Chapter Thirty-three
“AND you think I have a smart mouth,” Harmony said. “But look at the bright side. At least there’s no Live at Five news crew here.”
“We need blankets,” King called, and several landed on them as their rescuers’ laughter receded.
“Are they gone?” Harmony asked.
“Yeah, they’re going in through the train shed.”
“Thank the Goddess.” Together she and King removed the lace canopy and bedposts. “I gotta stretch in the worst way,” Harmony said, getting up. “Oh, ouch, everything aches.”
King arched and rubbed his ass. “I’ve really been taking a licking.”
“But you keep on ticking.”
King hooked her around the waist and brought her naked body against his. “Got any energy left?”
“Are you kidding me?”
He groaned. “Not that kind of energy. I want the mattress and box spring in the Dumpster. Less explaining when the crew fixes the shed door.”
“They’ll see the mattress in there.”
“Won’t matter. Tomorrow, we’re throwing out a dozen mattresses.” King shrugged. “So we started early.”
“You actually think our rescuers will keep their mouths shut?”
“They’ll razz the hell out of us, but I don’t think any of them will tell the crew.”
“Can I tell you how much I don’t want to remove the evidence right now?”
He kissed her brow. “Better than drowning, right?”
They got back to the dorm an hour later, everyone but Aiden and Storm asleep. Tiptoeing around in the dark, they took turns in the bathroom and climbed into their respective beds.
“I figured you went to the tower,” Morgan said into the darkness. “I kept waiting for you to fall through the ceiling.”
“They don’t go looking for kinky,” Destiny said. “It just finds them.”
Harmony gasped. “Des!”
“They’re just jealous,” King said.
“I’m really, really glad my son sleeps soundly,” Reggie said.
“Oh God,” King said. “My daughter heard that.”
“Don’t worry,” Des said, “nobody told her what happened.”
Reggie scoffed. “I can guess.”
“Not in a million years!” Morgan chuckled, and that was the closest Harmony had come to liking him.
Reggie sighed theatrically. “I imagined my dad would be a pipe and slippers kind of guy, but what do I get? A new millennium stud puppy. I’m so glad Jake is a sound sleeper.”
“Me, too, sweetheart. At dawn, we start giving everybody their own rooms.”
“It’s already dawn,” Morgan said.
King cleared his throat. “At noon, we start giving everybody their own rooms.”
Storm woke Harmony at nine. “The mural’s done. Wait till you see.”
Harmony turned to King’s cot, but he was gone. She’d slept later than anyone. Great.
When she got to the parlor, she saw that the mural itself did, indeed, fill the entire wall. Storm was sprinkling salt and protective herbs in front of it.
Destiny stood back, examining it, while Gingertigger and Caramello paced the length of it like guard soldiers, stopping to hiss or charge the mural, only to bounce off and charge, pace, and hiss again.
Tigerstar stood in front of the Queen Anne chair with her back arched. Warlock used the same stance beside the piano.
Before long, Aiden, King, and her sisters gathered round in earnest, as if they’d waited for her. She and her sisters clasped hands. “It’s bizarre,” Harmony said. “Uneven.”
Aiden nodded. “From its condition and the types of paint and tints used, I think it was painted over a period of ten or twelve years. The brushstrokes reveal time-lapse inconsistencies, including a growing unsteadiness that would indicate the painter’s aging hand.”
King walked to the far end. “I don’t see a signature.”
Harmony swept the mural with her gaze. “At first sight, I’d say the signature runs horizontally along the bottom. The way the mural is sectioned off vertically in different colors and shades reveals the painter’s mood, right? The colors also mimic the mood of the dolphins at the bottom of each respective section.
“Bright colors equal laughing, playing dolphins in a bright sea. Dark colors equal dolphins beneath a gray sea. Oh, and look at the end. One lone, beached dolphin. Who died alone here? Gussie? Who collected dolphins? Gussie. The dolphins are her signature.”
“Look at that last section above the beached dolphin,” Storm said.
Harmony shivered. “A young woman, Lisette, stepping into the sea . . . wearing the gown I bought at the yard sale, proof I came to the right place.”
Destiny nodded. “Let’s concentrate on reading the mural from the beginning so we don’t jump to any conclusions.”
Reggie came in with Jake by the hand and sat on the sofa facing the wall. “Can we watch?” she asked.
“Of course,” Harmony said.
Reggie put toys on the floor at her feet, and Jake sat down to play.
Harmony got the warm fuzzies again when she turned to King, who was watching Jake. “King, since you were born here, will you hold my hand? As a psychometric, I’ll get as much knowledge from touching you, through your connection to the castle, as from the painting.”
