Edge of the Shadow

by Yvonne Montgomery

  Rose followed her and as they entered, she took a quick look around, pausing at the uncovered casements. Outside the trees shifted in the rising breeze, leaves fluttering in the light from the windows. "You sure you want to sleep here? We could put the cot in the living room."

  "This'll be fine." Andrea set her toiletry bag onto the counter by the sink. Her shoulder brushed against one of the photographs salvaged from the attic. They'd been hung like drying laundry, away from the light.

  Rose fussed with the extra pillow. "It looks as though it might rain. I hope you won't get cold."

  Andrea sighed. "Rose, did you want to talk about something in particular?"

  The older woman turned toward her. "It's what you said this afternoon about feeling like a utensil, feeling used up." She fiddled with the robe sash. "You've had a hard time since you got here. Aura Lee's horrified at what she did, and she's afraid it might drive you away. Please give her—give us—another chance."

  Andrea started to respond, but stopped. Finally she said, "I'm too tired to think about it now. Let's get some sleep. Tomorrow we can take another look."

  "Okay." Rose started to say something else, then merely smiled. "I'll see you in the morning then. Good night." The studio door clicked quietly shut.

  Andrea brushed her teeth and crawled under the covers, tucking them around her against the chilly night air. It'd been warm in Neal's arms, secure, she thought drowsily. Sometimes that was better than sex.

  At the whisper of sound, her eyes popped open. The dark was made of shadows and she searched for movement. She sensed a shivering in the air, followed by rustling.

  "Who's there?" No answer. She strained to hear over her heartbeat. Finally throwing the covers she ran for the light switch.

  In the sudden glare she saw on the floor the piece of twine, photographs still attached to it. Her breath whooshed out in relief and, grabbing the line, she began to coil the end onto the hook screwed into the wall. The photos trembled on the cord, the strangers in them looking out at her as they moved.

  A photograph lay on the floor near the cot and she crept back to pick it up. In the picture a young woman posed at the side of an older man. He stood ramrod straight, holding her to him possessively. His ring, a carved lion's head, appeared to snarl in warning from her shoulder. The woman's light hair was pulled back from her heart-shaped face, and the ruffled collar of her bodice accented her pointed chin and tiny earlobes. Her eyes were empty.

  Andrea studied the man. Lined forehead under slicked back gray hair, thick brows over amused eyes, blunt nose and thin straight lips. If they were married, as the pose implied, they had different feelings about it. Putting the photograph on the top of the nearest surface she hurried back to the cot.

  Wrapped in the blankets, she sought a comfortable position and tried to recreate the relaxation she'd felt in Neal's arms. But as she grew sleepy, it was the image of the young woman with vacant eyes filling her mind.

  Chapter 21

  She wandered on the mountainside through the misty pine forest. The path curved among fallen rocks and trees twisted by the wind. Sure at last of her destination she ran calling, I'm coming, and sensed a joyous response. I'm coming.

  A firm hand jostled her shoulder. "Wake up."

  Andrea growled and tried to hold onto the tatters of her dream.

  "Come on, Andrea. Wake up."

  She peered at reddish hair through slitted eyes. Kerry bent over the cot, ready to shake her again. Dolores was beside her.

  Andrea's vision cleared enough to make out Elizabeth as well. "What's going on?" Aware of the crick in her neck, she turned her head with care. "What time is it? And why the committee wake-up call?"

  Dolores's hands were clasped together and she was vibrating with excitement. "We have the most amazing thing to show you."

  Andrea pushed herself up from the cot and shook her hair back from her face. "What?"

  "This." Kerry laid a black and white photo on the cot.

  When Andrea saw the young man in the picture, her mind went blank. His dark hair was brushed back from a widow's peak and bold brows soared over almond-shaped eyes in the narrow face. On the bottom margin of the photograph was printed in white ink: Chautauqua 1909, J.B. Sturtevant.

  "It's the guy in your sketches," Dolores whispered. "Don't you recognize him?"

  "Of course I do!" Andrea touched the edge of the photograph. When she turned it over, she saw writing in a lower corner. Kelvin Haslett, July 23, 1909. "Where was it?"

