Suddenly I wasn’t in his arms anymore; he had let go and stood up. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
Matt led me to the library, where the lamp on Grandmother’s desk was already lit, and gestured for me to sit in her chair. After retrieving a key from a vase on the mantel, he returned to the desk and unlocked a drawer.
“I saw you in here,” I told him, “the first night I came.”
He laid several flat boxes on the desk in front of me. “I was looking at these. Have you ever seen a picture of Aunt Avril?”
“No.”
“She’s pretty.” He lifted a lid and handed me a black-andwhite photo. “Look like anyone you know?”
My breath caught. Her resemblance to me was striking.
He opened another box. “There’s a colorized photo in here, a portrait.” He sorted through the pictures, then handed one to me.
“Gray eyes,” I observed. “Her hair’s lighter than mine, but her eyes are gray and the facial structure’s the same.”
“You see why Grandmother is going crazy,” Matt said.
“You look like her sister. You look like Avril the year she died, and it’s spooking her.”
I nodded. “The question is why. Sixty years is too long to be mourning a sister, to be upset about seeing someone who resembles her. . unless there is more to the story.”
I looked at him expectantly, but he said nothing.
“In my dream Grandmother told Avril she would pay for what she had done.”
“So?”
“What did she mean by that?”
“Sounds like a typical fight between sisters,” he replied, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He knew more than he was saying.
“Mrs. Riley said the cause of death was an overdose.”
His hand tensed till it creased the picture he held. What had Grandmother told him the night they had spoken in her bedroom?
“But,” I continued, “who would know the difference between an accidental overdose and deliberate poisoning?”
“You can’t be thinking-”
“Only Avril,” I continued, “and the person who poisoned her, the murderer, if there is one.”
“Megan, I told you not to trust Lydia. She makes her money off people’s fears. She suggests things and lets people make themselves crazy wondering about them.”
“So, why did Grandmother go to see her the other day?”
“You’ll have to ask her,” he said brusquely. His face was a mask. Grandmother had nothing to worry about-he wasn’t telling her secrets. I was the one who should be wary of what I said to him; he probably told her everything.
“Does that key work on the other drawers?” I asked.
He unlocked them, and I started going through files and boxes.
“Look at these.” I showed him photos of myself and my brothers, our names and ages inscribed on the back in my mother’s handwriting. Grandmother never even sent us a Christmas card, but apparently my mother kept writing to her, kept trying to make contact.
Matt placed a picture of me on the first day of kindergarten next to a young one of Avril, then shook his head slowly. He cradled in his hand a photo of Avril standing by the gate in the herb garden. “It’s scary how much you look alike,”
“It’s as if I’ve been here before,” I said, watching his face carefully. “Have you ever felt like that, Matt, like you’ve been in this house some time long before now?”
“No,” he answered quickly.
Perhaps I was reading into it, but it seemed to me that if Matt had never thought about reincarnation, my question would have drawn a different response, a slower one. He would have looked at me puzzled and asked what I meant.
“You should leave,” he said.
“No way”.
“Why are you so stubborn?” he exclaimed.
“It’s you who are stubbornly refusing to open your mind to questions and explanations you don’t like. I’m staying here till I find out what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on,” he argued, walking away from me.
“You look like Avril. It’s just a bad coincidence, and you’re going to make both yourself and Grandmother insane over it.” He started pacing the room.
“Did you move any of the objects in this house?” I asked.
Matt swung around. “I’m not the kind to play tricks.”
“Then you must suspect me,” I said. “But think about it.
How would I know where those objects were kept when Avril was alive, unless-”
“Grandmother moved them,” he interrupted. “Maybe she’s gotten senile and did it without remembering, or this is just some crazy spell she’ll snap out of. Whatever the case, you’re not making things any easier for her.”
He walked over to me. “Finished?” Without waiting for my answer, he put the photos and boxes back in the drawers and turned the key in the lock.
“Matt, those pictures mean that Grandmother has always known that I look like her sister. She knew and chose to invite me. I want to know why.”
“Curiosity,” he replied.
“Guilt,” I countered. “Morbid curiosity and guilt.”
Matt shook his head. “You’re getting stranger than Grandmother. Take my advice, Megan. Get out of here. Get out before it’s too late for both of you.”
I got up from my chair. “Sorry. It already is.”
When I returned to my room, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I dressed and took a long walk, spending time by the water then stopping by Avril’s grave. It didn’t give me the same eerie feeling as the first time I saw it. Perhaps seeing your own grave is like looking at a gushing wound on your leg: Once you’re over the initial shock, it seems natural enough. I knelt down before the stone and traced the name and dates with my finger. On the final date my finger stopped. Today.
Avril had died sixty years ago today.
When I finally arrived back at the house, it was nine o’clock. I entered through the front hall, wanting to avoid Grandmother and Matt in the kitchen. I was angry with Matt for turning away when I needed his help. He had chosen Grandmother over me, determined to protect her at any cost.
I crept upstairs, stuffed some things in a backpack, and headed out again, leaving a note in the hall telling Grandmother I’d be gone for a while. My first stop was the library at Chase College. I hoped to access local newspaper articles from Avril’s time that might shed light on what had happened.
Three hours later, totally frustrated by the library’s ancient and cranky microfiche machines, I’d found just one short piece on Avril that attributed her death to allergic reaction. It made no mention of the mill or Thomas. After trying a number of sources on red-creep, it became obvious that its local name would not yield information on the plant and its byproducts. But I got lucky with Angel Cayton. She had not only started the Watermen’s Fund but contributed to the college. A librarian directed me to a conference room where her portrait hung.
Angel looked like all the other matrons honored in the conference room, with gray hair, blue eyes, and a bustline that could amply support pearls and eyeglasses-only she wasn’t wearing pearls. Around her neck hung a silver chain with a blue gem as mystical as the eyes of my newest-and perhaps oldest-friend. It was the pendant Sophie loved.
