Aria in Ice

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  Now I sat, with more than a little trepidation, and waited to discover how Aura Lee planned to ferret out “the truth.”

  “Well, now, y’all. Again, thank you for bein’ willin’ to allow me to guide y’all tonight. Such a cold naht too. But that’s not relevant raht now, is it? Okey-dokey. So, movin’ raht along heah, I’d lahk to ask the spirit of Baron Smetana to join us. Baron, are you theyah?”

  A new voice boomed into the small space of the sitting room. It spoke in Czech. Jozef translated. “I am Baron Stanislav Smetana. Why do you bring me back to this house of torment where I died so badly?”

  Ms. Lee never skipped a beat. “Stanislav? It’s okay if ah just call you that, isn’t it?”

  There was no answer so I guessed ol’ Stan didn’t have a problem with dispensing with formalities. Aura Lee continued, “Now, you’re a good Czech and always have been, but would y’all mahnd speakin’ in English for those of us who just aren’t up on our language skills?”

  The next words by Stanislav Smetana were in English. I wasn’t surprised. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Aura Lee could talk the devil himself into opening a lemonade stand in the very bowels of Hades. The fact that Baron Smetana had doubtless never heard a syllable of English didn’t faze a soul here. Aura Lee resumed her questioning of the man—spirit—whatever.

  “Tell us wahy you need to speak to us toonaht, Stanislav?”

  “I want the truth revealed. I have watched through the centuries as the lies poisoned the Duskova family. It is time for truth and time for peace and time for me to be at rest.”

  The sentiments were nice but I was ready for the meat. Were we about to hear who had murdered Ignatz Jezek? Would Baron Smetana spill the beans as to where Ignatz had hidden the magic flute?

  Apparently the answer was ‘no’ to both questions. For the story the ghost had to tell had taken place in the Seventeenth Century, long before Ignatz had even set eyes on Kouzlo Noc, much less charmed the inhabitants with his musical talent.

  I pulled my focus back to the sonorous tones of the dead man.

  “I came to Kouzlo Noc in the year of our Lord 1621. I am a good soldier when my country needed me. I am also a good Catholic. An honorable man– or I was before I learned to hate. I was sent here by order of King Ferdinand to rule at the castle and be certain that the peasants returned to their Catholic beliefs.”

  I’m not exactly an expert in Czech history, but I did remember reading a long blurb in my guide book about King Ferdinand II, who took over in 1620 or so and knocked years of religious tolerance right out on its holy—uh -ear. Protestants who’d been worshipping for a century without fear of reprisal suddenly were forced to be part of the Vatican family again. Ferdinand even executed a group of something like thirty men who had fought to keep religious freedom a going concern. It had been a tough time of transition in Czechoslovakia.

  But the Baron was telling his story, so I pulled my focus back, wondering when we’d get to flutes and Mozart—if ever.

  “Ferdinand did not want the rich land destroyed.” He paused. “I am a simple man and I do not always understand the ways of kings but I was not given a choice. I was to take control of the castle and the lands in the name of King Ferdinand the Second. I did. With no weapon used; no blood spilled. The Duskova family surrendered to me as a wise family ought when they see the outcome will be one of despair unless they choose peace.”

  Aura Lee gently prodded the spirit. “What happened? Wahy did dishonah fall upon you and yours? Please tell those that ah gathered in this room on this hallowed night.”

  The disembodied voice continued. In this last week, I’d heard one ghost playing a flute, another playing Cole Porter and finally a sweet old lady singing early Eric Clapton as she left her ancestral home for the last time. Musical spirits. I was comfortable with it. Music was a genteel way to listen to those who’d passed into that good night. I found I didn’t like the chatter issuing forth from—whomever. It was as though I was watching a piece of theatre. Aura Lee and Stanislav Smetana were onstage and the rest of us were in the audience. And even with my ghost-listening and ESP experiences I couldn’t help the phrase forming in my head ”this is one big crock.”

  I focused hard on his next words.

  “The Baron of Kouzlo Noc agreed to let me rule over his lands and in return I asked his guidance in that ruling. He agreed and for the first months of 1621, we lived in harmony.”

