Candle in the Attic Window Part 11

She went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Same plain face, brown eyes, brown hair. Nothing special leapt out at her. A few freckles dotted her nose, but even they were light, difficult to see if you didn't know they were there. Like me. She reached around and grasped the thick braid with her left hand, brought her right behind her and closed her eyes. What am I doing? she thought.

She cut.

It was tougher than she'd expected to get through the twist and the scissors didn't cut quite straight. Holding the thick braid of hair in her hands made her realize what she had done, what she had really, actually done. Cut off something that had been there most of her life. A phantom weight remained on the back of her neck, telling her she really hadn't gone through with it. She reached back and felt her neck, the feather-light strands on her skin. Short intake of breath and even smaller exhale of laughter, and she hacked away, then, at the stray wisps that hung haggle-straggle around her head, evening them out the best she could. She did the back without a mirror, feeling, instead, with her fingertips. She hoped it was straight, but did not bother to check.

At last, Lorena looked in the mirror and saw her new head. Her face looked smaller, her eyes larger. It was certainly different. She didn't bother to clean up the bathroom, just stripped off her shorts and crawled into bed.

She lay on her side and smoked a cigarette while looking out the window. Someone was walking down the street. He was tall, with dark hair pulled back in a tail. Familiar. Thigh-length black jacket and dark pants. Boots on his feet. Their heavy tread echoed below. He was thin, almost sickly, and beautiful. So familiar. She'd seen him somewhere before. Where? Lorena ashed her cigarette out the window and inhaled again, watching. Not many people were out at this hour and she always studied those who were, trying to guess where they were off to, where they might be coming from.

He looked up, then, and OhmyG.o.dhesbeautifulthemostbeautifulthingi'veeverseen, his eyes, large dark eyes she could see even from her window, held hers for a moment before he put his hands in pockets and walked on.

She s.h.i.+vered with excitement under the covers. What just happened? It wasn't much, but it was what she'd wanted something different. Enough, perhaps, for her to finally be able to sleep. She wondered what he looked like up close and why she thought he was beautiful, when all she'd really seen was a coat and dark hair. But his eyes, they seemed to look right at her. And she could have sworn she knew him from somewhere. But where? She wondered if he would be back tomorrow, wondered if she dared walk downstairs if he was, wondered and eventually fell asleep.

She awoke to rain misting her face. It finally felt like September. She glanced at the clock and saw it was 7:00. She had gotten nearly three hours of sleep, the most she'd had at one time in weeks. But instead of rested, she felt edgy. Eyes haunted her mind as she got up. Dark eyes that searched hers.

The bathroom was a mess. A fine drizzle of hair covered the toilet seat and long strands clumped together on the floor. Her braid, now coming undone at the top, was on the small ledge between medicine chest and sink. She picked it up, surprised at how much it weighed, and brought it with her to the kitchen as she smoked her morning cigarette.

"Well, what am I going to do with this glue it back on? Send it to Mom?" She giggled, as she thought of her mother opening up a package to find a chunk of hair, and tossed the braid in the paper sack she used for garbage. She'd take it to the dumpster before going to work. Which, she realized, she had less than an hour to get to.

She grabbed a clean Family Mart s.h.i.+rt before hitting the shower. She kept the water lukewarm and enjoyed the goose b.u.mps it produced. Such a relief from the heat of yesterday. Hopefully, summer was over for good. She wet her hair, running her hands through it until they reached empty air, still expecting to find a long mane. She smiled a little to herself at her forgetfulness and closed her eyes as she lathered in shampoo. It felt good to have so little to go through. She found herself thinking of the man she had seen the night before, how he had looked up before walking on. But had he really seen her? What if he had? And where had she seen him before? Her mind wandered as she went through the motions of shaving and was.h.i.+ng, and focused on work. Family Mart, the grocery store where she was manager and sole employee of the tiny floral department. She hated the store itself and the job didn't pay well, but she enjoyed the plants and flowers. Something about their crispness, their perfection, appealed to her.

