Dark Dreamer (13 page)

But Harriet ignored her, and after they’d sat for a few minutes, she took Phoebe’s elbow and escorted her out of the house. As they walked down the narrow cobblestone path to the curb, the doctor lowered her voice and said, “I’m going to tell you something. This is just between you and me.”

“Okay.”

“The Bureau will want to own you round the clock. Don’t allow it.”

Surprised to hear this from one of the people assigned to wring information from her, Phoebe said, “I have no plans to sign my life away. I don’t want to do this full time.”

Harriet sighed. “We can be very persuasive.”

“Are you saying I would be coerced?”

“I’m saying you are the one with the power. You have what we want, and no one else does. Whatever happens, remember that. You might need a lever one day.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rowe chiseled off the final rusted hinge and lifted the door from its frame. It was not as large as the doors in the cottage, but it was solid hardwood, and her back strained as she tried to hold it steady. Grunting with exertion, she shimmied it along the grit-laden floor and propped it against the wall, dislodging clumps of dust that rained down on her head.

“Lovely,” she said, brushing herself off as best she could. Obviously no one had set foot in the carriage house for years, maybe even decades.

Wielding a flashlight, she fought her way into the servants’ cramped quarters, fending off the cobwebs that festooned the contents. Where to start? Boxes were piled high atop old furniture covered in dust sheets. The electricity wasn’t working, and the sole window on the opposite wall was completely screened by clutter, blocking any natural light.

She should have hired an odd-job man from the village, Rowe decided as she lifted a heavy stack of boxes. These she lugged down the rickety stairs to the empty garaging space below. The floor was damp, so she’d laid plastic sheeting. Her plan was to empty each of the small servants’ rooms and systematically search the contents for information dating back to the Bakers.

On some level, she was aware that the task was a huge distraction from her work. There was no reason why she needed to do this now. The sane option was to wait until summer and invite Mrs. Chauncey and her volunteers in. This was exactly the kind of assignment that would get their motors running. But no. She had to freeze her ass off in a dark, dank building looking for who knew what to prove a half-baked theory about people who had lived here a hundred years ago.
Why?

With flimsy conviction, she answered her own question: “Because I have a ghost.”

The real reason was much more prosaic. She was at an impasse. Her new book was crap, worse crap than the last two, such turgid crap that she would be lucky if her publisher refused it.

Only they wouldn’t.

Instead they would trumpet a new best-seller that would cement her demise into the ranks of those authors in decline who cash their fat advance checks only to foist underwhelming garbage on the public. She would get the promotional push denied to better novels written by authors down the pecking order. Then, when her patient fans eventually started jumping ship and her book sales no longer covered her advances, the gravy train would creak to a halt. Hers was not a big enough name to nourish the indefinite hope that one day she would return to form and publish something good with all forgiven.

If she wrote a decent book now, she could arrest the downward spiral before it gathered momentum. But so far, that wasn’t happening. Just hours ago, she had printed her manuscript, read it, then consigned it to the fire. The book richly deserved a rejection slip—if an unknown author submitted it, that would be its fate. She was almost tempted to send it in under cover of another name, just to prove her point. But it was not exactly earth-shattering news that countless overhyped novels by big-name writers stocked the shelves of airport bookstores while excellent works by those less known came and went without a ripple.

Tomorrow she would call her agent and tell the truth—that she needed to take a year off, and maybe then she would write something worth the paper it was printed on. If her publisher would not grant an extension on her contract, so be it. She would have to return a chunk of change and walk.

Fortunately most of her last big advance was unspent. Her publicist had thought it was time she started acting like a celebrity, so the public would believe she was one. But Rowe had been reluctant to throw money away on a fancy fortress of a house with elaborate security, and even more reluctant to initiate gossip about her private life, then give indignant interviews when it showed up in the media. She had enough problems.

Gloomily, she ferried and stacked boxes until she had cleared a broad path to the filthy little window that the housemaids of yesteryear must have wished they could gaze out of during daylight hours. She dragged a tall dresser away from it, rubbed the panes with a wet cloth, and stared out into a galaxy of snow.

The flurries of a few hours earlier had become a blizzard. She contemplated returning to the house and camping out in front of the parlor fire with some reheated pizza and a good book. But she’d come this far and she was filled with anticipation, wondering what she would discover here amidst the detritus of lives long forgotten.

Weak winter light threw the room into vapid monochrome, revealing shrouded shapes crammed against moldering walls. Dragging a protective mask over her nose and mouth, she drew off some of the dust sheets. Incredibly, the furniture she unveiled was not junk, but fine quality Victorian pieces. A piano. Dining chairs. A mahogany chiffonier. She pulled a stack of boxes away from the front of a rolltop writing desk and tried the middle drawer. As her common-sense self had expected, it was locked. So were all the others, and the rolltop itself.

She groped beneath the desktop, hoping to locate a key. Her fingers connected with a small metal box screwed into the wood, and she got down on her hands and knees to inspect her discovery.

“Genius!” she congratulated herself, withdrawing not one but two keys from the concealed receptacle.

Just as she hoped, one of them unlocked the desk drawers, the other the rolltop. This slid back with surprising ease, and Rowe found herself staring at the mother lode. Rolls of letters, stacks of ledger books, cards, receipts. She opened an inlaid wooden box and gasped. An antique Waterman fountain pen complete with eye dropper and ink would thrill her any time, but this one told her she was looking at the Bakers’ domestic workstation. Before World War One, most fountain pens were dropper-filled.

She positioned her flashlight to one side and reached for a roll of letters. As she caught sight of her grubby hand, she groaned. Did she really want to cover all these old documents with black grime? There was probably historical stuff here Mrs. Chauncey would kill for. Besides, if there was one thing that turned Rowe’s stomach, it was having filthy hands and nails. Now that she’d seen hers, all she could think about was a hot shower.

