Daughters of the Lake

by Wendy Webb

  Addie dropped the hairbrush and stared deeply into the mirror. A look of confusion came over her face. Was there a flash of recognition? Kate screamed louder. I’m here! Listen to me! You are in danger! You will die if you don’t leave this place! Save yourself! Save your baby! Addie turned and looked behind her, this way and that. Kate felt her heart beating. Could she be reaching her? Jess is going to kill you and your baby!

  Kate was astonished as Addie, staring at her own reflection in the mirror, began to silently mouth the words that Kate was screaming inside her head: “You are in danger.” Kate shouted in time with Addie’s lips: You are in danger, until the two women were repeating the words together, over and over.

  Addie ran to the door, opened it, and looked outside. She saw Jess walking down the street—he was nearly three blocks away by now. Somehow he sensed her, turned and waved. She put up her hand in greeting, and then Addie—and Kate—watched Jess Stewart until he disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Kate awoke to a tear-soaked pillow and looked at the clock. Three thirty. She tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable enough to drift back into sleep, but soon she admitted defeat. There would be no more sleep for her tonight. She pulled on a robe and padded down to the living room, sat on the couch, and looked out the window toward the water.

  Take good care of my baby today. The man who had whispered those words softly into Kate’s ear was arrested for her—or rather, Addie’s—murder. How could he have possibly done it? Why would this man have killed his wife and baby? For an affair? Images from the dreams bombarded her mind. The lilacs, the sweetness, the whispered words, the love. Sally, the other woman. Was all of it a lie? How did the life they shared go horribly wrong? Did he spin out of control and kill her in a moment of passion?

  More images washed over her. The body on the beach. The white gown. The baby. Tears stung her eyes and clouded her vision.

  “What a bastard,” Kate said aloud in the dark. “His own wife and child.” She heard a low yowl. It was Alaska, curled up in a ball in the corner of the room, tail covering her nose.

  “Am I making too much noise, Lass?” Kate said softly, and walked over to her drowsy friend. “Did I wake you?” Kate scratched the dog’s snout and behind her ears.

  Kate felt like walking. She was restless and needed to clear her head, to shake off what she had learned in the library and especially this latest dream. That it was the middle of the night didn’t concern her. Not even the most dangerous predator would be fool enough to try to do Kate harm with an enormous, fierce-looking dog by her side.

  “Should we see what’s happening in the outside world?” she whispered to her dog. Alaska’s ears perked up at this familiar phrase. The dog unfolded herself from her sleeping position, stretched, and trotted off in search of her leash. A few minutes later, after Kate had pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, she and Alaska stole quietly out the door and into the chilly night.

  The night sky in Wharton never failed to amaze Kate, no matter how many times she saw it. Usually, in towns of any size at all, the stars were at least partially obscured by the lights of the city. But here, they were so bright, so big, and so tangible that it seemed to Kate the town itself was a bit closer to the heavens than the rest of the world. As Kate walked with Alaska down the sidewalk, she drew her breath in at the sight of the starry universe laid out before them. The deep blackness of the sky contrasted with the stars’ brilliance. The sight of it obscured the day’s events for Kate, and she lost herself in the vastness of space.

  The streets were empty at that late hour, as Kate knew they would be. No lights flickered from any storefront or house that she could see, but the water shimmered brightly, reflecting the moon and stars. She walked down toward the lakeshore to get a better look. A street sign on the corner caught her eye. FRONT STREET. Kate had walked here countless times, but on this night, the sight of the sign stopped her. She disappeared from their Front Street home. Kate shivered.

  “This is the street where Addie lived,” Kate whispered to Alaska. “But in which house?”

  Front Street was just three blocks long and so named because it ran directly in front of the lakeshore. The houses along both sides of the street were definitely old, but were they old enough? A century old? Kate wasn’t sure. All the houses were wooden and of the same basic style, two stories with big bay windows on the main floor and generous front porches. Most of the houses were white, differentiated from one another only by a picket fence here, a flourishing garden there. One had a porch swing.

