Deadly Visions (Nightmare Hall) (6 page)

Suddenly all the horror of her nightmare was flooding back into her mind as if a dam had broken somewhere in her head.

I know what’s in here, she thought, sickened and dizzy. But I don’t know why someone sent it to me.

When enough of the plastic had been peeled away, Aidan let out a soft exclamation. “The seascape?” he said, as Rachel backed away from the painting, her hands at her mouth. “Someone sent you the seascape? What for?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

They were silent for a moment, staring at the blues and the greens and the storm-tossed water. “Did you ever find out who painted it?” Aidan asked.

Silently, Rachel shook her head.

“Maybe he signed it before he wrapped it,” Aidan suggested. “Check and see.”

Rachel hesitated, biting her lower lip. Then she took a deep breath, let it out, and went back to the painting to strip away the last of the white covering.

A set of initials had been painted in the bottom right-hand corner in thick black oil.

Initials.

Four initials.

M.Y.O.B.

Rachel sank back on her haunches, letting out a soft, deep breath. At Christmastime when she was growing up, her grandmother often came home with overflowing shopping bags. When Rachel asked, “What’s in the bags, Gram?” the answer was always the same: a warm, but firm, “M.Y.O.B., young lady. If you’re a good girl, you’ll find out soon enough.”

M.Y.O.B.

Mind Your Own Business.

Rachel’s head spun. The initials in the bottom right-hand corner of the seascape which had been delivered to her weren’t an artist’s signature.

They were a warning.

“M
.Y.O.B?” AIDAN SAID. “THAT’S
his signature? Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“I don’t think so,” Rachel said, sinking to her knees in front of the painting. “I think it’s a message for me. A warning. He doesn’t want me telling people I see things in his work that others don’t see. He wants me to keep quiet about it.”

“You’re getting all of that out of four initials?” Aidan’s voice was skeptical. He dropped to his knees, too, his eyes on the painting.

Suddenly Rachel noticed something else about the seascape. The drowning figure was gone. Although she peered at the painting intently, the pinkish blobs that had seemed to her to be a screaming mouth and a pair of flailing arms were no longer there.

“It’s gone,” she whispered. “There isn’t anyone drowning in this painting now. It’s just a seascape.”

“It always was, Rachel,” Aidan said. “There was never anyone drowning in that painting. That was just a product of your imagination. I know art is subject to interpretation, but if you’ll excuse the bad pun, you sort of went overboard on this one.”

Because she couldn’t deny what was sitting right in front of her eyes, Rachel would have agreed with him then, except for one thing. If she never had seen something sinister in the work of art, something that no one else had seen, why had the painting been delivered to her? And why were the letters M.Y.O.B. painted onto the canvas?

“If you paint something in oil and then change your mind about it,” she asked, looking up at Aidan, “can’t you just paint it out? Cover it up with another color?”

He nodded and got to his feet. “Sure. But that’s not what happened here, Rachel. The painting looks exactly the way it always did.”

“Then why,” she asked, standing up and facing him, “was this sent to me?”

“Maybe the artist saw you admiring it at the exhibit,” he said matter-of-factly. “Since no one else seemed to like it, he very generously decided you should have it. Don’t you remember that old saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth? You
do
like it, don’t you? Just hang it somewhere and appreciate it. That’s what art is for.”

“But the initials,” Rachel protested, waving a hand toward the painting. “You really think that’s just a joke? Telling me to mind my own business?”

“You don’t know that’s what it means. Maybe those are really the artist’s initials. Or maybe they stand for something else. Here,” Aidan strode over to the painting and hefted it, “let me help you hang it. Where do you want it?”

Rachel shook her head. “I’m not sure I want to hang it at all. This whole thing is just too weird. Slide it under my bed for now, okay?”

Still holding the painting, Aidan hesitated. “You sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes. I’m sure. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

Shrugging, he bent to slide the painting under Rachel’s bed. When he straightened up, he said, “Seems kind of rude, hiding it like that. But it’s yours now, so I guess you can do whatever you want with it.” Then, in a totally different tone of voice, he added, “Party at Nightmare Hall tonight. Feel like going? I’m not an atrocious dancer.”

