Seduction: A Novel of Suspense (40 page)

“Pauline, what is it?” he asked, bending over his wife, trying to revive her. His voice had returned to normal.

Regaining consciousness, she looked at her husband with fearful eyes.

“What is it, Pauline?” he asked.

“You were talking using someone else’s voice. You were a stranger.”

“Ridiculous,” he said, and turned to me. “What is going on here, Hugo?”

My wife offered to take Pauline up to her bedroom to help her to bed, but Robert insisted that she stay. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this so Pauline can see it was just a game. I won’t have her afraid. Hugo, explain the trick to us so my wife can understand.”

“It wasn’t a game and there were no tricks,” I said. “Do you remember anything of the last half hour?”

“Of course, I’m no fool. I sat down at the table and then some nonsense ensued. You told us Shakespeare had arrived to talk to us. And our fingers somehow made the little stool go into a tapping fit. One of you”—he looked from me to my wife to my children—“must have manipulated it.”

“You remember nothing about what you said?” I asked.

“I said nothing.”

Just like the two girls, I thought, seduced by the large black dog. With no memories past a certain point.

“I want to know, now,” he asked, his face reddening. “Hugo, what hocus-pocus are you playing with here? Have you abandoned politics and philosophy and become a spiritualist? Are you living out your fictions?” His voice was loud and reverberated through the parlor. “I don’t appreciate being the object of your game.”

“It was no game,” I said.

“Robert,” Pauline interjected. “You must remember what happened. You were talking in another voice, your face looked different. You even smelled different.”

“How did he smell?” I asked.

“Like smoke. Like ashes left on the hearth.”

“Hugo!” Robert shouted. “I want an explanation! My wife is frightened and talking nonsense. If this wasn’t a game, what was it?”

“A spirit borrowed your body in order to communicate with me,” I told him.

Robert threw up his hands in exasperation and then took several breaths so deep I imagined he was going to absorb all the air in the room. “This is preposterous.”

“I saw it, Robert,” Pauline said tearfully.

My wife tried to explain. “The fact is, none of us has understood what has been going on here these last years.”

“Surely you are not saying you believe all this?”

Adele shrugged. “None of us knows what to believe.”

Pauline now took my hand. “Can you help me talk to my brother? Can you help me talk to George?”

Robert put his hands on her shoulders. “He will do no such thing. Hugo can no more talk to the dead than I can make that cat speak to us in Italian. Let us go to bed, my dear. These are just spiritualists’ games.” He shot a look at me. “You’d be better off applying your imagination to novels and poetry. At least those can keep food on your table.”

There was no point in arguing with him. No point to any of this anymore, really. My wife wanted us to stop. My daughter was becoming more nervous by the day. And I’d just lost a good friend, of that I was certain.

Yes, it was time to give up.

Everyone went upstairs to bed, but I remained in the parlor. Looking out at the sea from the large windows. Watching the moon send silver shivers over the water’s surface. And somewhere out there in the night, I heard barking. A lone dog barking. Barking, it seemed, directly to me.

Jac finished reading the last paragraph in Hugo’s journal.

Everyone went upstairs to bed, but I remained in the parlor. Looking out at the sea from the large windows. Watching the moon send silver shivers over the water’s surface. And somewhere out there in the night, I heard barking. A lone dog barking. Barking, it seemed, directly to me.

She pointed to the bottom of the page and showed Theo the line that was written there. “And here it says,
the story continues in the next volume.
”

He took the book from her and stared where she’d pointed. Jac drank what was left of her third cup of tea. It was two thirty and she had been reading out loud since midnight. Twice they had put down the book to boil more water and once to make toast.

“We have to go back to that cave,” she said. “Today.”

“I will. But I can’t take you with me. It’s too dangerous.”

“I didn’t come all the way here to stay in a hotel room. If I don’t touch the totems, nothing bad will happen. I need to see the cave again, to photograph it and the plinth. There’s research to do on this
find. This could be an important Celtic discovery. A myth’s roots proven.”

From the way Theo nodded, she knew he wanted to believe she’d be fine as much as she did. Even if she slipped into a fugue state again, Minerva now knew what to do. The thought chilled Jac and she tried to shrug it off.

