by Anita Higman
I paused outside my open doorway. Did I just hear something? Like a door creaking shut inside my room? I stepped a quiet foot through the doorway. Beside the bed, there were curtained French doors leading out to the garden. They were both firmly closed and the room was empty.
Weird. Must have been my imagination. Out of curiosity, I crept up to one of the doors and drew back the curtain to see a sliver of the garden outside.
Vacant. Just a bubbling fountain.
I shivered and sat on the bed, picking up my Ann Radcliffe book from the nightstand. Opening it up to where I’d left off, I read one word and then my eyes flicked back to the nightstand. Something was missing, something that usually sat near the bedside lamp. But what was it?
Then it clicked in my mind. I’d put Ivan’s sailboat there, within the pool of light cast by the lamp. But it was gone.
And in its place was the faintest odor of overripe fruit.
Chapter Nineteen
Anne
I slipped my green dress over my head and straightened it. Sighing, I examined myself in the full-length mirror.
Not bad, I guess. I hadn’t fully grown into myself yet. My legs and arms still held some of the knobbiness of youth. At least the color looked good on me. I spent a few fruitless minutes trying to artfully pin up my long hair, but I eventually gave up and let it fall loose and wavy around my shoulders.
Part of me couldn’t believe today was the wedding. It was actually happening. I hadn’t realized until now, but I had partly suspected deep down that things wouldn’t work out—that Ivan would see how unsophisticated we were or Mom would change her mind. Being here had seemed so surreal. But it was now going to be my reality.
I crossed the guest house, heading toward Mom’s room. I hadn’t told her about the possibility that Miss Easton had snuck into my room yesterday—after being fired—and stolen Ivan’s sailboat. It would open too many cans of worms. Like how did I get the sailboat in the first place? Besides, Miss Easton was rude but she was harmless. Right?
Slipping into Mom’s room, my first glimpse of her caused a laugh to splutter from my lips, but I immediately slapped my hand over my mouth. Her wedding dress looked like a tacky white ball gown, with puffed shoulders and long sleeves that narrowed to a point at her wrists. And the skirt spilled out from her waist like a tulle waterfall.
Hearing me, Mom swirled around, the skirt following like a clingy white cloud. A maid from the main house that I hadn’t met yet emerged from the bathroom, holding a curling iron and bobby pins. I greeted her with a smile and then said to Mom, “Um, you look….frothy.”
Mom sighed and placed her face on her palm, her expression something between a crying cringe and a giggle. The maid reached over to gently pull away Mom’s hand. “Madam, please, your makeup.”
“Oh sorry, Sylvia.” Picking at the fabric of her skirt, Mom told me, “Ivan designed it for me.”
“Oh, Mom. Why wouldn’t he let you pick your own dress?”
She lifted a shoulder, the puffed fabric brushing her cheek. “He just wants what’s best. I think he just has much older tastes than we do.”
“I’ll say. But your makeup looks nice.”
“All thanks to Sylvia. Do you need help getting ready?”
“No, I just came to see if you needed anything.”
Mom sat on the vanity bench at Sylvia’s bidding. “Oh, that’s sweet. Actually, you can do something for me. Would you mind taking these toiletries to my new bedroom in the main house?” She handed me a small blue bag.
“Oh, you mean…you and Ivan’s—I mean Mr. Helsburg’s—bedroom?”
Mom knotted her hands together. “Oh dear, is that strange for you? I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it then.”
“No, it’s okay.” But it did feel strange being invited into the room when before it felt like high treason to even pass through it. “Is there a key in case it’s locked?”
“I don’t know why it would be but yes, here’s one just in case.” She plucked up a key from her vanity.
Mom apparently didn’t know how many doors Ivan kept locked. I took the heavy brass key from her. “Thanks. I’ll get on it.”
“Thank you, Anne. And if I don’t see you again, remember to be at the chapel in thirty minutes.”
