Wolf Moon Rising (20 page)

+1—

124

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 124

3/15/13 7:44 PM

N i n e

It had stopped snowing at last, and all the lawns were spar-

kling with the refl ected light of the sun. Everything familiar

took on a new character, draped or turreted with a thick soft

layer of white. As they slogged through the snow, David hoped

he had fi nally found a way to connect with Jackie. She had not

wanted to talk to him, and it had been diffi

cult to persuade her

to come today, but on the way over to the Old House he had

seen something he thought she might like.

She had not spoken a word since they left, but only walked

alongside him, her hands plunged in the pockets of her coat, her

head bowed and her dark curls falling over her cheeks. She was

wearing boots but her knees were bare, as if she had a skirt on

underneath her jacket. He thought she must be cold, not dressed

for the snow.

Th

en she surprised him by saying softly, “Are we going to

look for the painting?”

—-1

Hanging his arm across her shoulders he said, “Yes. But

—0

—+1

125

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 125

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Lara Parker

fi rst there’s something I want to show you. And only you. Some-

thing as magical as you are.”

She looked up in surprise. “What is it?”

“You’ll see.” Th

ey walked across the wide expanse behind

Collinwood and toward the abandoned structures several hun-

dred yards away rising like a ghost town out of the white ex-

panse.

She was silent again, and her dark mood made his throat

tight. It had been over a week since their crazy eve ning, and he

wanted to talk to her about what had happened, but he was

afraid of upsetting her. Already the nightmare was fading, be-

coming implausible, all but the hands pressing on his back in the

pool house. Part of him never wanted to think about any of it

again.

Now he was im mensely curious about Jackie. Until he had

seen her with Barnabas, he had been mystifi ed by her peculiar

habits, but he had accepted them, even liked them. Now there

was so much more he wanted to understand. She was illusive,

but there was a reason for her silences. It was as if something

otherworldly possessed her.

He knew she suff ered from some sort of illness, and he had

always shrugged it off . Everyone in his family was weird— what

you might call mentally ill in one way or another. His aunt

Elizabeth, for instance, was a recluse, never leaving the house.

For some reason she had remained mostly shut up in her room

for twenty years. His father slaved away at the shipyards, but

exuded a cloud of irritation that seemed to stem from feelings of

guilt and apprehension.

His cousin Barnabas— missing during the day as though he

only went out at night, and, even after horrible injuries, refused

medical help. Did he have some kind of power to cure himself?

Ever since he was a young boy David had wondered about Barn-

abas and suspected some connection with dark forces. It was

-1—

entirely possible that he was— of all things— a vampire. Th

e

0—

thought was unnerving.

+1—

126

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 126

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

Carolyn was so bored she was like a fi recracker about to

explode, and Quentin was a drunkard who never seemed to

have a hangover, or even to age, for that matter, when he went

away for years. Th

en there was Jackie’s mom, an over- the- hill

hippie stuck in the 1960s who still believed in the power of

marijuana. To do what? To ease all the pain of life, to reveal all

the truths? Well, she was as kooky as they come. Th

e problem

was Toni was Jackie’s mother, and she held some sort of hold

over her daughter. She could send her into a depression that was

like a deep well she couldn’t claw her way out of. Was that what

it was like to have a mother, he wondered.

He listened to the crunch of their footsteps in the snow

until their silence became too painful. “Hey,” he said as lightly

as possible. “What happened the other night, after I left?”

She sighed and waited several moments before she an-

swered. “She has forbidden me to go down there. She said he is

not dying, that he will recover, and that no one is to know he

is staying at our house.”

“Doesn’t that worry you? It seemed like he was so badly

hurt.”

“My mom won’t talk to me. She’s diff erent all of a sudden—

really out of it.”

He wondered whether her mother still nagged her about

the missing portrait. Somehow it had become the clue to under-

standing everything.

“Why do you think the picture is so important to Quentin?

Is it a painting of him as a younger man?”

“No— I don’t know. I have never seen it.”

“But surely you can . . . I mean you . . .” He waited to see

what she would say.

“Conjure up some vision?”

“Yes . . .”

“I’ve tried,” she said, as if it were perfectly normal. “Th

ere

are signs, a dark place . . . a stone wall, but not a room.”

—-1

“Th

ere are a hundred places like that around Collinwood.

—0

—+1

127

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 127

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Lara Parker

Like a needle in a haystack. So we’ll look through all these

abandoned buildings behind the house and we’ll see if you get

any, you know, vibrations.” He laughed softly. “It’s funny . . .”

“What?”

“I’ve always been warned about wandering back here and

now I’m taking you.”

“Why? Are you frightened?”

“No, but who knows what is there. Secrets, supposedly,

something about the history of our family. Why do you think it

has all been left to fall into ruin?”

“I thought it was because no one cared.” She pulled her coat

closer to her body and bent her head. Her hair tumbled over her

face and he reached over and pulled it back so that he could see

her.

“Are you ready for this?” he said quickly. David was looking

forward to her reaction when she saw what he had discovered,

something he himself could not have imagined.

Th

e day had cleared, but a blanket of snow stretched out

before them on the Collinwood lawn like a vast crystalline lake.

