Scott Nicholson Library, Vol. 4 (Boxed Set)

by Scott Nicholson

  CHAPTER 9

  October was a hunter, its prey the green beast of summer. The wind moved over the hills like a reluctant hawk; wings wide, talons low, hard eyes sweeping. Beneath its golden and frosty skin, the earth quaked in the wind of the hawk’s passing. The morning held its gray breath. Each tender leaf and blade of grass trembled in fear.

  Jefferson Spence looked down at the keys of the old manual Royal. “Horse teeth,” the keys were called. George Washington had horse teeth, according to legend. Spence knew he was wasting time, finding any distraction to keep him from starting another sentence. He stared into the bobbing flame of the lantern on his desk.

  He looked up at Ephram Korban’s face on the wall. In this very room, twenty years before, Spence had written Seasons of Sleep, a masterpiece by all accounts, especially Spence’s own. All his novels since had fallen short, but maybe the magic would return.

  Words were magic. And maybe old Korban would let slip a secret or two, bestow some hidden wisdom gleaned from all those years on the wall.

  “What,” Spence said to the portrait, his voice filling the room, “are you trying to say?”

  Bridget called from the bathroom in her soft Georgia drawl. “What’s that, honey?”

  “To have and have not,” he said.

  “What is it you don’t have? I thought we packed everything.”

  “Never mind, my sweet. A Hemingway allusion is best saved for a more appreciative audience.”

  Spence had collected Bridget during a summer writing workshop at the University of Georgia. He had led the workshop during the day and spent his evenings cooling off in the bars of Athens. Most of the sophomore seminar students had joined him for the first few nights, but his passion for overindulgence and his brusque nature had caused the group to dwindle. By Thursday of the first week, only the faithful still orbited like bright satellites gravitating toward the black hole of Spence’s incalculable mass.

  Three of those were eligible in Spence’s eyes: a bronze-skinned African goddess with oily curls; a hollow-cheeked blonde who had a devilish way of licking her lips and an unhealthy appetite for the works of Richard Brautigan; and the tender Bridget. As always, a couple of male students had also crowded his elbows and plied writing tips from him in exchange for drinks. Spence had little patience with writers. His best advice was to spend time in front of the keyboard instead of bar mirrors. But women’s minds were simpler and therefore uncluttered with literary pretensions.

  He had selected Bridget precisely because she was the most innocent, and therefore would be the most corrupted of the three choices.

  “Getting the juices flowing?” Bridget asked.

  He could sense her nakedness. Maybe it was the raw heat of her fresh skin, or the animal energy she radiated. He dared not look. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m working.”

  “I just thought—”

  “Since when have you ever thought? Leave that particular activity to those with brains.”

  He heard the door close, with a solid, satisfying click instead of the slam of a more confident woman. He had chosen wisely.

  Spence looked down at the paper that was scrolled into the Royal. Six years. Six years, and all he had to show for it was this paragraph that he’d rewritten three hundred times. It was the same paragraph with which he’d lured Bridget that first time, the one he didn’t even dare show his agent or editor.

  He’d known the time had arrived to get away from it all, seek a fresh perspective, summon those arcane Muses. If there was any place where he could recapture the magic, it was Korban Manor.

  He placed his fingers on the keys. The shower came on in the bathroom, and Bridget began singing in her small, pretty voice. “Stand By Me,” the old Ben King song. He typed “stand by me” under his opening paragraph, then clenched his teeth and ripped the page out of the carriage. He tore the sheet of paper into four pieces and let the scraps flutter to the floor.

  Spence leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. The treetops were swaying in the wind that had arisen with the approaching dusk. He imagined the smells of autumn, of fallen apples bruised and sweet under the trees, of birch leaves crumpling under boot heels, of cherry bark splitting and leaking rubbery jeweled sap, of pumpkin pies and chimney smoke. If only he could find the words to describe those things.

  Spence turned his attention back to the portrait of Korban on the wall. He thought about walking into the bathroom and watching Bridget soap herself up. But she might try to excite him. Each new beauty always thought she would be the one, out of dozens who had tried, to overcome what he called “the Hemingway curse.”

