The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy #2)

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

1964

We did it! Charlie and me got totally hitched.

We weren’t going to. I mean, get real, like Charlie says, marriage is just another establishment construct. Like you need a license to love?

That’s serious bullshit.

I mean, man, my parents got the license, the house in the burbs and all that. And as long as I can remember they spent most of their time bitching at each other, bitching about each other, or ignoring each other.

Sure wasn’t a lot of love in my house.

When they weren’t doing that, they were ragging on me. I figure they blamed me for not just calling it and moving the hell on.

So I moved the hell on and took off. Freedom, baby! Rode my thumb all the way to San Francisco. I met a lot of cool people along the way—and some not so cool for sure. Picked up some work here and there when I needed to—hungry isn’t fun, let me tell you.

But waiting tables means you’re going to eat.

If you’re open, and man, I was wide open, you find people who’ll give you a place to flop awhile. And you talk about this bullshit world and how you’d fix it. You listen to music, get a little high.

I stayed at this farm, a commune thing, for a time. Really, really cool. Everybody took care of everybody. We grew our own food, had these cool chickens, some cows. A lot of work, yeah, but I liked it. I learned a lot, too.

A couple of the guys fixed up this old VW bus, and we all painted it. Birds, butterflies, rainbows. Totally psychedelic!

I was going to stay on the farm. It was nice there and nobody hassled us. But something told me to get on that bus and ride, so I did.

Even when it broke down somewhere in Bumfuck, well, I still had my thumb. I don’t know why I needed to keep going, but I did. It was like some part of me knew I had to get somewhere.

Somewhere turned out to be San Francisco.

It was happening. It was A Happening!

I made a lot of friends there, people who understood, really got what it was like to be held down by the man. Who said fuck no to war. This was our moment, and we were going to change the world. Live in peace and harmony, live off the land, and share the freaking bounty.

And that’s how I met Charlie. That’s when I knew why I’d had to keep going until I did.

It wasn’t just that he was handsome, though oh yeah, those green eyes just did me in. He was so smart, and like me, so open. He loved music like I did. And like me, he wanted a world where you could just be, just live, just take care of each other.

Sometimes we’d talk all night about how we’d build that world. For each other, for our friends, for everyone.

Then I got knocked up. But I was really happy, and when I told Charlie, he was really happy, too. We were going to have a baby! And we were going to bring that baby into the world with love, raise that baby in love like neither of us ever had.

It was the idea of a baby that had Charlie telling me things he hadn’t before, even when we talked all night. Like he said, he’d put all of that out of his life because his family was mostly everything he stood against.

Hey, mine, too!

It turned out his family was rich, like really rolling. I didn’t care about that. Like Charlie was an artist, and he worked his street art, sold enough for us to get by. And I waited tables at this vegetarian place.

We got by fine, and didn’t need all that material bullshit that screws people up.

But he told me about this house, this great big house, and some land, way over in Maine. But right on the Atlantic, man. And how the house was his now.

We could build our life there, and have a place for art, for music, for peace. We could have chickens and raise vegetables. Maybe we’d get a nanny goat!

Our baby could be born there and grow up by the sea.

They called it The Manor. Lost Bride Manor because way back this woman got stabbed to death on her wedding day. Harsh, man! And it was haunted, which is wild!

So we got this camper, and Charlie and me and some friends started across the country. He told me about his mother—a complete bitch who tried to run his life like she did everyone’s. How she tried to push him away from his art. Tried to make him be a lawyer.

My Charlie, a lawyer! Just makes me laugh.

He wanted us to get married, like legal, license, the works. Because of the baby (I told him babies, because I could just feel two in there) and because he didn’t want his old lady bitch mother to try anything with me or our kids.

You know what surprised me? The minute he said it, I wanted it, too. I didn’t care about the legal shit, but I wanted us to make those promises to each other, to our babies.

