Dreams of Fire (Maple Hill Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

Playing was the only thing that kept the fear at bay. It had been so long since she’d played. Drained but exhilarated from her encounter with the piano, the smoky wisp drifted away quietly.

Chapter 7

Marianne woke early when the sun came in the front windows. She felt groggy and tired. Her nighttime encounter seemed very far away, and she seriously wondered if she’d dreamt the whole interlude. The piano was perfectly normal looking with the key cover down. The piano books on the pull out music rest above the keyboard were open where she’d left them. She sighed with relief and was sure she’d dreamt it.
 

It was really hard to get a full night’s sleep in this house, she thought as she made tea and ate some cereal. It’s like I have another whole day after I go to bed. I hope this doesn’t go on indefinitely, or I’m going to be a zombie.

She was just getting ready to paint her own bedroom a summery periwinkle blue when the door chime sounded. Curious, she went to the front and opened the door. Mr. Cavarelli, a woman about ten years older than Marianne, and a boy of about twelve stood on the front step. The woman held a paper plate of cookies under plastic wrap.

“Oh, hello!” Marianne said as she opened the outer door. “Please come in! Sorry about the mess.”

John Cavarelli introduced his wife, Maria, and their son, Mikey.
 

Maria, with glossy black hair and strong Italian features, handed her the plate with a huge smile showing gorgeous white teeth and said, “Welcome to the neighborhood! John said you stopped by on Friday. You just moved in?” Her speech was a charming mix of Italian and Brooklynese and made Marianne like her at once.

“Thank you, they look delicious! Yes, I just moved here on Thursday from the city. “

“How’s the ladder working out?” John asked. His somewhat gruff speech had a slight Italian lilt to it as it reflected off his wife’s voice.

“Great! Thank you for the loan. I hope you don’t mind my getting a little paint on it? I’ll show you what I’ve been doing, if you want to see.” She led them through the kitchen, depositing the cookies on the counter, and then through the dining room to the back bedrooms. They admired her work.

“This place really needed a coat of new paint. It was pretty… old fashioned looking,” Maria said tactfully. “I’m impressed you’re doing all your own work.”

“Well, it’s not perfect…” Marianne said modestly.

“No, no, honey,” she assured her, “it’s a good way to get to know a new place and make it your own. If you hire out, you never know your house as well.” She waved her hand dismissively for emphasis.

They made their way to the front door again. Mikey had been silent the whole time, a shadow trailing behind his parents. He was wearing a shirt with a basketball player making a jumpshot on the front and looked like he couldn’t wait to be elsewhere.
 

Mr. Cavarelli said, “We talked the other day about mowing your lawn, and Mikey here could do it.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder. Mikey had the resigned expression of a kid who’s been asked to do the new neighbor a favor by his father.

Marianne smiled sympathetically and said, “Mikey, would you be interested in earning a little extra cash by mowing my lawn? As you can see, it really needs it.”

Mikey shrugged politely and unenthusiastically. “Sure, Miss Singleton.”

“What are your rates?” She glanced at the Cavarellis as she asked the boy.

Mikey looked up at his parents and said hopefully, “Does eight dollars an hour plus gas seem okay to you?”

Again, she eyed Cavarelli senior who nodded slightly. “That seems okay,” she said. “As you know the lawn hasn’t been touched in months, so you’ll have to work at it till it gets in shape. Are you up for some extra weeding and organizing?”
 

Mikey looked a little pained but nodded when his father squeezed his shoulder again. “When can you start?” She asked with a smile.

Mikey shrugged. “I guess I could start this afternoon if you want.”

“Really? Okay! I hope you can use your own mower ‘cause I don’t have one.” John Cavarelli nodded. “Alright, let me get some more painting done, and I’ll come over around one o’clock and we can figure out where to start.”

The Cavarellis left, and she went back to work with a smile. They seemed really nice. She turned on the little radio and rolled periwinkle blue top-coat on her bedroom while listening to Car Talk. She loved the relationship advice, and pictured Tom and Ray telling her she’d done the right thing to dump the chump.

After lunch she walked next door. Maria answered and invited her in while yelling over her shoulder, “Mikey! Miss Singleton is here.”

