Harbinger in the Mist (Arms of Serendipity) (5 page)

The girls nodded and waved as their mother left.

“What was she talking about?” Lindsey asked.

“My horse is getting ready to have a baby. According to the vet, Wind Dancer isn’t due for a few more weeks, but if she’s already waxing… Anyway, you clean its umbilical stump with this solution, Nolvasan, after it's born. Michelle was supposed to get it ready,” Maddie said.

“It is ready, but we do need to clean her stall,” Michelle answered.

“Girls, you have been a great help,” Aimee said, taking a pack of paper plates out of a grocery bag on the counter and some silverware out of a box on the stove. She handed them each a set.

“You should eat some lunch and then head over to take care of your horse so that your parents don't get upset.”

Lindsey was still curious; she could understand wanting to clean the horse and its stall up before birth, but what was all this talk about wax?  “What did your mom mean about wax? Why would you wax a horse?”

Both girls looked at her then at each other before succumbing to a fit of giggles. Lindsey didn't understand what was so funny.

“When a mare's a close to giving birth, their teats will secrete this sticky, waxy stuff. It's called ‘waxing.’ It’s a sign that birth is imminent.”

“Humans do that, too. We secrete a pre-milk called colostrum. It's probably the same substance in horses. We’re all mammals, after all,” Aimee added.

They ate in silence, drinking soda from the can. The food was good, but way too filling. Lindsey was sure that she wouldn't be able to get much done until she'd digested the heavy meal. The girls left when they finished eating and cleaned up their plates. They were funny and very friendly, and Lindsey was disappointed when they had to leave. Aimee ventured out to the little houses out back while Lindsey put away the leftovers and started unpacking pots and pans.

“Barry said that the cleaning company stored a bunch of furniture in those buildings out back, but he neglected to say that they were all antiques!” Her mom rushed into the room holding a sun catcher in one hand and a lamp in the other. She held the sun catcher up for Lindsey to see. It was oval with a large, red rose painted in the middle of the palest pink glass. Once Lindsey took her offering, Aimee began to slowly turn the wrought iron table lamp in her hands, marveling at the frosted glass shade with its beaded fringe and colorful, hand-painted hummingbirds.

“I thought you’d like that. It’d look nice hanging in your bedroom window. And look at this lamp! There are all kinds of things out there!”

“That must be one of Miss Richard's – God rest her soul – Tiffany lamps. She had a nice Pulaski credenza in the foyer that she put that lamp on. She inherited it all with the house when Mr. Grayson sold it all those years ago,” Darby said. “I had wondered what had happened to her stuff.  When I came in here the other day and the house was empty I feared it had gone to the Goodwill or something.”

“Was there anything that you wanted? There’s no way we’re going to be able to fit all of that stuff back in here.”

“Well, there was an old Singer sewing machine that I’d be interested in buying.”

“I wouldn’t even think of taking your money, Darby. I don’t know if anything’s missing, but that one house out back is full of stuff. If the sewing machine is in there, it’s yours. It’s the least we could do. I assume they moved all of that stuff in there when the floors were being refinished. Is the credenza the big, wood cabinet with the gold leafing on it?”

With the women deep in conversation about the antiques that had been left behind, Lindsey slipped away and headed up to her room to unpack her own stuff. She’d been waiting until Maddie and Michelle had left before she went upstairs to put her own room together. She wanted to grab a shower and a nap, but her room was a mess of boxes. Her bed frame sat in the middle of the room. The boxed springs and mattress were propped against the wall. Lindsey put the old sun catcher on the dresser and pulled the bed frame near the window so that she’d be able to see the estuary from bed.

She managed to get the bed set on the frame without making too much noise. Next she located and unpacked her stereo, CDs, and a set of bed linens.

