The Stroke of Winter, page 24
And then, music wafted through the air, a faraway tune from long ago, from another time, another era.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy, when skies are gray
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away
She knew this song. Everyone did. Her father had sung it to her when she was a little girl. Most people thought of it as a sweet love song. But, for Tess, it was impossibly sad and even frightening. She had always hated it, even as a child.
But this wasn’t the upbeat version she knew . . . It was low and slow and threatening, as if each word were being growled out by a demon.
She looked around wildly at the others—they didn’t seem to hear it. Grant was fiddling with his meter. Hunter was saying something to Wyatt. Jane had taken one of the candles and was waving its smoke into the air.
Tess couldn’t hear what anyone was saying. And the air in the room seemed to be hazy, almost as if fog had descended around them. It was as though Tess had been pulled elsewhere, while also still remaining in this room.
Only Jane was looking at Tess. She said something, and then her eyes grew wide. Tess watched her mouth move. “Tess,” she said, but Tess didn’t hear that, either.
It was as though Jane were moving in slow motion. Or underwater. She motioned to the others, and they all turned to Tess, who could see them but could not communicate. She could not break whatever spell had fallen around her, captured her, ensnared her.
And then, the singing became louder. As though it were the only thing in the world, coming from inside Tess and outside of her and all around her. She dropped the devices she was carrying and put her hands over her ears. Wyatt grabbed both of her arms—Tess couldn’t feel that, either.
And then the next verse came, which she did not know and had never heard. It had confirmed what she had always thought about that threatening, terrible song.
I’ll always love you and make you happy
If you will only say the same
But if you leave me and love another
You’ll regret it all someday
Tess was overcome with an intense feeling of being trapped, as though she were in a box. Clawing to get out. She felt herself dropping to the floor. And then everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The next thing Tess knew, she was opening her eyes. She was flat on her back on the floor of the studio. Jane had knelt down beside her and was dabbing at her forehead with a cool cloth. Wyatt was on the other side, holding her hand.
“That’s right,” Jane said. “That’s the way. Come back to us now.”
Tess moaned. The back of her head was aching. “Did I faint?” she asked.
“Yeah, honey, you did,” Jane said, taking her hands and pulling her up to a sitting position. Tess’s head swam with vertigo.
“Whoa,” she murmured.
It was then she noticed all the lights were on in the room. Grant was blowing out the candles, and everyone had taken their headlamps off.
“Are we done?” Tess asked.
“Hell yes, we’re done,” Wyatt said.
“For today,” Jane added. “The ghost-hunting part, at least. Let’s regroup, hook the recorders up to the laptops, and see what we’ve got. But first, Tess, let’s talk about what happened to you.”
Tess looked at Wyatt. “My head hurts,” she said.
“Can you stand up?” he asked.
“I think so,” she said.
Wyatt put his arms around her waist and helped her up. She was shaken, but okay.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs.”
Tess let him lead her out of the room and down the back stairway to her familiar, welcoming kitchen, where a fire burned softly in the fireplace, the AGA was warm, and Tess’s favorite armchair was waiting. She sank into it with a groan as the rest of the crew filed in.
Grant and Hunter took seats at the table and assembled all the devices, pulling out two laptops from the case Grant had brought and turning them on. Hunter retrieved a snarl of cords.
Meanwhile Jane checked the kettle on the AGA. “How about some tea, everyone?” she asked, looking around the room. “The kettle’s still hot.”
“Tea, my arse,” Hunter said.
Despite everything, Tess couldn’t help but smile. “I have a good single malt if you’re interested,” she said, her voice wavering a bit.
“Now you’re talking,” Hunter said. “I thought you might. You others can ferret out ghosts all you like, but I can sense a single malt a mile away. I think that skill is more useful.”
Tess caught Wyatt’s eye. He couldn’t help but grin, either. “Bottom left cabinet,” she said.
