All three nodded. No argument.
“Fritz and Johnny and Mitchell. Y’all are a bit more of a problem. Um, there’s another bedroom down that hall, but it only has one bed. Who doesn’t mind sharing?”
Mitchell grinned. “Here’s the test of modern man and his homophobic worries. Gentlemen?”
Fritz stood. “I do not mind being in one bed. I grew up that way with brothers. And I do not snore so Mitchell will not have to worry about sleeping.”
Shay shot me a glance that clearly stated, “I love this guy already? That’s a damn secure heterosexual. Of course, that supposes he had a clue what Mitchell was teasing about. But if I have my say Fritzie will be changing beds round about midnight anyway!”
Since she hadn’t said this out loud, I couldn’t respond with a comment although I had several completely inappropriate remarks I would have loved to spit out into the air. Johnny nodded. “Fine with me—sharing the room. I’ll take the floor though, since I’m a toss n’ turner.”
Shay turned to me and to Lily. “Aside from the Duskovas’ bedrooms, which I don’t feel would be right in asking to invade after they just lost their sister today, there’s just one bedroom left—and one bed. So I’m not sure how we want to go here.”
I raised my hand. “Oh cruise director lady? Howsabout I just stay in this room on the sofa. It’s hard as a rock which will probably be a wonderful thing for my back. And as long as I can keep the fire going I won’t freeze my little footsies off.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. You and Lily need a night of girl talk anyway. I’ve had more than my allotment for the week. I need a rest.”
Chapter 23
The sitting room was quiet. All the little snow hostages were snug in their beds, sofas, and whatever other large pieces of furniture that could be used for sleeping. I’d fast decided it was in my best interest to simply pile a load of blankets on the rug close to the fireplace instead of trying to wrestle with the too-small sofa that rightfully should be called a settee.
I was warm. I was dry. I was embarrassingly comfortable. And I couldn’t sleep. It was way too still and silent in Kouzlo Noc. I’d taken a look outside only moments ago and seen a white world. Trees were covered, the artistically arranged leaves in the moat were covered, the ground was covered and cars were invisible. It was eerily beautiful but it gave me the feeling of being smothered. I quickly closed that window and returned to my makeshift bed. My thoughts were going ninety-to-nothing and that ninety was mainly visions of the cops with Trina. Of Jozef and Johnny and Corbin carrying Trina. Of me hearing Trina’s spirit singing Layla as she left Kouzlo Noc for the last time.
This wasn’t working. I got up, poked the fire a bit more, then turned on the brightest lamp the sitting room owned. I pulled out the book Jozef had given me (was it just yesterday?) about Mozart and Freemasonry. If I couldn’t sleep at least I could dive into something that could help provide me a clue or two as to what powers Ignatz’ magical flute held that had caused so much distress in the last two hundred years.
The first thing I learned was that The Magic Flute was considered by many to be nothing but Masonic symbolism. The use of trios like the three boys who start out appearing to be working for the bad Queen of the Night only to be discovered by Kathyina, the prince and hero of the opera, as “good guys.” (A character switch which has always baffled me.) This trio become aides for Sarastro, the mysterious, wise mentor who rules what the author of Jozef’s book believed was most certainly a Masonic temple representing an entire kingdom. The other trio that was important was that of the ladies that served the Queen of the Night, who also switched sides in this opera more often than a politician in campaign mode.
All this trio stuff was fascinating but I didn’t feel that the “power of three” had anything to do with Ignatz and the magic flute he’d crafted for buddy Mozart. I skipped over to the chapter where the author discussed the trial Tamino goes through to prove himself worthy, not only of Kathyina, his beloved, but to Sarastro and the members of the temple Tamino wishes to join.
