The Manor

by Scott Nicholson

  "It's like it's got this… energy," Cris said. "When I was drawing, the charcoal almost seemed to be moving by itself."

  "Like hypnotic suggestion and that rot?" he snorted, then regretted it. Scorn wasn't the way into a woman's heart, or any of the other warm parts, either.

  Cris's lip curled. She slapped the sketch pad closed. The haunting, warped drawing still lingered in Roth's mind.

  "Everybody's a critic," she said. "Why don't you just go back to pushing your silly little buttons?"

  She stormed past him, kicking up leaves. Roth watched her walk onto the wagon road and toward the house. He shifted the strap that was digging into his neck, then checked the camera that was perched on the tripod.

  Blew a go at her, he thought. What do I care about any twopence line drawing, anyway? Artists are a pack of fools, going on about "meaning" and "creative spirit" and such nonsense. All it came down to was money, power, and sex, and how to secure more of each.

  He peered through his viewfinder at the manor. Cris bounced up the wide steps leading to the porch. As she disappeared through the front door, Roth couldn't shake the feeling that the house had swallowed her whole.

  The forest looked different in the daytime. Its edges were blunter, the branches less menacing, the shadows under the canopy less solid and suffocating. Anna took in the afternoon air, feeling alive, fresh, renewed. Korban Manor and the mountains were bringing back her appetite, making her forget the long darkness that the cancer pushed her toward.

  She took a right at the fork in the trail, remembering that Robert Frost poem about the road less traveled, because the right fork was little more than an animal path. But the trail led to an opening on a knoll, a soft rounded skull of earth wearing a cap of grass. In the middle of the opening stood a square section of iron fence, and white and gray gravestones protruded from the dirt within it.

  "So this is where you keep your dead," she said to the sky.

  Anna made her way to the fence. She looked around, but the forest was still and silent. This wouldn't be the first cemetery she'd committed trespass against. She heaved herself over, gripping the wrought floral design and scrollwork of the fence to keep from spearing herself on the sharp-tipped ends.

  Two large marble monuments, beautiful though worn with age, dominated the graveyard. The first read

  EPHRAM ELIJAH KORBAN, 1859–1918. TOO SOON SUMMONED. The one beside it, slightly less ornate, said simply MARGARET. Anna knelt and pressed her palm to the soil above Ephram's final resting place.

  "Anybody home, Miss Galloway?"

  Anna looked up. Miss Mamie stood by the fence, somehow having crossed fifty feet of open field without Anna noticing.

  "I was just out for a walk, and I got curious."

  "You know what they say about curiosity and the cat. Most of our guests respect fences."

  "Do you mean the guests who walk, or the ones who float?"

  Miss Mamie's giggle echoed off the monuments. "Ah, those ghost stories. I couldn't resist approving your application, you know. Paranormal researcher. That's too perfect."

  "It's just as much an art form as painting and writing. It's all about seeking, isn't it?"

  "Clever. And just what are you seeking, Anna?"

  "I suppose I'll know it when I find it."

  "One can only hope. Or perhaps you won't have to search. Perhaps it will find you."

  "Then you don't mind if I prowl in your graveyard?"

  Miss Mamie looked at Korban's monument. "Make yourself at home."

  "Thanks."

  "Don't be late for dinner, though. And be careful if you're caught out after dark." Miss Mamie started to leave, then added. "You're one of those, aren't you?"

  "One of what?"

  "What the mountain people around here call 'gifted.' Second Sight. The power to see things other people can't."

  "I'm not so special."

  "Those ghost stories are so delightful. And good for business, too. What artist who fancies himself living on the edge could possibly pass up an opportunity to come here? If you see anything, you'll tell me, won't you?"

  "Cross my heart and hope to die."

  "Don't hope too hard. Not yet, anyway."

  Anna watched the woman cross the grass and enter the forest, then she headed toward the rest of the grave markers that stippled the slope. She explored them, reading the names. Hartley, Streater, Aldridge, McFall. Then the names gave way to simple flagstone markers, in some cases chunks of rough granite propped toward the heavens as a forlorn memento of a long-forgotten life.

