by Mary Bowers
“Not if it’s something stupid,” I said, steaming.
He actually smiled. “I know you’re having a hard time with your . . . abilities. Ed told me all about it. I understand, I assure you. If I suddenly developed the ability to, for instance, levitate, it would throw me into a state of denial, too. Don’t interrupt. Let me just have my say. I want you to do something for me, even if you don’t believe it means anything. Will you? I want you to call on my father. He wouldn’t hurt you. He may protect us all. Look at it this way: it couldn’t hurt.”
“Seriously?”
“Humor me.”
I settled myself as best I could. “Where are we going to do this? In the chapel?”
He seemed amused. “No. Let’s go to his old room.”
“Isn’t that Maxine’s room now?”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s still my father’s room. We’ll go up there, and you just take a moment to . . . reach out. Whatever it is. Think of him. It’s all I’m asking.”
“And if Maxine catches us?”
“I’ll deal with her.”
“Doesn’t she keep it locked or something?”
“I own the place. I have a master key to the bedrooms. Come on.”
* * * * *
Maxine’s suite was lovely. I don’t know what I expected, but I walked in and gazed around enchanted. The fact that I could hear her foghorn voice still coming from the terrace emboldened me. I stepped in for a closer look.
The guest bedrooms were square, stone, and simple. This room had a curving shape and a wood-framed ceiling obviously taken from a European chateau. The French doors to the terrace were wide open, and lavish draperies of gauzy white had been pulled aside to frame the ocean. It was a man’s room, created for the master of an empire, and Maxine had seen no reason to redecorate. The walls were covered with dark red fabric printed with fading gold figures, and the furniture was carved rosewood with mother-of-pearl inlay. The chair-backs, mirrors, occasional tables, headboard and footboard were full of fussily-shaped spindles endlessly repeated, and there were four massive and unnecessary columns bearing grim faces around the capitals and carved flora from another time and place (ancient Egypt?) around the pedestals. The room was vast, but so heavily furnished that it seemed both airy and cluttered at the same time.
“Feel anything?” Oliver said.
“Jealousy. I’ve got a nice bedroom at home, but, damn!”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. Let’s try in here.” He walked right over like he owned the place, (okay, he did), and opened the door to her office.
“This is where my father ran the estate,” he said. He walked across to the mammoth desk and tapped its glossy surface. “This was his desk.”
The carved details of the desk corners were in keeping with the Empire feel of the room, but the computer on the desktop was definitely out of place. There was a printer to the side of the computer, and I could see that Maxine had been working. Papers were scattered all around, and there was a large calendar page behind the computer with scribbled notes on some of the days. I walked around the desk and picked up the top sheet from a pile of printer paper. Under my breath, I read, “Chapter One.”
I stood there and read to the bottom of the page, frowning. I shook my head, thought about it, then picked up the next page, but Oliver got impatient and said, “I didn’t bring you in here to conjure my sister. I could lean over the balcony and do that myself. Put that down and touch the desk. Stand behind it – here, where he used to sit – run your fingers over it.”
I did as he said, and immediately the snarly texture of Maxine’s words was smoothed out of my mind. Something comfortable settled over me, something good and plain and friendly. The maelstrom of jagged edges became a cloak of contentment, almost simplicity. I cocked my head, as if it were something I could hear, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t catch it with my senses, but to get closer to it, I leaned forward and pressed my hands down flat on the desk. My head sank forward and I closed my eyes. My own voice thrummed inside my head, but that didn’t bother me. I felt nice.
When Oliver touched me I flinched away and the feeling lifted.
“Let’s go,” he said. “They’re breaking up downstairs. I can handle Maxine, but I’d rather not if I don’t have to.”
I was way ahead of him. We were out of her room like lightning, and as he locked the door behind us, I heard voices coming up the spiral staircase that would quickly bring them face-to-face with us.
“Move it,” I whispered, and we took the north gallery to get down to Oliver’s side of the second floor before the gang came rolling in.
