Chapter Twenty-Five #2
“We’ve been down here about an hour, I’d say.” Trey stepped back over, glanced toward the bells. “Not one ring. Good job today, cutie.”
“And that’s what we’ll keep doing. Let’s see if we can find the right coffee table. Then, I say, it’s time for cake.”
After Owen found exactly what she wanted, they decided to have cake and cappuccino on the lawn. As the night ran cool, both Sonya and Cleo grabbed jackets.
Then everyone, pets included, sat and watched the half-moon shine over the rolling sea.
Sonya leaned her head against Trey’s shoulder. “Best celebration dinner ever.”
She ended her big day in his arms, not just content, but energized. Dobbs would strike again, she had no doubt, but Sonya felt, truly felt, the momentum—and the light—were theirs now.
“I wonder if, when this is done and she’s gone, if Carlotta can move on. How many others can and will. But I hope she can instead of spending her nights in the nursery, weeping.”
“You could reclaim that room.”
She snuggled in against him. “Not until she has that choice. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t know why, exactly, since it felt right to fix up Molly’s room, and the others. I just hope, when we have the rings, Carlotta can move on. Or if she stays, the grief doesn’t.”
“I think, like you do, she’ll at least have the choice.”
“And that’s enough.” Closing her eyes, she felt his heartbeat, steady, under her hand. “If I need to walk tonight, stay close, will you?”
“Always. I love you, Sonya.”
“Knowing that? I feel like I can do anything.”
When the clock sounded three, she slept through the weeping and the music and the murmurs.
He didn’t. Trey lay awake, imagining Dobbs leaping off the wall. Imagining a time when that leap would be her last.
More leaves began to turn in a slow waltz from summer to fall. Blushes of color, a striking splash of it here and there, all hinting at the symphony to come.
As the air cooled, it brought a freshness with it. In the mornings, Sonya found her bedroom fireplace simmering. By the time she settled to work, the library fire crackled.
Sonya considered the occasional door slams, window slams, doorbell bonging, bell ringing as Dobb’s pique, and found she didn’t mind it at all.
In fact, she decided on amusement.
She prepared herself for whatever came next from that quarter, but refused to dwell on it.
Instead, she worked through those last days that blended summer with fall. She carved out time to finalize her plans for the game room. Through Corrine, she found an upholsterer.
Maddy Black turned out to be a cousin of Lucy Cabot, who’d fostered Mookie, Jones, Yoda, and Pye.
A woman on the far side of fifty, she had deep brown eyes behind red-framed glasses. She wore her gray-streaked brown hair in a single thick braid down her back.
Her Birkenstock boots showed considerable wear, as did her Levi’s. A collection of colorful braided bracelets decorated her right wrist, and dangles of moons and stars—and a curve of three red studs—her ears.
She had a trio of chains around her neck, each bearing a crystal.
When Sonya greeted her at the door, Yoda immediately fell in love.
“Well, look at you! Do you remember me?” Maddy hunkered down to rub and stroke. “I met you for about five minutes one day at Lucy’s. She said you’d found a good home.”
Maddy looked up at Sonya. “I don’t remember what his name is.”
“He’s Yoda.”
“Of course he is.”
“I really appreciate you coming to take a look at the furniture.”
“That’s what I do. And I start off repeating what I told you on the phone. It’s usually cheaper to buy new. I’m all for restoring, but I want the customer to know.”
“I do. But these pieces have been in the manor for generations. I want to give them a fresh look and purpose.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Maddy straightened up, looked around. “I’ve never actually been in here before. It’s all I’ve heard and a bushel of apples. Nothing like a good old house, is there? All that character, all that history, all those lives lived.”
“That’s exactly how I feel.”
“I didn’t really know your uncle very well, but Corrine set store by him, and she’s a good judge. Sets store by you, too.”
“I hope so, because she’s wonderful.”
“She’s that, and no one to trifle with. Look what you’ve got here.”
Hands on hips, Maddy looked into the main parlor. “Beautiful pieces, and well tended to. These aren’t what you want redone.”
“No, those pieces are downstairs. They’ve been in storage for … I don’t know how long.”
“Let’s take a look.”
“We’ll go up to go down. Through the servants’ door.”
As they started up, Maddy continued to look around with approval, and stopped, hands on hips, when Sonya opened the servants’ door.
“There’s something you don’t see every day.”
