The Moonlit Mind: A Tale of Suspense

10

July 27, three years and four months earlier …

Crispin wakes at 11:31, blinking at the digital clock, not sure if it’s nearly midnight or noon. Daylight behind the draperies solves that puzzle.

He doesn’t remember going to bed. In fact, he doesn’t remember much of anything after the previous evening’s dinner of tortilla soup and chicken nachos.

As he sits up against the headboard, trying to clear his mind, someone knocks on the door.

He says, “Come in,” and the maid named Arula enters pushing a breakfast cart, as if she intuited that he would sleep later than ever before and would wake precisely at this time.

The kitchen has sent up enough of Crispin’s favorites for three breakfasts. A silver pot of hot chocolate, from the spout of which rises a fragrant steam. A buttered English muffin. A chocolate-chip muffin and an almond croissant. A generous bowl of fresh strawberries with brown sugar and a little pitcher of cream. A fat sticky bun crusted in pecans. In the warming drawer of the cart, if he should want them, are banana pancakes with maple syrup on the side.

In her own way, Arula is as pretty as the other housemaids — it’s amazing how pretty they all are — and always friendly. As she opens the draperies to let in the morning light, she tells him that the day is warm, the bluebirds this year are bluer than they have ever been, and Mr. Mordred will be convening class today only from one o’clock until four, in the library.

Surveying the offerings on the breakfast cart, Crispin feels slow-witted, fuzzy-minded. Although he has never been a moody boy, he is for some reason out of sorts. He complains that he can’t eat so much. “You’ll have to give part of it to Harley or someone.”

Returning to the bed, Arula says, “Pish-posh, dear boy. These are your favorite things, and your brother has his own. Eat what you want, and we’ll throw away the rest. You’re a good boy, you deserve to have choices.”

“It seems such a waste.”

“Nothing is wasted,” she assures him, “if even the sight of it gives you pleasure.”

This is a different cart than usual. There is no bed tray. The top of the cart itself swivels over the bed, conveniently presenting all these delicious items within easy reach.

After adjusting her uniform blouse, Arula sits on the edge of the bed, grabs one of his feet, which is under the blankets, and gives it an affectionate squeeze. “You’re a fine and thoughtful boy, worrying about wasting things.”

Although his memories of the past evening remain shapes in a fog, Crispin remembers something from the previous afternoon. “Why did you bathe Mirabell in milk and rose petals?”

Only after he asks the question does he remember that he knows of this event because he and Harley were eavesdropping.

Arula neither frowns nor pauses in surprise, but answers as if no one keeps secrets in Theron Hall. “In the very, very best European families, there are traditional beauty regimens that girls as young as six are expected to follow.”

“We’re not European,” Crispin mutters.

“You’re Crispin Gregorio now, and you certainly are European, at least by marriage. Remember, the family lives only occasionally in Theron Hall and has houses all over the world. Your mother wants to be sure you assimilate well and know how to live in any country in which you find yourself.”

“I don’t want to take a bath in milk and roses.”

Arula laughs sweetly and squeezes his foot again. “And you won’t. That’s just for girls, you silly thing.”

Nibbling grudgingly on a croissant, Crispin says, “I’ll bet girls don’t like it, either.”

“Mirabell loved it. Girls like to be pampered.”

“I’m going to ask her, and I’ll bet she didn’t like it.”

“By all means, ask her the first time she calls from France.”

Confused, Crispin says, “What do you mean — France?”

“Well, if you weren’t such a terrible sleepyhead, you’d know. We’ll all be going to France in October. This morning, Minos and Mrs. Frigg flew to Paris to prepare the house there, and Mirabell went with them.”

The filling of almond paste in the croissant, which has been sweet, suddenly seems bitter. He puts down the pastry.

“Why would Mirabell go to France before the rest of us?”

“There’s no bedroom in the Paris house suitable for a little girl,” Arula explains. “Mr. Gregorio wants his daughter to be as happy as possible. He’s authorized the expenditure of whatever is necessary to give her the most wonderful bedroom suite that she can imagine. She needs to be there to make choices.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Crispin says.

“What doesn’t?”

He frowns. “I don’t know.”

Her hand moves up his leg, and she squeezes his knee through the blanket. “Oh, it’s right as rain. Mr. Gregorio is a generous man.”

“What about me and Harley? Where are we gonna sleep when we get there?”

“The Paris house already has bedrooms suitable for boys. You’ll be quite happy with yours.”

