A Sound Among the Trees

by Susan Meissner

  Maybe she’d just have to put them back in the studio tomorrow where she found them. Before Carson got home.

  Or maybe she’d just show them to Carson and avoid waiting for him to stumble across them. Let fate play itself out …

  She didn’t have to decide tonight. She would sleep on it. In the morning maybe the best solution would be clear. Marielle pulled the journals out from the folds of the throw rug.

  She was backing out of the crawlspace and the closet on her knees when she sensed movement behind her.

  And then a woman’s voice, low and accusatory.

  “What are you doing?

  Marielle fell back against the closet door, childlike dread gripping her as she wheeled her upper body around. All that she knew of reason and reality seemed to hang in the balance as she turned, crazily expecting to see a ghost.

  But the figure in the room with her was not Susannah.

  lilting voice, raised and insistent, intruded on her slumber, and Adelaide awoke.

  “But I’ll only be a minute.”

  Pearl.

  Adelaide opened her eyes and struggled for a moment to make sense of her surroundings. She lay in a bed, but not her bed. And the room was not in Holly Oak. She tried to raise herself, but her body felt like one of Sara’s clay sculptures set out in the sun to harden.

  “I’m afraid visiting hours are over unless you’re family,” said another voice.

  She was in a hospital.

  “I just want to give her these flowers, and I’ll scoot right out.”

  Pearl’s voice came from just outside her half-open door.

  She remembered then the fall and the curious way the portrait faces—even her mother’s—watched her tumble down the stairs.

  She remembered the rustle of a skirt.

  And the voice of a ghost.

  “I don’t even know if she’s awake,” the nurse said.

  “I’ll just take a look-see. I promise not a peep if she’s sleeping.” Pearl managed to sound sweetly compliant even when breaking the rules.

  “Well, as long as you just set the flowers inside and come right out.”

  “Oh yes. I promise.”

  A second later Pearl emerged from behind a suit-striped privacy curtain, a vase of tightly closed tulips in her hands. The vase was wet and so was she. A clear rain bonnet on her blue-hued hair sparkled with moisture.

  “Oh, Adelaide! You’re awake. Oh my. Just look at you.”

  “Pearl. Please tell me you didn’t drive down here in the pouring rain to tell me to look at myself.”

  Pearl stepped fully inside. “Oh no. I had my nephew Charlie bring me. He’s waiting in the car. He doesn’t like hospitals.”

  Adelaide wanted to sit up, but she didn’t know where to begin to accomplish such a task. Her left arm on its bed of pillows felt like it was encased in lead, and her head was swimming in a soupy fog.

  “So tell me, dear. What happened?” Pearl set the vase down on the bedside table. “Maxine said you fell down the cellar stairs. What on earth were you doing fooling around the cellar stairs?”

  Adelaide fumbled for the remote Marielle had used earlier and pushed a button. The foot of the bed began to curl upward, and she let go of the button to stop it. “I wasn’t on the cellar stairs. And how in the world would Maxine know anything about what I have or haven’t done today? I only fell this morning. It is still Saturday, isn’t it?”

  “Dorothy called Maxine. She volunteers in the gift shop here. Remember?”

  “Dorothy.”

  “Yes. Dorothy called Maxine, and Maxine called me.”

  Adelaide pushed another button, and the head of the bed began to rise. “Well, in that case, what took you so long?”

  “Oh, I apologize for that. I was at the church for that memorial for Harriet Conrad’s sister. I was in charge of the little ham sandwiches. I didn’t get Maxine’s message until I got home. I came right over.”

  Adelaide released the button to stop and let the remote fall by her side. “How nice.”

  “Well, I didn’t come right over. I had to find you some tulips first. I know how much you love tulips. They’ll be prettier tomorrow.”

  Adelaide turned her head slowly to look at the vase of flowers at her bedside. Yellow tulips. Sara’s favorite flower. “Thank you, Pearl.”

  “You’re welcome, dear. Now tell me, please, before that nurse kicks me out, what you were thinking traipsing down the cellar stairs! You know how I feel about that cellar. I can’t believe Marielle let you do that. You’re not a young woman anymore, Adelaide.”

