by Lila Dubois
“A mother and her children.”
“A very good guess, one I’d say is possible, and maybe even probable.”
“C’est vrai?” Tristan shook his head. “I am sorry for them.”
“Yes, it’s tragic, but they are at peace.”
“Really?” Tristan opened the door for her. She nodded in thanks as she entered. “How do you know they are at peace?”
“Because they’re dead and have been for at least 140 years.”
“Death is no guarantee of peace.”
She stopped in her tracks and looked at him. “Of course it is.”
Tristan smiled. “And who told you that?”
“No one told me. I don’t need to be told that once the body dies any consciousness or personhood dies with it. There is no more pain, no more suffering.”
“Life and death are not so simple as that. The soul is greater than both.”
She blinked several times. “You actually believe that.”
“I do.”
“And do you believe in ghosts?”
“Believe in them?” He considered her question.
Ghosts were very real, and this place was most definitely haunted.
“I do not ‘believe in’ them,” he said. She smiled a little and started walking again, headed for the west wing. “I know they are real.”
“For goodness sake,” she said on a sigh.
“I take it you do not ‘believe’.”
“No, I do not. Let me clarify—I will not. I’ve seen bones marked by the suffering of life, picked pieces of people from pits where they’d been thrown like garbage. Putting aside the fact that ghosts have no basis in science, I refuse to believe that death didn’t bring an end to that suffering.”
Tristan, who’d been walking beside her, slowed his pace, watching her pull ahead as they moved through the covered hallway between the main and west wings. Who was she that she’d done these things, seen these things? He’d assumed she was some professor or academic. There’d been grim conviction in her voice, as if she needed her words to be true.
He ran to catch up.
“I’m sorry, sometimes the things I say do not translate well to English. I’m sure you are right, death ends all suffering.”
There were two big lies in there—he’d taken English since he was five and was a fluent speaker.
The second lie became horrifyingly apparent when they entered the west wing.
A woman stood at the bottom of the stairs. She was only a pale outline the color of parchment paper, but he could just make out the hint of the chains that draped her and of the bucket she held in one hand. At the far end of the hall there was another woman, who seemed to be wearing a long dress, her hair piled up on top of her head. A massive ghost dog prowled down the hall toward him.
One by one Tristan looked at each ghost, acknowledging it. Their images wavered, as if they were trying to gather the power or strength to interact with him.
But nothing happened. The ghosts faded away.
Tristan looked over his shoulder. There was still one ghostly outline there, but this one’s features were familiar. The ghost smiled slightly at Tristan, then looked at Melissa, who was unlocking her door, before looking back to Tristan. That was odd, he didn’t normally acknowledge the presence of any other live people.
“Merci, mon frère,” Tristan whispered.
The ghost of his brother smiled before he too faded away.
* * * *
Melissa was up before dawn. She checked her urge to jump into action, instead taking time to run through her physical therapy exercises, using a bottle of water since she didn’t have a soup can. Her arm wasn’t as sore as she thought it would be after yesterday’s activities.
She took a quick shower, braiding her hair to keep it out of the way. It was just past seven when she left her room, making her way up to the second floor of the west wing. Before she entered, she put on a protective suit and gloves. Though she’d done an initial examination with minimal protective gear, today she intended to be very by-the-book. The reality was that she rarely got to take the kind of precautions or time that she’d like to. In the quiet dawn light, the scene before her was almost peaceful. She knew most people wouldn’t see it that way—the once-pretty room, a scene of destruction around the bones that lay in a pool of shadow, was not most people’s idea of peace.
But for Melissa it was. Now that the first wave of emotion was gone—the sadness she’d felt yesterday—she could view this place objectively. The bones were just bits of carbon—the last remains of a collection of biological and chemical elements that made up the human body. When that body stopped functioning, the consciousness ceased to exist. Its exit was instantaneous, while the body lingered, slowly breaking apart into chemicals and organic compounds.
Humming to herself, Melissa took out her camera and did another complete video of the scene. When she was satisfied that she had a good record, she carefully cleared away the area around the bodies. She shifted broken furniture, moved bits of glass and pushed aside tattered fabric that crumbled at the slightest touch.
She knelt beside the bones of the woman—enough of the pelvis was visible that she was sure it was female—though the green dress she’d died in made that identification fairly obvious.
Taking out a tarp, tissues and some acid-free paper, Melissa laid the tarp on the ground and set up panels of tissue before she started removing the dress. There were slashes and rips edged in black—old blood. Starting at the hem, she cut the fabric up each side, then started removing the front of the dress in sections.
It was stuck to the bones in several places. When gentle tugging didn’t remove the fabric from the femur, she moved on. When the skeleton was revealed, the bones lying in perfect order, Melissa stopped for more photos. The back of the dress was nearly all black, dyed and glued to the bones by the slurry of liquid the body released post-death and during decomposition.
When she was satisfied that she had enough photos, Melissa moved on to the other bodies, repeating the process of removing the upper layer of fabric and then photographing.
It wasn’t until she removed the infant’s long dress-style garment and saw the diaper still wrapped around the pelvis that her heart clenched.
