999

by Al Sarrantonio

  “No.”

  Freeboard closed the hall door.

  “Joan, I thought I’d take a stroll around the island. Want to come?”

  “Yes, I’d like that a lot,” said Freeboard. “Yes!”

  It would prove to be no ordinary walk on the beach.

  “Your health,” toasted Case.

  “You keep saying that,” said Dare.

  The author’s voice was faintly thickened and slurry.

  They were sitting across from one another on the library sofas, close to the crackling of a fire. Case was leaning across a pine coffee table pouring scotch into Dare’s tall glass.

  “No one’s forcing you to drink,” Case observed.

  “I wasn’t bitching, I was merely observing; that’s a thing that we painters can do so awfully well.”

  “Oh, you paint?”

  “Must you challenge almost everything I say?”

  Slightly inebriated, feeling loose, the author sipped at his glass and savored the scotch. And then the earth seemed to shift in a quick, sharp jolt. Dare lowered his glass and stared.

  “I think a sumo wrestler just landed on the island,” he intoned.

  He looked over at Case. “Did you feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

  “Never mind.” Dare kicked off his shoes, swung his long legs around and stretched out full on the sofa. “There. I am invulnerable, I hold back the night. You may now tell me more about Carl Jung’s ghost.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes, really, sir. Indeed. My very word.”

  “Well, it looked like a one-eyed old hag,” began Case. “Jung was looking for a place to relax for a time, and a friend of his in London—another doctor, I believe—offered use of his cottage in the country. One beautiful moonlit night with no wind as he lay in bed, Jung said he heard trickling sounds, odd creaks, and then muffled hangings on the outer walls. Then he had the strong feeling that someone was near him and so he opened his eyes and immediately saw, there beside him on the pillow, the hideous face of an elderly woman, her right eye wide open and balefully glaring at him from just a few inches away. The left half of the face, he said, was missing below the eye. Jung leaped up and out of bed, lit a number of candles and spent the rest of the night out of doors on a cot he’d dragged out of the house. Later on he found the cottage that he was vacationing in had long been known to be haunted and was formerly owned by an elderly woman who had died from a cancerous lesion of the eye.”

  “I had to ask,” muttered Dare.

  “Yes, there you have it.”

  Dare reached out, retrieved his glass and sipped. He stared at the fireplace flames as if in a reverie. “I may have had a taste of the supernatural once,” he said in a quiet tone. “I was in Budapest doing some research. I knew few people. I was lonely. On the morning of my fortieth birthday I went to the lobby and in my box there was a cablegram, my only mail in several days. It said ‘Happy Birthday, dear Terry’ and at the bottom it was signed, ‘Your brother, Ray.’ “ Dare paused and looked down into his glass and swirled the scotch. “Oh, yes, I had a brother Raymond,” he said after that. “But he died, you see, in infancy. Another brother had sent me the cable. Edward. But how on earth did Edward turn into Ray?”

  The author held his glass out to Case.

  “May we hear To your health’ one more time?”

  “You need ice?”

  “I need warmth, my dear man, I need fire. Just the scotch. The world is quite cold enough for me, thank you.”

  Case picked up the bottle. Its treasure had dwindled and he poured it all out into the author’s glass.

  “Forgive me for asking, Mr. Dare—or rather, Terence. You don’t mind if I call you that?”

  “I’d say about time.”

  Case set the empty bottle down and leaned back.

  “May I ask you a personal question?”

  “Has it anything to do with LSD?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Or priests?”

  “Oh, well, possibly priests.”

  Dare glared. “Henri Bergson thought the principal function of the brain was to filter out most of reality so that we could focus on the tasks of earthly life,” he said. “When the filter is weakened by a powerful drug, what we see is not delusion but the truth.”

  “I haven’t followed you,” said Case.

  “I saw the priest,” insisted Dare.

  “Oh, I see. No, that’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what is?”

  “What sent you away from your church?”

