The Manor

by Scott Nicholson

  They had a room on the third floor, smaller than the ones he'd seen while the maid was leading them upstairs. The window was set in a gable. The entire upper floor, including walls and angled ceilings, was covered with varnished tongue-in-groove boards. On the way up, Adam had asked the maid about a narrow ladder that led to a small trapdoor in the roof. She told them it went to the widow's walk and that guests weren't allowed up there. She said it with what Adam thought was nervousness and a dismissive haste. He wondered if, during some past retreat, a guest had suffered an accident there.

  He turned from the window, ready to make peace. If he could get Paul talking about video, the spat would soon be forgotten. "So, do you think you brought enough tape?"

  "Got enough for eight hours. Too bad the budget didn't allow for me to get a Beta SP camera. I'm stuck with crappy digital."

  "Well, you're freelancing for public television. What do you expect, the budget for Titanic minus Leo Di-Caprio's dialogue coach?"

  "Hey, I'd be happy with his hairstylist's budget. Documentary grants are at the bottom of the list for funding these days. Maybe I should go into 'Mysteries of the Unexplained Enigmas and Other Offbeat Occult Phenomena.' With all this talk about the manor being haunted, who knows?"

  Adam smiled, counting a victory whenever Paul slipped into sarcastic humor. Paul wouldn't take any money from Adam to subsidize his videos, but otherwise he had no qualms about being a "kept man." Paul stretched out on one of the narrow beds and stared at the ceiling. Maybe he was visualizing the edit of some sequence.

  "Tell you what," Adam said. "I'll see if I can arrange to be abducted by space aliens while you roll the camera."

  "I hear they do all kinds of bizarre sexual experiments."

  "Sounds better every minute."

  "Hey, what can they do that I can't do better?"

  Adam crossed the room. Paul had that sleepy look again. "Kiss me, you fool."

  Paul did. Adam felt eyes watching them. Strange.

  "What?" Paul asked, his voice husky.

  "Don't know," Adam said. He looked around. No one could possibly see in the window from outside, and the door was locked. Besides the furniture, the only thing in the room was an oil painting, a smaller replica of the man's portrait that hung in the foyer.

  I'm not going to be paranoid. It's okay to be gay, even in the rural South. It's OKAY to get back to nature. This love is as real as anything in this world.

  He slid into bed beside Paul, wondering if the old geezer Korban would disapprove of two boys boffing under his roof. Who cared? Korban was dead, and Paul was very much alive.

  October was a hunter, its prey the green beast of summer. The wind moved over the hills like a reluctant hawk; wings wide, talons low, hard eyes sweeping. Beneath its golden and frosty skin, the earth quaked in the wind of the hawk's passing. The morning held its gray breath. Each tender leaf and blade of grass trembled in fear.

  Jefferson Spence looked down at the keys of the old manual Royal. "Horse teeth," the keys were called. George Washington had horse teeth, according to legend. Spence knew he was wasting time, finding any distraction to keep him from starting another sentence. He stared into the bobbing flame of the lantern on his desk.

  He looked up at Ephram Korban's face on the wall. In this very room, twenty years before, Spence had written Seasons of Sleep, a masterpiece by all accounts, especially Spence's own. All his novels since had fallen short, but maybe the magic would return.

  Words were magic. And maybe old Korban would let slip a secret or two, bestow some hidden wisdom gleaned from all those years on the wall.

  "What," Spence said to the portrait, his voice filling the room, "are you trying to say?"

  Bridget called from the bathroom in her soft Georgia drawl. "What's that, honey?"

  "To have and have not," he said.

  "What is it you don't have? I thought we packed everything."

  "Never mind, my sweet. A Hemingway allusion is best saved for a more appreciative audience."

  Spence had collected Bridget during a summer writing workshop at the University of Georgia. He had led the workshop during the day and spent his evenings cooling off in the bars of Athens. Most of the sophomore seminar students had joined him for the first few nights, but his passion for overindulgence and his brusque nature had caused the group to dwindle. By Thursday of the first week, only the faithful still orbited like bright satellites gravitating toward the black hole of Spence's incalculable mass.

