When Pandora Feeney had lived at Valley View, and Leona Gatto, too, they’d used the small study off the front parlor for psychic readings. It’s suitably private if you close the curtained French doors and draw the window shades.
Bella rarely does either of those things. She’d transformed the space into a bright and cheerful office space, with creamy yellow walls, blue-and-white window-seat cushions, a large desk, and a comfortable leather reading chair.
Guests are welcome to use the desktop computer, print boarding passes, and use the landline to call for appointments with registered mediums. Last week, after the local phone directory had disappeared yet again from her desk, she’d compiled a list of mediums’ names and numbers on cardstock and displayed it beside the phone in a large picture frame.
Predictably, that had sparked a squabble among her closest friends. Odelia was miffed to find herself halfway down the directory instead of at the top.
‘Why is Andy Brighton at the top of the list? He lives way across the Dale. Don’t you think I should be first, Bella? I’m the most conveniently located.’
‘Well, I’m only two doors down,’ Misty Starr had pointed out. ‘And I’m way at the bottom.’
‘Neither of you refinished these floors on your hands and knees?’ Pandora said. ‘It was a dreadful task. My back has never been the same.’
Odelia scowled. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘I should be at the top of the list. Andy Brighton never contributed a thing to Valley View.’
Bella threw up her hands. ‘It’s alphabetical, ladies.’
‘Then I should be above Odelia and Pandora,’ Misty said. ‘M comes before O and P.’
‘Alphabetical by last name!’ Bella said. ‘But either way, Andy Brighton would still come first.’
But Misty wasn’t letting it go. ‘Starr is just my professional name. My legal last name is Arden.’
‘I thought it was Grzeszkiewicz,’ Odelia said.
‘That’s my maiden name. But either way, if it’s alphabetical by last name, I’d be before you.’
It was one of the more exasperating conversations Bella had ever experienced – which is really saying something, because most are, when those three women are in a room together.
She’s spent the last hour catching up on paperwork and preparing for Grant’s visit as if she were still a teacher and working on a lesson plan.
She’s created a spreadsheet on the desktop computer, referring to the notes she’s been scribbling on a legal pad all summer – things like: Need new fridge – check Labor Day sales for a good deal? and Third-floor ceiling leak worse – time to schedule roofers.
Every so often, she leans in toward the big box fan spinning in the window. It’s a futile attempt to cool off. Even on the highest speed, the blades merely move hot air around.
Ordinarily, Valley View’s high ceilings and plaster walls tend to keep the rooms comfortable even in warm weather, but not today. The house has grown more oppressive as the afternoon wears on. The sticky heat seems to have smothered the homey scents that had welcomed her last night. Today, the place smells of damp wood and a hint of basement mildew wafting up from below the hardwoods – perhaps down from the water-damaged third floor as well.
Heavy-duty dehumidifiers might be a good idea, she decides, adding that to the spreadsheet.
And maybe it’s time to replace some of the overhead lights with ceiling fans. Not on the first floor, where the vintage fixtures enhance the period ambiance. Nor on the third, where the ceilings are too low. But certainly in the second-floor guest rooms.
She wipes a trickle of sweat from her forehead, then saves the spreadsheet file and closes the program. She can continue working on it in another room, or outdoors.
She grabs the legal pad and a pen and opens a drawer to retrieve her laptop.
It sits alongside a stack of bills she’d rubber-banded to her checkbook and flagged with a Post-it note that reads simply: To Be Paid.
They’re remnants of her old life, with Sam. Mostly astronomical medical bills for doctors and treatments that hadn’t saved his life, along with credit card debt they’d accumulated when he’d gotten sick, and collection notices for unpaid utilities back in Bedford.
Every month, she triages the bills and sends what she can manage to spare, but it’s going to be years, likely decades, before it’s all paid off.
Her eyes go to the envelope Millicent had handed her yesterday morning. It’s sitting on the desk beneath a glass paperweight, a reminder that she needs to deposit the check in the bank that holds Max’s college fund, though she doesn’t even know where the nearest branch is located.
Two hundred thousand dollars would make a huge dent in Bella’s debt. But of course, that’s not what it’s meant to be used for. And Millicent doesn’t know about it.
Throughout their marriage, Sam had been steadfast in his refusal to ask his wealthy mother for help. Even after he got sick. Especially after he got sick.
It’s so hard to look at that envelope Millicent had given her and not be tempted to use that money – at least some of it – to dig out of this financial hole.
