§ § § -- August 10, 1990
It was almost five when Leslie ventured downstairs again; she had changed into fresh clothing, consisting of a pair of faded jeans and a grass-green cotton blouse, and she had brushed her freshly washed hair. Roarke heard her bare feet padding softly down the varnished wooden treads and turned from his desk to watch her with concern. She looked a little fresher, but her face was still wan and the dark circles remained beneath her eyes. He got up and met her at the foot of the stairs. "Did you sleep at all?" he asked.
Leslie shrugged listlessly. "I tried, but I kept dreaming awful dreams." She shuddered, and Roarke wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders.
"I realize it's extremely painful for you, sweetheart, but I think you'll feel a little better if you tell me about it," he advised. "Talking about a traumatic experience is often the first step to healing from it. And I insist that you try to eat something. You're going to waste away if you don't."
She looked up with a faint smile. "Besides, I wouldn't want Mariki losing her temper at me. That wouldn't be much of a welcome home."
Roarke chuckled. "Indeed. Let's go and find out what's on her menu this evening."
When Mariki came out with her serving cart, she let out a loud gasp and a small shriek. "Miss Leslie, you're home!" she burst out, her round face lighting up. "Mr. Roarke, you never told me she was coming in. How long will she be here?"
"I didn't tell you because I didn't know myself that she was coming," Roarke replied humorously. "She is home to stay, Mariki. There will be time enough for explanations later, but for the moment, she needs something nourishing to eat."
"Of course, of course." Mariki lifted one tray after another off the cart, lifting the lid of each one with a flourish so that Leslie could see the dishes within. "You're looking just a bit skinny, Miss Leslie. We need to get some meat back on those bones of yours. So you'd better eat, you hear?"
Leslie saluted. "Yes, boss," she replied crisply, then grinned; and Roarke laughed, as much from relief as from amusement. "I have just one request. Do you happen to have any sangria?"
"I can whip some up in no time at all," Mariki promised and pointed at her plate. "Eat." With that, she rolled her cart briskly away down the veranda.
Still laughing, Roarke took her plate and dished out a serving of beef Stroganoff for her, adding a couple of spoonfuls apiece of carrots and peas. "That should be a good beginning for you."
Leslie waited till Roarke had filled his own plate before taking a small bite of the Stroganoff and smiling. "Mmmmm. Still as good as ever." She swallowed and met Roarke's gaze. "You know, I think just coming back to Fantasy Island has done me good. I'm beginning to feel a little safer, knowing things are still just the way they were the day I left."
"Good," Roarke said warmly, smiling at her. "Do you feel up to talking?"
She sighed deeply, regarded her plate for a moment, then hitched one shoulder nearly up to her ear. "I guess I may as well get it over with. I still can't believe he's gone."
"What happened?" Roarke asked. "What caused Teppo's death?"
She winced. "He never did stop taking those forest walks he loved so much. Between the two of us, we thought we had it all figured out. We'd talked with Launo Haavisto not long after we got to Tampere, and between Launo's questions and Teppo combing his memory, we figured out which forest was the last one he'd hiked through before Lempo insinuated himself into Teppo's brain. From then on he simply avoided that particular forest. So we felt safe in assuming that there wouldn't be any problem.
"The only thing is, Tellervo – his mother – was already starting to show signs of mental instability as early as our wedding. The very first one was that crazy request for the tears in the vial. She was still mostly lucid for the first six months or so after we got back to Finland, and Teppo brought up the whole thing to his brothers and sisters. It turned out that, when they went through family photo albums and some ancestress' diary, Tellervo was right about it being a wedding ritual in her family. It went back for countless generations. But she never explained what the purpose of that vial was for, and neither did any of the family accounts. I imagine she didn't even know, that maybe the reason for collecting the bride's and groom's tears had been lost to history."
Roarke nodded. "I see. Keep eating, Leslie, before Mariki returns with that sangria."
She gave him a quick, wry smile and ate another bite before continuing. "Well, anyway, as time passed, Tellervo began gradually losing her grip on reality. I think the catalyst was Jaakko's death; you remember how Teppo kept saying she was different after that happened. It just got worse and worse with each passing year. It's not like she was senile, but every time Teppo's cousin brought Launo Haavisto over for dinner, she'd grill him minutely about the Kalevala and Finnish mythology, as if she were studying for some thesis on the subject or something like that. She got especially interested in Lempo, undoubtedly because of Teppo's experience with him, and started doing a lot of walking in the woods herself.
"She'd come back in her own time, but her walks just got longer and longer. Then, about six weeks ago, she got lost, and not just the family but the police were out in full force, trying to find her. In the end, after at least two hours of searching, Teppo found her standing at the edge of a tiny, perfectly round clearing, full of mushrooms and saplings of dozens of different tree species. I was a few feet behind him and I saw everything." At this point she squeezed her eyes shut and shivered as if the temperature had suddenly dropped below freezing.
"Go on, child. It's all right," Roarke prompted gently.
