Chapter Fourteen

“You’ll really help me?” Richie asked. Ang nodded.

Richie was quiet for a long moment, taking everything in. “So, we know some of the rumors, and some of the history, but we need to know more. We need to know what happened to her,” he said. “We’ll be able to find out?”

Ang sighed. “We can simply ask her,” she said. “Depending on what she remembers, then yes.”

“And you’ll really be able to hear her?” Richie was shocked. He never believed this would be possible, never mind happening to him.

“Yes, I will,” Ang said quietly. She got up from the ground and brushed off the seat of her jeans. Richie stood behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Any time you want to leave, I will take you home.” She nodded and led the way into the house.

Right away, Ang felt chilly. She looked at Richie. “She’s waiting,” Ang said. “Let’s get upstairs.” Ang unerringly led Richie led up to Kirstin’s door; a door that was again closed. Ang tried the handle, but the door was locked. She looked at Richie who took the key from his pocket and handed it to Ang. “Why’d you lock the door?” she asked him.

He looked at her and shook her head. “I didn’t.”

They went into the room, and Kirstin was rocking in her chair. She stopped when she saw the woman enter. Good heavens, that girl looked just like her Hope! Her eyes misted over, and she waited for the woman to come to her. She was still a little hurt that the girl had fled from her, especially knowing they were relations. She was leery of showing herself to the girl until she was certain the child wouldn’t run away again.

“Did you see that?” Richie asked. Ang just nodded. “Can you see her?” Richie asked in a low voice.

“Not just now; she has to want to let me,” Ang said in her regular voice.

“Is that what happened before?” Richie said, still speaking softly.

Ang shook her head. “No, being in that hidden room relaxed something, or made my curse stronger or something. Not now.” She thought a moment before continuing. “I can feel her blocking me from seeing her at the moment.”

“Do you think she’ll show again?”

“I don’t know,” Ang said. “And for the record, you don’t have to whisper. Kirstin, is that you?” The chair started rocking again, then stopped.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked. The chair didn’t move.

“My name is Angel Rose Summerlin. Do I look familiar to you?” The chair moved.

Richie watched with wonder on his face as Ang had a stilted, painful conversation comprised of yes/no questions that didn’t really tell them anything they didn’t already know from the mounds of paperwork they had found. Finally, she asked one last question of the chair. “If I promise not to run, will you show yourself to me? To us?” She looked at Richie, who nodded, though his stomach was in knots.

Very slowly, the chair rocked forward and back, just once, then stopped; like someone had gotten up out of the chair. The door to the room slammed shut, which made Richie jump, but Ang put a calming hand on his arm. She drew him over to the couch, and motioned for him to sit, and she sat next to him.

Slowly, the chair moved again, as if someone were getting into it. Ang put her hand on the arm of the chair and waited. Slowly, the smell of earth filled the room. Richie nearly gagged from it, but Ang seemed unfazed. She closed her eyes concentrated hard on opening her mind and she felt a door open in her head. A blinding pain hit her between the eyes for a millisecond, and was gone. Ang took a deep breath, and opened her eyes.

“What do you see?” Richie asked, whispering. “I can’t see her,” Richie said, frustrated.

Ang described the young woman sitting serenely in her chair, hands folded in her lap, and elbows resting on the arm rests. “She’s the woman from the photo, isn’t she? The one I saw in my dream?” he said, and Ang nodded.

“Holy shit,” Richie said, and Kirstin flinched.

“What he means is,” Ang said, casting a withering glance at Richie, “is that he’s disappointed he can’t see you like I can.”

Kirstin looked at Ang. “Can you hear me as well, child?”

“Yes, Kirstin, I can,” Ang nodded slowly, her eyes tearing. The voice was somehow viscerally familiar to her. She needed no other proof; she knew without a doubt that she was descended from this woman. Ang looked at Richie, who shook his head. He couldn’t hear her either.

Ang put her other hand in Richie’s and squeezed. “Don’t force it,” she said. “Just relax and let her come.” Richie closed his eyes and concentrated on the woman he saw in the maze, and the battered creature he saw on the path leading back from the pond, and his heart squeezed. The smell of earth started to recede, and a different, more disturbingly cloying scent filled the air. “Richie,” Ang said softly. “Open your eyes.”

He did, and gasped. Sitting in the chair in front of him was the woman from his dreams.

“Hello,” he said to her, not quite believing what he was seeing. He had a death grip on Ang’s hand, not wanting to let it go for fear of breaking contact with Kirstin.

Kirstin nodded. “Good evening,” she said in a soft voice.

Richie sucked in a breath. That same voice had begged him for help in his dreams.

Richie looked at Ang, unsure what to do. Ang, for her part, was surprised it was this easy for Richie to see her. In her experience, most people were reluctant to believe this was even possible which made communication difficult at best. Richie was so open to this, it was just amazing to her. He didn’t seem the type. “Talk to her,” Ang said. “You don’t need me for this.”

“Don’t go anywhere,” Richie begged Ang.

She gently shook the hand Richie had crushed in his grip. “I couldn’t if I tried,” she said.

Richie looked at Kirstin. “You asked for my help,” he said to her. Kirstin nodded. “You want me to find you. What does that mean?”

Kirstin shook her head. “I am trapped here,” she said. “Trapped in this house while my family has gone. I watched my beloved wither and suffer in this house. Saw my children turn from hopeful to mournful, and it broke my heart. I wasn’t able to watch over them like a mother should.” She turned away now, tears in her eyes. Richie felt for her. He didn’t understand any of this, but he felt like he was talking to a real flesh-and-blood woman, not a specter of who she used to be.

“When I saw you on the path, you were hurt,” Richie said delicately.

Kirstin kept her gaze averted, staring out her window to the grounds beyond it. “I was,” she said sadly.

“Who hurt you?” Richie asked.

Kirstin shook her head again. “It makes no difference now, he’s long since dead, and I’m sure his God has seen to his punishment.”

Richie grew angry. “It does matter; people should know who did this to you.” Kirstin smiled at the indignation on Richie’s face, and reached out to touch his face. Shocked, Richie felt her touch, as real as Ang’s hand felt under his.

“You are a warm and caring man,” she said. “But truly, it would do no good to anyone to bring this man’s family shame.”

Richie nodded. “As you wish,” he said. “How will I find you?”

Kirstin shook her head. “I haven’t a single notion. I just know I cannot rest or leave this house to be reunited with my Geoffrey until you do. Please,” she looked at Richie, “will you help me?”

He looked into smoky gray eyes filled with desperation and hope. “Of course I will,” he said. And, he added to himself, I will find out who hurt you.