Silent Is the House

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I finished with simple black pumps and a colorful scarf my father had once sent me from Paris. I had traveled little myself, but my parents had been gone frequently on business. The scarf had been a rare gesture of affection. For years it had made me slightly uneasy because my mother rarely approved of unnecessary gifts. She had frowned over the scarf when she’d seen it. I wore it now to feel somehow connected to someone, but I also felt guilty, as if I was taking advantage of my mother being gone.

The whole time I was dressing, my carnation-filled jewelry box sat on a nearby dressing table as silent as it should be. Did I expect it to play? Here in this deteriorating mansion, a few halting verses of Brahms’s “Lullaby” haunting the halls. Gooseflesh rose on my arms, and I found myself pausing as if to wait for the tinny sounds to rise to life from within the box. My scarf was more decorative than warm. I tried to remember the last time I’d noticed hot or cold. For better or for worse, the decision to visit Allen House was bringing me back to the land of the living.

* * *

I’m not sure what I expected from dinner. Maybe a spread worthy of a period drama with footmen offering turtle soup from a silver tureen. Instead, I stepped into a cozy sitting room with a charming tea table set for three.

My grandmother and Owen were already serving themselves from a platter of roast beef and potatoes.

“This is Mrs. Maple,” Victoria said, nodding to a heavyset woman with a flushed face and round apple cheeks who was setting a bowl of steamed carrots on the table. “We don’t have many employees these days, but I hope you’ll be well taken care of at Allen House.”

“Anything you need in the kitchen, let me know. I usually shop on Fridays,” Mrs. Maple offered.

I thanked her and sat, acknowledging Owen’s silence with a brief nod as if he’d spoken. I had no grievance with him, regardless of his strange intensity toward me. I also refused to be intimidated by my reaction to him. I could only dismiss it as long weeks of profound grief finally dissipating and leaving me too open and vulnerable. I couldn’t seem to control it. An almost preternatural interest in him sizzled beneath my skin when he was around…and there was a residual hum even when he wasn’t. My heartbeat quickened. My senses heightened. Without looking at him, I seemed to notice every movement he made, every breath, every blink. It bothered me, but it was also refreshing to suddenly have my focus shift from my loss to the living.

“And you’ve met Owen,” Victoria continued.

There were no footmen, but Mrs. Maple served me before I could help myself. She piled a shocking mound of carbs on my plate. My wide eyes looked from roasted potatoes up to Owen’s face. I thought for a second that his lips quirked, but then any expression of humor vanished. Still, my eyes had been drawn to that soft swell of his lower lip that was somehow soothing the raw edges of my grief.

I looked back at the sinful number of potatoes and vowed to spend some time with the portable barre I’d packed, to burn off the carbs and to take my mind off Owen’s lips. There were other, safer ways to deal with my loss.

“How did you find your room?” Owen asked. It didn’t seem like small talk. It seemed like he was testing me. But it had seemed like that from the moment I’d first seen him. I didn’t mention my surprise at the condition of the house or my unease with the servant I’d seen in the distance. Such insignificant things must have been made large by my grief. I certainly wouldn’t mention how the movement of his fork to his mouth distracted me even in the periphery of my vision.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” my grandmother said before I could answer Owen. I answered her instead.

“I would have before now, but it never seemed right,” I confessed.

“Your father would have disapproved,” Owen interjected, suddenly deciding to join the real conversation.

I was startled by that supposition. So much so that I neglected the decadent potatoes and lowered my fork. My father? He had never seemed to care one way or another about Allen House. Then again, it would have been hard to gauge because he was so cool about so much.

“Actually, my mother wouldn’t have wanted…”

I was sorry for the honesty when Victoria drew in a shaky breath and let it out in a long sigh that seemed to span twenty-one cold years.

“I find my appetite is non-existent this evening. I’ll leave you to your meal,” Victoria said.

I rose. My napkin fell to the floor. I was five years old again and I hadn’t yet learned that gaining my parents’ approval wasn’t possible. I reached toward my grandmother, but she was already whirring away.

Owen was angry. It seethed off him in waves of heat. I swore I could actually feel it in the flush on my cheeks. I wasn’t used to dealing with so much emotion. I had been the only one in my home who ever seemed to feel at all. My father had been detached. My mother had been contained.

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it. I hadn’t meant to cause Victoria pain.

“No one should have to lose their daughter twice let alone three times.” Owen rose and paced. The room was so small that his frustrated movements filled it. Even in a suit, I could see the play of his tense muscles in his broad shoulders and down his back.

“She left. She died. It was her desire to remain estranged,” I summed up. I stood. I’d already eaten more than anyone who ever stood on pointe ought to.

