Writ on Water

by Melanie Jackson

  The aquatic plants in the next building proved more entertaining, for they were still in flower and looked wonderfully tranquil and mysterious floating on the dark pools of water. The piped-in serenade had moved on to the first duet in Lakmé, and Chloe nearly groaned with pleasure.

  Rory politely demurred when she asked to photograph his aquatic gardens, but once he was convinced that she was in earnest about this desire and not merely being courteous, he volunteered to show her the remaining hothouses personally, and to serve as her photographic assistant. He even unbent so far as to ask her advice about the selections to be featured in the fall catalogue.

  Chloe answered happily explaining why some plants would photograph especially well. If Rory liked her work he might actually want to hire her to come take beautiful pictures in this temperature-controlled paradise, which was infinitely more appealing than the hot, tick-infested, overgrown cemeteries in which she had recently been spending so much time.

  MacGregor followed, either curious about his son’s business or desirous of orchestrating any quarrels that sprang up between his offspring and his co-opted employee. But the morning was disappointingly harmonious as Rory and Chloe found that they had “two minds with but a single thought and two hearts that beat as one” on the subject of aquatic plants, and the appropriate operas to insure optimal growth. Verdi and Rossini both got high marks for inducing photosynthesis. Common watercress and Wagner were rejected as being too plebian and heavy to waste time on photographically or aurally. Chloe even suggested that Rory sell CDs of the nurseries’ favorite operas, an idea that he seemed inclined to favor.

  Eventually a bored and fidgeting MacGregor decided that he had other things to do. He abjured Rory to bring Chloe back personally before the afternoon was too advanced. Rory assured his father that he would have Chloe home in time to change for dinner, and cheerfully waved his parent out the hothouse door.

  “It isn’t that I don’t like his company. Sometimes,” he condescended to explain a few minutes later. “But he makes the kids nervous. And I can’t have that while they are cultivating spores. Unfortunately, he isn’t terribly interested in plants—not even moss.”

  This was the most human Rory had ever been.

  “I noticed that your assistant was upset, though I can’t imagine why. I personally love to work with a lion breathing down my neck. It gives one an adrenaline boost and makes one feel alert.” Chloe didn’t comment on the return of moss to their conversation. She liked green stuff as much as the next person, but couldn’t get passionate about it.

  “Doesn’t his stomping all over your sentences and assuming you are up to no good make you nervous?” Rory asked. “Most people are terrified of him.”

  “Your father doesn’t assume I’m up to no good. He doesn’t really assume that your assistant is up to no good. It is only that he questions—”

  “Without any cause!” Rory interrupted swiftly, as though she, too, had questioned his honor, or perhaps his masculinity.

  “He only does it to needle you. Anyway, you stomp on as many of my sentences as he does.”

  Rory eyed her, but didn’t say anything about her observation. They wisely went back to photographing water lilies, and managed to spend an entirely enjoyable afternoon in each other’s company.

  They were packing away Chloe’s cameras when Rory broached the subject of her visit with an abruptness that, while characteristic of the Patricks, was a vast change from the aimless pleasantness of their earlier conversations.

  “You don’t really think there is any danger to the cemetery, do you?” he asked bluntly.

  “Yes,” she said simply. “I do. At least potentially.”

  “But those monuments are huge. You’d need a crane to get them out,” he argued. “They aren’t like paintings or even regular sculpture that someone could just carry away in the trunks of their cars.”

  “Not all of them would need a crane. Anyway, these thieves are smart and inventive. There was one statue taken out of a cemetery right in the middle of New Orleans that weighed seven hundred pounds. It disappeared in the middle of the day. The police still don’t know how the thieves managed it.”

  Rory stared at her. She knew he was thinking hard, but couldn’t guess precisely what about. It seemed likely that part of what he was cogitating over was an attempt to believe that people could actually do something so distasteful as steal from the dead. She didn’t truly understand the thieves’ brains, but still made an effort to explain the indefensible crime so he would take the threat seriously.

