Topaz Dreams

by Patricia Rice

  Teddy thought the house shivered around them as they entered. She glanced to Sam and Mariah for confirmation, but they were busy studying the studio. Suspicious, she considered the room they entered. High-ceilinged and spacious, filled with natural light, it was a perfect studio. The white-painted walls wore countless works of art that would fascinate any museum. She wanted to gravitate toward the paintings and fall into the beauty, but Kurt’s tension kept her at his side.

  “Unless this is the entire ground floor, the house isn’t large enough to hold all this,” he muttered, stopping just inside the door.

  Ignoring her guests, Cass switched on a strong light over a work desk and began removing tools from a drawer. “Lay the paper out here, please.”

  While Walker spread out the smaller paper on the desk, Teddy wished Syd were here to explain what Kurt saw. Depth perception wasn’t her specialty, and she hadn’t really looked at the house as they’d walked up the drive—part of the illusion, perhaps. A studio this size would be an unusual addition to a Victorian, but if Cass had removed the walls of a few parlors and a dining room and extended the house out back, it seemed feasible.

  But then where would the front door be? Not in here, unless it was hidden by paintings. She understood why Walker warned about the house’s illusion. How did Cass do it?

  She realized she’d instinctively shut down her Monitor when they’d entered. Did she dare open it up?

  Sam and Mariah were still acting unusually watchful. Hadn’t they been here before? But not in this room, they’d said. What were they expecting to happen?

  Sam hovered over the desk, watching Walker work. He was pinning the paper down with weights while keeping a close eye on everything their hostess did. Good for him.

  Kurt remained tense, studying the interior, probably with the eye of an architect. Biting her lip, Teddy opened up enough to sense if there was any danger.

  Overwhelmed, she quickly shut down again. How was it possible. . . ? She glanced at Cass, who had looked up and was now regarding her with interest.

  The house was packed with. . . souls. Not ghosts, per se. It was if they’d crossed a veil into another dimension where the living and the dead mixed. Maybe here, she was the ghost. It wasn’t logical, but she could sense the interest and emotions of so many different. . . whatevers. . . that she couldn’t breathe unless she shut down.

  This had been a property owned by Lucinda Malcolm’s family—the same Lucinda Malcolm who painted the future.

  Here was the center of Hillvale’s weirdness—not the vortex or cemetery. But studying the perfectly ordinary studio, Teddy couldn’t figure out exactly how it was all wrong.

  Kurt covered her hand where she’d dug her fingers into his arm. “Okay? Want to go closer?”

  She wanted to run. No way in hell could she explain that. She nodded, hoping this might be a quick process so she could take her papers and leave.

  Did no one else notice all these presences? Kurt and Walker obviously didn’t. They were intent on watching as Cass turned back to the desk and began dusting off decades of dust and old spiders with a light brush.

  Teddy released Kurt’s arm and inched closer to Mariah, the person who claimed to see ectoplasm and catch ghosts. There were no ghost catchers on the ceiling of this room. “What in hell is this place?” she murmured, trying not to disturb the others at the desk.

  “No clue,” Mariah said. “I haven’t seen this part before. I think Cass invents what she needs as she goes.”

  “Different dimensions?” Teddy asked sarcastically. “Or are we sitting on a giant graveyard and walking through illusion?”

  “Or all of the above,” Mariah said with a shrug. “You shouldn’t have brought Kurt here. He’s damaged already. I can’t think this place is healthy for him, although he’s handling it better than I expected.”

  “That’s because he’s shut off everything inside him with a giant wall,” Teddy retorted. “He’s not really here.”

  Mariah raised heavy dark eyebrows in interest. “You can tell that? Is there any Kurt left to be here then?”

  “Does this conversation make any sense in the real world?”

  “I live inside a computer, so yes, in my real world, it makes perfect sense. In your reality, probably not.”

  “Oh, damn, we’re living in a virtual reality! Hillvale really isn’t on the normal plane, is it?” Teddy covered her eyes, shut down her senses, and tried to adjust her thinking.

