Castle Moon

by Mary Bowers

  I took a washcloth, wrung it out in cold water and held it against my forehead for a couple of minutes. Then I walked to the arrow slit beside the fireplace and leaned my elbows inside the thick casement, idly staring. The casement was too deep for me to be able to see down, but out on the horizon, the sail of a schooner looked piercingly white against the sky. I looked at my watch; it had been hours since I’d thought about the time. It was already after five. This time of the year, it doesn’t get dark until after eight. Our ghost hunt wouldn’t get into full swing for hours after that. Suddenly I felt unbearably weary, as if some force was draining my energy away.

  Ed knocked gently on the door. “Taylor? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. I threw the washcloth over the edge of the sink, went to the door and opened it. He was very close to the door, looking concerned.

  “Look, Taylor,” he said. “I think I’ve understood your psychic abilities better than you have from the very beginning. When Bastet first came to you, it wasn’t so she could bestow some greater ability upon you. It was already there. I believe that that’s why you’ve always had such a strong rapport with animals in the first place. You’re open. You receive. You’ve channeled it into your rescue work at the shelter, but you could have chosen to channel it in any other way. If you’d chosen to channel it into paranormal matters, you could have been one of the great mediums of all time.”

  I just stared at him, bone tired. “Wouldn’t that be ‘one of the great media of all time?’” I quirked a smile, but he wasn’t buying it.

  “You need rest,” he said quietly. “Please get some sleep. We won’t begin until around eleven o’clock. I’m hoping we can discourage Oliver from accompanying us, at least on the first night, but I’m told by young Horace, who’s been lurking on the stairs, eavesdropping on everybody he can get near, that Oliver is currently napping, and I’m afraid he’s resting so he can be up all night with us.”

  “The little monster’s been listening to us?”

  “I don’t think he heard any of our conversations. That staircase is too far away from our bedrooms, and the seating area we’ve just been talking in is pretty wide open. While we were with Mr. Moon, I doubt the child was anywhere near us. He wouldn’t want to be caught eavesdropping by his great-uncle, and I’m sure Mr. Moon is familiar with his habits. But I think he’s been hiding around corners and listening to other people. I wouldn’t put it past him to be a budding blackmailer. Still, he’s not our problem.”

  “He might be, if he starts pulling pranks on us while we try to investigate Cousin Clarice.”

  “I’ve already factored that in,” he said obliquely, walking quietly to the door. He opened it suddenly. “Ah, there you are, young Horace,” he said, leaving the bedroom and pulling the door to behind him. Before the door was completely shut, he turned to me and said, “Remember what I said.”

  My first reaction was to follow him to the door and open it. Ed was walking the kid away, talking to him jovially. When he heard me open the door, Horace turned and gave me a leer.

  “Smack him on the knee,” I told Ed, and I closed the door and went back to the bed.

  * * * * *

  I slept hard.

  I seemed to work at it, and the effort seemed to just make me more tired. When I awoke, the room was dark, and someone was there.

  It was a strange room, but I didn’t awake in confusion, wondering where I was. I knew. And I knew that though the castle was enormous, there were other people around somewhere. Ed would help me, even if nobody else would. But Ed was far away. His room was just beyond the far bathroom wall, but even if he was in his own room, there was probably five feet of coquina between us. In all probability, his own bathroom was on the other side of the wall; plumbing tends to be arranged that way. Most likely he’d be in the bedroom, not the bathroom. So if I screamed, he wouldn’t hear me.

  But I couldn’t scream.

  I had been able to open my eyes slightly, but the small man who was nothing but a pitch-black shape in a darkened room, hesitated near the door, considering me silently. I knew instinctively that he wasn’t hesitating out of fear. He was just waiting for me to come awake, to be conscious enough to feel the impact of his presence.

  Then he was over me, standing beside the bed, looking down. His head was coming down close to mine, sniffing like an animal, curious.

  I waited for the feel of teeth. I waited for a grunt, a growl, a groan. He hadn’t hurt me yet, but I knew he would if I made the slightest move. My heart was slamming against my ribs so hard I thought he could see it pulsing through my shirt, and I knew he could hear me breathe, and smell the life inside me.