"He told her to come out and said it was time to go home, but she just stood there and looked at him. Teppo lost his patience and started to cross the clearing to go after her, and…and…" Leslie stopped and jerked her head once or twice, as though trying to shake an insect off it. Grimacing and forcing the words out through clenched teeth, she managed, "I saw Lempo…materialize from thin air and…swoop down on Teppo…and he engulfed him in a fog…and…" Roarke watched her with increasing alarm as she fought to get the words out; she was beginning to turn greenish, and she had one hand at the base of her throat and the other arm wrapped around her abdomen. Leslie gulped loudly, rapidly, over and over until she had mastered the urge to be sick, and stared unseeingly at Roarke. Finally she said almost tonelessly, "Teppo never had a chance. The moment Lempo wrapped him in that mist, it was over. He was dead before he hit the ground. I stood there and screamed and screamed…I couldn't stop. I screamed so much my voice was hoarse for three days afterward."
Roarke stared at her, his mind spinning back five years, remembering Lempo's parting warning. "…if he once more violates the birthplace, nothing will save him…not even you…" There was no question in his mind that Teppo had unknowingly done precisely that. Perhaps his mother, with her gradually unhinging mind, had tricked him into doing so; perhaps it had been a genuine accident. No one would ever know now. After all, Lempo had never specified the location of "the birthplace".
When Roarke came back to the here-and-now, he realized Leslie was crying again, hands over her face and body shaking. He would have reached out to comfort her, except that Mariki chose that precise moment to return with a pitcher of the scarlet concoction Leslie had requested. The cook stopped dead in her tracks and gawked at the scene, and Roarke had to hasten out of his chair and rescue the pitcher before it slipped out of her hand.
"Mr. Roarke, what on earth happened to the poor girl?" Mariki whispered, stunned.
"She returned home because she was very recently widowed," Roarke explained in low tones. "She suffered a severe shock, and she needs a chance to heal. I would appreciate your keeping this information to yourself." He gave her a look that she had no chance of misreading, and she nodded numbly.
"Not a word to a soul, Mr. Roarke, on my honor." Mariki shook her head sadly and turned back to the kitchen. Roarke returned to his daughter and stood beside her chair, rubbing her upper back in slow circles until she finally pulled herself together enough to lift her head.
Only then did Roarke resume his chair, watching her. "A terrible tragedy," he said softly. "You say this happened six weeks ago. What happened between that moment and your return here?"
"Chaos," she said succinctly. "Jaakko was gone, and now so was Teppo. The funeral was mostly a blank to me. I blacked out before the procession reached the gravesite and woke up in a hospital. Teppo's sister, Mielikki, was sitting by my bed, and she told me I had been unconscious for two days. I felt weak and drained of everything. Tellervo, it turned out, had completely lost her mind. It was Teppo's death that sent her over the edge, and now she's incoherent and doesn't recognize anyone." Something changed in Leslie's eyes and she ducked her head, staring at her folded hands in her lap. "Anyone except me, that is, and all she did was repeat 'Save my son' at me whenever she saw me. It was too much for me to take and I had to stop visiting her."
"Visiting her where?" Roarke asked.
"They put her in a sanitarium," Leslie said. "She was diagnosed with incurable madness, and in the wake of her being committed, Teppo's siblings turned against me. Mielikki was the only one who would still talk to me. I was staying with her and her husband and two children when I finally made up my mind to come home. I felt I was imposing on her and her family and didn't want to put them out anymore, and I couldn't take the hostility of Teppo's other brothers and sisters. I made a visit to Teppo's gravesite Wednesday; then I waited till 2 AM yesterday and sneaked out of Mielikki's house. I took the train to Helsinki and flew out on a 7 AM plane. It took me all day yesterday and all last night to finally get here."
"You left Teppo's sister without saying goodbye?" Roarke asked with a touch of reproach.
"I left a note," Leslie protested weakly. "I knew if I tried to leave in broad daylight, they'd try to keep me from going. I think they were afraid I might do myself bodily harm, because once Teppo was gone I didn't care about anything anymore. I used Teppo's and my savings to buy the necessary airfares, and I still had that blue pass you gave me just before we left five years ago."
Roarke considered this explanation for a moment and finally nodded. "All right, Leslie. As you said, there was nothing keeping you in Finland with Teppo gone, and after all is said and done, I believe you did right to come back here. But you will have to consider the possibility that Teppo's sister, at least, may feel there is unfinished business surrounding you and her brother, and try to contact you."
"I told her I had to go home," Leslie said, "and I explained why. I never did learn much of the language, and due partly to that, I don't think I ever quite fit in. I just think it was best for everyone that I left. Mielikki and her family won't feel obligated to take care of me, and Teppo's other siblings won't have to see me every time they visit her. I'm out of their way, and I'm in a place where I belong and I can be of some use, have some purpose to my life." She sighed and stared at the veranda ceiling for a moment or two, then focused on Roarke with a determined look in her eye. "I'm for changing the subject to something else entirely – such as the assistant you said you had to fire this morning."
The weariness returned to Roarke's demeanor then, and he shook his head to himself. "I am afraid I've reached the end of my proverbial rope. Julie refuses to take the job; she much prefers her own business, it seems. She has agreed to help out this weekend, but I can see that there is no longer any enjoyment in it for her."
Leslie mulled this over, wondering why on earth it was such a problem; were there so few competent candidates? It seemed like such a dream job, and it couldn't be all that complicated… At which point the idea exploded into her brain like a popped balloon, seeming to blink on and off in six-inch neon letters in some corner of her mind. It gave her no choice but to give it voice. "Mr. Roarke…what would you say if I applied for the job?"