The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [146]
And there she sat, paper as blank as her brain, until her rear end and right leg fell asleep from inactivity. Exasperated, she stomped feeling back into her foot, gathered her art supplies, and headed for the cliffs.
A few warm-up sketches—of anything—to get her creative juices flowing was her intent. The lake and the mountains were the biggest and most obvious subjects, but for the detail girl inside her, most any little thing did her best. Bugs, blooms . . . or even banana peels if the angles caught her fancy.
Turning her back, literally and deliberately, on the Tennet property and the gazebo thereon, she walked south. When she came to the woods along the property line, she saw the trees were sparse enough near the cliffs for someone to have set an ornate wrought-iron bench among them to create a secluded retreat from which to watch the lake and its constantly changing view—and she smiled. She’d only met the Rossinis once, years ago, and didn’t know them well. But anyone who took the time to enjoy the beauty around them had her heartfelt approval.
Too soon, however, the trees and rocks and underbrush crowded out all signs of the narrow path she’d been following. And for good reason, she quickly discovered. The rocks were an overgrown barricade against a three-foot fissure in the cliff face—a high, wire fence on the other side of it impeded any travelers going north.
She carefully retraced her steps off the rocks and returned to the bench a few yards away. Gus’s warning was no lie. The cliffs were clearly treacherous to hikers, and the residents had gone to some lengths to discourage them.
She sank down on to the bench, downcast. There was no denying the lovely aspects of the lake and the mountains from this vantage, but she’d been hoping for something a little more . . . specific, more intricate. She glanced back at the barrier, at the burgeoning plants and vines coming back to life after a long winter’s nap. Standing, she backed away from the bench, taking it into her perspective, capturing it in her mind’s eye. The ironwork, the rocks, the foliage, the cliff, the sky, the trees—plenty there to throw her pencil into for a while....
She drew.
The woman’s husband called her his Ginger Cookie and bent low over her right shoulder to kiss her lips as she sat watching a young fair-haired boy—three or four years old—playing with metal trucks and cars at her feet. Her long curls were a light reddish brown; she had porcelain skin and bright, happy eyes the color of a summer sky.
Ivy recognized the wedding canopy . . . but just barely. In a mostly black-and-white dream, the white it was painted was nearly blinding; it seemed to sparkle as it reflected the sun and gave the illusion of being a special, magical place. Certainly the people inside thought so—they were colored with life, vibrant and real, as she approached them, unseen, from the cliff top. An indistinct house loomed in the near distance and she realized the gazebo was in its original position, where it belonged, instead of in the tree-lined alcove below.
Thick wisteria stems were supported independently on either side of both entrances—fragrant violet clusters of flowers hung in profusion.
The boy looked up, saw her, and smiled.
I’ve been waiting for you, he said, with a mature voice, without moving his lips—neither of which bothered her as much as knowing who he was: Patty Ann’s ghost, Oliver.
“This is another nightmare, right?” A rhetorical question.
I’m Oliver.
“I know.”
He was speaking to her but not at her, and his parents were unaware of her presence. The three of them continued to love and laugh and play as if she weren’t there, as if nothing existed outside the gazebo.
You have to help me.
“Do what?”
You have to free me.
“From what?” Already she didn’t like the direction this discourse was heading.
Please. Tell him.