“My mother is in perfect health. She does not wish to answer questions from reporters, that’s all.”
Fiona kept at it. “Why did she choose Idlewild? Was she a student here?”
“No. My mother is from Connecticut. My father is from Maryland.”
“Your father was an investor,” Fiona said. “Was this one of his projects? Your mother is carrying it on now—is that it?”
They had reached a back door, and Eden turned to face her. Some of the paleness had left his face, but the flush that replaced it was no healthier. “Not even close,” he said. “In fact, my father did not approve of this project at all, and forbade my mother from attempting it. He said it would lose money. It’s only now that he’s died that my mother has gone ahead.”
So that was it, then. Anthony was on his father’s side on this, and disapproved of his mother’s going against her husband’s wishes. It explained why he looked so pained to be here, so eager to keep moving. She tried for a little softening. “I’m very sorry about your father,” she said.
He stayed stiff for a second. “Thank you, Fiona.” Then he turned and opened the back door, leading her out into the common.
The cold air slapped her in the face, dispersing the close, damp smells she’d been inhaling inside. The sunlight, even in its indirect, clouded-over form, made her blink after the dimness. What the hell, she wondered, would possess Margaret Eden, a woman who was not local, to be so determined to sink her money into Idlewild Hall?
They crossed the common. In Idlewild’s heyday, this would have been a manicured green spot, made for strolling and studying in the soft grass. Now it was harsh and overgrown, the grass flattened and going brown as winter approached. The wind bit Fiona’s legs through her jeans.
They were behind the main building, thankfully facing away from the sharp-toothed mouth of the front facade. To the left, a gloomy building of gray stone and broody windows sat silent. “What is that?” she asked Anthony.
He glanced over briefly. “That is the teachers’ hall. It was flooded, I’m afraid, and I can’t give you a tour because the floors are too rotted and dangerous. The dining hall got off more lightly, so we can go inside.”
They were headed for the right-hand building, this one with large windows and double doors. “The school’s buildings all look very different,” Fiona said as they picked their way over the broken path. “Do you know anything about the architecture?”
“Almost nothing,” he replied. “There are no records still in existence of who the architects were.” He stopped on the path. “If you look here, and here”—he motioned with a black-coated arm to the roof of the main building and the roof of the dining hall—“you can see that the buildings are strangely mismatched. In fact, the southernmost windows of the dining hall provide only a view of the brick wall of the main hall. It’s a curious construction.”
“You think it was hastily planned?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “We’re still debating what to do. There is a garden in the wedge between the two buildings, so at least the school tried to put something there. But sunlight must be a problem. We’re not sure what they grew, or tried to grow.”
Fiona peered into the space between the two buildings as they passed. There were the remains of an overgrown garden, tangled with weeds that were brown and wet. The sunlight hit the spot at an oblique angle, making the shadows beneath the dead leaves dark as ink. The windows from both buildings stared blankly down.
There was an electronic keypad on the dining hall door as well, and Anthony punched in the combination. Fiona realized as she walked inside that she’d been picturing something Harry Potter–like, with high Gothic ceilings and warm candlelight. But Idlewild’s dining hall was nothing like that. The plaster ceilings were damp with rot and mold, the walls streaked with water stains so dark they looked like blood in the half-light. Heavy, scarred wooden tables lined the walls, some of them jumbled together, one turned on its side, the legs jutting out like broken bones. The sunlight coming through the uncovered windows was gray and harsh, raising every ruined detail. The classrooms had looked abandoned; this room looked postapocalyptic, as if the last thing to happen in here had been too horrifying to contemplate.
Fiona walked slowly into the middle of the room. The hair on the back of her neck felt cold. Suddenly she didn’t want to take pictures. She didn’t want to be here at all anymore.
She glanced at Anthony and realized he felt the same way she did. His expression was almost nauseated with distaste.
He cleared his throat, pulling the handkerchief from his pocket again, and began to speak. “The kitchen is quite usable. The appliances will need updating, of course, and the floors and walls need repair. But the basics are there. We should be able to create a functioning cafeteria in here for the students.”
Fiona walked to one of the windows. Did he actually think any students would want to eat in here? The thought made her queasy. The school has always been rumored to be haunted, Jamie had said. It was just an abandoned building, like a million others, but standing here, looking at this ruined room, she could easily see how the rumors had started. Where the stories had come from. If you believed in that sort of thing.
She raised her camera to take more pictures—it was time to wrap up; she was in agreement with Anthony on that—but was distracted by motion through the window. The angle was different, but this was the same view she’d seen from the classroom in the main hall, of another building and then the construction crew digging—tearing up an old well, Anthony had said. The glass was grimy, and without thinking, Fiona curled her fingers and touched the side of her palm to it, wiping a swatch of dirt away for a clearer view. She immediately regretted touching anything in this room, and dropped her hand to her side.
“I have another appointment,” Anthony said from the doorway. He hadn’t come fully inside any room they’d been in. “I’m sorry we couldn’t spend more time.”
“I haven’t asked all my questions,” Fiona said, distracted by the scene at the construction site. The backhoe had stopped moving, and two men in construction helmets were standing on the green, conferring. They were joined by a third man, and then a fourth.
“We can try to reschedule, but I’m quite busy.” He paused. “Fiona?”
“You have a problem,” Fiona said. She pointed through the rubbed-clean streak to the scene outside. “The crew has stopped working.”
“They may be on a designated break.”
“No one is taking a break,” Fiona said. Now the fourth man had a phone to his ear, and a fifth man came around from the sports field, jogging in haste to join the others. There was something alarmed about his quick pace. “I think that’s your foreman,” Fiona pointed out. “They’re calling him in.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
There was a chill of foreboding running through Fiona’s blood. She stared at the men, gathered with their heads together, their postures tense and distressed. One of them walked away into the bushes, his hand over his mouth.
In the damp emptiness of the dining hall, Anthony’s cell phone rang.
Fiona didn’t have to watch him answer it. It was enough to hear his voice, short at first, then growing harsh and tense. He listened for a long moment. “I’ll be there,” he said, and hung up.
She turned around. He was drawn and still, his gaze faraway, a man in a long black cashmere coat in a ruined room. He put his hands in the pockets of his coat, and when he looked at her, his face was pale again, his expression shaken.
“There’s been—a discovery,” he said. “I don’t— They’ve found something. It seems to be a body. In the well.”
The breath went out of her in an exhalation as the moment froze, suspended. She felt shock, yes. Surprise. But part of her knew only acceptance. Part of her had expected nothing else.
Of course there are bodies here. This is Idlewild Hall.
“Take me there,” she said to him. “I can help.”