Charlotte’s Story

by Benedict, Laura

  The paper’s scent was vivid, like J.C. herself. I’d found her intimidating with her expensive tailored clothes, bold, interested gaze, and exaggerated gestures. She had a habit of holding her hand out to men to be kissed, and they usually obliged without hesitation. Their reward was a smile full of blazingly white large teeth. J.C. wasn’t beautiful or even particularly pretty. But she had what Nonie called “go-to-hell style.”

  “Why are we replacing the curtains? No one ever sees them.” I was being disingenuous, so the words felt predictably clumsy.

  It was a longstanding disagreement between Press and his mother. Like the ballroom, she believed the theater to be a waste of space and resources, but had refused to let Preston use it. By the time we were married, the discussions had all been exhausted, leaving me to hear only “she’s irrational about the theater” from Press, and “a home is no place for theatrical productions” from Olivia. It didn’t matter to Olivia that Preston’s group only wanted to rehearse. They held their infrequent performances in the auditorium of Fellowes Academy, a nearby private girls’ boarding school, and had done them there since Zion and Helen had started the group fifteen years earlier.

  Press handed me my water. “You and Marlene can continue using my mother’s menus from now until the end of time, if you like. We can even keep her bedroom as a shrine.”

  At those words, I wondered for a moment if he somehow knew what I was thinking about Olivia’s room. And that Olivia was still here—somewhere.

  His heavy eyebrows lifted, lightening his face. It was a look he got when he was truly excited. “But the house is ours to do with as we choose, isn’t it? Now that Zion and Helen are gone, I’d like to take the group in a new direction. This place. . . .” He swept his arm, I assumed to indicate the house. “Bliss House is so much more than my mother would ever let it be. Now it’s ours, Charlotte. Everyone in the group adores you, my darling. I’ve been telling you for months, you should come and at least read with us. You’d be terrific on stage. Helen was always saying that you and your killer cheekbones belonged up there.”

  When Press introduced Helen to me at our engagement party, Helen had reached up and taken my face in her tiny hands that sparkled with stacks of expensive rings and given my cheeks a not-so-gentle squeeze.

  “Look at those cheekbones, Zion! This is a girl born to play Brunhild, yes? But do you sing, my dear?”

  Even though the group didn’t do musicals, that line, “But do you sing, my dear?” became a kind of joke between Press and me.

  “I don’t think so. I’ll leave the theater to you and Rachel.” Sometimes Press was like a particularly winning child whose pleas I found hard to resist no matter what my mood. But the wall was up. Even if I felt my emotions, my body responding to him, I wouldn’t be drawn from my purpose. My grief.

  “Then come and play with us. We’ll be at loose ends without Zion and Helen. Helen kept us going.”

  “Come and play with you?” Even the word play felt repellent in my mouth. “What are you saying? Our baby girl hasn’t been dead a month. What do you think you’re doing?”

  He put a hand on my arm. Angry, I shook it off and picked up the note from the desk.

  “When is J.C. coming? Have you already arranged it?”

  “She’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”

  “Jesus, Press. How could you not tell me about this?” I searched his eyes looking for understanding, waiting for him to tell me that he hadn’t meant to hurt me. “You need to tell her not to come!”

  “It’s just a few days. She’ll be here, and the work will be done, then everyone will be gone. I’ve already had the outside stairway to the theater repaired, and the workmen will use that.”

  How had I not heard? Not noticed? I vaguely remembered voices, hammering, but just barely. It must have taken days to repair the towering, dangerously narrow wood-and-iron stairway that hugged the western side of the house as though it didn’t want to be seen. It was a leftover from the days when Randolph Bliss had invited in the locals to see minstrel shows and even the occasional traveling preacher, though the rumors were that the family secretly mocked them. Someone from the town had fallen from the top of the stairs years before, but I didn’t know the details.

  “And then? Don’t lie to me. Rachel told me about the memorial.”

