Fiction River: Fantasy Adrift (25 page)

Reese had sat with her after lunch, checking e-mail on his tablet. When he left with the others, he said it was to give her time to work. But the fact was, she’d been fine having him in the room. He’d respected her by staying quiet, and when she’d tossed a fact or idea at him, he’d had helpful comments.

No, she hadn’t been just fine. She’d liked having him there. More than she’d expected.

The thought made her smile, kept her warm while she read and researched, stayed with her as the midnight blue of twilight fell. She poured a Scotch on the rocks and stood by the window, watching the blue-white glow of the snow and the flakes trickling down past the icicles hanging from the eaves.

She curled back up with her research, but she’d barely had a few sips of whiskey before she closed her eyes. Resting her head against a pillow, she listened to the soft music playing from hidden speakers: a chorale version of “Silent Night.” And smiled.

Claudia didn’t think she’d fallen asleep—she’d been only drifting—but something started her into full consciousness. She blinked, clearing her head and her vision.

Full dark had fallen; the only illumination in the room was from the lily lamp beside her…

…and a white taper candle in a simple pewter holder, burning in the window.

She sat bolt upright, looked around. At the edge of her sight she saw movement, a flash of white, in a shadowed corner of the room—but when she turned, it disappeared.

The hell?

Her heart pounding, she skirted the sofa and occasional table and a plant stand to get to the corner, where an interior wall met an outer wall, near where she’d stood to look out the window earlier.

Nothing there but paneled walls of stained fir. She reached out a hand…

And suddenly the room was filled with light.

Claudia
eeped
and spun, only to dissolve into relieved laughter when she saw Reese in the doorway, his hand at the push-button light switch.

“You startled me!” she said, her hand on her chest. If she’d thought her heart was pounding before…holy moly.

“There’s a candle,” he said. It would have been a non sequitur under any other circumstances.

“I fell asleep,” she said as he walked towards her, which made her heart do a little kathump in between the thuds. “I woke up and the candle was there and then I thought I saw something in this corner, but…” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I got nothin’.”

“Huh,” he said. He cocked his head, his shaggy black hair flowing with the movement. “That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“Tom and Sherry weren’t ready to leave earlier, so I went outside to look at the house from a different angle. I don’t have the blueprints for the house, obviously, but the measurements I took don’t quite seem to add up.”

“How so?” Claudia asked.

“As near as I can tell, this room ought to be wider than it is, given the placement of the windows here in the parlor and in the smoking room,” he said.

Right—he was a structural engineer. He’d notice things like that. Handy.

It was her turn to cock her head. “You don’t think it’s just a factor of the house being added on to over the years?”

“I don’t think so—both rooms are, as near as I can tell, part of the original building.”

“Huh,” Claudia said. “What does that mean?”

“Let find out,” he said, and started tapping on the wooden panels.

“Oh, come on,” she said. “It’s not like we’re in an episode of
Scooby-D
—wait, go back. Does that one sound different to you?”

He went back and rapped again on one of the rectangular panels. “It does—more hollow.”

He felt around the panel, and Claudia could see that it was loose. Not a huge surprise in a house this old...the surprise was when he pressed against it and slid it sideways, revealing a dark hole.

Claudia said a word she tried not to utter when her young nieces and nephews were around.

Every bad horror movie raced through her head as Reese stuck his hand in the rectangular opening and felt around. A moment later he said, “I think I feel a latch.”

Another moment, and a section of the wall swung inward, just wide enough for a not-too-large person to slip through. If the parlor weren’t well lit, it would be hard to see the dark opening unless you were looking for it.

She leaned in and caught the scent of tallow. Besides, that, though, the room—or passage—didn’t smell musty or unused. She dug her phone out of the pocket and turned on the flashlight app, shone it in. No cobwebs, not much dust. The space was narrow and long; the light didn’t extend to the other end, but she was pretty sure there’d be another secret door leading to another room.

“You know,” she said, turning to Reese, “before I came here I read a book about the area, which said the Underground Railroad was active in and around Heather Mountain. John Brown’s Farm is nearby.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” he said. “So, what are we going to do? It seems to me we’ve solved the mystery of The White Lady.”

“I think I need to talk to Mrs. Hawley,” she said.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he reminded her, the blue of his eyes dark and grave.

“I know,” she said, glad that he cared. “I’m not going to expose her—again, it doesn’t matter to me whether the ghost is real or not. But I do need to find out the truth.”

“I’d like to be there when you do,” he said.

“I was planning on it,” she said, and took his hand.

***

Mrs. Hawley’s office was a back porch that had been converted into an interior room when additions had been made to the main house. Access was through the kitchen, and the smell of roasting turkey and sautéed onions made Claudia’s mouth water.

A built-in desk took up much of one wall of the long, narrow room. Unlike the rest of the lodge, which was kept in an artfully cluttered but neat Victorian style, here papers and notebooks were scattered and piled along with office supplies, a glass doorknob, and three coffee cups. On the wall were framed pictures of who Claudia assumed were Mrs. Hawley’s children and grandchildren.

“Well, hello, you two,” Mrs. Hawley said, closing her black laptop with a snick. “What…oh dear. I can tell by your expressions something is wrong.”

Claudia looked at Reese. “Not wrong, exactly,” she said, and then told Mrs. Hawley that they’d found the passageway.

The older woman’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right,” she said. “We’re almost positive the passageway was a hiding place for runaway slaves. It ends in the pantry, and from there you can get down into the root cellar, which has outside access.”

