Ghost Moon (16 page)

In a moment, she would turn her attention to the contents of the box at her side. For now, for just this instant, she was content simply to be.

‘‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!’’ The shriek was followed by the sound of shattering glass. Olivia jumped, and looked around in alarm as the screen door burst open and Chloe barged through it. As the door banged shut again Chloe was already all the way across the porch, still screaming ‘‘I hate you’’ at the top of her lungs and running as if the seat of her cute white shorts were on fire.

Before Olivia could move, or do or say anything to try to stop the child, Chloe flew down the steps and across the lawn along the path that led down to the lake, fleet-footed as a gazelle, her long blond hair streaming behind her.

CHAPTER 24

‘‘CHLOE ARCHER, YOU COME BACK HERE THIS instant!’’ Mallory pushed through the screen door, for once less than perfectly groomed. One side of her chic blond bob was soaked flat and dripped water onto the shoulder of her lavender linen coatdress, which was itself liberally splashed with water. Her face was flushed scarlet and her eyes flashed fire.

‘‘Chloe Archer!’’ As the door banged shut behind her, Mallory raced to the edge of the porch to scream after the fleeing child. But if Chloe heard she pretended not to, disappearing over the bluff as she darted down the steps cut into its side.

For a moment Mallory stood there, fists clenched at her sides, glaring impotently after Chloe. Then she pivoted on her beige high heels, and seemed to become aware of Olivia’s presence for the first time.

‘‘That child is the worst brat I have ever seen in my life,’’ Mallory said through her teeth, meeting Olivia’s gaze.

The screen door opened again, and Callie came out onto the veranda. Mallory’s incensed gaze swung to her.

‘‘Oh, Mallory, I am so sorry!’’ Callie said, tsktsking busily as she walked up to her furious future daughter-in-law. ‘‘Oh, dear, Chloe shouldn’t have done it, but . . .’’

‘‘But nothing!’’ Mallory was still talking through her teeth. ‘‘She shouldn’t have done it, period! She threw a vase of flowers at me simply because I showed her a picture in a magazine of a bridesmaid’s dress I thought would look nice on her! If I hadn’t ducked she would have hit me with it! That child needs professional help!’’

‘‘Oh, Mallory, no, she’s just a little girl going through a bad time. . . .’’

Mallory closed her eyes for a moment as Callie’s hands fluttered ineffectually around her wet hair and dress. She seemed to take a deep breath, and opened her eyes again.

‘‘I realize that,’’ Mallory said, and her voice was calmer. ‘‘Believe me, I’m trying to make allowances, Callie. I’m trying to be her friend. I’ve rearranged my entire schedule these last few weeks so that we can do things together. I’ve taken her to play tennis. I’ve taken her swimming. I’ve taken her to piano lessons. I just this afternoon canceled a showing of a half-million-dollar property in Baton Rouge so I could take her school shopping. I’m certainly trying, Callie.’’

‘‘I know know you are, dear.’’ Callie sent an appalled, eye-rolling look over Mallory’s shoulder to Olivia, and tsked-tsked some more. ‘‘Let’s get you dried off, and then we’ll see what we can come up with. Stepparenting is so difficult. . . .’’

Callie’s eyes met Olivia’s again, this time with a silent plea for help. Olivia understood that she was being asked to go check on Chloe, and nodded. Callie looked relieved, and ushered a still-fuming Mallory into the house.

Olivia carefully put the picture in her lap back into the box with the others, and headed down the stairs. Her movements were reluctant. Chloe wasn’t her child, and she
was
difficult. How Callie thought
she
was going to be able to do anything with Chloe when the child’s own father, grandmother, and stepmother-to-be couldn’t, she didn’t know.

On the other hand, there was no one else available to go after Chloe at that precise moment, and she did have an eight-year-old daughter of her own, which surely had taught her something about young girls. Not that Sara was anything like Chloe. Sara had never had a bratty episode in her life.

But Olivia had. All at once Olivia remembered the fits she had thrown at her grandmother, at Callie, even at Seth. Sara never threw tantrums, but Olivia had.

Why? Olivia reached the top of the bluff at the point where she and Sara had first emerged from the woods below, stared unseeing at the silvery lake with its picturesque ring of purple water hyacinths, and made a fundamental discovery.

For all her characterization of Chloe as ‘‘difficult’’— and that, in her opinion, was being polite—she had been much the same at Chloe’s age, and even older.

