by Jane Toombs
"When you grow up you'll go away, too," Sal told her.
"Not unless Brian does. We're always going to be together and share everything." She smiled at Sal. "At least you and Samara came back. Mark never did."
Sal glanced at Samara and she looked away.
"Come on," Brian urged, taking Johanna's hand. "We've got time before lunch."
"Okay. We're going to--" She stopped herself by putting her free hand over her mouth. "I can't tell--it's a secret."
Brian frowned at her before they scampered out, trailed by the twins.
Samara raised questioning eyebrows at Corinne.
"I don't really know what they're up to," she answered. "Exploring the house, I guess. They're crazy about those towers on the third floor."
Samara's breath caught, but she mastered her momentary fright. The room was locked, she knew, and Daddy would never leave the key where the children could find it. The key Mark used had never been found despite an extensive search so undoubtedly he'd taken it with him.
The children were safe.
At John's insistence, Sal also stayed for dinner. After dinner, Samara went for a drive in Sal's black Ford V-8 coupe. "I was lucky to find this car," he told her. "Hardly anyone wants to sell one these days."
"I suppose it takes Detroit a while to change back from tanks to cars again," Samara said. "I'm happy my old Buick runs just fine."
"The yellow convertible? I remember that car."
"What are you going to do now the war's over?" she asked him.
"After I'm officially discharged I'm going back to Davis to finish my veterinarian training. I talked to your father this afternoon and he's offered me part time work at the plant in Sacramento again. What are you going to do?"
"I have to wait until Vera's stronger to make any decisions."
Sal pulled the Ford onto the shoulder and they got out to walk down to the river. Samara gathered her coat close around her against the December chill. The sycamores had shed most of their leaves, leaving only brown shreds on the twisted branches. The shadows of evening lay across the water. As the approached the river, a large white bird swooped low over their heads and flew silently into the dusk.
"Just an owl," Sal said. He sounded as uneasy as she felt.
The last time she'd seen the white owl had not been one she cared to remember, but she pulled herself together and said, "The white ones are Arctic owls, aren't they?"
Sal stopped and faced her. "I tell Rosita not to be superstitious, but I guess I'm as bad as she is. 'White birds bring death,' my mother would say. I don't believe that, but...."
Determined not to think about that night with Mark, Samara said, "You mentioned Rosita. Where is she now?"
"In San Francisco. Your stepmother helped her to get into the Cadet Nurse program the government offered. She'll finish next year, then take the state exam for her registered nurse license."
Samara vaguely recalled Vera mentioning it. "Good for Rosita," she said. "Are you two--?"
"I don't know," he said. "Not yet." He took her hand. "How about you? I could tell Dr. Cannon was interested in you."
"You must be wrong."
"Well, then, is there anyone else?"
She shook her head.
Sal put his arms around her and kissed her gently, his lips soft and warm on hers. She didn't mind, neither was she particularly affected.
"If things were different," he said huskily, "I'd try my best to make you love me."
Was that possible? she wondered. Could one person make another love them?
"I can't cope with the Gregory money," Sal said, releasing her. "I want to support my wife, not have her support me." After a moment he laughed and took her hand again. "You wouldn't marry me anyway. Let's go on being friends."
Was this warm affection she felt for Sal better than the turbulent desire she'd know with Mark? Safer, certainly.
"I like you very much," she told him.
"That's not love."
"Do you love Rosita?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Then why are you saying these things to me?" she asked with some exasperation.
"Because in another way entirely, I also love you."
Samara rested her hand on his shoulder. "I wish things were different."
He started to put his arms around her again when the white owl reappeared and floated over them, ghostly in the near darkness.
Sal dropped his arms. "I don't like it. That boy Brian--he reminds me of your brother. And now there's the owl. A bad omen."
"Brian isn't Sergei!" Samara cried. "There's no connection between them except the physical resemblance."
Sal shook his head. "I have a bad feeling about your house. Like I had when Mark was there. And before that."
"Everything's fine," she insisted. "Don't borrow trouble."
"They say Hallow House has a curse on it," Sal told her. "Your family has had its share of unhappiness, but you don't have to stay there. Why don't you leave?"
"Who says there's a curse?"
"In town. Not everyone wants to work out there, you know."
"I didn't know. You mean they talk about us in Porterville?"
"And in Tulare and Visalia."
Sergei had talked about a curse--it made her shiver inwardly to think about him.
"I wish I could take care of you," Sal said. "Could take you away and keep you safe."
