The Tale of Halcyon Crane (9 page)

“Down, Tundra!” Will commanded, and the dog dropped to the floor and sat in front of me. “She loves visitors. They’re the highlight of her day. And yes, they’re both friendly—but protective, too.”

I reached down gingerly to scratch this beast behind the ears. “So these were my mother’s dogs.”

Will nodded. “Tundra and Tika. They’re giant Alaskan malamutes. The breed is traditionally used as sled dogs, though the most work these two do is to walk from the couch to their food dishes. I’ve been taking care of them at home since Madlyn’s death, but I brought them here this morning before going to the office. I knew you’d like to meet them at the very least, even if you don’t end up keeping them. The girls belong to you now.”

“They’re magnificent,” I murmured, staring into their fierce golden eyes.

The greeting complete, both dogs settled down, curling up next to each other on the floor. I noticed they didn’t take their eyes off Will and me.

“We don’t have to stand here in the foyer, you know,” Will said, as he shut the front door behind us. “Take a look around.”

As I wandered farther into the house, images flashed in my mind like a slide show on fast forward: A little girl dressed in white pounding up the stairs. The same girl, squealing as she slid down the banister. A glowering woman in a long black dress. Was I remembering snippets from a long-buried childhood or just imagining what might have been? I didn’t know. It seemed real, but after seeing a person drowning in the water earlier and hearing that singsong tune on the street in front of Will’s office, I wasn’t certain I trusted my own mind.

In the living room, I ran my hand gently over the back of the sofa as I took a look around. Like those in the Manitou Inn, the floors here were made of gleaming hardwood, and
the woodwork around the door frames and windows shone as though it had been freshly waxed. An overstuffed brown leather sofa sat in the middle of the room, along with a love seat and an armchair. Worn rugs were scattered about. A stone fireplace stretching all the way up to the vaulted ceiling stood in one corner, a flat-screen television in the other. Cherrywood paneling lined the walls that did not face the lake.

Photographs were everywhere—on the walls, the coffee tables, the raised stone hearth—as were framed covers of several magazines:
Time
,
National Geographic
,
Vanity Fair
. I had already seen many of the shots on Madlyn’s website, but several were new to me.

I picked up a photograph here, a candle holder there, fingering the stuff of my mother’s world in an attempt to leave my imprint. Dust floated in the air. The energy in the room was electric and alive, as though the house itself were watching me.

Will came over to me. “You okay?”

“I guess I’m a little overwhelmed,” I admitted. The truth was, I was a lot overwhelmed. The house was bigger and more opulent than I had expected, and I was having trouble wrapping my mind around two notions: that it was now mine, and that I used to live here.

“Check out the sunporch.” William pointed toward a set of sliding doors at the far end of the room. “It won’t be sunny out there on a day like this, of course, but you’ll get the idea.”

I pushed open one of the doors into a room with windows on three sides. It overlooked the lake to the front and the
side gardens to the back. Rain was hitting the windows in gusts, mixed with a little icy sleet. Lovely. I heard the thunder again, and then a crack of lightning arced through the sky.

“Wow,” I murmured, settling onto a chaise in the corner of the room. “It’s great to watch a storm in here.”

Along with the chaise, a couch with a muted floral print and an overstuffed striped armchair formed a sitting area, next to a small glass table and an enormous wooden rocking chair. The style could be described as the shabby chic that was popular a few years ago, but this furniture seemed just plain old. Comfortable but old. Magazines were strewn in racks, books sat on end tables. It occurred to me that this was where Madlyn spent much of her time. I could feel her—or something—alive here.

And then I heard it, as clear as crystal:
Hallie! Halcyon Crane! Have you done something with your mother’s camera?
It was a female voice, a loud female voice, coming from behind me.

I spun around and onto my knees to look over the back of the chaise. Nobody was there.

“Hallie—” William poked his nose into the room and began to speak but stopped when he saw my expression. “What’s the matter?”

I was breathing heavily and could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I rubbed my hands on my jeans. “Nothing. It’s just—I thought I heard something.”

“The dogs?”

“No, it was a voice. I think it was my mother’s voice.”

He stood there for a moment, eyeing me carefully. Sizing
up the lunatic, I thought. But then he said, “You know what? Maybe your memories are coming back.”

Could that be? A childhood memory of this place? My first one! “I’ll bet I played in here a lot as a child,” I said, smiling and turning around in a circle. “I love this room.”

“You did.” He smiled at me. “
We
did.”

I imagined a little girl, that same girl in white I had seen in my mind before, playing with toy horses in the corner. I saw her reading a picture book, sprawled out on her stomach, feet kicking up toward the sky.

“What do you say we join the dogs in the kitchen and make ourselves a cup of tea—or something stronger?” he suggested. “With this rain, we might as well settle in for a while.”

“You’re sure it’s okay?” I felt I was trespassing, as though the real owner of the house would come barging in at any moment, demanding to know what we were doing there.

“It still hasn’t sunk in. This place is yours, Hallie.”

Right. I smiled. “Onward to the kitchen.”

He led me back through the living room, the foyer, and the dining room into the kitchen, and I couldn’t muffle the squeal of delight that escaped from my lips. Of all the rooms I had seen thus far, I liked this one the best.

The walls were painted a muted red; the windows were framed in dark wood. A long counter was topped with wooden cabinets that stretched all the way to the ceiling. An ancient armoire with glass doors displayed china and glass-ware, a rack of brightly colored plates stood in a row over the sink, and a small bookshelf was filled with cookbooks. A butcher-block center island was ringed with bar stools, and
the mammoth stove sat sentinel beneath a set of copper pots and pans. A long rough-hewn table with chairs all around took up the end of the room by the back door and windows. A chaise sat in the far corner. What a perfect spot for curling up with a cookbook and figuring out what’s for dinner!

