by Wendy Webb
Richard opened the closet. “Her clothes are still here,” he said. “I was thinking she might have gotten fed up and left without telling anyone, after everything that’s happened.”
I shook my head. “She couldn’t have left,” I said. “The road is out, remember?”
Henry was on his knees, peering under the bed, and at this, he popped his head up. “What road?”
All at once it occurred to me that I hadn’t told the rest of the fellows that news. “It’s nothing to worry about,” I said, quickly. “In all the rain last night, part of the road leading to the main highway to town washed out. Mr. Baines said a crew is going to get to it as soon as they can, but in the meantime he and his guys are going to cut a makeshift path through the woods so we can drive around that spot and get out to town. It could be done now, for all I know, but if not, there’s no way Brynn could’ve left Cliffside.”
“So, she’s still here somewhere,” Henry said.
“Who’s still here?” It was Cassandra, poking her head into the room.
“Brynn,” I said. “You haven’t seen her at all today, I hear?”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding her head toward Henry. “It’s a big place. She’s probably holed up in some quiet corner working.”
I cast an eye toward the study and noticed Brynn’s computer and the journal on her desk. “She could be holed up someplace, but she’s not working,” I said, crossing the room to the study and buzzing the intercom.
Harriet’s voice crackled, “Yes, Miss Kendrick?”
“Harriet, it’s me, Eleanor,” I said. “I understand you haven’t seen Brynn today?”
“That’s right, Miss Harper. She didn’t come down for breakfast or lunch, and I haven’t seen her in passing.”
“It’s probably nothing, and I hate to bother you with this, but since nobody has seen her at all today, would you mind terribly asking the staff to go through the house looking for her?”
“Absolutely, Miss Harper,” she said. “I’ll have Mr. Baines set the outdoor crew on the search as well.”
“We’ll look through the rooms up here on the second floor,” I said to her, glancing from Richard to Henry to Cassandra, and getting nods all around.
“Very good, ma’am,” she said, and the intercom went silent.
And so the four of us fanned out, knocking on doors and searching the rooms, but to no avail. The emptiness was evident as soon as I opened the doors, but I checked the closets, bathrooms, and under the beds anyway. I knew the others were doing the same.
I made my way down to Diana’s room and rapped on the door. She opened it a moment later, a worried look on her face.
“It’s about Brynn, isn’t it?” she said. “She hasn’t turned up.”
“How did you know that?” I asked her.
She shook her head and sighed. “Henry asked me to help him look for her out in the gardens, and I got a very bad feeling about it. When we didn’t find her out there, it got worse. I’ve been in my room ever since, meditating and trying to get a read on where she might be.”
Meditating. That was one way to handle the situation. I preferred action, though.
“Would you mind helping us look for her?” I asked, trying to hide my annoyance. “I know it’s cutting into your work time—”
She put up her hand. “Not at all,” she said. “But I don’t think we’re going to find her anytime soon.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?”
“I’m not sure,” Diana said, rubbing her temples. “It’s just that I’m not getting any sort of reading on her. It’s like she’s disappeared.”
More of her psychic stuff. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. “Well, that may be, but I need to search the entire house and grounds anyway,” I said. “She could have fallen ill somewhere—or just fallen—and needs our help. Or maybe she lost her way outside.” At this, a dark thought occurred to me. “May I come in and use your intercom for a moment?” I asked.
Diana opened her door wide. I made my way through the clutter and piles of clothing to her study and buzzed Harriet.
“Harriet, it’s me again,” I said. “Will you make sure Mr. Baines and his crew go down to the old boathouse? I want to make sure she hasn’t run into—what’s his name? Pete?”
The thought of that threatening old man getting his hands on Brynn, or just scaring her so badly with that ridiculous Death himself business that she lost her way as she hurried away from him, made me shiver.
“Already done, ma’am,” she said. “One of the boys is on the way down there right now, and two others are checking the woods. I’ve got my people combing the first floor and the basement.”
