by Cat Winters
“He might not even recognize you,” I said.
“I don’t care if he does.” He pulled me closer against his black coat. “He’s not letting another beloved girl slip away from me.”
We stared at each other for one of those searching types of moments—the “should I kiss you?” question in our eyes—and then he bent his face toward mine and kissed me for the first time. My entire body thrummed. We kissed again, until the conductor called out, “All aboard!”
We found our seats in the back section of the first passenger car, and again we nestled together and drank up each other’s warmth, even though the train itself exuded heat. Michael smelled musky and bathed, his breath peppermint sweet, and I forgot all about the whiskey-soaked lips that had tried to kiss me the night before. Onlookers may have mistaken us for newlyweds. I felt like a newlywed, tucked up beside him, our mouths unable to stay away from each other for more than three seconds.
“You’ll need a ring on your finger if we’re to pretend that we’re married,” he said, and he twisted the high school ring with the sapphire off his right hand.
“I’m not sure it will fit properly . . .”
He glided the cold band over the knuckle of my left ring finger. It wobbled and slipped, and we joked about keeping it in place with chewing gum.
He then kissed the length of that newly adorned finger of mine and pulled me close again.
I pushed aside memories of him insulting and hollering at his ex-wife. I forgot all about my graduate school lovers. I even momentarily stopped thinking of Michael as a father. Life would begin anew. I would open a door to the next phase of my studies, perhaps even align myself with the American Society for Psychical Research. I would return to a time in which I allowed myself to love a man.
For the moment, we were Mr. and Mrs. Lind, a married couple journeying to a rural inn for the Christmas holiday, unfettered by our pasts.
Part III
NELL
CHAPTER 28
Christmas Eve 1925
A pale-faced young fellow in a black Homburg hat waved us down at the snow-capped depot in Du Bois, Nebraska. Michael and I were the only two people to disembark the train at a quarter past three that Christmas Eve, and yet I looked behind us to see if the young man might have been waving at someone else.
The fellow strode our way with his cheeks glowing bright pink from the cold—the pink being the only semblance of color on that sun-deprived complexion of his. He had twiggy eyebrows and coal-black eyes and appeared to have been no older than twenty.
“Mr. and Mrs. Lind, I presume?” he asked.
Michael coughed into his hand, as though trying not to either laugh or object at being called “Mr. Lind,” but I stepped forward and said, “Yes, we’re the Linds. Are you the man to whom I spoke on the phone? Mr. Harkey, was it?”
“Yes, Albert Harkey.” He shook our hands. “Welcome to Nebraska.”
I smiled. “Thank you. How kind of you to drive out here to pick us up on Christmas Eve.”
“It’s no trouble at all. Mabel, my wife, is cooking supper right now, and we’ve got a fire waiting for you in the hearth. It’s an English tradition to tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve, you know, so you’re arriving on a spectacular night.”
“Are you English?” asked Michael with a sidelong glance at the rather rural-sounding Mr. Harkey, who most certainly didn’t enunciate words like an Englishman.
“No,” said the fellow, “but what with the blizzard coming in, and the Christmas Eve timing . . . I hope you’re prepared to voyage deep into the diabolical past of our beautiful, wretched establishment tonight.”
Michael and I exchanged a look, which Mr. Harkey must have noticed, for he swiftly added, “You are coming for the hotel’s haunted past, aren’t you? Oh, jeez—” His face sank; he pinched the rim of his Homburg. “I hope you’re aware that this isn’t just a regular old inn.”
“We’ve heard about the hotel’s reputation,” I said, “but it’s the history I’d like to explore; not ghosts.”
“Well, you’ll certainly get the history, ma’am. May I help you with your bags?”
“Yes.” Michael passed one of my suitcases his way. “Thank you.”
Mr. Harkey picked up my second bag from the ground at Michael’s side and then wheeled around to guide us past the departing train. Up ahead, next to a patch of sidewalk caked in fresh, unshoveled snow, awaited a chocolate-and cream-colored vehicle that looked to have been a former delivery truck of some sort. On the enclosed back compartment, in flamboyant red lettering, someone had painted the name THE HOTEL YESTERNIGHT.