  Would her own death be so little noted? Would her mark be as insignificant? Did it even matter?

  At the edge of the scattered stones, where the rear of the fence met the woods, a pale carved tombstone stood in the shade of an old cedar. Anna went to it, read RACHEL FAYE HARTLEY etched in the marble. An ornate bouquet of flowers was engraved above the name.

  "Rachel Faye, Rachel Faye," Anna said. "Someone must have loved you."

  And though Rachel Faye Hartley was now dust, Anna envied her just a little.

  Sylva watched from the forest until Miss Mamie left. Anna looked small and lost in the graveyard, talking to the stones, looking for ghosts among the blades of grass. The girl had the Sight, that much was plain. And something else was plain, that dark aura around her, hanging around her flesh like a rainbow of midnight.

  Anna was fixing to die.

  Sylva drew her shawl close together, holding it with one knotted hand. The other held her walking stick, which she leaned on to rest for the trip back to Beechy Gap. She didn't get out much these days, especially now that Korban's fetches were walking loose. Things were mighty stirred up, and part of that had to do with the coming blue moon.

  The other part had to do with that girl in the graveyard, the one who stared a little too long at the grave of Rachel Faye Hartley.

  "You'll be joining her soon enough," Sylva whispered to the laurel thicket around her. "If Ephram will let you, that is."

  The sun was sinking by the time Anna climbed back over the fence, full of vinegar for such a sick person. Anna didn't know the old ways, was weak in the power of charms and such. The girl wouldn't understand the power of the healing roots, bone powder, and special ways of spelling. But maybe the talent was only buried in her, not lost forever. Because blood ran thick, thicker than water. And magic ran through tunnels of the soul, Ephram always said.

  But Ephram was a liar.

  Both before and after he died.

  A screech owl hooted, a sound as lonely as a night winter wind. Sign of death, for one to hoot during daylight. But lately signs of death were everywhere, coming at all hours. Sylva said a spell of safe passage and slipped into the woods, hurrying home as best she could before the sun kissed the edge of the mountains.

  CHAPTER 11

  "Honey?"

  Spence pounded on the typewriter keys, pretending not to hear her.

  "Jeff?" Bridget put a hand on his shoulder.

  He stopped typing and looked up. "You know not to bother me when I'm working."

  "But you didn't even come to bed last night."

  He hated the plaintive note in her voice, her eagerness to please. He despised her concern. Mostly, he was annoyed by the distraction.

  "I hope the typewriter didn't keep you awake." He didn't really care whether it had or not. He was making progress, chasing the elusive Muse, and that was all that mattered.

  "No, it's not that," Bridget said. "You just need your rest."

  "There will be plenty of time for rest after I'm dead. But at the moment, I'm feeling particularly and effusively alive. So be a dear and let me continue."

  "But you missed lunch. That's not like you."

  Spence wondered if that was some kind of barb at his weight. But Bridget never criticized. She hadn't the imagination to attack with words. Spence was the reigning master of that genre.

  "It's also unlike me to interrupt my work to have a little romantic chat," he said, then str
etched his vowels out in his Ashley Wilkes accent. "Now, why don't ya'll make like Scahlett and get yosef gone with the wind?"

  "Don't be mean, honey. I'm only trying to help. I want you to be happy. And I know you're only happy when you're working on something."

  "Then make me ecstatic," he said. "Leave."

  A small sob caught in Bridget's throat. Spence ignored it, already turning his attention back to the half-finished page and the thirty other pages stacked beside the Royal. He would do some revision, he knew, but it was excellent work. His best in many years. And he didn't want it to end.

  The door opened and he called to Bridget without looking. "I'll see you at dinner," he lied.

  The door closed softly. Spence smiled to himself. She didn't have enough self-esteem to slam the door in anger. She would be apologizing by this evening, thinking the little scene was all her fault.

