by Dani Lamia
As she carried out the chore, her eyes scanned the room. Unlike the rest of the house, this attic suite could be considered cozy. There were no odd talismans, no altars, no pentagrams, and, most mercifully, she noted, not a single Onenspek work on the walls. The bookshelves along the south wall were mostly full. The books within were almost all ancient, finely bound in leather. On top of the black-lacquered mantle was an elegant clock, which softly and pleasantly ticked along.
In the fireplace, the wood had been burned, and the room was still saturated with the aroma of it. A fresh stack of logs lay alongside in a wrought-iron basket. There were two cozy chairs in the room, one of which was a rocker. The other, a light-brown, low-backed, thickly cushioned armchair, looked well used. Its ottoman matched. It was upon this that Phoebe stacked the used bed linen.
On his small table sat three cameras of different sizes, the largest of which was equipped with a wide, padded neck strap. Next to them were two bags, one a carrying case, presumably for the cameras, the other was a large square black one with zippers.
“Why so many cameras?” was the only thing she could think to ask him.
“Ah, well, each one has a different nuance,” Holgrave explained. “This one is a thirty-five millimeter,” he said, pointing to the largest one. “I use traditional film in that one, both color and black and white. And these two are digital.”
“So, why mess with the film?” Phoebe asked, intrigued.
“The pictures come out differently. Softer, I guess you’d say,” Holgrave said. “I do enjoy developing the film, despite the odiferous chemicals. Your aunt allows me to use the utility sink in the basement.”
Phoebe had something more pressing on her mind. “Mr. Holgrave, did you hear what happened in town last night?”
“I haven’t.” He studied Phoebe’s face with keen interest, resuming his task of spreading peanut butter on the mousetrap’s activator plate.
“A man was killed by wolves or dogs,” she explained darkly. “They can’t even tell which for sure.”
“At what time?” he asked, seemingly unsurprised.
Phoebe frowned in wonder. “I don’t know. Is that important?”
Holgrave shrugged. “Probably not. Poor devil.”
“I thought the cop was here for me,” Phoebe let slip. She regretted it immediately.
“Oh? Do tell, Ms. Pyncheon,” Holgrave bid her with a crooked grin.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up,” she said, annoyed with herself. “I didn’t sleep well at all last night.”
“Is the bed uncomfortable?”
“Well, it’s way too soft, but I had a dream that wouldn’t quit,” she explained.
“I see,” Holgrave commented. His face remained neutral as he concentrated on the trap.
“Don’t you have to set that?” Phoebe asked and walked up to him.
“Hmm?”
“The trap. Don’t you have to set it first?”
“Oh, not just yet. You have to get the mouse interested in the bait. Accustomed to the trap. Then you set it,” he said and set it on the floor, near a small hole in the wall.
“Have to get it comfortable,” she concluded. “Then, wham!”
Holgrave blinked at the ferocity of the young woman’s exclamation, but her smile elicited his own. “Exactly.”
Phoebe retrieved the clean set of sheets and dressed the bed.
Thinking back on Phoebe’s news, Holgrave frowned. “Why did the police come here?”
“Excuse me?”
Holgrave repeated the query. “Hester owns no such ferocious creatures. What was their interest in Hester?”
Phoebe thought of the wet footprints on Hester’s balcony but decided to keep it to herself. “Mrs. Carp came to the door along with Detective—” she paused to remove the card from her pocket. “—Backstrom. Carp says Hester killed him. The dead guy was her son-in-law.”
“Oh, my.”
“Indeed,” she said, mocking Holgrave’s manner of speech playfully. “She seemed to think whatever Hester did caused it.”
“Intriguing.”
“I know, right?” Phoebe agreed. She turned contemplative and her voice lowered to a near whisper. “Do you believe in this witchcraft stuff?”
“Oh, certainly not,” Holgrave answered instantly. “It has no more substance than astrology. Merely an entertainment taken far too seriously.”
“So, just a coincidence, then.”
“Surely.”
