Three
I’ve never had a premonition. Let alone a premonition of my own death. That someday someone somewhere would strangle me until I became nothing but a creepy zombie vision haunting my former self was impossible for me to believe. I didn’t own that particular sundress. I never would, to be sure to prevent whatever grim premonition the vision might represent. Better to be safe than sorry, even if I didn’t believe in the supernatural. Then again, the alternatives that I was either losing my mind or Allen House was haunted by some long lost relative who looked exactly like me were equally preposterous.
I remembered Victoria Allen’s words. “The resemblance is striking.”
Whatever the reason for the visitation, violence had entered my life. First, in the accident that had killed my parents, and now, in the threat of future violence that seemed to haunt me long after I’d cleaned up the dirt and washed away the sweat and fear in a long, hot shower that could never have been long or hot enough.
I confronted the fear when it wouldn’t be completely washed away.
I poked and prodded and shook the music box for at least half an hour before I determined that it truly was broken and there was no logical reason for it to produce sound by itself.
Now my hands were covered in the funereal scent of dead carnations and I was none the wiser.
Truth was, the bizarre occurrence made me even more determined to stay. The house in Maine was empty and as silent as the cemetery where my parents’ empty coffins had been interred. There was nothing for me there. Here, there was the challenge of Owen Ward, the mystery of the dead woman walking and my grandmother’s pain.
I couldn’t leave. I wouldn’t.
Yes, I was afraid, but somehow not as afraid as I’d been for most of my life. I found myself feeling bolder and better able to step forward to face challenges in my own way without fearing my parents’ reaction. In the moments following the dead woman’s visitation, I discovered my own way of dealing was not running away or running to someone else for help.
Desperate for fresh air as a substitute for answers, I dried my hair, avoiding the mirror, and dressed in jeans and a sweater, topping that with a warm double-breasted pea coat. I needed to be away from the studio and the music box to clear my head.
I made my way through the dark house, hearing a television in the distance and marveling as a hollow laugh track rang out, echoing in the high-ceilinged halls. Who could be watching a comedy? Bethany? My grandmother? Surely, Owen had left after dinner.
Finally, I found a side door that led out onto a path that meandered into the back part of the property. There were many intersecting and winding pathways, and though the cobbles were crooked and the stones often wiggled beneath my boots, they were still mostly clear and navigable. I avoided the darker trails that seemed to cut into thicker forest. The property could use a team of landscapers. Bushes were overgrown. Weeds had run rampant. The grass was tall and patchy. In spite of the neglect, I could almost imagine what the estate must have been like in its heyday. No doubt Morgans and Astors and Vanderbilts had sashayed through these paths on warmer nights when laughter and champagne and soft jazz had echoed in the air. I walked along, watching my breath fog this cooler air and it wasn’t until I saw her again that I realized I had been searching.
This time she didn’t face me. She traveled across the back lawn and disappeared into the trees with the same odd “here one second, there the next” sudden movement that caused my heart to pound with its unpredictability. If she changed course…if she decided to move my way…she could be beside me in seconds.
I swallowed my fear and ignored the thundering of my heart in my ears. And I followed her into the trees with only the moon and her pastel dress to guide me. But once I entered the woods I saw where she was headed.
Sheltered in a thick copse of trees was a large hothouse. I wondered how any light from the sun reached its panes and then I realized the trees were all quick growing varieties that probably hadn’t been so choking when the hothouse had been built. It was obviously original to the house. The architecture was similar. Stone and wrought iron and beveled glass. In fact, it must have been beautiful many years ago. Now, its glass was streaked with dirt and grime and in many places the green film of verdigris and moss had spread over the panes.
The woman I followed—the impossible, horrifying woman—stopped and looked around at the doorway of the hothouse. But the gaze from her dark eyes flowed over me as if she didn’t see me or as if she didn’t care. I suddenly felt as if I was watching a movie play out, and then she opened the door and slipped inside…except the actual door of the hothouse didn’t open, but rather a shadow of the real door as if fantasy and reality parted ways in that singular moment.
I stepped forward, afraid the shadow door would open for me too and terrified of where it might lead, but when I reached it I felt a real brass knob against my fingers. I turned it and opened the door, slightly startled when a rush of warm air flowed out to greet me.
Unlike the rest of the grounds and the exterior, the hothouse wasn’t abandoned and neglected. Not on the inside. When I followed the woman, I entered a lush world of green exotic plants and humidity. I didn’t see her. The jungle had enveloped her or the shadow door had opened into a different time and place. I tried not to think of when or where because I could remember her—my?—mangled neck too well.
The hothouse was lit by the eerie firefly glow of miniature lanterns hanging from wrought iron hooks spaced sporadically on the walls and ceilings between the grubby glass panes. Though I knew it must be electric, the light danced like gas flames within the beveled globes. The effect would have been fairyland-like if I hadn’t just followed a dead woman into a strange place. Instead, knowing she might be here looking out at me from the leaping shadows of palms and hibiscus, the unreliable and deceptive light of the lanterns was only another reason for my pulse to race and my chest to tighten.
Even worse that it would be my own dead, pale face looking back at me when I saw her again.
Would her step sound on the tiles?
They were laid in smooth stone squares beneath my feet, mostly the darkened beige of natural limestone, but at one point, my own slow step halted beside a large rusty patch six tiles wide. It was faint in the lantern light. Barely discernible. But I stopped at its edge. A sudden flood of adrenaline caused me to whirl around in a complete circle. I strained to see or hear the threat I felt.
Nothing.
I backed away from the discoloration. Then, I turned and walked away until I came to a section of the hothouse filled with giant pots of juniper shrubs. Their spice teased my senses, filling the air around me with a suddenly familiar scent.
I wouldn’t think of Owen Ward now.
I peered into the flickering darkness, both afraid to see my dead “twin” and afraid I wouldn’t see her until it was too late and she was right beside me. I wanted to know more. I wanted to understand. At the same time, the catch in my breath and my pounding heart said to run back to Maine as quickly as I could. It seemed my body wasn’t as brave as my intentions.
A whistle coming from the bushes startled me. I took a step back toward the door and faced the greenery to my left. A wavering, off-key tune rose up from the junipers followed by the exit of a man from between their carefully pruned depths. He carried a trowel and a red plastic bucket. He wore the kind of brown coveralls workmen wear, as well as sturdy boots. Strangely, he didn’t pause at my presence. He continued to whistle and walk even as his gaze tracked over me.
“I’m sorry to intrude. I was out walking,” I said. I followed behind him, wanting to ask him about the woman I’d seen, but afraid to at the same time. There was also a part of me that was eager for the company that might keep her away. The older man with gray at his temples stopped whistling, but he continued to walk until we’d rounded a corner made by the potted shrubs.
And that’s when I saw the carnations.
There were several long trenches full of them and they were both familiar and