I’ve peronally always had a problem with these trials. Mainly the first one, the Test of Silence. I could almost imagine Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart yelling at Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute, perhaps waving a conductor’s wand at the man in rhythm with his words. “You did what, you twerp? You put a friggin’ test of silence in my opera? This is not mime, you moron. We want mime, we go to Central Park and watch the kids in black and white pretend to get claustrophobic in a box. It’s an opera. As in Op—Er—A. People sing, remember? Isn’t the audience going to get a little confused—not to mention annoyed—when they’re told the hero is about to shut up so he can ace this test, and then aren’t they going to wonder how he aced it when he opens his trap and starts crooning to Papageno who hasn’t shut his trap the whole first act? Give me an’effin’ break!”
Well, perhaps Mozart didn’t use those exact phrases—but I’d wager his resistance and sheer ticked-off-ness could have been the same.
The only way I could see Ignatz Jezek making use of this silent treatment concept would be if he wanted to have people remember the adage”silence is golden” if his flute was really an alchemist’s dream that turned metal to gold. Then again, I had no idea when that particular piece of wisdom hit the streets so it was pretty iffy as to whether Ignatz had even heard it.
Also, I instintively felt the flute had nothing whatsoever to do with gold or even treasure that was “material” in nature. Ignatz wasn’t greedy. I’d heard him play and you just can’t coax music the way he did if you’re focused on wealth whether before or after death.
I moved on to the next trials. Fire and water. Tamino uses the flute in the opera to keep himself and Kathyina safe from the elements. Did Papageno have anything to do with elements?And in case anyone is wondering, yes, the use of the same durn name but in masculine and feminine forms was wearing on my nerves. Papageno and Papagena have that thoroughly fun duet using the cute little name device but it still was annoying. Now I was confusing myself even bringing the birdcatcher and his bride-to-be into this whole question of trials and magic.
Back to the flute. At least a flute was finally mentioned in these trials, but as I kept reading I learned that Mozart doled out measures of music using a flute with the stinginess of an old miser. The flute is barely heard, even when Tamino is waving it in the air and telling the world how he and Kathyina are safe from falling water and ribbons of burning flames. So it wasn’t very helpful. Now panpipes were something else. But since Ignatz hadn’t crafted panpipes, I discarded their importance to my quest.
I read on. Something interesting here. The Freemasons weren’t on good terms with the Roman Catholic Church in the Eighteenth Century. A major power struggle had been started by Pope Clement XII in 1731 and had gone so far and become so rigid that the Pope was excommunicating good and decent men for belonging to a Masonic lodge. The edict to ban Freemasonry from the Church had taken the extra step by Pope Benedict XIV in 1751, and the action was just reaching Austria when Mozart was composing his last works. The wisdom shown by the high priest Sarastro is not that of a bishop or cardinal—it’s definitely that of a Masonic leader and spiritual mentor. It sounded like the Pope would not have been pleased with Mozart’s Die Zauberflote. At least if he caught the nuances.
I wasn’t sure what that meant in terms of Ignatz and power unless his flute was a symbol of defiance to a politically minded church. Sort of a raised middle finger and the promise that he wasn’t going to be dictated to?
I was tired. None of this was really getting me anywhere closer to discovering the whereabouts of the flute or the magic within. Or who’d murdered Ignatz. Or Gustav. Or—I shuddered—Trina. I shut the book and turned out the light. Enough.
I shifted the blankets around me, closed my eyes and told myself to “think black.” Dad always used to to tell me to use that technique when I couldn’t sleep. It never worked. My mother, Minette, told me he would tell
her the same thing and it never worked for her either. We decided it was a male quirk. Men have this little “off” switch they can manipulate to tune out stresses, worries, cravings for midnight snacks, and plans for the next day’s activities. Women were not born with this. It’s an entirely separate chromosome.
Instead of thinking black I was thinking about thinking black and that was just making me more wide awake. Consequently I wasn’t terribly upset when I heard Mozart’s Requiem come floating through the air. Surprised, but not upset. I first thought it was one of Kouzlo Noc’s ghosts out for a midnight jog or concert (I was pretty certain that more than just Ignatz Jezek, Gustav, and the nasty soldier Veronika had mentioned were haunting the place) but then my brain focused and I realized it was the bell pull. Some maniac was at the door. At midnight. In the middle of the worst snowstorm in Prague’s history. Shay was going to be thrilled since it doubtless meant a new lunatic character added to the cast of our little tale.
