The Vanishing (21 page)

As the afternoon faded into twilight, I knew our perfect day was coming to an end.

I stretched and pushed myself up off the couch. “I should probably head back to the house and get ready for dinner.”

“I suppose you should,” he said, putting his arms behind his head and leaning back.

I smiled at him. “It has been wonderful to just kick back and do nothing at all. I can’t remember when I’ve been so relaxed. It has literally been months.”

“The first time you were here I told you that you’d need to get out of the main house from time to time,” he said. “Now you see why I had this place renovated.”

“I do,” I said, pulling on my boots. He jumped up and grabbed my jacket from the hook by the fireplace and held it as I slipped my arms inside. “It really is a little island of tranquillity on this strange and otherworldly estate.”

I thought about that as I trudged through the snow back to the main house, wondering what sort of “strange and otherworldly” things awaited me on the inside.

I had some time before dinner, so I hopped into the shower. After my long nap and day of lounging with Drew, I relished the
warm cascade for as long as I could. After drying off, I wrapped my robe around me and sunk into the armchair by the window and watched the twilight turn into evening, wondering what
my
evening would bring.

As six thirty neared, I pulled on a black turtleneck and jeans—Mrs. Sinclair had said tonight would be an informal dinner—and closed my bedroom door behind me, descending the stairs one by one, my heart seeming to pound harder the closer I got to the main floor.

I found everyone waiting for me in the drawing room.

“Hello, darling!” Mrs. Sinclair sang out as I appeared in the archway. “What can I get you to drink? Wine? A cocktail?”

“Just water for me tonight,” I said. “My stomach is still a little queasy.” This was a lie, but I had no wish to be dulled by alcohol. And, I hated to think of it, but one of them might have slipped something into my coffee that morning. Best to be on my guard.

“How was your film festival this afternoon?” she asked, handing me a glass.

“It was nice,” I said, smiling shyly at Drew. “I can’t remember the last time I was so relaxed.”

“Wonderful!” she said. “I’m glad you had a chance to rest.”

I took a seat by the fireplace and the evening began. We had our drinks, and after a bit of small talk, Marion materialized to let us know she was about to serve dinner in the dining room.

“Roast chicken and mashed potatoes tonight,” Marion said to me, uncovering her serving trays. “I didn’t want to do anything too adventurous, what with you not feeling well and all.”

I thanked her and she smiled a warm smile. Looking around the room, I saw that everyone was smiling at me. But their smiles didn’t extend to their eyes, not really. It seemed to me that they were being a bit too nice, a bit too caring. That was always it with these people—too familiar, too intense, too caring. I began to squirm, my skin itching.

We lingered a bit longer than usual over the dessert, but soon enough the time had come. Mrs. Sinclair pushed her chair away from the table and cleared her throat.

“All right, children,” she said. “Let us reconvene to the east salon, shall we?”

I avoided looking at the library altogether, and peeked around the east salon’s doorframe before following the others inside. I saw candles placed here and there, along with a roaring fire in the fireplace and drinks set up on the sideboard. Standard fare at Havenwood, I was coming to learn. It was what I didn’t see that caused me to exhale and step through the door. No hovering spirits floating from the painting, no lurking demons, only a room that looked warm and welcoming.

“Well, let’s get our drinks and get settled, shall we?” Mrs. Sinclair said.

Tension floated in the air while Drew poured drinks for everyone. The clinking of glasses and bottles was the only noise in the room apart from the crackling fire. I supposed the others were as lost in their own thoughts as I was. Adrian kept stealing glances at me and at his mother, his face a mask of worry and concern.

Mrs. Sinclair took a seat in one of the wing chairs next to the fireplace; Adrian slid into the other. I sunk onto the sofa facing them, while Drew hovered at the sideboard, clinking the ice cubes in his ample glass of Scotch. I finally let my eyes drift up to the painting above the fireplace—my mirror image, surrounded by unspeakable horror. I wondered if life was imitating art at that moment as I glanced at Mrs. Sinclair, whose face had become so dear and familiar to me in just a few days, and yet, as I learned in
the library the night before, also harbored something monstrous and—dare I think it?—insane.

“All right, my darling,” she began, crossing her legs and holding my gaze, “you know I’m a master storyteller, adept at telling dark and macabre tales.”

“You certainly are.” I smiled at her and took a sip of water.

“Well, this is the darkest of them all.” She took a deep breath and turned her eyes to her son. “I suppose it’s best to just get on with it.”