  And with each fresh failure, Spence felt angry and humbled. Though he welcomed anger, he loathed humility.

  He cursed under his breath and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. The paper was heavy, a twenty percent cotton mix. Worthy paper. Lofty, troublesome paper.

  The words would come. They had to come. He commanded them to come.

  Spence stared into the face of Korban. “What should I write, sir?”

  The portrait stared back, its eyes oil-black.

  Spence’s fingers hit the keys, the clattering motion vibrated through the desk and echoed off the wooden floor, the carriage return’s bell rang every thirty seconds.

  The house sat amid the breasts of hills, among swells, above rivers, above all Earth, reaching where only the gods could dwell. And in the house, in the high lonely window from which he could see the world that would be his, the man smiled.

  They had come, they had answered his call, those who would give him life. They would sing his songs, they would carve his name into their hearts, they would paint him into the sky. They came with their poetries, their images, their fevered words, their dreams. They came bearing gifts, and he would give unto them likewise—

  Spence was so lost in his writing, lost as he had not been in years, that he didn’t notice when Bridget walked nude and steaming into the room. He worked feverishly, his tongue pressed against his teeth. The gift was returning, flowing like blood through forgotten veins. He didn’t know whom to thank, Bridget, Korban, or some unseen Muse.

  He’d worry about that later. For now, the words carried Spence beyond himself.

  CHAPTER 10

  Anna looked down at her plate. The prime rib oozed juices and steam, and ordinarily would have been tempting enough to challenge her vegetarian principles. The softly boiled broccoli sprouts and red potatoes had elicited several exploratory stabs of her fork. The apple pie’s crust was so tender it flaked all over the china plate.

  As she watched the sugary lava of the pie filling flow between the crumbs, she wondered what it would be like to worry about dieting. She glanced across the dining room at Jefferson Spence and saw no hesitation in that man’s fork. She took a few hasty mouthfuls of the vegetables, then pushed the food around a little so it would look as if she had eaten well. The way Miss Mamie fussed over dinner proceedings, Anna almost felt guilty about not appreciating the food.

  The dining room was a long hall just off the main foyer. The room contained four tables, a long one in the center occupied by the people that Anna secretly thought of as “the überculture.” The other, smaller tables were relegated to the corners. Apparently Miss Mamie had tried to match people of similar interests when she made out the seating charts. That meant putting all the below-fifties at the smaller tables.

  Anna was sitting with Cris and the dark-skinned woman whom Anna had seen carrying a camera earlier. To her left was the guy she’d talked to on the porch, the sullen sculptor. Though his face was plain, something about his green-brown eyes kept drawing her attention. A secret fire buried deep. Or maybe it was only the reflection of the two candles that burned in the center of the table. Or an illusion created by her own desperate solitude.

  Cris had mumbled a prayer before dinner. The dark-skinned woman had also bowed her head. Anna wasn’t compelled to join in their ritual and instead took the opportunity to study th
eir faces. The sculptor had kept his head down but his eyes open. Then Anna had seen what he was looking at: a fly circled the edge of his plate, dipping a tentative feeler into the brown gravy.

  She’d hidden her smile as he surreptitiously tried to blow it away. When Cris said, “Amen,” he quickly whisked his cloth napkin out of his lap and waved it with a flourish. The fly headed toward the oil lamps that burned in the chandeliers overhead. Anna watched its flight, and when she turned her attention back to dinner, the sculptor was looking at her.

  “Darned thing was about to carry off my dinner,” he said. “Evil creature.”

  “Maybe it was Beelzebub,” she said. “Lord of the flies.”

  “Beelzebubba’s more like it. It’s a Southern fly.”

  Anna laughed for the first time in weeks. Her tablemates looked at them with furrowed brows. The man introduced himself to them as Mason and said he was a retired textile worker from the foothills. “I’m also an aspiring sculptor,” he said. “But don’t confuse me with Henry Moore or anything.”

  “Didn’t he play James Bond?” Cris asked.

  “No, that was Roger Moore.”

