The Haunting of Brier Rose (10 page)

"All right, Bea," Rose said, closing the door and
pulling up another chair. "Suppose you tell me what the big secret is all
about."

“I thought you were safe, Rose," Bea began, shaking her
head. "I thought there would be no reason to tell you everything. For
fifteen years you’ve lived here with us, and not once did anything occur to
make me suspect that they had found out where you were."

"
Who's
they?"

"Your family."

"The Quennels?"

"No." Bea sighed and looked up at her, reaching for her
hands. "The Bastyrs."

"Wait a minute!" Rose pulled her hands out of Bea's
grasp. "I don't understand. Why wouldn't you want them to find me? They're
my relatives!" She felt rage welling up again. "What did you and
Donald do—kidnap me when I was a child and then tell me I was an
orphan?"

"No, nothing like that, Rose. Please, don't judge us so
harshly."

"How do you think it feels to know you've been tricked for
fifteen years?" She jumped to her feet. "Lied to! Kept apart from
your real family! And you wouldn't ever have told me, would you, if Mr. Wolfe
hadn't shown up!"

"Rose, listen!" Bea pleaded. "I
am
your family. I'm your paternal
grandmother."

"My what?"

"Your grandmother. Donald was your grandfather."

Rose stared at her, feeling as if her heart would break in two.
All these years she had thought of herself as an abandoned waif, with no one in
the world to call her own. And now she was expected to believe something
entirely different—that she had a family? That she had a grandmother? The
idea was so foreign to her that she couldn't even accept it.

"You're my grandmother?" she countered. "Why
didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't. Believe me, dearest Rose, I couldn't! Telling
you might have meant your death!"

"Why? Were my parents criminals? Were they members of the
underworld or something?"

"Your father was my son and a very good man." Bea
blinked. "But your mother was from a strange family."

"Why would my own family want me killed?"

"They don't." Bea opened the box. "The Bastyrs
want something far worse for you, Rose." She drew out a folded paper,
sealed with a circle of red wax. "But I think this letter will tell you
everything you need to know."

Shattered by shock and disbelief, Rose took the clutch of
yellowed papers and turned it over. Her first name was written in flowery
script on one side. For a moment she hesitated and glanced at Bea.

"Who wrote this?"

"Your mother."

"My—my—mother?"

Bea nodded solemnly and pointed to the red seal on the other
side.

"Where is she? Is she still alive?"

"No." Bea shook her head. "She wrote the letter
before her death fifteen years ago."

"And my father?" The words
father
and
mother
felt
awkward on her tongue, almost as if she had no business saying them.

"He is no longer living, either, Rose."

"What happened to them?" she asked. "Did they die
in an accident or something?"

"No. Read the letter first. Then we'll talk."

Rose sank into the chair. With a trembling hand she broke the
seal and unfolded the paper within. She didn't know what to expect. Was it a
litany of the wrongs she had done as a child that had caused her family to give
her up? Had another, younger child caused her to drop from favor? Had she been
implicated in the death of a family member—perhaps of her own mother? A
million reasons for—all the reasons she had come up with during her
lonely childhood—flitted through her mind as she stared down at the
distinctively small handwriting of her mother. She dreaded the truth. She
didn't want to find out just what kind of problem she had caused or face the
grim reality of her true nature. Heart pounding and teeth clenched, she refolded
the paper and gave it back to a shocked Bea Jacoby.

"You aren't going to read it?"

Rose shook her head, holding back tears, then scrambled to her
feet.

"But, Rose, you must!"

"I can't." She opened the door. "I—I don't
know what to think right now, Bea. I have to be alone!"

"But, Rose...!"

Rose could hear Bea close the box and push back the chair as she
hurried after her. "You must come away from Brierwood this very night,
Rose!"

"I can't! I've got to sort this through!"

"No, Rose, I beg you!"

