House of Fallen Trees (6 page)

CHAPTER TEN

The most extraordinary feature of the Captain’s bedroom was not the huge, wrap-around windows stretching from floor to ceiling. Nor was it the antique Persian rug decorating the floor, currently unprotected though Karen had no idea why. Nor did she care. Her attention was instead fixed on the mural painted on the ceiling above the historic four-poster bed.
   “It’s astounding,” she said quietly, as though she’d entered a church and did not wish to disturb the parishioners.
   “Yes, it is,” Rory agreed, standing beside her, his head bent back, his eyes shining with pride. “It’s his wife.”
   “He must have been heartbroken to lose her,” Karen said. “To paint her portrait on the ceiling above his bed. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
   “It may have been painted before her death,” Rory told her. “We’re not sure yet.”
   “Hmm.” Karen looked down at the large bed. It looked inviting, with its over-sized pillows and old-fashioned blue and white patchwork quilt. “May I?”
   “Be my guest.” Rory smiled.
   She gingerly sat on the bed. For some reason, she was afraid it would collapse beneath her due to its age but, of course, that was a ridiculous fear. Rory slept in it on a regular basis and it obviously held
his
weight.
   Sensing her trepidation, Rory said, “Relax. That bed is older than some of the trees in the forest. Probably
made
from trees in the forest. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s delicate.”
   Returning his smile, she lay back, her head on the nearest pillow, eyes studying the mural above her. “She was a beautiful woman.”
   “She was,” he said. “Not my type, but beautiful nonetheless.”
   Chuckling politely at his joke, Karen made no reply. After a moment, she said, “Do you know who painted it?”
   “No,” Rory said. “It never occurred to me to try to find out. Maybe I should, huh?”
   “Couldn’t hurt.”
   “Everything about this place has been so hard to track down. It’s like they were a family of ghosts. So little is known about them. Most of the townies either didn’t know they were out here or they didn’t
want
to know.”
   Karen looked at him. “Why do you suppose that was?”
   “No clue. Probably just afraid of eccentrics. That part hasn’t really changed much around here. The people in Fallen Trees don’t care much for different.”
   “Ah.” She thought about Sean then, wondering how he’d fit in with the townies. If he had fit in at all. Somehow, she doubted it.
   Rory consulted his watch. “Well, would you look at that. I think we can safely say the sun is past the yardarm. Up for a cocktail?”
   A cocktail sounded wonderful and Karen said as much. “But, I like this room. Mind if I hang out in here a little while longer?”
   “Not at all.” He smiled at her again and for a second, she thought it might actually be genuine. “Try not to fall asleep though. That bed is mighty comfy.”
   “Will do. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
   “Okay.”
   Once Rory had left, Karen returned her full attention to the mural above the bed. Though cracked and fading in places, it had stood the test of time remarkably well, especially considering all the windows in this room. How had the sunlight not damaged it more?
   Maybe it never hit the ceiling in a way that it could, she thought, gazing into Mrs. Storm’s fierce blue eyes. It was still peculiar though. Almost as peculiar as having your wife’s portrait painted above your bed in the first place.
   The painting was of a beautiful, dark-haired woman in a high-collared cream dress. High cheekbones, full lips, her expression serious; perhaps even grim. Quite a stunning woman, as Karen had noted previously. Maybe somewhere around 30 years of age, though there were hints of growing crow’s feet and laugh lines. Age was hard to determine even in the clearest of portraits from that era.
   Karen put her hands behind her head and turned her attention to the windows and the spectacular view of the forest around them. Everything was green out there, except for the sky, which remained a dense, almost oppressive gray.
   
It must be gorgeous here when the weather is clear,
she thought.
So much different than what I’m used to.
   She would have been content to continue ruminating on the beauty of her surroundings but her thoughts were interrupted when a thin shower of dust fell down onto her face, a few specks landing in her right eye.
   Flinching, she blinked furiously and rubbed the eye, about to get up and head to the bathroom to flush it out.
   But before she could, her left eye naturally rolled up and she saw the painting of Mrs. Storm above. She stopped rubbing her eye and stared up at the ceiling.
   Either she was crazy or the fine, barely noticeable cracks in the paint had grown, becoming thicker—more obvious.
   “What the…?” She frowned, her irritated eye forgotten, and attempted to push herself up onto her elbows.
   She could barely move. Her arms, neck and legs worked fine but it was as though her back and buttocks had become glued to the bed. Instantly terrified, she cried out, struggling to sit up while above her the ceiling cracked further, the paint and plaster raining down on her, coating her entire body with white powder.
   Looking up, she saw that the wife of Captain Storm no longer looked grim, her eyes no longer vacantly staring into some unseen past.
