Chapter Four #2
“Let’s go out front. I want the sea.”
When they went out the front, the air whisked away any trace of dizziness.
“I found things in the desk—her things. Photographs, too. And I thought how we’d use that desk and chair for the guest office. Then … then the mirror was just there.”
Sitting on the seawall, with the dog racing joyfully to join them, Sonya told Cleo the rest.
“She felt you.”
“I think so, yeah. Me at first, then Dobbs. Because at first she just looked puzzled, you know? Then she looked shaken. I felt Dobbs, too. I wonder, did she feel me?”
Sonya looked up at the windows of the Gold Room.
“I hope she did. I hope it worries her. I’m fine now. I guess you didn’t notice the desk.”
“Not really, no.”
“It’s beautiful and it’s perfect. I think I was meant to find it, and find her things in it. Hairpins, ticket stubs, photographs.”
Clover tried Tom Petty’s “American Girl.”
“Yeah, she was.” And for some reason the song, the connection made Sonya smile again. “Probably very typical for her age and time. Something very sweet about her, with some sass built in.”
She glanced over as she heard the sound of a truck coming.
“It’s Trey. I guess I have a story to tell again.”
She got up and trailed behind Yoda’s joyous run, and the happy wrestling match when Mookie leaped out of the truck.
“Owen’s a couple minutes behind me.”
He leaned down, kissed Sonya. “How’d the day go?”
“Productive, and with some mirror time at the end. Don’t jump to worry.” She lifted a hand to his cheek.
“Too late.”
“I’m here, I’m fine, and I learned a little bit more.”
“I’m calling for cocktails on the deck. I’m making my mama’s serious lemonade—it includes gin. Trust me on it,” Cleo added. “Go on around back, and I’ll bring out adult beverages.”
When Cleo walked off, Trey took Sonya’s face in his hands and gave it a long look.
In response, she batted her lashes.
“You’re okay,” he decided.
“Actually, I’d rather go through the mirror than face off against a smoke wolf.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?”
“Why not?”
Hand in hand, they began to stroll.
“When I go through, I see something to put in the file.” She tapped the side of her head with her free hand. “Or hear, or feel or learn. And I did. Since Owen’s on his way, I’ll wait and tell you both. And how did your day go?”
“Productive. Busy and productive, so I’m going to enjoy that adult beverage and a weekend without clients.”
“Problematic ones?”
Since she obviously wanted the distraction, he obliged her.
“Well, there’s the one who brought in a list of changes to her will, most of which negate the changes she made to her will about three months ago and refer back to changes made maybe six months before that.”
“And there’ll be a list coming in another few months?”
“Oh, absolutely.” He said it with a kind of cheerful acceptance that Sonya thought all but defined him. “What’s your productive?”
“Updates, testing, working up the package for Bay Arts. And finishing my mood board for the Ryder additions—and their approval of same.”
With the dogs racing in the yard, and Pye climbing onto her favorite perch on the mansard roof of Yoda’s doghouse, they walked up to the deck.
“We should have wardrobe by the end of next week.”
Reading his expression, she laughed and hugged him. “It really won’t hurt, and it’ll be quick. Your mom’s so good.”
“I’m not going to ask what I’m wearing because I don’t want to think about it.”
“Then we’ll move on. Cleo dropped the photos we put together last night at Poole Shipbuilders, for Clarice. And after work I started in the attic, and found more.”
She watched the dogs bullet toward the front of the house seconds before she heard the truck. Cleo came out with a tray holding four glasses.
“I remember that lemonade,” Sonya said. “Owen just drove up.”
“It’s memorable. I texted for Owen’s ETA before I started mixing. He said five minutes. And I said: ‘No beer, come to the deck.’”
After stepping up and onto the deck, Cleo set the tray down.
“The perfect summer cocktail at the perfect spot on a perfect evening.”
The dogs raced back; eye-patched Jones strutted. Owen followed, and sent an aggrieved look at the group on the deck.
“Why can’t a man have a Friday night beer?”
“Because you’re going to have a Friday night cocktail. And if you don’t like it, you can go get your prosaic old beer.”
When he stepped onto the deck, Cleo handed him the fourth glass. He frowned at it.
“There’s basil in here.”
“And mulled strawberries, and gin added to lemonade. You can knock it, but not until you’ve tried it.”
He took a sip, then shrugged. “It’s not bad.”
“That’ll do.” Cleo sat.
“Sonya went through the mirror,” Trey told him.
Owen looked at Sonya. “You okay? You look okay.”