  “Cass may be living in virtual reality, maybe the cemetery and vortex too, but I’m pretty sure the town is solid,” Mariah whispered consolingly. “Well, most of it, anyway. Dinah’s kitchen can get weird, but I figured that was Dinah.”

  Teddy never played computer games. The only technology she managed was e-mail and Skype. She even hated her computerized bookkeeping. So virtual reality was something from a bad sci-fi film and could mean almost anything. She just knew there were spirits here, and Kurt said the room dimensions didn’t work. Illusion, she told herself. Cass had created a massive illusion—or a mass hallucination—for reasons only she understood.

  Teddy watched Walker and Kurt hovering over Cass’s desk, felt the tension rising, and asked Mariah in cynicism, “If this is virtual reality, who do you think controls the joystick?”

  “I don’t think they use—” Mariah’s eyes widened as she followed the path of Teddy’s thoughts: Lucys weren’t inclined to use technology. “The Nulls?”

  “It would follow,” Teddy said with a mocking shrug. “Lucys are metaphysical, Nulls are as about as physical as it gets. They’re the ones who control the town.”

  “I don’t like this metaphor,” Mariah concluded, turning back to watch the men at the desk with Cass. “I came up here to be free of male coercion. I will not be controlled again.”

  Teddy thought that sounded like a personal declaration of war. Did that mean Mariah understood Cass and what was happening in Hillvale? What happened in this weird house?

  Could Cass be the reason for Thompson leaving and the body in the attic? Or the joy-stick-wielding Nulls?

  Twenty

  June 30: late afternoon

  * * *

  “The artist was certainly no writer,” Cass said dryly as she served sangria on the front porch. “The use of the pronoun ‘he’ is less than illuminating.”

  The last tedious hours of attempting to read bad handwriting deserved alcoholic reward, Kurt decided. He wondered if Cass had once been an English teacher—and realized he knew next to nothing of her. He studied his iced drink and pondered whether it was safe to taste.

  “She occasionally uses the initial ‘L.’” Walker had taken photos of the newly cleaned backing from the paintings and was zooming up the results on his phone. “That would correspond with her husband’s name of Lonnie.”

  “Or any of two dozen other people here ten years ago, including my uncle Lance,” Kurt pointed out. “I haven’t had time to dig out employee and rental records, but the commune—”

  “Had shut down,” Mariah said, declining a glass and starting down the stairs. “If your head hasn’t exploded yet, I need to go back and help Dinah so she has time to prepare her dough for tomorrow.”

  Kurt scowled at the vague insult and figured she was heading back to report to her coven. Mariah just needed a pointy hat to look the part of witch. Or maybe, with those feathers in her braid, she was going for Native American shaman.

  After waving farewell to Mariah, Sam continued where they’d left off. “The farm where the commune once operated should have been deserted before Teddy’s cousin moved to town. My grandparents died, and the farmhouse burned almost twenty-five years ago.”

  “But we have the news reports showing that the kiln was there, and people were using it ten years ago,” Teddy argued. “There could have been RVs or tents hidden up there.”

  “There were,” Cass said dismissively, taking what Kurt thought of as the throne chair—wicker with an over-large rounded back and a stack of cushions
. The rest of them sat on more mundane mesh chairs available from any big box store. “Hillvale has the homeless just as anywhere else. Only ours tend to be itinerant artists. The pottery produced in that kiln was once world famous. There are those who mourned its loss.”

  Kurt wanted to be skeptical, to question everything the old lady said, but he knew she was right. His father had collected some of those pieces. “Did you know the names of the potters? Did any of them start with L?” he asked.

  Cass turned blue eyes eerily similar to Sam’s in his direction. “The talented potters from the commune are well known—Peterson, Williams, Arthur. Your Thompson may have worked with them in his youth, but by ten years ago, they were long gone. Many of the children from the commune returned to stay here after their parents moved on, though. Your uncle Lance, Lars Ingersson, and Lucinda Malcolm are the only L’s coming immediately to mind, and two of them were dead at the time.”

