Haunted (19 page)

"Will Masters allow that?" Art Candell, a marriage counselor, asked the question.

Theo smiled. "Mr. Masters and his poor misled daughter claim they don't believe in ghosts. So I don't think they'll mind."

"A horror writer who doesn't believe in ghosts," commented Kate Grabski, owner of a gourmet coffee store up in Morro Bay. "That doesn't sound natural."

"Nobody who believes in ghosts would go near that place after dark," Art said.

"I wouldn't go there by myself in the daytime," Kevin added.

"I'd like to do some paintings in there," Rodger said, pushing his long curly hair out of his eyes.

Reverend Alice clapped her hands. "Well, now, everyone, shall we begin tonight's channeling session? Theo, dear, are you ready?"

Theo freed her hair from its pins and shook it out until it fell in glossy waves nearly to her elbows. She took a deep breath, exhaled, repeated the process. "Ready," she told Alice.

Alice lit a stick of incense and turned on the stereo. Soft New Age music filled the room as she joined the circle. Theo let her head fall forward and, after a moment, she moaned and raised it again and looked around, eyes bright and inquisitive, her whole posture changing from her usual feline grace to something quicksilver and alert, birdlike.

"Who seeks to speak to us tonight?" she asked in a voice that sounded like a basso profundo chipmunk with a slight Mideast accent.

"The Beings of Light request your presence, Spiros," Alice said.

"Ask your questions, then. I am ready."

"May I?" asked Rodger.

"Go ahead, my friend," said Spiros/Theo.

"I'd like to know more about the life I led in first century Rome."

Spiros/Theo giggled maniacally. "Ah, you who are now Rodger, in that life you were an orator. You spoke eloquently and well, for your wit was strong and, I might add, a bit ribald. You were popular with some, but made many enemies. Eventually, you were stoned to death upon your podium for speaking ill of the Emperor's penis size." Again, the giggle, joined now by others in the group.

"Who's next?" Spiros/Theo asked.

Body House: 11:31 P.M.

Sitting at her vanity, Amber brushed her hair. She was glad she'd rented Blazing Saddles because, no matter how distinguished and proper her father sometimes tried to act, the poor man couldn't resist fart jokes. Give famous novelist David Masters a whoopee cushion and he became a ten-year-old, hiding it under his jacket until you forgot about it, then squeezing it and saying, "Excuse me." It was totally embarrassing. Give him Mel Brooks and all the tension left him in fits of helpless laughter. He'd been so uptight, she wasn't sure whether it would work tonight, but it had.

She began braiding her hair to keep it from tangling. When she'd heard that awful laughter earlier tonight, she'd felt pretty uptight herself. The minute she'd opened her door, the sound had increased tremendously, and it was everything she could do to force herself to walk the long hallway and go down the stairs to see if her father was okay, instead of locking herself back up in the safety of her room.

She couldn't remember Dad ever acting so nervous. Recalling his stories about the house in Boston, the satanic cult, and the research for his newest book that brought him face to face with a serial killer who claimed to be possessed by a demon, she knew he'd been scared every time and that he believed that the fright was responsible for his hitting the bestseller list. For a self-avowed skeptic, her dad was awfully superstitious about his books.

Still, she'd never seen him like this. Since she was old enough to remember, he'd taken her into haunted houses and other strange places, and she never quite understood what turned him on so much about such things. Maybe because she'd seen so much of it, always with him whispering scientific explanations in her ear, and maybe because she'd seen him bust several fake ghosts and phony psychics, the stuff just didn't scare her. Knife-wielding maniacs made of flesh and blood were another matter altogether. When she'd heard the laughter again tonight, she thought perhaps someone was hiding in the house and that had scared her half to death. When she got downstairs and felt the weird cold in the room, she'd actually been very relieved, thinking, Big deal, it’s only a ghost. Even so, some of Dad's nervousness had rubbed off on her and she'd spent half the movie furtively glancing over her shoulder.

She finished with her hair and stood up, stretching her arms high above her head. She was exhausted. After the movie, her dad mentioned that witchy old Pelinore wanted to fix her up with some girl who lived in town. For a moment, she'd been righteously pissed, but after she thought about it briefly, she decided it was better than nothing. She hoped the girl, Kelly Cox, wasn't a major nerd. Being associated with geekdom at a new school was all she needed.

Walking slowly across the room to the window, Amber paused to admire the beautiful fanlight above the window, before staring out toward the lighthouse. It was swathed in shifting wisps of fog, and she thought she might like to try painting a watercolor of the derelict building, with a huge full moon reflecting on the mist. Touching the window glass with her fingertips, she was surprised at its chillness and wondered how miserable it would be here in the winter if it was this cold in the middle of July.

Tomorrow, Dad was going to let her take the Bronco all the way down to San Luis Obispo to go shopping at the mall and he was even letting her take his Visa card. She was going to pick out curtains for their bedrooms and for the kitchen, plus a couple more phones, including one for her room. She'd been completely shocked when he'd asked her if she wanted to do this, but she'd eagerly agreed. Then when he'd suggested that she bring back some furniture catalogs to study and said he'd like her help in furnishing the place, complimenting her on her eye for such things, she'd totally flipped. He wanted to do most of the downstairs in the same style as Lizzie Baudey had and he hoped she'd research it for him and show him her ideas. He even offered to pay her for her time.

In a way, she wished Melanie would be there to go shopping with her. Melanie had taught her all sorts of things about clothing and when her dad bought the condominium back east, she'd found out that Mel knew all about furniture too.

But Amber had already learned a lot and it all sort of fit with her career plans in different ways. So, she decided, as much fun as it would be to have Melanie here, it was better not to, because she figured Melanie would have taken over the job without her dad ever even thinking about asking his own daughter.

