One Last Smile, page 10
“I know, but we’re still here.”
“What do you mean? We don’t live in Boston anymore.”
She laughs. “It’s what, a two-hour drive back home? That’s not what I’m asking anyway. I mean…” She gestures around. “This. All of this.”
A spark of concern goes off in my mind. In school, I learned that suicidal people will often leave hints of their ideation to loved ones. “Annie? Are you feeling all right? If there’s something you want to talk about, you can tell me.”
She laughs, a full-throated, mirthful sound that both frightens and irritates me. I choose to voice the former emotion. “Annie, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, getting her laughter under control. “I mean it, I am. I’m not asking if you ever think about taking a long leap off of a short bridge. I mean… don’t you ever wish there was more to life?”
“That’s a very different question than asking me if I ever think of leaving.”
“Not really. We grew up with well-to-do parents, a quality education, and a life in a large American city. Now, we’re both enjoying a quality education in a large American city. Afterward, you plan to continue your education in a large American city until you can open a practice in a large American city. You’ll take the subway to and from work instead of to and from school. You’ll go to the theater Saturday night and the park Sunday afternoon. You’ll meet a polite, sensible boy with a polite, sensible career with whom you’ll have polite, sensible sex—”
“Annie!” I exclaim with a blush.
“It’s true, though. That’s your future. Don’t you ever wish it wasn’t so… planned?”
“It could be far worse,” I say.
“It could be far better,” she counters.
“How?”
“I don’t know.” Her smile fades. “I really don’t know. I think that’s the problem.” She looks over my shoulder and says, “Look who’s here.”
I turn and see Alistair approaching. I frown. “What are you doing here? I don’t meet you for twenty-eight years.”
Wait, how do I know that? What is this? Why…?
“Relax, Mary,” Alistair says breezily. “You’re just having a nightmare is all.”
“A what? Annie…”
I turn to the left, but Annie’s gone, and so is the bar where we were enjoying a drink after our school day (a polite, sensible beer).
It’s daytime now rather than night. Yet somehow, the forest of elm and poplar I find myself in seems to close around me, as though swallowing the light from its edges and reflecting it back to me.
There’s a girl ahead of me. She’s standing alone, looking into the trees. It’s Annie, but it’s not Annie. She’s too short, and her shoulders aren’t quite broad enough.
Minnie. That’s her name. Minerva Montclair. Twenty-seven years from now, she’ll go missing, just like Annie.
“Silly Mary,” Minnie says, still facing away. “I went missing a year ago.”
I look down at my hands and rather than the smooth, soft skin of youth, I see the rough, leathery fingers of a fifty-year-old woman. “That’s right,” I say. “I’m looking for you. I’m going to find out what happened to you.”
“What do you mean what happened to me?” she asks. “I’m dead. I was killed. Annie was killed, too. You know that, right? You know that someone took her and used her and killed her and left her broken body somewhere to rot, and no one ever found her.”
“Be quiet,” I snap. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course I do. It happened to me too. Someone took me and killed me and left me to rot. No one ever found me. I’m dead and gone. Oliver fucks different girls now, and he doesn’t think of me anymore except to compare his new lovers to me. Eliza fucks different men and thinks how lucky she is that her body still works while mine is food for maggots.”
“Stop this,” I hiss, my voice thready. “Stop this at once!”
“Why? Is it not proper of me to swear?”
She laughs, a harsh, brittle sound like the shattering of a crystal glass. I take a step back, but my feet don’t move, and when I try to turn, my head doesn’t move either.
“That’s what happens,” Annie says, and it is Annie now. The shoulders are broader and the figure taller. “People use other people, and when they’re done using them, they discard them. It’s brutal, but that’s how it always is. You’re no different, you know.”
I open my mouth to protest, except now my lips won’t move either. I’m not sure if I’m actually trembling or if, once more, my body is frozen.
She turns to me, and in place of her eyes are empty black holes. “Of course it is. You used me to feel good about yourself. As long as you made a token effort to care for me and protect me, you could feel better about letting Mother burn me when I was a toddler.”
That’s not true, I plead silently.
“It is,” she says, replying to my unvoiced protest. “And when I went missing, you gave eloquent speeches about how you’d never rest until I was found, but the moment Detective Huxley offered you a way out, you took it. That’s you, Mary. Always looking for the way out.”
No, I reply voicelessly. No, it’s not.
“You used Mom to feel better about the shitty life she gave us. When Dad died, you imprisoned her in a life she hated and told yourself you were caring for her, but you weren’t. You were forcing a woman who felt caged her whole life to live in a smaller cage so you could watch as little by little her spirit broke down, whittled away until it was as small as yours.”
No! I shout inside my head. That’s not true! I did it for you! I hated her for what she did to you, and I was getting her back!
“No, you weren’t.”
I look closely and realize it is Minnie once more. She smiles at me with her pert mouth and says, “And now you’re using me. You hate that you abandoned Annie, so you’re trying to avenge me so you can look at yourself in the mirror and convince yourself that you’re good and strong and brave, but you aren’t, Mary. You’re only another vampire.”
