Howard, curious, sauntered over to one of the open files. “Well, she seemed a bit off, didn’t she?”
“I liked her,” Grip said. “She’s quirky.”
Isabel noticed the framed real-estate certificate, the only one on the wall. “Ophelia Jacobi” read across the lower half of the certificate, above a date almost thirty years ago.
“Maybe Ophelia will be a little more level—” Distracted, Howard tried to make sense of the file he was looking at.
A stylish Colonial impressed in black and white. Below the usual details on square footage and the number of bathrooms, “Additional Notes” explained the property's discounted price: “Occupants tormented with scratches and night terrors. Scratches spell out DEMON.”
File after file proved the whole real-estate-poltergeist-thing wasn’t just a front. A grainy color photo of a houseboat looked like a still from a videotape. After notes on disrepair, a note read, “Black hounds with glowing red eyes on shore, usually during a new moon.” The next house had an oddly dominant turret and had been severely discounted because of three “jumping suicides” over three generations.
People blame their problems on anything but themselves, he thought. What was more likely: ghosts or that people had mental problems?
He finished what was left in the plastic cup. “By the way, this punch is like fifty proof. I don’t think I’ll be able to drive.”
The real estate agent returned. Howard casually dropped his cup in the wastebasket, hiding the fact he had been snooping, and went back to his lovers. The agent didn’t seem to notice.
She found a thick file under a stack on a chair and placed the folder in front of them. “Jacobi House. No one will touch it. It’s been off the market for years. I could sell it at a small fraction of its actual worth. To the right family.”
“You couldn't find Ophelia?” Isabel said.
“Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Ophelia. Lillian is my twin sister. See.” She pushed the “LILLIAN JACOBI” name plaque and it tipped forward. The other side read, “OPHELIA JACOBI.” Ophelia had the same navy pantsuit, the same abundant gray hair in the same tight bun, even the same floral perfume.
Howard thought it a mistake to have brought his lovers here.
Isabel was lost for words.
Grip reached out and poured himself a full cup of punch. He downed it and then poured himself another.
◆◆◆
Ophelia’s (or was it Lillian's?) Cadillac drove through the outskirts of Portland among houses that all seemed built by the same uninspired architect.
As the houses passed by in the world’s most boring parade, Isabel thought, These aren’t meant for real people. Each nondescript box was an architectural opportunity wasted.
What seemed like forever ago—though it had been less than a year—she and Howard had picked up Grip in a place much like this.
◆◆◆
Grip with his tats and looks, wandering through suburbia in the pouring rain, stuck out like a hitchhiker's thumb.
“Stop. See if he needs help,” Isabel said, grabbing Howard's arm. She and Howard had been out at a party trying to make friends for once, though they had only found tedious people. Grip didn’t look tedious. He looked like a dangerous mystery.
He climbed out of the rain into their car, undeniably sexy in his soaked clothes. No one said anything as they drove home. An enigma was better than a disappointing answer. The stodgy party that night had proven as much. Sometimes Grip had a distant stare as if traumatized; other times, he smiled warmly as if sharing in a joke.
That evening, he took a shower while Isabel made up the couch. During the night, Grip entered their master bedroom, stood at the foot of their bed, and watched them sleep.
Unsure of what woke her, she saw him standing there. Her pulse spiked, but she remained still.
“Are you cold?” she said after seeing that he was trembling. Howard woke, hearing her voice. She expected him to say something, but he just moved so Grip could lie between them. Isabel was aroused that night and restless. Grip slept soundly as he and Howard spooned. Isabel watched them sleep, amazed at how peaceful they seemed. It was the oddest thing.
During breakfast, Grip said his first words to them, “Good eggs.”
He stayed in their lives and remained mostly a mystery. He had recently got out of prison, but he avoided talking about it. He also avoided talking about his childhood and neglectful parents. He was probably homeless but refused to stay at their apartment more than a few days at a time. He avoided unpleasant topics as a general rule. He did odd jobs around the city, often working off the books with a moving company. He was a painter. He painted beautiful murals, some commissioned, but mostly illegally at night in the abandoned buildings of the city. He didn’t seem to want a steady job.