  "Pasted under the cover of this." The small book Kerry handed her was faded and the word Diary was written across it in flowing lines. "It was with the stuff we found in the attic. You know, along with the sundial pendant. The one you sketched at Dolores's show?"

  A chill crawled down Andrea's spine. "This is giving me the creeps."

  Elizabeth's laugh was short. "Ya think?"

  Kerry picked up the photo and slid it back into the diary. "Get dressed and we'll tell you what we've found out. A lot of it has to do with your boy here. Oh, and Aura Lee said to tell you she's making waffles."

  "I'm all mixed up."

  "We're going to work on that." Kerry squeezed her shoulder. "Come on, things will look better with some coffee. If you hurry, we'll let you have the first batch of waffles."

  Dolores and Elizabeth walked out the studio door, Kerry trailing behind them. Andrea tugged on jeans, fumbling with the snap. Her mind was whirling. The man of the sketches was real, and he had a name. She hadn't invented him.

  As she pulled a green shirt over her head she heard a sound. Kerry had picked up a photo and stared at it intently. "Where did this come from?"

  Andrea craned to look over her shoulder. "It was with the batch from the attic. Scared the hell out of me last night."

  Kerry's frown deepened. "The man looks familiar."

  Andrea slipped into her shoes and looked around for her toiletry bag. She saw it next to the sink and reached past Kerry to get it.

  "I don't know who she is, but I've seen him," muttered Kerry, intent on the picture. "But where?"

  Andrea headed to the door. "I'll be in for breakfast in a bit."

  Kerry nodded absently. "Me, too, in a minute." She picked up the photo. "I'm going to check something first."

  They gathered around the kitchen table some twenty minutes later. Neal had come downstairs with Aura Lee monitoring his every step. His unshaven cheeks were pale and he moved slowly, but the glaze of fever had faded from his eyes.

  Rose added place settings as Elizabeth and Dolores arrived. When Andrea came in she reached for another plate. "Are we having a meeting?"

  "You could say that." Dolores crossed to the wall phone. "I'll give Noreen a call. She needs to be here. Better make some more waffles, Aura Lee."

  Andrea slipped into the chair beside Neal. "How do you feel?"

  He reached for her hand. "I'll live but I'm still not sure that's a good thing."

  His skin was warm against hers, and she savored the grip of his fingers.

  As Noreen came in through the back door, Kerry hurried into the room carrying a manila envelope. Aura Lee brought a platter of waffles to the table.

  Andrea glimpsed the excitement in Kerry's eyes. "You found something?"

  "Wait till you see." Kerry dropped onto her chair and plunged a hand into the envelope. Pulling out a stack of papers, she set them on the table. "This is the file about the house, this house. Caldicott researched the place before she bought it and stuck the information here." Her fingers gently slid a yellowed newspaper clipping from the pile. "I looked through it at one point, but not very closely." She took sip of coffee from the cup handed to her. "Mmm. Thanks, Aura Lee."

  Andrea craned to see the headline: Stanley 0. Thornton dies at home. Her gaze moved to the accompanying photo of a white-haired, wrinkled man glaring at the camera. "It's him!"

  "Who?" Dolores had risen to peer over Kerry's shoulder. "Jeez, a smile would've cracked his face. Wait! That's Stanley Thorn
ton?"

  Kerry placed the photo Andrea had retrieved the night before beside the obituary. Next to Thornton was the young blonde woman with unreadable eyes. "It's Jessamine," Kerry said softly. "It's their wedding picture."

  Elizabeth came round the table to see. "Oh, God, she looks like she isn't even there."

  Kerry removed the portrait of Kelvin Haslett from the back cover of the diary and set it beside the wedding picture. "And he's the reason why."

  Rose gasped as she caught sight of the photograph. "Isn't he—?"

  "It's the man Andrea's been drawing!" Aura Lee looked back and forth between Kerry and Andrea. "How did you find it?"

  Elizabeth and Dolores told of the photo's discovery in the diary and Kerry described seeing the wedding portrait that morning. "It was with the photos from the attic."

  "It's incredible." Dolores resumed her seat, reaching for her cup. "The spooky part is finding these pictures all at once. What are the odds of that?"

  "Forget the odds." Rose looked at them commandingly. "Tell us what you've found out."

