The Other Child (3 page)

“Oh . . . lovely,” Karen murmured softly. Her voice was hushed as if she were in a museum. She began to smile as she followed Rob Comstock up the circular staircase and viewed the second floor. Huge, airy bedrooms, with polished oak moldings; a separate dressing room in the master suite, with an ancient claw-footed dresser dominating the space—the interior was just as she had imagined. If only they could afford it.

“The furniture on the third floor is included.” He was speaking to her now and Karen smiled. Rob Comstock could see she was interested. There was no denying Karen’s excitement as she stepped up on the third-floor landing and saw what must have been the original ballroom, filled with old furniture covered by drop cloths. What she wouldn’t give to poke under the shrouded shapes and see the intriguing pieces that were stored and forgotten in this enormous, shadowed space.

A small staircase, with a door at the top, led to the cupola and Leslie was scrambling up before Karen could caution her to be careful. The steps were safe enough. The whole house seemed untouched by time, waiting for some new owners to love and nourish it, to bring it back to life again. Karen could imagine it was almost the same as it had been when the original occupants left, with only a bit of dust and cobwebs covering its intrinsic beauty.

“Plenty of real antiques up here, I’ll bet!” Rob Comstock was speaking to her, but Karen only half heard him. She anticipated squeals of delight from Leslie over the view that stretched in all directions from the windowed cupola. Strange that there was only silence overhead.

Karen excused herself reluctantly. “I’d better go up and check on Leslie.” A prickle of anxiety invaded her mind as she started up the narrow staircase into the dusty silence.

Karen was convinced there was something wrong when she reached the landing and pushed open the door to the cupola. Leslie was standing at one of the twelve narrow windows, staring out blankly. She looked preoccupied and started as Karen spoke her name.

“Kitten? What’s the matter?” The still, stiff way Leslie was standing made Karen terribly nervous. She rushed to put her arms around her daughter.

“Huh? Oh . . . nothing, Mom.” Leslie gave her a funny, lopsided smile. She looked miserable. “I’m afraid Mike won’t buy it!” There was a quaver in her voice. “This house is perfect for us, Mom. We just have to live here!”

“Now, don’t be silly, darling.” Karen gave her a quick squeeze. “This is the first house we’ve seen and it really is awfully large for us. We’ll probably see other houses you like just as much.”

“No! We have to live here in this house!” Leslie’s voice was stronger now and pleading. “You know it’s the right house, Mom. We can’t live anywhere else. This house was built just for us!”

“I think you should have Mr. Comstock’s job,” Karen said, smiling down indulgently. “You’re an even better salesman than he is. But really, kitten, we have to be sensible. I know you love this old house and I do, too, but the final decision is Mike’s.”

Karen was firm as she turned Leslie around and guided her toward the stairs. “Come on now, honey. We have to get back downstairs before it gets dark. The power’s not turned on, you know.”

“But you’ll help me convince Mike to buy it, won’t you, Mom?” Leslie asked insistently, stopping at the top step. “You know it would be perfect for us.”

“Yes, I’ll help you, silly,” Karen promised, brushing a wisp of silvery-blond hair out of Leslie’s eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief as her daughter smiled fully and hurried down the stairs in front of her. Leslie would be persistent and she might just manage to convince Mike. Leslie was right. It was almost as if the house had been waiting all this time just for them.

Karen bit her lips nervously as they took the turnoff into Cold Spring. Mike was humming a tune, keeping time by tapping his fingers against the steering wheel and Leslie was chattering away a mile a minute. The rental trailer rumbled and squeaked with every bump and Karen felt a headache coming on. Worry and lack of sleep always gave her headaches and this time she had no one to blame but herself.

She had assumed that the moving would be easy. They had sold their large furniture and Karen had been sure the packing would take only a few hours. Mike took care of his photographic equipment and Leslie boxed and labeled everything in her room, but Karen was dismayed to find how many odds and ends had accumulated over the past three years. She had been up until midnight packing the kitchen things and this morning she was exhausted.