I lagged behind with Michael and asked him under my breath, “Does the hotel’s name on that vehicle strike you as the type of lettering found on theater posters?”
Michael breathed a curt laugh. “We don’t have any theaters in Gordon Bay, Alice.”
“Oh. That’s right.”
“Why do you ask?” He slowed his pace. “Are you having second thoughts about this place?”
I sighed, still preoccupied with the melodramatic flourishes on the truck. “I’m worried it’s going to be another tourist attraction that capitalizes on the allure of death and spirits, like Mrs. Winchester’s house in California.”
Michael squeezed my hand. “Aren’t we here because of the allure of death and spirits? Isn’t that what all of this is about?”
“It’s not the same at all. What we experienced with Janie was so pure—so sacred and utterly untainted by commercialism.”
“But—”
“We’re investigators, Michael; not children buying tickets to an amusement park ride. I want my own experience with the past to be as sublime as hers.” I tightened my grip on my briefcase and called out to our host, “Mr. Harkey, is the hotel still located on the same plot of land on which it was originally built?”
The fellow poked his head out of the back of the truck, into which he’d been cramming my belongings. “Yes, it is.”
“Hmm . . .” I turned back to Michael. “I’d still like to go, then. Surely the memories of the house itself would remain, despite any theatrics the Harkeys might have added.”
Michael pressed his lips together and nodded. “All right.”
Mr. Harkey bustled around from the back of the truck and opened the passenger-side door for us. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
“Thank you.” I climbed in first, adjusted myself in the middle of a hard wooden seat, and situated my briefcase on my lap.
Michael slid in beside me. We joined hands and watched Mr. Harkey pick up Michael’s suitcase with a brisk waddle that caused the Homburg to slip down over his eyes. His breath fogged up the air in front of his face like plumes of Tillie’s cigarette smoke.
Michael shook his head over the fellow. “How old do you think he is? Twenty-two at most?”
I was about to reply that young Mr. Harkey likely worked for his daddy, but I remembered Michael had embarked upon the hotel business because of his own father.
Mr. Harkey slammed the door to the back compartment shut, and the truck hiccupped forward with a wave of motion that made me momentarily seasick. Thereafter, he opened the driver’s side door, adjusted one of the levers on the dashboard, and jogged around to the front of the truck, where he cranked the vehicle to a jolting start.
“Everyone ready?” he asked, jumping into the car beside me.
“Yes,” I said, and I tightened my fingers around Michael’s.
Mr. Harkey shut the door against the cold. “Off we go, then.” He thrust the gear shift lever forward and sent us rumbling down the flat streets of Du Bois.
Before long, the town fell to the wayside, and we cruised into a pure-white expanse of endless countryside that stretched to a gray horizon. A handful of houses and stables marked the locations of farms in the distance, but a palpable sense of desolation—of trekking across a harsh and deserted planet—made me fear we were the only souls alive for miles. The temperature inside the truck dropped by at
least ten degrees, and the skin beneath my gloves grew so frigid compared to Michael’s fingers surrounding my hand.
“How long have you worked at the Hotel Yesternight?” I asked Mr. Harkey.
“Mabel and I bought the place, oh . . . let me see . . .” He scratched his smooth chin. “About two and a half years ago now. My grandmother grew up with Mrs. Gunderson in Kansas City, so I’d heard stories about the hotel ever since I was a youngster in knee pants.”
“Who is Mrs. Gunderson?” I asked.
“She’s the star of the show.” Mr. Harkey smirked with mischief in his eyes. “You’ll hear all about her tonight. For now, just sit back and enjoy the ride. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
“Is it that much farther?” asked Michael.
“Oh, yes. Yesternight’s desolation is the very reason behind its infamy.”
I sidled closer to Michael, who leaned his lips next to my ear and whispered, “We should have gone to Kansas City and checked ourselves into a swanky hotel.”
