All in Bad Time

by Yvonne Montgomery

  "For right now," Brenna said gently, "let's have some breakfast." She glanced at the clock. "Or call it brunch. We'll all feel better for some food." She met Aura Lee's troubled eyes. "If you'll start it, I'll come help in a second." She shifted her gaze to the ceiling rack. They'd all promised Max they would record anything unusual in the incident file. She needed to write down Aura Lee's impression of movement on the rack and her own sight of a light blinking out, and the subsequent odor of ozone.

  Aura Lee got to her feet. "What sounds good to you, Rose? I could make some chicken salad and use up those late scallions from the garden. That would be easier than omelets. Or," she said after a quick glance into the refrigerator, "I could make a batch of French toast." She turned toward her. "Which would you rather have?"

  Rose was rubbing her forehead, her eyes closed. "What? Oh, I don't care. Anything will do."

  "I'll be right back." Brenna headed for the living room, releasing a sigh as she left the tension in the kitchen. "There'd better be something good in that journal," she muttered as she reached for the notebook on the fireplace mantel. Caldicott's legacy wasn't the only thing that would be destroyed if the paranormal happenings at Wisdom Court didn't end soon. The associate activities had ground to a halt. She thought longingly of the screening room in her studio. She still had three or four reels of film she hadn't viewed, and the day promised little time for her to get to it.

  Brenna opened the spiral notebook and pulled the ballpoint pen from its spine. She turned the pages until she found a blank one, pausing to read Max's cramped handwriting on the other side. He'd described yesterday's dream, as she'd detailed it. How her grandmother had begged her to help release her from the spirits holding her. Brenna flashed on the terror she'd felt.

  Her sleepwalking and the discovery of Cottie's second journal in the wall of the fountain were further proof of the growing power of the paranormal forces at work at Wisdom Court. Brenna paused, pen in hand. Neal was supposed to be fixing the fountain today, but she hadn't seen him outside when she'd come to the house. Maybe he'd had to get more materials to complete the job. Or maybe he was sick of always having to deal with paranormal crises, she thought before she could help herself, since he was the Board member in charge of the physical plant. What if he'd left because he didn't want to be around it anymore? She thought of the expression in his eyes every time he looked at Andrea. No, he wouldn't go anywhere. Not for long.

  Brenna wrote a brief account of what she'd seen and what Aura Lee had told her and then closed the notebook. Squaring her shoulders, she headed back to the kitchen, hoping Kerry and Max would show up soon. Then they could read the journal and find out what Max had sent to London. Maybe she'd even get the time to get some work done.

  Chapter 2

  Aura Lee had opted for cooking to express her emotional turmoil. The kitchen was fragrant with the scents of French toast and peppers from the chicken salad, and a batch of cornbread was nearly ready to come out of the oven. Andrea and Neal arrived hand-in-hand from the back door as Aura Lee was dishing up, and the warmth in the glance they exchanged drew a sigh of envy from Brenna.

  Noreen came through the dining room door five minutes later, easing past Strudel, who'd parked herself near the stove to keep watch for bits of food dropping to the floor. Noreen greeted the offer of brunch with enthusiasm. "It's getting colder out there."

  When Kerry and Max trailed in a few minutes later, Aura Lee got out two more dishes without asking if they wanted any.

  Rose surveyed them as she got up from the table to get coffee mugs. Between the lines of fatigue on Max's face and Kerry's glazed eyes and tousled auburn hair, it was safe to assume they were both short of sleep. Max pulled a chair out for Kerry and bent to kiss the top of her head as she sat down.

  "What happened to you two, or dare I ask?" Rose set coffee in front of them and moved the china cream pitcher within reach.

  Kerry yawned and brushed her bangs out of her eyes. "You'll never guess."

  Max seated himself beside her. "The drive to Denver was complicated by dreadful winds. We had to slow down to keep on the road."

  "Why did you go?" Neal asked. He lifted his fork and stabbed a chunk of chicken.