It appeared I was the official doorman for the castle. All the bedrooms were upstairs and by the time anyone made it into warm clothes and out to the back door, the night visitor would be frozen. I was already in warm clothes, having been smart enough not to remove a stitch earlier before collapsing on the floor that passed for my bed. I grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around my shoulders, then hurried to greet the midnight caller before either the dragon-headed knocker or the cold knocked his or her senseless.
I pulled open the heavy doors, then stared at the woman who sauntered inside as though she was out for a Sunday morning social call.
She was tiny, even smaller than my five-feet, two inches. I put her at about four-foot ten. On a good day—in heels. She was wrapped in an ankle length red cape. Thick equestrian boots with those good-day heels at least three inches high hugged her feet. She could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty. She had wrapped a bright red muffler around her neck and it obscured the bottom half of her face but the turned up nose and blue eyes screamed, “Imp” at me as though she were shouting the word itself.
A red Monica Lewinsky beret with a bow was perched on top of her head. Red Christmas earrings in the shape of poinsettias dangled and bounced as she led me through the house back to the sitting room with the air of someone who’d lived at Kouzlo Noc her entire life.
I followed. There wasn’t much else I could do. As yet, she hadn’t said a word.
By the time the night visitor and I reached the sitting room, every other person who was staying the night at the castle had arrived and was now sinking onto chairs and settees and window seats. It was as if they’d been drawn by an unseen force, told to leave their beds and come gather together.
Shay grabbed my arm as the mysterious woman took over the sitting room.
“Who is this? Have you ever seen her before?” she whispered.
“Not a clue. She pulled the bell. I answered. And there she was, slap-dang in the middle of a snowstorm yet managing to be perfectly dry without a flake to be seen anywhere.”
“Cool.”
We waited.
The lady had taken off her cape and thrown it across a hat rack I’d never even noticed existed at the door of the sitting room. My mouth dropped open. Shay’s mouth dropped open.
Our visitor was dressed in black jodhpurs. A white shirt peeked out from the neck atop a red vest which matched the red equestrian jacket buttoned at her waist. A jockey’s outfit. At a guess—size 18 extremely petite. She looked like she was prepared to send Ol’ “Running at the Bit” down the finish line at the Kentucky Derby. No, that wasn’t right. More like lift the horn to send a dozen weekend guests at a Virginia plantation out to hunt down the fox. The red beret didn’t really match the ensemble, but it neatly hid her hair, except for a jet-black gotta-be-fake ponytail flapping at the back of her neck.
She smiled at the assembled, blizzard-caused captives of Kouzlo Noc. In the honeyed drawled dialect only heard from ladies born and raised in the Deep South, she oozed, “Well, hai y’all! Ah’m so pleased to be here. Ma name is Auraliah Lee. From Atlanta. And we can start the séance any time y’all are ready.”
Chapter 24
I poked Shay almost as hard in her ribs as she’d leveled me earlier that evening when I was bugging her about Fritz. “Did she say Atlantis?”
“Stop that! ” she murmured. “What’s this about a séance? Did your mother send her? “
“Minette has gone off to the wilds of Tibet for some annual Wiccan Catholics conference and she’s not up on the latest comings and goings of her baby which is such a shock to me I’m still processing the freedom. But there’s no way Minette is going to be contacting Southern Belles to pop in during blizzards to commune with the departed. She’d be hijacking her to go to Tibet instead.”
“Well then, where did Ms. Lee come from?”
“Atlantis.”
“Oh shut up. You’re hopeless.”
We suddenly realized that our voices had been rising and our little discussion was now being intently followed by all the occupants of the sitting room. Auraliah Lee smiled at us.
“Ladies? Would y’all care to sit down? I can’t staht the séance until ever’one is seated. Ever’one? Ah am Auraliah Lee. My friends call me Aura Lee.” She winked at me. “Yes, Abby, just like the old Army theme song that sounds just lahk Love Me Tender.”
