In the Blink of an Eye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  She isn’t ready to go.

  Physically, maybe. Physically, her body is shutting down, giving out on her.

  But something is holding her here.

  He knows what it is. But what can he do? He can’t—

  “Damn!” Burning his hand on the tap water that’s suddenly running too hot, Rupert drops the washcloth and runs cold water over his fingers.

  Terrible plumbing. That’s just one of the things that’s wrong with this house.

  Irrational anger rises within him. For once, he doesn’t squash it back. He allows the fury to vent through a shouted curse and a fierce kick at the pipe below the pedestal sink.

  It’s safe to be angry at the house, he realizes, fists clenched, breath coming in ragged pants.

  Safer than being angry at other things. Things he can’t control, no matter how he tries.

  Rupert looks into the mirror over the sink. The frustration and weariness that have invaded his body are mirrored in his gray eyes, in the deep creases and dark trenches that line them.

  This should be the last night he and Nan are spending in this house. Now Lord only knows how long it will be before they can move back home to Summer Street.

  Rupert picks up the washcloth again, wrings it out, runs warm water over it, and wrings it again. Then he takes the tube of cream from the vanity and carries it and the warm cloth carefully back to the bedroom.

  He sits on the bed and looks at her.

  Nan’s eyelids are half open, but her pupils are glazed, unfocused. Alarm erupts within him again—until he realizes that she’s asleep.

  Rupert lets out a shaky breath, watching her.

  This, too, is an odd physical symptom he’s noticed increasingly these past few days—this strange way she has now of sleeping with slitted lids, a vacant stare. Even when her eyes are fully open and she’s awake, Nan seems to be paying little attention to what’s going on around her.

  “I’m going to moisten your mouth for you, darling,” Rupert says softly. “I’d do anything for you. You know that, don’t you, Nan? Anything . . .”

  He tenderly dabs at his wife’s parched hps with the warm cloth as tears trickle down his weathered cheeks.

  AS JULIA DRIVES through the gates of Lily Dale, she notices that the moon is exceptionally bright tonight, the sky brilliant with stars.

  If it had been like this last night, Lorraine would never have been hit by that car.

  Or would she?

  Of course not. It was definitely an accident. Laura told her that it turns out Bruce isn’t even around—he’s visiting a friend in Detroit and has been there for a week.

  So it was an accident. But that doesn’t change anything. Lorraine lies in a hospital bed, recovering from surgery, barely recognizable.

  Julia tries to shut out an image of Lorraine’s swollen bruised face. She couldn’t speak because of the tubes in her throat, but when Julia gently squeezed her hand, Lorraine gazed intently at her and blinked several times as if to say I know you’re pulling for me.

  After spending the last four or five hours at the hospital with Lorraine’s family, and being allowed that brief encounter with her friend, all Julia wants to do is go home and climb into bed, shutting out every horrible thing that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  The winding streets of Lily Dale are almost deserted at this hour. Glancing at the clock on the dashboard, Julia sees that it’s nearly nine-thirty. Driving past the turnoff to Summer Street, she is promptly attacked by the memory of what happened this afternoon.

  Until now, she’s almost managed to keep thoughts of Paine and Dulcie at bay. Now those thoughts rush in to assault her, filling her with guilt, and regret, and fear.

  Julia doesn’t blame Paine for being furious with her. He was right. Dulcie could have been badly hurt. But if Julia had any idea that she wouldn’t stay in her bed . . . or that she would pull a stunt like that . . .

  The lady told me to climb out the window.

  Dulcie said it repeatedly as Julia grilled her for some explanation. She kept talking about someone sneaking up the stairs to get her, saying she was trying to get away and that the lady was helping her to escape.

  Later, as they left, Andy made an infuriating comment, insinuating that Dulcie had made up the story about the prowler and an imaginary “lady” to explain why she disobeyed Julia.

  “Dulcie isn’t that kind of child!” Julia said fervently. “She doesn’t misbehave that way.”

