The Visitor(32)

“It wasn’t a trade,” I whispered into the night, but I had no idea to what or to whom I spoke. “It wasn’t an offering or an invitation or anything else. See? I’m returning the key.” As I placed it on the top step, the brass gleamed obscenely in the moribund moonlight.

From deep within the garden came a long, strident rattle followed by several short bursts. A warning? A rebuke?

Anger fought its way up through the fear. I felt like a mouse caught in a trap, once more a helpless pawn in some dark, mystical game. I picked up the key and curled my fingers tightly around the brass as I stood. For a moment, there was no sound at all beyond the soft swish of my breath. Then an ear-piercing whistle jolted the silence and I whirled toward the garden.

Before I had time to think, I flung the key into the night.

Cold and quaking, I waited for another whistle or an insect-like rattle, but the sound I heard was eerily metallic, like the squeak of a phantom wagon wheel.

For some reason, I flashed to the stereogram, to the strange, cart-like apparatus I’d noticed in the background. Maybe it was my imagination fired by the realness of that 3-D image, but I could have sworn I glimpsed a tiny humpback creature gliding backward through the shadows of my garden.





Nineteen

“Perhaps we’re reading too much into the timing,” Dr. Shaw said the next day when I met him at the Institute. “Louvenia Durant knew of my work with the committee. It’s not so unusual that she would ask me to recommend a restorer.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Assuming she really is interested in my professional services.”

“I believe she’s sincere about the restoration,” Dr. Shaw said as he sat back in his chair. “But for the sake of argument, let’s assume our qualms are warranted and there really is something fishy about her and her sister’s visit. What that something might be, I’ve no idea, but would it make a trip to Kroll Cemetery any less appealing? The other day you seemed quite intrigued by the notion of all those engraved keys.”

“I still am.” More so now than ever considering the events that had transpired in my cellar and garden. Intrigued...and increasingly frightened at the prospect of following all the ethereal clues being strewn before me. But follow them I must because I was being led to that cemetery for a reason. Ignoring the signs wasn’t an option.

Dr. Shaw got up and began to rummage through a file drawer. “I’m certain I have some photos of Kroll Cemetery around here somewhere. Mrs. Durant had strict rules about filming and photographing the graves, but she allowed us to snap a few shots so long as we agreed that nothing would be published.”

“I’d love to see them.”

After a few minutes of searching, he gave up with a sigh. “The file must have been moved to storage. We’ve switched to digital photography almost exclusively in our fieldwork, but I distinctly remember taking those shots with my old camera. I’ll ask Vivienne to have a look later for either the prints or the scans. When we find them, I’ll have her drop them by your house.” He closed the file drawer and returned to his desk.

“Dr. Shaw, you said the other day that some people think the cemetery is a giant puzzle that has never been solved, but it seems to me that a far bigger mystery is how that stereogram ended up in my basement. Do you believe some things are preordained?”

“I don’t believe the universe is random,” he said obliquely.

“Neither do I. There are no true coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. My finding that stereogram. Louvenia Durant and Nelda Toombs coming to see you.”

“Your resemblance to the mysterious Rose,” he added with a gentle smile.

“Exactly. That may be the greatest puzzle of all.”

“And you’re certain no one in your family has ever mentioned the likeness?”

“No, never. But I’m driving up to Trinity tomorrow and I’m hoping my father will have some answers for me.”

Dr. Shaw rubbed a finger across his chin in deep thought. “You said the other day that the circumstances regarding your adoption were unusual. What did you mean by that? If you don’t mind talking about it, that is.”

“I don’t mind, but it’s a long story.” I glanced out the French doors. The scent of roses wafting in from the garden brought a pang of nostalgia. The heady fragrance always took me back to those lonely summer evenings in Trinity. “I found out last fall that the man I’d always thought of as my adoptive father is in actuality my biological grandfather. He had an affair with a midwife named Tilly Pattershaw, my maternal grandmother. They had a daughter named Freya, but Tilly never told Papa about Freya until years later when I came along.”

“Freya is your birth mother?”

“Was. Someone murdered her on the night I was born.”

“My dear, how tragic,” he said in a hushed voice.

I was a little uncomfortable accepting condolences for the loss of someone I’d never even known. The woman who raised me—Etta Gray—was my mother. Freya Pattershaw was just a name and a face in a photograph. And yet as I conjured her image, I felt the sting of tears behind my lids. “Actually, she died before I was born.”

“Before you were born?”

“As I said, it’s a very long and unusual story.”