“All right.” I shot her a smile and then left the guest house, crossing the path leading to the main house. But once I entered, I realized I had completely forgotten where Ivan’s bedroom was. And all of the servants were busy preparing the chapel for the wedding, so no one was around to ask.
I power-walked around a corner and then smacked into Wyatt, my face planting itself into the starchiness of his tuxedo shirt. He righted me by the shoulders and stepped back.
“Sorry about that,” I said. Was I blushing? In his tux, he looked almost…dashing. “You clean up nice. I guess.”
He smirked. “You too. You look like a forest fairy or something.”
I giggled. And then felt annoyed that I’d just giggled. Wyatt was going to be my stepbrother in less than an hour for goodness’ sake. I needed to cool it. “You should see my mom.”
A hint of a shadow passed over his face. “Did Ivan design your mom’s dress too?”
“Uh, yeah. He did for your mom?”
“Yep. It was pounds of fabric. And a veil the length of the aisle.”
I tried to smile, but I suddenly found it difficult. The repetition of circumstances was unsettling in a way. Then I remembered the task at hand. “I’m actually glad I ran into you. Can you point me in the direction of Ivan’s bedroom?” I held up the key and the bag.
“How did you get the key?” Awe brightened his features.
I shrugged. “My mom gave it to me.”
He touched the key with his finger. “Seems too easy.” He pointed the way he had come. “It’s this way. I’ll take you.”
I smiled as he led me around the corner. “You just want to poke around his bedroom.”
“Maybe.”
After a few turns, we came to the door I now recognized as the master bedroom. I inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. As I entered, I sucked in my breath, realizing I’d forgotten to knock. Thankfully, the room was empty.
I held up the little blue bag. “I’ve just gotta put this in the bathroom. Don’t mess with anything.”
Wyatt held up his hands. “Of course not.”
I placed the bag on the long white marble countertop of the bathroom, checked my hair in the mirror, and then reentered the bedroom to find Wyatt pulling drawers open and rummaging roughly through them.
“Wyatt, what did I just say?”
He kept sifting. “I can’t deny who I am.” At first I thought he was joking around, but then he looked at me with serious eyes. “Listen, are you sure your mom wants to go through with marrying Ivan? I have a bad feeling.”
Man, Wyatt sure feels a lot for being so insensitive. I sighed and started closing the drawers he’d opened. “Trust me, I asked her. But I can’t very well tell her not to marry Ivan because his stepson has a bad feeling about the wedding. It’s not a very convincing argument.”
“I’m not an idiot. I realize that. I just wouldn’t feel right not saying something.” He jerked open another drawer in a bureau.
A thought prodded at my mind, insistent. I had to ask. “Are you sure your bad feeling doesn’t have something to do with you no longer being the heir of Belrose Abbey?” I winced, waiting for a verbal backlash.
But he continued pulling up stacks of clothes and knocking on the bottoms of the drawers, searching for false bottoms. “Since you don’t know me very well, I’m not going to yell at you for that comment.” He paused and looked at me. “Ivan told me that he’s already signed the abbey over to your mother. And the funny thing is, I’m not even that disappointed. This place has never been my home and it never will be. And besides, I’ve always suspected that Ivan would want an heir of his own.”
I felt dense for not thinking of that before—wouldn’t Iv
an want a child with my mom so that a blood relation would inherit the abbey? But he probably should have married a younger woman for that. Although Mom was pretty, she was already approaching menopause.
I shifted my feet. “We should go. I’m pretty sure my mom wasn’t supposed to give me the key.” Then my eyes fell on the intricate silver box inlaid with rubies that I’d seen before on the nightstand, with the two hollowed hearts, their curved sides touching. Now that I was closer to it, the swirling designs in the silver reminded me of something. “Hey, did your mother’s locket come with that jewelry box?”
Wyatt shoved a drawer closed, and his gaze followed my pointing finger. “I don’t know. But they look like they could be a set.”
An idea bloomed in my mind, far-fetched and exhilarating. “Do you have the locket with you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He pulled it from his pocket—a supple silver strand strung with a heart-shaped locket, which was encrusted with a large ruby.
