When they reached the house, Leonie hurried upstairs to Deirdre’s room. The door stood open and she beckoned them in.
An upheaval had struck the room. Drawers had been opened and their contents strewn on the floor. Deirdre’s desk was piled with its own contents. The bedspread had been pulled off and wadded at the foot of the bed.
In the midst of all this confusion Donny sat cross-legged on the floor. Tear streaks had dried on his face, and he stared at them bleakly. From the top of a bookcase behind him, Sinh watched with cold unblinking blue eyes—thinking her own strange thoughts?
Nona sat down opposite Donny. “Would you like to tell us what has happened?”
He shook his head, scowling.
“He won’t tell me anything,” Leonie said from the doorway.
Lili spoke softly in her musical voice. “I am Chrystal’s mother, and I know you’re Donny Mitchell. We’d like to help you, if you’ll tell us what’s the matter.”
Lili’s charm had no effect at all on Donny and he turned his head away.
Christy tried, keeping her tone matter-of-fact and calm. “You know, Donny, when something gets really bad, everybody needs help. Can we help you find what you’re looking for? Maybe we can all look together.”
Perhaps because she had read Rose’s book to the cows, Donny trusted her a little. “It’s gone!” he told her. “I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find it. So maybe my mother came and took it away. She always told me there was something magic about it. But if she came, she didn’t stop to see me—and when I met her in the woods she just ran off in the mist.”
There was so much pain and longing in his voice that Christy ached for him. “Tell us what is missing. If we know what to look for—”
He got up from the floor and went to his mother’s armchair. “It’s that embroidery she was making. My mother left it in this chair the last time she was here. And Dad said to let everything stay as it was, so when she came back she’d know where her things were. That’s what he thought at first.”
Sinh raised her head and mewed plaintively. Perhaps she missed her mistress’s presence in this room.
“Do you mean that rainbow needlepoint she was working on?” Christy asked.
He nodded gloomily and she dropped to her knees beside him.
“I remember that very well,” she told him. “It was nearly finished, wasn’t it? A rainbow with all the colors worked in. One end of the rainbow seemed to be on fire, and the other end was lost in a storm. Did she ever talk to you about what it meant, Donny?”
He seemed pleased that she remembered. “She told me one time that a rainbow could rise out of trouble and still be bright and beautiful. That’s why I wanted to find it—so I could see if that was true.”
“I can understand how you feel.” Christy pushed a little harder. “Did she talk to you about what trouble the rainbow was rising from?”
“I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me. She just began to cry.”
“Do you think she was afraid of something, Donny?” Nona asked.
This touched some chord, for Donny raised his head and looked past them at Leonie, watching in the doorway.
“Sometimes she seemed real scared about something. Leonie knows. Tell them, Leonie!”
Sinh leaped suddenly from the bookcase, startling them all. She landed on Donny’s shoulder and rubbed her head against his, as if to comfort him. Christy thought of her whimsy about the spirit of the master (or mistress) entering the temple cat.
“Leonie?” Nona said. “Is there anything you can tell us?”
The woman stayed in the doorway, earrings trembling against the golden skin of her cheeks. “There was one time when I brought tea to Mrs. Mitchell in the afternoon. She always waited for Donny to come home from school so he could join her. He came with me to her room, and we found her lying on her bed crying. Donny went to hug her and he asked what was the matter. I set the tray down and waited to see if there was anything I could do.”
Now Donny took up the story. “She cried and cried! But she wouldn’t tell us why.”
“She really seemed to be afraid of someone or something,” Leonie said. “She—she said something very strange—that she might have to go away, and she didn’t want to.”
Donny’s tears came again. “She said I should never forget her if that happened—and that she would never forget me. Not ever! That was when she showed me the needlepoint again. She said both ends of the rainbow were in danger, and she must find her way through the arch in time.”
“That really worried me,” Leonie said. “I asked her what she meant by ‘in time,’ and she just told me to leave the tray and go away. She wanted to be alone.”
“She wouldn’t let me stay either.” Donny turned his head to Sinh, who looked into his face as though she understood, and mewed in sympathy. “Never mind,” Donny told her. “I know she’ll come back. It must have been my mother who took the needlepoint. All the spools of thread are gone too.”
