Ill be waiting, p.14
I'll Be Waiting, page 14
I grit my teeth. No, I’m emotionally and psychologically not well. I lost my husband, not my mind.
Creak. Creak.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, and roll out of bed.
I know I’m imagining this because there is no dumbwaiter in that damn shaft, but apparently, I’m going to need to prove that to myself before I can sleep.
“Feels a lot like déjà vu,” I mutter as I cinch my wrapper and stomp into the hall.
Where does that dumbwaiter come out up here? I heard the sound somewhere behind my headboard and …
And that’s where I see the panel inset in the wall.
Which proves nothing because I’ve passed it dozens of times and subconsciously registered that it was there, putting the shaft right behind my headboard.
I march over and peer at the panel. The one on the main level opens easily, but with this one it takes me a moment to find the latch. Finally, I do, and I swing the hatch open … to see a pitch-black shaft.
Damn it, I’m going to need my phone’s light.
Stomp back into my room, heading for the nightstand where I plugged it …
My phone isn’t there. For a split second, paranoia washes through me. Someone took—
No, I don’t remember plugging it in last night. So where did I leave it?
Forget that. There’s a penlight in the drawer for power outages. I snatch it out, check that it works, and stride back into the hall.
At the dumbwaiter, I need to duck my head in to get a look upward. I expect the shaft to stop right above this spot, but it continues up to the attic, and I can see the pulley is there, but there’s very clearly nothing attached to it—not a dumbwaiter and not even a rope for the pulley.
With a growl at my treacherous imagination, I start back out. As I do, the weak penlight shines down and …
There’s something down there. Way down there, past the main floor. Something pale.
Thoughts of Brodie Kilmer flash, and my heart jams into my throat. We’d said the shaft was too small for him to climb, but what if he tried? What if he got wedged in there?
I shine the light straight down, and what I see isn’t a person.
It’s a piece of paper. No, it’s a newspaper, an old one, seeming to float in the shaft. The front page of a newspaper with two photos on it. Photos of girls. One blond and one brunette.
Jin’s ghost story bubbles up in my brain. The photograph of the two victims. I stretch my arm down for a better look and—
My breath catches, and my heart seems to stop.
It’s not the newspaper article from Jin’s story. It’s the one from mine. School photos of Patrice and Heather smile up at me, under a headline half lost in the shadows, the remaining words seeming to leap from the page.
Teen Girls
Satanic Ritual
Horrific Murder
I yank back, heart racing. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m imagining this. I must be.
Plink. Plink.
The sound of drips hitting distant paper. I brace myself and lean into the shaft again. Spots of red bleed into the newspaper below. Crimson red.
Blood splashed through a forest clearing.
I start to back out, but a drop from above hits me and I drop the penlight and stumble backward into the opposite wall. My hand flies to my face and finds a damp spot, but when I pull back my fingers, nothing’s there.
I run my hands over my face, as if I’ve missed the spot, and then I stare down at them.
Nothing.
I run into my room and into the bathroom, flicking on the light. Then I stare at my face in the mirror. There’s a damp spot on my cheek, but it’s clear, like water, with no trace of red. All I see is my own wild-eyed face, drooping and drawn with exhaustion, giving me a preview of what I’ll look like in five years.
The haggardness reminds me of Keith … and I remember where I left my phone. Downstairs after texting him.
I turn around and—
My foot flies out, the bathroom rug yanked from under it, and I crack down to one knee, my hand braced on porcelain.
I grit my teeth, pain blocking everything for a second. Then I look to see my hand on the freestanding tub and realize if I hadn’t caught the edge, I’d have smashed my head on it.
Bathroom falls. One of the leading causes of accidental death at home. The other one being falls down the stairs … which I’d almost done last night.
I shake my head. I need to be more careful. Obviously, in my haste, I’d slipped on …
I see the bathroom mat, wrinkled and lying against the wall. Then I remember what I felt. One foot touching down, the other rising, the mat yanked sideways. And that’s where it lies—to the side, not behind me, where it would have gone if I slipped. To the side, as if yanked from under me.
I stay on one knee, catching my breath as paranoia seizes my brain in icy claws. I thought someone grabbed my shirt on the stairs last night. I just felt the rug yanked from under my feet.
And the dumbwaiter. That old newspaper article in the dumbwaiter shaft.
