by Wendy Webb
She crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. “I don’t think so.”
“Nonsense,” Henry said. “You can’t sit by yourself in the dark.”
“I don’t like brandy,” she sniffed.
Henry rolled his eyes. “Oh, for goodness’ sake. I’ve got one of these.” He shone his flashlight into her face, causing her to blink and squint at him. “We can simply go downstairs and get whatever you’d like to drink.” He took her by the hand. “Now come on, my hothouse flower.” He turned over his shoulder to the rest of us. “We’ll be back in two shakes.”
“Right,” Cassandra said. “I’ll deploy the brandy, you all bring glasses from your rooms.”
She and Diana walked together to her room then, and Richard gave me a smile as he opened his door. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said. “Unless you’d like to join me now.”
I gave him a mock scowl, my pulse racing a bit at the suggestion. “Thank you for offering to light fires for everyone.”
“We do what we can,” he said, repeating my words, and then disappeared into his room.
I hurried into mine, closing and locking the door behind me. I peeled off my wet clothes and dropped them down the laundry chute—Harriet’s staff doing the laundry once a week was one of the perks of being here at Cliffside. I thought of simply throwing on a pair of jeans, but instead I quickly lit some candles in the bathroom and hopped into the shower for a quick step-in-step-out. I was chilly to the core. As I stood under the warm stream of water, the steam rising and condensing on the glass shower door, my mind ran in several directions at once.
What had just happened with Richard? I didn’t normally run around kissing men I had recently met, but somehow, down there on the lakeshore, it had just felt . . . right. As though I had known him my whole life. But of course, I hadn’t. Our paths had never crossed before, had they? I had spent my adult life working on crime cases and chasing bad guys right here, and he had spent his on every continent on this planet taking some of the most stunning nature photographs I had ever seen.
I put my face under the stream. I was in trouble, and I knew it. It was plainly obvious, even to me—and I tended to deny such things—that I was attracted to this man, and I had to admit that it felt great. But what good would this newfound attraction do me? He was leaving when this session was over. He lived an ocean away. Way to set yourself up for heartbreak, Norrie.
I wondered if I should just nip this thing in the bud, or . . . I let my mind wander. Maybe I could just enjoy it for what it was—a flirtation that would end when he left Cliffside. Would that be so bad? Or . . . maybe I could convince him to stay.
Although, I thought, what of Nate? There hadn’t exactly been fireworks between us, not like when I was alone with Richard, but I had to admit it—I had feelings for him, too. He was so easy to talk to. Our senses of humor meshed perfectly. I smiled to myself, remembering our banter the other night. And when I thought about it, I realized I trusted him and valued his opinion. That’s exactly the kind of friendship that could grow into true and lasting love—or so magazine articles had told me.
All at once, Miss Penny swirled into my mind. Her deeply lined face, her ramrod straight posture. I could see her, in her formal slacks and sensible black shoes, greeting fellows with a curt nod of the head as they arrived, a clipboard clasped between her hands, almost like I was right there with her. She would never have entertained a flirtation with one of them. It would be the height of unprofessionalism, I could almost hear her saying to me. That’s not how a director should behave. What would Father think? Scandalous!
But, as I toweled off, I shook her voice out of my mind. I gazed into the mirror as I combed my hair and dabbed some moisturizer on my face—I was still a young woman. Well. Young-ish. And, despite the fact that I had agreed to be the director of Cliffside, I had no intention of living alone, devoting my life to this place like Miss Penny had. That had not been a part of the job description. I could step into Miss Penny’s shoes, but I didn’t have to follow in her footsteps, running Cliffside alone for decades.
I had been so busy for so long with my all-consuming career, I had left no room for love. But now? My whole life had changed when I’d lost my job and taken on this position. Maybe it was time my love life changed, too.
I hopped into leggings and a comfortable black tunic top and slid my feet into flats. Not perfect, but it would have to do. I grabbed a glass from my bedside table, scooped up my flashlight, and headed to Cassandra’s room to join the others. I was sure, as I closed my door behind me, that Miss Penny had never done any such thing, and I could feel her nagging at me, somewhere deep inside, to follow her lead. But there were five interesting, vibrant people in the next room, and I wanted to join in the fun on this dark and stormy night. No matter what she thought of it.
CHAPTER 26
When I knocked on Cassandra’s door, pushed it open, and poked my head around it, I found all the fellows already there. The fire blazing in the fireplace and candles flickering around the room bathed everything in a yellowish glow, softening their faces, blurring the lines.
I stood there for a moment and took it all in—Cassandra was perched on the edge of her bed, Diana curled into a wing chair next to the fire. Henry was pulling one of the chairs from the study into the main room, and Brynn was already settled into the other, which had been moved near the bed. Richard had arranged some of the throw pillows on the floor next to the fireplace and was stretched out there, leaning on one elbow, his hair wet and slicked back.
All at once I was reminded of summer camp when I was a child, sneaking off with newfound friends to sit around a fire and tell ghost stories when we should have been snug in our beds. I hoped these people didn’t think of me as the type of stern camp counselor I remembered. No, that was Harriet’s role, not mine.
