Laurel had one jolted moment—then looked sharply to Tyler. She could tell just by looking at him. “Very funny.”
Tyler raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I must have been possessed or something.” He stretched out a leg and tapped the toe of his boot against the underside of the table again, this time not concealing the movement. “But okay, seriously: ghost, poltergeist—what’s the difference?”
“Good question,” Brendan said, pointing his pizza slice at Tyler. “The classic theory about a traditional haunting is that it’s an imprint of violent or emotion or trauma on a house or location, that gets replayed, like a tape. Then there’s the family member or close friend who is visited by the spirit of a departed loved one at the moment of death or extreme trauma—known as a ‘crisis apparition’—or by a spirit who has a specific message to impart. Those are generally one-time occurrences and specific to a certain person, they often come in dreams, and once that message is received, the visitations stop.
“The word ‘poltergeist’ was coined in the mid-nineteenth century—by Martin Luther, no less—to distinguish a certain kind of haunting: one with very kinetic elements: loud rappings and other sounds, furniture and objects moving or flying, showers of rocks, breaking of household objects. For a long time investigators made a sharp distinction between those manifestations and the more traditional haunting apparitions: mist, phantom footsteps, the recognizable shade of a loved one. The theory that these were two very different kinds of manifestations was hot for a while, and the Rhine lab is famous for theorizing that poltergeist ‘hauntings’ are not hauntings at all, but manifestations of psychokinesis—the ability to move objects with the mind.
“Later researchers started to admit that there were almost always elements of both kinds of hauntings involved in so-called poltergeist incidents.” Brendan leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands. “So basically, we know nothing.”
He looked across the table in the flickering candlelight. “There may be a ghost in this house, there may not. There may be a poltergeist, there may not. We’re here to see what happens.”
Tyler slid a glance toward Katrina. “And we’re here because you think we might
make
something happen. Because of our ‘exceptional abilities.’ That’s what all the testing was about.”
Laurel saw Brendan jolt slightly in the candlelight, but she wasn’t surprised at Tyler’s guess. Neither of their young subjects were fools.
“It’s possible that you will be able to sense more in the house than subjects with less psi promise. As far as precipitating it?” Brendan shrugged. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
Both students expertly vanished after dinner, leaving Brendan and Laurel with the clearing and dishes.
Slipping into the servants’ roles, already, are we?
she thought to herself, but she was secretly, shamefully glad to have the intimate time with him by herself, doing the washing up together in the steamy kitchen, Brendan making
Father Knows Best
–style jokes about “the children.”
They laughed about the violently knocking pipes, and when they were through, they walked up the spiraling servants’ stairs to the second floor, and Laurel again felt her knees go weak with the rush of raw sexuality she felt at the curve of the stairs.
What
is
that? Why there?
Brendan walked behind her, completely oblivious, and she was grateful that he could not see the instant, telltale color rise to her face.
Out of the stairwell, they started the long walk down the crooked upstairs hall. Laurel was annoyed with herself to find that her heart was still beating hard, and she was far too aware of the heat of his body beside her. It didn’t help that he brushed against her going up the odd, steep stairs to the linen room and lounge.
“Any sleep preferences?” he asked, with no hint of innuendo.
“I was thinking anywhere but here,” she answered ruefully.
He stopped still in the hallway, to look at her. “Really?” The light was low, shadows in every corner; they had not brought enough light bulbs to supply every lamp.
She felt odd, defensive. “Yes, really. We’re not exactly in Kansas, are we? If ever a house was haunted, I can believe this one is.”
“Huh,” he said, and she felt a wave of annoyance.
She suddenly asked, “What about you?”
He turned and looked at her. “What about me?”
“Did you feel anything during the tour?”
“Ah. I see.” he said slowly. “Nope. Nada. I just must not be sensitive that way.”
There was an edge in his voice that might have been regret.
