by Kim Hornsby
He nodded.
I closed my eyes for effect. “We’re hoping to contact Jacqueline, the woman who died in this room. Can you help us do that?”
When I heard nothing, I opened my eyes to see Caspian staring at me, a look of puzzlement on his face. I stared at him, then back to the camera.
“Ghosts are often shy, elusive, and Caspian has been known to disappear when I ask him the hard questions.” I looked to him, assuming he could see me without night vision goggles. “Help me understand what happened in this room.”
Caspian crossed his arms on his chest and stared at me. “Your performance is most interesting, but you are wasting your time in these chambers. Investigating the blood in this room is not the real story if that’s what you want your people to know about Cove House.”
“I’m being told I’m wasting my time in this bedroom,” I told the camera.
“Jacqueline didn’t die in these quarters,” he added.
“But the blood on the wall?” I asked.
“Was mine,” he said.
Chapter 9
My mother was banished to her room after she’d yelped when she heard Caspian say the blood in the room was his. I’d kicked her out, filmed the ending of the show, walking around the room, gesturing to the wall like I could see (which I now could) and signed off for the night.
I needed a face to face meeting with Caspian about his proclamation that he was the person who died in the Bloody Bedroom. He’d told me he believed he met a watery death, thereby lying to me about his demise. I was mad and continuing the summoning was more of a farce than it already was.
Without an explanation, I emptied the room of Alives except for me and Hodor, turned on a lamp, and seated myself by the cold fireplace where I expected Caspian to join me for our truth or dare talk.
“Why did you tell me you drowned if you were killed in the house?” I asked, now watching Caspian lean against the wall by the mantle and fold his arms across his chest.
“I didn’t lie, if that’s what you are insinuating.”
“Did you drown or were you stabbed in this room?” If I was supposed to find Caspian’s bones, I needed full disclosure.
“Both.” Caspian looked sad, as if the memory was painful, emotionally. I knew it had to be physically painful. “I was injured in this room but that wasn’t how I died.”
I stared into his beautiful eyes. “You were stabbed and recovered?”
“It’s a long, complicated story, one that involves Jacqueline, but isn’t integral to our deal.”
He didn’t want me to know any more about him than was necessary to help him in his quest to be free of this constrained life as a ghost. That was frustrating. I took a deep breath and studied his face, while he studied mine. “Why can’t you tell me what happened?”
“Your disfigurement looks better,” he said.
“What? Frankenscar? Are you trying to change the subject because you know that I’m going to have to look in the mirror now and see if you’re telling the truth?’ I crossed the room to the attached bathroom, Hodor following, and turned on the light.
I stared at my refection, something that I couldn’t do on a regular basis. When you’re twenty-eight and are wearing show clothes with stage makeup, the emotion of seeing your reflection is probably going to be favorable. I was a good-looking woman, made better by makeup and costuming. Frankenscar did not bother me in the least, for some strange reason. I thought it made me look more interesting. Caspian stood behind me and watched me stare at my reflection.
“I look good tonight,” I said. For one thing, I loved this new top. It matched my hair color perfectly. For another thing, Eve had done my makeup all artsy so the design trailed down my temple and the side of my face like some Cirque de Soleil performer. I loved the look. I’d have to thank Eve. And, for another, my scar only looked better because Eve had done a great job of filling in the cracks with a new makeup she’d found. It did look much better.
Caspian stood behind me, studying my face.
“It’s funny how fond we get of our own faces,” I said absently.
He smiled at my reflection. “You would be a very pretty lady without the paint and mannish costume.”
I think he was trying to compliment me, but it was hard to tell. In some ways, Caspian was much like my mother. Possibly trying to offer a compliment with an insult. His was innocent. My mother’s insults were carefully planned to cut me down, so she could feel better about herself.
“The painted face does nothing for you,” Caspian said.
I had a thought that horrified me. “You haven’t ever seen me in the shower, have you?”