  He politely waved off the wine when the maid, Lilith, brought the carafe around. Anna took a glass herself, though she had no intention of taking more than a few sips. The conservatism that came with a death sentence had surprised her. When you only have a little time left, you try to heighten your experience, not dull it.

  Her eyes wandered to Mason again. He was watching Lilith as if he was interested in more than just a second helping of hot rolls. She was both annoyed and surprised when a flare of jealousy raced across her heart. She despised pettiness and, besides, possessiveness was the last vice a dying person should suffer. Stephen had taught her that you could never understand another person, much less own one, and the idea of soul mates was best limited to romance novels. She took a gulp of wine and let the mild sting of alcohol distract her, then introduced herself to the dark-skinned woman.

  The woman was named Zainab and had been born in Saudi Arabia. She was Arabian-American, but only indirectly from oil money; her father had been an engineer at Aramco. Zainab came to the U.S. to attend Stanford, back before everyone from the Middle East had to jump through flaming hoops to immigrate here, and now wanted to be a photographer “when she grew up.”

  “In America, you get to be grown up when you’re fourteen,” Anna said. “At least if you believe the fashion magazines. Of course, when you reach forty, you’re expected to look twenty-five.”

  “Hey,” Cris said, polishing off her third glass of wine. “I’m thirty going on twenty-nine. Guess that means I’m headed in the right direction.”

  Anna chopped at her pie a little more and pushed the dessert plate away. Cris leaned toward Mason, her eyelashes doing some serious fluttering.

  “So, what do the guys in the foothills do for fun?” Cris asked.

  “We go down to the Dumpsters behind the local café and throw rocks at the rats. The rats in Sawyer Creek eat better than the welfare families.”

  “I bet the rats live well around here,” Cris said.

  “We call it ‘living high on the hog’ back home,” Mason said, shuddering in mock revulsion. “I was talking to one of the handymen today. He told me about setting out steel traps, and burying the food scraps to keep the rats down. Garbage disposal is a big chore here.”

  “It’s amazing the things we take for granted in a civilized society,” Anna said.

  “Who’s civilized?” Cris said, giggling. “Sounds like we’re heading for one of those ‘walked four miles through the snow to get to school’ stories.”

  “It was ‘four kilometers over sand dunes without a camel’ where I grew up,” said Zainab.

  “I saw one of the maids with a basket of laundry. Not her,” Anna said, frowning toward Lilith, who was uncorking a wine bottle at the main table. “Imagine what it must be like to hand-wash all these table linens and curtains, not to mention the sheets.”

  “Seems the sheets get a good workout around here, if you believe the rumors,” Cris said.

  “You mean the ghost stories?” Mason said.

  Anna’s breath caught in her throat. If she managed to contact any ghosts here, she didn’t want a bunch of would-be necromancers holding midnight séances and playing with Ouija boards. She believed those sorts of disrespectful games sent ghosts running for the safety of the grave. And if she had a mission here, a last bit of business before her soul could rest, she preferred to handle it undistracted.

  “I was talking about sex, but the ghost stories are interesting, too,” Cris said. Her sibilants were starting to get a little mushy.

  Mason said, “According to William Roth—”

  “Oh, I met him.” Zainab’s brown eyes lit up as she interrupted. “I actually got to talk to him. I’ve always admired his work, but he’s not at all like you’d think a famous person would be. He’s so down-to-earth. And he has the most wonderful accent.”

  “He’s quite a character, all right.”

  “I think William is charming,” Zainab said, looking at him seated at the main table where he seemed to be engaged in three conversations at once.

  “What were you saying about ghosts?” Cris said, as if she’d just realized the subject had jumped track. “Anna does that stuff—”

  Anna cut her off with a look and a subtle shake of her head. She didn’t want everyone to think she was a flake, at least not right away.

  “Roth says Korban Manor is haunted, and he’s going to try to take some pictures,” Mason said. “And the handyman I met today sure seems a little spooked.”

  “Has anything weird happened to you guys since we got here?” Zainab asked.