  “Lie to you? Darling, we aren’t the only ones who lost something precious. There are a dozen people living in or near Old Gate who loved Helen and Zion like parents. It’s only right that they be able to come together and mourn them properly.” He reached out for my arm again, but hesitated.

  I was glad he stopped, because I might have hit him or flung myself at him. Still, I could hardly speak. My jaw was clenched so tightly, the words barely escaped.

  “They don’t have to do it here.”

  Behind my thoughts, my rage, I heard a rustling somewhere. From outside the room? No. From the nearby wall, or perhaps the fireplace. I thought of rats. They were a constant problem in the orchard’s storage buildings. But I didn’t want to look away from Press.

  “Charlotte, they died here.”

  “They died in the drive.”

  “It’s still our home. Our house. Bliss House isn’t just the house—it’s everything we own. That I own. I have an obligation.”

  The rustling got louder. Press glanced away for just a second toward the fireplace.

  “It’s just a room. You can have it in town at the auditorium. Or if they hadn’t been goddamn heathens, you could do it in a church like you would for normal people. You act like it matters, giving them some kind of service. They’re probably in hell, anyway.”

  My breath came short and my body was flushed with heat. The sounds from the fireplace were louder, more violent, as though the chimney were about to collapse. I wasn’t sure how much longer we could ignore them.

  In my heels I was almost two inches taller than Press, but his body filled the space in front of me and I could feel the force, the presence of him overwhelming me.

  Then he smiled. It wasn’t the same smile that so often charmed me. This was like someone else’s cruel smile. It was the first time I had ever felt even a little afraid of him.

  We turned as the sounds from the fireplace erupted into a chaos of flying embers and terrible shrieks. Yellow-hot sparks and tiny chunks of burning wood littered the hearth and carpet. Alarmed, I fell back. Press pushed me roughly aside to grab the brass-handled broom hanging near the wood caddy and quickly swept the burning embers back into the fireplace. But the sparking continued, fueled by the vicious tangle of whatever was now wrestling in the fireplace. Rancid tendrils of smoke unfurled around us.

  Press thrust the broom at me, shouting “Use this! Keep the fire off the carpet.”

  I took it without question and hurried to the farthest bits of red smoldering on the antique Yomut carpet. Press had taken the poker and shovel and was gingerly trying to handle the creature—or creatures—scattering the fire. The shrieking was fading, and it would surely end in death. Press suddenly jumped aside, and some mad, flaming thing shot past him and into the room.

  I screamed.

  A trail of embers dropped to the floor, melting into the carpet. The thing hit a row of shelved books, and it, too, fell to the floor, floundering.

  The library door opened. Terrance, with more speed than I could imagine him capable of, grabbed the brown cashmere throw blanket from where it sat on a chair and tossed it on the thing. I watched as the throw lifted and fell, lifted and fell, until it shuddered to a stop.

  Whatever was left in the fireplace gave a loud pop and whistled finally into silence.

  “Miss Charlotte, let me.” Marlene took the broom from me. In the flurry, I’d forgotten the smoldering bits of wood on the carpet. Fortunately, most had burned themselves out.

  I went to the fireplace where Press stood looking down into the scattered logs. Among the squarish chunks of spent firewood, something long and twisted lay draped like a thick piece of rop
e. As I watched, it moved slowly as though it were trying to turn itself over. Then it was still.

  “Snake.” Preston jabbed at it. “Not a very big one.” He turned, pointing the poker at where Terrance stood across the room. “I believe that was a raven.”

  Terrance had picked up the other creature in the ruined blanket. He folded back the edge so we could see the limp body of the bird.

  Chapter 10

  The Magic Lantern

  Dense silver clouds from the previous day hung over the house all through the night, pressing against the windows as though they would come inside. The bedroom itself was cast in gray as I rose groggily from my bed in the steely morning light to retrieve my robe from the closet. Before I could put it on, I doubled over in a fit of coughing. My hands still smelled of smoke, even though I had scrubbed them, and Terrance and Marlene had left all the windows on the first floor open until well after nine the previous night.