  For a moment there was silence. Dare gulped down the scotch and stared into the fire. “All that rot about eternal hell’s fires and damnation. Just because I like Mackinaws more than silk blouses, I’m condemned to take baths in jalepeño juice and eat napalm hot fudge sundaes with Son of Sam for all of eternity in some Miltonesque Jack in the Box? Is hell fair?”

  “No, no one said that it was fair,” said Case quickly.

  “Well, it isn’t.”

  “In any case, you’re over that now.”

  “Absolutely. Dead is dead and that’s that.”

  “So there we are. Oh, incidentally—one more thing about that one-eyed old ghost …”

  Dare lowered his brow into a hand. “Ah, my God!”

  “You find this threatening?”

  “No, my fingernails always look charred. It’s some sort of genetic balls-up in my family.”

  “I see.”

  Dare looked up and set his glass down on the table.

  “You were saying?”

  “Well, the ghost spoke to Jung.”

  “Good Christ!”

  Case looked slightly bemused, a little grave.

  “And what did it say?” Dare asked.

  “’When you have learned to forgive others, Jung, you will finally learn to forgive yourself.’”

  Dare paled. He seemed taken aback.

  “It really said that?”

  Case was staring at him steadily. He shook his head. “No.”

  “You’re a dangerous man, Dr. Case,” Dare said softly. “I’ve said that before. Yes, you are. You’re a peril.”

  Case turned and looked out through a window. The shadows of the trees were beginning to lengthen, and the sound of birds calling were fewer, more muted.

  “The sun’s lower,” he said softly. “I’m impatient for the night.”

  “Pretty sky,” said Trawley.

  “It’s a sky.” Freeboard shrugged.

  They had sauntered through the oaks around the house and now were ambling by the evening river’s glistening shore where the sun had laid a gold piece on the surface of the waters. Her tanned arms folded across her chest, the Realtor seemed pensive, staring down at the ground.

  “Something wrong, Joan?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “You seem edgy.”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  At that moment she’d been pondering her dream of the angel, the one with the memorable name unremembered and his cryptic admonition, “The clams aren’t safe.” Before that she’d been thinking of Amy O’Donnell from the second grade at St. Rose in the Bronx. Her best friend. Dead at nine. Pneumonia. “Nothing special. Business. I dunno.” Freeboard shrugged. A moment later she stopped and looked up. She was squinting toward the sun, her browed furrowed.

  “You hear that?”

  “No, what?”

  “Sounds like organ music. Listen.”

  Trawley followed her gaze, her head bent.

  “Yes, I do,” she said shortly. “Far away.”

  “Yeah, I guess there’s a skating rink somewhere.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Freeboard nodded and the women resumed their walk.

  “So there’s Manhattan,” said Trawley, looking off to the south. “I’ve never spent any time there to speak of,” she mentioned. “Perhaps I should do that before I go home. What do you think? Is it a fas
cinating city?”

  “Fuck it.”

  “You don’t recommend it, then?” Trawley asked earnestly.

  Freeboard turned her head to unreadably appraise her. The psychic’s expression was somberly questioning, but her eyes seemed faintly amused. “You’re okay,” Freeboard judged her at last.

  “I’m okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. You’re okay. You’re real.”

  Both hands in the pockets of her jeans, thumbs hitched, Freeboard turned and frowned down at the ground ahead. “Listen, what’s the bottom line?” she asked. “I mean, spookwise.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Hey, look at this,” Freeboard said abruptly. She had stopped, staring down at a sand-covered object that looked as if it might have washed up on the shore. She stooped and picked it up.

  It was a bottle of champagne.

  Freeboard brushed away sand and read the faded, blurred label. “Veuve Cliquot,” she pensively murmured.

  Trawley eyed the bottle. She looked troubled.

  “Unopened,” she observed.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Freeboard looked up and Trawley followed her gaze to where the shoreline just ahead sharply curved to the right, disappearing from view. The two women stood immobile, blankly staring. A light spring breeze played at Trawley’s dress for a moment, furling and flapping it about. Freeboard lowered her hand and the champagne bottle slipped from her fingers down to the silent and watching earth. Then as one the women turned and walked stiffly toward the mansion.