And then Lorena remembered where she had seen him before. It was a Friday evening, not the busiest of times for her department. He had shown up wanting a white rose. All she had were the usual red, yellow and pink, and some that were white with pink-tinged edges. He selected one of those and, when she wrapped and handed it to him, his hand had touched hers. Only for a second, but she s.h.i.+vered, remembering. She hadn't noticed much about him until that point, but whatever it was that came through with his touch really made her look at him. His green eyes caught orangish flecks from the overhead lights. Those eyes were the most remarkable thing about him, dark and enticing. His body was skinny, too thin, dark clothes hanging off of him like an exotic scarecrow, but exquisite just the same.

The water became cold, startling her out of reverie and into the present. She had accomplished something. She knew where she had seen him before. Small victory, but it made her morning brighter.

Her mind continued flas.h.i.+ng pictures as she dried off. Of the dark coat. The hair. His eyes. Why was she so concerned with someone she had seen for a grand total of six or seven minutes? Because he was her ideal. Sure, she didn't know a thing about him, but all of her fantasies to this point had involved a tall man with dark hair. His face changed with her fantasies, but his features remained constant. Long, thin arms and legs that were lightly muscled. Long fingers on strong hands. What if she were to walk downstairs tonight and just go up, as in one of her late-night fantasies, and put her arms around him? What would he do? Probably tell me to get the h.e.l.l out of his face.

Work pa.s.sed in a blur. It was order day, so she spent her time clipping stems, pricing, rotating product and making arrangements. She did the work by rote, nodding and smiling at the infrequent customers, clipping and pricing, but the whole time, her mind was on the man with the hypnotic eyes. Who is he and why do I keep thinking about him?

That night, Lorena tried to sleep but kept waking up to peer out the window, expecting him to be outside. But, of course, he wasn't, and the only thing she gained was more circles under her eyes. The rest of the week was much the same. She saw him from the window twice more and both times, he appeared to be watching her apartment. Of course this was imagination, wishful thinking ... but it satisfied her. And each night, she looked for him, hoping for more than a glimpse, for the courage to go outside and speak to him. Her nightly walks had stopped; she was afraid she would miss him if she left her watch at the window.

The sickness began a few days later. Even the thought of food repulsed her. Some of the other employees said something about a flu going around, but everyone else seemed to get sick for a day and bounce right back. Lorena languished. She was not sure whether the fatigue was the result of her late-night wakings or from being ill. She woke at night to smoke and keep vigil, before falling into uneasy dreams.

The following week, she was sent home from work, with instructions not to come back until she had a doctor's note clearing her from illness. She dragged herself home and immediately fell asleep. She woke four hours later. Her head pounded with every beat of her heart and her mouth was fuzzy. Lorena closed her eyes and tried not to think. Her eyes throbbed with every breath, white flashes colouring the movement. She opened her eyes and the flashes persisted at the edge of her vision. Her stomach roiled, clenching and releasing, until she couldn't take it anymore. She made it to the bathroom and dry-heaved for what felt like hours before a thin stream of bile made its way out. Her eyes watered, nostrils burned. She turned on the faucet and stuck her mouth on it, tasting the grimy, unwashed metal.

She looked up into the mirror. Her eyes were larger than ever, but lined with shadow, faded, watered down. Her skin was paler than normal, highlighting her freckles.

She needed a cup of tea, some chicken soup. She hadn't bought food, her mind focused only on the man outside the window. She would go to the corner store, get what she needed, then come back and rest.

Leftover rain formed puddles on the sidewalk and a scent of decay drifted up from the sewers. She walked slowly, one foot in front of the other, careful not to fall, avoiding puddles the best she could so the water didn't get into her ripped tennis shoes. Her head spun, still pounding. Her fingers rolled over and over the money in her pocket, feeling the crumpled bills a ten, a five, a one rolling over and over three quarters, pressing them in the clefts between fingers. One, two, three.

Someone was behind her. She heard the footsteps, almost in time with hers, and hoped that whoever it was wouldn't give her trouble. She didn't think she had the strength to deal with it tonight. She concentrated on the money. Three bills, three coins, three and three. Three more buildings to pa.s.s before she got to the store. Light shone out of its front window, brightening the sidewalk and making her headache worse. She stared at the ground as she walked. Tea bags, soup, aspirin. Three things to get.

