In the Blink of an Eye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  There.

  Now at least he’ll have room to fill the cupboard with snacks. If he can afford to buy them, the next time he makes a trip over to the supermarket in Cassadaga.

  He doesn’t like to go there very often. Even now, after all these years of living a few miles down the road, in Sinclairville, going into Cassadaga brings back memories he’d rather keep buried.

  Memories of Kathy.

  Lincoln scowls and looks down at the trash basket, now brimming with discarded plastic bottles he’ll never use.

  Not without a woman around the house.

  Lincoln liked being married. It felt natural, having a wife.

  They never were able to have a family. They wanted children. They tried to have children. But it just didn’t happen. Back then, when he and Corinne were first married, things were different than they are now. Now you hear about people going to special doctors, and having tests, and going to all sorts of crazy extremes to have babies.

  Back then, there were no test tubes or sperm or egg donors. At least, not that Lincoln and Corinne ever heard. Even if there had been options, they wouldn’t have been able to afford fancy medical treatments. Hell, they barely would have been able to swing baby shoes and formula if they were fortunate enough to conceive a child.

  But they weren’t.

  They simply accepted their childless state and moved on, financially unable to adopt, either. That wouldn’t be the same anyway, Corinne thought. She wanted a baby of their own, or no baby at all.

  It wasn’t as though they had to dwell on their situation. There was always too much to keep them busy, so that they fell into bed, exhausted, every night after sundown and dragged themselves out every morning with the rooster’s crow at the first light of dawn.

  It wasn’t easy, running the farm Lincoln had inherited from his parents. But he and Corinne managed to squeak by, as his parents had. They made a good team.

  A better team than he and Kathy would have made.

  That’s what he’s spent the last few decades trying to convince himself.

  Sometimes it worked.

  Sometimes it didn’t.

  Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if Kathy didn’t leave him the way she did.

  Standing in the farmhouse kitchen, still clutching the brimming garbage can against his chest, Lincoln Reynolds shakes his gray head as a familiar sense of fury seeps into him.

  “DO YOU WANT popcorn?” Andy asks, his hand on Julia’s elbow as they edge forward to the head of the line to buy their tickets for the movie.

  “Hmm?”

  “Popcorn? Do you want some?”

  Julia glances up at Andy. She notes that he’s still wearing his sunglasses. He does that a lot, she realizes. Wears his sunglasses inside, like a movie star who doesn’t want to be recognized. For some reason, that irritates her.

  She focuses on the question. Her stomach is empty—there was no time to eat after Paine and Dulcie dropped her off. She had to make several phone calls about the roof, and then her mother called back . . .

  “Julia?”

  “Popcorn? Sure. I’m starving.”

  Andy nods and steps up to the ticket window as the spot in front of it is vacated.

  Julia watches him uneasily.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  At least, that’s the feeling she’s had ever since Andy turned up on her porch a half hour ago—along with a palpable energy Julia recognized right away as belonging to her grandmother.

  She’s certain now that Grandma didn’t want her to go out with Andy tonight.

  So why didn’t she heed the spiritual warning?

  Because it was too late to come up with an excuse, once Andy was there, wearing a nice green shirt and an expectant expression.

  What was I supposed to say? I’ve changed my mind? I suddenly have a headache?

  He would know she was making excuses. His feelings would be hurt. He might never ask her out again.

  So, here she is.

  “Let’s get the popcorn fast,” Andy says, finally taking off the sunglasses and putting them into the leather case.

  He hands their just-purchased tickets to the sullen-looking teenaged boy stationed at the glass door leading into the theater. There’s a huge line at the snack counter, and the two girls working it seem to be moving in slow motion.

  Andy checks his watch. “The movie starts in two minutes.”

  “It’s okay. We don’t have to get popcorn,” Julia tells him.

  “I thought you were starving.”

  “I seem to have lost my appetite,” she says truthfully.

  Andy glances quizzically at her, then shrugs and leads the way down the corridor.

  PAINE HEARS THE knock on the door just as he dumps a teaspoon of salt into the pan full of water he’s just set on the stove to boil.