  "Especially me," Neal added. "What's all this about Andrea's drawings?"

  "Gracious. We need to bring you up to date." Noreen told him about Andreas's three sketches of Kelvin Haslett. "The first was the night of Andrea's arrival. You were with her for the second one, the day you hiked in Chautauqua. The third was produced yesterday."

  "So that's what happened that afternoon." Neal studied Andrea's face. "I couldn't figure out what I'd done to make you freeze up the way you did. I thought I offended you or something."

  "I was freaked out." Andrea released his hand, not knowing how he would react to the rest of it. "Every one of those has been done while I was asleep or in a trance. Yesterday Rose and Aura Lee found me painting in my sleep."

  "What, the same thing, this Kelvin guy?" At her nod, Neal recaptured her hand in his. "Why aren't you swinging from the chandeliers?"

  "I have been," Andrea said. Neal's fingers tightened around her own.

  They passed the two pictures around while Kerry told them of Jessamine's summer romance with Kelvin Haslett. She read aloud several excerpts from the diary, including the passage in which Kelvin gave Jessamine the sundial pendant.

  "The day he and Jessamine were to get married and leave for Chicago, Kelvin didn't show up. Jessamine never saw him again. She ended up marrying Stanley Thornton."

  "These are fascinating." Noreen's eyes were alight with enthusiasm as she examined the photos.

  "So now we know who Kelvin is. And we know that Jessamine lived here," Dolores said. "But what does it mean?"

  Noreen nodded thanks to Aura Lee for refilling her teacup. "Answers are like flowers grown, questions but seeds determining their blossoms. Elizabeth Bland Cox, nineteen-oh-two. We have the young man's identity and now we have to establish why he keeps appearing in Andrea's sketches."

  Elizabeth glowered. "'Specially since he made a point of leaving town without notice back in nineteen-oh-nine."

  From the photo propped against the china creamer, Jessamine looked endlessly at nothing. "She was deeply in love with Kelvin," offered Kerry. "They found each other that summer. Both orphans looking for a sense of home, discovering in each other the missing pieces to their lives."

  At the sympathetic silence Kerry glanced up. "I know I'm too involved in this thing. But Jessamine was here." She gestured toward the built-in sideboard visible in the dining room. "She polished that mirror, and dusted the furniture and scrubbed these floors. She hid her diary in the attic. It hurts that Kelvin betrayed her. Jessamine believed he was a good man. It really bothers me that she was wrong."

  "Do you think it's just a coincidence," Dolores asked, "finding the pictures like we did?"

  Noreen shook her head. "I don't believe in coincidences."

  Neal raised a brow. "What do you mean?"

  "You've heard of synchronicity, haven't you?" Noreen slowly whirled her reading glasses by one earpiece. "Jung's concept of significance in apparently unrelated events. We have a diary, hidden in it a photograph of a key person written about in it. The same day, a photograph of the diary's author 'falls from the sky.'" She smiled. "Impressive, don't you think?"

  "I don't see it." Neal shifted his weight uncomfortably. "The diary was found in the house where the woman lived. Where else would it be? She hid the photograph of her lover in it. Sounds straightforward to me."

  Elizabeth stirred cream into her coffee. "One connection, two connections—okay, call it coincidence. But we've got a string of 'em, all having to do with the same people."

  An uneasy expression crossed Kerry's face. "That's no reason to jump to a paranormal conclusion."

  Elizabeth made an impatient sound. "We've got the diary, the pictures, the sundial. We just happened to find Jessamine' headstone yesterday. Oh, and by the way, we've already gotten to know this guy in the picture 'cause Andrea's been churning out sketches of him. What's paranormal about all that?"

  Andrea frowned in bewilderment. "Why are we suddenly finding out these details about this small group of people?"

  Aura Lee had been folding and refolding her napkin as the others talked. Under lavender eye shadow, her eyes were shrewd. "You're the catalyst, Andrea. Something about you has sparked odd events ever since you arrived."

  Kerry snorted. "You're imagining a causal relationship purely on the basis of those sketches. What about Neal? Andrea said he changed into Kelvin." Across the table Neal choked on his coffee. "Is synchronicity behind that, too?"

