There was no guaranteeing her multiple personality theory was correct, but it was worth a try. If indeed both ghosts were manifested from a single man, the manifestation seen in its moment of death on the library floor would be the one most likely to reveal the key to the boar-headed entity. In any case, she knew she couldn't cope with the half man, half animal. Her panic was still right there, just beneath the surface. The fear reflexes were too strong. She'd only flee again, mindless, and be pursued and probably die, or worse, this time.
So she'd seek the dying man's experience. She'd have to pierce through those outer layers, find the core, the dying moment.
She found her way through the kitchen and down the hallway into the west wing, ears burning with the expectation of hearing that gut-wrenching, whimpering cry. But the house was silent, holding its musty breath.
The library was a cave of darkness. She walked slowly forward, found the piano, slid her fingers lightly along the smooth keys, veered a little left to find the back of one of the fireplace wingback chairs. From there, she went straight back until she bumped the claw-foot table. Moving to the right, she guided herself with her fingertips along the table's edge until her other hand found the chair she'd sat in the first two times. Deep in the corner, it would give the best vantage in the room.
Richard? she called. A thought like a secret.
She turned to sit in the chair and started to lower herself into it, then leapt up again with a shriek.
She had almost sat on somebody.
She was afraid to budge. Incapable of moving. She had seen two thighs, right beneath her, and they'd shifted as she'd glanced back.
She backed away two steps until she bumped into the bookshelves behind her. She'd have to run to her left, along the wall of the room. There was some furniture in the way, a table, a floor lamp, but she couldn't remember exactly where.
She could see him better now. In the chair. A man-shaped cloud, coalescing and taking on detail. A man in a dark gray suit. His head was turned, so she couldn't quite see his whole face from this angle, but clearly he wore no boar mask. On the claw-footed table at his side was a tray with decanters and bottles, and an ashtray from which he lifted a cigar. He put it to his lips, drew and exhaled a faint plume of smoke that Cree smelled. Then he took up a cut-crystal glass, and she tasted the liquor in it. Amaretto, fiery almond-sweet.
It gave the ghost no satisfaction. He was too unhappy, too preoccupied. He turned toward her, and Cree saw it was Richard Beauforte, who looked at his cigar with distaste and set it down. He sipped some more amaretto and put the glass down, too.
He stood up unsteadily and thought, A little too much to drink. He was unhappy. He was burdened. He was dealing with a problem that was vast and horrible, that made him too angry and sad to think about. Whenever his thoughts came too close, his mind sparked with rage and sorrow and regret. As Cree pushed herself back against the bookshelves, he walked slowly to the circle of chairs at the fireplace and stood for a moment just watching the gas fire that burned in the grate.
There has to be a way, he was thinking. To piece a family together again. My fault, my responsibility to fix it. But how?
Abruptly he wanted his cigar again, something to occupy his fingers. He returned from the fireplace toward Cree, and she could see his face clearly, a high forehead above the suffering eyes of a man who hadn't slept and who had terrible things on his mind. He lurched slightly as he walked, A little drunk, found the cigar, puffed it back to life. Saw the rest of the liquor in the glass and despondently thought, What the hell, and drained it. Dull the pain.
She will never understand. She'll never forgive, he was thinking as he walked away. And she will never accept her share of the blame. Cree saw the image of Charmian in his thoughts.
He detoured to the piano, where he stood and plinked a few plaintive notes. How to piece together anything like a family again? How to recover the bond? Not to mention the Beauforte name, the pride, the posterity? I can't do it. Beyond me. In desperation, his thoughts fanned out, seeking comfort, seeking an answer. Abruptly he thought of Bradford, the perpetually boyish, mischievous face, that offhand good humor, the needed leavening he had always brought to the household, the companionship for each member, and for an instant missed him terribly. Irony of ironies, the one person who could help would be Brad. Brad who was dead dead dead, God damn him to hell anyway.
