“You must wonder why I chose you,” he said, looking away from her.
“Yes,” Daphne admitted. “I do.”
“When I brought Christopher back to Witherswood, I began to look around for a governess. One of your school’s benefactors, someone I trust completely and who I have known a long time, recommended you as the ideal teacher for my son.”
Daphne smiled. “That was kind of him. Or her, I suppose. I’d like to know the identity of this benefactor so I might say thank you. He or she must know me well to have recommended me for the position. But Mother Angela said she did not have a name to give me.”
Pete was staring at her. “Was she good to you, Mother Angela? Did she raise you well? Were you happy in her care?”
Daphne’s smile broadened. “Oh, yes, very much so. It was difficult growing up, not knowing who my parents were, or where I came from. But Mother Angela made it seem all very natural that I should live at Our Lady. She was as much a real mother to me as any real mother, I should think. Took care of me when I was sick. Helped me with homework. Took me, along with the other girls, on trips. Yes, I was very happy there with her.”
Suddenly a terrible wave of homesickness washed over Daphne. She wished she were back at Our Lady, doing chores, taking walks, sitting in the little nook next to the chapel, having long conversations with Mother Angela about everything and anything, from what it might be like to travel in the space shuttle to how best to cook beets.
“I am glad to hear it,” Pete said. “I can’t imagine what it must be like not to know anything about one’s family.” He paused. “In some ways, it might be a blessing.”
Daphne understood why he would say such a thing. There was still so much she felt she needed to know about the murders that took place here by his father’s hand. She didn’t want any more surprises flung at her by Christopher. She needed the facts if she was to deal with the boy effectively. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask Pete about it, especially not now, with the possibility of a copycat killer on the loose.
They went over specific lesson plans, and Daphne agreed to draw up a syllabus for each subject. Science would be the most difficult, Daphne thought, given that they had no lab or equipment, but Pete told her anything she thought they’d need, he’d buy. She told him that often the most instructive lessons didn’t require expensive equipment. A simple walk through the woods on the estate could explain things like photosynthesis and chlorophyll. Pete said he liked the way Daphne thought.
They agreed the first official lessons with the boy would commence the next day. That would give Daphne time to plan out some lessons. Pete encouraged her to return to the boy’s room and try to engage him again. Tonight, he said, the family would have the dinner they’d planned for last night, and Pete himself would lay down the rules of how the boy should behave with his new governess. He hoped that would make their relationship easier.
Daphne wasn’t sure.
Gathering the academic records and lesson plans up in her arms, she thanked Pete and told him she’d get to work right away on the syllabi. He smiled weakly, and bid her good morning. Daphne lugged the materials out of the parlor and into the foyer.
She was about to head down to the study, where Pete had told her she could use the computer, when she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. A white, cold hand that made her jump.
“Miss May,” came a high-pitched voice, and Daphne looked up to see the cadaverous face of Boris the butler looming over her.
“Yes?” she said meekly.
“I wanted to welcome you to Witherswood. I had the night off last night, so I wasn’t able to greet you then.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at his sunken eyes.
“And I would like to welcome you as well,” came another voice, this one from somewhere below and behind her. Daphne spun around. Standing on the other side of her was the small, squat man Boris had been talking with earlier. He had a round, fat face and piercing black eyes that were small and round like buttons. He was completely bald—in fact, he seemed to have no hair anywhere on his body. His pudgy arms were hairless and he had no eyebrows or eyelashes. His skin was a bright pink.
“My name is Axel,” the little man said. “I’m the family’s chauffeur. And I must apologize to you as well as offering a welcome, for apparently I left you waiting at the train station last night. I’m very sorry that you had to take a taxi.”
“It’s okay,” Daphne said.
These two creeped her out. They stood on either side of her, far too close. She felt as if they were pinning her between them, She clutched Christopher’s academic files tightly to her breasts, almost in protection.
