Hemlock Veils (10 page)

“Take it as you will. Just know you have no choice in the matter.” With that he was out the door and striding toward Arne.

Chapter 7

Elizabeth strolled leisurely down Clayton Road, admiring the town whose occupants sent her mixed vibes. She, Taggart, and Brian had returned with her car an hour before and now she was allowing Brian to “work his magic,” as he had put it. She already knew it was another faulty alternator, but he had insisted on doing a thorough examination at no extra charge. He’d winked after saying it was on the house, however. She could read Brian Dane more easily than any other resident of Hemlock Veils. His intentions had shone through the moment they’d met the night before, and even more brightly that morning, and the way he tried dazzling her with his baby blues and disheveled golden hair said he usually got what he wanted. She hoped he wouldn’t give her the opportunity to be one of the only women to turn him down.

He would be calling her any moment with news on her vehicle: what needed replacing and how much it would cost, and most importantly, how long she would have to stay.

The truth was, she
wanted
to stay—despite Mr. Clayton and Sheriff Taggart’s opposition to it. She couldn’t explain her pull to this place, or why she felt so at home when a handful of its residents wanted nothing to do with her. Part of her regretted being so truthful at the diner that morning, not because of the bad name she’d given herself, but because winning over Taggart and Mr. Clayton would now prove impossible. The two most important people in town and they were the two most opposed to her being here.

But she couldn’t help the way her core had heated and heart rate sped when Mr. Clayton had acted as though he owned her, along with everything else in this town. Who was he to give her orders? Who was he to give
anyone
orders?

Her pace down the sidewalk quickened at the thought of his arrogance, how it had weighted the air when he stood over her table—towered, really, since he was the tallest one in the diner. And that stuffy suit and slick, businessman hair, combed neatly away from his smooth-shaven face and trimmed around his ears. In another life, perhaps one that didn’t give him the superior air of a billionaire, he would be attractive. His ebony-colored suit was well tailored on his tall, sturdy frame and matched the color of his hair, and there was something about his frosty blue tie that made his rich, caramel-brown eyes stand out. His features were the right amount of masculine, including the rugged definition of his jaw, the hooked bridge of his nose, and his uneven smile—his smile that was far more condescending than charming, more condescending even than anything Mr. Vanderzee could produce.

Perhaps that was why Mr. Clayton made every bone in her body twitch with irritation: he reminded her too much of the pompous man she had just escaped, the one that had disowned her due to no one’s follies but her own. And more unsettling was how the entire town of Hemlock Veils seemed to bow before him. As though he’d lived a hundred years, not thirty-something. She had never had it in her to be intimidated by another human being, and she wasn’t about to start now, but she understood why they were. Just from her short observance, she knew the cold and unforgiving Mr. Clayton was the last person she wanted to cross.

She had to convince the town she was worthy to stay, which meant she had to gain control of her words. It wasn’t that she had lied in the diner when she told Nicole she wanted to leave as soon as possible; she simply hadn’t gained the conviction she needed to stay yet. She didn’t know when she’d made the decision to make Hemlock Veils her new home, and didn’t even know if it was possible, but sometime since the diner, she’d known she had to try. She had no choice really, with the way this place spoke to her.

She paused at what appeared to be the end of Clayton Road, standing kitty-corner to the clinic that seemed to have been built from the same red bricks as the Hemlock Diner and post office. Clayton Road shot directly south from Road Thirty-Two then curved, continuing in a southeastern direction, and every other street sprouted from it. The town began at that curve, if you didn’t count Eustace’s wood-paneled house that was closer to Road Thirty-Two than it was to the town’s edge. All in all, Clayton Road couldn’t have been much longer than a mile, if that.

