After Always Page 14

  But to the side a tangle of honeysuckle grew. It was out of place. I’d noticed it before. I hadn’t forgotten it. Something about the vines called to me. Even with the salty sea air blowing, the scent of the yellow and white flowers was strong, dampened by rain from the night before.

  I walked to the vines. Only when I was a few inches away did I see the gray glimpse of another headstone beneath the green leaves and moist blossoms. The overgrown honeysuckle Michael had inexplicably allowed to flourish hid another grave.

  I knew before I pushed the vines aside. There was no date of birth. There was only a surname—Jericho—and the same date of death that was marked on Octavia’s grave. The baby she’d tried to protect from her mad husband had been given a grave, a sad little grave hidden beside the mother. Again, a distant memory tried to come into focus, but I let it go. I shied away from it, easily distracted by the tiny grave at my feet.

  A tear slipped down my cheek. I wasn’t sure if any of their remains had made it to these graves, but I still found them tragic.

  She’d wanted to escape and she’d failed.

  I allowed the vines to close back over the plain headstone. My hands fisted and I looked up at the marble monstrosity above us on the rise. I climbed the steps with no clear intentions. Maybe I wanted to curse Jericho’s remains. But what I found caused all the anger to drain from my body.

  I stood, limply, trying to comprehend the open vault.

  The stone cap had been set to the side so long ago that it was mostly buried by sand and sea grass. The marble edges were well-worn by wind and rain and the passage of years. I could see inside the tomb itself. My heart sounded loud in my ears, and my breath grew shallow and thin.

  I edged closer, ducking my head into the cool, shadowy confines of the damp, barren space. There was a sarcophagus inside, but it too had been opened long, long ago. Its heavy cover had fallen to the side and now lay split almost in two.

  Jericho’s tomb was empty.

  It had been empty for a while.

  Michael had been tending the cemetery, yet he’d never mentioned the empty tomb.

  I backed away. I looked over my shoulder at the path, half expecting to see Michael come to drag me away from something I wasn’t supposed to see or Hannah, possessed, speaking horrible things in a voice not her own. Or the Vodou priest, no longer in the guise of valet, blackened by inconceivable ashes and burnt blood.

  Alexander Jericho’s missing remains seemed to scream at my already tingling instincts. I’d seen the corruption of his soul in my dream. The rot and decay. I couldn’t imagine who could have brought themselves to touch his corpse. I shuddered at the idea that his evil was so pervasive it would infect whoever handled his remains.

  Maybe there are far worse things than being haunted.

  …

  When I came out of the cemetery gate, I saw Michael on the roof of the old lighthouse cottage. He was working. He hadn’t been bothered by my cemetery visit at all. It was natural to approach. Natural to ask him about the hidden grave.

  “I knew about the baby’s grave,” Michael said.

  The wind had caused a heavy fall of his hair to flop on his forehead. I liked the look of him, wind-blown and exerting himself on the lighthouse repairs. Michael was always doing something. His activity soothed me. How could evil triumph if a big, strong guy was replacing roof tiles so capably? It seemed both normal and heroic. Mundane and extraordinary. Last night we’d communed with the spirit world. Today was roof repair. His resilience was almost more seductive than his kisses. He couldn’t be the one who had disturbed Jericho’s grave.

  “I don’t know why I let the honeysuckle grow over it. It seemed like the thing to do. The flowers are nice and peaceful,” Michael said.

  And maybe Octavia wanted her baby to have a honeysuckle blanket for eternity, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t think Michael would like the idea of being influenced to act on a dead person’s behalf. I also didn’t think it was wise to stir up Octavia or Jericho with accusations.

  Michael seemed so very Michael in the sunshine.

  It might be the eye of the storm, but I was going to enjoy it.

  “Why isn’t the baby a part of the story?” I said.

  “She is part of the story in my family. My great-great-grandmother was hired to be her nurse when Octavia discovered she was pregnant. She was young and new to such an important position with a wealthy family. But she saw it all. Octavia becoming increasingly afraid. Her dead body drug from the sea. The baby born dead on the shore. Jericho and his valet shutting themselves away with the bodies,” Michael said.

