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When the dance ended, Collin took Astrid’s hand, brought it to his lips.
It all froze.
Astrid turned her head and looked at Sonya.
“We were so happy this night. A prelude, Collin said, to all the parties we would host, with friends, with family. We had everything ahead of us.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Find the rings. You’re the last who can.”
“But I don’t—”
“Play, won’t you, Astrid?”
“Of course.”
The six dancers stood in their two lines. Collin stood at Astrid’s shoulder.
She played the same song, exactly as before. Everything moved, exactly as before.
The old woman plied her needle and tapped her foot. The old man smiled and sipped his whiskey. Collin turned the page while the dancers wove.
In the grate a log fell with a shower of embers.
And Sonya woke standing beside the bed.
The dog slept on, so she hadn’t disturbed him. She moved quietly out of the room, down the stairs, into the parlor.
The furniture stood exactly as it should. Then again, she thought, it hadn’t been the same furniture in the dream. Or experience.
No fire burned, no candles flickered, no oil lamps glowed.
She wandered the room, but the only scent she caught came from the Asiatic lilies she’d bought the day before. At the piano, she ran her finger lightly over the keys.
Then she walked into the foyer, looked up at Astrid’s portrait.
“I heard you. I don’t know what it means or what to do about it, but I heard you.”
But the house, and whatever walked in it, stayed silent.
In the silence, she walked back upstairs.
In bed she closed her eyes and waited for sleep.
Chapter Eighteen
In the morning, she documented every detail she could remember. Afterward, she held herself to half a day of work—in her mind to more or less make up for the time she’d taken for personal things during the workweek.
She put an extra hour in compiling a list of invisible companions. Considering her experience the night before, she included Astrid as the second bride to have seen her, spoken to her.
That left her free to handle the few domestic chores her invisible housekeeper left for her. Since the sun beamed, and with weekly laundry in the machine, she took a long walk with Yoda. The thinning blanket of snow lured her and the dog to the edge of the woods.
Then a few steps in.
She couldn’t deny the wonder of it, the mystery of bare-branched trees, the deep green of pine. The light wind stirred pine needles to a kind of rustling, and from deeper in came the sounds of chirping and chittering.
Yoda scented the air just as she did, but the snow lay thicker there where the sun didn’t quite reach.