The footsteps grew louder and a shadow drew up beside her. Water splashed onto her feet, making her s.h.i.+ver. "Sorry," a deep voice said.

She looked up and forgot to walk. It was him. Dressed in the same jacket, dark pants, beautiful face. He was tall , as she looked up, she noticed that stubbled shadow lined his upper lip and chin. His eyes were pools of darkness fringed by long lashes. Under his coat, white letters stood out on a black t-s.h.i.+rt, but light from the store made her squint so she could not tell what it said. He didn't seem as thin or sickly as he had from the window. He looked at her, waiting.

"N-no problem," Lorena stammered. She smoothed her hair back, feeling how greasy it was, wis.h.i.+ng its ma.s.s was back so she could hide behind it. Why did I cut it? She wondered what she looked like through his eyes.

"Watch out for those for those puddles," he said, and continued walking. "You'll catch a cold."

She stayed where she was, reveling in the sound of his voice as s.h.i.+vers racked her body, afraid she would fall down. If only she had been feeling better; if only she hadn't cut her hair. If only he wasn't so perfect. If only. She breathed deeply, trying not to think, hoping the dizziness would pa.s.s, watching him walk up the street, wondering where he was going. The outside lights to the corner store blinked off and Lorena remembered why she was here. She quickly went in and completed her shopping.

Climbing the stairs back to her apartment was agony. She had to stop several times, panting deeply. The bag weighed a ton. She dragged it on the floor behind her, half-tempted to leave it on the steps, but the emptiness in her stomach pushed her on. At one point, she forgot where she was going, wondered what she was doing on the stairway and whose stairs they were. She noticed the stains on the wall, as if for the first time, and gazed at them, trying to make sense of things. Eyes stared out of the wall. His eyes. Searching.

"I'm here," she whispered. A face formed around the eyes, blurry. She smiled, happy he had sought her out. His body came into focus and then his clothes. Baggy jeans that looked newer than new, a bright-yellow t-s.h.i.+rt. Curly brown hair.

"Whachoo lookin' at, psycho? Think the wall's gonna help you up these steps?" The laughter continued as the man pushed her out of the way, bounding down the steps.

Home. If she could just get home and something to drink. Her throat was parched, head throbbing more than ever. She had become used to the rhythm, though, a second heartbeat Soup. Water. Tea, she chanted mentally, as she shuffled up the stairs. Somehow, she made it the rest of the way. The bag ripped, but nothing fell out except the corner of the cracker box. She shut the front door and latched it, made her way to the bed. She was hot and cold, hungry and tired. The cracker, dry as a page from one of her books, held no appeal. She struggled with the cap to the soda bottle for a few seconds before giving up and sipping water from the gla.s.s that had been sitting on the table all day. There wasn't much, but it wet the back of her throat, eased the ache. The walls pulsed with the beat of her head and heart. She wrapped herself in a blanket and shuffled into the kitchen to put a pot of fresh water on the stove.

By the time the water boiled, Lorena was curled into a corner against the cabinets, shaking. It took an eternity for her to pull herself up and rescue the pot, pour some of the water into a cup with a tea bag, spilling most of it on the counter. Some splashed to the floor and burned her feet. She was so weak at this point she decided to forgo the soup and, instead, took her tea to the bed. She propped her pillow up on the wall and rested her back against it. Sipped tea while watching the night and closed her eyes before finis.h.i.+ng the cup.

Sleep came in fitful sweats of tossing and turning. And dreams. When she woke up, she felt worse than before, her head a metronome of pain, face on fire. She made it to the kitchen for water and aspirin and soup. Her throat was too swollen to swallow the pills, but she sipped at the water and carried the soup back to the bed in a chipped blue bowl edged with stars. She settled into bed, spilling on herself, and leaned back against the wall while she ate. She glanced at the clock. 3:38 a.m.