“I cannot understand how I could have made such an error. Boris and I usually have the same night off, when we visit my sister Hulga over in Bangor. I swear that I looked at my logbook yesterday morning and saw nothing scheduled for last night. But subsequently Mr. Witherspoon showed me that indeed there was something written there. It was instructions to pick you up at the station. It was in Mrs. Witherspoon’s handwriting, and she told me she wrote it there two days ago. So somehow I must have looked at the page wrong, or perhaps I looked at another page. My deepest apologies.”
“It’s really okay,” Daphne said again.
“I just hope it doesn’t keep us from being friends,” the little man said, smiling up at her. His fat cheeks dimpled, and he revealed a set of yellow, pointy teeth. Daphne recoiled.
“No, please, don’t worry about it,” she said, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to start preparing Christopher’s lessons.”
The two strange men backed away and Daphne hurried down the corridor to the study. Inside the room, she spread the files onto the large table and began sorting them. She tried to keep her mind on the job at hand, but a thought had begun to trouble her. She supposed it had come into her mind when Mr. Witherspoon asked her about Mother Angela. He’d wanted to know if Mother had been good to her. And Daphne said yes, oh yes, she had been very good to her.
But now she couldn’t help but wonder.
Had Mother Angela known she was sending Daphne to a house that had been the site of grisly murders some twenty-five years earlier?
Not that it mattered, really. Mother had likely checked out Mr. Witherspoon to make sure he was who he said he was. The school benefactor, whoever he or she was, no doubt assured her that Witherswood would be a fine place for Daphne to live. But did no one raise the issue of the murders? If Christopher had found information on the killings so easily on the Internet, had no one at Our Lady done so as well?
And even if that wouldn’t have been enough to stop them from sending Daphne here, why wouldn’t Mother have warned her—prepared her—for what she was about to discover?
Maybe Mother didn’t know. Maybe the benefactor hadn’t told her.
Daphne suddenly felt the need to talk with Mother Angela. But she had no cell phone. That was something Our Lady had not provided. Maybe Ashlee would let her use hers at some point.
Flipping open the first of the files—mathematics—Daphne began to make some notes. She spent more than an hour doing this, finally getting lost in her work, thankfully forgetting about dead waitresses and murderous clowns and strange men with pointy yellow teeth. For the better part of an hour she was back to being just a teacher, the profession she’d wanted to pursue ever since she was a young girl. She’d imagined herself teaching a class of children—third or fourth or fifth grade—not just one emotionally disturbed boy. But she would do the very best job she could.
She heard the deep chime of the grandfather clock from the foyer, twelve gongs signaling noon. She lifted her head and glanced out the windows looking toward the cliffs. In the distance she could see Ben returning from his ride, galloping across the golden field toward the stables, which were beyond her view. She smiled. She was glad for Ben and for Ashlee. She felt she could trust them, that she could talk to them. The rest of the house, she wasn’t so sure about. Mr. Witherspoon was a good man, she thought, deep down. But his rigidity was a problem. How could he deny his son the professional mental help he so clearly needed?
As she continued gazing out the window, Daphne saw someone else moving across the field. Walking, however, not riding a horse. The figure was far away, sometimes obscured by the tall yellow grass. It seemed to be a man. It might be Donovan, or another servant she hadn’t met. But as the figure kept approaching—walking, it seemed to Daphne, directly toward the windows of the study—she thought maybe it was Pete. The man wore a dark shirt and pants, and had a full head of white hair. Even from a distance, he seemed to resemble the master of the house.
Had Mr. Witherspoon gone for a walk? But it seemed impossible. She had left him sitting in the parlor. This man, whoever he was, had come from some distance across the field. There was no way Pete, who had trouble walking, could have left the house, gone that far across the field, and then headed back. Only an hour and half—maybe even just an hour and fifteen minutes—had elapsed since Daphne had left him. But the more she watched the man approaching, the more he looked like Pete.
He was close enough now that Daphne could see he carried something in his hands.
She strained to see.
Suddenly she made a little gasp.
The man was carrying an ax.
He kept walking closer. His shock of white hair, so much like Pete’s, seemed to glow in the bright sunlight.
And now Daphne could see that he was smiling.
She could see something else, too.
His dark shirt wasn’t dark at all.
It was a white shirt.
