by Mary Bowers
While I was putting cream in my coffee she picked up a tray and said, “Excuse me while I set the salads on the table.”
“Can I help?”
She was horrified. “Do you want to get me fired?”
I hunched up and looked apologetic. “Sorry. I’m just an American girl. I forgot it was still 13th Century Scotland in here.”
She laughed and carried the tray out. When she returned, she went back to the work table to put the top crusts on the little pies.
“I hope we’re getting those after lunch.” She smiled. “So,” I said, settling against the counter behind me, “is the castle really haunted?”
She paused and looked up at me without lifting her head, then went on with the pastry. “He says it is, so I guess it’s gotta be so.”
“He being Oliver Moon?”
She nodded, shook her head and shut her eyes for a moment. “He’s never been silly before. Personally,” she said, lowering her voice again, “I’m wondering if he isn’t doing this just to get under Miss Maxine’s skin. She’s been furious about the way he’s been spending money lately, and doesn’t mind telling him so in front of the hired help. Actually, though, there have always been stories about the castle having a ghost. Just one. Not the cast of characters Himself has been talking about. You’d think they were up on the battlements breeding, the way he keeps adding to the list.”
I laughed. “So who is this one bona fide, vintage ghost? Horace?”
She looked up at me, scandalized. “Good lord no! Granted, I don’t like the little so-and-so, but he’s only a kid. Twelve or thirteen. I’d say he was at a difficult age, but that one was born at a difficult age.”
“Oh. We’re talking about different Horaces, I think.”
“Oh, you mean the original Horace? The guy on the mantel in the great hall? No, actually, the ghost is supposed to be Mr. Oliver’s cousin, Miss Clarice. Supposedly, she’s angry because she didn’t outlive him.” She stopped, holding a top crust. “Or was it because she thought she was going to inherit the castle, and he got it instead? Maybe both,” she added with a shrug, going on with her work. Then she looked up like a deer in the headlights. “They’re in the dining room. They’re early! Quick – this way!”
She led me to a smaller, plainer dining room off the far side of the kitchen, where Jeralyn and the other employees ate, probably.
“Darn it!” she murmured. “I didn’t even get to ask you about your ghost hunting adventures. Well, maybe later. Go through there. There’s the billiard room, and then an office. Mr. Oliver’s office.”
I went through the doorway and found myself in a tiny, embrasured room, just a space between walls, really. It had all the furniture it could hold: two comfy chairs and a little piecrust table. Certainly no gaming tables.
“Wait! Where’s the billiard room?”
She had already started back to the kitchen, and took two steps back. “Oh, I forgot about this little area. Nobody ever uses it. Through there,” she said, pointing to a doorway on the opposite side of the room.
I went to the open doorway, and sure enough, it was a billiard room, big enough to be part of a gentlemen’s club. “Through here, then into the office,” I repeated. “Then where do I go?”
“Watch out before you go into the office. Mr. Oliver might be in there, but I think I heard him in the dining room. Go on through and straight to the doorway ahead of you and you’ll be back in the great hall. From there, you can find your way back to the dining room, like you did before.” The gong went, and she looked up as if it were hanging over her head. “Gotta go.”
“Nice meeting you, Carrie,” I said as she hustled away.
I turned around and threaded my way along the path she’d described, finding myself back in the great hall staring at Horace again. The icy-white statue caught me, somehow, but I tore myself away and walked toward the dining room. There were more rooms than I remembered along the way, and I began to feel like I was in a bad dream, one of those where you need to get somewhere desperately and things keep getting in your way.
After having gotten there before anybody else, I found I was now the last to arrive. Oliver Moon glared at me, glanced at his watch, threw me another look and told everybody to be seated. They all had wineglasses in their hands, even Ed. He stared at me wildly, and when he took his seat, he placed his wineglass down like it was a hand grenade. Ed doesn’t drink.
