It was all or nothing now. Heidi had decided to remain, so with that decision she had to regain her reason for being here in the first place. Her equilibrium of sorts. Connie had sent her home with the counsel to rest for a day, then regroup. She was invited back to spend time with Emma. Connie had insinuated she’d like to understand what had brought Heidi to Pleasant Valley. It was really, honestly, perhaps the first time anyone had shown genuine interest in what mattered to Heidi.
She wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.
Heidi slouched on the sofa in the living room, knees pulled up to rest on the cushion, with her mother’s letter open before her, revealing the familiar handwriting in blue ink. She balanced an open can of Dr Pepper on her left knee. To her right lay the old photograph album, along with the unsettling note she’d found under her windshield wiper.
Her eyes skimmed the letter she’d received only two months prior. Two months, and she’d ended up coming at the call of a mother she had to admit she still sought approval from.
Heidi . . .
She noted that there was no introduction of “dear” or “darling,” with the use of her first name or the use of “Honey” or “Sweet pea,” or some other ridiculous childhood nickname. It made the distance she’d known since childhood between mother and daughter all the more palpable and real.
There is much to say, but not in a letter. Since your father passed away, I’ve slowly sensed my own mind failing. I know dementia to be a wicked truth of age and genetics, but I wished it wouldn’t come to this.
I am frightened. Not of losing myself into the shadows of my mind. I am frightened by all that is unseen, and yet has now come to visit. We did our best to protect you. But we lived in a house of ghosts. Unspoken voices. The past and the present colliding with such force, we could only survive by ignoring it.
Please come.
Heidi, you are the reason the voices are never heard.
But they are finding their voice and soon will no longer be silent.
Come.
Come quickly.
It was signed simply Mom. The chills the letter had first given her still traveled through Heidi’s body even now. In spite of her gray yoga pants and fuzzy socks and bulky fisherman’s sweater she’d donned to ward off the early-morning chill of summer in Wisconsin’s Northwoods.
She set aside the letter and pulled the album toward her, opening it to the page marked with the note card that begged the question, Are you as mad as I? Heidi’s eyes met those of her look-alike in the sepia-tone photograph.
“I don’t know,” she whispered to an antique version of herself. “Am I?”
Thank God that Connie Crawford had seen the photograph the first day and affirmed its likeness, or Heidi would be afraid that if someone else saw it, they’d see something totally different. A different woman even from the one Heidi saw.
She avoided looking up, avoided the instinct to glance out the window for fear this same woman would be peering in at her again. Vanishing. Like the ghosts in her mother’s letter.
“Please don’t spill that.” Vicki’s voice broke Heidi’s intent silence.
She startled and grabbed for the Dr Pepper that wobbled on her knee.
“That’s a sure way to make it happen.” Heidi rolled her eyes at her older sister. “Scared the life out of me.”
“Sounds as though you’ve already done an excellent job of that yourself this week. Frightening others?” Vicki dropped onto a chair opposite Heidi, crossing her leg over her knee.
Heidi eyed her sister. Sometimes silence was the best answer rather than taking the bait.
Vicki shook her head and sighed. “I’d hoped things would be different. It’s been how many years since we’ve seen you? But you’re still impulsive and reckless. You’re lucky the Crawfords aren’t more upset with you. Emma needs routine and—”
Heidi pushed her feet off the couch and leaned forward. “She agreed to come with me.”
“Because she wanted to please you. Or maybe she didn’t understand your intent,” Vicki debated.
Heidi set the can of pop on the wooden coffee table. “Don’t discredit Emma and talk about her like she’s incapable of making her own decisions. She’s very intelligent and independent in many ways.”
“I don’t get this devotion you’ve developed toward her.” Vicki tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair, studying Heidi. “Not that it’s bad, really, I just—you haven’t shown your own family that much attention in forever. What about Mom? Why not invest in her?”
Heidi reached for the Dr Pepper and took a sip. It was easier than answering, because Vicki’s question had merit. As she predicted, Vicki continued.