“Did you tell Mr. Mitchell about this, Leonie?” Nona asked.
“I told him, but he said that sometimes his wife made up little stories. She loved make-believe, and he didn’t think anyone would want to harm her. Everyone loved Mrs. Mitchell, even though she—she—” Leonie broke off, hunting for words.
Lili had been moving quietly about Deirdre’s room, touching nothing but looking at everything. Now she supplied her own words. “I believe that Deirdre Mitchell had her own mysterious spiritual life. It’s possible that she even attracted entities that meant her harm. That could happen if she didn’t protect herself. There are always prayers, words of affirmation that ask for help and protection.”
“That doesn’t help us now,” Nona said impatiently. “Is there anything practical that speaks to you in this room, Lili?”
“Not what you would call practical, dear,” her sister admitted.
“Or to you, Christy?” Nona asked.
“Not right now.” Christy’s feelings about Deirdre’s room matched its state of confusion. Her real concern was for Donny and his grief. Grief that might be justified.
“Would you like me to help you put back your mother’s things?” she asked the boy.
He turned to her, Sinh in his arms. “I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference. Not if she’s really gone.”
With a touching dignity he walked past them out of the room, and no one tried to stop him.
“I’ll pick everything up,” Leonie said. “Thank you for coming over, Miss Harmony. Donny’s not as upset as he was, and now that I know what he was looking for, I’ll watch out for it.”
“Have you any idea what might have become of it?” Nona asked.
Leonie shook her head. “Perhaps Mr. Mitchell has put it somewhere else. I’ll ask him.”
Lili seemed more solemn than usual. “I don’t think so. Tonight I’ll ask about the needlepoint, among other things.”
“Ask whom?” Nona demanded, still impatient.
“Josef, of course. I’m sure he will help us tonight. We should be on our way to Wintergreen soon. Let’s have a sandwich lunch, Nona. I want to get up there early, so everything will be ready before we bring the others to Laurel House. That’s where you and Chrystal and I will stay tonight. And I’d like time to rest before dinner.”
“What about Oliver?” Christy asked. “He’ll be upset when he finds out what you plan to do.”
Lili seemed not at all worried about Oliver. “There are secrets in that man, as there are in Victor. He’s not as sure of himself as he pretends, and I don’t think he’ll fight me. We may learn something useful.”
If she hadn’t been so concerned about Hayden and Donny, Christy might have been an amused spectator, watching her mother. As it was, she couldn’t be sure what was going to surface, not only in the others but in herself as well. From past experience she knew what unexpected turns Lili’s channeling could take, once Josef came in. Sometimes he seemed to have a prankish sense of humor, and Christy didn’t trust him. She wished there had been time to ask Donny more about Rose’s llama story, but that would have to wait until Lili was gone.
Right after lunch they started on their way in Nona’s car. Lili exclaimed delightedly over the rainbows on the car doors.
The road to Wintergreen crossed Rockfìsh Valley and began to climb in a gradual rise. The long, high mountain loomed ahead, greening in spring rains and warmth, so that the curving road above was invisible among the trees. As the way steepened and began to loop back and forth in sloping turns, Christy could feel the changing pressure in her ears.
At the last minute, before leaving Redlands, they had acquired an unexpected passenger. Floris Fox had phoned to say she was having car trouble and would like to come with them. Someone else could bring her home tonight. . . . So she and Christy sat in the back seat, with Liliana Dukas and Nona in front. Lili had never learned to drive, since there was always someone eager to take her about, or else there were limos to be summoned.
Earlier, Christy had watched her mother’s preparations uneasily. Lili’s cheerful confidence usually overcame all obstacles, but her efforts were usually directed toward healing and life-counseling—not with the deviations of a possible murderer.
Lili had packed her costume for the evening in a suitcase—black crepe trousers and a gorgeously embroidered Chinese jacket in emerald green. She would add jade earrings, black satin sandals, and her own water lily perfume. Josef could be strangely sensitive to odors when he occupied Lili’s body, and Christy had wondered about his past lives when there would have been fewer deodorants.
