Walking the Labyrinth (27 page)

“It sounds a lot like the last one,” Alex said.

“But more than a year later,” Molly said, turning the letter over. “No signature, no return address.”

They looked through the rest of them. There were five more; each spoke of wrongs done to the letter writer and each made the same vague threats. The last was dated August 13, 1970.

“Why did she stop?” Alex asked. “What happened in 1970?”

“It’s the year my parents died,” Molly said. Alex looked at her. “No, that can’t be it.”

“Why can’t it? Is that when Fentrice started raising you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, maybe she lost interest in her feud with Callan then. She was busy with you instead.”

“Maybe.” She hesitated. “Unless it was Thorne who sent the letters.”

“But if it was Fentrice, then why didn’t she tell you we were here? You said she’d told you Callan was dead.”

“Because they’d wronged her, taken her rightful position. Because she felt bitter.” She shook her head. “Can’t you see it from her point of view?”

“Maybe,” Alex said. He sounded doubtful.

TWELVE

Illusion

A
ndrew Dodd was the last person off the plane at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. A flight attendant came out into the terminal with him, helping him with his walker and his small bag.

A man at the gate held up a sign with his name on it. So Peter Myers had been as good as his word, Andrew thought. Here was the driver of the car to take him to Fentrice’s house.

They headed down one of the main highways leading out of Chicago. He had dozens of questions spanning sixty years, everything from what had happened backstage at the Paramount to whether Fentrice could truly speak with the dead. He had hoped to arrange his thoughts during the drive; instead he found himself fighting against sleep. He woke as the car stopped, his heart pounding.

“Here we are,” the driver said.

Where?
Andrew thought, panicked.
And where was Bess?
The driver went to the trunk and took out his bag and walker, giving him enough time to remember where he was, what he had to do.

He made his way slowly to the front door and knocked. An old woman in black answered.

“Andrew Dodd,” the woman said. “Well, this is indeed a surprise. I’d say you haven’t changed, but you know I’d be lying.”

“Fentrice Allalie?” he asked.

“The same,” she said. “Don’t tell me you were expecting a young woman in a kimono.”

He had been, for a moment. He had been expecting someone who looked like Molly. He shook his head. “Fentrice Allalie,” he said, amazed. “The last disguise.”

“What brings you here?” she asked.

“I have some questions for you.”

“Do you? Your deadline was sixty years ago, if I’m not mistaken. And what makes you think I’ll answer?”

Behind him the hired car reversed out of the driveway. Why should she answer, after all? He had hoped to surprise her, hoped to find an aged woman ready to give up her secrets. She had surprised him instead with her apparent health, her sharpness. Why on earth had he thought himself still fit to do a reporter’s job?

“Why shouldn’t you?” he asked.

She laughed. Another woman came to the door. “Who is it, Fentrice?” the woman asked.

“His name’s Andrew Dodd,” Fentrice said. “He used to be a cocky young man—now he’s a cocky old man. Andrew, this is my housekeeper, Lila.” She laughed again. “Look at him, how he watches us. I think he’s afraid we’ll disappear before his eyes.”

“I am,” Andrew said. “Can I come in?”

“It’s customary to call first,” Fentrice said. “Oh, very well. Lila, could you get us some tea and biscuits, please?” She opened the door and showed him in. “Have a seat.”

He made his way to a stiff horsehair sofa in Fentrice’s living room. Fentrice sat gracefully in a chair opposite him, smiling; now he could see the marked gap between her teeth. Lila came back into the room and set tea and biscuits on the table between them, then took a chair near Fentrice.

Andrew opened his brand-new spiral notebook, remembering as he did so the blank pages after his last interview with this woman, his desperate search for something to write about.

He thrust the old memory aside. He had not taken a drink in sixty years. “Well,” he said. “What have you been doing since I saw you last? Confuse any other poor saps?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t? You seem to remember me. Do you remember the tricks you and your family played on me, the way you had me so turned around I didn’t know if I was coming or going?”

“I don’t, no. You did drink somewhat in those days, Mr. Dodd.”

Was that all it had been, the drink, the extraordinary champagne? And why had he started his interview in such a hostile manner? Surely he had learned better in all his years as a reporter. “I’m sorry, Miss Allalie,” he said finally. “I wanted to ask you about that interview I did with you backstage at the Paramount. Sixty years ago, you said it was.”