He looked equally horrified. “Of course not. And if I did appear while you were bathing, I would turn away.”
I believed him and not because I wanted to, but because I felt a strong sense of truth coming from Caspian, something that gave me hope my intuition was returning. Bits and pieces were poking through and reassuring me that my clairvoyance was thinking about making a comeback.
“Who stabbed you?” I turned and trapped him with a look.
“Jacqueline.” Caspian spun around and walked back into the room. “A lover’s quarrel,” he said over his shoulder.
“That was some quarrel between lovers if a sword or knife was involved.”
“A saber, actually.” Caspian sat on the settee in front of the fireplace. “She aimed for my shoulder.”
“Oh, well that’s good.” I wasn’t sure what to think. “Did you slide down the wall, leaving a trail of blood?”
“I suppose I did.” Caspian’s face was drawn, like the memory was as painful as the actual event. “Have you had any progress on finding my bones?” he asked.
“Not yet. It’s only been a few days since you asked last time.” I sat across from him at the fireplace, Hodor settling at my feet. “I have Mrs. Hightower, the museum curator researching this house and you might be happy to hear that I think my sixth sense might be returning. I’ve had a slight breakthrough.”
He smiled and dipped his chin. “And if that’s so, will you use a divining rod to find my bones?”
I believed that Caspian was trying to make a joke. His lips curled slightly and even though it wasn’t funny to me, I indulged him. “Hardy Har Har,” I said, then realized he probably didn’t understand that was me being sarcastic about his insult to my abilities. “If I’m able to determine how and where you died, it bodes well in your favor that I’ll find your bones.”
Caspian looked off to the corner of the room, thinking. “I wish I had a memory of that day.”
He’d once told me he drowned in the bay and I’d toyed with the idea of scuba diving for bones when the weather got warmer, but it was a big bay and the sand would have shifted too much to determine where the bones might be. If they were still intact and in the bay. Also, I’d need to teach Caspian to dive so I could see the bottom. The thought of us being dive buddies amused me as I sat in the chair talking to him.
“You don’t think you died in this room after Jacqueline stabbed you?”
“No. I fully recuperated from that wound and lived another year.”
“Did you live in this house with Jacqueline?” I wondered how he and his wife, who he presumably hadn’t seen in years happened to be in the same room. I didn’t exactly trust Caspian and fully believed that he withheld information and possibly lied to feed me only the information he thought I needed. Kind of like me and Rachel.
“No. She lived here with her lover. I was a guest the night she stabbed me.” And with that, Caspian faded away and disappeared before my eyes, a look of surprise on his face as he went.
***
The video of me being helped down the front stairs outside Cove House (like a blind person) aired that night and Eve said it looked bad. I couldn’t tell because I was blind again with Caspian’s disappearance. The next morning, Bane’s new blog suggested I was blind and that I was lying to my subscribers online. The video was pretty good proof that I
couldn’t get down a set of eight stairs by myself and looked “as incriminating as hell,” Carlos said.
Bane had even interviewed several people in town who verified that the new owner of Cove House, Bryndle Moody, was a blind person. Mrs. Hightower hadn’t consented to an online interview but the woman behind the deli counter supposedly verified that I carried a white stick and couldn’t see to choose a sandwich. My assistant ordered for me. The deli worker’s name wasn’t used, and although Carlos said Bane could pretend to quote anyone in town and probably get away with it, I had indeed been in The Smuggler Deli to order a pastrami on rye last week. Eve had ordered for me while I stood uselessly with TapTap, singing “Walking on Sunshine.”
I was blind. Bane was right.
And I’d lied to my viewers.
Last night, Caspian had said my performance was interesting and I’d gone to sleep thinking of how I’d become more of a performer and actress lately and less of a physic medium. I wasn’t happy with that realization. The gorgeous blue and purple makeup trailing down the side of my face was a metaphor for how I was piling on the theatrics. I needed to get back to the basics, especially if my talents were coming back. I didn’t need to cake on more makeup, wear capes and top hats and add in more visual layers to my show. Not if I was presenting the real thing.