We headed to Maryland because you can get a license there pretty quick and without much hassle. I bought a dress, this beautiful white dress at a secondhand shop with a high waist and a skirt that would work because I was showing.

While we camped, we met this guy who had a brother, and the brother had a place in the mountains. Not mountains like out west. These were all green and soft.

We got married there, in a kind of meadow. Even though it was almost October, it was as warm as summer. So I picked wildflowers and made a ring of them to wear, and more to hold.

This old guy in overalls married us—he was a traveling preacher—and he was cool with us saying our own words. Like me telling Charlie I’d live with him in love and how we’d fill our lives with the riches of nature, and him telling me how I’d made him a better human and brought all the color into his life.

He even had a ring for me, and it was perfect. Two hearts hooked together like our hearts were. I knew when he put it on my finger, it was the only material thing I’d ever really need.

That symbol of our hearts joined forever made me cry a little, but a happy cry.

Then we were married! Life mates. Husband, wife? No! Those are establishment labels.

We had music, and we danced and danced and danced in the meadow in the sunlight, and in the moonlight. A perfect day, and I put it on my list of the happiest.

When I left home. When I met Charlie. When I found out I was pregnant. My wedding day.

I had plenty of fun, and some not so fun mixed in there, but those were my most perfect and happiest days.

That night, Charlie and I made love as life mates, and the two hearts shined on my finger.

The next morning, we left for Maine, and the manor.

Sonya woke in the quiet just after dawn. Outside the windows, the sun bloomed like roses over the sea with streaks of gold shimmering through them.

And the sea drummed, a quiet thunder.

For a moment, just a moment, she caught the scent of flowers. Not the ones on her dresser but a scent like a mountain meadow basking in the sun.

She lay there, revisited the images that had flowed in the dream.

“All right, Clover,” she murmured. “I won’t forget.”

She got up, and since Yoda yawned and stretched his way out of his bed, went downstairs. She watched the cat slink her way out of Cleo’s room.

“An early start for all of us.”

She stopped by the library, took her tablet off the charger, and carried it with her.

Downstairs, she let the dog, and the cat who streaked by him, out. She made coffee, and taking a mug to the counter, sat to write out all she remembered.

As she expected Bree late morning, Sonya dressed—no house/work sweats today—then settled in to work until Cleo surfaced.

When she did, Sonya rose to hand her the story she’d printed out.

“Read this, will you, over your coffee?”

With a nod and grunt, Cleo continued downstairs.

Inside ten minutes, Cleo, wide awake, came back. She waved the papers in her hand.

“Did you walk? Did you go through the mirror? I didn’t hear a thing. I’m so sorry I didn’t—”

“Don’t be sorry, and I don’t know. I woke up in bed, and I felt her, Cleo, I felt her right there when I did.”

Annie Lennox’s voice sang from the tablet: “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”

“It was sweet, yes, very sweet and very vivid. Here, let’s sit down a minute.”

She went to the sofa, waited for Cleo to join her. Yoda padded over to lie at her feet, and the cat leaped onto the armrest.

“Were you there?”

“It was… like she was telling me a story—her story—but I could see it happening, and hear it. Hear her narrating it. I watched her leaving home with a backpack and a duffel. God, Cleo, she was just a kid. Hitching rides—this lovely teenage girl climbing into cars and trucks with strangers.

“When you think what might’ve happened to her. It didn’t,” Sonya reminded herself. “Or she didn’t show me the bad parts.”

“She gave you a kind of antidote, didn’t she? From watching her die. Because she loves you, and because she wants you to know more about her, and to know you come from love. Not just your parents, but from her and Charlie.”

“I could see her at different points. Sitting in some room talking with people about Vietnam, about civil rights, about standing up against oppression. Listening to music, getting stoned.”

Clover told her, via Tom Petty, “You Don’t Know How It Feels.”

“I guess I don’t, and I swear, no judgment. My parents loved each other. Not that they never argued, but I did come from love, and I grew up in it. You, too, Cleo.”