  "I'd put in a call to the British Consul." Max took a drink of coffee and sighed in pleasure. "They agreed to send a package with the diplomatic pouch and the plane for London left at eleven-thirty. I wanted to get the samples to my people in London for testing as soon as possible."

  Neal frowned. "What samples?"

  Kerry slanted a look at Max. "He's still convinced the gooey stuff we found in Brenna's rooms is ectoplasm."

  "It has to be studied," Max said, his blue eyes patient, "and I've been unable to find anyone here to do it. We arrived in good order at DIA and came back here after. Then we were entertained by unwanted guests."

  "More ghosts?" Andrea cupped her hands around her cup with a grimace. She flipped her shoulder-length chestnut hair impatiently.

  Kerry leaned against Max's shoulder as he reached for his spoon. "Max and I figured as much. It started off like a light show with orbs floating near the ceiling in the living room. They were multi-colored, pink and blue and a nasty acid green."

  Noreen glanced up from the notebook where she was recording details. "Did you experience the usual cold?"

  Max shrugged. "Kerry turned down the heat before we left, so it wasn't warm, but we didn't feel the kind of iciness we've come to expect. Rather pleasant, actually, watching the lights, almost hypnotic, and we were both nodding off when the tenor of the thing changed."

  "Oh, dear," Aura Lee stirred more sugar into her tea.

  "It started with a knocking sound, so real that I went to answer the door." Kerry took a sip of coffee. "Nobody was there, and the knocking stopped, but then I was able to hear a hissing sound, like steam escaping. We wandered all over the place trying to find the source, even into the hallway, but we didn't see anything unusual.

  "We went back inside and that's when it got creepy. We heard a low voice, barely above a whisper, repeating the same thing, over and over. Like chanting." She dug a folded paper from her pants pocket and opened it. "I wrote it down the way I heard it. Fortitudo mea, et ab ignibus, qui facturus est."

  Andrea looked at her blankly. "Do you know what it means?"

  Kerry nudged Max in the side.

  "My strength comes from hellfire and its maker." Max spoke the line in an even voice, but his eyes were uneasy. "That's a rough translation, of course."

  Noreen wrote for a moment then glanced up at Max. "Ignibus qui what?"

  He swallowed more coffee. "Ignibus qui facturus est."

  "Interesting." Absently she ruffled her hair into a standup brush as she reread the words.

  "I don't like this," Rose said grimly. "It sounds like some kind of spell, doesn't it?" The look she cast Max was worried. "What do you make of it?"

  "It could be an incantation, especially given the repetition." Max frowned into his dish. "Or it could be a line from a bleeding rock song. Perhaps someone was playing an iPod somewhere near."

  Aura Lee tapped her lips, thinking. "I'll see if I can find it in one of my magic books," she said finally. "I don't have much material about the dark arts, but I've seen some Latin chants, and I can check through them."

  Kerry fought back a yawn. "It sounded like it was on a loop, repeated again and again."

  "And the voice?" Neal's face was alive with interest, his eyes intent. "Could you tell whether it was male or female? Young or old?"

  Kerry shook her head.

  Max said, "To me it sounded sexless, emotionless. It was barely loud enough to be intelligible. The cadence was prayerful, but so much of Latin is when you read it aloud." He lifted his fork to his mouth and noticed it was empty, as was his plate. "Hmmph." He set it down.

  "I can get you some more." Rose rubbed at her forehead. "We've got plenty."

  Max thought about it. "Perhaps I'll have more coffee, if there's any." He yawned.r />
  Rose nodded and passed the carafe across the table.

  The timer went off and Aura Lee got up to deal with the cornbread. When she opened the oven door, scented heat poured out into the room.

  Andrea sniffed the air in appreciation. "How long did the chanting go on?"

  Kerry and Max glanced at each other. "Hours. We finally covered our heads with pillows so we could get some sleep."

  Brenna made a face. "Have you noticed how new kinds of incidents are cropping up almost every day? Just to make things more interesting, I guess."

