A Darker Shade Page 10

  “Come on.” Hailey yanked on the leash.

  “Stop that. Pick him up. He must not care for this part of the yard. Remember last time? I don’t want a repeat of the great escape.”

  She scooped him up and he settled somewhat, though his eyes still bulged even more than usual, and his expression set my shoulders to twitching.

  The girls stepped confidently into the woods although no path indicated the way. Denuded trees clustered thickly enough to block the weak light. In full leaf, they would create a green darkness; now they whispered hoarsely among themselves of the coming winter. We wove our way through the trees for several minutes, until I began to wonder whether Hailey might be playing me for a fool. She would not be the first of my charges who’d tried such a thing. (Nor was “test the newbie” a game limited to young clients—I’d once had an elderly woman attempt to convince me she was allowed to go to the hairdresser on her own.) And then, just as I got ready to call a halt, the woods thinned, the light strengthened, and we popped out on the verge of an enormous body of water.

  “Here we are.” Hailey placed Rocky on the ground. “Wilton Pond.”

  “Seriously? Shouldn’t that be Wilton Lake?” The green-black water reflected the sky as far as I could see.

  “Nope. Not deep enough. That’s why it freezes so well for skating.”

  And why, I supposed, a pool had been built on the Prescott property.

  The wind gusted toward us over the surface of the pond, carrying with it the sharp scent of algae. The tips of my ears tingled with the chill, which was harsher here. Rocky, who’d crept forward to investigate the water’s edge, barked twice and pawed at the wavelets. Hailey lay down on the narrow strip of dry grass between woods and water and tried to coax him to jump on her chest. Liza wandered over to the edge and began to pluck stones from the water and skip them over the top.

  “Liza! That’s far too cold to be playing in!”

  She rolled her eyes and I could practically hear the I’m not in it. She shifted position slightly, turning her head away from me, and continued sliding her fingers through the water.

  “Liza!” But her head was tilted in the peculiar manner that suggested she was listening to voices I could not hear. I stepped forward, intending to put myself back into her field of vision. Something tangled around my legs and I felt a push against my back and then I was flying, falling, until I landed with an ignominious splash with my head and chest in the pond and my feet on the grass.

  The whole incident lasted less than a second. One moment, I had the situation under control and the next I was scrambling back to my feet, soaking, dazed, and choking on the foul liquid I’d inadvertently breathed into my lungs. Slimy water dripped down my face and the gusting wind sliced through my wet clothes.

  “Oh my God, Molly, what happened?” Hailey hovered over me, her eyes round, tearing in the wind.

  Someone pushed me. I’d been looking right at both of the girls and no one else had approached us, but I could not shake the impression of hands on my back. I could not mention such a thing to the girls, however. Liza, in particular, needed a mundane answer, no matter what I might believe privately.

  “I tripped.” I needed to swallow, but the idea of swallowing the pond water disgusted me and I spat instead. “We’re going to have to pick up the pace on the way back to the house or I’ll turn into an icicle.”

  Even jogging and running, the trip took close to ten minutes. I had hoped to slip into the house and upstairs without seeing either Jennifer or Prescott, but they were both standing in the front hall when we arrived. For a split second, before they registered my bedraggled appearance, I had the distinct impression that we’d interrupted an argument. But the tension broke and Prescott stepped toward us, Jennifer in his wake.

  “What happened?” Concern lit his dark eyes and they swept over Liza before coming back to me. His hand came up halfway, as if to touch my dripping hair, then dropped again. A wave of heat washed through me, half unexpected—and unwanted—desire, half embarrassment.

  “I’m clumsy. We went to the pond and I managed to fall in.” Despite the warmth in my cheeks, my teeth chattered.

  “You should go up and take a shower,” Jennifer said.

  “No, she should take a bath.” Hailey spoke with absolute authority. “Uncle Thane has the most awesome bathtub.”

  A bath sounded like heaven, but not in Prescott’s private domain. “A shower will be fine. I need to wash my hair anyway. It’s got pond slime in it.”