  “And then?” Aura coaxed.

  “Then his daughter, Marie, returned to the castle. She had been away at the time of the invasion, visiting family in Bohemia. We fell in love. Yes, she loved me as deeply as I loved her, although, she had been raised Lutheran. She soon saw the truth of my faith and converted back.”

  Uh oh. I could see where this was headed already. Heck, anyone who’s ever stayed home with a cold and watched daytime dramas while eating chicken soup and ice cream and trashing tissue boxes could see where this was headed. The makings of the ”yeah, you can have my lands but you can’t have my daughter, you greedy, religiously arrogant sonovabitch” had begun at Kouzlo Noc the day the lovely Marie happened to catch the eye of Stan here.

  I was right. And Stanislav—dead and from another century far removed from mine—apparently had a sense of humor, because he seemed to note the triteness of his story. With English getting more colloquial by the second, Baron Smetana continued. “It is an old tale and perhaps an all too familiar one. I recall a drama in my day by a poet of Britain that addressed very much this same feud although he set his tale in Verona. Yes, my friends, Marie’s father did not approve, but, unlike a man of honor, he did not let his feelings be shown. He waited until four months after our wedding night. Eduard Duskova, Marie’s parent, came to our room in the north wing of Kouzlo Noc and stabbed me in the back as I lay sleeping with my beautiful wife. He then dragged my body to the window and threw me to the rocks below. Marie was screaming even as her father pushed her across the ledge of the window to her death.”

  The nasty father bit was certainly clichéd and the murders had happened four centuries ago, but I found myself suddenly blinking back tears. I could hear the screams of the young bride as she was pushed to an early death by someone she trusted with her whole heart. The man who’d provided his seed to give her life had taken it from her at an age far too young to die. No wonder Baron Stanislav Smetana was still haunting Kouzlo Noc. Royally pissed couldn’t begin to nail the feelings he’d stored up for four centuries.

  Auraliah Lee held up her hand for silence since several of the séance attendees were murmuring in shock and sympathy. She smiled. “Ah understand y’all’s feelins, really I do, but Mr. Smetana needs to finish this, allrighty?”

  No one spoke. The silence was so complete and solid that when the Baron spoke again it sounded huge and loud in the small space.

  “My Baroness… my Marie…and I were to announce the arrival of our first child the next day. It is what drove him to murder us both. He would not let his lands forever go to the child of his Catholic enemy. Worse, after he murdered us, he spread the lie that I had taken his daughter by force, killed her, and he was glad I had had the grace to jump from that window and put an end to my life. The horror of this lie was that the priest believed I had killed myself. I was not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. Three souls left this earth that night. My wife and unborn child remained together and I believe—I am certain—that they have reached heaven, but I was separated even in death by a man’s lies and hatred. In my anguish and grief and pain over their loss, I cursed the Duskova family for the next twenty generations.”

  I tried to do a swift count in my head but my cousin Remy is the savant in mathematical disciplines in the Dumas family, so I wasn’t sure whether Veronika and Marta were still living under that cloud or not. If a generation is considered twenty-five years, multiply that by twenty and if I was right, the Baron’s curse was good until about 2121. Ouch.

  Stanislav began to sob. “I have learned that h
ate destroys those who feel and speak that hate, as well as ruining those that he has cursed. I have existed in a limbo of despair for centuries, neither in hell nor in heaven. I miss my family. I want to rejoin them in eternal rest and peace and I want to tell the world that Eduard Duskova was a killer, but that his family, and the generations of family I blindly cursed, were innocent.”

  Veronika was sobbing. She broke the circle on the side holding Jozef’s hand but pulled Marta up next to her as she stood and faced the pale presence of this tortured spirit. “I am so very sorry for wrong of my ancestor doing, and I am so sorry for child who never knew life. Stanislav, I forgive you for your curse if you forgive Duskovas that hass made you anguished soul.”

  Marta nodded in agreement with her sister. She probably hadn’t even caught enough of the story in English to understand the Baron’s words, but the emotion was the same in any language and I’d felt from the first day I met her that Marta was a gentle and kind woman.