Mikey emerged, pulling a well-loved baseball cap over his dark hair.

“Thanks for doing this,” she said as they walked together back over to number 25.

“You’re welcome,” he said dutifully.

“No, really. I used to live in the city. We don’t have private lawns and gardens there. I don’t know the first thing about lawn care, so it’s nice to have someone who knows what they’re doing.” She thought he stood a little straighter. “By the way, what do you like to be called?”

He considered. “Mikey is okay, but I think I’m getting a little old for that. How about Michael?”

“Okay, Michael it is. What would you do to get this yard in shape? I mean, I have some ideas, but what do you think?”

He looked appraisingly around the yard, its long grass and overgrown gardens, and thought for a minute. “Well, mowing it a bunch will help but there’s a lot of weeding. Some of your plants look pretty good, but there’s a bunch of dead ones too.”

She was impressed that he was so observant. “You guys have a pretty nice yard,” she ventured.

“Yeah, my dad’s pretty proud of it. I have to do weeding and mowing at our place sometimes, so I kind of know what to do.”

“Well, if you want some paid work, I’ve got plenty.” He looked pleased at the prospect and went home to fetch a lawn mower.

“Keep track of your hours, and I’ll pay you as you go,” Marianne said and returned inside. The paint smell at the back of the house meant another night on the mattress in the living room, but doing it all at once was the only way to go. She looked at the newly blue bedroom with pleasure. Ice white trim would set it off nicely. She’d chosen a complimentary dark brown paint for the trim in the spare room and spent the rest of the afternoon painting the trim around the two windows, the closet, and the baseboard. The intoxicating smell of freshly mown grass drifted in the windows with the beat of the mower engine.

Around three she put the lid back on the quart can and left it on the ladder and went outside to admire Michael’s progress and invite him in for lemonade. She paid him $20 for his labor and a tank of gas. He promised to return Tuesday, “ ’cause I have basketball practice on Monday, and I’m trying to get good enough for the school team.”

Later Marianne was in the kitchen contemplating dinner when she heard a pop and a heavy thunk accompanied by a liquid sound from the back room. She hastened back to see what the odd noise was and gasped as she entered the spare room. The lid of the quart can had somehow exploded off, fallen from the ladder, and splattered the newly painted white wall with a huge fountain of dark brown paint.
 

She swore loudly and spent the next fifteen minutes scraping as much paint off the tarp into the can as she could salvage, tamping the lid on again firmly and leaving it on the floor. She wondered if the lid could have spontaneously popped off due to heat and pressure buildup inside the can. It was pretty warm, inside and out. All the while she imagined someone feeling very pleased with himself, which only served to annoy her more. She then took an old T-shirt and wiped the brown paint off her pristine white wall as best she could. There was a stain where the brown had been, and she would have to paint the wall with primer again tomorrow. She cleaned up her hands at the kitchen sink and decided she was too tired to cook for herself.

The co-op deli counter had plenty of options, and the place was emptier than it had been all weekend. She picked up several salads and a cool drink and sat outside at a table on the sidewalk to think and eat.

Something very strange was going on at her new house. The weird dreams, the eerie basement, the sensation that someone was watching her, the piano playing in the middle of the night, and Oscar being scared of something.
 

They all added up to a very scary idea. Is my house haunted? She wondered. If so, Mrs. Thomas’ non-sequiter “is he giving you a hard time?” would make much more sense. That would explain a lot of things. The more she thought about it, the more unnerved she became. The idea of a spectral person watching her at all times gave her the willies. That was way worse than having Geoffrey stalk her. At least she could see Geoffrey and get away from him. She picked at her salads, suddenly without much appetite.

Her rational historian’s mind tried to intervene. It was still possible that she was just scaring herself for no reason. She was definitely still upset from Geoffrey’s unwanted emails earlier. But if it was true that her house was haunted, maybe she could figure out who it was. If she could give the ghost a name, maybe it would be less scary. Whoever it was didn’t like her painting but did like her piano. Maybe a temperamental pianist had lived there? Maybe she could convince him or her to go away and leave her be. But what if it wasn’t the ghost of a person? What if it was a demon or a poltergeist? That was an even more terrifying thought. She needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t scoff or tell her she was losing her mind.