“I remember it, yes. You must have made quite an impression on us—we did such a lot of interviews in those days.”

“I did a lot too, though from the other side.” Suddenly he felt a kinship with this woman. They had both been through so much, a depression and then a world war, they had seen the world change utterly. No one these days could possibly understand what it had been like, not Molly, certainly not that punk reporter. Hardly anyone even read interviews anymore; they all got their news from the television. “The Palace closed that year, didn’t it?” he said. “Vaudeville was dying—the talking pictures were taking over. What happened to the act?”

“I don’t really know,” Fentrice said. “I retired around then.”

“And Thorne and Callan? Did they retire too?”

“Callan went on for a bit longer. I don’t know what finally happened to him—we’ve lost touch over the years.” She glanced at the housekeeper for a brief moment. “I don’t know where Thorne is.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“The last time … somewhere around the last time I saw you, I think. And what happened to you after that? Molly said you got married.”

“I did.” For the first time the thought of his dead wife did not cause him pain. “You know, I seemed to see clearer once I stopped drinking. I’d met her before—she lived in my apartment building—but she never seemed to … to come into focus. After I stopped drinking I saw how beautiful she was, and how sweet.” He smiled a little, remembering. “So I asked her out, and to my great surprise she accepted.”

“Did you?” Fentrice asked softly. “Do you remember Playland at the Beach? That long wooden slide, and the Big Dipper roller coaster?”

“Of course. We must have gone there dozens of times. That horrible mannequin, Laughing Sal. She had gapped teeth too, if I remember.”

“They tore it all down, didn’t they?”

“Yes, they did. Just memories now.” He looked at his notes, wondering how they had come to be talking about a long-gone amusement park. “Could you tell me anything about your grandmother? Emily Wethers, or Neesa Allalie.”

“Grandma? What do you want to know about her?”

“What did she have to do with the Order of the Labyrinth?”

“The Order of the Labyrinth? I don’t really know—that all happened before I was born. There was a great fad for spiritualism in those days.”

“She claimed to be able to contact the dead. A man named Albert Westingate, for one.”

“If you say so.”

“Can you … can you contact the dead as well?”

Fentrice started to laugh, then stopped abruptly. “Oh. Oh, I see now. Oh, I
am
sorry. It’s your wife, is it? What did you say her name was?”

“Bess.” Few of his friends had wanted to talk about Bess since her funeral; it was as if she had done something shocking, never to be spoken of, by dying. He was surprised at the sharp joy he felt in simply saying her name. “Bess,” he said again.

“You poor man. How are you coping? Do your children come to visit you?”

“Children,” Andrew said. To his horror he thought he might be about to cry. “They don’t do anything but visit me, it seems. They won’t leave me the hell alone. All I want is to be by myself, just me and my grief … Well.” He wiped his eyes quickly on his sleeve. “They mean well, I guess.”

“And you want me to contact your wife for you,” Fentrice said.

Andrew nodded.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t do that, any more than Grandma was able to talk to Lord Albert Westingate. We deal in illusion, Mr. Dodd. It’s all trickery—none of it was ever real.”

“Oh.” Andrew closed his eyes briefly. A great tiredness washed over him, partly from the plane ride but mostly because of his wasted errand, his lost chance. “He said you could.”

“He? Who?”

“That man who came to visit me. Wait a minute, I have his card here. Peter Myers, that’s it.”

“Peter Myers? Molly’s boyfriend?”

“Is he? He knew Molly, that’s right.”

“You’re here because of Peter?”

Was he supposed to keep that a secret? He couldn’t remember now. He felt as confused as he had that day long ago when Thorne and Fentrice had changed places backstage.

“Is Peter writing a book about us?” Fentrice asked.

“I don’t know. He said he was a reporter.”

“I’ll have to warn Molly. I knew that man was wrong for her. Would you excuse me for a moment?”

She stood, gathering her skirts around her, and went down the hallway into an alcove. Her strong voice came back to them, as loudly as if she were still in the room.