  With a voice that was fading and raspy, the Baron whispered, “I bless you. You and all of yours. I thank you. I have only one request more of you.”

  This could be interesting. Or dicey.

  Veronika waited. We all waited.

  “I wish to be buried in the cemetery with my wife and child with a headstone that tells the world my name and theirs so the truth will out. I wish a priest to say a Requiem Mass for my soul.”

  Veronika nodded. “I will see that this is done. God bless you.”

  Aura Lee got in the last word. “Goodbye, Baron. Requiescat in Pace.”

  He vanished as quickly as he’d appeared. It was so ridiculously fast that for a moment I wondered if the whole thing had been a mass hallucination brought on by too much snow and grief, but when I looked around I saw that everyone was accepting the Baron’s story and subsequent dispellation of his curse as though they’d just attended a pleasant tea party.

  Aura Lee reached over and clicked on the lamp she’d douse what seemed like hours ago. I checked the clock on the mantle over the fireplace. Twelve-thirty. The whole séance had lasted less than half an hour. Aura Lee calmly headed for the rack, donned her coat, her hat then wrapped the muffler around her neck three times.

  “Ah’m goin’ now. It was real nice to meetcha’ll and I hope we have occasion to get togethah in the future.”

  She was out of the room and at the back door almost before any of us had snapped out of the trance or shock or whatever we’d been in for thirty minutes. Shay and I took off after her then politely held the heavy door open for her as she stepped out into the frigid night.

  The blizzard was still raging. I couldn’t even tell if the snow was sticking with the fierce winds blowing. The visibility was nil.

  “Aura Lee. You can’t go out in this. You can’t even see. Where’s your car? There’s room here. Please stay the night.”

  Aura Lee stopped for a second in the doorway turned and smiled. “I’m fine, darlin’. Really ah am. Don’t y’all worry about me. Bah, bah, now.”

  I had the strangest urge to call, “Y’all come back now, ya hear?” as she stepped out into the snow but I stifled it. Although I’m sure Auraliah Lee would have appreciated the sentiment. So much so that she might be so inclined as to take me up on that, show up tomorrow and haul in another family ghost the next visit. With the way my luck was going in solving the flute mystery, it probably would not be Ignatz—again.

  Auraliah Lee turned once before walking in the direction of the old cemetery where the Baron would now be buried. I knew she’d turned because I could see the red muffler blowing and the red bow on the beret facing Shay and me.

  “Requiescat in Pace,” she called.

  Within seconds, she was swallowed up into the night.

  Chapter 25

  I punched Shay’s shoulder.

  “Would you close the damn door?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Sorry.”

  She complied. We stared at each other for a full minute. Finally, I took the initiative.

  “What just happened?”

  “Huh?”

  “What. Just. Happened.”

  Shay eyes widened but she remained silent.

  I shook the shoulder I’d just punched. “Shay, a very strange stranger just showed up unannounced and conducted an even stranger séance to grant pardon and absolution to a really strange ghost none of us knew was hanging around Kouzlo Noc. Does any of this seem slightly—oh—strange—to you?”

  Her normal sense of irony was gradually being restored. She smiled. “Just a tad. But aren’t you thrilled? Shit. A real live talking ghost spills a tale that’s extremely Shakespearean in nature and you were right there with front row seats. Can’t ask for more than that on a dark and stormy night in Czechoslovakia.”

  “Czech Republic. You add Slovakia and there’s liable to be two American ghosts floating around the Vlatava with the Baron.” I thought for a second. “What’s bizarre is that he didn’t have anything to do with Ignatz Jezek. Or with Trina for that matter, unless you consider her untimely demise part of the curse he laid down awhile back there.”

  “And your point?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess I didn’t imagine anyone like Aura Lee zipping in for a brief séance and zipping out without getting some answers to the questions that keep nagging me, subsequently keeping me awake. And, excuse me—how did the woman zip in? And zip out? Was she real?” I paused. “Wait. She’s real. Has to be. No self-respecting witch or ghost or goddess would be caught in that awful red beret by anyone living. Aside from former congressional interns.”

