17

The light in the room had changed. It was brighter, each object glowing. There was a sweet flavor in my mouth.

I let myself linger at the door to my bedroom, and to my amazement the jamb gave at my touch. It was impossible. Surely it was only in my mind. But the doorway was alive, composed of sensate flesh, taking pleasure as I brushed through it and hurried to the top of the stairs.

It was a rare moment: I wished I owned a gun.

I told myself to go back this moment and call Fern. Tell him—

Tell him what?

There was a fluttering, and a waft of air touched me as I stood, gazing down the almost perfect darkness of the stairwell.

I told myself to stay right where I was and think for a moment. Think about what was happening. Too much champagne? Or something else. Something chemical slipped into the victory bubbly, a little hallucinatory juice to speed the revel?

But there was no question about it. There really was someone downstairs. Were they stealing something? I listened, but there was only the whisper, as of a blanket shaken, a flag rippling. Perhaps it was not a person at all, but some creature.

I began my descent.

There was a source of light preceding me, slipping down each gleaming stair. I stopped. I clung to the banister. I told myself to stay where I was.

Call someone, I thought. Get Fern on his car phone and tell him he was right. Call the police.

I glided to the doorway of the study. The light was in there. Why wait, I asked myself. Why stand here in your own house, afraid to make a move? Go on in.

Someone is looking for the family treasure. Everyone assumes that’s what you have here, I told myself. Platinum and the kind of old gold that reminds the eye of sunset. Everyone knows that’s what you have, in a wall safe, or just sitting on shelves, so much bric-a-brac.

If there were thieves I wanted to confront them myself.

I stepped into the room.

The light was only a fire in the fireplace. Nothing more. Flames snapped. The shivering light made the shadows of the shrouded furniture tremble. Perhaps Collie had lit a fire, and left it. The floor seemed to tremble.

My feet crunched the glaze of plaster dust on the koa-wood boards. A plastic dust cover crackled as I leaned against a bookshelf. The woodsmoke was fragrant, the scent of mature cedar.

Just as a feeling of domestic calm was beginning to allow me to enjoy the fire, there was a gentle movement against a wall.

I turned, ready to seize the poker.

There in the shadows was the figure of a woman. Her gown rustled across the dust floor. She was easier to see as she approached the firelight and stood before me, looking into my eyes. I recognized her. She was the remarkable woman who had attended the reception. I was happy enough to see her, and at the same time felt that she should not be where she was.

Her eyes were dark. They reflected the fire.

My voice startled me. “How did you get in?”

She offered only silence. She was stunning, and as awestruck as I was at the sight of her I was also aware of a mild sense of outrage. She was trespassing. The thought had the weight of moral authority—she should not be here.

I took a step back to get a better view of her, and to sense whether she had any companions. I had the further sensation that we knew each other well, as though this woman were an old and treasured friend whom I had forgotten until this night.

I heard only the snap of the fire. “Are you alone?”

She still kept her silence, but her gaze was searching, and there was another impression I had as she looked upon me, studying me.

“Forgive me for being blunt,” I said, my voice calm now. “But now and then I meet someone who means harm. There are people who for one reason or another are dangerous.”

I did not have to ask the question explicitly: What sort of person are you?

Her hand was on my arm. “You must believe in me now,” she said.

I hesitated for an instant. She had answered my question, perhaps without knowing it. I knew how to handle this: I would humor her. She must be an eccentric, or deranged. She was unsettling, but there was no need to be unkind. “I never doubted,” I said.

“You must begin to understand what I can do for you.”

I realized that I had not entirely understood her first remark. Or perhaps I had. It is wise to be polite until it’s clear that courtesy is useless. “I can’t tell you how happy I am tonight,” I said, attempting to keep the conversation on solid footing.

“This does change everything for you, doesn’t it?”

I tried to turn away and stir the fire, but she kept her hand on my arm. “It does indeed.”

“It gives you—a future.”

She used the word future as though she did not quite believe in it herself. I agreed that I supposed it did accomplish just that, but she lifted a finger to silence me and smiled.

I continued my course of using hospitality as a form of self-defense, at least until I figured out what else to do. “May I offer you something?” I said. When she did not make a sound, I added, “A drink?”

“I see that you don’t quite understand me.”

My eyes must have communicated a question, for she answered what I had not asked. “I am an old friend,” she said.

