by Wendy Webb
I squeezed her hands. “Mrs. Sinclair, I’m sorry to tell you that you’re mistaken,” I said as gently as I could. “There may be quite a resemblance, but that’s as far as it goes. This woman was not related to me.”
“Oh, but she was.” She nodded. “On your mother’s side.”
My mind raced back to what I knew about my family history. “I’m sorry, but that’s just not right. I hate to disappoint you, but my grandmother was born in a small town in Wisconsin. Her parents were Scandinavian immigrants, like most of the people in that area. Her grandmother wasn’t a famous medium and she certainly wasn’t named Seraphina. Believe me, I would have heard about that.”
I chuckled, looking at each of them in turn. None of them chuckled along with me.
“Family history is all too often revised and rewritten, Julia, especially when strange birds are perched on one’s family tree,” Mrs. Sinclair said.
The look on my face must have told her what I was feeling, because she said, “I can see you’re unconvinced.”
“There’s just no way an exotic psychic who was famous and, I presume, wealthy was my great-great-grandmother. As I told you, my great-grandparents were Scandinavian immigrants. They came to this country to build a better life for themselves and they worked hard at it. They were by no means wealthy, just the opposite. So you see, it’s just not possible that my great-grandmother’s mother was Seraphina.” I gestured toward the painting. “I mean, how could this woman’s daughter have wound up as a poor immigrant eking out a living in rural Wisconsin? You have to see that one and one don’t equal two here.”
Mrs. Sinclair patted my knee before pushing herself up from the sofa where we had been sitting. “You’re looking at this with your rational mind, Julia,” she said, turning on her heel. “Look with your heart, and I think you’ll begin to see things differently.”
A chill crept its way up my spine as I watched her. She wants me to be related to Seraphina despite all the facts I’ve told her to the contrary, I thought. Why?
I decided not to push it—Adrian had hired me as a companion for his mother and obviously this sort of behavior was the reason she needed one. I didn’t want to upset her by further denying her theory, so I stayed silent for the moment, looking to Adrian and Drew for support. Perhaps we could forget all about this Seraphina business and go on with our evening.
Mrs. Sinclair opened a drawer on the sideboard and withdrew a manila file folder.
“Adrian did the research before he sought you out, my dear,” she said, handing it to me.
I opened it to find a sheet of paper. On it, a family tree. Mine. All the names were familiar, just as I knew them to be. My name, my mother’s, my grandmother’s. My eyes stung with the memories of those incredibly strong and loving women, now all gone. Had any of them been alive, I would have retreated to the safety of their embrace after the whole business with Jeremy came to light. I wouldn’t be here right now, at Havenwood. I stared at the tree for a moment, and then looked back at Mrs. Sinclair, confused as to what she was trying to prove by showing this to me.
“This says Juuli Herrala was my great-great-grandmother, just like I told you,” I said, putting the sheet on the table and pointing to her name. “See? It’s right there. I was named after her.”
Mrs. Sinclair nodded. “Exactly my point, dear. Juuli Herrala was Seraphina’s real name.”
I blinked at her several times. “How do you know that?”
“It is a historical fact.”
“Don’t think for a moment that I believe any of what you say is true,” I said, the words catching in the air by a tendril of doubt. “But just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Seraphina was my great-great-grandmother. How in the world would her descendants wind up in northern Wisconsin scraping by on farms or working in the mines?”
“I don’t know what happened to Seraphina after she left this house. She was lost to history. But I can tell you that what happened to her on that last, terrible night must have frightened her deeply. Deeply enough to cause her to give up her career, drop out of sight, and disappear.” She gave me a wry look. “I know exactly what that feels like, and I dare say you do, too.”
I sighed. She did have a point about that.
“And if she wanted to disappear, to get away from the fame and celebrity that surrounded her, what better place to run to than a rural community populated by those who knew absolutely nothing about her old life?”
