Down a Dark Hall (12 page)

“Yes,” Kit said resignedly. “Yes, I know.”

“I love you, honey.”

“I love you too.” The time was up. There was no way, no possible way. “Tell Dan hello. Have a happy honeymoon.”

“We will. You be happy too, honey. Good-bye for now.”

“Good-bye.” There was a little click, followed by silence.

Kit lowered the receiver from her ear and placed it carefully back on the hook. She closed her eyes so that she would not
have to see the look of satisfaction on Madame’s face, but she could not keep them closed. One could not stand for very long
with her eyes screwed shut.

“That is right, chérie,” Madame Duret told her. “You want to leave your mother enough money to purchase some gifts to bring
back with her. Are they having a pleasant trip?”

“Yes,” Kit said dully. “A wonderful time.”

“They seemed so nice, both of them. You would not wish to ruin their trip by having them concerned about you. All girls become
a bit homesick on occasion. It is one of those things one must fight against.”

“I guess,” Kit said.

Miserably, she turned and started across the room to the door, but stopped short as her eyes fell upon a painting on the opposite
wall over a filing cabinet. A mountain lake reflected light from the sky, and green woods, distant hills. The familiarity
of the setting struck her like a well-known cry.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“That cabinet? It is where I keep my files on former students.”

“I didn’t mean the cabinet,” Kit said. “I meant the picture. Who did it?”

“Do you like the painting? It is a favorite of mine.” It was as though there had been no contest between them. “It is a landscape
by Thomas Cole. A reproduction, of course.”

“I’ve seen that lake,” Kit said.

“Perhaps you have. The picture was painted in the Catskills.”

“No, I mean I’ve seen it painted before. From another angle.” Kit continued to stare at the landscape. “There’s a footpath
over there along the shore, but you can’t see it from this direction.”

Then the realization struck her.

“It’s the same lake that has been in some of Lynda’s paintings.”

“Why, I do not think so, chérie,” Madame Duret said. “Lynda comes from California. I hardly think she would be painting New
York scenery.”

“But it is,” Kit insisted. “Who is this Thomas Cole, anyway? Does he live around here?”

“He did at one time,” Madame Duret told her. “Of course, that was many years ago. He died in the middle of the nineteenth
century.”

“It’s true,” Ruth said. “Thomas Cole was
a
really famous artist. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him. He was the founder of the Hudson River School of landscape
painters.”

It was late afternoon of the following day, and they had left the house to walk around to the far side of the pond. It was
gray and wintry outside, quite different from the bright autumn weather they had been having, and Kit felt it as an echo of
her own spirits. She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans and stared across at the dead brown stalks that were
all that was left of the summer garden.

“And he’s dead?” she asked.

“Oh, sure. Ages ago. He died comparatively young too. He was only in his forties. He was one of the American artists we studied in one of the enrichment classes at the last school I went to.”

“You learned about him there?” Kit drew a breath of relief. “And Lynda too?”

“No, not Lynda,” Ruth said. “She didn’t take the enrichment courses. Why is it you’re suddenly so hung up on Thomas Cole?”

Kit’s head was aching. It seemed to her lately that her head was always throbbing with a dull pressure. Sometimes it was because
of the music inside it, ringing and crashing and filling her ears with sounds that no one else could hear.

Other times, like now, the pressure was a thing unto itself, an ache that seemed born of confusion and fatigue.

“I’m so confused,” she said. “I hardly know where to begin. Nothing makes any sense.”

“What happened?” Ruth asked. “It must be something important if you wanted to come all the way out here to talk about it.”

“It was last night,” Kit said. “When I was in Madame’s office, talking on the phone with my mom. On the wall over a filing
cabinet, there was a reproduction of a painting of a lake. Madame said it was by Thomas Cole.”

“So?”

“It was the same lake that Lynda paints, and more than that, it looked exactly like one of Lynda’s landscapes. The lighting,
the colors, the sky—all of it. Lynda might have done it herself.”

“That’s why you asked if she had studied Thomas Cole?”

“If she had, it would at least have partially explained things. She might have been imitating his work, don’t you think? Unconsciously,
not even realizing what she was doing? But if she didn’t take the course with you, then that’s out. There has to be some other
answer.”

“T.C.,” Ruth said softly.

“What?”

“Those are the initials: T.C. It’s the way Lynda signs her paintings.”

