I stepped inside, hoping to see Eva. Will you believe me when I tell you that the door closed slowly behind me? I was so stunned by what I was seeing, I didn’t see it close but only heard it catch, softly, as though it had been shut with great care. Had it slammed, I might have screamed. That would have brought Press, and perhaps Terrance and Marlene and Nonie, running to find me. It might have changed everything that happened later: I might never have seen what Olivia wanted to show me, and perhaps no one else would have died that dreadful October.
There was no Eva. But all around me, despite the cold, which was oddly flat and without sting, was the smell of roses. Not the fresh, ethereal scent of newly opened buds, but roses whose scent was fecund almost to the point of rot. I covered my mouth with my hand.
The light still flickered erratically, as in an old film. I saw the reflection in the windows first because the curtains had been pulled aside. Who had done that? Terrance, perhaps, thinking I would not be back in the room that night? I crossed the room to the chaise longue beneath the windows and picked up the folded mohair blanket that Olivia had kept there for reading on cool days. Frost crystals flew about like sprites as I shook the blanket in the air and then wrapped it around me. Clutching it close against the cold, I saw my own shape in the glass, surrounded by a bright halo. A delicate layer of frost covered the glass, but when I touched it I found the surface smooth. The frost seemed to be on the other side of the mirror.
You’re wondering about the source of the light. I didn’t want to look at it, because I knew what it was and I was afraid. I think I knew what it was even before I crossed the gallery.
The sheet that Terrance had hung was filled with light from the lantern, which sat silently on its table, untouched by the frost. The sheet itself was also dull in comparison to everything around it—even the paintings had been turned into winterscapes.
You might think that I was brave to remain in that enchanted, terrifying room. There have been things that I’ve done, things I’ve had to contend with as mistress of Bliss House, that I never would have imagined I could live through. But I am a mother and was a mother then. There is something sacred about being a mother. Not necessarily holy, but at least unique in the sense that there is nothing else in the world to compare to it. I have read stories about men in battle dying for one another, their intimacy a creation of their vulnerability in the face of a common enemy. But the danger needn’t be great for a mother to feel an intense need to protect her child, and it doesn’t matter to her if her actions appear irrational to someone on the outside. They are rational within the universe created by the bond between her and her child. Even her fear of death is secondary to the possibility of her child suffering for even one moment out of a single day. A single hour.
Eva had suffered. Was she still suffering? I only knew that I hadn’t been there when she had needed me most. I had compromised the bond between us. I had failed her, and I was desperate for her to forgive me. I wanted another chance.
Wrapping the blanket more tightly around me, I brushed the frost from the seat of the upholstered chair Terrance had moved in front of the makeshift screen earlier in the day, and sat down with my legs tucked under me for warmth. I didn’t speculate on why it was so cold, remembering the cold draft where Olivia had stood in the dining room. If it was cold, I reasoned, Olivia was near.
Chapter 13
Olivia Revealed
She was there, of course, on the screen. Waiting for me.
This was a younger Olivia than the one in the photo in her room or the portrait in the salon. A girl I might have shared secrets with at Burton Hall, or sat next to on the bus going downtown, our white-gloved hands folded on our laps. A teenaged Olivia, her smooth blond hair parted in the exact center of her head, and two braids twisted into tight spirals that covered her ears. She wore a simple green linen shirtwaist and a familiar look of unwavering confidence. A challenge in her eyes and the open curves of her brows—one of which was ever so slightly lifted. How will you explain yourself to me? Why should I be interested? Seated, her right elbow rested casually on the chair’s arm, one of her two long necklaces caught up to dangle from her fingers. It was a perfect picture, except for the angry scar from an accident that she’d had as a child above her right brow.
It surely wasn’t possible, but she leaned forward a few inches and beckoned to me. I breathed in sharply.
Watch, Charlotte. Listen.
Olivia’s voice, low and relaxed—the same voice she used when reading Eva a story—but coming from far, far away so that I also had to lean forward to hear.
I feared I had gone mad, or might be dreaming, but the cold told me otherwise.
The necklaces dropped from her slender fingers, and she held out her hand.
You must know, Charlotte.
Yes, now I was terribly afraid—not of Olivia herself, but of the fact of what was happening. She was reaching out to me. Did I dare? I rose from the chair, careful not to trip on the blanket. She waited, her hazel eyes more patient than I’d ever known them to be in life. In life. Surely this was life too. Her presence was warm. Surreal. Perfect.
I barely felt the cold on my feet as I crossed the few feet of carpet to where she waited. I reached for her hand.