Several minutes later, Dad came to a stop on a high rise of land overlooking fields of snow. The ocean glimmered on the horizon, spangled with moonlight. “There it is,” he said. “Underhill Inn.”
Below us, a three-story stone building stood by itself at the end of a long driveway. Smoke rose from double chimneys. In each window a candle glowed, the only lights in the surrounding darkness.
“An innkeeper’s tradition,” Dad explained. “Candles to guide the weary traveler—not that many come this way in the winter.”
On a summer day with flowers blooming and trees in leaf, I supposed the inn would be a pretty place, quaint and welcoming. But on a moonlit January night it had a grim, forbidding appearance. Despite the warm air from the car’s heater, I shivered. No wonder Gina said it was haunted. If I were a stranger looking for a place to stay I’d drive on, hoping to find a nice modern motel in the next town.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Dad asked fondly. “Susan and I are so happy here. It’s the sort of home we’ve always wanted.”
“It’s very picturesque,” I said, choosing my words carefully.
“Yes,” Dad said, “that’s just what our guests say.” Shifting into second gear, he drove slowly downhill toward the inn. A woman stood on the stone steps, waving to us. At her side was a little boy. The moment the car stopped, he ran to meet us.
“Daddy! Daddy!” he shouted. “Did you bring her?”
Dad gestured to me. “Todd, this is Cynda. Cynda, this is Todd.”
My half brother gave me a quick, shy smile. When Dad picked him up for a kiss, I felt the sharp bite of jealousy. I turned away, only to stumble into Susan’s outstretched arms. Giving me a hug, she led me into a spacious entry hall.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she began. “You can’t believe how lonesome I’ve been for company this winter. Todd’s marvelous, but he’s not much of a conversationalist yet.”
Despite the warmth of her greeting, I hung back, tense and unsure of myself. Susan was young, no more than twenty-seven or -eight, and prettier than the pictures I’d seen. As rosy as I was pale, she wore her thick, tawny hair pulled back in a long, loose braid, emphasizing her cheekbones and short, straight nose.
She was also just pregnant enough to show—a fact my father had neglected to mention.
Still holding Todd, Dad put one arm around Susan. “We’d have been here sooner,” he said, “but we stopped at the diner for a quick break. I hope you weren’t worried, Susie.”
After giving Dad a kiss to show she forgave him, Susan took my jacket and pointed out the bathroom. “If I know Jeff, you probably drank a zillion cups of coffee.”
I locked the door and leaned against it, grateful for an opportunity to be alone for a few minutes. I needed a chance to relax, gather my thoughts, get used to being in a strange place with people I didn’t know.
Susan said something, and Dad laughed. I felt like an eavesdropper hiding in the bathroom. A spy, an outsider. A loud banging on the door startled me. “What are you doing in there?” Todd shouted. “There’s cake and cookies and all kinds of good stuff. Nobody can have any till you come out!”
“Don’t be rude, Todd,” Susan said sharply. “Cynda will join us when she’s ready.”
Mortified, I opened the door and tried to return Todd’s smile.
“This way,” he said, taking my hand and leading me into the living room.
A fire crackled on the hearth. Instead of turning on the lamps, Susan had lit dozens of candles; they glowed on the ornately carved wood mantel, on tables laden with books and pottery, and in deep window recesses where the flames danced in the small panes, multiplied many times over.
In the dim light, I made out two walls of floor-to-ceiling bookcases, framed paintings and photographs, and a small winged statue on a pedestal. In one corner a moon-faced grandfather’s clock ticked solemnly. In another, a black carousel horse threw back its head in a toothy grin.
I took a seat near the fire in an old armchair shaped by generations of backs. Never had I seen a room as cozy and intimate as this. Mom and Steve were minimalists when it came to interior decoration. We lived in a modern glass box, austere and strictly functional. Nothing to catch dust. At Underhill, dust seemed to be part of the decor.
Above the snap and pop of the fire, the wind howled, prowling around the inn, snooping at the windows and whining at the door. The candle flames quivered in the draft, melting the wax into strange shapes.
“You must think your father has brought you to the back of the north wind.” Susan smiled at me over the rim of her teacup. “Trust me, everything will look better in the morning.”
