Christy had left a lamp burning beside her bed, and she’d closed the curtains against the black night outside. She had just fallen into a light, uneasy doze when Nona tapped on her door. Some insistent dream took wing and Christy was glad to see it go. She sat up with a sudden awareness of the wooded hill that dropped steeply down behind this house—to the stream near which Deirdre’s scarf had been found.
“Are you asleep?” Nona called softly.
“I’m awake. You’d better come in.”
She wanted no more stirring of those dark mists tonight, but Nona couldn’t be sent away. Lili’s force, that dynamic energy she could summon, had been frightening. Lili knew—something. So it was best if Christy told her aunt at once that she must leave tomorrow. Redlands was no longer safe for her.
Nona had put on a quilted yellow robe and her short, spiky hair gave her an air of alarm—though she seemed calm enough outwardly. She had brought a tray with glasses of hot milk and wheat wafers on a flowered plate. Her sharp features seemed softened by lamplight, and she looked safe and familiar to Christy, who could remember all the times when Nona had brought hot milk at bedtime to heal the upsets of the day.
“I’m sorry about everything that happened tonight,” Nona said, helping Christy to sit up and take a glass, as though she were still a little girl. “It was all too sudden, and I shouldn’t have pulled you in. Tomorrow night we’ll keep for ourselves.”
“I won’t be here tomorrow night,” Christy told her. “You heard Lili. For once I must listen to her. I must leave as soon as I can.”
Nona sat down and sipped from her own glass. “If that’s the way you feel, of course you must go. Though I’d hoped for a longer visit. I’d even hoped that you could help me. My work’s been taking a strange turn lately, and your perception—”
“How could I help anyone when I can’t help myself?”
Nona puzzled aloud, “Sometimes I seem to put more into my paintings than I expect. I even have the feeling sometimes that I’m trying to tell myself something.”
She sounded so uneasy that Christy began to pay attention. “What could I do that might help?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps I thought you might find an answer if you studied one or two of the paintings that trouble me. There’s one I did of Deirdre in the woods—one you haven’t seen—that seems especially insistent whenever I look at it. As though it were trying to tell me something—though it came out of my own consciousness and from my own brush.”
“Perhaps I can look at it in the morning before I leave.” Hot milk had soothed Christy and made her a little sleepy. But before she could settle down on her pillow, Nona went on.
“If there’s anything there, I suppose it will surface eventually, one way or another. After you left, Christy, Victor Birdcall showed up. I suspect he’d been watching us from outside, and he seemed concerned about Deirdre’s scarf, and the way you ran off. He told us in that prophet’s voice he sometimes adopts to let Deirdre go. He said she was never of this earth—only loaned to us for a little while. So it would be best not to look for whatever remains of her. If there’s a great stir and much suffering, it might draw her back to this earthly plane—and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.”
“How did Hayden Mitchell react to that?”
“He didn’t, outwardly. There’s a lot of deep, angry emotion there, and he just sits on the lid. I’m not sure of its cause. He holds back so much that sometimes I’m afraid there’ll be an explosion.”
Christy was glad she wouldn’t be here long enough to see the outcome of any of this. All her hopes for peace and safety had vanished, and she knew she must escape before that darker shadow that pursued her made itself known. She’d sensed at once that the threat was connected with Hayden.
“What happened after that?”
“Oliver laughed. Hayden said nothing at all—and even his silence can be upsetting. Sometimes I wish he would let go.”
“And Eve?”
“She stayed out of it for once, though I think she was annoyed with Oliver for laughing. She thinks Victor is up to no good, and that we all ought to take him more seriously. There’s some interesting background that I haven’t told you about Eve and Rose. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, since you’re leaving.”
The sleepiness was passing as they talked. “You might as well tell me now. You’re dying to gossip.”