Amber crossed to the huge wardrobe on the other wall and opened it, looking through her clothes, pondering what to wear tomorrow. She chose a pair of white jeans and a blue scoop-necked T-shirt, then reached for the hanger that held her belts.

"Damn!" she said as the hanger unlatched, spilling the belts all over the wardrobe floor. She got down on her knees and started pulling them out, when she felt a funny little depression in the wood. After fiddling with it a moment, something clicked and the wood slid smoothly out from under her fingers.

Startled, she drew her hand back before gingerly touching the edges of the opening. It was a foot long and six inches wide. Carefully, she reached inside and touched something that felt like cloth.

Knowing she should get a flashlight, but too impatient to do so, she plunged her hand in and wrapped her fingers around the slender object within. Slowly she brought it out into the light.

It was a doll, a beautiful antique doll with a hand painted porcelain face and red hair. "You're Lizzie," she whispered, recognizing the features and the green dress from the portrait in her dad's office.

Briefly, she thought she detected the faint, light fragrance of lavender, but it was gone in an instant and she returned her attention to the doll. Everything was perfect, from the rosy blush of the glazed cheeks to the minute stitches on the dress. The china hands were delicate and flawless, even down to the tiny fingernails.

She lifted the skirt, seeing first the little green slippers covering delicate feet then, miserably, the white porcelain calves, both of which were badly cracked above the ankles. She wondered how it had happened, then thought, Oh well. Despite the damage, the doll was beautiful.

Curiously, she undid the tiny buttons on the back of the dress and removed it, revealing a lavender and black laced corset and matching bloomers. She removed these carefully, gasping as she saw the doll's body.

The breasts had perfect pink-tipped nipples and the pubic mound had a thatch of short auburn hair that matched the hair on the head. Turning the doll over, she saw that the buttocks were unusually realistic. The legs fell forward at the hips, revealing the doll's crotch. "My God," Amber whispered. The porcelain genitals were painted pink and were anatomically correct. "My God."

Slowly, she rose and shut the wardrobe, then took the doll to the dresser and replaced the clothing. Tomorrow, she'd have to ask her dad more about the dolls. He'd said that Lizzie had taught her daughter how to make them--today, she'd noticed the old kiln outside the sun porch, where the dolls must have been glazed. He'd also told her that none of them had ever been found, that they were only rumored to exist.

Now she knew they existed, and wondered at her fortune at finding this one. But the genitals bothered her. Christabel wouldn't have made a doll of her own mother like that, would she? Maybe Lizzie created this one, though instinctively Amber doubted it. Before she left for San Luis Obispo, she'd leave it with her father and tell him to undress it after she was gone. "Lizzie," she said softly, turning the doll in her hands before setting it on the dresser and walking over to the bed.

As she turned on her bedside lamp and picked up Gone With the Wind, the novel she was reading, she glanced at the doll. "Goodnight, Lizzie," she said softly. Though the window was closed, a soft breeze fragrant with subtle, soothing lavender permeated the room.

Amber had thought her room wasn't haunted. In fact, she'd sensed that it was one of the most neutral places in the house, a pleasant sanctuary. But now she realized that there was something leftover in the walls, something nice, that made her think of her father's story about his grandmother's sachet. She smiled, glad that it was here, realizing that it probably kept the laughing ghost that reeked of jasmine and decay out of this room, and decided she'd stay here and share the ugly red bathroom, instead of moving to the other wing.

She fell into pleasant dreams, lulled by the melodic almost imperceptible, ragtime music that drifted up through the floorboards.

Body House: 11:46 P.M.

David sat at his small writing desk in front of his bedroom window and finished entering the evening's events in the computer, then added another line. "All in all, I had the crap scared out of me tonight. This bodes very well for Mephisto Palace." Yawning, he turned off the laptop and tossed his robe on the chair, then climbed naked into the luxurious poster bed, slipping between clean pale blue sheets that he'd unpacked earlier.

As soon as Minnie had left for the day, he'd taken the soiled sheets downstairs and washed and dried them. It made him recall a day when he was twelve. He was trying to wash away the embarrassment before his mom caught him. She'd walked into the garage and seen him loading the washer and started to shoo him away, saying she'd do the laundry. He must have looked horrified, because she suddenly focused on the sheets, and apparently realized what they were. Then she colored slightly and backed off, saying maybe it was good for him to learn to do laundry. Of all the things she could have done, that was the best, but he still remembered the mortification of realizing that she knew.

He wasn't worried about Amber--she was used to seeing him do his own laundry, but Minnie catching him at it would have been worse than Mom. Minnie'd gone on at some length today about men with bad aims missing the toilet, citing the case of poor Mrs. Candell, whose husband Sal must have some sort of vision problem because she was "always cleaning up after that man." David could just imagine what that foretold for him if she found out about his sheets. "David Masters has wet dreams," she'd tell the town. Probably that daughter of hers, Calla, would plaster it across the front page of the weekly paper.

Cool it, Masters, you’re getting bitchy. He sighed and lay back. Today had been stressful, no doubt about it. If Amber hadn't shown up with that goofy movie, between dealing with the Willards, and the rest of the locals, not to mention the movers, most of whom had IQ's as big as their dicks, he would have been ready to climb the walls. And of course there was the little matter of the manifestation he could barely control. I hope buying this place wasn't a mistake. At least Amber seemed to be unaffected by it.

Still, there was no way he would leave her alone in Body House, at least for now. He wasn't sure he wanted to be alone here, for that matter. You’re just tired, he told himself. Tomorrow will be better.

As he picked up a book to read himself to sleep, he thought he heard a strain of melody, soft and sweet, Scott Joplin's slow, moody rag, Solace, but he was too tired and too unsure if his ears were playing tricks on him to get up and check.