“Never again!” Karen muttered under her breath. “We’re going to stay right here in Cold Spring until we die!”

Just then the house came into view and Karen stifled a morose sigh. Why hadn’t she noticed before how huge this house was? It stared at her, imposing and sedate, filling her with a sense of dread. What on earth had possessed her to agree with this move? Getting the house in livable shape would take months, perhaps years. She might never be finished. All those rooms to clean and wallpaper and paint; the measurements to be taken for drapes and curtains; the floors to be resurfaced or carpeted. It was a gigantic project and now Karen was sure that she simply couldn’t do it. It was too much for an army of decorators and she was only one woman, one pregnant woman at that. What colossal lapse of reason had convinced her she could do it alone?

“It’s ours, Mom,” Leslie breathed in her ear. “Isn’t it beautiful? I can hardly wait to pick out my room and start putting everything away!”

Something in her daughter’s voice made Karen smile in spite of her ill humor. Leslie was so eager to get started. She wasn’t a bit worried about all the work that had to be done. They had a house. That was all Leslie cared about.

Karen’s smile grew wider. Leslie had a point. They did have a house and it was beautiful. It wouldn’t be that difficult to get settled if they all pitched in. Leslie would be a big help and she could count on Mike to lend a hand, because he’d be working at home. And think of what they’d have when they finished! Leslie was absolutely right—the house was a dream, and it was all theirs. They had signed the papers for $23,500, and it was on a Contract for Deed. All their friends told them they had made a really good deal.

“It really
is
beautiful.” Karen grinned at her daughter. The house was lovely . . . just waiting for her to restore it to its full beauty, inside and out. She’d take it room by room, and before she knew it, everything would be just fine.

Two hours later Karen still hadn’t found the aspirin. She knew it was in a box somewhere, but they all looked the same. If she had to look through one more box, she’d scream. Her headache was pounding and her stomach rumbled uneasily.

“Is there anything to eat, Mom?” Leslie stepped over cartons of cooking utensils to peer anxiously at her mother. “I’m starving and Mike says he is, too.”

Karen pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead and sighed. The last thing she wanted to do right now was tackle the stack of boxes containing the foodstuffs. How on earth was she supposed to unpack everything and get lunch together on top of it?

“I guess I’ll have to go to the store and pick up some sandwich fixings.” Karen gave Leslie a wan smile. “I think I need a little break anyway. I swear these boxes are multiplying faster than rabbits.”

“I’ll drive you there,” Mike offered, appearing in the doorway. “Come on. Leslie can hold down the fort while we’re gone.”

“I’ll pick out my room, Mom,” Leslie volunteered. “I’m through helping Mike unload the truck. Can I have any room I want?”

Karen nodded. “Any one on the second floor, except the master bedroom. We’ll be back in a couple of minutes, kitten. Then we’ll both help you with your room.”

Karen pushed the cart down the narrow aisles and picked items off the shelves at random, two bottles of aspirin to be on the safe side, a can of sardines for Mike, some peanut butter and grape jelly for Leslie, tuna packed in water and alfalfa sprouts for her. Now all she had to do was find the aisle with the bread and she’d be through.

There were two women standing at the meat counter and Karen smiled in her friendliest manner. She could feel their eyes on her back as she passed by and snatches of their whispered conversation reached her ears.

“Just bought the Appleton place . . . from Minneapolis . . . .”

“Imagine appearing in public dressed like that! I don’t think they’re the kind of people . . .”

Karen’s face felt prickly and hot as she hurriedly ducked down another aisle. She looked down at herself, perplexed. Her brief sundress was fashionable and her sandals were comfortable. The two women were wearing stockings and heels, but that was no reason to criticize her. There was nothing wrong with the way she was dressed. In the Cities a sundress on a hot day was standard attire.