“Are you sure it’s as simple as not getting too close to the amber or touching it? What if it gives off fumes?”

“I was all right until I touched it,” she reassured him. “Besides . . .” Jac played with the red thread that Eva had tied around her wrist. “I have my own life preserver now. I’m protected.”

 • • • 

The next morning Jac woke at seven, suddenly and anxiously, the dream she’d been having still fresh and disturbing.

She’d been the Druid priest from her hallucination. Highly agitated, he was meeting with a group of men, telling them a story, asking them to interpret it. And he’d been wrapped in a cocoon of silken strands, bound and immobile.

As she dressed, still haunted by the priest’s fears, Jac tried to remember what the story had been about. But all she could recall for certainty was the phrase he’d been repeating over and over.

There must be another meaning . . . There must be another meaning.

 • • • 

Jac met the others for breakfast at eight. Minerva was already at the table along with Theo, who looked as if he’d never gone back to sleep at all. Eva poured Jac a glass of cold orange juice and then got up to tend to what was cooking in the kitchen.

Minerva was concerned to hear that neither of them had slept much because they’d been up so late reading the journal. And then Theo told her there was a second volume and that they intended to find it.

“We all need to understand what is going on here. It’s not as simple as going back into the cave and getting the next journal. Yesterday’s
incident was serious. Theo, I know how much this matters to you, but your actions could have serious ramifications for Jac, and maybe even for you.”

Before either of them could argue, Eva came out of the kitchen with a platter of eggs and bacon. Just as she placed it on the sideboard, a male voice called out from the front hall.

“Are you all at breakfast?”

“Oh, it’s Ash,” Eva said.

Was the excitement in her voice pleasure or nervousness? Jac couldn’t be sure. She glanced at Theo and noticed that Minerva had done the same.

If it was possible, Theo’s face was now even more ravaged, his eyes filled with even more worry.

Ash kissed first Minerva and then Eva on the cheek, and then looked at Jac. “I’m surprised to find you here. Have you moved in, then?”

“No,” she said, almost embarrassed for a moment. “Things got complicated yesterday and your aunt wanted me to stay over. For observation.” She was caught off guard by her instinct to explain.

“Are you ill?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine.” She stopped, not sure how to describe it in a succinct way.

“Why don’t you sit down, Ash,” Minerva said.

“Let me get you a cup of coffee,” Eva added.

“Why are you here?” Theo asked his brother. He looked first at Eva, then Minerva. “Did you ask him to come? Don’t you trust me with the journal?”

“Of course we do, Theo,” Minerva said.

“What are you talking about? They didn’t ask me to come. What journal?” Ash asked.

“They found Victor Hugo’s journal in one of the caves,” Eva blurted out.

“Really.” Ash looked from Theo to Jac. “Are you sure that’s what it is? You must be good at spotting fakes. Is it the real thing?”

“There’s no way to know that yet. It has the look and feel of
something that’s the right age and in the right condition. But there are extensive tests, including handwriting analysis, that would have to be—”

“It’s the real thing,” Theo interrupted. His voice was thick with indignation. “What do you want, Ash?”

“I called you a half-dozen times yesterday. We have to resolve the issue with the Renoir pastel now. Today.”

“I told you, the Gaspard receipt indicates a sale, and I’ll get to it.”

“No. You have to get to it now. It just can’t wait.”

“What is this about?” Minerva asked.

Ash filled her in, ending by explaining, “Timmonson claims her client’s grandfather was acting under duress when he sold it in 1937.”

Eva shook her head. “It’s so disturbing to think of these poor people haunted by their memories of lost loved ones and lost family heirlooms.”

“Ash, we’ve been over this. I have the letters to prove there was no duress,” Theo said.

“So what are you waiting for? Get them to Timmonson. We got the preliminary injunction papers at the bank yesterday. This is going to go to court and cost a fortune to defend. I don’t want to waste money on a suit.”

“Davis sold us the Renoir and bought a Dürer,” Theo insisted.

