“Thanks, but you’ve got to be tired. It won’t take long to untie things.”
“Still, let’s walk,” Holly persisted. “You’re not going to fall asleep in the state you’re in now.”
“I’ll be okay. I’ll walk and talk to myself until I bore myself to sleep.”
Holly laughed lightly. “Well, you know where I am if you need me.”
When I reached the hall stairs, Aunt Jule stood at her bedroom door. “It’s late, Lauren. Don’t go far.”
I answered her with a slight nod.
Downstairs, I headed out the river side of the house, then turned toward Frank’s. I walked his land along the river and sat for a while in one of his lawn chairs, thinking things over.
I recalled what Dr. Parker had said at the prom and knew he was right: I could do nothing about Nora’s illness; the one person in my power to heal was myself. I needed to go to the place where my mother had died, this time on my own.
The moon was high, making the unlit dock stand out clearly in the water. I imagined it as my mother would have seen it that night, a vague shape in the river mist The bank wasn’t as eroded then, so she could have climbed up easily. Had she walked the dock the way she used to walk the porch?
Had someone cornered her there?
I climbed up and walked to the end where she had fallen. I forced myself to touch the piling, laying both hands on it, then stared down into the river.
Had my mother known she was going to die that night?
Had she blacked out the moment she hit the piling or did she sink slowly into watery unconsciousness? Did she cry out for me?
“Get over it, Lauren,” I told myself aloud. “You have to let go.”
But I couldn’t, not until I knew what had happened then and what was happening now.
I mulled over the poltergeist theory. Perhaps Nora was so traumatized by finding my mother drowned that she believed and feared she was still in the river. But Nora’s irrational fear would make more sense if she had actually murdered her.
My mother’s presence had brought plenty of anger and dissension to Aunt Jule’s usually quiet house. Perhaps Nora, already unbalanced — more so than any of us had realized — had been pushed over the edge and, in a sense, pushed back.
If Nora were guilty of murder and trying to repress it, my return to Wisteria would be intensely disturbing to her and could evoke a response as extreme as poltergeist activity.
The puzzle pieces fit.
Then Dr. Parker’s words floated back to me: A quick theory is a dangerous way to answer important questions.
But my experiences in the last three days, some of them spookily similar to my mother’s, had convinced me that her death wasn’t an accident And if Nora didn’t murder her, who else could have? Who else had a reason — or the momentary passion and anger — to push my mother against the piling and off the dock? I didn’t want to suspect anyone I knew; the excuse of insanity was the only way I could deal with it being Nora.
I retraced my steps, then climbed the hill and circled the house. It was completely dark now. Passing by the greenhouse, I was surprised to find that a light had been left on. I didn’t remember seeing it when I arrived home and it seemed odd that Holly, given her compulsion to turn off lights, hadn’t extinguished it. I entered the greenhouse, a little timidly after last night’s experience.
The place felt overly warm and stuffy. I wondered if Nora had forgotten to open the vents, allowing the day’s heat to build up. The bare bulb hanging over the center aisle was out; the beacon I’d seen was a large plastic flashlight.
Perhaps Nora had come with it tonight, planning to cool down the place, and been frightened away by party guests.
I knew that when the sun flooded the greenhouse tomorrow the plants would die in the accumulated heat. The wheel that opened the roof vents was at the end of the main aisle, where the small trellises were. As I headed toward it, I played the flashlight’s beam over the plants, listening intently, watching, afraid to blink my eyes. But every leaf was still. At the end of the aisle I shone the light on the pots with the young vines. All of them were limp, hanging from the trellises by their knots.
Above them was the six-inch metal wheel that cranked open the house’s high vents — that is, the axle from it — the wheel was gone. I was sure I had seen the vents open the other day. I reached for the switch that ran the big exhaust fan, flicking it one way, then the other. It wouldn’t turn on.
Stranger yet, despite the breeze that night, the blades were absolutely still. When I shone the flashlight on the fan, I saw that the flap behind it had been closed, which was done only in winter to seal out the cold air. I tried the smaller fans distributed along the plant benches. They didn’t work, nor did the center light.
It must be the power supply, I thought, and searched for a metal cabinet containing a circuit breaker. I found an ancient box with two screw-in fuses. Both had been removed.
Still something was running — I could hear the quiet motors. Space heaters, that’s what was making it hot The heaters burned kerosene and were used in the winter to keep the plants warm. I found four of them in the side aisles of the greenhouse and turned them off, puzzled as to why Nora or anyone else would have them running.
There was little I could do to save the plants except open the door and hope some cool air would waft in. I decided to transport at least one of each kind outside and carried a heavy pot to the entrance.
When I tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. I set down the plant and shone the flashlight on the lock. The door had a deadbolt, the kind that required a key and could be locked from inside or out. But I hadn’t locked it and the key kept on the hook next to the door was gone. Someone had taken it and turned the bolt from the outside. I couldn’t believe it — I had walked straight into a trap!
Nora’s trap. She must have been nearby, waiting until I was at the other end of the greenhouse to lock the door. But she was supposed to have been with Aunt Jule. Again I considered the possibility of another person being responsible for my mother’s death and the things that had been happening to me. Nora’s crazy behavior would provide a convenient cover, and it would be easy enough to mimic her. Who knew about the boathouse incident? Nick and Frank, Holly and Aunt Jule — and anyone in the town whom they might have told.
I tried to illuminate the area beyond the door, but the flashlight’s reflection off the glass surface made it impossible to see more than a foot beyond the greenhouse.
I clicked it off and stepped back from the door, retreating farther and farther into the rows of plants, hoping that as I became less visible, I would detect some movement outside.
Something touched my neck. I pulled away from a bench of plants and clumsily banged into the one across from it. It was my own sweat trickling down, nothing else. The heat was oppressive. A dull headache throbbed behind my eyes.
I wanted to sleep.
The obvious way to escape was to break the glass, but I was reluctant to. The large square panes were old and might be irreplacable. I decided to rest there till Holly or Aunt Jule woke up and found me. I sat on the damp brick floor, longing to put my head down, but something kept nagging at me. The missing fuses, the sealed fan. I pulled myself to my feet again and waves of dizziness broke over me. I felt sick, as if I had inhaled fumes, but I could smell nothing but the rich earthiness of the greenhouse.
Lack of ventilation, space heaters, sleepiness, no smellmy muddled mind kept groping for the pattern it sensed but couldn’t identify. Sleepiness, no smell — carbon monoxide!
The gas could be generated by heating units. It was odorless. And it could kill.
I had to break a window. I remembered that there was a hand shovel by the trellises, but I was closer to the front of the greenhouse, and the path to the back seemed long to me now, wavering in front of my eyes like a distant patch of road on a hot day. The flashlight, that would work.
I had left it on the ground when I’d sat down. I leaned over to pick it up and pitched forward. It took all of my strength to straighten up. I discovered I couldn’t look down — just moving my head made me dizzy. Crouching slowly, grasping the end of a plant bench with one hand, I felt with my other for the flashlight.