  “No,” Prescott said. “Hailey is absolutely right. Let’s get you warmed up. There’s a hand shower in the tub for your hair, and it really will warm you up better than the little shower. Hailey, take Rocky into the kitchen and wipe his paws so he doesn’t track mud all over the place.”

  On the way out of the kitchen, he nodded to Jennifer, whose pretty, bow-shaped lips had compressed into a thin, flat line. Whatever we’d interrupted, she had more to say and the dismissal rankled.

  In any household arguments, you are Switzerland. It was one of Sandy’s first commandments. I kept my head down, pretending not to notice Jennifer’s anger, and followed Prescott up the stairs. I had never seen the inside of his room and when he opened the door a spurt of interest nearly distracted me from my physical misery. Heavy mahogany furniture filled the space, its muted gleam a testament to decades of use and polish. Deep, forest green drapes with thin blood-red stripes hung at the windows and a burgundy duvet covered the massive bed. It was an entirely masculine space and I wondered whether it had looked the same when Liza’s mother had shared it.

  And then we moved into the bathroom and my entire world narrowed to the sight of the tub. Long, deep, with jets set on the inside and a hand shower next to the faucet, I could practically hear it singing a siren’s song to me.

  Prescott coughed. “Let me get it started while you collect a towel and some fresh clothes. I’m afraid I don’t have anything exciting to put in it—it’s rarely been used since Marianne’s death. Occasionally, as you heard, the girls like to turn on the jets.”

  “Not a problem. Just the idea of a bath is enough. I don’t need bubbles.”

  He studied me for a long moment through dark, inscrutable eyes, then nodded. What conclusion he’d drawn, I had no idea, but I ducked out of the room the minute his gaze released me.

  When I returned with my towel, clothes, and a bottle of shampoo, he had gone.

  The bath was lovely, but despite the heat of the water, my muscles refused to relax and my mind ran in circles. How had I landed in the pond? I closed my eyes and tried to play the moments back. It had all happened too fast in the moment, and the freezing dash for the house had allowed no room for reflection. But even now, with the gentle steam of the tub rising around me, the memories made no sense. The stiff wind had been blowing toward me. I could still feel the sting of it in my eyes. Which meant that whatever had knocked me down from behind had not been carried by the wind.

  And then there was the fact that my fall should not have landed me in the pond. No matter what angle I pictured, I was not close enough to the water’s edge when I fell.

  I shivered in the warm water, then submerged to soak my hair. When I came up, the water had turned to rust. How much mud had I picked up? I turned on the hand shower and more came free, followed by a long stream of pinkish red. Blood? How had I managed to cut myself without knowing it? I ran my fingers over my head until I found the spot, just above the hairline in the front. Gritting my teeth, I focused the pulse of the shower on the wound. Who knew what kind of bacteria called that pond home?

  Only when the water ran completely clear did I climb from the tub and force my mind away from the pond and back to the present situation. I had the sneaking suspicion that the argument the girls and I had walked in on concerned my status in the house. My aunt would call it egotism—I had no identifiable reason for my suspicions—but the immediate silence when we’d entered, the difficulty Jennifer and Nathaniel had changing direction
s, triggered my paranoia.

  Whatever the issue, I did not have to face it when I went downstairs. Jennifer was reading a magazine in the kitchen while the girls sat on the floor trying to teach Rocky to roll over, but Nathaniel was nowhere to be seen.

  “Feeling better?” Jennifer asked.

  “Much.” I gave her my best smile. “What a fabulous bath.”

  “Oh, yes. Marianne did like her luxuries.”

  I suppressed a gasp. What a thing to say in front of Liza. “Well, in this case, I agree with her. Worth every penny.”

  Liza slipped from the room. I debated following her, but thought she might prefer to be alone, so I slid to the floor to take her place with Hailey and the dog.