“Yes, me, too.”

“I saw her waiting tables, and traveling, and on that farm she showed me. Hoeing weeds, harvesting carrots—I think. The psychedelic bus she left in.”

“I thought the hippie thing, the counterculture thing, was later. Like late in the sixties.”

“I’ve researched it some. Its roots go back further. She and Charlie missed the full bloom, but they were in on the bud, you could say. I saw when they met. He was—not holding court, that’s wrong, but talking to a group of people about peaceful protests. He talked about Gandhi and Martin Luther King, how he’d gone to DC, heard King’s speech, heard Joan Baez, Bob Dylan. About using art and music to spread the message of peace and justice and equality.”

“He was magnetic, Cleo. Young and passionate and magnetic. When I saw him before, when the twins were born, he was so scared, struggling to hold on to Clover, to help her, to be strong. But he was terrified.”

“She showed you another part of him, too.”

“Yeah. He came back here for her, for the family they were making, for the world they wanted to build. And he wanted marriage not just because he loved her, and he did, but to protect her—legally—from his mother. He was smart enough to understand that.

“I saw them on their wedding day, two young, happy people making promises to each other, dancing in a country meadow. It was so lovely.”

“She gave you a gift, and through that a gift to me.” Moved, Cleo swiped at a tear. “You’re going to share it.”

“With Trey, yeah. And Owen.”

“And your mom. You should send this to her, Sonya. Send your mom what you wrote. I think it’s a gift to her, too.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. You’re a hundred percent. I will.”

“Good.” Now Cleo let out a long sigh. “This hit all my feels. Every one of them. I need to pull myself and everything else together before Bree gets here. Unless you want to postpone that.”

“Absolutely not. They were going to open this house, Cleo. We’re not doing it in the same way—I’m not going to deal with chickens and goats—but we’re opening the house to people and art and music. To community.”

“Glad to hear the no-go on chickens and goats.” She gave Sonya a pat, rose. “We’re going to do those herbs, though, maybe some tomatoes and peppers, but that’s as close to farm girls as we’d ever get.”

“Just close enough. I’ll send this to Mom, but I think I’ll wait until after her workday. Then we can talk if she wants.”

“Maybe FaceTime so I can get in on it.”

“Done. I’m going to work until Bree gets here.”

She got in a solid hour before Yoda took his barking race down the steps. For the first time since her Saturday tantrum, Dobbs banged doors.

“Don’t like that company’s coming?” Sonya saved her work, shut down. “Suck it.”

She started downstairs as the doorbell bonged.

Bree, red hair a cap of fire, tattoos displayed below the pushed-up sleeves of her sweater, stood a few steps back from the door, goggling.

“Big wow. I’m talking big-ass, giant wow.”

“This can’t be the first time you’ve been up here.”

“Yeah, it can. Oh, you mean since Trey and me had a thing back when.” She stepped inside, goggled some more. “More big-ass wow. He used to come up, hang out, play video games or whatever. I wasn’t into gaming back then, and I worked summers, weekends, and all that. I’m surprised we found time to have sex.”

She stopped, winced. “That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Weirder if you didn’t.”

“There is that. So this is Yoda, and the cat.” Crouching, she used one hand on each to rub. “I’ll make sure to tell Lucy they’re happy, healthy, and living in fucking splendor.

“Talk about a staircase made for your grand entrances. Hey, Cleo. Well, I want a tour. I want to at least see what you’re going to let people poke into.”

“I think we’ll leave the downstairs closed. At least unless one of us is with them. There’s a gym and a movie theater, but also a lot of storage areas.”

“And the attic,” Cleo added. “The ballroom.”

Bree goggled again. “A freaking ballroom?”

“A lot of things stored up there, too,” Sonya explained. “It may take years to sort through it all. But there’s plenty of other house.”

“You’re telling me.” She looked up at the portrait. “That’s the one, right? The murdered bride.”

