The Vanishing

by Wendy Webb

  Bishop died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound three months ago, but his wife was believed to have been in the home.

  I dropped the paper as though it, too, were on fire and stared at the page on the table. Something about the photo had caught my eye and wouldn’t let go. I bent down and squinted to get a better look and… could it be? I gasped aloud when I realized what I was seeing. In the crowd on the sidewalk in front of the smoldering wreck that had been my home, a familiar face. Adrian’s.

  I pushed my chair back from the table and stood up, turning to the window, my heart beating so loudly that I was sure the cardinals perched on the pine tree outside could hear it. A flurry of conflicting thoughts were running through my mind, not one of them gelling into anything that I could use to make sense of what I had just learned. My house had burned to the ground and Adrian had been standing outside of it. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with that information. I felt like I had just slipped into a nightmare. Or one of Mrs. Sinclair’s stories.

  Was it really him? I wasn’t sure, but it certainly looked like him. Could he possibly have… I couldn’t even finish the thought. Surely he didn’t. He couldn’t have been the arsonist.

  Although… He did promise to make me disappear from my old life. Had he taken it one step further?

  I crumpled the newspaper and threw it into the garbage just as Marion appeared with breakfast on a tray.

  “Mrs. Sinclair will be joining you in just a moment.” She furrowed her brow at me. “Are you all right, Miss Julia? You look rather pale.”

  “I’m fine!” I said, a little too loudly, and reached for my coffee cup. I set it down quickly when I saw how badly my hand was shaking.

  “Has it gone cold?” Marion asked, still staring at me with a quizzical look in her eyes.

  “Yes” was all I could manage to say.

  She set the dishes on the sideboard, and picked up the coffee pot and poured some of the steaming liquid into a new cup. “Here you are,” she said, handing it to me and taking my old cup away. “Lukewarm coffee is just ghastly, isn’t it?”

  “Ghastly.” I nodded, holding the new cup to my lips.

  She pushed the door open to head back into the kitchen but stopped before going through it and turned to me. “Please let me know if you need anything, Miss Julia,” she said, a concerned look on her face. “Anything.” And then she was gone.

  I had the urge to get up and run away, to somewhere, anywhere that I knew was safe. But where was I to go? So I just slumped back into my chair at the table and sat there, stunned. The house I shared with Jeremy, a pile of ashes, just like the state of our marriage itself.

  Was Adrian responsible? Did he set that fire to erase all traces of my old life, so I could vanish into thin air just as his mother had? I shook my head, as if trying to shake that particular thought out of it. I couldn’t bear to think Adrian would’ve done something so dangerous on my behalf. But if he wasn’t the one who set the fire, who did?

  I tried to comfort myself by repeating what I had been thinking just moments before—how lucky I was to be living in a whole new world. What did it matter to me, really, if my house had burned to the ground? I had no plans to go back there. I had left my life in Chicago willingly, gratefully. The person who lived in that house didn’t exist anymore—why should I be upset that the house didn’t exist, either?

  But I knew I was grasping at straws. I had indeed chosen to take Adrian up on his offer for me to disappear, but I didn’t bargain on this. My whole body tightened as I wondered exactly what offer I had accepted.

  EIGHT

  I’m not quite sure how I got through breakfast with Mrs. Sinclair that morning. She was chattering away about something or other, and I was nodding and responding to what she was saying, but I wasn’t there with her, not really. All I could see in front of my eyes were flames, and I needed answers about who set that fire.

  After we finished our meal and Mrs. Sinclair retreated for her morning quiet time, I rushed back up to my room and began fumbling through my things. Where had I put Adrian’s business card? I finally found it in the top drawer of the dresser—I hadn’t remembered putting it there, but whatever—and dug into my purse for my cell phone. I stopped cold when I remembered I had left it, along with every piece of identification I had, at my house, which was now gone. And so was I. Julia Bishop was well and truly dead.

  I sunk into the chair by the window and stared out at the snow. What was I supposed to do now? I needed a plan, but my mind simply couldn’t formulate one.

  I really didn’t know anything about Mrs. Sinclair and Adrian other than the fact that she was a famous novelist, and he was… what? Her son. That was about it. They could be a pair of psychopaths for all I knew. And here I was, living in their home. I couldn’t believe how monumentally foolish I had been to give up everything, my entire identity, and come here. I briefly thought of gathering my things and slipping away before anyone realized I was gone.

  But as I gazed out into the wilderness beyond the house, I knew I couldn’t do that. I had no idea how to get to town. One wrong turn and I’d be lost in the woods with goodness knows what kinds of animals at my heels, just as Adrian had warned. No, like it or not, I had to stay where I was.

  I turned Adrian’s card over and over in my hands. I needed to talk with him, not just about the fire, but about my prescription as well. Maybe he had a personal doctor on staff—wealthy people had that, didn’t they?

  I looked around my room and only then did I realize there was no phone. I supposed that wasn’t so odd. Old houses like these didn’t exactly come with telephone jacks in every room. But there was probably a phone on my floor, I reasoned, so I pushed myself out of the chair to go on a hunt for one.