King squeezed her hand, which she found reassuring. “The first section, in pastel colors,” she said, “portrays a child asleep on the beach, and below, two happy dolphins are swimming in a pastel sea.”
“The child’s not asleep,” Destiny said. “She’s half-drowned.”
“She washed ashore in a storm.” Storm elbowed Aiden. “Funny how well I can read storms.”
“She washed ashore here,” King said. “That’s the island beach. I recognize the outcropping of rocks in the distance.”
“Good. We’ve nailed the location. The girl, a little older, is playing in a nonthreatening toy room with a doll carriage. She’s part of a happy family, I’m assuming, since the section is painted in bright colors.”
Brahms’s “Lullaby” began playing on the piano, the keys moving with no one playing. Harmony hadn’t mentioned the phenomenon, nor that she suspected it meant they were getting close to the truth.
Warlock backed away from the piano, while Caramello and Gingertigger ran over to flank him, as if he might need reinforcements.
Tigerstar left the Queen Anne chair to curl up beside Jake, but the boy looked up. “The lady’s crying,” he said.
The music stopped, and Reggie took Jake on her lap. “What lady, baby? Tell Mama.”
“The lady in the chair.”
Whoa, Harmony thought.
King took Jake and brought him to the chair. “You’re not afraid of her?”
Jake smiled at the chair. “She’s nice, but sad and cold.” He turned to his mother. “Can we get her a blanket, like we got at a shelter once?”
“Sure, baby,” Reggie said.
King swallowed. “Tell Grampa what the lady looks like.”
Jake smiled. “You know.” He pointed to the Queen Anne chair. “See, she’s got a purple dress with stars on her neck and ears, and a fish like those”—he pointed to the mural—“on her dress.”
Harmony bit her lip. Gussie. Jake saw Gussie. Young children saw ghosts because they hadn’t been trained yet not to. Harmony hadn’t expected the confirmation. But if Gussie sat in the chair, who was playing . . . “Jake, do you see anyone sitting at the piano over there?”
He giggled when he looked. “Silly Honey. There’s nobody there.”
“Yep, silly me.”
King brought him back to Reggie, and Harmony turned to her sisters. “I saw and heard the piano when I sensed the wall was significant. What do you think it means?”
“Lisette’s here,” Storm said. “In the present.”
“You think she was playing the piano just now?”
“Absolutely.”
“I think the music is some kind of sign,” Destiny said. “It’s telling us that what we’re doing is significant. Let’s get back to reading the mural to see what else we can learn.”
“Right,” Harmony said. “Okay. A mother and baby dolphin in a bright section are playing beside a ship in full sail, and a man on deck is waving to them.”
Destiny scanned the painting. “That theme is repeated often. He’s sailing away in almost every section.”
“That would be Gussie’s husband, Nicodemus,” King said. “He captained his own ships and spent years at sea.”
“Notice how the colors stay bright until the girl’s grown up.” Storm indicated the section she referred to. “The color dims where the captain is on shore, leaning on his cane, watching Lisette as a beautiful young woman. His expression is painted to look . . . ominous.”
“Nicodemus gave half of the Celtic puzzle ring to Lisette,” Harmony said. “So his interest in her would appear ominous to Gussie.”
“Neither the colors nor the dolphins are happy there,” King said. “What do you think, Aiden?”
“I think this could be a happy home again if somebody put some heart into it.”
King raised a brow. “I was asking your opinion of the painting.”
Aiden gave his friend a no loss/no gain shrug. “The brushstrokes are bolder there than anywhere in the painting. The painter was most likely upset or agitated when he or she painted that section.”
“You know what else is repeated often?” Destiny said. “The round mirror with the dolphin finial. It can’t have been in every room of the house, yet that’s how it’s portrayed.”
Storm nodded and grinned. “It has to be her scrying mirror, which means the mural itself could be some kind of spell.”
“Not possible,” Destiny said.
“You’re both right.” Harmony touched a depiction of the mirror and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she smiled. “What your scrying mirror shows you, mine may not show me, right? Gussie is showing us that this is her vision.”
The piano played the lullaby again.
“Another point for our side,” Storm said. “And another piece of the puzzle solved.”
“Great call, Harmony,” Destiny said. “Must be why you’re the oldest.”
Harmony traced a sepia-toned close-up cameo of the ring’s embracing couple. Near it, Nicodemus is sailing away beneath a hovering angel and a lightning bolt. She turned to King. “How did Nicodemus die?”
“At sea, in a thunderstorm, as you already suspect.”
“One powerful witch,” Storm said.