There was no opportunity to be alone with Deirdre’s crystal for the rest of the afternoon. Nona’s preparations to receive Lili showed a certain respect for her sister. Not until after dinner was Christy able to escape to her room for a period of time that would be uninterrupted.
Now she could be still and hold the bright, faceted stone in her hands, trying once more to sense its energies. This time, however, there was no pulsing in the crystal, no sensation of warmth to guide her. The stone felt heavy in her hands and there was no response of any kind. She should have followed where it led earlier, before the impulse died.
After a time she opened the sliding glass doors to the deck and went outside, still holding the crystal. It had warmed a little, but only from the heat of her own hands, and no matter which way she turned, it remained quiet, sleeping, indifferent to her urging.
Her gift had never been as strong and certain as Lili’s, and in a way she’d been grateful for its very uncertainty. What Lili possessed governed her whole life so that she had to live for it, and this was never what Christy had wanted. Now, however, there was a need for any power she could summon, and this was no longer impersonal. By this time she knew that she couldn’t leave Redlands until she had found the answer to Deirdre’s flight. Once that was done, she would be free to go.
This needed to happen quickly. Hayden’s presence had become increasingly vital to her. His quiet strength and deep sadness sparked a response, a longing that could be neither denied nor satisfied. It was better to get away as soon as she could.
So let it be, she told herself. Think of something else. She left the deck and returned to her room.
Nona, who was a mystery buff, had stocked a small bookcase in her guest room with both hardcover books and paperbacks in the crime field, and Christy picked out a Barbara Michaels novel and sat down to read until she grew sleepy.
Here, close to the woods that dropped down the hill at the back of the house, she could hear little from upstairs. Once the sound of a car door slamming reached her, and she wondered who had come to visit her aunt in the evening. But nothing up there need concern her now. Tomorrow, when her mother arrived, no one would have much to say, because Lili Dukas would consult her own sources to solve the grim problems of Redlands, and Christy could only hope she would succeed.
Though, in Lili’s sunny philosophy, the perpetrator of wrongdoing was never to blame. Circumstances formed each individual, and the wrongdoer was only working out his or her particular karma. Cause and effect—on and on until all the lessons had been learned, perhaps through thousands of lifetimes. But pretty uncomfortable for those who must suffer those effects now. Christy remembered the moment when she’d held Deirdre’s scarf and that chilling sense of evil had flowed through her. There was more here than Lili accepted.
Weren’t there human beings who were genuinely evil? Or was evil only a matter of perception? One person’s stated evil could be perceived as another’s good. The deeply religious sect that considered all other beliefs evil made a good example.
She had no answers. She tried again to concentrate on her book, but her thoughts would not be quiet. All mystery novels dealt with good and evil, and their conclusions were simple enough. The murderer was evil, while the victim might or might not have been evil. Those who tracked and exposed the murderer were obviously good. Or were they?
In a life without testing, who could grow? Dark surely balanced light, and everything in nature had its opposite pole. In a life that was all lightness and calm, there would be nothing to wake one up in order to reach out and learn. So perhaps growth required a whip from the dark side. Without pain, nothing happened, and evil might be the whip to spur humans on to oppose it for their own strengthening and—that term psychics often used—“higher enlightenment.” Lili was great on higher enlightenment, but right now Christy didn’t feel in the least enlightened.
She would get undressed and go to bed, though it was only nine-thirty. She stood up, stretching widely, yawning—and was suddenly aware of how black the nighttime woods were beyond the deck. There were curtains, but no draperies to pull, and that made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to a house where no one locked doors or bothered to draw shades. Nona had said no one came up through the woods back here—there wasn’t even a path on this part of the hill.
So why did she feel as though she were on a lighted stage—with someone out there watching?
The crystal winked at her in the lamplight from the dressing table where she’d placed it, but she paid no attention. It could keep its impulses to itself right now. All she wanted was to escape into sleep.
She went to the closet to take out her night things, and at that moment a scattering of sound reached her—as though someone had thrown a handful of light gravel across the deck. At once she was alert. A switch near the sliding doors would turn on outside lights, and she went quickly to touch it. But when she looked out between the curtains, nothing stirred on the lighted deck. Nearby tree trunks shone satiny brown beyond red decking planks, with only thick darkness beyond. Up through the trees the stars were pale. Unlocking the sliding door, she stepped cautiously outside and looked around.
