In the Blink of an Eye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “I won’t forget.”

  “Nice meeting you, Paine.”

  “You, too,” Paine murmurs, wondering whether Julia and Andy are a long-term couple.

  Something tells him they’re not. Maybe it’s the almost awkward way he bends to give her a peck on the cheek before he leaves. Julia turns her head toward him, as though uncertain about where he’s aiming, and his kiss lands on a wisp of short hair at her temple.

  Then Andy’s gone, and Paine is signing the credit card slip, and the three of them are heading for the door. Dulcie walks between them, with Paine’s hand on her shoulder, guiding her through the restaurant.

  Paine looks over at Julia. She’s looking at him, too. Suddenly uncomfortable, he tries to think of something to say.

  He settles on, “So you’re going to spill all the old house’s secrets to me, huh?”

  She nods, but she doesn’t smile. “There’s actually something else I’d like to talk to you about, too.”

  “There is? What—”

  “Later,” she says, with a slight nod toward Dulcie.

  Paine immediately senses that it’s about Kristin.

  His heart beats faster as the three of them head out into the wind-driven rain.

  Chapter Five

  HAIR STILL DAMP from her shivery shower, Miranda flops down on the bed in Kent’s room. Hers is across the hall, a sparsely decorated rectangle containing only the basics. So is his, but Kent has somehow made his temporary lodging homey.

  The single wide windowsill has become a makeshift bookshelf lined with novels and parapsychology books. His plump down pillow from his bed back home, tucked into a cheerful Ralph Lauren plaid pillowcase, is propped at the head of the bed. On the scarred dresser top, in a half-filled water glass, is the wildflower bouquet he picked by the lake earlier, the petals still glistening with raindrops. Beside the makeshift vase is a collection of toiletries that includes several glass bottles of expensive cologne.

  “Did you really throw away the bottle of cologne you had on this afternoon?” Miranda asks, not spotting it on the dresser.

  “Of course. If Mike wears the same stuff, it’s lost its allure for me.”

  “Oh, come on, Kent. That’s ridiculous.”

  “Hey, careful, my glasses are there,” Kent says, reaching out to snatch them from the range of Miranda’s elbow as she rolls onto her stomach and props her chin in her hand.

  “I wish it would stop raining, damn it!” She tilts her head, listening to the steady dripping on the roof.

  They never launch an investigation unless the weather is clear. Rain or snow interferes with their equipment.

  “Relax! It has to let up sooner or later.” Standing in front of an old picture-sized wall mirror, Kent removes his contact lenses.

  “The forecast says later. Much later.”

  “Well, we’re not on a strict schedule. If we have to, we’ll wait to go out tomorrow night.”

  “I know, but I’m feeling claustrophobic,” Miranda complains, sitting up and walking over to the closed window. She presses her face against the pane, staring out into the darkness.

  “Don’t get any ideas. I have no desire to do the duck thing again.”

  “I know. We did enough sloshing around out there this afternoon.” Miranda had hoped that a long shower would help warm her up after that, but the old hotel only has one shared bathroom on the floor, and by the time it was free, the hot water was gone.

  She turns away from the window, slaps her hands against her thighs, and exhales through puffed cheeks. “Looks like we’ve got an evening to kill, Kent. What do you want to do? Are you hungry?”

  “Nope. Still stuffed from that cheeseburger at the snack bar.”

  “So am I. I think I brought a deck of cards,” she offers.

  “No, thanks. You cheat.” Kent pops his right contact lens into the vial and twists the top on, then grabs his glasses.

  “I don’t cheat!” Miranda protests, going back to the bed and plopping down again.

  “Yes, you do.” He sits on the bed beside her and pats the mattress. “This bed is lumpy.”

  “Is it?” She lies back. “Not worse than mine at home. But then, I’m no Princess and the Pea, unlike you, so—”

  “Hey, who are you calling princess?” He swats her arm.

  Miranda laughs and rolls onto her back. She studies the network of cracks in the water-stained ceiling. It’s dry now, but it’s not hard to imagine the old plaster springing a few leaks if this rain keeps up.