  Three of those were eligible in Spence's eyes: a bronze-skinned African goddess with oily curls; a hollow-cheeked blonde who had a devilish way of licking her lips and an unhealthy appetite for the works of Richard Brautigan; and the tender Bridget. As always, a couple of male students had also crowded his elbows and plied writing tips from him in exchange for drinks. Spence had little patience with writers. His best advice was to spend time in front of the keyboard instead of in front of bar mirrors. But, to Spence, women's minds were simpler and therefore uncluttered with literary pretensions.

  He had selected Bridget precisely because she was the most innocent, and therefore would be the least corrupted of the three choices. With her fresh skin and clean hair, her simple and naive speech, her down-home manners and belle grace, she was everything that Spence wasn't. She was a lamb in a world of wolves. And Spence was pleased that he'd gotten the first bite.

  He'd lured her to his hotel room that weekend with the promise of showing her his latest manuscript. "Not even my agent has seen it," he'd said, swimming in a haze of vodka. "Consider yourself blessed, my sweet."

  She stayed the night, clumsily undressing as he watched. She shyly turned her back when she un-snapped her bra, and Spence smiled when she faced him with her arms covering her breasts. His was a smile of approval, but not for her physical qualities, as delightful as those were. He was pleased with himself for such a perfect conquest, such a decadent notch in his triggerless gun.

  She hadn't complained or expressed surprise when he didn't attempt intercourse. A few women had actually ridiculed him, him, Jefferson Davis Spence, the next last great southern writer, just because he was impotent. But Bridget only lay meekly next to him while he stroked her as if she were a pet cat. Her warmth was comforting in the night. After a few weeks, she'd even stopped trembling beneath his touch.

  That had been four months ago, and he figured she was probably good for at least another half a year. Then, as with all the others, the scales would fall from her eyes, the sexual frustration and the endless servitude would wear her down, until going back to college and getting a degree seemed a much better career choice than watching the great Jefferson Spence barrel headlong toward his first coronary. Then Spence would find himself alone, desperately alone, with nothing but himself and his thoughts, himself and words, himself and the monster he had crafted inside his own head.

  He looked down at the paper that was scrolled into the Royal. Six years. Six years, and all he had to show for it was this paragraph that he'd rewritten three hundred times. It was the same paragraph with which he'd lured Bridget that first time, the one he didn't even dare show his agent or editor. He'd known the time had arrived to get away from it all, seek a fresh perspective, summon those arcane Muses. If there was any place where he could recapture the magic, it was Korban Manor.

  He placed his fingers on the keys. The shower came on in the bathroom, and Bridget began singing in her small, pretty voice. "Stand By Me," the old Ben King song. He typed "stand by me" under his opening paragraph, then clenched his teeth and ripped the page out of the carriage. He tore the sheet of paper into four pieces and let the scraps flutter to the floor.

  Spence leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. The treetops were swaying in the wind that had arisen with the approaching dusk. He imagined the smells of autumn, of fallen apples bruised and sweet under the trees, of birch leaves crumpling under boot heels, of cherry bark splitting and leaking rubbery jeweled sap, of pumpkin pies and chimney smoke. If on
ly he could find the words to describe those things.

  Spence turned his attention back to the portrait of Korban on the wall. He thought about walking into the bathroom and watching Bridget soap herself up. But she might try to excite him. Each new beauty always thought she would be the one, out of dozens who had tried, to overcome what he called "the Hemingway curse." And with each fresh failure, Spence felt angry and humbled. Though he welcomed anger, he loathed humility.

  He cursed under his breath and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. The paper was heavy, a twenty percent cotton mix. Worthy paper. The words would come. They had to come. He commanded them to come.

  Spence stared into the face of Korban. "What should I write, sir?"

  The portrait stared back, its eyes oil-black.

  Spence's fingers hit the keys, the clattering motion vibrated through the desk and echoed off the wooden floor, the carriage return's bell rang every thirty seconds.