Sipping my morning coffee at the kitchen table, I thought about lying to my fans as Eve and Carlos discussed Bane’s blog with the drone footage.
“I had to know my blindness would eventually get out. Who did I think I was fooling?” I said. “I just didn’t think someone would come after me in an effort to discredit my business. It’s like he works for the National Enquirer and I’m a big Hollywood celebrity, which he doesn’t and I’m not. I mean who really cares if I’m blind besides me?”
Eve had an idea. “Why don’t we say that you have eye drops that impair your sight?”
“And,” Carlos added, “that’s why we gave you a white cane that day.”
My mother added her two cents. “This drone footage was taken yesterday though, and the deli woman said you’d been in last week.”
I had an idea. “Or, we could post something to show I’m not blind, and leave the world speculating on what’s going on. Make Bane look like he paid off someone to say I was blind.” The wheels were turning fast in my head to finally hatch the plan I hadn’t acted on yet being too sidetracked with the Roslyn case and my mother’s visit. I’d thought of a revenge plan and needed to put that sucker into action. I needed Caspian involved though and counting on him was about as smart as thinking my fans would never find out about my sight.
“Our footage from last night in the Bloody Bedroom has you walking around, looking sighted,” Eve said.
I almost added that was because Caspian was in the room, then remembered my mother was present, and I was keeping his effect a secret from her. It was hard to keep track of all my lies and I almost chuckled to think I needed a spreadsheet.
“How did you do that, Bryndle?” my mother asked from across the kitchen where she poured herself another cup of coffee. “I saw the film just now and you looked straight at the camera?”
“Wearing night vision goggles helps me look sighted,” I said. “Thanks, Mother. That’s good news that it looked real.”
“It was amazing how good it looked,” she said. “And your facial scar was hardly even noticeable with Eve’s makeup, although it looks angry and hideous right now.”
Eve cleared her throat and I imagined she and Carlos might have exchanged a look.
“It’s called Frankenscar and it resents you saying it looks angry when it’s trying so hard to be in a good mood even though you are insulting it.” I touched my face, running a finger down the indentation and thinking about when Harry and I watched the movie Vanilla Sky and we remarked on how awful it would be to survive a car accident with a disfigured face.
“Better than winding up dead like Cameron Diaz,” Harry had said.
I’d agreed, not knowing that was our fate. How did I not know? I was a god-damned psychic!
“I like Frankenscar. It’s a reminder how lucky I was, that day,” I said sadly.
My mother huffed as she sat down at the kitchen table. “I’d like to know why you sent us out of the room to talk with Caspian last night. I’ll have you know, I am one of the two people who can hear and see him and felt that I should have been included in the discussion.”
“It was private,” I said, taking a sip of the now lukewarm coffee. “I see no reason why you should be included in any discussion unless it has to do with you.” I really did not want to discuss what Caspian told me in front of my mother this morning, so I hoped she had something on her agenda, like bitching at someone else besides me. “What’s on your plate for today, Rachel?” I asked.
She slurped and set her mug on the table near my elbow. “I need to talk to Ron to see what’s happening with Terri’s murder case. Hurry that thing along,” she said like she could actually help the police. My mother’s neighbor’s death had recently been ruled homicide mostly because evidence had been found to prove that poison had been used to kill Mrs. G. Weeks earlier, Rachel had Eve do a reading in the bedroom where Terri died and my illustriously talented cousin had determined that Mrs. G had not slipped off in her sleep, but instead had been murdered. Eve was able to confirm my mother’s suspicions where I could not get even the inkling that Mrs. G had died.