Maxine paused outside her door and stared at us while Elizabeth and Horace went on to their rooms. Oliver and I were leaning on the railing looking down into the great hall, innocent as little children.
“What are you two doing?” she asked.
“Planning the next stage of our experiment,” I said with all the gravity I could muster. I’d never spoken cynically about the ghost hunt in front of Maxine. She didn’t know about my rebellious streak.
Saying, “Morons!” loud enough for us to hear, she unlocked her door, went in, and slammed it behind her.
Once she was gone, Oliver asked me, “Did you catch him?”
“Don’t,” I said, looking away.
“You were singing an old Frank Sinatra song.”
I snapped around again. “I was?”
“It was his favorite. Ah, here comes the Sensitizer.”
“Sensitainer,” I said automatically.
Ed and Ryan came staggering out of the staircase with the boxy thing between them.
“Where do you want it?” Ryan asked.
Ed looked to Oliver for an answer.
“Over there,” he said, indicating a place by the railing just beyond us. “It’s where I nearly fell.”
“No,” I said, for no reason I could think of. “It’s over here. Where we’re standing now.”
Oliver stepped back as if something had scared him, and Ed looked impressed. Ryan just looked like he wanted to put the thing down. As I stood there wondering what made me say that, all three men looked behind me and stared.
I turned to see Bastet coming out of the stairwell. She sat down neatly in front of the door to Oliver’s bedroom and wrapped her tail around her paws, looking satisfied. Or prepared. Or something. I can never figure her out.
But somehow, I didn’t care. I felt sure of myself, very settled, and very calm. Why, I didn’t know.
* * * * *
We got rid of Ryan without much of a fight. His heart was somewhere up above the ceiling, as it were. What he really wanted to do was turn his back on us and take the stairs two at a time, stride down the upstairs hall and flatten his lady-fair’s door with one blow, then stand in the doorway bearing down upon her masterfully, refusing to take any more nonsense from her. His eyes kept straying toward the ceiling, where her bedroom was. But even in his overwrought state, he knew just as well as I did that she wasn’t ready, and a restraining order wasn’t going to do anything to bring her around.
After a few half-hearted protestations about what a help he could be, he tottered off to bed. I realized from the direction his eyes kept straying that Jeralyn was actually sleeping in the bedroom directly over his own, which seemed like fate being needlessly cruel. From below, he probably imagined he could hear her heartbeat. I guess you have to be young to be able to endure that kind of suffering. Even, in a strange way, to enjoy it. I wasn’t too old to remember, and I didn’t envy him.
I never doubted that the lady he was yearning after was Jeralyn.
From these poetic musings, I turned to see Ed groping around on the floor, trying to get his machine set up.
“Do you have to plug it in?” Oliver asked.
“I never know the conditions under which I’ll be working,” Ed said. “I designed it with that in mind. It’s extremely efficient in its energy use, and I have relay back-up batteries for emergencies
and outdoor work in rough terrain. We should be okay,” he said, just as the thing came to life with a sound both muted and scary. It gave a thin, prim, ascending whine of awakening, then settled back into itself with a pulsing hum. To me, it sounded like the movies version of a nuclear weapon arming itself.
“That thing isn’t dangerous, is it?” Oliver asked warily.
He stood up and straightened his clothes. “It has no moving parts, except for the trap, which is a simple spring-operated mechanism. This will be my first field test, but I’m pretty confident. I can already see that I need to make some design changes, though. The controls need to move up, and I need to give it a support system.” He glanced over and clarified. “It needs to be up on legs. I can’t crawl around in the dirt, in the dark, trying to activate it. Okay, I think we’re good to go.”
Bastet came forward to sniff around the machine in that “I’m not really interested” way that some cats have. She went all around it, walked away, jumped up onto the thickly cushioned settee and gazed out over the opening above the great hall, bored.
“Taylor,” Ed said, “if you wouldn’t mind.”