  Adelaide licked her lips. They felt dry and old. “As I’ve already said, I was not on the cellar stairs. I was in the house. I misjudged the distance to the railing, and I fell. On the regular stairs. Not the cellar stairs.”

  “Oh! Oh my goodness. All the way? Did you fall all the way?”

  “No. Just halfway.” From where the portraits start.

  “You know, you’re a lucky ducky that you didn’t break your hip. Or your neck. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine?”

  Yes. Yes, she could.

  Pearl patted down her bedspread. “But a broken wrist isn’t the end of the world, though.”

  Adelaide looked down at the white mound that was her arm, raised as if she were about to hurl something skyward. “I’ll never get those uniforms done on time. That family will be so disappointed. They’re for a man and his three teenage sons. I’ve never been unable to fulfill an order before. They will probably have to go elsewhere and get something not half as nice.”

  Pearl sat down on the chair by the side table, a look of wonderment on her face. “Oh, but Adelaide! I could help you, couldn’t I? And Marielle. She’s not doing anything with the children gone for three weeks.”

  “You haven’t sewn anything since your own maternity clothes. Need I remind you how long that’s been?”

  Pearl opened her mouth to protest and then shut it. “Well, okay, that’s true,” she said a second later. “But how much can it have changed? Women have been sewing since the Garden of Eden.”

  Adelaide coughed and reached for her water, taking a sip before answering. “A great deal has changed. I don’t mean since the Garden of Eden. I don’t use a treadle, you know.”

  Pearl tossed a wrinkled and jeweled hand in the air. “I know that. You can show us, and Marielle certainly has used a more modern machine. We’ll be fine. And Maxine can help. She can sew on buttons.”

  Adelaide replaced the water cup and sat back on her pillows. “I don’t know …”

  “It will be fine, you’ll see! We can just have Carson bring your machine and all your materials to my house. I’ve seen your machine. It’s portable. And I’ll make a caramel cake. This will be like a party!”

  “For heaven’s sake, why would I have Carson drag everything over to your house?”

  Pearl scrunched her weathered face. “Well, we couldn’t … I mean I wouldn’t want to … You know how I feel about that parlor, Adelaide.”

  Pearl was afraid of the parlor. She was afraid of a lot of things when it came to Holly Oak. It was the only thing about their decades-long friendship that bothered Adelaide. Pearl’s silliness about other things was entertaining, even endearing. But not this. And not today. Adelaide turned her head toward the window in her room. The curtains were still open, and rain glittered on the glass.

  “Eldora says—,” Pearl began.

  “I know what Eldora says.”

  “Maybe we could move everything into the old drawing room if you don’t want to move it all to my house. I could probably handle that. Probably.”

  Adelaide said nothing, and Pearl mistook her silence for irritation. She patted Adelaide’s good arm.

  “I can’t help it, Adelaide. I know how you feel about that house. I know how devoted you are to it. It’s just. There are some rooms I can’t go in. Please don’t be cross with me. Eldora says—”

  Adelaide cut her off. “I am not cross with you.” She kept her head
toward the window and watched rivulets race each other to the sill and fall away into the dark.

  “But you’re not saying anything.”

  Adelaide knew she might regret it later, but she felt compelled to tell Pearl about the strange sensation she had when she fell. Pearl believed Eldora knew what she was talking about. Adelaide hadn’t seen Eldora in a decade, and up to that point, had no desire to see her.

  But she was having doubts about everything she had ever believed about the house.

  And about her great-grandmother.

  “Something happened when I fell, Pearl,” she murmured.

  “What, dear?” Adelaide felt Pearl leaning closer in her chair.

  Adelaide turned her head from the window but she did not look at her friend. “Marielle was out in the studio this morning, and she had been out there for a long time.”

  “The old slaves’ quarters?” Pearl breathed.