Because she had felt unloved. That truth hit her like a blow, making Olivia feel slightly sick to her stomach, but there it was. After her mother had died, Olivia had never again felt loved.

Chloe was acting out because she felt unloved.

The stone steps cut into the side of the bluff were wet, and that meant they were slick, as Olivia knew from experience. She was careful going down them, and careful, too, as she picked her way through mud and puddles along the path that led to the lake. She remembered the line
Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?
from one of the Indiana Jones movies, and smiled wryly. Of all the places for Chloe to run, why did it have to be to the lake?

Because life was like that. No matter how hard you tried to get away, no matter how many corners you turned, you were constantly coming face-to-face with yourself.

She could hear Chloe’s gusty sobs before she got there. She’d had an idea where Chloe was, of course. Every child who grew up on this property knew about the overhang. Not quite a cave, it was more of a depression in the face of the cliff. At about five feet deep and maybe six feet wide, it had a craggy, curving roof of rock that soared some twelve feet overhead. What made the spot irresistible were the vines. Tangled tendrils of bright green kudzu stretched over the opening like a curtain, hiding the hollow within.

Anyone who didn’t know the overhang was there would never have seen it.

With her goal in sight, Olivia paused and considered. Approaching Chloe, either with sympathy or a lecture, was destined to meet with failure. Chloe was clearly in a mood to wreak havoc on all comers.

Olivia, therefore, wouldn’t approach.

Working quickly, listening to sobs all the while, she gathered a small pile of sticks and rocks, then squatted just off the path opposite the overhang and began arranging her trove into a structure.

She also started to sing.

Olivia was
not
a singer. She knew it, had known it since she had tried out for St. Theresa’s annual musical in seventh grade and been laughed out of the auditorium. But then, this particular application didn’t require that she be able to carry a tune. It just required her to attract the attention of one very unhappy little girl without it being obvious that that was what she was trying to do.

‘‘Jimmy crack corn . . .’’ she began softly. She had worked her way from that song through a half dozen others and was on a lusty chorus of ‘‘Zip-a-dee-doodah’’ when a hand smacked against her shoulder. Rather harder than a polite can-I-have-your-attention-please tap, but still within the outer realms of acceptability.

Olivia stopped singing, and glanced over her shoulder in feigned surprise.

‘‘Oh, hi, Chloe,’’ she said, just as if she did not notice the child’s swollen eyes, tear-wet cheeks, and still-trembling lower lip, and had no idea what had gone on in the house earlier.

‘‘What are you
doing
?’’ The question was petulant, hostile even, but curious. Chloe’s gaze was focused on the small, four-walled rock and mud structure that Olivia had constructed beside the path.

‘‘Putting on the roof,’’ Olivia replied, and began to lay on twigs, working sideways and placing them so that their tips crossed over the larger one she had positioned lengthwise over what would be the peak of the roof.

‘‘What is it?’’

Olivia scooped up a good-size glob of mud and patted it down on top of the twigs. Her hands were already caked with mud, and from the feel of it she had at least one streak across her cheek, but it was all for a good cause, she thought, risking another glance back at Chloe. The child was still sniffling, but she looked intrigued.

‘‘A fairy house.’’

‘‘A
fairy
house?’’ There was a wealth of scorn in the question.

‘‘Mmm-hmmm. When I was a little girl I used to build them all the time. After it rains is the best time. Mud makes the house easier to build, and there seem to be more fairies out when it’s damp.’’

‘‘There’s no such thing as fairies.’’ This time, if Chloe’s scorn had had weight, Olivia would have been crushed beneath it.

Olivia shrugged. ‘‘How do you know?’’

‘‘I
know,
that’s all. Everybody knows.’’

Olivia shrugged again, her hands still busy patting mud down over the roof.

‘‘When I was eight, like you, I used to feel bad sometimes, and when I felt bad I would build a fairy house, and then I would lie in my bed—I always built the fairy house where I could see it from my bed—and watch for the fairies to come. They always came.’’

‘‘Fairies?’’ The single word brimmed with skepticism.

‘‘Well,’’ Olivia temporized, ‘‘
something
came, with little lights. I could see little lights flying all around my house, and going in and out the windows.’’

‘‘Lightning bugs!’’ Chloe pronounced scathingly.

‘‘Maybe,’’ Olivia agreed, finishing the roof and wiping her hands as well as she could on the damp leaves beside the path. ‘‘But I liked to pretend they were fairies.’’