  To Kate, it was an idyllic setting for a home, with the lakeshore in every backyard. She was wondering what kind of king’s ransom it would take to own one of these houses today when she remembered that Canby Lines had built several houses in town for its upper management workers. It was a nice perk for young families—common a century ago but unheard of in modern times. Kate was proud that her great-grandfather had taken such good care of his workers, but she wasn’t sure if these were the houses he had built or not. It made sense, however. One could see they had been constructed by the same builder.

  She disappeared from their Front Street home. The line from the newspaper rang through Kate’s mind again. Was Addie murdered in one of these houses?

  Just then, she felt Alaska tug hard on her leash. She was staring in the direction of the house at the very end of the block. Kate had long admired that house because of its large sloping corner lot that ran down to the lakeshore. Alaska tugged again on the leash and growled low in her throat.

  “What is it, girl?” Kate’s voice trembled. She looked up and down the street. No lights shone from any of the houses. Everyone was asleep. Everything was still. But Alaska’s growl told her there was a danger somewhere, hidden.

  Being here on the street where Addie had likely disappeared—the reality of standing so near where the event had surely occurred—sent a shiver through Kate. What was she doing wandering around outside at this time of night? It was foolish to be out here when every other living soul was in bed. She wanted to turn and walk up the hill toward home, but Kate’s feet were frozen into place. Why was Alaska growling? Why was she staring at that house?

  “Quiet,” she whispered to Alaska, not wanting to disturb the people who were, no doubt, sleeping inside the house at that very moment. She looked this way and that, and seeing nothing, felt compelled to look further. Kate stole into the backyard. She followed a path down to the lakeshore, where she found a small dock. Alaska’s increasing growls told Kate to stop right there and not go any farther.

  As she was standing there on the water’s edge, a sense of knowing engulfed Kate. This is the spot. This is where she died. In that moment, Kate felt a sharp pain in her back. And then another, and another. She cried out in a whisper as she fell to her knees, bent in half. She whirled around on her knees, but nothing was there. Nothing but an empty yard on a deep, dark night. Then she heard it, clean and clear: A male voice, horrified, anguished, stricken. “Good Christ, what have you done? Addie, oh my God—” It was an otherworldly sound, a tinny, scratchy echo reverberating in the emptiness, as though it was a recording being played on a gramophone. The words hung in the air as heavy as fog on a damp afternoon.

  Kate scrambled to her feet and began tugging at Alaska’s leash, but the dog didn’t want to leave this spot—she was transfixed, growling. Kate pulled harder and Alaska finally responded. They sped out of the yard, around the house and onto the street and didn’t stop running until Kate had put several blocks between her and whatever hung there in the air of that backyard.

  She slowed to a jog and then to a walk as she headed up the hill toward the house. All Kate wanted was to be back inside, in her bed, under the fluffy down comforter. She bent low, aching from the pain that still radiated in her back, panting as though she had just run a marathon, her heart beating as though she had just seen a ghost.

  Back in her room, Kate pulled the comforter to her neck as Alaska curled
up at the foot of the bed. She was relieved to feel the security and safety of being here, in this room, in this bed. Kate stared out the window until the first rays of dawn slivered across the dark sky.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Wharton, 1910

  “This trip is very ill timed,” Jess complained, hurriedly packing his suitcase. “I do not like leaving you right now.”

  Addie was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of their white bedroom on Front Street, turning her silver hairbrush over and over in one hand, rubbing her enormous belly with the other.

  “I’ll be fine, darling.” She smiled. “You are such a worrier. Women have been having babies for a while, you know. There’s no mystery to it. It’s not as though I’m giving birth to an ostrich.”

  “I just wish your mother could’ve come to stay with you while I’m gone,” Jess said, disregarding his wife’s attempt at humor. “This trip came up so quickly. There was simply no time to send for her.”

