Fire on the Water

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

The red-and-white-checkered tabletops outside the cafe Rue du Sacre du Printemps were almost always bathed in sunshine. Only wide enough to hold a latte and a small bowl of muesli, it gave Rachel the excuse to leave her laptop at home and empty her head of thoughts as she watched the streetscape around her. Two young men sped around the corner on a scooter, singing boisterously above the hum of their electric bike. Rachel noted the emblazoned red and white of their T-shirts and guessed they were on their way to a football match. A well-dressed family ambled down the opposite sidewalk, stepping toward church bells that pealed in the village below. Sundays were quiet and lazy for Rachel. She’d have had no plans to make it otherwise, but the ornate key in her jacket now distracted her and made her bite her lower lip in renewed excitement and consternation.

She’d woken before dawn that morning. The incessant rain of the past week had stopped overnight and, though everything outside her windows was still wet, she could see by the crisp glow of moonlight that it would be a sunny day. She’d stood for almost forty minutes staring out the multi-paned French doors to the terrace, across the vineyards, sipping at her coffee. An old vintner wandered up and down the long rows of vines, inspecting them, sampling a grape here and there, his tricolored Swissy bounding around his legs and back and forth between the fruit-laden plants. The great dog ran to the farthest end of the walled-off terrace, where it barked at something still shrouded by morning darkness. The vintner let out a whistle, but the dog continued to bark and growl into the grove of twisted trees.

Rachel watched, intrigued, as the Swissy held its ground, its growls eventually trailing off into silence. It remained very still for a full minute before taking tentative steps backward away from the trees and sinking lower to the ground. The vintner whistled a second time, and the Swissy backed under the vines into the fifth row of the field. Rising to its full height, it barked once then sprinted back toward its owner. Rachel continued to stare at the grove of trees but could see no hint of movement, even as the sun began to rise above the Valais, to skim along the lake and up the dew-laden terraces before her.

She was glad for the sunshine. The days of sodden weather and moping around the studio had almost been enough to make her give in and return to Manhattan. But of course that was unthinkable. It had taken years to catch the eye of an agent, two more to get an editor interested in the biography, and several months to finalize the commission. What was once simply a passion had become a contractual obligation. But she was glad of it. Rachel loved Mary and her creation and, somehow, she needed Mary to be with her as she resurrected her own purpose, as she jolted her own passion back into the world of the living, to resume her search for the truth of what occurred.

Rachel pondered what words Mary would have used. Ah, yes, she thought as she took another sip of coffee. The flints are sparking, the torches doused in oil and ready to flame for the continued hunt.

She pushed open the doors to the terrace, allowing an invigorating chill to enter the room, and caught the reflection of the trunk in the glass. It made her heart jump as its silver emblem shone in a slim beam of reflected light that arced around the studio. Discarding her coffee cup on the counter of the kitchenette, she hunkered down in front of the trunk and hitched up the striped pant legs of her pajamas to sit cross-legged before it.

The box was a sumptuous construction of burr walnut and worked silver. The streaking, swirling colors of the wood were emphasized by a high polish of wax and an intricate inlay of light walnut in a pattern of leaves and flowers across the surface. Rachel ran her hands over the wood, feeling its warmth and beauty against her palms. It was smooth, almost silky to the touch, the luster of gloss giving no indication it had ever been handled by anyone. It wasn’t heavy—she could easily lift it with two hands. She gently tipped it to and fro, its contents scraping and jostling, and surmised most of the trunk’s moderate weight came from whatever lay inside.

The skeleton key was already in the lock, its decorative bow larger and shinier than a silver dollar. Rachel grasped it and turned the shaft clockwise, but it wouldn’t budge. She rattled the key, slipping it out of the keyhole and back in without effort. Still it wouldn’t turn. She tried counterclockwise. Nothing. After removing the key a second time, she turned the trunk to catch more light from the windows and peered into the hole. The wooden sides of the key chamber were heavily scarred, but she saw no corresponding groove for the key’s teeth to turn through. She pushed the key in again, trying to turn it any which way, and wondered if it was even the right key. She pulled it out and scrutinized the design that spiraled up its shaft and around its bow: delicate fig leaves interspersed with what appeared to be bolts of energy or electricity. The same pattern was scrolled about the emblem on the front of the trunk and was stamped into its metal corners.

Rachel leaned back against the base of her bed, tapping the key upon her chin and staring at the trunk. She’d completed her research and documentation of the papers held at Chillon, and they had confirmed Mary had resided in Montreux for several weeks but gave no indication of any occurrence that might have contributed to her novel. There was nothing more to be discovered in the museums and archives of either Switzerland or England that she was aware of. And if there was nothing in this box, then that was it. The biography could be finalized in Manhattan with the data she’d already gathered.

But still Rachel felt there must be more. There was something she was missing. She placed her hand upon the box and gazed at the pattern of flowers in the walnut. She tried the key again, but again it would not budge.

Outside a cockerel crowed.

She placed the skeleton key on top of the trunk and walked to the French doors and out onto the terrace. The sun had risen above the jagged line of perennially snow-covered peaks and now cast itself across the pavement so the stone was warming beneath her bare feet. The vintner and his dog had disappeared. The shadows of the grove were cut by shards of light, but the darker recesses still camouflaged any sign of movement. From the edge of the terrace she could see smoke climbing from the chimney of her favorite cafe, the waiter already wiping down the red-and-white-checkered tables out in front for breakfast service.

She turned back to stare in through the terrace doors toward the trunk, glad she was again at least thinking on how to move forward. The trunk appeared extraordinary within the whitewashed plainness of her studio—an elaborate thing of the past that belonged where it had come from and not where it now sat.

Rachel took her time readying herself for the new day. She sunk into the bath in her tiny tiled bathroom, the refreshing scent of the vineyards blowing in though the open terrace doors and causing the bathroom door to creak gently. There was a shower head above the cast iron tub and, although it always dripped, she had never used it. Instead, she’d become accustomed to the extravagance of a bath as her calming morning ritual.

The water steaming about her was luxuriant, eddying back and forth with her every breath, with her every deliberation of the days ahead, and those behind. She gazed at the antique, enameled wall tiles closest to her face, a pattern of fine lines and scars she could happily lose herself in.

Her ears pricked at a dull thump out in the main room.

“Hello?” she called, but of course there was no answer because there was no one there.

She reached for the soap and skimmed it along her upper arms and around her shoulders before sinking low within the temperate water.

Outside, the cockerel’s crows were replaced by the milder song of a lark.

Rachel rose from the tub and wrapped a large bath sheet about her as she walked out into the main room. The summer breeze blew in to caress her as she wiped the water from her body and pulled on jeans, sweater, jacket, and hiking boots. Her stomach growled and she could already taste the Rue du Sacre muesli on her tongue. Before leaving the studio, she plucked the key from the keyhole, instead of from the top of the trunk where she’d left it. She turned it over in her hands, thoughtful, then shrugged and looked around the studio as if there was something else she needed to remember before leaving.