Something white shone against the darkness below the embankment that shored up the earth of the hill. For a moment she thought someone crouched there—but the whiteness didn’t move, and she realized it must be a garment of some sort flung across bushes. As far as she remembered, it hadn’t been there before.
Outside, nothing stirred for the length of the deck, and there was no one on the stairs to the upper level. As she moved, cool night air touched her face, and gravel crunched beneath her feet. That gravel was the answer. Someone had wanted to get her attention—someone, perhaps, who had left that white thing near the edge of the deck for her to find.
Except for crickets and tree frogs, the night was quiet, and no wind stirred the silent trees that reached into a misty sky. Only the lighted deck and the inky hillside below formed her world of contrasts. The dark and the light—good and evil?
“Is anyone there?” she called, knowing the futility of such a challenge. Anyone who didn’t want her to know of his or her presence wasn’t going to answer.
Uneasily, she crossed the empty deck. There were other guest rooms down here, with their own sliding doors, but they stood dark and quiet—as far as she knew. Distant voices came from the front of the house above, so Nona had company. She had only to call out if she needed help. But first she wanted to see what that white garment might be. If it had anything to tell her, it would be better to touch it while she was alone.
The embankment below the deck consisted of flat, zigzag spaces filled level with fine gravel and shored up with wooden beams. Christy climbed down to the gravel and leaned over a beam to reach whatever lay below. The stretch was a long one, and just as her hand touched the cloth the push came in the middle of her back, sudden and strong. She pitched over the parapet, briefly aware of flying past tree trunks until she struck something hard and lay still in floating darkness.
How long she lay there, stunned and unmoving, she didn’t know. Cold seeped through her, reaching her consciousness, and the insect chorus was an uproar in her throbbing head. Making an effort, she sat up and looked toward the house above. The deck was still empty in the outside lights, and nothing moved anywhere. A faint radiance showed at a hall window on the second level, and she could still hear the sound of voices.
She called out weakly, but there was no response. She would have to get out of this place on her own as quickly as possible, fearful now that her assailant might return. This meant collecting herself both physically and mentally.
As her senses cleared, she could remember the thrust of hands on her back, pushing her over the edge. The white thing she’d seen was still there. Low growth had broken her fall, and her head had struck a tree trunk. A lump was rising on her forehead and she touched it gingerly. Somehow she must climb back to the deck and go upstairs to find her aunt.
Her legs held her shakily when she stood up, and she clung to a sapling for a moment until she could endure an upright position. The white garment lay nearby and she picked it up and threw it over one arm. In touching it, no chill of evil came to her. But of course she hadn’t psyched herself into a receptive state—not in this condition. With difficulty, she managed to climb over the parapet and onto the deck. Whoever had been there, hiding in shadows, was probably long gone.
Not until she reached her room did she examine the white dress that had probably been used as bait.
She knew at once what it was—the white caftan that had probably belonged to Deirdre, and which both Donny and Victor reported having seen on someone walking in the woods. Now, as she held the woven cotton garment, she opened herself, became very still, and at once the surge of horror came through, as it had with the scarf. This wasn’t the misty, rainbow essence of Deirdre. This was evil. Not something abstract that one philosophized about—but someone with a wicked intent to harm. To kill?
For an instant she wanted to drop the gown, toss it away from her, but she resisted the impulse. Now that her senses were awake, she must try to follow through, let the gown tell her whatever it wished. Beneath the sense of horror that filled her, a picture began to form in her mind. A quick vision of rocks, a high place—a cliff? All this was sharp for an instant, and then gone. Even the chill was gone, and what she held in her hands was only a white caftan, stained with red earth and the juices of green leaves and grass. The vision hadn’t been like the sure, clear scenes that had come to her when she was working with the police. There would be no body to find in this place that she’d glimpsed, and yet she knew she must go there, if it was possible. But only by daylight, and when someone was with her.
At least the throbbing in her head had abated, once she was on her feet and moving. She hurried toward the stairs with the dress in her arms and went up toward lights and voices from Nona’s kitchen.
