Chapter Three
They lingered awhile over lemon bars and cappuccino, then settled in the dining room.
Between Owen and the Poole family book Deuce had made for Collin, they identified some.
“I can’t be sure on a bunch of these. Most of them are from before I was born. Clarice or Connor are better bets. Maybe Mike,” Owen added, as he considered his cousins. “Maybe, but I’d try Clarice first. She’s more into all this.”
“I could invite her over to look through them. But there are more boxes, so it wouldn’t be quick work.”
“Better you give me a box or two, and I take them to her. She’ll get to them. It’ll pull her right in.”
“No rush. I’m going to get another box,” Sonya decided. “If we can go through those. I’ll use one box for the ones we know, one for ones we’d like to frame and put up but don’t know, and you take that to her. Third box for what we don’t plan to use.”
“Poole efficient,” Trey commented.
“Can’t help it.”
“Give me one. I’ll have my parents look through.”
“That’d be great. I’d love to have names for all of them eventually, but we can start this way. I’ll go grab another box.”
When Sonya went to the office to grab another box from where she’d stacked them on the desk, one sat apart. And she recognized the photo lying on top of the box as one of Johanna.
“All right, Clover, this one next.”
Her phone rang out with “It Wasn’t Me.”
“If you didn’t…” She picked up the photograph. “Johanna? Maybe. Whoever, this one next.”
She carried it back to the dining room.
“Clover—and it’s still playing on my phone.”
“She went with Chuck Berry,” Owen observed.
“While I couldn’t have said that, I got the it wasn’t me right off. This box was set aside from the others, and this photo on the lid.”
“Johanna.” Trey took the photo. “Maybe she’s giving you an assist now, too.”
“Or Collin,” Owen put in.
“That’s a good thought.” Cleo pointed at him. “If Collin’s still here—and of course he is—he’d weigh in on this. At least it seems he would.”
“Whoever did this, wants this box next.”
She sat, opened the lid, and immediately saw more photos of Johanna, of her and Collin, of both of them with Trey’s parents.
“Oh, is this you, Trey? On Collin’s hip?”
“Yeah, my parents have a copy of this shot. Johanna’s holding Anna, and Collin’s got me. It couldn’t have been long before their wedding.”
“This definitely belongs in the gallery.”
Sonya started to lift a pile out, then dug deeper.
“Wait! Tintypes, and yes! Miniatures, framed.” Lifting more, she spread them out carefully. “It’s—God.”
“The seven brides,” Trey finished. “They’re all going to be here. And these weren’t stored like this, not when we did inventory.”
Looking through, he shook his head. “Not like this. I’d remember it. We didn’t go through every box, just identified photos, but there wasn’t one just like this.”
“It may or may not be a clue, Son, but it’s a major find, and a huge help with the gallery.”
“It’s Clover,” Sonya murmured, and she picked up a photo. “Clover and Charlie on their wedding day. I saw this—dreamed, saw them in this meadow, dancing at their wedding.”
“They look so happy. Young and happy,” Cleo added.
And Clover played Dylan’s “Wedding Song.”
“We’ll frame this. It’ll go in the gallery, but before that, we’ll put it out, and with Collin and Johanna’s wedding photo, and any we find.”
“Like this one. Lisbeth, right? The fifth bride. Formal wedding shot.” Owen held it up.
“Yes. God, she’s radiant even in a photo.”
“I’ve got Agatha and Owen. Very formal. A handsome couple,” Cleo said. “Oh, here’s another—his second marriage—Owen and Moira. You know, I have to say they both look happier.”
“I’ve got a tintype here,” Trey offered, “and it’s Marianne and Hugh Poole.”
“The miniatures. Catherine—second bride. Not from her wedding, but there wouldn’t have been time, since she died on her wedding night. And Astrid—they must’ve had this done before the wedding. Maybe as a gift to Collin, because you can see enough of her dress. It’s her wedding dress.
“We have them all. All seven brides.”
“And more,” Trey added. “More photos. One of Clover in front of the manor.”
“How can women carry all that around?” Owen wondered. “That’s a baby mountain.”
“We have steel spines,” Cleo told him. “There’s snow on the ground—a lot. Snow in her hair. She’s laughing.”
Cleo played “Cosmic Charlie.”
“I don’t think the Grateful Dead’s a pun here,” Owen observed. “Great song.”
“It couldn’t have been long before the twins were born. Patricia Poole missed these,” Trey said. “When she tried to erase Clover and your dad from Poole history, she missed these. Or whoever she sent in did, since she wouldn’t set foot in the manor.”
“I won’t exclude her from the gallery.”
“Wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you did,” Owen told her.