  "That's true, certainly since I've been here. It's the first time I've experienced the light show business, having observed more scenes, if you will, in the hauntings I've encountered previously." Max stirred sugar and milk into his coffee.

  Brenna's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

  Max took a gulp of coffee. "I've come to expect set pieces featuring spirits who go through the same motions each time they appear. Rather like a film clip, such as the Roman soldiers at the Treasurer's House in York. In some spots they look as though they're walking on their knees because the Roman road they travel is a good foot or more under the floor of the house. I grant you, I haven't witnessed many such displays, and some were fragmentary, but I've not seen anything like the seeming spontaneity of the manifestations at Wisdom Court."

  "Roman soldiers?" squeaked Kerry. "You saw the ghosts of Roman soldiers?"

  Max lifted one shoulder. "Only once, and it was interrupted..." His self-deprecating voice died at the fierce look on her face. "Yes, I did. It was bloody awesome."

  "But you say Wisdom Court beats that for hauntings," Rose said after a moment of stunned silence. "Wouldn't you know we'd be special?"

  Kerry swatted Max on the arm. "How many of these stories do you have? And why haven't you told me more of them?"

  Max rubbed at the back of his neck, eyelids drooping with weariness. "Too much happening and I am trying... to be accurate about what occurs here. Telling about my previous experiences doesn't help bring clarity here and now." He looked around the table as he spoke. "You don't understand how incredible the events here are. I realize you're all terribly frightened. I'm frightened and astonished at the complexity of what happens here. I don't know if there have ever been phenomena to match the ones at Wisdom Court. The disheartening thing is, I don't know what to do about them."

  "It's okay." Kerry slipped her hand into his. "I can't blame you for being excited about what's happening. None of us do. But I think it would be so helpful if we could figure out how to do something. The feeling of helplessness is driving me crazy."

  Max put his arm around her and rested his chin on her head. "I know it, and we'll work together to learn what we can. I'm not myself after so little sleep and—"

  "Young man, you've been a pillar of stability in the last few weeks," Noreen announced gruffly. "I believe no apologies are necessary."

  Rose nodded. "She's right, Max. Relax for a while if you can and then we'll go on doing what we can do, which is to gather more information." She glanced at the briefcase beside his chair. "I hope you've brought the journal Brenna found yesterday. We need to read it and I'm hoping there'll be more information for us. We have to find out what happened to Caldicott and what's behind these haunting events."

  "I did bring it." Max pulled the diary from his briefcase. In Caldicott's first journal, they'd learned about her life as Clara Trinder, the illegitimate daughter of an English barmaid. She'd deliberately used a false name for herself, as well as for the people she'd written about. Her greatest concern had been preventing danger to all concerned, including the women at Wisdom Court.

  Clara's life had been changed forever upon meeting Duncan, the son of an earl, in the early months of the war. Their sudden attraction had grown rapidly into a love brought to an end by his father, a Nazi sympathizer. Duncan had kept Clara a secret, concerned for her safety. Ultimately he'd stolen German bearer bonds from the earl and arranged passage to New York City for Clara to ensure her wellbeing. Having discovered his father and his followers were Satan worshipers bent on using their knowledge of the occult to affect the outcome of the war, Duncan stayed in England to fight their efforts.

  The first journal had ended with Clara's escape from England with the bonds. She'd also carried with her the powerful talisman Duncan had taken from the occultists. Clara hadn't known of it until a Romani wise-woman had put a protection spell on the odd stone.

  Max noted the strain in their faces. "I suppose we could wait for a while to read this if you'd rather."

  "I don't think delay is an option," Neal said in a harsh voice. "It might give us information we can use."

  Max handed the book to Kerry. "Do you want to do the honors?"

  "Yeah. Okay." Kerry opened the journal slowly. She smoothed the page and shook her head. "As much as I want to get the whole story so I'll be able to complete Caldicott's biography, I can't help but feel things worsen the longer we keep going. Every time we learn something new, we get a bigger, stronger reaction from them. And after last night, I'm so not enjoying the thought of any more of it."

  Neal raised a brow. "Them?"