She’d seen everything Hemlock Veils had to offer, aside from residential side streets. First there was the old brick diner and matching post office (even smaller than the clinic) at the top edge of town, on the southwest and southeast corners of Red Cedar Loop and Clayton Road. A couple of blocks down was Center Street: Brian’s shop on one corner, the general store on another, and on a third, the area Eustace called the town square—nothing but an open space floored with cobblestone and accented with a fountain in the center, but charming nonetheless. Just after that was Old Ray’s Tavern, and across from that was the sheriff’s office and jailhouse, which appeared to be no larger than the post office. Now she stood near the edge of town, at the last sign of life on Clayton Road. Residential streets, named after trees or animals, filled the spaces between major intersections, but here, no sign labeled the crossing street, narrower than the rest.

It appeared far more neglected, too, with tree roots breaking through the sidewalk and vegetation overtaking the street. A small white church with a simple cross was just across it, and the clinic at the southeast corner. Where she stood, along the north side of Clayton Road, were a series of abandoned shops.

She peered into a darkened window, the last in the row. The place hadn’t been used in years, but the quaint interior left a cozy tingling in her chest. Once upon a time, during wistful moments in Mr. Vanderzee’s kitchen, she’d allowed herself the daydream of owning her own coffeehouse or bakery, in a place just like this. The open, high ceiling fooled the eye, making the space appear less narrow than it actually was. Black-and-white checkered tile covered the floor, and rustic white bricks that appeared to have been painted more than a few times scaled the walls. Small, round tables were stacked in one corner, probably piled with dust, and a glass counter ran parallel to the far wall in the back.

Retreating into the sun, she squinted to get a better look at the black awning, which flaunted a faint trace of cursive letters.
Jean’s Bakery
. She pushed down the surge of hope inside and continued her walk. The view had done well to deceive her, but Clayton Road in fact kept going, even though the structures didn’t. Another deception: the street with no name did in fact have one, buried within a hemlock as though ashamed of its existence.

She moved a branch and recoiled at the sign. Henry Street. Henry, as in Mr. Clayton? Regina had told her all about him that morning after he’d stormed out of the diner. How his father, Henry Clayton Sr., lived here before him, and his father before him, Joseph, had been the very one to build the town—starting with none other than his lavish mansion. Had this street been named after the Mr. Clayton she knew, or the Henry Clayton who Regina said had been much warmer than his son?

Forest surrounded her on both sides again as she followed the slight bend of Clayton Road. The next and last street, about fifty yards past Henry Street, hid behind even more vegetation. Clayton Road ended here, at Alder Street, which shot in one direction only: to her left, leading north.

A lane of green moss striped the very middle of Alder Street, suggesting its rare usage. She hiked the gradual incline, curious to find what lay around the curve—behind the trees that cut her off from the rest of the town completely. The moss-covered cedars and firs were especially concentrated here, and incredibly lofty. It wasn’t until she rounded the bend that the mansion showed itself, nestled within the forest. There, at the mansion’s gate, Alder Street dead-ended. Even amidst trees that stretched far above its roof, the mansion looked massive. A certain beauty and mystery settled upon it, she would admit.

Despite the way she felt undeserving of such a place, she approached.

An elaborate wrought iron gate protected the mansion, cutting her off from what appeared to be sacred ground. Pink and red rhododendrons, in full bloom, mingled with a gate as exquisite as everything else. Fleurs-de-lis adorned the gate and vine-wound bars; twisted columns appeared to grow from the center of open flowers, and the tips of rods were perfectly coiled; atop the gate, the fancy letters
J
and
C
dominated; perhaps standing for Joseph Clayton, Mr. Clayton’s grandfather and founder of Hemlock Veils. Both the gate’s doors lined up symmetrically, one reflecting the other. The wrought iron fence that extended from either side of the gate bordered the entire estate, disappearing within the protective trees. Out of place was a small but high-tech video screen and ten-button panel at the gate, hidden within one of the rhododendron shrubs. Behind it curled a gravel drive, as well as a lone pathway winding through a well-maintained landscape of hemlocks, more rhododendrons, and nearly every alder species, and leading to the gentle rise of broad steps at the mansion’s front door.