Once she had dared to tell Lili that she didn’t trust Josef—he could be too worldly at times, and probably fallible for that very reason. Lili had said, “Of course he is worldly. He has lived through several past lives, and he knows all about humans because he’s been human himself more than once. That’s why he is so wise and I can trust him.”
Now that they were on their way up the mountain, Christy was glad to leave Redlands behind for a few hours. Though this might be false security if whatever danger existed came with them. At least Lili’s presence was some protection, and she was grateful for that.
In the car Floris seemed as twitchy as one of her llamas. Like Oliver, she didn’t hold with Lili’s performances, but at the same time she didn’t want to stay home and be accused of concealing something—as she announced to them all a bit fiercely. A voluminous tote bag accompanied her, and now and then she fiddled with its contents as though she were undecided about something.
The car had left the Wintergreen gatehouse to follow the upward windings of Wintergreen Drive. Signs for side roads began to appear—all with woodsy names like Chestnut, Dogwood, and Milkwood. They passed villages of condominiums—or “villas,” as Wintergreen preferred to call them. These had names of their own, which appeared on the map they’d been given, along with the keys to Laurel House.
The car turned onto Blue Ridge Drive, and now the great ski slopes were visible, slanting steeply below the road. They drove past outlooks, where miles of the entire countryside were visible. One side of the mountain looked toward Stoney Creek and the Rockfish River, the other out over the Shenandoah Valley.
Nona knew the mountain well and she found her way with ease through the maze of lanes that cut through forests of chestnut oak. Laurel House was a duplex, with the other half unoccupied at the moment. Knowing the privacy Lili required, Mrs. Brewster had arranged well. They left the car in a parking area and crossed a little wooden bridge over a gully to reach the front door. The house dropped down the mountainside for two stories, with the main living quarters on the top floor. Nona unlocked the door for Lili, who walked in like the vibrant gypsy she was impersonating at the moment. Everything about her breathed happy assurance that all would be well, all questions would be answered, and no evil would touch any of them. Nona cocked a somewhat derisive eyebrow at Christy, who looked quickly away. Right now she wanted only to believe in what her mother could do.
The living room was furnished in semirustic luxury, with overhead beams and birch-paneled walls. Curving sofa and plump chairs were comfortably modern. Over the mantelpiece hung a painting of autumn woods, aglow with color, and opening upon a vista of valley and distant mountains; wide glass windows framed the tremendous view. At the far end, a glass door offered access to a balcony.
Christy went outside at once. The day was beautifully sunny, though up here the air seemed cool. Beneath the balcony rail, the cliff went straight down for thousands of feet. Spread out below lay the vast miles of the Shenandoah Valley—a checkerboard of cultivated fields and wooded country, its spring greens darkening into summer. Far away, the river, a dark, curving thread, wound through this old, old land of Virginia.
Up here the air was thinner, and far clearer than any glass. Christy breathed deeply, savoring the scents of high mountain growth. Without warning, the thought of Hayden was sharp in her mind. For too many years her heart had seemed a dry well, but now, when she didn’t want it to happen, it was filling too fast with a warmth of new longing. Futile longing.
Beautiful places made her feel lonely. Tonight there would be a glorious sunset out there—and sunsets should be shared. But there was no one for Christy Loren to share anything with, and she’d better not start feeling sorry for herself. Hayden was involved with his own terrible problems, and it was certainly best if he never suspected the way she had begun to feel about him.
Nona came outside to stand beside her. “I still like our smaller mountains and closer views at Redlands best, but I enjoy coming up here where I can see far horizons. Lili loves horizons, so of course she had to bring us up to Wintergreen for her show. Everything is more spectacular up here, and that’s what she thrives on. What’s up with Floris, Christy? Have you any idea?”
So Nona too had sensed Floris’s nervous state. “Let’s go in and see if we can find out,” Christy suggested.
In the big central room Lili was busy rearranging furniture to accommodate her plans for the evening. A larger half circle of chairs and sofa now extended around the fireplace, with a place for Lili at the center of the curve. Floris sat in a corner in a small, straight chair away from the others, her tote bag grasped on her knees as though she feared to let it go.