  “I don’t know about ghosts. I’ll believe them when I see them, I suppose. But old geezer Korban’s pictures all over the place sure give me the creeps.” He nodded to the portrait on the wall above the head of the main table.

  “A big old place like this,” Anna said, “you always have creaky boards and sudden drafts blowing from everywhere. And all these lamps and candles throw a bunch of flickering shadows. It’s no wonder stories make the rounds.”

  “Sure,” Mason said. “If there really were ghosts, do you think all these people would keep coming back year after year?”

  “And how could they keep any employees?” Anna said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing a ghost or two,” Cris said, her cheeks bright. “Might liven the place up a bit. I like things that go bump in the night.” Cris smiled at Mason in lewd punctuation.

  Anna watched his reaction. This is it. Right over the heart of the plate. Strike three, or the long ball.

  Mason shrugged, seemingly oblivious to Cris’s come-on. “I don’t know. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  A small, cheap glow of victory burned in Anna’s chest. Then she despised herself for the feeling. What business was it of hers if Cris hooked up with this country boy?

  After Stephen, men didn’t exist, anyway. Ghosts were far more solid and reliable than men were.

  The conversation was broken when Miss Mamie rose from her seat at the head of the main table. She tapped her wineglass with a spoon, and the clatter of dishes and small talk died to a whisper. Lilith and the other maid stood at attention near the foyer, each holding a silver pitcher.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, lovely guests,” Miss Mamie said, her voice filling the hall. She looked at the faces lining the main table, clearly enjoying the moment. “Friends.”

  Anna was already bored. She hoped the speech would be short. Miss Mamie drew in a breath as if she were a soprano about to leap into an aria.

  “I’d like to welcome all of you to Korban Manor,” Miss Mamie said. “As most of you know, this house was built in 1902 by my grandfather, Ephram Korban. After he passed on, God rest his soul, it came into my father’s hands. We turned the manor into an artists’ retreat to fulfill Ephram’s final request. Now it’s my duty to carry on the legacy, and I d
o that with great pride and joy.”

  “And profit,” cut in a British accent, and an uncertain laughter rippled across the room.

  Miss Mamie smiled. “That, too, Mr. Roth. But it’s more than just a way to fund the estate’s preservation. It’s a labor of love, a continuation of Ephram’s vision. He himself was an admirer of the arts. And I hope each of you finds fulfillment during your stay here, and in so doing, you’ll help keep Ephram’s dreams alive in your own way.”

  Anna sneaked a glance at Mason. He was staring at Miss Mamie with blatant curiosity.

  Hmmm. Maybe he’s not as handsome as I first thought. His nose is a little long in profile. And his fingers are too thick. I’ll bet he’s clumsy with women.

  Satisfied that she had found enough flaws, she sipped her wine. Miss Mamie was in the middle of stoking the collective artistic fires.

  “—so I propose a toast, my friends,” the hostess said, twiddling her pearls. She raised her wineglass toward the vaulted ceiling, then turned and tipped it toward the portrait of Korban. Most of the room joined her. Anna reached for her glass again, but changed her mind. Mason saw her and smirked.

  Asshole. Probably one of those “holier than thou” types. An artist with a superiority complex. Now, THERE’S a rarity.

  She grabbed her glass. When Miss Mamie drank, Anna took a large gulp. It was house-bottled muscadine, a little too sweet for swilling. But she took an extra swallow for good measure.

  “You’re welcome to join me in the study for after-dinner drinks and conversation,” Miss Mamie concluded. “There’s a smoking porch off the study as well. Again, thank you for allowing us the pleasure of your company. Good evening.”

  The room erupted in chatter and rattling silverware. Cris wobbled slightly as she stood, and she put a hand on Mason’s shoulder to balance herself, leaning against him.

  Anna pretended not to notice. She was after ghosts, damn it. Ghosts didn’t make a fool out of you the way men always did.

  She slipped away up the stairs. The lamps along the hall threw a warm glow over the woodwork. She entered the dark bedroom and stood by the window, looking over the dark manor grounds. The sky was fading into a deep periwinkle, soon to be smothered by the blackness creeping from the east, the moon rising faint and blue in the east.