I need a photo of it. I have to prove it’s there.
Who am I going to show it to? Jin, Shania, Cirillo … three people who know nothing of my past?
I’m going to show it to myself. Just prove I saw it … and then figure out who the hell put it there. Because no one in this house is supposed to know my past, but someone obviously does.
SIXTEEN
I left my phone in the kitchen. I’d been texting with Keith right before the séance and set it down when the others called me in. I retrieve it and stride to the dumbwaiter shaft. It opens easily, and I lean in, shining the light down.…
Nothing.
The shaft drops into the darkness of the basement. Clearly there isn’t any newspaper hanging there or lying on the floor below.
I twist to look up, shining my cell phone light, until I can see clear up to the pulley. Nothing’s there.
I back up, and I’m standing in the hall, biting my lip as I think, when I catch a voice, barely above a whisper.
The hairs on my neck rise. A male voice drifts from somewhere in the house.
Anton?
It’s male, but too soft for me to tell anything more.
The voice continues in that whispering undercurrent, just distinct enough that I can follow it. When I reach the basement door, I stop, pivot slowly, and then twist the handle.
Locked.
The voice comes again. It’s farther down, near the back of the house.
I keep following it until I’m approaching the breakfast nook.
There’s a light on in there. A wavering light.
The voice has stopped, but it soon starts again, something between a whisper and a rumble. Undoubtedly male. Undoubtedly not Anton.
Brodie Kilmer?
What if he’s been in our basement this whole time, with a key to sneak up at night.
No, if any of us thought there was an actual chance Brodie Kilmer was still in the house, we’d have taken the door off its hinges to check.
Maybe we should have done that anyway.
I take one careful step toward the breakfast nook and then stop as I see the figure seated at the table. It’s Cirillo, still dressed in his golf shirt, but with his hair messy enough that he looks as if he rolled out of bed. He has glasses on, suggesting he usually wears contacts.
He’s at the table, with all of his equipment. With the photos and mementos.
With my husband’s ashes.
For a moment, even though he’s facing my way, he doesn’t see me. He’s too engrossed in what he’s doing.
Somebody staged that newspaper in the dumbwaiter and lured me in with the creaking of the pulley. Somebody who’d dug deep enough into my background to uncover my past.
Who would be looking into me like that?
The guy I’d hired to contact my dead husband. The researcher who had to be sure I wasn’t some crank out to embarrass him.
So … after setting up that newspaper, he’d now be openly sitting in the breakfast nook talking aloud, where I can find him and wonder why he’s awake?
I can understand Cirillo researching me, but what would be the point of staging that newspaper?
What would be the point of anyone staging it?
I think back to what I experienced.
A newspaper article … just like in Jin’s story about his grandmother.
Dripping blood … just like in that story about Roddy and Sam.
I heard a rope in the pulley … but there isn’t a rope on it.
I saw blood dropping and felt it hit my cheek … but my cheek is clean.
I’m losing it.
I roll my shoulders. No, I’m not. I’m on edge after the séance, and I imagined the article on Patrice and Heather and the dripping blood, because I just dreamed of that séance.
I’d been half asleep, and my imagination took advantage of that susceptible state.
I should talk to Cirillo about it. I know last night’s footsteps in the attic were a hypnagogic hallucination. I should tell him about that and also get his opinion on what just happened with the dumbwaiter. He’s the expert, after all.
I bite my lip again.
I don’t want to tell him.
I don’t trust him.
Part of me scoffs at the thought … but then I look at him, sitting in the dark, with my husband’s ashes, and he might not have had anything to do with the dumbwaiter, but he’s up to something.
I step forward.
He notices me and gives a start. “Nicola.”
“Davos.”
He follows my gaze to the items on the table. “I…”
“Can explain? I’m guessing those are your next words.”
He pushes back his chair. “I wanted to continue the séance.”
“Alone? After telling us it was over? Practically sending us all to bed?”
“It wasn’t like that. I did go to bed, even before you did. I came down about an hour ago.”
“In the middle of the night?” I ease back, trying to look casual. “Did you hear something?”
He seems genuinely confused. “No.” He searches my face. “Is that why you came down?”
“I heard someone talking down here. Seemed to be conducting a séance without me.”
He rubs his mouth. “Sorry. I thought I was being quiet, but Jin did say you have good hearing.”
