As the Crow Flies, page 24
“You’re better than I expected,” said Gwen. “Next time we’ll dance to a faster Viennese waltz…maybe work in a combination of hesitations, turns, and whisks.”
“What I’d like right now,” Sam said, keeping Gwen in their breast-to-breast embrace, “is to work in a combination of kisses.”
Gwen’s chest swelled as she gazed, breathless, into Sam’s wanting eyes and then at the mouth slowly reaching for her own. She placed her fingertips against Sam’s lips. “Please don’t, Sam…because I don’t have the willpower to resist you.”
Sam gently closed her hand around Gwen’s fingers and pushed them away from her lips. “You should have stopped at please don’t,” Sam said, and kissed her anyway, a soft, lingering kiss that left Gwen speechless, and before she could find her voice Sam kissed her again, deeper this time.
“Sam, I…”
“Shh…” Sam whispered against her lips, and when she kissed her a third time, Gwen surrendered, her mouth melting into Sam’s, the low moan that escaped Sam’s throat sending a rush of desire that settled between her thighs.
“I want you…so much,” said Sam, her words coming in a husky whisper. She rested her forehead against Gwen’s and caught her breath.
“I want you, too, but I—” She hugged Sam to hide her expression, her vulnerability, the conflicting emotions that engulfed her. Happiness, fear, desire. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt such a strong sexual attraction. She felt more alive than she had in years; from head to toe her skin yearned to feel the full length of Sam’s naked body against hers. The thought intensified that sweet ache. But if they crossed the boundary line of friendship tonight, there would be no going back.
As Gwen stood facing the windows, embracing Sam and giving in to the idea of taking her upstairs, she caught sight of a small, wavering patch of fog on the patio. With a shudder, she gasped.
“What’s wrong?” asked Sam, pulling back in alarm and staring at her.
“She’s here.”
“Who?” Sam let go and turned around.
Gwen watched in shock as the white patch solidified into the monochromatic shape of a dog. It stood watching them, a spectral voyeur, its white eyes intent on Gwen—a vision that broke her heart and made her feel faint for a moment. “My God, she’s like the negative of a photograph.”
“What do you mean?” Sam said, letting go of Gwen and moving closer to the window.
“Tell me what you see.”
“I see her, a brown dog…but she’s very…very thin.”
“Thin?”
“Yeah. I mean I can almost see through her.” At the right end of the windows was a glass-paned garden door, and Sam made a move for it.
“No! Don’t go to her.” She grabbed Sam’s hand and held her back. “Something’s happened to her. Something’s wrong,” she whispered, more to herself than to Sam. “What’s allowed her to leave the pond?”
Gwen remembered Rosa’s words: Be Careful. Ten cuidado. That espíritu is up to no good. The warning sent chills up her spine.
* * *
In the middle of the night, Samantha awoke in the guest room that was becoming her home away from home. A persistent whining, a far-off whimpering had roused her from a deep sleep, unless she’d only dreamed it. It was hard to tell. Wherever the noise came from, it was gone now, and the house was still. The faint blue light of a nightstand clock lit the room, and Samantha turned her head on the pillow to read its luminous hands. Three thirty.
She should have been in Gwen’s bed, not alone in this one. She’d finally broken through Gwen’s emotional barriers, danced and kissed her way into her heart. She was on the verge of a beautiful seduction, and no doubt they would have made love tonight had the canine apparition not appeared to foil her plans, sober lust, and quickly change the mood. Damn dog.
Samantha folded her hands behind her head, her eyes fixated on the ceiling. Strange how Alley had appeared to her in living color and to Gwen as a photographic negative. A negative…a photograph. An idea came to her. If the dog was still on the patio, maybe she could snap a few pictures. It would be interesting to see if the ghost could be recorded, or if, like a vampire, its image would defy capture. Only one way to find out.