I let out a sigh. Thank goodness she was on full alert. I felt more calm knowing the crew was already on the job both in and out of the house.
I thanked Harriet and rang off, then turned back to Diana. I was just about to ask her to come with me and help with the search when Henry, Cassandra, and Richard appeared in her doorway.
“Any sign of her?” I asked them.
Henry shook his head. “We’ve been in every room on this floor,” he said. “She’s not here.”
“Harriet has her people searching on the first floor and Mr. Baines has a crew looking outside,” I said.
I caught Richard’s eye, and my stomach dropped when I realized what he was going to say. There was one place we hadn’t yet looked. I fingered the doll in my pocket and, all at once, I felt ice cold.
As if he could read my thoughts, he said, “You know we have to go up there.”
Henry frowned, looking from Richard to me and then back again. “Up where?”
I rubbed my arms with the opposite hands, trying to get warm. “The third floor,” I said.
“I didn’t know there was a third floor,” Henry said.
“Oh, yes,” Cassandra piped up. “That’s where the children’s ward was when this was a TB clinic. I’ve been meaning to ask you if I could explore it.”
I took a deep breath and let it out again. “It’s also where Penelope Dare’s bedroom is,” I said.
Cassandra raised her eyebrows. “Really? I didn’t know that.”
I nodded, and a vision of my last visit to that bedroom swam through my mind. “I’ve been up there,” I said, the foreboding wrapping around me like a cloak. “I don’t mind telling you . . .” I couldn’t finish my thought.
“What?” Henry said, taking a step closer to me, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“It’s just . . .” I began. All eyes were on me. “It’s really creepy,” I said, finally.
What else was there to say? They’d be seeing it for themselves in a moment. I knew Richard was right—we had to search that floor. But somehow, I couldn’t make my feet move from where they were planted.
“We’ll all go,” Henry said.
And so, I began to move, one foot and then the other, and before I knew it, we were at the staircase. “Okay,” I said, breathing deeply to try to find some resolve. “Let’s get this done.”
We quickly ascended the stairs, and I flipped on the light as we walked into the main room. There it was again—the coolness, the dread, hanging in the air like fog. So I hadn’t imagined it the first time I was on this floor.
“The children’s ward,” Cassandra mused, her voice thin and papery.
Henry rubbed his arms. “Does anyone else feel that?”
“The cold?” Richard asked.
Henry nodded slowly. “It has to be twenty degrees colder up here than it was on the second floor. It’s almost like there’s a draft coming from somewhere.”
I knew it was no draft.
“I don’t like this,” Cassandra said, a discernable shiver going through her. “It’s almost like you can feel the suffering and death that happened right here in this room. But that’s silly. Isn’t it?”
Her words just drifted away. Nobody responded. I think we were all thinking, It isn’t silly at all.
“I can’
t see Brynn coming up here on her own,” Henry said. “I know I wouldn’t.”
As we stood huddled together at the top of the stairs, I scanned the nearly empty room. I gasped when I caught sight of the toy chest in the corner. It was upended, and toys were strewn everywhere. Old metal tops, their paint peeling, a small rocking horse, several balls. An ancient telephone. A red wagon, now faded, its handle bent and worn.
I wasn’t about to tell the others that the toys had been neatly stored in the toy box the last time I saw it, but I grabbed for Richard’s hand and caught his eye. He was thinking the same thing.
Only then did I notice Diana was not with us. I wondered why.
Richard cleared his throat. “Okay,” he said, turning to Henry and Cassandra. “We can see she’s not here in the main room. You two check the bathrooms over there”—he pointed across the room—“and Eleanor and I will check the bedroom. And then we can get the hell out of here.”
Henry nodded and took Cassandra’s arm. “Let’s go, my dear,” he said. “The sooner we do this, the sooner we can get back downstairs and march straight to the liquor cabinet.” And they set off across the floor. Richard gave me a soft nudge on the back and I started to move, too, toward Miss Penny’s room.
