The Invited(76)

“My god,” Riley said. “It’s her. It’s got to be. She looks just like Hattie, right?”

Helen looked down at the mill worker version of Jane, then the photo of young Jane outside the schoolhouse, then Hattie as a girl and Hattie as a teenager. They could have been sisters.

“Too bad we don’t have anything of Hattie as an adult,” Helen said.

“Just wait,” Riley said with a sly smile. “I’ve saved the best for last.” She stood up and went to a large wooden cabinet with long, narrow drawers. She pulled one open and lifted out a painting, keeping it facing toward her. Helen guessed it to be about two feet by four feet.

    “What is it?”

“May I present: Miss Hattie Breckenridge,” Riley said, slowly turning the painting so that Helen was face-to-face with the subject.

Helen’s eyes locked on the framed portrait. Hattie stood in a bloodred dress and had her long raven-black hair held back with combs. Her lips were painted the color of the dress. Her eyes sparkled, teased, taunted, and seemed to glisten, to move, watching Helen.

Helen felt the air pulled out of her lungs, as if Hattie were sucking it in, inhaling the very life out of her.

I know you, the eyes said. And you think you know me.

Helen studied the neat signature in the bottom right corner; it was only two initials: W.T.

“Who’s the artist?” Helen asked.

“If only we knew,” Riley said. “We’ve researched, asked folks who are experts on artists in the area during that time period, but no one can tell us anything.”

“Lost to history,” Helen said.

She thought about all that was lost, all that she would not and could not ever know about Hattie Breckenridge. But she knew there were still some things to find. Like living relatives. The idea of finding an actual descendant of Hattie’s sent an electric charge through Helen. Would they look like Hattie? Would they know any of her story, passed down through generations? Maybe they’d have something more: photos, letters, things that might have belonged to Hattie herself. What might happen if Helen found a relative, invited them to her house? Wouldn’t Hattie be pleased? So pleased she’d show herself? Was this where Hattie had been leading her—to learn her whole story, not just the bits and pieces she could glean from her life, but the story of Hattie’s legacy, of what came after?

She thought of the ways her father had shaped her, the things he’d taught her and stories he’d told her that she carried still: her house building, the tales he told about his own boyhood, about relatives long gone. What might Hattie have passed on to her descendants? What stories might they still be able to tell?

“Okay,” Helen said, looking down at her notebook. “Let’s see if we can figure out what happened to Jane’s children, Ann and Mark.”

    “I’ll see what I can dig up,” Riley said, carefully setting the painting down on the table, leaned against the wall. Then she sat at the computer on a desk in the corner, fingers flying over the keyboard.

“You and Nate get the plumbing done?” Riley asked.

“Yeah. We started on the wiring today actually. Got a lot of the boxes in place. Drilled holes in the framing and started running cable.”

“I’m booked up tomorrow, but I can come out and give you guys a hand for a bit the day after,” Riley offered.

“That would be great,” Helen said.

Helen turned back toward the painting.

Hattie was wearing an unusual necklace: a silver circle with a triangle inside it. At the center of the triangle was a square, then another circle with an eye in the middle.

Third eye, Helen thought.

“Okay if I get some photos of the painting?” she asked Riley.

“Sure,” Riley said, still tapping at the keyboard.

Helen took pictures from different angles. Wherever she went, Hattie’s eyes followed her.

“Hey, listen to this,” Riley said. “Jane and Silas’s son, Mark Whitcomb, died in 2000. He was married. Can’t tell if there were kids.” More rapid clicking on the keyboard, then, “Oh! This is interesting!”

“What is it?” Helen asked, moving closer, coming up behind Riley.

“Looks like I found Jane’s daughter, Ann.”

Helen moved closer to the computer and glanced down at a photo of a couple. The woman had dark hair pinned back and dark, haunting eyes. Hattie’s eyes. The man was shorter than the woman and had receding hair and a mustache. They stood with their arms around each other in front of a Christmas tree. Above it was the headline: “Murder-Suicide Shakes the Town of Elsbury.”

Helen squinted down at the article, dated May 24, 1980.

    Police are calling the deaths of Samuel Gray and his wife, Ann Gray, a murder-suicide.

Vermont State Police colonel Gregory Atkinson gave this statement: “At approximately 5 p.m. on Friday, Samuel Gray shot and killed his wife, Ann, and then himself with a handgun registered in his name. This happened in their home on County Road, where Gray ran a dairy farm. Their two minor children were witnesses to the crime but were not harmed. The children are currently in the care of relatives.”

     It is the worst crime on record in this small town of 754 residents. “It’s just a horrible shock,” said Town Clerk Tara Gonyea. “It’s shaken the community to the core.”