Twenty-five
I awoke to a great crash and leaped up, my heart thumping. Was it someone hammering on my door, or trying to break in? Part of my brain was already calculating how long it had been since I’d been allowed an undisturbed night’s sleep. Daniel beside me murmured in his sleep but didn’t wake. Instinctively my hand went to his forehead and I was relieved to feel it pleasantly cool. I grabbed my robe and tiptoed to the stairs. At that moment the room was bathed in a flash of light and I realized that the crash I had heard was only thunder from the storm that had been threatening. I went over to the window and watched as lightning flickered out to sea. Thunder rumbled again nearby and the heavens opened in a veritable downpour. I stood for a while watching it until the thunder died to a distant murmur and the rain abated.
I was about to go back to bed when I saw something pale moving through the bushes. I peered out into the blackness of the night wishing for more light, trying to work out what I had seen. Then it appeared again, closer this time. There was no mistaking what I saw: A person dressed in white was dancing in the rain. The boys’ white lady. I was downstairs in an instant and ran toward where I had seen it. It, or rather she, must have heard me coming or sensed my presence because it ran lightly across the lawn to the tower and then simply disappeared. I followed, my feet cold and tingling on the wet grass. I reached the tower and searched diligently. No sign of her. Nowhere she could have gone. I felt the hair on the back of my neck standing up as I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. I had to conclude that there had been a ghost after all. The ghost of a young woman. Who was she and why had the family never mentioned her?
I dried myself off and climbed back into bed, snuggling against Daniel in an attempt to bring back warmth to my cold, wet body, but sleep wouldn’t come. A dead child who must not be spoken of—a young woman in white who was never mentioned, and now a murder. Daniel had always said to me when speaking of investigations, “First find the connection.” What had happened at this place, to this family that they were keeping from the rest of the world? And who was the mysterious woman in white? I was determined to find out.
At first light I was still awake. Daniel beside me was breathing peacefully but noisily. However it was no longer the rattling rasping of someone who was suffocating in his own fluid. I got up and dressed silently, then I let myself out. It was a lovely still morning with the promise of a fine day ahead. Birds were chirping in the trees. A squirrel ran across the grass, then up the nearest cedar tree when he spotted me. I headed straight for that tower and started to pull apart the ivy, looking for a hidden door. After a long and diligent search I was forced to the conclusion that there wasn’t one. The ivy here had really been allowed to take over in this part of the house, growing thickly and unbroken around the base of the tower.
I extended my search to the castle wall on either side. The ivy was not so rampant here. But neither was there any kind of door or opening through which a person might have slipped. My figure in white had definitely not run around to the front door or to the back of the house. I would have seen her against the darkness of that building. I stared up in frustration. The first windows seemed to be in the upper floors and they were closed. I was about to give up when I noticed a tendril of ivy on the ground. Of course it could have been brought down by the force of the storm, but I parted the ivy close to where it lay. No, I hadn’t missed the door, but what I did see was a solid trunk of ivy tree stretching upward and dappled daylight shining down on me. It might just be possible for someone young and agile to climb up inside the ivy at this point. I had no idea where she would be going, but it was worth a try. I hitched up my skirts and was tempted to remove my pointed and impractical shoes. After I slipped on the wet ivy a couple of times I did remove them, leaving them hidden under the ivy.