"Sal, even if I wanted to, I can't leave. Vera needs me right now and so does my father. Besides, I don't believe in curses."
Which was the truth. But Sal's visit left her feeling sad and wondering if she'd thrown away her last chance for happiness.
The next morning at breakfast, Vera announced that Stan Aarons would be arriving in a few days.
"I haven't seen Stan since you and Daddy got married," Samara said, "How is he?"
"The same old Stan. Still a bachelor," John said. "Sharp as ever when it comes to business."
Two days later, Samara was delegated to pick him up at the Visalia Airport.
"What a charming young lady you've turned into," he told her on the way back to Hallow House. "Of course you always were a pretty little girl. Shy, though."
"I was afraid of you," she confessed.
Stan seemed taken aback. "Of me? Why?"
"You were always talking about horrible things."
He nodded. "The occult, yes. Your brother asked me so many questions. I recall that you never wanted to hear the answers."
"I still don't." She smiled at Stan with an effort she hoped he didn't notice. "Anyway, that's all over."
He didn't reply.
After a time she said, "Someone told me the people in the valley think there's a curse on Hallow House."
"No doubt because the Indians insisted the land your great grandfather stole from them was accursed."
"Stole?"
"Boris was a regular old brigand, you know."
"So Aunt Adele says. But I never before heard he stole land from the Indians." She found it disturbing to think she was descended from a thief and said so.
"Now don't go getting upset. At that time everybody was stealing land from everybody. Boris was no worse than any other ambitious man."
That was small comfort to Samara.
"Your great-grandmother kept journals," Stan went on. "You should read them sometime. The information is all there. She was a bit mad, of course, but a fascinating women all the same, interested in the occult."
Samara shook her head. "I'd rather not."
"Yes, well, I can understand. Your brother...." Stan's voice trailed off. After a time, he said, "Yet you did ask me about the curse."
"Yes, but--"
"Can you deny Skull Cave exists?"
She made an involuntary sound of protest.
"Sorry, I'd forgotten about that wretched spy. Forgive me." Stan reached over and patted her hand resting on the steering wheel. "I didn't mean to distress you."
She took a deep breath. "What does Skull Cave have
to do with Hallow House."
Stan stared at her in surprise. "Why that's where the skulls are. Surely you know that when the house was built back in 1869, the workmen dug up more than one headless skeleton?"
Samara had the feeling she wanted to put her hands over her ears. Still, she had asked. And she knew why. Because of Sergei.
"The house was erected directly over what seems to have been a bizarre burial plot of some unknown people. The local Indians deny burying any of their dead in the valley--they have some taboo about living there. 'The Place of the Headless Ones' they call it." Stan shook his head. "Specific information is difficult to find. I've searched, of course, but all the early Indian records were oral, not written."
Samara realized she had to steer the conversation somewhere else or Stan would go right on discussing things it bothered her to listen to. "I completely forgot to ask you how your trip was," she said. "Didn't you once tell Daddy you hated to fly?"
Stan nodded. "We do what we must to get where we must." Then, to her relief, he went on about the discomforts of the flight for the rest of the ride home.
After delivering Stan safely to the house, Samara decided what she needed was a long ride on horseback in the cold freshness of the December wind.
On her way to her room, she paused at the top of the stairs when she heard Adele's voice coming from the partly open door.
"...black door." Adele said.
Samara froze.
Chapter 29
At the top of the stairs, Samara stood aghast, listening to the voices escaping from Aunt Adele's partly- open door.
"Johanna, you know the door is locked and your Daddy keeps the key so no one can ever go inside that room again," Adele said.
"Why not?" Brian asked.
"Because of what happened," Johanna said.
"Dreadful happenings," Adele agreed. "Best to keep such a place locked forever."
"But what's in there that's so bad?" Brian persisted.
"The room holds secrets," Adele said.
Samara had heard enough. She pushed the door open and stalked into the room. Adele was in her rocker, covered with a wool afghan, Theola was nowhere in sight.
"I don't think you should be telling the children such things," Samara said.
Adele's face flushed. "You are as bad as Theola. Always lecturing me. I must send her to the kitchen to fetch something for me, or I never get to speak my mind. It is the truth, after all."
"Run along," Samara told Johanna and Brian, her tone brooking no argument.
When they were gone and the door firmly shut behind them, Samara said, "You mustn't talk about that room to them." Despite her effort to remain calm, her voice shook. "It could be dangerous."
"Nonsense. The black door is locked--what harm can come of my words? Kevin, for one, seems quite interested. He has asked me many a question since I first mentioned Tabitha. He has even read several of her journals, which is more than you have ever done." Adele's tone was petulant.
