The Ice Cradle

by Mary Ann Winkowski

  “Cross over?”

  “Cross over, yeah.”

  “I’m not sure,” I lied, having decided that very minute not to go into the subject of Jamey, because that might bring us dangerously close to the topic of the ghosts at the lighthouse, which I was determined to avoid. Lauren had plenty to digest already. If I told her about the ghosts at the lighthouse, I’d probably put my foot in my mouth and somehow blurt out the fact that they were planning to descend on the inn en masse.

  She sat back in her chair. “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s pretty wild.”

  “So that’s who you were talking to,” she concluded.

  When I didn’t answer right away, she added, “The little girl.”

  “Actually, no,” I admitted. “It was someone else.”

  The someone else was standing in the doorway and had been for much of my conversation with Lauren. I looked over at him, a question on my face. Slowly, he nodded.

  “He’s right here with us,” I said.

  “Who?” Now Lauren appeared distressed, so I took her hand.

  “His name is Baden,” I explained, and before I could say any more she sat up straight and swept her gaze all around, searching for the face she would never be able to see.

  “Uncle Baden?” she cried. “He’s here?”

  “He is.”

  “Where?”

  “In the doorway, right there.”

  I saw Baden stand up very straight and lift his chin. He smoothed one side of his hair down with one hand and then the other side with the other, and a vulnerable, hopeful look appeared on his face. I barely recognized the spirit that stood before us; his hardened, chilly reserve had all but vanished.

  “Can he hear me?”

  “He can,” I said.

  “Hello, Uncle Baden,” Lauren whispered.

  His voice caught when he replied, “Hello, my dear.”

  That was all it took. Baden was on board. Well, it took a little more than that, specifically about forty-five minutes in which I acted as a go-between while Baden and Lauren talked about the construction of the house and about Mark’s father and a few other members of the Riegler clan, now deceased, people Lauren had known as frail and elderly and whom Baden remembered as children. The transformation in the ghost was remarkable. It was like watching a time-lapse film of the effects of water and sun on a plant long abandoned in a dry, dark room. In the end, Baden would have walked into a tornado for his great-great-niece.

  Which, come to think of it, was pretty much what he was going to do.

  “She’s a lovely girl,” he said after Lauren left. I had asked her not to tell anyone but Mark about my abilities, and she promised to keep it quiet.

  “She is.”

  “When is the child to arrive?”

  “End of June. It’s a boy.”

  “They know this? It is impossible to be sure, no?”

  “No. There are a couple of tests you can have nowadays. Not everyone wants to find out the baby’s sex, but some people do.”

  “How strange,” he said. “To know before the child is born.” He was quiet for several moments. “It’s best that I go alone,” he finally said.

  I could hardly believe my ears. Had he actually agreed to help me?

  “Will they meet with you? Will they listen to you?”

  “Colonel Hannah and Mr. Duffield will. Will I be able to persuade them to abandon their plans? That I do not know. You have no funds, correct?”

  “No, but I’m sure I can—get some.” I hoped.

  “Where, may I ask? You forget: I was a banker. All my life, I worked with people who had plans to do things, to build things, to buy things, and for this, they needed capital.”

  I sighed. He was right. I didn’t have a cent. And a lack of money to make good on my promise wasn’t my only problem. “The little ghost, Vivi. Do you know her?”

  “I do, yes. An irksome child. My nephew and his wife were indulgent parents.”

  “She’s not irksome,” I said. “She’s just …”

  “Bold, impolite, disobedient, insolent.”

  “True,” I admitted, suppressing a grin. “I don’t trust her. She could doom the Grand View when the ghost detectives are here, just for the fun of it.”

  “Decidedly,” Baden said.

  “I had a little run-in with her last night, and I haven’t seen her since. I have no idea where she is.”

  “I know where she is.”

  “You do? Where?”

  “In the barn, with the cat.”

  “Tormenting the poor animal, no doubt.”

  “No, no. They are inseparable.”

  “What? But the other night in the kitchen, Frances acted like she was completely spooked.”

  “They are rarely apart,” Baden said. “The child occasionally turns on the cat the way she turns on everyone else, but Frances can take care of herself.”

  “That’s for sure,” I replied.

  “So—what are you asking of me? Regarding the girl.”

  “I need to get her to cooperate. But I’m not one of her favorite people right now. I’m sure she’s furious at me because I lost my temper with her.”

  “Yes, so?”

  “Would you take her to the lighthouse with you? There’s a baby there. His name is Jamey. He’s Vivi’s little brother, and he’s been taken away from her by one of the women, one of the ghosts.”

  “She lost her own child,” Baden explained. “The infant was drowned that night.”

  “Who did?”

  “Emilia Davis. The woman who has young James.”

  “Oh, my God! So her own baby crossed over and Emilia was left behind?”

  Baden nodded. “She was certain that he was among the spirits who remained on—this side.”

  I completed the story. “So she waited too long. By the time she realized he was gone, the white light had disappeared. And Jamey had lost his own mother.”

  “Precisely,” Baden replied.

  “But not his sister,” I continued.