“And The White Lady?” Claudia had to ask.

“It’s possible—probable—that my father made her up, as a way to advertise the lodge. I kept up the ruse.”

“With help, I’m guessing,” Reese said.

Mrs. Hawley looked down at her hands. They were strong, sturdy, and Claudia saw she still wore her wedding ring, a plain white-gold band. “Yes,” she admitted. “My son’s an electrical engineer; he rigged some small effects. And I hire a girl to pose as the ghost at Christmastime, although sometimes I do it, too.” She stood, looked at both of them. “You’re not going to tell, are you?”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Reese said. “That wouldn’t be in the spirit of things.”

“I can’t think of any reason to expose The White Lady as a fraud,” Claudia said. “It does mean we can’t feature the lodge on
America’s Legendary Ghosts
, because there’s no basis for the story—but if the legend brings in customers, keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Hawley said with heartfelt emotion.

But Claudia barely heard her—and didn’t expect the next words to come out of her own mouth. “It’s still a lovely and sad legend,” she said. “But you could come up with an even better legend about the passage and the Railroad. You might even be able to find some historical accounts to back up the story—which might make you eligible for the show. And I’d be willing to help you with the research.”

She didn’t really have the time to do that—even while she’d been working here, she’d been doing preliminary research for three other possible show topics—but she’d grown fond of the Heather Mountain Lodge in the short time she’d been here.

The lodge felt something like home, and she wanted to return, perhaps not for the holidays, but during the winter months.

Whether Reese had anything to do with that fondness, she wasn’t quite ready to ponder. But she suspected it did.

It wasn’t as if he’d be here. His job took him farther afield than her own did.

But, she decided, it was Christmas Eve. Not a time for worries or sadness. A time for rejoicing and enjoyment, laughter and singing.

And that’s what dinner was like, with everyone telling stories of their day (except all Claudia said was that she’d just missed seeing the ghost, drat it all). Afterwards, there were carols around the piano—much to her surprise, Reese played. A man of many talents; she liked that.

When they went upstairs, he stopped by her door. He took her hands in his and squeezed them gently. “Sleep tight,” he said.

As earlier, she didn’t stop to think, didn’t know she’d made a decision until she said “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” untangled her fingers from his, and reached up to draw him down for as toe-curling a kiss as she could muster.

At least, it curled
her
toes. At some point, it stopped being something she was trying to do and became something they were sharing.

When they drew apart, she asked a question with her eyes, and he answered. She took him by the hand again, and led him into her room.

***

They didn’t talk about the future (whether they could have one, if they even wanted one) and tried to keep things low-key for Christmas Day. Which mostly worked: The only person who seemed to notice anything was different was Brittany, who walked by them and pointed meaningfully at the mistletoe they happened to be standing under.

Reese kissed her on the cheek, and they both laughed. Even that, Claudia thought, felt good.

After breakfast, they all repaired once again to the parlor. There was a new off-white candle on the windowsill, mostly burned down. Claudia glanced at the corner and smiled.

After yesterday’s snowfall, the sun had come out again, glazing the snow with a brilliance almost too bright to look at. It glinted off the icicles hanging from the eaves, and turned the snow on the trees to glittering fairy dust.

Mrs. Hawley had presents for all of them: small frames of heather pressed under glass. Matt and Holly had brought handmade bookmarks for everyone; Tom and Sherry passed out little carved bear and deer that they’d picked up at a gift shop in town; and Angela gave everyone CDs of a friend’s music.

Claudia gave everyone locally made maple syrup, and Reese had had a similar idea, presenting boxes of maple candy shaped like maple leaves and pine cones, so sweet it made your teeth ache.

But Reese had another present for Claudia, which he gave her after everyone had gone off to tromp in the snow.

The box was only about six inches square, so she was unprepared for the weight of it.

She tugged off the curled blue ribbon; tore off the wrapping paper, white with blue snowflakes; opened the plain box.

“Ohhh…”

She shook the snow globe, watching the tiny white flakes swirl and dance around a winter forest scene and a building that looked much like Heather Mountain Lodge.

He must have bought it that first day, when they’d gone into town so she could do her research. That made it even more special.

“A little piece of the Adirondacks to take home to California,” Reese said. “And snow to get you through the warm winter.”

“It’s perfect,” Claudia said, her voice catching. “Thank you.”

He held out his hand, helped her to her feet. “Speaking of snow,” he said, “let’s go outside and enjoy it. I’m thinking there’s a potential snowman with our names on it.”

***

The sun didn’t last; by the next morning, clouds had muted the sky again, heavy with potential snow. Fitting, Claudia thought, that she should leave in the weather she arrived in.

“Thank you so much,” Claudia said sincerely, taking Mrs. Hawley’s hands between hers. She’d already reiterated her willingness to help research the lodge’s connection to the Underground Railroad. “It’s beautiful here, and that’s because of your hospitality and love for the lodge. From the staff, to the stories…even the dog that helped me find my way here.”

Beside her, she sensed Reese suddenly going still. Mrs. Hawley cocked her head.

“Dog? What dog? I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about him. A big white dog, in the woods the day I arrived. It led me here, through the snow. I was lost…” She trailed off at Mrs. Hawley’s confused expression.

“I haven’t got a dog,” the older woman said. “I don’t even know anyone around here who has a big white dog.” Then she looked at Reese. “Didn’t you have a big white dog when you were a boy?”