Mr. T. invited Kelvin to stay for supper. "I got the mail," he said. "My sister comes tomorrow so she can help with the wedding." He dug out a bottle of spirits to toast us with. Soon he and K. were very jolly. Mr. T. is a kind man.
I am to be married! I write the words and my fingers shake. The pendant Kelvin gave me is in front of me. Our Time. Soon it will always be our time.
Kerry rubbed at her eyes, sore from straining to decipher Jessamine's handwriting. I should take a break, she thought, but curiosity was driving her. She pressed a warm washcloth to her eyes and rested for a while, irritated by the faint hum in her ears. It wasn't long before she was struggling further with Jessamine's penmanship.
August 6, 1909
Dear Diary,
It is my last day in Boulder. It's rained all night and day.
I've worked hard to set things up for Mr. T. I can't wash but a few shirts at a time since I have to dry them at the stove. I stewed a chicken with some root vegetables and baked gingerbread and two loaves of bread. Mrs. Selkirk sniffed at my work but stayed out of my way.
Mr. T. met his sister Mrs. Wolcott at the station. By the time they got here, they were wet and cold to the bone. Mrs. Selkirk dished up the chicken and they ate it all. When Mrs. W. said it was good, Mrs. S. said thanks and didn't mention I'd cooked it. I took dishes into the kitchen and Edward was by the fire. He winked at me and I wanted to kick him. He keeps his hands to himself when Mr. T isn't around, but he's disrespectful all the same. I won't be sorry to leave him behind.
Kelvin telephoned from the Hotel Boulderado when I was in the barn getting coal oil and Mr. T didn't come get me. I telephoned the hotel when he told me K. called. I couldn't reach him and I didn't want to speak with Dr. Tweedham because we haven't met, and the connection was very poor.
Later Thursday night:
I visited with Mr. T. and Mrs. Wolcott after supper while I mended socks. We talked about my time here and Mr. T. said he would miss me. Mrs. W. changed the subject. I'm happy to be getting married but this old farmhouse and Mr. T. will be fond memories. I said as much to him and he looked sad. Mrs. W. looked like she wanted to spit nails. I left for my room and Edward came out to the hall after me. He blocked my way and grabbed me. Before I could stop him, he kissed me! His tooth cut my lip and I tasted blood. "Wheaton said you was a quail, and he seen you at it." I slapped his face and he looked real ugly at me. If Mrs. W. hadn't come into the hall, I don't know what he would've done. Jack Wheaton told him! I wish God would strike them both dead!
I ran to my room, real upset, and wasted time pacing and wishing I'd knocked his head off. If he tells anybody else what Jack Wheaton saw—it gives me the shivers to think on it. But the only one that matters is Kelvin, and he already knows.
I calmed down and sat at the dressing table to take down my hair. After I started my 100 strokes the strangest thing happened. In the mirror my hair was darkening. My face changed. My blue eyes turned almost black and my nose got longer and straighter. I was so scared but I couldn't look away. It wasn't my face anymore. I was looking at Kelvin, into his eyes. After a bit my own face came back and I was in the looking glass. I thought I would swoon.
I belong to Kelvin and he belongs to me. But tonight I saw us become one person. We will be together forever.
Kerry turned the page and found it empty.
"No. It can't end here." She hunted through the following pages but they were blank. When she caught sight of the familiar script toward the end of the diary, she exhaled in relief and pulled the book near.
The writing was tiny and the words uneven and difficult to make out. Faded ink smudges further obscured them. Kerry fumbled for the magnifying glass in her desk drawer.
This is my last entry. A diary is a stupid thing for a grown woman. I am no lovesick girl now.
I waited for Kelvin all that Friday. He never came. Mr. T. fussed over me and Mrs. Wolcott kept wondering until I went out into the rain to wait by myself. Edward came out for more wood and sneered at me. "What d'you expect?" I went back to the house before I tried to hurt him.
I telephoned the hotel. The clerk told me Dr. Tweedham and his assistant left on the early train. The tone in his voice made me think there might have been other calls like mine. Maybe I'm not the only woman in Boulder cheated by Mr. Haslett.