When she saw the ruined green house, she stopped and caught

her breath. It rose like a beached whale out of the snow, its giant steel arches curved up and over into the blue sky. Gleaming in

the new light, the ribs of the huge cage overlapping and rising

to gothic wonders, it was an airy cathedral, a symbol of another

era when the family had been wealthy beyond imagination and

every architectural whim was indulged, regardless of the cost.

Th

is green house, very much like Collinwood itself with its towers

and turrets, was copied from a great En glish estate as were the

splendid grounds, carved lions at the gate, formal hedges with

Greek statues, and an enormous ballroom now boarded up. Th

e

carriage house and stables were also a part of the great Victorian plan, and so was the pool house with its Doric columns.

When they approached the green house, they discovered it

-1—

was much larger than it had seemed from a distance, much like

0—

a huge barn. Inside, the low brick foundation still contained

+1—

128

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 128

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

rectangular fl owerbeds, and peeking though the snow were dried

skeletons of Queen Anne’s lace, thorny rosebushes, and bare

branches of peach trees, their gnarly fi ngers bearing buds.

“It must be an overgrown jungle in here in the summer-

time,” said David. “But once it was beautiful.”

“Th

ere is nothing

here now,” she said, sounding disap-

pointed. “No place where a painting could be stored. It’s all open

to the sky.”

“Come over here,” he said. “I want you to see this.”

Th

ey crossed to an area in the center of the green house

where there seemed to be water refl ecting the sun, but it turned

out to be shards of glass, the shattered remnants of the roof,

strewn about in sharp- edged plates under the snow.

“It’s all ruined,” said Jackie.

But David simply pointed to the sky. “Th

is is what I wanted

to show you.”

Jackie lifted her head and David followed her gaze. Th

ere

were pieces of glass still set in the frame, some whole, some jag-

ged, where storms had rent the panes. But there was something

else, a glittering blur across the entire structure, a fringe of icicles that hung from each arch, repeated over and over along the

entire length of the huge roof. Th

ey were slowly melting in the

sun, and their long dagger points vibrated as quivering drops fell

from their tips. Each icicle caught the sun and formed a prism

that fl ashed and trembled.

“I found it this morning,” he said. “Look at all the rain-

bows.” He searched her face for what he hoped would be won-

derment. “I thought you would like it because . . . well, because

you are an artist.”

“Yes, yes, it’s beautiful,” she murmured, and together they

stared up at the spectacle above them. She smiled at him, and

when he caught her hand, he felt her fi ngers inside her glove.

Th

ere was a fetch of wind, and a blast of cold air.

David put his arm around her when he saw her shiver. Her

—-1

eyes grew dark, and she glanced up quickly just as the sky paled

—0

—+1

129

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 129

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Lara Parker

and the wind came strong from off the sea. It whipped into a

gust, and the green house trembled like the rigging of a great

ship. Th

ere was a tinkling sound, as icicles shook loose and fell,

landed on the glass, and shattered.

Jackie threw her hands up over her head, and David grabbed

her arm and turned one way, then another, searching for the

easiest escape, but the rain of falling spears surrounded them.

He saw her bewildered expression when she ducked just as an

icicle fl ew down, barely missing her face, and his chest tight-

ened. He had been showing off , and like an idiot he had brought

her to a dangerous place.

Th

e wind wailed and shook the green house with a sound

like a string section out of tune, and the clattering ice was the

tympani striking the ground. David reached around her and

tugged on her arm. “Come on!”

When they looked up, they saw the icicles whistling down,

like the arrows of En glish bowmen in numbers too great to

count. Th

e wind shrieked though the frame.

Finally, braving the barrage, he buried her head against his

chest, chose a direction, and sprinted for safety. He lost hold of

her, and she tripped and fell, and cried out as a jagged piece of

glass stuck in her knee. She reached to remove it, but she stopped, seeing the blood fl ow onto the snow. He pulled her to her feet

and then felt a sharper blow as an icicle struck the side of his

head. Finally, ducking and scrambling, he dragged them both

out of the green house and onto the snowy lawn.

Th

ey collapsed in the snow and lay still for a moment, star-

ing blankly up at the sky. David’s mind was in turmoil. Had

something come after them? Something demonic that lived back

there? When he was able to speak, he reached a hand over to her.

“Are you okay?”

He heard a smothered sound and he realized she was laugh-

ing. He looked at her incredulously. “You think that was funny?”

-1—

She nodded, her face lit by a smile, “Yes.”

0—

“Why? We could have been killed.”

+1—

130

039-54009_ch01_1P.indd 130

3/15/13 7:44 PM

Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

“Oh, I don’t think so. It was just icicles.”

“Yeah, falling like knives.”

“But we weren’t hurt.”

Impulsively he grabbed her and rolled her over in the snow,

playfully, as if he was wrestling with her, and she was laughing

as well, until he realized he was lying on top of her with a sud-

den bulge in his pants, and he was embarrassed when he saw

her grin. He lifted off her and lay beside her, looking up at the

sky, both of them still laughing at what could have been a disas-

ter, and he thought he could feel the earth move beneath them.

He was insanely happy.

“I’m so glad you moved in next door,” he said, just to tease

her. “You’ve made my life much more exciting.”

“Oh, really?” she said. “Do you think I’m the one causing

these unusual happenings?”

He smiled, and then nudged her. “Look at the green house.”

Th

e wind had calmed, and it was quiet again, almost be-

nign. Th

e fl oor was littered with shattered ice, but the blue sky