Unforgettable

Beth reached into her bag for tissues and handed them across the table to Stacy. “Do you want to go to the ladies’ room?” she asked in a whisper.

Stacy mopped at her eyes and nose and shook her head. “Just give me a minute, Beth. I have so much to tell you and I want to think about how to start.” Her tears seemed to be abating. “How about ordering me a gin and tonic.”

Stacy was in control by the time the waiter brought her drink. After a healthy swallow of it, she began to enlighten Beth as to what had passed in the last few weeks.

“I thought I had painted all of the changes out,” she said, “but when I woke up the next afternoon, not only were they still there, but other things had been added.” She reached for her drink and took another gulp, barely noticing when Beth raised her hand to signal to the waiter for another round.

“Other things?” Beth prompted.

Stacy’s eyes were huge and round. “Another rope alongside the first one, and further into the painting a doll lying on a path and moonlight streaming down onto the path. Th-there was a group of men standing beneath the tree. And Beth...they...they had no faces.” She shuddered and drank from her glass again.

“Wait a minute,” Beth ordered. “Isn’t that painting a day scene as all the others are?”

Stacy’s voice cracked. “Yes. But the moonlight is in the interior of the painting, as if time had changed from the beginning edge to that point.”

Beth sat silent and thoughtful for a moment and Stacy automatically began on her second drink.

Finally she asked, “Have you had someone else look at the painting, dear?”

Stacy’s mouth fell open. “You mean as in ‘Maybe you’re imagining the whole thing, dear’?”

“No...no of course not,” Beth protested. “I only meant—”

“Listen, Beth, it isn’t only the painting.”

Beth waited, afraid of making another mistake with Stacy. “Go on,” she said, softly.

“I’ve been having dreams that wake me up in a cold sweat. And visions.”

“Visions?”

“You know, like daydreams, only they usually happen when I’m painting. When I come out of them, I’m dizzy and disoriented and totally wiped out.”

“Have you seen a doctor?” Beth was already searching her bag for her address book and pen. “I can give you my doctor’s number. He’s—”

“No!” Stacy took a breath and lowered her voice. “It’s not physical, Beth, I’m sure of that.”

“Honey, it’s obviously affecting your health.”

Stacy’s chin took on a familiar jut of defiance. “I don’t have time for tests and examinations, Beth. This is something I have to nip in the bud as quickly as I can.” Her voice cracked again. “I can’t go on like this.”

Beth’s common sense took hold and she sat back, her own chin lifted in a businesslike manner.

“Okay,” she said, “let’s look at your options.”

Stacy took a small sip of her drink this time and nodded.

“First, you can see a psychiatrist, in case this is some kind of little breakdown.” She ignored Stacy’s gesture of refusal and pushed on. “Or maybe this is actually some kind of occult thing...like, oh, you know, possession. In which case you could see someone at the Psychic Institute.”

“A ghostbuster?” Stacy’s laughter came out a gurgle.

“Or,” Beth continued, giving her friend a frown of disapproval, “something from your past is trying to break through and you could see a hypnotist.”

She stopped, waiting for another snort of derision from Stacy, but this time Stacy’s eyes widened with surprise and she sat back and put her hands to her mouth.

“Well?”

“I think you’re onto something, Beth,” Stacy said, lowering her hands slowly. “One of the things that happened last week is that I came across an envelope addressed to my mother. It was at the back of a drawer and the envelope was empty. But it had a clear postmark, dated 1969, from a place called Hunter’s Bay, Minnesota.”

“Hunter’s Bay? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Neither have I. But though my mother refused to ever tell me about her past, or mine, she did tell me that I was born in Minnesota.” She leaned toward Beth again, moving her place setting out of her way. “The strange thing is, when I took a magnifying glass up to the painting, I saw that I’d printed in the letters HUN on the signpost by the roadside.”

“Before or after you found the envelope?”

“Before.”

They shared a moment of troubled musing and then Beth said, “I think you should go there.”

“To Hunter’s Bay?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t just up and leave my work to go to a strange place to look for...what?”

“The answer to whatever is trying to break through your subconscious. And as for your work, you do all your studies on-site with watercolor. We’re three days from May. From what little I know of Minnesota, you ought to be able to find some gorgeous springtime landscape environments there. You can combine your painting with a little detective work. If all else fails, it seems to me it would be good for you to get away from your studio for a while.”

“My studio? Why?”

“Because that’s where you’re having these...episodes. Think about it, Stacy. It’s just possible that it’s your studio, and not you, that’s haunted.”

* * *

THE DRIVE NORTHWEST had been uneventful. Stacy took her time, enjoying the changing of the season in the various states through which she passed. At times she’d leave her car at the side of the road to snap pictures of scenery with her camera. She stopped when the driving became tiring and stayed in motels, prolonging her arrival at her final destination. The drive was so free of the visions and her sleep so undisturbed by dreams, that she hated to leave the serenity of the road.

But by the fourth day, she realized she was only wasting time, putting off the inevitable, and since her map showed her destination only four hours’ drive from the motel where she’d spent the night, she couldn’t justify delaying any longer.

A last glance in the bathroom mirror before she checked out assured her that the meals she’d eaten en route and the restful night hours had restored her to her natural healthy look. Her red hair was shiny and bouncy and her green eyes clear as spring water. The pasty look was gone from her face and she even appeared to have put back a few of her lost pounds.

She settled behind the wheel with a sigh of satisfaction. Perhaps Beth had been right. The feeling of being haunted was gone. And if indeed her studio contained some presence from beyond, she didn’t have to worry about that until she returned from her trip.

She reached the outskirts of St. Paul feeling hungry and only a little bottom sore. She checked her map and decided this was a good place to stop for breakfast.

“About two hours to Hunter’s Bay,” the waitress told her as she refilled Stacy’s coffee cup. “You going to visit family?”

Family. Almost a foreign concept to Stacy, who couldn’t remember anything about her father and who had been raised by a silent, aloof mother who had died two years before, leaving no hint of any relatives anywhere.

“No. I’m on a little traveling vacation.”