“There’s a whole world down here. Collin remodeled some of it—put in a home gym, a home theater,” she continued as they went down. “I want to keep that going. I’m doing a game room in what was the servants’ hall.”
“My, my. It just keeps going, doesn’t it?”
“It does. We pulled out the three pieces so they’re not as tricky to get to. The sofa and the two chairs.”
With a long Mmmmm, Maddy walked over to examine the sofa first. She walked around it, poked, prodded, got down to study the frame.
“This is going to be horsehair.”
“So I’m told.”
“I’m going to tell you something else.” She turned to one of the chairs, did the same examination.
“You’re a smart girl, and one that hits me where I live.
They don’t build them like this anymore, and that’s a fact.
Preserving these? Not just decor, not just something to sit on, but history.
Imagine the butts that have sat on these over the decades? ”
Standing, she nodded. “They’re beautiful, and we can make them good as new while keeping that history. I’m going to get measurements.”
As she reached into her huge bag, pulled out her tape measure, the Gold Room bell rang, and rang, and rang.
Maddy glanced over. “Somebody want something?”
“Somebody would prefer nothing changes in the manor. I assume you know the legend. The Lost Bride Manor legend.”
“Except for a few years of wanderlust, I’ve lived in Poole’s Bay all my life. Not everybody agrees on all the details, but everybody knows about Lost Bride Manor.”
“That’s Hester Dobbs.” Sonya nodded toward the bells. “She stays, well, pissed off.”
“Is that so?” Maddy fingered the crystals around her neck. “Doesn’t seem to bother you much.”
“I’ve had my moments. If you’d rather, I can have the pieces brought to you.”
Maddy shoved up her glasses, as they’d slid a bit down her nose.
“During my wanderlust, when I was, oh, twenty-two or so? I worked in housekeeping at this castle hotel in Scotland. A genuine castle, not a place built to look like one. It was full of ghosts.” She shrugged, started measuring. “We learned to coexist.
“I tended bar for a while in an Irish pub, lived in the flat over it. You haven’t lived until you share space with drunk Irish ghosts. And damn if one of them—they called him Seamus—didn’t leave the toilet seat up every blessed night.”
Sonya laughed with real appreciation. “I’m glad to say we don’t have a Seamus type here.”
With her tape, and an app on her tablet, Maddy measured, calculated, measured, and calculated.
“All right. I’ll go out and get my sample books out of my truck.”
“Why don’t we do the selections in the kitchen? I’ll get my housemate. Would you like coffee?”
“I never turn it down. You know it’s not just that Dobbs, don’t you? This place is full of spirits.”
As Maddy started to put her tablet away, it played “We Are Family.”
“My grandmother,” Sonya explained. “Clover. She runs the house music. She was married to Charlie Poole, and died after giving birth to my father and uncle.”
“I’ve heard something about that recently. How she married young Charlie, then the old bat, Patricia Poole, gave one baby away, kept the other as Gretta’s kid. That was Collin. My mother knows Gretta some—I guess everybody around here of a certain age knew her some. Strange woman.”
Having Maddy take it all in stride made everything easier. When she went out to the truck, Sonya texted Cleo.
With the sample books on the table, Sonya made introductions.
“Beautiful crystals,” Cleo said.
“I’ll say the same. Is that black tourmaline?”
“It is. My grandfather gave it to my grandmother, and she gave it to me.”
“We’re having coffee, Cleo.”
“I could use some. Juggling work,” she said with a smile for Maddy.
“I hear that. You’re the one having the art show at Bay Arts this weekend. I plan to come by. Tried my hand at fine art once. Well, tried my hand at most everything. Nothing stuck until I started working with fabric and furniture.”
She sat.
“Well, you said nothing modern so I don’t have to talk you out of that. More Victorian patterns for the chairs, a solid for the sofa to coordinate. Maybe some pillows.”
“That’s exactly right.”
As Sonya got the coffee, Cleo sat, opened a sample book at random. “These are lovely. This isn’t going to be easy, Son. We have a lot that would work, and this is only one book.”
“If you let me know a budget, I can whittle the choices down for you.”
“I’m not thinking budget yet,” Sonya told her. “I want to see what strikes us. And I’d love something that picks up what was, if you know what I mean. It doesn’t have to be a match, just…”
“You want to honor what was.”
“I think Maddy gets us, Son.”
Marianne Faithfull sang from the kitchen tablet. “File It Under Fun from the Past.”