  “It’s no excuse for how the girl acts,” Baden commented. “That child behaves disgracefully.”

  “She’s a kid,” I said, surprised at myself for defending a creature I would happily have throttled the previous evening. “She feels responsible for her baby brother. So why don’t the other ghosts help her?”

  “To do what?” Baden asked.

  “To get her brother back.”

  “That won’t be easy. Emilia believes that young James is her child.”

  “Is she mad?”

  “Entirely. There are many at the lighthouse who are mad, especially the ones who met their ends in the lifeboats. Emilia may be—wholly insane, but she loves the little boy.”

  “But it isn’t fair!” I protested.

  “That child brought it upon herself. She’s turned on even the people who tried to help her.”

  We sat for a moment in silence. In less than an hour, I would have to pick up Henry. I fought a growing dread that this whole house of cards was headed for collapse.

  “Would you just take her with you tonight, when you go?”

  “She’ll not agree to accompany me, I’m sure. No one can make her do a thing.”

  “But I have to verify that I have the right little boy. And, to be honest, I need to be able to bribe her.”

  “To do what?”

  “To stay out of the house while the ghost detectives are here. It won’t do any good to lead them to the lighthouse if Vivi’s having a grand old time setting all the gizmos off back here. And you know she will.”

  “She’s fond of your son,” Baden said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s another whole set of problems.”

  “I know who the child is,” Baden said. “And I also know Emilia. I can take you to them whenever you like. But I will not take the girl with me tonight.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Then good luck. And thank you again.”

  “Don’t offer me th
anks until I have accomplished something.”

  I shook my head. “Thank you for trying.”

  Chapter Twenty

  THE THEATER WAS abuzz. I was early, so I took a few moments to check out what had happened onstage in the last couple of days. The set was impressive, and I didn’t think I was biased, because the only piece Henry had had anything to do with was the car, and that was nowhere in sight.

  The Burger Palace looked like something out of The Jetsons. The drive-in, presently being painted in a perfect fifties palette of pink and aqua, was topped with a celestial crown of silvery orbs. On the other side of the stage was a structure that looked like a bandstand. Crepe paper streamers, likewise aqua and pink, ran from its floor to the structural beams that formed the bandstand’s sides and back. It was hard to tell what the final effect would be, though the sight brought to mind the overeager decorations committee of an underfunded prom.

  I was touched by how hard all the kids were working, and without any apparent supervision. Granted, time was short—there would be a final dress rehearsal in the morning, followed by the performance at four o’clock—but to see fifteen or twenty kids between the ages of twelve and seventeen cheerfully working together to realize their shared vision was …

  Oops. Someone, a girl, accidentally pushed someone else, another girl, into a third someone, a boy. Shrieking followed, and the dabbing of aqua paint onto a bare arm, leading to a round of retaliation in pink, this time onto painters’ clothes. Multiple paintbrushes were now brandished in a spirited free-for-all that had probably been simmering all week, just waiting to erupt into a rolling boil. A teacher in his twenties appeared, just in time to prevent a full-scale, good-natured, Grease-style showdown between anybody and everybody.

  My cell phone rang, and I got up and walked toward the back of the theater.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey! It’s Bert.”

  “How’d you get this number?”

  “You gave it to me.”

  “I did?”

  “Actually, you entered it into my phone.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “Oh.”

  This seemed to throw him off stride, as he immediately got very businesslike. “I just had a call from Mark McGill.”

  I had stepped outside, and a gust of wind prevented me from catching the name.

  “Who?”

  “Mark McGill, the police chief. They have a match.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the bottles. The lamp oil matched the accelerant they found at the barn.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. He’s got a car on the way over to the Lawlor place.”

  “To arrest the girl and guy?”

  “Well, to bring them in for questioning, anyway. They lifted some prints from the containers.”

  “What about the car?”

  “I guess they’ll impound it. See if there’s any residue.”

  “Wow!” I said. “That’s incredible.”

  “Yeah. Where are you?”

  “Picking up Henry.”

  “At the school?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want a lift?”

  Oh, he was so transparent. Did I want a lift? I could practically see the Grand View from where I was standing.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “There’s Vivi!” Henry shouted as the truck bumped along the road by the lighthouse.

  “Where?”

  Henry pointed. “Right there!”

  And so she was. Her hair was flying as she dashed and darted, just barely eluding little Jamey, who stumbled along behind her. She would almost let him catch her, then dip away just as he reached out to grab her arm or her dress. Far from upsetting him, the game seemed to fill him with delight, judging from the happy shrieking in the air.

  They were playing not far from where Baden was trying to plead our case with what had to be a couple of dozen ghosts. He and two other phantoms, whom I took to be the ringleaders of the scheme, were up on the porch of the lighthouse cottage. The rest of the spirits were clustered in groups on the grass and the rocks, close enough to be disturbed by the children’s hooting and laughing. When I saw Baden glance angrily in Vivi’s direction, I made a quick decision.

  “Bert?”

  He looked over.

  “Could I ask you a huge favor?”

  His eyes barely left the road.

  “Could you pull over for a minute?”

  He didn’t ask why. He just steered the truck onto the soft, sandy shoulder.