  We’d had a damp, rather dismal dinner in the dining room. Press made a weak joke about Marlene serving us roasted raven, but when neither Nonie nor I laughed, he looked down at his plate and was uncharacteristically reticent for the rest of the meal.

  “I’m going for a walk,” he said when we were finished. “Care to join me?”

  Given the argument we’d had just two hours earlier, I thought he was being sarcastic. I was surprised to see that his face was serious.

  “I don’t think so.”

  I could feel Nonie’s eyes on us. Had she heard the argument in the library? Bliss House was big, and sound didn’t travel well through its walls. Or perhaps she was just being her discreet self.

  Press nodded and excused himself. As he left the room, he ran a hand over Michael’s head, making him squawk with pleasure.

  “Daddy!”

  Press went through the kitchen door, which meant he was probably going to the mudroom for his boots and thus would presumably be walking in the orchards rather than on the lane. It felt strange not to care that he was upset with me. My head was too full of the screams of the bird, and the look of Press’s smile. I wasn’t sure what either meant. I felt confused and angry.

  Five hours later, while the rest of the house was sleeping, I found myself still awake, unable to settle. Terrified that I would be awake until dawn—Bliss House, no matter how familiar it feels, is no place to wander or wonder in the loneliest part of the night—my resolve not to take the sleeping medication that Jack had prescribed gave out, and I put several drops in some water and drank it. Not long after, I fell into a dreamless, uninterrupted sleep.

  After breakfast in my room, I started down the gallery to the nursery, stopping in front of Press’s door to listen. Nothing. Was he even inside? I put my hand on the doorknob, but then didn’t turn it.

  In the nursery, I found Michael again sleeping later than usual. The shades were still drawn, and the weak daylight barely showed around their edges. Standing over my son’s crib, I let my hand hover a bare inch above his damp forehead, not touching so he wouldn’t wake. His mouth was open, and his breath made a little hum as he exhaled. I longed to trace the sweet curve of his tiny lips. Before Eva was gone, I had prayed that he would be kind and smart. But now I only prayed that he would live.

  Eva’s trundle bed across the room was made up with its ruffle-edge coverlet and sham over its single pillow. On it, I could see the outlines of the rubber-faced Lassie dog my father had given her and Buttercup, one of her favorite dolls. The rest of her toys lived on shelves, safe from Michael’s curious, careless hands. She had let him play frequently with the Lassie, not minding that he would pull it to the floor, laughing, then drop onto it with a loud oomph, and laugh some more. There was no reason now not to let him play with everything. But it didn’t seem right. I felt protective of her things, as though they’d become mine. Or as though she might come back and want them.

  Leaving Marlene in Olivia’s bedroom to sort through clothes, I went into the morning room and shut the door between us. Marlene had been solemn, but I could tell she was pleased when I’d told her she could take whatever clothes she wanted for herself before sending the rest into town for the thrift store. She and Olivia were about the same size, and as she held up one dress after another in front of the mirror, she looked like a different woman. I rarely saw her out of her shapeless, uniform-style dresses. But when I suggested that it would be fine with me if she wore other, more comfortable clothes—Olivia’s or her own—when we weren’t entertaining, she had looked offended.

  “Is there something wrong with my dresses, Miss Charlotte?”

  “Of course not. I just thought you might be—I don’t know, Marlene—bored.” Realizing I’d made some kind of mistake, I immediately tried to take it back and apologized. (Something Press would’ve frowned on, I knew.) “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Mrs. Bliss never objected. Did Mr. Preston say something?” Frown lines creased her soft, pleasant brow.

  I shook my head. “Please forget I said anything at all. It’s not really my business what you wear.” My departure from the room was probably quicker than was strictly decorous. I couldn’t help but be embarrassed. Along with everything else that had happened, it was going to be a long time before I got used to dealing with Marlene and Terrance by myself. But Terrance worried me more than Marlene. I was awkward with her, yes, but I found him puzzling. He had started taking his instructions, I assumed, from Press. Or perhaps he had been here so long that he didn’t need any instruction at all.

