Page 18 of The Seven Rings
“How can women carry all that around?” Owen wondered. “That’s a baby mountain.”
“We have steel spines,” Cleo told him. “There’s snow on the ground—a lot. Snow in her hair. She’s laughing.”
Cleo played “Cosmic Charlie.”
“I don’t think the Grateful Dead’s a pun here,” Owen observed. “Great song.”
“It couldn’t have been long before the twins were born. Patricia Poole missed these,” Trey said. “When she tried to erase Clover and your dad from Poole history, she missed these. Or whoever she sent in did, since she wouldn’t set foot in the manor.”
“I won’t exclude her from the gallery.”
“Wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you did,” Owen told her.
“I won’t, because she’s part of the history. An ugly part, but part.However I’m going to put up the most unflattering picture of Patricia Poole we find.”
Trey grinned at her. “You can be mean.”
“Damn right, I can. But I’m not going to think of that, or her, now. We have all the brides here, and I’m going to hunt for frames to suit each photo we choose. Of them and everyone else.
“And when that witch is gone, we’re going to hang them and turn that room into something good, something positive and important.”
A series of doors slammed; the chandelier overhead swayed as if in a brisk wind.
Sonya merely snarled at the ceiling. “Yeah, I’m talking about you. You’re on your way out, so get used to it.”
Once again, Trey laid a hand over Sonya’s. “It might take her a while.”
“Tonight, next week, next freaking year, she’s going. And I have another goal now with these photos.”
“You’re going to need a plan, measurements, a grid,” Owen said. “Once you decide how many you want up, all those different sizes and shapes. How you want them. You have to map it out.”
“My company’s called Visual Art for a reason. I can map it out. But I wouldn’t mind your input. That goes for everyone here. I mean everyone,” she said, raising her arms to encompass the manor. “All suggestions welcome.”
“I’ll have plenty. But now? I’m heading up.” Cleo looked at Owen as she rose. “How about a ride, big guy?”
She started out, then laughed when he got up, swept her up, and carried her.
“It’s a hell of a thing you’re doing, Sonya. It’s a hell of a thing you’d think of doing it.”
“I owe them.” Gently, Sonya ran a fingertip over photos. “All of them. Even Patricia. If she hadn’t done what she did, my grandparents wouldn’t have had the son they loved. My dad, my mom, me, we wouldn’t have had our life in Boston. I might not even have been born, but if I had, I would’ve had a different life.
“I like my life. So I owe them.”
She smiled at him. “I’ll sort through more tomorrow, and make that box for Clarice, one for your parents. I didn’t realize how late it got to be. So why don’t you come upstairs with me and remind me one of the reasons why I like my life, right here, right now.”
She woke at three, but not to walk. She heard the drifting piano music, the quiet weeping, the murmurs and sighs of those who couldn’t rest.
Though the mirror didn’t pull at her, she sat up, then squeezed Trey’s hand when he took hers.
“I’m awake,” she told him. “I’m aware. I want to see Dobbs.”
He rose with her, and they went to the terrace doors together.
She stood, Hester Dobbs, on the seawall. Her black dress swirled, her dark hair flew in the brisk Atlantic wind. She faced that sea, as she had night after night for over two centuries.
And to seal the curse on the manor, on the brides to come, she lifted her arms to the sky. And leaped.
“Does she feel it?” Sonya wondered. “Every night? Does she feel the wind whipping around her? Does she feel the fall, and her body breaking on the rocks? The pain of that? That one instant of shock and frigid water lashing at her?”
