Dreams of Fire (Maple Hill Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

“Anne? You got married, like I did, for better or for worse, and that’s why you stayed with him even when he was cruel. He was probably nice enough some of the time and made you feel like you deserved the treatment he gave you at others. But that’s wrong. You never deserved to be made to feel ashamed, to be isolated from friends and family. No one does.

“You married each other in sickness and in health, and he stayed with you even when you came down with cancer. But, Anne, remember the next bit of your vows, ‘til death do us part’? Anne, you and George died, and you are allowed to part. You don’t have to stay here with him. He no longer has control over you unless you let him. The lock is off the basement door, and he can no longer hold you there. You are free to go. Your mother and father and little Samuel Jr. are waiting for you on the other side. They love you and want you to join them. Please go. You will be so much happier, and you deserve that happiness.” She didn’t know where the words came from, but she knew they were right.

In her mind’s eye, Marianne watched Anne listening intently. Her sweet face framed by dark hair and heavy, narrow glasses slowly transformed with the realization that she was free. When Marianne finished Anne looked directly at her, nodded once and mouthed, “Thank you.” Then she stood and turned and faded away. Marianne was no longer able to picture her clearly.
 

She and Sarah both sat for a few minutes letting the silence resolve into peace. Finally, Sarah said quietly, “When you were telling Anne the story of her life—by the way, that was brilliant and clearly just the right thing to do—how did you know about the toy?”

Marianne recounted her dream of the little girl running down the hall. Sarah looked thoughtful. “I have an idea. Come on.” They stood up. “Do you have a flashlight?”
 

The sage and cedar had left woody ash on the bottom of the pot and mostly burned out. Sarah carried it into the kitchen and put it in the sink, while Marianne got a flashlight out of the drawer. “It’s got new batteries in it, so it should work.”

Sarah took it and headed for the upstairs. The little landing was dim and stuffy with the day’s muggy gloom. Sarah headed for the small attic door. “Do you remember when I first came, and I told you there was something going on in the attic?”

Marianne nodded. Sarah continued, “When I was first here it seemed tied to the rest of Anne’s unhappiness, but I didn’t know why or how. Maybe this is it.”

Mystified, Marianne watched as Sarah opened the door.

Inside, the attic was dusty, cobwebby and forbidding. Sarah switched on the overhead light, and it shone dimly on the joists. Switching on the flashlight, she ducked in the door and walked, crouching warily under the roof beams with the nails of the shingles jutting like claws through the skip sheeting. Stepping carefully from joist to joist, Marianne followed her.

“Okay, Mrs. Rutherford,” Sarah said conversationally. “If you are still here, is there something up here you need us to see now? Did you keep it all this time and hide it up here? Show us where it is.”

Marianne’s apprehension about being in the attic mounted, but she trusted Sarah.
 

“Here, can you hold this for me?” Sarah handed her the flashlight and unclasped her necklace. It was a small crystal pendant on a thin gold chain. She wound the excess chain in her hand and left enough for the pendant to swing freely.

“Mrs. Rutherford, please help me find the thing you are hiding. I think this is the last thing holding you here. How about, I’ll ask you questions, and you tell me yes or no. Show me which way is yes.” The crystal swung over her palm. Marianne couldn’t tell which way and it looked like Sarah was making it swing. “Okay, which way is no? Thank you. All right. Is it behind me?”

Marianne watched in fascination as the little crystal swung in the flashlight beam. Sarah turned around and faced the little attic door. “Is it to my right?” By asking simple directional yes-no questions and divining an answer from the pendulum, Sarah led the way to the eaves of the house eight beams in from the door. The roof angled steeply downward there, and the two women balanced on the wood beams like a bizarre game of Twister. There was fluffy, dusty rock wool insulation filling the spaces between the beams, and both of them coughed in the disturbed dust. Finally, Sarah plunged her hand into the insulation and felt around. Marianne angled the flashlight as best she could.

“Aha!” Sarah withdrew her hand clutching a small brown-grey object. It was so dirty that at first Marianne couldn’t see what it was. Sarah handed it to her with a smile.