While his mother talked, Todd snuggled into the chair beside me. “Will you read me a story, Cynda? Not a scary one, I get bad dreams.”
Susan shook her head. “Not tonight, Todd. It’s already way past your bedtime. You stayed up late to see Cynda, remember?”
Todd ignored his mother. “Do you ever have bad dreams, Cynda?”
“Sometimes,” I said, suddenly aware of the darkness beyond the candlelight, the empty rooms, the creaking floors.
“My dreams are about wolves,” Todd whispered. “I wake up and I think a wolf is under my bed or in the closet. I make Daddy and Mommy look in all the dark places to make sure he isn’t hiding somewhere, waiting to eat me up. They don’t believe he’s real, but—”
“Now, Todd,” Dad interrupted, “let’s not get started on wolves. You’ll keep us up all night.”
Susan took his hand. “Time for bed, Toddy.”
He looked at his mother pleadingly. “No, not yet, Mommy. I want to talk to Cynda.”
Dad shook his head. “Cynda’s tired and so are you, Todd. You can talk tomorrow.”
Todd began to cry, further proof he was tired, Dad said. Susan led him upstairs, but he protested every step of the way. From somewhere above, I heard him wailing about the wolf.
Dad sighed. “You were just like him when you were five. Imagining monsters in the closet, witches under your bed, wolves behind the door. You grew out of it, and I’m sure Todd will too. Hopefully before he turns sixteen.”
I leaned my head against the back of the chair, glad Dad remembered my childhood. Sometimes the years he’d lived with Mom and me seemed as unreal as a good dream you can’t quite recall in the morning.
Dad caught me yawning. Picking up my suitcases, he led me down the hall, past the dining room and the kitchen, all the way to the back of the inn.
“Susan, Todd, and I sleep on the third floor,” he said. “The second floor’s for guests—six rooms, empty at the moment and likely to stay that way till spring.”
He opened a heavy wooden door and stood back to let me enter first. “This is the oldest part of the inn. It was originally the kitchen, but when we renovated we made it into a big bedroom with a private bath. Susan and I thought you’d enjoy having the best Underhill has to offer.”
I walked around the room—my room, the one Dad had chosen for me. The floor was brick and slightly uneven. Thick wool carpets, woven in intricate patterns, covered most of it. Overhead, the rough-hewn rafters were black with age. Among the furnishings were a table and chair, a massive wardrobe carved with strange animal faces and foliage, a matching chest, and a high, canopied bed.
As in the living room, the walls were lined with shelves of books. At one end was a fireplace tall enough to walk into. Electric candles shone in the windows, and a space heater glowed on the hearth.
Dad gestured at the big black cat sleeping on the bed. “If you don’t want Ebony to stay, I’ll take him with me.”
At the sound of his name, Ebony opened his eyes a slit, glanced at me, twitched his tail idly, and went back to sleep.
I leaned over the bed to stroke him. “He’s beautiful,” I said quickly. “He can sleep here every single night.”
Dad showed me how the heater worked, demonstrated the high-tech shower in the bathroom, and finally gave me a hug and a good-night kiss. “It’s nice to ha
ve you here, Cynda,” he said. “Sleep well.”
After he left, the room didn’t seem quite as cozy. To keep from thinking scary thoughts, I busied myself unpacking. It made me feel more at home to see my shampoo and conditioner in the shower caddy, my hair dryer, brush, and comb on the shelf above the washbasin, my soap in the soap dish.
After I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth, I hung my clothes in the closet and put my underwear in the tall chest near the bed. Last of all, I made room on the nightstand for a picture of Mom.
Satisfied the room was now truly mine, I undressed quickly and pulled on my warmest nightgown. Safe in bed, I turned off the lamp, leaving the electric candles burning on the windowsill. It was strange how the flick of a switch altered things. Shadows ate up the furniture and filled the corners. The candles’ dim light illuminated a picture here, a mirror there. The faces carved on the wardrobe looked more grotesque, even sinister.
Outside the wind continued to howl. A branch rapped the glass over and over again, tappity tappity tappity. Far away, an owl hooted once, twice, three times.