I whispered back, “Do you want me to ask him to return us to the station?”
“A blizzard is coming. I don’t think there’s anywhere else we can go.”
“I’m sorry if this is too much . . .”
“I’m already feeling dark inside,” he said. “I’m just worried.”
“I’ll take good care of you.”
Michael shifted his focus to the barren countryside outside his window, and although he didn’t utter a single word about Janie, his back stooped with the weight of the little girl’s shadow.
THE HOTEL YESTERNIGHT arose on the edge of a snow-bound field. The slope of the shingled rooftop emerged first, along with a narrow chimney and the boxy silhouette of a structure that looked to have been a shed or an outhouse.
Mr. Harkey drove the truck down the slick road with great fortitude and care, but every twenty or so feet the tires lost traction, and we skidded and swerved, which made my heart jump about.
Another half mile or so farther, more details of the hotel manifested: a curved porch supported by Grecian columns; a half-dozen windows peering out from the front wall; an attic room tucked beneath an ornate gable; paneled siding painted one shade darker than the snow itself. The bare branches of sycamore trees stooped over the shingles, and in them sat a single crow, bringing to mind the old rhyme about the meaning behind magpies.
One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
And four for a birth . . .
I did not recognize the house as being a place I had visited in some long-ago past, but a cold sense of dread, of homesickness for Portland, froze my blood into liquid ice. Snow pelted the windshield and the vanishing road, both ahead and behind us, burying us deep into the prairie.
“Are you all right, Alice?” asked Michael, his voice lowered again so our driver wouldn’t hear. “Do you recognize the place?”
“No,” I said in a whisper. “I simply miss my family back home all of a sudden. I’m feeling a twinge of darkness similar to what you just mentioned.”
He swallowed near my ear.
“Everything all right?” asked Mr. Harkey.
“Has the place always been in such tip-top shape?” asked Michael, presumably to lighten the mood. “Or did you and your wife restore it?”
“Oh, you should have seen the old girl when we bought it. She was ghastly. Windows missing, paint stripped off by sun and wind, the top floor collapsing into the bottom one . . . We paid a pretty penny to gussy her up.” He slowed the truck and turned onto a driveway piling up with snow. Flakes as large as the palm of my hand slapped against the windshield, and the vehicle jerked forward with an erratic dance. “Well . . . here we are, Mr. and Mrs. Lind. The old Gunderson residence.”
Anxiety gripped my chest at the sight of all those plain, tall windows staring us down. Michael fidgeted beside me, and I could tell by the way he peeked up at the attic level from the tops of his eyes that the house disquieted him, too.
“To the north lies a small lake that you’ll hear about soon,” said Mr. Harkey, fighting to maneuver the bucking vehicle the rest of the way across the drive. “And to the south you’ll find the dormant fruit and vegetable gardens.”
My neck ached from all of the jerking and grinding.
“My wife is quite the gardener,” he continued, a little louder, over the whines of the engine. “She’s become adept at pickling and canning ever since we moved here. She’s a pip, as you’ll soon see. Aw, hell!” He threw up his hands when the truck wouldn’t budge another inch. “We’re going to have to get out here. Sorry, folks.” He turned off the motor. “I know the snow’s a little deep here.”
“That’s fine.” Michael unlocked his hands from mine. “I’ll carry Alice if it’s too much for her to wade through it.”
“Now there’s a chivalrous husband.” Mr. Harkey smiled and shoved open his door, which had nearly frozen shut.
“Do you want me to carry you?” asked Michael after our driver left us. “I don’t mind . . . if you’d prefer not to risk brushing your stockings against snow . . .”
I blinked to appease a stinging in my eyes, which refused to look away from the awaiting house.
Michael covered one of my hands with his. “What is it?”
“I feel so selfish.” I gulped, my throat burning. “I’ve brought us both to the farthest reaches of civilization, just to figure out my own problems.”
“You’ll find answers here; I’m sure of it.”
“My sister Bea would kill me if she knew what I was doing right now. Or she’d send me straight to an asylum, which is what this place reminds me of.”