A pang sizzled through my stomach, just as it had earlier in the day. I shifted in my seat and hoped it would go away. I had no wish for a repeat performance of what had happened that morning.

“Are you ready to hear it?” she asked.

I wanted to know the story behind the horror of the previous night—
please let there be a rational explanation
—but I had the feeling it had something to do with what happened ten years prior, when she was sent to the mental hospital. Suddenly, I was afraid to hear what she had to say.

“Mrs. Sinclair, you don’t owe me any explanations,” I said.

She smiled sadly. “Oh, but I do, darling,” she said. “I do.”

“Well, in that case, maybe I should have a brandy,” I said, crossing the room to the sideboard. Drew poured a generous shot into a glass, and I carried it with me as I settled into an armchair and crossed my legs, knowing I was going to hear a story by the great Amaris Sinclair.

“It all started one cold winter’s night, not too different from this one, when Seraphina held a séance in this very room,” Mrs. Sinclair said, her voice low and melodious.

As she spoke, retelling the story of the psychic and the Devil’s Toy Box, how opening it had unleashed evil here at Havenwood, how one man died and several other people were injured, the room seemed to fall away. I could see the events of that night, the frightened faces of the bereaved who simply wanted a word from a departed loved one and were confronted with evil instead; I could
hear their screams and even smell the oil from the lamps placed around the room.

By now, I knew the story so well it felt like I’d lived it. A chill shuddered through me and I wondered if, combined with the stomach cramps, it signaled I was coming down with something. I took another sip of my brandy, hoping it would settle my stomach as it always had when I was younger.

“I knew nothing about that event before I came to Havenwood,” Mrs. Sinclair went on. “I had had some success as a writer at that time and was thrilled to move into this home with the agreement that I’d be presiding over Havenwood for my lifetime”—she winked at Drew—“until the rightful heir took the reins once again. In any case, once I got here and got settled, Havenwood began to work its magic on me.”

“I can understand that,” I said, savoring the heat as the brandy began to warm me from the inside out.

“I imagine you can, my dear,” she said. “I imagine you can. I was a young woman in those days, as young as you are now. And I was filled with excitement about where my life was heading. I had a successful novel, the house of my dreams, the best son anyone could ask for.” She smiled at Adrian and then gazed into the fire. “I had it all.”

“It sounds wonderful,” I said to her.

“Oh, it was,” she said, a wistful tone in her voice. “It was wonderful for many years. I wrote some of my best work here, enjoyed great success, and was so proud of my boy as he made his way through school, and then to university.” She sighed. “But then I got greedy, and I threw it all away.”

Adrian was staring intently at his mother, while Drew seemed to be absorbed in his drink. It was as though he wanted to be as far away from this conversation as possible.

It seemed that Mrs. Sinclair was waiting for me to prompt her, but I couldn’t seem to get the words out. Finally, she continued.

“It all began with this painting,” she said, gesturing upward. “I
was entranced by it. And when I learned it depicted a real event in this house and a real person, Seraphina, I became ensnared. I had had no idea a famous psychic had ever been to Havenwood! The more I learned about her, the more interested I became. ‘Obsession’ wouldn’t have been too strong a word for it, Julia. I’ll admit that. I was obsessed with her story, and even with Seraphina herself. The fact that this exotic woman had been at Havenwood and attracted the likes of Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle and people from all walks of life who wanted to touch the spirit world… it was a story that enthralled the novelist in me.”

“Of course it did,” I said, imagining how excited she must have been to have discovered this mystery.

“I dug up all the information I could about her,” Mrs. Sinclair went on. “When I was on my book tours, visiting various cities around the country, I’d make it a point to stop at antiquarian bookstores to see if I could find a biography, or a book on Spiritualism that had her in it. I came upon plenty of information—she was famous and well regarded in Spiritualist circles—but I wanted more. Finally, as I was browsing the occult section of a dusty used bookstore in Baltimore, I found what I was looking for—the biography that we now have here at Havenwood.”

She sighed and took a sip of her drink, gazing into the fire. The flames crackled and danced.

“And that’s when I learned of the séance that went so horribly wrong,” she said. “The séance that ended the magnificent career of this magnificent woman, and caused her to disappear from history. That it was held here at Havenwood—it was almost more than I could bear.”

I glanced from Adrian to Drew and back again. Both men were staring at Mrs. Sinclair, seemingly rapt by her words.