  “God,” I said, trying not to imagine the gruesome details I’d seen in my nightmare.

  Blood in the paint. Ashes on their skin.

  “My great-great-grandmother ran away, and she was too new to be missed. Mostly she kept the tales within our family. Who would believe a man would do those things, for those reasons? He was known to be driven by dark curiosity. But who would desecrate their wife and child’s body for some ritual? It was crazy. But my great-great-grandmother believed he was evil. I think she was afraid until the day she died,” Michael said. “I come from a large Irish Catholic clan. I’ve always wondered if her superstitions made my parents and their parents before them more devout than they would have been.”

  He had come back down the ladder where I stood. He had looked great in his suit, but for some reason, I was reassured by his worn jeans and the familiar shape of the multi-tool in his back pocket.

  “It was so long ago. I thought it was all old-fashioned superstition. You get a lot of that growing up in fishing communities near the sea. When Mrs. Brighton needed my help, I took the job without question,” Michael continued.

  “But now? What do you think now?” I asked.

  I could still hear Hannah speak with Jericho’s voice. I could still see Michael thrown to the floor.

  Michael lifted his hand to my hair where he plucked a stray honeysuckle bloom from its strands. He brought the blossom down to my cheek and tickled it along the line of my jaw. The touch was fleeting and innocent. The weight of his gaze on my lips…not as innocent.

  “I give more credence to my great-great-grandmother’s stories than I used to…but I’m still glad I took the job at Stonebridge,” Michael said.

  …

  I found Hannah reading on one of the back porches with a view of the sea. I stood watching her for a long while, nervous. I’ll admit it. I’ll also admit I looked for the roses before I stepped forward.

  She wore a long black maxi skirt and a plain white T-shirt. Her legs were curled under her on the wicker chair. The extra material of her skirt hung down, occasionally fluttering in the morning breeze.

  I noticed the scent of roses before I saw them—tiny perfect buds threaded into her black bobbed hair.

  “Don’t be afraid. I have my lips under control,” Hannah said.

  She hadn’t looked up from her book. I hadn’t made a sound. I guiltily started and moved forward, not wanting to seem like a lurker or that I was scared.

  “Want some chamomile tea? Gran swears by it,” Hannah said. “I’ve had about a gallon since last night.”

  She glanced up, a startling glimmer of blue, and then back down at the book in her hands.

  I noticed a cup steaming beside her on a tiny wicker table. It was also covered in rose buds, though the insulated pitcher and extra cups were plain white porcelain hotel ware.

  “If you can spare some toast, too, I’ll have both,” I said. “I’ve been to the cemetery and I missed breakfast.”

  There was extra toast and jam on Hannah’s breakfast tray. She offered me the extra slice, and I sat on the spare chair on the opposite side of the table while I spread a full spoon of strawberry preserves on it. Strawberries, of course, made me blush.

  “I’m sorry, Lydia. I’ve never channeled spirits before, and with my grandmother weakened by his attack, I was at his mercy,” Hannah said. This time I though
t the twin spots of rosy color on her cheeks were anger, not embarrassment.

  “I’m glad she’s okay,” I said, indicating the roses in Hannah’s hair.

  “She’s here, but she’s faded. This place is bad for her. Very bad for us all,” Hannah said.

  She was even more pale than she’d been yesterday. She closed the book and set it beside the tray. I recognized it as one of the vintage books from the shelf where I’d found Octavia’s box and brooch. When she looked up at me, her pupils were small and tired, revealing a halo of lighter blue that made her seem ethereal. More vulnerable than she’d appeared when we’d first met.

  “Or maybe it’s only the playground for something bad,” I said.

  I told her about the small grave near Octavia’s and about Jericho’s empty tomb. I told her about my nightmare and the evil valet.

  “My family has made a living off of the occult for generations. I’ve been brought up to believe in things other people relegate to nightmares. My closest companion is dead,” Hannah said, starkly without humor. “I’m leaving Stonebridge today. What filled my mind last night was so dark, so horrible. Jericho is evil. Completely corrupt. If my grandmother hadn’t been able to come back to me, I would have lost my mind. It was slipping away, running from his touch.”