After what felt like an eternity, we reached her door. I pushed it open, flipped on the light switch, and peered inside. I was wholly unprepared for what I saw.
The room, which had been neat and tidy when I last left it, was in utter disarray. Both of the beds were rumpled, as though they had been slept in, their pillows thrown here and there. Dolls sat on the window seat, books propped up in front of them. Clothes were strewn on the floor, children’s clothes, as though they had been worn and discarded.
Through the archway to the study, I saw the desks had been shoved out of the way to make room for the papers that were littered all over the floor, crayons, pencils, and boxes of paints beside them. It was as though children had been playing there, making a mess of the tidy room. My breath flew out of my body when I thought—the Dare children.
And then I felt it, a presence, more than one, hovering in front of me, beside me, and around me. We were not alone.
“Eleanor Harper,” I heard, in a child’s singsong voice. “Why won’t you play with us?”
I clutched Richard’s arm. “Did you hear that?” I whispered. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly, his eyes wide, taking in the room for the first time.
I followed his gaze across to the playroom door. We both crouched down and crept through it. And that’s when I began to scream.
CHAPTER 30
It was Brynn.
She was sitting in a tiny chair at the tiny table in the corner of the playroom, the tea set in front of her, places set for three. Two ancient and worn antique dolls were positioned in the other chairs as her companions.
Brynn’s face was painted, made up in garish, smeared red lipstick, heavy eyeliner and eye shadow and bright rouge, as though a child had gotten into her mother’s makeup kit and gone to town with it. Her eyes were open, staring straight ahead, and her head was lolled to the side, a portion of her hair curled haphazardly into ringlets. Her mouth was contorted into a horrible smile. I saw Miss Penny’s grotesque death expression in my mind and wanted to run from the room, but I was frozen to the spot.
Richard was at her side in an instant. “Brynn!” he shouted. “Brynn, can you hear me?” He shook her by the shoulders, and she slid off the chair, crumpling to the floor like a rag doll.
“Is she dead?” I squeaked out.
“I don’t think so,” Richard said, kneeling next to her and putting two fingers to her neck.
I heard footsteps thundering across the room and, in a moment, Henry and Cassandra were in the doorway.
Henry cried out and flew to Brynn’s side. He put his head to her chest and listened. And then he put his cheek down near her lips.
“Does she need CPR?” I asked him, recovering my senses. “I’m trained. I can do it.”
Henry looked up at me, his eyes wide. “I don’t think so.” He turned to Richard. “She’s breathing steadily. Her heart is beating. She’s got a pulse.”
“What in the name of God is wrong with her?” Cassandra said.
Drugs? I mouthed to her.
Richard took Brynn by the shoulders and gently shook her. “Brynn!” he said, his voice loud and commanding. “Brynn! Can you hear me?”
But her head just flopped around like a rag doll’s, her eyes fixed and staring straight ahead, her mouth still smiling that terrifying smile.
“We need to call an ambulance,” Richard said.
And then the realization hit me. “We can’t,” I said. “The road’s washed out. An ambulance can’t get here.”
Richard just stared at me for a moment. “Of course!” he said, his voice harsh. “Of bloody course the bloody road is im-bloody-passible when we need an ambulance.”
All at once, I thought of Nate. “We don’t need an ambulance,” I said. “We’ve got a doctor who lives on the grounds! And I’m sure he’s not at work because the road is washed out.”
“Call him,” Henry said, staring at Brynn, his eyes wet with tears. “Right now. Please.”
Damn it, I thought. “I don’t have his number,” I said. “But his house is just across the back lawn. You three get Brynn out of this horror chamber and down to her room and put her on her bed. I’m going to run and get Nate.”