  “Calm down, Julia. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just that all kids are capable of bratty behavior once in a while, and of lying to cover it up.”

  “Well, Dulcie isn’t lying about the lady,” Julia retorted. “I’ve seen her, too.”

  His eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

  Julia found herself spilling the whole story to Andy—about the presence she and Dulcie have encountered in the house, and the possible connection to Kristin.

  Though Andy still expressed doubt that there was also a human prowler, as Dulcie claimed, he was willing to believe that she was telling the truth about being lured out of bed by the apparition. “It sounds to me as though there’s some kind of malevolent energy in that house, Julia. The sooner Paine Landry gets his daughter out of there, the better. And you should stay away, too.”

  Ha.

  Stay away? No problem. Judging by the way Paine looked at her when he told her to go, he’ll probably run her off the property if she so much as sets foot on the grass.

  Dulcie was crying for her as she left. That broke Julia’s heart. But what could she do? Paine ordered her to leave, and he certainly won’t welcome her back before they head to California.

  I won’t be able to say good-bye.

  Julia tries to convince herself that maybe it will be better this way. Better for Dulcie. It isn’t healthy for her to be so attached to someone she’s never going to see again. A clean, immediate break would be best.

  Still, Julia is planning on going to tomorrow morning’s memorial service for Iris. And unless Paine has changed his mind, she intends to scatter Iris’s ashes over the lake at dusk. She wants to do it, to honor the woman who, in her last years, was more of a mother figure to Julia than Deborah Garrity has been.

  Julia sighs, turning onto her own quiet street as her thoughts wander back to this afternoon yet again.

  She isn’t inclined to agree with Andy—or Rupert Biddle—that the energy lurking in that house is dangerous. If Dulcie’s perception was accurate, the spirit lured her out of her bed to help, not harm, her.

  If only you didn’t go down to the cellar and leave Dulcie alone in the house. What on earth were you thinking, Julia?

  I was thinking that Dulcie was safe, sound asleep, and she promised not to leave her bed if she woke up. And I checked on her every fifteen minutes. This is Lily Dale, for Pete’s sake. Nobody even locks their doors here.

  But maybe they should.

  As much as she’s tried to consider Andy’s pragmatic viewpoint and talk herself out of it, Julia is almost certain Dulcie was right about somebody prowling around the house. She herself thought she heard footsteps overhead, and she’s not convinced they were Dulcie’s. More frighteningly, she’s inclined to believe that if there was a prowler, whoever it was knowingly locked her in the cellar. Those doors didn’t close accidentally—no matter what Andy thinks.

  Andy.

  He seemed far more interested in recapping his heroic rescue of Dulcie from the roof and Julia from the cellar than he was in discussing the rest of it. He kept saying that it was a good thing he’d decided to drop in on her and say hello. Maybe he was just trying to distract her by avoiding the what-ifs. He probably just wanted to ease Julia’s fears, reassure her, get her mind off what might have happened if he hadn’t come along.

  But now, as she pulls up in front of her house, safely home at last, Julia can think of nothing else.

  Is Kristin’s spirit trying to protect her daughter? If so, from whom?

  T
hough reluctant to face a familiar, and far more troubling, likelihood, Julia can’t keep the thought from seeping into her consciousness.

  What if Kristin’s death really wasn’t accidental?

  What if whoever killed her is after Dulcie?

  Turning off the ignition, Julia is so caught up in her troubling thoughts that it takes a few moments for her to recognize the red car parked at the curb, in front of hers.

  Startled, she glances up at the house.

  There, on the front steps, sits Paine Landry, a sleeping Dulcie in his lap.

  STANDING AT THE ship’s rail, Pilar stares down into the shimmering path of moonlight on black water. It’s chilly out here on deck, but she can’t bring herself to retreat to her cabin. Nor is she in the mood to return to the lounge, where her family is learning to line dance beneath dizzying strobe lights and a spinning silver disco ball.