“Astrid, yes.”

“Okay, show me around.”

They started with the main level, which brought on more goggling. Sonya thought of her first tour, guided by Trey, and understood exactly.

“This place is something else. I’m more a clean lines, modern, open concept in my dream-house dreams, but this is something else.”

When they reached the kitchen, she put her hands on the hips of her cargo pants. “I’d give up those dreams in a heartbeat for this kitchen. You’ve got a chef’s kitchen here. More farmhouse than my style, but I have deep, painful kitchen envy.”

She wandered.

“The dining room’s a little spooky, but it’s big. Yeah, yeah, this’ll work.

“I want to go outside first before we see more in here.”

She stepped out. “Jesus, you’ve got a lot of mowing in your future. You’ve sure got the room for a shit-ton of people. If it doesn’t rain.”

“Don’t say rain !”

Bree sent Sonya a grin. “A lot of room inside, too, but we’ll plan for dry. You could do tents, but you know, it’s such a freaking sight, as it is. And some of this stuff will be blooming in June.”

“You know about gardening?”

She shook her head at Cleo. “Not much of a damn thing, but I know the seasons around here. Are you leaving those ugly chairs on that deck deal?”

“They won’t be ugly when they’re sanded and painted.”

“I’ll take your word. Still, that’s a good spot for the band. Manny and the rest of them are juiced up about playing here at Spook Manor. No offense.”

“Absolutely none taken.” Sonya gestured out. “We can put the chairs, the bench out in the yard. We’ve got a start on tables and chairs to set out, too. We’d need to rent bar stations.”

“Uh-huh. Show me the rest.”

They went upstairs, where Bree’s jaw all but dropped on the library floor. She picked it up as they continued down the wide hallway.

“Now I have bedroom envy,” she said by the time they’d reached Sonya’s. “None of this is my style, but I’ve got the envy anyway.”

She wandered back. “Okay, so a couple of really nice powder rooms main level, a couple of guest baths and sitting rooms up here. I’d close your own bedrooms off, again unless you’re taking someone through. And no food tables up here. Maybe a bar in the library. What’s up there?”

“Third floor,” Cleo told her. “Most of those rooms are already closed off. My studio’s up there.”

“Close it off, yeah, but I’d like to see it. I want to see this mermaid I’ve heard about.”

As they started up, a door slammed as if blown in a hard wind.

“I didn’t realize somebody else was here. You’ve got a guest?”

“Not exactly,” Sonya murmured. “Spook Manor.”

Bree didn’t goggle this time. Instead her eyes ticked right, then left. “You’re not serious.”

“One of the reasons we’re going to block off this floor is to keep people from wandering in—or trying to wander in,” Cleo added, “to a room occupied by a very unwelcome presence.”

More doors slammed.

“Yeah,” Cleo called out, “I’m talking about you, Dobbs.”

“Hester Dobbs,” Sonya explained. “The woman who killed Astrid Poole on her wedding day. The rumors are true, Bree. The house is haunted, and it’s full of ghosts. She’s the only one who’s an asshole!”

Sonya shouted the last word.

“You’re not shitting me.” Bree rubbed the chill from her arms. “And you work up here?”

“Nothing and no one can push me out of my studio.” Cleo gestured as they reached it. “See why?”

“I’m running out of holy shits. This is… It’s just freaking awesome. I don’t know how I’d handle what’s going on down the hall, but it’s awesome. You must—”

She turned, saw the painting.

“You hung her,” Sonya said.

“I decided to let her dry on the wall so I can enjoy her until she leaves me. Don’t touch,” Cleo warned.

Slipping her hands in her pockets, Bree admired the frameless painting. “She’s really, well, she’s just spectacular. I get why Owen’s willing to build you a boat for her. Or them, seeing as there are more of her in the glass ball.”

R.E.M.’s “Redhead Walking” rocked out of Sonya’s phone.

“Ringtone?” Bree asked.