The woman at the checkout stand was friendlier. “You must be Mrs. Houston,” she said, smiling as she started to ring up the items in Karen’s basket. “I’m Janet Wilson and we own this supermarket. I hear from Rob Comstock that you folks are moving in today.”

Karen smiled back. “That’s right, we are. And please call me Karen.” She felt a little better now. At least Janet Wilson didn’t seem to be staring at her outfit.

“Rob says your husband’s a photographer. Isn’t that nice! Is he planning on setting up a business here in town?”

“No, Mike works for
Homes
magazine,” Karen replied, opening her purse to find her wallet. “We’re remodeling the house so he can have a darkroom and work right here.”

“You have a little girl, isn’t that right?” Janet shook open a brown grocery bag as she talked. Everyone who came in this afternoon would ask about the new family, and she meant to find out as much as she could.

“Leslie’s nine. Do you have children, Janet?” Karen was doing her best to be casual, but she’d never been asked so many questions in a grocery store before.

“I have just the one—my boy, Gary. He’s going on twelve. And do you model for your husband?”

“I used to model, just for fun, when Mike was getting started,” Karen answered. “Then I worked for an interior-decorating firm in the Cities until we found out I was—” Karen stopped and blushed a little. “We’re expecting our first child in December,” she confessed.

As Janet’s eyebrows rose, Karen almost groaned aloud. She wished she hadn’t phrased things quite that way.

“I—I was married before,” she hesitated to say. She could feel the heat rise to her face in a wave, but the little white lie was easier than trying to explain the truth. It wasn’t Janet Wilson’s business anyway, and she didn’t want to start small-town gossip.

“I just love our new house,” Karen hurried on, flustered. “It’s a good thing I’m an interior decorator, though. Fixing up the inside would cost a fortune if I couldn’t do it myself.”

“An interior decorator . . . my, my!” Janet shook her head. “Nobody here could afford to hire a decorator to do their houses—except for the Comstocks, of course. The people here aren’t fancy—just plain, honest folks who believe in saving their money.”

Karen smiled self-consciously. “We can’t afford to hire anyone, either. I’ll do most of the interior work myself.”

“You’re going to have a real job on your hands with that old Appleton house.” Janet shook her head. “I wouldn’t tackle it for love or money! Now listen, Karen”—Janet reached out to grasp her wrist—“don’t let anybody scare you with those old, tired ghost stories. I’ve always said they were a lot of nonsense anyway. You know how it is, a big old house is empty for a while and people start talking about how it’s haunted. I don’t believe a word of it, personally. Stories have been going around for years and no one’s actually seen anything, so just don’t pay any attention to the things you might hear. People here just like a little excitement and the Appleton place gives them something to talk about.”

Janet released Karen’s wrist and smiled. “Cold Spring’s a nice town and you folks are going to love it here. We’ve got the finest dude ranch in the state right outside of town. They call it El Rancho Mañana, and it put us on the map. City people come for miles to ride the horses and camp out by the lake. And there’s snowmobile trails for the winter. Then there’s our school; it’s the absolute best. My husband’s on the board. Progressive and growing . . . that’s what Cold Spring is. That’ll be fourteen dollars and fifty-three cents.”

Karen handed over the money and took her change. She hurried out of the store, feeling as though she’d just gone through an inquisition. As she looked back through the plate glass window, she saw the two women shoppers hurry to the checkout stand. Janet Wilson gestured widely and the women bent closer to hear. Karen sighed and shook her head. By the end of the day everyone in town would know exactly what she’d said.

“Looks like a nice store,” Mike said conversationally as she got into the passenger side of the truck. “Did you get everything you needed?”

“Yes. And those women in the store got everything they needed, too.”

“Huh?” Mike turned to look at her quizzically.

“Oh . . . nothing.” Karen gave him a small grin. “I’m just not used to small towns, that’s all. But I’ll learn soon enough.”

