The seven rings, p.6
The Seven Rings, page 6
While Cleo walked down to her studio, Sonya continued up to the attic.
Daunting was her first thought when she scanned the large and crowded area. And hadn’t she put off really dealing with it for that very reason?
“Pick something,” she told herself. “Start.”
She chose what she thought Cleo would call a chifforobe. And a huge piece Owen would, no doubt, identify by period and type of wood.
She opened the doors first. And found absolutely nothing.
One side had a series of drawers. All empty. As were the two larger drawers at the bottom.
She closed the drawers, put a sticky note on one of the doors.
Still, maybe she’d move the piece down to one of the bedrooms. Once the house was fully hers—with no Hester Dobbs looming.
“It makes a statement.”
She moved on. Nightstands, a small dresser, an elegant little slant-top desk.
She backtracked, and instead of just leaving the notes, wrote possible destinations for each piece.
She started to move through to the trunks for a change of pace, then pulled off one more dustcover.
Another desk. Handsome, she thought, and just a little feminine with the way it curved. Drawers in both sides, one in the middle. She’d need Owen for the type of wood, but it had a kind of brindle finish to her eye.
Like Yoda.
She opened a drawer, and to her surprise found a box of stationery. The pale pink pages had a flowing script header.
Miss Lisbeth Anne Poole
“Lissy,” she whispered. “This was your desk. You sat here, right here, writing letters. And surely dreaming of your wedding day.”
Sonya lifted out the stationery, set it on top of the desk, opened another drawer.
“Oh! They never cleaned it out. Owen and Moira. Couldn’t bear it, I guess.”
She found notepaper where Lisbeth had drawn hearts with her name and Edward’s inside. With their initials inside. Where she’d practiced writing Mrs. Edward Whitmore, Lisbeth Poole Whitmore in perfect cursive.
She found hairpins and clips, pencils, a fountain pen and a bottle of ink. A small box holding theater stubs, playbills, a pretty pink stone.
Then the photographs. A framed one of Lisbeth and the young man Sonya recognized as Edward in a tarnished silver frame. One of Lisbeth with her parents, one with friends—Sonya recognized the woman who’d been in the music room the night she’d seen them. The woman in the blue dress.
“We’ll keep your things, Lissy. We’ll polish the picture frame and set it out. And we’ll use the desk. It’s going in the guest office.”
She noted it on the sticky note, started to move on.
One of the dustcovers slid to the floor.
“I see. Thanks.” She wound her way to the chair, one with that same finish and an inlaid fabric pad with pastel pink and blue flowers.
“It’s perfect, of course it is. This is her desk chair.”
As she ran a hand over its back, she felt the pull.
And saw she now stood in front of the mirror. The glass blurred with color, and she heard music. Something tinny and far, far away.
“Now? Here?” She looked back, wishing for Cleo, but the pull proved too strong.
“All right, all right. I want answers, so…”
She took a breath; she stepped through the glass.
Someone sang about hearing a nightingale’s song.
Sonya felt dizzy, out of place, everything stayed blurred, but the voice singing: I’ll be warbling love’s old sweet tune.
Then she heard a voice, young, bright, join the other.
In the valley of the moon.
And her vision cleared.
Not the attic, but the desk and the chair. And Lisbeth Anne Poole. Lissy singing along with a record on a small Victrola as she filled her fountain pen with ink.
She wore a green dress—it might have been velvet. Long sleeves, a nipped-in waist. Her hair, tied loosely with a green ribbon, spilled down her back as she sat at the desk in a bedroom with wallpaper of big, rosy pink flowers that faced the gardens and the woods.
But snow fell, thick and steady, beyond the windows, and a fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth.
Stepping closer, Sonya caught her scent—young, sweet, floral—as Lisbeth began to write.
Dearest Dina,
You won’t believe it! I hardly believe it myself.
I’m engaged!
Edward took me on an afternoon sleigh ride. It’s snowing to beat the band here, and we had such a time with the horses prancing, their bells jingling! Everything was so white and pretty.
