Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“She did do a good job, didn’t she?” Faith said as she touched her hair.

“Okay, enough of that,” Zoë said. “I think Amy’s going to sell her firstborn kid to go to that dress shop. Amy, show Faith what you found.”

“Okay.” It took Amy a few moments to collect herself enough to remember what she’d done all day. She took the book from the bag and opened it. “I went to the nicest little bookshop, with the nicest little man running it. I told him I was interested in an English family named Hawthorne and—”

“How did you know they were English?” Zoë asked.

“Didn’t I tell you that everyone in my dream spoke with an English accent?”

“No,” Faith said, “but tell us what you found.”

She handed the open book to Faith.

“But this is Zoë’s man,” Faith said. “He looks just like the man you drew. And he—” She broke off. “Of course. Now I see it. I knew there was something about him that I recognized.”

“What?” Amy asked.

“The real Hawthorne,” she said. “Nathaniel Hawthorne. This man looks a lot like the man who wrote The House of Seven Gables. It’s not him, of course, but there is a strong resemblance. It was said that Hawthorne was so beautiful that people stopped in the street to look at him. It made him a recluse, which is good for us since while he was hiding away, he wrote. With the names the same, they have to be related. I’ll bet some Ph.D. students have written papers about the families.”

She handed the book back to Amy. “Do you think you read about the man somewhere and incorporated him into your dream?”

“You sound just like Jeanne,” Zoë said. “I think Amy was his wife in a past life, and they were so in love that he now haunts her in her dreams.”

“And you say I am a romantic,” Amy said as she put the book away. “Anyway, Zoë, what you said can’t be true. Lord Hawthorne died young. And he had no wife or children. The title died with him and his nephew got the estates and squandered them on cards in just two years. There’s nothing left of the family today.”

“Did you read the whole book?” Faith asked.

“Every word of it,” Amy said. “I curled up on a window seat with the sun streaming in and read the whole book.” She gave them a look that dared them to tell her it had been raining all day.

“What’s more,” Amy said, “this was in the book.” She produced the business card with a flourish.

Faith took it first, read it, then handed it to Zoë.

“Cute,” Zoë said as she handed it back to Amy. “I don’t know about you guys, but I think we should leave now before it starts to rain again. There’s a grocery about a block away and we can—”

“That’s it?” Amy said. “Neither of you are going to comment on this card?”

Faith looked to Zoë for help. “Look,” Zoë said, her voice full of patience, “I know Jeanne told us to look for business cards, but I don’t think she meant she wanted us to see something about a psychic. Jeanne is a woman who studies.”

“She’s a scientist, actually,” Faith said in the same extra patient voice.

“That’s ridiculous!” Amy said. “Nobody’s a scientist when it comes to the human mind.”

“Okay, so I agree with you about that,” Zoë said. “You know what I think she wanted us to look for in business cards?”

“What?” Amy asked.

“A Realtor.”

“Why a Realtor?” Faith asked.

“I thought about it yesterday and it makes sense. Faith, you and I have no homes. I’m sure it says in some psychology textbook that patients must have homes. So Jeanne conned you and me into coming to this cute little town, told us to look at business cards, knowing that Realtors have their cards everywhere, and voilà! the spirit hits us and we buy a house here. Or two houses, that is. I don’t think we should live together, do you?”

Amy was so flabbergasted by this that she could say nothing.

Faith blinked a few times before she replied. “If I were going to buy a house, it would be in Florida or southern California, not in Maine. It’s beautiful here, but their winters are not for me.” She leaned toward Zoë. “What I want to know is how you know that I don’t own a house.”

“You told us,” Zoë said, the lie slipping quickly and easily off her tongue.