I took sick after that day and didn't leave my bed until mid-September. I prayed to die, but God doesn't listen to me.
Mr. Thornton—he asked me to call him by his given name, Stanley—was kind. He made Mrs. Selkirk care for me and didn't fuss at me. He didn't mention Mr. Haslett. I'm grateful for that. Yesterday he asked me to be his wife. He said he knows I don't love him, but his feelings for me are strong enough to support marriage between us. I accepted his offer. I don't care about Mrs. Selkirk and Edward. I'll fire her and he can rot however he wants.
This is the last time I will ever read these pages. I was foolish to believe Mr. Haslett cared for me. I want to throw this diary away but I can't, though it would be for the best. I'll hide it with the pendant. I've studied the sundial on it till I can't stand the sight of it.
Goodbye to Jessamine. She believed in love and in a man's honor. My middle name is the same as my mother's. Alice. A plain name without airs. It suits me better now.
My last word on this is a poem, the only one I ever wrote:
The line midst love and hate—
Like light and dark—
Lies at the edge of the shadow.
Alice Cunningham
October 20, 1909
Kerry rubbed her eyes, surprised when her hands came away wet. Alice. That explained the headstone at Columbia Cemetery. Jessamine Cunningham became Alice, second wife to Stanley Thornton. The young girl, so deeply in love, became the woman whose headstone quoted the bitter verse in her diary.
How could Kelvin have betrayed her? Had Jessamine been too inexperienced to see him for what he was? Was the tender lover an opportunist preying on the lonely girl?
It didn't feel right. Kerry groped for a tissue. The unfairness of it bothered her the most. Jessamine lost her whole family and then was abandoned by the man she loved—no, not Jessamine. Alice.
The phone rang as Kerry was blowing her nose. "Hello?" After a pause, Elizabeth's said, "Are you crying again? What's wrong now?"
"Nothing. I just finished the diary." Kerry forced a cheerful note into her voice. "No happy ending this time, I'm afraid."
"Don't move, honey," Elizabeth ordered. "I'll be right over."
Within minutes the doorbell sounded. When Kerry opened the door Elizabeth walked through it, Dolores at her heels. Both of them regarded her closely as she swung the door shut.
Kerry tried for a smile. "You didn't have to interrupt what you were doing. I just had a bad reaction to the diary. I told you how real it seemed."
Elizabeth enfolded her in a hug. "Honey, you don't have to explain it to me. I've been known to cry over dog food commercials. I told Dolores you sounded like you needed some moral support." Hands on Kerry's shoulders, she pushed her away far enough to look into her face. Her chocolate brown eyes were anxious. "What happened?"
"What I should have expected, I guess. Come in and I'll show you."
They followed her into the study and she handed over the journal. "I told you most of it at the cemetery. The last part is the buzz kill."
They sat down and Elizabeth held the book between them. After a moment Dolores glanced up. "The handwriting's terrible."
"I know." Kerry held out the magnifying glass. "It's better with this."
The two read in silence. Kerry watched them, aware of a new appreciation for both of them. Neither had hesitated. They showed up because they thought she needed help. Elizabeth inhaled sharply. "What?"
"His—Kelvin's—face in the mirror." Kerry raised her eyebrows and Elizabeth made an irritated sound. "Jessamine looks in the mirror and Kelvin's face kinda slips over it? What does that remind you of?"
Kerry shrugged. The girl wa
s longing for her lover. She'd seen his face instead of her own. "I don't know what you mean."
Elizabeth pursed her lips. "Sounds like what Andrea was talkin' about, don't you think?"
Dolores's eyes rounded in surprise. "You're right! That's how Andrea described it with Neal in the rain, as though the guy in the sketches just slid right over him. That is spooky." She returned to the diary, continuing to read along with Elizabeth. When she came to the end her eyes swam with tears. "Jita, this is awful."
Elizabeth finished. "Damn the bastard." She scooped the diary off her lap and slammed it onto the desk. "He went after that poor girl for a summer fling. When it looked like he'd have to come through for her, he booked right out of town."
