The Seven Whistlers (6 page)

Dear.

Weird.

The Red Oak Inn was quiet. The breakfast room was almost
empty and the tables were slowly being bussed. Rose went through the room and
into the kitchen, where she found Jenny scraping the grill and cleaning up her
work space. Jenny was the best chef the inn had ever had. Everyone said so, and
Rose didn’t doubt it.

“Hey.”

Jenny turned around, a soft look of sympathy on her face. “Hey.
Don’t tell me you’re working today.”

“No. I just thought I should come in and talk to Max in
person. I’m scheduled for tomorrow. I can work that shift. But the wake’s on
Friday and the funeral Saturday, so —”

“He’ll be fine. I spoke to him already, and I talked to
Cheyenne as well. She’s going to take whatever shifts you need. I explained how
close you were to him.”

She didn’t have to say who
him
was.

The Red Oak Inn sat on the mountainside just outside of
town, with a perfect view of the picturesque little New England village spread
out below. The church steeple and the pond at the town center and the
old-fashioned railroad that ran right through downtown were like a postcard,
viewed from the front windows of the inn. But it was the best of both worlds. The
touristy village was a few minutes’ drive, but the inn fronted more than a
hundred acres of wooded hills that was part of their property, and there were
horse trails all through it.

Rose had worked with the horses for three years, and loved
them all. Cheyenne was the horse trainer, and the boss when it came to the
stables. But Rose had learned a lot from her about how to care for them, and
how to deal with the inn’s guests who paid to ride the trails.

“You going to go and see Trouble?” Jenny asked.

Despite her sadness, Rose smiled. Trouble was her favorite
of the horses; a persnickety mare with a love of Granny Smith apples that knew
no bounds. The temptation to go and see her, brush her down, the peace that
would bring was a strong lure. But the image of those dogs tearing at the stag
last night still lurked in her mind.

Jenny wiped her hands on her apron and came over to Rose.

“You need anything?”

Rose nodded. “A shotgun and a good shrink.”

“What?” Jenny said, a dark look crossing her features.

“No, no, the shotgun’s not for me. I loved Pappy, but I’m
not in a hurry to join him. Just, something weird happened last night, and I
can’t get it out of my head.”

For the second time that morning, she recounted the
terrible, bloody scene from the night before.

“My grandmother thinks it was a dream,” Rose said with a
short, humorless laugh. “It wasn’t any dream. She got all freaky when I talked
about the dogs, though. Kind of spaced and dropped her teacup, and she said
something about whistling. I thought she was having an aneurysm or something. I’m
still not sure she didn’t.”

Jenny was nodding even before she finished. “Yeah, yeah. The
Seven Whistlers. I’ve heard that one.”

Rose cocked her head. “What one?”

“It’s a story. A legend. Giant, black dogs. Hellhounds or
something. They bring bad luck, I guess. I mean, obviously it’s just a story. But
you know how your grandmother is about traditions and stuff —”

“Yeah, but not superstitious traditions. At least, not that
I ever knew.”

Jenny shrugged. “I’m just saying, that’s what your story
reminded me of, too. Maybe it freaked her out. Old people can get like that. And
with your grandfather just passing . . .”

She let the words trail off and shrugged again.

“I guess. But how come I don’t know the story and you do? I’ve
never heard that legend before.”

“It’s an old thing. Celtic, maybe. I don’t know. I’m sure I
only know it from my Aunt Arlene. You know how she is with all the folklore and
stuff. With her painting and her whole earth-mother thing, she’s the town
oddball. But she loves all that stuff, knows all the folklore, local and
otherwise. It’s her hobby.”

“I thought painting was her hobby.”

Jenny shook her head. “You’d think, right? But no, she makes
a living painting. I told you she sells some of her paintings as book covers.”

“Guess I never thought much about it. Never took her all
that seriously.”

“Nobody does. It’s her charm. She seems so dippy, but she’s
serious about her passions. Plus she’s sweet as anything, and she makes the
world’s best cookies.”

