The Vanishing

by Wendy Webb

  I hurried through the maze of rooms and up the grand staircase holding the lantern in front of me, the dogs behind me, hoping nothing was lurking in the darkness. When I reached my hallway, I saw light coming from under the door of my room, and first the dogs, then I, took off at a run toward the sanctuary I imagined it would provide. I fumbled with the knob and slipped inside the door, closing and locking it behind me.

  I watched as the dogs made for their water dishes right away—I supposed all of that barking and growling had left them thirsty. After drinking their fill, they did a few circles near my fireplace and slumped to the ground with a thud, tails curled around their noses. I wondered how they felt about seeing Mrs. Sinclair—their mistress—like that, defending me from her. They weren’t my dogs, after all; they were hers.

  I took a long sip of brandy before draping my robe over a chair and curling down under the covers. The fire in the fireplace was still crackling, and I stacked my pillows behind me so I could watch the flames. The wind seemed to be picking up outside, rushing around the exterior corners of the house, whooshing and whooping like a banshee.

  Every time I closed my eyes, Mrs. Sinclair’s ghoulish face floated through my field of vision. Adrian had said whatever I saw in the library was part of the story he had begun to tell me earlier in the evening. Was it somehow related to the reason why she had stopped writing and ended up in that mental institution? Did she kill someone? Or was it more than that? If it truly was Mrs. Sinclair in the library earlier, she seemed—I hesitated to even formulate the word—“possessed” by something dark and horrible and monstrous. When I looked into the face of whatever it was in the library, I did not see the Mrs. Sinclair that I knew. It was as if the eccentric, sweet-natured lady had vanished and something dark and menacing had taken her place.

  The whole evening was like something out of my worst nightmares. Was that what I had chosen by coming to Havenwood? To live in a nightmare?

  THIRTY-TWO

  Somehow, sleep managed to capture me and take hold. But I kept fighting it, tossing and turning, strange thoughts taking my dreams hostage to macabre places. Once, I was rustled awake by the sound of the telephone ringing at the end of the hallway, but I put my hands over my ears to muffle the noise, and before I knew it, I drifted off to sleep again. I knew better than to venture out of my room alone on this night again. And the last person I wanted to hear from was Jeremy.

  Soon enough, I was opening my eyes to a bright and sunny morning, and all thoughts of otherworldly phone calls and nightmares were drifting back into the ethers from which they came.

  But then I remembered Mrs. Sinclair and the strange specter that seemed to be Marion, and I curled back under the covers, shivering.

  I was perfectly safe, or I thought I was, in my room. I toyed with the idea of simply staying there all day. Unlike the night before, I had no compelling urge to venture out into the hallways to find what was awaiting me there. I didn’t want to know.

  But my blissful isolation was not to be. The dogs saw that I was awake and were pacing back and forth, nudging me with their noses, one even going so far as to jump up on the bed and place her great head on my chest. Her yellow eyes staring intently into mine told me the girls wanted their breakfast and a walk outside. I could hardly keep them cooped up in the bedroom with me, as much as I might have wanted to do so.

  I didn’t even bother to shower. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, ran a brush through my hair—not perfect but it would have to do—and pulled on a warm cable-knit sweater and jeans, along with the thickest socks I could find. I had stashed my boots and jacket in the closet downstairs, and I prayed that I could get there without seeing anyone. I needed some time to think and I knew just where I wanted to do it.

  I slipped down the grand staircase, the dogs at my heels, through the foyer, and toward the front door, holding my breath all the while. I saw no one. The house was as quiet as it had been the night before. Tears stung my eyes when I thought of my strange encounter with Marion, and I hoped it didn’t mean what I thought it meant, that she was buzzing around getting ready for breakfast, as usual, and not lying somewhere with a knife in her chest. I looked over my shoulder toward the kitchen and almost marched back there to see for myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to move closer. I did not want to find an empty kitchen, not when I was alone.

  So, after bundling up, I headed outside and into the wind.

  The dogs bounded into the air as though they were jumping into a warm pool of water, but it hit me like a thousand icy pinpricks on my face and neck, pulling the breath out of my lungs. I had grown up with Minnesota winters, but I couldn’t remember feeling anything like this. It must be double digits below zero, I thought, pulling my hood up and snapping it around my neck. I held my gloves over the exposed part of my face, put my head down, and started trudging forward.

  It had snowed more than two feet during the blizzard, but someone had already shoveled a path between the main house and the stable. The dogs didn’t pay it any mind; they bounded and jumped through the drifts, yowling and barking with glee. By the time I got to the stable, they had already done a few laps around it and were huffing and puffing at the door. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again, louder this time. Nothing. My heart sunk.

  I tried the door, and when I found it unlocked, I pushed it open, just a crack. “Drew?” I called inside. “Are you there?”

  The dogs nudged me out of the way and nosed the door open, the heat from the room colliding with the cold where I stood. I poked my head into the warmth. “Hey!” I called. “It’s Julia!”