“He’s troubled,” Howard said to her one day over breakfast when Grip wasn’t around.
Grip had stopped taking drugs, but he often went out partying, to warehouse parties or queer clubs or underground raves. Isabel and Howard had no interest in becoming party animals, but it was odd to be so close to him and yet excluded from that aspect of his life.
“So are we,” she responded simply and finished her toast.
◆◆◆
Grip, presently in the passenger seat as they drove to see a haunted house together, drank his second cup of punch and grooved to music that played only in his head. He wanted to comment on his pleasant buzz but held his tongue. He didn’t want to seem immature while house hunting. He didn’t want them having second thoughts. His lovers disapproved of his partying, which he only did so they wouldn’t tire of him. Most of his time adventuring downtown was to give them space.
The car hum hid a beeping. How long had it been going off? He raised his hips and pulled his cell from his front pocket. It beeped one last time. It was out of power.
Isabel, in the back next to Howard, stared out the window. They both seemed pensive.
“Izzi, you have your phone?”
She stirred from her thoughts. “It’s in my purse. Why?”
There was no reason—everyone Grip cared about was in the car. He felt foolish for disturbing her and sunk back into his seat.
“Did Lillian say something spiteful?” Ophelia said. “She called me a bitch, didn't she?”
“What? No, nothing like that,” Grip said. And then back to Isabel, “I forgot to charge mine.”
Howard spoke up. “You’re on it too much anyway. Stick together and we won't need it.”
Grip liked it when Howard was parental.
“My sister is just jealous,” Ophelia continued. “My dead husband, he chose me to bear his successor. Lillian never quite got over it. We took care of her, but she showed us no respect. The three of us could've been happy. If not for her spite.”
Grip hesitated. “She seemed maybe a bit jealous.”
“She thinks it so wrong of me to sell haunted houses, but I enjoyed having a few extra friends. A twin sister can be so tiresome. The house I'm going to be showing you is the house where we grew up. We were—” Ophelia interrupted herself. “What do you people do for a living?”
For a moment, no one spoke.
“I teach first grade at Lumen Christi,” Isabel offered from the back.
“Catholic! I should have guessed!”
“She’s the saint,” Grip said. “I’m the sinner. I killed a man.”
Ophelia was unfazed. “Accident or on purpose?”
“He’s kidding,” Howard said, irritated by Grip’s deadpan humor.
“Yeah, just drugs,” Grip said as if it was a shame that it hadn’t been something worse. “Did some time in the State Pen, though. Rough joint.”
Rape. A group of convicts in the showers. Porcelain Boy. Grip had almost told Isabel and Howard what had happened, countless times. Did they picture rape whenever prison came up, the way he did?
Ophelia smiled. “Oh. Well. We’re all sinners in need of saving.” She looked at Isabel in the rear-view mirror. “
Aren’t we, Isabel?”
Isabel didn’t know what she was getting at.
Ophelia said confidentially to Grip in a loud whisper, “Catholics understand hellfire better than any of us.”
“I was just talking to her about that,” Grip loud whispered back. “I always thought heaven would be pretty boring. All the goody two-shoes. Give me hellfire, I say.”
She laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”
They drove down a main street of shops surrounded by blocks of residential houses, past mostly high-end antique dealers and a few independent coffee shops and bookstores.
Howard was unconsciously tapping his leg.
Isabel put her hand on his hand to stop him. “Nervous?”
“Just hoping this is the one. It feels like we’ve been waiting forever.” Howard looked out the window. “Where are we?” he said louder.
“Sellwood,” Ophelia said. “Sellwood was its own city until it was incorporated into Portland back in the late 1800s. The Portland Memorial is only a few blocks away. Have you been?”
