Wolf Moon Rising (21 page)

shone through the steel arches as bright as before. Th

en he heard

Jackie moan.

“David, what do you think? My knee is bleeding.”

He sat up to see. Th

ere was a shard of glass sticking out of a

deep cut, and blood had already dripped on the snow— her

blood— blooming like a rose and so bright red it hurt his eyes to

look at it. He shook his head. “You have to pull that out.”

“You . . .”

“Me? You want me to do it?”

She nodded and pressed her lips together, then looked away.

He scooped up a handful of snow and carefully dropped it over

the cut. She winced and drew in her breath.

“In a minute, the cold will deaden the pain,” he said, “and

then you won’t feel anything.” He cupped his hand and held it

there over her bent knee, feeling the cold snow in the center of

his palm and her warm skin at the edge of his hand.

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“If I didn’t think it sounded crazy,” he said, “I’d say these

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buildings actually are bewitched, or spooked, just like Willie

said, and that they don’t want us around.”

“Or enchanted.” She looked at him now, waiting, her eyes

dark. Th

e damp tendrils clung to her neck.

David cupped her knee and placed his other hand on her

thigh to steady it. Because he was afraid to look at her, he looked at her shadow on the snow, faint and barely moving.

“I want to tell you something,” he said. “Th

at night, you

know, I was certain there was someone in the pool house.” He

was trying to sound nonchalant, but his voice was rough with a

frog in it.

“Was there?” She was shivering now. He could feel the

muscle of her leg, fi rm and warm, and her body trembling.

“Something pushed me into the pool. It was crazy. Freaked

me out. I can’t seem to shake it.”

“Pushed you in?” Again, she sucked in her breath. “Restless

ghosts,” she whispered. He wondered if he was hurting her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, grimacing. “And today was just as

freaky, the way that wind came up all of a sudden.”

“But the icicles were already melting.”

“I know, but the whole barrage. Came out of nowhere. As if

something was behind it.”

“Maybe you’re right. How can you expect a place as full of

life as this once was to not have wandering spirits? Th

ey’ve been

ignored for so many years.”

“I’m going to take the snow off now. Does it feel numb?” Her

knee was bright red.

She nodded and looked into his eyes. “Maybe they’ve been

waiting for us to come along,” she said. “Th

ey wouldn’t appear to

the type of person who wouldn’t be receptive. Instead they would

wait until someone came looking, someone who might acknowl-

edge they were there. Someone like us.” She was gazing up into

his face, but he was turning away from her eyes, concentrating,

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so very scared of hurting her.

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He took the piece of glass between his two frozen fi ngers

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and pulled gently. She cried out as the shard came loose and

blood spurted.

“Th

ere.” He grabbed another handful of snow and pressed

it against her knee. Splatters of blood lay around them, like

scarlet petals. “I don’t know. I think Willie was right. Maybe

we should stay out of these deserted buildings.” Th

e blood

trickled down her leg, and he wanted to kiss the place where it

oozed.

“But if there is something . . .” She looked off toward the

green house again and he was not sure what she saw.

A shiver went through him. “What? Something that doesn’t

want us snooping around?”

“Or something is trying to reach us. Don’t you want to fi nd

out what it is?” Her face was fl ushed.

“I thought we were just looking for a painting.”

“Well, what about the painting? Quentin might want it

back because it has some kind of power over him. Paintings can

take on spells; they can be magical. Th

ere’s something back

here, David. I can feel it. Something is . . . speaking to us.”

He felt a tremor as he pulled his hand away. “Th

ere.”

“It’s okay. It’s stopped bleeding. You fi xed it.”

He sat back and watched as the blood seeped more slowly

now out of the cut.

“Let’s get you home,” he said, and climbed to his feet.

She looked surprised. “You don’t want to stop looking now,

do you?”

“Don’t you?” He gathered more snow and pressed it into a

snowball. It had some of her blood in it. He stood quietly for a

moment holding it, moving it from one hand to the other. Jackie

backed away grinning.

“Aren’t you going to throw that at me?” she teased, and took

off across the snow.

He tossed the snowball and it exploded on her shoulder.

She laughed, and he ran to catch up. “What happened the other

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night with Barnabas?” he said. “What was that all about?”

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She shrugged and looked away again. “It’s just an old gypsy

trick. Th

e salt from tears is a curative.”

“But was it a . . . you know, a spell?”

She didn’t answer.

“You seemed to be doing something else. I heard you saying

things, like an incantation.”

“Don’t worry, David. My spells are fool’s gold.” She gri-

maced as she put weight on her leg. “But if there are spirits back

here, we should try to fi nd out who they are. It could be they

want us to fi nd them. Aren’t you curious?”

“Why did your mom show up? And you just left her with

him?”

She didn’t answer but brushed the snow off and turned to

look at him. “We can look one more place, can’t we? You said

there were stables.”

“Are you really a witch, Jackie?”

She looked into his eyes, shrugged, then smiled. “Th

e green-

house was beautiful. Rainbow after rainbow.”

“Yeah, and ice pick after ice pick.” He reached for her and

pulled her close, his hand around her waist. He looked down at

her fl ushed face.

“Let’s not stop now,” she said. And they headed across the

snow.

When they slid open the door to the carriage house, the

stale odor that assailed them was of moldy hay and frozen

earth. A black Bentley sat parked in one of the larger stalls just

in front of the opening. A mute guardian, it was silent as a coffi

n

in the gloom.