Rose thought about it, but only for a second. The memory of
the previous night was haunting her. Maybe it was good, keeping her mind off of
her grandfather’s death. Whatever it was, she couldn’t stop seeing it in her
mind, the dogs savaging that silver stag.

“Do you think she’d talk to me?”

“Aunt Arlene? Nobody likes visitors as much as she does. Go
on by, Rose. It’ll be a nice distraction for both of you. She’ll lighten your
heart, at least for a little while.”

“Maybe I will.”

But she wouldn’t. She’d entertained the notion, but now
discarded it. Rose wasn’t sure she wanted her heart lightened, and though she
was sure Jenny’s aunt was perfectly nice, the idea of just barging in on some
stranger just to talk about wild dogs and old legends seemed more than a little
crazy to her. No, she had to clean up the cabin if her parents were coming
home, and she had to work tomorrow, and then there’d be the wake and the
funeral.

What she’d seen was terrible. It had scared the hell out of
her.

But it was over, now.

A breeze blew across the lake, rippling the surface and
making the tall pines on the far shore sway. Arlene Murphy took a breath of
mountain air and held it, savoring the scent and the moment. She’d already
painted the water, but something had been lacking, and now she dabbed at the
white on her palette and began to add the little crests and streaks wrought by
the wind. Of the pines she’d only sketched in the trunks with lines done in an
uneven blend of brown, yellow, and black. Adding the effects of the wind to the
pines would be a simple matter.

Perfect. Her dissatisfaction with the piece evaporated. She’d
left room in the painting to add a naked, sensual naiad erupting from the
water, hair whipping back, spraying water. The figure thus far was merely a
silver silhouette, the suggestion of face and breast and belly.

She owed Random House a book cover for a fantasy novel
involving warrior monks. It would be a dark piece, full of malign intent. Arlene
would bring all of her skills to bear, put her own fears and anger into it. In
her mind’s eye, she could already see the finished painting — could
imagine how it would look on the cover of the book.

That would pay the bills.

But the publisher was going to have to wait just a while
longer. This piece had come to her the previous morning, while she was on her
daily hike along the shore of the lake. The exercise was invigorating, and with
her cholesterol, and the twenty pounds she could never seem to get rid of, she
needed it desperately. Arlene made it a rule never to start a painting the same
day that the image came to her. It needed to ferment a little before she could
put it on the canvas.

This one had frustrated her, until the wind had altered the
scene. Now it would be all she’d hoped — bright, exultant, wild, sexy,
and full of hope. Arlene had to do something to prepare for the descent into
the sinister that the warrior monk painting would require. Just thinking about
the image she wanted — a little bit of Frazetta’s
Death Dealer
,
but mixed with James Earle Fraser’s
End of the Trail
, the warrior monk
hunched down low over the horse, as though nearly dead, but turning to face the
unsuspecting reader with blood on his chin and on the blade of his axe — made
her shiver.

Arlene forcibly drove the image from her mind. She took a
breath and watched the lake again, waiting for the wind to refresh her spirit
and the picture in her head of what her painting would be. After several
moments, another gust came, and she breathed deeply once more. With all of the
folklore, myth, and legend she had read in her life, it was simple for her to
imagine herself as that naiad, bursting up from the water — made from
water herself. At fifty-three, and having never worried overmuch about such
things as hair and makeup, she knew most people would be amused to learn how
easy it was to fantasize like this.

Those people didn’t know what they were missing. And Arlene
knew that she would never have been able to explain to them. Certainly there
was darkness and cruelty and perversion in folklore and myth, but whenever
possible, she focused on the purity and beauty to be found there, the
joyfulness that existed in so many stories and figures of legend.

Arlene had spent her entire life holding her breath, feeling
the presence of something just beyond her peripheral vision, turning at a
sudden sound, hoping to catch sight of something wonderful. Magical. If she
lived out her days never having fulfilled that hope, she could think of worse
ways to have spent her time. Meanwhile, though, she brought her dreams to life
on canvas.