A white shirt—drenched in blood!
SEVEN
“Somebody, come quick!” Daphne shouted, leaping from her chair, sending several files scattering to the floor in the process, their papers fluttering in the air like giant butterflies. “Please, someone! You’ve got to help him!”
She ran into the corridor. Boris moved toward her at a snail’s pace, his walk truly like that of the living dead. But Ashlee now appeared as well, and she sprinted past the butler to join Daphne in the doorway of the study.
“What’s wrong? Daphne, what’s wrong? You look white as a sheet!”
“Outside!” Daphne pointed toward the window. “Mr. Witherspoon! Outside! He’s hurt—bleeding!”
“Pete?” Ashlee hurried into the room. “Where? But it can’t be Pete! I just left him in the dining room!”
“But I saw him... .” Daphne stepped back into the room. “At least, it looked like him ... An older man ... bleeding ...”
Her eyes searched beyond the windows in vain, however, for a sign of the bleeding, smiling man. There was nothing. The tall yellow grass in the field blew in the breeze undisturbed. No one was standing there any longer.
“It looked like Mr. Witherspoon,” Daphne said, her voice low. “I swear it looked like him ... and his shirt was covered with blood.”
“Oh, no, no,” came a voice.
Daphne turned. Boris had reached the doorway now. He stood there, shaking his head. He had heard what Daphne had just said. And he looked terrified.
“He’s returned,” the butler rasped in that eerie high voice of his.
“Stop that, Boris,” Ashlee said. She smiled over at Daphne. “You must have imagined it, sweetie.”
“Who does he mean?” Daphne asked. “Who does he mean has returned?”
“Boris believes in all sorts of things. Don’t pay any attention to him,” Ashlee said, casting the butler a reprimanding look.
“With all due respect, madam,” Boris said, “I’ve lived in this house much longer than you have, and I have seen things. Things that cannot be explained.”
Daphne shuddered. “Do you mean ... ghosts?”
“Call them what you will,” the butler told her, “but I know what I have seen. Just as you know what you have seen.”
“Stop it, Boris,” Ashlee scolded. “Daphne’s just arrived here. Are you trying to frighten her?”
The butler lifted his chin. “Just trying to be honest with her.”
“Please leave us alone,” Ashlee said. “We don’t need your superstitions here right now. They are not helpful.”
Suddenly they were joined by another voice, rounding the corner into the study. It was Ben, still in his riding clothes.
“What’s wrong? I heard Daphne scream, even from outside,” he said.
Ashlee sighed. “She just had a fright, that’s all. Nothing to it.”
Boris just harrumphed and turned and left the study.
Daphne locked eyes with Ben. “I thought I saw a man ... possibly Mr. Witherspoon ... outside in the field. He looked to be bleeding.”
“A man?” Ben asked. “I was just out there... .”
“Yes,” Daphne said, suddenly hopeful. “He appeared from the same direction from which you came riding. He appeared shortly after I saw you. He walked from that direction straight toward the house. As he grew nearer, I saw that his shirt was covered in blood.”
Ben’s face paled. “And you say ... he looked like Uncle Pete?”
“Yes,” Daphne said. “He was still at some distance, but I could have sworn it was him.”
“Dear Lord,” Ben said, and pulled out a chair, sitting down hard.
Ashlee sighed. “But it couldn’t have been Pete. He’s in the dining room, having a cup of tea. I just left him. Go see for yourself.”
“I did see him,” Ben said. “I saw him sitting there as I came into the house. He asked me to find out what was wrong down here.” He shook his head. “I hate to tell him.”
“Then don’t,” Ashlee said. “Why disturb him more? The sheriff was here earlier, dredging up all that terrible history... . He’s still pretty shaken up.”
“Why would this disturb him so much?” Daphne asked.
Ashlee tried to smile over at her, but Daphne could see she was upset. “Wouldn’t it disturb you, sweetie, if someone said they had just seen a vision of you walking through the field, your shirt covered in blood?”
“I won’t say anything,” Ben told her. He looked up at Daphne. “The only man in the field when I came through was old Tom, the stable hand. Maybe you saw him.”