Wyatt opened it and pulled out the Scotch. “Who wants one? Other than Hunter.”
Grant raised his hand. Wyatt raised his.
“I’ll take some wine,” Tess said. “Jane?”
“Why not?”
Wyatt acted as bartender, pouring drinks for everyone. Tess took hers with shaking hands. But the cold wine felt good slipping down her throat. She tried to breathe in and out to quiet her racing pulse.
“While they’re fiddling with the electronics, let’s talk about what happened up there,” Jane said, pulling out a chair from the table and setting it close to Tess’s armchair as Wyatt perched on its footstool.
Tess took another sip. “I don’t really know,” she said. “I started to hear . . .” But she just shook her head. How could she explain what she heard?
“I know,” Jane said. “Sometimes there aren’t words for it. What did it feel like?”
Tess thought back. “It felt like I was somewhere else, but also in the room at the same time,” she said. “I could see all of you, but it was like I was looking at you from . . . elsewhere.”
Jane gave her a knowing smile. “Like from behind a veil?”
This sent a shiver up Tess’s spine. That was exactly what it had been like. She nodded.
Now everyone in the room was looking at her, rapt. It was like they were all holding their breath, as though the very room were holding its breath, too, waiting for her to continue.
Jane took her hand. “And what did you see when you were there?”
“I didn’t see anything,” she said. “I mean, I saw all of you; I was in the room. I don’t know quite how to explain it, but it’s what I heard.”
“What was that?” Wyatt asked. “What did you hear?”
Tess took a deep breath. She was going to say this craziness out loud. Why not? She was in a room full of ghost hunters. Not much would sound crazy to them. Would it?
“I heard a song,” she said. “A scratchy, faraway song. ‘You Are My Sunshine.’” She winced at the words.
“I know that song,” Wyatt said. “My mom used to sing it to me at night.”
“Mine too,” Grant said.
But Jane was looking into Tess’s eyes with a wary look in her own. “I don’t think this was the lullaby all of us heard as children, was it, Tess?”
Tess shook her head. “No. This was low, and slow, and . . . almost demonic sounding. Whatever that is. Threatening for sure. A man’s voice was singing it. And there was a verse that I had never heard before.”
“I know it,” Jane said. “Everybody thinks it’s a sweet love song. They sing it to their kids, to their lovers. But it’s not. It’s a song about—”
“Obsession,” Tess whispered.
“I don’t get it,” Wyatt said. “Obsession? What’s the second verse?”
Tess looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “It’s something about how he will love her forever, but only if she feels the same. And if she loves another . . .” She couldn’t get the words out.
“She’ll regret it someday,” Jane said, her own voice wavering.
“Holy shit,” Grant whispered. “That’s messed up.”
And all of a sudden, the pieces fell into place in Tess’s mind, like Legos fitting together. If those obsessive paintings had a soundtrack, that song would be it.
Daisy had loved another. Was it she who would regret it someday?
Grant broke her train of thought. “I’ll have all the data pulled together later, or tomorrow, when I can go through it all,” he said. “It’ll show where the cold spots were, where the activity was, and what time. But right now, I’ll get the laptop synced with my video recorder to see if it picked up anything in the studio around the time Tess fainted.”
He got busy attaching the USB cable to his device, and then to the computer.
They all gathered around the kitchen table as the grainy night-vision video played.
There was Jane, sitting in the middle of a circle of candles as the four others entered the room. Wisps seemed to be floating in the air around her.
“What is that?” Tess said, pointing to the wisps.
Jane held up her hand to stop Tess’s words. “Watch,” she whispered.
On the video, Jane opened her eyes and smiled. “I was just centering myself and the room. Did you find anything?”
Grant’s voice, now. “He got something on the recorder.”
Tesssss.
The camera panned over to Jane. “No surprise there. This is your house. Of course you’re the focus of it.”
And there it was—the static. The camera caught Tess’s reaction, first looking around, and then furrowing her brow and cocking her head to the side, listening.