  Neal was scrubbing at the coffee on his shirt with a napkin. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

  Noreen patted his arm in comfort. "That evening you followed Andrea up to the Amphitheater, apparently she saw you change..." She stopped.

  Neal's gaze veered to Andrea. "What?" When she remained silent, he looked back at Noreen. "Changed how?"

  Noreen looked at Rose in appeal.

  Rose let out a breath. "Andrea said your appearance, uh, altered."

  "Oh, for God's sake! She said you turned into this guy Kelvin," Elizabeth said bluntly.

  "You think I mutated into this guy you sketched?" For the first time that day Neal had some color in his face. His stunned gaze fixed on Andrea. "Was that why you ran away?"

  Her face flamed. "What could I say?"

  "Honey, you aren't the man I thought you were?" Elizabeth cracked, surprising a giggle from Dolores.

  Rose relaxed into a grin. "Neal, who's that guy I saw you turn into last night?"

  Even Kerry got into the spirit. "That was no guy, I was possessed."

  Neal stared at them, disillusioned. "So glad I can provide some comic relief." He focused again on Andrea. "The strange thing is, I felt something weird that night. Yesterday when we were..." His cheeks reddened. "I told you later I thought I came on too strong. I felt that same way... did it happen again?" When Andrea didn't answer right away, he persisted. "I've been tied up in knots since you got here. Now I've been taken over, or some damn thing. When were you going to tell me?"

  Andrea studied the weave of the place mat in front of her. "We've known each other for what? Four days? I hoped to figure it out before we talked." The wariness in his face dissolved her embarrassment. "It's more likely that you didn't change at all. I perceived a change. I'm probably certifiable."

  Noreen nodded, her elfin face solemn. "She was very concerned about your reaction, Neal. I think that's been bothering her almost as much as the fear of having a breakdown."

  Andrea closed her eyes in mortification.

  "Hey, don't worry about it." Neal leaned in for a kiss, holding it for a long moment. He pulled away, a smile in his eyes. "What's a breakdown to a guy who isn't himself lately?"

  Andrea felt her heart thundering. Before she could say anything, Elizabeth patted Neal's shoulder. "You romantic devil, you. How can she resist that?"

  To her own surprise, Andrea laughed.

  Noreen smiled. "This is all very nice, but something's going on here
. I reiterate my theory: we have a ghost."

  Aura Lee clapped her hands. "For once I'm not the only person to think it. I swear this is the perfect place for such a thing to happen."

  Kerry forked her hands through her hair in frustration. "Why is it so perfect?"

  "You know how on the map Colorado is shaped like a rectangle?" Aura Lee asked. "To me it looks like a car battery with two points serving as terminals. Colorado Springs is the negative, Boulder the positive. Think about it," she insisted in response to their groans. "In the Springs are headquarters for a bunch of conservative organizations, religious and political. In Boulder you have a lot of liberal groups and alternative religions, too. Colorado Springs the negative, Boulder the positive."

  Neal's laughter lasted until he started coughing. "My God," he rasped finally, "if I weren't a wreck, Aura Lee, I'd waltz you around the room."

  Aura Lee sent him a fond glance. "Boulder is a place of power. Strange things happen here all the time."

  "So we have a string of coincidences in a very short period of time," Noreen said. "We have the sketches and the painting and the two times when Neal looked like this Kelvin fellow. What else?"

  Neal cleared his throat. "It's probably nothing, but I keep smelling bay rum."

  Dolores's dark brows wrinkled in a frown. "You saying somebody has a drinking problem?"

  Elizabeth snorted. "It's a kind of aftershave, girl. Barbers used to put it on men after they shaved them, back in the good old days."

  "My grandfather used it," Neal said. "I keep getting whiffs of it."

  Noreen frowned thoughtfully. "I have no idea about that one."

  "Something odd showed in my workroom," Rose offered reluctantly. "I found my latest fountain taken apart, and its pieces were... rearranged. " In answer to Neal's quizzical look, she added, "All of the stones and crystals were in a circle around the bowl. I hate to ask, but none of you went into the office, did you?"

  "Of course not."

  "No way."

  Rose nodded.

  "Rose, remember what I told you about closing the circle?" Aura Lee asked, troubled. "We didn't do that at the séance," she reminded the others.