“Will you help me move this coffee table, Chrystal?” Lili asked.
When they’d set the table out of the way, leaving a thick rug before the hearth empty, Lili looked suddenly into her daughter’s eyes. Christy had often wondered how well her mother read her thoughts. There had been moments between them over the years when Lili seemed to probe past any guard Christy might put up, quite aware of what her daughter might prefer to keep hidden.
But Lili only said, “Let’s talk to Floris.” Perhaps that was all she’d picked up—what Nona and Christy had been thinking about. Christy had no wish for either Lili or Nona to suspect the painful waking up that seemed to be taking place inside her.
Nona made the first direct move. “Floris, why don’t you tell us what’s troubling you? You’ve been edgy ever since we left Redlands.”
Floris, more accustomed to jeans, smoothed her dark brown pants and crossed her knees, swinging one foot in its heavy boot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What have you brought in your bag?” Lili asked, dropping gracefully down on the carpet near Floris’s chair, her wide skirts bright against the wheat color. Growing older hadn’t changed Lili’s ability to curl up on the floor.
The flush that moved up Floris’s rather swarthy skin was painful to watch. It revealed too much. She had brought something unusual in her tote bag, and she was upset, perhaps even a little afraid, and not sure what to tell them.
In her own gentle, loving way, Lili placed both her hands over Floris’s clenched fists and sat quietly, saying nothing. After a moment, Floris began to relax, to let go. Even the tight lines in her face smoothed out. Lili could calm the inner spirit as well as heal the body, and Floris gave in with a helpless shrug.
“I’m upset because I don’t know what this means, and I hate to get involved,” she said. She opened the wide mouth of the bag and pulled out a rolled wad of material. As she spread it out across her knees, Christy recognized Deirdre’s rainbow needlepoint. Now, however, stains of red earth streaked the material. Stitches had been snagged, and the fabric was torn in one place.
“When did you find this?” Nona asked. “And where?”
“This morning. It was in the llama pen and it had been trampled and probably nibbled on out of curiosity.”
The flames at one end of the rainbow had disappeared into smears of the same red as the earth of Redlands’s fields and roads. The other side was torn so that the far end of the rainbow had vanished—leaving it a bridge to nowhere.
“This belonged to Deirdre,” Floris said. “She brought it down to my house with her several times and worked on it while she visited me. Though after I scolded her about her earring idea and told her to stay away from my animals, she stopped coming. She’s been missing for weeks, so why should this suddenly appear among my llamas? It wasn’t there yesterday and I don’t like this at all.”
Lili might weigh her neck down with amber and turquoise and crystal, but she never wore rings, and her slender fingers were free of any metallic vibrations. She rubbed her palms together vigorously, gathering electricity, then held them over Floris’s hands. Finally, she touched the woman’s forehead, calming, soothing.
“It will be all right,” she assured Floris. “Tonight we’ll find some of the answers we need. Perhaps even from Deirdre herself, if she is allowed to come through.”
This time, however, Lili had gone too far for Floris. She dropped the needlepoint on the floor and jumped up from her chair. “I don’t aim to stay. I don’t go for all this mystical stuff, and I never took part in anything that happened. Not anything! I shouldn’t have come here today.”
Her eyes following Floris’s nervous movements, Lili drew her knees under her chin and clasped her hands around them. “You believe more than you know,” she told her softly. “You talk to your llamas, don’t you?”
Floris paused on her way to the door. “Most everybody talks to animals.”
“But the way you talk to them is different, isn’t it? You have a gift. When you talk to them it’s sometimes in your head, as well as in spoken words. And you can hear them responding. Isn’t that true?”
Again Floris flushed with emotion. “How’d you know that?”
“Perhaps I have my own gifts. I’d like to use them tonight, if I’m allowed. But the circle mustn’t be broken, and you are part of it. So please don’t run away.”
“Spooks!” Floris said scornfully.
Lili smiled. “I really don’t think it was spooks who planted Deirdre’s needlepoint in the llama pen. I don’t believe it was Deirdre, either. Though perhaps someone who placed it there was trying to make you think that.”