Shivering with cold, she emptied a box and filled it with the contents of the desk. Halfway through this task, something caught her eye and she reached into the cavity behind the small upper drawers and extracted a thin, rectangular fabric purse.

Her pulse leapt. Someone had hidden this—obviously a woman. The purse was pretty and seemed to be made of silk. Elated, she unfastened the ribbon ties and withdrew a half-finished letter. It was written in a refined hand and dated July 1912:

Dearest James,

My heart is miserable. I know some accident must have befallen you en route to Dark Harbor. I can tolerate any embarrassment, the whispers and vindictive gossip, if I can but be assured that you are safe and we shall soon be married.

In your silence, my thoughts prey upon its cause. Surely my father’s ill-timed bombast could not have discouraged a true heart such as yours. If it is indeed his honest desire not to settle upon me the promised sum, it is my most fervent belief that this is of no consequence to you and could not in any way pertain to your absence upon the occasion of my birthday ball.

Although I feel most dreadfully alone, it is of some faint consolation to have shared the burden of my fears and secrets with my dear Becky. A more loyal and faithful confidante to her mistress could not be found. It is upon her counsel that I write this urgent plea…

Rowe searched every crevice of the desk for the next page of the letter and any other correspondence, but came up empty-handed. She read the unhappy words once more, then folded the page and returned it to the purse. Clearly there had been some shit going down between Juliet’s father and the prospective husband and threats that her marriage settlement would not be paid. Reading between the lines, it looked like Juliet believed this could be the reason she had been dumped. She was unhappy and hurt, but Rowe didn’t get the sense that she was suicidal.

She was intrigued by the reference to “Becky.” This had to be the maid Mrs. Chauncey had mentioned. Had Becky’s elopement with her young man pushed the jilted Juliet over the edge?

Rowe tucked the purse deep inside the box to protect it from the snow. Feeling thoroughly satisfied with her afternoon, she fastened her jacket, dragged on her wooly hat, and braved the bruising cold.

*

“Come with me.” Iris took Phoebe’s hand, and they floated out of the white room with its blinking equipment and tinny blipping sounds, and up toward the star-coated sky. Far below, the world glimmered as if the mantle of night were crawling with fireflies.

“You look better,” Phoebe said, noticing Iris’s bruises had gone. “Are you in heaven now?”

“I’m not sure,” Iris answered. “You’re here and you’re not dead, so how can I be?”

The lights became streams of golden lava so bright that Phoebe closed her eyes. She and Iris fell to earth without touching the ground. A willow tree loomed above them.

“This must be what it’s like to walk on the moon,” Phoebe said as they waded through air toward a pale wooden house.

Iris pointed to a ventilation grille in the concrete basement wall, and Phoebe lay down to peer inside. In the black interior, all she could make out was a metallic gleam.

“Call her,” Iris said.

“Who?”

“You know.”

Phoebe tried to call June’s name, but it was like talking underwater. Her voice bubbled out in a dull hiss. A shock of lightning drenched the basement interior and Phoebe saw her then, inside a cage like the kind they store oversized baggage in at airports. She was sitting huddled in one corner with a blanket around her, her legs drawn up, her head resting on her knees.

“June,” Phoebe wheezed, helpless to inject the cry with power. Frustrated, she told Iris, “We have to get her out.”

“He’ll be back soon.”

“We can smash this wall. Help me.” Phoebe beat the concrete with her hands, making no impression.

“I can’t. I have to go now.” Iris drifted away.

“No. Wait!” Phoebe followed her, trying to run on legs that felt weak and heavy.

The front of the house looked out on a road lined with tall trees. A dark van with tinted windows rolled to a stop at the curb, and a man got out and glanced around. Phoebe dropped to the ground, terrified. The man stopped at his mailbox. Those boots. Phoebe could see them in the streetlight. Heavy, light colored, with reinforced heels and pale soles.

The man stared directly at her. He had a small beard, and his hair was cut short and flat across the top. His eyes were narrow and his face and shoulders so fleshy he seemed neckless. Phoebe crawled frantically toward the nearest tree. He started to walk toward her, a strange sick smile on his face. She screamed and this time the sound burst from her lungs, piercing the starry night and opening the earth beneath her. Through the chasm she fell until a hand caught hers and Cara’s voice summoned her.

“Sweetie. Wake up.”

Phoebe opened her eyes. Her body shook violently. She clasped her hands, trying to still them. “I saw him. I saw his face.”

Cara held her close and stroked her hair. “You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you.”

“She’s in a cage in the basement under his house. We have to get her out.”

Dr. Karnovich bustled through the door and approached the bed. Speaking like he had a hairball lodged in his throat, he said, “This is very good. Very good.”

He took a sweet from his pocket, opened the wrapper, and offered it to Phoebe in the palm of his hand as if rewarding a child who had just taken nasty medicine. Phoebe took the candy automatically and put it in her mouth, surprised that she felt less shaky almost immediately.

Dr. K took her pulse, listened to her heart through his stethoscope, then asked, “Can you remember your dream?”

“Most of it. I saw the man. Please tell Vernell.”

“He’s on his way.”

“Now?” Cara looked astonished.

“We have to hurry,” Phoebe said. “June’s alive. I saw her.”

Cara took her hand. “Remember the other dreams. They’re always—”

“No. This is different. I know she’s alive.”

Sounding like a priest in the confessional, Dr. K asked, “What makes you feel that, dear child?”

Phoebe struggled for a moment, trying to understand why this was not the same as every other dream. It dawned on her then that the reason she’d been able to converse with the others was that she was a visitor in their realm, the realm of the dead.