The Splendour Falls (31 page)

As I threw on my clothes, I strengthened my resolve to keep an open mind. It was counterproductive to wear the same circle of worry through my mind, and I knew I'd get a lot more done if I just formed a working theory based on an assumption of sanity, then went from there. I was proud of how logical that sounded.

‘Here's what we have to work with today,' I said to Gigi as she watched me pull on my jeans. I needed to think aloud, even if my only sounding board had four legs and a tail. At least I could trust her to keep my secrets. ‘There seem to be three things. The sound in the woods. The girl, who might be connected to the sound. And the watcher.'

I suppressed a shudder, even though the sun streamed in the east-facing window, setting fire to the fine particles of dust in the air. I suppose I could start calling him the Colonel now.

‘Next,' I told Gigi, tugging on a T-shirt, and pretending I was as brave and logical as I sounded. ‘They're getting worse.'

I managed to say it without too much of a quiver in my stomach. Gigi cocked her head, and I sat on the bed, running a hand over her silky fur. The thing about the Colonel was, if ghosts were just impressions of the past, the leftover psychic fingerprints of the routine of daily living, then the apparition at the window wasn't so much a thumbprint as a deep, gouging scar. I'd always felt menaced by the watching presence, but last night, face to face—

My stomach did turn over then, and as if sensing it, Gigi climbed into my lap and I cuddled her close.

Seeing the Colonel face to face had been like plunging from the high dive into a frigid pool. Hitting a wall of icy malevolence.

I had to keep my thoughts moving forward, or fear would paralyse me. ‘So, what was different last night, Gee? The full moon? Being outside? The TTC?'

It had always struck me as strange that they met in the summerhouse. Which made it odd that I hadn't made it out there yet. Time to change that.

Despite the fact that Gigi was authorized to be upstairs, I didn't want to deal with Paula just yet. It would have been easier to go down the spiral staircase, but I wasn't brave enough to go through the French doors, even though there was no sign of anything weird in the hall. Instead, I took my usual route through the den.

Instead of going to the summerhouse directly, Gigi and I walked straight down the sloping lawn and into the trees. It was cool under the canopy of leaves, but only because the sun hadn't reached in to drive away the morning damp. Gigi made sniffing forays through the pine needles, but never went too far before coming back to me.

We reached the river at the point where I'd seen the girl disappear. Looking back towards the house, I wondered how I'd managed to see her with such clarity. Then I shook myself. Duh. Ghost. Normal rules may not apply.

Bracing a hand on one of the trees that clung to the edge of the embankment, I peered over. It was a steep, treacherous drop, and the Alabama River ran by at a swift clip. But there was no sign of an actual fall. No disturbed earth, no broken branches, no marks in the mud.

A wave of vertigo tightened my grip on the rough bark of the pine tree. Time made one of those sideways slips in my head, and I couldn't tell if I was falling now, or remembering the fall onstage, or somehow
remembering
her
fall, empathizing too closely with a girl who possibly never even existed.

‘Who are you?' I whispered. That had to be my next move, finding out. ‘And what are you running from?'

Gigi barked, bringing me back to the present. I forced myself to retreat a step and turned downriver, the dog trotting amiably beside me, unaffected by my momentary fugue.

The path took me downhill, the embankment shortening until eventually the land and water met on the same level. We'd reached the clearing of the inlet – a V-shaped slope that climbed steeply back up to the summerhouse. Set between the house and the water, it would have an excellent view and catch the breeze.

A raised octagon with a pointed roof, the summerhouse had a latticed half wall with screens above it. It was more of a gazebo really, but the tightly woven screens gave the walls a sort of opacity. Even during the daytime, anyone inside would be a shadow at best.

Gigi sniffed the perimeter, ending her patrol at the wooden steps to the entrance. They seemed in good shape, and there was even a handrail. The whole structure was freshly painted and looked a lot better than I would have thought, considering a bunch of teens worked on it.

The screen door opened noiselessly, and a strip of insulation inside the frame made sure that it wouldn't bang closed. The purposefulness of the silence seemed eerily secretive. I found myself walking quietly, half holding my breath as I came in. The click of Gigi's nails
on the floor was loud, like a pair of high heels in the hush of an empty church.

Trying to shake the feeling, I let Gigi explore, which she did, nose to the ground. There was a wood table, its paint peeling off, that would get a good price from a chichi antiques barn. So would the chairs scattered around the room. Two wicker ones were set with a battered steamer truck between them like a coffee table. The furniture was old but clean, and the place didn't feel deserted.

There was a faint smell of – herbs? Potpourri? Citronella candle? Maybe a mix of all those things. Several used matches lay on the corner of the trunk, and a lot of wax drippings pooled on the table.

I tried to open the trunk, but it was locked. More secrets. Why did the Teen Town Council meet in the summerhouse when there was a perfectly nice den in the house? And why was Addie out here so late? Did the meeting go into the wee hours, or had she lingered here, maybe with someone else? Shawn?

After an initial stab of outrage – he had a lot of nerve buying me pie – the idea didn't entirely hold up. I believed Addie and Shawn might be thick as thieves, but it didn't feel like they were
involved
in that way.

The summerhouse didn't look like make-out central, despite the candle smell and the matches. And I didn't smell pot or tobacco smoke. So what were they doing? Playing Scrabble?

This was occupying way too much of my mental energy. What could this possibly have to do with anything? With my dad, the weirdness in town, the whole
Davis/Maddox thing, and last – but so very not least –with the things I was seeing and feeling.

I opened the screen door and looked towards the house. The rosy morning light blurred the shabbiness of the dingy whitewash and saggy trim like a soft-focus camera lens. The overgrown hedges, the moss-draped oaks, the vines crawling up the side columns – all made it seem like the house had been grown rather than built.

