The Manor

by Scott Nicholson

  "Or maybe it was just a dream," she said, dreading the coming bout of bloody diarrhea that welcomed her to each new day.

  "Probably," Cris said.

  Anna pushed off her quilts and sat up, shivering inside her cotton nightgown. "Dibs on the bathroom."

  "Go ahead. I need to lie here a minute and get my wits together. I'm going to sneak downstairs and score a caffeine fix. Want anything?"

  "No, thanks."

  When Anna returned to the room, Cris was gathering her sketch pads, a cup of coffee steaming on the nightstand. "I ran into Jefferson Spence. You know, the fat writer. It's kind of cool to be here with actual famous people."

  Anna shrugged. "We had to study his Seasons of Sleep in American lit. About put me to sleep, let me tell you."

  "He wrote that one here, at the manor. They say he writes about real people, only he changes the names so he won't get sued. I wonder if we'll be in his next book."

  Anna went to her dresser to pick out some clothes. "I'll be the ghost-hunting flake with the big nose, and you can be-"

  "— the bimbo housewife who has wet dreams."

  "Except it wouldn't be that simple in the book," Anna said, then sniffed daintily. "You'd be a 'trembling Venus, clutching and grasping at the sheets, back arched toward the dark ceiling of heaven, the endless roof of forever, the prison of night,' et cetera and so on.

  Cris laughed so hard that she snorted into her coffee. A knock came at the door. Anna crossed her arms, not sure if the nightgown was revealing or not. She avoided mirrors these days.

  Cris apparently had little modesty, having gone downstairs in the yellow slip she still wore. "Enter," she shouted. "We're all decent here."

  Miss Mamie came into the room, her hands clasped, a smile on her face that could have been carved in wood. "You ladies sleep well?"

  "More or less," Cris said. "The beds are very comfortable."

  "And you, Miss Galloway? You were out late last night?" Miss Mamie's eyes reflected the warm flickering light of the fire.

  Was Miss Mamie chiding her, or merely making conversation? The hostess knew that Anna was a para-psychologist. Anna hadn't seen any reason to lie on her retreat application. In fact, she'd learned to take a stubborn pride in her peculiarities.

  So she saw no reason to lie now. "I took a walk," she said. "On that ridge to the east."

  "Did you find what you were looking for?" There was no mistaking the challenge in the hostess's voice.

  "No." Not a lie. She wasn't sure yet what she was looking for, besides her own ghost.

  "Maybe it will come to you, Miss Galloway. Keep your spirits up." Miss Mamie pursed her lips in a reptilian smile and looked at the portrait of Ephram Korban.

  "You've got a very strange house," Cris said.

  "The house is his," Miss Mamie said, with a slight bow toward the portrait. She touched the locket that hung from the strand of pearls that circled her throat. "I just keep the home fires burning."

  She left them to dress and to speculate about the meaning of their hostess's cryptic manner.

  "This way, Mr. Jackson."

  Lilith headed down the narrow stairs. Mason repositioned the twenty-pound chunk of red maple in his arms and followed her. The musty, moist air clung to the skin of Mason's face. He stared down into the dark basement, making sure each step was solid before fully shifting his weight.

  Lilith waited at the bottom of the stairs, holding the lantern at shoulder level. When Mason finally reached the basement floor, he peered into the gloomy and shifting shadows, trying to get a feel for the basement's layout. Tiny wedges of windows were set high in the walls just above the ground, but only a graying of starlight leaked through. The aroma of dry rot gave way to a deeper, older decay.

  He stumbled and his tool satchel banged against his hip. The handle was starting to dig into his skin where the satchel dangled from his shoulder. Lilith led him past a couple of thick wooden beams, a cluster of old furniture, and a small doorway. The lantern's firelight glinted off rows of dusty wine bottles tucked in the narrow alcove.

  "Why is it so hot?" Mason asked. His voice was swallowed by the dead space.

  "Central heating," Lilith said. "Mr. Korban insisted on having his fires."

