The Rainy Season (25 page)

“I wouldn’t mess with that bit of crystal,” the old man said. “I shouldn’t even have touched the coin, but I wanted to show you. You just let the rest of this lie, especially that thing there. Don’t pay undue attention to it. Let the padre worry about it.”

Phil stared at him for a moment, looked again at the artifact, at the beads, and what was left of the bones. He was happy to let it lie. He pulled the corners of the blanket together to make a bundle, which he tied off with the bungee. He considered where to put it, rejecting the idea of simply dumping it into the trunk of the car. With Jen upstairs, he couldn’t predict when he would get down to the mission. And Dudley was probably right: the priest would no doubt call him again soon.

He picked up the bundle and carried it to the door of the tower, opened the door, and took the bundle inside. The tower was full of junk, most of which was his only because of the inheritance. The two upstairs rooms contained crates of old magazines and books and boxed odds and ends that had been taken out of the house years ago. He looked around the downstairs room, immediately deciding to put the blanket in the shadows beneath the stairs. Picking up some old newspaper, he swatted at the dirty floor, clearing away spilled potting soil.

“He won’t mind a little dirt,” Dudley said, standing in the open door, and Phil laughed nervously. He set the blanket down carefully, but the bungee cord slipped off the top and the folds of blanket fell open. Deciding not to meddle with it until it was time to move it, Phil dusted his hands, and the two men went back out into the sunlight. Phil had several old padlocks in the garage, and he dug one out now, slipped it through the hasp on the door, and pushed the lock shut.

AT THE VERY
top of the stairs, Betsy was startled by what was unmistakably the sound of the tower door opening in the room below. She tensed, ready to hide if she had to. There were footsteps on the floorboards below and other sounds that she couldn’t identify. And then a man’s voice said, “He won’t mind a little dirt,” and there was laughter. Almost at once she heard the door shut, and the tower was silent. Then, slowly, the ghostly voices and the sound of rain began again, as a mere murmur, rising slightly in volume as she listened.

There was a soft sighing, like an inexpressible sadness, and a tapping that reminded her of fingernails on a windowpane. The inkwell glowed like a firefly, the radiance shining on the inside of the box, and holding the box before her as if it were a lantern, she stepped into the dim room, which was cramped with boxes, many of them open; and full of books and shreds of paper. The dust on the wooden floor was stippled with mouse prints.

A wooden trunk sat against the wall, very old, its lid closed. Betsy’s eyes were drawn to the trunk, and she was suddenly certain that something lay within it. And as soon as the certainty came into her mind, the voices in the room rose in volume, and she heard rainfall, distinctly now. She stepped to the window, but then stepped away again, dizzy at the sight of the ground so far below. The sun still shone. There was no rain. The inkwell glowed with a bright aura.

Her heart pounding, she walked straight to the trunk and reached for the dusty lid, hesitating only a moment before lifting it back. There were scattered books lying atop heavy tapestry material. With her free hand she shifted the books aside and lifted a folded section of tapestry, exposing a small leather drawstring bag. She put her hand lightly on the soft leather of the bag, and the sound roundabout her grew distinct and solid, like a radio coming suddenly into tune—a girl’s laughter, the horse’s hooves pounding and pounding, the rain beating down. She felt with her fingers that a single hard object lay inside. She picked the bag up and dropped the trunk lid shut.

Out of the corner of her eye now she saw movement in the shadowy corner opposite her, although when she turned her head to look, whatever had been there was already fading from view. She turned her eyes partly away, and it sprang into clear focus again. Several candles seemed to burn there in the darkness, the flames hovering in air, wreathing a pool of darkness. Something floated in that darkness, illuminated by the candle flames, which cast a flickering light across what appeared to be a small bed. She concentrated on it, peered at it, made out a stone wall behind the bed. The bed itself was covered in white linen, cobwebby, misty like smoke. Someone lay in the bed now, a pale figure, staring upward, thin, sickly—a girl, her eyes focused on something far away. It was raining in her world, and she was dreaming of riding horses. Betsy could smell musty stone and wax from the burning candles. …

Suddenly anxious to get out of the tower, she put the bag from the trunk into her book bag and closed the lid over her inkwell. “Good-bye,” she whispered, and without looking back she headed quickly downstairs, realizing in a small panic that she had no real idea how much time had passed since she had gone upstairs. The tower was silent now—no rain, no whispering, just the sound of her own footsteps in the silent afternoon. Without lingering, she descended the last flight and crossed the floor. She turned the knob as she pushed on the door panel, but the door wouldn’t budge. It rattled in its frame, but something held it. She pushed harder, leaning into it, and then realized with a shock of horror that the door was simply locked from the outside.

