17. She Came Back for Me
SHE CAME BACK FOR ME
The rising sun sets the east wing turret ablaze. A shaft of light slants around the tower and spills across the lawn, where fog clings to the glittering grass. I lift the brass knocker, shaped into the likeness of a hollow-eyed beast, and give the door two sharp raps.
She came back for me.
The thought sticks like gum on the bottom of my shoe and I don’t even know if it’s real.
Last night’s dream could have been just a regular dream.
But somehow, I don’t think so. Why else did the plant grow like that?
Why else did I hear the echo of her voice when I touched the glowing leaf?
I can still feel the spark in my fingertips.
I lift the knocker and rap on the door again.
If my intuition is right and I had another vision, then that makes two, and in both of them, my mother wasn’t a teenager. She was an adult, and five years ago, she returned.
She told Simon she came back for me.
She wanted to apologize.
She wanted to make things right.
But then she was chased down and taken.
Is she still alive?
Is Simon alive with her?
Have they been held against their will this whole time?
I think of the creature by the well at the same moment I was at the well. It feels like someone is trying to communicate with me. Whether or not that someone is my mother, I’m going to listen.
There’s a low scrape of metal.
With a groan, the large, oak doors open.
Even this early in the morning, Mr. Denis Tulane greets me in his butler attire, his bushy eyebrows as wild as ever. “Good morning,” he says with a bow. “I’m afraid Master Jude is out of town.”
“I was actually hoping to speak with you,” I say. “About my mother, and her visit five years ago.”
His unruly eyebrows lift.
“I know you’ve already told me about it in a general sense, but I was wondering if you could give me some more specifics.”
He seems to consider briefly, then steps aside—an invitation to escape the cold. He shuts the doors behind us. The sound echoes through the cavernous foyer. “What specifics would you like to know?”
I pull on my earlobe. “Do you remember what you talked about?”
“Simon, mostly. The two were quite close.” He folds his hands behind his back. “I think she was holding on to hope that he might still be alive.”
“What makes you think that?”
“She told me she was having dreams about him.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“She said he was trapped and asking for help.”
The words hit hard.
For a second, I forget how to breathe.
It must show on my face.
Mr. Tulane quickly continues, “It was only natural for her to be haunted by what happened. It was very traumatic. I don’t think it helped that she was sent away so soon afterward.
But then, maybe it was a good thing. Perhaps it was better for her, not to be here in the aftermath.
Whatever the case, I got the impression she was struggling with guilt.
Unfounded, of course. There was nothing she could have done.
There was nothing any of us could have done. ”
Nothing, except break a curse.
But that couldn’t have happened thirty years ago.
They would have needed Dante’s comet to open the tomb.
And according to Ezra’s revelation, me.
Something creaks above us. I glance from one sweeping staircase to the other, each spiraling outward in a graceful arc before curving back to the upper floor. I slide my hands into the pockets of my coat. “What else did you talk about?”
“She inquired after my health. I asked after hers, and she spoke of you.”
“She talked about me?”
He inclines his head.
“What did she say?”
Mr. Tulane frowns. “She didn’t seem to think she was a very good mother. She said it had been awhile since she’d last seen you, and she was eager to make amends.”
“So, she knew I was here, in Foggy Hollow?”
He blinks his protuberant eyes, obviously confused by the question.
“She never visited me five years ago,” I tell him. “I haven’t seen her since I was eight.”
He leans back a fraction, as though caught off guard.
“I’m worried something might have happened to her.
Do you remember if she said anything about—I don’t know…
” I grapple for words. I’m so tired of being evasive.
This would be a whole lot easier if I could just speak the truth.
But then, my mother tried that and ended up in a psych ward. “Being in danger?”
“Not that I recall. She seemed quite thin. A bit nervous, perhaps. I assumed it was strange for her, being back after so many years. And well, the manor had fallen into significant disrepair by then. It was very hard to manage on my own. She spent a fair bit of time in the library.”
“In the library?”
He inclines his head.
“Doing what?”
“Seeking closure, if I had to guess. It was Simon’s favorite room. I got the impression she wanted privacy, so I gave it to her.”
My attention slides to the room in question. “Do you mind?”
He gestures for me to go ahead, then extends the same courtesy he extended to my mother five years ago.
Privacy.
Silence hangs heavy in the room. I look around at the towering book shelves, the commanding portrait of Amos and Ida Vandenberg hanging above the fireplace, the gothic frescoes painted on the ceiling.
I try to imagine my mother, sitting in one of the upholstered armchairs, right here, in this vast space, while twelve-year-old me stood beside Twig, peeking through the iron bars of the front gate.
“Why did you come here?” I whisper.
She was dreaming of Simon.
And now, I’m dreaming of her.
I think about season two, episode eleven of the podcast. Pinch Me, I’m Dreaming.
Twig and I did a whole episode on the sleepy phenomenon, with a special shout out to Nightmare on Elm Street.
All before I realized I was having supernatural dreams of my own, about Vandenberg tragedies of the past. Proof that dreams are as mysterious as this town.
“Did you send me that creature?” I ask.
Is she still alive?
Is Simon, too?
And what does it have to do with Lainey?
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
The message is from Jude.
Twig just told me about Griffin.