In the doorway she paused, wanting to view the scene quietly, and if possible sense whether her assailant was in the room. They were all there, sitting around Nona’s oval table, drinking coffee and talking. Eve, Oliver, Victor, and Hayden. Even Floris was there, and only Donny was missing. Apparently, Nona had decided to call them together before Lili arrived.
Which one? Which one could have had time to attack her downstairs before joining this gathering? One thing she knew with certainty—and never mind Lili’s views!—the powers of evil must be taken seriously. Destructiveness toward life was evil. To wave this aside and forgive was to fall prey to its intent. Not accepting, not opposing evil had always led into pits of darkness and death. She knew now that she was dedicated to the exposure and defeat of whatever wickedness was loose in this place.
They were all staring at her. The thoughts that flashed through her mind took only seconds, and before anyone could move or speak, she held out the white caftan.
“This is Deirdre’s gown, isn’t it? Someone else has worn it. I’ve just glimpsed a place that’s important to what has happened here. It wasn’t clear enough in my vision so I could identify it—though I’d know it if I saw it. Just rocks, a path, a high cliff. And these could be anywhere.” She spoke quietly, in control of her emotions now—firmly in control.
Hayden came to take the caftan from her hands. He examined it carefully and then laid it over a chair back. There seemed a finality about the gesture. As though he had finally accepted that Deirdre was gone. His concern was now for Christy.
“You’ve been hurt—what’s happened?”
She was suddenly aware of how wild she must look—with a bruise swelling on her forehead, a torn blouse, and streaks of red earth on her slacks.
“Someone pushed me off the lower deck.” She could still speak quietly. “First, whoever it was threw gravel across the deck outside my room to attract my attention. When I went outside, I saw Deirdre’s gown shining in the darkness below the deck. I climbed down to where I could reach for the dress, and someone pushed me over so that I fell and lay unconscious.”
She waited, watching for a reaction from anyone. They all looked variously concerned, shocked, alarmed, except for Victor, who never showed what he was feeling.
Nona was the most indignant, and worried under her anger. “Come over to the sink, Christy, and I’ll wash that abrasion. You’ve scratched your arms too. I’ll put some antiseptic on them.”
Christy held back. “Not yet, please.” She closed her eyes and stood very still. Tell me, she whispered in her mind. Tell me which one. But the vision that had come to her so briefly was gone, and nothing spoke to her about anyone in this room. Even when she thought of each one in turn, not one of them shone brightly with an aura of either guilt or innocence. Each had a dark central core that was secret from the others. She must have that same dark core herself.
But real evil had a gift for disguise. It could wear virtue as its best defense, believing in its own false gods. Somehow she must find a way to penetrate this masquerade, as Victor had called it, to expose whatever lay beneath. Only then would her gift have served a real purpose for once in her life.
“I have to know,” she told them softly. “I can’t hide or run away any longer.”
She went to Nona, whose hands shook as she ministered to bruises and scratches. This in itself was not like Nona, and rather alarming.
“Lili will be here tomorrow,” her aunt reminded Christy. “That’s why I asked everyone to come here this evening. So we could make some sort of plan to use her help. Then we’ll all meet again, and Lili will know what to do.”
It seemed all the more disturbing to find Nona, who had never approved of Lili, suddenly surrendering responsibility to her sister.
Hayden pulled a chair over to the table for Christy and she sat down beside him, grateful for his concern. Once more she looked from face to face, and her own tension returned. Floris appeared angry, while Oliver seemed guarded, not meeting her eyes. Eve’s edginess showed as one hand tapped the table nervously. Hayden seemed quietly watchful, as though he too were on guard. It was he who spoke first.
“Have you any idea, Christy, how long you were unconscious?”
“I don’t really know,” she told him. “I did have a sense that time had passed when I came to, down there under the trees.”
“We haven’t been in the house very long,” Hayden pointed out, “and we didn’t all come by car.”
His inference was clear. Any one of them might have slipped around to the back of the house to push Christy from the deck. Someone who had planted the dress there earlier? In which case, intent was evident. A plan. The dress really had been used as bait.
“The llamas have been humming on and off all day,” Floris said. “That means they’re uneasy about something. They’re sensitive animals and they know when anything is wrong. I only wish one of them could tell me who came into my house and took Sinh away. I don’t think that cat was strong enough to go far from milk and food. But you said she turned up in your studio, Nona, which means that someone must have carried her up to your house and left her there.”