Then he stopped, and he took my hands, and he kissed them both.
Oh, Dina, my heart just flew!
He said he loved me, that I had his heart in my hands. He promised to love me to his last breath and beyond.
Can you imagine?
Then he took the ring out of his pocket—oh, it’s a pip, Dina—and he said: Marry me, please, Lissy. I think I’ll die if you won’t.
I was laughing and crying and pulling off my glove.
Yes, yes, yes! I don’t know how many times I said yes, but I couldn’t stop. At least I couldn’t until he kissed me.
With the snow falling all around us, he kissed me. Oh, my heart, Dina, my heart!
I love him so very much.
Edward had already gotten Papa’s permission, of course. When we got home, Mama and Papa had champagne waiting to toast us. They love Edward, too. I am the luckiest girl in the world!
They’re going to throw us an engagement bash of bashes here at the manor. You must come. Say you’ll be in my wedding party, won’t you? Oh, I don’t know how I’ll wait to be Edward’s bride.
Do come for the party, Dina, my dearest friend, and stay a few days at least.
The party’s in three weeks, and you must come! Write back soon.
Your happy friend and bride-to-be,
Lissy
Taking an envelope, she wrote out a name, an address, and humming to herself, folded the letter into it.
Smiling, she held up her left hand to admire the sparkle of her engagement ring.
“Oh, Edward.” She sighed and pressed her right hand to her heart. “We’ll be so happy, forever and ever.”
Then she shifted in her chair, looked around, looked at Sonya.
“Who’s there? Is someone there?”
And shivering, she rubbed her arms as if chilled.
She doesn’t see me, Sonya realized—not like the night in the music room. But she senses me, feels me.
And something else.
Something cold, something dark, like a shadow suddenly blanketing the room.
Dobbs, somehow here, watching, Sonya thought, as she, too, watched.
“You can’t scare me today! Not one bit.”
But she got up quickly and, taking the letter, hurried from the room.
The shadow stayed, and the cold with it. Then seemed to drift out the door.
Sonya stepped over, laid a hand on the desk.
Then she turned and went back through the mirror.
Everything tilted and went gray.
Arms grabbed her, pulled her in.
“Sonya, oh God. You weren’t here, but the mirror was. You’re cold, and Jesus, so pale.”
“I’m okay, almost. Need to sit.”
She braced a hand on the chair, sat. And Cleo knelt in front of her.
“It wasn’t like it’s been before, exactly. It didn’t take me here. I mean, I didn’t go back and stay in the attic. Maybe that’s why I feel more off.”
“Let me help you downstairs. You can lie down. I’ll get you some water.”
“No, no, it’s passing. It was the desk, this chair. I went where they were. They were Lissy’s. I went to Lissy’s room. Deep pink flowered wallpaper, windows facing the garden. Her room.”
“You can tell me, but let’s go downstairs anyway. Your color’s better. I bet you could use some air.”
“Yeah, I could.”
She got up, but didn’t mind the support of Cleo’s arm around her waist.
“I took longer than I thought,” Cleo began, “then I went down to stir the sauce again, let the pets out. When I came up, I saw the mirror, and I knew you’d gone through.”
“I can’t stop myself.”
“I know.”
“I saw Lissy. She was writing a letter to a friend. The same stationery I found in the desk. She’d just gotten engaged. She was so happy.
“Let’s go out front. I want the sea.”
When they went out the front, the air whisked away any trace of dizziness.
“I found things in the desk—her things. Photographs, too. And I thought how we’d use that desk and chair for the guest office. Then … then the mirror was just there.”
Sitting on the seawall, with the dog racing joyfully to join them, Sonya told Cleo the rest.
“She felt you.”
“I think so, yeah. Me at first, then Dobbs. Because at first she just looked puzzled, you know? Then she looked shaken. I felt Dobbs, too. I wonder, did she feel me?”
Sonya looked up at the windows of the Gold Room.
