The Vanishing (14 page)

I pushed open the door of the breakfast room to find Adrian standing in front of the window, gazing out into the swirling whiteness. He was wearing faded jeans and a well-worn fisherman’s knit sweater. I had never seen him in anything but a perfectly tailored suit and tie. It felt a bit like coming upon Prince Charles wearing a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt.

“Well, look at you,” I said, trying to stifle a laugh. “No suit today?”

He turned to me, grinning, his arms outstretched, palms up. “No need. I’m not going anywhere. It’s a snow day!”

“It certainly is,” I said, joining him at the window. “I was just thinking about snow days when I was a kid.”

“I never had that treat,” he said. “English boarding schools and all that. But growing up here, you must have experienced it often.”

I nodded. “There was nothing so exciting as watching television in the morning when there had been a big snowfall overnight and seeing the list of schools that were closed, holding your breath until you saw your school’s name,” I said, staring out into the whiteness. “One year, we had so many snow days that they had to add two weeks on to the end of the school year to make up for it. Of course, we thought ourselves very ill used when June rolled around and we were still in the classroom.”

Adrian and I shared a chuckle as Marion clattered into the
room pushing a cart with a coffeepot and cups and a basket filled with something that smelled like cinnamon and spice.

“Coffee and muffins to tide you over until breakfast is ready,” she said, pouring both of us cups of coffee and splashing cream into mine. “Mrs. Sinclair will be another twenty minutes or so. She’s running behind this morning.”

“Thank you, Marion,” Adrian said. Once she had left the room and gone back into the kitchen, he gestured toward the table.

“Good,” he said, sinking into a chair. “This will give us a few minutes to talk.”

I sat in my usual place and sipped my coffee. “I assume this is about our visitor?”

He nodded. “Yes, you rushed off to bed so quickly last night…” His thought hung in midair and then changed direction. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“About what?”

“The whole Seraphina business. We were terribly rude, all of us, gaping at you like that.”

I took a deep breath. Could it be resolved as easily as this? “Adrian,” I began, “is that why I’m here?”

“Is
what
why you’re here?”

“Seraphina. My resemblance to her. The fact that your mother thinks I’m related to her.”

He shook his head. “Certainly not.”

“But your mother said—”

He reached across the table and put his hand over mine and spoke gently. “I know what she said. And I’d have cleared this up last night, but I didn’t want to upset her. Whatever my mother has cooked up in her own mind, the only motive, ulterior or otherwise, was finding a suitable companion she wouldn’t throw out into the street the minute I left the house.”

I nodded, unconvinced. “But the family tree…”

He held my gaze for a moment, and I got the feeling he understood I wasn’t going to let this go so easily. “Listen to me, Julia. I’ll
admit that when I saw you on the news, you looked familiar to me. Remember, none of us had been in that room for years and years.”

That hadn’t occurred to me. The east salon had been shut up tight. He was telling the truth.

“Did I research your background? Of course. You’d do the same, bringing someone into your house to care for your mother. I’m afraid that when she saw the name of your great-great-grandmother, she cooked up this whole story. You mustn’t make too much of her ramblings. She is a novelist, after all. Surely you have become familiar with her eccentricities by now.”

“Well…,” I began. I didn’t want to let on that I knew her “eccentricities” might be much more than that. “I suppose there’s no harm in her thinking I’m related to Seraphina.”

He smiled. “That’s the spirit! Now, quickly, before my mother seizes the day. I wanted to touch base with you about, as you called him, our ‘visitor.’ Drew and I have talked. I know what you found in the woods, and I’ve got a man on it.

“But now, with the snow,” he said, turning his head toward the window, “I don’t think we have anything to worry about, at least for the time being. We’re supposed to get upward of two feet out of this blizzard when all is said and done, and after that, the wind will drift the snow much higher than that. The roads won’t be plowed for a few days, and coming through the woods on foot will be highly difficult, if not impossible.”

I nodded and took a sip of my coffee. “I told Drew I was prepared to leave Havenwood,” I said. “If this is related to me somehow, I don’t want to be the cause of any potential harm coming to you or Mrs. Sinclair. I can leave after the snow—”

“Nonsense,” he interrupted. “There is every chance that it’s nothing but a curious tourist, here to gawk at the castle in the wilderness. But if it is someone from your past, even the arsonist, he won’t get what he’s come for. Havenwood has stood fast against worse evil than a disgruntled investor, believe me.”

As if on cue, Mrs. Sinclair burst through the door. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt in a Northwoodsy print of bears, moose, and loons. I couldn’t help but grin, and Adrian laughed aloud.

“What, darlings?” she said. “It’s a snow day!”

Later that morning, after we had finished our breakfasts and Mrs. Sinclair and Adrian each went off to parts unknown, I made my way to the west salon. I wanted to sit in front of its floor-to-ceiling wall of windows and watch the snowfall. The room was fast becoming my favorite in the house.