Half-closed eyes gazed outside. A car drove down the street, leaving drunken laughter in its wake. A woman walked quickly past Lorena's building, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets. The wind blew and Lorena caught the odour of oncoming rain. She loved that smell. It reminded her of childhood, brown leaves and brown eyes. Brown, brown eyes that never left her thoughts. She didn't want or need to think about the man who had been haunting her the past few had it only been days? It felt as if she had first seen him ages ago.

The soup gone, she set the bowl on the floor next to the bed. She'd move it in the morning. Her throat was still parched and she glanced toward the kitchen. It wasn't that far away, but it would take too much effort to get there and find a gla.s.s, turn on the faucet and then come all the way back. Her throat clicked and she sighed. Got out of bed and made her way to the kitchen.

Sunlight and cold linoleum woke her up. Her face was pressed against the cabinet under the sink, feet curled up behind her. What had happened? Why was she in the kitchen? She sat up weakly, muscles protesting. The groove etched in her face from the cabinet began to tingle and she rubbed it absently.

The daily sounds of pa.s.sing cars and people drifted in through the open window. She stood up and drank half a gla.s.s of water, filled it again and took it with her back to bed. She thought about calling work and decided against it. She wasn't to come back without a doctor's note, so she supposed she would not be going back at all.

She sipped at the water, which was gone too soon, and lay back on the bed. Looked out the window. A group of people walked by, laughing and pus.h.i.+ng each other jokingly. The group pa.s.sed, but one person stayed behind. He stared up at Lorena's window, dark eyes locked with hers. It was him. Still in his leather jacket and jeans. Didn't he own any other clothes? Maybe he was like the guy she went to high school with, who owned five black t-s.h.i.+rts and three pairs of Levis 550 jeans. He thought it was a big joke that everybody thought he wore the same thing every day. Maybe that's what he did. She had the urge to run down and ask him. To run her fingers through his hair, pull his face toward her and not let him go. She ran fingers through her own hair, feeling the spikes of early-morning hair, the grease from days of not was.h.i.+ng it. Like he'd let her anywhere near him. She looked down, again, and he was gone, again. Dammit.

Her stomach twinged. She stumbled to the bathroom and saw how wasted she looked. Pale skin and wizened eyes. At least ten years older than she had looked last week. One thing she had to admit, though, was that she'd been sleeping better since she'd been sick. Not, she noted, that it seemed to be doing her much good. Always thin, she now looked anorexic, like she'd been starving herself. G.o.dd.a.m.ned flu. Maybe I will go to a doctor. I can hike to the bus stop and go to ReadyMed.

Shower first. All she needed was a few minutes under the spray, but Lorena didn't think she could handle even that. She grabbed a shriveled washrag from the rack in the shower and ran it under cold water in the sink. Wiped at her armpits and under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, b.r.e.a.s.t.s that felt like tight little bags too close to her skin. She grimaced in disgust and stuck her head under the running water, soaking her hair and was.h.i.+ng it with liquid soap. She splashed her face and patted it dry. Ran a toothbrush through her mouth. Rolled on deodorant. She sat naked on the toilet seat for a few minutes, trying to catch her breath, to let her muscles stop screaming at her. Breath came too quickly and her head began its slow beat. If she could only get dressed and then to the doctor, she might be all right.

She grabbed the faded black s.h.i.+rt she had left on the towel rack two days ago and pulled it over her head. Shuffled the few feet back to the bed and lay down. Just for a moment. A short rest on top of the sheets and everything would be fine. She'd go the bus stop, to the doctor.

Lorena woke to feel the t-s.h.i.+rt soaked with sick-sweat, the cotton clinging claustrophobically. Not today. No way would she make the doctor today. She glanced over at the kitchen counter and saw there was only one more can of soup left, but she still had the box of crackers, three of the plastic packages still unopened. She'd be all right until the flu pa.s.sed. She just needed to rest.

She wrapped herself in covers that stank of illness and once again looked out the window. Slept.

The next time she woke up, she knew it was now or never. She had to get help. The sun had set, so she knew the clinic would not be open, but the hospital didn't close did it? She'd find out. She pulled on sweat pants and tennis shoes and made it over to the front door. Opened it.