The repetitive but pleasant song of a bird ricocheted within the trees, a series of musical warbles and twitters with a long note at its end. Two goldfinches danced through the air as they flew from tree to tree, their body feathers almost the vibrant yellow they would be in the summer months. Her father hadn’t just been fascinated with the vegetation of Oregon. Together they’d studied the indigenous animal life, one time even discussing how it would be to go bird-watching. He’d been especially fond of the birds, for a reason Elizabeth still didn’t know.

The thought had been thrilling at age ten and dull as an adult, but now she understood a measure of why her father had wanted to. She observed the birds’ habits, grateful for her childhood studies. There had to be birdfeeders somewhere in the landscape, since this species was usually more at home in open, un-wooded areas, but she couldn’t imagine a man like Mr. Clayton doing something as delicate as placing birdfeeders. Perhaps it had been Arne, whom Regina had informed her was Mr. Clayton’s right-hand man.

At last, the birds disappeared in the vines that enveloped the alcove over the front steps. The steps were stone, as was the mansion’s façade all the way from ground to gables. The brick-colored roof peaked into triangles at four different points, the highest nearly as tall as the gigantic trees surrounding it. Thanks in part to the three stone chimneys that jutted skyward from different areas in the roof, the mansion looked more like a few smaller homes compressed cozily together. The cove of stone pillars and archways, scaled by green vines, sheltered the large wooden door, and every squared corner of the mansion—even the window’s borders—was lined in robust and carefully chiseled stone, lighter in color than the other exterior stone. Spacious bay windows made up one of the corners entirely, on both levels, and placed at other random but symmetrical locations were windows so long they appeared to be grandiosely stretched.

Seeing Mr. Clayton that morning may have reminded her of her old life with Mr. Vanderzee, but other than its size, this mansion resembled nothing of her former employer’s mansion, which had been complete with fountains and palm trees and Corinthian columns that screamed Bel Air. Aside from the way this place’s mystery labeled it forbidden, she actually felt comfortable here with the forest that called to her and the mansion that was, really, more magical than intimidating.

She ran her fingers along the rough and textured edge of an iron rod in the gate, one that curled at the end and was speared with a fleur-de-lis. With a twinge of reluctance, she backed away until the soles of her shoes touched the asphalt. She’d spent too much mental energy on Mr. Clayton’s lavish lifestyle, and even more on admiring it.

It wasn’t until she neared the curve on Alder Street—the one that would hide the mansion from sight—that the other hidden treasure revealed itself, not so far from the mansion. Buried roughly twenty feet deep in trees and rhododendrons, and at the end of a paved, cracked walkway, was a house no larger than a single room. Its siding of cedar shingles appeared to be every shade of brown, including the irritatingly pleasing shade of Mr. Clayton’s eyes. Brightly painted red accents brought the home to life: the eaves beneath the peaked roof, the boards around the window, the border of the circular window in the only gable, and the door frame. Age and water had left the wood warped.

Alder Street was indeed strange: home to both the largest and smallest homes in Hemlock Veils.

Before she knew it, she was closing in on it. The scent of pine wafted through the air, and beneath her shoes, the soil was still wet. She peered through the only square window on this side. The empty, dark house held nothing but dust. When backing away, her calf hit something metal. A sign emerged from the ground, crooked and hidden well within ferns. It was old, probably forgotten, and when she moved the leaves to find the red words
For Sale
, her heart leapt ever so slightly. She tried not to hope for something so perfect.

A wind blew, and trees swayed as though fighting it off. Why did the wind quarrel with the elements? Was she mistaken for feeling a clash of energies here? A certain swelling inside her—magic, she would dare say—told her this place was special, that it was meant for her. But the wind that felt like no wind nature created, warned her. The subtle whooshing in her ears spoke threats.

Chills scaled her arms, rising up her neck and to the crown of her scalp. Instinct told her to stand her ground; she did, planting her feet. So maybe some Hemlock Veils residents didn’t want her here, nor did this otherworldly force; but the forest did—this
house
did—and this magical bit of Mother Earth (yes, she could indeed say it was magic now, and wished to tell her father of it) felt more trustworthy than some uncertain humans and an unsteady wind. Or even a beast who probably had a little more than something to do with these clashing energies.