She's old, Samara told herself. She doesn't understand. "Please, Aunt Adele, don't tell the children things that might frighten them."
"Very well. Next I imagine you will worry that I might be frightening the doctor." She snickered.
"He's an adult. All I'm trying to do is protect children." Actually she didn't want Adele to discuss Hallow House with anyone, but she had no right to object to her conversations with Kevin.
Theola came into the room with a covered tray, out of breath, her lips bluish.
"Here, let me take that," Samara said. "You shouldn't climb the stairs, especially carrying things. That's why Daddy put the chair lift--so you wouldn't have to."
"I have no faith in contraptions," Theola told her, easing down into her rocker alongside Adele.
Seeing the tray held enough for the two of them, Samara carried two small tables close to their rockers, set the tray on a larger table and began distributing the food, constantly corrected by one or the other of the old ladies.
How old were they anyway? No one was quite sure. Adele was somewhere in her nineties, though, and Theola not much younger.
When they were finished eating, she gathered up the dishes, replaced them on the tray, then asked, "Would you like me to help you to bed, Aunt Adele? Theola's tired herself out."
"If you must," Adele said.
Once she had Adele comfortable, Samara returned to the outer room and picked up the tray, intending to leave it on the landing for Susan to pick up. Theola got up and walked outside the door with her.
"Has she been telling Johanna about the magic again?" she asked Samara.
Samara nodded. "She promised me she'd stop."
Theola shook her head. "She cannot remember promises, her mind is not what it was. I will try to watch her."
In her room changing into jodhpurs, Samara told herself she never wanted to grow old. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, running a hand through her black curls, reassured that she was still young--if shabbily dressed.
What she needed was several pairs of those new western riding pants she'd seen in San Diego--her jodhpurs were not only literally old, they were old-fashioned as well. And today's skirts were definitely longer than any she owned. It was past time to shop for clothes.
She donned a salmon colored pullover with a high neck to wear under her riding jacket and tied a matching scarf around her head.
Part way down the stairs, she saw Kevin was in the foyer talking to Corinne again, making Samara wonder if Corinne deliberately arranged to be there when he entered. She was laughing up at him, standing much closer that she needed to. Though Kevin's back was to the stairs, as if he felt someone watching him, he turned. Samara hurried down the rest of the steps.
"I sent Johanna and Brian out of Adele's room," she said to Corinne. "I really don't think they should spend so much time with her."
Corinne's lips tightened. "I'm sorry," she said, in a voice that denied she was. "I'll try to keep a better check on them." She walked away with a staccato click of heels.
"Don't you like her?" Kevin asked.
Samara frowned. "What?"
"I wondered if you liked Corinne," he said.
"I'm sure she's a capable teacher or my folks wouldn't have hired her."
"That's not liking her."
Samara stared into his hard green eyes. "I don't want Aunt Adele filling the children full of old superstitions. That's why I asked Corinne to keep them away from her room."
"My impression was you ordered her to. Hers was, too, I imagine."
"If you think I was curt, it's because you have no idea of the danger involved. You listen to Adele telling you about the black door and you read Tabitha's journals and you hear about the curse and think it's entertaining." To her consternation she found tears in her eyes. "You just don't know...." She couldn't go on without her voice breaking. Turning away from him, she blinked the tears away and struggled to regain control of herself.
If Kevin noted her distress at least he had the tact not to comment on it. "I find Adele quite sharp for her age," he said, "I enjoy her and spend as much time as I can listening to her yarns about the past. Why shouldn't I, if it pleases us both? Whether I believe every word she says isn't the point. I do agree children shouldn't think family curses are real. Is that what she's telling them?"
Having recovered herself, Samara said, "I'm afraid so."
"About the headless skeletons and Tabitha practicing black magic."
"Something like that, yes."
"They've never heard any of this before?"
"Not Johanna. I have no idea what Uncle Vince or Marie might have told Brian before he came here. I'm sure the twins don't know."
"In other words, your family doesn't discuss these matters."
"No, we don't."
"So, as an outsider, you think I've overstepped my bounds in encouraging Adele?"
"If she hadn't begun to talk to you about it, she wouldn't be telling the children." Samara felt her control slippi
ng. "I don't care if you know--everyone in the valley seems to know anyway--but I won't have Johanna frightened. She's had enough of that to last a lifetime."
"I seem to be upsetting you again." He eyed her a moment. "Were you going riding?"