She turned hastily toward the window, biting her lip. Climbing out the window couldn’t be any harder than climbing down the tree. …

Then she saw something that made her stand still—something that lay on the floor in the shadows under the stairs, something that hadn’t been there before. It was bones. Human bones. She made out the ivory curve of the skull, its eye sockets empty and dark, a couple of still-attached teeth. For a moment she stood staring at it, aware that her ears needed to pop, as if she were descending a mountain road or were at the bottom of a deep pool. She heard a ringing in them, too, and the air was heavy, like right before a summer thunderstorm. There was something else—a misty presence, like flour dust floating in dim light. She stared in fear and fascination, seeing in it the shape of a face slowly coming into focus—the shadow of high cheekbones, the line of a mouth.

There was the sound of what might have been bones shifting and settling, and the ghostly face wavered, its features sharpening. She felt heavy, weighted down by the tower above her, and her book bag pulled at her hand as if it were full of rocks. What had happened upstairs was happening again, only this time the face that appeared was a boy’s face. She heard the sound of weeping, of a low moan, and she screamed, unable to stop herself, and ran across the few feet to the window, slinging her book bag around her neck and pushing hard on the window frame.

She saw a latch in the center of the frame, and she twisted it open and pushed again, and the window pushed upward a couple of inches and jammed tight. She glanced behind her, saw the same misty whiteness hovering in the center of the room like an illuminated cob-web. She slipped her fingers under the low edge of the frame and wiggled it farther up, trying to keep the loose-fitting window from jamming shut again. She reached through the opening, wide enough now, and pushed flowerpots aside on the narrow shelf outside, then slid through the open window sideways, the strap of her book bag catching on something and nearly choking her. She reached blindly for the ground with her foot, but couldn’t find it, and just when she was simply about to push herself out and fall, she felt someone’s hands on her legs, and she froze there, halfway out the window.

ELIZABETH GOT OUT
of the car, pushed the lock button on her key chain, and strolled down the road, hidden by foliage and by the steep bank of the roadside hill, until she came to the driveway, where she stopped just for a moment before hurrying across the drive and cutting up along the fenced edge of the property. She glanced at the side porch and the west-facing windows but saw no one, but she didn’t slow down until she was hidden from view by the garage. Nobody hollered or came outside, which Phil surely would do if he saw her or anyone else sneaking around now. If she were lucky, Phil would be inside showering off the dirt from all the digging.

She went on, between the tower and the fence, until she could quite clearly see the digging that had gone on by the well—fresh dirt thrown all over the ankle-high grass, and a big hole that they had only partly filled back in. She looked around, thinking things through. There was always the tower to consider, although going into it now would mean walking out into clear view and boldly opening the door, which might be a mistake. If Phil simply spotted her here by the well, she could turn on the girlish charm and distract him, but there would be no way to lie her way out of it if Phil caught her in the act of breaking and entering. That would cost her everything. She stepped into the shadow of the rickety little shed, leaned out into the open, and darted a glance around the corner of the tower, calculating her chances of trying the door unseen. Immediately she saw that the door was locked. She stepped quickly back out of sight. It hadn’t been locked the other night: she had made a particular point of checking.

She looked more carefully at the dug-up place now, and right away she found splinters of ancient wood on the ground near the hole, so rotted that she could rub them to fragments with her fingers. She pushed the dirt around on the surface, picked up a double handful, and shook it in her hands, loosening the clods. She dropped it and picked up another handful, sorting through it and almost at once finding what looked like a large coin wedged into a piece of red clay.