  I took a few steps inside and shut the door behind me. The stable was as warm and welcoming as it had been when I had first seen it. The dogs were circling their food dishes, and after opening several cabinets to no avail, I found an enormous bucket with a lid on it. Their reactions told me it was dog food, so I poured a couple of scoopfuls into each of their dishes and they started gobbling up their meals.

  “Well, hello there.”

  I whirled around to see Drew standing in the doorway to his quarters, wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt, and mocs. His hair was wet.

  “You’ve caught me just out of the shower, I’m afraid.” He smiled.

  My throat seized up. He was all right, then. Whoever’s blood was covering Mrs. Sinclair the night before, it wasn’t his. I gulped in air but couldn’t get a deep breath. I wanted to fall to my knees to give thanks, or at the very least rush over and throw my arms around him, but my feet were frozen to the floor. “Hi” was all I managed.

  “I see you brought the girls for their breakfast,” he said, glancing toward the dogs and running a hand through his hair.

  “Yes.” Why wasn’t I able to formulate more than a few words?

  “Come on in.” He nodded toward his quarters. “I’ve got the kettle on. We have some time before we’ve got to get up to the main house. Let’s have a cup of tea.”

  I followed him into his suite. “I’m not sure there’s going to be any breakfast,” I said. I unzipped my jacket with shaking hands and slipped out of my gloves before slumping down onto the leather sofa.

  He handed me a cup of sweet-smelling tea. “What’s happened, Julia?” he said, sitting beside me.

  I set the tea on the end table and looked into his face, so concerned, so loving. And then the tears came. He enveloped me in his arms, holding me while I shook with the force of everything I had experienced the night before.

  “I thought I had lost you,” I said, my voice wavering.

  “That’s not possible,” he said, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re not going to lose me. Remember what I said about the seventeen people? It still stands.”

  “I thought it was sixteen.” I managed a chuckle.

  “Who’s counting? Now,” he said, pushing a box of tissues in my direction, “why don’t you tell me exactly what’s going on?”

  I blew my nose and took a sip of the steaming tea. It seemed to calm me from the
inside out, somehow. In a moment, I was together enough to tell him what had happened. It was, after all, why I’d come.

  “I knew you were in the house last night, but I thought you’d be out here checking on the horses this morning,” I began. “At least I hoped you would be.”

  “You thought right,” he said. “I needed to make sure they were okay after yesterday’s blizzard. They were fine, if a bit hungry.”

  “I came to tell you about something that happened to me in the house last night,” I said. “You will not believe it.”

  He crossed the room and poured a cup of tea for himself. “Oh, I’ll wager I will.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, I started feeling guilty about you prowling around the house alone,” I said.

  “Don’t tell me you went searching for me.”

  I nodded, looking up at him like a guilty child might look at a parent, and took another sip of tea. “I don’t quite know how to say this,” I started. “I was wandering through the house looking for you, and I saw some light coming from the library. So I went in there, and that’s where I found her.”

  “Found who?”

  “Mrs. Sinclair,” I said. I reached for my tea but put my hands down into my lap when I saw how much they were shaking. “Only, it wasn’t Mrs. Sinclair.”

  “Go on,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “Drew, she was covered with blood. I thought it was yours. She was talking in this weird voice and her eyes… they weren’t her eyes at all. They were black, for one thing, and it was like she saw me, but didn’t see me, not really.”

  “And then what happened?” he whispered, his eyes wide.

  “The dogs started barking at her. Ferociously! I took that moment to get out of there, they followed, and we ran headlong into Adrian.”

  “So, he knows about this.”

  I nodded and took another sip of my tea. “He said he’d handle it. Whatever that meant.”

  I opened my mouth to tell Drew about the Marion business, but closed it again when a chill began to work its way up my spine. Drew was just sitting there, looking at me with the calmest of faces. I had just told him of a nightmarish encounter, and he was reacting as though I was talking to him about the weather or saying that the dogs needed a walk.

  I pushed myself up from the sofa, clutching my jacket and gloves. I walked out into the main stable, wanting the dogs near me.

  “Hey,” he said, following me. “Where are you going? What’s the matter?”

  I whirled around. “None of this surprises you! I don’t get it. I tell you that the woman who owns this house is running around covered in blood and you react like I’m telling you Marion burned the scones.”

  “Julia,” he said, his voice low and soothing. He was walking toward me like he would approach a skittish horse, palms up. “You need to calm down.”

  “And you need to explain to me what’s going on here,” I said, my heart beating so fast that I found myself gulping air into my lungs in an effort to quiet it.

  “Okay,” he said, his palms still up in the air as though he were trying to push something away.

  I nodded, not saying anything. It was up to him now.

  “Listen,” he said, looking down at his T-shirt and slippers, “give me a few minutes to change. Then we’ll go up to the main house together and we’ll sort all of this out. We’ll find Adrian and he’ll tell us exactly what happened. It’s about time for breakfast, so we know just where he’ll be.”

  “Breakfast?” I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. “I have no idea if anyone is still alive in the house after last night; that’s what I’m trying to tell you. And you haven’t even heard about Marion yet!”

  “What about Marion?”