  Out here, beneath the canopy of starry sky, there is nothing but hushed, soothing salt air.

  But the majestic serenity has yet to seep into Pilar.

  Raul has been with her all night, so strong and unsettling a presence that she barely touched the succulent seafood feast in the dining room. She excused herself, telling her concerned daughter that she was feeling a little seasick.

  The truth is, she’s becoming increasingly uneasy about the Biddles’ situation, and about her strange encounter with their daughter.

  She senses that Raul wants her to do something—to act, somehow, on what she knows.

  But what do I know? Nothing.

  Obviously, there’s been a rift in that family. Katherine Jergins has her reasons for considering her parents dead.

  And okay, she’s entitled to assume that Pilar—a total stranger showing up on the woman’s doorstep, claiming to have urgent news for her—is some kind of scam artist.

  But I gave her my card. Seeing the Lily Dale address should have convinced her, Pilar thinks, not for the first time. Instead, the business card seemed to antagonize Katherine further.

  Why? None of it makes sense.

  Help me, Raul, Pilar begs silently, absently watching a strolling couple stop nearby to embrace in the moonlight. I can feel that you don’t want me to stay out of this, as you warned me to do last week. Now you want me to become even more involved. You want me to do something.

  But what?

  And . . .

  Why?

  Is Raul urging her to somehow play intermediary and heal the relationship between Katherine and her parents? Is Pilar supposed to try to ease Nan’s transition from this world, and Rupert’s loneliness and grief, by reconciling them with their daughter?

  That was her original plan.

  Yet now she senses that there’s more to it.

  For some reason, Pilar is growing increasingly uneasy. Unless she’s mistaken, Raul is trying to communicate some kind of threat—one that’s somehow connected to Lily Dale, and the Biddles.

  Maybe I should call and warn them that they’re possibly in danger, Pilar thinks, walking slowly back to her cabin. Maybe that’s what Raul wants me to do.

  If so, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. It’s too late to call now. Most likely, Rupert and Nan are both sleeping peacefully at this hour . . . if everything is still all right over there.

  Acknowledging Nan’s rapidly deteriorating condition, Pilar reminds herself that time is running out.

  “IT LOOKS LIKE nobody’s home, or they’re up in bed,” Miranda tells Kent softly, standing beside him at the curb in front of the house at Ten Summer Street. Not a single light spills from the windows.

  “Brilliant deduction,” Kent says dryly. “Listen, if this ghost busting stuff doesn’t pan out, you might want to think about detective work.”

  She ignores his quip, gazing across the shadowy yard at the moonlit lilac branches where her recorder picked up the ghostly strains of music.

  Earlier, after dinner, when she played the tape for Kent, he was excited. He feels, as Miranda does, that there is no natural explanation for the sounds.

  He also enthusiastically agreed to come back over here tonight with her to investigate further.

  What he doesn’t know is that Miranda lied to him about having gotten earlier permission from the owners. She couldn’t help feeling guilty when he willingly accepted what she said, not even bothering to ask her for the signed release form.

  If he knew there isn’t one—and that she trespassed and planted the audio recorder here to get the tape . . .

  But he won’t have to know, she reminds herself, eyeing the deserted-looking house. And we aren’t hurting anyone. This is our business. We’re scientists conducting important research. Who knows what else we’ll find if we check out that spot?

  “Let’s go, Kent,” she says. “Come on.”

  As they move quietly across the damp grass, lugging their equipment, guided by the beams of their flashlights, Miranda wonders if they should have waited until later. After midnight, there will be even less chance of being discovered here.

  But here, in the side yard, they’re well concealed by the overgrown landscaping. Fortuitously, the blue-painted house next door, whose yard borders this one, is also dark and seemingly deserted. There’s no one around to see Miranda and Kent setting up their tripods and cameras.

  Miranda takes her Trifield meter from her vest pocket and turns it on.

  “Everything set?” Kent asks quietly.