  “Or Lucy,” Kurt said cynically. “Ten years ago, Lance was still drying out. I can’t imagine him being involved with the Thompsons.”

  Teddy was still examining the photo of the illegible writing. She’d been buzzing with impatience all afternoon, even after they had conceded that Walker needed to take the papers in for further processing with better equipment. She pointed at one of the more recent, legible passages. “Thalia says ‘his work is almost as good as Peterson’s, but it will never resemble a Williams. He hit me again when I told him so.’”

  Kurt wanted to say her cousin was as looney as any Lucy, but he was willing to listen to other interpretations. He’d spent the better part of his life listening, after all. But this discussion made his skin crawl. “If her husband was hitting her, she should have left right then.”

  “Not all women are that strong—or have resources to escape.” Sam finished her drink and stood up. “I need to get back to Dinah’s, and I’m guessing Walker is eager to take these things to the sheriff.”

  Walker stood up with her, holding the carefully wrapped paper. “Do we need to start asking in town about people with L initials?”

  “Very few of today’s residents were living here ten years ago.” Cass spoke up in a tone meant to be heeded.

  Kurt watched with interest as the others halted and waited for further enlightenment. Apparently, Cass did not impart her knowledge often. Maybe not talking was a family trait inherited from his grandfather—Cass’s father.

  Walker took out the phone he used for notes. “Would you mind telling us who lived here? They might shine some light on Thalia’s domestic situation.”

  “I lived here, of course,” Cass said coldly. “And Kurt’s mother, when she wasn’t in the city. The lodge employees. A few people like Susan McQueen and Marta Josephine who bought cottages long ago. Tullah moved in a few years before Pasquale bought the old general store, so they were here. Mostly, people only came up on the weekends, so Kurt’s rental records would be more accurate, although probably not helpful. Renters are usually short term and don’t mix with the locals. And his records won’t include those camping on the farm. I don’t remember anyone operating the crystal shop after it closed decades ago, not even during the time you indicate Thalia lived there.”

  “So, my mother’s cousin probably had few close friends,” Teddy said quietly.

  Kurt reached over to hold her hand. She squeezed back, and he appreciated her acknowledgment. She made him feel as if he were part of this conversation instead of just an observer. “I’ll dig out the records, but most of my employees have always lived elsewhere and seldom mix with the locals. And you, Cass?” he asked daringly. “Do you know the locals?”

  She sent him a look of scorn. “More than you or your family do. But I didn’t know Thalia. There were always young people in that house. If they exhibited no traits to disturb the energy, I had no reason to seek them out. Perhaps that was a mistake on my part,” she conceded.

  Kurt left the energy comment hanging. Walker was preparing to leave with Sam and just frowned. Teddy was the one to leap on it.

  “How does a person disturb energy?” she demanded. “Did my parents disturb it? If my cousin was being abused by a vicious killer, shouldn’t that energy register?”

  “Your parents were a positive disturbance, entirely content within their circle of family. They had no need of me. And if your mother’s cousin was a Null, then I’d not notice her,” Cass said, standing in dismissal. “I’m guessing Thalia did not inherit the family traits.”

  That left a conversational gap wide enough to run a river through. Kurt stood and dragged Teddy up with him. He wasn’t about to linger when the others were leaving.

  “Family traits?” Teddy resisted his tug so she could face Cass down. “My family is related to yours? To Sam’s? To Mariah’s?”

  “Yes, at some distant point perhaps. But like recognizes like. That’s why Hillvale exists, why it has always existed. Do not ask me for the genealogy. I don’t have it. There are answers elsewhere for those who seek them, I’ve been told. I had more than I could handle as it was and didn’t need more.” She began gathering empty glasses on a tray.

  Kurt tugged Teddy down the steps after the others. “Family tree another time. I have to go back to work and you have a sister wondering if you’re lost.”

  She stomped after him in her ridiculous high-heeled boots. “You don’t think it’s weird that the cousin I know I’m related to isn’t part of the weird energy that relates me to complete strangers?”