“T.C. for Thomas Cole?” Kit turned to her incredulously. “Then she must know who he is—she
has
to! She must have seen his work somewhere, perhaps on some television special. And she admires him. She’s trying so hard
to imitate him that she’s using his initials to, well, to sort of bring herself luck.”

“No,” Ruth said. “I don’t buy that. Sorry. I wish it was true, but I’m sure it’s not.”

A breeze touched the surface of the pond, making little ripples, and the trees reflected in its surface shimmered and shifted
like live creatures in the moving water. Across the pond, the roof of Blackwood rose sharp against the heavy overcast of the
sky. The windows stared out at them like empty eyes.

The kitchen door opened suddenly and Lucretia came out with a bag of trash for the incinerator. Her grayness seemed part of
the day itself.

“
She’ll
never quit, at least,” Ruth commented. “I once asked Madame about her. She used to work for her parents when Madame was a
child. She may not be terribly bright, but she’s sort of a family heirloom.”

“Natalie didn’t quit,” Kit said. “She was fired.”

“Madame said she quit.”

“I know, but I don’t believe it. Natalie needed her job, and if she had a boyfriend, she never bothered to mention him. I’m
sure she would have if she had been serious enough to consider getting married.”

“But why would Madame have let her go?” Ruth asked. “Lucretia can’t cook. That chicken last night was so greasy I could hardly
swallow it. Natalie’s meals were the best part of the day.”

“Natalie talked,” Kit said. “Remember how I was going to ask her about the background of Blackwood? Madame Duret walked in
on us while she was telling me, and she was furious. I’m sure that’s why she fired Natalie.”

“Then she
did
tell you about it?” Ruth was more interested in this fact than in the fate of Natalie. “What did you find out?”

“Some terrible things. Mr. Brewer’s whole family was killed in a fire, and he went mental. He wouldn’t admit that they were
gone. He lived the whole rest of his life here just as though they were still alive, talking about them and buying toys for
the children and everything.”

“Did Mr. Brewer die in the house too?”

“Yes,” Kit said. “A long time later. Why do you ask that? Ruth—” She stopped at the look on the girl’s face.

Something was flickering there, a glint of revelation.

“Ruth, what is it? Do you know something that I don’t?”

“I don’t
know
anything,” Ruth said. “Anything I came up with right now would just be a guess.”

“But you have an idea?”

“It’s really out there,” Ruth said. “So far out that I don’t think you’d believe it. I’m not sure that I can believe it myself.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Ruth said. “I want to think about it awhile first. Did you say the woman in Sandy’s
dream is named Ellis and she comes from England?”

“That’s what Sandy has decided. Either there or Scotland, someplace with moors.”

“Did she ever mention the woman’s last name?”

“No.”

“I’m going to check something out in the library,” Ruth said. “If it turns out my guess is right, then I’ll tell you about
it. But you’d better prepare yourself. If I
have
found the answer, you’re going to get the shock of your life.”

That night, as always, there was the music. Soft, this time, like a lullaby for a child. Moonlight on a pillow. Tree limbs
rustling outside a window in the faint evening breeze. Fireflies on the lawn. Soft laughter from couples sitting on the porch
steps.

I am asleep,
Kit told herself.
I know that I am asleep, lying in the bed with the canopy over it, and the room is dark and still, and this music is not real.
It is a dream, only a dream. When I wake, it will be morning with breakfast waiting in the dining room down below and classes
to go to, and the music will be gone again as though it never has been
.

A voice spoke softly, breaking through the music. A man’s voice, gruff, but oddly gentle.

“Gone, for a moment. But not really. Never really gone.”

Because she knew it was a dream, Kit was not startled.

“Who are you?” she asked. And then she recognized him, and her heart gave a lurch. “You were the one standing behind me in
the hall, the one I saw in the mirror.”

“Of course,” the dream man said. He seemed surprised that
she
should be surprised.

“Why were you following me?” Kit asked. “Why are you here now? What is it you want?”

“I am here to give.”

“That’s no answer.”

“It’s the only answer,” the man said patiently. “You are one of the fortunate ones who are blessed with the ability to receive.”

“To receive what?” Kit asked. And then the answer came to her and she began to understand. “The music? Are you the one who
is sending me this music, the way Ellis is sending Sandy poetry? If you are, you must take it back. I don’t want it.”

The sounds rose within her, louder now, changing pace and rhythm, beginning to leap and build as they did so often lately
into a pressure that swelled her brain.
This is a dream,
she reminded herself frantically.
Only a dream
.