Rose blocked out the sound of Bea's pleas and plunged across the
floor, her footsteps echoing off the walls and ceiling of the huge chamber to
create the illusion that a flurry of maidens ran with her. Edgar swooped down
to her, flying alongside as Rose ran out of the ballroom and out to the hall.
She had to be alone. She had to get out of the house. Frantic and desperate,
she ran down the stairs, careened through the hall to the rear of the mansion,
flung open the back door and stopped in her tracks. The garden was draped in
shadow. The only object she could make out clearly was the gnomon of the
sundial gleaming in the moonlight. Her childhood fear of the dark loomed up in
an even blacker shadow, forcing her back, making her return to the gloomy rooms
of Brierwood.

With a sob, Rose shut the door and leaned on it, so upset that
she felt as if she would jump out of her skin. Where could she go so no one
could find her? If one more person told her she was someone other than Rose
Quennel, made her question everything she had ever been told, or accused her of
doing things of which she was totally innocent, she would absolutely burst.

"Oh, Edgar!" she cried, overwrought.

He cocked his head and cawed, and then took off from the hall
table. Lacking a better direction, Rose followed him. He flapped upward,
through a wing of the house the Jacobys had closed years ago. Rose hurried
through the quiet house, ignoring the dust and cobwebs and the sheet-covered
furniture. Edgar glided to stop at the door of a room Rose had never been in
before and cocked his head again, giving her a meaningful stare.

Rose opened the door and passed into a huge bedchamber, which she
surmised had been a master bedroom at one time. The bed was hung with
emerald-colored velvet and huge golden cords with tassels. The rest of the
furniture was draped in sheets. Edgar hopped over the thick green carpet until
he reached French doors that led to a balcony. Rose followed, and noticed a
silver brush-and-comb set lying on the dressing table, monogrammed in a
filigreed JC. Julia Curtis, the long-dead mistress of Brierwood, had inhabited
this room.

Quietly Rose opened the French doors to allow Edgar to go
outside. He sailed to the banister of the balcony. Rose ventured out a few
steps and looked at the starlit landscape below. The bedroom was located at the
front of the house, with a view of the drive, the front entry gate and a dense
wood that ran all the way to the shores of Lake Washington. The moon sprinkled
glitter over the lake far away, and the stillness of the scene afforded a calm
that was full of serenity, completely different from the solemn hush of Brierwood.

Rose leaned against the banister and breathed deeply, feeling the
serenity settle into her.

"Thank you, Edgar," she whispered.

She stayed on the balcony, and when she felt more like her usual
calm self, she found an old wicker chair and sank into it. She thought through
all that Bea had told her. But her restless sleep of the previous night,
coupled with the heat of the summer evening, made her drowsy. Before she knew
it, she was leaning her heavy head on the palm of her hand. Soon afterward she
drifted off to sleep, sinking onto the crook of her arm.

Much later, she felt a light touch on her shoulder.

"Roselyn, Roselyn," a voice crooned in her ear.
"Beautiful Roselyn."

Go away. I'm tired.

Smooth, warm hands caressed her bare shoulders, spreading a
strange heat through her chest, and warm breath fanned the side of her face.
She tried to pull away but seemed paralyzed with lassitude.

"I have a question or two for you, my dear."

Don't touch me, Mr. Wolfe.

"Just a few questions and then you can rest."

I'm too tired. Go away.

"Roselyn, see the candle at the end of the corridor? I want
you to go toward the light."

I don't want to go back
there again.

"You don't want to learn the truth?" Warm hands slid
around her torso and brushed the undersides of both breasts. Rose felt herself
rise up slowly in the chair, her breasts tingling and aching. She shouldn't
allow herself to feel pleasure at the hands of the scarred stranger who had
come to Brierwood.

No…

"Once you learn the truth, we can be together. Then I will
show you the glory of being touched by a man. Really touched, Roselyn."

Mr. Wol-

"Don't fight me, Roselyn. I'm here to help you. But you have
to see these truths for what they are."