  “Somebody’s here. I’ll be right back, Dulcie,” he tells his daughter, who is sitting at the kitchen table with her beads. She insisted on bringing them downstairs, saying she wants to finish sorting them so that she can get started tonight on the bracelet she plans to make for Julia.

  “Maybe Julia is here,” Dulcie says hopefully.

  Paine suppresses a smile. “No, she had a date tonight, Dulcie, remember?”

  “Maybe she canceled.”

  As he heads for the hall, Paine wonders if those two crazy ghost busters have come back to bug him.

  But an old man stands on the other side of the screen door. “Paine Landry?”

  There’s an impatient air about him, as though he has an urgent message.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” Paine comes to a halt in front of the door. The stranger’s weathered face is handsome, topped by thick, white hair and marked, behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, with a pair of piercing eyes that are precisely the shade of the rocks that line the lake shore.

  He looks like my father, Paine realizes. Sounds like him, too, when he speaks with a no-nonsense air.

  “I’m Rupert Biddle. I used to own this house.”

  The first thought that flits into Paine’s mind is, So you’re the one who doesn’t believe in modern plumbing.

  Maybe the old man can help him make sense of the pipes in the wall compartment above the tub. Paine isn’t the least bit handy, and he wasn’t able to make heads or tails of the shower-head installation, appropriate wrench or not.

  “Mr. Biddle. Come in.” He unlatches the screen and opens the door.

  “I can’t stay. I only wanted to speak with you for a few minutes.”

  Something tells Paine this isn’t a welcome-to-the-neighborhood visit, as Pilar’s was.

  “Would you like to come into the living room and sit down?”

  “No. Thank you. I’ll just say what I have to say and then get home to my wife. She’s—not well.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Rupert Biddle doesn’t meet Paine’s gaze. His eyes are shifting around the entrance hall, taking in the wallpaper, the decor, and probably the cobwebs that dangle from high in the corners of the crown molding.

  “I won’t waste your time or mine, Mr. Landry. We both know that although Iris bequeathed this house to your daughter, you are restricted by the Lily Dale bylaws from selling it to someone who isn’t an Assembly member.”

  “I was aware of that, yes.”

  “Good. Of course, I’m a member of the Assembly. And I want to buy this house, Mr. Landry. Immediately, if possible.”

  It isn’t what he says so much as the way he says it. Paine balks at the stern tone. Rupert Biddle sounds as if he’s giving an order, not making an offer.

  He sounds like my father, Paine thinks again.

  How many times did Dad speak to Paine this way? Especially when the subject was Kristin.

  I want you to get rid of her, Paine. She’s bad news.

  I want you to find a decent girl and settle down.

  I want you to tell Kristin to have an abortion. Don’t worry. I’ll pay for it.

  I want . . .
/>
  “I want to move in before the week is out,” Rupert Biddle goes on.

  “That would be impossible,” Paine tells him, even as he wonders what the hell it is he’s doing.

  This man could be the answer to his fondest wish. He’s offering to take the house off Paine’s hands and spare him the trouble of selling it.

  No.

  He isn’t offering.

  He’s telling Paine what to do.

  Just as Dad tried to tell Paine what to do.

  If Paine had listened to him, he wouldn’t have Dulcie.

  “I fully intend to sell the house to a member of the Assembly at some point, Mr. Biddle,” Paine says. “Probably soon. But not this week.”

  “Why not? You’re not planning on staying, so why stick around here?”

  “My daughter and I have to go through Iris’s things. There will be mementos Dulcie will want to keep, of her grandmother, and of her mother.”

  “Kristin. Yes. I’m sorry about that,” Rupert says belatedly. Is his sympathy genuine, or a ploy to get his way? “And I’m sorry about your more recent loss as well. Iris.”

  Paine nods stiffly. “My daughter is very upset about it.”

  “I’m sure she is.” Rupert takes a deep breath. “It can’t be helping that she’s being made to stay here, in this house, Mr. Landry. The sooner you pack things up and leave Lily Dale, the sooner you can both begin to heal.”