‘‘It’s stupid to pretend.’’

Olivia shook her head and stood up, surveying her handiwork with pride. A neat little stone, twig, and mud house stood beside the path. It was about a foot tall. ‘‘Pretending is wonderful, Chloe. If you can pretend, you can do anything, or be anything, or have anything. I used to pretend I could fly. I would lie on my back on the grass behind the house and look up at the clouds and pretend I could fly up there where they were. . . .’’ Suddenly Olivia hesitated, shaken, as she realized that she really was unearthing a memory; her voice softened. ‘‘So I could visit my mother in heaven.’’

How she had wished that pretend game would come true!

‘‘How old were you when your mother died?’’ Chloe was looking up at her, her tears and anger momentarily forgotten. She seemed genuinely interested.

‘‘Six,’’ Olivia answered, trying to ignore the sudden disorienting feeling of seeing things through the eyes of the child she had once been. It was important right now to concentrate on Chloe and nothing else.

‘‘I was six when my mom got married again,’’ Chloe said, and all of a sudden her lower lip started to tremble. ‘‘That’s how I got to be
here
. She didn’t want me after that.’’

Tears swam in Chloe’s eyes. Responding instinctively, Olivia wrapped her arms around the child, hugging her close. Bad move. Chloe jerked free, glaring at her.

‘‘Pretending’s stupid!’’ she said, her face contorting. Before Olivia realized what she meant to do, she lifted a foot and stomped through the roof of the fairy house. Then she turned and ran back up the path.

At least, Olivia thought, ruefully surveying the ruins of her creation, Chloe was headed in the direction of the house.

It was only when she looked up again that Olivia realized she was alone in the one place on earth she least wished to be: not twenty feet from the edge of the lake where her mother had drowned. Her throat tightened even as she told herself that it was absurd to feel afraid.

Run away
. Its origins were unclear, but the whisper was not, and Olivia blinked as she absorbed what she was hearing.
Run. Run away
.

Olivia stared wide-eyed at the lake for a solid minute before she realized the truth. Of course the words were in her mind. Yes, she had heard the voices before, when she and Sara had walked through the woods on her first night back. But there was no ghostly presence calling out to her from the smooth surface of the water. There were no specters talking to her from the trees, or the clouds, or the earth.

Her fear was speaking, and when Olivia realized that she made up her mind: It was time to silence that fear once and for all.

Standing stock-still, she forced herself to take a long look at the lake. It was a big lake, covering perhaps twenty acres, and deep. As the sun moved farther down in the western sky, the surface of the water turned almost purple, rather than the silver it had been earlier. The water hyacinths formed an outer ring around the tattered shoreline, their bobbing heads a deeper purple than the water, their foliage the same deep green as the duckweed that grew between them, giving the appearance that the flowers grew on solid ground. The twisted shapes of live oaks and bald cypresses looked like living sculptures when viewed from across the expanse of water. Their branches, like the branches of the sylvan canopy above her head, were adorned with Spanish moss that draped and hung from bent limbs like ratty silver-green feather boas.

Run. Run away
. A breeze had come up, bearing with it the slightly fetid smell that Olivia had always associated with the lake. Involuntarily she shivered, suddenly cold. With the best will in the world, she could not help being afraid. The lake . . . It had always been the stuff of her most terrible nightmares.

She would not run away from it anymore. Earlier today she had come face-to-face with the memory of her mother, and the experience had been healing. Now she would face her fear of the lake.

Run away, Olivia! Run away!
The voices seemed stronger, more urgent, their warning underlined by creaking branches and rustling leaves and swells of water slapping at the shoreline. The towering purple thunderheads that had brought the afternoon’s showers had gentled into an early evening sky of pink-tinged clouds against a background of pale amethyst. Dipping low on the distant horizon, the sun was the color and shape of a scoop of orange sherbet.

Taking a deep breath, ignoring the voices, Olivia took one step off the path, then another. Then she was walking determinedly toward the lake, weaving among trees, dodging cypress knees, wading through tangled undergrowth. She meant to stand on the shore, right at the very edge where the water could lap at the toes of her Keds, face her fear, and, by facing it, conquer it. She refused any longer to feel a shiver of dread every time the lake came within her view.

Olivia!
The voice from the lake was shouting at her now, warning her to stay back, afraid of her assault on its sovereignty. Olivia reached the edge of the trees, set foot on the sliver of rocky, muddy beach, and took the final step needed to bring her to the edge of the water.