Struggling to push the painting from her mind, Rachel forced a grin. “Have you been dancing since you were eight, too?”

He returned the grin. “Twelve, but never with my brothers. So, how about it?”

Nightmare Hall was actually Nightingale Hall, an off-campus dorm in an old house. Sitting at the very top of a wooded hill, the house was old and creepy, so shrouded by tall, black oaks that its faded red brick seemed charcoal in color. It had been nicknamed “Nightmare Hall” after a suspicious death in the house. The name had remained long after the mystery had been solved.

The gloomy old house didn’t appeal to Rachel, but she couldn’t turn down a night with Aidan. “Sure. Sounds like a good time.”

“Great. I’ll give Sam and Joseph, maybe Paloma, a call, see if they want to join us, if that’s okay with you.”

Oh, peachy. “Sure. That’d be fun.” Especially having Samantha along to steal Aidan’s attention. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to go.

But Samantha and the others were with them later as they drove up. It was the gravel driveway leading up the hill to Nightingale Hall.

Rachel’s spirits lifted. The house didn’t look nearly as threatening up close as it did from the highway. It was alive with lights and music. Several people sat on the porch swing laughing, others wandered the grounds. It looked pretty much like any other Salem U. party.

Once inside, however, Rachel viewed the steep, winding staircase leading from the foyer up to the second and third floors with alarm. It would be so easy for someone to trip on those stairs and take a terrible, bone-breaking fall.

Just like the image in the still life.

No. She wasn’t going to think that way. Not tonight. She was there to have fun. Now, if only Samantha would meet a guy and vaporize for the evening.

“Does Sam have a boyfriend?” Rachel asked Paloma in a whisper as they moved through the crowded foyer to a large library, cleared now of all furniture except the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the carpet rolled back for dancing. The music was so loud, Rachel was sure the others couldn’t hear her question to Paloma.

“Who?”

“Sam? Does she date anyone?”

“Well, you probably won’t believe this, but I don’t think she dates a lot. Most guys are intimidated by her looks and her money. That spells power to them, and in a way, they’re right. Sam’s a control freak. You should see her room. Everything perfectly in its place.” Paloma continued, “She may not be much of an artist, but she’d make a great gallery owner or museum director. Very efficient, and she loves being in charge. She’s pretty much running the exhibit, single-handed, although we’re all supposed to be helping.”

Rachel was surprised. That wasn’t how she’d seen Samantha at all. In Sam’s case, apparently, looks really were deceiving.

“She knows her art,” Paloma said admiringly. “She’d make a great teacher, but she’s one of the ones who won’t be happy unless she’s actually painting. Too bad.”

But Paloma didn’t sound as if she was Wasting any pity on Samantha. She slid into a chair and surveyed the crowded room. “I think what Aidan likes about Sam, in case you’re interested, is her knowledge of art.”

Rachel’s expression was glum. In a million years, she’d never catch up to Sam in that area.

“Just remember, Rachel,” Paloma said, “if what Aidan wanted was someone to talk art to, he already has that in Samantha. My guess is, that’s not what he’s looking for.”

“Thanks, Paloma,” Rachel said.

Halfway through the evening, they were joined at their table by the party’s hosts, three of Samantha’s friends, whom Rachel had just met: Jessica Vogt and Ian Banion, who had been dating for some time, and Milo Keith, a quiet, bearded poet with a dry wit. All three lived in the off-campus house, and they entertained the group with unnerving stories of some very frightening incidents that had taken place in the house in the past. Any other time, Rachel would have been intrigued, and pressed them for more details.

But now, she found the stories unsettling.

To escape, she asked Aidan to dance with her. He was every bit as good at dancing as he was at volleyball, Rachel was glad to discover.

Bibi arrived with Rudy Samms. She was wearing a flaming red dress and heels that made her at least four inches taller than Rudy. He looked as glum as ever, and Rachel wondered how anyone could possibly have a good time with such a surly date.

But when she saw them dancing together later, she was astonished to see Rudy throw his dark head back and laugh aloud at something Bibi had just said. So, the guy did have a sense of humor, after all. Amazing.