  Paine finds himself fighting back a grin despite the grim subject. “Mr. Biddle, you just told me you want the house back as soon as possible. Obviously, your reasons for wanting us out of here have nothing to do with my daughter’s ability to recover from her grief.”

  “I won’t argue with you there.” Rupert Biddle’s stone-cold eyes meet Paine’s. “This was my house for more than forty years. I never should have sold it to Iris. Now that she’s gone, and you have no use for it, I want it back. Please, Mr. Landry.”

  The last three words feel tacked on. As though the man is pulling out all stops to get what he wants, even if it means trying to appear civil.

  Something about him rubs Paine the wrong way.

  He’s too much like Paine’s father.

  Feeling like a stubborn little boy, Paine lifts his chin, looks pointedly at the door, telling Rupert Biddle, “I’m not interested in discussing this with you now. Maybe in a week or two, when I’ve had the chance to go through some of Iris’s things—”

  “It will be too late then,” Rupert cuts in.

  Startled, Paine shifts his gaze to the old man. There is an unsettling air of desperation about him. Why the urgency?

  “Look, Mr. Biddle, I’ve got a little girl in there who’s up way past her bedtime. I’ve got to feed her and get her settled. I can’t talk to you about this now. Please don’t push me.”

  Rupert Biddle looks at him for a long moment, as though he wants to say something else.

  But he doesn’t.

  He simply nods and walks to the door.

  Paine follows and holds it open for him.

  The old man steps out onto the porch and turns around again.

  Paine expects him to make one last appeal, but he doesn’t. His gray gaze drifts past Paine, coming to rest on something behind him.

  Paine realizes that he’s staring thoughtfully at the stairway. Rather, at the foot of the stairs, a spot just between the two newel posts.

  Then, wearing a cryptic expression, Rupert Biddle gives the slightest nod before turning and walking off into the night.

  “DON’T BE AFRAID. We won’t hurt you.” Kent’s low, gentle voice drifts to Miranda and she turns to see him aiming his infrared night scope in the direction of a low-hanging willow tree in Leolyn Woods.

  It’s close to midnight and the streets of the tiny nineteenth-century village are deserted, aside from the occasional sound of car tires crunching in the distance. They chose this spot more because they were intrigued by the ominous painted wooden sign nearby—DO NOT ENTER LEOLYN WOODS DURING WINDY OR STORMY WEATHER—than because they were drawn by any particular sense of psychic activity here. Tonight the weather is clear, though an occasional breeze rustles the branches overhead.

  They’ve been out here almost an hour, and so far, Miranda’s equipment has registered nothing. But now, apparently, Kent is on to something.

  “What’s going on over there, Kent?” Miranda asks quietly, picking her way toward him through the damp undergrowth, careful to step past the tripod where the digital video camera is taping.

  He doesn’t reply, just motions for her to come closer. As she reaches his side, a tone alerts her to glance down at the Trifield meter in her hand. The needle is swaying wildly to the right, meaning it has sensed some kind of magnetic field ahead of them.

  Miranda leans over Kent’s shoulder and looks at the screen of his scope. “What have you got?”

  “Ecto,” he replies. “It’s really nice.”

  Yes. On the scope, Miranda can clearly see the ectoplasm drifting a few feet above the ground, beneath the willow’s sweeping fronds. Invisible with the naked eye, the shapeless blob drifts in front of them. Sometimes a face takes shape in ectoplasm, but not this time.

  “We won’t hurt you,” Kent calls out again. He’s a big believer in reassuring the spirits.

  Miranda is more apt to go quietly about her work, still uncertain, after all these years of working together, whether Kent’s attempts at verbal communication serve more as a distraction than the intended encouragement.

  Miranda steps back to the camera and looks down at the screen. The ectoplasm is visible there, too. As she gazes at it, a silver orb shoots into the frame, crossing it and then disappearing.

  “We’ve got some orbs, too,” Miranda calls softly to Kent as another glowing ring of light darts onto the screen. This one is brighter, meaning the energy is stronger.