I slumped into an armchair. She was describing exactly the same reason I had come to Havenwood.
Still. It seemed as though she had a lot invested in me being this Seraphina’s descendant—it was the very reason she had brought me here. Whether I believed it or not, it occurred to me at that moment that I might do well to play along. My old life was gone. This was my reality now. What might she do if she realized she was wrong, that I wasn’t Seraphina’s descendant? The psychiatrist’s letter flashed into my mind. The patient is nonviolent. Had she been violent? Was that the reason she was institutionalized?
“I can see you’re having trouble with all of this,” Mrs. Sinclair said to me as she reached over and took my hand in hers. “Maybe we’ve had enough talk about Seraphina for one evening, hmm? Let’s have some drinks and talk about something more pleasant.”
They certainly had a way of changing the subject with rapid-fire speed here at Havenwood, I thought, as Adrian poured another drink and began talking about whether it was supposed to snow that evening. As I looked from one person to the next, it occurred to me that we were all hiding something. Adrian and Drew didn’t want Mrs. Sinclair to know about our “visitor.” I didn’t want any of them to know about my hallucinations. And Mrs. Sinclair was probably hiding the most of us all.
Havenwood was indeed a den of secrets, I thought as I sipped my drink. I wondered what else was lurking just out of sight.
TWENTY-THREE
I retreated to my room shortly after that. I had no wish to drink as much as we all did the night before, and I was equally unwilling to broach the Seraphina subject again. I felt like one of those “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys. If she was my ancestor, and if that was the reason Adrian brought me here, I didn’t want to know about it, at least not right then.
As I undressed, I thought about the strange dichotomy that was Havenwood. At once it felt safe and welcoming, and at the same time, there was an undercurrent of—what? Malice? Danger? Fear?—bubbling just below the surface. Yes, I was free to leave. I could’ve bundled up and had Drew take me away at that very moment… but the very thought of it made me shiver. God only knows what we’d encounter out there in the dark night in those millions of acres of wilderness. Mountain lions. Wolves. The person who had spied on us the night before. That was real danger. But here, beyond the eccentricities of a strange and potentially insane old lady? I might be imagining it all. Paintings coming to life, floating apparitions, party-going girls from the past back to try on dresses—all of it, every last thing, might be brought on by drug withdrawal. And what if it wasn’t? A couple of giggling ghosts of society girls in taffeta weren’t exactly the great undead. What was the worst they could do? Spill champagne on me? Hide my pearls?
I realized, as I hung the dress up carefully in the closet, slipped the shoes back into place, and returned the necklace and earrings to the jewelry box where I had found them, that I didn’t want to leave Havenwood, not really. I had already become quite fond of Mrs. Sinclair and her velour jogging suits and gotten used to the rhythm of life here. The horses. The dogs. It all felt right somehow. And further, it felt as though I had been here not just a few days, but forever, that my place at this table had been set long ago.
It was like my old life had dissipated into my distant past. Shopping on Michigan Avenue seemed as long ago and far away as my childhood.
I was pulling on my pajamas when I heard a scratching at my door. What was this? Another hallucination?
It was light at first, then
louder. And then a low bark. I opened the door a crack to find all three dogs standing there, tails up, ears perked. I opened the door wider, and they filed into my room and paced about, sniffing here and there, before turning in circles a few times and laying down in front of the fireplace, tails wrapped around their snouts.
“It looks like you’re in for the night,” I said to them, shutting the door behind me.
The dogs looked enormous in this setting—seeing them outside with the backdrop of the vast wilderness was one thing, but here, I got the full image of just how big they actually were. I moved carefully around them to the bathroom, where I washed my face and brushed my teeth.
“You might want water,” I said aloud, peering out the door into my room at the sleeping giants. I looked under the vanity and found a large plastic basin, which I rinsed out and filled from the cold water tap and set onto the tiled floor, figuring the dogs would find it if they wanted it.