“I’ve seen an asylum, and it doesn’t look like this.” Michael forced his own door open and clambered out into the snow. His boots, along with the bottom six inches of his trousers, sank out of sight. “Come along. I’ll help you out.”
I took a breath and joined him out there in the cold, my galoshes sinking and crunching into the snow just like his. The flakes continued to accumulate, even as we stood there and gathered our bearings, and a sub-freezing wind pummeled my ears.
Mr. Harkey threw open the back door of the truck and fetched my two bags. Michael squished his way toward him and grabbed his own suitcase.
Up at the house, a woman appeared on the porch, a red scarf wrapped around her neck, short copper hair blowing in the wind beneath a knitted hat. “Do you need any help, Al?” she called.
“No, we’ve got everything, Mabel. Just make sure to add another log to the fire so these two can warm up.”
The woman disappeared back into the house, and the rest of us waded through the snow toward the porch she’d just left. My legs ached from the cold with such unbearable pain that I forgot for a moment the nature of the place I sought to reach; I forgot why I was there. My brain focused solely on the promise of a fireplace—of heat and thaw and comfort. A stovepipe at the back of the house pumped out the aroma of a sweet-scented meat.
At the top of the porch stood the closed front door, painted a luscious shade of black, with an oval windowpane mounted in the center. Beside the door hung a wrought-iron sign bearing the hotel’s name in golden letters, and below the sign I saw a verse from the Book of Hebrews, carved into a weathered slab of wood:
FORGET NOT TO SHOW LOVE UNTO STRANGERS: FOR THEREBY SOME HAVE ENTERTAINED ANGELS UNAWARES . . .
The quote assuaged my nerves a smidgen, but, still, I felt out of sorts.
Mr. Harkey jogged up the porch steps ahead of us with my bags banging against his outer thighs, his thick boots thumping with a ruckus that gave me a headache. He lowered the suitcases to the porch and swung the door open. “Please, step inside. Shed your damp coats. Warm yourselves.”
Michael and I stamped our feet on a coarse brown mat, shaking small avalanches of snow from the sides of our boots, and we entered a long front hall, flanked on the right by a staircase that rose to a darkened landing. I determined the sweet roasting meat to
be venison and also smelled mutton chops.
Mr. Harkey closed the door behind us, and with chattering teeth and violent shivers, we peeled off our coats, gloves, and hats. My body adjusted to that painful transition from numbness and constricted veins to defrosting skin and blood prickling back to life.
To our left, a room accessible by opened pocket doors radiated heat from a stone fireplace, to which the woman with the copper hair tended. Kerosene lamps flickered from walls the yellowish tan of tobacco-stained teeth—an ugly color I did not care for in the slightest. No pictures lined either the hallway or the parlor. Nothing about the place, aside from the fireplace, imparted comfort or hospitality.
The woman hung the fireplace poker on a rack of tools and got to her feet, revealing a young face with brown doe’s eyes and plump cheeks. “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Lind.” She came toward us, her right hand extended. “I’m Mabel Harkey. So nice to have you join us this Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” we said in return, and we shook her hand, her skin toasty from the fire. She couldn’t have stood any taller than four foot ten, and I felt an Amazon compared to her, even at five foot four.
“Mrs. Lind said they’ve come for the history,” said Mr. Harkey, my bags still in hand.
“I’ve been interested in this hotel since I was a child in Oregon,” I felt compelled to explain. Michael’s gold band on my left ring finger slid over the hump of my knuckle, which sent a nervous quaver through my voice. “I finally acquired some time off of work to visit. This is the only week we could manage to travel here.”
“You came from Kansas?” asked Mrs. Harkey.
“We did,” said Michael, his voice as timorous as mine, even though his words weren’t a lie precisely.
“You must want to freshen up after your travels, then.” Mrs. Harkey put a hand to her husband’s right shoulder. “Let’s allow the Linds to get situated upstairs, shall we?”
“How much time until appetizers and drinks?” asked her husband.
