Free The Ghost Orchid by Carol Goodman Page B

breakfast room. Nat must hate me now, I think, heading down the path on the west side of the hill. What on earth possessed me to mention the Hardy Boys?
    But then I know what it was. The picture of young Nat I conjured up, hiding in the woods. He’d been reading one of the Hardy Boys stories. Surely it was a detail I just plucked from the air—maybe it was even in Nat’s novel—but no, I remember now that along with the vision I had I heard Nat’s grandfather calling him. He called him Nathaniel, not the name of the narrator in the novel. And when I heard the voice, what I felt was that I understood why Nat hates to be called Nathaniel, because he called him that. Maybe if I could explain to Nat . . . what? That I heard voices? That I felt his pain. I could just imagine how he’d react to that.
    “I swear I didn’t tell her.”
    The voice comes from around the next bend in the path. I freeze and wait, willing the voice to go away. I’ve heard enough voices this morning. But it continues, “Why on earth would I even talk to her? She’s a hack! And a plagiarist! She stole my title.”
    No, this isn’t a voice in my own head. It’s Bethesda Graham. And although I’d certainly guessed what she thought of me, I’m stung by her words. Hack, plagiarist. I turn around and walk quickly back up the hill, but the words pursue me. I know I’ve put too much distance between us, but it’s as if I can still hear their condemnation. Phony, fake. In my eagerness to get away from them, I head off the path. The sound I make crashing through the dry underbrush is deafening, but I can still hear the insults, only they’re no longer in Bethesda’s voice. I can’t recognize these voices, there are so many, a throng of them, as if in a crowded auditorium, jeering at me. Charlatan, fraud, witch. Thorns drag at my clothes like hands plucking at me, trying to drag me down.
    When I break free from the brush, I’m scratched and breathless. I struggle up onto the terrace and head for the French doors that lead into the library. A gust of wind snakes in at my heels as if it had been coiled in the shrubbery, only waiting for an opportunity to gain entrance to the house. When I finally close the doors, I lean my back against them and breathe in the silence. The two Morris chairs by the fire are empty, the cushions on the side divans still fresh and undented from the morning housekeeping rounds. Standing on the threshold, I have a sense of relief that seems to go well beyond the good luck of getting the library to myself. It’s as if real pursuers had chased me up the hill and I have come here seeking refuge from danger, instead of just a quiet place to get some work done. Then I hear a rustling from the alcove and realize I’m not alone after all.
    Coming farther into the room, I see David Fox, ensconced at the library table in the alcove, drawings and blueprints spread out on it and every available nearby surface.
    “Oh, I guess I’d better find someplace else—” I begin, but before I can finish my sentence, David has sprung up from his seat, scattering sheets of paper to the floor.
    “No, don’t go,” he says. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.” He pulls me to the desk and begins riffling through a thick pile of blueprints. There must be a dozen of them, each as large as a full New York Times page, stretched out on the mission library table and held down by an assortment of smooth white stones. When he moves the stones back from the edge of one, it springs into a roll, like a pill bug curling into itself, only the paper, which is old and dry, snaps like a small firecracker. I look over my shoulder nervously, sure that at any moment we will be rebuked for breaking the sacred silence of Bosco.
    “It’s in here someplace,” David says, apparently unconcerned about the “no talking” rule. “I thought it would help you in following the movements of your characters.”
    “That’s okay,” I tell him.