It was a little rabbit dressed in very dirty, faded gingham pants and shirt and firmly stuffed with something stiff and fairly hard.
 

“Oh,” Marianne breathed and coughed on the dust again.

“Thank you, Mrs. Rutherford,” Sarah said, tucking the necklace into her pocket.

They crawled back to the center beam where they could stand up more or less and went back through the little attic door.

Sarah returned to the living room and put the little stuffed rabbit on the coffee table.
 

Sarah spoke formally and with great compassion. “Thank you, Mrs. Rutherford, for sharing yourself with us and trusting us with your secret. You were not to blame for your little brother’s death. Please forgive yourself. George can no longer hold you here either. Your family is waiting for you on the other side with open arms. They miss you and want you to join them. Please, go in peace.”

Marianne felt a weight of anxiety lift from her, one she had not realized she was carrying, and sighed. “One down, one to go,” she murmured.

They refilled the iron pot with another white sage bundle and some cedar incense cones and sat on the sofa again. Sarah struck a match and lit the aromatics, waiting for the smoke to curl upwards again before she spoke. Oscar leaped onto the arm of the couch and sat erect, his tail curled neatly around his feet.

Sarah spoke firmly and cordially. “George William Rutherford, we ask you to come forth and make yourself known to us under the protection of sage and cedar. You are deeply unhappy here, and we wish to help you. Please tell us what concerns you so much.”

They waited in silence in the early twilight as the rain beat against the windowpanes. Sarah called for him to make his wishes known again, but there was no answer.

Marianne began to feel apprehensive. George always turned up when she was doing something he didn’t like, why wouldn’t he show up and vent, given the opportunity? His absence was as ominous as a thunderstorm in the other room. Glancing at Sarah, Marianne watched her listening intently again as if for a very a faint sound with her head cocked and her eyes closed.

The silence lengthened and deepened as the room grew darker. The smudge burned itself down into white ash.
 

“Maybe I should get out my painting things and try to paint the living room or something?” Marianne suggested quietly.
 

Sarah opened her eyes and said softly, “Maybe.” She cleared her throat and spoke more loudly. “Maybe we’re only going to be able to help Anne today. George doesn’t have to come if he doesn’t want to. He is a strong spirit and probably doesn’t like coming when called. After all, it’s not as if I’m his mother,” she added with a little smile.

Marianne really did not like the prospect of waiting for George to show up when he pleased. Sarah patted her on the knee and got up from the couch. Marianne rose after her, a little bewildered. Sarah had implied she was going to be with her until the releasing or banishing was done.

Sarah hugged her and said briskly, “I have to get home for dinner. Give me a call later, if you need to. You were amazing with Anne. Give yourself some credit. You’ll be fine.”

“But—“ Marianne said in confusion.

“Call me later,” Sarah said, squeezing her uninjured hand firmly and looking her in the eyes. Marianne thought she might be trying to tell her something, but it had gotten so dark inside, she missed it.

“Well, thank you for coming,” she said awkwardly and led her to the door. Turning on the lights both inside and onto the front step, she opened the door and let her friend out.

Sarah waved as she walked down the rain-slicked walk to her car. Marianne closed the door, feeling a sense of abandonment. The room seemed very empty and gloomy in the twilight. She flipped the switch for living room light, wondering what to do next and feeling lost.
 

She heard a puma-sized growl and saw Oscar crouched on the sofa, his fur standing on end, tail lashing menacingly. Following his gaze, she saw a formless shadow filling the doorway to the hall. Her hair stood on end, and her heart beat like a trip hammer. She wanted nothing more than to run, but she was rooted to the spot. Suddenly, the overhead light burst with a shower of glass fragments, reducing the light. The air grew sharply colder until she could see her breath, and the mason jar of flowers on the top of the piano exploded. The outline of a man in a dark suit coalesced in the doorway, his bearded face in shadow. She drew breath and screamed.

Chapter 23

Her feet suddenly able to move, Marianne bolted for the front door, and ran headlong into something solid. George was suddenly there between her and the door, though she hadn’t seen him move.
 