“This one?” Leslie was talking to herself as she stuck her head into one of the bedrooms and made a face. It was much too big and boxlike to suit her. She had planned to pick a room close to her mother and Mike, but they just weren’t right. Now she was at the end of the hallway and there was only one room left.

Leslie’s face lit up as she opened the door. Perfect! There were two windows, one facing the rear, overlooking the greenhouse, and the other directly over the rose garden. The room was sunny and not too big, with a nice-sized closet on an inside wall. It was the room she had always wanted and it was hers.

Leslie stood in the center of the room and listened. She could hear the wind blowing outside the window, but that was the only sound in this whole huge house. She knew she could be happy here in this room, even though she’d be alone at this end of the hallway. She was a big girl now and she didn’t have to sleep right next to her mom and Mike. This room was tailor-made for her.

A soft rustling sound made Leslie stop and hold her breath. It sounded like someone walking right below her in the rose garden. She tiptoed to the window and looked out. Maybe Mom and Mike were home already.

“No one,” she whispered, frowning slightly. The rose garden was a wild tangle of green below her, weeds and roses intertwined from years of untended growth. She must have imagined the noise.

Leslie shivered and hugged her arms around her body. She was beginning to feel a little strange now, all alone in the house. They ought to be back from the store pretty soon. She hoped so.

She turned from the window and sighed. Somehow she didn’t want to put her things away right this minute. She wanted to do something else, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. The tower room? Yes—that’s what she wanted to do. She would go up in the cupola and look out over their new town. It would be all right to go up there if she was careful. Mom hadn’t told her not to. That was almost as good as permission.

The sunlight streamed through the high windows and dust particles hung in the golden light as Leslie crossed the wooden floor of the third story. The draped furniture was kind of scary in a way. She was glad it was daylight. The shrouded shapes might look frightening in the dark. The thought made her hurry a little faster up the steep stairs and she was panting as she opened the door to the cupola.

“I’m here!” Leslie announced, feeling silly at the thought of her own, make-believe fright. She stood in the very center of the small, square room and looked around her, thinking there was something about the size of this room that pleased her. It was almost like a dollhouse, perfect for her but really too small for her mother or Mike. It was a personal place, her own little corner in this mammoth house.

A smile came to her face as she drank it all in. The view was a complete circle, she could see the white church steeple she had noticed on the first day and the streets crossed in perfect squares of dark asphalt below. From her high vantage point she could see every roof in town: red, blue, yellow, and brown lids on tiny toy houses. The river sparkled to the east and the highway outside of town was a thin gray ribbon in the distance. Here she was above the trees and they looked like puffy green clouds below her.

A flash of light caught her eye and Leslie looked down into the rose garden. She had seen something sparkle there, but now it was gone. In its place was a shadow.

Leslie’s heart began to race and she blinked hard. The shadow looked almost like a boy standing small and dark beneath her. She heard the leaves rustle and the wind whispered past the windowpanes of the cupola.

Hurry, Leslie . . . find me.

It was just like the first day, when she had come up here alone. The wind had whispered then, too, and told her to come and live here. She’d been convinced that this house and no other house would do.

Her feet moved closer to the window until her face was pressed against the pane. The shadow seemed to wave in a greeting and then vanished like a cloud of smoke, dissipating in the air.

Leslie squinted, but she could see nothing now. The flash and the shadow were there no longer, but she stood watching until her eyes hurt from the bright sun. It was hushed and golden here and time seemed to stand still, waiting for something to happen.

“Leslie? Leslie . . . where are you?”

Their voices were faint, coming from downstairs. They were home! Mom and Mike were home and Leslie was suddenly eager to escape the small, windowed room. Something about the shadow had been vaguely unsettling and she shivered as she fled quickly down the steep steps. She wasn’t going to tell anyone about the shadow and the wind whispering to her. If she told, Mom would say she was being silly and Mike would laugh and explain it all somehow, but they wouldn’t really understand. No, she wouldn’t tell anyone that her imagination had run away with her again.