She turns away from me and tilts her head. Two crimson dots appear on her neck, and as I watch in horror, blood begins to pour out of them. Iron hands seize my arms, and I am dragged toward the bleeding specter. I look in horror to either side and see Alistair on my left and Lucas on my right. Their faces wear the same flat stare my mother wore when she watched Annie stick her hand in the boiling pot.
I struggle against my captors, but their strength is beyond human and slowly, inevitably, they bring me to the porcelain-white form of Minnie.
“Drink, Mary,” she commands.
Alistair’s hand presses on the back of my head and forces it down toward the two crimson pools on Minnie’s neck. I struggle and fight, but to no avail.
“Help!” I cry out. “Help me! Please!”
“There’s no help for you,” Annie says.
***
I gasp and moan, “No, no, please, God, no…”
I feel something warm and coppery on my tongue and cry out, sitting bolt upright in the bed. My heart pounds in my chest, and my head turns wildly, looking for any sign of my tormentors.
They’re not there. The bedroom is empty.
Bedroom. I’m in my bedroom. I’m not in the forest. I’m in the Carltons’ house. It was only another nightmare.
I collapse back on the bed and pull my pillow over my face to cover it while I weep. Most of my nightmares do me the courtesy of leaving my memory when I wake, but this one remains vivid. I can still taste the coppery sweetness of Minnie’s blood.
I feel something wet on my chin and lift my hand to it. When I pull it away, a smudge of scarlet remains.
I sit upright again and look at the bloodstain on my pillow. I move my fingers slowly over my lips and wince when I reach a cut on the lower one. I bit my lip while I slept. That’s the blood I’m tasting.
It’s a macabre thought to feel relief that the blood I taste is my own, but the image of Minnie’s bleeding throat is still vivid in my mind, and having something concrete to hold onto that proves that the dream is over is a godsend. I take a deep breath and stand, and when I am on my feet and moving toward the bathroom, I am finally able to shake the terror that follows me upon waking.
I clean myself as best as I can, and when the alcohol sends a sharp sting of pain through my face, I cling to the sensation and allow it to drive the horror of the dream even deeper into my subconscious.
That was the worst one in a while. I had nightmares for years after Annie’s disappearance, but when I finished school and took up teaching, they receded and eventually disappeared. It wasn’t until I took the job at the Ashford estate earlier in the year that they returned.
A thoroughly unpleasant recollection comes to mind of visiting the local doctor in the small town outside of Buffalo where the Ashford estate was located. I went to be treated for a burn on my hand, but while I waited, the doctor there began questioning my mental state. She brought up an alleged hospitalization that I have no recollection of, a three-month stay in a sanitarium that supposedly took place shortly after my sister’s disappearance.
I didn’t believe her at the time, but then the Ashford family psychologist, an equally unpleasant man named Harrow, told me that I had complained to him of my nightmares, a conversation I am quite sure I didn’t have.
And now I’ve bitten my own lip to support a nightmare of vampirism brought on by my own guilt at losing Annie.
I think of Minnie’s accusation that is really my accusation. I’m only doing this to feel better about myself.
Is that true? It’s hideous to think so, but why am I concerning myself with her? I didn’t know her. She’s far from the first girl to go missing under mysterious circumstances, and if the Carltons are involved, then they’re far from the first wealthy family to hush up wrongdoing.
So why is it so important to me? Why do I have to solve this case? Because of Annie, of course.
But why? I’ve spent more than half my life without her, more than half my life leaving her in the past and building a sensible future for myself. Why have I suddenly decided to become a governess and insert myself into mysteries surrounding the dead and disappeared? Is this my version of a mid-life crisis?
Is it, after all, just selfish of me?
I sit with a start, and for a moment, I’m disoriented and unaware of my surroundings. Where am I? Wasn’t I in the bathroom?
The alarm on my phone beeps again, and I shut it off. Why am I sitting in bed again?
I check my pillow. The case is clean, free of stains. I lift a hand to my lip and feel the bandage. I didn’t imagine that part. I really did bite my lip and tend to it.
Then I obtained a new pillowcase somehow, and by the looks of it, new sheets as well. I confirm this a moment later when I see the soiled case and sheets in the hamper.
Why do I have no memory of that? If I can no longer rely on my own senses, then how can I trust anything? How can I trust myself?
I sit where I am, too frightened to move, for over an hour. It’s only when I hear voices outside that I risk leaving the room.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Mary, are you all right?” Eliza asks. “I heard you crying out in your sleep last night.”
I lift my head from my breakfast and see concern on the faces of all present. Heat creeps up my cheeks. “Oh. I apologize. I was having a nightmare. You… you all heard it?”
Their bedrooms are a full two floors above mine. If they heard me, I must have been screaming quite loud.
Alistair confirms that a moment later when he says, “I think the whole estate heard it. Oliver and I were nearly ready to rush to your aid.”
“Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on your sleep.”
“It’s not the sleep we’re worried about,” Veronica assures me. “Are you sure you’re all right, dear? Have you been having trouble sleeping?”
“Oh… it’s nothing. It’s an old…” I continue to stammer, wanting to reassure them but not wanting to reveal anything.