Suddenly Oliver was at my side handing me a glass of wine I didn’t want and pulling a chair out for me. Darn. I had hoped he would seat me next to Ed so I could knock his glass out of his hand if he tried to drink from it. He’s morose after a sip or two, then he quietly slides to the floor, out cold. But Oliver placed me at the near left side of the table, then seated himself at the head of the table, next to me.
I sat down when Oliver seated me, of course, but I noticed that everybody else had waited for the female light heavyweight at the other end of the table to sit down before they did.
Across from me was a washed-out, tired-looking woman in her late sixties. Beside her was a good-looking young man who could only be Jeralyn’s Ryan, and next to him was Ed, behaving himself and leaving the wine alone. In fact, so far, he hadn’t touched anything at all, not even his napkin. Not even the table. Opposite Oliver was a squat, dark, angry-looking old woman who was ignoring Ed on the one side and lecturing a teenaged boy on the other side, in the bass-baritone I’d heard upstairs. Between me and the boy was a fortyish woman who was tensely watching the lecture.
“My sister Maxine,” Oliver told me grimly, gesturing down past the epergne to the other end of the table. With the carousel of up-and-down silver bowls in the way, he couldn’t possibly have seen her, and he didn’t try. I looked at her and smiled, but she ignored me and continued to harangue the boy in an undertone, while he stared straight at her. He couldn’t have been more defiant if he’d shouted back.
“And this is our younger sister, Fawn,” he went on, indicating the tired-looking woman across from me.
This time, my smile was returned, but something about her made me want to say, “There, there,” instead of, “How do you do?”
“My nephew, Ryan, Fawn’s son.”
He gave me a polite nod, murmured, “Ms. Verone,” and looked back at the salad plate in front of him. Oh, yes, Jeralyn, I thought, good catch. The guy’s got jaw. I don’t know why, but I’ve always found myself attracted to men with lean faces and strong jaw-lines. He had neatly cropped brown hair and satin brown eyes, and even from across the table I was jealous of his thick, black eyelashes. He had a presence and a strength that projected all around him, and he wasn’t even trying. Jeralyn never had a chance.
Ed goggled at me. I shot a glance at the wineglass and shook my head infinitesimally. He got the message, but looked exasperated. Good. Better exasperated than drunk. He looked like he was about to knock over something breakable. And irreplaceable.
“My great-nephew Horace, and his mother, Lizzie.”
“Elizabeth,” she snapped.
She looked at me. “Please call me Elizabeth,” she said more civilly.
“Good to meet you, Elizabeth,” I said.
Great-nephew Horace had been released from his aunt’s hectoring and was gazing across the table and past Ed’s head, simmering gently.
Maxine was already eating, so I picked up my salad fork and stalled with it in midair as Oliver said, “I think we should return to our former, more civilized, habits.”
“Whatever do you mean by that?” Maxine snapped.
“Fawn,” he said, “would you like to say grace?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Maxine said, as Fawn stared at Oliver open-mouthed.
“I see you can’t remember how,” Oliver said. “Just bless the food and say whatever you’d like to say in your own words. I always think it’s better that way.”
Her surprise froze into horror, and just as I was racking my brain for something to say, wanting to rescue her, Ryan quietly and na
turally began to speak.
“Lord, thank you for bringing the family together again, and please make this a peaceful, loving visit. Thank you for this good food, the lives of plenty that we’ve had, and also give us the grace to remember that above all things, family is your greatest gift.”
There were a few confused amens, and one forceful “Amen to that,” from the teenager. His mother smacked him on the knee and he grinned.
I thought about the family dynamics Jeralyn had described and figured the prayer must have been a kind of heart’s cry, full of wishes that he was pretty sure weren’t going to come true. I took a quick look at his face and saw composed sadness.
Carrie Cox had paused in the doorway as Ryan had said grace, and now she came forward with a peppermill, first offering it to Maxine and then coming around the table. When she stopped by Ryan, she gave him a melty, motherly smile.