  The morning room, on the west side of the house, was even less bright than my own bedroom this early in the day. As I opened the windows, I could see beyond the garden and into the changing trees whose colors moped against the pearly gray of the sky. By the end of the month, we would be able to see all the way out to the swimming pool that sat in a small clearing in the trees. It was a strange place for a swimming pool. Olivia hadn’t wanted it in view of the house and gardens, and I suspected it had something to do with her sense of personal modesty. The shade that covered it meant that the well water that filled it rarely got above the frigid temperature it had been when in the ground. In the fall, the pool filled with leaves that had to be dredged out by the part-time gardener. When my eyes lighted on Eva’s little playhouse on the path, I turned back to the room.

  All around me, the children in the portraits stared or looked away, depending on where the portraits were hung. Why so many children? Most of them girls. Yet Press, Olivia’s only child, had been a boy. I wondered if she had been disappointed to not have a girl instead. Had Eva filled that need for her? I certainly hadn’t been any kind of daughter to her.

  There had been times when I’d wished for a closer relationship with her, but I was shy, and Olivia, while kind and generous, had been as emotionally distant with me as she was with Press. How strange it must have been for the two of them, living in Bliss House all those years together. If Press had been closer to her, I suspect I might have felt more encouraged. They were always polite but distant with each other, as though she were a fond aunt and he a dutiful nephew.

  It made me happy that she had seemed to want to be closer to Eva. That past spring, she’d begun to let Eva occasionally come into the morning room when she was having her late-morning tea. I had looked across the hall one morning to see Eva tapping politely on the morning-room door, waiting until Olivia answered. Had Olivia shown her the toys in the closet? Eva had never said, but I knew that if I had been the inquisitive four-year-old my daughter was, I couldn’t have resisted asking what was behind the door. I’m certain she would’ve been frightened of the hideous taxidermy animals. I should have asked Press if he knew where they’d come from, but I never did.

  With the windows open, the room quickly turned humid. October rain didn’t yet mean it was cold outside. Still, it was pleasant—particularly during that time of day, before the sun bled through the windows. I decided that if the room were ever to be mine, I would have to change it. The wallpaper and the pai
ntings felt oppressive. Yet even though I felt watched, overwhelmed, I also felt a sense of belonging. All those years, I’d been an outsider in Olivia’s small world, and now it was my world. It felt right that Eva had spent time there too.

  But what I’d come into the room for was not in the room itself, but in the closet.

  I had opened the windows and looked outside. I had looked at the portraits. I had thought much about my daughter and the former owner of the room. Why was I hesitating? I knew the thing that waited for me in the closet was important. Olivia had meant for me to find it. I didn’t know what was under the drape, but when I’d touched it, a kind of current had run through my body. Yes, Olivia had meant for me to find it.

  Despite the dustiness of the articles on the shelves, the fitted drape was pristine. I lifted it away, folded it, and carefully put it aside. A small brass plaque on the side of the antique projector I’d revealed read PALMER’S MAGIC LANTERN.

  Terrance removed a table lamp and a set of porcelain dogs from a small drop-leaf table that was against the wall, and set them on the desk.

  “Mrs. Olivia Bliss liked to use the lantern in the evening sometimes. I’m sorry to say that we no longer have the screen, Miss Charlotte, but I can hang a sheet on the wall for you.”

  “Where did the slides come from? There are so many.” I stood in the open doorway of the closet, looking at the boxes. Like the lantern itself, the individual boxes were heavy, but the boxes weren’t so heavy that I couldn’t carry them myself. I lifted one from the shelf.

  “Family, I believe.” That was the only answer I got from him.

  He moved the table into the middle of the room and took down the paintings from the facing wall. Despite his slenderness and age, he didn’t struggle at all with the projector in the way that I had. I could only lift it an inch from the floor. As he carried it to the table, I stayed near him, my arms held out in a pantomime of helpfulness. When it was settled, he breathed forcefully—it might have been a sigh. I wasn’t sure.