Endless (15 page)

She came down the stairs to find her dad at the kitchen island, a cup of coffee in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

She’d put her mom’s ring on a ribbon and tied it around her neck, hiding it under her shirt. Now, watching her dad sit there like everything was right with the world, the ring burned against Jenny’s skin. She was filled with sudden anger.

How could he act like there were no unanswered questions? Like there was nothing Jenny needed—no,
deserved—
to know? She wanted to pull out the ring and demand to know what he knew about it. If he knew what it was or where it had come from. But something kept her quiet, and in the end, she said a quick goodbye and nothing more.

She set out for the Farnsworth mansion with a sketchpad and pencils in her bag. She had exactly four hours to sketch before she had to be at Ben’s. She planned to make the most of the time.

She stepped off the lawn and waded through the long, wild grass that grew in the meadow surrounding her house. The field was woven with purple and yellow flowers. Her dad said they were weeds, but Jenny thought they were beautiful anyway. She brushed her palms gently over their delicate heads as she walked.

The woods separating her house from the Farnsworth place stood in the distance, growing closer and closer with every step. Finally, she came to the end of the field and stepped into the shadow of the trees, continuing down the path that twisted between the two houses. Her bag smacked against her legs as she walked, a rhythmic accompaniment to the birds and squirrels rustling the leaves in the trees above her head.

The house came into view a little at a time, flashes of gray peeking with increasing frequency through the branches and leaves until the whole building was visible in the clearing. She stopped at the edge of the woods, scanning the property. Empty, like always.

She started slowly for the house. It had looked bigger when she was younger. Even a few years ago, she’d thought it was a mansion. But it was really just a larger-than-average home with a wide front porch, tons of windows, a narrow second-floor balcony, and several peaks in the roof.

She walked across the overgrown lawn, wondering if she should stop to get some drawings of the outside. She quickly discounted the idea. What she really wanted was to complete her sketch of the elaborate, carved fireplace in the front parlor. She’d been dying to paint it but hadn’t had time to start anything new since last winter. Now that the show was behind her, she could focus on adding to her portfolio. The fireplace would be the perfect project for summer, and her mood lifted with the thought of the hours she could spend alone, painting.

She didn’t bother with the front door. It was always locked. She made her way around the side of the house until she reached the elevated terrace at the back. Usually, she had to sidestep a bunch of debris on her way up the steps, but it must have been removed by the property management company that kept an eye on the place. This time, she didn’t have to kick away any trash as she climbed the stairs.

She crossed the bluestone terrace, heading for one of the windows in the eastern wing. It had a broken latch and was fairly high off the ground, but she could reach it if she stretched herself out and pushed upward on the pane. The window made a scraping sound as it dragged against the old, swollen frame.

Jenny threw her bag in first, then heaved herself onto the sill before ducking into the house. She stood still, sensing a subtle change and trying to figure out what it was.

It wasn’t just that the cobwebs were gone. Or that the dirt and dust had been swept off the scratched hardwood floors. The property management company sent people in a couple of times a year to keep things in order.

It was something else. A lingering presence, the way you knew someone had been in a room even when there was no physical evidence of their presence.

Jenny picked her bag up off the floor and walked toward the hall that ran the length of the ground floor, trying to banish her paranoia. The cleaning crew had just brought their life and breath with them into the old house. It wasn’t hard to make your presence felt in an abandoned house.

Still, she was a little spooked as she made her way down the hall toward the front of the house. She was relieved to reach the big foyer, the carved double staircases rising to her right and left and meeting in the middle like a giant “U.”

The front parlor was to her left. She stepped toward it but stopped walking when something caught her eye through the doorway that framed the room’s fireplace.

The object was large and white, stark against the dark mahogany of the mantle and hearth. Whatever it was hadn’t been at the house last week, and her heart sped up as she made her way toward the fireplace for a better look. She was halfway across the room when she realized what it was. It stopped her in her tracks.

She stood in the middle of the room, her feet rooted to the floor as she looked at her painting,
Snowy Field
, hanging over the fireplace.

She had a flash of memory: the painting on the gallery wall the night of the art show, the red sticker on its title placard. She moved closer, like a better look would somehow explain how her painting had been sold by the gallery in Acton only to end up above the fireplace of the abandoned house next door.

She didn’t stop until she was right in front of the mantle. The painting was just as she remembered it, the forest in the distance, the figure a smudge at the edge of the field. Her signature was in the lower right-hand corner where she always left it.

She didn’t know how long she stood there before a scent in the air caught her attention. It wasn’t the lemon oil the cleaning people used to polish the wood moldings and banisters, though the scent was an undercurrent in the room. This was something elusive yet almost familiar.

Something shifted in the shadows at the corner of the room. Darker than the shadows themselves. Jenny froze, peering into the purple-gray space.

Had she imagined it?

It happened again. A movement. Something indistinguishable in the corner near the doorway.

“Is someone there?” she called out, adrenaline surging through her body as she prepared to run.

No one answered.

“Who is it? Who’s there?”

Her question was met with silence, but someone
was
there. She was sure of it. She was gauging the opportunities for escape when a voice, deep and low, came from the darkness.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to frighten you.” The guy stepped slightly out of the shadows, coming forward enough for her to see his form but not close enough for her to actually see his face. She wondered if he worked for the property management company or if he was trespassing like she was.