I wonder if I could tell Grandma Selene? She snorted at that idea and pressed the plastic fork against the table top, watching it bend. And what would I tell my proper English grandmamma? ‘Hey, your friend’s house is haunted, and that’s why she can’t keep her renters?’ Grandma Selene had always been supportive, but she’d never indicated that ghosts were part of her worldview. Besides, she’d said she was going away for a few days, and she was too old fashioned to carry a cell phone.
 

She couldn’t call her mom with this either. They’d been close when she was younger, but the years with Geoffrey had driven a wedge between Marianne and everyone she’d known. She hadn’t had a heart to heart conversation with her mom in years. Now that she was on her own again, it was definitely time to reconnect. She just didn’t think this would be the best topic. For now she didn’t want to worry her mom since she was so glad she was safely away from her stalking ex-husband. The plastic fork unexpectedly snapped in two, jangling her further. She looked around her guiltily, but no one had noticed.

There really isn’t anyone I can turn to, she thought with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. I’ve run out of places I can go, short of driving away randomly. I have to find a way to make this place work. Maybe I’m just imagining things.

Pressing the lids back on her half finished food, she left the sidewalk table and headed back towards the house. Walking back through the humid evening shadows, a measure of peace stole into her mind soothing her agitation. It really was a beautiful little town, and she wanted to be able to call it home more than anything at this moment. Driving off into the sunset to some random destination was not something she wanted to do at all.

 
Oscar met her at the door with a plaintive meow, and she opened a new can of food for him and cleaned the litter box. The house felt ordinary. Her appetite returned enough for her to finish dinner. She surfed the ‘net for weather and the news on her laptop and learned that thunderstorms were predicted for the Hudson Valley tomorrow. Perhaps the heat and humidity would cool off for a few days.

Feeling pensive, Marianne sat at the piano for a while and did fingering exercises and worked her way haltingly through some more of Bach’s pieces for Anna Magdalena. She turned out the light and fell asleep on the mattress, feeling much better.

Marianne dreamt of fire again: all consuming, terrifying fire that burned everything in its path from furniture to curtains, to walls and floors. Smoke filled the air making it hard to breathe. Someone was screaming, trapped in the basement, unable to get out. Someone she loved. She searched for a way to reach the cellar door, but veils of smoke and flame cut her off. Increasingly desperate, she prepared to hurl herself through the flames to get to the stairs.

She jerked awake as her dream self jumped. Panting, heart pounding in her chest, it took several disoriented seconds to understand where she was and realize that she was in darkness and silence. The dream had been so real; it was almost as if she’d been teleported from the inferno to her quiet room. She had been convinced someone was trapped in the basement. Just a dream, she thought, trembling slightly with relief.

She lay back weakly on her damp sheets. Her skin cooled in the slight breeze from the window, and Oscar’s heavy, warm weight pressed against her leg.

Rats, another night of crappy sleep, she thought in frustration. She couldn’t go on living like this with interrupted sleep at night and jangled nerves during the day. She needed to talk to someone who would listen to her, or she’d go mad.

It took her a long time to fall asleep again, in spite of Oscar’s reassuring presence.

Chapter 8

Geoffrey Chubb put down the phone and glanced out the office door. Everyone was busy out there even on a Friday, and he had a few minutes before his next meeting. Toggling between windows on his computer screen, he brought up his email. There was no news from Perry yet. They were drinking buddies, and Perry worked downtown for an architectural firm close to NYU. Geoffrey had asked him last night to keep an eye out for Marianne because she’d been unusually effective in evading him for the last several days, and Geoffrey was annoyed. Perry had located her once before.
 

He sent off a carefully worded email to Perry asking him to keep looking. He wanted to be sure no one could tell what he was doing. Not that it was illegal or anything, just that it wasn’t work related. Then he had an idea and skimmed through his address book. Yes, he still had the phone and address for one of her old professors. She might have told Wentwroth where she was. He’d have to think about how to word a message if she didn’t’ surface in a day or two.