Kerry shook her head. "I don't know. He could've left with his boss and not said anything to Jessamine. Instead, he talked about marriage and kicked that Wheaton dude's ass."
"But then he leaves?" Dolores picked up the diary to read some earlier pages. "Listen to this, Elizabeth." She read the passage when Kelvin gave Jessamine the pendant. "It's so lovely. How could he do that and then leave her high and dry? Maybe something happened to him."
Elizabeth snorted. "What could've happened to him? Frostbite from cold feet, maybe. Besides, if he had run into trouble, somebody would've found out about it, wouldn't they? Jessamine would've heard about it."
"Yeah, but she got sick," Kerry said. "Remember, she talks about Stanley's kindness, how he made that Selkirk woman take care of her. What did she say? That she'd been in bed until September or so? Let me see that, Dolores."
Kerry searched for the lines and reached for the magnifying glass. "Okay, here... I didn't leave my bed until mid-September. And the previous entry was in early August. Wow, she spent over a month in bed. What was it, do you think, some kind of fever?"
Elizabeth frowned. "What do you bet it was a miscarriage?"
"Oh, no," Kerry said. It hadn't even occurred to her. "You're probably right."
Dolores held out her hand. "Hey, gimme." Kerry handed it over and she reread a section. When she finished, she glanced up. "She worked as a servant and doesn't mention friends except for Mr. T. and Kelvin. She wouldn't necessarily have known if something prevented Kelvin from showing up."
Kerry considered it. "But somebody would've said something eventually. Boulder wasn't that big a town."
Dolores shrugged. "So I guess Kelvin was just a good-looking rat."
"I guess so." Kerry hated the sense of loss she felt. "She'd already gone through so much. I was hoping she went off with Kelvin and had a bunch of kids. I wanted Kelvin to be her reward." She looked away from the sympathy in Elizabeth's eyes. "Instead she died a bitter woman, judging by that headstone. By then Stanley was gone. She was alone again."
"Some folks get dumped on." Elizabeth's voice was sad. "Jessamine was one of them. It doesn't make sense or show any justice. I've known people like that, good people who couldn't buy a break. I reckon you have, too."
Kerry nodded. "I wanted it to be different for Jessamine."
Dolores finished leafing through the diary and closed the cover. She set it on the desk but misjudged the distance and the volume fell to the floor. "Sorry." When she picked it up, she saw an edge of paper showing under the back cover. "What's this?"
Kerry took the diary, opening it to the back. The lining had come loose, revealing the corner of a paper. She pinched the border and tugged. A photograph slipped out onto the blotter. Kerry inhaled sharply.
"What is it?" Elizabeth came round the corner of the desk and Dolores leaned over the front. Silently they stared at the picture.
"Oh, my God," Dolores whispered. "I don't believe it."
Chapter 20
Avoiding everyone after she left Aura Lee's suite was as simple as walking out the front door. Andrea retrieved her spare car key inside the rear bumper and drove away.
She took Broadway past the university, dodging students swarming toward shops across from the campus. Down the hill was central Boulder, where cobblestone walks united brick storefronts on the Pearl Street Mall. Neo-hippies in tie-dye and businessmen in suits and ties waited for the traffic lights. Maybe schizophrenia is the norm in this place, she thought bitterly.
Should she leave Boulder? She could send for her stuff when she got back to Tacoma, but then what? The Department had hired a replacement for her, and she'd rented out her house for the coming year. But she had a choice: go back to her old life with her sanity almost intact or stay for further adventures among the ghosties and ghoulies of Wisdom Court.
Andrea drove north past the hospital and looked unseeing as condominiums and bungalows gave way to suburban houses behind old-growth shrubbery and trees. Broadway climbed a hill lined with shoppettes and fenced pastures where horses grazed on silver-green prairie grass. A sign said Lyons was ten miles north and she kept going.