  She nods.

  With that, they begin to do what they always do, beginning an investigation.

  They watch, and they listen, and they wait.

  THE BED IS too small for both of them, but Rupert has climbed in anyway. He doesn’t want to be on the other side of the house, alone in the big, empty master bedroom. He wants to be with his wife.

  Nan is everything to him.

  Lying here in the dark beside her, holding her as she sleeps, he is carried back, over the years. Back to so many nights, just like this one—summer nights, with the windows open to chirping crickets and the distant lapping of waves on the lake.

  It wasn’t always this serene, though.

  There were nights in the city, steamy summer nights when street noises filtered up: traffic, sirens, kids playing in open hydrants, people playing cards on stoops.

  It was like that the first time he ever slept all night with Nan. They lay on his lumpy mattress in his small, rented room, entwined in each other’s arms, soaked from the humidity and the exertion of making love. Long after the mothers below had noisily called their children inside and the raucous card games had given way to quiet chatter punctuated by occasional bursts of laughter, Rupert asked Nan if she should be getting home.

  He’ll never forget her reply.

  “I am home,” she said with a sigh of contentment, snuggling against him.

  “Your mother is probably frantic,” he pointed out, smiling in the dark.

  “So?”

  As it turned out, her mother was frantic. Had the police looking for Nan. When she showed up the next morning, instead of being grateful to see her daughter alive, Nan’s mother threatened to disown her.

  Of course, Nan made up some story. She didn’t dare tell her mother that she was in love with an older man.

  Rupert smiles, remembering what an issue it had been back then—the few years separating their ages. It doesn’t matter now. It hasn’t mattered in years. They’re soul mates.

  He smiles, reaching out to stroke Nan’s head. His fingers encounter fabric where her hair should be.

  It all comes back to him.

  The chemo.

  Her illness.

  Harsh reality, slapping him in the face.

  Well, it always does, doesn’t it? Much as he tries to lose himself in dreams of the past, he can’t fully escape what’s happening today.

  He never could. All his life, even in those early days with Nan, he’s had the habit of transporting himself away from the present. But in his youth, he was always looking forward, not back—fantasizing a
bout the future, making plans.

  Rupert always had big plans.

  His mother used to say he was like his father in that way.

  Rupert has precious few memories of the man: He was always packing and unpacking, coming and going, taking care of “business.” He always smelled good. He and Mother danced together sometimes, all around the apartment, to music from the radio. And he liked to do tricks.

  He made handkerchiefs disappear into thin air, pulled pennies from Rupert’s ears. Simple stunts for a career con man. Whenever he left, Rupert’s mother cried, and his father told Rupert to take care of her until he came back.

  And he always did come back from wherever he was. Sometimes it took a few days, and sometimes months, but he always walked through the door eventually, and he always brought presents. Shiny, expensive toys for Rupert, clothes and perfume for Mother. He was full of stories about where he had been, and plans for their future. He always said that someday, they were going to be rich. They were going to live in a fancy house, and have a car—maybe two cars. Rupert would go to a private school, and he would go to college. And someday, Rupert would have an important job, Father said. He would have a job at a desk in a towering office building in Manhattan, and he would never have to leave his family the way Father had to leave them.

  But Father always came back.

  Which is why Rupert didn’t think much of it the time that he seemed to be away longer than ever before. At first, Mother didn’t worry. Then she did worry. That was when Rupert worried, too.

  But all that worrying never brought Father back.

  There were no more presents. There was no more dancing. Pretty soon, there wasn’t even an apartment. Rupert and Mother had to leave, because she couldn’t pay the rent.

  Rupert remembers telling Mother not to worry—that if Father didn’t ever come back, he would get a job and take care of her. He was going to buy her gifts, and make her laugh the way Father did, and when he was tall enough, he was going to dance with her, too. Mother only hugged him and told him that he was full of big plans, just as his father always was.

  And then she said his father was never coming back.