The Fate of Mercy Alban (21 page)

“To inspiration!” Donny said, holding his coffee cup aloft. “You go shutter yourself away, son, and let your imagination take flight. It’s what you’re here for.”

“My, yes,” Honor said, her steely eyes gentle now, as big and round as a doe’s. “Don’t feel like you need to stand on ceremony with us.”

Flynn pushed his chair away from the table and stood up, stretching. “I think I’ll head down to the garden and pester Brinkman,” he said, turning to me. “What say you toil away for a few hours, we meet back here at noon for a spot of lunch, and then we’ll play with the girls for the rest of the day. How does that sound?”

“A fine plan,” I said, hurrying to my feet and patting Flynn on the back as we walked together out of the room.

He went one way, toward the front door, as I headed toward the grand staircase. He grasped the door’s handle and turned back to me, staring at me for a moment before he spoke. “Hey, old man,” he said, glancing this way and that as if making sure we were alone. “A word.”

He nodded his head toward the parlor and beckoned me to follow.

Flynn put his hand on my shoulder and said, his voice almost as low as a whisper, “I’d advise you not to mention anything more about seeing girls in white out by the lakeshore.”

“Whyever not?” I asked, surprised.

Flynn sighed deeply. “You know how Pru was saying Whitehall is cursed?”

I nodded, a gnawing developing in the pit of my stomach.

“That’s what she’s talking about.”

I stared at him. “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Flynn.”

He held a finger to his lips and motioned for me to follow him to the sofa, which I did. After we had sunk onto its soft leather seat, he continued.

“Prudence and I had a sister,” Flynn explained. “Her name was Felicity. She was Pru’s twin.”

I squinted at him. “You’ve never mentioned—”

He cut me off, shaking his head. “I know. She died years ago, when we were just kids. It nearly destroyed my parents, and Pru has never been the same since it happened. It’s something we don’t talk about often in this family.” He hesitated for a moment. “Actually, we don’t ever talk about it.”

My thoughts were swimming. What did that have to do with what I saw down by the lake the night before? I remained quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“I know how this is going to sound, Mickey, but for years afterward, my mother was sure Felicity was still here, with us, at Whitehall.”

“What do you mean, still here? Are you talking about”—the word felt strange and a bit silly as it rolled off my tongue—“a ghost?”

He nodded. “Her spirit. Mother would tell us she had seen her down by the lakeshore. Wearing a white gown.”

I finished his thought: “Dancing around a fire?” My blood ran cold as I pictured the girl I saw with my own eyes, just a few hours before.

“It wasn’t just my mother who saw her,” Flynn continued, his voice a harsh whisper. “Prudence would tell us that she saw her all the time. My father and I were quite worried about the two of them, back then. But the whole business sort of dissipated when I went away to college, and to tell you the truth, I haven’t thought much about it in recent years. But now—”

I stared at my friend, openmouthed. “Good Lord,” I murmured, leaning back against the sofa.

“I’m just asking you not to mention it again because it upsets my mother and Pru so much,” Flynn said, putting his hand on my knee and giving it a quick pat.

“I’m so sorry,” I began. “I didn’t mean …” I thought of the jocularity at the table just moments before, Prudence’s flirting, Honor’s shy smile.

“Flynn,” I began again. “I don’t quite know how to say this, but they didn’t
seem
upset by what I said. Not in the least.”

He smiled at me. “It’s the Brennan way,” he said, shaking his head. “Smile when your heart is breaking. Isn’t that how the old song goes? It’s what we do here at Whitehall.”

“Well, I do apologize,” I said. “Had I known my comments would offend—”

“You couldn’t have known. I only brought it up because I didn’t want you walking into another minefield. I thought you’d appreciate the warning.”

“I do,” I told him. “And you have my word, I won’t mention it to them again. Even if I see her dancing in my room.”

We both chuckled a bit at this. But as we stood to leave, another thought shook me. “Flynn, do you mind if I ask you one final question?”

“Not at all,” he said, straightening his cardigan.

“You said Felicity died when you were small,” I began hesitantly. “But this girl, the girl I saw last night, she wasn’t a child. She looked to be about Prudence’s age. I thought she
was
Prudence at first.”

Flynn held my gaze for a moment before responding. “That’s the truly horrifying thing about this, Mickey. That’s why Prudence insisted on calling it a curse. Pru believes—I know this is going to sound mad—but my sister believes her dead twin is, in fact, the image she sees reflected back to her in any mirror here in Whitehall, and that Felicity’s spirit is aging along with her.”

I stared at Flynn, trying to make some kind of sense of what he had just said to me.

“Is it some kind of psychosis, then?” I whispered, shaking my head. “Brought on by the trauma of her twin’s death? Surely …?”

“To tell you the truth, Mickey, right now I don’t know what to believe,” Flynn said. “As I said, my mother and Prudence are the only ones who have ever claimed to have seen Felicity.” He looked off into the distance and seemed to be struggling with his words. “I’ve always thought, or rather, my father and I have always thought, they were, well, for lack of a better term, manifesting it in their own minds. Not on purpose, you understand, not because they’re crazy, but out of their sheer grief at losing Lissy.”

“I can completely understand that,” I said to him. “It makes perfect sense.”

“But now it doesn’t make sense, not when you pipe up over eggs and sausage that you—a stranger here with no knowledge of prior events—have seen the very same manifestation my mother and sister have been claiming to see all these years. Right down to the white gown and fire ring.”

We sat in silence for a moment, neither knowing, I supposed, what to say next. What
was
there to say?

As we both rose from the couch and began to make our way out of the room, Flynn put a hand on my shoulder. “If you see her again,” he said, his voice low, “don’t mention it to the others. But let me know. I’d like to see for myself what this is all about.”