  Chapter 10

  By the time I got the girls into bed, I’d settled back into normalcy, convincing myself that I’d misremembered the afternoon’s events. And yet, strange dreams of misty, malevolent figures disturbed my sleep. Three times I woke, choking, a sour taste in the back of my throat. The cut on my head throbbed and seemed to send out invisible battalions that, each time I woke, had colonized another region. My head, my face, my throat, all succumbed to the invading force.

  When my alarm pieced my skull all too early the following morning, I shut it off with fumbling fingers and took inventory: I had puffy eyes, a throat like sandpaper and an itch deep down inside my right ear—the one that had landed in the water—that I could not scratch. But Mrs. Vogel had taken the day off. I had to get breakfast for the girls. They fended for themselves on the weekends, but on school days I could not let them sit forever making decisions about which cereal to eat or we would never start on time.

  Dizziness assaulted me when I stood, and black spots vignetted my vision. Far away, I heard a callous laugh I recognized immediately as the mother-thing that had appeared to me in my dream. I closed my eyes and waited, breathing deeply, until stability and sense returned. My soft cotton T-shirt chafed my skin and once I’d made my bed I had to sit for a moment to regain my strength.

  Food and coffee, that’s all you need. It’s just a cold.

  Leaning heavily on the handrail, I made it down the stairs. As I passed the dining room door to go to the kitchen, however, Prescott stepped out and stopped me. He’d given up the crutches already, though I’d distinctly heard the doctor tell him he should use them for a week.

  “I’ve made coffee,” he said. “If you—” He stopped and stared at me. “My God, what are you doing out of bed?”

  “I have to get breakfast for the girls.” It sounded ridiculous. How could I possibly set a table and fry eggs when the kitchen was so very far away?

  “You’ll do no such thing. You look like death.”

  A slender shaft of pain like a paper cut across my heart brought water to my sinuses. Stop it. Vanity has no place here. And vanity was all I could allow such a moment to wound.

  “No.” I shook my head, and my brain rattled back and forth in my skull. “It’s just a cold. From falling in the pond.”

  “Mrs. Vogel’s son has a nasty bug that’s going around in town. Undoubtedly, your little adventure yesterday weakened you enough for the virus to take hold. Go upstairs and get back in bed.”

  I wanted to argue, but could not summon the strength. In fact, I could not imagine how I would make it back up to my room.

  “I’m so sorry.” For some reason, my eyes filled with tears.

  “Molly,” he said, more gently than I’d ever heard him speak, “illness is a physical failing, not a moral one. You have nothing to apologize for. Yet. If you refuse to take care of yourself and die of sheer stubbornness, that will be a moral failing, and one I will not forgive. My daughter has had enough tragedy in her life. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He muttered something that sounded very much like a curse under his breath, then picked me up as easily has Hailey had lifted Rocky. My paper-cut heart bled a little more at the easy strength.

  “Oh, please don’t. Your rib. Your ankle. I can manage.”

  “Shut. Up.”

  I shut up. In fact, despite the hopping, uneven movement Prescott used to get me up the stairs on his sprained ankle, I was three-quarters asleep when he sat me on my bed, removed my shoes, and tucked me back in under the covers that had taken me so much energy to put to rights. And I was fully asleep by the time he left the room.

  I spent much of the day in a fevered haze. Liza and Hailey took turns bringing me juice, water, aspirin, and tea liberally laced with some form of alcohol. My curtains remained drawn, allowing little sense of passing time.

  When at last my mind felt clear, the room was dark and I had no idea how long I’d slept. Minutes? Hours? I reached for my phone and sent the glass of water on my nightstand crashing to the floor. Pure luck and the rug prevented it from shattering, but it cracked in two nonetheless. I eased out of bed and picked up the halves. At least it didn’t look to be an expensive glass.

  I took the pieces into the bathroom to wrap in paper towel before throwing them away and when I came out, Matt stood in the hall, leaning against the wall next to my bedroom door.

  “Matt? What are you doing here?” Nice, Molls, really nice. “I mean, I thought you had gone back to New York.”

