Chapter 9
A PUZZLING OBSESSION
Despair.
The word clangs like a gong as I scramble to make sense of my surroundings.
I’m standing inside a house that’s gone blurry at the edges.
Low, dulcet conversation seeps through the ceiling above me, too muffled to understand.
Everything is a wisp. Corporeal in nature.
Like if I tried touching something, my hand would sink straight through.
But the despair?
It’s as clear as crystal. As heavy as sandbags.
Shrouding the hallway like a cold, suffocating blanket.
Beside me, a young man sits on a bench with his face in his hands, a tricorn hat resting beside him.
He wears a jacket, a waistcoat, and knee length breeches with stockings and shoes with square buckles. His shoulders heave as he weeps.
Somewhere farther away, a woman wails.
And that dread?
It grabs me by the throat.
I want to flee. Run. Sprint far and fast away.
But the despair won’t let go. It drags me forward, into a room with sitting chairs, a paneled fireplace, and exposed wooden beams. And hanging from one of them is a young woman in a yellow taffeta dress.
Her honey blond hair falls in ringlets around a face that has gone puffy and blue.
Her eyes are open and bulging. Her neck bent at an unnatural angle as she swings from a rope.
A scream tears up my throat.
I turn to run, but someone grabs my wrist.
Rafe Vandenberg stands beside the fireplace, shaking his head sorrowfully. “What a shame,” he says with a tut, and while the words are true, there’s a gleam in his eye that make them more sinister than somber.
I yank free and race out the door into the bright, blinding sun. It bathes the front lawn of the Vandenberg Estate in white.
A gust of wind blows through the trees.
“Seeelaaaah.”
The breathy whisper spins me around.
And then, right by my ear …
“Come find me.”
I jerk upright in bed, lungs heaving, pajama top damp with sweat as my heart beats against my sternum.
Thud, thud, thud.
Blurry sunlight pours through the window and spills across the hardwood floor. I swipe wisps of hair from my face. I haven’t heard my mother in eight years and yet somehow I’m positive, it was her voice in my dream.
Thud, thud, thud.
This time, it isn’t my heart.
It’s the door.
I climb out of bed on wobbly legs, grab my robe, stuff my arms inside the sleeves one after the other, and pull my hair loose. As I head down the stairs, I gather it into something less like a bird’s nest. The digital clock on our stove reads 8:03 a.m.
Thud, thud, thud.
“I’m coming,” I mutter, cinching my robe tight.
I’m not sure who to expect. An impatient delivery man with a postal emergency? Whoever it is should know that 8:03 a.m. on a Saturday morning is an ungodly hour to be pounding on front doors. I yank mine open with a hefty dose of exasperation.
It isn’t a delivery man.
It’s Jude Vandenberg, his back outlined by the morning sun. At the sound of the door opening, he turns around, and one thing is crystal clear.
He does not look amused.
“How long have you known Rafe?” he asks.
The question spins me around.
I’m having a hard enough time processing his presence, never mind the strange inquiry. I pull my robe tighter, very aware that I haven’t brushed my teeth. Or gone to the bathroom. Or put on a bra.
He pulls at his jaw. “Honestly, I don’t get the joke, but I feel like I should warn you to stay away from him.”
I set my hand on the doorknob. I don’t love the feeling of confusion, and right now I’m gobsmacked with it. “What are you talking about?”
“The portrait.”
“What portrait?”
His brow puckers.
I lift mine impatiently.
“You don’t know?” he asks.
“Know what?”
He stares at me, his gaze intense. And yet, it’s different from Rafe’s. With Jude, I don’t so much feel like I’m being undressed as x-rayed. Like he’d rather see my bones and my guts than what I look like under this robe. Finally, he seems to reach a decision. “I need to show you something.”
“Okay.”
“It’s in my bedroom.”
In his bedroom.
Which is in his house.
Which would put me in that manor.
Confusion morphs into excitement.
I hold up two fingers in request for two minutes.
As quickly as possible, I use the restroom, brush my teeth, splash my face, put on deodorant, ditch the robe and pajamas for a pair of black leggings and an off-white hoodie.
I top it off with a bit of lip gloss and a spritz of body spray.