When I got there, I found its doors opened, a fire in the fireplace, and the books I had selected from the library the day before on an end table next to a legal pad and several pens. A cup of steaming hot chocolate laced, I discovered as I sipped it, with Baileys Irish Cream was the perfect addition. Marion’s handiwork, no doubt. I was beginning to believe she was more than a little bit psychic.

I settled into one of the armchairs and stared out the window, mesmerized by the snow for I don’t know how long, until Marion’s voice startled me out of my trance.

“More hot chocolate, miss?” She was standing there with a Thermos.

I held my cup aloft. “Thank you,” I said, smiling up at her. “And thank you for opening up the room and starting a fire. How did you know I was going to come in here?”

Marion looked very pleased with herself. “Spend as long as I have tending to the needs of the residents of Havenwood, and you’ll start to get a sixth sense.”

I guessed she was right.

“Also, miss, I wanted to let you know that the power is out.”

I looked around the room. “Really? I’ve been sitting here in front of the window and didn’t even realize the lights were off.”

“There’s no telling how long it will be out,” she said. “With heavy snowfall like this, it can be out for days. I’ve had the girls move most of the perishables to the icebox—”

This struck me as odd. “Icebox?”

She nodded. “It’s original. We keep it down in the basement kitchen. It comes in handy during times like this.”

“I guess there’s no shortage of ice for it outside,” I offered, thinking that I didn’t even know there was a basement kitchen and wondering what else about Havenwood I didn’t know.

“Quite. I know you’re not in the habit of venturing into the kitchen yourself, but I just thought I’d mention that it’s best not to open the refrigerator until the power comes back on. There isn’t room in the icebox for everything, so we need to keep as much cold in the refrigerator as we can, and that means not opening the door.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

“And,” she continued, gesturing to a small kerosene lantern on one of the tables, “you’ll want to use that to get around the house, especially as night falls. This house is dark as a tomb without the lights.”

I looked around the room and felt a shudder pass through me. I had no desire to be wandering the corridors in the inky blackness of an almost two-hundred-year-old house.

“Of course, we have flashlights, but it’s best not to waste the battery power if we can help it,” she said, smoothing her apron. “Do you need anything else?”

“I don’t think so.” I smiled at her. “Thank you, Marion.”

She turned and walked to the door, stopping just before she went through it.

“Will you be staying in the west salon today?” she asked me.

“I think so,” I said.

“Then I’ll bring your lunch to you here,” she told me. “Mrs.
Sinclair likes to stay in her suite when the power is out.” She gazed about the room. “This salon is so bright and cheery, it’s a good place for you to be on a day like this.”

With that, she disappeared into the dark hallway.

I curled my legs under me and covered my lap with an afghan that had been slung over the back of the chair. I opened my book to the passage where I had left off. I had a fire in the fireplace, plenty of light to read by, and a freshly refilled cup of Baileys and hot chocolate. What did it matter to me if the power was out? I had everything I needed, right there.

I read for a while, but my eyes kept turning to the pad of paper on the end table. I hadn’t written in so long, but maybe I would find inspiration here.

Another thought hit me then. I realized I hadn’t done a whole lot of thinking about my future. I had left my past behind and was here at Havenwood for the time being, but I really didn’t know how long I wanted to stay—or how long I’d be welcome to stay—and I had no idea what I’d do when I left. Adrian had promised to give me a fresh start with a new identity, and fortuitously enough, the fire had ensured that nobody would come looking for me once I left Havenwood for good. But there was still the matter of making a living. I’d have to earn my keep, new identity or not. The last job I’d had was at Jeremy’s firm, and I wasn’t exactly going to be touting that on a résumé. But I had enjoyed modest success with the one novel I wrote, way back when. Maybe I could catch lightning in a bottle a second time, under a different name, of course. I closed the book I was reading and picked up the legal pad and pen.

But what would I write about? I started jotting down notes of things that had happened to me, or struck me, since I came to Havenwood, in an effort to crystallize my thoughts into possible plot lines or themes.
Aging novelist. Haunted mansion. Dark hallways. Paintings come to life. Dog protectors. Horseback rides through the wilderness.

But one subject kept coming up, over and over again.
Seraphina
. I couldn’t deny that I was fascinated by my resemblance to the
woman in the painting, to Seraphina, the greatest psychic medium who ever lived. I had denied it so vehemently, but the possibility of it kept floating through my mind. Was she really my great-great-grandmother? Could it be?

I wrote until Marion materialized with lunch—split pea soup with ham and crusty bread, which I devoured. After that, I made several false starts trying to get interested in my book again, but I could not stop thinking about the previous night’s oddity. I closed the book and set it on my lap, staring outside at the snow, which was whipping sideways in the stiff wind.

Everyone had made so much of the resemblance between Seraphina and me the night before. Why was Mrs. Sinclair so fixated on that? The fact that Adrian had tried so clumsily to convince me it was nothing told me it was
something
. As I sat there, mesmerized by the snowflakes that were darting through the air like millions of tiny beings, I let my imagination soar with them, this way and that.