“Was he bleeding?” Daphne asked.
“No,” Ben replied.
“Does he have white hair?”
“Well,” Ben said, “I suppose it’s white. Maybe more gray, I guess. Pretty thin on top.”
Daphne shook her head deliberately. “The man I saw had thick white hair.”
Ben just sighed, covering his face in his hands.
Ashlee approached and gave Daphne a quick hug. “You’re still upset about last night, sweetie. Who wouldn’t be? You discovered a woman’s murdered body. That would be enough to keep me on edge for months! And the sheriff only made things worse with all his talk this morning.”
“I ... I just don’t know,” Daphne said.
Ashlee smiled at her. “You must have seen old Tom. If you ask me, his hair is white, not gray, and in the sunlight maybe it looked whiter than it is.”
“Well, if it was Tom,” Daphne said, “I suggest you go out to the stable and see if he’s hurt himself.” She paused. “Though he didn’t seem to be in any pain. He was smiling.”
Ashlee and Ben exchanged looks.
“Look, sweetie, for now, I don’t want to upset Pete any more than he already is. He’s not a well man. I’m going to tell him you tripped and hurt your ankle. That’s why you cried out. He didn’t hear what your actual words were. I’ll tell him you’re fine now. You just called out in surprise.”
Daphne turned away. “Do whatever you think best.”
“Thanks, sweetie.” She gave Daphne another quick hug, then hurried out of the study.
“Last night, I thought I saw a clown in Christopher’s room,” Daphne told Ben once they were alone. “I was convinced that it was my imagination. I’m not so sure today.”
Ben stood, looking at her sympathetically. “Maybe the light on old Tom’s shirt made it look as if he were bleeding. You said it was at a distance... .”
“I know what I saw!” Daphne said, her voice rising. “And I think you know that I saw it, that I’m not crazy.”
Ben sighed. “No, you’re not crazy.”
“Boris said he’s seen things in this house. Is that true?”
“He does say that, yes.”
“Have you seen things?”
He hesitated. “No, well, nothing like what he describes. And nothing like you just saw.” He walked over to a tall cabinet with two front doors. He placed his hands on the knobs of the doors. “But in a gloomy old house like this one, especially a house where such terrible things occurred, it’s hard not to ... sometimes ... see something ... and wonder.”
He opened the doors of the cabinet. He removed an old, tattered photograph album, the kind with black pages, where the photos were held in place with small triangular fasteners. He placed the album on the table and flipped it open. Daphne walked over to stand beside him. She looked down at the page he was showing her.
“Mr. Witherspoon,” she said.
The picture was of Pete, possibly ten years ago. His hair was still as white as ever, but his face seemed somewhat fuller. He stared into the camera with an intense look in his eyes.
“Yes,” Ben said, “that’s Peter Witherspoon.” He paused. “But not the Mr. Witherspoon you know. Not Uncle Pete.”
Daphne gasped, as the meaning hit her. “You mean, it’s—?”
Ben was nodding. “Yes. That’s Pete Witherspoon Senior. Uncle Pete’s father. My grandfather.” He drew in a tight breath. “The murderer of seventeen people, three of them in this very house.”
“That’s the man I saw,” Daphne said, in a voice barely above a whisper.
Ben closed the album. “Uncle Pete has always hated looking in a mirror, knowing how much he resembles his despised father.”
“Then I saw a ghost,” Daphne said. “And last night, the clown ... that was him, too. Appearing in the form he used to murder his victims.”
Ben returned the album to the cabinet. “Do you believe in ghosts, Daphne?”
“I never did until today,” she said.
He smiled sadly. “Then maybe ... maybe there’s a more logical explanation.”
“How could there be a logical explanation? I’d never seen a picture of Pete Witherspoon Senior before you just showed it to me. So how could I imagine seeing him?”
Ben sighed. “Well, you’ve seen Pete Witherspoon Junior. You thought it was him you saw, after all.”
Daphne closed her eyes. “But Pete Junior is sitting in the dining room having a cup of tea. You said you saw him yourself.”
