The Unseen

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

When Laurel got back up to the tiny servants’ kitchen, Brendan was awake, at least marginally, pouring coffee, still drowsy and slow-moving. He looked haggard, as if he hadn’t slept.

Katrina, of course, was already firmly planted at the table, her gaze fixed on Brendan. She stiffened as Laurel stepped into the doorway.

Three weeks living with this girl’s hatred, Laurel thought, bleakly. I can’t wait.

“Where’s Tyler?” Brendan asked. “I want to get started.”

“He’s been up for hours,” Laurel answered, with more edge than she’d intended. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

They convened downstairs in the great room. Brendan and Tyler had moved a couch, a low table, and several chairs in from the garden room, and now the central screen of the bank of monitors reflected them in the same room in which they now sat. Seeing their every move captured on screen, reality mirrored back at them, Laurel had a flash of feeling trapped in a performance art piece.

“How did everyone sleep?” Brendan asked.

“Not a single visitor,” Tyler drawled. “How about you, Professor Cody?”

“I slept fine, Tyler,” Brendan said coldly, ignoring the double entendre. “Thanks for asking. Did anyone have any dreams?”

Tyler lifted his hands. “Probably nothing present company would care to hear.” His eyes slid insinuatingly toward Laurel and she reflected again that if nothing else, they had the requisite free-floating sexual energy going for them.

“Katrina?” Brendan asked, and Laurel thought that there was a hint of unprofessional eagerness in his voice.

“Not that I remember,” Katrina said reluctantly.

Brendan’s face clouded with obvious disappointment. He forced an upbeat tone. “Both of you should fill out your dream journals, anyway. If you don’t remember any dreams, write down how long it took you to fall asleep, any thoughts you were having before you fell asleep, what time you woke up, anything about the night you can remember—”

Katrina had been fixed on him. Now she interrupted. “Well, there was something… I just don’t know if it was a dream.”

Laurel could see Brendan tense. “What do you mean?”

“It was more like—someone pulling the bedcovers down. Tugging at them.”

Brendan glanced at Laurel. Katrina was describing a common poltergeist occurrence, often described in the literature. Laurel felt a flash of anger. How convenient—the very first night we’re here Katrina gets a nice classic visitation.

Brendan didn’t seem to have the same suspicion—in fact, he was wide awake now. “Can you tell us more about it?” He kept his voice neutral, but his excitement was clear in his posture, in his eyes, and Katrina knew it, too; Laurel could see it.

The girl straightened her back, warming to her story. “It felt like someone was standing at the foot of the bed and tugging at the blankets. When I sat up there was no one there, but the top cover was off the bed, all crumpled up. It happened three times,” she added helpfully.

“Why didn’t you tell me this out on the veranda, Katrina?” Laurel asked sharply—not because she believed the girl, but to call attention to the distinct likelihood that Katrina was making the story up on the spot. No more real than anything I saw.

“I didn’t know if I should say,” Katrina said coldly.

“The protocol is that you report any ‘occurrence’ right away,” Laurel said. She could hear her own voice rising, the skepticism underscoring the word “occurrence.” The girl stared daggers at her.

Brendan quickly intervened. “That’s all right, Dr. MacDonald, Katrina knows now, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Katrina said breathily. “Do you think it was important?”

Behind Katrina, Tyler rolled his eyes, and Laurel felt a surge of affection for him.

“It’s interesting,” Brendan said. “The point is that nothing is too small. We’re here to observe and record everything. You should fill out an incident report now, and write down everything that happened. If anything like that happens again, use your pager.”

“Yes, Dr. Cody,” Katrina said, practically preening.

Tyler smacked the heel of his hand against his head. “I just remembered. I was abducted by aliens last night. Little gray men carried me out to this big silver ship and… well, I passed out, but I think they implanted something in my head. And… maybe other places. Was I supposed to page someone about that, too?”

Laurel was struggling not to laugh out loud and Katrina turned a furious look on her.

“All right, Mr. Mountford,” Brendan turned on him. “Both of you, fill out your morning reports and mood questionnaires.”

“No problem,” Tyler drawled. “Now that I know what—” He stopped himself.

“Yes, Mr. Mountford?”

Tyler lifted his hands insolently, but said nothing as he slouched out through the archway, toward the main staircase. Katrina drifted out after him, clearly reluctant to leave Brendan and Laurel alone.

Laurel barely waited until she heard their steps on the stairs before she turned on Brendan, keeping her voice low. “You don’t for a second believe any of that?”

“Why not?” Brendan said defensively.

“You know why not. The first night we’re here she has a bedcovers incident? No, I’m sorry: three bedcovers incidents? If you Google ‘poltergeist’ that’s probably the first thing that comes up.”

“Let’s not dismiss things out of hand, all right?” Brendan began. “Maybe she exaggerated—”

“Exaggerated? She’s looking for attention. We’re not supposed to be jumping to conclusions—”

“That’s right, we’re not supposed to be jumping to conclusions—any conclusions. You’re already judging her—”

“Because it’s perfectly obvious what she’s doing,” Laurel said. Her voice sounded raw.

Brendan paced on the long bare floor, and Laurel was aware of the cloudy mirrors on the walls reflecting them, the monitors reflecting them, dimension upon dimension. She had a sudden, unnerving feeling of being watched. She shook her head, trying to focus on what Brendan was saying.

“We don’t know that she knows anything about reports of bedcovers being pulled. We don’t know anything. We observe, we listen, we record—without preconception.” He paused, and then without looking straight at her added, “If you have issues with Katrina I hope you’ll be able to rise above them for the purposes of the experiment. Remember that you’re the adult and she’s the student.”

The barb hit home; Laurel flinched as if he’d struck her.