Phoebe gathered the used pile of linen. “Well, see you at dinner?”
“Most definitely,” Holgrave said as he moved to the door and opened it.
“Thank you,” she said and left his pleasant quarters.
8
The Second Dinner
Phoebe retrieved the soiled bedding from the hamper in the basement and started the first load in the large, industrial-sized washing machine. The old thing squeaked, thumped, rocked, and groaned loudly, and she was grateful to get some distance from it when she returned to the first floor.
Realizing she had some time before she needed to help Alva cook, Phoebe went to her room and retrieved her laptop and eyeglasses from her backpack. Anxious to return to her second novel, she swiped the dust from the small writing desk and sat. Opening the computer, she turned it on.
It booted to the home screen, and she noticed the available battery life. It read “10%.”
“Augh,” she uttered and reached into the bag for the power cord. She picked it out and unraveled it as she looked for an outlet. She checked the one her bedside lamp was plugged into.
“Two-prong! Shit!”
She looked for another and saw none. Then her eyes settled on the Air Castle fan. She followed the cord behind the tall dresser, where she could not reach it. Putting her weight into it, she managed to scoot it forward a little. There on the wall was another two-pronged outlet.
Phoebe dropped onto the chair and cussed her luck. She had so looked forward to some writing time. She wondered if there was an adapter somewhere in the house.
She looked out her window and noted a strange car parked in front of the house. A client, she assumed. She set off downstairs, considering the places where such an item might be found.
Phoebe searched through a closet here, a cabinet there, and found herself with only the kitchen left. Walking past the parlor, she could hear the voices of Hester and Glendarah, apparently with a client.
Thinking better of it, Phoebe went to the kitchen and was startled by movement on her left. It was Mr. Onenspek with his hand on a cabinet doorknob. He eyed her cautiously, then seemed to relax when he recognized who it was.
“Hi,” Phoebe said, her hand on her chest. This house is putting me on my last nerve, she thought.
“Hello again,” Ned said and brought his hand away from the cabinet. He turned his back on it and leaned against the counter, trying to appear casual. It failed miserably, since he looked as disheveled as when he’d found her in his room earlier.
Phoebe smiled. “Are you after one of those little gingerbread dudes?”
Ned’s head swiveled toward her like it was on a ball bearing. His eyes widened in a flash and, for just a second, Phoebe was convinced the man was going to lunge at her.
“How do you know about those?” he asked, becoming deadly still except for his eyes, which bounced from wall to wall like ping pong balls.
“I met you yesterday,” Phoebe said. “Right in here. I saw Aunt Hester giving you one. She introduced us, remember?”
Onenspek’s eyes settled on her face, and he blinked madly for a passel of seconds. “Yup!” he exclaimed. “She did. We did. Yup.”
Phoebe looked at the clock. It was almost two in the afternoon. “There’s plenty of time until dinner. Need a snack?” The man was too thin, way too thin. His eyes were glassy, a l
ittle red, too.
Onenspek brightened like she had just offered him a thousand dollars, tax-free.
“I think they were up here, right?” Phoebe moved next to Onenspek and opened the cabinet behind his head. Recognizing the cookie tin from the previous day, she pulled it down and opened it. Inside, carefully laid upon wax paper, were three gingerbread men, nearly identical to one another. Deeply brown in body, their ‘hair’ was white frosting, as were the dashes they wore for eyebrows, and their beards. Their eyes were red frosting crosses and their lips a flat red line.
They were not the cheeriest of gingerbread men.
She picked one up, gave it a curious sniff and, finding nothing unusual beyond the scent of molasses, handed it to Onenspek.
“You’re an angel,” Ned said and promptly decapitated the cookie with his mouth. The satisfaction on his face was ethereal, as if he had just been granted manna from heaven. Ned finished off the cookie in two more bites, moaned as if he had just been relieved of an immense pain, and took a seat upon the cook’s stool. He closed his eyes, set one elbow on the counter, and rested his chin on his hand.
Phoebe looked upon the other cookies doubtfully. “Say, Mr. Onenspek?”
