Free Time After Time by Antoinette Stockenberg Page B

experienced so
far.
    "This is all pure fantasy
on my part," she said emphatically. "I was tired. I was upset ."
    "Not in the locksmith's
shop, you weren't," said Victoria with a crafty look.
    "Stop it! You know what
these old houses are like. East Gate is no exception. Their
personalities are so intense . I think we project all that
atmosphere into some kind of human form ... we create the ghosts
ourselves," Liz said in desperation.
    Victoria merely smiled. "I
see. So after what you considered a bloodletting of a social event,
you came up with a bloodied ghost. Interesting. But you still
haven't explained the chime-sound."
    "Oh, just ... stop it,"
said Liz tersely. She began stacking the cups and saucers. "I'm
sorry I said anything."
    She decided to shift the
subject from her neurosis back to Victoria's. As she loaded the dishwasher she
said, completely without irony, "Have you learned anything more
from the letters besides the fact that you and Miss St. Onge share
a fear of snakes and a love of chocolate?"
    She resisted the impulse
to add, "And by the way, who the hell doesn't?"
    Happy to be asked,
Victoria promptly answered, "As a matter of fact, I played the
piano last time, too. I'm probably Frédéric Chopin's oldest fan.
And I had a green thumb; I'm willing to bet that I planted some of
those peonies you gave away."
    From one surreal
conversation to another. Liz gave silent thanks that no one from
the Department of Children, Youth and Families was overhearing
this. The one thing she had to do was keep Susy out of it. This
would pass. All of it would pass.
    But if it
didn't?
    Liz found herself running
water to fill the sink, despite the fact that the dishes were now
sitting in the dishwasher.
    "Victoria—I know that
asking you if you believe in ghosts is like asking Queen Elizabeth
if she believes in monarchy. But tell me this," she said, turning
off the water and facing her friend. "You claim to be a
reincarnated spiritualist. Have you actually ever ... seen a
ghost?" she asked in a voice humbled by fear. "Either time
around?"
    Victoria's porcelain-pale
face turned a little more pale. "Not this time around," she admitted.
"But before, when
I was on the way up in Newport society ... I might have conducted a
séance or two."
    "I didn't know Victoria
St. Onge was a social climber," said Liz, surprised. Clearly she
was going to have to read the letters, starting today. "During
these séances, then: did any kind of ... spirits ... ever
appear?"
    Instead of answering Liz,
Victoria bit her lip and stared out at the huge copper beech that
flung a deep, wide shadow over the grounds of East Gate. "People
thought they did," she murmured at last.
    "People?" asked Liz, alert
to something in Victoria's manner. "What about Victoria St.
Onge?"
    Victoria looked back with
eyes brimming with tears. "Oh, Liz — I think we might be a
fake!"
    She jumped up from the
little pine table and dashed into the living room with Liz
following in confusion. It was in this room that Victoria had
organized all the attic papers as chronologically as possible
before she ever began to read them. It had taken all week, but
eventually she'd ended up with thirty-seven shoeboxes spanning the
years 1880 to 1911, and then 1931 to 1935. The first six shoeboxes were
arranged neatly on the bluestone hearth of Liz's brick fireplace;
the rest were taking up a big chunk of her upstairs
bedroom.
    Victoria fell to her
knees, pulled out the shoebox marked 1881, and plucked a letter
tagged with a Post-it label. In her softly shirred blouse and gauzy
white skirt, she looked like some New Age secretary to Saint
Peter.
    "I hope I'm wrong," she
said fiercely. "Tell me what you think. This was written when I was
— she was — twenty-nine, not so young anymore, but still managing
to make her presence felt in circles that mattered. Victoria St.
Onge had just arrived in Newport for her first summer
here."
    Victoria unfolded the
letter and in a faltering voice at first, then