  I’m in trouble, I thought helplessly, I can’t stand it, I’m going to scream, but still I couldn’t scream.

  Then, after coming so close to my face with his own that I began to see the arrangement of his features, he suddenly reared back. I knew (I don’t know how) that he had realized he was terrifying me, and when he understood that, he pulled away. He didn’t want to frighten me. He didn’t want to hurt me.

  And then he was gone. The air in the room was empty again, and the light came back to normal. It wasn’t so late after all.

  I held myself very still for a long time, knowing my heart couldn’t take any more, not even the effort of lifting my hand. The heart is only a muscle, after all, and it had become hot and painful and felt weak.

  When I awoke again, the sun was setting. I knew a night hadn’t passed. I had gone through an experience of some kind, and it had taken place within the last hour or so. With that thought, I spoke aloud, just to prove I could.

  “I’m all right,” I told the room. It absorbed my words without echoing them back at me. The sound of my own voice gave me confidence, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, steadying myself.

  There was nothing there but the few pieces of furniture, the chandelier, the portrait, the tapestry, and me.

  “That’s interesting,” I said, holding forcibly onto the confidence I decided I had. “Sleep paralysis. I never thought I’d experience it.”

  With that, I got up, went into the bathroom and enthroned myself, feeling just as silly as I’d thought I’d feel sitting on it.

  * * * * *

  I washed my face, patted on some moisturizer and put on a little blusher. Also eyeliner, concealer, eyebrow pencil, lip gloss and powder. This would be the first night of the ghost hunt. It was going to be a long night. I fluffed out my short blond hair where I’d been lying on it, and arranged a few strands across my forehead. I was only in the bathroom for five minutes, but by the time I came out, I could tell by the failing light that it was dusk.

  I came out of the room, shut the door behind me, and went down the hall to knock on Ed’s door. When I got no answer, I opened it and looked inside. He wasn’t there.

  He was probably down in the kitchen with everybody else, scavenging for food. I decided I’d better get down there, because by now I was really hungry, and I didn’t know how much professionally cooked food was left in the castle. With no cook, and just a couple of secretaries handling the food service, the menus might start getting a little garbled.

  I was happy – even a little smug – about the assessment I’d made about my frightening dream. Ever since I’d been dragged into the world of paranormal investigations, I’d done a little reading, and where Ed tended to read the opinions and reports of his own colleagues, (when he wasn’t writing own books), I had gone the other way and read books by James Randi, Joe Nickell and other skeptical investigators. I found them comforting. They explained everything so neatly, and they did it in a way that didn’t scare the heck out of me. Ghosts, spontaneous human combustion, even the Loch Ness Monster – all things that could be explained rationally and soothingly. It made one feel quite superior, learning the true meanings of things instead of believing the fairy tales. One smiled tolerantly at the True Believers.

  Sleep paralysis, the skeptics explained, was a st
ate sometimes entered into by people under unusual stress or when unusually tired. The features of sleep paralysis are: a feeling of panic, an inability to move or scream, and the conviction that you are not alone. My entity had been somewhat benign – a nice little man who backed off when he saw that he was scaring me. I was lucky. Most cases on record involved horrifying presences: demons, vampires, succubi, you name it, climbing onto the sleeper and pressing down to stifle the breath.

  Fortified with my superior knowledge, I had recognized the hypnotic state for what it was, and would not be babbling to Ed about being visited by Orion Moon, after having formed some kind of connection with him when I had been drawn to his portrait in the dungeon.

  I stopped on the spiral staircase, three steps from the passage to the great hall.

  Why did I connect the presence in my bedroom with Orion Moon? Because, I realized to my dismay, I did.

  I am a rational woman, my cat is not a goddess, and I do not see ghosts. Still, I lost a little of that smugness I’d felt a short while ago. I had not been visited by a ghost. But that, in fact, had been Orion Moon. I knew it.