I made my way back across the room, stepping gingerly over the dogs, and turned out the light before slipping under the covers. Just as my head hit the pillow, Molly, the red dog that had greeted me so enthusiastically in the field, jumped onto the bed, turned in a circle a few times, and curled up next to me. I held my breath, not knowing quite what to do: Could I move? What if I nudged her in my sleep? But soon, the slow, steady rhythm of her breathing calmed me, and I drifted off to sleep feeling safer than I ever had.
My dreams that night were convoluted and eerie. I vaguely remembered the dogs growling low and steady at something floating in the corner of my room—the little girl I had seen?—but my limbs felt like deadweight and my eyes felt so heavy that I couldn’t move to get away. That, too, may have been a dream.
Whatever it was, I awoke the next morning refreshed and full of energy, if somewhat perplexed to see that the dogs were nowhere to be seen. Had the omnipresent Marion let them out of my room? I wasn’t sure.
I padded over to the window and opened the curtains to find a fury of white outside. A real Minnesota blizzard! I hadn’t seen one of those since I left home years before. It evoked such a sweet sense of nostalgia that I thought my heart would burst from the joy of it. When I was a child and a blizzard descended, school would be canceled and we’d have a snow day. This was a more exciting treat than even Christmas morning. We couldn’t wait for the snow to finally stop so we could burst out into the cold to build elaborate forts inside the drifts, have endless snowball fights, or simply fall backward and extend our arms and legs to make perfect snow angels, before rushing inside, faces red and stinging from the cold, for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, which we gobbled up in front of the television. I don’t know how long I stood there, those sweet days of childhood swirling around me as furiously as the snow outside.
As I headed down the grand staircase toward breakfast, buoyed by my memories, a resolution hit me, growing stronger with each step I took. Strange visions notwithstanding, I liked it here at Havenwood. I didn’t want to leave. But I needed to resolve this sinister undercurrent—or what I thought was a sinister undercurrent. And that meant I had to get to the bottom of Mrs. Sinclair’s ulterior motive for bringing me here.
TWENTY-FOUR
I pushed open the door of the breakfast room to find Adrian standing in front of the window, gazing out into the swirling whiteness. He was wearing faded jeans and a well-worn fisherman’s knit sweater. I had never seen him in anything but a perfectly tailored suit and tie. It felt a bit like coming upon Prince Charles wearing a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt.
“Well, look at you,” I said, trying to stifle a laugh. “No suit today?”
He turned to me, grinning, his arms outstretched, palms up. “No need. I’m not going anywhere. It’s a snow day!”
“It certainly is,” I said, joining him at the window. “I was just thinking about snow days when I was a kid.”
“I never had that treat,” he said. “English boarding schools and all that. But growing up here, you must have experienced it often.”
I nodded. “There was nothing so exciting as watching television in the morning when there had been a big snowfall overnight and seeing the list of schools that were closed, holding your breath until you saw your school’s name,” I said, staring out into the whiteness. “One year, we had so many snow days that they had to add two weeks on to the end of the school year to make up for it. Of course, we thought ourselves very ill used when June rolled around and we were still in the classroom.”
Adrian and I shared a chuckle as Marion clattered into the room pushing a cart with a coffeepot and cups and a basket filled with something that smelled like cinnamon and spice.
“Coffee and muffins to tide you over until breakfast is ready,” she said, pouring both of us cups of coffee and splashing cream into mine. “Mrs. Sinclair will be another twenty minutes or so. She’s running behind this morning.”
“Thank you, Marion,” Adrian said. Once she had left the room and gone back into the kitchen, he gestured toward the table.
“Good,” he said, sinking into a chair. “This will give us a few minutes to talk.”
I sat in my usual place and sipped my coffee. “I assume this is about our visitor?”
He nodded. “Yes, you rushed off to bed so quickly last night…” His thought hung in midair and then changed direction. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
“About what?”
