Daughters of the Lake(55)

Simon stared at the datebooks, his mouth open. “I can’t believe it! Have you sifted through them?”

“I thought I’d do it after lunch,” Kate said as she set the stack down on an end table. “Do you have time to break free and go?”

A short while later, Simon and Kate were walking down the hill toward town. The early fall day was crisp and bright, and Kate could see the first whisper of color in the leaves on the maples that lined their route. The cool air felt good on her skin—calming, restorative.

Kate was turning phrases over and over in her mind, trying to find the words to tell Simon about what she had experienced earlier. She knew she had to say something—he and Jonathan lived in the house, after all. But she still wasn’t sure what had happened herself. In the end she just blurted it out.

“I think we’ve got a ghost on the third floor.”

“Is it Casper? Does that make one of us Wendy?”

“No, really. I’m not kidding.”

He looked at her. “Why? Did something happen when you were up there?”

“I think so,” she said.

He considered this as they walked. “You know,” he said, finally, “I wouldn’t be surprised. Jonathan and I have had experiences since we started the renovations—things that go bump in the night, so to speak. But we’ve never thought too much of it.”

“Why not?”

“The house has so much history. People lived and died there. So it’s really no surprise that there’s a spirit or two floating around. But the one thing to remember, Kate, is that they were all our people. Our relatives. Grandma Hadley, for one. If there are spirits at Harrison’s House, they’re family. They’re not out to harm us.”

“Except the lady in the portrait.”

Simon hooted. “Well, yes. Except that old shrew, whoever she was.”

Kate thought back on her experience earlier in the day. “I know what you’re saying about the ghosts being family, but this seemed sort of . . . I don’t know. Malevolent.”

Simon stopped her. “In what way? What happened up there, Kate?”

“I know this sounds really strange, but I felt hands around my throat. Scratching. And Alaska went insane, snarling and trying to take a bite out of whatever it was. She was in full attack mode. Had it been a person, she would’ve shattered bones with those bites.”

Simon’s face went white. “You’re kidding.”

Kate shook her head. “No, I’m not. It was really weird. And frightening. I felt like whatever it was was trying to choke me.”

Simon squinted at her, pushing her collar aside to look at her throat. He took a quick breath in, his eyes wide.

“What?” she asked.

He took Kate’s hand and marched her into the women’s clothing store on the opposite corner of the street. He led her back to the mirror outside the dressing room.

“Look,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and pushing her toward the mirror.

Kate opened her collar and saw it—a line of scratches on the side of her neck, as though they had been made by fingernails. She stared at Simon in the mirror.

“What is this?” she asked him, her eyes wide.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing like this has ever happened at Harrison’s House. Nothing. Before or after Grandma died. Like I said, if we have ghosts, they’re family.”

“So, who or what did this to me, then?”

He hugged her from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder, staring into the mirror and their shared reflection. “And, why?”

Kate felt a chill work its way up her spine. “I had just found the datebooks,” she said. “I wonder if it didn’t want me to know what was in them.”

But later, after Kate and Simon had finished their lunch and she was settled by herself at a table by the window in the coffee shop, datebooks strewn before her, she couldn’t figure out what the third-floor ghost was trying so hard to keep her from finding.

To Kate’s eye, these were just simple datebooks, records of dinners, parties, and other events. They made for interesting reading, to be sure. Menus, lists of guests, who came, who didn’t. What her great-grandmother Celeste was going to wear. “18 for dinner. Cornish game hen. Blue dress, taffeta.”

She was hoping to find the name Addie, but it was not to be. Kate saw that, back then, couples were referred to by the husband’s name. “The Preston Hills,” “the Olav Johnsons.” She did not know that another name in the margins, “the Jess Stewarts,” was the name she sought. It didn’t mean anything to her, and she passed right over it, unaware.

Kate was so immersed in dinners eaten and outfits worn during the last century, she lost track of time until the buzz of her cell phone drew her back into this century.

She didn’t take the call, but she did notice the hour. Nearly three o’clock! She had to get back up to the house to meet with Nick Stone. She gathered the datebooks and put them back into her tote, dropped her phone into her purse, and headed out the door.

Out of breath and panting by the time she got back up the hill, Kate found Detective Stone sitting in the living room with Simon, cups of what she presumed to be coffee or tea in front of both of them. Alaska was curled up at Nick’s feet, but when Kate came in the door, the dog stretched and trotted to greet her.