  I poked my head out the door and peered up and down the hall. The grand staircase was to the left. I shut the door behind me and set off in the other direction, where I hadn’t yet been.

  The hallway was dark despite the light of day, and I walked by closed door after closed door. Guest rooms? Most likely. I turned this way and that and finally spied one door that was ajar. I pushed it open gingerly and found that it was just what I needed: a small study with a desk in the middle of the room and a couple of armchairs facing it. I was delighted to see a telephone—an old-fashioned model with a heavy black handset and a rotary dial—sitting on the desk. I pulled the door shut behind me and sat down.

  I picked up the receiver and realized I had no idea what I was going to say to Adrian. “Did you burn my house down?” isn’t exactly an easy line of conversation to initiate. But I wanted to get to the bottom of it, so I took a deep breath and dialed the number on his business card.

  This is Adrian Sinclair. I’m sorry I’m not here to take your call right now…

  I should have known. Of course he wouldn’t answer. I left a rather rambling and disjointed message after the beep.

  “Adrian? It’s Julia. Julia Bishop. Your mother is fine. It’s nothing about her. I don’t want to worry you. I’m just calling to check in with you and talk over a couple of things.” I sighed. “I’m not sure when you’re coming back to Havenwood, so please call me if you can. I saw the news about the fire.”

  I hung up the phone and wished I could take it all back. If Adrian was involved with it somehow, would he want me to know? Or would he think I was so removed from the world here at Havenwood that this news might have eluded me?

  Either way, it didn’t matter. I had made the call. What was done was done.

  Slipping out of the study, I jumped back when I saw Marion standing just outside the door.

  “Marion!” I said, a little too quickly. “You gave me a fright.”

  “Miss Julia,” she said, a tight smile on her face. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  The knot tightening in my stomach told me I probably shouldn’t be there. I got the distinct feeling she had followed me somehow—but why?

  “Oh!” I said. “I was just making a phone call. I noticed
there was no phone in my room and—”

  Her eyes narrowed and she shook her head slightly. “I’ll be happy to take care of that for you, Miss Julia, should you ever have need of using the phone again. Mr. Sinclair doesn’t like unauthorized calls going out of Havenwood.”

  I furrowed my brow at her.

  “I’m sure you understand,” she said, reaching out and pulling the door shut with finality before she disappeared into the dark hallway.

  She’d take care of that for me? I fumed to myself as I stomped back toward my room. I couldn’t make a phone call now? Where did she get off? What was this, a prison?

  And then it hit me: not a prison, but an isle of exile. He didn’t want unauthorized calls going out of Havenwood because they could be traced back here. For all he knew, I would try to call friends or relatives or even a lawyer, who could then verify my whereabouts by tracing the call. It was for my own protection, and that of Mrs. Sinclair.

  Come, my dear,” Mrs. Sinclair said, pushing herself up from the table after we had finished our lunch. “Let us take a walk through this labyrinth of a house. Adrian suspected you might especially enjoy the library. Why don’t we spend a few hours there among the musty shelves?”

  My stomach flipped as I remembered the singsongy voice that had swirled through the air the day before when I tried to go into the library, but I pushed those memories out of my mind as best as I could. Hallucinations. That was all they were. I had always loved libraries. Why should this one be any exception?

  We chatted about the dogs and the horses while we made our way through rooms and hallways, from the west salon all the way to the opposite end of the house. Adrian was right—a person really could get a lot of exercise just walking the halls.

  When we arrived and Mrs. Sinclair opened the doors leading into the grand library, I gasped aloud. What had I been so apprehensive about? The moment I laid eyes on that room, any trepidation I had been feeling melted into sheer awe. Three stories tall, it was like nothing I had ever seen in a private home.

  I craned my neck to look all the way to the ceiling, three floors up. The walls on each floor were lined with bookshelves. In the center of the main floor, leather couches and armchairs were grouped here and there, flanked by tables with soft green lamps.

  It looked familiar somehow, as though it had been used in a movie that I had seen long ago. It very well could have been, I thought.

  “Unbelievable,” I mused, noticing the spiral staircases with their gleaming gold handrails, one on each end of the room, twirling from the main level to the second and on up to the third. “This is bigger than the public library in my neighborhood when I was growing up.”

  “Thousands upon thousands of books,” Mrs. Sinclair said, holding her arms wide. “When I first saw it as a young girl, I thought it was the eighth wonder of the world. I knew right then I would own this house—and this library—one day.”

  I gave her a sidelong glance. “Adrian said you bought Havenwood when he was a boy. You were here before that? As a child?”

  “Oh my, yes,” she said, sliding her hand along the leather back of one of the sofas before sinking down into it. “I am related to the McCulloughs. Somewhere along the line, Havenwood was passed down to a cousin of mine whom I never particularly liked”—she wrinkled her nose—“and when I heard he was having trouble keeping it up, I swooped in. Thank goodness I had the means to do so. My parents first brought me here for a visit when I was no more than ten years old, and I’ve been in love with this house ever since.”

  A picture swam through my mind: a little girl with auburn pigtails and dancing green eyes, her mouth agape as she stood in the very spot where I was standing. “I can see you here as a girl, awestruck by this library,” I said.