“Just take care of it, Theo. And we must hire someone to attend to the rest of the cache of artwork immediately. We can’t afford to have this drag on and on because you aren’t ready to deal with it.” Instead of looking at his brother, Ash looked at Minerva. “It’s urgent we move on.”

There was a moment of quiet, which Eva interrupted by asking Ash if she could get him some eggs.

He looked at Theo, then at Jac. “Yes, please, Aunt Eva. I love your eggs, and I’d actually like to hear a bit more about Jac’s opinion of the journal.”

Theo got up, threw his napkin on his chair and walked out of the room.

In the long silence that followed, the only sounds were Theo’s thunderous footsteps as he walked across the marble hall.

“You need to be more patient with your brother,” Minerva said. “Less strident. Your tactic isn’t working. It never has.”

“I can’t afford to be more patient. We’re on the verge of calamity here. A lawsuit could ruin us. Can’t you get him into therapy?”

“It isn’t that simple,” Minerva said. “I’m trying to work with him. It takes time.”

“Time? It’s taking forever. He was bad enough before Naomi died,” Ash said. “He’s become impossible now.”

“Theo is haunted,” Eva said.

Both Minerva and Ash looked at her with surprise. Jac guessed she’d never said anything like that before.

“Yes, he’s having a hard time getting over Naomi’s death, but—” Minerva began.

“No, it’s more than that. He’s haunted,” Eva repeated.

“Whatever do you mean?” Minerva asked.

“I’ve watched these boys grow up. Seen the troubles between them their whole lives. I’ve listened to you explain it psychologically but it’s never made sense to me. There’s no solid psychological basis for their problems with each other. You keep trying to spin one out of thin air. Because I was neither a mother nor a therapist, I kept my own counsel. But since we took out the Ouija board the other night, things have seemed different to me. Falling into place in a way they didn’t before—” Eva broke off.

Jac watched the older woman’s face. Eva was weighing her words carefully. Where there had been confusion in her expression was deliberation and then finally resolve.

“The air here is poisoned,” Eva said. “It is for us and was for our grandfather. And it’s time for us to attend to it.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Ash asked.

Eva turned to face her sister. “What do you know about how our grandfather died?”

“It was late and not all the lights were on. You and Grandfather were coming down the steps and didn’t see the cat. Grandfather tripped and in trying to regain his balance pushed you or pulled you, and you tripped too. Both of you fell. You broke your hip, he broke his neck.”

Eva stared at her plate of eggs and toast as if for clues. “He had started to pursue you, Minerva. In the same way he’d been going after me. I recognized all of it. He’d get you all worked up and frightened with the Ouija board, and then he’d soothe you. Whisper and comfort you with soft touches, sweet words. Nothing too overt, nothing too traumatizing. Not at first. But he was leading up to more. Much more.” She was still looking down. “It was wrong. Very wrong.”

Jac was watching Eva’s hand on her lap, clenching and unclenching. Then Eva opened it and kept it open. She lifted her face and looked at her sister.

“There was no cat on the steps.”

“Why did I think there was?”

“That’s what I told everyone.”

“Then what caused the accident?”

“It wasn’t an accident. I tripped him on purpose. Before he could do to you what he was doing to me.” Eva pushed her plate aside with too much vigor. It jostled the juice glass, which tipped over. Bright orange liquid spread out over the linen tablecloth in a large irregular pattern. Eva put her napkin on top of the stain. She righted the glass and looked back at her sister.

“The more séances there were, the hungrier he became. I don’t know what the psychological explanation for it is, or what his condition was called, but he believed this Shadow existed. Our grandfather was listening to this spirit. What do you call it? An associative disorder? A psychotic break? I’m not sure, but he created a monster so he could take orders from him and become a monster himself. He had become a sexual predator, and I couldn’t stand by and watch him hurt you too. I didn’t think he was going to die. I don’t know what I thought. I was just so angry and so scared. First I set up the Ouija board in the library, then I went to Grandfather’s room and woke him up. I told him the spirit was in the library and using the board without us. I said it was spelling out a message. That the spirit wanted to rest, and that we had to stop forcing him out, and if we didn’t he was going to punish us. I told Grandfather I was scared and wanted him to see it. When he started down the stairs . . . I tripped him . . .”