  Mason wondered if he would be able to work down here for long stretches. Sculpting usually sent the sweat gushing from his pores. The work was as much muscle as it was inspiration. Only the final touches, the thin detailing and polishing, were not so physically demanding that they wore him out.

  "Where's the stove?" he asked.

  Lilith pointed into the darkness toward the left end of the basement. "There's a separate room over there so the workers can keep the fire stoked from the outside. The ductwork runs all through the house."

  She lifted the lantern higher and Mason saw the dull metal sheeting of the ducts.

  "Air-circulated heat," he said. "That was pretty sophisticated for its time, wasn't it?"

  "I'm not a historian, Mr. Jackson. Miss Mamie would be the one to answer such questions."

  Lilith led him into an area that wasn't exactly a room. It was more like a bit of floor space divided by timber posts and shelving. A rough-finished cabinet flanked the near side of what he guessed was going to be his studio.*

  "I hope this will do," she said. "We've only had a few sculptors at the manor, but many painters. And one old gentleman who did acid etchings and woodblock prints. We've all managed to work just fine down here."

  "Oh, do you paint?"

  "I used to."

  He didn't want to comment on her career change. His own might be coming soon enough. "Maybe a little of that creative spirit soaked into the walls."

  "Maybe so, Mr. Jackson. Maybe more than we know."

  She was an odd one, Mason decided. If she weren't so frosty, he would risk getting to know her. But he was better off focusing on his work. Besides, he was positive that Miss Mamie wouldn't approve of the hired help cavorting with the guests, no matter how much the guests cavorted with each other.

  A thick table stood in the center of the studio space. Mason set down the bulky maple with a solid thump. He shook the satchel from his arm onto the table as well. It would stay dark down here even during the day. He didn't mind, though. He worked mostly by touch and instinct, anyway.

  "Will that be all?" Again Lilith seemed to be in a hurry to get away from him. Or perhaps it wasn't him. Maybe she wanted to be away from this dim, claustrophobic place where Mason was going to spend his time.

  "So will I have to curse the darkness?" he answered.

  "Excuse me?"

  He pointed to the lantern. "I assume you're taking that with you."

  "Oh, I see." She stepped toward the shelves, and in the lantern light Mason saw a clutter of half-melted candles. "There are matches in that cupboard."

  She waited until Mason lit two of the thick candles. He found an oil lamp on the bottom shelf and rolled up the wick. He had just touched the tip of a candle to the wick when she called, "Good luck," then she was gone.

  As her echoing footsteps receded up the stairs, he muttered to himself, "Jeez, no wonder people make up stories about this place."

  Mason lit an extra candle and spread his tools across the table. He studied the sharpened edges of the blades before turning his attention to the red maple. Then he paced, his mind drifting into that mysterious well-spring from which ideas bubbled forth.

  His foot caught on something, causing a muffled crash. He brought the lamp down low to see what he had tripped over. It was a stretched canvas, the back graying with age. He turned it over.

  On the canvas was a perfect reproduction of Korban Manor on a stormy night, done in the same thick oils as the other paintings that lined the walls of the house. The manor was drawn to precise scale, seeming such a natural part of the landscape that it looked as if the house had grown out of the soil like a living thing. In the painting was the knothole that Mason had noticed earlier that morning in the siding beneath a second-floor wi
ndow.

  But the photographic realism wasn't the only quality that made the painting so powerful. The manor was vibrant, as if it were shaking with the force of the fantasized gale. The trees were wild with wind, and black clouds hovered around the manor's flat roof. Mason gently touched the canvas and a cool electricity surged up his arm. He wondered why such a beautiful work was relegated to the corruptive air of the basement.

  He leaned it against the table and brought the lamp closer, careful not to let the heat sear the finish. He scanned every inch of the artwork, softly running his fingers along the furrows made by the brushstrokes. The angles of the gables were geometrically accurate, the shading well proportioned, the range of colors as true as the human eye. Even the bark of the trees had a sophisticated complexion.