Cassandra patted a spot on the bed next to her. “There’s room here.” She smiled. “I’ve already poured you a brandy.”
I settled in next to her and took the glass in her outstretched hand.
“We found a connection,” Henry announced. He was beaming, as though he had just aced a school paper.
“Us and Cliffside?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and taking a sip of my drink. “Do tell.”
“Well,” he said, crossing his legs and leaning toward me, “when darling Brynn and I were making our way through the gloom to the liquor cabinet, I asked her when her grandmother was here as a patient.”
“It was 1952,” Brynn piped up. “I know it for sure, because she dated every journal entry.”
“For the good of the group, I’m going to have to admit—though I’m loath to do it—that 1952 was the same year my mother left Cliffside,” Henry went on. “I was born the following year. And now you know how old I am, damn it all. I tell people I’m ten years younger.”
I smiled at him. He was right, I had thought he was about fifty.
“It’s just a number, chap,” Richard chimed in. “You’re in better shape than many people I know who are twenty years younger.”
“Sixty is the new forty, that’s what everyone is saying now,” I said, leaning over to squeeze Henry’s arm.
“Don’t say the number out loud,” he huffed. “I’ve been fifty for more than a decade. I don’t see why that should change.”
As we were talking, Cassandra slid off the bed and padded over to her study, where she put on a pair of glasses and held her flashlight over a manila file of notes, squinting at them. She ruffled through the papers until she found the particular one she was looking for.
“I thought so,” she said with a triumphant air, and turned back to the group. “My grandfather died here in 1952. That was also the year Cliffside Sanatorium closed.”
“And the year Temperance Dare died,” Brynn added. “Or was murdered.”
“An eventful year,” I said, my mind whirring through what I knew about that time. “So, 1952. Miss Penny told me that she and her sister Chamomile moved into Cliffs
ide as their family home when the patients left, so it must have been that same year. They were just kids then, probably about ten years old or so.”
Richard sat up and brushed a lock of wet hair out of his eyes. “There’s your connection, Eleanor: 1952 at Cliffside was significant for Henry, Cassandra, and Brynn. And for Penelope Dare, too, by the sound of it.”
“I think you’re right, but why?” I said. “Yes, her sister died that year. Is that all there is to it? It’s maddening. And, also, Richard, what of you and me? We don’t have any connection to Cliffside back then. Ours is more recent.”
“And I’m the wild card, as usual,” Diana said. “I still can’t think of a single thing tying me to this place.”
Henry took a sip of his brandy and gazed into the fire. “It really is strange, don’t you think, that Cassandra’s grandfather, Brynn’s grandmother, and my mother were all here at Cliffside at the same time,” he said. “I’m sure Mama knew both of them. She would have known all the patients.”
“Did she ever mention my grandfather’s name?” Cassandra asked him. “Archie Abbott?”
Henry squinted, as though he was looking back through his memories. “Not that I recall,” he said. “But she talked a lot about Cliffside. She really did love working here and clearly idolized Chester Dare.”
“What did she say it was like here back then?” Cassandra asked. “These are the questions I intended to ask Penelope Dare but never got the chance. I’d appreciate hearing your insights.”
Henry swirled the ice around in his glass. “It was by turns horrible and wonderful,” he began. “She worked here for nearly five years, before she left to have me. The suffering these poor people endured. Weakness, night sweats, fever. And of course, the coughing. TB, by another name, was consumption, because it was like the disease consumed its patients. She said some days there was so much death, so much coughing, blood everywhere, so many people wasting away that she and the other nurses would have to get out for a while, walk in the forest or go for a boat ride, just to clear their heads and steel their resolve to keep doing the job.”
I shivered. I could just imagine it.
“But it was important work they were doing,” Henry went on. “Saving lives. For my mother, it was a calling. The patients were here for so long—many months, even a year for some—that the staff really got to know them. They became very close, like family. Mama loved her patients, most of them, anyway. The children, especially. She could hardly stand the thought of them being away from their homes and their parents. She became like a substitute mother to many of them.”
“It must have been terrible for her when one of them didn’t make it,” Cassandra said. “I can’t imagine how hard that was.”
Henry shook his head. “She said it took a little piece of her, every time. Day after day, not knowing who would be next. It would be like watching your family die all around you, every day.”
I took a sip of my brandy.
“But when someone would be cleared to go home, it was a true celebration, and it buoyed her,” Henry went on. “She had helped save the life of someone she loved. That gave her the will to get through the bad days.”
“Even people who were making progress toward getting better sometimes would take a turn and die,” Cassandra said. “I know—that’s what happened to my grandfather, Archie Abbott. He was set to go home, he had already told my grandmother, and then he suddenly dropped dead.”
It was as if I heard the whole room sigh.
“That’s a harsh blow,” Richard said.
“My grandmother never got over it,” Cassandra said. “She was left with two small children—my dad and my aunt. It was doubly strange because Archie always believed he didn’t have TB at all. We’ve still got the letters he wrote to my grandma. He’d tell her about sneaking around at night with another couple of men when they were all supposed to be in bed. They’d raid the refrigerator or break into the liquor cabinet they weren’t supposed to know was there. They’d go out on the lawn and play catch or run down to the lakeshore. They were sick of being cooped up all day, forced to lie around quietly. They were bored out of their minds.”