  Kerry looked around the room and shivered. "Them." She looked down at the book and began to read.

  * * *

  I waited in New York two months before I heard a word about Duncan. And then it was a dog-eared letter sent and forwarded multiple times from the friend who'd hidden me in his flat and then smuggled me out of England. The man who knocked on the door of my tiny flat in the garment district amused me at first. Swathed thoroughly in a smoky gray overcoat, his face half-hidden by a fedora pulled low, his clear intent was to make no impression with his physical appearance or the sound of his voice. My amusement died as I realized how frightened he was. He wouldn't tell me his name and when I asked him if he wanted tea, his look of amazement and distrust convinced me of the uselessness of trying to make our encounter resemble anything like a social occasion.

  He pulled an envelope from his coat pocket and held it out to me. His nails were bitten to the quick and his hand trembled. I reached for the letter and as soon as I touched it I knew Duncan was dead. The very feel of the envelope told me, the scent wafting from the paper told me, the fist clutching my heart told me. "What do you know of this?" I didn't recognize my own voice in the rasp I heard come from my throat.

  He shook his head and backed toward the door.

  "Wait!" This was the last connection I had to Duncan and I had no other names, no other contacts to make. "Tell me something—anything."

  I don't know if he heard the raw appeal in my words or if he was innately kind, or any of the other reasons behind his choice to speak to me.

  "Madame, two people die before this letter come to you. The son of the Ambassador was first. The one who found him said you must be told."

  David, who had joked about playing spy when he managed to get me onto the airplane to New York? He was Duncan's friend, had told me a little about their banding together to survive public school, and their later exploits at Oxford. He'd been so kind to me, giving me what he could of Duncan's story for me to hold onto as I left England for America. He was dead?

  I couldn't see the envelope for the tears in my eyes. "Who else," I choked.

  "A Gypsy," he said with reluctance. At the shock on my face, he shrank closer to the door behind him. "The old lord, he not learn who you were, but he look, he look hard. Among the Gypsies someone whispered and a man in camp was taken. I do not know his name."

  "Andras?" He was Duncan's friend and had helped him smuggle me out of the village.

  He shook his head. "Someone who passed on this letter. All I know."

  He reached behind him for the doorknob and turned it, pushing it open slowly with his back.

  "Thank you," I said. I fumbled for my handbag. "May I give you something for your trouble?"

  He shook his head in fierce denial. "I do this for cause."

  "Thank you," I said
again, but he was gone.

  I opened the letter and began to read. "Clara, I couldn't contact Duncan after I returned from London, having seen you onto the plane. I telephoned, of course, but the servants fobbed me off, and when I reached the earl, he claimed Duncan hadn't been seen for several days. It was through secret communication with several of the house servants loyal to Duncan that I was able to piece together what probably happened. His father discovered the theft of the bonds before Duncan returned from spiriting you away. The earl attacked him, demanding to know what he'd done. No one is clear on what eventually took place, but none of them saw Duncan again. They were told later that he'd left to join the air service. To my knowledge, no one has seen him since that interview with his father. I've followed up with everyone I can get hold of. Given his feelings for you, given how earnestly he wanted to join the RAF, I must conclude that he is dead."

  Kerry looked up from the page, eyes turbulent. "The old bastard killed Duncan and David. You know that's what happened!"

  Max put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek. "It is supposition. A safe one, I think," he added quickly when Kerry took a deep breath to answer. "I'm sorry, darling. It's a rotten story."

  Kerry nodded and bent her head to the pages in her lap.

  I don't recall much of the next few days. Never before, even when Mum died, had I felt so cut off from the world. I was in a strange land and I was alone. Would be alone until I decided what to do and where to go.

  The morning I woke up feeling hungry, I knew I would go on without Duncan. I wasn't sure why, but as I cooked porridge and ate it, I knew I had decided to take what I had and make something of it. The money Duncan had given me was in the two banks he'd told me to contact upon arrival in New York. There was enough to keep me for the rest of my life. People had died as a result of my being given that money. I had to make it count for something.