“Uh-huh,” he answered dreamily.
“Does my Aunt Hester make these?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Does anyone else eat them?”
“I don’t know,” Ned said and shrugged. “Have one if you want.”
I think not. She quickly replaced the tin to the cabinet, suddenly feeling like she had done something quite wrong.
Phoebe watched Ned as she went about searching drawers for an adapter to solve her original problem. At least one of the drawers in the big kitchen was used for miscellaneous knickknacks.
After a few minutes of fishing around in one of them, Phoebe found what she was looking for among a scattering of spare light bulbs, pens, and rubber bands.
When she looked up, Ned Onenspek was gone. The swinging kitchen door was not yet settled from his passage.
Phoebe went to the creepy basement once again and moved the finished load from the great washer into its mate, a matching dryer. She put in the next load to be washed and set both machines in motion.
Phoebe fled from the symphony of mechanical discord she had let loose and went back to her room. She connected the power to her computer and resumed writing her book. After a few moments, she realized she had to look up something on the internet, but when she launched her browser, it flagged her, indicating that she was not connected to wi-fi.
“Augh! Of course,” Phoebe grumbled. She clicked on the wi-fi search, wondering if Hester’s network required a password.
No Networks Detected.
“You have got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”
The list of networks in range of the laptop’s transceiver was empty. Phoebe had never seen it empty. She sat back hard and shook her head in dismay. She was utterly cut off from civilization. How can I still be within the borders of the United States of Mother-Flippin’ America and be so completely isolated? I’m in hell and hell is a third-world country.
“You know what? Never mind!” she called out to no one and went back to work. Whatever details she needed to research she could fill in later. For now, she needed to write—and write she would.
Time flew by when Phoebe Pyncheon was writing, and this afternoon was no exception. She sat back after a particularly exciting chapter, in her opinion, and adjusted her glasses to read it back. She glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of her screen. Even though she was not connected to the internet, the clock would continue, left to its own devices, to mark the passing of time as long as it received power.
It was after four and she knew she should have checked in with Alva by now. She saved her work, backed it up on a thumb drive, and shut the computer down. She washed herself up and changed clothes in the bathroom. Wishing to look a little more presentable than she had yesterday, she chose her best jeans and a black-and-white floral-patterned tunic top.
Entering the kitchen, Phoebe found her tasks were the same as those of the day before. Only the menu had changed. Alva directed the action, prepared everything in trays, and when the time came, just ten minutes before serving, Phoebe rushed up to the dining room, removed the food from the dumbwaiter, and set the table.
Phoebe sent the dumbwaiter down once more, waiting for the last of the meal to be sent up. She looked at the table, making sure she had forgotten nothing.
A hum and a rush of air grabbed her attention. Turning to it, she found that the sound was coming from the dumbwaiter. She opened the door but found it empty. The little car was still somewhere below. Phoebe put her ear closer. The hum continued, or what she thought was a hum. The sound was not consistent, varying in pitch slightly and silencing altogether every few seconds. A delicate breeze washed over her face, then ended. The hum resumed.
Phoebe wondered what Alva could be doing in the kitchen to make that happen and recalled that the washer and dryer could be heard running from the dumbwaiter shaft. It had been a couple of hours since she had set them running, so they should be silent. The hum was nothing she had heard coming from the two behemoths. It didn’t even sound mechanical.
At that moment, the cable came alive. The car was on its way up. Phoebe resumed her duties and the dinner commenced.
Aunt Hester, Dzolali, and Glendarah had arrived in their decorative, black, and heavy-looking apparel once again. Phoebe noticed that Glendarah looked a bit tired, but otherwise fine.
“Glad to see you’re up and about,” Phoebe greeted her.
Glendarah smiled. “Why thank you, dear. A bit of a headache,” she said and winked.
Dzolali and Hester, who were standing behind Phoebe, giggled. Phoebe’s heart raced the moment she heard Dzolali, and in that same moment, water lily and vanilla came to her nose. Without a conscious decision, Phoebe turned and saw Dzolali, just inches from her, smiling seductively and locking eyes with hers.