“I think Victoria always assumed it was your father who kept you both in Maine,” Owen said. He had come to a stop by the window and he looked out at the night with his hands on his lean hips.

“We never spoke of my grandmother. My parents traveled so much…” I explained. How do you face anger and disappointment that aren’t of your making?

“Yes. I know. Paris. The French Riviera. Mexico. Berlin.”

I didn’t ask him how he knew. His brooding frown made conversation impossible. My chest had tightened with each of his frowns and each of Victoria’s unshed tears. There was so much to feel after weeks of being cold and numb. My own eyes were swimmy and I never shed tears in front of others. Never. I’d learned to channel all my feelings into movement, into dance.

“If you’ll excuse me as well,” I said.

I didn’t wait for him to reply. I wanted to leave quickly before he could see the moisture in my eyes. But, suddenly, he’d crossed the small room and his hand was on my arm. His warm, strong fingers found skin beneath the fringed edge of my scarf, but instead of pulling away from the contact, they spread and wrapped and held. I turned toward him, looking everywhere but at his mouth.

“Victoria would be devastated if you ran away. She’s already planning a welcome party for you next weekend,” he said. The words were tight and clipped. He wasn’t speaking for himself. Something told me he’d be relieved if he found me gone by tomorrow.

“I won’t run,” I said. My tears had dried before they fell, completely shocked away by his nearness and the simple touch of his hand around my arm. I looked down, certain that shock and heat must show in my eyes. Maybe they had, maybe I hadn’t looked down quickly enough, because he let me go as if his fingers had been burned.

“Good night,” I said, and I slipped away from him, but the heat of his fingers lingered even as I walked away.

* * *

I didn’t have to use my portable barre. Allen House had its own studio. Bethany led me to it when she saw my worn pointe shoes. Once I had dreamed of dancing in the American Ballet Theatre. Now I enjoyed teaching. I had a good, solid gift, but no brilliance, and my height had continued for a few too many inches. I found joy in helping young children find themselves or lose themselves in dance the way I had when I was younger. Though he had bowed to my mother in all other things, my father had insisted I be allowed to dance. I was given all the necessary accoutrements and lessons, and that was the beginning and end of their involvement. I performed recitals in front of strangers. I received accolades beside other dancers whose parents sat beaming.

It didn’t matter.

When I saw the barre, the mirrors and the polished wooden floor, my sadness melted away. Always. Even here at Allen House, which seemed to have soaked up so many years of sadness that the dingy walls themselves made me ache.

The studio was surprisingly well kept.

I remembered the maid I’d seen rushing into it earlier in the day and I wondered if my grandmother had had it cleaned just for me. She’d said they didn’t have many employees. But Owen had said she would be devastated if I ran away. While I guessed that he would have been glad if I’d never come.

As I put myself through the paces of arabesque, balançoire and battement again and again, I wondered which Allens had danced here before me. But then, just as I’d almost found peace with sweat stinging my eyes instead of tears, I saw her in the mirror. The same woman I’d seen in the hall. She was behind me near the doorway, not moving or speaking. Her hair fell loose and long over her shoulders in tangled waves that looked familiar. I’d seen that hair a million times in the bathroom mirror. I’d seen those gray eyes and that face. Still, the woman didn’t move or speak. She would never speak again. From my horrified vantage point, I could see in the mirror that her throat was crushed and two deep bruising handprints were visible on her pale neck.

I didn’t turn. I couldn’t. I was afraid if I even blinked she’d come closer. I gripped the barre with both hands and tried to breathe without shrieking. Because the woman was obviously dead, and so like me that we could have been identical twins.

The room had grown cold. So cold. The woman hadn’t come closer but she filled the studio with a dank atmosphere of dread. Was this somehow a horrible premonition of future violence stalking me? Suddenly, I detected the damp, heavy smell of wet earth and I saw her sundress was streaked with dirt.

I didn’t own that dress. That simple, crazy fact was like a lifeline in a moment when I might have drowned in fear.

Because she had come closer.

She hadn’t stepped or floated or lurched. She just was several feet closer than before. I could see the dark gray circles under her eyes and the blue veins under her skin. My eyes? My skin? The earthy smell grew heavier and sickly sweet like a tilled garden…or a freshly turned grave. I’m not superstitious. But cold sweat trickled down my back as I wondered if I was smelling my future resting place. Here. Now.

I dreaded to hear her speak and I waited for it at the same time. Was she here to warn me? To stop this from happening to my future self? I wondered if her windpipe was too damaged to make sound. Then, before her lips opened and before I could beg her to go away, a sound drifted toward us from far down the hall where my bedroom door stood open.

