Daughters of the Lake(54)

“If you must know, darling, the datebooks are in this one,” Harrison said, moving to a trunk in the corner and tapping its lid. It sprung open, the lid hitting the wall behind it with a thud.

Kate looked up with a start. She glanced from the trunk to Alaska and then back again.

“That’s weird,” she said, under her breath.

Kate pushed herself to her feet and crossed the room, toward the trunk.

“They’re on the bottom, under the linens,” Harrison said, into her ear. “Dig a little.”

As though it was her idea, Kate began to pull the old, delicate tablecloths from the trunk, noticing how the lace had yellowed with age. She put each of them on the floor, one after the other, carefully smoothing any wrinkles. When she had come to the last of them, she peered down into the trunk. What she saw sent a shiver up her spine. A stack of small leather books. She drew one of them from the trunk and turned it over to look at its cover.

It read “Engagements.”

This was it! A datebook! She had actually found one! She looked back into the trunk—she had found many, actually.

Kate opened the book’s cover to the first page—“Engagements, 1904.” So they were sorted by year. A quick scan of the pages told her it was a listing of dinner parties, galas, and other events hosted at Harrison’s House—who attended, the menu, and the occasion.

She was just about to grab the entire stack when Alaska began growling, deep and low in her throat.

“Oh, good Christ,” Harrison murmured. “Not this again.”

“I want her out of this house,” a woman said.

“That’s not really up to you,” Harrison said, louder this time. “You get out. This house is mine.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Kate wheeled around—she knew that Alaska’s breed rarely, if ever, growled. She saw that her dog was staring into the corner of the room, head lowered, eyes fixed, teeth bared. Kate’s mouth fell open. She had never seen the gentle Alaska bare her teeth at anyone. Or anything.

“What is it, girl?” she whispered. “What do you see?”

A coldness washed over her, as though the temperature in the room had dropped drastically. It didn’t feel like what had happened the night before—she wasn’t cold in her core. It was the room itself that had suddenly gone into the deep freeze.

Now Alaska was looking in her direction, staring with those yellow eyes, not exactly at Kate, but just beyond her.

Kate turned her head, following Alaska’s stare, and saw a dark figure, its shape shifting and moving, not distinct like a shadow, but as though it was roiling and undulating inside, like a cloudy sky just before a hailstorm.

Kate wanted to run, to tear down the stairs like she had done as a child, but she couldn’t move.

And then, hands were touching her throat, scratching at her neck, constricting, choking. Kate tried to cry out but could not find her voice. She tried to grasp the hands around her neck but it was like grasping thin air.

“Get off me!” Kate shouted, with as much breath as she could muster, attempting to push away whatever it was that had set upon her.

And then Alaska leaped on her, knocking Kate onto her back and barking savagely with terrible, guttural sounds—a wolf taking down its prey. But the dog wasn’t directing the aggression at Kate. Alaska was barking at Kate’s invisible attacker, snapping her jaws and thrusting her head forward into the air as though she were trying to take a bite out of something, or someone, Kate couldn’t see.

And then, all of a sudden, it was over. Kate lay there with her hands covering her face until Alaska stopped snarling. She peered out from between her fingers and saw the dog standing over her, calm now but alert, panting.

Kate sat up, threw her arms around the animal’s neck, and buried her face in the soft fur. Alaska broke free of Kate’s embrace and began pacing, settling at the door to the stairs. A couple of yowls told Kate all she needed to know.

“I’m right behind you, girl,” she said, scrambling to her feet. She looked around the room and rubbed her arms with her opposite hands. She reached into the trunk, pulled out the entire stack of datebooks, and hurried down the stairs, Alaska following close at her heels.





CHAPTER TWENTY

Kate was pounding so quickly down the stairs that, when she reached the bottom, she ran into the opposite wall with a thud. She stood there for a moment, resting her forehead against it, filling her lungs with deep breaths, trying to quiet her racing heart. Kate felt just like she had when she was a little girl and she and Simon would scare themselves on the third floor on purpose. Was something more up there than just a child’s overactive imagination?

Kate didn’t want to find out. She shut the third-floor door and turned the key that Simon had left in the lock. Kate knew it was silly, the notion that a locked door could keep whatever was on the third floor out of the rest of the house, but she felt safer all the same.

She found Simon in the living room.

“What is it?” he said to her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Kate thought of telling Simon about what had just happened on the third floor and then thought better of it. She had no idea how to find the words.

“Look what I found,” she said instead, holding the stack of books out in front of her.