I reached for Ebony and drew him closer. He nestled into the curve of my body and began to purr. Despite the eerie creaks and groans of the old building, I fell asleep.
3
Todd woke me in the morning, leaping on the bed and shouting, “Cynda, Cynda, get up! Daddy made pancakes ’specially for you.”
I burrowed under the covers, but Todd refused to let me sleep. He continued to jump up and down, shouting about pancakes, bouncing so hard the bed shook. A blue blanket he’d tied around his shoulders ballooned like a cape. His face was flushed, his eyes shone. “You have to do what Captain Jupiter says!”
I glared at him, but it was hard not to laugh. “Leave me alone, you little pest!”
The noise brought Susan to the door. “Toddy, don’t bother Cynda. Let her sleep if she wants to.”
By the time Susan hauled Todd off the bed, I was wide awake.
“Poor Cynda,” Susan said with a smile. “Now you know what it’s like to have a little brother.”
When they were gone, I dressed quickly. My room was so cold the windowpanes were frosted with ice pictures—flowers, ferns, leaves, and stars so fragile a puff of warm breath could destroy them.
Shivering in the frigid air, I yanked a comb through my hair and ran down the hall to the kitchen. Sunshine poured through the windows and gave a scarlet glow to the potted geraniums on the sills. Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony played on the stereo. The air smelled of fresh-brewed coffee, pancakes, and maple syrup. At the table, Dad, Susan, and Todd welcomed me with smiles.
Last night’s spooky atmosphere was gone. So was my loneliness. Feeling like part of the family, I took a seat. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” I apologized. “You should have started without me.”
“That’s just what I said,” Todd told me, “but Mommy and Daddy made me wait and wait.”
Dad looked up from the pile of pancakes he was flooding with syrup. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, son. No one wants to see your half-chewed food.”
Todd swallowed and opened his mouth wide. “All gone.”
“That’s better.” Dad passed the syrup to me. “Did you sleep well, Cynda?”
At the same time, Susan asked if I’d been warm enough and Todd wanted to know if I’d seen or heard any wolves.
It was Todd’s question I answered. “I heard the wind and an owl, but not a single wolf came near the inn all night long.”
Todd looked at me solemnly, eyes wide, fork raised halfway to his mouth. “I heard one scratching at my door. He said, ‘Little boy, little boy, let me come in.’”
Dad leaned toward Todd. “And you said, ‘Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.’”
Todd scowled. “It’s not funny Daddy.”
Dad laughed. “You’ve read too many fairy tales, son.” He opened the newspaper and began reading, but Todd wasn’t ready to give up.
“If a big bad wolf knocked on our door, would you let him in?”
Without raising his head, Dad said, “In real life, a wolf wouldn’t want to come into someone’s house.”
“You can’t be sure what wolves want,” Todd muttered. “They can be very tricky, Daddy.”
Dad rattled the paper and frowned as if he were tired of being interrupted. “Eat your pancakes, Todd. They’re getting cold.”
I glanced at my brother. Still worried about the wolf, he poked at the pancakes on his plate, his joy in them gone. It seemed to me Dad should have put the paper down and listened to him. Asked more questions. Been more reassuring. Instead he’d scoffed at Todd’s fears just as he’d scoffed at Gina’s ghost.
I tapped Todd’s hand to get his attention. “I bet Captain Jupiter would chase the wolf away,” I whispered.
Todd smiled and brandished his fork like a sword. “That’s right,” he said. “Captain Jupiter would kill the wolf dead.”
After breakfast, Dad suggested a walk to the ocean, a ten-minute hike from the inn. Despite the cold, I was eager for another opportunity to talk to my father. Perhaps we’d finally find the words to make up for the years we’d lived apart. We’d be together again, truly a father and daughter.
The temperature was five above zero, not counting the wind chill. Dad set out across the snow, expecting me to follow. I stumbled after him, clumsy in high boots but determined to keep up with his long-legged stride. By the time we reached the cliff top, I was beginning to wish I’d stayed home. It was too cold to have the sort of deep conversation I’d planned.
“Isn’t the view magnificent?” Dad swept his arm wide, taking in the shore below us, the small islands dotting the ocean, the cloudless blue sky over our heads.