The highway curved around foothills that might have been sketched onto the landscape with charcoal. Stark granite boulders cast shadows over the road. She saw a place along the shoulder of the highway and veered into it without warning. The driver behind her leaned on the horn and roared past her.
What the hell am I doing? Andrea rested her head against the steering wheel and waited for her heart to stop pounding. In a few minutes she carefully turned back toward Boulder. She drove mechanically, taking care with every shift of the gears, every tap on the brakes.
She didn't dare leave Wisdom Court without knowing why such strange things were happening to her. If she did, she'd never be able to trust herself again, wherever she went. Reluctantly she drove back up the hill, tired and no surer of what to do than when she'd left. A headache pounded at her temples.
The grandfather clock chimed as Andrea entered the house. The heavy oak door thudded behind her while she waited through the bells. It was ten o'clock—minus seventeen minutes, according to Aura Lee. All in bad time. In the vibrating air she heard nothing, not even an inquiring bark from Strudel. She started up the stairs, hoping she'd be able to get what she needed from her room and find a place to spend the night. As sick as he was, Neal was bound to be asleep.
The door hinges squeaked. Remaining still she listened for movement from Neal, and when it didn't come, eased open the door far enough to slip inside. She was halfway across the floor to the chest of drawers when the light beside the bed winked on. "You don't have to sneak around," Neal said in a gravelly voice. "It's your room."
Damn, Andrea thought, and took a deep breath. "Sorry. I was trying to be quiet."
The bedclothes rustled as he shifted position. "I've been thinking."
She pulled out a drawer and searched hastily for the lavender T-shirt and leggings she'd been using as sleepwear.
Neal coughed, and the loose, rough sound made Andrea wince in sympathy. "Aren't you going to ask me what I've been thinking about?"
Andrea frowned into the drawer. "You need to sleep." She retrieved the nightclothes and pushed the drawer too hard, shaking the chest. One of the framed pictures on top of it fell to the floor. "Dammit."
"Andrea, what's the matter now?"
She bent to pick up the picture and checked the glass across Grace's smiling face. "What are you talking about? There's nothing wrong." She hurried toward the bathroom.
"Then why're you acting like I've got leprosy and typhoid both?"
"I'm just tired. We can talk tomorrow." She grabbed the toiletry bag on the counter and switched off the bathroom light.
He whispered, "Andrea, give me a break here." The day's growth of beard added shadows to the planes of his face. His eyes were bloodshot and weary, and he slumped against his pillows.
"I'm sorry." She drew near the bed and tried to smile. "What have you been thinking about?"
The corners of his mouth lifted. "That's better." He extended his hand and without thinking she put hers into it. "I'm pretty foggy about what happened today, in and out of a fever. But I have the sinking feeling I came on too strong." He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. "
Am I right?"
He was touching only the tops of her fingers, yet her eyes drifted shut as she savored the caress.
"Andrea?"
She opened her eyes. "What?"
"I said I thought I'd frightened you today." He considered her with the smile back in his eyes. "Maybe not so much?"
Her color rose.
His eyes were somber. "If I did anything to scare you, I'm sorry."
"Neal, I—" Andrea stopped. How could she begin to explain to him what she was trying to figure out for herself? "Everything's so mixed up." What she saw in his eyes made her reckless. Moving closer, she set aside the items she'd come for. "Would you hold me?"
Neal moved over to make room and she lay down beside him. He wrapped his arms around her. "What's the matter?" he asked, voice rumbling in her ear. She shook her head against his shoulder. "Then we'll just hold on for now."
* * *
Andrea waited until Neal was asleep and eased off the bed, gathering her night things. She pulled the door shut, letting the spring bolt slide home before she released the knob.
As she slipped through the kitchen, a door opened. Rose wore a flowing gray robe belted tightly around her waist. Her loose curls were silvery in the light from the wall sconce. "Andrea, there you are. There's a cot for you in the studio. I left some extra pillows and blankets, but I'll show you where to get more just in case." She led her to the linen closet where the shelves were stacked with bedding. "Help yourself to whatever you need."
"Thanks." Andrea turned back toward the studio.
Edge of the Shadow Page 17
