Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
She’d read the book—enjoyed the hell out of it. Then had read it a second time knowing Cleo would ask just this.
She studied each sketch, nodding at its position in the story as she ran through that story in her head. From the quiet town on the title page straight through to the final illustration of a single, bloody shoe beside an abandoned shack, she noted the details, the tone, the mood.
Then, though Cleo made a frustrated argh sound, went back to the start and went through them again.
She set them down, drank more Coke. She made a gun with her finger.
“Bang. And that’s a bull’s-eye, Cleopatra.”
“Are you sure? One-hundred-percent-positively sure? I mean, the one for chapter twelve with the boy—he’s still shy of eighteen—holding up the severed head?”
“Is genius.” Sonya paged through, pulled it out. “You made Will look triumphant and appalled. Yeah, he knew the now-headless guy, who was another teenager. But Chuck had been infected. It was kill or be killed. That’s what shows. That’s what needs to show.
“And this?”
She went back to the stack. “Chapter two. The classroom scene. Oh, doesn’t the teacher look nice?
Doesn’t he look like a good guy, all casually dressed, hands open, palms up as he teaches the class of teenagers.
But you’ve got this faint shadow, an aura going, very subtle, and when you look, you get the feeling something’s just not right.
“And it wasn’t. Face it, Cleo. You’ve just illustrated a bestselling YA horror novel. And you’ll be doing the next two in this trilogy.”
“I can’t decide if that’s good news or bad news. But okay. Okay.” Lifting her hands, Cleo pushed them out as if pushing something away. “You wouldn’t tell me they’re right if they’re wrong.”
“They’re not right. They’re fabulous. Now send them, and take a walk out in this beautiful fall day. It won’t last much longer. In fact, we need to decorate for Halloween.”
“It’s not October yet.”
“Close enough.” Sonya rose. “I’m going back to work on Maddy’s job.” But she walked over, hugged Cleo first. “Good work, Cleopatra. And get me that second manuscript as soon as it comes. That cliff-hanger’s killing me.”
In the morning, Sonya woke to a simmering fire, and snow.
She stood at the windows staring out with a mix of knee-jerk thrill and simple shock.
“It’s snowing.”
“You’ll have this,” Trey mumbled as he tried for five more minutes.
“But it’s still September.”
“Says the woman who wants to put up ghouls and goblins.”
“It’s so pretty. But I’m not ready for snow. We haven’t got our pumpkins.”
Since five more minutes wasn’t going to happen, Trey got up, walked over. And laughed.
“It’s not snowing. That’s barely a flurry. That’s a snow sprinkle.”
“In Boston, we call white stuff falling out of the sky snow.”
“You’re in Maine now, cutie. It’ll be over before you finish your first cup of coffee. And crap, I need mine. I’ve got court this morning.”
“Lawyer suit.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Knowing he’d shave it clean for court, she rubbed the two-day stubble on his cheek. “Wear the gray one. It brings out your eyes.”
“That’ll bring the judge around to our side.”
“You never know.”
“It’s also the only suit I have here, so that makes it easy.”
“How many suits do you have?”
“Three. Black, gray, navy pinstripe. That’s enough for anybody. Unless you’re Ace. He collects them like stamps.”
“And no one looks more dashing. I’m going for coffee, and we’ll see if you’re right about the snow.”
A fire already crackled in the library. She’d get there soon enough, as she had a video conference with the Ryder group at nine-thirty.
Downstairs, she paused as she often did now at the music room. But the paintings didn’t change.
In the kitchen, a fire simmered in the little hearth, a warm welcome to the day. She walked over to let the pets out, and stood in the quick wash of cold air.
A man wheeled a barrow toward the shed. He wore a rough brown jacket and peaked cap, scarred brown boots. Both dogs ran over to him, tails wagging. He turned, his lined face creasing deeper with smiles as he gave them both quick rubs.
Then he wheeled the barrow into the shed, closed it. He turned to Sonya, tipped his cap.
And was gone.
“No. No, I’m never going to get used to it. Just never.” Shivering, as much from the moment as the cold, she stepped back into the warmth.
The kitchen tablet broke out with the Beatles’ “Good Morning Good Morning.”
“Yeah, it is. Just a little surprising.”