“Hello, may I speak to Molly, please. Molly, dear, this is Aunt Fentrice. No, nothing’s wrong here. Listen, it’s not important how I got this phone number. I’ll tell you all about it later. I have something to tell you—please listen. That Mr. Andrew Dodd came to visit—yes, the reporter. He told me an extraordinary thing. Your friend Peter is apparently writing a book about us.… Well, that’s what he says, dear. He says Peter paid a call on him, asked questions about the family.… Oh, dear. Oh, I’m so sorry. Yes, just a minute.”

Andrew heard her set the phone down and then return to the living room. “She wants to talk to you,” Fentrice said. “The phone’s down the hall.”

“To me?” He stood and pushed his walker slowly to the alcove. “Hello, Molly.”

“Hi. Is it true? Did Peter come to talk to you?”

She was trying not to cry, Andrew realized. He remembered the day she had come to visit him; she had seemed so strong, so forthright, a tough young woman who had reminded him of women he had known in his youth. Reminded him of Fentrice, for one. Now he saw that she was vulnerable after all. “Yes, I’m afraid he did, Molly.”

“Did he say he was writing a book?”

“He was writing something. Said he was a reporter.”

“He told me—” She was silent for a moment. “God, I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. He used me, didn’t he? God, I’ve been such an idiot.”

“I know how you feel,” Andrew said. He had been fooled once too, back when he was young. When was it? The Allalies, that was it. But had they really tricked him? Or had he tricked himself, befuddled with wine and enchantment?

“Thanks for telling me,” Molly said.

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him,” Andrew said. “Him and that pretentious beard of his. Good-bye, Molly. Take care.”

He went back into the living room. “We’ll have to go to California,” Fentrice said as he sat down. “We’ll have to visit Callan, after all these years.”

“Callan?” Andrew said. “I thought you said you had lost touch with Callan.”

“I know where he lives, of course. I just called his number. He’s in the old family home in California. Oh, dear. I’m not looking forward to seeing him again, not at all.” She sat up straighter, looked at Andrew. “When are you going back to California?”

“Tomorrow.”

“May we come with you?”

“Sure,” Andrew said. He grinned at her. He had come to Fentrice seeking answers and had somehow acquired an ally instead. Molly had been right; Fentrice wasn’t nearly as terrible as he had thought for all these years. He should have paid this visit long ago, gotten things straightened out. Without noticing when it had happened he had changed allegiances, gone over from Peter’s side to Fentrice’s.

“Lila, could you please phone the airlines, make the arrangements?” Fentrice asked.

The housekeeper nodded silently.

Molly put the phone down, her eyes filled with tears. She looked up at the study, not seeing it.

“Molly?”

She wiped her eyes roughly. It was Callan. “Molly, are you all right?” he asked.

“That was Fentrice,” she said. “She told me Peter’s writing about the Allalies. About us.”

Callan came over to her, held her. Molly felt his muscled arms around her, smelled a sharp spice she couldn’t identify. She stood there, letting him hold her, feeling protected. “He lied to me,” she said. “He was using me, all this time.”

“It’ll be all right. Don’t worry.”

“I trusted him. I even thought he might be coming to like me, to feel the same way about me I felt about him. And all the time …” She took a deep breath. “Maybe she’s wrong. Maybe Fentrice is wrong. She’s been wrong before.”

“What do you think, Molly?”

“God, I don’t know.” But she did know. She knew the way Emily had known about the lords and ladies who asked her questions, the way Callan had known about his vaudeville audience. It seemed that she had always known, and that she had tried to force the knowledge away. “Why?” she asked. “Why would he do something like that?”

Callan shook his head. “I only saw him once, when he came to visit you,” he said. “But he seemed a lot like some of the people who came to our shows, the ones who wouldn’t be fooled no matter what. He seemed very knowing, Peter did. He was clever, he wasn’t going to be taken in. But you miss so much that way. You miss all the magic in the world.”

“I thought you said there was no magic. I thought you said it was all illusion.”

“Did I?”

“Oh, God, you’re going to ask me questions again. You’re going to ask me what I’ve learned.”

“Well, what have you?”

“I learned—I learned that illusion is a way to truth. That illusion can reveal truth, a deeper truth. That there are things beyond or beneath or on the other side of what most people—of what Peter thinks of as reality. I learned … Oh, God. I’ve made another turning of the labyrinth.”