She had become part of the scenery herself in Kingsbury, up
on the mountain and by the lake, always with some painting in progress, clothes
dappled with color. The people of Kingsbury loved her because her fame was
twofold — partially due to her reputation as a fantasy artist, and
partially due to the hundreds of paintings she’d done of Kingsbury itself
— the town, the natural beauty around it. But they also treated her like
everyone’s favorite crazy aunt.

If not for her success as an artist, her love of folklore
and utter refusal to alter her behavior no matter who was in the room — she’d
met the President once, Bush number one, and neither one of them had come away
too impressed — Kingsbury would have made Arlene nothing more than some
odd, witchy-woman character out of a novel herself.

In a way, she thought she might have quite liked that.

Not enough to regret her success, however. To make a living
by painting — and not have to worry about anything else — was a
gift from whatever gods there might be.

Arlene thought there might be many. She hoped there were. The
idea made the world a much more interesting place.

Again, she looked up from her canvas, took in the panorama,
and set back to work. But even as she brought brush to canvas, a shiver went
through her, a little frisson of pleasure and fear combined. Her breath caught
in her throat. She stared at the intimate silver lines that made up the
beginnings of the naiad in her painting, and shuddered.

Something was near.

Could it be today? A little, self-deprecating laugh bubbled
up from her throat. She really ought to stop hoping so hard. The disappointment
always left her so blue. Really, she should ignore the feeling that prickled at
the back of her neck. She should not even look up until that sensation went
away.

“Who’m I kidding?” she whispered to herself.

Arlene looked past the canvas, out of the woods and across
the lake. She searched the surface, wondering if her painting had summoned
something forth. What a dream that would be, becoming a part of folklore
herself. But she saw nothing unusual on the lake.

Still, the prickle on her skin remained, that certainty that
just out of sight something hovered, waiting to be seen.

Motion on the far shore drew her eye.

The sun was bright on the water, making the darkness of the
shadows amongst the thick pines a deep, impenetrable charcoal. Within those
shadows, just beyond the tree line, something stood and stared at her. It would
have been impossible to see its eyes from this distance — this animal, or
man, or thing, whatever it was — but she
felt
its attention. It
had noticed her, perhaps sensing her awareness of its presence.

In the shadows, that figure was solid black — as tar,
as oil, as raven’s wings, all of that and darker — noticeable as a streak
of pure white paint against beige.

All her life, Arlene had been holding her breath waiting for
this moment — waiting to exhale — but instead, she inhaled sharply.
The black figure darted left along the lake shore, staying beyond the tree
line. It moved so swiftly she caught only glimpses of its perfect darkness as
it ran. So fast. Impossibly fast.

She watched for several long seconds until she could not see
it any longer. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. The wind came again, but the
mountain air had an earthy, slightly rotten odor now.

It’s coming this way,
she thought.
It’s seen me,
and now it’s coming.

Though she’d spent her life training herself to have faith
in extraordinary things, now Arlene tried to believe that it had been nothing
but a dog, or a wolf, or even a bear. It had been big enough to be a bear, she
thought.

So fast.

Nothing was that fast. The lake was vast. How long would it
take for the wolf to make it all the way around to this side? What a stupid
thought. No wolf could have caught her scent or even seen her from that
distance, all the way across the lake. She’d imagined the swift shadow. The
darkness of the warrior monk assignment must have been affecting her more than
she’d realized. Her senses were always open to the wondrous, and today, she’d
let the sight of a shadow get the better of her.

All of her denials sounded so reasonable in her mind.

The hell of it, though, was that she still felt it. The
thing had been there. And it was coming, tearing around the rim of the lake,
full of malevolent intent.

Arlene had spent all those years readying herself to accept
a moment such as this. Now that it had arrived, she could not pretend she did
not see, did not feel, did not know . . .

She left the easel and the paint, but took the wet canvas,
carrying it ahead of her like some enchanted shield as she hurried for her
Jeep. Once she’d loaded it into the back and climbed into the driver’s seat,
she hesitated a moment, looking doubtfully at the easel sitting there in the
midst of the trees.