"Hi," he said. He leaned on the doorframe as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if they knew each other. As if he belonged.

"Hi," she said, surprised. "I, uh, I'm on my way out." Her voice was a croak, not hers. She tried to stop her hand from running over her still-wet hair, attempting to fix it in some sort of attractive style.

He walked in, as if invited. "I needed to see you," he said.

"Excuse me?" Lorena was sure she was dreaming. Who was this guy? He looked different somehow. His cheeks, the bones still prominent, were more filled in. His eyes brighter, the orange flecks more solid than the green. Even the way he stood was somehow different. How can I know this from seeing him a few times? "Why would you need to see me? You don't even I don't even know who you are." Liar, her body said. Even if she didn't know, her body did. It stood at attention; every muscle seeming to call out to him.

She wasn't sure how it happened, but the two of them became tangled. It didn't matter that her mouth was full of fuzz, that she smelled like a sickbed. It didn't matter that she didn't know him, his name or who he was. She was not altogether convinced she wasn't dreaming. Things like this didn't happen in real life. His lips were firmer than in her fantasies. Warm and smooth like his hands, his hips. It didn't matter that the wooden floor was hard and dirty, because he was hard and clean, smelling faintly of red licorice, tasting of lemon. She took him inside of her, blocking out thoughts of AIDS and herpes and unwanted pregnancy. Nothing could happen to her here. This was bliss, a dream.

When she grew tired and sore, she opened her mouth to tell him, to ask him to take a break, but he covered her in kisses, her traitorous body responding. She was unable to speak, her throat too dry. Her stomach sent sharp, shooting pains through her body in rhythm with his thrusts. He would not stop.

She gave up and lay under him, limp as a rag doll. Arms and legs too weak to move, stomach clenching and unclenching. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out, just the exhalation of old, stale breath. She prayed in her mind for help, for an end. For it to stop for good. She fought to keep her eyes closed, from looking into his eyes. They were pits of darkness, ready to swallow her up.

She fell asleep or pa.s.sed out, and woke as he dressed and left the room. She crawled into bed, s.h.i.+vering, and pulled the blankets up over her. She felt skeletal, as if her flesh was just a thin cover for brittle bone. A glimpse in the mirror showed her a husk of her former self. Lorena rolled over on her side and looked out the window, trying to remember how she had gotten here. Her breath was shallow, coming in gasps as if she had run a long race. She looked out the window at the people walking by, some well-dressed, others casual, everyone with some apparent place to go. But not her. Lorena lay and stared out the window knowing he was gone, had left her to rot, but too tired, and oddly satisfied, to care.

She noticed, as she looked for one last glimpse of him, hoping that he would do her the honour of looking into her window one last time, that he had left a white rose on the windowsill.

Gina Flores lives on a beach in Texas with her husband, a 90-pound lapdog, and a cat. She writes stories to stay sane and teaches at a university to pay the bills.

Victorians.

By James S. Dorr.

The first thing I remembered of my early childhood was the fog. I must have been only five years old when I left the house that I had been born in beyond that, my mind was still pretty much blank and I would not have returned even now, more than thirty years later, except that I had finally married. Her name was "Amelia" and I had met her in Chicago, but now I traveled home alone. I had determined to open the house first and, only after it had been restored to a liveable condition, to send for my bride.

I crested a hill. Just as the road hooked down toward the river, and to the town I would find across it, I caught my first glimpse of the house my father had been born into the house he had died in and that my mother had fled from just after, never to come back. That, at least, was what they had told me after I had been taken away, to another state, to be raised by a cousin on my mother's side.

The fog, a persistent feature of autumn during those first years of my life, had always been thickest nearest the river. Above it, however, under a pale late-afternoon sun, I could just make out the eight-sided top of the great central tower the Queen Anne tower that dominated so many Victorian homes of its age as well as the tips of three of the highest pinnacled chimneys.