“You have my word,” I said to him, and watched as he pulled open the door and went through it, outside into the sunshine.

I made my way up to the third floor, thinking about what Flynn had told me. Were Honor and Prudence right? Had I truly seen a ghost? The thought of it shook me to my core.

Back in my room, I fished my leather-bound journal out of my suitcase and sat, pencil in hand, at the desk adjacent to the window where I had seen the vision the night before. I looked through the pane and saw Flynn in the garden, talking and laughing with an older man whom I presumed to be the gardener. This moment of normalcy quieted my racing heart.

Maybe there was nothing to this after all. Maybe there was a rational explanation for this ghost sighting. Maybe, I thought with my fiction writer’s mind, Prudence herself was somehow involved in this “apparition,” whether a result of some psychosis on her part or, more likely, as a way to play an elaborate trick on a newcomer and her own brother.

Maybe, I thought as I sat gazing out the window, something monstrous and hideous and undead was not lurking at Whitehall.

Oh, what the mind allows us to believe, even contrary to what we have seen with our own eyes.

I looked up from the manuscript and saw Amity staring at me, her eyes as big and round as moons.

“I thought this was supposed to be the love story of David Coleville and Grandma,” she said, her voice wavering. “Not a ghost story.” She drew her knees closer to her chest and held them with her arms tighter. “It’s creepy,” she went on, “having it set right here.”

Matthew and I exchanged a quick glance. “Honey, it’s just a story,” I said, smiling a broad smile. “Just a work of fiction. It’s not the true story of what happened here that summer. Not at all.”

But even as I said the words, I wasn’t so sure. Coleville himself had written to my mother that this manuscript was indeed a “thinly veiled account” and had wanted her to read it to make sure it didn’t skim too terribly close to the surface.

“Listen,” I said to my daughter, “if you were a writer and you came to this house for the first time to get inspiration to write your first novel, wouldn’t your imagination go into overdrive?”

Matthew echoed my thoughts. “I agree with your mother. Seeing all this”—he gestured widely with his arms—“the secret passageways, the antique furnishings, the tapestries, I might conjure up a ghost story about it, too. Wouldn’t you?”

Amity considered this as her gaze traveled around the room. “I guess,” she said tentatively.

Still, I was wondering if asking Amity to listen in on this reading had been a good idea after all. She wasn’t a girl who typically was attracted to scary movies or books. Even television shows about police solving particularly violent crimes weren’t her speed. But like her, I had hoped that it was going to be primarily a love story, and I hadn’t seen the harm in sharing that with her. Now I was hoping she’d lose interest.

I placed my hands on top of the manuscript. “Honey, would you rather not hear the rest of it? You can go back upstairs or outside into the garden if you’d like—”

“No!” she said, cutting me off. “I’m already hooked! I want to know what happens. It’s just a little creepy because it’s set right here in this house, that’s all.”

I smiled at her, noticing for the first time that the late afternoon sun was streaming in through the window, shining on her face and warming the room. The sight seemed a little incongruous to me, as though I should be reading this eerie story on a dark and stormy night. “How about we take a quick break and you run into the kitchen to get some lemonade or a soda from Jane?”

Amity shrugged and unfolded herself from her chair. “Okay,” she said. “I guess I’m a little thirsty.” Heading toward the kitchen, she turned and wagged a finger at me. “Don’t start up again without me. I’ll be right back.”

After she had gone, I lowered my voice and said, “Do you think it’s okay that we’re reading this to her?”

“It depends on how sensitive she is.”

“And how frightening this story gets,” I said, quickly flipping ahead a few pages. “The thing is, it’s hitting a little close to home. It’s not like this house is without its ghosts. Do you remember the other night at dinner when I told you that I had the feeling my mother and brothers were here?”

“I do remember that,” he said. “And it’s not so unusual, Grace. Most everyone who has lost someone dear feels their presence from time to time. I think it’s comforting, actually. Especially for those who doubt there’s an afterlife. It’s a way for us to know that our loved ones are okay and happy, and that we’ll be okay and happy when it’s our time to go.”

A ghostly visit sounded rather lovely when he put it like that. But he hadn’t heard the full story from me yet.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” I continued, my eyes on the door, making sure Amity wasn’t within earshot. “I had a horrible dream about my dad.” I shuddered, remembering. “He drowned, I think you know, and I had a dream … at least I think it was a dream, that he was standing at the foot of my bed. He was wearing the outfit he died in, and he was dripping wet. Fish were glistening in his hair and wriggling out of his mouth.”

Matthew’s smile faded into a look of concern and he squinted his eyes. “That’s a little less comforting, I’ll grant you.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, lowering my voice and hurrying the story along before Amity came back. “He told me he didn’t have much time. He said
she
was here, and that she killed my mother and was coming for me.”

Matthew leaned in closer to me. “Who?” he asked.

“He didn’t say,” I told him, holding his gaze. “The only woman who has come into my life recently is my aunt Fate, and she’s so frail, there’s no way he could’ve been talking about her. He said that he didn’t think she could hurt us anymore, but she can. He said it was all true, and that I should be on my guard.”

Matthew was silent for a moment. And then he said: “I’m sure there’s a plausible explanation for all of it. You being home again for the first time, the resurgence of memories about your father. It makes sense, Grace, you having a dream like that, it really does.”

I took in that comment, wondering if he made it a practice of telling parishioners that their outlandish or even borderline crazy stories “made sense.” He had certainly said that phrase enough times to me.

“Amity had the same dream, just moments later,” I informed him, thinking perhaps that this wouldn’t make so much “sense” to Matthew. “She woke me up, calling out for me.”

Matthew gave me a look of such concern that I wondered what he thought of me—
as crazy as her aunt Fate?
—and hoped I didn’t make a mistake by telling him what I just told him. I fidgeted in my seat.