I do, however, want to speak further with Dr. Chalmers. He seems to know a lot about Minnie’s disappearance, more than he revealed earlier. I can understand his reticence inside the Carlton house, but perhaps he’ll feel more comfortable speaking in his office.
I don’t want to blatantly ask to see him, though. I don’t want to run even a slight risk of creating suspicion. I try to leave a hint and hope that one of them will suggest visiting him. “I’ll just run to town for some sleeping pills perhaps. I intended for Lucas to use today to catch up on the schoolwork he missed in Madrid, but maybe we can do that tomorrow instead.”
“I can catch up,” Lucas says. “You should take care of yourself.”
“Well… I suppose I should. I don’t want to risk waking anyone else up with my nightmares.”
The ruse finally works when Eliza says, “I’ll take you with me to work this morning. Horace can drive you back.”
“That would be lovely, actually,” Veronica says. “Then he can drive me to the charity.”
“Oh, really, it’s all right. You don’t need to put yourselves out.”
“Nonsense,” Eliza says. “Besides, you can say hello to Rupert.”
“Rupert…” I say, feigning ignorance.” Oh, right. Dr. Chalmers.”
“Yes. My boss.”
“The lovely Rupert,” Alistair mutters under his breath.
Eliza gives him a glare before turning back to me. “Please. It’s no trouble, Mary.”
I hide the burst of triumph I feel and say reluctantly, “Well… if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course not!” Eliza says. “I just said it’s no trouble at all.”
“Besides,” Alistair interjects, “if you have another night like that, we might all need sleeping pills.”
The others look at him with disapproval, and he lifts his hands apologetically. “Just having a laugh.”
I finish my breakfast and then join Eliza. She spends the journey gossiping as though I’m just another girlfriend. I recall her telling me that there are few people her age in the village. I can see that she’s desperate for companionship after Minnie’s disappearance. I do my best to keep up until we arrive at the doctor’s office.
The office is in a quaint little building constructed with the famous golden stone of the Cotswolds. A sign hangs from the front, announcing the offices of Dr. Rupert Chalmers: Family Practice, Internal Medicine, and OB/GYN. An interesting specialty given that there are so few young women here.
We are the first in the office since Eliza is employed as his secretary and receptionist. When we walk in, Rupert fixes a look on Eliza that looks much like the longing I see in Alistair’s eyes. He opens his arms for an embrace, but Eliza greets him with a professional handshake instead and whispers something.
It must be a warning to him to be professional in my presence because he glances at me and reddens slightly. Curiously, I notice a similar blush on Eliza’s cheek. That couldn’t mean what it appears to, could it?
No, she probably tolerates his overtures to a point, but I can’t see the two of them being involved with each other. Dr. Chalmers is a handsome man, but Eliza is young and beautiful like a goddess. She could have her pick of young men if she wanted.
“Good morning!” Dr. Chalmers says, stepping closer and offering me a handshake as well. “I hear you’ve had trouble sleeping.”
“Oh, only a little,” I demur. “It seems I kept the family up last night with a nightmare, unfortunately.”
“Well, that’s no good,” he says. “We’ll get you something to take that can help you sleep like the dead.”
I really wish he had chosen another simile.
“Eliza, would you mind organizing my calendar?” he calls over his shoulder. “I shouldn’t be too long with Miss Mary, and then we can go over the schedule.”
“Of course, Dr. Chalmers.”
Dr. Chalmers smiles at me and says, “Come with me, Mary.”
He leads me into a small office decorated with flowery wallpaper that is horribly tacky but not unappealing. I sit on a vinyl chair, and Dr. Chalmers takes my ID and looks up my medical record.
I think of the hospitalization too late, and my face flames again. All at once, asking about Minnie becomes less important than avoiding a discussion of my own medical history. “It really was nothing,” I assure him. “Only a nightmare.”
“Of course,” he says, “but dreams have a way of invading our reality, don’t they? Let’s see if we can’t do something to make sure that yours stay where they belong.”
He sits across from me and asks, “When did these nightmares start?”
I stammer a bit before saying, “Just a few days ago.” I don’t want to tell him that I’ve had them for months and when I was younger, years.
“Are they similar to the dreams you complained of when you were committed?”
Fear rushes through me like a blast of icy wind. I stiffen, and he quickly says, “It’s nothing to worry about. You are very clearly far from insanity. There are a thousand steps between this episode and anything I could call a crisis. However, if this is a recurrence of your old nightmare, it will affect my prescription. Certain medicines affect one’s mood differently, and I need to ensure that what I prescribe you is appropriate for your particular situation.”
I am about to insist again that this is nothing related to my past, but then I remember my purpose for being here. If I expect him to be honest about Minnie, I must risk a little honesty myself.
“Yes. It is an old nightmare. As far as my commitment, I have no recollection of that, so I can’t tell you if that has anything to do with it.”
He nods. “A great many patients block their memories of hospitalization. I can’t blame them. Sanitariums are horrible places. It’s an inhumane method of treatment, and I’ll be grateful when it’s done away with entirely. Now, do you have any other gaps in your memory?”
I fight to keep my face steady when I reply, “No.”
“That’s excellent,” he says. “No dissociation. Any history of sleepwalking?”
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