   Mrs. Storm was now smiling, the faded intense blue eyes gazing directly down on Karen’s horrified, dust covered face.
   Karen’s whimpers blossomed into screams as the ceiling broke apart, larger and larger chunks of old wood and plaster crashed down on her…around her…bouncing off the bed and onto the floor with deafening thuds. She tried to protect her face, her eyes, while plaster dust choked off her screams and she found herself gagging despite the nearly paralyzing panic. It sounded as if the world was ending and then the mural began to peel free from the rest of the ceiling, as though it weren’t made of paint at all, but paper, like a poster cut into the shape of a woman from the waist up.
   It came down fast, blanketing Karen, Mrs. Storm’s smiling face pressed against her own, blocking out the light, and Karen discovered it wasn’t made of paper at all, but more of some sort of dark membranous skin which quickly spread, wrapping itself around her head and torso, tightening itself until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything at all except feel the frantic pounding of her heart…
   Blind.
   She was blind and suffocating. Still trying to scream, she kicked her legs, pushing against the mattress until she rolled off the bed and hit the floor, landing painfully on her left shoulder.
   Thrashing wildly, she barely heard someone shouting her name until it sounded as though the lips were pressed right to her ear.
   “Karen! Wake up!”
   Light immediately filled her vision and she was free, shrieking, her body drenched in perspiration.
   Saul crouched beside her on the floor, shaking her by the right shoulder, his brown eyes wide with concern. “You had a nightmare, but it’s over now.”
   “No.” Karen shook her head as the tears broke free and she raised a hand to wipe them away, certain her fingers would come away covered in plaster dust. She choked out a sob when she saw they were clean. “It wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.”
   It
had
been real, hadn’t it?
   Her eyes went immediately to the mural above the bed. It was just as it had been when she’d first entered the room with Rory. The ceiling around it was perfectly intact with only a few thin cracks to show its age.
   “But…”
   It
couldn’t
have been a dream. It had been so terrifying. She’d never had a dream even remotely like it.
   “Come on,” Saul said. “Let’s get you up.”
   He helped her into a sitting position and she winced at the pain in her shoulder. She knew she’d have a bruise there come tomorrow.
   “What was the dream about?”
   It was Rory, standing at the foot of the bed, surprising her. She hadn’t even known he was in the room with them.
   “I…” She began. “It was…”
   Saul, sensing her reluctance, said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
   And she
didn’t
want to. How could she? They probably already thought she was insane.
   When Saul assisted her to her feet and suggested she sit on the bed, she eyed the mural once more and refused. “I’m okay,” she said. “I can stand.”
   “Are you sure?”
   She nodded. “I could probably use some aspirin though. My head is killing me.”
   “I’ll get it,” Rory said and disappeared into the bathroom.
   She looked again at the mural with suspicion—a look which Saul caught.
   “It’s kind of creepy, isn’t it?” he asked. “Painting your wife above your bed?”
   “Yeah,” she replied slowly. “Creepy.”
   Her heart was finally beginning to return to its normal pace when Rory returned from the bathroom with two ibuprofen tablets and a small glass of water, which she accepted gratefully.
   Then a thought occurred to her. “How long was I…uh…asleep for?” she asked Rory.
   He glanced at his watch. “Not long. Half an hour maybe.”
   “Half an hour,” she repeated. “Odd.”
   “What’s odd about it?” he asked.
   “I’m a bona fide insomniac. I’m never able to fall asleep in half an hour, much less enter a deep dream state.”
   Rory looked skeptical. “Well, this time I guess you did.”
   “Maybe the fresh air cured you,” Saul added, offering a smile. “It’s been known to do that, you know.”
   “Maybe,” Karen said, handing the glass back to Rory. She did her best to return Saul’s smile, but she was very much aware of Mrs. Storm hovering over them all and though she resisted glancing upward again, she couldn’t help but wonder if the painted woman in the cream-colored dress was also smiling.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Drinks forgotten, the three of them trudged down the stairs while outside darkness was quickly descending. It seemed that within a matter of minutes, the day had grown sullen and windy. The sound of trees swaying and lashing against each other could be heard in every room they entered.
   “I hope we don’t lose power,” Rory said when they’d returned to the living room, an absolutely enormous space with a stone fireplace large enough to burn an entire armchair without taking it apart.
   A pale floral patterned divan sat beneath the front bay windows while a matching lounger rested next to the fireplace. A single end table, carved out of a huge hunk of driftwood stood in a far corner, an antique oil lamp atop it. Other than these few items, the immense room remained empty.
   “Most of the other stuff was beyond saving,” Rory said, sitting down on the divan. “Moths or other bugs had gotten into it.”
   “Mice too,” Saul said, yawning. “Nesting inside the guts of the furniture.”