“Madlyn had a lot of parties,” Will explained, as though he were a tour guide through the mystery world my mother had inhabited. “She loved bringing people together for informal meals: professors and artists and bankers and grounds-keepers, men and women from all walks of life. She liked the mix of viewpoints, I think. This kitchen got a lot of use.”

I had always lived in places with cold utilitarian kitchens, long slim rooms with metal cabinets on one side and a tiny table shoved into a corner. This kitchen had a feeling of life to it, a warmth that seemed to envelop me. It was as though the room itself were matronly and loving, ready to offer me a cup of tea or a freshly baked cookie. For the first time on the island, I felt truly at home.

“All my life I’ve wished for a big old kitchen,” I said, but the words caught in my throat. “Exactly like this.” I looked at Will. “When I was wishing for my ideal kitchen, I was actually remembering this one, wasn’t I?”

“It’s possible,” he said, reaching up into one of the cabinets. “It makes sense that your memories are slowly taking shape, the more you see of your old surroundings.” He retrieved a couple of teabags, ran some water into a teakettle, and set it on the stove. “Do you want to explore the rest of the house while the water boils?”

“I want to stay right here,” I said, climbing onto one of the bar stools.

We sat there for a while, drinking tea and munching on some scones Will found in a tin on the counter, as the dogs circled and sniffed and finally settled back down. We talked a little, about nothing much in particular—where he went to law school, how I liked my home north of Seattle. Mostly we listened to the rain beat on the windowpanes and the thunder growl its warnings . . .

I woke up, confused. It was nearly dark. As my eyes slowly adjusted, I could make out enough to realize that I was lying on the chaise in the sunroom, covered with an afghan. One of the dogs was on the floor next to me, her great head resting near mine. I shook the cobwebs out of my brain. Now I remembered. Will and I had come into the sunroom with our tea. I fell asleep? How idiotic.

Rain was still beating against the windows, but the thunder had subsided. Sitting up, I saw a light on in the next room. I padded through the doorway to find Will on the couch, reading.

“How long have I been out?”

“Not long. Half an hour, maybe.” He closed the book, put it in his lap, and smiled at me. “We were watching the rain in the sunroom, and before I knew it . . .” He made a horrible snoring sound.

“That’s really attractive.” I laughed and settled into the armchair across from him.

“I assumed you succumbed to the day’s events.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night. I nearly drifted off on the ride out here.”

The rain sounded angry and heavy outside. It was just a few degrees away from snow. The thought of riding all the way back into town in Will’s buggy made me feel—well, cold. “What do you do when it rains like this? For transportation, I mean?”

“If it’s not too bad, I just go. But on days like this, I wait it out until the storm passes. Or I call Henry and take one of his carriages home, trailing Belle behind it. But he won’t come all the way up here in this weather, unless it’s an emergency.”

“So what do we do now?”

Will smiled. “Popcorn and a movie? There’s a DVD player and lots of selections. Maybe by the time the movie’s over, the rain will have stopped long enough to get you back to the inn.”

I wasn’t thrilled about being trapped by a storm in the house of a dead woman with a man I barely knew. But as I snuggled deeper into the armchair, Will made a fire in the fireplace, the dogs curled up in front of me, and things soon felt friendly and companionable—as if I were home.

R
iding in a horse-drawn buggy on a rainy evening has none of the turn-of-the-century charm you might expect. It was a cold damp November night, and I could see my breath in front of me as we plodded along the muddy streets.

Earlier we had watched one movie and started a second, before the rain tapered off and Will suggested we make a break for it.

The idea of staying the night had been brought up, of course. I was getting my mind around the idea that it was my house now, after all, and there were enough bedrooms and bathrooms for both of us to have our privacy. But tramping upstairs and choosing a bedroom filled with another woman’s things just didn’t feel right. Not to mention the fact that I had no intention of spending the night with Will, no matter how far apart our bedrooms were. So we put fresh food and water out for the dogs—Will explained he had asked a neighbor to let them out in the morning—locked up the place, ran out to the stable, and hitched up Belle. Five minutes into the cold, damp ride, I regretted it but didn’t say so.

“Hey.” A thought popped into my brain. “In the will, my mother said she had horses, too. Where are they?”

“Next door at the Wilsons’,” he said, gesturing down the lane. “Charlie and Alice are happy to take care of them until you decide what to do.”

I wasn’t sure what that would be, especially in regard to the animals. I loved Tundra and Tika already, but I couldn’t take them back home with me on the plane.

“That begs the question: What are your plans?” Will asked, as we clopped along down the soggy road.

“I haven’t really decided. I’m definitely not going to sell the house; my mother’s wishes were crystal clear on that point. Beyond that? I don’t know.”

My options were, for once in my life, wide open. I knew one thing: Quitting my job would be my first order of business in the morning. I’d call my boss to deliver the bad news. Or maybe just send him an e-mail. Yes, that was better. It made me a little sad to admit that quitting my job was the first thing I would do after being told I had inherited a house and a large sum of money. I had devoted more than a decade to a career I could jettison without a backward glance. I wondered what I might have done with my life instead, where my passions might have led me, if I hadn’t worked simply to make money.

Then a rather unpleasant thought occurred to me. I had intended to make this a brief trip to the island—one week, tops—but when it came right down to it, I didn’t really have a reason to rush home. My dad was gone. I had friends, sure, but truthfully, since moving back to the States after my divorce,
I’d had some trouble reconnecting with many of my oldest ones. I’d been gone for nearly a decade, and during that time most of them had begun to build families of their own. They were busy ferrying children to music lessons and soccer games, while I found myself suddenly single and alone. Our lives had gone on different tracks.