Floris gave in grudgingly. “Okay, I’ll stick around. But right now I’m going for a walk. Fresh air is what I need.”
“Of course.” Lili rose with fluid grace. “Nona, I’d like to rest awhile before it’s time to dress for dinner. The bedrooms are downstairs, I believe.”
“Right,” Nona said. “Go ahead.” She turned to Floris. “I’ll come with you for that walk. Want to join us, Christy?”
Before she could answer, Lili put a hand on her daughter’s arm. “Stay here, Chrystal. It’s necessary for you to be here—though I don’t know why. Just be careful, dear. Be very careful.”
Lili waited until Nona and Floris had gone and then picked up Deirdre’s stained embroidery. Christy sensed what she intended and backed away.
“No—I don’t want to touch that!”
When her mother had gone downstairs without insisting, Christy went out on the balcony and stood at the rail, pushing away all that was disturbing and saddening, letting her mind empty. Why she must wait here she had no idea, but Lili was too often right to be disputed.
Unfortunately, her mind would not focus on the view or stay empty for long. The thought of Hayden filled her too easily, so that he seemed close and real. Yet she didn’t hear him when he knocked on the outer door, or sense his presence when he walked through the house.
“Hello, Christy,” he said from the balcony door. “You’ve gone pretty far away—out across the valley?”
She whirled about, startled, and flushed as darkly and foolishly as Floris had done. His sudden appearance—out of her very thoughts!—brought a rush of emotion she didn’t know how to handle.
He seemed not to notice her confusion. “Where is everybody?”
She explained, and he gestured toward a metal and canvas sofa, upholstered in green stripes, that stood at the far end of the balcony. “Come and sit down, Christy. I’m glad everyone’s gone—we need to talk.”
Christy sat down uncertainly and he sat beside her. “Leonie told me what happened with Donny, and that he’s been searching for Deirdre’s needlepoint. Can you make any sense of this?”
She was glad he was matter-of-fact and not really paying much attention to her.
“It’s pretty complicated,” she told him. “That piece of needlepoint has just turned up in Floris’s llama pen. It’s a bit worse for wear, but Floris doesn’t think it was there until this morning. She brought it up here with her to see if anyone could explain it. No one could.”
“Did this tell you anything?”
“I didn’t touch it,” Christy said. “I didn’t want to.”
“Will you do it now? Please.”
There was no way to refuse him, however much she wanted to. “All right—I’ll try. But nothing’s likely to come through, the way I feel right now.”
They returned to the living room, where Floris had put the needlepoint back in her bag before going out. For a moment Christy hesitated, and then reached in and pulled it out. To her relief, the only impressions that came to her were of the animals who had trampled Deirdre’s beautiful work so heedlessly.
“There’s nothing human left,” she said. “This has been with the llamas long enough to erase everything else.”
Nevertheless, as she held the square of cloth and turned it about in her hands, a strange picture began to form in her mind—not of a place but of something faceted and shiny that gleamed where sunlight fell upon it.
“I don’t know what I’m seeing,” she told him. “I don’t think it’s connected with the needlepoint. It’s something like a crystal, but different. I’m not able to see it clearly. I just have a sense of something I’m not able to identify.”
Hayden stared at her for a moment in surprise and then drew something from his jacket pocket and held it out. “Is this what you’re sensing?”
What he held on the palm of his hand was a roundish, chunky crystal, an inch or more in diameter, with clustered points and facets. White sand had caught in its crevices, and there was a trace of red earth on the flat base. She knew what it was at once.
“That’s a Herkimer diamond. It could be what was coming through. They’re powerful stones.”
As she stood beside him, she was intensely aware of more than the crystal. She was aware of him. They stood so close that, if she moved the hand she’d reached toward the stone, she would touch his fingers—and there was a longing in her to do just that. But if Hayden was in the least aware of her as a physical presence, he didn’t show it, and her hand fell to her side.
“Victor Birdcall let me borrow this,” Hayden said. “What is a Herkimer diamond?”