  “And I began to worry that she was messing with what’s left in there. She told me she was just going to look inside, but she was gone for so long. I couldn’t see if she was still in the studio from the parlor window, so I had gone upstairs to look from my bedroom. I could see that the studio door was still open, so I knew she was still in there. I didn’t want her throwing anything out without talking to Carson first. So I was going to go out there and make sure, and I started down the stairs. I got to the landing in the middle, and I turned to start down the second set of stairs. I reached for the railing, and my eyes met Susannah’s eyes behind the glass of her portrait, and I … I don’t know. I reached for the railing, and it wasn’t there. It was like … like someone had moved it.”

  Pearl gasped and placed a hand over her mouth as she whispered Adelaide’s name.

  “And I began to fall,” Adelaide continued. “I could see all those other faces on the wall watching me as I tumbled. Annabel’s. My mother’s. Sara’s. Even my own. It was like … like I had been pushed, Pearl. Like someone was mad that I had allowed Marielle in the studio and had left her there for so long. I blacked out for a moment at the bottom. And when I came to, I heard a rustling skirt and a voice saying, ‘I’ve got you.’ ”

  “Oh dear. Oh my lands! Oh, sweet Mary and Joseph!” Pearl sputtered. “Was it Susannah? Did you see her?”

  Adelaide shook her head gently and turned to look at Pearl. “No. Marielle told me she was the one who said, ‘I’ve got you.’ She said she had one of Brette’s dress-up gowns in her arms when she found me and that was the rustle I heard.”

  “Oh.” Pearl bit her lip, the look of one unconvinced.

  Adelaide’s gaze was drawn again to the zooming water paths on her window. “I’m wondering if I’ve been wrong about the house. I’ve always thought the house somehow needed some sort of release, forgiveness maybe. I’ve never thought Eldora was right. I thought the house had a burden it wanted lifted; I never believed it was Susannah haunting us all with her regrets.”

  “But now … now you think it is her?”

  Adelaide shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Pearl inched the chair closer and reached for Adelaide’s good arm. She clasped Adelaide’s hand. “Let me call Eldora. Let’s have her come back to the house. Maybe she can figure out what Susannah wants.”

  Adelaide shook her head, her brow creased in consternation. “I don’t know if that’s what I should do.”

  Pearl clucked her tongue. “Lordamercy, Adelaide. Why on earth have you kept that house? I don’t see how you’ve been able to live there all these years with all that has happened to you there. Why haven’t you sold it and moved to a happier house?”

  “I’ve always believed that somehow I could make it stop because I understood and because I had lost so much. When Sara brought Hudson home, I was sure I had done it. I had given the house what it needed. But then Sara died, and I’ve been wondering if Hudson’s birth had been just a temporary reprieve. That nothing has really changed.”

  Pearl squeezed her hand. “Let me call Eldora. Please. She’ll know what to do.”

  “How do you know she’ll know what to do?”

  “Well, okay, I don’t. But she’ll know more than you do.”

  Adelaide sighed. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

  They were quiet for a moment.

  Pearl shook her head woefully. “I wish you weren’t going back there tomorrow. She’ll likely strangle you in your bed tomorrow night.”

  “Thank you for your empathy, Pearl. If Susannah really wanted me dead, I’d be dead already.”

  “I just don’t like it …” Pearl shook her head and then abruptly stopped and jerked in her chair. “Oh my goodness! Is Marielle home alone? Is she all alone in that house tonight?”

  Adelaide nodded and patted Pearl’s hand in hers before she let go. “I don’t think Marielle is in any danger tonight. She’s not like the rest of us Holly Oak women. Not yet.”

  arielle gaped at the drenched figure standing in front of her. The woman’s gray-brown hair hung in wet coils down her shoulders, and her dark skirt clung to her calves like a Grecian drape. She wore a faded denim jacket, frayed in places and which appeared to be a size too big. Her face was Adelaide’s in a younger life.

  For a moment Marielle almost believed the apparition in front of her was a time-travelled version of Adelaide as a middle-aged woman. This staggering thought tore at her as she grabbed the fallen journals and struggled to her feet.

  But then realization flooded her. “Caroline …,” she sputtered

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Who are you? I don’t know you.” Her tone bristled. “Where’s my mother? Where are the children?”