  “I imagine you can, my dear.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled. “I imagine you can.”

  I turned in a slow circle to take it all in, my eyes straining to see all the way to the third floor. “This is just amazing. So, most of these books were here before you bought the house?”

  “They were indeed. I’ve added a few hundred to the collection, but many of these were the property of the first Andrew McCullough. He was a voracious reader and seeker of knowledge. And a great patron of the arts who loved the written word.”

  “It would take years to go through them all,” I mused.

  “Lifetimes,” she said. “It is a true library, a literal storehouse of knowledge. There are centuries-old maps of the world, drawn by ancient mariners. Victorian textbooks. Encyclopedias from every age. Druid writings. Celtic tales.” She gestured to the second floor. “Up there you’ll find our collection of Bibles. We have a Gutenberg—the first book printed on a printing press. We have an original King James.”

  I wondered what other manner of literary treasures I could find languishing on these old shelves. “Wow,” I said, now knowing what I would be doing with much of my free time on the cold and snowy winter days ahead. “I feel like I’ve been given the keys to the lost library of Alexandria.”

  “Not quite.” She chuckled, pushing herself up to her feet. “But it’s a close second. It can be a bit overwhelming, coming into this library for the first time and trying to decide where to start looking for the endlessly interesting bits and pieces you’ll find in here. So I’ve got a suggestion.”

  She took my arm and led me across the room to a shelf with lead glass doors. As she carefully opened them, the ancient hinges creaked their disapproval.

  “First editions, many of them signed,” she said. “Andrew McCullough collected signed first editions of books, and he regularly invited famous authors of the day to visit Havenwood—some even used it as a writing retreat. All he asked was for a copy of the authors’ works. His son and grandson continued the practice, as did I when I bought the house. So there is quite a collection of literature here.”

  One quick glance at the spines on the shelves caused my heart to skip a beat and nearly stop. Conan Doyle, Steinbeck, London, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Tolkien, Salinger, Capote. Gabriel García Márquez. C. S. Lewis. Madeleine L’Engle. And more. So many more.

  “All of these writers were here?” I squeaked.

  “Many of them, yes.”

  “Can I touch the books?” I asked. “I mean, do I need gloves or…?”

  “Goodness, no. These are meant to be enjoyed.” She gave my arm a quick squeeze and winked at me. “I’ll leave you to look. I’m going up there.” She pointed toward the third level. “I feel like doing some snooping in the Elizabethan section.”

  “Do you need a hand?” I asked, eyeing the circular staircase.

  “Elevator’s in the back.” She smiled. “I don’t climb those infernal things anymore.”

  After she had disappeared toward the back of the room, I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at the priceless treasures on the shelf in front of me, afraid to touch any of them. I couldn’t remember even seeing one first edition classic, let alone an entire shelf of them.

  I ran my finger along their spines, one by one. The Great Gatsby. The Sun Also Rises. Gone with the Wind. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. On and on. It was a collection of the greatest works of literature in the past two centuries. I was wary to pull any of them out of their places, not wanting to disturb their slumber.

  But then a slim volume caught my eye and I could not resist. A Christmas Carol, one of my favorite stories of all time. I read it every year in December and watched countless movie versions of the tale, and even went to see the annual stage play version at Minneapolis’s famed Guthrie Theater more times than I could count. I pulled the leather-bound book from the shelf with shaking hands, as though I had come upon the Holy Grail itself.

  I held my breath as I carefully opened the cover to the first page.

  With awe and delight during this spirit-filled season,

  Charles Dickens

  December 1867, Havenwood

  I blinked several times and squinted at the page, not quite sure what I
was seeing. I seemed to recall that Dickens had visited the United States twice during his lifetime, but how could he possibly have come all the way to the wilds of Havenwood? And more important, why?

  And then the name on the inscription called out to me, as clearly as if someone had uttered it. Seraphina.

  NINE

  Mrs. Sinclair!” I called out, shattering the quiet that had settled in around me. “Mrs. Sinclair!”

  “What is it, dear?” she sang back to me, leaning slightly over the third-level balcony, bifocals dangling on a chain around her neck.

  “Wait until you see what I’ve found!” I called up to her, slipping the volume into my pocket and hurrying up the spiral stairs.

  “What sort of treasure have you unearthed, Julia?” She was clearly amused at my enthusiasm.

  I held the book out to her as I tried to catch my breath. “Charles Dickens,” I huffed, bending low at the waist and taking a deep breath in and letting it out again. “Dickens! He was here at Havenwood!”

  She took the copy of A Christmas Carol and turned it over and over in her hands. “Ah, yes,” she said, nodding her head. “I shouldn’t be surprised that the first book you were drawn to, of the thousands upon thousands here, was this one.”

  She smiled at me, rather sadly I thought.

  “It’s inscribed to somebody named Seraphina. It was—” I intended to tell her it was signed by Dickens himself during Christmastime in 1867, but the look in her eyes told me she already knew what I was going to say. Of course she did. This was her library, after all, and had been for decades. Of course she had already seen this treasure.

  “Mrs. Sinclair?” I began slowly. “Was the Seraphina you wrote about in your novel a real person who was here at Havenwood?”