With that, Marlene turned back to the vegetables and I knew our conversation was over.
Not really satisfied that Michael was sufficiently warm, I thought for a moment that I might follow them out to the pond. But Nonie’s voice in my head told me to stop being such a worrier. Michael was safe with Shelley, who, while not terribly bright, had lots of experience with toddlers and animals.
As I went upstairs, watched by all the expectant faces of the portraits lining the walls, I remembered that I’d missed another hair appointment. I had used a new round hairbrush and hairspray to keep my hair neat, and teased it, but perhaps it did need a trim. When I reached the second-floor gallery, I stopped at the gilt-framed Italian mirror that Olivia had sent home from one of her antique-shopping trips to New York.
Holly had been wrong. The face looking back at me in the mirror didn’t look tired at all. My makeup was still fresh from the morning, and the area beneath my eyes held only a hint of a shadow. I liked the leaner lines of my face. Nonie had been gently harping at me for months to be more careful with my figure, and I guessed that now she might be satisfied.
As I continued to my room, I passed beneath the corner of the third-floor gallery where Press’s father had hanged himself. I should have been horrified. Afraid. But I felt only pity.
I spent the next two hours—with an interruption to have a snack with a ruddy-cheeked Michael who’d been very excited by the geese—moving my clothes and other belongings into Olivia’s room. It was where I belonged. Afterwards, I took Michael with me into the freshly painted ballroom while Shelley went to tidy the nursery.
Despite a brisk draft coming from right in front of the ballroom’s generous fireplace, the ballroom was comfortable, and all the lights were working. I was relieved to see that the two brutal-looking metal eyes had been removed from the ceiling as I’d requested.
Michael laughed as he alternately stumbled and ran after the two large rubber balls I’d brought for him to play with. When he tired, he sprawled on my lap and I showed him the pictures of the animals I would paint for him on the walls: Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddleduck, Jeremy Fisher, naughty Tom Kitten. Though I’m not sure if he understood me as I explained to him what I was going to do, and how the ballroom would be a special place for him to play, he seemed happy, and finally drowsy. Content.
Because of the faint odor of paint in the room (are you wondering, as I did not at that moment, how the room had been transformed in so short a time? I had only engaged the painter three or four days earlier), I’d left the pocket doors open two feet or so. As Michael gently snored, I watched the sunlight fade on the theater doors across the hall and wondered how it must have changed since I’d last seen it. But I wasn’t in any hurry to know.
It was the last truly happy afternoon Michael and I had together for a long, long time.
Chapter 32
Olivia Avenged
In the days after J.C. left, Press spent much of his time away from the house, which suited me very well. I spent two peaceful nights in Olivia’s bed, but on the third night I awoke to a scent of roses so strong that it was like an assault.
Olivia was waiting for me.
Gathering the robe from the end of the bed, I rose anxiously and hurried into the morning room. Had it been she who had shown me the truth about Michael Searle’s suicide? (I had no belief in J.C.’s supposed brother and felt the fool for being duped into the séance.) Was I the only one alive who knew? I doubted that Press knew the whole truth about his parents. If he did, might it not make him more compassionate? No. That was wrong. His father—the man I believed to be his true father—had been a monster. There had been no kindness in him, and Press was fast becoming like him. It was, I guessed, a case of blood will out. But was it that Press was only now exhibiting madness that had been handed down to him at his birth, or was it that he was, God forbid, possessed by the spirit of the creature who had raped Olivia?
The sheet was hung once again in the morning room, though I knew it hadn’t been earlier in the day. Terrance, I thought. Or, no. I certainly no longer needed rational explanations for what went on in Bliss House. I was far, far beyond that.
I waited. The Magic Lantern flared to life with its slight odor of hot metal and oil. With its light, the chilled room warmed. There was no more of the frost that had been there that first night, and I felt an odd sense of normality about it all. Except that Eva wasn’t there. I feared that she had gone, driven away by Press and my own inability to help her.