How the heck did she know my name? Could it be my mother wasn’t in Tibet? Had Minette Dumas Fouchet flown back to Texas and had met Aura Lee during a connection in Atlanta (where all flights connect, including, I now strongly suspected, those of the newly dearly departed.) The only other plausible answer was that my buddy Jane Doe, aka Madam Euphoria, had run into Aura Lee at a psychics and mediums church social in New Orleans, then sent her to Prague to harass me since she herself didn’t have the time.
The soft Southern tones were compelling. No way was I going to remain standing. Ms. Lee was bound to soon start explaining why she was here. And how in blazes she’d gotten here. I’d seen no car just outside the door. No snowmobile. Apparently she’d just transported her short frame through the snowy air and landed right at the nose of the dragons.
I sat, silent. Everyone sat, silent.
“Well, now, ever’one’s here? Yes? Good. We don’t need a big ol’ table to have a lovely séance. But ah do ask that everyone hold hands because we must link to one another for the spirits to join us.”
I raised my hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But it’s been a really strange day and this is now becoming a really strange night. Uh, no offense, but why are you here? In words of one syllable, preferably.”
She giggled like a girl half her age. “Oh, Honey, ah’m so sorry, didn’t ah explain?”
I smiled. “No, not exactly, Ms. Lee.”
“Well, now, ah’m here to conduct a séance so we can get at the truth and let a tortured spirit fahnd peace at last.”
“Uh, what truth?”
She giggled again. “Well, now, that’ll come out when the truth is revealed, won’t it?”
I was getting a headache all over my body. And sadly, it appeared I was the only one in the group who had a problem with the circles I was chasing. Corbin and Jozef both looked a bit nonplussed but they stayed silent. Johnny appeared amused. Shay, my traitorous buddy, had already grabbed Fritz’ hand and closed her eyes and seemed eager to commune with the spirits. I knew her. She was just glad she’d been given an opportunity to hold Fritz’ hand. Lily, Franz, Mitchell, and the two remaining Duskova sisters all seemed tense, but ready to partake in whatever ritual Auraliah Lee from Atlanta/ Atlantis had prepared.
What the hell. We were in a haunted castle where a dead body had been discovered less than twelve hours ago. A ghostly flautist had been entertaining me since I first arrived at Kouzlo Noc. The clone of Miss Hannah Hammerstein sat across from me in all her delicate glory. One piano tuner had died less than a week ago and the new one was being romanced by my best friend who would doubtless drop the poor kid the instant she returned to
Manhattan and her baseball-pitching boyfriend. An elderly bookseller was gifting me with books on Masonic symbolism in the hopes I could solve a two- hundred-year-plus puzzle. Historians were digging through graves hoping to find a magic flute on a coffin. The man I loved was keeping our relationship secret out of some misguided knight-in-shining-armor attempt to keep me safe but was at least taking occasional time outs from creating murals and bringing in dead bodies to sneak in some aerobically-charged kisses. Circumstances kept going from bizarre to just plain weird. So a séance to learn the truth about a question no one had asked just seemed pretty normal for the week. Rev it up.
Johnny grabbed my left hand. Jozef grabbed my right. I looked around. Hands cozily encased by other hands with no break in the chain. Or circle.
In the midst of my inner monologue about various loony events experienced by Abby since first encountering Kouzlo Noc, someone had turned the lights off. The fireplace reflected the shadows of faces and added a nice scary touch to the whole event. We were ready.
Sideline: One could presume that with the rather odd abilities prevalent in Minnette Dumas Fouchet’s genetic make-up, séances had been like laundry day back home in El Paso. A normal occurrence. Not so. The first semi-séance I’d attended had been when I was ten and two friends from Miss Anita’s Dance Studio and I had tried out a Ouija board older than we were to ask some questions to the great Nijinsky about what it had been like dancing for Mother Russia. He never responded and we tossed the board.
The only other séance had taken place in Manhattan over a year ago with one Madam Euphoria had been a far different affair. In fact it had been a disaster filled with high drama and frightening revelations. I’d avoided the séance scene ever since.
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