  I took the last three steps down and stood on the ground-floor landing of the spiral staircase. Below me was thickening murk, changing to impenetrable blackness by the fourth step down. I decided I was not going to start to imagining things. It was possible we were going to be spending at least part of the night in the dungeon, with the portraits of the dead, or in the still unseen murder room. I looked warily at the light switch for the dungeon’s hall, then moved on to the great room. Averting my eyes from Horace’s bust, I passed quickly through the room and before I reached the other side of the music room, I heard voices. There were real people ahead, and with the feeling that I was walking away from my own fears without having really stood up to them, I went quickly through to the dining room, going toward the voices as if they were on the other side of a line between the living and the dead.

  They were there – at least some of them were. As I entered, young Horace greeted me cheerfully and said, “It’s every man for himself. Go get you some, before the others eat it all. They’re in the kitchen.”

  The last of the eeriness melted away, and I took a deep breath. The kid was too annoying to be anything but real.

  The teenager had a dish of ice cream in front of him, and he was chatting with his grandmother, Fawn. Elizabeth was at the head of the table, and Ryan was lounging at its foot, where Maxine had sat for lunch. At the seat closest to him, Julie Lang was picking at a salad. She had changed into evening wear, a lavender dress with a plunging neckline, and I was suddenly aware of my own clothing: a pair of light cotton slacks and a green tropical print shirt. I guess I’d chosen the shirt that morning because Michael liked it. He said it brought out the green of my eyes. But I’d just been sleeping in it, and I felt like I’d just rolled out of a laundry bag. The other ladies had changed, too, and were wearing dresses, but not quite as fancy as Julie’s. Fawn seemed to notice my discomfort.

  “Come in, dear. I hope you’ve had a good rest. I’m afraid my brother is going to keep you up all night. He never needs much sleep himself, and doesn’t seem to realize that other people do. You’ve heard about our quandary? We have no cook, no butler. But the refrigerator is full, and there are lots of dry goods in the cupboards, and Charlotte knows her way around the kitchen. She often helped Cook. Julie, it looks like you’re finished with your salad. Why don’t you take Ms. Verone into the kitchen and help her find something to eat.”

  Julie looked up in surprise, but quickly masked her resentment. She gave her employer a little nod, said, “I’d be happy to,” then gave Ryan a charming smile. She rose with easy grace and had begun to walk around the table when Fawn said, “You may as well take your salad plate with you and put it into the dishwasher. I’m afraid we’re all going to have to get used to clearing up after ourselves until Maxine hires a new cook.”

  Julie’s congenial expression froze on her face, and it took her a moment to regain it. Then she said, “You’re right, of course,” but her face began to harden as she went back to the table and picked up her dirty plate.

  I walked ahead of her toward the butler’s pantry and was almost through it and into the kitchen when young Horace piped up. “I’m done with my ice cream. Would you mind, Julie?”

  I turned in time to see Julie’s face; she looked like she wanted to kill him. But she composed herself again, went back and picked up his bowl.

  “Thank you, Julie,” Fawn said.

  “This is fun,” I heard Horace say as we passed through the butler’s pantry again. “Let’s not hire anybody to replace Cook.”

  “You’d starve,” his Uncle Ryan said. He went on, but I missed the rest as I walked into the kitchen.

  Julie came in behind me, walked around the work table, dumped the dirty dishes beside the sink and left them there. “Is there any hope of getting a proper staff back in place any time soon? I don’t intend to clear tables in my best evening clothes for the rest of the week.”

  “Then wear proper working clothes,” said a foghorn voice. To everybody’s surprise, Maxine Moon materialized at the east side of the kitchen, apparently from a storage closet.

  “You shouldn’t do that, Maxine,” Charlotte chided gently. “You startle people.”