She threw back the covers, pulled on a pair of shorts, and grabbed her cell phone. Quietly opening the bedroom door, she peeked across to Gwen’s room. It was directly in front of hers, on the opposite side of the staircase. She wished she was in there with her, reveling in the afterglow of lovemaking and enjoying the intimate pillow talk that might have gone on until the sun came up. But the ghost-dog had jolted Gwen to her senses, and she’d seemed distant after that, preoccupied, more worried than amorous. When she bid Samantha good night, she did it with a tender kiss to the cheek and a hug into which she’d mumbled a halfhearted apology for having crossed a line she hadn’t meant to cross. The woman she’d danced with had disappeared, and as much as Samantha wanted to slip into that room to find that woman again, she knew sex was off the menu. At least for tonight. Which left time for a sleepless mystery writer to conduct some well-overdue paranormal research.
She tiptoed to the staircase, her feet sinking into the yellow floral carpeting as she held on to the wide banister and followed the path of woven flowers down the winding stairs. But when she reached the bottom, a floorboard creaked, which brought the questioning meow of the black cat. It rushed to Samantha, slinking in and out of her legs, mewling its nocturnal boredom. The only way to silence it fast was to scoop it up, and she carried the cat with her, using the flashlight on her phone to find her way into the dining room. She paused, listening for any noise, afraid the creaks and mews had roused Gwen from sleep, but when no sounds came she put the cat down and parted the doors to the ballroom. Better to keep the lights off, she thought, and crossed the room to the windows. The patio was dark, and the glare of the phone’s light on the glass made it hard to see anything until she was right up on the glass pressing her phone against it.
And there it was, no longer brown, but as Gwen had described it—a photographic negative—now curled asleep on the outdoor mat with its back to her. As if sensing her presence, and faster than Samantha could track her movement, the dog repositioned itself so that now it was standing, facing her, the white pupils of its black eyes locked on her.
Samantha startled when those eyes met hers. She dropped her phone, and the light went out. Her heart pounded as she fumbled to turn it back on, although it wasn’t fear she felt. She’d never felt fear, only awe and dizzying wonderment. It was a ghost, after all, and what harm could the dead really do? Besides, it was the spiritual remains of a friendly, albeit sad dog, a beloved family pet that had met its tragic demise on the property. It was lonesome, isolated, trapped in the three-dimensional world of the living. Why her appearance left Gwen upset, she didn’t know.
Samantha moved over to the glass door, inspecting it for signs of an alarm. The last thing she needed was to set off a fury of bells and whistles that would send Gwen rushing down in a panic. She hadn’t noticed her setting an alarm before bed, so it was safe to assume that here in the country, Loosey Goosey, the resident pit bull, was the security system. Samantha turned the lock on the knob, gently slid the bolt lock back, and eased the door open just enough to squeeze through without letting the cat slip out.
Two owls hooted back and forth, one right by the house, the other answering from the distance, and she imagined Bertha asleep out here, part of the wildlife now, cozied up in a tree with that rogue bird who had stolen her heart. Samantha experienced that hopeless, heartsick feeling of a parent whose child who had run off to join a gang. And in the midst of the hoots and hollers of owls, she listened to what sounded like the soft hum of a high-voltage transformer coming from the apparition. Against the black of night the apparition glowed and shimmered as though lit from within. Pure spirit, pure energy, Samantha thought, as she dared to edge closer.
Another step tripped the floodlights. The patio lit up, and the dog became brown again, as lifelike as any living dog, except that she was slightly transparent, enough that Samantha could almost see the legs of a bistro chair through her body. How absolutely incredible! She’d worked with dead people for eighteen years—well, mostly with their DNA—and had never once seen a spirit. Too bad she couldn’t have seen and interacted with them the way she did this dog; they might have helped solve the mysteries of their deaths as she did in her stories.
The ghost-dog wagged its tail, bowed its head shyly, as if not sure it was going to be petted or reprimanded. Without Gwen around to scold Samantha, she didn’t hesitate. Kneeling on the slate, inches from the dog’s face, she reached to pet it.