“I hope she did. I hope it worries her. I’m fine now. I guess you didn’t notice the desk.”
“Not really, no.”
“It’s beautiful and it’s perfect. I think I was meant to find it, and find her things in it. Hairpins, ticket stubs, photographs.”
Clover tried Tom Petty’s “American Girl.”
“Yeah, she was.” And for some reason the song, the connection made Sonya smile again. “Probably very typical for her age and time. Something very sweet about her, with some sass built in.”
She glanced over as she heard the sound of a truck coming.
“It’s Trey. I guess I have a story to tell again.”
She got up and trailed behind Yoda’s joyous run, and the happy wrestling match when Mookie leaped out of the truck.
“Owen’s a couple minutes behind me.”
He leaned down, kissed Sonya. “How’d the day go?”
“Productive, and with some mirror time at the end. Don’t jump to worry.” She lifted a hand to his cheek.
“Too late.”
“I’m here, I’m fine, and I learned a little bit more.”
“I’m calling for cocktails on the deck. I’m making my mama’s serious lemonade—it includes gin. Trust me on it,” Cleo added. “Go on around back, and I’ll bring out adult beverages.”
When Cleo walked off, Trey took Sonya’s face in his hands and gave it a long look.
In response, she batted her lashes.
“You’re okay,” he decided.
“Actually, I’d rather go through the mirror than face off against a smoke wolf.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?”
“Why not?”
Hand in hand, they began to stroll.
“When I go through, I see something to put in the file.” She tapped the side of her head with her free hand. “Or hear, or feel or learn. And I did. Since Owen’s on his way, I’ll wait and tell you both. And how did your day go?”
“Productive. Busy and productive, so I’m going to enjoy that adult beverage and a weekend without clients.”
“Problematic ones?”
Since she obviously wanted the distraction, he obliged her.
“Well, there’s the one who brought in a list of changes to her will, most of which negate the changes she made to her will about three months ago and refer back to changes made maybe six months before that.”
“And there’ll be a list coming in another few months?”
“Oh, absolutely.” He said it with a kind of cheerful acceptance that Sonya thought all but defined him. “What’s your productive?”
“Updates, testing, working up the package for Bay Arts. And finishing my mood board for the Ryder additions—and their approval of same.”
With the dogs racing in the yard, and Pye climbing onto her favorite perch on the mansard roof of Yoda’s doghouse, they walked up to the deck.
“We should have wardrobe by the end of next week.”
Reading his expression, she laughed and hugged him. “It really won’t hurt, and it’ll be quick. Your mom’s so good.”
“I’m not going to ask what I’m wearing because I don’t want to think about it.”
“Then we’ll move on. Cleo dropped the photos we put together last night at Poole Shipbuilders, for Clarice. And after work I started in the attic, and found more.”
She watched the dogs bullet toward the front of the house seconds before she heard the truck. Cleo came out with a tray holding four glasses.
“I remember that lemonade,” Sonya said. “Owen just drove up.”
“It’s memorable. I texted for Owen’s ETA before I started mixing. He said five minutes. And I said: ‘No beer, come to the deck.’”
After stepping up and onto the deck, Cleo set the tray down.
“The perfect summer cocktail at the perfect spot on a perfect evening.”
The dogs raced back; eye-patched Jones strutted. Owen followed, and sent an aggrieved look at the group on the deck.
“Why can’t a man have a Friday night beer?”
“Because you’re going to have a Friday night cocktail. And if you don’t like it, you can go get your prosaic old beer.”
When he stepped onto the deck, Cleo handed him the fourth glass. He frowned at it.
“There’s basil in here.”
“And mulled strawberries, and gin added to lemonade. You can knock it, but not until you’ve tried it.”
He took a sip, then shrugged. “It’s not bad.”
“That’ll do.” Cleo sat.
“Sonya went through the mirror,” Trey told him.
Owen looked at Sonya. “You okay? You look okay.”