  “I’m … I …” Marielle was suddenly unable to recall if Caroline knew Sara was dead. A half-second later she remembered Adelaide had told her Caroline had shown up at the funeral and left the next day without a word to anyone. “My name’s Marielle Bishop.”

  “Bishop? Your last name is Bishop?”

  “Yes. I’m married to Carson.”

  Caroline seemed to need a second to process this information. She stood staring at Marielle for several awkward seconds. “You know who I am,” she finally said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, where is everyone? Where’s my mother? Where are my grandchildren?”

  “Carson and the children are on Long Island at his parents’. He’s returning home tomorrow morning, but the children will be there for three weeks. And Adelaide fell and broke her wrist today. She’s at the hospital, but she’s supposed to be released tomorrow.”

  Caroline’s wet brows rose. “She broke her wrist, and she’s in the hospital?”

  Marielle swallowed, pushing back murmurings of inadequacy. “She fell down the stairs, actually. The break required surgery. And she hit her head too. Her doctor wanted her to stay overnight as a precaution.”

  Caroline stood unmoving and dripping rainwater onto the rug under her sandaled feet.

  “Can I get you a towel or some dry clothes?” Marielle asked.

  “What are you doing in this room?” Caroline’s gaze dropped to the journals in Marielle’s arms.

  Marielle had no intention of telling Caroline what she carried. “Why don’t I help you find some dry clothes?”

  “I have clothes, Mary-whatever-your-name-is—”

  “Marielle.”

  “Marielle. I want to know what you’re doing in this room.”

  A shot of anger zoomed forward, replacing the intimidation she felt only seconds earlier. “I know who this room belonged to, and I’m sorry for your loss, really I am. But this is a spare bedroom in the house where I now live. I live here. And you’re dripping water on the rug.”

  Caroline looked down at her feet and the amoeba-shaped puddle that surrounded them. She slowly raised her head. “You live here.”

  “Yes.”

  A second of silence.

  “Well then, how about that towel,” Caroline said.

  Marielle moved past her, holding the journals tight to her ches
t. She made her way to the large bathroom on the north side of the hallway and flipped on the light switch. “The towels are in the cupboard on your left.”

  Caroline walked past her. “I know where the towels are.”

  “Come downstairs when you’re done. I’ll make us some tea.”

  Caroline nodded and then closed the door.

  Marielle spun around and walked quickly to her bedroom. Before she could even begin to make sense of Caroline’s being there, she had to find a place to stash Sara’s journals. She opened her closet, shoved the journals under a pile of sweaters and then withdrew them again. She knelt on the closet floor, opened the little door to her own crawlspace but then closed it.

  She pulled out her laptop case and placed the journals inside, then zipped it closed. She set it back against the wall, behind her dresses. Then she stood and closed the closet doors and made her way downstairs to put water in a kettle.

  In the foyer Marielle nearly tripped over something square and dark as she hurried past the front door.

  A suitcase.

  Caroline had brought a suitcase.

  For a moment, Marielle stared at the wet evidence that Caroline might be thinking of staying more than a day. Then she took the suitcase upstairs and set it just outside the bathroom door.

  Caroline stepped into the kitchen wearing a pair of jeans and a flowing top that fell to her hips. She had combed her wet hair and pulled it into a ponytail. In the warm light of the kitchen Marielle could see that Caroline’s face was heavily lined with creases and wrinkles, marks of a life spent in the sun—or in worry.

  “Thanks for bringing up my suitcase.” Caroline pulled out a chair at the table in the kitchen’s alcove and sat.

  “Sure. No problem.” Marielle set a cup of tea before her and a sugar bowl. “Need any milk or cream in that?”

  Caroline pulled the cup toward her, studying its painted porcelain face. “No. Thank you.”

  Marielle sat down across from her with her own cup. A dozen half-formed questions zoomed across her brain as she stared at the woman across from her. Caroline. Caroline the addict. Caroline the runaway. Caroline the horrible mother. Caroline who knew where the letters were. Adelaide’s estranged daughter. No one had seen or heard from her in four years, and now here she was—out of nowhere—sitting in the kitchen with Marielle and drinking tea.