I held out my hand, and after a little hesitation, he placed it on my palm, as if he were trusting me with a piece of himself. I opened the locket, knelt in front of the nightstand, and placed the two halves of the locket into the hollowed hearts, like I was putting pieces into a Fisher Price toy.
They fit perfectly.
I pressed the locket into the hollows and there was a tiny click. The top of the box popped open half an inch.
Behind me, Wyatt gaped. “First the drawer and now this? How do you keep doing it?”
I stood and shrugged, my hands trembling with the excitement of discovery. “I don’t know. I guess I read all the right books.” I gestured for him to search the box. “Since this jewelry box was most likely your mom’s, you should do the honors.”
Wyatt approached it, with an expression of such pain and anticipation on his face that I had to look away. This felt like a private moment, between him and the memory of his mom.
He flipped open the lid and stared into the box.
A moment passed, and I couldn’t contain myself. “What’s in it?”
“No jewelry, but there’s this.” He pulled out a small diary, dwarfed by his hand.
I rushed toward him. “That’s even better.” Everything in me wanted to rifle through its pages, but I glued my hands to my sides. Wyatt should be the one to read Celeste’s words.
He sank onto the edge of the bed and with shaking hands, he opened the diary and thumbed through it until he found the last written page. “This entry is from the day she died.”
“Wait, don’t you want to start from the beginning?”
He swallowed hard. “I have to know what happened.”
And then, to my surprise, he began to read aloud.
“‘July 12, 2009,
I’m being watched. At first I thought it was my imagination, being in such a large, old house. But last night at dinner with Ivan, I looked up at my new portrait hanging high on the wall, and I saw someone else’s eyes instead of my own. And I could have sworn I saw them blink. But when I looked at it only moments later, I saw my own eyes again. Am I losing my mind?
I have to remain calm for Wyatt. Right now, I am the only stable thing in my boy’s life. He needs me. Thankfully he seems pretty oblivious to my paranoia.
Ivan has seemed distant and cool this past week—I only see him at dinner and bedtime. A horrible truth is beginning to dawn on me—one that I have avoided writing, since writing things down seems to make them more true: Ivan is not the same man that I married a mere three weeks ago. And sometimes when I catch him looking at me, I see an odd hunger shining in eyes. And not the kind of hunger that makes a woman blush. The kind of hunger that makes one’s blood freeze. But surely this feeling is only my newfound paranoia. I must tamp it down.
On a lighter note, this morning Ivan invited me to join him for dinner this evening. It will be candlelit and intimate—with just Miss Easton serving—and he says the location is a surprise. Perhaps this dinner will quiet the paranoid whispers running through my head.’”
Finished, Wyatt let his hands fall to his lap, losing his spot in the diary, his fingers curling around the pages.
After a moment, I stated the obvious, in awe. “That is not the sort of diary entry I’d expect from a woman about to commit suicide. She couldn’t have killed herself.”
Wyatt remained stone still, staring at nothing.
My entire body began to tremble. “The table for two that I saw…in the catacombs…does this mean…”
“He murdered her. Ivan murdered my mother. And Miss Easton helped.”
The door to the bedroom swung open. Ivan stood in the threshold in his wedding tuxedo. When he spotted us, a thrill of anger ran through his face. “How did you two get in here?”
Wyatt stood from the bed and lifted the diary. “You killed my mother. I know everything.”
Striding into the room and closing the door, Ivan hissed, “What are you blathering about?” The polished veneer he normally wore on his face had fallen away to reveal a monster. His lips peeled back from his teeth. Ivan glanced at the diary and I saw no hint of recognition. He must not have known about the diary’s existence or that Celeste would have hidden it in a jewelry box.
Wyatt closed the distance between himself and Ivan. “Don’t you dare try to deny it. I’ve always known something was off with you, but now I can prove it.”
“You don’t have any proof,” Ivan growled and grabbed for the diary. Wyatt yanked it away, retreating.