  He was looking at the top of the house, at the white railing of the widow's walk, when he spotted the painting's sole flaw. The artist had inadvertently smudged the colors together. A grayish blotch marred an area on the widow's walk. The artist could have easily fixed the mistake, but for some reason hadn't. Still, the painting was far too skilled to remain hidden away in darkness.

  Mason didn't know how long he ended up staring at the painting. It had such mesmerizing power that it seemed to soak him into its maelstrom. Finally, he shook his head, realizing that if he didn't get started, he would waste the first day of his last chance. He leaned the painting out of the way against a support timber, promising himself that he would ask Miss Mamie about it later.

  He had been putting off the start of his own work, the hewing of the bark from the section of maple. He was annoyed to find his mind drifting back to the painting.

  "Come on, you bastard," he chided himself. "This is it. Think of Mama back in Sawyer Creek, shriveling away because she made the sacrifice. Alone in the dark."

  He heard her voice in his head, telling him to hold on to his dreams. He rearranged his tools, laying out his fluter, his gouge, his hatchet, his adze, his mallet, his half-dozen chisels with their different edges and angles. Still no idea came to him. He looked around at the shadows sent leaping by the candlelight.

  Someone was in the surrounding darkness, watching.

  A faint rustle in the corner. Mason lifted the lamp. A small, dark thing separated itself from the lesser darkness and skittered toward the wine rack.

  A mouse. Mason's toes curled inside his shoes. He'd always hated rodents. When he was young, just before his father had died, the family had lived in a rented mobile home. The trailer park was next to a trash dump, and rats multiplied fruitfully thanks to the wealth of garbage.

  One night, he heard scratching sounds inside the couch that he slept upon. He turned on the light, and watched with horror as tiny newborn rats spilled from a tear in the couch's fabric. Equally repulsive was the family's old gray cat, which swallowed the rats whole, one by one, as they emerged blind into the world. The mother rat must have been sick or something, because the couch stank of her death for weeks afterward. By then, Mason had taken to sleeping in a reclining chair on the other side of the living room.

  And another, older memory rose, but he pushed it back into its dark chink of slumber.

  This creature in the basement had been only a mouse. Mason could handle that. Mice were timid. Rats were the ones to despise, with their long tails, deliberate manner, and those eyes that shone with a defiant intelligence.

  He tried once again to focus on his work. Maybe the mouse had been his Muse. Other artists talked about the spirit moving them, moving inside them. Mason didn't understand. All he had was stubbornness and anger to drive him.

  He addressed the chunk of wood that Ransom had helped him cut from a fallen tree. "Okay, what kind of secrets are you hiding inside you?"

  He studied the pattern of the growth rings and caressed the grain of the wood. The dead sap pulsed. A draft of air whistled through the heating ducts.

  "What do you want to become?" He picked up his hatchet. The draft turned into low laughter. He felt a hand around his own, a warm pocket of guiding air.

  His voice rose. "What in the hell do you want from me?"

  Mason sank the metal blade deep into the flesh of the maple. The flat single echo of the blow sounded almost like a sigh of contentment.

  CHAPTER 10

  Roth was irritated. He had shot three rolls of film, framing the house first in the soft, low-angle morning light and then in harsher, steeper shadows as the sun climbed the eastern sky. He had walked a good distance down the sandy road so he could do a series of approaching perspectives through a telephoto lens, working off a tripod. He achieved a rather nice depth of field, manipulating the f-stop so that the house seemed small against the surrounding forest. Then he did some closer, handheld work to get the opposite effect, to make the manor appear to tower over the trees and hills.

  And that was all top-shelf, spot-on and all that, but then he wanted to try something different. He'd wanted to photograph the bridge. The narrow, weather-beaten bridge would make a jolly center spread for a coffee table picture book, what with all the dramatic cliffs and foggy vistas.

  He was positive he wanted to photograph the bridge, but by the time he'd walked under the canopy of trees down the road, the idea didn't seem all that wonderful. The day was so warm that, even in the shade, his forehead beaded with sweat. A spasm of nausea and dizziness passed over him. Before he came around the final bend where the manor grounds gave way to the plummeting rocks, he'd decided that the bridge would be a bloody waste of good stock.

