No, the spoiling came from Hester herself. A shadow crossed my plate, and I looked up into Hester’s cinnamon-and-apples smile. “Dani,” she started, wiping her hands on her apron, “when you’re finished, would you mind running some things up to Anya? I was going to ask Peyton, but I think she’d respond better to a woman.”
Anya was Anya Kelly, bereaved mother and Herb Kelly’s grieving wife. I didn’t fancy a trip to the Mansions, but I couldn’t sit there filling my stomach with Hester’s charity while I denied it to a woman who’d just lost her children. So I swallowed my pride along with Hester’s good bread. “’Course I will, Hester. Whatever you need.”
Hester thanked me and left a bag of Styrofoam takeout boxes on the table. Before I left, Peyton pulled me aside and pressed a small prickly package into my hand. No larger than a plum, it was wrapped in tattered sailcloth to cushion something that felt like the spines of a sea urchin. “That’s for Áine,” he said, giving her name a lilt I couldn’t identify. “Tell her there’s mercy in it if she looks.”
And that’s how I ended up on the doorstep of the most spirit-plagued house in all of Summerland.
My house was on the way, so I decided to finish the errand in my old VW bus. Walking through the gates to the Mansions on foot always made me feel like less of a person, and if I was going to be anywhere near the Harris kid, I wanted some metal around me.
By the time I reached Anya’s house, a dense afternoon fog had cloaked the town in a silent grey shroud. Anya’s doorbell bonged deep in the bowels of the house, and the sound raised gooseflesh along my arms. Seconds ticked by while the sticky-sweet smell of Hester’s bread pudding wafted up from the bag in my arms.
I juggled the takeout boxes and tried to ring the bell with my elbow, bumping the door in the process. There was a soft click and the door slid open. The hair on the back of my arms stood rigid with fear.
“Mrs. Kelly?” I called. “Hello?”
Silence.
I nudged the door open a few more inches. A distant slithering met my ears, like whispers in the dark. Spirits.
I pushed the door all the way open, stepped over the threshold and raised my voice. “Anya? It’s Dani. Hester sent me with some things from the Box.” The sound echoed off the foyer’s marble tile.
An antique hall table made of a single weathered plank stood sentry against the left wall. On it, golden apples nestled in a bowl of silver branches, and Anya smiled out from a cut glass picture frame. She stood laughing on the deck of the Wave Sweeper, her father’s fishing trawler, with the sea wind whipping hair black as a raven’s wing across her face.
She looked so vibrant, so alive. With time, I hoped she might look so again—if the spirits didn’t get her first.
I left Hester’s offering on the hall table and moved deeper into the house, calling Anya’s name as I went. A wave of destruction had crashed through Anya’s kitchen. Cupboard doors listed open, and drawers had been turned out on the floor. An oak knife block lay on its side on an island of Connemara marble, blades and handles tangled like driftwood on the floor below. Spirits hissed, black and writhing, among the wreckage.
I ran to the sink and threw open the window, then did the same with the patio doors. “Shoo! Out!” I shouted.
The spirits snaked around my wrists and ankles, slinking upward toward my heart. They flickered from black to silver and back again, and their sibilant hisses sank into my ears. They showed me visions of Anya’s long, dark hair waving like kelp fronds as she sank beneath the sea, and my own poor home, a shabby hovel next to Anya’s gold and marble palace. All I had to do was wait, they whispered, and everything around me was mine for the taking.
“You can’t have me,” I whispered back. “Or Anya, either.” The spirits reared back to strike, hissed in frustration, then turned and flowed one by one out the open windows.
A new hissing reached my ears, the sound of water through pipes. Someone was running water deeper in the house. It had to be Anya, so I sprinted toward the sound.
Her bedroom was a mirror of the kitchen, with bedside tables overturned and an aquamarine silk comforter tumbling off the edge of the bed like waves over a seawall. Spirits filled the room until I waded knee-deep among them, and cries like hungry gulls echoed off the walls.