Nona grinned. “You know me too well. All right—it’s a bit of a story. Eve and Rose were friends as children. Their families had neighboring farms here in Nelson County. Rose’s father raised horses, so she rode a lot as a young girl. Eve would come to ride with her. They went to the university together in Charlottesville, where they separated for a while because they were taking different courses. Oliver Vaughn was a young professor in one of Eve’s classes, and I think they became what is called involved. Oliver is only a little older. They were going to be married when Eve finished school. Only she made the mistake of introducing him to Rose—and that was that. Rose was beautiful and warm and utterly trusting. Eve could hold her own with Oliver, and still does, but Rose looked up to him in a way he couldn’t resist. There’s a vanity in the man I’ve never liked. Anyway, he fell in love with Rose and whatever he had with Eve was over.”
“How did she take it?”
“I guess she tried to talk Rose out of marrying him. She knew Oliver pretty well, and she knew Rose could never handle him. But Rose was always ready to forgive Oliver anything. She would bear with his sullen moods and be comforting and admiring. So of course she was the one he had to have. I saw her in tears a few times when we were working on Red Road together, so I don’t think she was entirely happy. Strangely enough, Eve and Rose remained friends after Rose married Oliver, and it wasn’t Rose whom Eve blamed or resented.”
“That seems to Eve’s credit.”
“I’m still wondering how Oliver took what happened tonight with Lili. He has always been opposed to everything that hinted at the psychic. Though I don’t think he has the single-track mind that Thomas Ardle has.”
“How did Oliver take Rose’s death?”
“He shut himself off up there in his house in the woods and wouldn’t see anyone for weeks. Now he’s planning to move away, and I suppose he’ll try to forget everything that’s happened here. Except that Deirdre’s disappearance has opened it all up again. He’s sure she’ll be found dead, just as Rose was, but he doesn’t think either of them was murdered—as your mother seemed to be hinting about Rose on the air tonight. Victor had another surprise for us. Are you sure you want to hear all this tonight?”
“Go ahead. You always used to tell me bedtime stories.” Christy ate another wheat wafer and finished the milk.
“All right. It’s on your head. Victor took something out of his jacket pocket and showed it to us. It was a slipper that he’d found covered by leaves on the bank of the stream near where Donny picked up the scarf. At first Victor had only wanted to show it to me—not the others.”
“Why not?”
“I suppose his feeling connects with letting Deirdre go and not stirring up her earthly remains. The only problem is that, according to Hayden, the slipper isn’t Deirdre’s. It isn’t even her size.”
“What did the others say?”
“Nobody claimed it, and they don’t trust Victor, so they didn’t say much of anything. I took the slipper and said I’d keep it for a while. It’s black velvet, flat-heeled, worn in the sole—ready to be thrown away. Not something Deirdre would wear, even if it had been her tiny size. And certainly not out in the woods.”
“So who is running around shedding one slipper?”
Nona raised her hands helplessly and stood up. “Who knows? Let me tuck you in again. You’ll go right to sleep now.”
“What are you really up to?” Christy asked as her aunt moved to the door. “You didn’t tell me all this for nothing.”
“I thought I’d give you some new ideas to stir around in your dreams. So you can see what comes out. I’d like you to stay long enough to get to know Hayden Mitchell a little. Not that you’ll like him. He’s too sure of himself, too macho for your taste. But there’s a vulnerability there too, and a deep love for his son. He needs your help, whether he’d ever admit it or not. Good night, Christy.”
She went off quickly, and Christy lay awake for a time, listening to the beginning of the loud cricket orchestra outside. When drowsiness came, the dream began—the old dream of a red-floored corridor with high walls and the only escape far ahead. As always, she heard the sound of footsteps following, and something menacing seemed to lie around the next turn. Something that meant her own death. Of course she never rounded the turn—she always woke up in time.
The night seemed long before the insect chorus turned into the trills and twitterings of birds waking up. A pale light appeared at the glass doors to the deck, edging the draperies.
Christy lay still, trying to fling off the tormenting effect of the dream. It had begun to repeat itself soon after she’d found the first murdered girl, and it was nearly always the same. After she woke up from this faceless pursuit, her heart would pound for a time. She waited now for it to quiet before she got out of bed.
As she showered and dressed, she held to the thought of her car waiting for her out on the driveway—a friend and ally that would enable her to get away promptly. She would have breakfast with Nona, and then she would go.