The gap in the hedges was aligned so that I had a clear view of the kudzu-covered stone in the garden. An invisible string tied between the rock and the centre of the summerhouse could be pulled straight and taut, like one of those tin-can telephones in old movies.

More disconnected mysteries, like puzzle pieces jumbled in a box. The wailing in the woods and the watcher in the window. The candles and secrecy here in the summerhouse and the monolithic keystone of the garden. Rhys's secret agenda and his rock hunting, and the antipathy between him and Shawn.

‘Gigi, sometimes I think the ghosts are the least weird thing going on here.'

She growled, and I turned to see her plumed tail sticking out from under one of the built-in benches that ringed the half walls. She emerged backwards, pulling out something oblong, grey and fuzzy.

My stomach turned. ‘Oh my God. That had better not be a rat.'

Gigi bore it proudly towards me in her teeth, shaking it with a tiny growl, making sure it was dead. Thankfully, as she got closer, I saw it had never been alive; at least, I didn't see any tail or feet.

I got her to drop the thing and, picking it up between two fingers, I examined what appeared to be a bundle of dried twigs or herbs. A tentative sniff said a mix of both. I smelled some kind of fragrant wood and a pungent green. How weird. The bundle was tied with a piece of cotton string, and it appeared to be charred at one end. When I touched it, my fingers came away black, as if I'd drawn on them with charcoal.

Incense? Maybe Addie
was
hooking up in the gazebo, and setting the mood.

Gigi's ears swivelled towards the house, and she ran to the screen door, barking an alert. I slipped the charred bundle into the pocket of my jacket, as if I had something to hide, and wiped the traces off my fingers before going to the door.

But no one was coming. Gigi was barking at Caitlin's compact car as it pulled round on the drive, heading towards the county road and on to the high school. I glimpsed Addie in the passenger seat, waving her hands as she told an animated, and apparently very humorous, story. Somehow, I was sure it had to do with my screaming bloody murder in the middle of the night.

Nice. I sighed and pushed the door open for Gigi, then carefully manoeuvred down the steps and climbed the sloping lawn towards the house. At least I could now eat breakfast without Miss Malice ruining my appetite.

Clara and Paula were deep in conversation, and they started guiltily when I came in. Obviously I was everyone's major topic of conversation this morning. I
knew
Paula felt guilty, because she didn't say anything when Gigi trotted in alongside me.

That is, she didn't say anything about the
dog.
‘Where did you come from?' she demanded.

‘I had to take the dog out for her morning business,' I said. Honest, if incomplete.

Her gaze dropped to my muddy tennis shoes, and the balance of guilt shifted back to normal. ‘You didn't go out to the river, did you?'

‘Uh.' I was so used to lying when sneaking Gigi in and out of the house that you'd think I would have been prepared with something better than a blank stare now.

‘Oh, Sylvie.' Her exasperated lament had a worried edge to it. ‘Did you have to?'

Clara intervened on my behalf. I had started thinking of them as a pair of aunts, the familial version of good cop, bad cop. ‘Paula, she's fine. Look at her. She looks a lot healthier than when she got here.'

Paula frowned at me, but apparently this was a convincing argument. Still, she wasn't completely swayed. ‘Can you blame me for being concerned?'

‘Lord,' said Clara, pushing herself up from the table. ‘This big ol' house has a history that's enough to give a girl the horrors. When I first came here,
I
used to have nightmares about the Colonel coming to get me. Why do you think I'm happy in an outbuilding, like my ancestors? I don't want anything to do with yours.'

This was an interesting piece of news. Intrigued – not to mention hungry – I took my normal seat at the table. Gigi stretched her front paws up to my knee, asking to be picked up, and while Paula's attention was
on pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee, I slipped the dog into my lap, hidden by the table.

‘What kind of nightmares?' I asked Clara as she returned to the table with a glass of orange juice for me.

She gave me a ‘don't be naïve' look and pointed to her dark-skinned face. ‘What kind of nightmares do you think?'

‘Oh, of course.' My ears burned with the realization I'd said something stupid and possibly offensive. ‘I'm sorry.'

I was apologizing for a lot with those two words. Clara seemed to get that, and smiled slightly. ‘The past is a fact we can't change. I live in the present.'

‘But …' I looked from one woman to the other, seeing an opening for some prying. ‘It's like you said, Clara. The house really is full of history. The past seems so close. Hasn't your imagination ever run away with you, Paula?'

She blinked, her hesitation covered by Clara's laugh. ‘The Colonel wouldn't dare haunt Paula.'

It was the smallest chink, but I pursued that momentary delay in answering. ‘Maybe when you were a kid?'

This time, Clara noticed the hesitation too, and stared at her friend. ‘You did. I can see it in your face.'

Paula huffed, irritated that we had cornered her. She resisted for another stubborn moment, taking a long sip of coffee, then said, ‘When I was a little younger than Sylvie, I had a sleepover. We were “camping out” ' – her tone supplied the quote marks – ' in the summerhouse. And Rainbow Maddox—'

‘Rainbow?' echoed Clara.

Paula ignored her. ‘We were doing silly girl stuff. Telling fortunes, ghost stories. I think there was a Ouija board involved. We were trying to scare ourselves, so it's no wonder …' She paused as if regretting starting the story.

‘Go on,' said Clara.

Paula blew out a breath and half rolled her eyes. ‘Rainbow heard something outside, and when we went to look she swore she saw someone at the upstairs window, watching us. That it was the Colonel, and he was going to get us for doing magic in his summerhouse. Everyone screamed and hid in their sleeping bags, pulled them up over their heads.' She chuckled. ‘It was the hit of the party, really.'