Still, when she passed them later in the foyer, he was once again wearing that same dark, closed expression. How did Bibi stand that?

Each time Rachel passed the steep, winding staircase at Nightmare Hall, she viewed it apprehensively, remembering what she thought she had seen in the still life.

But as the evening came to a close, Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been in the house for hours, and not once had someone taken a terrible tumble down the staircase.

She probably had imagined the falling body in the still life. An optical illusion, that’s all it had been.

The vigorous game of volleyball and hours of dancing had taken their toll on all but Aidan. “I’m not ready to call it a night,” he complained as they left the house.

“You never are,” Joseph said. “If I hadn’t seen you out in the sun for myself this afternoon, I’d swear you were part vampire. I’m going to hit the sack, and since I’m driving, I guess you’ll have to come with me. Unless you want to walk back to campus.”

Aidan looked at Rachel inquiringly. “You up for a hike?”

It was a nice night, balmy, with a star-sprinkled, navy-blue sky overhead. Rachel was tired, but the idea of just the two of them walking along the street alone was tempting. “Sure. Why not?”

It wasn’t that far to campus. Rachel found herself wishing that Nightmare Hall was much further away. They began talking about the future. “Art is such a competitive field,” Aidan admitted as, holding hands, they darted across the street to campus. “Tough to make a living, but not impossible. The safest way is commercial art, like advertising.” He grinned down at Rachel. “You think I’d fit in on Madison Avenue?”

“I think you’d fit in anywhere you wanted to,” she said staunchly.

“Yeah?” He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “Thanks. Paloma’s going to make a beeline for New York when she graduates, and Sam probably will, too. Sam would love the power of New York. But I think Joseph and I are going to head for sunny California after graduation, see if Disney Studios could use a couple of smart-aleck animators. Do the Mickey Mouse thing. Are you a Mickey fan?”

“His ears are too big. But I’ve always had a thing for Tweety Bird.”

“He’s not Disney.”

“Does that mean I can’t like him anymore?”

Aidan laughed. “You can like anyone you want to. As long as I’m on the list somewhere.”

When they reached her room, he asked her once more if she’d like him to hang the painting before he left.

“Aidan, it’s almost two o’clock in the morning.” She opened the door and peered inside. “Bibi’s not home yet, but you still can’t be pounding nails into the wall.”

“Only
one
nail. But okay. Tomorrow, maybe.”

Why was he being so insistent about that painting, Rachel wondered after he’d left.

Deciding that she would never be able to sleep with it under her bed, she slid it free and hauled it over to the double closet she shared with Bibi, pushing the painting inside, against the rear wall.

Then she closed the closet door and padded back to her bed.

She got into bed thinking that of all the Saturday nights she’d spent on campus since late August, this one definitely was up there in the top ten. The day had started out so poorly, and ended so well.

But as she put her head down on the pillow, prepared to burrow into it as she always did, her left ear landed on something small, cold, and hard.

Rachel lifted her head. She had taken off her earrings before she’d undressed. Couldn’t be an earring.

She reached over and switched on the bedside table lamp.

There, on her pillow, was a tiny brass monkey, like a charm for a bracelet.

It wasn’t hers. She had never seen it before.

Its miniature paws were covering its eyes.

Rachel picked it up. She sat on the edge of her bed and looked down at the small charm.

She knew the symbolism of the paws over the eyes. Three monkeys. One with its paws over its eyes. “See no evil.” Another with its paws hiding its ears. “Hear no evil.” And still another with its paws covering its mouth. “Speak no evil.”

The one she held in her hand was the “See no evil” monkey.

How had it got into her room, onto her pillow?

What was it doing here? What did it mean?

Rachel shook her head as she thrust the monkey under her bed and reached over to turn off the light. You
know,
she told herself, sliding down beneath the covers, her eyes wide in the darkness. You
know
what it means. It means the same as “M.Y.O.B.” It means, don’t see what someone doesn’t want you to see.

Rachel flopped over onto her stomach. She felt stiff and tense again, as if the relaxation of the party had never taken place.

If someone didn’t want her to see certain things, why was he painting them into his art?