I hurry down the stairs, slide my feet into a pair of loafers, and join him outside, where the sun has chased most of the fog away.
He looks exasperated, like I just spent thirty minutes curling my hair instead of a meager five engaging in basic hygiene. He turns toward the manor.
I follow him up the cobblestone drive.
Dad has made impressive progress over the past week, but after thirty years of neglect, it’s only a drop in the bucket. I take in the weeds, the overgrown hedges. “Are you really going to host the masquerade ball here this year?”
“If Isabel has her way,” he answers, his pace unfaltering, his attention fixed forward.
“You don’t like the idea?”
“I neither like nor dislike it.”
I lengthen my stride to keep up with his. “It’s only a month and a half away. Less than, actually.”
Jude doesn’t respond.
“That’s not a lot of time to prepare. The upkeep alone on these grounds is a full time job.
What my dad’s doing now isn’t upkeep. It’s …
” I glance over my shoulder at the overgrown garden on the southeast lawn, with a half-crumbled stone arch and an enormous twisted tree, its dead branches tied with faded ribbon—for what reason, I don’t know. “Resuscitation.”
He stops in front of the tiered fountain in the courtyard, once the piece de resistance, now weathered and dry except for rainwater that’s puddled in the basin. “Do you have a point, or do you just like to talk?”
“This may come as a shock to you, but talking is a relatively normal thing to do when in another’s company.”
He glowers.
“But I also have a point.”
“Which is?”
“If the ball is going to be held here, my dad’s gonna need some help.”
“I’ll talk to Isabel.”
With that, he climbs the stone steps.
Suddenly, we’re at the entrance, and I feel like I need a minute.
A reverent pause. Some way of commemorating such a momentous occasion.
A text to Twig, at the very least. But Jude just pushes the doors open and walks inside.
He reaches the staircase before realizing I’m still stuck on the threshold.
With a shaky exhale, I step inside.
The marble floor is a deep charcoal veined with silver.
Wrought-iron sconces cast long shadows down midnight blue walls patterned with gold filigree.
To my right, a pair of double doors open into the ballroom.
To my left, a matching pair remain closed.
Two staircases spiral upward, and in the center hangs a massive chandelier that is both beautiful and ominous.
Jude gives his throat a loud clear from halfway up one of the staircases. I hurry to catch up, trying to take it all in. Every detail. Because what if this is my only opportunity? But before I can blink, we’re in the upper hall.
I set my hands on the railing and look down into the foyer below, picturing the estate in all its former glory.
Filled with people in extravagant gowns, ten Mr. Tulane’s smartly dressed in black tuxedos with tailcoats, their white gloved hands balancing silver trays arranged with hors d’oeuvres and flutes of champagne.
I can hear the music, the tinkling of crystal, the hum of conversation and laughter.
“Are you coming?” Jude asks, his voice tinged with impatience.
The back wall is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows. A corridor stretches into each wing, and there are two sets of double doors—one to the left and one to the right. Jude moves to the set on the left. He pushes them open and steps inside.
We’ve reached his bedroom.
Grand in size with a fireplace and a mantle, a pair of sitting chairs on either side of a table, a luxurious armoire, an antique desk, and an opened door that gives way to the tiled flooring of an en suite bathroom.
French doors lead to a private balcony. There’s a glass of water and a book on his nightstand.
At some point last week, he’d exchanged Macbeth for Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
He gestures agitatedly toward the bed, which I’ve been visually skirting up until now.
It feels very intimate, looking at Jude Vandenberg’s bed—a king-sized four poster with hunter green bedding ever so slightly rumpled.
And there, resting on top, lies a portrait.
From my purview in his doorway, I can’t make it out.
I can only tell that it’s large with a thick frame, heavily carved and covered in gold leaf.
I approach slowly, almost reverently, and it takes a minute to process what I’m seeing.
A portrait of a young woman painted long ago.
She wears a white dress with delicate short sleeves and a scooped neckline.
A silver locket rests in her décolletage.
It’s carved with a symbol that strikes a familiar cord.
Her rich auburn hair is fashioned into springy curls that frame her face. Which is … my face.
It’s me in that painting.