He has been sitting up to the breakfast selection. He slumps back against the mound of pillows. “I don’t want to go to Paris.”

“Nonsense. It’s one of the greatest cities in the world. You want to see the Eiffel Tower, don’t you?”

“No.”

“I swear,” Arula declares, letting go of his knee and rising from the bed, “you must have taken a grumpy pill this morning. Dear boy, France is going to be a grand adventure. You’ll love every minute of it.”

“I don’t speak French.”

“You don’t have to. All over the world, everyone who works for Mr. Gregorio speaks perfect English as well as other languages. When you leave the house in Paris, there will always be a companion with you to translate. Now eat something for breakfast, child. I’ll be back to collect everything later.”

When he’s alone, Crispin pushes the cart aside, flings back the covers, and gets out of bed. He restlessly walks the room, stopping repeatedly at the windows to gaze out at the city.

Having remembered spying on his mother, Mirabell, and Proserpina in the sewing room, the boy knows there is something else that he has forgotten. It eludes him.

Finally, he recalls Nanny Sayo visiting him and his brother briefly during dinner to report that their sister had a migraine and would eat in her room after the headache passed.

Don’t worry. Mirabell will be fine. But you must not bother her tonight.

He remembers going to bed before nine o’clock. He wasn’t sleepy. When Nanny checked on him, he pretended to be deep in dreams. After she left, he had watched the bedside clock count down to nine-thirty.

He remembers nothing after that. Nothing. So he must not have been as awake as he thought. He must have gone to sleep, after all.

In the bathroom, he turns the water in the shower as hot as he can stand it. He steps into the large cubicle, closes the door behind him, and inhales deeply of the billowing steam.

The soap produces a rich lather. He always uses a washcloth to soap himself, but suddenly he realizes that he is using his hands instead. For reasons he can’t quite put into words, he is embarrassed to be touching himself in this fashion, and he resorts to the washcloth, as usual.

The shampoo makes an even richer lather than does the soap, and as he washes his hair, he closes his eyes because sometimes the suds sting them. As always, the shampoo smells vaguely of carnations, but after a moment the scent changes to that of lemons.

This fragrance is so extraordinarily intense and so unexpected that reflexively Crispin opens his eyes, and as he does he thinks he hears someone speak his name.

The water drumming-splashing on the marble floor, the constant slish-slish-slish of it echoing back and forth off the three glass walls, creates such a screen of noise that he wouldn’t hear someone speak unless the speaker shouted or was in the shower with him. This voice is not a shout, but a murmur.

The sting of shampoo blurs his vision, and the whirling steam further hampers him, but as he turns in place, squinting at the bathroom beyond the glass walls of the shower, he glimpses a hazy figure, someone watching him. Shocked by this intrusion on his privacy, he wipes at his eyes with both hands, sluicing the suds from his lashes. When his vision clears, no one is watching him, after all. He is alone in the bathroom, and the visitor must have been a figment of his imagination, a trick of light and steam.

Dried off, dressed, he is suddenly famished. He eats the fresh strawberries and cream, the English muffin, the croissant, and the sticky bun with pecans. He drinks most of the hot chocolate, taking his time, savoring every sip.

He’s fifteen minutes late for lessons in the library, but Mr. Mordred never expects punctuality.

Harley has news. “Mirabell called from Paris!”

Crispin shakes his head dismissively. “She can’t be in Paris already.”

“Well, she is,” Harley insists.

“They left very early,” Mr. Mordred says, “but in fact they aren’t there yet. Mirabell called from Mr. Gregorio’s private jet, somewhere above the Atlantic.”

“She’s on a jet!” Harley says, thrilled by the idea. “She says it’s super-great.”

“Are you sure it was Mirabell?” Crispin asks his brother.

“Of course it was.”

“How do you know — just because she said so?”

“It was her. I know Mirabell.”

Harley is seven and gullible. Crispin is nine and feels that he is not just two years more mature than his little brother, but three or four, or ten. “Why didn’t she call me?”

“ ’Cause she wanted to talk to me,” Harley says with pride.

“She’d want to talk to me, too.”

“But you were snoring your head off or stuffing your face or something,” Harley says.

“I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you the next time she calls,” Mr. Mordred assures Crispin. “Now what should we do to start? Should I read you a story or teach you some arithmetic?”

Harley doesn’t hesitate to consider. “Read! Read us a story!”

As Mr. Mordred chooses from several books, Crispin stares at the horsefly birthmark on his left temple. He thought he saw it move just a little. But it isn’t moving now.