The Piper

THIRTY-FOUR




Olivia sat in Charlotte’s kitchen, trying to absorb the comfort of suburban normality while Charlotte checked on the kids. The kitchen floor was beige linoleum, the appliances stainless steel, and the round wooden table was exactly like a million others in furniture showrooms in every city of the United States. Olivia wanted comfort and was finding it hard to get.

Charlotte came in from the hallway, pausing behind Olivia to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m so very sorry about your friend. I know how bad you must feel. How shocked.’

‘Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you for taking us in.’

‘And look, I know you’re worried about Teddy, and rightly so, she was pretty shook up when you left. But she was asleep when I checked the girls, all of them were. She’s got Winston curled up with her on the pillow, and I left the hall light on. Look, you didn’t eat anything. You want me to warm up that bowl of beef stew?’

‘Sure.’

‘Are you going to eat it?’

‘No.’

‘Then why do you want me to warm it up?’

‘That’s just in case you need something to do. So putter around all you want, Charlotte. Go check the kids three more times, and drink another twenty-seven glasses of wine.’

‘You sound angry.’

‘Not with you, Charlotte, sorry. Evidently I’m going through the stages of grief really fast and I’ve just fast forwarded to really pissed off.’

It surprised Olivia when Charlotte laughed.

‘It isn’t like that, one stage moving in a straight line to the other. You can go from shock to anger to denial then back to shock in fifteen minutes. I know, because I’ve done it. There’s no fast way to get through it, Livie, I wish I could tell you there was.’ Charlotte settled herself into the chair next to Olivia as if she were an achy old woman a hundred years old. ‘But you know it as well as I do, don’t you? Maybe better.’

‘I do, yes. And I think next up on the agenda is going to be guilt.’ Amelia would be fine if she hadn’t come here. She’d be in California, alive and well.

Charlotte topped off Olivia’s wine glass, though Olivia had left it untouched. ‘For God’s sake, Livie, lose the guilt, you’re as bad as Chris. Ever since I’ve known your brother, it’s been very clear that he felt responsible for what happened to your sister, Emily, so much so that it seemed almost pathological.’

‘He had good reason to feel that way. In a way, it was his fault. Because of whatever it was that happened that night, when he went to the Waverly. You do know about that, don’t you, Charlotte? It happened when he was a senior in high school, when he and his buddies were up in Louisville for a wrestling championship. How they all sneaked out to go ghost hunting at the notorious haunted sanatorium. He must have talked to you about it, Charlotte.’

Charlotte didn’t answer, would not meet Olivia’s eyes.

Olivia clenched her hands into fists. ‘You know, Charlotte, I think I could handle anything. Anything. So long as Teddy was okay.’

Charlotte frowned and put a hand on Olivia’s wrist. ‘Teddy is okay. She will be. It’s just going to take some time.’

‘I don’t think time is what’s called for here.’

‘Livie, I’m not following you on this.’

‘Did Janet . . . when she was having her troubles. Did Janet ever do anything . . . bad?’

‘Bad? No, she didn’t. I don’t like what I’m hearing here, Livie. There’s nothing wrong with Janet and nothing wrong with Teddy, but something really wrong with that f*cking house.’

‘I got a strange phone call, Charlotte, after they took Amelia’s . . . Amelia away. Did I tell you that Amelia’s goddaughter, Marianne, has been dying, she’s very very sick. She’s three years old.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘And evidently she died today at noon, and then, by some strange miracle, the morgue said there was some kind of mistake. She was alive after all, after they declared her dead. Does that remind you of anything, Charlotte? Like what you and Chris went through, with Janet?’

Charlotte pulled back away from Olivia, a hand to her throat. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I think you know. I think Chris told you everything, you guys were too close for him not to tell you what was going on. I think Chris made a deal with this . . . this piper, and I think Amelia did the same damn thing, and somehow, Teddy got used, she was . . . she was maybe the instrument, I mean why, Charlotte, why won’t you let Annette be in the school play? Do you know what really happened? Did my brother make some kind of deal so Janet would be all right?’