The music box.

Closed. Broken. But it began to play. Several notes. Several more.

Was she closer still? My eyes burned from not blinking. The back of my neck had gone to ice. And then, when I knew I had to turn to face her even if it meant that in those seconds she would travel to me and I would turn to find her cold, pale face against my own, she moved back instead of forward. She didn’t float or step. Again she just was farther then farther until she was down the hall and away.

Several seconds later the impossible music ground to a halt, the chill faded and I was left to turn and look down at clumps of fresh dirt on the polished studio floor.

Chapter Three

I’ve never had a premonition. Let alone a premonition of my own death. That someday someone somewhere would strangle me until I became nothing but a creepy zombie vision haunting my former self was impossible for me to believe. I didn’t own that particular sundress. I never would, to be sure to prevent whatever grim premonition the vision might represent. Better to be safe than sorry, even if I didn’t believe in the supernatural. Then again, the alternatives that I was either losing my mind or Allen House was haunted by some long lost relative who looked exactly like me were equally preposterous.

I remembered Victoria Allen’s words. “The resemblance is striking.”

Whatever the reason for the visitation, violence had entered my life. First, in the accident that had killed my parents, and now, in the threat of future violence that seemed to haunt me long after I’d cleaned up the dirt and washed away the sweat and fear in a long, hot shower that could never have been long or hot enough.

I confronted the fear when it wouldn’t be completely washed away.

I poked and prodded and shook the music box for at least half an hour before I determined that it truly was broken and there was no logical reason for it to produce sound by itself.

Now my hands were covered in the funereal scent of dead carnations and I was none the wiser.

Truth was, the bizarre occurrence made me even more determined to stay. The house in Maine was empty and as silent as the cemetery where my parents’ empty coffins had been interred. There was nothing for me there. Here, there was the challenge of Owen Ward, the mystery of the dead woman walking and my grandmother’s pain.

I couldn’t leave. I wouldn’t.

Yes, I was afraid, but somehow not as afraid as I’d been for most of my life. I found myself feeling bolder and better able to step forward to face challenges in my own way without fearing my parents’ reaction. In the moments following the dead woman’s visitation, I discovered my own way of dealing was not running away or running to someone else for help.

Desperate for fresh air as a substitute for answers, I dried my hair, avoiding the mirror, and dressed in jeans and a sweater, topping that with a warm double-breasted pea coat. I needed to be away from the studio and the music box to clear my head.

I made my way through the dark house, hearing a television in the distance and marveling as a hollow laugh track rang out, echoing in the high-ceilinged halls. Who could be watching a comedy? Bethany? My grandmother? Surely, Owen had left after dinner.

Finally, I found a side door that led out onto a path that meandered into the back part of the property. There were many intersecting and winding pathways, and though the cobbles were crooked and the stones often wiggled beneath my boots, they were still mostly clear and navigable. I avoided the darker trails that seemed to cut into thicker forest. The property could use a team of landscapers. Bushes were overgrown. Weeds had run rampant. The grass was tall and patchy. In spite of the neglect, I could almost imagine what the estate must have been like in its heyday. No doubt Morgans and Astors and Vanderbilts had sashayed through these paths on warmer nights when laughter and champagne and soft jazz had echoed in the air. I walked along, watching my breath fog this cooler air and it wasn’t until I saw her again that I realized I had been searching.

This time she didn’t face me. She traveled across the back lawn and disappeared into the trees with the same odd “here one second, there the next” sudden movement that caused my heart to pound with its unpredictability. If she changed course…if she decided to move my way…she could be beside me in seconds.

I swallowed my fear and ignored the thundering of my heart in my ears. And I followed her into the trees with only the moon and her pastel dress to guide me. But once I entered the woods I saw where she was headed.

Sheltered in a thick copse of trees was a large hothouse. I wondered how any light from the sun reached its panes and then I realized the trees were all quick growing varieties that probably hadn’t been so choking when the hothouse had been built. It was obviously original to the house. The architecture was similar. Stone and wrought iron and beveled glass. In fact, it must have been beautiful many years ago. Now, its glass was streaked with dirt and grime and in many places the green film of verdigris and moss had spread over the panes.

The woman I followed—the impossible, horrifying woman—stopped and looked around at the doorway of the hothouse. But the gaze from her dark eyes flowed over me as if she didn’t see me or as if she didn’t care. I suddenly felt as if I was watching a movie play out, and then she opened the door and slipped inside…except the actual door of the hothouse didn’t open, but rather a shadow of the real door as if fantasy and reality parted ways in that singular moment.