“Cats! Llamas!” Oliver dismissed both impatiently. “The question is, who pushed Christy off the deck and why?”
He could be dissembling, Christy thought. Any of them could be dissembling.
“The caftan is really the key to all this,” Nona pointed out. “Someone used it to coax Christy to investigate. Do we know anything about this gown? Anything that would help us?”
Eve stopped drumming on the table. “Deirdre gave me that dress months ago. She knew I admired it. But after she disappeared I didn’t want to wear it, even though all those folds would cover me up nicely. Anyway, I put it in the back of my closet, and I’d thought it was still there.”
“It’s the same dress whoever I saw in the woods was wearing,” Victor said. “Since it’s like a tent, anybody could have put it on.”
“Including you,” Oliver pointed out grimly.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Nona quietly took charge again. “Lili will help, and we need to consider how to assist her. I’m not sure when she’ll arrive tomorrow, but we’d better arrange to meet with her here tomorrow evening, if you can manage it.”
“I’ve got other things to do beside attending a séance,” Floris said. “Count me out.”
Oliver agreed emphatically. “Waste of time. No séance for me either. I’ve investigated a few and found them all fakes.”
“‘Séance’ is an old-fashioned term,” Christy said quietly. “My mother may be able to help us, as Nona says, so I think we should meet here and see what happens. Unless, of course, someone feels that it’s too much of a risk to face her.”
That seemed to startle them, though no one spoke until Hayden took the lead again. “The sheriff should be notified of this attack on Christy. But we might as well take whatever Lili Dukas offers as well.”
“Let’s skip the police for now,” Nona said. “There’s not much to tell them and Lili won’t want them around. What about you, Victor? You’ll be here?”
“I might like to watch,” he said grudgingly.
“Good!” Nona approved. “So will you change your mind, Floris? And you, Oliver?”
Floris agreed reluctantly. “Okay—I’ll come if I must.”
“You might as well change your mind too, Oliver,” Nona urged.
He shrugged elaborately. “All right. Though I still think it’s a waste of time.”
Victor moved toward the door to the front deck. “Let me know when you want me,” he told Nona.
Oliver said, “Wait a minute, Victor! You came later than the rest of us—so how do we know—”
Victor returned to the table where Oliver sat, and stood looking down at him. “Anything more you want to say?”
Oliver flushed angrily, but he didn’t pick up the challenge, and after a moment Victor went out of the room.
“That fellow’s going to explode one of these days,” Eve said, clearly on Oliver’s side. “Maybe he has already.” She went to where the white dress lay across a chair, but when she reached to pick it up, Christy stopped her.
“Wait—please! It might be better if no one else touches that caftan until my mother gets here. Perhaps it will tell her more than its told me. In the meantime we’d better not impose any more impressions on it.”
“We’ll leave it right there,” Nona agreed. “Now then—” The phone rang and she took it at the kitchen counter. When she’d answered, she nodded to Christy. “It’s Lili’s secretary, Mrs. Brewster. Your mother wants to speak to you. You can take the call in my studio, Christy.”
This time she must resist, Christy thought as she went out of the room. She must hold on to her own identity and resist her mother’s hypnotic spell. She switched on lights and went to the phone at her aunt’s desk.
“Hello? Mother?”
“Darling!” The voice that was like rich velvet seemed to envelop her, pour love and warmth around her. There was no escaping its effect. “Something dreadful has happened, hasn’t it, Crystal? I could feel it this evening when it stabbed through me. Are you all right?”
“I’m all right,” Christy said, wincing at the name she’d always disliked. “Are you coming tomorrow?”
“I’m flying into Charlottesville in the morning, and I’ll drive out by limo. Be sure to say your words of protection tonight, Christy. Nothing can happen to you if you put a shield around you. There is no evil—only good for you. You know that, don’t you, darling?”
“I know someone pushed me off Nona’s deck tonight,” Christy told her grimly. “I hit my head on a tree and was knocked out. But I’ve recovered, except for some bruises.”
Lili poured the warm elixir of her voice around her daughter again. “You are protected. Nothing can harm you. Tomorrow we will work through this darkness—whatever it is—together. Good night, darling.”