Brendan turned his back on her, sat in front of the monitors, and cued the recordings back to the beginning of the evening. He pressed a button to start the playback.

All right, then, Laurel thought, and moved for the archway leading to the front stairs. Brendan didn’t look at her, didn’t speak.

She hesitated just before the door. As she stepped through, she felt the slightest shock, like the buzz of static electricity. She stiffened… then moved forward.

She walked numbly past the stairs, into the entry with the bench and the family portrait with its crude, simian figures. Her face burned with Brendan’s accusation.

It’s not true, I don’t have “issues” with Katrina. Why would I? She’s a spoiled little rich girl, but the only real “issue” I have with her is that she’s plain lying. And you, Dr. Cody—you’re just grabbing at straws.

“Talk about losing objectivity…,” she muttered aloud.

She felt eyes on her neck and turned sharply. She saw only the portrait above the hearth… and needed to be away from it.

She hurtled out of the room, through the small library, through the garden room, and out the back door.

The “Spanish” part of the house had its own walkway, not brick but red clay tile. Laurel felt a pressure instantly lifting from her chest as she closed the garden room door behind her and stepped outside. She closed her eyes and lifted her head to feel the air on her face.

The wind was soft and cool, instantly both clearing and lulling… all around her was a silky rustling that she realized was the sound of the long pine needles. I could live with that, she thought suddenly, surprised.

She opened her eyes and looked out on the garden. The sky was crystal blue after the rain, with billowy fast-moving clouds. I want a walk, she decided. If there’s anyone out there, I guess I’m going to find out.

She walked down the brick stairs, past a fountain with a fish statue with bulbous eyes.

The bed nearest the house was enclosed in river rock, and she recognized enough of the plants to realize it was a culinary garden, with rosemary still thriving amidst long dead tomatoes and squash vines. The first steps she came to were river rock as well, and they descended to several branches of paths paved with the same gray-stone chips as the front drive.

Even choked with what must have been years of overgrowth, the gravel paths were still accessible. Laurel chose a path and meandered, past a huge bed of roses, all the vines now entangled, going wild, but still with brilliant spots of red and white and orange among the brambles. Wary and keyed up as she had been, as she walked she found herself relaxing, breathing, beginning to enjoy the design of the garden around her.

Every curve or corner presented some charming or bizarre piece of statuary: a bench with frog legs, a malicious-looking Cupid, a lily-petal birdbath, and a surprising number of dog statues, like the ones on the gateposts. Well, it was a hunting lodge, wasn’t it?

She continued past a pergola of weathered wood, so overgrown that it had been completely invisible from the house. A leering satyr peered out from the bushes; a fat stone rabbit huddled under a holly bush.

She marveled at the size of everything, often slowing on the path and craning her neck to look up: the walls of camellias were as tall as a house and those odd drooping trees—weeping cherry—were a good five stories high, gigantic ghosts with their slim trailing branches. Some passages were so narrow she could hardly squeeze through; others almost looked as if they’d been pruned in the last few days. And the constantly changing fragrances were subtly intoxicating… the spicy bite of pine, a sudden waft of roses, then lavender, then honeysuckle, then mint—

There was movement in the corner of her eye and she turned to look, staring for a long time over the garden. After a moment she saw it again, a flash of light. Her heart started to beat faster as she remembered the black-clad figure.

The imaginary black-clad figure, she reminded herself.

You can turn back…

Instead she moved toward the light.

She passed a bench that rustled suddenly and she spun toward it—to see a large snake slithering off it. It dropped heavily to the ground and wound off sluggishly. Somewhere far away there was the rumble of thunder.

Laurel took a breath and rounded the curve of path. She faced a stone circle with a silver reflecting ball, mottled with age. The clouds moved above, exposing the sun, and the ball burst into brilliant light.

So that’s all I saw?

Laurel stopped and breathed in… enjoying the silent stillness. Then faintly, she heard water rushing. She turned toward the sound in surprise. A fountain? But who would be keeping it up?

Curiosity drove her to wind farther through the twisting paths, following the sound of water through white birches and towering pines, passing under an occasional trellis or archway, finding stranger plants as she progressed: bushes with a hollylike leaf and malevolent-looking fingers of berries, and other shrubs with lush berries that were too red not to be poisonous. The sound of water became louder, unmistakable.

She rounded another curve and stopped still.

In a clearing before her was a three-tiered white fountain, with three white benches placed in the curved circle around it.

The fountain was completely dry. Nothing but dust and leaves in any of its bowls.

Laurel swallowed. The air around her was still, silent.

The wind in the pines. That’s what I was hearing, she told herself—and knew it was not so.

She felt watched from all sides, and suddenly she had broken into a sweat and chills. She whirled from the fountain, about to run…

And found herself staring up at the gazebo she’d been seeing from her window.

It was looking up at the gazebo that did it, the whiteness of it, with the tangled rosebushes climbing up the lattice, the dry fountain behind her.

It’s my wedding day, she realized with a shock. This is the day we chose, the one on the invitations that never went out. And instead of standing with Matt under a gazebo in the Palisades, overlooking the ocean, she was alone in the dead gardens of a haunted house.

The thought crashed in on her, buckled her knees, made her head swim.

She lurched to the side of the fountain and sat, feeling waves of nausea, and the telltale prickling of hives rising on her chest.

And she felt a black despair welling up, that she would dry up like the fountain, wither like this garden, that she would never live, never love, never leave.

Never leave.

Somehow she made it back to the house, and went straight to her room, where she slept for the rest of the day, not even stirring when someone knocked softly on the door calling her name.

Go away. I’m dead….

At some point it started to rain, and at another point she was sure someone was in her room, standing over her with a clipboard in hand, but both times she turned over and fell back into a dark and dreamless sleep.