  “I was looking in the kitchen for a flashlight and she appeared there—and then she was gone! Considering the fact that Mrs. Sinclair was doused in blood, and the blood obviously wasn’t yours…” I took a deep breath and finally said the words: “I’m terrified that, what with all the ghosts I’ve been seeing around Havenwood, Marion’s now one of them. What other explanation could there be?”

  “This is Havenwood, lassie,” he said. “There are limitless amounts of explanations for otherworldly things happening around here. Now, promise you’ll wait for me while I throw on something a little more presentable?”

  What else was I to do? I certainly wasn’t planning on venturing back into the house by myself. “I’ll wait,” I said.

  While Drew changed, I wandered through the stable, stopping for a moment at Nelly’s stall. She came right up to me and I stroked her head, her gentle eyes calming my frayed nerves.

  “Do you remember me, girl?” I said to her.

  Drew appeared through the doorway and smiled. “You can give her a carrot if you’d like,” he said, handing one to me.

  I put it in my palm and held it out to her. She gobbled it up, careful not to touch my hand with her teeth. I could feel the calmness and strength she was exuding, almost as if she knew I needed it.

  “We’ll go riding again once the weather warms up a bit,” he said.

  I wondered if I’d be at Havenwood that long.

  “Now,” he said, grabbing his coat and hat, “bundle up. We’ll head on up to the main house and get to the bottom of whatever went on last night. I promise.”

  “Come on, girls,” I called to the dogs as I zipped up my jacket and pulled on my gloves. “We’re going outside!”

  Drew shot me a look. “They’re happy out here, you know,” he said. “The stables are heated and they can come and go into the field through their doggie door.”

  “Not a chance,” I said, whistling again. “I’m not going back into that house without these dogs by my side.”

  I was convinced they saved me last night from whatever I encountered in the library. It was still there for all I knew. I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  The dogs stretched and yawned but were at my side within a few seconds. We all went through the doors together and out into the sunshine.

  We trudged through the snow, my anxiety growing with every step. Why was I going back into that house when I knew what might be lurking there? I gazed into the distance and wondered if I could make it the three miles to town on my own. Frigid, yes, but in that moment, I tried to convince myself that I preferred a little frostbite to the threat of what might be waiting for me inside the house.

  In the end, though, I followed where Drew was leading. What other real choice did I have? The bears might be hibernating this time of year, but the wolves, mountain lions, and lynx were active in the winter woods. And probably hungry.

  We peeled off our coats and boots in the foyer, and Drew started off toward the kitchen. I intended to go with him, but my feet wouldn’t move. The dogs stayed by my side, pacing around me.

  Drew poked his head around the archway. “Coming?”

  The look of fear on my face must have spoken volumes, because he crossed the room and took my hands in his.

  “I promise you, Julia, this house isn’t any different today than it was yesterday at this time,” he said, running a hand through my hair.

  I exhaled. “Then I feel very naive about yesterday.”

  “No, you weren’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I would not allow you to remain in a dangerous situation. And I wouldn’t have let Adrian bring anybody into this house if there were any chance…” His words trailed off, and I got the feeling he thought better of what he was going to say.

  “Any chance of what?” I prodded.

  The look on his face almost seemed to be pleading with me. “Will you just come to breakfast?” he asked, his voice wavering. “You need to know, Julia, that there is no way short of dying that I’m going to let any harm come to you.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I whispered.

  “Come on,” he said, “coffee and scones await. Marion will have fits if we keep Mrs. Sinclair waiting.”

  At the mention of her name, my stomach d
ropped. Would she be buzzing around the kitchen as she usually was? I didn’t want to find out. I wanted to run back upstairs to my room and hide under the covers, but Drew took me by the hand and we set off, the dogs following close behind, our footsteps echoing through the house.

  When we got to the threshold of the breakfast room, I locked eyes with Drew for a second and then pushed open the door. The room was empty, despite our lateness. No Mrs. Sinclair. No Marion buzzing about. Only silence. I knew this was what we’d find.

  My hands flew to my mouth, muffling a cry.

  Just then, Marion came through the kitchen door holding the coffeepot. I blinked a few times and then stared at her, openmouthed.

  “Oh, Marion, thank God,” I said, my voice cracking.

  “Is something wrong, Miss Julia?” she asked, placing the pot on the sideboard warmer next to the cream and sugar. “You look positively ashen.”

  I squinted at her. No mention of the night before? Did I even see what I thought I had seen?

  “I’m just a little tired, I guess,” I said, pulling my chair out from the table and slumping into it. Drew took the seat opposite me and smiled.

  “Well,” Marion said, pouring cups of coffee for Drew and me, “the good news is our power’s back on.”

  The room was so bright; I hadn’t noticed. She set the cups down in front of each of us, and then shuttled the cream and sugar to the table from the sideboard.

  “Breakfast will be in a few minutes,” she said over her shoulder, as she pushed open the kitchen’s swinging door. “Omelets, sausage, fruit, and yogurt today. We’re a little behind our time this morning, I’m afraid.”

  The door swung shut, and we were once again alone in the room. I looked at Drew, placing my hands on the table, palms up. “I have no idea what—” But I didn’t get to finish that thought.