  She touched the book she’d been reading. It was an old leather-bound volume with odd symbols in place of text in its title. But I also saw the stylized rendering of “Vodou” embossed in gold.

  “Alexander Jericho traveled the world looking for life’s secrets, but I think he mastered death instead. Or it mastered him,” Hannah said. “My grandmother’s spirit is powerful because of our connection. We were always close. And because of her ties to the spirit world even before she died. She lived her whole life with one foot beyond the veil. But Jericho is more physical than any spirit she or I have ever known. He’s here, among us.”

  She reached for me then. She grabbed my hand and I startled so badly that tea sloshed on the table. But it wasn’t like last night. It was Hannah who gripped my hand, Hannah who looked into my eyes.

  “You need to leave, too. Go back to your family. Find normal again. He wants you and he means to have you. He won’t stop. Octavia won’t be able to help you. And you can’t trust Michael or Mrs. Brighton. They’ve been here too long,” Hannah said.

  At that, I tried to pull away, but she held on tight, her fingers almost as fierce as they’d been last night.

  “It’s not their fault. I’ve got Gran. She’s a buffer. But Michael and Mrs. Brighton have been at Stonebridge for years with no buffer at all. They’re influenced. There’s no predicting what they might do under Jericho’s direction. Octavia tries but she’s no match for him,” Hannah said.

  Standing between me and the graves. Falling to “sleep” while I played the violin. Leaving an untouched shrine to Octavia in the house and ignoring the empty tomb. And there was still the matter of the missing bones. Who had taken them from the tomb and why? All of that behavior was probably influenced by Alexander Jericho.

  But not the kisses I’d shared with Michael. Definitely not. In fact, each kiss had been interrupted or punished, hadn’t it?

  “If what you say is true, then I have to stay. I won’t abandon them to Jericho,” I said.

  “You understand if I stayed I could be a danger to you? I don’t know how much longer Gran can help me resist. Because of my abilities, I’m more open to influence…” Hannah looked down at my lips then back up to my eyes. “He wants to hurt you. Remember that. He’s angry that you’re trying to keep him out. If he can’t posses you, he needs you to die. I think he needs fresh blood so he won’t fade away,” she warned. “There’s a hunger in him. A horrible hunger.”

  I placed my other hand over hers and mine. The touch caused her to gentle her grip. Her intensity eased.

  “I destroyed all the poppets, Lydia. I could at least do that much for you. I hope anyone associated with them is long dead, but I couldn’t leave them moldering in that basket in the hall. I took each one apart and burned the pieces,” Hannah said.

  “I hope we’ll meet again under better circumstances,” I said.

  “Gran doesn’t know if we will. She can’t see you beyond Stonebridge, Lydia. You should know that. I don’t know if you’ll ever leave,” Hannah said.

  I stood and she let me. She released my hand too quickly so that I was almost unbalanced by the lack of support. I righted myself. Finding balance on my own two feet.

  I saw.

  I saw better than I had in a long time.

  “I’m going to Brice Conservatory in the fall,” I assured her. “Maybe your grandmother doesn’t see me leaving Stonebridge because Brice is only an hour away.”

  She smiled. It was a small smile, but it made her appear much more like she’d appeared the first time I’d seen her. Calm. Confident. A Mona Lisa smile that said she knew things the rest of us couldn’t conceive.

  “Gran doesn’t see it, but I believe it anyway,” Hannah said. “I found that book in Jericho’s collection. It’s one of the few that discusses white magic. Ways to combat the dark. Take it. Read it. My grandmother helped me with the notes I’ve left you in the margins. You can fight back. You’ve been fighting all along. You just didn’t know it.”

  Her confidence was a life preserver in a storm-tossed sea.