“Biological grandmother. She likes music.”

“Okay.” Bree drew out the word. “So, let’s head back down and talk about all this.”

They settled at the casual dining table with Bree’s choice of Cokes for all three. Then she took a breath, and dove straight in.

“How many invites?”

“Corrine—Trey’s mom—said about a hundred and fifty.”

Bree raised her eyebrows at Sonya. “You guys aren’t screwing around. So potentially three hundred. I wouldn’t bank on much of an attrition rate. Let’s start with booze. Beer, wine, and soft or full bar?”

“We thought full bar,” Cleo began.

“Here’s what you do. Set up for a full bar out back, another maybe in the big parlor. Then you have two more, wine, beer, soft, outside, and one in that sitting room, the turret one back there. You’re going to want to talk to Jacie at the liquor store and work out a decent discount.”

“Jacie.” Sonya noted it down.

“Or you could cut one of the wine bars down, have some servers passing through. Add a signature drink.”

“Signature drink.” Sonya exchanged a look with Cleo.

“Like The Manor Cocktail or…” When a sound like thunder rolled through the house, Bree looked up, warily. “Ghost in the freaking Machine.”

“Spirit of The Manor.”

Cleo clapped her hands together. “You’re good at this, Son. Maybe a twist on a Bellini.”

“Talk to Sylvia, head bartender at the Cage. If you can get her to work the party, you’ve got the best. Food stations.”

She took them through it almost faster than they could note it down.

“You never talked about budget.”

“We’d never have been able to do anything like this before,” Sonya told her. “Collin, the manor, all of it changed that. We want”—now she looked up, defiantly—“a serious bash. A way to open the manor up, fill it with people, make it—and us—a real part of the community again.”

“This should do it. It’s smart, and community-minded, to order your food and drink from all the locals. More complicated than just having a caterer handle everything, but smart.”

“I’m going to create signs for each dish, name of the dish, name of the venue that made it.”

“Really smart. So let me tell you what you’re going to want from those venues, at least top of my head on that, and how much. I’m wrong on the attrition, you can adjust. Then we’ll round up the number of servers, bartenders, the dishes and glassware you’ll need to rent, and all that.”

“Before you do that, I’d like to consult with my co-host. Give us one second. Cleo.”

“Don’t go far,” Bree called out, and glanced at the ceiling again.

When they came back in under two minutes, Sonya sat, folded her hands on the table. “We did toss around the idea of having the whole thing catered in some of our earlier stages of planning, and rejected that for this plan. So, no single caterer. But at this stage, with all the details and suggestions from you, we realize we could really use an event coordinator.”

“Are you interested?” Cleo asked. “And can you estimate your fee?”

Sitting back, Bree pursed her lips. “I could be interested.”

“You’d create the menu. Cleo and I would approve. You’d select the staff. You know who’s best a lot better than either of us could, and would save us hours, maybe days of time. You’d help supervise the setup. We wouldn’t ask you to actually work the event, but like us—and the Doyles have volunteered, our moms will both be here—just help keep an eye on things.”

“I could be interested,” Bree repeated. “I like you, both of you, and I like what you’re doing here. So I’d give you the friends and family discount.”

She named a fee, stiff but not harsh, and got nods.

“Fair,” Sonya said.

“But I prefer Event Goddess to coordinator .”

“As our Event Goddess,” Sonya said, “what do you think we should serve?”

By the time Bree finished and left, details crowded Sonya’s brain.

“We should’ve thought of Event Goddess before. I think we could’ve—would’ve—pulled this off. But not like she will. And not without going a little crazy.”

“We’ll still go a little crazy, but you’re right. The more she talked, the more I could see how much smoother it’ll all go with someone who knows what they’re doing taking charge. We approve, we handle the decor, deal with the invitations and RSVPs. There’s more, but my brain’s clogged.”

“Right there with you.” As if to unclog it, Cleo pushed back her hair. “I’m making a PB and J and going back to work where I know what I’m doing. Want me to make two?”