As she came to Ed, he looked up at her and said, “I understand your husband is the butler? Cox? I wonder if when he’s done with the washing-up, you could send him to me. I’ve unloaded most of my equipment already, but there’s one heavy machine I’ll need his help with. Thank you. No pepper. Thank you.”
“Of course, sir,” she murmured, then she went back to the kitchen.
“So, Mr. Darby-Deaver, sir,” young Horace said, “you’re just about set up for the ghost chase, are you?” His tone of voice was satiric, and I wanted to reach around his mother and smack the back of his head, because Ed doesn’t recognize satire. He’d give a serious answer, and then the kid was going to bait him for as long as he could.
This ugly scenario was cut off by another, even uglier one, when Maxine turned on Ed like a Gorgon.
“Just how much has my brother paid you two to go running around the castle at night making fools of yourselves?”
Ed had a forkful of salad halfway to his mouth, and he paused to stare at her. “Ma’am?”
Ed would have given her a literal answer; I managed to jump in before he could.
“Our professional fees are confidential,” I said, at the same moment that Oliver said, “Since that money is mine, not yours, I don’t see how that can possibly interest you.”
“That money belongs to all of us!” she shouted. “From the looks of these two characters, you could’ve gotten them cheap, but you probably didn’t even bother to bargain with them. You never could handle money, and neither could Father. He never paid attention to the important things. His will was ridiculous.”
I found myself watching her hands as she waved them around furiously, and wondering how she got all those rings over her arthritic knuckles. Gemstones flashed from odd fingers, the index and pinky fingers of one hand and the middle and index fingers of the other, but none on either ring finger.
Words continued to fly down the table like fireballs, over and around the epergne. I ate as steadily as a bovine, pretending not to hear. We all did.
“A man’s will,” Oliver said, “is never understood by his womenfolk. They should forget about such things and tend to the children. Except you don’t have any children. That’s probably your problem in a nutshell.”
“My books are my children,” she intoned. “You would never understand. You’re just like Father. It’s hard to believe he was even related to Grandfather. Now there was a genius! But genius always skips a generation. Father wasn’t half the man grandfather was. His will was patently unfair, and the way it was worded, he obviously expected you to provide for Fawn and me much more generously than you have.”
“Thank you, my dear,” Oliver said with a little smile.
“For what?” she said.
“For pointing out that I’m a genius.”
She was leaning to one side, trying to glare at him around the tangled arms of the epergne, and he was placidly enjoying his salad, never even bothering to look up.
“Let’s see,” young Horace said, counting on his fingers. He looked up brightly at his mother. “I think that means I’m a genius too! But not Uncle Ryan,” he added matter-of-factly.
Elizabeth smacked his knee again, and he ignored it again. I’d seen better parenting from clams.
“Oh, I give up!” Maxine huffed, settling her mass back into her seat and stabbing at her salad.
Without bothering to take his attention away from his food, Oliver said, “You live in a castle with a view of the ocean – occupying Grandfather’s master suite and office, which by all rights should be mine while I’m in residence – and are waited on hand and foot by a secretary, a cook and a butler, year-round. I’d say you did all right out of your patrimony.”
“Have you made any progress yet?” Fawn asked politely, looking at me.
“I have no control over my own life!” Maxine shot back at the epergne. “You dole the money out like a miser, and make me account for every penny. I’m 75, and you treat me like a child. It’s humiliating!”
Ed, who should have been pretending he was a moosehead hanging on the wall, considered Maxine’s statement and said, “I thought you were a bestselling author. No money in books these days?”
She gave him a look that would have killed a more socially cognizant being.
“That reminds me,” Oliver said to me, “as soon as lunch is finished, I want you and Mr. Darby-Deaver to accompany me to my office. The small one, on this floor. Not the en suite office on the third floor, where my sister writes her silly little books, gazing at a lovely view of the ocean. While visiting, I always use the little office on the north side of the castle, with no view at all. Not even a window. I often think how like a prison cell it is. But, be that as it may, I want you two to understand what I expect from you, and to get started as soon as possible. Tonight. Getting the last of your equipment from your car will have to wait until after that, Mr. Darby-Deaver.”
