Chapter Twenty-Six
The minute they closed the door behind them, the doorbell bonged. After one quick jolt, Sonya just rolled her eyes.
“That’s what they call weak sauce. Anyway, is this painting going in your show?”
“No. Not for sale.”
“Now I’m even more curious.”
As they passed the servants’ door, it swung open, and the bell below rang, rang, rang.
Cleo simply shut the door and kept going. “She does that one a lot when you’re working and I’m going up or down.”
“I liked that Maddy just shrugged it all off. She goes on the invitation list for the holiday party.”
“Absolutely. You know she’s going to check out your work, talk to some of your village clients. And she’s going to get back to you about redoing her website.”
“I’m not going to say a hundred percent, but I give it a ninety-five.”
As they reached the third floor, doors swung open, slammed shut.
“Does she do that a lot, too?”
“Off and on. Mostly it’s just banging around. Like that,” Cleo added when the slams and thuds issued from the Gold Room. “Plus, I don’t think she likes it when we’re up here together.”
“Then I’ll have to come up more often.”
They stepped into the studio, where the turret windows opened to sea and sky.
“Look, rain’s coming. You can actually see it, like a wall sliding over the water. I get too caught up in work, and don’t look out the library windows often enough. But I hear the ocean, and wonder how I ever worked without that sound.”
She turned to the easel. “You still have it covered.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d bring Maddy up. Whenever I worked on it, I told Clover it was a surprise, and asked her not to look.”
Clover joined in with Soundgarden’s “She Likes Surprises.”
“Good, because here it is.”
Cleo took a breath, held it—a sign, Sonya knew, that meant an important moment.
She removed the cover.
“Oh my God. Oh, Cleo. Oh my God.”
Because her heart had leaped into it, Sonya crossed her hands over her throat.
“It’s—it’s—I need a minute.”
The seven brides stood, shoulder to shoulder in their bridal white, on the lush green lawn. Flowers spread like a carpet at their feet. Behind them, the manor rose majestically into a deep and dreamy blue sky with wispy hints of soft white clouds.
Astrid, her body angled slightly to the right, held Catherine’s hand. Catherine, lips curved, had a hand on Marianne’s arm while Marianne’s hand lay on Agatha’s wrist.
They formed a unit, all connected. Agatha’s hand on Lisbeth’s shoulder, Lisbeth’s hand in Clover’s, Clover’s and Johanna’s arms linked.
The light illuminated their faces, and those faces held joy; they held life.
The wedding dresses seemed to shimmer. Seven rings sparkled.
“Cleo. Cleopatra. I’m groping for words, and I can’t find any worthy of this. It’s beyond beautiful. It’s magical. It’s glorious.”
Tears clogged her throat, then she turned, wrapped around her friend, and pressed her face to Cleo’s shoulder.
“I couldn’t finish until we had Catherine’s portrait. So I could see her, the details. I wanted to give them this moment of beauty and strength and solidarity.”
“You’re such a treasure to me. That you’d think of this. That you’d do this.”
Clover said thank you through the Beatles and “In My Life.”
“Yeah.” Sonya swiped at tears. “We’re so glad you’re in our lives.”
After kissing both Cleo’s cheeks, she stepped back. “It’s beautiful work, you know that. Every detail, Cleo. Every detail of the dresses, and the flowers at their feet from their bouquets.”
“I wanted them physically connected to each other, and the rings part of it. But the flowers are symbolic so I spread them out there.”
“And Clover married Charlie in a meadow. Sisters. Under it all they’re sisters.”
“Like we are. It’s yours, Sonya. Yours and theirs and the manor’s.”
“Cleo. There I go again.” This time she let the tears roll. “Thank you doesn’t cover it.”
“Living here gave me a summer of painting. Through you I met Owen, and I love the holy hell out of that man. I learned to cook and garden, and more, found out I’m good at both and like it. I’d say we’re more than even.”
“This means so much. I know we can’t frame it yet, but it could finish drying on the wall in the music room, across from the seven portraits.”
“I was hoping we’d have that same take on that. After we have Astrid.”
The doorbell sounded again, doors slammed. What sounded like a wrecking ball hit the wall so the whole room shuddered.
Sonya gripped Cleo’s hand. “She really hates it.”
“I take that as the highest compliment.”
“Is it safe here? Are they safe here?”
“I’ve used every trick my grand-mère gave me, and added more.”
As she spoke, something screamed, something shrill, inhuman.
A shadow, huge and dark, swept by the windows, and screamed again.
It circled, the wide-winged bird, and eyes gleaming red, flew straight at the window.
Still gripping Cleo, Sonya stumbled back. Instinctively, she threw up a hand to protect her face as the creature slammed into the glass that had the half turret shaking.
