and sighed inwardly, realizing it was going to be a long tour.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
A prevalent theory of hauntings is the “imprint” or “recording” hypothesis: that in some way we have yet to understand, strong emotions or traumatic events can be imprinted or recorded in the place in which they occur, and from then on can be unconsciously or consciously felt or perceived by certain individuals, in the same way that they might respond to a film or audio recording.
—Dr. Alaistair Leish, The Lure of the Poltergeist
Despite Katrina’s obvious displeasure, if not simmering wrath, at being assigned to Laurel for the house tour instead of Brendan, the girl threw herself into the assignment with an almost frightening zeal. They began at what Laurel was starting to think of as the Spanish part of the house, although that was surely a California quirk of her own; as far as she knew the Spaniards never came anywhere near North Carolina.
The two women stepped through the front door into the entry hall with its greenish tinge and glazed brick floors. Katrina turned to Laurel and said bluntly, “So do I have to actually tell you all of this? Or can I just write it?”
Laurel suppressed an urge to slap her and said neutrally, “Whatever works best for you.”
The first floor of the Spanish house was an amazing little warren of rooms, and there was no level floor anywhere. For each room they had to step up or down, sometimes several steps. There was no continuity to any of it: rooms blossomed off each other and then abruptly stopped, and nothing was in proportion.
Katrina headed straightaway into the little library off the second entry, and Laurel couldn’t blame her—it drew Laurel, too, with its dark-paneled walls and luxurious glassed-in bookshelves and Art Deco mantelpiece with carved peacocks, and large windows looking out onto the back gardens; Laurel could see all the way out to the white gazebo. The room enveloped her with a hypnotic sense of calm and warmth. Katrina stood in the middle of the room with a dreamy expression on her face, then began to move through the room with a proprietary ease, gliding her hand over the white marble tops of the tables, opening the glass doors of the cabinets to look at the books. She was almost overly diligent, taking an excruciating amount of time drifting around the room. She paused to gaze into a display case with an intricate model of a sailing ship, then lifted the top of a table to reveal a backgammon board built into the piece. She opened up a carved standing globe to reveal various brandies and liqueurs, emerald and amber liquid gleaming dully through dusty bottles.
I can’t believe all this stuff is just sitting here, Laurel thought. Wouldn’t it have been vandalized long ago?
Apparently Katrina had decided she would not deign to share her thoughts with Laurel, so Laurel was forced to stand watching as the girl made her slow revolutions around the room, stopping to industriously and ostentatiously mark her floor plan. Laurel had the strong sense of being an audience; twice already she’d caught the girl stealing a sideways look at her.
Katrina finally moved out of the study into the inner entry hall with the churchlike bench across from the fireplace and the strange family portrait above the hearth. She stopped still in front of the portrait and didn’t move for a long time. Laurel stood in the doorway of the library and looked up at it.
What an odd room: just the bench in front of the portrait, almost like—like a shrine, an altar to that painting, with the bench placed for contemplative viewing …
But the more Laurel looked at the portrait, the more she thought that the painter must have had serious mental problems. The parents appeared fairly normal, if crudely done, but the two children looked like adults dressed in children’s clothing, or children dressed in adult clothing: the girl in a demure blue dress with a Peter Pan collar and the boy in what was either a Boy Scout uniform or an army uniform. There was no possible way of telling how old they were from their facial features, which on top of the age disconnect were vaguely simian. Is that Paul and Caroline, then? Laurel wondered. The two sat too close to each other on the steps, though they did not look at each other. It’s a horrible painting, Laurel thought suddenly. I hate it.