap glued to the glass.
Had there been no group of church women willing to offer food, shelter, and a little cash? No one could be judgy-ier than a group of women, even good church women. Had the Society stepped in where the usual folks feared to tread? Not every letter writer fell outside societal norms, but widowhood was one thing, living in sin another. A larch cone, about the size of a strawberry, hit her on the arm.
“Sorry,” Janine called. The ladder creaked as she descended. She dumped the dark, flat water from her bucket into a juniper. Sarah dumped hers, too, then rinsed both buckets from the spigot on the side of the house.
It was a long moment, the woods around them oddly quiet, before Janine spoke.
“The first time I came out here with you, it was almost Christmas and the snow was falling.” Janine gave the lodge a long, sweeping gaze. “I thought this place was magical.”
Just listen. You owe her that.
“When Roger left me,” she continued, “we’d been living in New Mexico where he had a job on a ranch. It came with a house, he said, but it turned out to be an ancient metal trailer that rattled like a snake when the wind blew. Drove me half crazy. Sixteen miles out of town, not a tree in sight. Zak turned two there.” Janine wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. “When Roger took off, with the truck and the last of our cash, the ranch manager’s wife took pity on me. She knew I’d worked in restaurants and got me a job in town at the café. It was a jelly doughnut-drip coffee kind of place, but I knew I had to make do until I had the money to leave.”
Bitterroot Lake Page 19