She spoke almost by rote, thinking more of the way his hair grew over one ear than she did of the stone. Hair that would feel springy to her fingers, with one lock that would cling if she touched it. “Herkimers are one of the oldest formations of crystal—hundreds of million of years—and they’re found in Herkimer County in New York State. They’re based in anthracite—coal. The same type of formation. What was Victor doing with this?” As though she really cared!
Hayden moved restlessly. He never liked the confinement of walls. “Let’s go for a walk too, Christy. I don’t care for all this synthetic atmosphere. There’s a place not far away that you might enjoy. And we can talk more easily outdoors. I’m not comfortable here.”
She was eager to go with him—just to be with him. A walk at least would be a sort of shared experience. They went outside together and followed along the winding lane for a short distance, and then turned up a path that climbed roughly over rocks and tree roots and ran between stunted oaks that had taken the full effect of high winds on top of Wintergreen. Their twisted trunks and gnarled branches all leaned in the same direction the gales had blown. Wooden steps opened to the view ahead, and they climbed to a platform built over a huge outcropping of rock. Planks formed the floor, and wooden rails zigzagged in geometric patterns and angles. On one side Christy could look down a cliff of tumbling rocks to the ravine far below. On the other side, the Shenandoah Valley spread away to the horizon, while overhead white cloud shapes piled in high floats against a blue sky.
Just a little while ago she had been thinking that beauty like this should be shared. But such a sharing was for lovers, and she and Hayden were as far apart as though they stood on opposite banks of the river that flowed through the land down there.
“I like to come up here,” Hayden said. “There’s a restful quality, and walls are a long way off. It was strange, but Deirdre, who often seemed about to take flight on her own, was afraid of heights. Sometimes she had dreams of falling—nightmares that made her wake up screaming. So she seldom came to Wintergreen. She even avoided high places around Redlands. That’s one reason I couldn’t accept what your mother said about Deirdre dying up there on top of that pile of rocks. She would never have gone there in the first place.”
Christy didn’t want to talk about Deirdre now. “Tell me about the Herkimer and Victor Birdcall,” she said. Leaning on the wall beside him, she was all too sharply aware. She didn’t want to think of the way his dark hair blew over his forehead in the wind, or the look of his chin and nose in profile. She’d never noticed before, but his nose had a little dent on one side of the bridge—somehow endearing, softening the stern outline.
“Yes—I want to tell you,” he said. “Though it’s pretty strange and it concerns Deirdre too.”
When he’d left them this morning, he explained to Christy, he’d been without a car, but he’d caught a lift to the nursery and had gone to work loading plantings into a truck, enjoying physical effort that kept him from too much thinking that led nowhere. Nevertheless, he kept remembering their curious encounter with Victor Birdcall, and the memory wouldn’t let him be. Finally, he got into the Jeep, drove back to Redlands and up along the dirt road that led to Victor’s log cabin.
“When I got out of the Jeep, Victor wasn’t out in front, so I walked around to the back and saw something that had been constructed behind his cabin. I knew at once that it was Deirdre’s work, though I hadn’t known it existed. She’d wished she could make a Sun Wheel at our place, but she wanted a large one, and there wasn’t enough level ground. So Victor had let her build this one behind his cabin. Neither of them had told me about it—though I’m not sure why. Perhaps only because Deirdre loved her little secrets, and Victor is closemouthed about everything.”
Hayden looked out over the pattern of sunlight and cloud shadow that filled the wide valley. Against a patch of clear sky, contrails streaked white ribbons across miles of space.
Christy waited in silence until he went on.
“It must have taken her a long while to build that wheel. I know now that sometimes when she would disappear she must have been working on it at Victor’s. He never gave her away. Donny must have known too, since he is everywhere, but she must have asked him to keep her secret too. Now I’ve been wondering if there was something else up there that she didn’t want me to know about.”
Christy had learned about Sun Wheels through Nona, though she had never seen one. “Some of the stones that made it up had to be special, didn’t they?”
“Yes. It must have taken her weeks, months sometimes, to find exactly the stones she wanted. She’d rimmed the whole thing in white sand, with special rocks set into it around the circumference. The whole thing was perhaps fifteen feet in diameter, and she’d divided the enclosed area into four segments with a cross of white stones. The big central stone was white too, with other rocks inside the rim representing the colors of the rainbow.