It left an ugly smear of red-streaked black on the glass.
Cleo closed her free hand over her tourmaline. “It’s circling again.”
“I see it. It’s stronger than it was before. If it breaks the glass…” She pulled the stone out of her pocket. “Will this be enough?”
She couldn’t quite swallow the scream when it bashed into the glass again. It held there a moment, wings all but blocking out the sky, eyes gleaming, its razor-edged beak opening and closing as if to speak.
Then once again it circled.
“It’s going to try again. We’ll take the painting, go out—”
Where? Sonya asked herself as a glance behind showed her fog creeping on the floor in the hall outside the studio.
They braced for the next attack. The rain washed in from the sea, gusting hard in the wind.
And the bird went to smoke.
For a moment, a long, breathless moment, everything shook, walls, windows, floor, ceiling.
In the sudden scream of silence, they heard shouts, running feet, wildly barking dogs.
“Up here!” Because her voice trembled, Sonya called again. “We’re in the studio. We’re okay.”
Dogs went streaking by to set up a din of barks and growls at the Gold Room door. Owen and Trey rushed in behind them.
Pride didn’t stop Sonya from burrowing in Trey’s arms.
“It was that bird, that horrible bird.”
“We saw it hit the windows.” Holding her, he looked over her head at the smears on the glass. “What the rain doesn’t take care of, we will.”
“No cracks.” Owen held Cleo against him as he examined the glass. “We could hear it hit, like a freaking bomb, but no cracks in the glass. Your protection voodoo works, Lafayette.”
“I’m going to do it all again, to make sure it keeps working. That wasn’t weak sauce, Son.”
“Not this time. She’s been doing some of her usual,” Sonya explained. “Making noise. Add a bolt of lightning that wasn’t really. And then she brought out bigger guns. Mixed metaphor. I’m a little shaken up.”
“I wonder why.” Trey kissed her forehead as the dogs, and Pye, hurried in. “I think that’s all she’s got for now. You’re okay.”
She appreciated he’d made it a statement.
“I bet this is what set her off. Holy shit, Cleo.”
“I’ll second that.” Trey stepped over to the painting. “This is … just a lot of wows. They’re together. A wall of together. If you’re putting this in the show, I’m putting in a preemptive bid.”
“It’s Sonya’s. It’s Astrid’s, Catherine’s, Marianne’s, Agatha’s, Lisbeth’s, Clover’s, Johanna’s. It’s the manor’s.”
Owen turned her. “Come here, gorgeous.”
When he’d finished kissing her, Trey brushed him aside. “I’m seconding that, too.”
Cupping Cleo’s chin in his hand, he brushed his lips on hers.
“I have to say, all this? Especially that.” Sonya gestured toward the painting. “Seriously overshadows the fact we’re getting a purple couch.”
Owen’s expression caught between appalled and stunned. “A what?”
“Game room? Purple?” Trey managed to look less of both, but not by much. “Seriously?”
“You’re going to love it.”
“You’d think that,” Owen muttered.
“And we’ll tell you all about it, but I want a glass of wine. It’s been anther really big damn day.”
On the way out, Sonya checked the closet.
“I guess it’s not going to get any bigger. Maybe tomorrow.”
The next morning ran on routine until Sonya shut down to help Cleo pack and load paintings into what she still thought of as Collin’s truck.
“I appreciate this, Son. Kevin and I could handle it, but you’ve got a really good eye on placement.”
“I love being part of it. It’s all so much fun. And tonight, I just know you’re going to pack people in.”
“Either way, I’m good. I got to paint my way through the summer, and now I get to show my summer off. Kevin’s keeping the show up for two weeks.”
On the last trip out, Sonya paused at the door. “Jack, I’m counting on you, and everybody, to look after Yoda and Pye.”
The answer came in the sound of a bouncing ball, and Yoda scrambled toward the back of the house.
“And that takes care of that.”
With the last paintings loaded, Sonya got behind the wheel. “Okay, it’s been a while, but I remember how to do this. I think. I hope.”
She remembered well enough to get them into town and parked behind Bay Arts.
Kevin hustled out to meet them. “We’ve had people calling or stopping by since we opened. Those flyers, Sonya, they’ve really worked. I’m going to pick up more wine. We’ve already cleared other art off the walls.”
He all but bubbled as they began to unload.
“This is turning into our biggest event since our May Day. I hope you don’t mind me saying that having one of the ladies of Lost Bride Manor featured hasn’t hurt.”
“How could I mind? That’s who we are, right, Son?”
“That’s just who we are.”
It took time, and more time, as Sonya was fussier about placement than either the artist or Kevin.
“I’d thought to intersperse seascapes, still lifes, the landscapes, and so on.”