The bathroom door was locked against me. Water thundered into the tub on the other side. Anya gave a ragged sob, and I heard a silvery sound like ice cubes tinkling against crystal. Banshee wails sounded in my ears, and teeth sharp as needles pricked at my face and arms.
I pounded on the door and yelled Anya’s name. When she didn’t answer, I kicked the door in.
She cowered near the vanity with her back against the wall. Her raven hair had been cut short in the latest pixie style, and her red-rimmed eyes were dark hollows against her alabaster cheeks. She wore a jade-green robe embroidered with apple blossoms, and silk slippers to match. One hand gripped a crystal tumbler filled with amber liquid, and the other pushed against the vanity as if she’d risen to run but found herself trapped. The room smelled of steam, peat and alcohol.
A low table of brass and glass sat next to the rapidly filling tub. A bottle of Jameson’s stood upon it, next to a Waterford decanter with the stopper out and a squat brown pill bottle filled with yellow capsules. The spirits breathed sighs of watery death.
I looked at Anya again. She was young, rich, beautiful—everything I wasn’t. Spirits rose up between us with teeth like knives and eyes black as night. A red rage filled my vision, and I bent toward the brass table.
Anya’s hands shook. The soft clink of ice made me lift my head. She trembled against the wall, spirits swarming over her body until all I could see was her pale, frightened face with eyes like a green summer meadow. The spirits’ shrieks ripped though my soul like a razor through canvas.
Anya slid down the wall until her head touched her knees. The tumbler slipped from her fingers and thudded on the thick carpet. There she was, slender, beautiful, defenseless … and terrified.
In that moment, I knew it was Peyton, not Hester, who’d sent me here. When Anya’s haunted eyes met mine, the last recesses of my heart wrenched themselves open. I no longer cared about marble floors or gilt-edged mirrors, about silks and crystal I’d never be able to afford. I cared only that Anya was a woman adrift, bereft and grieving on the swells of life just as I had been nearly twenty years before when I’d washed up on the Summerland shore, destitute and pregnant by a man I hadn’t known was married. Peyton’s kindness had saved me then, and he must have known that mine could save Anya now.
I grabbed the table and hurled it through the bathroom window. The Waterford decanter shattered on the sill, and a rainbow of shards splattered into the steaming water.
I fell against the lip of the tub, one arm wet to the shoulder where I’d caught myself against the bottom. Broken crystal sliced my palm, and a thin smear of my blood swirled over the white porcelain.
The spirits took form for the briefest instant, showing me a flash of slender hands, ethereal faces and flowing robes of algae and water weeds. Their voices sang like wind howling over the moors, then they streamed out the broken window on a rush of moist air.
A gentle breeze touched my face, and Anya looked at me with tear-streaked eyes. “Are they gone?”
“Yes, Anya, they’re gone.” I crawled over to her, took her cold hands in mine and said the same words Peyton had said to me the night he’d found me standing on the cliffs alone, wrestling with the final step before oblivion. “Don’t be afraid of them. They’re not evil, and they can’t hurt you if your heart is pure. All they can do is magnify what’s already there. You have a choice in front of you, one you should make with a clear head and an open heart. Don’t let despair make it for you.” Anya gave the tiniest of nods, and the faintest light of hope returned to her eyes.
“Let’s get you out of here,” I said. “You can stay at my p
lace until the trial blows over.” My son Percy, a fine young man now, was off to college and other adventures, so Anya could have his room until her life found a new place to settle.
She dressed quickly in jeans and a loose white Oxford shirt, fashionable even in her grief. A few minutes later she climbed into the back of my VW bus to hide among the drop cloths and painting supplies until we made it past the reporters.
I tucked Peyton’s gift into her hands and told her, “This is from Peyton. He said there was mercy in it if you look.”
Her brows drew together as she peeled back the sailcloth wrapping, but I let her ponder the meaning alone under her canvas veil.
Somehow, I knew Peyton would approve.
I’d intended to take her back to my house and get her settled before I reported back to Hester, but we never made it past the Box. A pale light suffused the Box’s windows with an eerie green glow that lit the fog outside. Black shapes rippled against the glass in an orgy of malice and spite. I stomped the brakes, yelled to Anya to hold on, and screeched into a parking space. I jumped out of the van and left it running while I ran around to the back entrance.