“Th

at’s Barnabas’s car,” said David. “He gave me a couple of

driving lessons, but he doesn’t seem to drive it anymore.” He

caught Jackie’s eye and they both frowned. “I wonder if he ever

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will again.”

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Jackie leaned over and cupped her hand against one of the

tinted windows. “Empty,” she said. “I thought maybe . . .”

David opened the back door and glanced under the back

seat. “We should look in the trunk, or the ‘boot,’ as Barnabas

always called it.” As he closed the door, he noticed that the key

was in the ignition, and he was gripped by the fl ash of a day-

dream, of taking it for a ride. Th

e trunk was empty as well, ex-

cept for the battery and the spare tire.

Th

ey wandered farther into the barn, searching in dark cor-

ners for anything stored away. “It wasn’t that long ago that

horses were kept here,” said David, and he could hear the anx-

ious tone in his voice as they made their way between the gloomy

stalls. Th

ey found nothing but cobwebs and decayed sawdust.

David’s chest ached in a way that made him feel sick, and he

reached out to steady himself on one of the gates. Was he doing

it again? Leading them into danger? Risking her safety when he

was supposed to protect her?

But drawn by her curiosity, Jackie went ahead, and he

watched her move into one of the stalls.

Rays of sunbeams poured in through a tear in the roof and

dust motes danced about in the shafts of light. Th

e entire inte-

rior was ancient wood, and the huge raf ters bore the scars of a

hand adz. Th

e walls and the fl at boards of the stalls were a dark

stain as well, and the fl oor had been strewn with straw, now de-

cayed and crumbled to dirt. Th

ick spider webs, fuzzy with gray

chalk, hung between the posts. Feeling anxious, he reached for

Jackie’s hand. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you sure you want

to do this?”

She nodded and moved farther, with David following re-

luctantly. When she spotted several large enclosures at the end

of the building, Jackie asked, “What were those rooms for?”

Her voice had a frenetic ring to it, and David was wary, already

spooked by the uncanny silence. Not a board creaked or a rafter

shuddered.

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“I think it’s where they kept the carriages,” he said. “It was

quite an operation, lugging people to and fro without cars.” Th

ey

peered into a small room with hooks and saw horses, empty

shelves thick with a coating of dust. “All the tack. Saddles and

harnesses. All gone now. Sold long ago.” He shivered. “Let’s go.

Th

ere’s nothing here.”

“What’s that?” In the last room a large humped form was

covered by a black cloth and coated with dust and cobwebs. “Do

you think it’s a carriage, or a sleigh?”

David shrugged, “I doubt it,” and took her arm. “It’s prob-

ably just a wood pile.” He felt a chill. “You know what? I’ve had

enough. Let’s get out of here.”

“No, wait. I want to see.” She moved forward into the room

before he could stop her, grabbed one side of the cloth, and

tugged hard. It was a massive cover, heavy canvas, but it gave a

little, expelling a waterfall of dirt and debris.

David had a sudden vision of a hoard of rats running out

from under the canvas in their direction. “Come on, Jackie, let’s

go. It’s nothing.”

But using both hands, she took hold of the fabric and jerked.

Th

ere was a soft sighing, a swishing, and then, a collapsing of

canvas in a great cloud of powder. Something gleamed. Curious

now, David pulled the cover to the fl oor and stood back. He was

looking at the most beautiful car he had ever seen.

It was bright enameled green and built like a luxurious car-

riage, long and rectangular with lots of chrome and glass. And

it was completely intact. He walked around it aghast. Th

e car

was huge, with a very long nose, fat white- walled tires, a tan

cloth top set on a folding frame, and six bullet- shaped head-

lamps, two as big as basketballs. He reached out as if it could not be real and touched the chrome radiator grill and the curved

exhaust pipes snaking out the side of the engine cover.

“Oh, my God!” David said. “I never knew this was here!”

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“What is it?”

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“It’s unbelievable! I— I think it’s a Duesenberg! And the

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paint is perfect . . . Wow, look at the spare tire and the wire

wheels. It’s from the Twenties. What’s this doing here?”

“Maybe it’s a clue—”

David grinned at her conspiratorially and then peered

closely at his refl ection in the hubcap, which had a small red dot in the center. “He must have been so rich,” he said under his

breath.

“Who?”

“Th

e guy who owned this. Why was it kept a secret?”

“It didn’t belong to a guy,” Jackie said, appearing from be-

hind the car. “It belonged to a woman.”

“How do you know?”

“Look. Th

is was in the case hanging on the back.”

She was shaking out a delicate dress, more like a slip, with

lace at the collar. She held it up to her body; the top fell across her like a shirt, but the skirt was made up of pleats. “A fl apper

dress,” she said. “Would it look good on me?”

David smiled as he peeked in the rearview mirror, lifted one

of the slender wipers and let it fall back with a snap, then peered through the short windshield.

“Look at this,” said Jackie, excitement in her voice, and he

came around to the other side of the car. She was rubbing her

hand over a dozen small pockmarks, fl aws in the perfect paint

job, tiny holes rusted inside. “What do you think?”

“Bullet holes,” said David, and Jackie frowned.

“Can we get inside?” she said. “Maybe the painting is there.”

She had her hand on the door handle and was twisting it

down. Th

e heavy door sprang open, and they could see a soft

white leather interior and two rows of round dials on a wooden

dash.