By the time she made coffee, toasted a bagel, Trey’s prediction proved true. The snow vanished as quickly as Jerome, and the sun shot through the clouds.
Trey came down when she let the pets back in. She calculated he’d managed to shower, shave, dress like a lawyer going to court in just under thirty minutes.
And she found it mildly annoying.
She got him coffee anyway.
“Thanks.”
“Since it’ll take me about twice the time it took you to look presentable, I’m going up to get ready for my video conference.”
“You’ll hit way over presentable.”
She considered. “Mostly mollified. I saw Jerome.”
Trey lowered the mug of coffee. “Where?”
“By the shed, putting the wheelbarrow away. The dogs obviously know him because they ran over to him, didn’t bark, just ran over so he’d pet them. And he did. Then he, you know.” She gestured. “Tipped his cap and vanished.”
She shrugged. “I was going to say just another manor morning, but you look … I’m going to call it concerned.”
“It’s a kind of escalation.”
Now that concern puzzled her. “I think—hope—it’s that they’re all getting more comfortable with me. With us. And that we’re all getting stronger. Don’t you?”
“I can go with that.” He walked over to look out at the shed. “That’s the plus side of it.”
“And the minus?”
“Dobbs pushes harder. And she has been. Having that vulture of hers attack the studio windows, the bolt of lightning, trapping you downstairs. She’s escalating, too.”
“It hasn’t done her much good so far.”
He turned back to her. “I think about that first day, and how I was half amused about how you might react to finding out you’d inherited a haunted house.
Benignly haunted, so I thought. And I wonder, if I’d known all of this, what I’d have done differently.
If I’d sat with you at that table and told you all of this, what you’d have done differently. ”
So he carried that, she realized. And shouldn’t. The best way to ease that weight, to her mind, would be plain and simple truth.
“First, I wouldn’t have believed you. Most likely, since we’d just met, I’d have been polite about it. But I’d have thought: So the hot, flannel-shirt-wearing lawyer is a little bit crazy.”
“I can be pretty persuasive.”
“I’ve noticed. And I can be pretty determined.”
“Also noted.”
He stepped toward her, freshly shaved, lawyer suit and tie, all that black hair not quite tamed. And a world of trouble in his eyes.
“If it were an option, Sonya, I’d pack you up and get you out of here. This house means a lot to me, too, but you mean a hell of a lot more.”
“It’s not just the manor, Trey.”
“I know that, and still. It’s just a feeling, a bad one, but there’s something building, something coming. There’s a chance we could head it off.”
“You want to go back in that room.”
“It’s a chance to stop it. To stop her.”
She had to turn away, walk away, walk back. “I’m trying to put myself in your place, and I know I’d be angry and frustrated. I wouldn’t handle either one as well as you do. That’s your nature. It’s how you get things done, and over these past months, I’ve really come to rely on that.”
“But.”
“It’s not time to confront her like that. I know it. I swear I know it down to the bone, Trey, and I’m asking you to trust me there.”
She laid a hand on his heart. “I can’t tell you not to take that chance. That shouldn’t be how we work. But I’m asking you to trust me on it. To stand by.”
“I do trust you. And there’s going to come a time, Sonya, when I’ll expect you to trust me on this same thing.”
“All right. We need Astrid’s portrait.”
“You don’t hang it without me. If you find it, you don’t put it up without me and Owen here.”
Meeting his eyes, she skimmed a finger down his tie.
“That’s a promise. It’s for the four of us. I know that, too. Since you’ve got court, why don’t you leave Mookie here? Then I’ll have two fierce dogs looking out for me.”
“Fierce, right. Go get ready.” Leaning down, he kissed her. “Text me if.”
“If. Good luck in court.”
When she went out, Trey looked at the dogs. “Go on. Stick with her.”
Since his coffee had gone cold, he poured it out, made another for a go-cup.
Clover assured him with Rascal Flatts and “I Won’t Let Go.”
“I know. And neither will I.”
Promptly at nine-thirty, Sonya joined the video conference. With only weeks left before the Portland store’s grand opening, the final layer of advertising came into play.
And her part in the campaign approached the finish line.
As the meeting wound down, Burt Springer asked her to stay on after the rest of the team signed off.