Peyton stood like an avenging god framed against the back door of the Box. His hands gripped the doorframe as if sheer will could contain whatever lurked within, and his eyes were riveted on the scene inside. I peeked past him, through the busy kitchen and into the dining area where a sleek flat-screen television was broadcasting the Kelly trial. Every soul in The Saltbox stood transfixed.
In a sterile Los Angeles courtroom, Herb Kelly stood for sentencing, found guilty of strangling his children in their beds. His lion’s mane of yellow hair fell greasy and unkempt on his shoulders. He tore at his orange jumpsuit as if it burned him and rattled his shackles in a crazed, ranting fury. “Snakes!” he screamed. “They were snakes!” Froth spattered from his lips, and he fell to his knees retching bile onto the courtroom floor.
I turned my face away. “Who brought that thing in here?” I whispered.
“Reesie did,” said Peyton softly. “It came from Aames’ place.” And there she stood with an arm draped over the television, her pockmarked skin twitching and her eyes aglow with malice. A blackness glowed in her chest, an oily, transparent aura that throbbed outward with every beat of her heart. And for the first time, I saw with my own eyes what Peyton had tried to explain—spirits didn’t bring evil; they magnified it.
A scraping and scratching sound filled the walls and rose up from the floors, the sound of angry spirits reveling in Reesie’s hatred, drinking it in and feeding it back to her until her body could hold no more.
Dora cowered in a corner near the cash register with a small lacquered box clutched to her chest, her fingers fumbling at the lid. Hester held the younger woman in her arms, fighting to keep the little box closed. I cowered with them, helpless to stop what was coming.
Black tendrils of hate flowed in through the walls and up through the floor, stream upon stream of shrieking spirits drunk with malevolence. They rushed into Reesie, entwining around her body in a macabre lovers’ dance. The tendrils flowed in through her nose and mouth until they found the darkness in her heart. The evil met its twin and blossomed, bursting from her chest in an ink-black cloud of death.
The patrons in the Box stood like clay figures, their eyes blank and their souls unguarded. The blackness reached for them, searching their hearts for jealousy, resentment, petty disagreements that could be nursed into hatred.
A gust of wind blew in through the kitchen, heavy with the smell of rain. The lights flickered once and went out. Dora’s photocopied menus fluttered like sailcloth against the windows.
Peyton’s visage darkened. His voice rumbled like storm clouds lashed by the wind, and his eyes shone blue with St. Elmo’s fire. He drew in a massive breath, and a gale howled through the Box, sharp with the scent of salt and sea. His presence magnified until the Box could no longer contain him.
He reached for Reesie, his massive hands trailing ghostly masts and torn rigging in their wake. The blue light of righteous wrath roared forth from his mouth and eyes. His hand curled like a breaking wave, and the shadow of a trident flashed over Reesie’s face.
The ocean answered Peyton’s call, and a churning wall of sea water rose behind him.
Reesie’s head snapped up. The spirits joined their voices to hers, and the sound groaned up from the bowels of the earth. “I see you, Earth-shaker!”
Peyton hammered his barnacle-covered fist into the floorboards at Reesie’s feet, and the towering green sea crashed in to claim her.
I braced myself for a death that never came.
The wave carried the spirits away like black, wind-driven spray. And when they had gone, Reesie’s broken body sprawled on the floorboards, her eyes burned out by the black hatred in her soul.
Peyton diminished. He sagged to his knees beside Reesie, his shoulders stooped and his breathing ragged. I looked about for signs of the ocean’s fury, and saw nothing but the grey patter of rain against the Box’s ancient windows.
Hester and Dora pushed themselves up from the floor. The clay figures remembered they were human, and the clatter of dishes and silver resumed. What the patrons had seen, I could not say.
Dora tucked the little black box back on a shelf above the counter, and Hester called over to the Fire Station to report that Reesie had suffered an overdose.