Laurel ended up choosing the small room with the single bed and the desk built in between the cabinet closets, with the door out onto the iron balcony overlooking the gardens, and the odd lithograph of the crow above the bed. It was by far the smallest of the bedrooms, the one that she’d thought of as the nanny’s room, and she couldn’t have said why she chose it, except that it was about as far from Tyler’s room as it could be, which under the circumstances seemed prudent. Katrina had already taken the best room, and Laurel didn’t like the feel of the children’s room, or the little bedroom; she had no intention of sleeping in either.
When she stepped into the doorway of the nanny’s room, Brendan looked at her questioningly, and she shrugged. “My governess fetish.” She was instantly mortified that she’d said it and felt herself blushing.
Brendan raised an eyebrow. “We’ll have to discuss that at length, sometime,” he said with such a suggestive tone that Laurel felt her legs go weak.
He turned in the hallway, and then just as she suddenly knew he would, he walked to the door of the strange little room, with the narrow bed and the hearth inexplicably set in a room so small, and that odd circle carved into the window. The door opened without trouble for him, but Laurel felt an instant wave of unease. “Are you sure?” she asked, without thinking, as he tossed his duffel onto the iron-frame bed.
“Why not?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
She shrugged, lamely. “I don’t know. I don’t like it.”
He broke into a grin. “Good. That’s what I want to hear. Maybe I’ll get some action tonight.”
Their eyes met and she felt shaky again. “Good night, then,” she said quickly.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” he said, and stepped through the door to the strange little room. She got a glimpse of the hearth, the monastic bed.
Then he turned back and added obliquely, “I’m right here if you need me.”
When she shut her door behind her, she had to force herself to breathe.
In her sleep shirt, the door of her small room closed, she stood at her window, arms crossed over her chest, and looked out over the dark garden. The gazebo was as white as bone under the slight moonlight, luminous, as if lit from within. The drapes of the willowy plants were pale nets, barely distinguishable against the sky. Beautiful … and alien.
Let the games begin,
whispered a voice in her mind that was not quite Tyler’s.
Laurel shivered and turned to the narrow bed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When she woke, she at first had no idea where she was. Even more unnerving, she had no idea what
year
it was and no sense whatsoever of
who
she was; her mind was a complete blank and she lay with her heart beating, in a blind panic, as awareness slowly returned.
I’m Laurel MacDonald. I was from California, and now I’m not. I was engaged and now I’m not. I’m a psychology professor at Duke and now I’m … looking for ghosts of mad heirs.
She felt a bubble of not entirely calm laughter rise in her chest.
Well, it’s no wonder I’m disoriented—who wouldn’t be?
As she got out of bed, she noticed one of the blankets had slipped to the floor in the night and her robe had fallen off the hook on the door, as well. There was a chill in the air so she picked the robe up and shrugged it on. As she turned in the room she was caught again by the lithograph of the crow on the wall above the desk.
Or is that a raven?
she wondered.
Is there a difference?
In any case, it was a singularly odd bit of decorating.
And then suddenly it hit her, like someone speaking aloud in her head:
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
It’s a joke, isn’t it? From
Alice in Wonderland.
The Mad Hatter poses the riddle to Alice when they meet.
She looked at the desk, the raven.
But
whose
joke was it, I wonder?
She felt suddenly as if someone were playing with her, and she had a strong urge to leave the room. But she looked across the door to the balcony.
She crossed the room and opened the outside door to step out onto the iron balcony outside her room. The chill of the morning enveloped her. A fine trailing mist snaked through the gardens. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the strange white gazebo rising from the tangled growth, with its picture-window view of something she couldn’t quite see. The view from where she stood was gothically picturesque but the iron railing of the balcony was unnervingly low—knee-height at best, certainly not designed to any modern safety code. And the fall would be a sheer drop to the brick porch below. Brain damage, paralysis, death. Laurel took a step back and pressed her back against the wall of the building, with a sudden feeling of nausea.