  …

  Mrs. Brighton was in the music room sleeping when I found her. All the broken glass had been cleared away, and Michael had rolled and secured the wiring with electrical tape before he had patched the ceiling with a piece of drywall. Plasterers were scheduled to arrive soon to cover the bare spot and make it as if the chandelier had never been there. I was very conscious of Jericho’s portrait on the wall, of his hold on Octavia’s shoulders. We were watched as I roused Mrs. Brighton and helped her to stand. With my arm around her back, I urged her to come away from the portrait and into the front room where the sun shone through diaphanous drapes.

  I sat her on a cushioned armchair before her knees gave out, and then I went to the kitchen for some tea. She was still dozing when I returned, but I managed to have her sip a whole cup of Grandmother Shreve’s chamomile blend.

  It took a while.

  Each time I raised the cup to her lips, I had to beg her to drink then wipe the dribbled liquid from her powdered chin with a linen napkin. Again and again.

  I didn’t know if it would help, but I reasoned it couldn’t hurt.

  Maybe Mrs. Brighton was only tired from the long night before, or maybe Jericho’s influence was increasing. Whatever the reason for her drowsiness, waking her felt urgent. My shoulders were tight and my pulse leapt. My whole being seemed to strain on her behalf.

  “So sorry, love. I seem to need naps more than ever these days,” Mrs. Brighton finally woke enough to say.

  “Isn’t the tea delicious?” I asked, pouring her another cup.

  “Yes. It’s lovely,” Mrs. Brighton replied.

  She held this cup herself and sipped without help. I watched her, ready to intervene if she nodded off again.

  “You’re so good to me, Lydia. I’m so glad you came to work for me this summer,” Mrs. Brighton said.

  “You were very good to my mother,” I said.

  “She was heartbroken. Devastated. Your father was afraid for her to be alone. He wanted to cancel his conference appearance, but everything was arranged and your mother insisted he go. That was a long time ago, and his position wasn’t as stable. It would have put his job in jeopardy if he had missed such an important event. I told him I could take care of her until he could get away, but when you arrived at Stonebridge she was so unlike herself. I didn’t know what to do. She wandered the halls at first, but then it was piano for hours every day. Hours. I feared for her health,” Mrs. Brighton said.

  “What happened to her? Why was she devastated?” I asked, though something dark niggled at the back of my mind. It was the memory that had been trying to come back to me. I wanted to remember, and
I dreaded remembering at the same time.

  “Oh, Lydia, it isn’t my place to say,” Mrs. Brighton said with tears in her rheumy eyes.

  “What made her stop and go back to Seattle?” I asked.

  “Your father came for her. It was quite dramatic and romantic. He came by red-eye flight as soon as his appearance was over at the conference. We were so surprised. I asked him to stay, but he was too worried. He thought it best to get her back home to her own doctors. He carried her down the front stairs with you, and I brought the suitcases behind. She rallied once you were back in Washington. She loves you very much. And your father. Love makes all the difference,” Mrs. Brighton said. She pulled a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket to dab at her eyes.

  My own eyes burned.

  Poor Mom.

  Poor Dad.

  I couldn’t imagine my father carrying her away from Stonebridge in such a dramatic fashion. But I remembered the Chopin. I remembered my obsessive coloring. What would have happened to us if my father hadn’t come to take us home? I remembered the feeling that I was losing her, that she was slipping from my childish grasp. Now that I’d experienced Jericho’s power again, I recognized how he might have succeeded. He was almost impossible to fight, a pitiless, hungering force.

  “We’ve never really talked about it,” I confessed to Mrs. B.

  “Your parents communicate in many ways without words. Your mother has her music. Your father has his theorems. And you were so young,” Mrs. Brighton began. “You’re older and wiser now. Maybe it isn’t too late to talk.”

  There were so many things I needed to discuss with my parents. Brice Conservatory. Tristan. Whatever had hurt my mother that summer. But I had to make it through this summer first. I had to survive Alexander Jericho.

  Mrs. Brighton’s head had nodded forward again. I took her cup and placed it on the table. The late night must be catching up with her. It was a reasonable assumption. It was also wrong.

  “Lydiaaaaaa,” a hoarse whisper escaped Mrs. B.’s lips in a voice completely different than her own. “Lydiaaaaa…”