Memory came back in driblets and pieces. I knew that, when I approached the next day to take possession, I would recognize below them the sharply peaked hip roof, broken at angles by the main gables that clutched the tower within the ell they formed at their crossing. The tower itself, with its latticed, oval, stained gla.s.s windows, would soar a full story over even the tallest of these, a clear rise of nearly seventy feet from its base to the scale-s.h.i.+ngled dome that crowned it.

Memories continued to come back unbidden. I followed the road down a series of switchbacks, until the top of the double lane iron bridge I knew I would find loomed out from an ever increasing fog. By now, I had lost sight of my parents' home altogether, but in my mind, I could hear the voice of a young attorney reading a will.

The will specified that the house would be mine, but only after I had gotten married. The young attorney, a Stephen Larabie really no more than a clerk at the time explained to me what my older cousin protested seemed an unusual provision. "Your father," the lawyer said, "fully expects you not to marry until you've tasted somewhat of the world, just as he did. But, at the same time, you must eventually take on the obligations of manhood, as well as its pleasures, and settle down. The house, that you will not obtain until you do so, is intended to be a reminder."

My cousin who, in that I was a minor, had been court-appointed to speak for my interests, had laughed at that. "You mean young Joseph" he gestured toward me "is being told that he has permission to sow his wild oats when he gets a bit older, but, until he's grown out of such urges, to stay out of town. In other words, not to keep out of trouble, but just out of scandal."

The lawyer cleared his throat. "Something like that, yes. I doubt you knew Joseph's father well as you do know, he was always reclusive and rarely visited even immediate family members after his own marriage but he, like his house, was quite Victorian in his nature."

"You mean that he was a hypocrite, don't you?" my cousin asked.

I remember now that the lawyer had glanced in my direction to see if I had understood anything of what he and my cousin were saying, but I had already begun to play with his pens and inkwell.

"Some people claimed that of him, yes. At least, that he might, at times, have followed a double standard." He cleared his throat a second time. "In any event," he said as he stood up, having come to the end of his papers and seemingly anxious to usher us out, "the will specifies that this firm will keep the house in trust until Joseph is ready."

And now I was ready, by my father's will. The firm, now owned by Stephen Larabie, had apparently kept an eye on my own various comings and goings, as well as the house. And so, three days after Amelia and I had returned from our honeymoon, I received the telegram that had brought me back to this place, at best still scarcely half-recollected, that yet had so overshadowed my first years.

So ran my thoughts now as I reached the bridge and, turning my lights on low, carefully picked my way across it. Fortunately, the fog seemed less thick on the river's town side and, even though it was starting to get dark, I found the hotel I had made reservations at with surprisingly little trouble. Since I was tired from a full day's drive, I checked into my room, and showered and changed first, then decided to have a couple of drinks and something to eat in the small restaurant I had earlier spotted just off the lobby.

When I sat down, the hostess smiled at me. Somehow, I found that I couldn't help thinking how much the opposite, and yet, in terms of the abstract of beauty, how much the same she was as Amelia. Where, for example, my own wife was blonde and her figure slender, the restaurant hostess was every bit as buxom and dark. Where Amelia was quiet, the hostess appeared, as other customers came to be seated, almost too vivacious. And afterward, when she winked at me while I took out my card to pay the bill, I learned that even her name was much like my wife's, and yet unlike it, as well.

Her name was "Anise".

When I returned to my room later on, I placed my wife's picture on the dresser and went to sleep quickly. The first thing next morning, I looked up Attorney Larabie's office. As soon as I strode in through the door, I was struck by how quickly my mind recalled the tiniest details of my visit, some thirty years past, down to and including the stain on the wood floor where I had dropped one of the young lawyer's pens. The man who confronted me now, however, must have been fifty-five or sixty.

"Mr. Parrish?" he said, extending his hand. "Mr. Joseph Parrish?"

I nodded and accepted his handshake.

"Are you Stephen Larabie? I got your telegram ...."

"Yes," he said, before I could add more. Still gripping my hand, he pulled me over to a table and sat me down, then produced a thick sheaf of papers. "Couple of things I'll need you to sign first," he continued. "That'll most likely take up the whole morning, so, unless you have some objection, I thought we might have a quick lunch after that and then take a look at the house together."