  Neither of them uttered a word.

  On the library sofa Dare lay somnolent as the women entered the house. Hearing their voices, soft and feathery, drifting in low from the entry hall, he opened a drowsy, bloodshot eye. “I think I’D have another Dedown,” he heard Trawley saying; “I’m quite tired for some reason.”

  “Yeah, me too,” answered Freeboard. Then footsteps ascending the stairs, doors softly opening and closing. Dare’s eye slid shut and he took a deep breath. And then he opened both eyes and raised his head and listened. A sound. Yes, again! A distant whine and then a yip! And then another! Dare’s face was aglow with rapture.

  “Boys!”

  He had brought them after all!

  He would have to go and find them.

  “Dr. Case?” he called loudly.

  He got up and walked over toward the Great Room.

  “Doctor?”

  It occurred to him he didn’t know which bedroom Case had taken. He hurried to the kitchen, walked in and looked around, calling, “Morna?” But no one was there.

  He breathed deeply. He would have to go alone.

  Chapter Seven

  Uneasy and confused, fatigued, her body heavy, Freeboard lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling. Something was wrong, she knew. What was it? She tightened her hands into fists at her sides, shut her eyes and attempted to shake it off. The middle finger of her hand lifted up. “Haunt this!” Abruptly she sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She listened. A piano being played. She smiled. Rachmaninoff’s Concerto #2, the second movement, softly reflective and colored with longing. It was the only piece of classical music she could recognize, although she never had learned its name. She had heard it in a movie.

  Mesmerized, Freeboard got up from the bed, walked out into the hall and leaned over the balustrade. She saw Case at the piano below. Drawn, she walked slowly down the stairs and through the Great Room, not noticing her sense of anxiety had vanished. When she’d reached the piano, Case looked up. He smiled, then looked down at the keys and stopped playing. “Oh, well, something like that,” he said in self-deprecation. He shrugged.

  “That’s my favorite piece of music,” Freeboard told him.

  “Oh, really? Well, in that case I’ll continue.”

  “Yeah, you do that.”

  He lifted his hands and again began to play.

  Freeboard looked around her. “Where’s Terry?”

  “Last I saw him he was stretched out on a couch in the library posing as a very large illuminated manuscript.”

  “A what?”

  “He’d had a number of scotches.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Did you and Anna enjoy your little walk?”

  Freeboard frowned, looking puzzled. “What walk?”

  Case stared. A strange sadness had come into his eyes.

  He lowered his gaze and shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Where are you, boys? Come to me! Come!”

  Apprehensive, barely breathing, grasping for courage, Dare picked his way slowly along the hallway deep within the maze of rooms within the house. The hall was interior, there were no windows, and the light from ornamental copper sconces was dim. “Boys? Come on, boys. Where are you?” Dare hiccoughed. He could taste a bit of scotch coming up. He made a face. And then froze as from somewhere behind him he again heard a small creaking sound, slow and careful, like a stealthy footfall. The sconce lights flickered and dimmed. Dare swallowed. Come along now, don’t be absurd, he thought. Aloud he said, “I’ve written this scene a dozen times.” He turned his head and peered down the length of the hall. There was nothing. The lights came back up to full brilliance and instantly the author felt the atmosphere change, like the sudden relenting of a powerful gravity, leaving the corridor buoyant and free. Dare exhaled, turned around again and slowly walked on until he arrived at a door at his left. He opened it and looked into a spacious bedroom. “Boys?” He glanced around, then closed the door and moved on. Another door. He opened it and looked in. Another bedroom with a four-poster bed. To his right he saw a makeup table. The room had belonged to a woman.

  “Boys?”