When she’d dressed in corduroy slacks and a jonquil-yellow blouse, Christy went upstairs to find Nona whistling cheerfully in the kitchen. The front windows drew Christy to the tremendous spread of mountains that rimmed the deep cut of this little valley. Its sloping folds of meadow showed red wherever the earth was bare of grass, and cattle were already browsing where green came through. Here the trees had been banished to the high, blue-green mountains, and to isolated clumps that separated the houses along this ridge. Downstairs she’d sensed only the darkness of trees that closed in the house, crowding the lower deck, where the hill fell steeply away in a carpet of dead brown leaves. In contrast, this upper side of the house was open to the sky—open and free.
Christy went out on the front deck and raised her arms, breathing deeply of fresh crystal air, banishing night dreams. Here, surely, she could find peace and goodness and a quiet that could shut out the clamor of a world going all too quickly insane. If only this too were not an illusion, so she might stay and bring her own life forces back to recovery.
She went inside, smiling at her aunt.
“Good morning, Christy.” Nona returned her smile warmly. “We’re having blueberry pancakes—your favorite. I can see you slept well. Everyone sleeps in this cool mountain air.”
“Some of the time I slept,” Christy said, and didn’t mention her dream as she sat down at the table.
Nona’s red-tiled kitchen seemed utterly peaceful this morning, with no waves of uneasiness stirring. The view continued to draw her, and Christy looked out through glass at a light that was still misty with early morning. Sheddings of fog drifted between mountain folds. Part way up the opposite slope, lights shone through the trees around Victor Birdcall’s cabin, though no lights could be seen higher up in Oliver’s tree-hidden house.
When she’d heaped their plates with steaming pancakes, Nona sat down beside Christy. She wore a blue-flowered smock over jeans, and a length of matching material had been tied jauntily around her head. No earrings this morning, but the scent of verbena was familiar and reassuring.
“Where does Eve Corey live?” Christy asked.
“She left the family farm, and is staying in the little house Hayden and Deirdre built out at the plant nursery when they first came here. Eve’s found a place for herself working for Hayden, and her green thumb is a help to him. After she lost Oliver to Rose, Eve married some years ago, but her husband died in Vietnam, so she’s a widow.”
“Is she still interested in Oliver?” The question was an idle one, but Nona hesitated a moment too long before she answered. Once more, Christy sensed the stir of something disquieting.
“I think she may be. But she wanted to show both Oliver and Rose that she didn’t care when she made her short marriage. Don’t be upset by Eve, Christy. She can speak her mind pretty openly, but she’s okay. And she really did care about Rose.”
Christy had no intention of being upset by anyone here. In spite of the deceptive lure of this place, she meant to be gone for good in a little while.
Nona pushed the butter plate toward Christy. “I love to sit here in the early hours and watch lights come on across the valley,” she mused. “I enjoy being alone in my own little world—yet with human companionship not too far away, if I need it.”
Christy began to eat without comment. The pancakes were delicious and took her back to childhood when she’d lived with Nona on Long Island.
As the light strengthened and the mists lifted, the strong red earth color showed through on meadow and mountain. The red boards of Nona’s decks echoed the very shade of burning red—the red of the path in her dream.
Nona, who always claimed to have no interest in cooking, made the best pancakes ever. Christy spread on butter and ate with gusto. The dream was only a dream. She had never told Nona about it, or Lili—for fear of portents and warnings, and she wouldn’t tell Nona now. In a few minutes she’d be in her car and on her way.
“I hope you’ve changed your mind about leaving,” Nona said. “We need you now.”
“I don’t want to be needed that way!” Christy drank the last of her coffee and pushed back her chair. “Please understand that I’d love to stay with you, Nona darling, but because of all that’s happened here, and is still happening, I don’t dare.”
“Where will you go? Where can you be safe?”
She really hadn’t thought about that. Her one thought had been to get away from those footsteps that might come close in this place; to escape from the horror she might bring to Hayden and Donny Mitchell if she stayed and found Deirdre. There was even that darkness in Hayden that she didn’t want to fathom.
“I’ll just drive off along some country road and find a cabin I can rent. Then I’ll stay for a while and be anonymous—until I’m healed.”