  “Again I tell you, I’ll be fine.” Addie rose with great difficulty, waddled over to her husband, and put her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and there they stood awhile. She listened to his heartbeat and wondered if the baby could hear it, too.

  “I’m not going,” Jess said.

  Addie laughed. “You’re going to tell Harrison that you can’t lead the meeting in Chicago because your wife is going to have a baby? I don’t think so.”

  “But I want to be here,” Jess complained. “For you. What if the baby comes early?”

  “In that case, you will have a brand-new son or daughter to greet you upon your return.” Addie smiled. “Don’t worry, Jess. It’s not like we’re living in the wilds of Great Bay—we’re in a city. If the baby comes early, the doctor is just a few steps away. I could crawl there on my hands and knees if necessary.”

  “Harrison has promised that he will look in on you,” Jess said. “And Ginny will be here every day for at least a few hours to do the washing and the marketing.”

  “A whole legion of people to look after me.” Addie grinned. “I may even go up to visit Celeste. I haven’t yet seen the baby.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Jess warned her, wagging his finger. “I don’t want you trudging up that hill like a turtle.”

  “A turtle!” Addie slapped him on the chest. “So that’s what I am now?”

  “It wasn’t so long ago that you were a tiger, my dear,” he laughed. “That’s how you got into this situation, if I’m not mistaken. All kidding aside, Addie, promise me you’re not planning to go visiting in your condition. Even if you took a car, it’s just not proper. You should be home, resting. We can go see Celeste and the baby when I return, when we have one of our own to show off. Harrison told me she isn’t taking visitors now, anyway. I think, after so many disappointments, she wants to make sure this baby is healthy and well before . . . well, you know what I’m trying to say.”

  Addie could see the wisdom of this. They had just received word that Celeste had delivered, weeks ahead of schedule, but even Harrison wasn’t talking too much about it. Because of what happened with Clementine, Addie reasoned, they were in seclusion with this one, not wanting anyone to intrude on their all-too-fragile family. Addie understood the notion of holding something so precious closely, carefully, as though the idea of exposing this new little life to the outside world might cause it to flee from its harshness. She didn’t even know whether the new Connor baby was a boy or a girl. Ah well, she’d find out in time.

  Truth be told, Addie was glad for the admonishment to stay home. She didn’t feel much like expending the effort to make a social call. She had been so tired for the past few days. Although she was trying to convince her husband not to worry about this trip, she was filled with trepidation about being left alone. She couldn’t forget that odd sensation when a voice inside her head had told her that she was in danger. Leave this place! Addie Stewart! Hear me! You are going to die on April 24 if you don’t do something about it! That date was but one week away.

  It has to be some odd reaction to impending childbirth, Addie tried to tell herself. It was simply too horrible to be true. She could shrug it away; that voice in her head hadn’t recurred. She held Jess tightly and prayed to her great-grandmother’s spirit to give her peace. Now that he was leaving, she dreaded the lonely nights ahead.

  “I’ll stay right here, reading by the fire,” Addie promised her husband. “I’ll not even go to the market. Nor to the library. I’ll simply count the days until you get home.”

  “As will I,” Jess said to her.

  Soon enough, he was gone to catch the train, and Addie felt very much alone in the house. She sat in the rocking chair, the one they had purchased for the baby, and rocked back and forth, back and forth, rubbing her belly and wondering.

  Two days passed without incident, then three, then four. For Addie, the nights were filled with worry, but the days seemed soft and effortless and peaceful, as though the light of day evaporated the demons that arose when the sun went down.

  Ginny, the maid from the Connor household, arrived faithfully at ten o’clock every day and did the washing, the cleaning, the marketing, and even most of the cooking, always setting a simmering pot of something on the stove for dinner when she left promptly at three. One day, she even brought a basket of hot bread, jam, and several books for Addie to read, with the Connors’ compliments. Her visits were enough company for Addie, who tired easily and wanted nothing more than to sit in her rocking chair, reading and staring at the wide expanse of water that lapped at the edges of their sloping backyard.