Within the hour her room was in pretty good order. She pulled a pair of jean shorts, a tank top, and some underwear out of the dresser and laid them on her bed. She then collapsed the used boxes that she’d emptied and piled them by the door. She found towels in a box in the laundry room. She put the extras away and trudged back to her room with two thick but mismatched towels. She was dead tired, but a shower was long overdue. She hadn’t had one since the movers packed up their old house two days ago. Her mom took one in the motel back in Knoxville yesterday, but the bathroom had looked sketchy to Lindsey, so she’d opted to wait. And it showed. Her brown hair was oily and clung to her head. Her pale face was sweaty and she felt like she had an odor.

Once she was locked away in her bathroom, Lindsey hung the towels on the rack on the wall, put her toiletries in the shower, and placed her contact lens case and solution on the vanity. She had slept with the lenses in last night and her eyes were sore, but she’d take them out after her shower because her hands were filthy. She stood there for a moment and marveled at the size and luxury of the room. She went back and forth between a hot shower and a bubble bath. Which one to take? Fearing falling asleep in a tub of water, she finally opted for a shower.

The water heated quickly and pelted down like a heavy rain. At first she just stood under the running water, letting the heat penetrate into her sore muscles. The water pressure was perfect – not so hard that it beat your skin off and not so slack that you felt like you still had a film of soap on you.  She lathered her hair and scrubbed her face. She rinsed her hair, pushing the soap back and down her head with her hands. She was getting sleepier, so she hurriedly scrubbed her body and hung the pouf on the water knob. Just as she was squeezing water from her hair, preparing to get out, she heard the bathroom door creak open. It was probably her mom, but it could also be Darby. Or maybe even one of the twins from next door come back to tell her something. Maybe even one of the movers bringing in a final box or two.

She reached out of the foggy glass door, grabbed a towel from the rack, and yelled, “Hold on. I’m in here.”

No one answered.

She peeked out of the shower and saw that the bathroom door was open a couple of inches.

“Hello?” She stepped out onto the tiled floor and wrapped the thick towel around her body.

Silence.

“I must be imagining things,” she muttered to herself as she wrapped the second towel around her head like a turban. She must not have shut the door entirely and it just opened on its own.

She dried her body off and paddled tentatively into her room to get dressed. After ensuring that her bedroom door was indeed closed and locked, she went to the bed. She dropped her towel on the floor and reached for her undergarments, but her clothes weren’t there. She looked around, startled. She looked on the floor and under the bed, but they were simply not there. She distinctly remembered laying the clothes right there by her pillow.

After a few moments of frantic searching, she found the clothes folded and stacked on the dresser. She stopped and thought to herself. She could have sworn that she’d left them on the bed, but she was tired. She must’ve
thought
that she’d put them on the bed. She shook her head.

She quickly dressed and brushed through her long, wet hair. She went back to the bathroom to take her contacts out and to brush her teeth. But when she went to the vanity, her contact case wasn’t where she’d left it, either. In its place was Serendipity, the little pony she’d left on the window ledge the day they toured the house. She’d forgotten about the little toy and was startled to see it there. She found the contact case sitting on the back of the toilet – definitely not where she left it. She was certain that someone was playing a trick on her now.

“Who in the hell?” she whispered. Was her mom doing this? Darby? Was it supposed to be funny? Well it sure as hell wasn't. Just as she was considering stomping downstairs and letting them know just how
not
funny this was, someone giggled softly in the corner of the room. Lindsey jumped and let out a blood-curdling scream.

She turned towards the sound, looking around and inside the bath tub, between the toilet and the wall, but there was no one there. She stood in the center of the empty room, her heart pounding fiercely and her breathing uneven.

“Honey! What’s wrong?” Aimee yelled seconds later as she banged on the locked bedroom door with one hand and jiggled the doorknob with the other.  Lindsey quickly let her in, Darby on her heels.

“Mom, were you just in here?”

“No, how could I have been? The door was locked. Are you OK? We heard you scream.”