And then it came.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
“Whoa!” Grant said, pushing back his chair from the table, as if to distance himself from the sound.
You make me happy, when skies are gray
“I’ll be damned,” Hunter whispered. “That’s like growling.”
You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away
“And there we are, oblivious as hell,” Hunter went on. “I didn’t hear it.”
Tess heard Grant’s voice, then. “The EMF has been going crazy.”
“Look,” Jane whispered, pointing at the screen. The wisps seemed to be forming into something a little more solid as the camera panned around the room. Three figures, one clearly a woman, although they were just wisps of smoke, or fog, or ether. No faces, no way to tell who they were.
And there was Tess, a vacant look on her face. And Jane, noticing her. “Tess.” She motioned to the others. “There’s something wrong with Tess.”
Tess dropped her devices and put her hands over her ears. Wyatt grabbed both of her arms, but Tess’s head flopped to the side like a rag doll’s.
There in the kitchen, Tess gasped at what she saw.
And then the next verse.
I’ll always love you and make you happy
If you will only say the same
But if you leave me and love another
You’ll regret it all someday
And then, laughter. Horrible, menacing laughter. Tess hadn’t heard that before.
Now it was Hunter’s turn to jump back in his chair. “Holy mother of God, what is that?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The crew just looked at each other. No one spoke for a moment. Tension, fear, and confusion hung in the air, as tangible as the fog in the studio. Hunter downed the rest of his Scotch in one gulp and poured another. Grant joined him. Wyatt reached for Tess’s hand and squeezed it.
And then, a booming voice broke the silence.
“Tess!”
It was the same voice she had heard earlier. Wasn’t it? For a split second, Tess thought she was the only one, again, who could hear it. But everyone jumped. The energy in the house decidedly shifted into—what?—it seemed like a sort of chaos.
“Who’s there?” Wyatt shouted.
Everyone stood up from their chairs and tensed, ready for whatever was going to come.
And then Tess saw what it was.
Indigo Bell strode into the kitchen with a flourish, as he always did. The man knew how to make a grand entrance. His stark-white hair was still thick and wavy for a man in his seventies. Behind his modern horn-rimmed glasses, his blue eyes shone. He was dressed in a black coat and fur hat, with a purple paisley scarf wound around his neck.
Tess’s mother, Jill, was close behind. She was wearing the magenta cloak Tess had given her the previous Christmas, with skinny black pants and high-heeled black boots. Her salt-and-pepper hair was cut short, showing off her perfect skin and strong jawline. Tess had always wished she had inherited her mother’s eternal youth.
Tess blinked at them, not quite comprehending, for just a moment, what she was seeing.
“There you are, honey!” Jill said.
“What is all this?” Indigo wanted to know. “Why are all of the lights off? We thought you weren’t here, and then we heard voices.”
Tess pushed herself out of her chair as her mother took her into her arms. “It’s so good to see you, sweetie,” Jill said, smoothing Tess’s hair.
“It’s good to see you, Mom,” she said. “And Dad. But . . . I don’t get it. How did you get here?”
Indigo looked amused. “The conventional way,” he said. “We hopped on a flight. And we took a shuttle here from the airport in Duluth.”
“It was a planes, trains, and automobiles situation,” Jill piped up. “Layovers, that sort of thing. We’ve forgotten how difficult it can be to travel to Wharton from Florida in the winter.”
So that was why they hadn’t answered the phone when Tess had tried to call, she realized.
“I see you’re having a gathering,” Indigo said. “Splendid!” He pointed at Wyatt. “You, young man, I know. How are your parents and grandfather?”
The two men shook hands. “Great on all counts, thank you,” Wyatt said. “Tess and I took Pop out for lunch yesterday.”
“Good for you,” Indigo said, patting Wyatt on the arm. Then, he turned to Grant and Hunter. “And you two? I’m sure I’ve seen you both around town, but we’ve never been introduced. I’m Indigo Bell.”