  “Grave-robbing is probably the world’s third oldest profession. I know that this is a repugnant thought to contemplate, but thieves steal when there is something of value and little risk. Cemeteries are good economics. They are in Egypt and South America, and now here. Tastes change, but grave goods are always popular. This year, the flavor is early American.” She paused, but Rory said nothing, so she tried again.

  “The New Orleans police recovered a million dollars’ worth of stolen grave goods last year. And they reckon that is only about ten percent of the known missing monuments in that area. That is just one city. Savannah, Williamsburg, Boston—they’ve all been hit. And, Rory, the stuff that was taken isn’t a patch on the humblest tombstone in your family’s cemetery. That isn’t a graveyard; it’s the Louvre and British Museum combined. If Riverview is ever discovered by thieves, you’ll have to hire armed guards and patrol it around the clock. Maybe put in a security system and get some guard dogs. These thieves aren’t amateurs, and some innocent people have already gotten hurt trying to stop them . . . I’m sorry,” she added. “I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear.”

  Rory blinked and ended his inner communion. He smiled ruefully.

  “No, that is certainly not what I wanted to hear. But I am already looking at a system for the house. They can give me an estimate for the entire property while they’re at it. I don’t know if motion censors will work though, given the wildlife.”

  “But it’s just the cemetery you need to guard. I know the expense of electronics and guards would be—”

  “It isn’t that,” he said, hoisting her bags with casual ease. “It’s MacGregor I’m worried about. I don’t think he would permit guards in the cemetery proper. And if he ever gets it into his head that someone has actually been anywhere near his precious graveyard, he’ll start patrolling on his own. And then we’ll end up with someone dead—probably a teenager looking for a quiet spot to enjoy a stolen beer and some necking with his girlfriend.”

  “I see.” And she could. No second Sight was required to predict a tragedy if MacGregor did start policing the grounds.

  “Look.” Rory started for the door without meeting her eyes. “I’m not suggesting that you lie to MacGregor . . .”

  “But?”

  “But there’s no need to tell him all the statistics, is there? And if you see any evidence of trespassing, you can come tell me first and I’ll take care of it.”

  Chloe didn’t even hesitate. The choice between confiding in an obsessed—perhaps even crazy—old man with a heart condition and his sane, responsible son was an easy one to make. Under the circumstances, even Roland would understand her decision. Really, she was looking out for her employer’s best interests.

  “Sure. I’ll tell you first.”

  Rory looked back and gave a relieved smile.

  “We’d better go.”

  Dinner that night was another long affair. Claude and Isaac were looking unusually shifty-eyed as they gobbled their food, causing MacGregor to glare suspiciously and comment nastily about freeloaders, when he spoke at all. The tone of the baiting suggested that Claude was in need of a large sum of money. Again. And, in spite of his words the night before, MacGregor was no longer inclined to bail his nephew out on this occasion.

  In spite of her earlier hunger, Chloe now had no appetite. The spiritual miasma that clung to Isaac Runyon made her feel ill. Conscious of her obligations to be a good guest,
she made an effort to start a conversation or two, but had so little success that she excused herself before the cigar and brandy course and fled to her room.

  It wasn’t that she had any dislike of fine food and drink, but even an excellent VSOP and a mountain of chocolate couldn’t reconcile her to another minute spent in such obnoxious—-and evil—company. She wished with all her heart that MacGregor would send the pair away. She did not understand how he and Rory could fail to perceive the malevolence that was in their midst. They made her so nervous that she could barely keep still.

  What she truly would like to have done was cuff Rory for bailing out on the culinary ritual torture and leaving her alone, but there had been a frantic call from the nursery just before dinner about some new hybrids cocking up their rootlets and keeling over in their perlite beds, and like a surgeon or priest, he had gone racing back to Botanics to give aid and comfort to the dying stems.

  Chloe had offered at the time to go back with him and perform last rites, but had been rebuffed. Kindly, but firmly. She knew why too. She was supposed to go stand in the breach and keep Claude from annoying his uncle into a coronary.