“What?”
“Just lie down there on the couch and relax.”
“Just go ahead into a trance, like you did last night,” Oliver said helpfully. “We’ll do the rest. Don’t worry. The ghost is after me, not you.”
Many smart remarks occurred to me, but I kept my mouth shut and went over to the settee that Bastet had chosen and curled myself around her. If nothing else, I could have a nap with my pet. It would be the first one since we’d gotten to the castle.
As I drifted off, it occurred to me that Oliver’s remark about the ghost might have been for the benefit of his living relatives, not me or a hypothetical ghost. He’d never been all-in on the ghost hunt before. At least, I hadn’t thought so. But in the night, after dark, when things get right down to it, many a cynic becomes a believer.
It was at least an hour later that I awoke to the sounds of confusion. They were trying to keep it down, but something was happening. I sat up. Bastet wasn’t there. She was over by the Sensitainer, sniffing around it again, and Oliver was bracing himself against the balustrade while Ed knelt on the floor looking thunderstruck.
As I sat up, Ed looked over at me and said, “We got her!” like he hadn’t really believed it could happen.
I stood up and went slowly toward the box on the floor. Somehow, it looked livelier now, though I couldn’t quite figure out how. There were the same lights blinking and not blinking. There was still that self-satisfied hum. But now there was the distant sound of music, like the muzak of an elevator that you hear just before the doors open for you to get in.
“She’ll be all right now,” Ed said, patting the box.
I focused on the contraption again, trying to catch the soupy melody of the music trapped within it, keeping Cousin Clarice company.
“Are you going to make her listen to that for the rest of eternity?”
Oliver glared at the box. “She’s lucky we don’t make her listen to rap,” he snarled.
Chapter 17
“What’s this I hear about you catching a ghost last night?” Charlotte asked as we set to work in Fawn’s room.
“Oh, that,” I said wearily.
“Don’t you remember? Like the night before? You were in a trance or something?” She tried to sound sympathetic, but I still felt weird about it.
“I was taking a nap. The boys did it without me. Ed has this device. He thinks he’s caught the ghost of Clarice in it. You know the story, right? She wanted to inherit the castle, so she took care of Orion in his last years, hoping he’d change his will.”
“Yes, I know.”
“The way they tell it, Oliver was standing by the railing over the great hall, concentrating on drawing Clarice to him, when he began to feel pressure and heat, like something enraged, pushing at him, pushing him over the railing. Ed did something with the polarity of his Sensitainer and . . . something happened. Ed said he actually saw her at the last moment.”
“Clarice?”
I nodded. “Only that part of it only came out on the third telling, so I have my doubts. Ed tries to be skeptical, but he gets himself worked up. Who knows? Anyway, Oliver is happy about it, and I guess we’ve earned our fee. I hope he’ll feel safe after this. Maybe he’ll let us go home now.”
I knew he wouldn’t. He was still thinking about his father, Orion.
We were finally alone in Fawn’s room, which was the mirror-image of Maxine’s room, without the office. Elizabeth had agreed to having Fawn’s things packed up, but said she didn’t have a key to let us in. We tried Maxine next, but she said she didn’t have one either.
“She kept that with her, even when she wasn’t here,” Maxine had told us. “I didn’t like it, but when Fawn got stubborn about something, she was like a mule. She had some of her own artwork in there, and was in the habit of leaving a few personal things that she needed for every visit. We never use that room for guests. It was hers, exclusively. She kept it locked when she wasn’t here, and that was that.”
I knew that Oliver had a master key, but wasn’t sure I should admit that I knew it. It was common knowledge among the family members, though, so Elizabeth knew, and she was the one to ask him for it. He didn’t give it to her; he came down and opened the door for us. Maxine stood by watching, resentful, taut with anger. I wondered if she’d been able to sense somehow that we had been in her own room the night before.
“Should we go through everything?” I asked uneasily. It didn’t feel right, going through the dead woman’s things. And so many things!