“While I stood there looking at the Wheel, Victor came outside and told me how Deirdre had hunted for those rainbow stones. Sometimes a lump of quartz would show a streaking of purple. Or a rock with iron in it provided the red. Victor helped her find some of them himself. There were other rocks inside the circle that represented all human life and all religions on earth. Each quadrant marked off by the stone cross apparently has different qualities attached to it.”
“The Herkimer diamond was part of the Wheel?” Christy asked.
“It was a stone someone had given her, Victor said, and she’d placed it in the circle. From time to time she borrowed it from the Wheel for some purpose of her own. Herkimers have their own special qualities, Victor told me, and he said that Deirdre would sometimes sit in one of the quadrants and hold that stone in her hands—as though it had some special protective virtue that helped her. But she never told Victor what she needed to be protected from.”
Again, Hayden was silent at the rail beside her and Christy waited until he was ready to go on. When he spoke again, he held the stone up to the light as though it would tell him something.
“There’s more. Victor’s an early riser and he went out one morning before daylight—about a week before Deirdre disappeared. He found her sitting inside the Wheel on a straw mat, with a blanket around her shoulders. She was holding this same stone, and she was looking at the sky, watching the dawn spread across the hills. It was especially beautiful and filled with color that morning, and Victor watched it with Deirdre. When full daylight came, she replaced the stone in the Wheel and told him some of its virtues. She said it was often given to the dying to hold because it calmed and helped them to an easy passage.”
Hayden drew in his breath sharply before he went on.
“Victor said she wasn’t unhappy that morning, but quite serene. She thanked him for letting her build the Sun Wheel and allowing her to use it. Victor realized that she wasn’t sitting in an east, west, or south segment, all of which are supposed to have benign qualities. Instead, she’d chosen the north quadrant, and he told me that north stands for black light, for the unconscious, for dreams and death—for all those mysteries that men can never know or understand until they cross over. Yet before she left, she told him happily that she was a child of the rainbow and that she would be safe. At the very last moment, before she stepped out of the circle, she picked up a small black stone from the north and took it with her. He didn’t ask why. He said she’d moved away into her own mystical place and probably wouldn’t have heard him.”
Christy was aware that the hand that didn’t hold the stone was grasping the rail tightly, revealing the emotion that tore Hayden apart and wouldn’t let him rest. She wanted to reach out to touch one strong, tanned hand—just to offer human comfort. But she didn’t dare. If she touched him she might reveal too much of her own feelings at that moment.
When he continued, his voice was tight, controlled. “This, morning when Victor went outside, he noticed that the Herkimer was missing from its place in the Wheel. Later, when he started breakfast, he found the stone on his counter top. He had no idea how it got there.”
Hayden held out the chunky stone to Christy. “Victor said I should give it to you and see what it told you.”
Once more, Christy moved away from the test. “I’ll take it if you want me to, but give me a little time. Why do you suppose Deirdre trusted Victor with any of this, when she was so secretive otherwise?”
“Perhaps because of his Indian heritage. Perhaps the Sun Wheel is related to the medicine wheel of Western tribes. Victor said Deirdre never really talked to him much, but sometimes she would come into his cabin for a cup of his herbal tea. He knows how to be quiet, and that was all she seemed to need. Just to be still. But he sensed how troubled she was—sometimes even afraid.”
Hayden’s voice changed.
“I could have done more if I’d paid attention. She could be like a child—a child who lived in her own imaginary world. And I let her alone and didn’t concern myself. I only noticed when she came out of that mood to throw some unreasonable tantrum, and then I was impatient with her. We didn’t have much of a marriage any more, and I just let her go her own way.”
So now, Christy thought, Hayden would carry his own guilt because he’d never reached Deirdre or truly tried to understand. Guilt like that could be carried forever, unless Deirdre was found and all the questions answered. Christy turned her back on the view, looking into the green of mountain laurel, still showing a few blooms. It was time now and she held out her hand.
“Will you give me the stone, please?”
He placed it on her palm, and at once all her uneasiness evaporated. The Herkimer had given its allegiance to someone who was good. Perhaps a loving dreamer, not wholly of this world, but who meant harm to no one.