  She supposes the hotel is suited to Lily Dale’s generally shabby, rudimentary ambience. But back in Boston as they were planning the trip, when Kent described their lodging to her, she found herself picturing more of a quaint, cozy bed-and-breakfast. The reality is reminiscent of a Depression-era rooming house.

  “So what’s the plan for later?” Kent, sprawled beside her on his back, has his elbows bent and hands tucked beneath his neck. “Or tomorrow, if the weather doesn’t break tonight?”

  “First, I want to go back to Inspiration Stump. Since that’s where the mediums spend a lot of time doing readings, it makes sense that we might find some activity there.”

  He nods. “What about that house on Summer Street?”

  “You mean the one with the lilac tree? And don’t tell me it’s a shrub, because I’m not the least bit interested in horticulture. Yeah, I definitely want to go back there.”

  “I figured. Why?”

  She shrugs. “It’s just a feeling.”

  He accepts that without question.

  They’ve both been in this business long enough to trust each other’s hunches.

  Yet neither of them has extrasensory abilities. Their mission is strictly to conduct scientific research, collecting data that isn’t visible or audible without the equipment they tote with them. At least, not to those who aren’t gifted mediums.

  But experience has taught both Miranda and Kent how and where to look for the spirits who are willing to communicate, and whose energy will come through most effectively.

  It happens randomly, really. During an investigation, Miranda is sometimes struck by the sense that she should point her video camera in a certain direction, or she impulsively knows to spend more time in a certain room. When that happens, she’s often rewarded with vivid documentation—stark video footage of darting orbs or ectoplasm, snatches of disembodied voices on tape.

  Miranda is convinced, after a drizzly afternoon poking around the narrow, tree-shaded streets, that Kent was right about this place. Lily Dale will prove to be fertile ground for their research.

  And no site captivates her more than the tree in the overgrown yard of that forlorn house at Ten Summer Street.

  “HOW DO YOU take your coffee?” Paine asks as the old-fashioned stainless steel Farberware percolator sputters on the blue Corian countertop.

  Julia looks up from the book she’s reading to Dulcie. It’s Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, one of Dulcie’s favorite stories. It’s a classic, but Julia has somehow never read this fanciful tale of mischievous little Max, sent to his room without supper, where his imagination takes over and he courageously sails off on an adventure.

  “I take my coffee with milk . . . if you have it,” Julia adds, remembering that Paine probably hasn’t had time to set up housekeeping yet

  It’s strange—Iris’s kitchen without its usual lived-in aura. When she was alive, every surface was cluttered. Perhaps less so in the winter months, when she was living hundreds of miles away. Yet while most summer residents cleaned out their homes before abandoning them for the season, when Iris left, her place remained perpetually pervaded with stuff. Stacks of magazines and catalogues, needlepoint projects she was planning to get back to the following summer, recipes she had clipped—mainly desserts, of course, and most of them chocolate. Not that Iris ever baked. But she was always talking about how she’d learn how, someday.

  Now she never will.

  Julia swallows hard.


  Paine has been here less than a day, but already he’s rid the kitchen of more than just perishables. Resentment stirs inside Julia, though she knows he has a right to make changes. Iris is gone. The house is his and Dulcie’s.

  At least for now. She can’t imagine them staying in Lily Dale.

  “You’re in luck. I do happen to have milk,” Paine is saying. “Dulcie and I went out to get some basics over at that Shur-Fine supermarket in Cassadaga. She drinks a lot of milk.”

  “Somehow I knew that,” Julia says, noticing the faint milk mustache above the little girl’s upper lip.

  “And Daddy eats lots of potato chips,” Dulcie says, with a grin.

  “I didn’t realize potato chips were considered a basic item.” Julia spies a jumbo-sized bag of Ruffles peeking through a cupboard door that’s slightly ajar.

  “They’re a basic in our pantry,” Paine tells her. “So is sugar . . . and I just realized I forgot to buy it”

  “Doesn’t Iris have some in the cupboard somewhere?” Present tense, Julia realizes belatedly. Stop that.