Her hand sank into the dog’s head, a strange electrical current tickling her hand and flowing up her arm, not strong enough to give a shock, but somehow energizing. It left her with the same invigorating feeling people often experienced right before a thunderstorm, when static electricity and negative ions saturate the air. Her hand trembled with adrenaline as she turned on the camera. She’d come out to take a picture of the dog, but this occasion was too momentous to not include herself. With her left arm lightly draped over the dog’s back, she held out the phone, looked at the dog, and smiled. But just as she snapped the picture, the lights in the ballroom came on, and Gwen’s horrified face appeared in the window.
Caught in the act. Samantha jumped up and stood at attention as Gwen opened the door and stared in disbelief. “What on earth? Are you out here taking selfies?”
Samantha gave a crooked smile. “Just one.”
“All alone? It’s the middle of the night, Sam.”
Alone? It occurred to Samantha that Gwen could no longer see her dog’s ghost. And when she glanced down she herself could barely see it. The spirit was fading, evaporating around her feet. She stepped to the side and gave a sheepish shrug.
Gwen’s tone was stern. “You’re not out here looking for Alley, are you?”
“No. Of course not. A bird outside the window woke me up,” she said, lying as she went along. “I thought it was Bertha calling me…and I came out to see, and…” The owls began to hoot again, just in time to give credence to her story. “Turned out it was just these noisy owls, and not Bertha, so…”
“So, you took a selfie?” Gwen had that look of a professor who suspected a student of cheating on an exam. “Bertha’s a crow. They sleep at night. You know that.” She took a deep breath and shook her head at Samantha. “You gave me a scare, Sam. I almost came down with a gun.”
“You have a gun?”
“Yes. We’re not in New York City. People here keep guns.”
“I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I was worried you might be wandering down to the pond…looking for things neither of us understand too well.”
She was finding it hard to look Gwen in the eye without telling the truth. “Sorry I woke you…I’m going back to bed.”
Gwen looked at her oddly. “Are you okay, Sam?”
“I’m fine.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“No.”
“Well, all right then…”
Samantha was glad to get back to her room. As soon as she closed the door she climbed back into bed, excited to check her photo. There was no dog, though. In the picture, she was kneeling with her arm held out, looking sideways at something that wasn’t there, a stupid smile on her face. She looked insane. Gwen must have thought she’d gone nuts, but better for her to think that than to think Samantha had deliberately gone against her wishes and snuck outside to engage the ghost of her dead dog.
Something bothered her, though, as she lay there trying to fall asleep. Something about the room had changed. The atmosphere was different, heavier. It suddenly struck her that something had followed her inside, and she wasn’t alone anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Liz and Isabel had hoped to make better time coming back, but Monday’s rush-hour traffic slowed them down as they crossed into Massachusetts. Liz was exhausted. They’d had a good workout this morning, kayaking and then swimming with the dogs, and yesterday had been nonstop. After a blueberry-pancake breakfast Sunday morning, they’d taken the dogs on a short hike to a nearby waterfall and then spent the rest of the day rushing from sale to sale until the van couldn’t hold much more. There was room for books, though, and Liz made a point of taking Isabel to a few little-known shops tucked away along the back roads that would have heaps of musty old books sure to contain a few treasures.
And Isabel had found those treasures, a whole box full, her biggest find a complete set of oversized reference books entitled Character Sketches of Romance Fiction and the Drama. Replete with illustrations of wood engravings, etchings, and brilliant photogravures, the collection was a reader’s guide to plot and character summaries of the world’s most beloved stories. Isabel kept one out for the ride home and for two hours kept Liz entertained with stories ranging from Don Quixote to Puss-n-Boots. When Isabel grew tired of reading, she went over the book’s anatomy, commenting on the leather and cloth cover boards, the gilt-tooled motifs and silk-moiré end sheets. She said her thirty-dollar purchase would easily bring three hundred if she were inclined to sell, which she wasn’t, and she didn’t mind that the books’ spines were moderately rubbed because, as Isabel put it, the internals were exquisite.
Liz was sure Isabel’s “internals” were just as exquisite, but she was beginning to doubt she’d ever find out. She’d finally met a woman she could actually be with for days without wanting to run away, but something told her this love might be, in the end, unrequited—karma’s way of kicking her in the ass for the many hearts she’d broken.