One of them said something, but I didn’t stop to listen. I flew across that accursed ballroom and pounded down the stairs, only to be met by Diana, who was standing outside her door. “Tell them to bring her in here,” she said, gesturing to her room. I took a quick glance inside and saw candlelight and smelled incense. How did she know? Whatever she was up to, I didn’t have time for that nonsense.
“Tell them yourself,” I said to her and kept running down the hallway toward the stairs, but then I stopped short and turned back to her. “Buzz Harriet and tell her we found Brynn,” I yelled down the hall.
“Will do!” I heard her say, and then I was off, hurrying down the stairs to the main floor. I didn’t see anyone—they must all still be on the search for Brynn, I thought—but I didn’t concern myself with that. All I knew was I needed to get to Nate.
I pushed open the main doors and tore across the driveway. I kept running across the lawn and over the hill until I saw Nate’s house, standing in the distance.
Just as I reached the edge of his lawn, Nate burst through the doors and hurried down the porch steps toward me.
“You have to come, right away,” I said, bending over at the waist and breathing heavily. “It’s one of the fellows. She—”
He put up a hand to stop my words. “Tell me on the way. I’ll grab my bag.”
He hurried up the steps to the house and emerged a moment later with a black, old-fashioned doctor’s bag. The look on my face must’ve betrayed what I was thinking, because he said, “It was my dad’s. I like tradition.”
We set off together, hurrying back across the lawn toward the house. On the way, I told him about Brynn’s disappearance and where and how we found her.
“It sounds like a catatonic state,” he said. “Do you know if she’s on drugs of any kind?”
I had no idea, but when we reached the driveway, I stopped and took his arm.
“Nate,” I began, not really wanting to ask the question but knowing I had to, and now, while we were out of earshot of the others. “Can something like this be caused by fear?”
“In extreme cases,” he said, nodding. “Fear and trauma can cause a psychotic break.”
“I think that might be what we’re dealing with here,” I said.
We stood and looked deeply into each other’s eyes for a moment, just a quick flash of time, but it seemed to last forever, and somehow, his eyes told me that he knew exactly what I was talking about, and who had caused that fear.
“Let’s go,” he said. And we rushed through the doors.
CHAPTER 31
We found Brynn laid out on the bed in Diana’s room, her eyes still open, her mouth still contorted into that ghastly smile. Someone had washed the garish, clownish makeup off her face, thank goodness, but they couldn’t wash away the dread all of us were feeling.
Diana had obviously set the stage for something—what, I didn’t know. The room was aglow with the flickering light of dozens of candles, and a fire was crackling in the fireplace. Incense wafted through the air, and all of the mirrors, I noticed, were shrouded with towels. A Ouija board was set on her bedside table.
Everyone was gathered there, concerned looks on their faces, when Nate and I hurried in.
“Everybody, this is Doctor Davidson,” I said. “He lives here on the Cliffside grounds.”
Nate perched on the bed next to Brynn.
“Can you get the bottle of smelling salts out of my bag?” he asked me.
I opened the bag, fished around, and handed him the bottle.
He waved it back and forth under her nose. No response. He tried again. Nothing.
I turned over my shoulder to the group. “Has she said anything?”
“Not a word,” Henry said, his voice crumbling. He dabbed at his eyes. “We carried her down here and put her on the bed, and Cassandra and I used some towelettes to get that horrible paint job off her face.” He took a deep breath in. “She’s just not there.” He was barely able to say the words.
Nate shook his head and stood up, turning to face everyone. “She should be in the hospital,” he said.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked him.
“You were right, before,” he said to me. “This is a catatonic state. We don’t know precisely what causes it, but there are many possibilities.”
“Such as?” Richard asked.
“Drugs,” Nate said. “Previous psychotic breaks. Various neurological issues.”
“Well, it’s not drugs, I can tell you that,” Henry piped up.
“How do you know?” Nate asked him.
“I was taking my blood pressure pills the other morning and she went on a rant about me taking them,” Henry said, looking from one to the other. “You were there, Diana, I think.”