  The house sat amid the breasts of hills, among swells, above rivers, above all Earth, reaching where only the gods could dwell. And in the house, in the high lonely window from which he could see the world that would be his, the man smiled.

  They had come, they had answered his call, those who would give him life. They would sing his songs, they would carve his name into their hearts, they would paint him into the sky. They came with their poetries, their images, their fevered words, their dreams. They came bearing gifts, and he would give unto them likewise Spence was so lost in his writing, lost as he had not been in years, that he didn't notice when Bridget walked nude and steaming into the room. He worked feverishly, his tongue pressed against his teeth. The gift was returning, flowing like blood through forgotten veins. He didn't know whom to thank, Bridget, Korban, or some unseen Muse.

  He'd worry about that later. For now, the words carried Spence beyond himself.

  CHAPTER 5

  Anna looked down at her plate. The prime rib oozed juices and steam, and ordinarily would have been tempting enough to challenge her vegetarian principles. The softly boiled broccoli sprouts and red potatoes had elicited several exploratory stabs of her fork. The apple pie's crust was so tender it flaked all over the china plate.

  As she watched the sugary lava of the pie filling flow between the crumbs, she wondered what it would be like to worry about dieting. She glanced across the dining room at Jefferson Spence and saw no hesitation in that man's fork. She took a few hasty mouthfuls of the vegetables, then pushed the food around a little so it would look as if she had eaten well. The way Miss Mamie fussed over dinner proceedings, Anna almost felt guilty about not appreciating the food.

  The dining room was a long hall just off the main foyer. The room contained four tables, a long one in the center occupied by the people that Anna secretly thought of as "the uberculture." The other, smaller tables were relegated to the corners. Apparently Miss Mamie had tried to match people of similar interests when she made out the seating charts. That meant putting all the below-fifties at the smaller tables.

  Anna was sitting with Cris and the dark-skinned woman whom Anna had seen carrying a camera earlier. To her left was the guy she'd talked to on the porch, the sullen sculptor. Though his face was plain, something about his green-brown eyes kept drawing her attention. A secret fire buried deep. Or maybe it was only the reflection of the two candles that burned in the center of the table. Or an illusion created by her own desperate solitude.

  Cris had mumbled a prayer before dinner. The dark-skinned woman had also bowed her head. Anna wasn't compelled to join in their ritual and instead took the opportunity to study their faces. The sculptor had kept his head down but his eyes open. Then Anna had seen what he was looking at: a fly circled the edge of his plate, dipping a tentative feeler into the brown gravy.

  She'd hidden her smile as he surreptitiously tried to blow it away. When Cris said, "Amen," he quickly whisked his cloth napkin out of his lap and waved it with a flourish. The fly headed toward the oil lamps that burned in the chandeliers overhead. Anna watched its flight, and when she turned her attention back to dinner, the sculptor was looking at her.

  "Darned thing was about to carry off my dinner," he said. "Evil creature."

  "Maybe it was Beelzebub," she said. "Lord of the flies."

  "Beelzebubba's more like it. It's a southern fly."

  Anna laughed for the first time in weeks. Her table-mates looked at them with furrowed brows. The man introduced himself to them as Mason and said he was a retired textile worker from the foothills. "I'm also an aspiring sculptor," he said. "But don't confuse me with Henry Moore or anything."

  "Didn't he play James Bond?" Cris asked.

  "No, that was Roger Moore."

  He politely waved off the wine when the maid, Lilith, brought the carafe around. Anna took a glass herself, though she had no intention of taking more than a few sips. The conservatism that came with a death sentence had surprised her. When you only have a little time left, you try to heighten your experience, not dull it.

  Her eyes wandered to Mason again. He was watching Lilith as if he was interested in more than just a second helping of hot rolls. She was both annoyed and surprised when a flare of jealousy raced across her heart. She despised pettiness and, besides, possessiveness was the last vice a dying person should suffer. Stephen had taught her that you could never understand another person, much less own one, and the idea of soul mates was best limited to romance novels. She took a gulp of wine and let the mild sting of alcohol distract her, then introduced herself to the dark-skinned woman.