“This may sound like a stupid question,” Liz said, “but why did you get that old dictionary? I mean, with the internet, does anyone even buy new dictionaries anymore?”
“They’re just fun to read, souvenirs of the past…reminders of change, progress, the passage of time.” She shrugged. “I love looking up words that don’t appear.”
Liz looked at her oddly. “Words that don’t appear?”
“Yes.” Isabel paused. “Take the word teenager, for instance. It didn’t appear in a dictionary until after World War Two. And you won’t find automobile, telephone, or camera in dictionaries from the early 1800s.”
“Ah, because they didn’t exist back then. Hmm…I never thought about that.”
“It must be fascinating to be a lexicographer—someone who compiles dictionaries.”
“I can’t think of a more exciting job.”
Isabel made a face at her. “I like old encyclopedias for the same reason. It’s interesting to look up people, theories, inventions that have changed the world and the way we think, and not find them there because they hadn’t yet been born, or developed, or invented.” Isabel looked over at her with the cutest apologetic smile. “I know. You think I’m eccentric.”
Liz laughed. “Engrossing, yes. Quirky, maybe. Eccentric? You’re too young to be eccentric. Check back with me in a few decades, and I’ll let you know.”
Isabel gave a soft snort of laughter as she unscrewed the top of a water bottle and took a drink. She had let her reserve down over the weekend, and Liz loved seeing her this animated and talkative.
“Do you think we can stop at the next rest area?” Isabel asked.
“I was just about to suggest that. I need coffee, and I know these dogs need to stretch their legs.” She glanced at Blue and Loosey, who were sandwiched together right behind the front seats. “Aww…you babies are such good travelers,” Liz said to them. “I’m sorry the ride back isn’t as comfortable as the one going up.”
“If you’re tired, I’ll drive the rest of the way,” Isabel offered.
“Yeah? Well, if you handled a race car, you can handle the van…if you don’t mind.”
“I love driving. I could drive all day long.”
Liz smiled over at her. “I think I learned that about you this weekend.”
* * *
Gwen and Rosa had finished eating and were having coffee on the porch when the phone rang. Rosa ran back in to answer it, and when she came back out she looked at Gwen’s bare feet. “That was Isabel. You better go get your sneakers. They’ll be here soon and need help unloading.”
“Really? How did she sound?”
“So excited. She go on and on about a video of her racing a car.” With a mimicking gesture, Rosa flapped her fingers like a talking puppet. “Boca del motor!”
Motormouth. That was a good sign. It meant Isabel was having a great time. Isabel tended to grow introspective and self-conscious when she stayed quiet for too long. Gwen nodded her satisfaction. She’d done well to force her to go away.
It was dusk when the van pulled up, and Rosa and Gwen were ready to help. The dogs bounded out like kids returning from a great adventure, so much to tell but no words for all they’d seen and done. Liz was the first to kiss both Rosa and Gwen and hand them a basket of wild Maine blueberries, two jars of jam, and a bottle of blueberry wine. Rosa took the gifts, and Gwen gave Liz a tight squeeze. Her warmth and energy were infectious. Isabel would be crazy to pass this woman up. “Thank you so much for taking her,” she whispered to Liz.
And then Isabel kissed her hello. “So?” Gwen asked. “You had a good time?”
“The best. I want to be a race-car driver!”
Gwen just shook her head. She’d sent Isabel off in hopes the weekend would lead to romance, not a career change.
“Wait until you watch the video,” Liz said. “Isabel was amazing, a real natural on the circuit…and she just happens to look adorable in a helmet and jumpsuit.” And when Isabel blushed, Liz changed the subject and looked up at the porch. “Is Bertha still here?”
“Mm-hm. She’s somewhere in the trees, probably in bed for the night.” Gwen gave a helpless shrug and shook her head. “I can’t get her to come into the house at night anymore.” She turned her attention to Isabel to make a subtle point. “It appears Bertha has decided to grow up, fall in love, and make a life with her new companion.”