Ron, Rachel’s current man friend, was a police officer who happened to believe in hocus pocus. He’d listened to my mother’s story that we got a feeling Mrs. G was poisoned, followed a lead, and they were now trying to pin the murder on Mrs. Giovanni’s daughter. It was one of the few times in my life I remember when my mother’s meddling might actually do some good.
“Ron needs me to do some online research about poisons,” she said, like the man had actually asked her because he needed her help and didn’t have qualified lab technicians at the police department. I smelled a plan to keep a girlfriend busy and out of a policeman’s hair.
The discussion about poison reminded me of Jim in Roslyn. “We haven’t heard back from Jim, have we?” I wondered if he’d caught his girlfriend slipping rat poison into his protein shake yet.
“Not yet, but I’m sure we’ll read about the arrest online any day now,” Carlos said.
I’d emailed Jim to say that we were keeping the latest footage of Mary leading us to his protein powder quiet until we heard from him. He hadn’t emailed back yet.
“Oh, by the way,” my mother interrupted. “Ron will be here this weekend for a visit. I’ll move into my own room for that.” My mother said this like we’d be impressed she’d be love nesting with her boyfriend soon. Also, like I’d invited her boyfriend to come visit.
“Did you ask me if Ron could come to my house?” I emphasized “my,” but doubted my mother cared that she didn’t run her weekend plans by me.
“Don’t be silly, Bryndle. I don’t need to ask you if Ron can visit. Besides, he wants to interview you about what you found in Mrs. G’s bedroom.”
“I found nothing in her bedroom, or have you forgotten?” It was Eve who my mother bribed to come over and do a reading of the late Mrs. G’s house, but Rachel couldn’t tell her boyfriend that because Eve had no street cred in the paranormal world, whereas I was somewhat of a celebrity if you believed in the afterlife. Rachel told me she’d switched Eve’s name for mine to add credibility to the prediction.
“You’ll need to pretend it was you who did the reading,” Rachel said, “or I’m going to look like a big, fat, liar.” My mother got up from the table, put her coffee cup in the sink and left the room.
The silence between Eve, Carlos and I grew almost comical.
Chapter 10
That evening, Caspian appeared as Eve and I were heading to the kitchen to make dinner.
“Hello Captain Cortez,” I said, letting go of Eve’s arm on the second-floor landing and heading towards the sea captain.
�
�I’ll be in the kitchen,” Eve said, heading down the stairs.
Moonraker had seen Hodor behind me and was arched and hissing at my dog. I was now convinced that Hodor couldn’t see the cat, or hear him, but he could sense or smell the feline. Hodor was dancing around sniffing the area by Caspian, when the cat took off. Hodor followed the kitty scent down the stairs, his nose in the air, his tail wagging.
“Poor Moonraker,” Caspian said watching the animals run down the stairs, Hodor taking off for the library. Moonraker jumped up on a foyer table to watch my dog follow his nose to the library.
“I’m sorry, Caspian, but dogs chase cats. He hasn’t got a chance of catching Moonraker.” I suddenly remembered that when Caspian next appeared I’d planned to film a rebuttal showing I was fully sighted. We’d left a soccer ball of Carlos’s by the front door for this reason.
“Carlos!” I yelled. It was a big house. “Just a minute Caspian.”
Carlos ran out of the library on my right. “Yes?” Hodor greeted him.
“Get the camera. I’m going to play soccer.” I looked to Caspian. “Can you stick around while I prove I can see?”
Caspian looked like this was a useless waste of good time as he seated himself in the foyer chair next to where Moonraker had settled on the table. “As your conduit, I’m happy to hang around while you engage in a ballgame.” He said, obviously bored.
“When you leave me, do you have any idea of how much time you’ve been gone?” I asked him., waiting for Carlos to get the camera.
“None whatsoever. How long was it this time?”
“Eighteen hours.” I’d been counting. “Last time it was days and days. I call to you but you don’t come.”
Caspian nodded thoughtfully. “I hear nothing. I don’t know where I am, as I’ve told you.”
