months older.” She paused to make a tsk-tsk sound. “It was positively tragic—Dr. Fortner expired trying to save his little girl. It was said the companion set the fire—she was tried for murder and hanged, wasn’t she, Sister?”
Cecily nodded solemnly.
A chill moved through Elisabeth, despite the sunny warmth of that April afternoon, and she took a steadying sip from her coffee cup. Get a grip, Elisabeth, she thought, giving herself an inward shake. Whatever you heard, it wasn’t a dead child singing and playing the piano. Aunt Verity’s stories about this house were exactly that—stories.
“You look pale, my dear,” Cecily piped up.
The last thing Elisabeth needed was another person to worry about her. Her friends in Seattle were doing enough of that. “I’ll be teaching at the Pine River school this fall,” she announced, mainly to change the subject.
“Roberta taught at the old Cold Creek schoolhouse,” Cecily said proudly, pleased to find some common ground, “and I was the librarian in town. That was before we went traveling, of course.”
Before Elisabeth could make a response, someone slammed a pair of fists down hard on the keys of a piano.
This time, there was no possibility that the sound was imaginary. It reverberated through the house, and both the Buzbee sisters flinched.
Very slowly, Elisabeth set her coffee cup on the counter. “Excuse me,” she said when she was able to break the spell. The spinet in the parlor was still draped, and there was no sign of anyone.
“It’s the ghost,” said Cecily, who had followed Elisabeth from the kitchen, along with her sister. “After all this time, she’s still here. Well, I shouldn’t wonder.”
Elisabeth thought again of the stories Aunt Verity had told her and Rue, beside the fire on rainy nights. They’d been strange tales of appearances and disappearances and odd sounds, and Rue and Elisabeth had never passed them on because they were afraid their various parents would refuse to let them go on spending their summers with Verity. The thought of staying in their boarding schools year round had been unbearable.
“Ghost?” Elisabeth croaked.
Cecily was nodding. “Trista has never rested properly, poor child. And they say the doctor looks for her still. Folks have seen his buggy along the road, too.”
Elisabeth suppressed a shudder.
“Sister,” Roberta interceded somewhat sharply. “You’re upsetting Elisabeth.”
“I’m fine,” Elisabeth lied. “Just fine.”
“Maybe we’d better be going,” said Cecily, patting Elisabeth’s arm. “And don’t worry about poor little Trista. She’s quite harmless, you know.”
The moment the two women were gone, Elisabeth hurried to the old-fashioned black telephone on the entryway table and dialed Rue’s number in Chicago.
An answering machine picked up on the third ring. “Hi, there, whoever you are,” Rue’s voice said energetically. “I’m away on a special project, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone this time. If you’re planning to rob my condo, please be sure to take the couch. If not, leave your name and number and I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I can. Ciao, and don’t forget to wait for the beep.”
Elisabeth’s throat was tight; even though she’d known Rue was probably away, she’d hoped, by some miraculous accident, to catch her cousin between assignments. “Hi, Rue,” she said. “It’s Beth. I’ve moved into the house and—well—I’d just like to talk, that’s all. Could you call as soon as you get in?” Elisabeth recited the number and hung up.
She pushed up the sleeves of her shirt and started for the kitchen. Earlier, she’d seen cleaning supplies in the broom closet, and heaven knew, the place needed some attention.
Jonathan Fortner rubbed the aching muscles at his nape with one hand as he walked wearily through the darkness toward the lighted house. His medical bag seemed heavier than usual as he mounted the back steps and opened the door.
The spacious kitchen was empty, though a lantern glowed in the center of the red-and-white-checked tablecloth.
Jonathan set his bag on a shelf beside the door, hung up his hat, shrugged out of his suitcoat and loosened his string tie. Sheer loneliness ached in his middle as he crossed the room to the stove with its highly polished chrome.
His dinner was congealing in the warming oven, as usual. Jonathan unfastened his cuff links, dropped them into the pocket of his trousers and rolled up his sleeves. Then, taking a kettle from the stove, he poured hot water into a basin, added two dippers of cold from the bucket beside the sink and began scrubbing his hands with strong yellow soap.
“Papa?”
He turned with a weary smile to see Trista standing at the bottom of the rear stairway, wearing her nightgown. “Hello, Punkin,” he said. A frown furrowed his brow. “Ellen’s here, isn’t she? You haven’t been home alone all this time?”
Trista resembled him instead of Barbara, with her dark hair and gray eyes, and it was a mercy not to be reminded of his wife every time he looked at his daughter.
“Ellen had to go home after supper,” Trista said, drawing back a chair and joining Jonathan at the table as he sat down to eat. “Her brother Billy came to get her. Said the cows got out.”
Jonathan’s jawline tightened momentarily. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told that girl…”
Trista laughed and reached out to cover his hand with her own. “I’m big enough to be alone for a few hours, Papa,” she said.
Jonathan dragged his fork through the lumpy mashed potatoes on his plate and sighed. “You’re eight years old,” he reminded her.
“Maggie Simpkins is eight, too, and she cooks for her father and all her brothers.”
“And she’s more like an old woman than a child,” Jonathan said quietly. It seemed he saw elderly children every day, though God knew things were better here in Pine River than in the cities. “You just leave the housekeeping to Ellen and concentrate on being a little girl. You’ll be a woman soon enough.”
Trista looked pointedly at the scorched, shriveled food on her father’s plate. “If you want to go on eating that awful stuff, it’s your choice.” She sighed, set her elbows on the table’s edge and cupped her chin in her palms. “Maybe you should get married again, Papa.”
Jonathan gave up on his dinner and pushed the plate away. Just the suggestion filled him with loneliness—and fear. “And maybe you should get back to bed,” he said brusquely, avoiding Trista’s eyes while he took his watch from his vest pocket and frowned at the time. “It’s late.”
His daughter sighed again, collected his plate and scraped the contents into the scrap pan for the neighbor’s pigs. “Is it because you still love Mama that you don’t want to get another wife?” Trista inquired.
Jonathan went to the stove for a mug of Ellen’s coffee, which had all the pungency of paint solvent. There were a lot of things he hadn’t told Trista about her mother, and one of them was that there had never really
