“Now he’s fully recovered.” Bill took out his handkerchief and wiped away a few more tears that had managed to escape. “The burglar didn’t hurt you, did he? Oh, now, Lori, come on, don’t cry like that. There’s no need to be frightened.”
“I’m not f-frightened,” I said, taking Bill’s handkerchief and burying my face in it. “For Pete’s sake, Bill, it’s not as though headless horsemen are galloping through the living room. How could I be afraid of Dimity? I’m—I’m ashamed of myself. Here you are, being so nice to me after I behaved like such a jerk last night. I didn’t even give you a chance to explain.”
“I don’t think I could have explained,” said Bill. “And even if I had, there was no reason for you to believe me.”
I caught my breath and blinked at him through my tears.
“Well, I might have tried rigging the cottage,” he said. “In fact, I kind of wish I had. It might have been fun. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have been your prime suspect.”
“Because you promised,” I said bluntly, twisting his handkerchief into a knot. “When we were at Meg’s. You promised that you wouldn’t… step over the line again.”
“You have a point. And yes, it would have been nice if you’d remembered it sooner. Consider yourself castigated. But I refuse to stalk out of here in a huff, because if I do I won’t get to hear what else happened this morning to convince you of my innocence. So let’s skip over the recriminations and the apologies and go straight to the good stuff.” Bill leaned closer and whispered, “Did she… manifest herself to you?”
“She wrote to me,” I said with a sniff and a quavery laugh. I held up the journal. “A new form of correspondence. All the pages but one were blank when I opened it. Now look at it.” I showed him the first page. “It’s her handwriting, Bill. I’m sure of it.”
“Does that mean it wasn’t ghostwritten?” he murmured. He studied the page, then said, with great reluctance, “I know you don’t want to hear this, Lori, but I have to confess that I—”
“You can’t see it?” I took the journal from him. The sentences were still there, plain as day. I fought down a sudden surge of panic.
Bill took hold of my shoulders. “Calm down, Lori, and think about this. She’s writing to you, not to me. I doubt if anyone else can see what you’re seeing.”
“But—”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t believe you,” Bill stated firmly. “That doesn’t make it less real. It doesn’t make it less anything, except, well… less visible. Who knows? Maybe it’s some sort of security system. A private line, open only to you. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose….”
“Well, all right, then.” Bill released his grip on my shoulders, took the journal from my hands, and opened it. “Please, Lori. Calmly and clearly and in the correct order, tell me what Dimity—” He glanced down at the journal and his eyes remained on the page, moving from left to right, as a ruddy glow rose from his neck to his hairline. He blinked suddenly, then snapped the book shut.
“What?” I said eagerly. “What did she write?”
“Nothing important,” he said.
“Then why are you blushing?”
“You couldn’t see it?” he asked.
“Private line,” I replied.
“She was…” He averted his eyes. “She was complimenting me on my appearance.”
I looked at him doubtfully.
“She was,” he insisted. “She said that my teeth are nice and straight, as she always knew they would be.”
“And what else?”
He looked away again and said, with studied nonchalance, “And that she was right in telling Father not to worry about my thumb-sucking.”
“You were still sucking your thumb at twelve?”
“No,” said Bill, “I started sucking my thumb at twelve. It’s a common reaction to bereavement.”
“Oh.” The room grew very still. Bill watched the fire and I watched his profile until he turned in my direction.
“I don’t anymore, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“What I was wondering,” I said softly, “was why I didn’t try it. A little thumb-sucking might have helped.”
“It helped me.”
“And your teeth are very straight,” I added.
“Thank you.”
“Bill,” I said, “you know about Reginald, and I know about your thumb. I think that makes us even.”
Some of the starch went out of his spine. “It’s a start.” Tapping the journal, he returned to the subject at hand. “She thinks of everything, doesn’t she? It’s a strange effect, though—how the words… appear. What did she say to you?”
I read through Dimity’s half of the dialogue and supplied my side of it as best I could remember. When I finished, he let out a low whistle.
“Deep waters,” he said.
“It’s a metaphysical swamp, if you ask me. I don’t even want to think about what her return address might be.”
“What was all that about forgiveness?” Bill asked. “Forgiveness for what?”
“I don’t know. That’s when you came in.”