The car drove through an area of trees close to the river, past stately Victorians, small cottages, and Craftsman bungalows.
Isabel loved architecture, and she thought, I might actually want to live in a place like this. This place has actual history.
“It's just lovely,” Ophelia continued, still speaking of the Portland Memorial, though no one had answered her question. “There's a roller coaster across the wetlands, and sometimes you can hear the screaming.”
“Screaming?” Grip asked.
“Happy screams, from the children. Sometimes you can hear it at the house too. And carnival music.”
The wind picked up and trees lost more leaves. Houses lined this street too. These were upper-class homes with river views, some properties valued in the millions. The curves in the road forced them to slow down.
“Are we close?” Grip said.
Ophelia turned onto Ferry Street. “We’re close.”
5
Journey’s End at Lover’s Meeting
The Cadillac slowed to a crawl.
Sheets billowed on a clothesline off to the side of a two-story Victorian with a white trim. The place was lovely and meticulous, like out of a catalog. But the car kept creeping forward until it pulled into the driveway in front of the huge, ominous wall near the end of the street.
“What is this?” Isabel whispered to herself while trying to get a better look. The wall could have been a century old, with discoloration and lichen growth like that of an old English castle.
In the front seat, Grip’s vantage point let him see the black cherry tree that stood next to the chained and padlocked iron gate. He tried not to pass judgment on the house beyond until he saw it unobstructed. At the very least, it was huge.
“You guys,” he said. His core tightened with excitement and anticipation. He wanted his lovers to see. He wanted through the gate.
Howard and Isabel leaned forward but couldn't see much and so sat back, resigned to wait.
Without a word, Ophelia opened her door and stepped out onto the gravel drive.
Isabel wanted to warn her to be careful, but that was silly, and so she didn’t say anything.
The real estate woman went around the car instead of going to the gate and stepped daintily through the fallen leaves and exposed roots of the tree. She grabbed a key from a spike.
“Why keep the key behind there?” Grip said.
Howard shook his head.
“It's like keeping a spare key under a welcome mat,” Isabel ventured.
“Or in a potted plant,” Grip said. Memories of another gate distracted him, memories of waiting in the van chained to the other fish, thinking, What will real prison be like? He had heard horror stories from his relatives. Will I be tough enough? Will I break? He wanted to forget it all, and probably it wouldn’t have even come to mind if he hadn’t run into Early out in the rain in Chinatown.
Ophelia worked the stubborn padlock. Meanwhile, down the street on the Stonecipher property, Zelda, in her Puritan dress, peered out from the corner of the surrounding wall. Her long hair hung almost to the sidewalk.
Isabel saw her peering. “Look.”
Zelda, frightened from being spotted, pulled back behind the wall.
“What?” Howard said, leaning over Isabel's lap.
A swath of dead leaves from the black cherry tree blew down the empty sidewalk.
Isabel pressed her hand to the window. “There was a girl.”
With the gate now open, Ophelia got back into the car. “That was Zelda, the shyest little thing. Such a sweetheart. The Stoneciphers won’t be a bother; they’ve always kept to themselves.”
Isabel knew a Stonecipher. She wondered if Zelda was Alex’s sister. But if that was true, shouldn’t Zelda be at the same school? She looked seven, maybe even eight.
The car rolled backward for a second as if parked on a hill and then lurched forward and continued down the gravel driveway toward the house.
His view unobstructed, Grip thought Jacobi House looked truly grim, but not irredeemably so. It wasn’t vile or diseased. Or evil. If anything, it was a victim, having suffered years of neglect. The peeling paint had faded to gray, but it wasn’t anything a fresh paint job wouldn't fix. A huge stained glass window shone blood red. It gave the architectural design a devilish kick. While the place looked Gothic, even brooding, he felt no urge to flee. Overall, his first impression was positive.
This place could be a private playground for me and my lovers, he thought.