“You were loved.” Seeing the care with which the baby was dressed made it more difficult to see the remains as merely physical remnants of life instead of a baby. Melissa leaned forward, peering at the infant’s neck bones. “Maybe I was wrong.”
There was damage to the base of the skull and vertebrae C1 and C2. The infant’s neck was broken—he had been strangled.
Melissa finished pulling away the clothing. She laid the pieces of the garments out on the acid-free paper then carefully added more tissue and thin padding before folding the packets up, labeling them and putting them to the side.
She needed to get a better look at the bones, but the only way to do that was to strip and clean them.
Though she’d brought some equipment, she hadn’t brought bins. Rising, she flexed her left arm, which was starting to ache. She was surprised to see that she’d been working for nearly three hours.
She stripped off her protective suit at the door, then set up a red biohazard trash bag by the door, dropping her gloves into it. She needed bins for the bodies and boiling water.
Stopping by her room long enough to plug in her camera, Melissa then made her way to the Glenncailty kitchen.
* * * *
Tristan stared at the pot of water on the stove.
“Who did this?”
“None of us did, Chef,” the rôtisseur answered. “I was in the garden for ten minutes—it must have happened then.”
“While you were picking herbs, someone came in here, dumped out the bread and put a pot of water on the stove?”
The chefs looked nervously at each other, then ducked their heads, going back to their various tasks with a single-minded determination that would be admirable if it wasn’t fueled by desir
e not to face Tristan’s anger. Tristan occasionally had trouble keeping a lid on his emotions. If he was angry or frustrated, he saw no reason not to express those feelings, but it seemed to freak out the Irish.
Taking a deep breath, Tristan exhaled. “You think the ghosts did this?”
“Wasn’t us.”
The words were faint, echoing slightly. Tristan waved his hand to the side, ignoring his brother’s amused comment.
“No, Chef,” several of his staff murmured.
“Is there a vandal in my kitchen?” he asked the room.
Jim, the friturier or “fry chef” as the inelegant called him, looked up from where he was cutting potatoes. “Maybe, Chef. Do you want me to call Sorcha?”
Tristan waved his hand again. Hopefully Sorcha was still with Séan Donnovan—James, the butcher, had made the meat delivery this morning, not Séan, which Tristan saw as a hopeful sign.
“She’s not working right now. She stopped by this morning and asked me to put together some breakfast to-go.” The pastry chef opened the oven doors and slid in a tray of tart cups.
“Bien.” Hopefully she was sharing breakfast with Séan. “We will deal with this ourselves.” He turned back to the large pot of water. Someone had snuck into the kitchen, dumped the fresh-baked bread out of the large plastic bins they kept it in and put his largest stock pot on to boil.
“Perhaps the servers have lost their minds and decided to interfere with my kitchen.” Stripping off his apron, Tristan went to the staircase that led down to the underground hallway that connected the kitchen and the pub. As he descended, he heard someone say, “God help them, the poor bastards.”
A quick interrogation of the bartenders and servers who were prepping the pub revealed nothing. When he was satisfied that no one was lying to him, Tristan exited through the pub’s front doors. The morning light was bright after the dim interior. Holding his hand up to shield his eyes, he stepped away from the building, letting the sunlight sink through his clothes to his skin.
“Give up already?”
Tristan looked over his shoulder at the shimmering outline of a figure that stood there. His brother’s ghost was barely visible in the sunlight.
“No, just thinking.”
“Is it cold here?” his brother asked.
“Only a bit colder than Paris.”
Tristan crossed the drive and took a seat on the stone bench across from the main doors. Once in the shadow of the trees, his brother was much more visible. He wore the clothes he’d died in—designer jeans and a trim button down shirt. Jacques had always been a stylish dresser.
“I know who did it.” Jacques grinned.
“And you won’t tell me,” Tristan grumbled. His brother was no more helpful dead than he had been alive.
“No.”
Tristan rolled his eyes, ready to say something more. A car came around the corner, following the drive to the parking area. Tristan closed his mouth, waving casually.
Jacques looked sad. “You don’t want them to know you’re talking to me.”
“They can’t know about you. We talked about this, mon frère.” Tristan hated the look on his brother’s face. There had been such sadness in Jacques when he was alive. Tristan’s brother had been brilliant, funny, mischievous and troubled. Nothing had changed after his death.
“It can’t be like in Paris.”
“No, it can’t be like in Paris,” Tristan agreed. He didn’t like to think about what had happened, what he’d done, after his brother’s death.
Morning light drenched the stones of the castle, making them pale, pearly gray. The glass of the hallways that connected the east and west wings to the main castle sparkled. The east wing was coming alive as the pub opened for those who wanted an early lunch. Above it, a few of the hotel rooms had the windows thrown open. Though the castle was climate controlled, the breeze carried the scent of the glen, and it was hard to resist letting that sweet smell in.
A flash of something dark caught Tristan’s eye. A figure walked between the now-closed west wing and the main castle. For a moment, Tristan assumed it was one of the many ghosts that haunted this place, but it was moving too fast and was strangely bulky. Tristan narrowed his eyes and caught a glimpse of blonde hair though the glass. It was the pretty English woman, the scientist, who seemed to be carrying something. Tristan snorted. She was probably looking for breakfast. If she thought she’d bully him into letting her eat in his restaurant before it opened for the evening, she was mistaken. It wouldn’t happen again.