  “I know what you meant. I’ve had my office phone transferred to the phone up in the guest apartment and I can work from here for a couple of days as long as the service doesn’t go down. I have a ton of research and drafting to do, and none of that requires me to be physically present in the office.” He grinned. “I’d rather be here, and if I can call in and tell the office that it’s because my sister needs me, so much the better.”

  And if not for the Prescotts, I’d rather be anywhere but here. Not that I could very well say such a thing to Matt.

  He tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “If it makes you more comfortable, I’m not putting anything on hold but returning to a boring suit-and-tie life. I prefer to do drafting from my apartment even when I can be in my office. My sister knows that. She also knew I was going to Boston to meet with a mediator when I left the other day and thought if I was still there instead of all the way in New York, I’d want to know you were ill.”

  “It’s just a bug. Honestly.” I shoved away the memory of distant laughter. A bug complete with hallucinations. “But it was kind of her to call you.”

  And odd. Because Jennifer didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d encourage a flirtation between her brother and the hired help. Nor did it fit with her insistence that Hailey’s education remain on track. Clearly, my psychology classes had not prepared me adequately to deal with the likes of Jennifer Prescott.

  “Come on, let me help you back to bed,” He slipped a hand under my elbow. I could have managed on my own, but did not complain. My sister and I were huggers, touchers—the whole Allworth family was—and since my arrival in Maine I’d missed personal contact. I’d worried about fitting in, being strong enough to discipline two teenagers, smart enough to help an emotionally damaged girl, sensitive enough to handle a child who’d lost her mother, but it had never occurred to me that something as simple as a lack of physical contact would throw me off-balance.

  “What time is it?”

  “Four-thirty. I finished up in Boston at lunch and got here about an hour ago. I checked, but you were out like a light. Jenn said you hadn’t even woken up to eat lunch. You must be starving. Let me get you a bite.”

  “That’s not necessary. What I really need is a shower.” In his presence I was supremely conscious of the state of my hair and the sickroom smell of my body. “Then I can go down and fix myself a sandwich. I can’t believe I slept so long. The girls should have woken me so we could study.”

  “Like that was going to happen. It doesn’t matter. Jenn insisted they read a few chapters of The Scarlet Letter.” He shuddered. “I hated that book. In fact, I hated most of the classics of American lit. Give me English lit or even French.”

  “Please don’t say that to Hail
ey. The first half of the year’s reading is American lit and I suspect it’s going to be hard enough to convince her to finish the required reading without anyone telling her ahead of time the books are terrible.”

  He laughed. “I promise. Now, you go shower and I’ll scrounge you up a meal.”

  The following morning, I woke in the sweat-soaked cocoon of my sheets to find both Hailey and Liza next to my bed, American History textbooks open in their laps. Hailey had pulled over the chair that had been by the window and someone had carried in the chair that usually sat next to Liza’s bed for her.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” I croaked. “You’ll get sick.”

  “Nah. We’ve both been vaccinated for flu. Besides, Uncle Thane called his doctor, who said we’d be fine as long as we took our vitamins and stayed out of the pond. He said it’s a forty-eight hour bug and it’s all over Portland. Half the kids are out of school with it, and Mrs. Vogel’s family has it, too. Mom sent us in here so they could argue about what to do.”

  Liza tossed a glance at her cousin.

  “What? You know it’s true.” Hailey lifted a glass of orange juice from the nightstand, along with two white pills. “Uncle Thane said you’re supposed to take these aspirins and drink this juice and send us down if you want anything else, like soup or eggs or tea or whatever.”

  “You need to study and your uncle has work to do. If I need something, I’ll get it myself.”

  “But he wants to take care of you. He likes you.” She imbued the words with a depth of meaning available only to a teenager. My fever-hot cheeks warmed further and Liza’s eyes narrowed.

  “That’s ridiculous. Now, tell me what you’re reading.”

  “The settling of America. Boring.” The final word stretched to a good four syllables. “How am I supposed to remember who’s who and where they’re from? There are like eight million of them.”