  But she can’t get used to talking about her friend as though she’s gone.

  It was different when Kristin died. Probably because after so many years of estrangement, Julia had already taken to thinking of her in past tense.

  “Iris did have a whole canister full of sugar,” Paine tells her, “but ants had gotten to it. I dumped it. In fact, I dumped a lot of stuff.”

  Yeah. I noticed.

  Aloud she says only, “It’s okay. I don’t take any in my coffee.”

  “I do.”

  Yes. She remembers seeing him tearing open several packets back at the restaurant. That was when she had worked up the nerve to approach him, knowing that it was now or never, with Andy paying the check and ready to leave.

  “Julia, can you finish reading the story?” Dulcie prods, pouting a little.

  “Sure. I’m sorry I got sidetracked, Dulcie.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about her,” Paine says lightly. “It’s not as if she doesn’t know how it ends. I read it to her almost every night before bed.”

  “Yeah, and he describes the illustrations after he reads what’s on each page, not before he reads, like you do, Julia.”

  “I’m sorry,” Julia says again. “I’ll do it your daddy’s way.”

  “I like your way better,” she says shyly. “Then I can picture what it looks like while I hear what’s happening.”

  Julia is struck by a flood of affection for the little girl. It’s all she can do not to impulsively give her a hug. She doesn’t know how Dulcie would react to that now, at her age. When Julia last knew her, as a toddler who had just lost her mother, she had willingly curled up in Julia’s arms.

  “Julia?” Dulcie nudges again, but she’s unsuccessfully stifling a yawn.

  “Right after this, it’s bedtime, Dulc,” Paine warns, taking the carton of milk from the fridge.

  Bedtime? That will leave Julia alone with Paine.

  She finds herself slowing the pace as she works her way through Max’s adventures in the land of the Wild Things, postponing the conclusion and the inevitable departure of the sleepy little girl.

  Julia was never alone with Paine the last time they met. What will they talk about?

  Kristin.

  That’s what they’ll talk about. What else do they have in common? And anyway, she needs to bring up the nagging doubts about Kristin’s death—doubts that have surfaced to haunt her now that Iris, too, has met a tragic end.

  Paine pours two cups of coffee.

  Then, grumbling about holes in the screens, he grabs a plastic fly swatter and goes after a moth that’s darting around the overhead light.

  Julia turns the pages, struggling to capture aloud for Dulcie Maurice Sendak’s incredible illustrations of big-eyed beasts with gap-toothed grins in a bewitching twilight forest, and Max, who coronates himself only to become lonely for home and his mom.

  Dulcie likes to run her fingertips over the dog-eared pages, almost as though the flowing artwork can seep into her through the alternative sense of touch. Julia notices that she never places her hands over the type, as if she senses precisely where the print is on the pages and knows to avoid blocking it. She lovingly caresses the pages that have no text as Julia tells her about the pictures.

  When the book is finished, and little Max has found his way back to his room with a hot supper waiting, Julia swallows hard. “No wonder you love this book, Dulcie. It’s a wonderful story.”

  “I sleep with it under my pillow every night,” Dulcie confides. “Sometimes, I pretend that I’m Max.”

  Paine scoops his daughter from her chair and cradles her snugly in his arms. “Tell Julia good night, Dulcie.”

  “Good night, Julia,” Dulcie says around a yawn. “Will you come back tomorrow?”

  “I’ll come back again,” Julia promises, handing her the book.

  “Tomorrow?”

  Julia smiles, touched. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll be back down in a few minutes,” Paine tells her.

  Julia leans back in her chair, her hands cupped around the hot mug of coffee Paine has set before her with the warning that it might be too strong. He’s used to his automatic drip coffeemaker, not a percolator.

  She hears the stairs creaking, then footsteps overhead and water running in the bathroom.

  She closes her eyes to block out an image of Iris, dead, in front of the tub.

  Oh, hell. She doesn’t want to be here.

  She should have said no when Paine asked her to come back. And she would have, except . . .