“Is that when you wrote the novel about her?” I asked, remembering reading it when I was in school. I had no idea that it was true to life or that I’d be walking into its haunted pages years later.

“It is indeed, my dear,” she said, her voice papery and thin.
“But that’s not all I did, I’m afraid.” A tear escaped one eye and she brushed it away, shaking her head and turning her gaze once again to the flames. She seemed to be lost in them, watching their dances and sways.

“You said something about being greedy?” I prompted her.

“Yes,” she said, turning her head slowly to me. “I had great success, more than anyone should hope for in one lifetime. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I had to have more.”

She pushed herself up from her chair and walked over to the sideboard where Drew was standing. He freshened her drink and squeezed her arm, palpable concern on his face. She laid a hand on his cheek and smiled, her sadness radiating from her like an aura.

“It’s all right, Mother,” Adrian said, shifting in his chair. “Nobody blames you.”

“But, my dear, the sad fact is I am to blame for all of it, for what happened to our darling Audra.”

Saying the name of this Audra, Mrs. Sinclair’s voice broke into tiny pieces. Her hand flew to her mouth and she stifled a cry, turning to Drew, who wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

“Shh,” he said to her, patting her back and eyeing me over her shoulder. “It’s going to be all right. Please believe that.” I wondered if he was speaking to me or to Mrs. Sinclair. Or to us both.

Adrian was on his feet in a second. His mother folded herself into his arms, looking as tiny and fragile as a baby bird.

“I haven’t so much as said her name in so many years,” she sputtered out, her shoulders shaking with the sobs that were overtaking her body. “Audra, my darling girl.”

That same feeling of nausea growled in my stomach, threatening to bubble up. Who was Audra? And why did the very mention of her name cause my blood to run cold?

I’m sorry, my dear,” Mrs. Sinclair said to me, after blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. “This is not an easy story to tell.”

She grasped my hand and squeezed it on her way back to her chair. She sunk into it and crossed her legs, and took a deep breath.

“But I must tell it,” she went on. “I owe that to you. And to Audra. It is her story, too.”

“Who is Audra, Mrs. Sinclair?” I asked as gently as I could. Saying her name out loud caused that same chill to run through me. My head was beginning to pound.

She turned her eyes to her son.

“Audra is my daughter,” Adrian said, swirling the ice in his Scotch, his eyes brimming with tears. “Was. She was my daughter.”

I gasped. He had never once spoken of a daughter. He and his mother held each other’s gaze across the room. Drew was looking out the window into the darkness, sipping on his drink. Nobody was saying anything, as the fire crackled and snapped.

“What happened to her?” I finally asked, knowing for certain I wouldn’t like the answer.

“That, my dear, is the heart of this story.” Mrs. Sinclair sighed deeply.

“Only when you’re ready, Mother,” Adrian said. “Take your time. It has been ten years. It can wait a bit longer.”

In fact, if they were to ask me, it could wait forever. Suddenly, I wanted to hear no more of this story. “I can see this is
upsetting you, Mrs. Sinclair,” I tried. “We can wait to talk about this another day.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Thank you for that, darling. But I have begun the tale, and shall continue the telling. It needs to be told and you need to hear it.

“We were speaking about greed, and wanting more and more, despite having it all. It is a dangerous thing, my dear, unbridled ambition. It brings out the worst. It certainly did here, and in me.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “My novel about Seraphina was published to worldwide acclaim. Bestseller lists, millions of copies sold. I traveled all over the world doing readings and book signings. It was a wonderful, happy time, it really was.”

She smiled at Adrian, who took over the tale when his mother’s voice faltered. “It was during this time, Julia, that I married a woman I had met at university. The lovely Katherine.” He smiled at the thought of her, a faraway look in his eyes. “After our honeymoon, I brought my new wife here, to Havenwood, to begin our life together. I had the affairs of this estate to run, my mother’s investment portfolio to manage, that sort of thing. She’s right; it was a happy time. Made all the happier by the news, about a year after we moved to Havenwood, that Katherine was expecting.”

“I was over the moon about it,” Mrs. Sinclair said, beaming. “A grandchild!”

“And there was no more doting a grandmother than Amaris Sinclair,” Adrian said, chuckling softly. “Audra was on horseback almost as soon as she could walk, courtesy of my mother. We had several Shetland ponies at that time, and little Audra couldn’t get enough of them. Do you remember, Mother?”