  She scowled. The Patricks were making a habit of using her in a non-professional capacity, and while she didn’t mind some of it, she was tired of being a human shield. It wasn’t fair of her to blame Rory more than MacGregor for the situation, but she saw it as a case of diminished capacity. MacGregor was old and couldn’t help being like he was. Rory, she hoped, knew better. Claude was his cousin—-that made him Rory’s problem, not hers.

  The flight reflex died once she had a closed door between her and the rising tempest of the dining room. For a moment, Chloe toyed with going back to the nursery anyway and offering Rory some company while he attempted resuscitation of the rootlets, but she was tired and feeling miffed, and opted for a book and bed and a mild case of guilt instead.

  But once between the sheets, Chloe found her mind feeling overshadowed by the weight of history, wandering back over the other Patricks who had lived in the house before MacGregor and Rory. Her reading of the previous day had shown that they were people with large families, large bank accounts, and large peculiar ambitions. They hadn’t feared life, or death. Indeed, they had planned for both—and with more attention than they had paid to other, more common goals. Given the family’s age and wealth, there should have been Patrick statesmen and Supreme Court justices, captains of industry, fame to go with the fortune. But there weren’t.

  She got up and began to pace.

  The plantation itself had managed the miraculous feat of avoiding the attentions of the twentieth century tourist industry that had been born with the creation of the automobile. This was mainly due to the careful screens provided for the never-ending Patrick wealth, accumulated by some unspecified means—she was voting for piracy or something else disreputable since the family records were so coy on the subject.

  Chloe frowned. It was all so very odd. She had never encountered anything like it on her other projects. It wasn’t just that the Patricks had spent a king’s ransom in acquiring, perhaps illegally, statuary by the great artists of Europe; most great families from the pharaohs to the Tudors had done the same. But they had chosen that their immortality be achieved in funerary art that would never be seen by the wider world, and that suggested a familial arrogance that bordered on the pathological. Was that possible? Could this be a form of inherited obsession? And if it were a mental illness, then maybe they were conscienceless enough to be pirates. The Tidewater region had certainly seen a good deal of illicit trade in earlier times.

  The theory sounded pretty far-fetched, but she more than anyone knew that certain families could inherit . . . gifts. Tendencies.

  She’d had a vision in the back of her mind when Roland first spoke of sending her to Virginia. Riverview would be like some of the other places she had worked in Georgia and South Carolina, antebellum mansions with wide porticos hemmed in with old oaks twisted with nutgall, surrounded by feral lilacs, festooned with spanish moss—spanish pineapples, she corrected, the thought of Rory’s lecture about the wondrous non-moss easing the stern lines of her face. Places that were preserved, but not lived in. Or perhaps something like Williamsburg, which was inhabited by actors rather than real people.

  But Riverview wasn’t like that. It was more like Brigadoon, or some other magical place where time stood still. The twenty-first century might knock at the gates, but no admittance was being granted.

  She wished that she might have met some of the previous owners. It would be like seeing a unicorn or a fairy. MacGregor Patrick came from some original stock. Perhaps if they brought in a spiritual medium . . . ?

  The half-joking thought made her suddenly uneasy. MacGregor was already talking to ghosts. He didn’t need to be encouraged down this path—and Rory would probably strangle her if she brought it up.

  Her eyes wandered over to the painting by the dresser. She had noticed it before. It was a peculiar thing, and vaguely familiar in an unpleasant way. Almost modern in flavor, like some of the art done by fantasy and science fiction artists, though she couldn’t imagine that it was. She leaned forward and squinted at the brass plate screwed to the frame:

  The Death of Rebellious Absalom Richard Dadd 1857

  Chloe shivered and backed toward the bed, suddenly questioning the wisdom of her own desire for a little mental séance with the Patrick dead. They must have been a very strange family, collecting not just funerary art, but stuff like this painting. Dadd had been a nineteenth-century painter of immense talent who just happened to see fairies and hear spirit voices, which on one occasion sent him home to cut his father’s throat. Judged to be insane, he had been confined to Bedlam and then Broadmoor where he happily went on with his artistic, spiritually guided career.