He tries for a smile. When I don’t return it, he clears his throat. “I came down because I couldn’t sleep. What happened this evening bothered me, and I wanted to try understanding it without the pressure of an audience.”
When I don’t speak, he says, “I don’t know what happened earlier. Nor was I prepared to deal with it.”
He runs a hand through his hair and waves to the chair opposite. I hesitate, not sure I want to move to conversational quite so quickly, but my brain is still spinning from that newspaper—and the realization I’d imagined it. I’m suddenly exhausted.
When I sink into the chair, he continues, “I hate admitting that I don’t understand something I’m supposed to be an expert in. I’m a scientist. To start talking about feeling blocked and sensing something wrong? That’s for the kind of mediums you’ve been dealing with. It’s woo-woo, and I don’t do woo-woo.”
“Okay.”
He holds my gaze, as if searching for something. Then his shoulders slump. “I was an ass earlier, wasn’t I?” When I don’t answer, his lips quirk. “Let me rephrase that as a statement, not a question. I was an ass earlier.”
“Yep.”
He blows out a breath. “I’m not usually…” An inhale. “I was going to say I’m not usually like that, but that’d be a lie. I’m not like that at séances. I’m a professional, and I behave professionally. But this…” He waves around the room. “This is different. I’m excited about it, but I’ve never done this before. I don’t live in a house with my subjects.”
“You’re the one who suggested this arrangement.”
“I wanted to see how spending time in the environment and getting to know the other participants affected the outcome. What I meant is that this isn’t a side of me that clients see. My grad students, though? That might be another story.”
He passes me a quarter smile. “When I first became a thesis advisor, I’d sometimes have one student leaving while the other came in, and there’d be this weird exchange. Not hello or goodbye, but H or J.”
I arch my brows.
“The letter H or J,” he says. “That’s what the one leaving would say to the one coming in. Finally, someone told me what it meant. An ode to Robert Louis Stevenson.”
I think for a moment. Then I say, “Hyde or Jekyll.”
He nods. “They were passing on information about my mood, warning the next student who had to work with me. Ninety percent of the time, the answer was J. But if I’m in a mood, frustrated or irritable, it’s enough of a personality shift to be noticeable. It bothered me that they had to warn each other, even if it was jokingly.”
He locks his hands on the table. “Which is to say that I know I can be an ass. I apologize, and I will try to do better.”
“I wasn’t responsible for what happened earlier.”
He sighs, slumping. “I know, and I snapped at you, which is inexcusable, particularly under these circumstances. I might be excited about the research possibilities, but you are still the client.”
“So I’m in charge?”
He tilts his head with a mock-thoughtful frown. “I wouldn’t quite go that far.”
I give him a hard look. Then I say, “Do you want me to leave you alone while you figure this out?”
He shakes his head. “Whatever I felt earlier is gone.”
“Would it help to continue the séance with me?”
He hesitates. “That would be unethical. Shania and Jin are here to act as observers, which is also for your benefit.”
“Right. But if I waived that…?”
He’s quiet for a moment and then gives a decisive shake of his head. “No. I would regret it later. I want you to have others present.”
“Okay.” I glance at the doorway, ready to go. Instead, I blurt, “I’ve been having experiences.”
Shit! No. Don’t go down that road.
I change direction fast. “Good experiences. I suspect they’re just wishful thinking.”
I tell him about being at the back door, hearing a voice and feeling a hand on my shoulder. Then I tell him about the sitting room tonight—the creaking board, the click of the knob, the moving doll—
“Hold on,” he says, leaning forward, eyes glinting behind his glasses. “May I tape this?”
I frown. “I thought we agreed to a written transcript only?”
“This would just be for my records. I will destroy any recording if you ask me to. As for your experience at the back door, it was … typical.”
“For someone desperate to make contact with a loved one?”
“Yes. Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t real, but the experience in the sitting room is different. May I tape you retelling it?”
“Sure, but I’d like you to remind me that you have the recording, in case I forget. I will probably want it destroyed.”
“I’ll compile a list of any recordings I make—all of which I will receive your consent for—and send them to you later.”
He sets the recorder on the table, moving aside a photo of Anton to do it.
“Can we do this in another room?” I ask. “Or move all this?”
“Certainly.” He makes a move to stand.