“I’m definitely okay. Sit, relax. I’ll tell you. I decided to start the serious search in the attic. I’m marking pieces I’ve been through with sticky notes. Cleo, I didn’t tell you about this gorgeous chifforobe. I think it’s a chifforobe. We’ll want that downstairs.”
“So it begins,” Owen muttered.
“It’s never going to end in this house,” Trey added.
And there, she thought, that (almost) cheerful acceptance.
“But the real find was the desk and desk chair. I want you to take a look at it, Owen. You’ll know what it is, besides beautiful. I was thinking of it for the guest office, but now? I’d love to put it back in Lissy’s room, if I can find her room. The wallpaper … I didn’t recognize it.”
She held up a hand. “And I’m getting ahead of myself. I know it was Lissy’s desk because I found some of her things in it. Writing paper, hairpins, photographs, and so on. Then someone helpfully pulled the dustcover off the chair that goes with it.”
She took a drink. “Then, the mirror was there. Just there, and I had to go through.”
She told them all she’d seen and heard and felt.
“She didn’t see you like she did that night in the music room?”
“No.” She shook her head at Trey, then turned to Owen. “I was the ghost, like we were at Lissy’s wedding.”
“More, she didn’t see Dobbs, and neither did you,” Trey continued. “But you felt her, and you think Lisbeth felt her, too.”
“I’m sure of it. It got cold, and dark. I don’t mean the light changed, but the air, it just felt dark, dark and heavy, where it hadn’t.”
“Sonya was really pale and shaken when she came out. I was on the point of texting both of you when she did,” Cleo told them. “I didn’t know how long she’d been in there, over there. Whatever the hell it is.”
“I always feel a little off for a minute after, but this was more—going in and coming out.”
“Because you didn’t stay in the attic. You didn’t go just back, you went where the desk was.”
“Yes!” Pleased and relieved he understood, Sonya reached over to squeeze Trey’s hand.
“I want to see this desk.” Owen got to his feet. “In the attic, and uncovered, right?”
“Go on up, the three of you.” Cleo rose. “I’ve got a couple of things to do for dinner. We can eat when you get back. Go show him, Sonya. Bring Lissy’s stuff back down, and we can take a look at it after dinner. I left the boxes up there.”
Jones, as always, went with Owen. The other four-legged creatures decided to tag along.
Owen stopped in the kitchen to sniff at the simmering sauce. “Smells good, but it doesn’t look like pulled pork.”
“That’s for tomorrow.” Cleo smiled, and made it sultry. “We have plans for you.”
“Chifforobes,” he muttered, and kept going.
“Probably not.” Sonya patted his shoulder. “It’s huge, and I don’t know where I want it yet.”
When they reached the library, Trey turned in. “Hold on a minute.” Walking over, he studied the mood board, hissed out a breath. “This is one time I wish you weren’t so damn good at what you do. So I’m still not going to think about it.”
Owen took another moment. “We keep the gear?”
“You keep the gear.”
“Good deal.”
They continued up.
“If you don’t count the wolf, she’s been pretty quiet. And that was a quick, if intense, scare.”
“You said it poofed when Yoda and the cat went at it.”
She nodded at Trey. “That’s right.”
“That tells me the illusion can’t stand up to a fight.”
“Yet,” Owen added.
“Yet.”
They all paused on the third floor, and the sound of a staticky hum.
“No, you don’t.” Owen bent down and picked up the cat as she started down the hall. “Almira Gulch is in there, brooding and plotting.”
“Almira who?”
Owen glanced at Sonya. “Wizard of Oz. Margaret Hamilton rocked the old Kansas biddy and the Wicked Witch of the West.”
He carried the cat up the steps and made the turn into the attic, then set her down.
“That chifforobe? She’s a monster, and a beauty. Cherrywood,” he told Sonya. “Probably late eighteen hundreds.”
“Needs a big room.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“That’s the desk?” Trey pointed. “And the chair. That’s burl wood, right, Owen?”
