by Wendy Webb
“Yes,” he said, “and you will. But for the time being, I think it’s best for you to simply stay out of the library and especially the east salon. Gideon is contained there, somehow. He has never appeared in the rest of the house.”
“How is that possible?” I asked, my voice dropping to a low whisper.
Adrian shook his head. “We really don’t know. We’ve speculated that Seraphina put some sort of a shield around the rooms before she left.”
“That’s why you left the east salon closed?”
“That’s right.”
“But, knowing all of this, why would your mother have opened it again?”
“Julia,” he said, taking me by the arm. “You’re asking questions that I just can’t answer right now. Another time. Let’s catch up with Mother before she comes looking for us.”
“Of course. But, Adrian…,” I began, not quite knowing how to finish my thought. The familiar gnarling in the pit of my stomach told me something just wasn’t right. The deep, dark woods were looking better and better.
“You’re going to ask if you’re safe here.”
“Well, yes. It’s just that, I don’t know the whole story. I’m sure the unknown is far worse than whatever is really going on.”
He took my hands in his and smiled. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Julia. But I can assure you of one thing: no harm will come to you, not if I can help it. Did the dogs sleep in your room last night?”
I nodded.
“Good. Expect them again. Neither man nor beast will bother you with those girls by your side.”
As we walked down the dark hallway toward the dining room, I felt good about the “man” part of that sentence. It was the “beast” comment that was tying my stomach into knots.
TWENTY-EIGHT
During dinner, as the others were chatting about this and that, I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking about the tale Adrian and Drew had just told me. I had no doubt they believed what they were saying, but they seemed to be alluding to the fact that what I had encountered in the library earlier in the day was… what? That same evil and monstrous thing?
It just didn’t ring true. It seemed rather—well, “ridiculous” is a harsh word, but that was how it seemed to me at the time. As I was sitting there in Havenwood’s beautiful dining room eating off fine china on an exquisitely set table, candles glittering everywhere, the whole story seemed far-fetched, to put it mildly.
I had no doubt the place was full of spirits. But the idea that something evil had been lurking in the east salon since Seraphina released it all those years ago? Not only was it far-fetched, but it just didn’t make sense. After all, Andrew McCullough married and raised his children here. They then married and raised children of their own here. Mrs. Sinclair had been living at Havenwood for decades. Even Marion and the rest of the staff—they’d been here for all of that time, too. Generations of the same family would hardly reside for decade upon decade in another Amityville Horror house, infested with evil. If what Adrian had told me was true, why wouldn’t the family simply have left?
Adrian had said that whatever caused Mrs. Sinclair to drop out of sight was related to what happened with Seraphina. Without knowing the rest of the story, I couldn’t pass judgment on that. But I knew one thing for sure: what I had discovered in the library was flesh and blood. I had felt his breath on my neck. I’m no expert, but I didn’t think ghosts, even evil ones, did a whole lot of breathing.
No. The only explanation had to be that someone was in the house.
As the certainty of this took hold, I felt a chill. What was I going to do now? Adrian had specifically asked me not to mention either my “encounter” or anything about the fire to Mrs. Sinclair, but… someone had broken into the house! It might be the Chicago arsonist, for all I knew. I pictured flames against the night sky. How could anyone, especially Mrs. Sinclair, get out of a burning Havenwood? I was desperate to warn her. But how?
“Say,” I began, after I had finished the last of my icy sorbet and Marion was pouring coffee for us all. “We haven’t talked much about our ‘visitor’ from the other night.”
“You’re right, dear!” Mrs. Sinclair said. “I’d almost forgotten about it, to tell you the truth.” She turned to her son. “Any progress on that front?”
Adrian scowled at me. Obviously this line of conversation annoyed him. So be it. I was going to push further.
“I was wondering the same thing,” I said to him. “You mentioned you had a man on it?”
“I do,” Adrian said, drawing out the words as though he were grasping in the air for what to say next. “He was tracked into the forest; then the trail went cold. But it’s nothing to worry about, not unless he makes another appearance. This blizzard obliterated any possibility of him coming back. There’s no way a person could make it through this blinding snow.”
Unless he came to the house and settled in before it started, I thought.
“This man you have on it,” I continued, “is he an employee here at Havenwood?”
Adrian nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “Mr. Tucker from the groundskeeping staff.”
“Is he here now, during the blizzard?”
“Yes,” Adrian said. “We have a staff of—what is it now, Mother? Twenty? Most live in the village, but some, including Mr. Tucker, live on-site.”
This was news to me. “Twenty staff people?” I had seen only Marion, a couple of girls in the kitchen, and the people who had cleaned the east salon the day before. It was hard to believe there were so many others.
Mrs. Sinclair beamed. “Most are cleaning staff who take care of the house,” she explained. “They do their work early in the morning, before any of us are up. It simply wouldn’t do to be hearing Hoovers and smelling cleaning solutions.”
I steered the conversation back to the topic at hand. “This Mr. Tucker. Might you ask him, and maybe a couple of his colleagues, to patrol the house at night, just until we’re certain any possible danger had passed?”