Just before she passed into the main castle building, he saw that she was carrying large plastic tubs—the kind he kept bread in.
“Non,” he said, blinking. “She would not.”
Jacques laughed in delight. “Oui, oui.”
“Merde.” Tristan jumped up and raced for the front doors.
Kristina, a pretty blonde woman wearing a trim suit and gold nametag, was in the lobby at the registration desk. “Good morning, Chef Fontaine. How are—”
“The English woman?” Tristan said.
“Um, she went that way.” Kristina pointed toward the restaurant.
Tristan bolted down the hall, sighing in relief when he found the restaurant doors locked. As he was walking away, Kris opened the doors from the inside.
“Chef?”
“Kris. Is the English woman here?”
His maître d’s lips thinned. “She knocked and demanded to be let in. At least she’s in the kitchen and not messing up my dining room.”
Tristan bolted into the restaurant and raced between the tables, leaving a startled Kris in his wake. He burst through the kitchen doors.
A scene of horror greeted him.
Melissa had commandeered the counter beside the gas range on which the pot was now boiling cheerfully. The missing bread tubs were neatly stacked on the floor. Heavy gloves, tongs, small round dishes and bags were laid out on the counter. A large sheet of plastic was draped over shelves at her back, creating a makeshift barrier between where she stood and the rest of the kitchen. Melissa lifted one of the bread tubs onto the counter and popped the top off.
“What are you doing?” Tristan shouted.
She didn’t even pause. Her gloved hands reached in to the tub and withdrew two long bones. She turned and lowered them into the pot.
There was a moment of stunned silence. The pastry chef whispered, “Are those human bones?” voicing what they were all thinking.
Tristan was shocked—not by the fact that she was making broth out of human bones, but by her audacity in invading his kitchen.
“You.” He stalked toward her, ignoring how pretty she looked with her hair pulled back and her trim body revealed in the simple jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt she wore. “You will take this out of my kitchen.”
“Don’t worry, I wiped everything down with alcohol first. I can put up more plastic sheeting. I’m not familiar with health code standards.”
“Health standards do not allow for the cooking of human remains in a kitchen.” Tristan motioned to Jim. “Get more plastic up. Throw away anything that is out on a counter and clean this place. Tell the pub we can’t take food orders for now, but don’t tell them why. We’ll have to start again.”
No one grumbled, despite that it meant they’d lost a morning’s work. Melissa didn’t even acknowledge the order. She dipped tongs into the water, lifted a bone out and then used long tweezers to pick at the tattered bits of black that dangled from the bone.
“Is that human flesh?” Tristan asked. He wasn’t squeamish—if time allowed, he’d prefer to kill and butcher the animals he cooked, just to assure himself of their treatment and quality—but there was something very disturbing about a human femur boiling in the pot he used to make soups.
“No, the flesh has been gone for years. This is the remains of the clothing they wore. The fabric is adhered to the bones. I need to clean them off in order to get a better look at them.” She took the clean, white leg bones out, laid the
m on the table and then picked the ribs out of the box, carefully setting them in the water.
“And why are you doing this in my kitchen?”
“I needed boiling water.”
“This is a kitchen, not a scientist’s lab.”
“There’s not a large difference in the basic set up.”
She still hadn’t looked at him, and seemed to have no idea how close he was to strangling her. “Non? We prepare food here. Food for people to eat. Dead things have no place in a kitchen.”
She paused, looked at him. “That’s stupid. The meat and vegetables you cook are all, by default, dead.”
“A dead cow is different than a dead person.”
“This isn’t really a dead person, it’s just their bones.”
Tristan sucked in a breath through his nose, then cursed in French.
Melissa took the rib bones out one by one, then said, “I’m not a crazy bitch.”
“You speak French.”
“Of course.”
“Then I will apologize for my language.” He turned off the burner under the pot. “I’m sorry. Now, get out.”
“What are you doing?” She reached for the knob, but he kept his hand on it. She tugged at his wrist with her left hand.
“You cannot cook humans in my kitchen.”
“I’m not cooking humans. I’m sorry if it’s caused you trouble, but look, now it’s all sectioned off.” She motioned behind them where the other kitchen staff had used clamps and heavy plastic to isolate this wall of the kitchen.
“You soiled my bread, made me throw away a morning’s worth of food, and you took my best pot.”
“I set the bread neatly on a counter—you can still use it. These containers were perfect.”
“Perfect for bread.”
“I’ll be done in an hour, tops.”
“And you think people want to come here to eat food made in a place where a crazy scientist is cooking bones?”
“I guess crazy scientist is better than crazy bitch.”
“The common element is crazy.”
“I’m hardly crazy.”
“It’s true, she’s not.” Jacques peered over Tristan’s shoulder into the pot.
Tristan bit his lip to keep from responding to his brother. “This is a place of business. There’s an event this evening that we need to cook for.”
