The Stroke of Winter(84)

Tess pushed back the covers and slipped out of bed. She walked into the hallway, and somehow she just knew she would find them in the studio.

She poked her head in and saw her mother at the door to the little bathroom.

“Mom?” Tess said. “What’s going on?”

Jill turned around and pleaded with her daughter with her eyes. “He’s in there cleaning.”

Tess rushed across the studio and into the bathroom, where she found her father holding a bucket of soapy water and a sponge.

“I need to get this blood off the walls, girls,” he said. “We can’t have that here.”

“Dad? Come on now. You’re not going to get it cleaned up after all of this time. We’ll have to paint over it.”

He held the sponge over the bucket and squeezed it. The soapy water dripped back down into the bucket from where it had come.

“Don’t you see? This is a bloodbath. Get it? A bathroom. Covered in blood. A bloodbath.” He laughed, then. A terrible laugh. Just like she had heard in this room hours before.

That was when Tess noticed his eyes. They had a wildness behind them, a quality that was definitely not of her cultured father.

Tess flipped on the light. “Dad!” she shouted. “Wake up!” She strode across the room and grabbed him by the arms. The bucket fell to the floor and spilled on its side.

He just kept laughing. It was as though he didn’t hear her at all. Or wasn’t there.

This was not her father.

Jill had followed Tess into the room and was standing there, wide eyed.

“Indigo!” she said, her voice harsh and low. “Indigo, my love.”

Tess shook his arms. “Dad! Wake up!”

Indigo slumped to the floor, moaning. “No,” he said, drawing the word out. “No, Daisy, no.”

Tess grabbed her mother’s hand. She had no idea what else to do.

Indigo cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. He shook his head and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Whatever had taken ahold of him was gone. He looked around the room. “What in the devil is going on?” he asked.

Tess helped him to his feet.

“You were sleepwalking,” Jill said. “Now, let’s get you out of these wet pajamas. Then you can curl back down into bed.” She caught Tess’s eye as she threaded her arm through his and walked with him out of the room.

“That’s the damnedest thing,” Indigo muttered.

There would be no more sleep for Tess, she was certain, so she stepped into a hot shower and let the water rush over her for a long time. She didn’t know what to make of her father’s sleepwalking. Was it the beginning of dementia, like Joe’s nightly episodes signified? Or was it something else? Tess’s own dreams had been disturbing, to say the least, ever since she had come back to this house. Maybe that was what was going on with her father as well.

Or maybe it was something more sinister. Something inside that room, taking hold of him. Compelling him to clean the mess it had left behind.



Dressed in a comfy sweater and jeans, Tess padded down to the kitchen, lit a fire, and brewed a pot of coffee. She sat at the table with a steaming cup and watched the sun rise over the lake. It was just as spectacular as the sunsets in Wharton, but she couldn’t say she had seen it rise very often over the years.

When she heard her parents scuffing about upstairs, she started prepping breakfast. She knew her dad always loved pancakes, but not the traditional fluffy kind. He loved thin pancakes that were more akin to French crepes. She mixed up the simple batter for those—one cup flour, two eggs, one and a half cups milk, a pinch of salt, and a quarter cup of sugar—and let it set. She used that same batter to make oven pancakes in muffin tins—another good breakfast option for her guests, she thought. She hunted for some breakfast sausage in the freezer and put it in a pan to steam, then whisked some eggs.

They were coming down the back stairs as she was frying the first of the pancakes.

“What is all this?” Indigo said, a broad smile on his face.

“I thought you could use a nice hot breakfast after the day you had yesterday,” Tess said.

“Honey, you didn’t have to do this . . . but I’ll take it!” Jill said as she poured cups of coffee for Indigo and herself.

Tess put a platter piled high with pancakes, eggs, and sausage on the table, and they all dug in. As they were chattering away, Tess was biding her time. She hated to break this happy mood, but if she was going to get any more answers out of her father, it was now or never.

“I know you don’t believe any of this, but I’ve been having a problem in this house with, well I know it’s going to sound silly to you, but—a haunting,” she began.

“Oh, honey, not this again,” Indigo said.

“No, Dad. You have to hear me out. I’m not going to be able to open this place until we get it resolved. That’s what everyone was doing here last night.”

“Ghost hunting?” Jill asked, an amused look on her face. She and Indigo shared a grin.

“You wouldn’t laugh if you had been here,” Tess said, as she eyed the door. Jane and Wyatt were standing outside of it. “I knew I wouldn’t get very far with this without proof, so I called some people over to show you.”

Tess ushered them in, “good mornings” were said all around, cups of coffee poured, and Jane slid her laptop out of its case and opened it.