  So he walked back toward Korban Manor. By then a little breeze sprang up, and he felt better as the sweat dried. He snapped more pictures of the house from the exact same locations as before. It was all such a bunch of poppycock.

  "I'm going daft, is all," he muttered under his breath.

  "What's that you said?"

  The female voice had come from somewhere to his right. He squinted into the shadow of the trees, hoping he'd maintained his British accent while he'd been muttering. One mustn't slip.

  "I was saying, 'What a lot of bother,' " he said.

  He saw her now, sitting on a stump beside a sycamore. She had a sketch pad in her lap and a charcoal stick clutched between her fingers. Roth eyed her long legs, appreciating that the day was warm enough for her to wear shorts.

  "You taking pictures?" she asked.

  Pictures. Gawps and ninnies took pictures. Roth framed the vital, captured the essential, immortalized the utterly proper. Stupid bird, he thought. Still, in his experience, the emptier the space upstairs, the tighter the compartment below.

  He was getting frustrated with his work anyway. Maybe the time was right to line up an evening's companion. "Yes, my dear," he said, raising the camera and pointing it at the woman.

  She looked away.

  "Don't be shy, love. Make my camera happy. I won't even make you say 'cheese' or anything of that sort." He zoomed in on her cleavage without her noticing.

  She looked up and smiled, he clicked the shutter, and then put the camera away. "Say, didn't I see you at Miss Mamie's little after-dinner last night?"

  "Yeah. I saw you. You're William Roth, right?"

  Roth loved it when they pretended not to be impressed by his celebrity, but she couldn't hide the small sparkle in her eyes. Maybe he wasn't a famous movie star, but name recognition definitely came in handy for bedding the birds. "I'm every inch of him," Roth said. "And to whom do I have the pleasure?"

  "Cris Whitfield. Cris without the h." She held out her hand in greeting, realized it was smudged by the charcoal, and put it back in her lap.

  "Charmed." He arched his neck as if to look at her drawing, but was actually peeking down her halter top. "What are you drawing?"

  "The house," she said, nodding toward it.

  "Mind if I've a look?"

  She shrugged and turned the sketch pad toward him. He took the opportunity to stand over her.

  "I'm not very good," Cris said.

  Looked quite good from the little
peek I got.

  "The house isn't an easy subject," he said, reaching for the pad. "I can hardly get a decent framing for it. I can't imagine how frightfully awful drawing the thing would-"

  He'd expected a stick-house drawing, something that the Big Bad Wolf could blow over with a half a breath. But not this… this asylum the woman had sketched. Not coming from this little ponytailed girl who looked like a Malibu beach bunny, who probably studied EST or reiki or whatever New Age pap was all the rage now.

  Because the drawing was definitely of the manor, but was of much more than that.

  It was all droopy and dark and pessimistic, a cross between Dali and that Spanish artist, Goya. They'd found some of Goya's paintings after he'd died, hidden away in his house because no one could bear to look at them. Roth fought a sudden urge to touch the sketch.

  The charcoal was as thick as fur on the paper. The shadows of the portico were sharp and steep, and Roth could almost imagine winged creatures fluttering in that darkness. The windows of the gables were leering eyes, the large front door a ravenous maw. He glanced from the drawing to the house, and for just a second, so short a time that he could convince himself that it was a trick of suggestion, the house looked the way she had drawn it, swaying and throbbing like a live, growling beast.

  "Bloody hell, girl," he finally managed. "Where did that come from?"

  She looked shyly down at the tips of her hiking boots. When she shrugged, he only half noticed her jiggling breasts. "I don't know," she said. "It just sort of happened."

  Roth shook his head.

  "I've never done anything that good," she said. "I mean, I'm not that good at all."

  "Looks ace to me."

  "Not this picture. I know it's good. But it's not because of me. It's because of the house."

  "The house?" Roth thought about how he couldn't manage to make himself photograph anything but the house. And how he'd felt a little queasy when he'd been walking down the road toward the bridge. At least until he got back within sight of the house.