“Listen to me.” Nona reached across the table to touch her hand. “I don’t care much for the direction Lili has taken with her life, but I believe in some power out there that guides us. Whether we call it God, or whether we call these beings our guides or our guardian angels—I do believe that roads are opened to us every day of our lives. We can make choices that send us ahead of our course—whatever, it is. Or send us backward toward regression. Sometimes it requires courage to take a chance and move ahead on the risky, unknown course. Those who are too cautious seldom go anywhere, and they miss a lot. They only avoid. That’s what you’re doing now, Christy—avoiding. It isn’t like you. We all have a destiny to follow, and your way has been pointed pretty clearly. Not to stay where you were, working with the police, but to follow your road here. Though neither of us could know why until you came.”
“You don’t know now! Lili spoke to me last night. She knew my danger and warned me. I have to listen.”
“Lili’s given to dramatics and sometimes she gets a mote in her eye. Ardle was right when he said that it’s not wise to make predictions of danger. Where there are lessons to learn in our lives, we’d better learn them without interference and not run away.”
Christy had heard all this before, since Nona could grow evangelical at times. She wanted only one thing—blindly!—to escape whatever it was that hovered just out of sight in this expanse of valley and mountain.
She stood up and hugged Nona lovingly. “Please want what’s best for me.”
“All right,” Nona said. “You’ll have to choose your own course. You’ll have to learn in your own way. But before you leave, I want to show you something.” She opened a cupboard and took out a tissue-wrapped parcel. “Don’t worry—it’s not that scarf of Deirdre’s.”
Christy took it doubtfully and unfolded the paper. Inside was a single slipper—flat-heeled and worn. A black velvet slipper embroidered with tiny, frayed flowers in pink and green silk. There was no way to avoid the sensation that flooded through her from the object she held in her hands. This was not the energy of a living thing but a freezing wave, a tremor that swept up her arms and enveloped her body.
“Whoever wore this is dead!” Christy could hear her own voice as if it came from far away—as though something else spoke through her. She let the worn slipper fall from her hands and sat down weakly.
“This isn’t Deirdre’s slipper, is it?” Nona asked softly.
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you know anything about the woman who wore it?”
“The slipper might tell me, but I don’t want it to!”
“Was her death violent?”
“Murder is always violent.” The chill had warned her, not only of death, but of a vicious fury striking without mercy.
“Then you must stay,” Nona said. “You know you must. You’re committed to stopping whatever has begun. First Rose, and then perhaps Deirdre—neither of whom ever hurt anyone. This could be Rose’s slipper, though if it is, why didn’t Oliver say so? I’ve never seen her wear a slipper like this, but she could have worn them just around her house.”
“Why would it be found near Deirdre’s scarf, and why just one?”
“Maybe these are questions you can find the answers to—and if you do, perhaps you’ll find the murderer you sense.”
Christy shook away the deadly cold. “I’ve never tried to find a murderer, and I don’t want to. This is what Lili is afraid of—that I’ll put myself in the way of something dangerous. I don’t have that kind of courage, Nona.”
“I suppose I’ll have to let you go”—Nona spread her hands—“but you’ll remember this, Christy. You won’t be able to shake it off. Do you want to live with that sort of guilt—the guilt of running away?”
“I’m guilty of nothing except trying to save my own peace of mind—maybe my life.”
Something fell to the floor with a crash in another part of the house and for a moment Nona and Christy stared at each other. Then Nona ran into the hall, with Christy on her heels. They were in time to block the small figure that ran out of Nona’s studio into her arms. For a moment Donny struggled and fought, but Nona held him until he went limp and started to cry.
“It’s okay, Donny,” she told him. “If you broke something, it doesn’t matter. Let’s go and see what the damage is and then you can start feeling better.”
He came with her, no longer struggling. “I didn’t b-b-break anything. But you lied to me! You were my friend, and you lied to me!”
Christy followed them through the sitting room and into the studio beyond. A large easel had fallen backward on the floor and Christy saw that the painting it held was the one that had been covered by a green cloth which had now slipped from it to the floor. This was the painting Nona had claimed was unfinished.