   Karen felt a twinge of alarm. “The beds upstairs?”
   Rory waved away her distress. “All the mattresses and bedding are new, don’t worry. The rest of the beds are original though.” He stopped, tilted his head as if listening intently to the wind outside, then added almost to himself, “Sean really loved the Captain’s bed. As you saw, it’s obscenely large.”
   Karen agreed. “Yeah, you could probably sleep four or five people in it quite comfortably.”
   “They wouldn’t even knock elbows,” Saul laughed.
   Karen sat down beside Rory, stretching her legs out in front of her and scrunching down a bit. “Sounds pretty nasty outside.”
   “This is nothing,” Saul told her, taking the lounger. “A real wind storm will scare the crap out of you around here.”
   “Yep,” Rory agreed. “With any luck, we’ll have one while you’re here.”
   She laughed. “Thanks a lot. I don’t really think I need to have the crap scared out of me though.”
   The statement made her remember the dream, if that’s what it had been. The strange phone call. How afraid had she been then? Not very…at least, not at first. Not until her computer had grown a mind of its own. If there was one thing she was grateful for here though, it was the lack of phones.
   And she couldn’t deny feeling safer in the presence of men. She was pretty sure a lot of women would find that to be offensive, and it probably was, but a lot of women would also feel the exact same way she did. There was no denying that having a guy around made a woman statistically safer. And so, as was often the case with some things, two had to be better than one.
   Though, if she was losing her mind, she doubted these two would be able to do much to save her. Especially not Rory. He seemed a tad insensitive, more like a macho guy than Sean had ever been. It occurred to her maybe that was what Sean had been attracted to in the first place. Rory seemed so self-assured, so confident and as far as she knew, those qualities had not exactly been running rampant in Sean. He’d been quiet, shy until he was comfortable with a person, much more involved with the arts than she was back when they’d been growing up. Sean used to be a musician, studying piano and guitar, and as a teenager he’d had a garage rock band called…Damn, she couldn’t remember. Something Catalyst. She smiled at the memory of their dad always yelling at Sean and his two band mates to “
Quiet the hell down
!”
   “Care to share?” Rory asked, startling her. “You were just staring off into space smiling.”
   “Oh.” Her smile widened even as her face grew warm with embarrassment. “I was just thinking about Sean. He used to be in a band when he was in high school. I can’t for the life of me remember what they called themselves though.”
   “Euphoric Catalyst,” Rory said without hesitation.
   “That’s it! Wow…they were pretty terrible.”
   Rory laughed. “He told me they were pretty good. He had an old cassette tape of a practice or a show or something. He wanted me to listen to it, but I never did.” His voice dropped an octave. “Now I wish I had.”
   She knew how he felt and reached out to squeeze his knee. Rory tried to smile at the gesture, but then, before any of them knew what was happening, his eyes welled up with tears which spilled down his cheeks to drip off his chin.
   Just the sight of him in that state made Karen want to weep herself.
   Saul shifted uncomfortably and began to study the ceiling.
   “I’m sorry,” Rory sniffed. “I thought all my crying was over. It’s just that…”
   “What?” Karen asked.
   “You really do look like him. You have the same brown eyes, the same smile.”
   She almost apologized, but realized how ludicrous that would sound. Rory went on. “In a way, it’s great having you here. It’s like having a piece of Sean back. But in another way…”
   She nodded. “I know.”
   “Fuck!” Rory shouted suddenly, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “So much for being a brave little soldier.”
   At this, Saul chuckled and Karen gave him a confused look. “It’s something Sean used to say,” he explained. “He said his dad...I mean, YOUR dad…would always tell him to be a brave little soldier when he was a kid.”
   “Ah.” Karen smiled a little at the memory. “He did used to say that. Every time we fell down or got in a fight with a neighborhood kid or had a nightmare.”
   “That’s what he told us,” Rory said. “No offense, but from what I’ve heard your dad was kind of a dick.”
   “There’s really no ‘kind of’ about it,” she replied. “He was a major dick when we were growing up. He’s mellowed out over the years, though.” Both men laughed at this and Karen was relieved Rory had stopped crying. The last thing she wanted was for her presence to be difficult for him.
   “I’m hungry,” Saul announced, jumping to his feet. “Let’s see what we can forage up, shall we?”
   “Yes!” Karen also rose. “I’m starving.”
   “We don’t have too much fresh food,” Rory said. “But we have plenty of canned and dried goods. Soups, cereal, oatmeal, stuff like that.”
   “Canned soup sounds like the perfect thing right about now,” she said. “Anything to get rid of this chill in my bones.”
   “Amen,” Saul said and led the way through the house towards the kitchen and a hot meal.