But it isn’t Bella’s money, and of course she’s not going to touch it. She grabs the stack of bills along with the laptop and leaves the room.
She steps over Chance and Spidey, sprawled in the doorway between the parlor and the entry hall. Ordinarily, they prefer to nap on a sunny window seat, and ordinarily, Chance might rouse herself to follow Bella around, keeping her company or perhaps keeping an eye on her.
Today, she opens one eye to glance up as Bella passes, then closes it again.
‘Some watchcat you are today. But it’s all right, Chance. Everything is fine.’
The house is quiet and feels empty, though earlier, she’d heard someone come in and head up to the third floor. Whoever it was has yet to come back down.
Out on the porch, Bella settles on the cushioned swing and waits for the computer to boot up. It’s an ancient model and always takes a few minutes to come to life, but today it, like everything else, seems extra-sluggish.
When it rumbles to life, she goes to the website for the bank that has Max’s college savings account. She hasn’t checked it in ages, but luckily, she’d auto-saved the username and password, and they still work.
The balance has increased with interest payments, and is about to skyrocket, thanks to Millicent. Bella looks up the nearest bank branch where she can make the deposit and finds that it’s in Buffalo. She’ll have to find time in the next day or two to make that two-hour round-trip excursion so that this money can start earning interest right away.
The thick air hums with insects, air conditioners, and an invisible jet soaring high overhead, reminding her again of the airport. The golden car. Sam.
She glances up at the motionless wind chimes hanging from the porch eaves. A spider is spinning an intricate web from the lowest glass angel to a hanging basket of purple petunias that look as wilted and straggly as Bella feels.
Jutting her lower lip and exhaling in a futile attempt to stir the damp hair stuck to her forehead, she scrawls on the legal pad, Get an estimate for central air conditioning?
Grant might be receptive if the heatwave persists into his visit. The Gable Room is up on the third floor with a sunny southern exposure. Then again, the ceiling there is badly stained from the failing roof, a reminder that replacing it is the top priority.
Maybe that’s the big change Pandora says is coming to Valley View. A new roof, or the new furnace that needs to be installed before winter sets in – though in this particular moment, she can’t remember what it’s like to feel cold.
She crosses out the note about central air and jots instead, Look into window A/C units for guest rooms.
Before going back to the spreadsheet file she’d saved to the cloud, she should check prices on window air conditioners. Maybe there’s a local appliance store offering late season clearance models.
She opens a search window. Her most recent query is right at the top, synced from her cell phone’s history: Strangers who look alike.
She enters it again, and rereads the first article, then the next few. They’re filled with evidence – scientific, mathematic, statistical, genetic – that most people in the world have at least one lookalike among strangers. This is mainly attributed to a shared variation in a specific DNA sequence.
Having taught genetics – on a middle school level, but still – Bella is familiar with the single nucleotide polymorphism sequence, though primarily as it relates to medical research. Now, it’s cited in a number of compelling studies on ‘virtual twins’ – biologically unrelated people who are physically identical.
It makes sense.
Then she comes across a piece that chills her to the bone.
It isn’t about virtual twins, but about evil twins, also called doppelgängers. That phrase had originated in German folklore, but the mythology behind it goes back to ancient civilization. It was believed that these were apparitions, or spirit doubles, and thus soulless replications of a living person. Seeing one was considered to be a bad omen, and—
Bella closes the screen.
If she wants to know about bad omens, she can read a horror novel or watch a scary movie.
This is real life.
Her life.
And it’s not as though the incident had even occurred here in the Dale, where – depending on what you believe – you might be more open to accepting that something paranormal might have occurred.
Bella prefers the scientific explanations.
Only, those don’t account for the fact that a total stranger at the airport wouldn’t have been looking at her and Max the way this person had been.
No. It wasn’t even that he was looking at them.
It almost felt as though he was looking for them.
A stranger wouldn’t do that.
Nor would a stranger sit parked outside Millicent’s apartment building on a scorching afternoon.
She must have imagined it.
All of it. She believes in science, not—
Hearing a familiar tinkling sound, she goes still, breath caught in her throat, afraid to look up.
When she does, she sees that the wind chimes are motionless. The spider’s intricate silken web remains intact.
She stares at it for a long time, thinking about Sam – about how she and Max had both seen him.
Something strange is going on. Something …
Evil?
She opens a new search window and starts typing D-O-P-P—
‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’
She quickly deletes it.