I went as close to the edge as I dared and looked down at the waves pounding the rocks far below. I was horrified to see a body floating in the surf. White dress, pale face, long hair streaming. I clutched Dad’s arm and pointed. “There’s something in the water, a girl.”
“Where?”
The two of us studied the ocean. The body was gone. “She must have sunk,” I whispered.
Suddenly a log rose to the surface, trailing white rags and long brown strands of seaweed.
“There’s your body,” Dad said as a wave carried the log shoreward and then sucked it back.
I watched the log sink and then resurface. “Yes,” I said with relief, “yes, that’s it.”
Dad took my arm. “Come on,” he said. “A fall from here could be fatal.”
I followed him along a path that twisted and turned down to the shore. Out of the wind at last, we walked along a narrow strip of sand, threading our way between rocks and tidal pools rimmed with fragile ice. Overhead, gulls cried harshly. Waves rolled in, tumbling over each other in their haste to reach land, breaking with crashes like thunder.
I breathed the salty air deep into my lungs, loving the smell and taste of it. I wanted to run and jump and twirl round and round, but I was afraid of looking silly and clumsy, so I made myself walk beside Dad.
When we’d gone at least a couple of miles, we sat on a sun-warmed rock to rest. Dad struggled to light his pipe, and I poked at stones half buried in the sand, levering them out one by one with a stick. Every now and then, I glanced at Dad, hoping he might want to talk, but he was staring out to sea, puffing on his pipe, apparently content to say nothing.
Afraid to interrupt his thoughts, I added shells and driftwood to my pile of stones, thinking I’d take them back to my room and make a still life. They had an interesting Andrew Wyeth look, bleached and dry as artifacts from an ancient tomb.
Finally Dad turned to me. “We need to talk about your education, Cynda.”
I continued poking at a particularly interesting green rock, just the right size and shape to be a dinosaur egg. Education wasn’t what I’d hoped to discuss. Without looking up, I said, “What about it?”
“Rockpoint High School is more than an hour’s drive from here,” Dad said. “Considering winter road conditions
, I set up a home-study program for you. If you apply yourself, you can finish your junior year ahead of time.” That sounded fine with me.
While Dad talked about the books he’d ordered, I watched the waves wash in and out, leaving messages from the sea—a scalloped fringe of seaweed studded with broken shells and bits of wood, an old bleach bottle, a soda can, a dead crab sprawled on its back and looking like the bones of a dead man’s hand.
“Here’s the schedule,” Dad was saying. “A study session from nine till twelve, an hour for lunch, another study session till three or so.”
“That takes care of most of the day,” I said.
“It takes discipline to work at home,” Dad went on, missing my sarcasm. “You have to be a tough boss if you hope to accomplish anything.”
With that, he stood up, brushed the sand off his pants, and said, “My stomach tells me it’s lunchtime.”
I dropped my stones into my pocket and trudged along beside Dad. On the way back to the inn, he named the birds swooping and soaring over our heads. Black-backed gulls, ring-billed gulls, Iceland gulls, black-legged kittiwakes, Wilson’s storm petrels—the great naturalist knew them all. I listened dutifully, but it seemed to me Dad was deliberately holding me at arm’s length, leaving no openings for intimate conversation.
When we were halfway to the cliff path, I was disappointed to see Susan strolling toward us, her long hair streaming in the wind. Todd ran ahead, crying our names. I hung back, wishing Dad would slow down too. Once Todd and Susan joined us, I’d have to share my father again, no closer to him than I’d been before we left the inn.
“Cynda, Daddy, look at me, look at me!” Todd scrambled to the top of a boulder, his cape fluttering in the wind, and waved a wooden sword. When he was sure he had our attention, he cried, “Captain Jupiter to the rescue!” and jumped, landing with a thump on the hard sand.
Dad lifted Todd over his head and settled him on his shoulders. Susan reached for Dad’s hand, uniting the three of them. I trudged along behind, picking up stones and dropping them into my pockets, deliberately letting a gap open between us. As it widened, their voices grew fainter. The cries of gulls and the roar of waves came between us.