  She wasn’t sure of the exact date of his incarceration, but it was in the first half of the nineteenth century. To have acquired a painting in 1857, someone would have had to journey to Broadmoor Prison and commission the work. Supposedly all his artwork of that era belonged exclusively to Broad-moor, but it wasn’t amazing that some wealthy Patrick had managed to get a painting anyway.

  What was amazing was that they wanted one at all.

  She stared at the tiny face of anguished David. It was mirrored in the face of the rebellious dead son and the stunted, stubby-limbed angels that surrounded them. They had nasty smiles that reminded her of Isaac.

  In spite of the lingering heat, Chloe felt suddenly chilled. Those weren’t angels that gathered over David! Of course not, Dadd didn’t see angels. The creatures were imps. Malevolent, staring imps waiting to torment and torture their victim.

  “Ugh!”

  Going back to the painting, she lifted the canvas down from the wall and carried it across the room. It took a moment to shove her clothes aside, but she found the perfect storage place at the back of her wardrobe.

  The door closed with a solid thump and she made sure the latch was securely closed. As an added measure of caution, she dragged a chair in front of the armoire. She didn’t mind being near the dead and their attendant grisly reminders of human mortality out in the cemeteries, but she didn’t want them following her to bed and pursuing her in dreams.

  She stood for a moment, staring at the blocked door and belatedly debating the wisdom—and politeness—of shoving a valuable work of art into a cupboard. Chloe decided she didn’t care about offending MacGregor or Rory. There was no way that she would be able to sleep with those dwarf demons staring at her. She would just explain to MacGregor in the morning where the picture was, so that no one would be alarmed at its disappearance.

  Her heart was still thundering when she climbed back into bed. It was more than a little annoying to discover that she was actually nervous about sleeping under a particular work of art. It was crazy, but apparently superstitious fear was a virus inside her, latent until Riverview—-and maybe memories of Granny Claire—had brought it out. First there had been bad dreams, th
en a deep, unexplainable fear and loathing of Isaac Runyon, and now this squeamishness about a piece of art. She could only hope that this sensitivity didn’t spill over into a distaste for cemeteries, because it would make things difficult if she started getting the whim-whams every time she stepped into a graveyard. Tombstones were the bread and butter of her work, at least for now. They weren’t catapulting her to the top of the photographic world, but she was doing all right for having taken the road less traveled.

  Shaking off her unease, Chloe reached for the pile of paperbacks on the bedside table. She hesitated a moment over her selection. She had started a mystery, but after her uneasy dreams the nights before, she decided that a romance might be in order. She wanted something soothing and uncomplicated, where the good guy always won. She took up the new Lisa Cach and started reading.

  Though feeling keyed-up, sleep came upon her quickly after midnight passed. Her weary eyes closed against the lamplight and the paperback slipped from her nerveless hands.

  He brought the shovel down with all his might, sinking the blade deep into the earth and shattering what he hoped were old tree roots and not a desiccated skeleton. This one was difficult, so much harder than the other, and he was growing tired. The failing darkness was bleeding the energy out of his muscles and bones. He feared that he would not have the strength to burrow all the way to hell, which was where this one belonged, dead or not.

  Bringing Runyon to Riverview had been a bad mistake—-a fatal misjudgment. The man had been greedy and wanted to take what wasn’t his. He hadn’t understood that there were some things that could never be permitted. To ask for money was one thing. Or perhaps to take a painting or some silver. But what he had wanted was impossible, and once he knew the secret, there was nothing for it but to get rid of him.

  It was a shame that he’d used the shotgun. The stinking blood and bits of tissue were dripping into the ground. It would ruin the earth forever. But that was why he couldn’t take the bits and pieces to the sacred place and hide them there. It would profane it—-unsanctify the soil and disturb the ones who slept there.