“Also, may I ask that you don’t touch his ashes again, please? I know I should have taken them upstairs last night, but please ask me when they need to be moved.”
Color rises on his cheeks. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s fine. I know I’m making it weird.”
“You’re not. It’s perfectly understandable.” He looks at the box. “Cremains mean something different to everyone. My grandfather kept my grandmother’s remains in his closet inside a cookie tin. I was horrified.”
“Did you accidentally open it and take a bite?”
He chokes on a burst of laughter. “Thank God, no, though I did read a story once about a teenager who found a relative’s cremains and thought it was cocaine.”
Now I’m the one trying not to laugh. Then I look at the box. “I don’t think of that as Anton. His wedding ring means more to me. His ugly class ring means more. The closet of clothing I haven’t cleared means more. This is…” I finger the box. “A responsibility. I haven’t decided what I’m doing with them yet, but it feels like the one last thing I can do for him. Find the right place for his remains.”
“I hear good things about closets. He liked shortbread, right? They make some lovely shortbread tins.”
“You laugh, but Anton would approve. He’d probably also make some really juvenile joke about storing his remains in my panty drawer.”
“Seems reasonable to me.”
I stand with the box. “We’re both tired and a little giddy. Let’s get this recording done before we wake the others.” I glance through the doorway. “The sitting room would be appropriate, if that works.”
“It does.”
* * *
I put the cremains box on a bookshelf in the sitting room and ask Cirillo to remind me it’s there. That’s what I think of it as. “The box” or “the cremains box.” I’m not putting Anton on a shelf. I’m certainly not putting the last mortal remains of my husband on a shelf.
I explain what happened here. First I tell the story. Then I reenact it—getting up and standing in the doorway, proving no one could have slipped in behind me. I show exactly how the doll had been sitting when I was reading and how her head was turned when I sat down.
“And that was a thing Anton did?” Cirillo prods. “Moving around the dolls?”
“We both did it. Just being funny. He did more of it, though, and this doll was his favorite because of the red hair.”
I add for the recording, “I also have red hair. He named the doll Laura Ingalls, because of the pioneer outfit and pigtails. Also the hair, but I pointed out that the character had brown hair and he was probably confusing her with Anne of Green Gables. We kept it as Laura, though.”
Creak. Creak.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I mutter, and roll out of bed.
I know I’m imagining this because there is no dumbwaiter in that damn shaft, but apparently, I’m going to need to prove that to myself before I can sleep.
“Feels a lot like déjà vu,” I mutter as I cinch my wrapper and stomp into the hall.
Where does that dumbwaiter come out up here? I heard the sound somewhere behind my headboard and …
And that’s where I see the panel inset in the wall.
Which proves nothing because I’ve passed it dozens of times and subconsciously registered that it was there, putting the shaft right behind my headboard.
I march over and peer at the panel. The one on the main level opens easily, but with this one it takes me a moment to find the latch. Finally, I do, and I swing the hatch open … to see a pitch-black shaft.
Damn it, I’m going to need my phone’s light.
Stomp back into my room, heading for the nightstand where I plugged it …
My phone isn’t there. For a split second, paranoia washes through me. Someone took—
No, I don’t remember plugging it in last night. So where did I leave it?
Forget that. There’s a penlight in the drawer for power outages. I snatch it out, check that it works, and stride back into the hall.
At the dumbwaiter, I need to duck my head in to get a look upward. I expect the shaft to stop right above this spot, but it continues up to the attic, and I can see the pulley is there, but there’s very clearly nothing attached to it—not a dumbwaiter and not even a rope for the pulley.
With a growl at my treacherous imagination, I start back out. As I do, the weak penlight shines down and …
There’s something down there. Way down there, past the main floor. Something pale.
Thoughts of Brodie Kilmer flash, and my heart jams into my throat. We’d said the shaft was too small for him to climb, but what if he tried? What if he got wedged in there?
I shine the light straight down, and what I see isn’t a person.
It’s a piece of paper. No, it’s a newspaper, an old one, seeming to float in the shaft. The front page of a newspaper with two photos on it. Photos of girls. One blond and one brunette.
Jin’s ghost story bubbles up in my brain. The photograph of the two victims. I stretch my arm down for a better look and—
My breath catches, and my heart seems to stop.