I stood in the middle of the room looking around at the dainty, white-painted furniture. This had been the room of the mistress of the house, Adela Hanford Moon, and there had been no need to bring it up to date. Here was comfort, wealth and taste. Where Horace’s room had been ponderous and dark, Adela’s was airy, luminous and feminine, all creams and powder blues and golds. The low chairs had nice, wide seats, upholstered in blue, and the scattered little tables had lamps with stained-glass shades, probably designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. The Moons had known him. The dressing room would have easily held a season’s-worth of dresses, day-wear and formal-wear, all brought to Florida in steamer trunks, unpacked and aired by maids.
I tried to count the number of drawers in the room. Fawn had had the exclusive use of this room for decades, and places lived in too long tended to collect things. There were probably things at the backs of shelves that Fawn herself had forgotten about. I began to comprehend the magnitude of the job. We hadn’t even looked into the bathroom yet. My lowly guest suite had a throne around the toilet. Fawn’s was probably going to have the whole coronation suite.
Charlotte was getting a set of suitcases out of the dressing room, all business, and I decided to stop trying to wrap my mind around the whole job at once and just get to work. And I was going to keep my mind blank. Dwelling on how recently Fawn had worn each pair of earrings, listening as the watch ticked on after the lady had stopped forever, wondering when she’d worn the little black velvet hat with the fishnet veil, (somebody’s funeral?), wasn’t going to help anybody and would slow me down. I shook my head and walked straight to the slender-legged tallboy and began opening drawers.
We worked quietly for a while, folding, wrapping, occasionally consulting one another as to whether ornaments belonged to the castle or to Fawn, or whether obviously valuable jewelry should be given directly to Elizabeth or packed for shipping.
“To Elizabeth,” Charlotte decided. “We’ll put that kind of thing over here, on the vanity.”
Just to make conversation, I said, “Has Julie left?”
“Oh, no. Hasn’t anybody told you?” Charlotte said without looking up. “She’s staying on. Maxine has hired her.”
I turned to stare. “Excuse me?”
She inhaled raggedly, came to a reluctant stop and turned to me. “I know. I can’t expla
in it. Except that, well, actually I can explain it. All these years. Times have changed.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, looking bewildered and hurt. “I’ve worked for Maxine for over thirty years. All this time, we’ve understood one another. But I’ve never been a good typist. When she hired me, she said it didn’t matter. She was just starting out in her career as a writer, and she did all her own typing. She told me, ‘When I write, I think through my fingers.’ And I already knew what kind of books she wrote. I was glad I didn’t have to type them! Oh, I can manage the occasional business letter, and she’s always done her own personal correspondence. That was before all these computers, and word processing and everything. I’m afraid I’m not very good at any of it, but it never seemed to matter. But Julie is really up on all those things, and she went to Maxine and explained what a big help she’d be with the books. Over the years . . . arthritis in her hands . . . you’ve noticed her knuckles? . . . things are just different now. Maxine decided she needed a literary secretary. She said something like, better the devil she knew. I – I can’t explain it. And yet, it makes sense. Even Ryan said it was a good idea.”
“Ryan?” I was staggered. And beginning to doubt my ability to read young lovers. “Charlotte,” I asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside her, “you secretaries all have your bedrooms on the third floor, opposite the guest bedrooms, right?”
“Yes.”
“Whose bedroom is directly over Ryan’s?”
“Jeralyn’s. Why?”
“Oh, no reason,” I said abstractedly. He’d definitely been worshipping the walls that held the woman he loved, and I’d been right: those walls held Jeralyn, not Julie. So why did he want to keep Julie in the family, so to speak?
“Taylor?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go dark on you like that. Come on. We’ve got a lot left to do, and we may as well get it done.”
She nodded, but still looked intrigued. Within a few minutes we were both working hard again, lifting, folding, packing, stretching up to high shelves and bending down to bottom drawers.
