Candle in the Attic Window(48)

Last, she set out the very same Hungarian cut crystal goblets that they had toasted their love with out on the balcony. “To us,” Sheridan had said.

But she placed a bottle of clear water on the table tonight. Ave had not dared drink anything stronger than coffee since Sheridan’s death. Depression always threatened.

“There.” Ave stood back from the table, hands on hips, to survey her spread. Perfect.





And a black line as thin as a hair caught in the viewer’s eye moved just out of Ave’s line of vision.

At first she thought it was a hair. She wasted precious seconds fluttering an eyelid and tugging at her eyelashes.

Wait. No pain.

There was nothing in her eye.

Ave jerked toward the doorway between the dining hall and kitchen. Something slipped away just ahead, as she turned.

“Sheridan?”

The slamming in Ave’s heart took forever to calm. She had to reason with herself that Sheridan wouldn’t come to her like this, slithering around at the edges of things. This was her imagination. She had always been frightened by the attic as Mardi Gras midnight drew near.

And a memory surfaced like a swimmer breaking through ice to gasp for air.

Ave’s grandmother, bathed and scented with lavender, wisteria, and mimosa oils from the local Voudun shops, draped in delicate white lace, her fine golden fingers sparkling with her wedding ring’s diamonds and sapphires as they ran along the keys of the baby grand piano, while she waited for that blackest hour.

The candelabrum’s flames flickered roseate spatters against the darkness all around and drew a courageous little Ave down the curved stairway to sit at her grandmother’s side. “Why are you still up, Grandmamá Marie? Why are you so dressed up?”

Ave had looked up into her grandmother’s face. The fullness of her grandmother’s youth had been carved by passing decades into contours of tenderness and grace lovelier than any of her young wedding photos.

“I want to be with him again, little one.”

“Be with who, Grandmamá Marie?”

Grandmamá Marie had raised her beautiful face to gaze up the pitch-black stairway toward the attic.

Ave turned there now as Bobby Blue Bland’s song died away. In the sudden hush, a footstep sounded high away at the top of the stairs.

And brought a memory of Ave’s aunts struggling to restrain the one of them who fought in their arms to go up the stairs at Mardi Gras midnight, dressed in red satin, her hair straightened into undulating waves of perfumed blackness.

“No!” Ave screamed before she collected herself.

The footsteps stopped. Or had never sounded. Ave couldn’t be sure. She breathed deeply. Swallowed the sudden panic.

Grandmamá Marie’s bath. Of course. A scented hot bath would ease Ave’s mind and put her in the mood for a possible encounter with Sheridan. And wasn’t she in luck? Water and gas were both turned back on.

It was harder to mop the upstairs bathroom floor and scrub the tub in what was now the pitch darkness of nighttime. Ave was very aware that the front door downstairs was still open to the street, to wanderers, revelers and burglars. But she wasn’t yet able to bring herself to close it again. She kept remembering the sound of that distant latch closing way upstairs in the attic.

Ave kept her cell phone off to save its power, but placed it carefully on the bathroom floor between the bathtub and the lit candelabrum, in case she needed to call for help. Then she stepped into the old claw-footed tub.

The warmth eased her legs and back. She moaned with pleasure and relief.

And came awake, thinking it was silly to be afraid to close the front door. Rats and roaches were nowhere near as dangerous as rapists, thieves and drunks. She would go close that door right now and then come back and finish her bath.

Ave clutched the edges of the tub and rose. Water sluiced down her sinewy café-au-lait thighs. Sheridan used to kiss her thighs like sipping coffee, the cream of the sunless season whipped deep into her skin’s end-of-summer mocha.

Dizzied by sleep and reverie, Ave stepped onto the newly cleaned floor and gathered up the sheet she had taken for a towel during her foray into a linen closet. She rubbed briskly, wrapped the sheet over damp skin and tucked the end between her breasts.

Paused. Listened. Called sharply, “Who was that?”

Someone had just whispered her name. Ave was sure of it this time. She leaned forward and shoved the bathroom door closed. Latched the flimsy hook.

She fumbled for her cell phone. Snatched it up and powered it on with shaking hands. Waited an eternity for it to beep into life so she could call 911.

And then thought, A burglar wouldn’t know my name. That has to be Sheridan.

“Sheridan? Sheridan, is that you, honey?”

Ave shut the phone just as she glimpsed the time. Nearly midnight. Already? Finally.

She slid the cell phone back to the floor and reached for the candelabrum, instead. How long did I sleep in the tub?

Went to the bathroom door and leaned her cheek against it, listening.

Nothing moved. No one spoke again.

“Sheridan?”

Ave gathered up her nerve. She had survived nine months when she would rather have been dead. She had driven halfway across the continent to meet with Sheridan one last time. She must not falter now, hiding from him in the bathroom, cowering in fear of the unknown.