  Shay burst out laughing. I joined in and felt the tension from the last thirty minutes—heck, from the last entire day—begin to slide away from the knot in my back.

  Shay nudged me. “Let’s get back to the sitting room. It’s far too cold here and I have no desire to stay at the door. It’s my guess that Auraliah Lee—and, by the way, is that her whole name or her first name? Anyway, she’s not coming back to Kouzlo Noc. At least not for the rest of the night.”

  I agreed. “I just wish she’d given me some sort of hint or clue or pass code that helped with the main mystery here. And don’t tell me she couldn’t point her little red beret right to it because I’ll bet you a week’s salary that she could.”

  We’d made it to the sitting room by this time. Johnny heard my last comment and sailed right in. “Who could what?”

  The group of enthralled séance-goers were still littered around what had been my bedroom for an hour before it had undergone renovations as a pit stop on the highway to eternity.

  I ignored them. I kept my volume low and muttered, “Shay believes what just happened here—happened.”

  “Gotcha. Want to talk later?”

  “Oh sure, why not?”

  Jozef joined us. “That was an unexpected event, was it not?”

  “I’d give that a yes.” I raised my voice. “Hey, gang, anyone here have any idea of who called Ms. Auraliah Lee?” I turned back to Johnny. “Is she an old buddy from early and endless days of Endless Time? Or from the Montana circus? A fortune teller gone off the reservation so to speak?”

  His green eyes sparkled in sheer delight.”Never saw, heard or met the woman until just now. Loved the performance,though.”

  “Yeah, well, okay. Shay and I are clueless as to where she came from. We thought she was a trip and a half and that was a pretty amazing show she put on, but I’d love the name of whoever told her we had a snowbound party going on at Kouzlo Noc so this would be a good time to set spirits free.”

  Veronika quietly crossed to me and took my hand. “I do not tink anyone called dis woman. I tink Baron Smetana chose her for her kindness and he iss the one who decide that he must be free of his rage and his pain and his name must be made whole. Why tonight?” Her eyes suddenly grew moist. “Perhaps Trina has passed him as she passed into the light and she hass told him that we are now wanting the rid of curses and this is good time to get forgiveness for all?”

  It
was the longest speech I’d ever heard come from Veronika Duskova and it also made great sense—inasmuch as anything around this castle made sense. I suddenly felt exhausted, as though I’d personally conducted the séance and aided the Baron in achieving his new peaceful dwelling place in the hereafter.

  I waved at the crowd in the sitting room. “Hey, troops. It’s been really fun but I for one am more than ready to call it a day. And a night. Tomorrow was supposedly going to be a workday and I’d love to get some sleep. So, ungracious as this sounds can everyone go tippy-tappy off to their respective rooms and let me crash for a couple of hours?”

  They left. No argument. The adrenalin high of channeling spirits was over. I’d started punching pillows into shape for my bed on the floor but stopped when I noticed one person hadn’t left with the others. Johnny.

  “I’ll go if you want, Abby but I have the feeling you’d really rather I stayed. I won’t try and engage you in scintillating conversation or scintillating exercises in passion,” he hugged me, “unless you get some wild aerobic energy back—but if you’d like, I’ll stoke up the fire and lie down on those blankets and just hold you until you believe you’re safe enough to fall asleep.”

  I shivered. He’d said that word –safe. I was anything but. I’d hidden my own thoughts from myself with comical comments and scholarly pursuits into what did and did not constitute symbols in The Magic Flute. I’d pushing any whisper of that word to the back of my brain. But it had snuck up on me about three minutes ago and I was shaking and freezing because Johnny Gerard had it pegged. I was anything but safe. And I was damn scared. I didn’t know where the flute was. I didn’t know who’d murdered Ignatz. Or Gustav. Or Trina. What I did know was that there was a menace surrounding this castle—and it was aimed at me.

  I looked up at Johnny, who’d turned his face away to let me deal with my realizations. He was adding newspapers to the fire and the last logs that had been brought in this morning when the weather started changing.