The gravel driveway cut through a dead front yard and made a circle near the veranda. They careened around an abstract, stone something in the center of a reflecting pool. It was a fountain, surely, though it no longer functioned as such. The rock that protruded from the center had been disfigured—either that or it had never resembled anything human in the first place. The reflecting pool was coated with a layer of leaves.
The car parked. They all emerged as if concluding a long road trip. Howard stretched his tight back. Isabel left her purse on the car floor, out of sight. Grip shielded his eyes from the low sun.
“What would change your mind?” Ophelia said.
“About what?” Isabel asked.
“Lillian said you three don’t believe in ghosts. What would change your mind? Seeing a ghost with your own eyes?”
“I would assume it was an optical illusion,” Howard said. “The mind can play tricks.”
Grip looked back the way they had come. Creeping brush and blackberry vines lined the outer wall, and razor wire ran along the top. The Oregon State Pen also had razor wire. That wall had been twenty-five feet high; this one was maybe twelve.
The gate stood wide open. They could leave anytime they wanted.
Despite the outer wall, the wind gusted, and Isabel had to brace herself on the car. “Is it always this windy?”
“Today is special.” Ophelia looked up at the house with reverence. “How about the Devil? Don’t you believe in evil? Maybe ghosts aren’t spirits of the dead. Maybe they’re fallen angels.”
Isabel tried to see where Ophelia was looking. No one was in the lower windows or in the barred windows of the upper floor. Yet it certainly felt like someone stared back.
Over the years, Isabel had toured many of Portland’s more notable historic buildings. None resembled Jacobi House. This house had two distinct sides. Its Gothic east half on the right verged on High Victorian, only with no color besides the huge red window. It had irregular pitched gable roofs, pointed arch windows, and elaborate Gothic ornamentation, some delicate and some heavy and bold. Its classic Georgian Revival west half on the left, the side farthest from the Stonecipher House, was like a large rectangular box, flat and unadorned, with regularly spaced lattice windows. The house reminded her of a brain: the left half coldly logical, the right half creative and uninhibited. An odd design, true, but not completely disagreeable. She doubted another house like it existed anywhere.
> It’s always eerie looking at an unoccupied house of this size, she thought. Give it a chance. If they moved in, the unpleasant loneliness and isolation might transform into the comfort of sanctuary.
Perched on top, a weathercock spun above the cardinal directions of the compass. The house faced south with its west and north sides facing the river, though the outer wall likely blocked any river views. Now that she had studied it for a while, the whole house tilted slightly to the right, toward the Stonecipher House—or maybe it was a trick of perspective.
Grip's grin made his approval obvious to her. She looked to Howard. He looked at his watch; his thoughts were always more difficult to read. He seemed agitated and impatient, as if they should already be moving on to the next house.
“The Devil is a helpful metaphor,” Isabel said. “The Bible personifies the human struggle, and I think that’s very useful, but people do bad things without Satan’s help, horrible atrocities throughout history. Back when the Bible was written, they didn’t have science or psychiatry. The simplicity of Satan helped people understand a complex truth.”
“You don’t think the Devil is real?” Ophelia said in disbelief.
“The concept of the Devil helps us struggle to be good. It helps us forgive the sin inside us so that we can do better, so that we can change. But there aren’t evil spirits lurking in abandoned houses.” She expected Howard to back her up, but he just watched her. “Look close enough into any of these supposed hauntings, and they all get debunked.”
Howard knew both of his lovers wanted to know his reaction to the house; they kept looking at him. His reaction was complicated. As Jacobi House loomed over him, he experienced cosmic horror and existential dread; the house seared his psyche against a hot, black abyss. The atrocities committed inside couldn't be overestimated.
He couldn’t explain this reaction, especially after Isabel’s speech about rationality. She studied him. He didn't want her to worry. He would protect her from anything. Grip would laugh at him if he said Satan was real and had a grudge against this place, yet no sentiment in that horrible moment felt truer. Death permeated the air. He and his lovers breathed it in just by standing in the yard. They had been delivered unto evil.
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