I helped Peyton stand, bearing him up under one shoulder while he limped toward his truck with painful breaths. He eased himself down onto the back bumper and turned his face to the cleansing rain and the darkened skies.
His voice shook. “I couldn’t save her, Danaë. Took all I had to contain what she’d loosed.” Raindrops splattered beside us, making dark circles on the dusty pavement. I didn’t know what to say, but Peyton did, and his words surprised me.
“Got somethin’ for you.” Though his hands trembled, he fished in his pockets until he found what he sought. Unlike his other gifts, this one was folded in cellophane paper, and I couldn’t see what was inside.
“This is the last one,” he said, closing my fingers around the packet. “Don’t open it until you’re back in the Sea Center. Promise me that, Danaë.” His face and eyes had gone fish-belly grey, and his hair fluttered in the wind from the coming storm. I shivered, but those eyes of his held me fast until I gave my word.
Peyton laid his coat over my shoulders, then he glanced at Anya sitting wide-eyed in the driver’s seat of my bus. “I knew she’d take to you,” he said. He stared past me, peering out over the rain-dark sea. “I’ve spent a lot of years watchin’ after this town. She’s a lost soul, Danaë. Look after her, like you did me.”
I tucked the packet into my pocket. “I will,” I promised. “You sure you’re okay?”
Peyton waved me away and thrust a knobby finger down the road toward the Sea Center. “Go finish it.”
I would have, but Anya was still in my bus, staring past the Box, up the road that led to the Mansions. She threw the bus into gear and peeled out of the parking lot, squealing the tires on the way out.
Peyton and I looked up toward the Mansions’ gates. Ike’s fiery red Mustang rounded the corner and sped down the hill, catching air at each successive terrace. A thin guard rail marked the edge of the cliff at the bottom of the hill, and water ponded on the pavement.
Thunder rumbled overhead. As his car raced closer, we saw black spirits pressed against the windshield, harpies and banshees tearing at Ike in frustration after being denied other prey.
Anya gunned the engine, and my van lurched into the Mustang’s path, forming a fragile tin wall between his car and the long fall into the ocean below.
Anya kicked open the door and threw herself clear, tearing her white shirt as she rolled to a stop in the muddy gutter.
I sprinted for the corner. Anya fumbled Peyton’s gift out of her pocket, and plucked at the wrapp
ing.
Lightning cracked, and a blue-white flash lit the street under the blackened sky. Ike’s Mustang plowed into my doomed van, crushing it like an egg. His body exploded through the windshield in a shower of glass, arms spread-eagled against the storm.
If the accident itself hadn’t killed him, the fall to earth would.
Anya raised the shell aloft, her face transfixed with terror. The spines bit into her palm, and thin rivulets of blood trickled down her arm. Her voice was a whisper and a shout. “Mercy!” she cried.
I could see pain in her eyes, a plea that no other mother should suffer through the loss of a child.
The spirits took form overhead, their faces shining in silver glory, and their eyes locked on Anya. “Mercy,” she whispered.
Slender silver hands reached for Ike Harris and held him suspended in the air. Gentle fingers smoothed his hair and shimmering lips kissed away his hurts. They lowered him to the ground at Anya’s side. She threw her arms around the boy, holding him to her chest in the driving rain.
I raced to them and laid my hand on her shoulder. “Is he hurt? Are you okay?”
Anya shielded Ike’s face from the rain. “He’ll be alright, Danaë.” She looked up at me with her sea-green eyes. “And so will I. Go paint.”
Cold rain soaked me to the skin, but I made my way to the Sea Center with Peyton’s cellophane package warm in my hands. I unwrapped paper thinner than tissue to find two elongated mussel shells, still attached like butterfly wings at the rounded tips. Layer upon layer of pearlescent nacre gleamed inside, a tapestry of shimmering blues, deep purples and delicate greens.
I took out my paints and brushes, and I mixed the colors under watchful silver eyes until I could feel a soul take shape under my brush. A soft thrumming filled the air like the sound of a distant flute or wind over the mouth of a cave.
When I stepped back, my mural was finished. Eyes of Poseidon’s blue looked out at me from a face that moved earth and desolate sea.