“Hi, Phoebe,” she purred and winked.
Phoebe felt weak all over. “Hi,” she managed in a whisper. She watched Dzolali walk away from her, making her way around the table to her place.
Dzolali had let her hair down, and it flowed down her back in hypnotizing waves. Her black dress did not have a hoop skirt. Instead, it followed her swaying form snugly, finishing near the floor, where only her high-heeled shoes could be seen.
Dizzy, Phoebe looked away, again admonishing herself for being so taken with a woman. She took her seat at the table, giving her trembling knees a rest.
Nervously, she glanced at Glendarah. The blonde wore a smirk as she met her eyes. Certainly, she had witnessed Phoebe gawking at Dzolali. Phoebe’s face reddened.
“Everything all right, Phoebe?” Hester asked as she took her seat at the head of the table.
Phoebe uttered an unintelligible but affirmative grunt. She focused on the food on the table to keep from looking at Dzolali, whose eyes Phoebe felt upon her face like a heat ray.
Onenspek and Holgrave joined them a moment later. Phoebe was grateful to have Alec sitting next to her for a distraction. The artist, however, still looked awful. His eyes were watery and red, his cheeks more sunken than they had been just hours before. His ascot was askew, and his hair a disaster. It was a wonder that he had managed to remove the paint from his features. His hands shook so that he put them on his lap when he took his seat.
Holgrave noticed, too, and leaned into Phoebe’s ear. “I don’t think Ned is altogether here,” he whispered.
Phoebe flashed her eyes at him in agreement.
The meal commenced, and small talk ensued. Though Phoebe tried to avoid it, she couldn’t help keeping her eyes from sneaking glances at Dzolali. Her dress was very low cut in comparison to the others she had worn, and her choice of necklace was, no doubt, strategically chosen. The roun
d pendant, featuring three topless women, or perhaps goddesses, with hair that stretched above them and filling the circle like thick tree branches, lay perfectly above her cleavage, glinting in the chandelier light and drawing Phoebe’s eyes.
Even Dzolali’s hands gathered attention whenever she moved to take a bite of food or pass a plate. The long nails were luxuriously painted deep red and black, and her rings were large and ornate, encrusted with ruby-colored gemstones. Her wrists bore matching spider web bracelets that stretched up the brown skin of her forearm.
Phoebe found herself wishing to own such clothing, such accoutrements, and to possess such allure. For long moments, as she ate her dinner among the finely dressed people, she envisioned herself wearing finely made dresses, shoes, and jewelry. She knew she would never be so bold, however, and let out a sigh.
“Are you all right, Phoebe?” asked Great-Aunt Hester once more.
Phoebe blinked and, for what seemed like the first time that day, looked upon her great-aunt. Her hair was done up as it had been the day before, and the dress she wore, while a slightly different style, was still magnificent in its shiny black fabric.
Phoebe stammered for a moment, trying to sift through her muddled mind for something to say other than what she had been pondering. Accidentally, her eyes went to Dzolali, and her thoughts stalled.
Finally, with all eyes on her, except those of Ned, who seemed fascinated with unseen intricacies on his fork, she spoke. “I was just thinking about my novel. I was working on it today.”
“Phoebe told me about it earlier,” Dzolali volunteered. “I can’t wait to read it.”
Phoebe smiled and gave a modest shrug.
“Have you finished the laundry?” Hester asked, staring at her grandniece coldly.
“It’s halfway there.”
“Well, be sure to get it completely done before everyone retires,” Hester commanded. “Those machines are not to run into the night. Understood?”
“No problem.”
Phoebe continued eating, famished as she was from all she had done that day. Catching movement across the table, she looked up to see that Dzolali had turned to Ned Onenspek and had taken his chin in her left hand. She was studying his face, especially his teary, unfocused eyes. An expression of concern came over Dzolali, and she turned to Hester, keeping Ned’s chin in her fingers.