“You get settled in,” said Esther. “I’ll go make us some cocktails. The washroom is down the hall, and my room is right above yours. But we’ll save the tour for later.”
Gretchen tried to smile. She wished Esther had said something about dinner instead of drinks. Suddenly she was very hungry, and this made her miss the city, where you could just step out the door and get something delicious right away. Asian fusion or Indian would be wonderful right now. She was about to suggest they go out to eat and then stay in a hotel, get a fresh start on archiving in the morning. But when she looked up at Aunt Esther, the woman was smiling at her with such love and old-lady coolness, she felt embarrassed to bring it up. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had seemed this happy to see her, to be with her—except, of course, Simon. And there was that shadow of her mother’s face she could see in Esther’s, and the shadow of Fidelia in all of them. It melted her skepticism, made her want to learn more—even if all she’d find out was that Esther’s various ideas about accidents and church burnings were because she had dementia. She’d stay. At least for the night. Go through the letters Esther had given her, start looking at what her mother had been collecting. Tomorrow she’d give Esther the kind of help she really needed: find out about hiring a cleaning crew, maybe get an antique appraiser to have a look around. Maybe even see if there was a doctor who could give her a checkup. Her father’s mother had dementia and she had nurses living with her to help her. Country people always thought they had to do everything themselves—a lifetime of not being able to order takeout probably does that to you, Gretchen thought.
Once Esther had gone downstairs Gretchen went out into the hall and looked at the mirror again. The surface was smoky and mottled and it distorted her reflection. It seemed to have a magnetic pull. Not like an actual magnet, but the way cool water feels on a hot day, draws you to it. The wasps buzzed from inside the vase but she wasn’t afraid of them. She reached out again to the mirror and watched the reflected hand reach toward her. Then, again as if it were rising from water—she saw her own face, distorted by the mottled surface, her eyes looking like they were trying to tell her something she couldn’t yet understand. Her skin broke out in goose bumps and she tore herself away from the mirror’s pull.
This awful thing, Gretchen thought, will be the first to go up on eBay. She went back into the library and shut the door.
Gretchen didn’t bother to unpack but sat on the creaky bed and looked around. There were boxes and boxes of photographs and letters. The bookshelves were stuffed with cracked leather-bound books. Shelves full of classics, and also academic books, historical tomes, great novels. This was one of the last places her mother had been; she was surrounded by the things Mona had amassed to study and could almost feel her presence. The Axtons had once filled this mansion, generation after generation. Now there was just her and Esther. The idea of going through the library for clues to something she barely understood was daunting. But it was as close as she’d ever come to any lead on her mother. She flopped back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
The afternoon sunlight shifted as the curtain blew in the breeze and something on top of one of the tall glass-front bookcases caught her eye. It looked like a hatbox, and she realized that probably all the clothes people had worn were also still in the house. She had always been fascinated with vintage clothes. She walked over and stood on tiptoe to take it down, and when she opened it, she found a very well-preserved hat. It had a double black-lace-scalloped border and a shiny black bow in the back. She opened the door to the musty closet and indeed there were hangers full of dresses, and more boxes on the floor. She touched a gauzy pink skirt topped with a narrow bodice and it nearly came apart in her hand, delicate and brittle and worn through from age and neglect.