The Stroke of Winter(68)

Jane opened it with a smile. “Hi, girlfriend,” she said, ushering Tess inside. “I was just brewing a pot of tea. Like some?”

“That would be lovely,” Tess said. “But I can’t stay long. I came to follow up on what you said last night.”

“Great!” Jane held out her hands. “Here, let me take your coat.”

Tess shrugged it off and handed it to Jane, who opened a closet door and hung it up. Tess looked around. She had never been inside Jim and Jane’s house. It was built around the same time as La Belle Vie, Tess guessed, and outwardly, shared similar features. Same Queen Anne design. Same turrets and angled roofs. But there, it seemed, the similarities ended.

Jim and Jane’s kitchen was painted a bright, cheery yellow. Whereas Tess’s was a nod to the past, with the great AGA stove as its centerpiece, this kitchen was thoroughly modern—stainless-steel appliances, sleek cabinets with glass doors, artsy pulls on the drawers. A painting of a whimsical otter playing in the snow hung on one wall, a nightscape filled with stars on the other. Plants sat on windowsills. A hutch was filled with what seemed to be handmade stoneware mugs.

Jane grabbed two of them and poured their tea, handing a mug to Tess. “Come on,” she said, picking up the pot. “Let’s go sit in the sunroom and talk.”

Tess followed Jane through the formal dining room with its table for ten and deep-purple upholstered high-back chairs, and down a hallway decorated with the same sort of original, whimsical artwork as the kitchen. They walked past the living room—walls a deep red, black-and-white photos adorning them—to the back of the house, where they had a gorgeous sunroom. Tess had seen it from the outside and always admired it. The perfect way to bring a bit of light and warmth into a Wharton winter.

The room was filled with plants. A tall, mosaic-tiled table for two was positioned in the corner by the windows. Tess imagined Jim and Jane enjoying their coffee there, taking in the morning light. A comfy white couch strewn with brightly colored throw pillows sat in the middle of the room across from two overstuffed armchairs; a huge, square ottoman covered by a long tray was set between them.

Jane motioned to one of the armchairs, and Tess nestled into it while Jane settled into the other. Tess took a sip of tea.

“Your house is great,” she said.

“Thank you,” Jane said. “We love it.”

Jane was wearing a navy-blue cotton sweater with several long silver chains around her neck and gray pants, with multicolored slippers on her feet. Her dangly silver earrings and bright-red-framed glasses completed the artsy look. Tess could never pull it off, she thought, but she admired it all the same.

“So,” Jane said, crossing her legs. “You’re here to talk about a haunting. Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”

Tess took a sip of her tea—she tasted turmeric and ginger and lemon in the savory, deeply satisfying brew—and couldn’t help but smile at how similar Jane’s question was to Nick’s. Only he was trying to get to the bottom of a real-world mystery, while Jane wanted to dive into the otherworldly part of it all. Yin and yang.

So, there in the sunroom as the two women sipped their tea, Tess told Jane everything. She didn’t know how to tell the whole story without bringing the paintings into it—her father’s warnings be damned. She knew he meant well, but this was her life.

So, she started with the scratching that kept her up at night, the strange way Storm reacted to things, her dreams, what happened when they opened up the studio, the paintings, the fact that they were somehow out of the safe and displayed the next day. She told her about the blood they found in the studio, Daisy, Grey, Frank, all of it.

Jane listened intently without interrupting, nodding, shaking her head at times. A look of anger flashed across her face at the mention of Frank and his purported abuse.

“And that’s about it,” Tess said, with a slight smile. “I know. It’s a lot.”

Jane reached for the teapot and topped off both of their mugs. She didn’t say anything for a moment, seeming to be digesting everything Tess had told her. “So, the first thing is,” she began. “You’ve definitely got a haunting. There’s no question about that, right? You’re not still wondering about it, are you?”

Tess sighed. “I guess not,” she said. “I tried to shrug it off and explain it away, but what other explanation could there be?”

“None,” Jane said. “Definitely some spirit action happening over there. The next question is, What do you want?”

This question surprised Tess. She thought about it for a moment. “I want it to stop,” Tess said.

“You want the ghosts out of there,” Jane said. “I get that. But is that all you want?”

Tess squinted at her. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean, it seems like what you really want, in addition to some peace in your house, is to find out the ‘why’ in this whole situation. Why this is happening. This isn’t just about a random ghost haunting your house. This is about your family. Your past. You. I think you want some answers, not just a ghost-free house.”

Tess let this sink in. Jane was right, of course. She wanted whatever was disturbing the peace at La Belle Vie out of there. Certainly. But she also longed to know why it was happening in the first place.