“I understand wanting to make up for hitting Emma’s dog. I do.” She was trying to anyway, Heidi could tell. Extending some sort of peace offering in Vicki’s own backward way. “But—Heidi, I’m not even sure why you’re here. I thought it was Mom at first, then to help me at the lodge, but it’s like you’ve no purpose. No—direction.”
Bingo!
But Heidi wasn’t going to admit that her sister had pretty much nailed Heidi’s entire life in one sentence. Instead, she twisted in her seat and reached for her mother’s letter. What was there to lose really? She handed it to Vicki and watched her sister over the rim of the pop can.
For a moment, something flashed across Vicki’s face, but then she drew the paper away and looked at Heidi. Vicki’s eyes beneath her sideswept, dark blond hair were direct. “You realize Mom has no idea what she’s saying when she says it.”
Heidi mustered a casual shrug, even though part of her instantly fought the disappointment that coursed through her. She was hoping Vicki would at least empathize, if not try to unravel the contents.
“It sounded pretty sane to me,” Heidi argued. “It’s even well written.”
“Mom wrote how many articles for the church newsletter, Heidi? She could compose entire segments in her sleep. This?” Vicki tossed the letter onto the coffee table. “It’s nothing, Heidi. Just her mind going off into one of her many stories. Yesterday she was trying to convince me that Dad was out fishing on the lake and was bringing home an entire stringer of bass and bluegill to fillet and cook up for supper.”
“And this?” Heidi handed Vicki the note card.
Vicki’s confidence faltered. Heidi could see it in her body language, the way she seemed to tense up.
“Where’d you get this?”
“It was under my windshield wiper.”
Vicki frowned. “Did you show it to the police?”
“Why would I?” Heidi countered. “There’s no threat, no crime in leaving a note under someone’s wiper.”
“Yes, but it matches the break-in message on your mirror!” Vicki scooted to the edge of her chair. Her face was paler now, marked by worry.
Heidi gave a blithe smile. “And it matches what you used to call me. Other than Monkey. Or maybe that was why you called me Monkey? You thought I was ‘crazy as a monkey’?”
Vicki blew air through her lips, lifting loose strands of hair around her face. “Really, Heidi.”
“No. It’s all right. I get it. I’m overemotional. I have an anxiety disorder—which has been verified by medical professionals now.” Heidi waited to get satisfaction from seeing Vicki’s surprise. There was none. Maybe she’d already assumed as much and had grown past the immature taunts of their younger years.
“Heidi . . .” Vicki’s voice dropped. “I’m not sure what’s going on. Mom’s letter is nothing. But—the message on your mirror and that card? Your claiming you saw a woman looking at you in the window?”
“Oh, for all that’s holy, I’m not losing my mind, Vicki!” Flabbergasted, Heidi’s mouth dropped open. “You think I did that myself? Created some story just for the attention?”
Vicki leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Heidi blinked. They locked eyes, a silent standoff.
Okay. Fine. She’d tried to get others’ attention through various stunts in the past.
Heidi pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t insult myself if I were that desperate for you to take notice of me.”
Vicki nodded, doubtful. “You mean like the time you stole Dad’s car and went dancing with your high-school boyfriend? Wearing a bikini top and a miniskirt? I’d say that was a bit self-deprecating.” A tiny laugh followed.
Heidi bit back her own smile at the memory. She rolled her eyes. “Well, I was only sixteen. How was I to know you never wear a bikini top with a miniskirt?”
Vicki offered a chuckle, and then her smile disappeared.
Heidi smirked. “Look, I know I’ve done some dumb things. But this isn’t one of them! I’ve nothing to gain by staging a break-in and leaving myself notes.”
“Or claiming to see ghosts?” Vicki added.
“Exactly!” Heidi grinned for real this time. “What could I possibly gain from any of that?”
Vicki didn’t answer. Instead, she heaved a sigh and looked down at her fingernails, picking at a chip in the mauve polish. Finally she met Heidi’s gaze. “Attention, Heidi. You would gain attention. Even that letter from Mom. You like to have the world revolve around you. As if our family has ghosts!” She gave a derisive laugh. “And the messages, the woman in the window? All of that was with Rhett around. We all know how you like to . . .” She let her sentence hang.