“I’m definitely okay. Sit, relax. I’ll tell you. I decided to start the serious search in the attic. I’m marking pieces I’ve been through with sticky notes. Cleo, I didn’t tell you about this gorgeous chifforobe. I think it’s a chifforobe. We’ll want that downstairs.”
“So it begins,” Owen muttered.
“It’s never going to end in this house,” Trey added.
And there, she thought, that (almost) cheerful acceptance.
“But the real find was the desk and desk chair. I want you to take a look at it, Owen. You’ll know what it is, besides beautiful. I was thinking of it for the guest office, but now? I’d love to put it back in Lissy’s room, if I can find her room. The wallpaper … I didn’t recognize it.”
She held up a hand. “And I’m getting ahead of myself. I know it was Lissy’s desk because I found some of her things in it. Writing paper, hairpins, photographs, and so on. Then someone helpfully pulled the dustcover off the chair that goes with it.”
She took a drink. “Then, the mirror was there. Just there, and I had to go through.”
She told them all she’d seen and heard and felt.
“She didn’t see you like she did that night in the music room?”
“No.” She shook her head at Trey, then turned to Owen. “I was the ghost, like we were at Lissy’s wedding.”
“More, she didn’t see Dobbs, and neither did you,” Trey continued. “But you felt her, and you think Lisbeth felt her, too.”
“I’m sure of it. It got cold, and dark. I don’t mean the light changed, but the air, it just felt dark, dark and heavy, where it hadn’t.”
“Sonya was really pale and shaken when she came out. I was on the point of texting both of you when she did,” Cleo told them. “I didn’t know how long she’d been in there, over there. Whatever the hell it is.”
“I always feel a little off for a minute after, but this was more—going in and coming out.”
“Because you didn’t stay in the attic. You didn’t go just back, you went where the desk was.”
“Yes!” Pleased and relieved he understood, Sonya reached over to squeeze Trey’s hand.
“I want to see this desk.” Owen got to his feet. “In the attic, and uncovered, right?”
“Go on up, the three of you.” Cleo rose. “I’ve got a couple of things to do for dinner. We can eat when you get back. Go show him, Sonya. Bring Lissy’s stuff back down, and we can take a look at it after dinner. I left the boxes up there.”
Jones, as always, went with Owen. The other four-legged creatures decided to tag along.
Owen stopped in the kitchen to sniff at the simmering sauce. “Smells good, but it doesn’t look like pulled pork.”
“That’s for tomorrow.” Cleo smiled, and made it sultry. “We have plans for you.”
“Chifforobes,” he muttered, and kept going.
“Probably not.” Sonya patted his shoulder. “It’s huge, and I don’t know where I want it yet.”
When they reached the library, Trey turned in. “Hold on a minute.” Walking over, he studied the mood board, hissed out a breath. “This is one time I wish you weren’t so damn good at what you do. So I’m still not going to think about it.”
Owen took another moment. “We keep the gear?”
“You keep the gear.”
“Good deal.”
They continued up.
“If you don’t count the wolf, she’s been pretty quiet. And that was a quick, if intense, scare.”
“You said it poofed when Yoda and the cat went at it.”
She nodded at Trey. “That’s right.”
“That tells me the illusion can’t stand up to a fight.”
“Yet,” Owen added.
“Yet.”
They all paused on the third floor, and the sound of a staticky hum.
“No, you don’t.” Owen bent down and picked up the cat as she started down the hall. “Almira Gulch is in there, brooding and plotting.”
“Almira who?”
Owen glanced at Sonya. “Wizard of Oz. Margaret Hamilton rocked the old Kansas biddy and the Wicked Witch of the West.”
He carried the cat up the steps and made the turn into the attic, then set her down.
“That chifforobe? She’s a monster, and a beauty. Cherrywood,” he told Sonya. “Probably late eighteen hundreds.”
“Needs a big room.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“That’s the desk?” Trey pointed. “And the chair. That’s burl wood, right, Owen?”
His eyes landed on it with admiration. “Burr walnut, and talk about a beauty. It’s a kidney desk.”
“Because it’s curved,” Sonya realized. “I see that. And that was the chair she sat in.”
“Same wood, same era. Victorian. And if you hadn’t changed your mind about using this for a desktop, I’d’ve changed it for you. The style’s too delicate. It’s plenty sturdy, but you want something that looks sturdy.”
“More businesslike,” Trey agreed. “No putting a desktop on something like this.”
“I can’t argue that. It was in front of the window in her room so she could look out while she wrote her letters. This stationery, this pen. She was using both, writing to someone named Dina. Miss Dina Triburn, in New York.”