“I won’t, because she’s part of the history. An ugly part, but part. However I’m going to put up the most unflattering picture of Patricia Poole we find.”
Trey grinned at her. “You can be mean.”
“Damn right, I can. But I’m not going to think of that, or her, now. We have all the brides here, and I’m going to hunt for frames to suit each photo we choose. Of them and everyone else.
“And when that witch is gone, we’re going to hang them and turn that room into something good, something positive and important.”
A series of doors slammed; the chandelier overhead swayed as if in a brisk wind.
Sonya merely snarled at the ceiling. “Yeah, I’m talking about you. You’re on your way out, so get used to it.”
Once again, Trey laid a hand over Sonya’s. “It might take her a while.”
“Tonight, next week, next freaking year, she’s going. And I have another goal now with these photos.”
“You’re going to need a plan, measurements, a grid,” Owen said. “Once you decide how many you want up, all those different sizes and shapes. How you want them. You have to map it out.”
“My company’s called Visual Art for a reason. I can map it out. But I wouldn’t mind your input. That goes for everyone here. I mean everyone,” she said, raising her arms to encompass the manor. “All suggestions welcome.”
“I’ll have plenty. But now? I’m heading up.” Cleo looked at Owen as she rose. “How about a ride, big guy?”
She started out, then laughed when he got up, swept her up, and carried her.
“It’s a hell of a thing you’re doing, Sonya. It’s a hell of a thing you’d think of doing it.”
“I owe them.” Gently, Sonya ran a fingertip over photos.
“All of them. Even Patricia. If she hadn’t done what she did, my grandparents wouldn’t have had the son they loved.
My dad, my mom, me, we wouldn’t have had our life in Boston.
I might not even have been born, but if I had, I would’ve had a different life.
“I like my life. So I owe them.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll sort through more tomorrow, and make that box for Clarice, one for your parents. I didn’t realize how late it got to be. So why don’t you come upstairs with me and remind me one of the reasons why I like my life, right here, right now.”
She woke at three, but not to walk. She heard the drifting piano music, the quiet weeping, the murmurs and sighs of those who couldn’t rest.
Though the mirror didn’t pull at her, she sat up, then squeezed Trey’s hand when he took hers.
“I’m awake,” she told him. “I’m aware. I want to see Dobbs.”
He rose with her, and they went to the terrace doors together.
She stood, Hester Dobbs, on the seawall. Her black dress swirled, her dark hair flew in the brisk Atlantic wind. She faced that sea, as she had night after night for over two centuries.
And to seal the curse on the manor, on the brides to come, she lifted her arms to the sky. And leaped.
“Does she feel it?” Sonya wondered. “Every night? Does she feel the wind whipping around her? Does she feel the fall, and her body breaking on the rocks? The pain of that? That one instant of shock and frigid water lashing at her?”
“I think she does. I think she has to.”
“Has to?”
“For it all to hold, Sonya, for her to keep her grip on this place. Maybe she wasn’t mad when she bespelled Collin Poole back then. Maybe she was only half-mad when she killed Arthur Poole.”
Turning, he nudged Sonya back to the bed.
“She was sure as hell crazy when she killed Astrid and laid the curse. And coming back here, to seal that curse with her own blood? There’s no sanity left.”
“You think she wants to feel it, every night. Over and over.”
In bed, he drew her to him. “Yeah, I do.”
“Because, in her madness, she sees it as power. Her choice, her blood. And through it, she remains in the manor. In her madness, that’s all that matters. That’s all there is for her. Mistress of the manor, forever.”
“But she’s not.” He brushed a kiss on her forehead that struck her as both soothing and confident. “And she never will be.”
“No, she won’t. It’s quiet again. The house is quiet again.”
“Can you sleep?”
“Yes.”
Closing her eyes, she slid into the quiet.
In the morning, Sonya’s decision to use the gym came partly from a need for routine, and partly from simple defiance.
But she found herself grateful Yoda and Pye wanted to come with her.
When she opened the servants’ door, they walked through with her, and down the stairs. She angled off from storage areas, from the home theater, and into the well-equipped gym.
Her uncle, she thought, had known how to perfectly design the manor, making it his own all while respecting its history.
“And that’s just what I’m doing.”
She looked over at the rack of free weights, nodded.
“We’re going to keep the muscles in tune. This battle may be more mental than physical, but it’s all connected, right? At least that’s what that overly perky and impossibly ripped trainer keeps saying. So I’m going with an advanced session today.”
She switched on the TV, chose the app, the program.
“Fifty-six minutes? Well, Jesus! Maybe that’s a little ambitious for—”
As she spoke, the servants’ bell began to ring, and kept ringing.
The Gold Room.