“Seeing Audra go around and around in the field on the back of a pony is one of my most cherished memories,” Mrs. Sinclair said. “The look on her face—sheer joy. I try to think of that when the images of what came later haunt me.”

Drew slid onto the couch next to me and crossed his legs. “Those are beautiful memories,” he said to Mrs. Sinclair. “I’d love
to leave the story there, with wee Audra flying around the field on horseback.”

“Indeed,” she said, nodding. “But we all know that’s not to be. The crux of this tale happened when our girl was just a child.”

“
Sing a song of sixpence / A pocket full of rye…
”

There it was again: a child’s voice singing softly in my ear. I snapped my head around toward the door, looking for the ghostly girl with the wispy blond hair. But nothing was there. And then it occurred to me: Was this Audra, come out to play?

“Julia,” Mrs. Sinclair said, bringing me back into the room. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “I was just… thinking about how lovely the little girl must have been. That’s all.”

“She was indeed,” she said, holding my gaze. “I was so busy doting on my granddaughter, I hadn’t written a novel for some time. There were a couple after
Seraphina
, as you know, but the fact was it was such a happy time around Havenwood during those years that I didn’t feel much like delving into the sorts of dark topics that were the hallmarks of my novels.”

“Why didn’t you write about something else? A romance, maybe?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Oh, that’s not done. Nobody would want to read a happy story by Amaris Sinclair. No, my readers were looking for a good scare, and I was bound to give that to them. In fact, my publisher was pressuring me for a new novel. The problem was I couldn’t conjure it up, no matter how I tried. Those sorts of plots and characters just weren’t coming to me.”

“It was about that time the letter surfaced,” Drew said.

“The letter?” I asked.

“The one you came across, in the back of the biography,” he said to me. “The letter from Seraphina to Andrew.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Sinclair looked at me, her eyes shining. “You’ve seen it?”

“I have,” I said.

She nodded. “You see, my dear, when I wrote the novel about Seraphina, all I knew—all history knew—about her last séance at Havenwood was that it went horribly wrong, people got hurt, and that it scared her enough to leave that life completely. So I embellished and took artistic license in the book. That’s because nobody knew exactly what happened that night, so I had to use my imagination. But when we got our hands on that letter and found out that something called the Devil’s Toy Box was the cause… What is it they say about ignorance?”

Mrs. Sinclair cleared her throat and continued. “I had no idea what a Devil’s Toy Box was. Who did? But it sounded dark and horrible and frightening—perfect for one of my novels, don’t you think? The idea of it consumed me. Finally, I had a kernel around which to build a new novel. I contacted my publisher right away, and he was thrilled, to say the least. So I started working.”

I furrowed my brow. “I don’t remember one of your novels dealing with a Devil’s Toy Box,” I said.

She smiled and shook her head. “That’s because I never wrote it. As I said, I didn’t know the first thing about such a device. So, I began my research here at Havenwood, in the library. I didn’t come up with anything. I traveled back to Baltimore, to the same antiquarian bookstore where I found Seraphina’s biography years earlier. I knew it had a huge occult section with several first edition Poe novels, and the owner of the shop was quite an odd duck himself, so I thought if anybody would know about the Devil’s Toy Box, it would be him.

“Over the course of one’s life, Julia, there are actions that pave the way for everything else that comes after, good or bad. Simple moments: Turning right instead of left on the street and running headlong into the man you’ll marry. Choosing a ham sandwich instead of soup at the deli and choking on it. Diving into a pool of water and cracking your head on the bottom, paralyzing yourself for life. One of those moments, for me, came when I walked across the threshold of that bookstore. That simple action changed my
life forever, Julia. It changed Adrian’s life. And Audra’s. And Katherine’s. And, I’m sorry to say, yours. If I hadn’t gone into Ravenspoint Books that bleak and rainy afternoon, we’d all be doing something else right now. Adrian might be attending his daughter’s graduation. I might be on a book tour, enjoying the success of another novel. And you, darling, you would have never come to Havenwood.”

A dark thought hovered around me, then. I’d be dead. The worst thing ever to happen in the lives of the Sinclairs had saved my life. She told me it was tied to the reason she brought me here, and because of that, I wasn’t in my house in Chicago when it was set afire. If not for whatever tragedy unfolded all those years ago, I’d have burned along with all of my belongings. I could feel Adrian’s stare boring a hole in my skull, and I knew he was thinking the same thing.