“Triburn?” Owen glanced back at her. “We’ve got Triburn relatives—distant cousins. My brother Hugh’s connected with a couple in New York.”
“She saved some theater tickets, some playbills. A few are from New York. So she visited there. And these photos. I’m thinking the one of her and Edward might be from the engagement party she wrote Dina about. It wasn’t on her desk when I saw her.”
“He’s wearing a tux,” Trey observed. “And that looks like an evening gown, so you’re likely right.”
“The mirror was right there. It hadn’t been, but I felt it, and I turned, and it was right there.”
She picked up one of Cleo’s boxes and began to put Lissy’s things inside.
“I think at some point they just moved this up here. After she died. They couldn’t box up her things inside it. So they left them and brought the desk up.”
“The family bedrooms would’ve been on the second floor.”
“True, but, Trey, the wallpaper’s changed. I’ve been in all of those rooms, multiple times. I’ve never seen that wallpaper.”
“You’ve got a good eye,” Owen commented. “Why not take another look now?”
“It’s been over a hundred years,” Trey pointed out. “Some of the wallpaper’s changed. I know Collin did a lot of remodeling. Except for the short period Charlie and Clover lived here, the house stood empty for a generation when Patricia Poole refused to live here. Or, hell, be here.”
“Threatened or warned off, take your pick, by Hester Dobbs. Okay, maybe.” Sonya lifted her shoulders. “It can’t hurt to look. I’d love to see it where she had it. It just feels like the right thing to do.”
They went down to the second floor and began to study the rooms facing west.
“More centered than these, or those on the far end of the hall. Not the one my mother used. That has a sitting room, and this one didn’t. I think…”
She opened another door, walked in. A guest room now, with its own small en suite and windows facing the gardens and the woods.
“You know, this feels right. The angles. The view. It’s not snowing, and the woods are a hundred-plus years older.
But the fireplace. It’s the same mantel and surround.
Where the bed is—a different bed, but the same place.
The wallpaper’s different, but it has the same tonal qualities.
Hers was deep pink—rose-colored flowers over cream, and this is cream-colored flowers and vines over rose. ”
Sonya nodded. “This was her room.”
Sonya’s phone played Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream.”
“Yes, she was, just a teenager, and one with dreams. We’ll put her desk back by the window, where she dreamed some of those dreams.”
They went back down to where Cleo had a platter of antipasto on the kitchen island along with a bottle of Chianti.
“We’re going Italian tonight, start to finish. From antipasto through the gelato.”
“Looks fancy.” Owen snatched a marinated artichoke heart. “Tastes good and fancy.” He looked down at Jones. “You guys have to settle for your usual. I’ll feed them.”
Trey crossed over to set the box he’d taken from Sonya on the dining room table.
“And I’ll pour the wine. We found Lissy’s room. The desk just belongs there. So, a Saturday project.”
“I’ve got to work awhile in the morning. I can be back around noon. One, latest,” Owen qualified. “I’m feeding these guys outside.”
“Good idea.” Sonya turned to Trey. “Working this weekend?”
“Client-free weekend. So it looks like I’m working in the attic.”
“Which is much appreciated.” She handed him his wine. “Mmm, Cleo, what did you do to these mozzarella balls?”
“Marinated them. I amaze myself.”
“Join the crowd.”
Owen came back, glanced at the platter, then the stovetop. “How long that’s going to take determines how much of this I’m going to eat.”
“About twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen.”
“Good enough.” He took one of the little plates and loaded it up.
“This is nice. A little bit fancy on a Friday night, it’s nice. Thanks, Cleo.” Sonya lifted her glass in a toast. “And everyone, forget all about this when I try making pulled pork tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget the hand-cut fries.”
“I’m trying to, Owen. Really trying to.”
“Use the mandoline.”
She let out a laugh. “You want me to play a musical instrument while I make French fries?”
Shaking his head, he walked into the butler’s pantry, rummaged around, and came back holding a tool with a long, flat surface and a leg he folded out to make an incline.
“How is that a mandoline?” Sonya wondered.
“Can’t tell you, but it is.”
“You adjust the blade there,” Trey told her. “Then you just slide the potato down, and it slices them.”
Impressed, Sonya frowned at him. “How do you know this?”
“My mom has one. I’ve been drafted into slicing stuff now and then. You use this guard so your hand doesn’t hit the blade.”
“Okay, I’ll try playing the mandoline.”
“Water’s boiling,” Owen told Cleo.
“I see that.” She added the pasta, gave it a stir. “It’s time you kissed the cook.”
“Is it that time?”
He obliged her.