The Clairvoyants(79)

She had the radio tuned to the local NPR station, and she talked brightly over a BBC news report—holding back her mention of William’s strange disappearance, I guessed, until we got to her house. I settled back into the leather seat. I had William’s portfolio with me in my bag. When we turned up Anne’s drive, the gravel and the snow pinged beneath the little car, and one lamp burned in the house. Usually every floor was illuminated, the light spilling out of every window, and I felt a woozy anxiousness—as if something inside the house, in one of those dark rooms, lay in wait for me.

Anne pulled into the garage alongside a Jeep with thick tires—the car she should have driven out in the snow. The headlight beams hit rakes and galvanized buckets hung on hooks on the wall. She explained that her husband used to tap the maples for syrup and that William had taken over when her husband had left.

“He should have started already,” Anne said, sounding miffed.

The car’s engine cut off, as did the lights, and we were thrown into darkness. We made our tentative way up the path to the front door and Anne stopped in the middle of her snowy lawn.

“Isn’t this a fabulous night,” she exclaimed, taking deep breaths of it.

At the door, she fumbled with her keys until I nearly offered to do it for her. The snow fell and landed on our shoulders, powdery and soft. Finally, the door swung open and we stepped inside. There was a fire in the hearth, but only one lamp illuminated the room.

“Welcome to my world,” Anne said. “Dreary without my usual company, isn’t it?”

We draped our coats over a chair, and Anne led me back into the kitchen, into the smell of something roasting in the oven. She had on a wool cap, and she went into a small mud room and emerged with her usual scarf—a paisley silk that made her eyes seem violet. The dimness was explained by the candle she had lit on the counter. I watched Anne step over to the bar.

“I’m going to have a vodka martini,” she said. “My parents and their friends were avid martini drinkers in their forties. When I turned forty last year I just fell into the tradition.”

I admitted I’d never had one, and she insisted I sample hers. She held her glass toward me by its stem, and I took a cautious sip. I said it was like drinking partially melted snow, and she laughed and poured me one, too.

“It’s a glioblastoma,” she said, eyeing me over the rim of her glass. “The tumor.”

I didn’t know what to reply. I composed what I hoped was an expression of sympathy.

“I plan to come back as a cardinal after I die.”

My first instinct was to reassure her that she would be fine, but I knew that was pointless. “They’re beautiful birds,” I said. “My great-grandfather was an ornithologist.”

Anne brightened. “Really?” she said. “I’m an enthusiast.”

I sipped my drink. “You don’t have any taxidermy birds on display,” I said.

Anne gathered her glass and the shaker. “I don’t kill the birds. I watch them,” she said. “Why don’t we take our snow by the fire?”

In the living room, we sat on opposite sides of the velvet couch, and I could smell Lucie’s patchouli in the dense fabric. Most meals at Anne’s were hearty meat dishes, and Anne said she had made a beef Wellington, and it was her first try, so anything might come out of the oven. When would Anne arrive at her reason for inviting me? Del had always said that I was too suspicious, that I never believed in the goodness of others. She was right about that, but I had never yet been proven wrong. I leaned into the velvet cushions, comfortable but cautious about what might come next. I kept watching the stairwell, expecting to see William in his beaver-skin hat, or Mary Rae twirling her pretty necklace.

The drinks seemed to sharpen my senses rather than dull them. Since the day in the asylum I’d felt in a fog—even with the boys, I’d been trapped in a dreamlike existence. Now I could see the points of the stag’s antlers on the wall, the dewy moisture of their eyes, the shine of their pelts, as if they might leap from their spots to charge across the oriental carpet. The fire sparked and hissed with Anne’s addition of a new log. She sat back down and gave me a searching look.

“I just want you to know that I’m here, for a little bit longer at least, if you need anything.” She lifted her martini glass from the table where she’d set it and held it toward me for a toast. “To friendship.”

The first step in luring someone in was to offer support. I’d seen the mediums do this at the Spiritualists by the Sea camp. I held my glass up and she tapped hers against it, making a bell-like sound.

“We all know about Del and the baby,” Anne said. “I’m here for her, too.”

Anne was smart enough not to indulge the rumors about Del and William. “That’s very sweet of you,” I said. “Maybe the father will be supportive as well.”

“Randy is trying. But I don’t think your sister is falling for it. She doesn’t seem like she wants a husband.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think she has many good examples.”

Anne set her drink down carefully on the table, and I sensed her friendly facade falling away. She pushed the button on her cigarette box; the music played, and she retrieved the cigarette and lit it. She brushed the ends of her scarf over her shoulder like a swath of hair. William had been her protégé. Was she making it clear that she wouldn’t hear any disparaging comments about him?