She was gone, and Christy sat for a moment allowing the echo of those melodic tones to comfort her. In some strange way she really did feel protected. For the moment. If only she could believe, as Lili did, that protection from harm was so easily achieved. Lili herself moved in an enchanted space. No matter what the outer circumstances, no matter what danger others might feel—Lili was spared. The knowledge Christy had had as a child, that her mother possessed the power to keep her safe, touched her again. The Dukas healing could flow out toward whoever needed it. It could also be a soporific and something she must guard against, lest it weaken her own resolve.
At least, when she returned to the kitchen, Christy felt calmer and more at peace, yet more determined than ever to follow through on exposing what lay behind all that had been happening here at Redlands. Her mother hadn’t succeeded in blanketing her resolution.
Only Nona and Hayden sat at the table—the others had gone, Floris down through the woods with her flashlight, knowing her way well, while Oliver had driven Eve home in his car.
Nona looked up from her coffee cup and caught the change in Christy at once. “She’s done it again, hasn’t she? I wish I had Lili’s talent for pouring anesthetic over whatever she chooses to touch.”
Christy sat down beside her. “I do feel better for having talked to her. But she isn’t going to change my course.” She met Hayden’s eyes resolutely.
He pushed his own cup aside. “I’ve been talking to Nona and we both think you must get away from Redlands as soon as you can.”
“I can’t leave now,” Christy said quietly.
“Look!” Hayden tried to control his impatience. “Someone is afraid of you. That’s evident. Afraid of your particular sensitivity. If you stay, you’ll ask for a lot worse than a push in the dark. Your aunt and I agree now that I shouldn’t have asked for your help in the first place.”
Nona reached out to touch Christy’s hand. “Please listen, dear. Stay until your mother comes, if you like. She won’t be here long, if I know her. We’ll see what she has to offer—and then you must leave as you meant to when you knew what had occurred here.”
“Once you asked where I’d go,” Christy reminded her aunt. “I didn’t have a good answer then, and I don’t now, Besides, I know I must stay and see this through. I don’t know if I can help, but I have to try.”
She didn’t look at Hayden. She’d never asked for this feeling of involvement in all that concerned him, but she had no way to stop it from happening.
Nona gave up trying to persuade her. “At least, you’d better sleep upstairs tonight, Christy.”
She managed a smile. “No, I’ll lock the doors to the deck and I’ll be fine. Nothing more is going to happen for a while. I think someone only wanted me to find that dress.”
“That’s what worries me,” Nona said. “There’s a—a madness in all this, and we haven’t a clue where to look. Madness is like evil. It can wear disguises.”
But she did have one clue, Christy thought, and not something psychic either. There was still the llama manuscript that had so disturbed Donny. He’d said that real names had been used, and perhaps real characteristics. So Rose’s make-believe llamas might echo the behavior of the humans who lived here. As soon as she could, she would get Donny to show her the book.
“I’ll be going along,” Hayden said. He stood for a moment looking down at the white caftan where it lay across the chair, and Christy wondered what painful thoughts might be stirring in his mind. Then he turned to her with a look so unexpected that it caught her breath. A look that was warm and approving—grateful. He held her eyes for a moment, and then he was gone—off into the darkness to the house where he had lived with Deirdre.
Nona sat looking into her cup, elaborately unaware. But Christy knew she had seen that look.
“Good night,” she said, and kissed Nona’s cheek before she hurried downstairs to her room.
Deirdre’s crystal gleamed in its place on the dressing table where she’d left it. She picked it up and sat down to warm it in her hands, so that she could feel its power flowing through her. The stone could tell her something, if only she knew how to listen. It seemed willing now, pulsing faintly with the rhythm of her own blood. But if it wanted her to go outside, that wasn’t something she would try again tonight.
She fingered the swelling on her temple and tried not to remember those wicked hands pushing her. What hidden madness among them wore a disguise?
Dukas is coming. I’m not sure what this means, or what she can do.
At least I’ve frightened Christy. There couldn’t have been a better way for her to find the caftan. I wonder what she makes of it?
So let them gather around Dukas! There’s nothing she can do. Not even Dukas can find Deirdre. But Christy must be watched. There’s a perception there that I can sense. I wonder what she’s decided to do? Probably nothing, since Dukas is coming and will take over.
That will be interesting for me. Perhaps I can expose her for the performer and charlatan she really is. I would like to be the one to do that.