Whether she was related to me or not, Seraphina had been a visitor in this house more than a century earlier. Maybe, somewhere in her story, I could find a tale that I’d like to tell the world. Maybe she’d be my inspiration, just like she was an inspiration for Mrs. Sinclair. And there was only one place in the house where I could find out more about her. So I gathered up my books and pad of paper, lit the kerosene lantern with the matches Marion had left beside it, and set off for the library to do a little sleuthing.

Despite the soft glow of the lantern, the corridors were as dark as night, and as I walked, the sound of my footsteps echoed, bouncing off the walls and ceiling. It was a strange sensation, being plunged into such darkness when I knew it wasn’t much past one o’clock. But with the snow blocking out the sun and the construction of the hallways themselves as internal corridors with rooms on either side and windows only on each end, it made for an almost total blackout. Marion was right; I had no desire to find myself here with no light to guide my way.

I was very glad that I’d had several days to familiarize myself with Havenwood’s layout. But even as it was, I inched my way down the corridors and through the salons and finally found myself on the opposite side of the house, grateful I hadn’t run into any otherworldly denizens.

I pushed open the library doors, and after a futile attempt to switch on the lights—I rolled my eyes at myself—I stepped into the room. Even though I had just come from a dim hallway, it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness there. It was as though the books themselves were soaking up even the faint light coming through the stained-glass windows. I tried not to look into the blackness and instead focused on the light coming from my lantern, but every so often the corners of my eyes would catch a figure—nothing more ominous than a chair here and a table there—but in that darkness it seemed to be a creature, crouching and ready to strike.

I began to wonder if I shouldn’t just come back when the lights were on, but then thought better of it. “You’re here,” I said aloud, my voice reverberating through the cavernous room, “you might as well get what you came for.”

So I began to search the shelves, holding the lantern in front of me to illuminate the spines of the books. I saw biographies, history books, classics from literature, my hallowed first editions shelf, travel stories, fairy tales, political tomes, and much, much more before I finally found the section I was seeking—the occult. I had seen it when I had been in the library before and quickly passed by it, but if this library contained any books about Seraphina, I knew this was where they would reside.

As I ran my finger from spine to spine, words like “spells” and “magic” and “tarot” and “Spiritualism” seemed to illuminate themselves and hover just above the spines, and more than that, they seemed to be whispering, hissing, even floating on the air around me. I could faintly hear them beckoning me to choose them, to pull their books off the shelf and open the pages.

And then I saw what I had come for.
Seraphina: The Most Famous Psychic Medium of the Spiritualist Age
.

I intended to simply take the book, leave the library, and find my way back to the west salon’s brightness, but I just couldn’t wait to see what it contained. I slid the slim volume off the shelf and sat down at the table nearest the door, set my lantern on the table, and opened the book.

On the very first page I found a photograph of a woman in a long, dark dress, sitting in an ornately carved chair next to a fireplace in what looked to be a fancy drawing room. I took a quick breath in when I realized that the painting I had seen of Seraphina didn’t do her, or my resemblance to her, justice. It was like looking at a picture of myself dressed up in the costume of another age. I flipped back to the title page to make sure—it was published in 1890—and then I turned back to the photo of Seraphina.

I don’t know how long I sat there staring her. It was as though she had reached out of the page and pulled me in. I found myself imagining all sorts of things. I thought about the room where she was sitting—what color were the walls? Blue? Yes. Definitely blue. What other furniture might have been there? A fainting couch? Who else was with her? Was this photo taken in Seraphina’s home? And if so, where was that home?

I was holding the book up closer to my eyes to get a better look at the photo in the dim light of the room, when something dropped out of it. A letter, its envelope yellowed, the front addressed in neat handwriting that was fading with age.

What was this? I was so mesmerized by this letter from the past that I didn’t even hear him come in. At least, that was what I told myself later, when I came back to myself and was thinking clearly.

I had just begun to take the letter out of its envelope, when I
felt someone’s breath on my neck. Panting softly, as though he had been holding his breath awhile and finally let it out. I grabbed the lantern and shot up, wheeling the light around in a circle and knocking the chair to the ground.

“Who’s there?” I shouted. “Drew? Adrian?” Silence. I turned again, shining the light in a wide circle around me. I didn’t see anyone.

A hallucination? Or was it one of Havenwood’s wayward, benign ghosts that slipped from a painting into real life? I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. I grabbed the book, stuffed the letter back where I had found it, and slipped the volume into the pocket of my cardigan, when just then, I heard it.

Laughter, slow and low, and decidedly not full of mirth. It was unquestionably a man’s voice, but it didn’t sound like Drew or Adrian.

“Show yourself!” I yelled, my own voice cracking despite my attempt at bravado. “You’re really a big man, standing in the dark and trying to scare a woman. How about coming into the light and trying the same thing?” I had no idea what I’d do if he took me up on the offer.

I shone the light around my little corner of the room again. Books. The table. Chairs. Nothing else. No ghosts, and certainly no real-life people. I gathered up my wits and marched toward the door.

I had just reached it and grabbed the handle when I heard the voice again.

“Julia.”