I pulled at Wyatt’s arm. “Come on, it’s no use talking to him. We’ve got to tell my mother and then call the police.”
Quick as a snake, Ivan pulled up the corner of a rug, slid open a floorboard, revealing a rectangular hole, and pulled out a heavy black pistol. He pointed it at us. “You’ll do no such thing.”
Chapter Twenty
Anne
Ivan wagged the gun toward the back corner of the room—the entrance to the catacombs. “Walk over to that door, both of you.” He pulled a small black key from his pocket and tossed it to Wyatt, whose hand shot out and caught it. “There’s the key to unlock it.”
Wyatt clenched the key in his fist and didn’t move. I could hear him breathing through his nose, his mouth closed tight.
“Move. Now!” Ivan tightened his grip on the pistol, his eyes burning.
Wyatt glanced at me and I was surprised that I saw no fear in his face—only anger. Somehow I knew that if I weren’t here, Wyatt would have attacked Ivan by now. But he didn’t want to put me in danger. Gritting his teeth, Wyatt began to walk to the catacomb door with tight, measured steps. I followed him, not even feeling my legs. Having read so many mystery novels, I’d always wondered how I would react if I were ever held at gunpoint. I imagined myself weeping, cowering, or maybe trying to disarm the assailant. But instead I just felt shock. And a desperate need to obey the pointing gun—go wherever it told me to go.
Wyatt reached the door and slid the key into the lock with remarkably steady hands. The door swung open, revealing the narrow flight of steps and the dark, musty passage. From behind us, Ivan said, “Go.”
We went down the stairs, my feet treading lightly, as if that would somehow keep Ivan’s rage in check. When we’d reached the floor of the passage, I heard the door close and there was a moment of blood-pounding darkness and then a flashlight clicked on. Ivan must have grabbed it on the way in.
The pistol boring a hole into our backs, we marched onward, to the split in the corridor where we’d heard Miss Easton before. We took a left at Ivan’s command, toward the locked room with the table for two. In the darkness, I felt for Wyatt’s hand and held on tight, my palm icy against his red-hot skin. He squeezed back.
We arrived at the door, the heavy padlock still in place. Ivan ordered, “That’s far enough. Step aside from the door.” We obeyed and he pulled out yet another key, this one from his jacket pocket, and unlocked the door, pulling the padlock from the latch. The door creaked inward, revealing a yawning blackness with
in.
“Inside,” said Ivan, not a hint of mercy or compassion in his face.
As Wyatt and I entered, hands still clasped, a desperate thought wriggled through my shock and shot out of my mouth. “The wedding will never take place without me there. My mom will know something’s wrong.” The words came out whinier than I would have liked.
Remaining in the corridor, Ivan allowed a sickly smile to spread his lips, the yellow glare from the flashlight making pockets of shadow on his face. There was madness in his eyes. “It’s a pity you’ll never find out what happens.” And then he slammed the door shut, the padlock grating against the latch outside and clicking closed—horrible and final.
In the total darkness, I sank to a squat, my head spinning and my heart hammering out of control. “Wyatt, he’s going to kill us.” Instead of responding, he began to hunt around blindly, his feet kicking furniture and who knows what. “What are you doing?” I asked, hysteria in my voice. Why wasn’t he freaking out?
“Trying to find a light of some sort. Help me.”
And since there was nothing else to do except wallow in my dread, I stood on wobbly legs and began to search with arms outstretched, bumping into walls. My waist hit something that felt like the edge of a table and my trembling hands scouted its surface, feeling for something, anything. My fingers found an upright and cylindrical object coated in dust and as my hands climbed it, I felt something smooth and tall on top. “Wyatt, I think I found a candlestick with a candle.”
Somewhere to my left, I heard a hollow rattle, kind of like a maraca. “And I think I might have found a box of matches.” There was fumbling and then the rasp of a match against the box. A flame sprang to life, revealing Wyatt’s ghostly face. In the weak light, I could see that the object I’d grasped was indeed a candleholder topped with a slim candle, grayed with dust and partially melted from its last use.