He reached out and grasped her bare arm tightly in his frigid grip. His voice hissed angrily in her ears, “Hello, Marianne. I don’t come when called, like some pet dog. This is my house, and I am in charge here.” His icy blue eyes, Geoffrey’s eyes, bored into hers, and she cringed away from him. Her worst nightmare had come true.

He said coldly, with finely suppressed rage, “Now that my wife is gone, you will have to take her place. You two are very much alike, except that she played the piano brilliantly, and you have less ability than her meanest student. Nevertheless, you will learn. We will have concerts here as we did before. My friends and colleagues will come back and all will be well.”

Marianne’s horror mounted as she envisioned being made to practice piano for hours at a time with George standing over her, berating and belittling her, threatening to hurt her if she did not comply. She saw herself gradually turning inward, bound by his expectations of her, losing her friends and barely getting by. She became drab and meek and isolated in this house that became her prison.

The cold of his hands spread up her arms and began seeping into her chest. He pulled her inexorably past the fireplace into the hallway, toward the bedroom. A part of her wailed in despair. As a paralyzing fear crept through her something wild in her broke free. Before she could lose it, she yanked her arm out of his grasp and stepped back. Hot anger quenched her fear, and she said through gritted teeth, “I am not Anne. You treated her horribly, and you will not treat me that way.”

His fury lashed out as he loomed over her. “You will do as I say, woman! You are nothing without me. You are not married. You have no place, no home, no life without a man, without me. Though you are worthless, my nephew was wrong to let you go. I’ll grant that you are pretty. Perhaps I can mold you into something in time.”

Although she quailed, she stared him down. “No. I won’t. I am not yours, and you cannot keep me.”

His open hand struck her face forcefully, and she reeled back, shocked that he could hit so hard. Her wild anger coalesced into fury, and she closed both her fists and swung hard at her attacker. Her right hand hit George as hard as she could in his stomach. She connected with something not all there. Without thinking, forgetting her stitches, her left hand swung at him. Her bandaged hand lit up with pain as it passed through his semi-solid torso and followed through until it hit something hard and unyielding. She yelped and pulled back, cradling her damaged hand.

“Enough!” Shouted a voice. Marianne turned to see Sarah standing in her navy blue suit, looking like a vengeful goddess, her spectacles reflecting the light momentarily like twin fires. “George William Rutherford, you will take the stand and give an account of yourself.” Her voice was steely and commanding.

George halted mid step as he moved to take hold of Marianne again. His face contorted with derision as he snarled, “Who are you?”

“I am a
fully
vested member of Smith, Wolgust and Brown,” she responded coolly. Then continuing without allowing him a moment to respond, she said in the clipped voice of one establishing facts, “Mr. Rutherford, you married Anne Elizabeth Eddy in 1924, is that correct?”

Reluctantly, he nodded.

“You took the traditional vows ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part’ is that correct?”

He nodded, seemingly unable to change the conversation.

“This is a binding social contract with legal ramifications, correct?”

Mystified, Marianne stood transfixed. The pain in her hand was killing her, and dimly she thought she might have broken some bones. She didn’t want to move and disrupt whatever was happening, though.

George Rutherford answered curtly, “Yes, of course. She is my wife.” He stated this with the same tone he would use to say ‘my car,’ ‘my house,’ ‘my dog.’

“Then I argue that you have at best kept only a few of those obligations while violating the spirit of the others.” Sarah paced the space between them, sounding as if she had a ream of legal briefs in front of her and a courtroom between them. “You recognized her talent and married her when she was in music school. Although you encouraged her to play and allowed her to teach the children of Maple Hill, you also demanded that she play many concerts for your friends, lodge brothers, and coworkers.”

“Of course!” He said indignantly. “She came from a poor family, and I fed and clothed her. Her talent at the piano was the best thing about her. She would have been nothing without me. I gave her social standing and a good reputation in this town.”

“And when she got sick?” Sarah shot back. “She suffered from cancer for several years before she died, and you still demanded that she play for you and your friends. You stayed married to her during her sickness, but I charge that you did little to care for her or protect her during that time or earlier.”