I haven’t mentioned the strange goings-on at Moonrise to anyone else. Not yet, anyway. Kit would be terribly interested, I know, but I can’t bear to do or say anything that might upset her more than she’s been lately. She’s having a harder time with Emmet’s remarriage than the rest of us are, which is understandable considering how close she and Rosalyn were. All of us are close, but Kit and Rosalyn had a deeper bond because they’d been raised together. They were childhood friends, then roommates at Agnes Scott College. Kit is Annie’s godmother, and Annie like the daughter she never had. And no question, she’s loved Emmet like a brother for all these years. To her, this too-sudden marriage is an insult to his daughter and a betrayal of Rosalyn’s memory.
Kit might have accepted Emmet’s new wife more graciously had it not been for what happened soon after the marriage, which she recounted to Noel and me. The marriage hit her hard, but to her credit, Kit called Emmet immediately to wish him well, as soon as he broke the news to us. She’d like to come to Fort Lauderdale to meet Helen, she told Emmet, and could arrange to do so during her upcoming trip to Coral Gables. Emmet had responded enthusiastically (or as enthusiastically as Mr. Cool can), and told Kit that he’d check with Helen. By the time he got around to calling her back with some lame excuse or the other, Kit’s trip had come and gone.
Kit was hurt, and shared her concerns with me. She couldn’t help but wonder if Emmet’s new wife was to blame. What if she was trying to keep Emmet away from us, his nearest and dearest? After all, Annie didn’t even meet Helen until several weeks after the marriage. Both of us knew women like that, Kit reminded me, jealous of their husbands’ affection for others. Even when we heard that the newlyweds were coming to Highlands for the summer, Kit still worried. “I still wonder,” she told me. “First they’d given us a definite no, then Helen finds that photo album of Rosalyn’s. After that, she changed her mind. That bothers me.” Then Kit added, “We don’t know anything about this woman, Tansy! After seeing the pictures of Moonrise, she might be looking for a way to get her hands on Rosalyn’s inheritance.”
We went back and forth a bit about the trust, and how surely it was set up for the inheritance to go to Rosalyn’s heirs, not whomever Emmet might marry should he survive her. Kit wasn’t so sure, and since she’d had plenty of experience with trusts, I didn’t argue. No point in getting her all stirred up over something out of our control, anyway.
One thing I won’t say to Kit: If the Bride has set her sights on Moonrise, no one can blame her. It’s one of the grand summer estates of the Highlands area, which is saying plenty. A lot of landed gentry “summer” in the Highlands-Cashiers area, so there are some spectacular homes here. What makes Moonrise so special is its history as one of the first, and the way Rosalyn preserved its unique character. She became an expert in all things Victorian, then turned the whole place into a museum and showplace. The work she put into those weird old gardens was just plain mind-boggling. I’m a devoted gardener, too, but nothing like she was. A crew of professionals kept up the yards at their Atlanta house, but not at Moonrise. Rosalyn wouldn’t let anyone else touch it.
Actually, the preservation of Moonrise ended up being the driving force of Rosalyn’s life. She insisted that everything stay as it had been for generations, since her great-grandfather built the place, a replica of their home in England. I was the one who talked her into installing a dishwasher, for God’s sake. And Emmet, who indulged her in everything else, refused to spend another night there until the claw-foot tub was replaced with a shower. Eventually he came to resent the place because it was such a financial drain, even with Rosalyn’s considerable family money. In a house like Moonrise, a restoration expert is necessary for every little repair, and old houses require constant work. Since Rosalyn has been gone, the place has gone down drastically. I don’t know how Emmet will ever keep it. But he can’t sell it, either.
I doze off thinking about Moonrise, and Rosalyn’s obsession with it. Funny, the other night when we all went over to Moonrise for drinks and to meet the Bride, I asked her how she liked the place. She became so animated that it took me by surprise, considering what a skittish little thing she is. It was exactly the way Rosalyn had looked when she got on the subject of Moonrise. Helen’s eyes took on that same feverish glow, and her voice grew breathless with excitement. Something about that spooky old place casts a spell on its occupants, evidently.
Maybe the spell is cast by the spirits who dwell there. Moonrise is haunted, I have no doubt. Rosalyn joked about hearing strange noises and seeing shadowy figures, but it’s no joking matter to me. Because everyone thinks I’m crazy, anyway, some things I keep to myself. I’ll never tell any of them what happened to convince me.
Until this summer, I’d only been back to Moonrise once since the week after we buried Rosalyn’s ashes. Kit and I had taken it on ourselves to put Rosalyn’s things away, both at the Atlanta house and at Moonrise. We couldn’t bear the thought of Emmet and Annie seeing her clothes hanging forlornly in the closet, or the personal items she left on her dressing table. As painful as the task was, we did it methodically and thoroughly, with little discussion. Following Emmet’s instructions, we donated a truckload of stuff to charity, kept a few mementos for ourselves, then stored the rest in the attic for Annie to go through at a later date. The attic at Moonrise is so creepy looking, Kit and I were anxious to do what had to be done and get the hell out of there. Leaving, Kit told me she’d never set foot in that attic again, and I had no intention of doing so, either.
As I was putting away some of my mementos, however, I realized I’d left the one that meant the most to me, a sunhat I’d decorated with flowers from her garden. Those suckers had taken me forever to dry, but Rosalyn had loved the hat. I’d spotted it with the summer things in the attic’s cedar closet, but forgotten to get it. I asked Willa to fetch it next time she was there, but she kept forgetting it as well. (Which made me wonder if the attic spooked her, too, though she’d never admit it.) If I wanted the hat, I’d have to get it myself.
Which is what I went to Moonrise to do, one sunny afternoon in late spring. I was also missing Rosalyn and longing for a connection to her. The Atlanta house, grand and elegant as it was, never had that. “Let’s walk up to Moonrise,” I said to Noel, but he waved me off. It’d be too depressing, he said, which was the last thing I needed. I didn’t relish going alone, but wouldn’t have asked Kit to accompany me even if she’d been around at the time. Like Noel, Kit would’ve refused.
After retrieving the key from the most obvious place imaginable, one of the stone planters flanking the front door, I let myself in and ran up the stairs before I chickened out. At the top of the landing was the door to the attic, so I didn’t even have to go down the dark hallway. Without glancing that way, I flicked on the light switch and marched fearlessly up the steep attic steps. Because of the eaves and slanted ceilings, the attic was dark and dreary even with an overhead light, but I reminded myself how Rosalyn pooh-poohed the notion of Moonrise being haunted. All old houses have strange noises. Even so, I dared not look around as I made straight for the cedar closet, grabbed the hat from its hook, and started back to the stairwell leading to the landing.
And that’s when it happened. Wham! The door at the foot of the stairs slammed shut, and I let out a scream bloodcurdling enough to scare away the most frightful of spirits. I’d probably still be standing there if I hadn’t convinced myself that I’d purposefully left the front door open, and strong breezes tended to whip up the mountain from the lake. Fortunately I didn’t stop to wonder why a breeze would climb the stairs, blow the attic door shut, and leave the front door open; I just got down those stairs as fast as my wobbly legs could carry me. Safely on the landing, I leaned against the door clutching Rosalyn’s sunhat like a talisman, then remembered I’d left the attic lights on.
Only one thing to do. Sitting atop an ornate table on the landing was an old Victorian vase, ugly as sin and twice as heavy, which I used as a doorstop. A hurricane couldn’t move that thing, I told myself as I scampered back up the stairs. Just as I reached the top and turned off the lights, wham! The door slammed shut again, except this time the slam was preceded by another sound—the scrape of a vase against a wooden floor.
I