A fact that makes my mind short circuit.
I try to say something—to utter words, questions, accusations of my own—but my tongue fumbles every attempt.
Meanwhile, Jude stands there, studying me intently.
Finally, I manage a simple, albeit breathless phrase. “I don’t understand.”
“Nor do I.”
I take a few steps closer, eyes narrowing at the girl’s lips, drawn slightly upward. They are my lips. The exact shape and shade. “Is this a weird joke?”
“That’s what I thought, remember?”
“This is the painting Rafe was going on about? The one by Ezra Vandenberg?”
His magnum opus.
Jude sweeps his hand toward his bed with a terse exhale. “When I arrived last night, there it was.”
“Is it authentic?”
I can tell he wants to say no. Or he’s not sure.
His attention lowers to the portrait. He scrutinizes it like his own intensity might conjure errors, mistakes.
Anything that could elude to a counterfeit.
Rafe had this commissioned to mess with us.
He’s playing a very expensive, very bizarre prank.
“From what I can tell?” When he looks up at me, the shadows beneath his eyes resemble faint bruises. “It’s authentic.”
Silence falls.
There’s nothing but the echoing tick of a clock somewhere outside his room.
Jude drags his hand down his face. “Are your ancestors from Foggy Hollow?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. We moved here—me and my dad. From Ohio.”
“What about your mom?”
“She was born in Missouri.” I lean forward to get a better look at the silver locket, carved with a delicate symbol that is unnervingly familiar. An inverted tear drop inside an open circle, like a halo unfinished. “I feel like I’ve seen this before.”
“The locket?”
“The symbol.” I look closer. “But I’m not sure from where.”
“I wondered if you would show it to her.”
Jude and I turn in tandem.
Rafe leans against the doorframe with his arms casually crossed, one corner of his mouth tipped infuriatingly upward. His words come back to me—something he said in the graveyard when we first met.
You look like someone.
“This is who you were talking about. The girl you sort of know.” I put air-quotes around the phrase.
“Good memory. And yes. I’ve never officially met her, but I’ve had this painting for so long, it feels like I sort of do, you know?”
“Who is she?” I ask.
“That is the million dollar question.”
“Where did you get it?” Jude asks.
“It’s been handed down through the generations. I’m not sure how it ended up on my side of the family. Technically, your side created it.”
Jude stares at him.
“Your lineage descends from Ezra. My lineage descends from Ezra’s younger brother, Raphael. I’m named after him, actually.” Rafe tosses a glance at the painting. “You really don’t know anything about this portrait? Your father never shared the story?”
“Obviously not,” Jude replies, his jaw tight.
“I suppose, with him passing when you were so tragically young, he never got around to it.” Rafe saunters into Jude’s bedroom with his hands in his pockets.
“As the story goes, Ezra came home from the Revolutionary War consumed with a woman who wasn’t his wife.
For decades, he painted her obsessively, but could never quite capture her likeness.
Until he did. He had it framed, and then he died.
As you can imagine, his poor wife wanted to destroy the thing.
His son, Amos, objected. And it has passed down through the generations ever since.
We’re lucky such an exquisite work of art didn’t burn in the fire. ”
I stare at the painting.
At the portrait.
At me.
“She really is a stunning beauty,” he says. “I can see why my dear uncle was so consumed. It was originally titled Portrait of a Lady Unknown. But eventually, it garnered another name.”
He doesn’t say the name.
He’s waiting for me or Jude to ask, which is obnoxious.
And yet, I can’t help but take the bait.
“What was it?”
“Ezra’s Obsession.” His icy blue eyes dance as he prowls toward us. “Last night, it became obvious my dear cousin needed an assist. He couldn’t stop staring. But he wouldn’t do anything about it, either. And I thought, I know just the thing that will help.”
Tension radiates off Jude in waves.
I look from him to the portrait to Rafe, who’s drawn so close, he’s like a taunting devil in my ear.
“Who was this woman?” he asks, sliding one hand over Jude’s shoulder, his other over mine. “And why does she look exactly like you? It’s quite a mystery, isn’t it? I found your podcast, Selah. I know how much you love mysteries. Perhaps the two of you can solve this one together.”