  She and Jeralyn were at the dishwasher, loading dirty dishes. As I came closer, I saw Bastet sitting on the floor about three feet away from Jeralyn, in a space all her own, keeping an eye on her new best friend. That sounds like jealousy, but it wasn’t. I was beginning to realize that there was something to Bastet’s sudden attachment to Jeralyn. Back in the day, when Jeralyn had been a teenaged volunteer for Orphans, Bastet wasn’t with me yet. It’s not like she remembered her. Yet she apparently hadn’t left her side from the moment we had arrived. Even at that moment, when she hadn’t seen me for hours, Bastet only gave me a cool green stare, then went and rubbed herself against Jeralyn’s ankles.

  It appeared that Ed found this significant. He was leaning against the counter not far from them, eating a sandwich and observing. When I came in, he looked at me with hooded eyes, then shot a glance at my cat, then looked back at me and wiggled his eyebrows over the frames of his glasses. He’d been so intent on Bastet that when Maxine came in and brayed at us, he nearly dropped his sandwich.

  Maxine didn’t acknowledge Charlotte or anybody else. She went to a platter of sandwiches that was sitting on the work table, looked at it like it was a stinking mess, took one with two fingers, set it on a napkin and walked out toward the dining room.

  Once she was out of the kitchen, you could hear everybody start to breathe again.

  “Where did she come from?” Julie said.

  Charlotte answered, continuing to scrape dishes and load the dishwasher in a relaxed way as she talked.

  “Horace Moon had a hidden staircase put in behind the wall there. It led from his private suite to the ballroom. It was his way of sneaking out of parties when they began to bore him.”

  “What ballroom?” Julie asked. “There’s no ballroom in the castle.”

  “This ballroom. Until just after World War II, this was a ballroom. The kitchen was down in the dungeon. But during the labor shortages of both World Wars, it was difficult to find people who would agree to cook in a dungeon. Horace was still alive then, and stubbornly trying to carry on as if it were still the Gilded Age, but finally even he had to bow to the inevitable. Orion’s family was living here at the time, and his children were very young. They had to have a kitchen staff. So in order to get people to work here, they remodeled this end of the castle. The ballroom became the kitchen, and the windows giving an ocean view from here were bricked up so the family wouldn’t be looking into the kitchen while they were sitting on the terrace. The ballroom entrances to the terrace were moved back to the ends of the long halls along the sides of the castle. The ballroom chandelier was removed and replaced with conventional lighting, and the dumbwaiter from the old kitchen to the
butler’s pantry was sealed up.”

  I was already eating a sandwich by then. The only non-meat item on the tray was peanut butter and jelly, in all probability made by Ed. I gave him a smile, and noticed his ghost-hunting satchel sitting on the floor by his feet. I decided to ignore it for the moment. Instead, I held up my sandwich and said, “Yours?”

  He made a slight bow and said, “Please enjoy.”

  “I knew it,” I said, taking another bite. Peanut butter is just about all he eats. He’s a bachelor, lives alone, and only eats so he won’t die of starvation, which would interrupt his investigations. Years ago, he decided that peanut butter was the one perfect food, and that was that.

  As I chewed, I looked around and tried to visualize the kitchen as a ballroom. It was big enough, as private ballrooms of the day went: the ceiling was high enough, and the beat of the ocean beyond the castle wall behind us reminded me there was a beautiful view we couldn’t see. But now it was so fully and completely a kitchen that I couldn’t imagine pretty little ingénues fluttering around in ball gowns. The playroom was now a workplace.

  I thought about what I knew of the castle’s layout. “So,” I said to Charlotte, “the old kitchen in the dungeon is now Maxine’s murder room?”

  “Yes. Actually, her murder room stretches across what used to be the old kitchen and wine cellar. The family doesn’t keep the kind of cellar it used to. The present-day wine cellar is in a much smaller space, at the other end of the dungeon.”

  I smirked. “So, back in the day, Horace could quietly sneak down to the wine cellar any time of night or day?”

  Charlotte smirked back. “You don’t think like a rich person. If Horace wanted a bottle of wine, he rang for his butler – any time of the day or night. No, that staircase ends here, in the kitchen. If you want to go down to the murder room and don’t want to wander around narrow, spooky hallways in the dungeon, you have to take the staircase from the corner of the staff dining room. Have you been to the murder room yet? Maxine is very proud of it.”