I nodded, wondering somewhat distractedly if lunch would be at the hotel restaurant and, if so, if the hostess, Anise, would be on duty for that meal, as well. I shook the thought away and, soon enough, became lost in contracts and deeds, instead. Lunch, in fact, turned out to be a quick affair at a hamburger place just outside of town, on the way to the bridge. And then, as river fog started to thin, giving some hope of a clear if not wholly sun-filled afternoon, we found ourselves on the steep and winding road up the cliff on the other side.

Larabie turned to me while I was driving. "How much do you remember of your father?" he asked. "Or, for that matter, of your mother?"

"Very little," I had to confess. I searched my memory and nothing came, yet I had the feeling that if I just waited waited until I was inside the house that they had lived in ....

"You do know, at least, that your father was murdered?"Larabie paused, reacting, perhaps, to what I imagined was my blank expression. I had no such memory.

"That's what the police said, in any event," he finally continued, after some seconds. I did remember that when, with my cousin, I had been in his office before, the younger Larabie had struck me as being every bit as taciturn about giving out excessive information.

"Did they catch the man who did it?" I asked. Again, attempt to recall as I might, I had no memory at least not yet and hence no real feeling one way or the other. But I was beginning to have a foreboding.

"Figured it was probably a drifter," Larabie answered, his voice sounding thoughtful. "A lot of people were moving from town to town in those days mostly farmers who'd been foreclosed on. Big farms forcing out smaller holdings. And you've got to realize that this was a small town. People generally disliked sharing local troubles with outsiders. So, the police just poked around a little outside the house set up a few roadblocks but they never did catch him."

"M-my mother wasn't murdered, too, was she?" It had suddenly occurred to me what he might have been trying to hint at and, while I didn't really remember her any more than I did my father, the thought of my mother's death by violence somehow was shocking.

"Oh no," he said quickly. "In fact it was her who phoned the police. Figured she must have been out when it happened and had you with her, but came home just after. Sort of a lucky reversal for her, though, that that's the way it worked out." He hesitated for a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"It was your father who usually went out while she and you were the ones left behind." He hesitated, again, then frowned. "I may as well tell you; your father was somewhat of a ladies' man. Good-looking man even in his late thirties, just like you, and everyone knew it except maybe her. Used to be a wh.o.r.ehouse where the hotel is now and some said he spent more time in that than he did in his own house."

"Really?" I asked. I was about to ask him more when we reached the crest of the hill we were climbing. The road widened and, just at that moment, a ray of sun burst through the clouds overhead. The house could now be seen suddenly rising, dominating the next ridge over, in all its flamboyant, old-fas.h.i.+oned splendor.

As we approached, it loomed higher and higher, the light glinting off the gingerbread scrollwork that framed the huge front third-story gable. I pulled up into its curving driveway, got out of the car and let my eyes wander below the trim of the gable, in shadow, the arch of a balcony pointed yet higher to the great tower, half-impaled by the slant to its right, and the cast-iron finialed crest of the main hip roof behind it. And yet above that, thrust to the sky, the three major chimneys the tallest one crowned with a wired, gla.s.s-balled spire that was meant to catch lightning, my new memory prompted added their own bursting streaks of colour. An almost blood-coloured patterned-brick red, when the sun struck full on it, that, in the jumbled gray and white of friezes and rails of the building below them, was matched alone by the stained-gla.s.s red of the tower's downward-spiraling ovals.

I walked, as if in a dream, to the house apparently long-repressed memories came back of the tower windows lighting a second and third-story staircase before it curved backward up into the attic. Others of diamond-panes in the front parlour. I scarcely noticed Larabie's presence until we stood on the broad front veranda.

"You'll notice we kept the property up for you, Mr. Parrish," the lawyer said. "Painted it most recently only last summer, in fact." He pulled a notebook out of his pocket, along with a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned iron key. "You'll notice we nailed up the lower-floor windows with furring strips this far from town, why take any chances? but, once we're inside, the smaller fireplaces you'll see sealed off were boarded up in your grandfather's time. After they put in the central gas heating."