by Nathan Roden
“Success is a subject to be studied, Mother Dear,” Sebastian said. “One must not dress as one is. One should dress for where they want to be. The tourist money has dwindled and people do not visit in the numbers that they once did. We are in no position to rest on past success. People were at one time willing to pay to stroll through an ancient structure like this one—but today one must provide an all-around experience; tantalize and excite! Generate the buzz that sends people out in the world to tell all they know of the terrors within the Castle Wellmore! We must adapt, or be swept aside to die.”
“Always the melodramatic one, Sebastian,” Maggie said. “Doom and gloom! We must change everything, or perish! You so remind me of your father, God rest his soul.”
“So you think that Father’s warnings were in vain, Mother? Father knew that the day would come when we would have to change with the times or suffer the consequences.”
Maggie Wellmore dismissed her son with the wave of a hand.
“Bah! If you had attempted to learn a thing or two from the McFadden girl while she was here, then we might have something to hang our hats on, foolish boy. She studied your father’s notes like she was on a mission, child. If only—”
“And your Auntie Mona would be your Uncle if she had a pair of—”
“Mind your tongue, Sebastian!” Maggie waggled her finger at her son.
“The girl was here for all of six weeks, Mother,” Sebastian said. “A hired hand, nonetheless? Six bloody weeks.”
“Six weeks during which our numbers increased most every day if you care to look it up, Mister,” Maggie said. “That girl is something special, mind you. And she didn’t need any of your bloody flyin’ skeletons to make that happen. She made the history come alive, she did. That’s what the people want—not your silly tricks.”
“Well, unless you have another McFadden girl in your pocket, Mother, the tricks are what we have left,” Sebastian said.
Maggie’s shoulders drooped.
“It would have been a gift from heaven, had she been able to stay,” she said.
“Heaven has better things to do than look after than a dirty old castle, that’s what Father said for the longest, Mother,” Sebastian said. “Heaven helps those—”
“That help themselves,” Maggie said. “Don’t quote your father to me, Sebastian. I didn’t like it when it came from him, and I don’t like it coming from you. What kind of heaven wants us to prosper by tricking the people with fake ghosts and goblins and spooks?”
“Puhlease, Mother!” Sebastian said, letting his head loll backward. “There is an entire industry devoted to people who beg to be frightened out of their wits! Books! Movies! Haunted houses! Halloween has become more popular than Christmas! Are you willing to ignore this to defend the precious history of this place? This is a fallen-down mass of stone, Mother! Half of our family’s wealth has been squandered on this wreck, and now Father is gone. We should raze this abomination to the ground and be done with it!”
“Bite your tongue, you insolent fool!” Maggie screamed into her only child’s face. “The Wellmore family name does not exist to cater to your every spoiled desire! If your Father could hear—”
“Well, he can’t hear anything, Mother,” Sebastian screamed back at her. “What good does it do to speak of him? Father’s last needs have been attended to—with another portion of our meager substance.”
Maggie slapped Sebastian before she even realized it. She began to quake and to cry.
“Sebastian,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, darling. You are all that I have left.”
“You are almost correct, Mother,” Sebastian said. He wiped his mouth. His nostrils flared at the sight of his blood on the back of his hand. “You have me, and you have our hemorrhaging family bank account along with an eight-hundred-year-old crumbling bit of stone that no one gives a bloody damn about.”
“We’ll just have to look for someone like Miss McFadden—”
“Have you listened to a word I’ve said?” Sebastian growled. “There are not enough local people to support a tour based on the history of this place, real or made-up. The only thing that can save this castle is to clothe it with the reputation that it is hopelessly haunted—the more horrifying and bloodier, the better.”
“I cannot do anything to help with that, Sebastian,” Maggie said. “I would not be able to show my face in town if it was known that I perpetrated such a hoax.”
“Then just what would you have us do?” Sebastian said. “When the money is gone, I will have to get a job—perhaps become a gentleman’s valet—while you will be taking in washing. Is this what you wish us to settle for?”
“What if we did have to take on jobs?” Maggie said. “That is not the end of the world, son. Your father and I were once—”
“Do you hear what you’re saying?” Sebastian said. “The living descendants of the Baron Wellmore; forced into servitude—”
“No one said anything about becoming a servant, Sebastian—”
“What would Father say if he could see us now?” Sebastian said.
Maggie collapsed into a chair.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“I’m not asking you to do anything,” Sebastian said, “But stay out of my way.”
“You don’t have to live in this dreary place, Darling,” Maggie said. “Andrea and Benjamin have plenty of room.”
“If you choose to stay with your sister, with her sad eyes and her pity—that’s your business,” Sebastian said, “But my place is here.”
”This place has not been fit for living in for years; the drafty old doors and windows—you’ll catch your death,” Maggie said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to spend some time with your aunt and uncle—”
“I don’t need room, and I don’t need charity,” Sebastian said. “My place is right here, as long as this cow is our sole source of independence.”