It’s not the newspaper article from Jin’s story. It’s the one from mine. School photos of Patrice and Heather smile up at me, under a headline half lost in the shadows, the remaining words seeming to leap from the page.
Teen Girls
Satanic Ritual
Horrific Murder
I yank back, heart racing. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m imagining this. I must be.
Plink. Plink.
The sound of drips hitting distant paper. I brace myself and lean into the shaft again. Spots of red bleed into the newspaper below. Crimson red.
Blood splashed through a forest clearing.
I start to back out, but a drop from above hits me and I drop the penlight and stumble backward into the opposite wall. My hand flies to my face and finds a damp spot, but when I pull back my fingers, nothing’s there.
I run my hands over my face, as if I’ve missed the spot, and then I stare down at them.
Nothing.
I run into my room and into the bathroom, flicking on the light. Then I stare at my face in the mirror. There’s a damp spot on my cheek, but it’s clear, like water, with no trace of red. All I see is my own wild-eyed face, drooping and drawn with exhaustion, giving me a preview of what I’ll look like in five years.
The haggardness reminds me of Keith … and I remember where I left my phone. Downstairs after texting him.
I turn around and—
My foot flies out, the bathroom rug yanked from under it, and I crack down to one knee, my hand braced on porcelain.
I grit my teeth, pain blocking everything for a second. Then I look to see my hand on the freestanding tub and realize if I hadn’t caught the edge, I’d have smashed my head on it.
Bathroom falls. One of the leading causes of accidental death at home. The other one being falls down the stairs … which I’d almost done last night.
I shake my head. I need to be more careful. Obviously, in my haste, I’d slipped on …
I see the bathroom mat, wrinkled and lying against the wall. Then I remember what I felt. One foot touching down, the other rising, the mat yanked sideways. And that’s where it lies—to the side, not behind me, where it would have gone if I slipped. To the side, as if yanked from under me.
I stay on one knee, catching my breath as paranoia seizes my brain in icy claws. I thought someone grabbed my shirt on the stairs last night. I just felt the rug yanked from under my feet.
And the dumbwaiter. That old newspaper article in the dumbwaiter shaft.
I need a photo of it. I have to prove it’s there.
Who am I going to show it to? Jin, Shania, Cirillo … three people who know nothing of my past?
I’m going to show it to myself. Just prove I saw it … and then figure out who the hell put it there. Because no one in this house is supposed to know my past, but someone obviously does.
SIXTEEN
I left my phone in the kitchen. I’d been texting with Keith right before the séance and set it down when the others called me in. I retrieve it and stride to the dumbwaiter shaft. It opens easily, and I lean in, shining the light down.…
Nothing.
The shaft drops into the darkness of the basement. Clearly there isn’t any newspaper hanging there or lying on the floor below.
I twist to look up, shining my cell phone light, until I can see clear up to the pulley. Nothing’s there.
I back up, and I’m standing in the hall, biting my lip as I think, when I catch a voice, barely above a whisper.
The hairs on my neck rise. A male voice drifts from somewhere in the house.
Anton?
It’s male, but too soft for me to tell anything more.
The voice continues in that whispering undercurrent, just distinct enough that I can follow it. When I reach the basement door, I stop, pivot slowly, and then twist the handle.
Locked.
The voice comes again. It’s farther down, near the back of the house.
I keep following it until I’m approaching the breakfast nook.
There’s a light on in there. A wavering light.
The voice has stopped, but it soon starts again, something between a whisper and a rumble. Undoubtedly male. Undoubtedly not Anton.
Brodie Kilmer?
What if he’s been in our basement this whole time, with a key to sneak up at night.
No, if any of us thought there was an actual chance Brodie Kilmer was still in the house, we’d have taken the door off its hinges to check.
Maybe we should have done that anyway.
I take one careful step toward the breakfast nook and then stop as I see the figure seated at the table. It’s Cirillo, still dressed in his golf shirt, but with his hair messy enough that he looks as if he rolled out of bed. He has glasses on, suggesting he usually wears contacts.
He’s at the table, with all of his equipment. With the photos and mementos.
With my husband’s ashes.
For a moment, even though he’s facing my way, he doesn’t see me. He’s too engrossed in what he’s doing.
Somebody staged that newspaper in the dumbwaiter and lured me in with the creaking of the pulley. Somebody who’d dug deep enough into my background to uncover my past.