  “Remember the other day? That little boy we almost—the boy we saw?”

  “You saw.”

  “Right. He’s—his sister is—” driving Baden completely up the wall, I thought. “I really hate to ask you this, but could you take Henry back to Lauren’s and ask her to keep an eye on him for an hour or so? Tell her it has to do with Mark’s uncle. She’ll understand.”

  “I can keep an eye on him.” Bert looked a little hurt, as though I were impugning his babysitting abilities.

  “That’d be great. I won’t be long.”

  “I want to play with Vivi,” Henry interjected.

  “Who’s Vivi?” Bert asked.

  “I’ll explain that, too,” I told him. “Maybe I’ll bring her back with me,” I lied, intending to do no such thing. Even if I had been telling the truth, this was a little like promising to get water to run uphill.

  “Okay,” Henry said.

  “I owe you,” I told Bert.

  “That you do.”

  “Give a little thought to how I can pay you back.”

  “Will do,” he said dryly, but I thought I saw the beginning of a grin.

  I hadn’t noticed her at first, and now I couldn’t imagine why. The ghost of Emilia, or at least the ghost I took to be Emilia, was right there in plain sight, pacing along the edge of the bluff on which the Southeast Lighthouse stood. Vivi and Jamey were playing on the damp lawn that ran from the building toward the sea, giving way to a sudden, steep, and sandy decline. Waves crashed fiercely on the rocks at the bottom of the slope, and it seemed pitifully apparent that Emilia was trying to keep Vivi and Jamey from tumbling off the bluff and onto the rocks.

  But Vivi and Jamey were dead. No further harm could come to either one of them on the rocks or in the sea. Any sane ghost would know this. In her flowing beige dressing gown, Emilia paced restlessly along the rim of the drop, her gaze darting left and right, following the movements of the children.

  Knowing Vivi, and how she had to feel about the woman who had kidnapped her baby brother, I suspected that games like this went on quite often, games in which Vivi, a sane little ghost, tormented the poor, confused Emilia by leading Jamey into situations that would terrify the parent of any live child.

  I walked across the lawn. “Vivi!” I called, trying to sound cheerful and glad to see her. “Is that your brother?”

  Vivi stopped short, but the toddler kept going, straight toward the spot where Emilia stood guard. Vivi regarded me with haughty suspicion. Or maybe outright contempt; it was a little hard to tell.

  I continued toward her. “I’m sorry I got mad.”

  “You are not!” she shot back. “You’re mean. I hate you!”

  I couldn’t suppress a smile. I feel this way every time I see a two-year-old throwing a rip-roaring tantrum in a store or on the street. The outraged, thwarted fury, the angry red cheeks: the whole thing just slays me.

  I looked toward the sea. Emilia had picked up Jamey, and he was squirming theatrically to be set down. The ghost regarded me with ashen calm, another sign that she was not quite right. She clearly hadn’t registered the fact that I was a live human being, talking to a ghost.

  “Henry could have been killed,” I went on.

  “Good!”

  This I found a tad less hilarious. “I’m sure you don’t mean that,” I said.

  “Yes I do!”

  I sighed. There wasn’t going to be any reasoning wit
h her, at least not now.

  I crossed my legs and sat down on the grass. I immediately felt the wetness of the sod seep into the seat of my jeans. Vivi eyed me warily.

  “I was scared to death,” I said honestly. “That’s why I turned into—Monster Mommy.”

  I thought I saw her expression soften.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I really and truly am. I shouldn’t have screamed at you like that. You were just playing a game, but it went too far. It was Henry I was really mad at. He promised to stay on the porch.”

  “Then you should’ve spanked him!”

  “I did!”

  “You did?” Now here was something Vivi could get behind. She folded herself down opposite me, hungry for details. “How hard?”

  I hadn’t spanked Henry. I don’t spank. Very often. All right, I’m not above giving him a little crack on the bottom, but this time, I hadn’t so much as raised my voice. He’d been so shaken that I hadn’t had to. But I wasn’t going to sacrifice my precarious toehold by admitting this now.

  “I’d better let him tell you,” I said confidentially. “Because you wouldn’t believe it if it came from me.”

  “Yes I would!” she assured me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emilia advancing slowly in our direction. Vivi caught sight of her, too.

  “I’m going to get Jamey back for you,” I said.

  “She thinks he’s her baby.”

  “I know. But he’s not.”

  “He’s Mama’s. And Papa’s.”

  “And yours! Did you have any other brothers or sisters?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m going to try to help,” I said. “I’ll do everything I can, okay?”

  She nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “I need your help with something, too. If I help you, will you help me?”

  She appeared noncommittal. “What?”

  “I’ll tell you later. And no more Monster Mommy. I promise.”

  “Monster Mommy,” she echoed, then she vanished into thin air.

  “Hello, Emilia.”

  “Have you come about the slipcovers?” she asked vaguely. Her voice was wan, like everything else about her.

  “No,” I said quietly. “I’ve come to—” I broke off. I had to put some serious thought into how I was going to go about this. “My name is Anza. Anza O’Malley.”