  She reaches into the pocket of her khaki vest, the kind professional photographers wear. Her small, whirring audiotape recorder is nearing the end of the cassette. Swiftly, she pops it out and replaces it with a fresh tape, then presses RECORD again.

  She and Kent have never heard ghostly sounds live, with their own ears. But occasionally, when they play back the audiotapes after a session, they hear something.

  Sometimes it’s a voice—fleeting, but with discernable words or phrases.

  They’ve heard other sounds, too. Footsteps, creaking, snatches of music, even the whir of invisible appliances. Once, investigating a haunted oceanfront cemetery on Cape Cod, they clearly heard the clanging bell of a ship on the recording, though there had been no such sound during the investigation. They later learned that years ago, a ferry dock was located not far from the cemetery.

  Staring down at the camera, watching the orbs flit playfully among the trees, Miranda finds herself thinking of this afternoon’s encounter with the residents of the house on Summer Street. Wistfully, she wonders what the equipment would be registering at this moment if she and Kent were standing in that yard, beside the lilac tree.

  The owner was clearly resistant to letting them find out.

  Some people are like that. And Miranda is usually capable of accepting their refusal to allow her and Kent to conduct an investigation on private property.

  But this time, she doesn’t want to let go so easily.

  You’re an obsessive personality, Miranda.

  Well, so what?

  Damn Kent, anyway. Her therapist, too.

  She isn’t going to leave Lily Dale without finding out what’s going on by that tree.

  With or without the owner’s permission.

  Chapter Eight

  COMING TO A stop at the edge of rectangular Bestor Plaza at the heart of Chautauqua Institution, Paine feels the years falling away.

  “Are you okay, Daddy?” Dulcie asks, beside him.

  “I’m fine . . .” He clears his throat, hard. “It’s just the way I remembered it. My God. Nothing here has changed in ten years.”

  “Nothing here has changed
in more than a hundred years, Paine.”

  He glances at Julia to see her smiling. She’s right about that. Time has truly stood still here. Aside from bicycles, virtually the only traffic in the grounds is pedestrian, with visitors’ cars relegated to the massive parking lot across the highway from the gate.

  Here, three blocks in from the entrance along a brick-paved avenue, is an old-fashioned colonnade lined with shops and offices. The green is dotted with towering old trees, green park benches, and turn-of-the-century street lamps with circular white globes. A post office lies straight ahead, with a bookstore on the basement level, and a four-story wooden-frame hotel looms directly behind them. Bright impatiens spill over in beds and planters, and neatly clipped hedges rim a tall granite monument.

  The lone hint that the setting is closer to the turn of the twenty-first century than the twentieth is in the modern clothing worn by the people who stroll along the wide, tree-sheltered brick paths or sprawl on benches that dot the manicured grass. Here and there, artists stand intently at easels, and the sound of somebody playing piano scales drifts faintly from one of the small wooden cabinlike practice studios back by the gate.

  “Should we take a walk down to the lake?” Julia asks, turning her gaze ahead to the maze of narrow streets beyond the bookstore, where the terrain slopes downhill toward the waterfront. There is no sun today; nor is there rain. The sky is a milky backdrop overhead, and there is no breeze to stir the leafy branches overhead.

  “Yes, let’s go down there!” Dulcie says eagerly, bouncing a little in the bright white canvas sneakers she and Julia picked out yesterday. “Maybe there are shells here.”

  “There are,” Paine murmurs, remembering. Shells. The small beach. Kristin.

  He sighs and looks around, trying to blink away the images that haunt him.

  Like Lily Dale, this gated Victorian town is perched at the edge of a picturesque lake, nestled in the rolling western New York countryside. Bow-shaped Chautauqua Lake is far larger than Cassadaga Lake, and its namesake community is far larger than Lily Dale. It’s also much more upscale. Wealthy residents of Pittsburgh and Cleveland and New York City summer here, sailing and golfing by day, enjoying nightly concerts in the vast amphitheater and soaking up the cultural atmosphere. In addition to the summer theater, Chautauqua has its own ballet and opera companies, its own symphony.