Adrian shot me a look. “I hardly think that’s necessary,” he sniffed.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “But all the same, I’d hate to think of someone prowling around the house while we’re all sleeping. Heaven only knows what a person like that might do.”
“I couldn’t agree more, my dear,” Mrs. Sinclair said, setting her coffee cup on the table with an air of finality. “Adrian, make it happen.”
“Of course, Mother.” He smiled at her. “Anything you say.”
“I’ll take a little stroll myself from room to room tonight,” Drew offered. “Believe me, Julia, if anyone is hiding in this house, he’ll wish he wasn’t.”
After dinner, as Mrs. Sinclair was leading everyone back into the drawing room for a nightcap, I pulled Adrian aside.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said.
“Julia, you know it wasn’t some man in the library,” he whispered. “I wish I had been able to tell you the entire story.”
I shook my head. “I’m not trying to stir up trouble where there isn’t any, but please. Just think about it from my perspective. My house was burned to the ground by an arsonist, and there’s a strange man looking into our windows the very next night. I’m terrified that I’m going to bring ruin upon you all, that the man who was here is the arsonist, and that he’s going to set fire to Havenwood to finish the job he started in Chicago.”
He looked at me with such a tender expression that I almost burst into tears.
“Listen to me, my dear. There’s not going to be any fire, and I’m fairly certain there’s not an intruder lurking here at Havenwood. But on the off chance you’re right and you encountered a living human being in the library tonight, let’s just pray that Mr. Tucker catches him before Drew McCullough does.” He gave me a slight smile. “Woe be unto any poor soul who trespasses on the land of a Scotsman.”
I tried to smile in return, but my eyes remained tearful. “I suppose you’re right,” I offered.
He nodded. “All the same. Lock your door tonight, Julia. And I’ll send the dogs up with you. You have absolutely nothing to fear.”
As we walked out of the dining room to join the others, I didn’t have the heart to tell Adrian that I didn’t fear an intruder creeping into my room. That I could handle. It was the idea of a fire that terrified me. As we walked down the hallway, my eyes darted this way and that, but I didn’t see what I was looking for. It occurred to me that I’d never seen a smoke detector anywhere at Havenwood.
TWENTY-NINE
We sat for a while in the drawing room after dinner. The candles were blazing, the fire in the fireplace crackling, casting shadows on the walls that danced and swayed like revelers at a ball. Mrs. Sinclair was talking about something or other, but my thoughts were dancing around in my head with the shadows.
“You look troubled, my dear,” she said, turning to me and jolting me out of my imaginings. “Still worried about our visitor?”
“I’ll feel better when we’ve either caught whoever it is, or confirmed that I’m wrong and nobody is lurking around the house,” I said, staring at the flames, willing them to stay confined to the fireplace.
“Agreed,” Mrs. Sinclair said. “But for now, piglets, I’m going to retire. I’ve got a collection of good books in my suite and I plan to curl up for a few hours and read.”
Adrian pushed himself to his feet. “Let me walk you upstairs, Mother,” he said. “I know you’ve got a lantern but these hallways are so dark when the power is out.”
She took his arm and looked back at me, a twinkle in her eye. “He’s such a good boy, isn’t he?” They walked through the archway together. “Good night, all!” she sang over her shoulder. And then they disappeared into the dark corridor.
I eyed Drew across the room. Electricity seemed to charge the air between us.
“And then there were two,” he said, getting up to stoke the fire. “Would you like another brandy?”
“I’m good,” I said, swirling the liquid in my snifter. I didn’t want a repeat performance of the other night, tempting as the outcome may have been.
He refilled his glass and joined me on the sofa. We sat together in silence for a while, staring at the fire.
“You believe what you heard tonight in the library was the person looking in the kitchen window, the one we tracked into the woods,” he said finally, still gazing into the flames.
“I do,” I admitted. “I know what you and Adrian said, but—”
He held up a hand to cut me off. “You may well be right,” he said. “I didn’t want to jump into the fray between you and Adrian, but ghost in the library or no ghost in the library, there’s no doubt that someone was lurking outside of Havenwood and may well have found his way inside. If that’s the case, then whoever it was had to have gotten in before the blizzard, because there’s no way anyone could have made his way here during it.”
I nodded. “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. So, what do we do now?”
“We? Nothing. Adrian is talking to Mr. Tucker and his cohorts, and they’ll patrol the house tonight. I am planning a walkabout of my own. But you? If this is someone who is here to do you harm, there is no way short of dying that I’m allowing you to come into contact with him.”
At first, the comment prickled my insides a bit. Who was he to “allow” me to do anything? But at the same time, I felt secure in a way that I hadn’t felt in a very long time, if ever. I couldn’t help but smile.
“I meant what I said out in the woods, Julia.” He smiled back at me, a slight shyness showing on his face. “I’m very glad you came to Havenwood. I hope you’re glad, too.”
I could feel my own face redden. “I am. Very glad to be here, and to have met you.” I stumbled over my words, quickly adding: “All of you.”