  Dulcie.

  Julia can’t help being drawn to Kristin’s daughter, not merely out of pity or curiosity, but some innate sense of concern. Maybe it’s because of the intensely emotional time they spent together that summer—or maybe because Dulcie is a part of Kristin, and Kristin will always be a part of Julia.

  As she sits in the silent kitchen, eyes closed, she becomes aware of little sounds. The last of the rain, plopping steadily on the tin roof above the back entryway. Paine’s weight groaning the old floorboards above. The antique clock chiming the hour in the front hall.

  She strains for some other sound—for some hint, audible or not, that she isn’t alone in the room. Yet she knows instinctively that this time, there will be nothing. She doesn’t feel the presence that was here before, the day Iris died. Nor does she want to.

  Now, though she’s half waiting for the energy to make itself known once again, she isn’t willing to accept the distraction. It’s hard enough, just being here in Iris’s house without the familiar disarray. Without Iris herself.

  Her death is still a shock. So, three years later, is Kristin’s.

  Julia muses at the cruelty of fate. Both mother and daughter died in Lily Dale, though neither lived here full-time. Both died in tragic accidents. Both deaths occurred at this time of year.

  The macabre coincidence strikes Julia anew, along with another wave of uneasiness.

  “KATHERINE . . .

  Seated in the bedside chair, Rupert looks up from his newspaper, startled by the sound of Nan’s voice. Her head is turned away, facing toward the window.

  “Nan?” He leans toward the bed, touching her shoulder, feeling her protruding bones despite the layers of clothing and blankets. “Are you awake?”

  No reply.

  He rises and walks to the foot of the bed, peering at her face in the lamplight. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted, almost slack.

  “Nan?”

  No. She’s asleep. She must be dreaming.

  As he returns to his seat, a faint groan escapes her.

  “Nan? Darling, what is it?”

  Is she in pain? Rupert looks at his watch. It isn’t time yet for another dose of morphine.

  “Katherine,” she moans, her voice ragged.

  “No, Nan.” He goes to sit beside her, brushing back from her face what little hair hasn’t been ravaged by the chemotherapy. �
��I’m here, darling. Rupert is here. I’ll take care of you.”

  Her eyelids flutter, as though she’s making an effort to return to consciousness. But she swiftly gives up, sinking further into the sleep that comes more frequently now, yet is anything but peaceful. Her breathing is labored, testimony to the malignant cells that have invaded her lungs, multiplying, lingering, in a slow strangulation that nobody can stop. Not Nan. Not the doctors. Not Rupert.

  Helpless, he turns away, walking toward the window. He parts the curtains to look out into the night He can see nothing past the rain streaming down the glass.

  Don’t you think it’s time you called Katherine?

  Damn Pilar for coming here, for suggesting that.

  Did she say something about it to Nan? Is that why their daughter’s name is suddenly on her lips? Does she sense that it’s time . . . ?

  “No!” Rupert’s voice shatters the silence.

  His wife doesn’t stir.

  No. He won’t let Nan go. Not yet.

  He stares vacantly at the flooded pane.

  Pilar was kind to come here and read to Nan. And she was only trying to give him helpful advice.

  But what does she know?

  She thinks she’s been in his shoes. She thinks she understands his pain.

  She doesn’t understand anything.

  If only she would stay away. If only everyone would stay away, and leave Rupert alone with Nan.

  If only they could go home.

  “We will, Nan,” he says aloud, his voice hushed this time as he turns to look at her. “I’ll bring you home. I promise. First thing tomorrow, I’ll talk to Paine Landry.”

  FINALLY, JULIA HEARS Paine’s heavy footsteps creaking back down the stairs.

  “Is Dulcie all tucked in?” she asks as he comes back into the room wearing a distinct frown.

  “She made me sit with her until she fell asleep. That’s why it took so long. Did you know there’s no shower head on that old bathtub?” he asks abruptly.

  Yes, of course she knows. She knows the bathtub too well. Can’t stop seeing it in her mind.

  Paine catches the look on her face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up—”