“Expectations not only met but exceeded.”
“It’s been a pleasure, Burt, as always.”
“I know Miranda will contact you directly, but I’m authorized to tell you the Ryder family will offer you a contract as consultant for our digital marketing.”
“Oh. You have such a solid team.”
“We do, and we’d like you to be part of it. As consultant, you’d continue to work remotely on an as-needed basis. Something to think about.”
“I can promise I will. Burt, thank you for trusting me, for giving me this opportunity.”
“You earned it, and it didn’t hurt my feelings when you proved me right. You take care, Sonya. We’ll talk again.”
“Wow. Wow and more wow.”
Shuffling down the hall, Cleo asked, “Wow what?”
“Good morning! What a morning. In order: It snowed for about five minutes, I saw Jerome, I just finished a very upbeat meeting with Ryder, and Burt told me they’re going to offer me a digital media consultant contract.”
“All that? Before I have coffee?”
“All that.”
“First, congrats, but I’m not surprised. You, my pal, took Ryder into the future while honoring its past. Second, snow? You Yankees start that way too soon. And last but definitely not least. Jerome?”
“He tipped his cap to me after he put the wheelbarrow away. And after, I assume, bringing in more firewood.”
“I need that coffee, but unless I change my mind after that kicks in, plan on jambalaya tonight, since it snowed for five minutes.”
“I’ll help. With what’s on my plate, I can knock off by four, no problem.”
When Cleo went down, Sonya took a moment to just bask. Then, with both dogs snoozing by the fire, got down to work.
Later, when both dogs came over to sit and stare, she looked down at them.
“Time to go out? No problem.”
She walked them down, let them out. She considered getting a jacket and taking her walk, but she wasn’t quite ready to break. Instead, she got a Coke, set her mental alarm for an hour.
She settled back at her desk to polish up some holiday ads for various accounts.
“One by one,” she murmured.
She didn’t notice when Clover went with Metallica’s “Here Comes Revenge.”
The cold broke through her concentration, and rubbing her arms, she sat back.
As she did, her screen went black, and the TV on the second floor erupted with screams.
“Got my attention,” she murmured, then noticed the fog creeping through the doorway toward her desk.
She rose slowly while slipping a hand into her pocket and closing it over the hag stone.
The library doors slammed shut; the windows went dark. In the hearth the simmering fire spiked to a roar.
As a wind gusted, as the fog crawled, Hester Dobbs glided down the curve of stairs.
“I have given you time. I have given you warnings. You will pay for not heeding those warnings. Your time here is at an end.”
“No, but yours is.”
As Sonya pulled out the stone, Dobbs swept an arm through the turbulent air. It struck like a fist. The shock of pain radiated as the blow lifted Sonya off her feet, and shot her back.
With her face on fire from the impact, she hit the floor hard enough to steal her breath. And the stone flew harmlessly out of her hand.
“Blood. I will bathe you in Poole blood. Generations of it. As you beg for mercy, you’ll drown in it.”
As Sonya started to scramble up, another blow slammed her back against a bookcase. She tasted blood as her vision grayed, as she slid bonelessly to the floor.
Then she was lifted off her feet, higher, higher, until her body rammed into the ceiling. Desperate, dizzy from the pain, she tried to crawl, tried to kick, but her body rotated until she dangled helplessly.
Like a panther toying with its prey, Dobbs circled below.
“How shall I end you, I wonder? Shall I conjure a rope, slip a noose over your head? Shall I simply snap your neck?”
Stunned by pain, frozen in fear, Sonya saw her blood drip, watched Dobbs hold out a hand to catch those drips. Then smiling, lick the blood off her palm.
“Kill me, you break the curse. Break the curse, you lose.”
“Will I? Will I?”
Her eyes darted as she began to pace. “No true Poole,” she muttered. “Imposter, usurper.”
Survive, Sonya ordered herself. Just survive.
“You tasted my blood. You’ve tasted Poole blood. You know I’m a Poole, and I’m not a bride.”
“A whore then. Just a whore then.”
Smiling, Dobbs circled a finger in the air. Sonya felt herself slowly lowering toward the floor.
“There are ways, so many ways, short of death to bring the blood, to bring the pain. And when I show you all of them, you’ll leave my house.”