For an instant I believed her. Then I wished that I had Nona with me to overhear such an outrageous and yet strangely plausible remark. “I’m sorry this room is such a mess,” I said.

“You got my gift.”

I watched the firelight in her eyes.

“The feather,” she said.

Some power in me kept me steady. I laughed, self-consciously, but I was not at all comfortable. I made it sound easy. “Who are you, really?”

“But surely you have guessed by now,” said the charming woman, both elegant and oddly out-of-date in her gown.

“I’m afraid,” I said, “that you are the most puzzling creature I have ever met.”

She laughed. I had once known a soprano, one of my first loves, with such a laugh, only perhaps not as musical. “You are happy, aren’t you?”

I glanced around, hoping to be rescued by some idle activity, sweeping ash from the hearth or arranging a book on a shelf.

She said, “Of course you’re unsure of yourself.”

There was something else going on here, something I could not guess. Perhaps she intended us to be lovers. I found it hard to breathe. “I wish that I could say I understand what you are talking about.”

“It’s not difficult to comprehend.”

Deepest puzzlement kept me from speaking for an instant. “I really must have had too much champagne.”

“You have to decide what you are going to do next.”

I tried to caution myself against talking to her. “Regarding what?”

“You can’t leave things as they are.”

Ask her to leave. Now. “I’ll begin getting real commissions,” I said. “I’ll have a career, not just a string of minor contracts. Things will be fine.”

“You’ll need help.”

Who was she?

But I responded to her statement with a gesture. Maybe I would need help, and maybe not.

“Tell me what you want,” she said.

The thing to do, I warned myself, is to stop talking to her. Now. I stepped away, and glanced around. “I have what I want. Really.”

“I trust you, Stratton.”

For some reason this remark took my breath away, perhaps because she had used my name.

Of course she knows your name, I told myself. But you certainly do not know hers.

She continued, “Let all the harm that has fallen you cease, from this point on.”

“Yes, that would be a pleasant thought, wouldn’t it?” I did not want to hear any more.

And yet I could not break away from her eyes, the sound of her voice. I did, indeed, want to drink in more of her words. She touched me once again lightly on the arm. I shrank back, and she withdrew her hand, saying, “You’ve always wanted our help.”

“I’m afraid you’re confusing me.”

“I think not.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“But you do.”

My lips were stiff.

“You are right,” she said, “to be afraid.”

I was past thinking that my alluring visitor was mad. I could not make any sense of her at all. I tried to clear my throat, to speak, to behave as though reality made sense to me.

“You knew,” she said, “exactly what you wanted, and now you have it. You asked for our help, and we helped you.”

My mouth was dry. “What are you doing here?” This was the tone I used with nuisance-suit lawyers, with photographers outside nightclubs at two in the morning.

“We know you so well.”

Don’t waste your time talking to this creature, I told myself. Make a telephone call and get her out of here. I bowed, as I would to any aristocratic madwoman at a time like this, preparing to take my leave.

“It’s too late for that, Stratton.”

“Too late to ask for help?” I couldn’t laugh. I felt queasy. “Thank you for coming tonight,” I said. “It was wonderful to see you.”

That was truthful enough. I knew her from somewhere, some hidden part of my life. She was familiar, a sibling I had never had. She smiled. “Your enemies are ours.”

“I don’t,” I said, as smoothly as I could, “have any enemies.”

She laughed softly, and slipped toward me. She lifted her lips to my ear. Her breath was warm. “Tell us what to do.”

I could not keep myself from moving away from her.

“You know how,” she smiled.

I brushed against a side table. A vase fell and burst on the floor. The sound made me bite my lips. When I turned back to look at her, I blinked and took a few steps forward.

She was gone.

It was impossible. No one could leave so quickly.

I hurried into the hall and tried the front door, which was latched and solidly locked. I searched from room to room, until I began to be convinced that I had never received a visit at all that night.

Surely that was the explanation. I had been experiencing a vivid fantasy, a waking dream.

But this was a disturbing thought. I stayed by the fire, letting the warmth knead me into a more settled frame of mind. I gradually convinced myself that I had endured a brief interview with a very unusual visitor, and that my shock at the shattering of the vase had rendered me unable to hear her leave.

But I did not want to go upstairs, into the even deeper solitude of the dark.