Arcadia Falls (39 page)

“Oh, my, let me turn these off,” she says, scurrying from lamp to lamp. “I borrowed them from the film department so I could paint last night. You know how it is when the muse hits you; nothing else matters, not even sleep.”

I nod, but really, what do I know of that kind of single-minded devotion to one’s art? I’ve barely finished a thought—let alone a drawing—in the past sixteen years without being interrupted by something I had to do for Jude or Sally. I feel a bit envious looking at what she’s done. Clearly the source of her inspiration was the May Day photograph of Gertrude, Mimi, and Lily. She’s reproduced the figures of the three women on an enormous canvas. On such a large scale they look like goddesses—the Three Graces, perhaps. But she didn’t stop there. The white-clad women have wandered into her paintings of the woods where they slip in and out of the shadows like shrouded ghosts.

“Wow, all this from one photograph?” I ask.

“The photograph gave me the idea for the first painting, but it was my mother’s letter that made me decide to let the women wander through the woods.”

“Her letter?”

“I was just telling you!” She sounds annoyed and I realize that lack of sleep has made her irritable. “Here,” she takes a cream-colored envelope out of her smock pocket and shoves it into my hands. “You’ll see.”

I slip the heavy pages out of the envelope and read.

I look up from the letter and meet Shelley’s intense blue stare. “Do you see what’s wrong?” she asks.

I’m tempted to say that what’s wrong is that her grandmother had clearly abandoned her daughter in this school and had such a stilted relationship with her that Fleur felt it necessary to sign her full name on a letter to her mother. But I know that’s not what she means.

“Ivy says that she checked to make sure that the fall killed her. So she and Vera must have been in the clove when Lily fell.”

“M
aybe Vera went looking for Lily, saw her coming back through the clove, and then saw her fall.”

“Then why wouldn’t she have gone for help?” Shelley asks. “Why would she have left her beloved Lily, lying in the clove and pretend that Lily had run off with Nash? Why did she wait for the searchers to find her body?” With each question, Shelley stabs her finger at her mother’s letter.

“If it wasn’t an accident,” I say. “If Vera struck her …”

“Or if Ivy did,” Shelley adds.

“That would be awful.”

“Why would it be worse than if Vera struck her?” she asks. “Vera was her lover.”

“But Ivy was Lily’s daughter.”

Shelley’s eyes widen. “She was? But they look nothing alike!” She points to the May Day painting. Shelley has perhaps idealized Lily’s beauty, but the lithe, blond woman in the painting is not far from the photographs I’ve seen of Lily—and she’s the polar opposite of tiny dark-complected Ivy St. Clare.

I shrug. “Not all kids look like their parents,” I say. “Ivy didn’t know she was Lily’s daughter. If she did have something to do with Lily’s death, and she found out that Lily was her mother—”

“It would destroy her!” Shelley’s tone is horrified, but there’s a gleam in her eyes that seems almost gleeful. I remind myself that she’s overworked and overtired.

“There’s no telling how she might react. She might have already killed Isabel trying to get the journal back. We have to tell Cal—Sheriff Reade. Can I borrow your mother’s letter to show him?”

I hold out my hand for the letter, but she holds it closer to her body. “Perhaps I should talk to the sheriff as well to back up your story.”

“That’s generous of you,” I say, looking at her paint-splattered clothes, her tangled hair and wild, shadow-ringed eyes. She hardly looks like the most reliable person to have as an advocate. “But I think I can handle it.” She hands over the letter reluctantly. “I’ll be careful with it,” I say. “I’ll show it to Sheriff Reade when he comes here tonight to supervise the bonfire.” I look down at my watch, more to hide the blush that I can feel creeping into my face at the mention of Callum’s name, but then I’m genuinely startled by the time. “Damn! I’m going to be late for my class. Please don’t tell anyone what we’ve talked about. If Dean St. Clare thinks we’re on to her, she might completely flip and hurt someone else….” I falter, wondering if I should tell Shelley that Chloe saw someone in the woods that night, but Shelley’s already grasped the importance of protecting Chloe.

“You mean if Ivy knew that Chloe read Isabel’s paper she might hurt her. Chloe’s in my drawing class next period. While you’re teaching your
class and meeting with Sheriff Reade I’ll keep an eye on Chloe and make sure she’s okay. I’ll help her with her costume and stay close to her at the bonfire.”

I hesitate for a moment, wondering if Shelley in her overexcited state is the best one for this job, but then realize I’ve no other choice. I can’t be everywhere at once. “Okay, thanks. Just make sure Chloe doesn’t go anywhere near the dean’s office. Once I’ve talked to Sheriff Reade and he goes to see the dean, I’ll come find you.”

“Tell Sheriff Reade that Dean St. Clare always has tea in her office at four-thirty. That’s the best place to find her alone.”

