“Do we have to get philosophical?” Alaina groaned, rubbing two fingers to each throbbing temple. “I haven’t had my mandatory ten cups of coffee yet this morning.”
“Life is philosophy, honey,” Jayne explained patiently, her voice a slow Kentucky drawl that hadn’t altered one iota during the four years she’d spent in northern Indiana. The expression on her delicately sculpted features was almost comically earnest. That’s a cosmic reality.”
Alaina blinked. Finally she said, “We don’t have to worry about you. You’ll fit right in in California.”
Jayne smiled. “Why, thank you.”
Faith chuckled. “Give up, Alaina. You can’t win.”
Alaina winced and held her hands up as if to ward off the words. “Don’t say that. I abhor losing.”
“Anastasia,” Bryan declared loudly. He gave a decisive nod that set the tassel on his cap dancing. The word would have seemed straight out of left field to anyone who didn’t know Bryan Hennessy and the workings of his unconventional mind, but he knew his compatriots would understand immediately.
Anastasia was the small town on California’s rugged northern coast where the four of them had spent spring break. While watching the surf crash against the rocky shore, they had made fantasy plans to move there and pursue idealistic existences. Jayne’s dream had been to have her own farm. An inn with a view of the ocean had been Faith’s wish. They had somehow gotten Alaina to admit to a secret desire to paint. Bryan had wanted to play the role of local mad scientist.
“That’s right,” Faith said with a misty smile. “We’d all move to Anastasia.”
“And live happily ever after.” Alaina’s tone lacked the sarcasm she had no doubt intended. She sounded wistful instead.
“Even if we never end up there, it’s a nice dream,” Jayne said softly.
A nice dream. Something to hang on to, like their memories of Notre Dame and one another. Warm, golden images they could hold in a secret place in their hearts to be taken out from time to time when they were feeling lonely or blue.
Bryan set the timer on the camera once again, then jogged around to stand behind Faith. “Who knows?” he murmured, almost to himself. “Life is full of crossroads. You can never tell where a path might lead.”
And the camera buzzed and clicked, capturing the Fearsome Foursome-wishful smiles canting their mouths, dreams of the future and tears of parting shining in their eyes as a rainbow arched in the sky behind them-on film for all time.
ONE
Anastasia, California,
the present
“Great big head. Eyes of red. Don’t know how long he’s been dead. Has anybody seen my ghoul?” Bryan sang softly in his pleasant tenor voice as he worked. He paused as he adjusted the angle of the still camera and smiled broadly into the wide-angle lens, as if posing for a self-portrait. Then he pushed his old-fashioned gold-rimmed spectacles up on his nose, moved on to the next piece of equipment, and continued on with his song.
Ghosts. His life was filled with them. He searched for them and lived with them. Sometimes he wished he were one, he thought darkly, his enforced good mood slipping. The whole point of going back to work was to get away from depression. He was finding that returning to his former upbeat, optimistic self was as tough a job as any manual labor he’d ever done. Squaring his shoulders with determination, he double-checked his photographic equipment, the video camera on its mount above the carved oak door, the light stands set in their strategic positions around the wide foyer. He checked the still camera last.
Finally satisfied that everything was in place and in working order, he flipped off the hall light, turned, and trudged up the first short flight of stairs, his usually lithe step somewhat weary. He had been raised an athlete in a family of athletes. His brother J.J. was a former professional quarterback, his sister Marie was a world-class figure skater. Bryan himself was no slouch on a tennis court, but these days he felt every day of his thirty-six years, and then some.
With his back pressed to the mildewing wallpaper he slid down to sit on the dusty hardwood floor of the landing. He settled back into the shadows, not caring that the floor was cold or that a draft wafted down the stairwell. Those kinds of discomforts were not unusual in his line of work. He’d crouched in the damp, cramped holds of ships, waiting. He’d spent night after night in castles built long before the invention of central heat, waiting. A run-down Victorian mansion like this one was actually fairly cozy by comparison. Besides, it had been a long time since he’d paid any attention to physical discomfort. It was probably a victory of sorts that he had even noticed the draft. The girls would be proud of him.
It was funny how they had ended up there after all. The Fearsome Foursome had disbanded to chase four different rainbows, and still they had ended up in Anastasia, the place they had dreamed of and fantasized about years ago. Faith had her inn and her family. Jayne had her farm and a husband who may not have understood her precisely, but who accepted her nevertheless. And Alaina had finally found a place where she belonged, a family to love and who loved her in return.
Bryan had come to Anastasia to seek solace and sympathy, and his old friends had given it to him in ample measure… for a while. They had consoled him and given him a place to heal his broken heart. Then each had begun to hint in her own way that the time had come for him to start living again.
Faith had been gentle about it. That was her way, gentle, diplomatic, sympathetic, skills that had been polished to perfection by six years of motherhood. Alaina had been blunt. Jayne had been empathetic and philosophical.
It had been the girls’ collective idea that he investigate Addie Lindquist’s house for paranormal activity. Bryan had to smile. He had always been the one to look out for and look after them, but here they were, banding together to see to his emotional well-being. You couldn’t custom-order better friends.
He knew they were right. A man couldn’t go on mourning forever. Yet, there was a small measure of resentment inside him. There was a certain perverse comfort in grief. In clinging to his grief he was clinging to Serena. If he let the grief go, if he involved himself in work again and made new friends and stopped devoting all his time and energy to missing her, he would be letting her go. Her memory and the memory of the pain of losing her would dim, and a part of him didn’t want that. He had loved her so deeply, even holding on to painful memories was better than nothing at all.
So, he had reached a compromise with himself. He would go back to work, ease back into the routine, but deeper involvement with people would have to wait. For the time being he just didn’t have anything left to give.
Settling back more firmly into the corner, Bryan heaved a sigh. Soft gray moonlight spilled into the foyer from the narrow windows that flanked the door. All was still in the hall below. All was still inside him. He didn’t sense anything in the air around him except mold. So far, Drake House wasn’t exactly proving to be a hotbed of psychical activity. Of course, as out of touch as he’d been with his own gift, there might have been spiritualistic manifestations all around him, and he wouldn’t have noticed.
Addie Lindquist claimed there was a ghost in this house. Addie claimed she spoke with this ghost on a regular basis. Perhaps claimed wasn’t quite the right word. Declared was more like it. Addie was sixty-six, opinionated, and imperious. Of course she spoke with Wimsey, she had announced to Bryan, her blue eyes flashing with impatience. She couldn’t understand why other people thought it unusual that she spoke with Wimsey. She didn’t understand that she was the only one who had ever actually seen Wimsey.