“I bet she keeps you entertained” was Maddy’s opinion. “I got something here. It’s on the high side.”
Maddy picked up another book, flipped through samples.
Sonya brought the coffee to the table, and as she set it down, beamed.
“Not hard after all. That’s just it. It’s not exact, but it echoes. I love the rich bold colors here. The deep green, the purple, just hints of cream, almost like a tapestry. Nothing floral, just rich and bold.”
“Well, I love it. And dare I say we go bold? Purple couch.”
“Purple couch!” Sonya hooted out a laugh. “Who does that? We do!”
“Victorian era liked its bold colors and patterns. Still,” Maddy added, “you might want to look at more choices before you decide.”
“And we will,” Sonya assured Maddy. “But I don’t think we’ll top this.”
In the end, they went back to the beginning, and went bold.
“It’s a game room,” Sonya said. “It’s for fun. And we’re honoring its past with the pattern on the chairs.”
“I can promise you, it’ll be striking. And I’m looking forward to working with this fabric. So let’s talk cushions.”
They talked cushions and pillows.
With all decisions made, and the cost tallied, Sonya sat back.
“It’s just exactly what we want, isn’t it, Cleo?”
“Honestly? Couldn’t be better.”
“You do custom window treatments, bed coverings and so on, don’t you, Maddy?”
“I do.”
“We don’t need anything like that—yet. But after Corrine recommended you, I took a look at your website.”
Maddy frowned into her second cup of coffee. “Corrine warned me about you.”
Laughing, Sonya lifted her shoulders. “You’re going to make those three pieces beautiful, functional, and uniquely ours. I can do the same for your social media and marketing. Just give it some thought.”
Clover went obvious with Bachman-Turner Overdrive and “Takin’ Care of Business.”
And made Maddy laugh. “Okay, that’s a good one.
My kids have been at me about my out-of-date website.
So I will think about it. Meanwhile, I’m going to order this fabric, and I’ll let you know when it’s time for us to pick up the sofa and chairs.
This has been a pleasure.” She glanced toward the tablet.
“And an experience. I do enjoy an experience.”
When she rose, they rose with her.
“I’ll do my best to get them done by the first week in December, but that’s going to depend on how soon I can get the materials.”
“We won’t hold you to that date. But I’m going to get to work on the rest of the room so we’re ready for you when you’re done. We’ll help you carry all this back out.”
“I appreciate it. You’ve got a really special home here. I like knowing some of my work’s going into it.”
After they’d waved her off, they stood together in the breeze while Pye and Yoda wandered.
“Here’s something I never thought I’d say. Cleo, we’re going to have a purple couch.”
“I love it. And I think I’m a little in love with Maddy.”
“She worked in a haunted Scottish castle in her twenties, and in a haunted Irish pub.”
“Now I know I’m a little in love. Oh, Son, look at our tree. It’s that gorgeous golden orange, nearly at peak. This weekend, next week for sure, I’ll start painting it in its fall colors.”
“And tomorrow, I’m going to help you hang your first show in Poole’s Bay. It won’t be the last, but this is the first.”
She wrapped an arm around Cleo’s waist.
The window of the Gold Room shot open with a boom like thunder. Sonya shoved a hand in her pocket, closed it over the stone.
What flew out wasn’t the huge bird, but a bolt of lightning, black as midnight, that shot like an arrow into the ground, where it snapped and sizzled. For a moment, the world shook.
And the air turned fetid with the stench of sulfur.
“Jesus.” Now Sonya gripped Cleo’s hand. “That’s new.”
“She could’ve hit the pets.”
“But she didn’t. They’re right here with us.” But shaken, Sonya reached down to pick up Yoda as Cleo did the same with Pyewacket.
“She’s just evil, Sonya. Just fucking evil.”
“Evil, but limited. Look over there. Where that bolt hit? The grass should be scorched. At the very least. But it’s not. She wants to scare us, and good job there. But she can’t scare us off.”
Lowering her head, Sonya kissed Yoda’s nose. “And we’ll all be here, Cleo, after she’s gone. Whatever it takes.”
“You’re goddamn right. I’ve been working on something in the studio. I’d like you to come up and see it. I think it’s finished.”
“Your secret project? You understand my exceptional willpower? I haven’t even snuck a peek all this time.”
“I count on that.” After giving the cat a snuggle, Cleo put her down. “So let’s go have a reveal.”