“I’ll tell him. Just make sure you keep an eye on Chloe … and if you can, Sally, too. She’s in your drawing class, too.”

Shelley gives me a reassuring smile. “Of course it’s natural for you to worry about your own daughter, but what possible reason could Dean St. Clare have to hurt her?”

Throughout my last class of the day Shelley’s words echo in my head, but they fail to reassure me. If Ivy suspects that I’ve had Lily’s journal all along (and she
did
ask about the green book in my still life), she might be crazy enough to threaten Sally to keep me quiet. I only manage to keep myself from running to the Lodge by reminding myself that Sally is in class with Shelley. There’s no reason to think she’s anywhere near the dean. So I finish class as best as I can, then cross the sunlit lawn in front of Beech Hall and approach the site of the bonfire, where I see Callum standing with Shelley Drake.

From his posture—head tilted to one side, one hand resting on his hip a few inches from his holster—I can tell he’s biding his time while Shelley, silver hair flying in the breeze, flails her arms and points at the wood piled high inside the stone circle. How strange, I think, that I’ve known this man only a few months and I can already read his body language. How strange that after only one night with him I feel an electric thread stretching from me to him as vibrant as the gold bars of late-afternoon sunlight sweeping the lawn. Before I reach him, he lifts his head and looks right at me as if he feels it, too. He smiles and I feel that
thread pull tight inside me. Then he slants his eyes back at Shelley, who’s paused to see who Callum’s looking at, and turns his attention back to her, his face assuming the appropriate gravitas of a law enforcer.

I dodge around them when I see Sally. She’s standing in a circle of students—some in Halloween costumes, others in jeans and T-shirts, all underdressed for the brisk air—huddled around an urn of hot apple cider. She looks like she’s freezing. I take off my sweater and offer it to her, but she shakes her head. “I’ll be fine when they stop artfully arranging the logs and light the bonfire.”

“Artfully arranging?”

She nods. “Ms. Drake has been overseeing the construction since we got here. At least it got her unstuck from Chloe’s and my side. She attached herself to us like Velcro after class until we promised we would stay right here.”

“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” I admit. “I asked her to keep an eye on you.”

“Really, Mom? What did you think was going to happen to me here? Did you think I’d fall into the bonfire?”

The irritation in her voice immediately triggers a corresponding emotion and before I can stop myself I snap back. “Do I have to remind you that a student died the last time the school had a bonfire?”

She rolls her eyes at me. “I promise not to jump off a cliff. Okay?” She turns and heads back to the group of students who are now removing the top layer of wood from the bonfire. I consider following her but realize that in my present state of anxiety more talk will just escalate into an argument. I join Callum, who’s lecturing Shelley on fire safety and bonfire construction.

“It looks so much more picturesque the way we had it, Sheriff Reade. But if you insist …”

“I do,” he says. “That is, if you don’t want to burn down the campus. And make sure the students maintain their distance so they don’t light themselves on fire. Especially these kids in their long robes and capes.” He points to a girl wearing a flowing red cape whom I recognize as Rebecca Merling dressed as the Marvel superhero Scarlet Witch. Her
brother Peter is in a blue bodysuit emblazoned with a silver lightning bolt and wearing a silver wig that makes him look more like Andy Warhol than a superhero. They’re standing behind a girl in a long white robe that’s been painted with grayish veins to look like marble. When she turns, I’m startled to see that her hair is dusted with white powder, her arms are painted gray, and her face is a deathlike blue.

“Christ, what’s Chloe Dawson got up as?” Callum asks.

“I’m surprised you don’t know, Sheriff Reade, what with your Celtic ancestry,” Shelley answers. I get the feeling she’s glad to have something to lecture him on after his intrusion into her bonfire construction. “That’s the Cailleach Bheur, the blue-faced hag, also known as the Queen of Winter. I was a little surprised when she came to me today and told me that she intended to dress up as this particular version of the Goddess. She asked me to help her draw marble veins on her robes and then she wanted to borrow marble dust from the sculpture room to rub on her arms and dust her hair so that she looked like a statue.”

“Why a statue?” I asked.

“The Cailleach Bheur rules the land through the winter, but at Beltane—or May Day, as you may know it—she turns to stone. Tonight, on Samhain, she’s reborn. Chloe plans to throw her marble robes in the bonfire to symbolize the transformation of the goddess from stone to flesh.”

“It sounds a bit morbid, if you ask me,” Callum says. “But I guess no one’s asking. Did you want to talk?” he asks, catching my eye.

I nod and start to follow him, but Shelley grabs my arm and holds me back.

“Sheriff Reade is right. This idea of Chloe’s to play the blue-faced hag
is
morbid,” she hisses in my ear. “She clearly blames herself for Isabel’s death. Perhaps if she knew that it was really Dean St. Clare who was responsible she would stop torturing herself.”