  She was by far the most enjoyable of Spence's corruptions, out of all the English majors and married professors and young literary agents and assistant editors who thought they'd fallen in love with him. But, in the end, they were nothing, just meaningless stacks of bones, scaffolds to prop him up when the loneliness was unbearable. When he was working and working well, he needed no one's love but his own.

  "And yours, of course," Spence said to the portrait of Korban, lest his creative benefactor frown.

  Spence picked up the manuscript and began reading. The grace of the language, the tight sentence structure, the powerful description were all superb. He'd never been shy about patting himself on the back, but now he had topped even his own lofty literary standards. He would shame them all, from Chaucer to Keats to King.

  He didn't question the origin of the words. That was a mystery best left to those whose livelihood was derived from the scholarly vivisection of the humanities. But he'd never before written with such ease as he had last night and today.

  Automatic writing. That's what it felt like.

  What Spence always called, during those few occasions when the ink flowed so freely, "ghostwriting." As if the paper and typewriter themselves were sucking words out of the air. As if his fingers knew the next word before his brain did. As if he were not even there.

  Appropriate to the manuscript, to call it ghostwritten, he thought. It had a Gothic feel, somewhat darker than the southern-flavored literature that had once made him the darling of New York. And then there was the protagonist, the handsome, bearded, and odd man whose name he still hadn't decided upon. That was strange, to be so far along in the manuscript and not even know the main character's name.

  He caught himself looking, for the tenth time, at the painting of Korban that hung on the wall above the desk. Then he closed his eyes. After a moment, he resumed ghostwriting.

  "Did you hear that?"

  "Hear what?"

  "A thumping sound."

  Adam strained his ears. Paul was probably just being paranoid. He had slipped outside and smoked a joint after dinner. Paul was two things when he was stoned, paranoid and horny.

  "Probably that fat writer banging his chippy in the room below us," Adam said.

  "If it is, they're the most uncoordinated couple in the history of the human race. Quickest, too."

  "All I care about right now is us," Adam said, resting his head on Paul's shoulder. "Thanks for the good time."

  "No, thank you."

  "And I promise not to bring up the subject of adoption for at least a week."

  "You just brought it up."

  Paul. "Forget I said anything."

  Adam pulled the covers up to his chin and curled his body against Paul's warmth. Adam was afraid he'd have trouble sleeping. The mountaintop estate was too quiet for a city boy, and Adam had never experienced such near-total darkness. He still missed the bright lights, traffic, and aggravation.

  "Do you feel like getting out the radio?" he asked.

  "Did you bring batteries?"

  "Yeah. Figured we might need a little contact with the outside world. The radio's in my bag."

  "I'd have to crawl over you to get it."

  "I won't bite."

  "I'm too tired, anyway. 'Fagged,' as that phony-assed photographer would say."

  "You just drank too much wine, that's all. And you know what pot does to you."

  "Tonight was for fun. Tomorrow, I'm going to be working again."

  Adam collected the radio, brought it back to bed, and switched it on. He twisted the dial, switched bands from FM to AM. Nothing but weird static. "I guess radio waves get blocked by the mountains."

  "Or else cool-freaky pop gets censored up here."

  They lay for a moment in the darkness. The house was still and hushed. The embers had grown low in the fireplace, and Adam didn't feel like fumbling for a match to light the oil lamp on the bedside table.

  "I've been thinking," Paul said.

  "News flash. Stop the presses."

  Paul elbowed Adam in the ribs. Adam tickled him in return.

  "But seriously," Paul said. "I'm thinking of doing a documentary on this place."

  "This place?"

  "Korban Manor. It's pretty unique, and I could get a lot of scenic footage. Ephram Korban's history sounds pretty interesting, too. An industrialist with a God complex."

  "A historical documentary?"

  "Something like that?"

  "What about all the footage you've already shot, all those weeks in the Adirondacks and the Alleghenies?"

  "I'll keep it in the can. I can use it anytime."

  "I don't know, Paul. The grant people might get upset. After all, you signed on for an Appalachian nature documentary."

  "To hell with the grant committees. I do what I want."

  Paul was pulling his Orson Welles bit. Even in the dark, Adam could visualize the famous "Paul pout."