“Do that. I’ll let Pye and Yoda out awhile.”

With her PB and J and a full water bottle, Sonya settled back at her desk. After she pulled the trigger and sent the invitation graphic and the order to her printer, she opened her first file.

It took some effort, but she put all things Event-related out of her mind.

By the end of the day, she pulled another trigger and sent another order off for the displays she’d created for her Ryder presentation.

“Done,” she told herself, and firmly. “Don’t look back, look ahead.”

As she started to shut down, Trey sent a text.

I got slammed right at the end of the day. Have to deal with it, and it may take a while. Can I mooch dinner tomorrow night?

Sorry about the work. I’m just shutting mine down. Dinner tomorrow includes a story. A good one, so don’t worry. FYI, had a very productive meeting with Bree, who accepted the role as Event Goddess. Don’t work harder than you have to. I’ll miss you.

I could use a good story after today. Bree won’t let you down, not at a risk of losing goddess ranking. I’ll miss you, too.

Clover reached back for an old one with the Searchers and “(I’ll Be) Missing You.”

As the tablet played, Sonya took it with her downstairs.

Cleo turned from the stove.

“Since the cooking part of my brain got crowded out, and I just beat you down here, we’re having my pasta in vodka sauce.”

“I love your pasta in vodka sauce.”

“How much am I making?”

“Trey got held up with work, so it’s just you and me. Look, if you haven’t started that yet, let’s FaceTime Mom, then we’ll just make a big salad for dinner.”

“A big salad, and girl movie night. I have to let the whole Event stay quiet awhile.”

“I ordered the invitations. And the displays for my presentation. I feel just a little queasy about that.”

“Get over it. Let’s sit down and have some time with Winter.”

While they did, Trey stood in front of his client’s house. Or what had been her house. Police tape stretched across the broken front door. Both front windows had been boarded over.

He muttered a curse, then took photographs for his files.

He turned when Owen drove up, got out of his truck.

“I heard. Figured you’d be here.” Owen studied the house alongside Trey.

“How the hell did he make bail?”

“His parents mortgaged their fucking house—that’s the word. And Milt Treeter agreed to take him in until the trial.”

“Treeter’s always been an idiot.”

“They slapped restrictions on him. No contact with Marlo, no drinking, no travel outside the county, mandatory addiction therapy, anger management.”

Owen chin-pointed to the boards, the police tape. “That worked out well.”

“Under two hours out, he gets drunk, punches Treeter in the face, knocks him down and out—busted nose, concussion—he steals Treeter’s car, comes here, busts in.”

Trey scrubbed his hands over his face. “I got a look inside before they closed it up. He trashed what he could, busted up furniture, broken glass everywhere. Jesus, if Marlo and the kids hadn’t gotten out, gone back to New Hampshire, it would’ve been worse than last time.”

“They can thank you for that. Fuck it, Trey, that’s a fact. You pushed that through so she could take the kids the hell away from him.”

“She only took what they absolutely needed with her. She was still hurting from when he went at her. She didn’t want much else, sent me a list a couple days ago, and we were arranging for the rest of her stuff to be sold, donated if it didn’t sell.”

“Does Marlo know?”

“No.” Thinking of it, Trey rubbed at the tension in the back of his neck. “Informing her’s the happy duty I’ve got coming up. Then we’ll deal with that wreck in there when I’m cleared to go back in.”

“I’ll help with that part. I’ll help,” Owen insisted. “You’re not doing all that as her lawyer. He could’ve come after you, but he didn’t.”

“I’m not a woman he’s got fifty pounds on, or a kid. Or a goddamn empty house.”

“That’s exactly why he didn’t. Go do what you have to do.” Owen laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll pick up some takeout. You got her out and away, Trey, her and the kids. This? It’s just stuff.”

“Yeah, but it was her stuff. She didn’t have a hell of a lot, but it was hers.”