“Actually, I think you have that backwards,” he said, something like amusement in his voice.

She struggled to follow their bizarre conversation. “Have what backwards?”

“The trespassing bit,” he said. “If one were pointing fingers, and I’m not, the accusation would be directed at you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware that she hadn’t accused him out loud of trespassing. She’d only thought it.

He shrugged. “This is my house.”

“Your … house?” And then she understood. This was him. The developer who’d bought the property all those years ago, though he looked too young to own much of anything. “I’m … I’m sorry. No one’s ever here. I didn’t realize … ”

She remembered the painting over the fireplace and turned toward it, wanting to be sure she hadn’t imagined it being there.

She hadn’t.
Snowy Field
was hanging right where it was when she’d first sensed the guy in the room. She turned back to him.

“That’s my painting,” she said. “Over the fireplace.”

“Yes.”

“How did you … how did you get it? I only just sold it this weekend.”

He stepped further out of the shadows. She sucked in her breath as he stepped into the light streaming in through the big front windows.

It was him. The guy in her paintings. The one from the gallery. The one from her dreams.

Nikolai.

He looked just like he had at the gallery, though now he wore a black T-shirt with jeans instead of the slacks and button-down he’d had on at the show.

“It was you,” she said. “You bought my painting.”

His nod was slow.

“I don’t understand.” She folded her arms across her chest like it would protect her from the onslaught of the truth trying to materialize in her mind.

“I know. And I’m sorry for that, Jenny.”

“But you … It
can’t
be. It can’t be.” She was shaking her head. Shaking it like that would make him disappear. Like it would make him vanish like the dream he had to be.

But he was still there. Still in front of her, a flesh-and-blood person.

“It is.” There was an apology that she didn’t understand in his voice. “It’s me. Nikolai. I’m out of time, but I’ve finally found you.”

His words hit her like a tidal wave until she was drowning. Drowning under a truth she couldn’t accept or deny.

I’m out of time …

It echoed through her mind. She couldn’t think, couldn’t make sense of anything he’d said, anything that had happened.

“No. It’s … it’s impossible.” She shook her head, edging toward the door, her mind a tornado of confusion.

He reached a hand out to her. “Maria … ”

“Stop calling me that!” she shouted.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s Jenny. I know it’s Jenny.”

And then she was running, through the foyer and out the door, Nikolai calling after her.

“I’ll be here when you’re ready, but there isn’t much time.”

She crashed through the woods. She didn’t stop running, not even when she reached the front porch of her house. She just flew through the door, racing straight up the stairs to her room.

She slammed the door like it would keep out the truth trying to force its way through her skepticism. Pacing her room, she tried to catch her breath and reason with herself at the same time.

Okay, so the guy who’d bought her painting was at the Farnsworth mansion claiming to be its owner. If it was true, he was entitled to be there. Just because he looked a little like—okay,
exactly
like—the guy in her dreams or visions or whatever, well, that didn’t mean it was
him
. Mostly, because it was impossible. It just couldn’t be, because that would mean she was some kind of crazy.

But even as she thought it, discounted it, refuted it, there was another part of her arguing the facts.

He had known her name.

He was the same as the guy in her dream. Not similar.
The exact same
. He’d even repeated the words from the snowy field:
I’ve finally found you
.

Then she remembered the other thing he’d said.

I’m out of time …

Out of time. He was out of time.

She lifted the ring from inside her shirt, gazing at the eerie face in the moon and recalling the words printed under it on the Celestial Retreat website.

Helping those out of time
.

She woke with her face pressed to the rug, her cell phone ringing somewhere in the vicinity of the bed. Her mind was still foggy as she reached up, fumbling across the bedspread for the phone. Ben’s name flashed across the screen.

She pressed the “Talk” button and put the phone to her ear. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I thought you were coming at four-thirty,” Ben said.

Hearing the nervousness in his voice, she stumbled through her memories of the past hours. It came to her a moment later.

Eben and the music box.

“Oh, God! What time is it?” she asked, jumping up from the floor.

“It’s, like, 4:42. Are you still coming?”

“I’ll be right there.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

*

She was relieved to see that Ben’s truck was the only one in the driveway. Unless Eben had taken the train, he hadn’t beaten her to Ben’s house.

She parked next to the truck and walked to the porch. Signs of her dad’s presence were in the sawhorses set up in the front yard and the lumber stacked under tarps at the side of the house. It reminded her that Ben wouldn’t be in Stony Creek forever. She was surprised to feel a twinge of sadness at the thought.

Ben opened the door as she was lifting a hand to ring the bell. “Oh, good! You’re here.” He stepped aside so she could enter the house.

“Sorry I’m late.” She tried not to be obvious as she took in his tight jeans and white tee. Tendrils of dark blue ink showed themselves in the sliver of skin visible in the V-neck of his shirt. She hadn’t known he had a tattoo. She forced her eyes away from it, noticing that he looked agitated and nervous. “You okay?” she asked.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I just don’t want to meet the guy alone, you know?”

She nodded, and he looked more closely at her. “Are
you
okay?”