Richard's emotions swirled red and black and sick green, anger and guilt and regret and loss, and he brought a fist down on the piano keys in a discordant explosion before he lurched away toward the fireplace again. There seemed nowhere for his thoughts to turn. He couldn't breathe right. When he got back to the circle of chairs there, he felt a twinge of pain in his gut, very strong this time, and thought, Ulcer acting up. And no wonder. Uneasy, he sat down on the edge of one of the chairs and checked his watch. The amaretto had left a displeasing, almost oily aftertaste. Or maybe it was the cigar.
Talk to Lila? Or do what Charm says and try to pretend it didn't happen? Maybe it will all heal over somehow. Only two hours until she goes back to school. Time to decide.
The thought of Lila hurt him terribly, an emotional pang that merged with the growing physical pain in his lungs and stomach and bowels, and suddenly he realized something was wrong. Cree could feel it, too: the paralyzed lungs, the burn in his stomach and the acid electric radiant pain shooting down into his lower belly and groin and legs. He stood up quickly, lost his balance, fell against the mantel to stabilize himself. Not right, he was thinking. Not right, this isn't ulcer.
He turned toward the door, realizing that his thoughts weren't right either, he was confused. 'Charmian?' he called. He realized he didn't know if she was in the house, couldn't remember just when this was. The pain gored him again and he doubled over, went to his knees on the carpet. The cigar tumbled out of his fingers and he saw it there on the carpet and knew how angry Charmian would be if he put a spot in it. He ground out the ash with his fingers and only afterward realized it had burned him. Cree's fingers tingled.
'Charm, honey, can you…' and he didn't know what he wanted of her. Where was she? '… help me?' Or maybe she had gone out. Or was that yesterday? He lunged to his feet and took two quick strides toward the door but fell full out before he could reach it. No air. His legs refused to work, and the pain was everywhere now, he was a ball of pain. The amaretto taste was too strong and wouldn't fade and it surrounded him and it wasn't right, and abruptly he knew he'd been poisoned. Every labored breath was full of its suffocating stink. He flopped on the rug, trying to get to his hands and knees but the room tilted and he fell heavily on his side.
Josephine! his thoughts cried. Her face came clearly to mind. He was experiencing a telescoped, dreamlike memory, all of it rushing at him together, a flickering movie played many times too fast. Faces and names, Josephine and Charmian and Brad and Ron and Lila and further back, Father! and Mama!, and others Cree didn't know. And then the beating, beating, beating, the intolerable rage and the revulsion of it, the self-hatred and regret and compassion and fear of what the future held and the beating going on anyway, completely out of control. The horror of feeling such abandon, letting go into something so animal, knowing it had always been there and was impermissible but unstoppable, too.
And abruptly he knew for certain he was dying.
Cree had felt that recognition before, at once deeply familiar and impossibly strange. With the knowledge came the sense of everything being interrupted at just the wrong time: all the gestures of life, so desperately needing closure, so unresolved and incomplete. So wrong.
'Charmian!' he shouted. He doubled again on the floor like a grub brought out of the soil and contorting in the sunlight. 'Charmian!' And there was no answer. No, she was gone today. 'Josephine?' Another call for help. 'Josephine!' This time more of an accusation – he felt betrayed by her. But she was gone, too. Or was she, yet? He didn't know when he was, time was folding upon itself in liquid, doubling loops. 'Josephine! Charm, don't let her go! She – ' And he didn't know what he was going to say. It was urgent, but it had vanished from his mind.
Again Cree saw a glimpse of the nanny's mahogany-dark face, her resolute mouth, her steady, relentless eyes. And there was no refuge in her, or in Charmian. His thoughts fled to Ron with concern: poor innocent Ro-Ro. Ro-Ro would never understand – this would destroy him just as it destroyed Lila. He'd failed his son, too.
And then he was just dying and all the thoughts fused into one thing, his life distilled down into what really mattered, and it was Lila, and Lila was a little girl, that day when the air was so nice and they'd found themselves in the backyard and for once there wasn't something else pressing that had to be done, and they'd both just been there together, father and daughter.
Overcome, Cree took a step toward the convulsing figure. 'Daddy?' she blurted. 'Daddy!' He couldn't die,