“I’m sure you’re very professional,” Fawn said to me, as if nobody else had spoken, “but I’m not terribly clear about what it is you do?”
I wasn’t terribly clear about it either, but I couldn’t very well tell her I was only in it for the money. Ed quietly and disastrously leaned forward and told her, “We’re paranormal investigators. I need some clarification from Mr. Moon, but I believe we are here to identify and contain a ghost, or ghosts.”
Maxine erupted like a Wagnerian soprano. Suddenly, she had high notes, and she threw her salad fork against the wall behind Ed and banged on the table a few times. Ed nearly dived under the table, Ryan stared quietly into his plate, Horace the younger erupted in laughter and Elizabeth smacked his knee.
I looked down into my plate and quietly finished my salad.
Mrs. Cox was a good cook, and the baked haddock she prepared came to the table looking like a masterpiece. I was very glad she was serving fish. I’m a pescetarian – a vegetarian who sometimes eats fish – and if she’d served a roast I would have had to explain why I wasn’t eating. I was pretty sure Maxine wouldn’t have been pleasant about it.
I had my first view of Carrie’s husband when he came around the table to serve, and I quickly decided I liked him. He had fading strawberry-blond hair, bright blue eyes and eyebrows so pale he didn’t seem to have any at all. He was slightly built, but looked wiry, and despite his reserved manner, something about his face made me think he had a good sense of humor. I looked around at my host family and decided I wanted to go home with the Coxes. Not that I could.
The Coxes served together, pretending to be deaf while the Moons sniped back and forth.
By the time the peach tarts came out with the coffee I was ready to throw myself off the rocks outside. I could no longer say, “One hundred thousand dollars,” out loud, but I could sure as heck think it.
When Maxine finally put her dessert fork down and stood up, the rest of us got out of our seats as if somebody had fired a starter’s pistol. Horace the younger got to the door first, saying “Later, y’all,” and his mother quickly followed, no doubt winding up for another shot at his knee.
“If you’ll follow me,” Oliver
said formally to me, then nodding at Ed. I didn’t see where Ryan and his mother went, and I no longer cared.
The fastest way to Oliver’s office, I knew, would have been through the kitchen, but naturally he took us the long way around, through the concert-hall sized instruments of the music room, a few lovely, empty sitting rooms and finally the great hall. The doorway to Oliver’s office was at the far side of it.
He had hesitated before his open office door, then once inside he stared at the open door to the billiard room. I had left both doors standing open as I fled through them earlier, but I wasn’t about to mention it.
He closed both doors and flipped a light switch. Spots of yellow light appeared on the walls behind amber sconces, spaced around the darkened room like gas lamps in a London fog.
It was a large room with a carved mahogany desk. Facing it were two oversized leather armchairs, very ponderous and dark, and behind the desk was a matching credenza with nothing on it. In fact, there were no papers on any of the surfaces in the office, including the desk. I suspected that any important papers were locked away in the room Oliver slept in, not here in the office, away from the normal traffic pattern of the castle, where anybody could sneak in and snap a few pictures with a cell phone.
Once we were seated, he folded his hands on the desktop and began.
Chapter 5
“I’ll be brief, because the greater part of your assignment will be in another part of the castle, and I’m going to take you there next. You won’t be spending any time in here.” He looked around. “I hate this room.”
I did too. Many of the antiques in the castle were astonishingly beautiful. The amber sconces just looked old.
Ed didn’t notice. If the room didn’t have any ghosts, he wasn’t interested. He pushed the button on a tiny recorder and set it on the desk. Redundant as always, he then got a notebook out of his cargo pocket and prepared to write. I sat back and relaxed. It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Bastet since she’d sashayed away after Jeralyn, but Oliver didn’t ask about her and I didn’t bring her up.