Her aunt let go of Donny and set the easel on its legs. The boy stood watching dejectedly as she put the painting in place, this time without its covering. Nona had again painted one of her red roads. This road ran through a hemlock forest, winding between tall trees. The focus of interest was a dancing figure in gauzy white. The woman seemed to flit ahead on the path, with mists floating down from the treetops to soften her outline, so that she became part of the mist herself, with only her bright face clear and visible as she looked back over one shoulder, laughing.
There was no doubt in Christy’s mind. Nona had painted Deirdre, and the picture was certainly finished. Yet she had hidden it from view. Perhaps because it was too prophetic?
“When did you paint this?” Christy asked her aunt.
Nona sighed. “At least four months ago. This is the one I wanted you to see. I didn’t know what I was painting—it just came. I covered it up because it made me uncomfortable. Especially after Deirdre disappeared.” She turned to the boy, who had been listening intently. “I’ve never lied to you, Donny. I don’t even know what you mean about lying.”
He stared at her, tear marks streaking his cheeks. “You said you didn’t know what happened to my mother. But you do—you painted her before she—she went away into all that mist.”
“I painted this out of my imagination, Donny,” Nona said. “Just the way I do most of my paintings. It’s true that I painted this before your mother went away. But I didn’t know that was going to happen. Deirdre saw this herself and she liked it. She liked the idea of drifting away as though she were part of the mist. You believe me, don’t you, Donny?”
His dark head seemed too heavy for his thin neck as he stared at the floor. “I guess I believe you.” Then he raised his head to look at Christy with a suddenness that startled her.
“Why did she come here?” he asked Nona.
“Perhaps she was sent to help us find your mother,” Nona told him. “So I think you should make friends with her.”
“I don’t like her,” Donny said. “She’s—creepy.”
“That’s silly. You don’t know her.”
“What do you mean by creepy, Donny?” Christy asked.
He twisted his body away from her, not meeting her eyes. “You can see things—bad things.”
Christy looked at her aunt in astonishment.
“Sometimes children know,” Nona said. “Anyway, Donny, I think you should give Christy another chance—you might like her.”
He looked at Christy then—a strangely searching look for a boy so young. “Don’t make my mother be dead,” he said softly.
There was no answer to so terrible a thought. In a moment, Christy knew, he would pull away from the hand Nona had placed on his arm and run from them both—leaving his frightening plea to hang on the air behind him. Prompted by one of her sudden urges, Christy moved quickly, picking up the copy of Little Red Road that Nona had left on a table. She held it out to the boy.
“This is one of my favorite books, Donny. Did you know that I work in libraries back home, reading stories to children? I’ve read this book by Rose Vaughn any number of times, and children always love it. I understand that Rose was your friend.”
Donny gave her a black look and ran out of the room.
“Bad timing,” Nona said. “It’s my fault. I should have told you that it was Donny who found Rose. He went to a favorite place they used to visit together— and Rose was lying there dead, at the foot of a rock cliff. He climbed down, thinking he could help her—so it was all pretty awful. He’s been a different child ever since, pulling into himself. And now it’s much worse, since Deirdre is missing too. That’s why his father is letting him stay out of school for a while. Though I think it might be better for him to be occupied and distracted.”
Donny’s horror and grief seemed to pour along Christy’s own sensitive nerves. She had to do something.
“I want to try an experiment with him, Nona.” Christy ran outside after the boy and found him sitting at the edge of the front deck, his legs dangling. She dropped down beside him, still holding Rose’s book. Nona followed, but she stayed back, watching.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to try,” Christy told the boy. “I wonder if you would help me? I don’t think I can do this alone.”
Donny looked up at her and Nona nodded. “I think you ought to help Christy if you can.”
Without much interest, Donny let Christy pull him up and they started down the driveway together. Fresh, clean morning air and the sight of new green, slashed here and there with red, brought a lift to Christy’s spirits, and a slow excitement started in her. More than anything else right now she wanted to reach this small boy who walked so gloomily beside her.
“We’re going right down the road,” she told him, pointing. “Once, when I was a little girl, Nona took me to spend a month on a farm and I learned something interesting about cows. The poor things get terribly bored and they enjoy unusual happenings. Just a car going by can be something to watch. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, sometimes they try to stick their stupid necks through the fence to see better.”