  No response. Yet he entered and closed the door softly behind him. Something had drawn him. He looked out a window at the pale, thin light of end of day. The branches of the oak trees were gnarled silhouettes, like those used to illustrate a Grimm fairy tale. Dare turned on a lamp on a bedside table where he noticed a large, round porcelain pillbox, white, and decorated with little purple rabbits. He picked it up carefully and opened it. It was a music box. It was playing. Dare stared as the tiny chimes tinkled in the air, a Stephen Foster tune, “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair.” Who had wound it up? Dare wondered. He gentry closed the lid. It was then that something else began to strike him as odd. He reached down and rubbed a finger along the table, then held it to his gaze for examination. The room and its contents were completely free of dust, and the surface of woods appeared newly waxed. Who was cleaning the house? Were there unseen staff in a hidden wing? He thought of his vision, the man in black. LSD or a truly silent butler? he wondered. “Also invisible,” he muttered. Then he sniffed. He smelled perfume in the air, the scent of roses.

  “Can I help you?”

  Startled, Dare yelped and whirled around.

  Morna was staring at him, expressionless.

  Her eyes flicked down to the music box.

  “Are you looking for something?”

  Dare said, “No,” but the reply was almost soundless, gasping through the ice that had formed in his larynx. He cleared his throat with effort and amended, “I mean, yes. My dogs. Have you seen them?”

  “The little ones? No.”

  He absently nodded. He was staring at her neck.

  He looked past her and noticed that the door was still closed. He stared at her neck again. He was frowning. Then something occurred to him. “How did you know that my dogs are little?” he asked. “Have you seen them in the house? Are they here?”

  Morna smiled, as if in secret amusement, then without another word she turned and glided to the door, pulled it open and exited the room. For a moment Dare stared at the open doorway, and then down at the music box still in his hand. He gently replaced it on the table, then walked out into the hall. “Morna?” he began. He had another question concerning the dogs. But in the hall he saw no one. She was gone.

  He was suddenly electrified by a sound. Muted and distant. The yapping of
a dog. Dare beamed and then frowned as he realized that the bark was of a larger animal. Yet he called again, “Boys? Men?” The yapping continued. Dare began to move toward the sound apprehensively. At the end of the hall he saw a door and as he neared it the yapping grew louder, more excited, then elided into threatening growls and barks interlaced with piercing whines, as of fright. Near the door, Dare stopped as the voice of a man came through from behind it: “What is it, boy? What?”

  So there was someone here, thought Dare. There was staff.

  He grasped the doorknob and opened the door.

  Dare gaped. He was looking at what seemed to be a kitchen. Trembling, teeth bared, a collie dog was confronting him, alternately whining and growling and barking. At a table sat a man and a woman in their fifties and what looked to be a husky young Catholic priest dressed in cassock and surplice and purple stole, while by a window stood a taller old redheaded priest who gripped a book that was bound in a soft red leather. The man and the woman and the younger priest were staring toward Dare as if in numb apprehension, but the redheaded priest by the window seemed calm as he walked to the table routinely, unhurriedly, to pick up a vial filled with colorless liquid. A woman in a housekeeper’s uniform entered the room. She was carrying a steaming pot of coffee. As she moved toward the table she glanced toward the door, dropped the pot and emitted a piercing shriek, and as she did the old priest uncapped the vial, flicked his wrist and shot a sprinkle of its contents at the dumbfounded author, whereupon the people in the kitchen vanished.

  Shaken, Dare whirled about and ran for his life.

  Anna Trawley was dreaming that Gabriel Case had walked up to her bedside and put out his hand to her. “Come, Anna,” he said to her gently. And then she was alone, carrying a candle and walking in the underground passage to the crypt. She knew that she was looking for something but she didn’t know what it was. She stopped and raised the candle. The crypt was before her. She listened. A whispering voice. Dr. Case. “Anna,” he was saying. “Anna Trawley.” Then the huge stone door of the crypt came open and out of it floated an open coffin containing the white-shrouded figure of a person whose face was indiscernible, a blank. “Look, Anna! Look!” the voice of Case again whispered. The face in the coffin began to take form and Anna Trawley was suddenly awake.