  “I think everything about Cass and this town is past weird and well into crazy,” Kurt said. “It’s time we tore it down and started over.”

  Oops, wrong thing to say. Teddy shot him an incredulous look and hurried to catch up with Sam and Walker, leaving him in her dust.

  Irritated and frustrated, Teddy stomped into the shop to discover Syd had covered all the bare space on the walls with artwork she’d collected from all over town. Teddy swung around to study the magnificent colors sprouting on her boring bare walls. “Wow. Now we need lighting.”

  “Thalia has been helping.” Syd nodded at Mia, who sat playing with a doll on an oval braided rug that hadn’t been there before.

  Jeb was busily stirring sand and water in bowls in an uncarpeted corner of the floor, while Prince Hairy slept beside him.

  “Thalia’s telling you how to hang the art?” Teddy walked up and down the shop, looking for red eyes. She located Thalia’s three pieces in strategic locations, where light from the big window fell on them. But those were the only pieces with red where eyes might be depicted. The cubist would take some study, but there were red stripes there too.

  “The lady said there was paintings in the attic,” Mia said prosaically, braiding her doll’s hair. “We got ice cream.”

  Teddy raised her eyebrows questioningly. Syd nodded confirmation. “The attic of town hall and one of the abandoned buildings across from the ice cream parlor. This town is littered with art.”

  “I wonder how many murals got buried behind boring beige?” Teddy studied the old paint on her walls. “I’ve always wanted murals on my walls.”

  Mia tilted her head. “She says at the art store.”

  “All right, this is just a bit scary. Murals in the art store? We’ll have to figure out which old building was an art store.” Teddy sat down on the new rug. “Where did the rug come from?”

  “Tullah’s.” Syd continued working with the picture hanger she’d attached in one of the few blank spaces left. “She had some kid clothes come in today, and I bought those and the rug. But I’ll have to start looking for a job soon. I want to save Damien’s life insurance money for the kids’ college, and I’ve about exhausted my savings.”

  Teddy knew Damien, the children’s late father, had left the family a substantial insurance policy, as well as a retirement fund. Combined with her own income as an interior designer, Syd had been reasonably well off until now.

  Teddy wanted to talk to Mia about ghostly voices, but Syd was in a tough place, one Thalia co
uldn’t solve.

  “I don’t suppose you can ask the lady what happened to her?” Teddy asked, just in case.

  Mia shook her head rapidly and pouted her bottom lip.

  “I tried that,” Syd admitted. “Mia got hysterical. The voice volunteers information that doesn’t touch on emotional subjects, but ask anything direct and things fly.”

  “A ghost in denial.” Teddy sighed and stood up again. “I don’t think you’ll find a lot of use for your decorating talent up here, unless Kurt wants to redo the lodge. I have a feeling that’s a firm no. We can set up a printer, create business cards, but the café seems to be the place where the town passes on information. Leaving word there probably works best.”

  “I take it you didn’t learn much from the backing?” Syd straightened the oil she’d just hung.

  “We learned that Thalia had the world’s worst handwriting, and pencil scribbling smears and fades. They seem to be journals of a sort. Walker’s taking them into Baskerville for more examination. He e-mailed his photos to my account, if you want to take a try at them.”

  “I’ll look later. I hired a truck and movers to go to the storage unit to pick up the parental ceramics. Since it’s all boxed, I just told them to bring all the boxes. Aaron at the antique store says he rents one of the vacant buildings for inventory, and we can store them there until we see what we have.”

  “You made arrangements with the storage unit management to let the movers in?” At Syd’s nod, Teddy dug her wallet out from behind the counter. “Then let us repair to the café and begin inquiries into jobs, art stores, and people who know something about pottery.”

  “Aaron says he does. He’s eager to look at ours. I told him if we sold anything, the proceeds would go to charity. That didn’t scare him off.” Syd helped Jeb up and led him to the kitchen to wash.

  “Man, you’ve been crazy busy! I don’t think we should display breakables here,” Teddy called after her. “Thalia is likely to destroy the collection. Daisy’s stones are safer.”