Who would be looking into me like that?
The guy I’d hired to contact my dead husband. The researcher who had to be sure I wasn’t some crank out to embarrass him.
So … after setting up that newspaper, he’d now be openly sitting in the breakfast nook talking aloud, where I can find him and wonder why he’s awake?
I can understand Cirillo researching me, but what would be the point of staging that newspaper?
What would be the point of anyone staging it?
I think back to what I experienced.
A newspaper article … just like in Jin’s story about his grandmother.
Dripping blood … just like in that story about Roddy and Sam.
I heard a rope in the pulley … but there isn’t a rope on it.
I saw blood dropping and felt it hit my cheek … but my cheek is clean.
I’m losing it.
I roll my shoulders. No, I’m not. I’m on edge after the séance, and I imagined the article on Patrice and Heather and the dripping blood, because I just dreamed of that séance.
I’d been half asleep, and my imagination took advantage of that susceptible state.
I should talk to Cirillo about it. I know last night’s footsteps in the attic were a hypnagogic hallucination. I should tell him about that and also get his opinion on what just happened with the dumbwaiter. He’s the expert, after all.
I bite my lip again.
I don’t want to tell him.
I don’t trust him.
Part of me scoffs at the thought … but then I look at him, sitting in the dark, with my husband’s ashes, and he might not have had anything to do with the dumbwaiter, but he’s up to something.
I step forward.
He notices me and gives a start. “Nicola.”
“Davos.”
He follows my gaze to the items on the table. “I…”
“Can explain? I’m guessing those are your next words.”
He pushes back his chair. “I wanted to continue the séance.”
“Alone? After telling us it was over? Practically sending us all to bed?”
“It wasn’t like that. I did go to bed, even before you did. I came down about an hour ago.”
“In the middle of the night?” I ease back, trying to look casual. “Did you hear something?”
He seems genuinely confused. “No.” He searches my face. “Is that why you came down?”
“I heard someone talking down here. Seemed to be conducting a séance without me.”
He rubs his mouth. “Sorry. I thought I was being quiet, but Jin did say you have good hearing.”
He tries for a smile. When I don’t return it, he clears his throat. “I came down because I couldn’t sleep. What happened this evening bothered me, and I wanted to try understanding it without the pressure of an audience.”
When I don’t speak, he says, “I don’t know what happened earlier. Nor was I prepared to deal with it.”
He runs a hand through his hair and waves to the chair opposite. I hesitate, not sure I want to move to conversational quite so quickly, but my brain is still spinning from that newspaper—and the realization I’d imagined it. I’m suddenly exhausted.
When I sink into the chair, he continues, “I hate admitting that I don’t understand something I’m supposed to be an expert in. I’m a scientist. To start talking about feeling blocked and sensing something wrong? That’s for the kind of mediums you’ve been dealing with. It’s woo-woo, and I don’t do woo-woo.”
“Okay.”
He holds my gaze, as if searching for something. Then his shoulders slump. “I was an ass earlier, wasn’t I?” When I don’t answer, his lips quirk. “Let me rephrase that as a statement, not a question. I was an ass earlier.”
“Yep.”
He blows out a breath. “I’m not usually…” An inhale. “I was going to say I’m not usually like that, but that’d be a lie. I’m not like that at séances. I’m a professional, and I behave professionally. But this…” He waves around the room. “This is different. I’m excited about it, but I’ve never done this before. I don’t live in a house with my subjects.”
“You’re the one who suggested this arrangement.”
“I wanted to see how spending time in the environment and getting to know the other participants affected the outcome. What I meant is that this isn’t a side of me that clients see. My grad students, though? That might be another story.”
He passes me a quarter smile. “When I first became a thesis advisor, I’d sometimes have one student leaving while the other came in, and there’d be this weird exchange. Not hello or goodbye, but H or J.”
I arch my brows.
“The letter H or J,” he says. “That’s what the one leaving would say to the one coming in. Finally, someone told me what it meant. An ode to Robert Louis Stevenson.”
I think for a moment. Then I say, “Hyde or Jekyll.”
He nods. “They were passing on information about my mood, warning the next student who had to work with me. Ninety percent of the time, the answer was J. But if I’m in a mood, frustrated or irritable, it’s enough of a personality shift to be noticeable. It bothered me that they had to warn each other, even if it was jokingly.”