“Do you know any of the cows in that field across the road?”
There seemed nothing strange to Donny about being personally acquainted with cows. “Sure. Some of them have names.”
“That will help. Cows are curious animals. So when something new comes along, they’re interested. And I have something very interesting to try.”
Donny had begun to be curious too and he went with her more willingly. They hurried along the road and crossed to where wooden rails fenced in the cows. One animal was grazing placidly nearby and Donny spoke to her.
“Good morning, Ophelia.”
Ophelia turned her head to look at him, her chewing uninterrupted.
“That’s Juliet over there.” Donny indicated a plump cow who examined him thoughtfully and then lumbered over to the fence. A third, whose name, Donny said, was Rosalind, joined her sisters. Rosalind tried at once to put her head—unsuccessfully—between the fence rails.
“Has somebody been reading Shakespeare?” Christy asked Donny.
“My mother named them,” he said. “She could always pick wonderful names.”
“Let’s begin,” Christy said quickly, avoiding dangerous ground. “The other cows will probably come over because they won’t want to miss anything.”
She opened the book to the first page of Rose’s story and Harmony’s pictures and began to read aloud. She knew every word by heart, but she always used the book, since her business was to interest her listeners in books—though that wasn’t exactly her goal now.
“‘Once, not very long ago’”—she spoke clearly and loudly—“‘there was a little red road. It ran through a countryside where mountains and forests opened their arms to let the little road through.’”
The cows stared at her, riveted. Christy gestured widely with one hand to indicate the curling road, and other cows came over to push against the fence. Donny giggled, and she knew what she was doing would succeed.
She went on, even more dramatically now, as people in the story came along the road. Since it loved company the little red road was very happy. One of the cows forgot to chew. Christy had never had a more rapt audience for her reading, and she was caught up in the narrative, not forgetting to turn the pages toward the cows to show them the pictures. Donny thought that was funny, and whenever she paused for breath, he filled in the words, reciting to the cows himself, equally successful as their absorbed attention shifted to him.
As it climbed into the mountains, the little road ran into a terrible storm. A river rolled along beside it, overflowing and washing out the only way by which people could get to town. A donkey that was carrying a boy and a girl was swept right into the swirling water. The little road tried to hold them, but its surface had turned slippery with mud, and the donkey’s hooves slid right into the stream that poured across the road.
Several more cows had forgotten to chew. Ophelia’s large, liquid eyes were wide with interest, and Donny climbed to the top of the fence. “It’s all right,” he assured the cows. “The road knows what to do!”
This was the part of the story Christy always liked best, because what could the little road do? It had no voice to call for help, as Rose pointed out in the story. It couldn’t reach up and save the children. It could only go on its way, climbing, climbing. And that was enough. The water was very deep where it had washed across the road, but the hill beyond was steep and rose above the water level. Someone had dumped gravel there, and when the donkey swam desperately to the place where the road rose out of muddy water, it found its own footing and climbed up to where the road went on, dry and safe. The children were carried happily to their destination, and one had the feeling that the determination of the little road to help had drawn the donkey’s hooves to safety.
Christy had no patience with stodgy critics who deplored anthropomorphism in writing for children. Stretching the imagination in every possible direction was what mattered, and Rose Vaughn had done this with sensitivity.
At this point Christy’s listeners usually clapped. Applause, surprisingly, came from behind her, and Christy turned to find that a Jeep had driven along the real road and stopped near the fence. Hayden Mitchell, Donny’s father, sat at the wheel and he was clapping his hands together gravely, with no more of a smile than he’d shown last night.
“Finish the story,” he directed. “You don’t want to disappoint your audience.”
In spite of the applause, he showed no other approval, his tone flat. She hesitated, the mood spoiled, not wanting to perform for this cold, probably critical man. Donny, however, was waiting, so she went on. Now the boy recited the words in unison with Christy as the little red road wound its way up the mountain and into the town, where people rushed out of their houses to help the girl and boy, who were, of course, soaking wet. Now the little road could continue through the town on its own, gaining new travelers and wandering over the mountain to reach new sights, new places, and new people to help.