“You’ve brought a liveliness to this house that we haven’t seen in years,” he said, moving a bit closer to me. “It’s an old saying, but it really fits in this case. You’re a breath of fresh air.”
“It’s funny. I’ve only been here a few days, but it feels like forever. My old life seems very far away and almost unreal. Like it was a dream I was having in my bedroom upstairs.”
He nodded. “I know what you mean. This place has a way of enveloping a person, doesn’t it? Taking over and blocking everything else out.”
I took a sip of the spicy amber liquid and felt it warm me from the inside out. “I don’t mind telling you that I’ve had some pretty strange things happen to me since I’ve been here,” I said, remembering the paintings. “Other than the guy in the library, I mean.”
“Havenwood is one big ghost story; that’s for certain. Just like one of Mrs. Sinclair’s stories. That’s not going to scare you away, I hope.”
I stared into the fire and shook my head. “I know it should probably bother me more than it does. I’m sort of taking the ghosts in stride. I think I’d have been more surprised if a house like this didn’t have some dearly departed residents.”
“Oh, Havenwood has its share of those, no doubt,” he said, taking a sip of his Scotch and swirling the ice around in his glass.
“I’m more afraid of a real-life, flesh-and-blood intruder,” I said. “Especially if he’s come here for me.”
“You have nothing to fear, Julia,” he said, draping an arm across the back of the sofa and turning toward me. “There was only one set of tracks in the snow, remember? If this is true, if this same person has doubled back somehow after we tracked him and is now inside Havenwood, he’s just one man. He doesn’t stand a chance.”
He held my gaze for a moment. The air thickened between us and I was struck by the kindness of his face, the slight lines around his eyes betraying years of laughter. I imagined myself sliding over and wrapping my arms around him—why not? We were alone in a candlelit room, the brandy was working its magic, we were both single as far as I knew, and even though I had been trying to tell myself otherwise, there was something about this Scotsman that tempted me to follow where the moment, if not sensibility, was leading.
But I didn’t. I can’t quite explain why, but I chose that moment to jump up and pour myself another brandy.
“I guess I will have a bit more after all,” I said, my words coming out too fast and tripping all over one another. Whatever had been brewing between us disintegrated and fell to the floor.
Drew smiled and shook his head, downing the last drops from his glass: “Well, it’s been a long day. I guess it’s about time for me to turn in.”
The words I failed to say were scratching at the back of my throat, the kiss that I denied stinging my lips. “You’re not going to the stables in this storm, are you?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ll retreat to my rooms here in the main house tonight.” He pushed himself off the sofa and stretched. “But, before I do, may I walk you upstairs? Those hallways are pitch-black.”
“That would be great,” I said, taking a big sip of my brandy and putting the glass on the table. “I really have no wish to venture out into a darkened Havenwood alone. God only knows what might be lurking.”
He smiled and offered his arm. I took it and we set off together, the lantern casting a delicate glow before us. As we walked, I could swear I heard muffled voices in the darkness, and I imagined it was the paintings murmuring and whispering as we passed.
“Andrew’s got a girl,” I clearly heard, the voice crackling like the sound of an old record on a gramophone.
“It’s about time,” another voice said, wispy and light, like wind through pine needles.
I let out a giggle and Drew turned to me. “Something’s funny?”
“You don’t hear that?”
“The only thing I’ve heard is our footsteps, and I seriously doubt that’s tickling your funny bone.”
I smiled and held tighter to his arm. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Just the walls talking.”
He chuckled. “If any walls had stories to tell, it would be these.”
We finally reached my room, where I saw the three dogs curled up in front of the door, their tails thumping in unison, their faces full of expectant joy.
“Girls!” Drew said, bending down to tousle fur and scratch ears. He stood up and smiled at me, leaning against the wall. “I see you’ve got your bodyguards for the evening.”
“I do,” I said, grasping in the dark for the next word, worried my heart was thumping as loudly as the dogs’ tails. I held the lantern out to him. “I suppose you’ll be needing this.”
He took it, and I found myself suddenly all too aware of my hands. Should I clasp them together? Let them dangle at my sides? Finally I stuffed one of them in my pocket and pushed a tendril of hair behind my ear with the other.
“Going on your rounds now?” I asked him, my voice a little higher than I expected.
“Off to protect Havenwood,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall. “It’s been my duty for some time now, you know.”
“I can see we’re all in good hands,” I said, fingering the doorknob. “I suppose I should…”
“Sleep well, then,” he said. His gaze fell to the floor and then rose up to me again. “Good night, Julia.”
“Good night,” I said with a gulp.
I stood there for a moment, watching him walk down the dark hallway, the light of his lantern bouncing off the walls. I was just about to open my door when it stopped.
“Oh, bloody hell,” I heard him mutter before turning around and making his way back down the hallway toward me.
Did he forget something? Was there a problem? I didn’t get a chance to ask him because he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close into him, and before I knew what was happening, his mouth was on mine. Despite what my common sense was shouting at me from inside my brain, I slid my arms around his neck and leaned into him.
“I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I first laid eyes on you,” Drew whispered.