  On the seventh day, Addie arose from her bed with great difficulty, letting out a monstrous moan as she heaved her body to its feet. She was more than ready for this baby to arrive, unwieldy and unbalanced as she felt now. She smiled as she thought that it had been only two weeks since she and Jess had trekked up the hill to the Connor mansion for dinner. There was no way she could have attempted that journey now.

  Ginny arrived promptly at ten o’clock, filled with chatter about the town, the market, and the weather.

  “Something’s in the air, Mrs. Stewart,” Ginny said as she was washing the supper dishes from the night before. “Amos at the market says all of the fishermen are staying off the lake today. Might be a storm, he says.”

  Addie opened the kitchen door and stared down the long slope to the lake. There was a humidity in the air that was unusual for that time of year. Springtime in Wharton was usually a muddy, rainy affair, quite unlike spring in her hometown of Great Bay, which, although it was not so far away from Wharton, was typically still covered in a soggy, sloppy layer of snow in early April. Addie wasn’t quite used to the seasons in her new home, the warm winds of winter preventing much snow from accumulating, and the crisp zephyrs of summer sucking all the humidity out of the air.

  But today, the air felt different, as though it had been displaced from another season, lost on the wind and unsure of where to turn. It hung, heavy as a blanket, over the lake. Where water and air met, it seemed to sizzle and crackle like a thousand invisible bolts of lightning were hitting the water’s surface, just out of sight. The sky above was an unsettling shade of blue, but in the distance it looked angry, threatening, and green.

  Addie waddled out to the backyard to sit on the bench on the crest of the hill. Here, away from the bustle of the city docks, the lake was as still as a sheet of ice. Indeed, it looked so solid that Addie felt sure she could walk on it. She knew, from her lifelong love affair with this lake, that its waters would soothe and protect her on a day such as this—oh, how her aching muscles were crying out for a swim—but she had long since promised her husband that she wouldn’t go into the water until after the baby was born. Silly, superstitious man that he was.

  “I thought I’d make a pot of stew for you tonight, ma’am,” Ginny called out from the kitchen doorway.

  “Oh, don’t bother, Ginny,” Addie called back. “I’m not in the least bit hungry. In fact, I st
ill feel full from breakfast. Please don’t trouble yourself.”

  “Are you getting on all right, ma’am?” Ginny walked outside to where Addie was sitting on the bench, a concerned look on her face. “Is your time coming?”

  Addie smiled and rubbed her belly. “No, my time’s not coming. This baby is still warm and safe and snug just where she is. She’s not wanting to come into this world just yet.”

  “She, said you.” Ginny smiled. “You think it’s a girl, then?”

  Addie nodded. “I do. I just have a feeling.” Then, turning to look at Ginny, she asked, “Is the Connors’ new baby a boy or a girl?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am,” Ginny said. “None of us in the house know, excepting Martha, Mrs. Connor’s maid. And she’s not saying.”

  “Whyever not?”

  “Superstition,” Ginny said softly, looking up and down the lakeshore and drying her hands on her apron. “Whispers around the house are that the baby is a little wisp of a thing, blue when it was born, fragile as a snowflake. Martha won’t repeat its name, nor nothing about it, lesting that the devil come in and steal its soul.”

  “Oh no.” Addie shook her head. “You know that’s just a silly superstition, don’t you, Ginny?” The girl shook her head, and Addie continued, “In any case, I pray that the poor thing grows stronger.”

  “As do we all,” Ginny said. “We’re all on pins and needles up at the big house, everyone deathly quiet, as if a noise would disturb the baby’s slumber. Even Mr. Connor is padding around silent as a lamb. Me, if I had my way, I’d be banging and clanging and getting that baby to cry as hard and loud as it could. My mam always said that crying gives a baby strong lungs and a strong spirit. Strong enough to keep death away. Maybe that’s why I chatter so much.”