I stepped forward, afraid the shadow door would open for me too and terrified of where it might lead, but when I reached it I felt a real brass knob against my fingers. I turned it and opened the door, slightly startled when a rush of warm air flowed out to greet me.

Unlike the rest of the grounds and the exterior, the hothouse wasn’t abandoned and neglected. Not on the inside. When I followed the woman, I entered a lush world of green exotic plants and humidity. I didn’t see her. The jungle had enveloped her or the shadow door had opened into a different time and place. I tried not to think of when or where because I could remember her—my?—mangled neck too well.

The hothouse was lit by the eerie firefly glow of miniature lanterns hanging from wrought iron hooks spaced sporadically on the walls and ceilings between the grubby glass panes. Though I knew it must be electric, the light danced like gas flames within the beveled globes. The effect would have been fairyland-like if I hadn’t just followed a dead woman into a strange place. Instead, knowing she might be here looking out at me from the leaping shadows of palms and hibiscus, the unreliable and deceptive light of the lanterns was only another reason for my pulse to race and my chest to tighten.

Even worse that it would be my own dead, pale face looking back at me when I saw her again.

Would her step sound on the tiles?

They were laid in smooth stone squares beneath my feet, mostly the darkened beige of natural limestone, but at one point, my own slow step halted beside a large rusty patch six tiles wide. It was faint in the lantern light. Barely discernible. But I stopped at its edge. A sudden flood of adrenaline caused me to whirl around in a complete circle. I strained to see or hear the threat I felt.

Nothing.

I backed away from the discoloration. Then, I turned and walked away until I came to a section of the hothouse filled with giant pots of juniper shrubs. Their spice teased my senses, filling the air around me with a suddenly familiar scent.

I wouldn’t think of Owen Ward now.

I peered into the flickering darkness, both afraid to see my dead “twin” and afraid I wouldn’t see her until it was too late and she was right beside me. I wanted to know more. I wanted to understand. At the same time, the catch in my breath and my pounding heart said to run back to Maine as quickly as I could. It seemed my body wasn’t as brave as my intentions.

A whistle coming from the bushes startled me. I took a step back toward the door and faced the greenery to my left. A wavering, off-key tune rose up from the junipers followed by the exit of a man from between their carefully pruned depths. He carried a trowel and a red plastic bucket. He wore the kind of brown coveralls workmen wear, as well as sturdy boots. Strangely, he didn’t pause at my presence. He continued to whistle and walk even as his gaze tracked over me.

“I’m sorry to intrude. I was out walking,” I said. I followed behind him, wanting to ask him about the woman I’d seen, but afraid to at the same time. There was also a part of me that was eager for the company that might keep her away. The older man with gray at his temples stopped whistling, but he continued to walk until we’d rounded a corner made by the potted shrubs.

And that’s when I saw the carnations.

There were several long trenches full of them and they were both familiar and not familiar, because I’d never seen them growing before. Mine had always arrived clipped and pinned to cardstock for shipping.

“Pink to symbolize a mother’s love,” the man muttered, and then he began to snip one stem after another and place them in his bucket.

They were all pink. Dozens upon dozens of pink carnations.

“Really?” I had never known that the color of my birthday flowers signified anything other than simple beauty. I wondered if Victoria had been reaching out to my mother all these years and we hadn’t known it.

I stepped closer to the man and suddenly I was able to make out the name that was stitched over his left breast pocket.

Robert Ward.

“I’ve met Owen,” I said. The gardener must be a relation. I could see it now in his height and the width of his shoulders. I could imagine a hint of gray at Owen’s temples. Perhaps they were brothers?

The name seemed to catch his attention. He paused in his work and looked around, but only for a second. Then, he continued his clipping.

“Must take these up to the house. Very nice this time. Very nice indeed,” the man said, almost as if he was mumbling to himself. How did Owen Ward become the heir and Robert Ward end up growing flowers for me?

“They’re lovely. I’ve always liked them,” I said. I reached out and touched one of the carnations in his bucket. Their scent here was petal-sweet, not dry and dusty. It mingled pleasantly with the juniper’s evergreen.

He really was focused, because he began whistling again and walked away from me, only repeating his thoughts about the flowers being nice in between whistled notes. I was left alone in the flickering lantern light wondering about so many things.

But not for long.

Just as I began to fear that the look-alike dead woman would show up again, a step caused me to turn. I was afraid I’d see pale staring eyes or, worse, feel a cold hand on my shoulder, but instead I faced Owen Ward.

He had come around the corner of shrubbery and stopped suddenly when he saw me. His eyes widened, then narrowed and sharpened as if it had taken him seconds to recognize that it was me.