Henry chuckled at this. “You won’t believe this, but my mother actually told me a story about a gang of men who were troublemakers. Never doing what they were told. Never staying in bed. It gave the other nurses fits, but she secretly liked it and cheered them on. They might have been breaking the rules, but at least they weren’t lying on their backs gasping for their last breath like so many others, she’d say. I wonder if that’s who she was talking about.”
Cassandra’s eyes lit up. “I’ll bet it was,” she said, smiling broadly. “And that’s the thing—it was such a shock for my grandma to get the word that he had just up and died so suddenly. She was expecting him home in a few days.”
As they were speaking, I was imagining Cliffside back then, how it must have been. I could see the people lying on chaises set up on the veranda, the old couches in the drawing room, the game room where people, clad in their pajamas and robes, played cards or checkers. Just like in my dream a few nights previous. It was so real, so vivid that I could almost smell the antiseptic. All at once, a flash of anger sizzled through me, and I didn’t want to hear any more about Henry’s sainted mother or Cassandra’s insubordinate grandfather. I was about to say so, when I caught myself. What was I thinking?
I took a sip of my drink and then another. Something seemed to be gripping at me, almost as though I had been infected with negativity. I wondered if places had auras, or energy, like people did. If so, what that old man in the boathouse, Pete, had said about Death himself being at Cliffside might not be too crazy after all. There had been so much death and suffering here. Had it lingered long after the last patient had died? Was it affecting me somehow?
Just then, a great gust of cold wind blew through the room, taking the breath from all of us. The fire extinguished itself as though it had been doused with a bucket of water, smoke filling the air, and the candles all went out in a whoosh. All was dark.
Somebody screamed—Brynn, I thought. Another couple of people coughed from the smoke. An ice-cold shudder passed through me as I fumbled for my flashlight.
“Well, that was dramatic,” Henry said, out of the darkness.
Richard shone his flashlight beam around the room. “Is everyone okay?”
“I’m fine,” Diana said, coughing into her sleeve. “But—what just happened?”
Cassandra, still standing at her desk in the study, began relighting the candles one by one. “What could have caused it, do you think?” she asked, looking at me. “A downdraft from the fireplace?”
“I have no idea,” I said, slipping off the bed and making my way over to it. I shone my flashlight into the charred remains of the logs—not a single ember smoldered there, despite the fact that it had been a crackling fire just a moment earlier.
My stomach tightened. How does a thing like that just happen?
But as I turned back to the group, I noticed nobody else was particularly shaken, nobody but Diana. She caught my eye.
“‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,’” she said to me, her eyes wide, her voice almost a whisper. I wondered if anyone else heard it.
I knew the quote. It was from Macbeth, a play about witches inciting dark, evil acts. At that moment, I didn’t appreciate the reference.
A loud knock at the door startled us all. Cassandra, staring at the door, held her match suspended above one of the candles until it burned her fingers. Brynn flew from her chair and knelt down next to Henry, who put a hand on her shoulder. Diana gave me a stern look.
“It’s probably Harriet,” I said, sliding off the bed and making my way across the room.
Richard pushed himself to his feet. “Wait,” he said, putting one hand on my back and grasping the doorknob with the other. “Let me.” He opened the door. But nobody was there. Richard looked back at me and shook his head, confused.
Richard and I shone our flashlight beams up and down the corridor. It was empty. I listened for footsteps coming from beyond the range of our beams but heard only silence.
“I’ll go that way,” Richard said, pointing in the direction of the third-floor staircase. “You stay here.”
“No,” I said. “Two flashlights are better than one. I’ll come with you.”
I turned to the group. “You all stay put. We’ll be right back.”
Richard and I set off down the inky hallway, shining the beams back and forth as we went. I reached for his arm.
He opened each door along the way, sweeping the room with the light until he was satisfied nobody was lurking inside.
“Did you ever play hide and seek in the dark?” he whispered.
“No,” I said.
“That’s what this feels like.”
But it didn’t feel like a child’s game to me. I could feel my pulse quicken.
When we got to the third-floor stairway at the end of the hall, I stopped him. “We can’t go up there,” I said, clutching his arm tighter.
He turned to me and furrowed his brow. “Why not?”
Miss Penny’s room and that strange childhood shrine of a playroom floated through my mind, and I knew I couldn’t face it, not right then, not in the dark with a storm raging outside. It was bad enough in the light of day.
“We just can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Richard, you’re a very practical person and I get the sense that you don’t believe in anything you can’t see, but I’m telling you, there’s something up there.”
He squinted at me and then turned his gaze to the stairs. “What kind of ‘something’ are you talking about?”
“Something that would probably cause me to die of fright on a dark night like this.”
He stood there looking at me for a moment, his eyes full of kindness. He reached up and tucked a stray tendril of hair behind my ear. “Don’t you know by now, Norrie?” he said to me. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Besides, I owe you for earlier today.” His grin cut the tension I was feeling.