Christy turned the stone in her fingers, touched its planes and tiny protruding points that stood up like little mountain peaks—miniature ice cliffs of crystal. The stone was rather heavy, and it possessed none of the grace of the phantom crystal Deirdre had treasured. Yet it too was filled with mysterious light. Pinpoints of light sparkled at its heart, and she could look through flat planes as if through windows and see the inner life of the stone. Here and there, as she turned it in the sunlight, she caught a tiny glint of green, a hint of rose—the rainbow that hid its colors deep within. At another point the light was golden with no trace of any other color. She could imagine Deirdre sitting in her safe, beautiful Sun Wheel, protected and happy, holding this stone and allowing it to comfort her.
That last morning, when she’d watched the dawn with Victor, perhaps she had known that it was the last dawn of her earthly life. Perhaps she’d felt that death was coming, though she hadn’t seemed afraid.
But now something else had happened to this stone. Someone driven by malice or mischief had played this trick. Or had this, perhaps, been a cry for help?
There was no easy answer, and Christy’s power was too weak to seek deeply into the stone. Yet before Hayden could be free of his own haunting, all these questions must be answered. She gave the stone back to him regretfully.
“I wish I could help, but while this tells me some of the good qualities Deirdre possessed, it doesn’t give me any other lead. Perhaps Lili will understand better than I do. You must show this to her tonight, Hayden. Has Victor any notion as to whether it was a man or a woman who put this in his kitchen?”
“He didn’t say. It seems a bit too playful for most men—but rather like Deirdre herself.”
There had been other indications that were seemingly like Deirdre—or, as she’d thought before, someone who was imitating her.
“Let’s go back,” Hayden said abruptly.
He looked so sad and remote that she longed again to offer some touch of comfort. But she couldn’t know how such a gesture might be received, and she didn’t dare risk it.
They returned together to the road, and there was no touching between them, Christy suffering her own silent despair. So much seemed to hang on what Lili might accomplish tonight, but Christy’s belief was not as strong as she wished it could have been. Lili refused to recognize the power of evil, and if one didn’t recognize something wicked, how could it be vanquished and dispelled?
They walked back to Laurel House in a silence that set them far apart, and Christy knew she had failed him.
Laurel House was a good choice—out there on top of nowhere. It will be interesting to see what nonsense develops there tonight. Dukas and her idiot Josef! As if they could be a match for me.
That was a good touch on my part—leaving the Herkimer stone for Victor to find. I need to mislead him at every turn. Otherwise, he might be sensitive enough to find answers—before I am ready. I should have been ready before this, but Dukas’s coming has stirred the pot too much. There is a lot of fear around now—and fear can lead to foolish actions. Of them all, Victor could see the truth, if he really looked. Fortunately, his own torments keep him blind.
Deirdre cried when I took away her needlepoint. I’d brought it to keep her happy—give her something to do. To pretend to do. Of course she couldn’t work at needlepoint, any more than she can cry real tears. How can a spirit woman cry or work at embroidery? She must stay that way, and materialize only when I say. Of course, I allowed her to take the Herkimer diamond to Victor’s cabin herself. She hoped he would find it and understand—perhaps come looking for her. She still isn’t sure which world she’s in. I went with her and brought her back again.
Is Hayden becoming interested in Christy? I wonder. That would not be a good idea. So far, she’s been harmless enough. Of course she has probably fallen for him—women often seem to. I wonder what he has to draw them to him? If I were in Christy’s shoes, I would never look at him twice. But then, I never understood why Deirdre married him in the first place. At least, she’s still afraid of me, and under my control. I’m the only one who can reach into that other world for her.
It was a clever idea to leave the rainbow needlepoint in the llama pen. No one will ever know I put it there. It’s too unlikely.
There are those, of course, who would say that I am mad. I can laugh in their faces because I know better. I’m wiser than any of them, except perhaps Victor. I must watch Victor. How I would like to destroy the Sun Wheel—but it’s not time yet. I wonder what Victor did with the Herkimer when he found it? My trick with the crystal that I left in a drawer at the nursery office must have puzzled them.