“The whole Seraphina business. We were terribly rude, all of us, gaping at you like that.”
I took a deep breath. Could it be resolved as easily as this? “Adrian,” I began, “is that why I’m here?”
“Is what why you’re here?”
“Seraphina. My resemblance to her. The fact that your mother thinks I’m related to her.”
He shook his head. “Certainly not.”
“But your mother said—”
He reached across the table and put his hand over mine and spoke gently. “I know what she said. And I’d have cleared this up last night, but I didn’t want to upset her. Whatever my mother has cooked up in her own mind, the only motive, ulterior or otherwise, was finding a suitable companion she wouldn’t throw out into the street the minute I left the house.”
I nodded, unconvinced. “But the family tree…”
He held my gaze for a moment, and I got the feeling he understood I wasn’t going to let this go so easily. “Listen to me, Julia. I’ll admit that when I saw you on the news, you looked familiar to me. Remember, none of us had been in that room for years and years.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. The east salon had been shut up tight. He was telling the truth.
“Did I research your background? Of course. You’d do the same, bringing someone into your house to care for your mother. I’m afraid that when she saw the name of your great-great-grandmother, she cooked up this whole story. You mustn’t make too much of her ramblings. She is a novelist, after all. Surely you have become familiar with her eccentricities by now.”
“Well…,” I began. I didn’t want to let on that I knew her “eccentricities” might be much more than that. “I suppose there’s no harm in her thinking I’m related to Seraphina.”
He smiled. “That’s the spirit! Now, quickly, before my mother seizes the day. I wanted to touch base with you about, as you called him, our ‘visitor.’ Drew and I have talked. I know what you found in the woods, and I’ve got a man on it.
“But now, with the snow,” he said, turning his head toward the window, “I don’t think we have anything to worry about, at least for the time being. We’re supposed to get upward of two feet out of this blizzard when all is said and done, and after that, the wind will drift the snow much higher than that. The roads won’t be plowed for a few days, and coming through the woods on foot will be highly difficult, if not impossible.”
I nodded and took a sip of my coffee. “I told Drew I was prepared to leave Havenwood,” I said. “If this is related to me somehow, I don’t want to be the cause of any potenti
al harm coming to you or Mrs. Sinclair. I can leave after the snow—”
“Nonsense,” he interrupted. “There is every chance that it’s nothing but a curious tourist, here to gawk at the castle in the wilderness. But if it is someone from your past, even the arsonist, he won’t get what he’s come for. Havenwood has stood fast against worse evil than a disgruntled investor, believe me.”
As if on cue, Mrs. Sinclair burst through the door. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt in a Northwoodsy print of bears, moose, and loons. I couldn’t help but grin, and Adrian laughed aloud.
“What, darlings?” she said. “It’s a snow day!”
TWENTY-FIVE
Later that morning, after we had finished our breakfasts and Mrs. Sinclair and Adrian each went off to parts unknown, I made my way to the west salon. I wanted to sit in front of its floor-to-ceiling wall of windows and watch the snowfall. The room was fast becoming my favorite in the house.
When I got there, I found its doors opened, a fire in the fireplace, and the books I had selected from the library the day before on an end table next to a legal pad and several pens. A cup of steaming hot chocolate laced, I discovered as I sipped it, with Baileys Irish Cream was the perfect addition. Marion’s handiwork, no doubt. I was beginning to believe she was more than a little bit psychic.
I settled into one of the armchairs and stared out the window, mesmerized by the snow for I don’t know how long, until Marion’s voice startled me out of my trance.
“More hot chocolate, miss?” She was standing there with a Thermos.
I held my cup aloft. “Thank you,” I said, smiling up at her. “And thank you for opening up the room and starting a fire. How did you know I was going to come in here?”
Marion looked very pleased with herself. “Spend as long as I have tending to the needs of the residents of Havenwood, and you’ll start to get a sixth sense.”
