The roof door gaped open, leaving a dark cavity in the light gray building. The first and second stories had doors that lined up beneath the roof entrance, but they were closed, as was a side door. All the windows were shuttered.
“Where’s the waterwheel?” I asked.
“Around the side.”
I got out of the Jeep.
“Megan? Don’t go inside.”
“I’ll be back.”
A moment later he trudged behind me to the bank of a stream that ran toward the basement wall of the mill. The large, motionless wheel next to the wall looked like the rusty paddle wheel of a steamboat.
“Not exactly rushing water,” I observed.
“The mill works from a pond,” Matt explained, pointing toward a rise in ground on the other side of the road. “When the gates are opened, the water comes in over the top of the wheel, using gravity to turn it.”
I nodded, then gazed up again at the dark entrance into the roof. “Have you ever seen a ghost here?”
“There is no ghost,” he replied.
“This is where Avril came, the day she died.”
He looked at me surprised. “How do you know that?”
“Mrs. Riley told me. She said Avril came with our grandfather. Thomas was Grandmother’s boyfriend first, then Avril stole him from her. This was Thomas and Avril’s secret meeting place.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Do you have any reason not to?” I asked.
“Mrs. Riley is a gossip and she’s always been out to get our family.”
“That’s a pretty flimsy reason.”
“We’ve spent enough time here,” he told me abruptly, then started toward the Jeep.
I caught up with him. “Mrs. Riley said-”
“I think it’d be a good idea,” he interrupted, “if you, Lydia Riley, and Grandmother started living in the present.”
“Not knowing what happened in the past can keep you from living fully in the present.”
“It’s not relevant,” he argued, and opened the door on my side of the Jeep. “Get in.”
“No.”
He reached for my arm.
I pulled back, but he held on, so tightly I winced. “You’re hurting me!”
He let go.
“I have some more looking to do.”
Matt leaned against the Jeep and said nothing.
I headed around the other side of the mill. As the land sloped down to the water the ground beneath my feet became soft and claylike, perhaps flooded by the creek, which was about twenty feet away. The mill looked tall from the creek side, four stories of it towering above me, the basement’s brick wall exposed. At the base of the building was a Dutch door, its lower half open. It was an inviting mouse hole-and people hole.
I walked over to the double door and pushed on the top half. It didn’t budge. I knelt and crawled through the bottom, tumbling into the darkness head-first-there were two steps down on the inside. The floor was wet, covered with gross stuff. Ahead of me I could see nothing but vague shapes.
Standing up, I turned toward the door and ran my hands over the top portion until I felt a bolt. After several tries, I slid it back and pulled open the upper half of the door, letting in more light.
When I turned to face the basement again, I gasped. At the far end of the long room were wheels-big gears-one interlocking with the next, the largest as tall as 1.1 was in the basement of my dream, where I had hidden from Matt. I sank down on the doorstep, afraid to cross to the other side, afraid to get close to those wheels.
How had I come to dream of this place? I doubted I was reading the images of my mother’s mind. The voice, the dreams, awakening in Avril’s room, the movement of objects to where Avril would expect them-it was Avril I was connecting with.
My skin felt cold and clammy. I stood up quickly. “Leave me alone,” I said, stumbling out of the entrance. “Just leave me alone!”
Matt, who had been hovering a short distance away, heard me. He stepped back, turned abruptly, and strode up the hill to his Jeep.
Neither of us spoke on the way home. I knew Matt thought that I was telling him to leave me alone, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. He wouldn’t believe I had been talking to a ghost.
He parked in front of the house and got out of the Jeep without glancing at me. Following him up the porch steps, I noticed the clay and mud caked on the thick rubber soles of his Nikes.
“Our shoes are a mess,” I said, sitting down on a bench to remove mine. He checked his, then sat opposite me. By the time he started unlacing his shoes, mine were off and I was carrying them into the house.
Grandmother met me, coming through the door from the back wing. “You’re late.”
“For dinner?” I glanced up at the landing clock. It wasn’t five yet.
She stared at my shoes. “What were you doing after work?”
“Hanging out.”
Matt came in the door and Grandmother’s eyes darted to his shoes. Color rose in her cheeks. “Where have you been?”
Though the question was fired at him, I answered, since the trip had been my idea. “To the mill.”
“Why did you take her there?” Grandmother demanded, still focusing on Matt.
I saw the wary look on his face. “1 asked him to,” I said.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“Megan wanted to see the place,” Matt replied, “and I thought it’d be safer if I went with her.”
“Megan wanted to see the place,” Grandmother mimicked.
“I did,” I said. “I was curious.”
Grandmother took a step toward me. “I told you the day you came that I expected you to respect my privacy. Didn’t I?”
I nodded silently.
“I’m speaking to you now. Answer me aloud!”
“Yes, Grandmother.” I couldn’t snap at her. If I was feeling haunted by Avril’s presence, I could only imagine how she felt.
“So now you’re going to be sweet and soft-spoken,” she observed, her lips curling. “Sweet and sneaky.”
“Ease up, Grandmother,” Matt said. “Did you ever tell Megan not to go to the mill?”
“Are you defending her?”
“All I’m saying is you’re getting all worked up over a little visit to the mill,” he replied.
“And Lydia Riley,” she added.
I looked at Grandmother, surprised. “Who told you that?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you promise not to speak to her again.”
“Why?”
“Don’t talk back to me!” Her voice was shrill.
I sat down on the steps, hoping to make this a conversation rather than an irrational shouting match. “I wasn’t talking back,” I explained. “I was just wondering-”
“You’re living in my house, you’ll follow my rules.”
I bit my lip, then nodded.
Matt rested a hand on her arm. “Grandmother, be fair.
Megan was just asking-” She turned on him. “I don’t have to explain my rules to anyone, including you, Matt.” Her jaw began to shake. “I can’t trust you anymore. Not since she’s come.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You’re loyal to her now.”
He stared at Grandmother. It was as if he had to be on her side, or my side, and wasn’t allowed to care about both of us at the same time.
“Get a hold of yourself,” he said, and walked out the back door of the hall.
Grandmother stood in front of me, her head held high, then strode into the library and shut the door behind her.
I remained sitting on the steps, bewildered by her jealous suspicions. Some wounds heal, others fester, Mrs. Riley had said. Maybe Grandmother had never really healed from her first betrayal. Matt was the most significant person in her life now, and she the most consistent person in his. I wondered if she saw me as someone like Avril, putting myself between them. Maybe Grandmother was afraid of losing out again.