  The woman was named Zainab and had been born in Saudi Arabia. She was Arabian-American, but only indirectly from oil money; her father had been an engineer at Aramco. Zainab came to the U.S. to attend Stanford, back before everyone from the Middle East had to jump through flaming hoops to immigrate here, and now wanted to be a photographer "when she grew up."

  "In America, you get to be grown up when you're fourteen," Anna said. "At least if you believe the fashion magazines. Of course, when you reach forty, you're expected to look twenty-five."

  "Hey," Cris said, polishing off her third glass of wine. "I'm thirty going on twenty-nine. Guess that means I'm headed in the right direction."

  Anna chopped at her pie a little more, then pushed the dessert plate away. Cris leaned toward Mason, her eyelashes doing some serious fluttering.

  "So, what do the guys in the foothills do for fun?" Cris asked.

  "We go down to the Dumpsters behind the local cafe and throw rocks at the rats. The rats in Sawyer Creek eat better than the welfare families."

  "I bet the rats live well around here," Cris said.

  Not a smooth move, Anna thought. Talk of rodents does not a bedmate beckon.

  "We call it 'living high on the hog' back home," Mason said, shuddering in mock revulsion. "I was talking to one of the handymen today. He told me about setting out steel traps, and burying the food scraps to keep the rats down. Garbage disposal is a big chore here."

  "It's amazing the things we take for granted in a civilized society," Anna said.

  "Who's civilized?" Cris said, giggling. "Sounds like we're heading for one of those 'walked four miles through the snow to get to school' stories."

  "It was 'four kilometers over sand dunes without a camel' where I grew up," said Zainab.

  "I saw one of the maids with a basket of laundry. Not her," Anna said, frowning toward Lilith, who was uncorking a wine bottle at the main table. "Imagine what it must be like to hand-wash all these table linens and curtains, not to mention the sheets."

  "Seems the sheets get a good workout around here, if you believe the rumors," Cris said.

  "You mean the ghost stories?" Mason said.

  Anna's breath caught in her throat. If she managed to contact any ghosts here, she didn't want a bunch of would-be necromancers holding midnight seances and playing with Ouija boards. She believed those sorts of disrespectful games sent ghosts running for the safety of the grave. And if she had
a mission here, a last bit of business before her soul could rest, she preferred to handle it undistracted.

  "I was talking about sex, but the ghost stories are interesting, too," Cris said. Her sibilants were starting to get a little mushy.

  Strike two, Anna said to herself. A man who's an arrogant, tee-totaling prude probably doesn't want to swap tongues with someone whose mouth smells like a barroom.

  She knew she was being catty. The last entanglement had cured her of desire. And she definitely had no romantic interest in the sculptor. Even if he did have strong hands, thick, wavy hair, those dreaming-awake eyes. Maybe what she had taken for sullenness was actually insecurity. A shyness and hesitancy that was refreshing compared to Stephen's self-righteousness, and Stop it right there, girl. Find something NOT to like about him.

  There.

  He chews with his mouth open and he has pie crumbs sticking to his chin.

  Mason said, "According to William Roth-"

  "Oh, I met him." Zainab's brown eyes lit up as she interrupted. "I actually got to talk to him. I've always admired his work, but he's not at all like you'd think a famous person would be. He's so down-to-earth. And he has the most wonderful accent."

  "He's quite a character, all right."

  "I think William is charming," Zainab said, looking at him seated at the main table where he seemed to be engaged in three conversations at once.

  "What were you saying about ghosts?" Cris said, as if she'd just realized the subject had jumped track. "Anna does that stuff-"

  Anna cut her off with a look and a subtle shake of her head. She didn't want everyone to think she was a flake, at least not right away.

  "Roth says Korban Manor is haunted, and he's going to try to take some pictures," Mason said. "And the handyman I met today sure seems a little spooked."

  "Has anything weird happened to you guys since we got here?" Zainab asked.