“Someone opened the door while I was in the shower. And moved my clothes. And my contact case. Nothing is where I left it. And I swear that I just heard someone laugh in the bathroom!”

“Honey, you’re tired. And look,” she pointed to one of the open windows. “You probably heard some kids outside laughing. See? There’s a boat out on the river. You haven’t slept well the last couple of nights.  It’s all catching up with you. Why don’t you take a nap? We can finish unpacking later.”

Lindsey wasn’t sure whether or not the window had been open before but she was positive about the other things. “I am not imaging things, Mom. I know where I left my things and I know that they were in another spot after I got out of the shower.”

“I didn't say you were, honey. I just think that you're in dire need of rest and should consider taking a nap.”

“Yeah. I think I will.”

Lindsey sat down on her bed, still reeling from everything. Darby patted her on the shoulder then followed Aimee out of the room. The door clicked softly behind them. Lindsey crawled under the covers and into the center of the bed. The sheets were buttery smooth and refreshingly cool against her bare legs and arms. Her face sank down into the feather pillow.

She was so exhausted that she fell into a deep sleep almost instantly. She was so far gone that she didn’t feel the tug as someone climbed onto the bed, nor the tiny feet as they walked over her and bounced on the bed several times before jumping to the floor with a soft thud on the other side. Nor did she see it run across the room and disappear through the wall.

Four

Lindsey woke just before dusk, the film of a strange dream still clinging to her mind like mental morning breath. The dream had seemed so real. In the dimming light filtering in through the window, she was sure she could still smell the smoke in the air, still see the spot on the floor where the thick beads of wax had pooled in gelatinous pearls. As she sat up, the details flooded back crisply instead of filtering away like water through cupped fingers.

There had been a woman, young, but in a different time. Her hair was short, curled, and set meticulously. Despite the heat in the room, she wore stocking, an A-line dress, and a string of pearls. She had stood against Lindsey’s bedroom wall, a grade school-aged boy in shorts and a tee shirt, clinging to her skirt; his right wrist bore a wrapping as if it had been sprained. In the middle of the dark room, stood two figures cloaked in black, chanting and waving packages that looked like humongous cigarettes.

Their robes swirled as they turned, sending heavy, perfumed smoke spiraling around the room. Lindsey remembered the unique, piquant scent and how it hung low in the air and how the flickering flames on the fat candles sitting in the middle of the floor had cast eerie shapes on the hanging bed linens, walls, and floor.

The woman in the corner looked worried and the boy scared as the chanting grew louder.

 “Earth and air, purify to good, blow away evil,” the women sang as they drew in the air with their fuming rolls. “Air and fire, blow away evil, burn away pain. Fire and water, burn away pain, wash away fear. Water and earth, wash away fear, bury all negativity, purify to good.”

After several tense moments, the women finally faced each other, drew a large shape with the smoke, and stabbed the sticks through the center. They then walked to the middle of the room, pointed the sticks toward the ceiling and said loudly, “As above, so below. So mote it be!" They ended the rite by dropping ashes from the smudge sticks to the floor.

The walls shook and a tremendous gust of wind blew through the room and out the open windows knocking a kerosene oil lamp from beside the little twin bed against the wall, its chimney smacking the floor in a cascade of shattered glass. Red oil oozed from the upturned base across the floor like blood from a freshly opened wound. The long, white curtains snapped feverishly for a moment and then hung still as death by the window panes. Lindsey had awakened when something else fell in the room, clanking to the floor with a thud.

Stretching, she grabbed her glasses from the bedside table and peered around the room, her vision now sharp and clear. It looked much different now than it had in the dream. Pushing to dream to the back of her mind, Lindsey walked to the radius head window and took in the view she had of the estuary. A myriad of colors, from a bright, coral pink, to a soft, bluish-purple, streaked the sky as the sun was sinking behind the rippling waters. As she marveled at Mother Nature’s painting, a flock of snowy egrets took flight over the water. She stretched and went downstairs to find her mother.