He locks his hands on the table. “Which is to say that I know I can be an ass. I apologize, and I will try to do better.”
“I wasn’t responsible for what happened earlier.”
He sighs, slumping. “I know, and I snapped at you, which is inexcusable, particularly under these circumstances. I might be excited about the research possibilities, but you are still the client.”
“So I’m in charge?”
He tilts his head with a mock-thoughtful frown. “I wouldn’t quite go that far.”
I give him a hard look. Then I say, “Do you want me to leave you alone while you figure this out?”
He shakes his head. “Whatever I felt earlier is gone.”
“Would it help to continue the séance with me?”
He hesitates. “That would be unethical. Shania and Jin are here to act as observers, which is also for your benefit.”
“Right. But if I waived that…?”
He’s quiet for a moment and then gives a decisive shake of his head. “No. I would regret it later. I want you to have others present.”
“Okay.” I glance at the doorway, ready to go. Instead, I blurt, “I’ve been having experiences.”
Shit! No. Don’t go down that road.
I change direction fast. “Good experiences. I suspect they’re just wishful thinking.”
I tell him about being at the back door, hearing a voice and feeling a hand on my shoulder. Then I tell him about the sitting room tonight—the creaking board, the click of the knob, the moving doll—
“Hold on,” he says, leaning forward, eyes glinting behind his glasses. “May I tape this?”
I frown. “I thought we agreed to a written transcript only?”
“This would just be for my records. I will destroy any recording if you ask me to. As for your experience at the back door, it was … typical.”
“For someone desperate to make contact with a loved one?”
“Yes. Which isn’t to say that it wasn’t real, but the experience in the sitting room is different. May I tape you retelling it?”
“Sure, but I’d like you to remind me that you have the recording, in case I forget. I will probably want it destroyed.”
“I’ll compile a list of any recordings I make—all of which I will receive your consent for—and send them to you later.”
He sets the recorder on the table, moving aside a photo of Anton to do it.
“Can we do this in another room?” I ask. “Or move all this?”
“Certainly.” He makes a move to stand.
“Also, may I ask that you don’t touch his ashes again, please? I know I should have taken them upstairs last night, but please ask me when they need to be moved.”
Color rises on his cheeks. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s fine. I know I’m making it weird.”
“You’re not. It’s perfectly understandable.” He looks at the box. “Cremains mean something different to everyone. My grandfather kept my grandmother’s remains in his closet inside a cookie tin. I was horrified.”
“Did you accidentally open it and take a bite?”
He chokes on a burst of laughter. “Thank God, no, though I did read a story once about a teenager who found a relative’s cremains and thought it was cocaine.”
Now I’m the one trying not to laugh. Then I look at the box. “I don’t think of that as Anton. His wedding ring means more to me. His ugly class ring means more. The closet of clothing I haven’t cleared means more. This is…” I finger the box. “A responsibility. I haven’t decided what I’m doing with them yet, but it feels like the one last thing I can do for him. Find the right place for his remains.”
“I hear good things about closets. He liked shortbread, right? They make some lovely shortbread tins.”
“You laugh, but Anton would approve. He’d probably also make some really juvenile joke about storing his remains in my panty drawer.”
“Seems reasonable to me.”
I stand with the box. “We’re both tired and a little giddy. Let’s get this recording done before we wake the others.” I glance through the doorway. “The sitting room would be appropriate, if that works.”
“It does.”
* * *
I put the cremains box on a bookshelf in the sitting room and ask Cirillo to remind me it’s there. That’s what I think of it as. “The box” or “the cremains box.” I’m not putting Anton on a shelf. I’m certainly not putting the last mortal remains of my husband on a shelf.
I explain what happened here. First I tell the story. Then I reenact it—getting up and standing in the doorway, proving no one could have slipped in behind me. I show exactly how the doll had been sitting when I was reading and how her head was turned when I sat down.
“And that was a thing Anton did?” Cirillo prods. “Moving around the dolls?”
“We both did it. Just being funny. He did more of it, though, and this doll was his favorite because of the red hair.”
I add for the recording, “I also have red hair. He named the doll Laura Ingalls, because of the pioneer outfit and pigtails. Also the hair, but I pointed out that the character had brown hair and he was probably confusing her with Anne of Green Gables. We kept it as Laura, though.”