Christy closed the book. At once Ophelia blinked and moved away, sensing that the show was over.
Donny looked at his father from his perch on the fence. “Christy reads real good. Though not as good as Rose.”
“This is Rose Vaughn’s story,” Christy agreed, “so she would read it best.”
“But she never read it to the cows,” Donny said, giving credit where it was due.
“I’m going down to the mailbox,” Hayden told them. “Do you want to come along—both of you?”
Since Donny seemed eager, Christy agreed, and when the boy climbed into the front seat, she got in beside him. She must, she thought, make allowances for Hayden Mitchell’s state of depression that made him so curt and unsmiling.
“How long will you be staying with Nona?” he asked as they drove down the road.
“I’d planned to leave early this morning, but Donny changed my mind. I expect I’ll be going soon.”
He said nothing more until he’d pulled the Jeep into a parking space above the row of mailboxes. “The flags are down, so the mail has come,” he told Donny. “Do you want to pick it up?”
Donny clambered over Christy and ran down the incline toward the boxes.
His father stared ahead through the windshield as he spoke. “After you took off last night, Eve told Oliver and me about you. I can understand why you’d want to run away from Long Island.”
He couldn’t possibly understand. Christy gripped Rose’s book tightly, knowing what was coming, and bracing herself to resist.
“You know, don’t you,” he went on, “that Donny found Rose? And now he’s sure he’ll find his mother dead too. I don’t feel the way Oliver does about psychic matters, but I’m not filled with confidence either.”
“Yet you’d break down and take a chance with me?” Christy asked dryly.
His smile was sudden, totally unexpected. One side of his mouth lifted, and his eyes mocked her with their curious intensity. The effect was disturbing, irritating. It was anything but a friendly smile.
“If you have the talent Nona claims, aren’t you obliged to use it?” he challenged.
“I’m not obliged to do anything! I never asked for any of this, and—”
“And it’s safer not to get involved?” The twist of smile had vanished as though he had removed himself to some distant plane. “Here comes Donny, so don’t say anything. I’ll drive you back to your aunt’s.”
The boy came running over to the Jeep and tossed his armful of mail into the back seat. “Move over,” he ordered Christy, sounding as curt as his father. “Please” was a word he apparently hadn’t learned. Perhaps Hayden seldom used it.
She had to sit closer, though she tried to lean toward the boy so as not to touch his father. She was sharply aware of the jarring vibrations that seemed to surround this man. There were hidden depths that made her uneasy. Hayden Mitchell needed help, but not of the sort she could give him. Lili might have been able to calm and restore him just by reaching out her hands. Christy had no such healing gifts. What he might get from her was far more destructive. She wanted only to have this grim clairvoyance leave her forever, so that she could be like other people.
As the Jeep passed below Nona’s house before turning up the drive, she looked up to see that Victor Birdcall was again perched on the ridgepole, working on his lightning rods.
Donny saw him too. “There’s the Thunderbolt Man!” he cried. “Dad, I want to go talk to him.”
Hayden stopped the car. “Go ahead. Though I don’t think Victor will like that choice of a name.”
“He doesn’t care. He knows I call him that.” Donny hopped down again and went running along the drive toward the house.
“Shall I drive you up?” Hayden asked Christy. “Or will you come over to my place and tell me whatever you can?”
He spoke without emotion—as though he didn’t care one way or another. The flash of challenge she’d seen in his eyes was gone, yet the very suppression of emotion reached through her defenses. There was very little she liked about Donny’s father, but she knew he was suffering deeply, and this she couldn’t refuse.
“I’ll try,” she said. “Though I’m not sure there’s anything I can do.”
Silently, Hayden put the Jeep into gear and drove on.
Will she go away, or will she stay?
If she stays, sooner or later someone will give her the scarf. I wonder what she’ll make of it? Soap and water will surely defeat her. Besides, even if she senses something, it won’t lead anywhere. All the secrets are safely hidden.
I don’t want to harm her. She’s only an incidental interference. But if she persists, it may be necessary to stop anything she tries to do—even to stop her. There is too much at stake.