Charlotte narrowed her eyes and put a finger to her lips, looking past Olivia’s shoulder to the hall, and the bedrooms where their daughters slept. ‘Okay, Livie. I don’t know all the ins and outs for sure. But I’ll tell you what I do know.’

Olivia waited while Charlotte gathered her thoughts.

‘It was strange the way that Chris told it,’ Charlotte said finally, tilting her head to one side. ‘But the way he put it was that they—’

‘They being he and his buddies. Chris, Bennington and Jamison.’

‘Right. That they went down into that Body Chute at the Waverly, just as a sort of teenage prank, but that something there . . . something found them. Then he said, did I know that in every haunting, there was a heart. A focus of activity or energy. And the heart, at the Waverly, was this Body Chute. He said . . . so many strange things. That at first he thought that the fear was just his imagination. He said that . . . how did he put it . . . that when reasonable people are faced with the unbelievable, they have no defense. They can’t protect themselves. He said that the three of them had been infiltrated. That’s what he called it. He and Jamison and Bennington.

‘He said that it had been given away like a gift – with them winning the wrestling match, and getting full ride scholarships. Just like a dream come true. But that the gift was really nothing more than a lure with terrible strings attached, like this thing was fishing for them, and hooked them on a line. And that he got what he thought he wanted, and Emily paid the price.

‘So when Janet got sick, he went into things knowing that . . . how did he put it? When you provoke malign troubles, you face retribution.’

‘Provoke malign troubles,’ Olivia whispered, thinking of the text message that Hugh had gotten from Teddy. She felt ill.

‘Livie, my God, you just went white. What are you thinking? Did Amelia know any of this? Do you really think she made a deal?’

‘I don’t know, but it looks that way. Marianne dies, then Marianne is miraculously okay.’

Charlotte sat forward. ‘And Amelia, a grown woman, drowns that very afternoon in the tub.’

‘There’s no help then, is there?’ Olivia said. ‘I’m all alone with this.’

‘That’s not really true, though, Livie. Not according to Chris. Remember I told you I wanted him to leave that house, but he said no, that it wouldn’t do any good? It wasn’t because he was giving up and crawling off to die. He said he couldn’t come with us until after he dealt with things. He said these things weren’t happening to just us, there had been three of them there at the Waverly, and he didn’t know about Jamison, but Bennington was in trouble too. And he kissed us all goodbye like he knew he might never see us again, but he said he and Bennington had put their heads together, and they had a plan, so not to give up hope. That when things worked out, he would come home to us again, because he and Bennington had found someone who might be able to help, but that first he had to make sure we were all safe.’

Olivia went very still. ‘Did he tell you who that someone was?’

‘A woman. A psychic, she lives in the neighborhood. Patsy Ackerman.’

‘But – I’ve heard that name. Didn’t they do a television special on her once?’

Charlotte nodded. ‘She’s kind of famous. Or she used to be. She stopped practicing, or whatever you call it, over fifteen years ago. But Chris and Bennington were wearing her down. Chris was positive she could help, but she was reluctant to get involved. He said she had good reasons to be . . . afraid.’

‘Patsy Ackerman,’ Olivia said.

‘Right. And that’s it, Olivia, I’ve told you everything I know.’

‘I wonder if she would talk to me.’

‘Why, Livie? You don’t need her. Look.’ Charlotte slapped her palms down on the table. ‘So maybe you’re right, and Amelia made a deal. The bottom line is that Amelia paid the price. It is what it is, and it’s over now. Whoever did what, whoever made deals, it’s done. Stay away from it, Livie. We don’t have to understand to know it was bad. Time to walk away.’

‘But what if it’s not over? What if Teddy is part of the price?’

‘I know how scared you feel,’ Charlotte told her. ‘But Teddy is safe and tucked in her bed. Amelia’s dead. It’s done. All you have to do is stay out of that house.’

Olivia put her chin in her hands. Stay out of the house, Charlotte told her. Stay away from that sister-in-law, Amelia had said.

‘I’m going to bed now, Charlotte,’ Olivia said. ‘Do you mind if I take the wine?’

Charlotte waved a hand. ‘If you finish that off, there’s vodka in the freezer.’

Olivia picked up the bottle and her glass. Vices to still the soul, she thought, heading down the hall.