A numbness washed over Heidi. Vicki didn’t deserve an answer, yet Heidi still felt the need to defend herself. To justify herself to the demure and staid sister who capped her in years by a solid fifteen and had, in many ways, been more of a mother to her than her biological one.
Heidi hoisted the photo album from the sofa and slipped the photograph from its paper frame. She handed it to Vicki, who still held the mysterious note card in her other hand.
“What’s this?” Vicki asked.
Heidi waved her hand. “Just look.”
Her sister stared down at it. There was no shift in her expression, no look of shock, no quick lifting of her eyes. She flipped the photo over and read the penciled script on the back.
“Misty Wayfair,” Heidi said, impatient for Vicki to say something—anything. To confirm to her sister that she wasn’t on a desperate bid for attention.
Vicki swallowed. She nodded. “The woman looks like you.”
Heidi scooted to the edge of her seat. “And she’s dead.”
“Of course she’s dead. This was taken over a hundred years ago.” Vicki shot her a weird look.
“No, look.” Heidi stood and moved to position herself next to Vicki on the arm of her chair. “The body is held upright by a clamp. It’s a metal frame of some sort. You can see it by her feet.”
“Oh my—” Finally, a reaction. Vicki pulled the picture closer to her. “That’s disgusting. Did they sew the body’s eyes open, or did they just paint her eyes in after?”
“It looks like paint to me.” Heidi leaned in closer as well.
Vicki’s expression said she was appalled. She glanced at Heidi. “So, they photographed a dead woman.”
“And she looks just like me,” Heidi asserted, wanting Vicki to focus on the main point of the picture.
“Where’d you get this?” Vicki twisted to look at Heidi.
“At Connie’s shop. The first day I came here. I found it, I bought the album, and the next morning”—Heidi tapped the face of the dead woman—“that woman was staring into my window.”
Vicki flipped it over again. “Misty Wayfair,” she murmured.
“Do I look like the Misty Wayfair they say haunts the woods and asylum?”
“Is that why you took Emma there?” Realization spread across Vicki’s face.
Heidi nodded. Finally. It seemed Vicki was moving beyond her critical attitude and into the same realm Heidi was existing in.
“This can’t be Misty Wayfair.” Vicki shook her head, handing the photo back to Heidi. “According to what I know of the legend, they say she was murdered sometime in the 1800s, maybe a few decades before this photo was taken.”
“Then why would someone write her name on the back?” Heidi insisted.
Vicki cleared her throat and pushed to her feet, leaving a whiff of lilac-vanilla perfume in her wake. “I don’t know. I get why you’ve been unnerved, Heidi, but there’s got to be an explanation. It’s not like there’s really a ghost, like some dead woman has come alive to target you specifically.”
Heidi sank into the chair Vicki had abandoned. “Then how do you explain my look-alike in a photo album in a town our family has no connections to? The name on the back? The strange notes and messages? Mom’s letter, for goodness’ sake?”
Vicki shrugged, reaching behind her head to tighten her ponytail. “I told you—I don’t know. But there are more important things to focus on right now. Real-life things. Like Mom. And not her letter full of fiction, but Mom as she is now. Today.”
That stung. Disregarding everything meant disregarding her. Heidi wasn’t even sure that Vicki knew she did it. It probably wasn’t intended to be a dismissal, but it was all the same. Mom was important. The lodge was important. Vicki’s life was important. Heidi was just chasing shadows and dreams like always.
Vicki walked off toward the kitchen, the conversation apparently over for her.
Heidi stopped her. “Vicki?”
Her older sister turned. She looked so much like Mom. “Yeah?”
Heidi couldn’t help it. She had to say it. “But all this—it proves I’m not nuts. It proves that something is happening here in Pleasant Valley. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Someone in the past looked exactly like me. Someone in the present wants to mess with my head. That’s not important to you? Not important enough to dig into and figure out what the connection is?”
Vicki pursed her lips, and her chest rose and fell in a silent sigh. For a brief moment, she seemed conflicted. Then she leveled Heidi with a sisterly look. “I love you. I do. But, Heidi . . . I just—can’t.”
It was the lamest, most hurtful excuse Heidi had ever heard.