With the door always shut, the morning room was colder than any other inhabited room in Bliss House, but it felt welcoming all the same. In the wan light from the windows I arranged my pillow and coverlet on the chaise and lay down, wakeful. Across the room, the sheet still hung across the wall and the Magic Lantern still sat on the table. Would I see Olivia again? Or perhaps Michael Searle? I kept my eyes open so I wouldn’t see—again and again—that body hanging from the gallery. How terrifying it must have been to find it there. I wondered who the witnesses were. So many unanswered questions. Overwhelmed, I half-hoped Olivia would not show me anything else that night.
This was the rest of my life: a dead child, a living child, a husband I didn’t know if I could trust. Ghosts. So many ghosts. I couldn’t feel them at that moment, but I knew they were waiting. One day I might be one of those ghosts, trapped in death, as I was trapped in life.
After a few minutes beneath the warm blanket, my eyes closed, and I was watching Eva inside the playhouse as she mixed grass and leaves and tiny pebbles together in a bowl. “I’m making supper,” she told me. “But you can’t come in because you’re too big. Only me. Only Michael.”
At the mention of Michael’s name, I looked around for my son, but he wasn’t inside the playhouse or out. In the distance I heard angry voices and I looked toward the woods, which were glassy with frost. Men’s or women’s voices, I couldn’t tell. Just a constant growl of argument. When I looked back into the playhouse, it had changed. Grown larger. Eva was grown larger, too, into a blowsy caricature of a little girl. But she was still Eva. The bowl had filled with water and her hand, swishing around the grass and debris, was bloated and white. I looked away.
In the far corner of the room—it seemed miles away—I saw Michael Searle, his face drawn and sad, perched on a chair like a bird. His voluminous white nightshirt billowed around him like a cloud.
I walked away, knowing Eva was safe.
Chapter 29
Contrition
I watched Shelley and Michael from the nursery window. It was a sunny, crisp day and even from a distance I could see how red Michael’s cheeks were. As a baby, Eva had been slender—not too thin, but not a chubby baby either. Michael was all boy, with rounded elbows and cheeks and knees. In his chunky knitted sweater and corduroy pants, he looked like a ripe plum.
As Shelley stood by, Michael climbed in and out of the wagon. Every second or third time he got out, he would go to the back and try to push it forward before climbing back in again. He’d been such a compliant baby, but now he was becoming more certain of himself. More demanding. Still, he was good-natured and always loving. When he finally tired of the game, Shelley bent to pick him up, her shoulder-length brown hair falling forward, hiding her face, but I could tell she was confident and cheerful with him. With a pang of guilt, I realized that she was probably a better companion for an active toddler than Nonie.
I’d found a brief letter from Nonie on my breakfast tray, saying that my father was anxious to be back on his feet. The doctor wanted to keep him in bed as long as possible, but he’d been practicing all they would let him with his crutches. She said she’d found the house in good shape, and that the part-time housekeeper was doing a decent job, even if the kitchen curtains needed to be washed. I imagined Nonie in the kitchen, fussing with every detail. When I got to the line where she asked how I was doing, I knew she was really asking how I was doing without Eva, and I almost broke down. That wasn’t a question I could answer easily. We had talked for just a few minutes only days before, but we had kept the conversation light. How I wished she were still at Bliss House, outside with Michael, instead of in a far corner of the state. She would’ve stopped any talk of a séance just by her presence. So much was different, and she’d only been gone a few days. I wondered how long it would be before I saw her again.
Satisfied that Michael was all right, I started back to my room to dress. Despite my sadness, I felt more rested than I’d felt in weeks. I’d awakened in daylight to the friendly laughter of the workmen on the outer stairs leading up to the theater. There had been no visitations in the night, no visions of Olivia or Michael Searle or Eva. Sleeping in the morning room had been the right choice.
Before I’d even passed the nursery, I heard the door to the yellow room open.
“Charlotte.”
J.C. wore her dressing gown and her hair was brushed severely back from her face, which sagged with exhaustion.
“Please, Charlotte.”
The way she glanced up and down the gallery after she called for me was almost comical. What lie was she going to tell me that she didn’t want anyone else to hear?
Looking back, I wish I hadn’t spoken to her so coldly. “Didn’t you say the decorators would be finishing up tomorrow? Don’t waste your time talking to me.” Shaking a bit inside, I continued toward my room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her speed along the gallery, no doubt coming to confront me. But I wouldn’t listen to her lies. I almost had the bedroom door shut when she pushed against it with surprising strength, forcing me backwards.