I don't want to go back, I
don't want you to touch—

Now the hands were caressing her, kneading her in a way she had
never known before. She could hardly breathe, could barely form a coherent
thought. She should resist, push him away, and flee.

No—

"You see the light, Roselyn. I know you do. Walk toward
it, my beauty.
Keep walking
,
keep
walking
. Only this time, don't go back as far as you did the last
time."

No—

The light from the Bastyr house faded as five-year-old Rose
closed the door behind her and crept down the back steps, hurrying over the
dew-laden lawn with a heavy satchel in her right hand. She had no idea where
she would go or what she would do, but she could no longer stay in the house,
not when everyone yelled all the time and Uncle Enoch kept trying to get in her
room at night. The thought of him breaking into her room again to stand there
drooling and touching himself made her heart race with fear. Even now her heart
banged in her chest. But she wasn't sure if it was the memory of her uncle that
struck fear in her or the shifting shadows of the trees bordering the high rock
wall that ran along the edge of the Bastyr property.

Beyond the gate in the wall she could see the narrow lane that
led to the main road. The lane sure looked spooky at night. Rose shuddered. She
hated being in the dark by herself, especially outside, but if she was going to
run away, she had to be brave. Gathering her courage, she opened the heavy
iron gate
and slipped past it to the lane.

Once outside the Bastyr grounds, Rose set the suitcase
down,
rolled her shoulders and picked up the bag with her
other hand. She couldn't believe how heavy the suitcase seemed to have gotten.
Maybe she shouldn't have packed so many books. Sighing resolutely, she pressed
on.

Where would she go? She hadn't traveled very far from home and
wasn't sure where a real town was. In fact, the only times she ever gone
anywhere were to church and on Mother's special trips. She never paid much
attention to which direction they took on their trips, because mother always
had a fascinating activity for her to work at—puzzles, needlework or
learning to read. She wished her mother was with her now, but for the last two
months Deborah Quennel had spent her days in her room, and no one was allowed
to see her until she felt better.

Mother had told her that Rose would soon be going to school and
then she wouldn't be stuck at home all the time, but a year was too long for
her to wait. Besides, she didn't want to go to school. She already knew how to
read and could recite her multiplication tables all the way up to the twelves.
Surely a five-year-old could get a job somewhere as long as she could read and
figure. She wouldn't want to be a printer, though. Everyone blamed ink fumes at
the printing shop for making Uncle Enoch go crazy. Mother always grew silent
when the subject was brought up, as if she didn't believe the others, but Rose
was pretty sure they were right.

Rose walked until the lane curved and the trees blocked the faint
glow of the house lights. She paused, her heart still hammering with fear. The
night was black—as pitch-black as described in some of her books. She
didn't know what pitch was, exactly, but it couldn't be much darker than the
gloominess ahead.

Rose held a knuckle to her mouth and blinked. Her mother had told
her there were no such things as monsters, but she had never believed it.
Adults didn't know everything. And what if they were wrong? What if they
just hadn't seen a monster before? One could jump out of the bushes on the
other side of the road and gobble her up before she could scream. Even if
she did scream, no one would have time to run out and save her.

Suddenly Rose found she couldn't move. She was too frightened to
take another step. If she took her eyes off the far side of the road for just
one second, she would give a monster enough time to leap out and get her.

She stood in the road, staring at the blackness until her
eyeballs ached, until her hair felt wet with sweat and fear.

Then the screech of a catfight ripped through the silence. Rose
shrieked, jumped into the air and dashed for the house, pumping her short limbs
as hard as she could. She ran and ran, afraid to look back, afraid she would
see a hideous monster nipping at her heels. Panting raggedly, she careened
toward the gate, thankful that she had left it ajar. Just as she gained the
gate, however, she heard it slam shut and saw a tall dark shape materialize on
the other side.

"Roselyn!" a stern voice called from the shadows.

She ground to a stop, recognizing the deep, dreaded tone.

"No-o-o!" Rose screamed on the balcony, flailing her
arms. She had to wake up, had to stop the dream. "No-o- o!"