“I don’t think that this old place is good for you,” Maggie said.
“You’re partially correct,” Sebastian said. “You don’t think.”
“Well, I’ll put this lamp away, and I’ll be going,” Maggie said.
“Leave it. I’ll see to it,” Sebastian said quickly, blocking the entrance to the basement.
“I’m not completely useless, Son,” Maggie said. “I’ll see to it.”
“Suit yourself,” Sebastian said.
Sebastian followed his mother down the basement stairs. He held a flashlight, even though there was a light fixture hanging from the ceiling. When Maggie passed the passageway that broke off to the left, Sebastian spoke.
“There is plenty of room in the little storage room, there,” he said. “You certainly do not want to go anywhere near the dungeon level. There are rats down there the size of housecats.”
“Your father took care of the rats long ago,” Maggie said.
“Apparently they have learned that Father is gone because the rats are back with a vengeance,” Sebastian said.
Maggie eyed Sebastian warily.
Sebastian smirked as he offered his mother the flashlight.
“If you insist on visiting them, tell them I said ‘hello’.”
“What might you have down there?” Maggie asked suspiciously, “That the rats stand guard over?”
“Have a look for yourself,” Sebastian yawned. “But be quick about it. I haven’t all night.”
Maggie turned toward the first level storage room.
“Andrea is preparing her beef stew,” Maggie said. “She and Benjamin would be so happy if you would join us.”
”Thank them for me,” Sebastian said. “I have more props to prepare and I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself,” Maggie said. “I love you, Son.”
“Good night,” Sebastian said, closing the door behind his mother.
Maggie Wellmore wiped the dust from her hands onto her blouse. She walked to her car and moved it but a few hundred feet. She stopped and waited for ten minutes. She stepped f
rom the car and circled around to the rear of the castle. She paused behind a large tree and eyed the two shallow window wells that had been boarded over for decades. There were now small gaps in the boards for the first time in years—gaps that she recently created.
Maggie held her breath when she saw a beam of light pass in front of the window. At first, she thought it was her imagination running wild, but then the beam passed the other window. She sneaked back to her car and moved it far enough away that she could just see Sebastian’s car.
That night was the third night that she had watched for her son to leave the castle after she had gone. The first two times had been for naught. Maggie did not wish to arouse her sister’s suspicion by returning to Andrea’s house too late. Andrea Murdoch was already concerned with her older sister’s behavior. Andrea could think of no reason for her sister to be keeping such late hours. For the past several nights, Andrea stayed awake until she heard Maggie come in. Andrea did not like the Castle Wellmore at all, and she did not trust Sebastian.
Maggie was about to give up on that night’s mission when she saw the lights come on inside of Sebastian’s car. A few seconds later the headlights came on and the car pulled away. Maggie waited three minutes and left her car. She carried a small flashlight and her keyring. She opened the boot and picked up the heavy lug wrench. She didn’t know whether to believe her son about the rats, but she was taking no chances.
Maggie opened the basement door and stepped back to wait for the skeleton to drop down. She pushed her way around it, turned on the flashlight, and crept down the stairs. She paused when a stench hit her nose—the smell of a defective sewer. Eight steps below her, the stairs ended. The hallway turned to the right. Maggie held her breath and stepped down. She took a few kibbles of cat food from her pocket and threw them against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. She waited. Three small mice scampered to the feast. Maggie let out a breath.
She had only been to the ancient dungeon level one time—at her husband’s insistence. The couple had just become engaged to be married. Alistair Wellmore insisted that she would always have an irrational fear of the dungeon unless she saw it herself. He was right. But that visit was years ago, and she still had the occasional nightmare. This subterranean level had remained practically unchanged for the last eight hundred years. The signs of unspoken horrors remained.
As Maggie watched the mice eating, her thoughts went back to her first trip into the dungeon.
Alistair Wellmore did his best to prepare his young fiancé for the descent into his family’s dark past. He installed electric lighting where there had been nothing but torches for centuries. He hid away some of the more brutal and offensive structures. Alistair held both of Maggie’s hands at the top of the stairs while he told her what to expect. Maggie had been frightened, but she was also excited.
There were shackles everywhere—most were attached to sections of the wall. In one place, four shackles hung from both sides of a wooden structure. These were positioned so that two people suspended across from each other would be almost touching.
Almost close enough—for biting. There was a tapered trough underneath with a drain in the middle. Maggie could not make herself look away from this scene. She shuddered and trembled until Alistair moved her away.
Ancient wooden tables and crude stone constructions stood around the perimeter of the room. Maggie asked Alistair about these but he shook his head. He explained that many secrets were best left in the ancient past.
Maggie shook her head to clear away these memories and bring her senses back to the present. She reached back into her pocket and threw a handful of cat food against the far wall to occupy the mice.