  So what if Paul spent months on footage, and still had weeks of postproduction, editing, and scripting left? Those were only technical details. Paul wanted to be the artist, the posturing auteur, the brash visionary. Stubbornly refusing to sell out.

  No matter the cost.

  But Adam wasn't in the mood to argue. Not after the good time they'd just had.

  "Why don't you sleep on it, and we can talk about it in the morning?" Adam stroked one of Paul's well-developed biceps. Lugging a twenty-pound camera and battery belt through the mountains all summer had really toned him up.

  "I mean, this is like an alien world or something," Paul said. "No electricity, people living like they did a hundred years ago. And the servants, all of them still live here, like serfs around the castle."

  Adam was drifting off despite Paul's excitement. "Uh-huh," he mumbled.

  He must have fallen asleep, because he was standing on a tower, the wind blowing through his hair, dark trees swaying below him No, it wasn't a tower. He recognized the grounds of the manor. He was on top of the house, on that little flat space marked off by the white railing-now, what had the maid called it? Oh yeah, the widow's walk-and Adam found himself climbing over the rail and looking down at the stone walkway sixty feet below, and the clouds told him to jump, he felt a hand on his back, pushing, then he was flying, falling, the wind shook him, why "Adam! Wake up." Paul was shaking his shoulder. Paul had sat up in bed, the blankets around his waist. A decent amount of time must have passed, because a little moonlight leaked through the window.

  "What is it?" Adam was still groggy from the dream and the after-dinner drinks.

  Paul pointed toward the door, his eyes wide and wet in the dimness. "I saw something. A woman, I think. All dressed in white. She was white."

  "This is the southern Appalachians, Paul. Everybody's white." Adam shook away the fragments of the nightmare.

  "No, it wasn't like that. She was see-through."

  Adam gave a drowsy snort. "That's what happens when you smoke Panamanian orange-hair. It's a wonder you didn't see the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover in drag."

  "I'm not joking, Adam."

  Adam put a hand on Paul's chest. Hi
s boyfriend's heart was pounding.

  "Get back under the covers," Adam said. "You must have fallen asleep and had a weird dream. I think I had one myself."

  Paul lay back down, his breathing rapid and shallow. Adam opened his eyes momentarily to see Paul staring at the ceiling. "No drinks or smoke tomorrow, okay?"

  There was a stretch of silence, one that only a noise-polluted New Yorker could truly appreciate. Finally Paul said, "I told you I'd be working."

  Adam knew that tone. They'd argued enough for one vacation. Adoption, Paul's video, his drug use. And now Paul was seeing things. Adam suddenly wondered if their relationship would survive six weeks at Korban Manor.

  He turned his back on Paul and burrowed into the pillows.

  "She had flowers," Paul said.

  Mason's hands ached. Sawdust and wood shavings were scattered around his feet. Wood chips had worked their way down the tops of his tennis shoes and dug into the skin around his ankles. He tossed his chisel and mallet on the table and stood back to look at the piece.

  He had worked in a fever, not thinking about which grain to follow, which parts to excise, where to cut. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. The room had grown warmer. The candles had long since melted away, and the oil was low in the base of the lantern. He must have worked for hours, but the soreness in his limbs was the only evidence of passing time.

  Except for the bust before him on the table.

  He'd never attempted a bust before. He brought the lantern closer, examining the sculpture with a critical eye. He could find no flaws, no features that were out of proportion. Even the curves of the earlobes were natural and lifelike, the eyebrows etched with a delicate awl. The sculpture was faithful to its subject.

  TOO faithful, Mason thought. I'm nowhere near good enough to produce this caliber of work. I've had successes along the way. But this… Jesus Henry Christ on a crutch, I couldn't do Korban's face this well if I'd KNOWN the old geezer.

  But it was Korban's head on the table, the Korban that filled the giant oil paintings upstairs, the same face that hung above the fireplace in Mason's room. Most amazing of all was that the eyes had power, just as they did in the portraits. That was ridiculous, though. These eyes were maple, dead wood.