Holding onto the dirt that encrusted it in case the coin itself was one of Appleton’s trinkets, she ducked back into the shadow of the garden shed again and carefully broke the dirt away, then clamped it to the ground with the toe of her shoe and scraped the coin clean with a twig. It didn’t appear to be a trinket, or at least it wasn’t like any of the trinkets she’d seen. Still, it was best to be careful. After kneeling in order to steady herself, she picked the coin up between her thumb and forefinger. There was nothing—no displacement, no confusion of memory. She took it in her palm and held it tightly. Nothing. It was simply a coin, very old. She wasn’t a coin collector, but ten years in the antiques business had taught her a thing or two, and she studied it carefully now, polishing it with her thumb and fingers. This was about the size of a half-dollar, with a crudely stamped figure like something on a heraldic shield. There was a cross in the center and what was clearly a rampant lion above it, facing to the left. Below sat something that might have been a cat, beneath which were Latin letters or words. She could make out IPPVS DGLS, or something like that. She was certain it was a Spanish doubloon, not terribly valuable, but evidence that the digging hadn’t been for the purpose of fooling anyone—it hadn’t been a ruse—unless, of course, they had planted the coin in order to convince more thoroughly anyone who came snooping around.

Elizabeth heard a sudden scuffling sound from inside the tower now, and she bolted for the fence, hiding herself. Abruptly there was the sound of a girl’s scream. Smiling now, she waited there safely hidden, watching from behind the latticework wall of the garden shed to see what would happen next.

“EASY DOES IT,”
Elizabeth said, helping Betsy down to the ground. She smiled in order to put the girl at her ease, but Betsy looked as if she’d had a sudden fright, which was interesting, to say the least. Betsy glanced toward the house, probably looking for Phil, and appeared slightly relieved that he wasn’t in sight. Then, acting quite cool, she climbed back up onto the potting bench and pulled shut the window. Through the dirty glass, Elizabeth could make out nothing inside except the dark shadow of stairs leading upward, and what might be a ray of stray sunlight glowing on the wall beneath the stairs themselves. She should simply have put her head in through the window and looked around when she’d had a chance.

“Were you trapped inside?” Elizabeth asked.

Betsy shrugged. “I
like
going out windows,” she said, looking away toward the avocado grove.

“Especially when the only door is locked?” Elizabeth widened her eyes, and Betsy smiled back now. “
I
think you were snooping,” Elizabeth said.

“I wasn’t snooping.”

“I was just kidding. Did you ever read any Nancy Drew? Not the old ones, but the new ones?”

Betsy nodded. “I like the old ones.”

“I
thought
you were a reader! That’s what I meant by snooping—like a detective, I meant.
I’m
snooping, actually. I love snooping. I love finding things; don’t you? Look what I’ve found right here where someone’s been digging.” She held out her hand, showing Betsy the old coin, watching her eyes. Her interest in it was obvious, although almost at once she seemed to
lose
interest in it, or at least pretend to. Elizabeth closed her palm over it again. The girl seemed to realize then that her book bag was hanging partly open, and she slid it down her arm and grasped both cloth handles to keep it shut tight. The contents of the bag shifted, and Betsy put her palm against the front of it to steady it.

“Is there a guinea pig inside there?” Elizabeth asked.

Betsy shook her head. “Just stuff.”

“Just stuff? Did you find anything good inside the tower? Any good stuff?”

“There’s mostly books,” Betsy said.

“Old books?”

“Yes. In boxes. That’s why I went inside. To look around.”

“I see. And when you went in, you climbed through the window because the door was locked?”

Betsy shook her head again, then changed her mind and nodded.

“The door
was
locked?”

“I don’t know,” Betsy said. “It was fun to use the window.”

“It is, isn’t it? It’s always more fun to have a secret way in and out.”

Betsy nodded.

“Well, what your Uncle Phil doesn’t know won’t hurt him, I guess. I won’t say anything to him, so you don’t have to worry. He’s inside the house right now, by the way. I told him I was coming out here to look around. I wonder why he was digging out here.”