“Dad, meet Grant and Hunter,” Tess said. “They helped open up the studio.”
“I see,” Indigo said. “Good, good, good.” He looked around, smiling slightly. “I see everyone has a drink but me,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Darling, pour your old man a Scotch, will you?”
Wyatt did the honors, handing a glass to Indigo.
Meanwhile, Jill had hugged Jane, and the two were chatting.
“I didn’t expect you back until spring,” Tess said. “What’s going on? Why didn’t you call and tell me you were coming?”
A look crept onto Jill’s face, then. Guilt, mixed with a bit of chagrin. “You know your father. When he gets something into his head . . .”
Tess noticed Grant and Hunter were quietly putting away the devices and the laptops.
“We really need to be going,” Grant said, closing the heavy case with finality. “Don’t we, Hunter? But it was a pleasure meeting you both.”
“That would probably be best,” Indigo said. “We’ve come a long way to spend time with our daughter. You understand, of course.”
“Of course!” Jane piped up. She enveloped Tess in a hug. “Check your text messages,” she whispered in her ear. And then louder: “Tess, I’ll be in touch tomorrow. You three have a great reunion tonight.”
Wyatt, too, was bundling up.
“I’ll walk you out,” Tess said, under her breath.
“So nice to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Bell,” Wyatt said.
“Nice to see you, son,” Indigo said.
Tess stepped out into the cold with Wyatt, not bothering to put on any wrap. The cold felt good on her skin. They walked halfway down the driveway, and Wyatt stopped.
“I really don’t like the idea of leaving you here,” he said. “I get it, I can’t stay here with you, and you can’t come home with me, not with your parents bursting in like that. Plus, you probably don’t want them here by themselves, after . . . you know.”
“I know,” Tess said. “But I’m not sure what else I can do. They’re here, they’re tired from the journey. What, am I going to get them a room at Harrison’s House? I mean, I could, but they’d never go. It’s just not feasible. We have to stay here.”
“Why did they come so abruptly, do you think? Isn’t that weird?”
“Very weird,” Tess said, looking back up toward the house. “I guess I’ll find out.”
“I’ll keep Storm at my house for the night,” Wyatt said. “Unless you want him here with you.”
Tess thought about that for a moment. On one hand, she’d love the big wall of protection Storm provided her, given all that had transpired in the house that night. But on the other . . . her parents. It might be too much with the dog, too.
“You keep him for the night,” Tess said. “That will give you an excuse to come back here in the morning.”
Wyatt put his arms around her and drew her close. “I really hate leaving you.”
“I hate it, too.”
Wyatt kissed her quickly—like they were teenagers under parental supervision—and sighed. “Will you text me later, when you’re in bed? I want to know everything is okay. After what happened here tonight . . .”
“I know. But now that my parents are here, I think it will be okay. I’ll shut myself up in my room and hang on until morning.”
“Okay,” Wyatt said. “I still wish you were coming with me.”
“Me too,” she said.
Back inside, she found her mother sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of wine. Tess thought she looked so very tired.
Tess poured herself a glass of wine and joined her.
“Mom, what is this all about?” she asked, settling into her chair. “Why would you rush back here without even telling me you were coming?”
Jill had that same guilty look on her face.
“Your father needed to see those paintings for himself,” she said. “You know how he gets.”
“Is he . . . ?” Tess asked.
“Yes, he went to open the wall safe,” Jill said. “I waited here for you.”
Tess pushed her chair away from the table and, along with her mother, hurried down the hallway toward the drawing room. She couldn’t help but notice it felt so different than it had just an hour earlier. No presence hung in the air. No spirits were floating in the ether. It made Tess wonder if all of it wasn’t just a product of the spectacle of it all—the electronic devices, the ghost-o-meters, the recordings stirring up—what? Imagination?