From this height she was startled to see that the part of the gardens she overlooked was actually a formal labyrinth, a square one of boxwood hedges and taller camellias and brick walls, with worn gray statuary hidden coyly in its corners and angles. All through the gardens there were pale sprays of white flowers, almost glowing in their whiteness. She felt again the sense of a life she would never experience: a richer, decadent, opulent life. But there was the ghost of it here, a shadow of the sensation … to wake up and look out over acres of land, to feel the weight of the mansion around her.
A flicker of movement out toward the white gazebo suddenly caught her eye. She turned to look—and was stunned to see a figure dressed entirely in black: black coat, black pants, black hat, standing beside a white pillar, staring straight up at her. She swayed in shock.
Then something loomed in her peripheral vision and she whirled, losing her balance …
Hands grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back from the railing, against the brick wall.
“Okay? You okay?” Tyler demanded. “Jesus.” He held her firmly. Laurel stood for a moment, steadying herself in his grasp, her heart pounding as she realized how close she had just come to falling. She looked out toward the gazebo—but the black figure was gone.
Was it ever there?
Tyler pushed open the door behind them and pulled her through. Inside her room he sat her on the bed and crouched on his haunches before her.
“Jesus,” he said again. “Are you okay?”
“I … thank you,” she said inadequately.
“Don’t be stupid,” he said sharply. He stood, stepped to the door and stared out the door at the balcony. “That’s fucking lethal. Can you imagine being out there after a couple of cocktails? They must have had people falling off that thing left and right. No wonder the house is haunted.”
She felt oddly like laughing—he was so right.
He looked back at her. “What happened out there? You looked like you’d seen—whatever it is we’re supposed to be seeing here.”
She glanced toward the open door.
Had there been someone?
But the clothing was so—not modern: the hat, the frocklike coat …
Which was one of the reasons the sight was so shocking to begin with. It had felt …
Impossible.
“I think coffee would help,” she said, and stood from the bed.
“Are you mad at me?” Tyler asked bluntly as the coffee dripped its way down into the pot and they stood in the small servants’ kitchen with the burnt-bean fragrance filling the air around them
“Of course not. Why?” she answered, though she knew very well.
“That story about the lab,” he said, looking straight at her. “It was a lame thing to do.”
“It points out the pitfalls of this kind of study, actually,” she said lightly, and reached for the pot. “People tend to believe what they want to believe.”
Like that figure in the garden,
she thought to herself.
There was nothing there—I’m just hyped to see things.
He wouldn’t let it go. “I just wanted you to know I’m not going to fuck around while we’re here. Whatever happens, it’s for real.”
“I appreciate that, Tyler,” she said, and didn’t believe him for a minute.
She took her coffee and pretended she was going back to her room to write up some notes; actually, she didn’t want to be alone with him any more than she had to be.
As she walked down the endless hall, no one else was stirring and Laurel was appalled to experience a brief, irrational stab of jealousy, a sudden paranoia that Katrina had already found Brendan’s bedroom in the night.
Delusional,
she chided herself.
She glanced toward a small window under the eaves, overlooking the garden.
And speaking of delusions, what about that—person—in the garden? What was that all about?
She stood at the window, looking down, then turned and headed for the stairs.
She stepped out the back door onto the back brick—
patio? Veranda?
Veranda.
Where the stones fell,
she thought, remembering the photos. But the brick surface was bare, now. Laurel crossed to the railing to look out over the jungle of gardens. At ground level it was impossible to pick out the labyrinth shape she’d seen from the balcony—it simply looked like a random maze of paths. The grounds seemed completely deserted, the only movement the rise and fall of the breeze.
Did I see anyone? Could there have been someone back here, someone real?
She swept her eyes over the gardens, looking for any hint of a black-clad figure. Not a sign of it, but her skin still prickled.
There was no one,
she told herself firmly. But instead of stepping onto the stairs descending into the garden, she walked along the brick path beside the house. Circling the house to the front. With its long-deserted horse pastures and wide open spaces, it looked much more bleak than the back gardens, and the wind swept through the trees, unbarricaded by hedgerows. She shivered and pulled her sweater closer around her.