“Of course it is,” the man said, and reached for her hand. His fingers closed around her wrist, and it was all she could do
to keep from crying out at the icy touch as he drew her from the bed. She felt the carpet beneath her bare feet and saw him
reach for the knob of the door.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You must let it out,” the man said.

“Let what out? What do you mean?”

They were in the hall now, and he was leading her down it through the darkness with the assurance of one who knows each step,
while the music grew louder and louder, pounding against the inside of her skull.

“You must let it out, or your head will burst with it! You must let it go!”

“How?” Kit sobbed. “How?” She could no longer keep track of where they were going. She knew they were on the stairs, she could
feel cold floorboards against the soles of her feet, and doors opened and closed. There were other voices, a muted chorus
of voices, but the music overwhelmed them.

“Here she is,” the dream man said. “I’ve brought her down.”

“It will be my turn now,” someone said. “I haven’t used her yet.”

“No, mine! She must play for me!”

“I want her tonight! She was yours last time! She did that concerto.”

“You forget.
I
brought her down!”

Kit felt a keyboard beneath her fingers. “But I don’t know how to play!”

And even as she cried the words she was playing, and it was the old, old dream, with her hands leaping upon the ivory keys
and the great thunderous chords rolling forth.

I am dreaming,
Kit told herself for one final time.
I am and I have to wake up! I
will
wake myself up!

“
No,
” cried the voice of the man in her dream. “You can’t! Don’t!”

“I will!” She turned upon him with every bit of strength that she possessed, with all the temper and stubbornness that were
the mark of Kathryn Gordy. “I
will
!”

The music was gone.

She was seated on a bench in front of a piano, and she was cold—achingly cold. Blinking, she glanced about her and realized
that she was in the music room at Blackwood and that she was not alone.

Across from her, seated next to the sound equipment, was Jules. The machine was blinking, and she realized incredulously that
he was recording.

“Jules?” She spoke his name sharply. With a startled movement he reached out and flicked a switch to halt the machine.

“Jules,” Kit said shakily, “what am I doing here?”

“You—you walked in your sleep,” Jules said haltingly.

“And you were here to record me? You
were
recording me, weren’t you? It’s my playing that you have on that CD?”

Wordlessly, Jules nodded. His face was pale, and he looked as though he did not know how to combat the question.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” Kit asked. “Other nights . . . I’ve come down here and played for you. That’s what
that music was I heard you playing. It was a recording of me.”

“Yes,” Jules said. “Look, Kit, I know this must seem extremely strange to you, but believe me, it’s nothing to be upset about.
Nothing bad has happened. You’ve always gotten back to your room safely. The only result is that we have the tapes.”

“We? Who is ‘we’?”

“We—all of us. The school.”

“Your mother? Professor Farley?”

“Don’t look that way, Kit. Nobody’s done anything to hurt you. Nothing but good has been happening here. We’re giving beautiful
music to the world.”

“It’s not my music,” Kit said. “I’m no composer. Where is it coming from? Whose is it?” She watched his face close in, and
she could see him struggling to think of an answer. “Don’t make something up. I want to know the truth. You owe me that, Jules.
Tell me, whose music have I been playing?”

“I don’t know,” Jules stammered. “This time I—I just can’t tell.”

“And other times?”

“I think, I’m almost sure, that for a while at least, it was Franz Schubert.”

“Schubert!” Kit exclaimed. “But he died over a century ago!”

“He died in 1828,” Jules said. “He was thirty-one years old. He left so much undone, Kit, so many marvelous pieces of music
unwritten. His death was a tragic waste of talent.”

“And I’ve been playing his music? Me? I can’t even get through ‘Dancing Leaves’ without mistakes.” Kit’s voice was shaking.
“And there’s Sandy and the poetry, Lynda—” The parts of the puzzle began to move into place, and the thing that was forming
in her mind was too incredible to believe.

“Get them,” she said quietly. “All of them. Sandy and Lynda and Ruth, the professor, your mother. I want everybody down here
right now. I want to know exactly what has been happening here at Blackwood, the whole story!”

“Now, Kit, look,” Jules said desperately. “You’re upset, and I don’t blame you. But this isn’t the time to talk about anything.
It’s two o’clock in the morning. Everybody’s sound asleep. You don’t want to bring them all down here now.”

Straightening on the bench, Kit glared at him as anger swept in to take the place of fear. “If you don’t get them, Jules,
I will. I’ll start yelling and I’ll wake up the whole house. I want to know the answer to the mystery of Blackwood, and I
don’t intend to wait until morning to get it.”