“Yes, I did.”
“I know what I saw.”
Ben smiled again at her. “So, if you think you saw a ghost, what will you do now?”
“I don’t know,” Daphne said.
“If I truly believed I saw a ghost, I wouldn’t stick around that place.”
Daphne covered her face with her hands for a moment, then removed them, looking imploringly over at Ben. “There’s nothing I can do. I can’t leave. I can’t go back to Our Lady. I’ve graduated from the school. I don’t want to be a nun.” She laughed at the absurdity of her situation. “So the only place in the world I can be right now is right here, in this dark old haunted house where seventeen people were killed.”
“Just three were killed here,” Ben reminded her. “The rest were killed in the village.”
“I wish Mother Angela had prepared me for all this,” Daphne said.
Ben put his arm around her shoulder. “I can’t believe the people at that school would allow you to come here not knowing this family’s history. That was irresponsible of them.”
“I have to believe Mother Angela didn’t know,” Daphne said, suddenly close to tears. “I need to call her at some point.”
“So why don’t you?”
“I don’t have a phone. And the house has no landline.”
Ben gave her a quick squeeze. “Well, I have a phone. You can use mine anytime.”
“Thank you.”
“Look, Daphne,” Ben said, letting go of her shoulder and sitting on the edge of the table to look her in the eyes. “It’s really not such a bad place. Granted, the murder at the inn has dredged up all this terrible stuff once again. But when things get back to normal, you’ll see, we’re not all so bad.”
She tried to smile.
“Ashlee’s a sweet kid, no matter that my aunts don’t care for her. And Christopher ... well, he’s a handful, but you may be just what he needs. Someone who can make him a priority. I think Uncle Pete, in his own grief over his first wife’s death, dropped the ball with Christopher. The kid needs a friend. I’ve done what I can, but he trusts no one right now. Maybe in time, he’ll trust you.”
Daphne thought of the lonely, scared little boy upstairs, still deep in grief over the loss of his mother.
“I’ll teach you to ride,” Ben promised. “And in the winter there’s some great skiing and ice skating not far from here. In the summer, Uncle Pete opens the pool on the estate. I go down to Portland a couple times a month, just to get some city life, you know, and you are more than welcome to come with me. And I think you know ...” Here he smiled widely. “I think you know you’ll be safe with me.”
She smiled back.
“Okay, then,” Ben said, standing up. “You’re not running out of here quite yet, then, right?”
“No,” she said in a small voice.
“Good deal,” he said, and winked at her. “Now I’ve got to go change out of these riding clothes. See you at dinner. I hear cook is making a special feast!”
Ben headed out of the room.
Daphne decided the only thing to do for the moment was to get back to work. She gathered up the papers from the floor and rearranged them on the table. She sat back down to continue working on Christopher’s lesson plans. But she made sure this time to sit facing away from the windows.
Work had always been her way out of stressful situations. Whenever she was anxious about something—her grades, a minor squabble with Katie, the occasional melancholy that set in when she dwelled too long on her unknown past—Daphne had always taken refuge in her schoolwork. She hadn’t been one of those kids who put off studying for tests until the last minute. She actually enjoyed studying, reading, taking notes, making outlines. It was her way of calming her mind. So it was now, too, preparing Christopher’s lessons. Thinking about square roots and long division—and the history of Western civilization and how to teach composition—got her mind far, far away from any thoughts of ghosts. And she was glad about that.
She spent most of the rest of the afternoon that way, stopping only for a brief lunch, which she ate in the kitchen with cook—Daphne found out the large, red-cheeked woman’s name was actually Frances. Then, after finally putting Christopher’s lesson plans away, satisfied she had enough planned with which to start the next day, she took a long walk around the grounds. She saw nothing to frighten her. No renegade clowns. No men in bloody shirts. Just beautiful, rolling countryside. The leaves on the trees were fading to reds and oranges, and the grass was so yellow that it seemed almost on fire. The setting sun cast an amber glow across everything, from the dark stone of the house to the red wooden stables to the gray cliffs that dropped precipitously to the crashing ocean below.