The entrance to the old dungeon stood at the end of the hall, flanked by two unlit torches. Maggie crept up to the door and reached out to touch it. She noticed another smell beneath the aroma of an open sewer. An industrial aroma. An…oil.
She ran a finger along the top door hinge. She rubbed her finger together with her thumb.
Would Alistair have gone to the trouble to oil these hinges? Why would he?
She remembered the door from her previous visit to the dungeon. Alistair made Maggie open the door herself, all those years ago. Alistair wanted her to know of the door’s weight, its strength, and its power. It was heavy enough that it took every bit of Maggie’s strength to move it—a few centimeters at a time. The door was made of heavy timber and iron. Alistair refused to help her, saying that he would not always be around to help her. How prophetic that had been.
Maggie did not remember there being a “peephole” cut into the door. The small door, which was well above her eye-level, had the same type of iron bar latch as the main door. Maggie ran up the stairs to the storage room, picked up a wooden chair, and returned to the dungeon door. She climbed onto the rickety chair. She lifted the small iron latch. She opened the little door and clicked on the flashlight with her trembling hand.
The light reached only a short distance into the room. Maggie moved it to the right, and to the left. She moved it right again—and thought she saw something move. When she moved the light in the opposite direction, she stared into the face of a bearded and spectacled man.
Maggie screamed and dropped the flashlight—inside of the door.
A moment later that flashlight shined through the door at her.
“Who are you?” a man’s voice asked.
“I’m M-Maggie,” she said.
“I’m going to give you back your light, Maggie,” the man said. “We’ve little use for it in here.”
Maggie took the light through the peephole with quivering hands. She almost dropped it twice before turning it around to shine into the dungeon. When she did, she saw the man now had a woman standing at his side.
“Who…who are you?” Maggie whispered.
“We are Oliver and Gwendoline McFadden, Miss…”
“Oh, my God!” Maggie exclaimed, nearly falling from her perch on the worn-out chair.
“You’re Holly’s parents! But you were…everyone thought that you were lost at s—”
“I see that you’ve found my rats, Mother,” the voice behind Maggie Wellmore said.
Three
Wylie Westerhouse
Branson, Missouri
I unlocked the office door to the castle and punched in the code to disable the security system. The next thing I did was jump and spill my coffee. Again.
“Good morning, Wylie.”
Why Quentin Lynchburg thought that it was a good idea to have a woman’s voice talk to you out of nowhere is beyond me. Maybe I’ll get used to it, but this was the third day in a row that I began the day by mopping up a coffee that I had just paid for. At least, it was a pleasant voice: female and throaty—kind of sexy if you want to know the truth. I call her Elphaba—after the Wicked Witch of the West.
It wasn’t supposed to be a busy day. Elvis Rushmore was due to come by in the afternoon with three new fill-in tour guides. That would bring us up to eight people who were willing to help us with the remaining scheduled tours—six weekends in total.
I checked in with the answering service. This was my primary duty on weekdays; making sure that the proper messages went out to the people who called in for information about The Castle McIntyre:
•Yes, we will be honoring all ticket purchases for weekend tours for the next six weeks.
•No, there is no change in status for castle tours after that date.
•No, there are no additional ticket sales available at this time. Please check the website for details.
The answering service has new questions for me every day that they want our official response to. You wouldn’t believe the questions that people come up with.
“Can we bring our hamster? He gets so lonely when we leave him at home…”
“If we bring Grampa, can you put him way at the back? He has gas.”
“Do you have a priest on your staff? I’ve heard that there might be demons…”
&
nbsp; “How much is your beer? No beer? Can I bring my own?”
My cell rang.
“Good morning, Q. Any news?” I asked.
“We met up with a team of two private investigators last night,” Q said. “Two brothers— friends of Brian’s. We’ve been making plans this morning, and they’ve made some calls. We have meetings with the Police Service in Edinburgh tomorrow morning.”
“How is Holly?”
Q chuckled.
“In rare form,” he said, “The Finnegan brothers are highly thought of. But, since they don’t know what we know, I’m sure they think that the McFaddens have come to a bad end, one way or another. People don’t just disappear for six months without a reason.”
“Unless certain people have five-hundred-year-old friends,” I said.
“Exactly,” Q said. “To us, there are many possibilities. For the Finnegans and the police, this is just a matter of discovering the McFadden’s bodies in a different place.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“Yeah. Ouch,” Q said. “I feel helpless, myself. But I want to be here for Holly, just like you do.”
“You’re the best, Q,” I said. “I’m more grateful than I’ll ever be able to say.”
“We’re all just sparrows, Wylie,” Q said, “Trying to get by.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “I meant to tell you. There’s pandemonium here in Birdville. The mice found your stash of birdseed. I’m going to have to buy some more.”
“How did they—?” he said. “It’s in galvanized cans! They shouldn’t be able to—”
“They chewed through the bungee cords,” I said.
Q was speechless, which made me laugh.
